Plot summary

Cyd Merriman is the third generation owner/operator of the Merriman Dance Studio in small town Gracie, NY, she having assumed the business following her mother Andrea Merriman's retirement, Andrea who has just passed. In her imminent marriage to Zach Callahan, who acts as her dance partner for classes, Cyd is thinking about selling the business and the property to be able to afford to go to college, the sale which Zach largely supports if only to support Cyd's life goals. In the legalities of such, Cyd learns from friend and lawyer Laura Williams, who handled Andrea's estate, that the father Cyd never knew, Tanner Gray, not only is still listed as co-owner, but that he is still alive, Andrea never having talked about him and who Cyd stopped asking about after a while. In-between carpentry jobs, Tanner decides to go to Gracie to meet the daughter he never knew he had and to deal with the legalities of the property in person. As Tanner and Cyd start spending time together, they each seem to embrace the other in his/her life. Beyond he being a carpenter, Tanner eventually divulges that he and Andrea met as dance instructors on a cruise ship, and while he does also divulge that they were married briefly, he is less forthcoming about the reason for their break-up beyond that their lives were heading in two different directions and despite he obviously having loved Andrea. Andrea is the only person who can answer the outstanding questions each has about their situation, Cyd's which includes her side of what happened with Tanner which led to her never mentioning him while she was alive, and Tanner's which includes why Andrea, a very deliberate person, would keep his name on the business papers without telling him, she who never contacted him after he left town. While Zach is already a little suspicious about Tanner's motivations, Cyd may come to those same conclusions about her father as the process to sell the property comes closer to reality.—Huggo