Those eyes. Those luminous eyes, the exact color of a stormy winter sea. Misty gray. He’d never forgotten those eyes, no matter how hard he’d tried.
He cleared his throat. “Well, he’s not. He’s a dog.”
As if on cue, Sundog abandoned chasing his tail and bounded over to the two of them. Posy’s eyes grew wide, and she teetered backward on her crutches. By the look on her face, anyone would have thought the dog was about to rise up on its hind legs, grizzly-style, and tear her limb from limb.
Liam reached out to keep her from falling. Again. “Careful there.”
“I’m fine.” She wiggled out of his reach. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”
Fine.
She was fine. He was fine. They were all fine.
Except not really. This whole encounter was as awkward as it could be, and it somehow seemed to be getting worse by the minute.
“What kind of dog is he, anyway? He’s as big as a...”
“Bear?” Liam asked, grinning despite himself.
She offered him a hesitant smile in return. “I was going to say ‘house,’ but ‘bear’ works. Obviously.”
“He’s a Newfoundland.” He watched Posy reach out a tentative hand and stroke Sundog’s head.
Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he’d one day be standing in church while a very adult Posy Sutton petted his dog. It didn’t seem real. He almost felt as if he was watching a movie about someone else’s life.
And what if it had been someone else? What would Liam say to the man standing there with puffy eyes? The man who suddenly had the beginnings of a smile on his face?
Don’t be an idiot. What’s past is past.
That was precisely what he would say.
He cleared his throat. “It’s the dead of winter. Bears are hibernating.”
“What?” Posy’s hand paused over Sundog’s massive head.
“You thought you saw a bear.” Liam shrugged. “Not possible. They’re all tucked in for winter.”
Her brow furrowed. “Oh, that’s right. I guess I forgot.”
After a prolonged beat of silence, Liam crossed his arms. “I’m sure there are a great number of things you’ve forgotten. You’ve been gone a long time.”
She flinched a little. Her stormy eyes narrowed. “Six years. Not that long.”
He lifted a brow. “Long enough to forget that bears hibernate.” What self-respecting Alaskan didn’t know that?
But that was precisely the point, wasn’t it? Posy hadn’t been an Alaskan for quite a while. In truth, Liam envied her. Not because she’d left, but because she’d forgotten. There were plenty of things he’d like to forget.
Her cheeks flushed pink. “The bears are sleeping. Duly noted.” Her tone had gone colder than a glacier.
She was angry. Good. So was he. Why exactly, he wasn’t quite sure. But he had a feeling it had less to do with his stinging eyes than it did Posy’s sudden reappearance in their hometown.
His hometown. He was the one who loved it here. He was the one who’d stayed.
“So when did you get back?” If forced to guess, he would have said a day. Two, tops. Any longer than that, and he would have heard about it. Someone would have seen her and run to him with the news. Over half a decade had passed since they’d been high school sweethearts, but small towns like Aurora had long memories.
At the change of subject, her expression softened. Just a bit. “I came in with Bill Warren this afternoon on his mail run from Anchorage.”
“I see.”
He didn’t see. Not really. As one of only a handful of small-aircraft pilots in Aurora, Bill made a daily jaunt to Anchorage on behalf of the postal service. He never flew up there until after lunch, to be sure the mail was ready. Everyone in Aurora knew the drill.
Liam glanced at his watch. Three o’clock, which meant Posy had been back in town less than an hour. And her first stop was church? That seemed odd.
He started to ask her if he could point her in the direction of the prayer room or the senior pastor’s office, in case she was lost. If she thought there were bears in the trash cans, it wasn’t such a big leap to think she might have forgotten her way around, even though they’d spent a fair amount of time in this place as teenagers. In this very room, now that he thought about it.
“Listen.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got some things to do around here. Can I help you find someone?”
He still had an hour or so before the kids showed up after school. But he had an appointment on his calendar with an actual grown-up, a rarity since he spent most of his time with teenagers. A grown-up who he hoped would be the answer to his prayers—a long-awaited assistant for the after-school program.
“Oh. Well, thank you for the rescue, and I apologize again for macing you. I’m sure you have someplace you need to be.” She just stood there on her crutches, as if waiting for him to leave.
“Actually, right here is where I need to be.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, unease snaking its way up his spine.
He’d been so thrown by seeing her that he hadn’t thought to wonder why she was there in the first place. No. No, it can’t be. It just can’t.
Posy grew very still, as if contemplating the same uncomfortable possibility that was running through his head. “You followed your big unruly dog in here, right? That’s the only reason you’re here.”
She stated it as fact, as if any other possibility was a thought too horrifying to consider.
He gave his head a slow shake.
She swallowed. Liam’s eyes traced the movement up and down the slender column of her throat. She was elegance personified. She always had been. Those willowy limbs. Her every movement so fluid that she gave the impression she was made of liquid instead of flesh and bone. She didn’t just look like a swan. She was a swan.
“My dog might be big, but he’s not unruly,” he said.
Posy rolled her eyes. “He knocked over a trash can and ate half its contents.”
“He’s on a diet. It’s a recent thing.” Why were they making what amounted to small talk and avoiding the issue at hand?
Because I know what’s going on here, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.
“Why are you here, Posy?” he asked.
He knew the answer before she even opened her mouth.
“I work here,” she said warily.
A pain sprang into existence somewhere in Liam’s head. “You work here?”
He’d been asking the senior pastor to hire an assistant for the after-school program for months. There was a new city grant up for grabs, and with a little help, the youth program at the church might prove a worthy recipient. It would mean winter coats for those kids he’d noticed who were still wearing last year’s threadbare hand-me-downs. It would mean computers and internet for the teens who couldn’t afford such luxuries at home. How it meant that he would be working alongside Posy was a mystery.
What was happening?
He lifted his gaze briefly to the ceiling. Really, Lord?
“Yes. I’m looking for my new boss. The youth pastor. You don’t know where he is, do you?” She looked around as if waiting for someone else, anyone else, to materialize out of thin air.
Oh, how Liam wished someone would. “I’m afraid you’re looking at him.”
She shook her head, clearly unwilling or unable to believe him.
I’m not any happier about this than you are, darling.
“Liam, if this is your idea of a joke, it’s really not funny,” she said. Her voice shook a little. Nerves? Anger?
He wasn’t sure. It came as somewhat of a shock that he no longer knew what was going on in her head simply by reading her pretty face. It shouldn’t have. But it did.
He swallowed. “Do I look like I’m laug
hing?”
Chapter Two
There had to be some mistake.
“You’re the youth pastor?” she asked, praying she’d somehow misunderstood. Of all the people in Alaska, Liam couldn’t be her new boss. He just couldn’t.
Her mother was the one who’d told her about the job. Her mother. And she hadn’t thought to mention that Liam was the youth pastor?
“Yep. I’m the youth pastor.” He folded his arms and nodded. “Did you think I still worked at the pond?”
The pond. Aurora’s skating rink. It was like something out of a Snoopy cartoon—a small, oblong-shaped patch of ice surrounded by thick snowbanks, evergreens and a collection of spindly trees, their bare branches piled with snow. Back when she was in high school, you could rent skates for a dollar a day. Paper cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows had cost even less. Music was played on an old jam box turned up as high as it could go. All during eleventh and twelfth grade Liam had worked there, zipping around the rink on his black skates, making sure everyone followed the rules and no one got hurt. A referee of sorts.
“Did I think you still worked at the pond? Don’t be silly. No, of course not.” Never in a million years would she admit that when she thought of him, he still zipped through her imagination on those skates. Never in a million years would she admit that she still thought about him period. Because that was just pathetic.
She wasn’t a starry-eyed teenager anymore. She was a twenty-four-year-old woman with a real career who lived in one of the most exciting cities in the country. In the world, even. Opportunity had been spread at her feet like a blanket of untouched wildflowers. Since she’d left Aurora, life had been hers for the taking. The most significant romance of her life shouldn’t still be the boy who’d asked her to the high school prom.
Then why was it?
Being a ballet dancer didn’t leave much time for dating. It didn’t leave much time for a life. The few men she’d actually gone out with hadn’t stuck around for long. Probably because she canceled or postponed more dates than she actually went on. Somehow heading out for a night on the town after an entire day of dance classes and rehearsals sounded more exhausting than fun. And when performance season was under way, forget it. The only things she looked forward to at the end of those nights were ice baths.
But she was happy. She was living the life she’d always wanted.
Her foot throbbed in the plaster cast. She stared at it as if it belonged to another person. Her foot didn’t belong in there. It belonged in a pointe shoe of shiny pink satin. Her foot didn’t belong there, and she didn’t belong here. In the church of her childhood. The church where Liam was currently the youth pastor.
It’s only temporary. Just until the foot heals.
But if Liam was the youth pastor, that meant he was her temporary boss.
She needed a minute—or a century—for that to sink in. Posy had known things in Aurora would be different now. She wasn’t delusional. Time hadn’t stood still while she’d been away. And Liam’s father had been a clergyman—a circuit preacher who traveled to the most remote parts of Alaska to tend to his flock. As far as Posy knew, he was still a traveling preacher. So it shouldn’t have come as a total surprise that Liam had followed a similar path.
Although he’d never been that crazy about his dad’s calling when they’d been teenagers. In fact, he’d had a pretty large chip on his shoulder about it.
No matter where Liam worked, she’d assumed she’d be in town for at least a day or two before she’d come face-to-face with him. While she was debating whether or not to come home, she’d even managed to convince herself that she might not run into him at all. Aurora was a small town, but she’d come back to teach ballet. And if there was one thing Liam hated, it was ballet.
“Is there another youth pastor, maybe?” She prayed there was. But even as she was silently pleading with God for a second youth pastor to materialize out of thin air, Liam’s head was shaking.
“No. Just me, the one and only.”
The one and only. Posy took a slow, measured breath. Seriously, God? Is this Your idea of a joke?
What had she possibly done to deserve this? First she’d broken her foot on opening night. Not just any opening night, but the most important opening night of her dance career. She’d been cast as the Winter Fairy in Cinderella, one of the most coveted roles in the entire production. The principal ballerina had been dancing the role of Cinderella, naturally. The leading parts were always danced by the principals, which was why Posy wanted nothing more than to be a principal herself. It was what every dancer in every ballet company wanted. Members of the corps de ballet dreamed of it. Soloists dreamed of it. Every ballerina did.
Every ballerina did, but only the tiniest percentage of ballerinas saw those dreams come to fruition. Only the best of the best. The charmed few. And Posy’s dance career was looking awfully charmed.
Or it had been, anyway.
The principal dancer cast as Cinderella was retiring. It would be her final role, which meant the company would need a new lead ballerina. The obvious choice would be for Gabriel, the director of the company, to promote either of the two soloists. Posy was one of those soloists, which meant she had a fifty-fifty shot. All she had to do was really nail her performance as the Winter Fairy in all twelve performances of Cinderella and she was sure she’d be the one chosen. She’d wanted this for her entire life, since she’d slipped on her first pair of pale pink, buttery-leather ballet slippers. She was ready. It was her turn.
And then right as she’d lifted herself up for her first arabesque exactly as she’d done so many times before in rehearsal, she heard a crack. It was so loud she could hear it above the strains of the orchestra playing Prokofiev’s dramatic score. At first she thought a part of the set must have collapsed. Maybe something had fallen from one of the rafters backstage. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t that sort of sound. This sound was unique to the human body, a body that was breaking down. Her body. It was the sound of a bone cracking in two. She knew it even before her ankle gave way and she went tumbling to the floor.
Opening night. Her big chance. And it had ended in the first ten seconds. She should have been dancing her way to a promotion, but instead she was lying in a heap onstage, snowflakes falling softly on her from the rafters. Not real snow, of course. Theatrical snow.
And now she was here. In Alaska, where the snow was real, where bears took naps and where her new boss was her old love. How things had changed over the course of five short days. She could swear she still heard the echo of that horrifying crack in her foot.
“I suppose you’re the appointment I’m expecting?” Liam said flatly. Clearly he wasn’t any more pleased with this surprise turn of events than she was.
She nodded. “Yes. The senior pastor hired me over the phone. I’m the new ballet teacher.”
Ballet teacher. The words tasted like sand in her mouth.
“Temporary ballet teacher,” she added for clarification. She wanted to make sure that was clear from the very beginning. “I’m only in town for six weeks.”
Once her foot healed, she was going back to San Francisco. Gabriel had promised not to make a final decision about who would be promoted to principal until the parts in Firebird had been cast. She still had one last chance. A small one, to be sure, but she wasn’t giving up without a fight.
“No,” Liam said flatly.
“What do you mean no? Lou already hired me. I flew all the way out here from California.” She couldn’t stay there. She just couldn’t. It would have meant watching another ballerina dance her role in Cinderella. It would have meant watching Sasha, the other soloist, get better and better while her foot rotted in a cast.
At least here she’d be doing something worthwhile. Something still related to ballet. She needed this, regardless of the fact that Liam was her boss.
<
br /> “No.” This time the protest was so loud that it roused Liam’s massive dog from sleep. He flattened his ears and cocked his giant head. “I never said I needed a ballet teacher. I said I needed help with the girls’ after-school program.”
Maybe Liam didn’t work at the pond anymore, but it was clear that some things around here hadn’t changed in the slightest. He was about as far from being a ballet enthusiast as Alaska was from San Francisco.
“Exactly. That’s why I’m here.” She waited for him to say something. He didn’t. He just stared blankly at her. “You mean Lou didn’t tell you?”
Liam jammed his hands on his hips. “Tell me what, exactly?”
Good grief. Lou hadn’t told him anything? Was she really the one who had to break it to him? Somehow she had the feeling the news would have been better coming from someone else. Anyone else.
Super. Just super.
She pasted on a smile. “The new girls’ after-school program is ballet.”
* * *
Liam stared at his reflection, warped and tiny, looking back at him in the shiny gold nameplate on Lou McNeil’s desk. It was a perfect representation of how he felt at the moment—warped and tiny. As if he were living in some sort of alternate universe.
Posy was back. And according to her, she worked for him now. Teaching ballet. And how was it that she was calling the senior pastor by his first name? Lou. The single syllable had rolled off her tongue as if they were old friends. Liam had worked for the man day in, day out for four years, and he still called him Pastor McNeil.
He was even faintly nervous sitting here in the pastor’s office. He told himself he felt like a teenager appearing before the principal only because Posy was sitting beside him. They’d been inseparable back in their school days. For a while, anyway.
He wondered if he should have left Sundog back in the fellowship hall to continue foraging through the garbage. Presently, he was sprawled on the floor with his head resting on Liam’s foot. Liam had never thought twice about bringing the dog to work. Half the reason he’d adopted the beast was to give the kids a dog to play with. Funny how none of them had mistaken him for a bear.
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