But she could change the future. Maybe not for her and Liam. He would probably never speak to her again, and if he chose not to, she wouldn’t blame him. There had to be a limit to how many times a person was willing to be let down. Whatever that limit was, Posy was certain she’d exceeded it.
It might be too late to change her future with Liam, but it wasn’t too late to change the future for the girls. The recital hadn’t started yet. She could probably still make it if she hurried.
Don’t be silly. The damage is done.
By now, Liam would have told them that she’d left. She was free to pack up her pointe shoes and go.
Wait.
Her pointe shoes. Where were her pointe shoes? The last time she’d seen them, they’d been sitting on a chair at the church with their pink ribbons wrapped snugly around them. Surely she hadn’t left them there. She never went anywhere without them.
But she couldn’t remember packing them. Not last night. Not this morning.
“My pointe shoes!” she shrieked, ripping open her dance bag and rifling through it. “They’re not here.”
“What?” Zoey removed her headset. “Is something wrong?”
“I forgot my pointe shoes. They’re still at the church.” She couldn’t believe she’d left them there. How had this happened?
Zoey shrugged. “So? Don’t you have a million of those things?”
“Yes, but...”
“But what?”
“You don’t think it means something, do you? The fact that I forgot them?” She wasn’t sure why she was even asking the question. She already knew the answer. She’d known it all along. “Never mind. I can’t go.”
“Are you serious?” Zoey asked. Posy couldn’t help but notice the smile making its way to her lips.
“Dead serious. I’m sorry, Zoey. I just can’t leave. I need to dance at that recital. I gave my word. I need to be there to fill those shoes.” She tugged frantically at the door handle. What if it was too late? What if she couldn’t get there in time? She couldn’t even go straight to the community center. She’d have to stop by the church to get her shoes and her costume.
“Aren’t you forgetting something? How are you planning on getting there? I picked you up earlier, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right.” She slumped back in her seat.
“Here.” Zoey dug around in her pocket and fished out her keys. “Take my car. Don’t wait for me. I have to cancel our flight plan and get things settled here.”
Posy reached for the keys. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind, but you need to hurry. Go! Now!” She pointed at the door.
Go! Now!
Posy opened the door and went.
* * *
The church parking lot was snow-covered and empty when Posy pulled up in Zoey’s car. She debated forgoing the stop altogether so she wouldn’t miss the start of the recital. She could still be there to support the girls and not dance, but that didn’t feel right, either. If she was going to do this, to commit to the recital at the expense of her ballet career, she was going to do it 100 percent.
At the expense of her ballet career.
Since the moment she’d made the decision not to step on that airplane, she’d told herself that this didn’t mean the end of her career. It simply meant she wouldn’t be promoted. She could still go back to being a soloist if she wanted.
But she couldn’t think about that right now. She had a recital to attend. She didn’t know what she wanted beyond being there for the girls. Right now she just needed to grab her pointe shoes and her costume and get to the community center.
Of course, she was assuming that Liam hadn’t otherwise disposed of her tutu. Burned it, or better yet, fed it to Sundog. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.
The crushing disappointment in his eyes when she’d told him she was leaving had been excruciating to witness. More painful than anything that could have happened to her physical body. Broken bones couldn’t compete with the agony of a broken heart. And her heart had shattered when she’d realized the mistake she’d made. Again.
Almost. You’re here now.
She didn’t expect him to forgive her. Coming back was too little, too late. But she wanted to do right by the girls. To put them first. Before herself, before ballet. She’d figure out the rest of her future after they’d taken their final curtsies.
She felt strange as she darted across the parking lot. Lighter somehow, as if she could jeté straight to the moon. Odd, considering her life was pretty much in shambles at the moment. Nervous energy bubbled inside her. Like the stage fright she’d always struggled with, only intensified. Even her teeth felt strange, as if she’d bit into something sweet and wonderful.
“Hello?” she called into the empty space, surprised to find the door to the church ajar. Then again, this was Aurora. Land of snow, dancing reindeer and unlocked doors.
One of the girls probably forgot to shut the door behind them in the excitement to get to the recital. A good amount of snowy powder had already blown inside, so she hung her purse on the coatrack and hastily swept the snow back outside with the dual-sided ice scraper/snow-brush tool that was always propped by the door.
She did the best she could with minimal effort. Time was ticking away, and she really wanted to get to the recital before any of the girls went onstage. She tossed the ice scraper back in its place, clicked the door properly closed and hurried in the direction of the fellowship hall.
She paused as she passed Liam’s office. The interior was dark and the door stood open, but a shuffling noise came from inside. She lingered for a second or two, and just as she’d convinced herself she was hearing things, the noise started up again. Louder this time. Scraping noises, punctuated by two or three grunts, as though someone was trying to move a desk from one end of the room to the other.
Liam.
Her heart échappéd straight to her throat. She wasn’t prepared to see him so soon. The memory of his disappointment was too fresh. She had no idea what to say to him. I’m sorry seemed like a good start. Wholly inadequate, but a beginning nonetheless. And perhaps it was better that she apologize to him here, in private, rather than at the crowded community center with chattering girls darting to and fro in fluffy tutus.
Another bumping noise came from inside the office. She leaned closer to the crack in the door. “Liam? It’s me, Posy. I changed my mind. I’m back.”
There was no response. Just eerie silence as the commotion came to an abrupt end.
“I’m sorry.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. Goodness, this was difficult. More difficult than she’d expected, and she wouldn’t have thought that was possible.
Of course, it would have been easier if he’d say something. Anything. Or at the very least look at her.
“Liam, I’m coming in. Okay?” She took a deep breath and pushed the door the rest of the way open, but couldn’t see much in the darkened office.
She felt for the light switch next to the doorjamb then flipped it on, and the tiny room was bathed in light. She blinked, confused at first by what she saw.
No Liam. No one. No human, anyway.
She let out a sigh at the familiar sight of Sundog’s wooly backside sticking out from a large overturned trash can in the corner. Two other big, similar-looking trash cans had also been knocked over. At first she couldn’t figure out where they’d all come from, but then she recognized them as the barriers scattered around the field for his snowball team’s practice.
She rolled her eyes. “Really, Sundog? You’re so desperate for food that you’re rummaging through wastebaskets that haven’t had anything but snow in them for weeks? Honestly. I’m disappointed in you. I really am. I thought you and I had been making some progress. Look at you. The minute you thin
k I’ve left Alaska, you’re back to your old tricks. What are you even doing here, anyway? Did everyone leave you behind?”
She braced herself for an enthusiastic assault of flailing paws and dog slobber, but none was forthcoming. Sundog acted as if he didn’t even recognize her. He didn’t so much as wag his tail.
Wait a minute.
She stared at his shaggy form protruding from the trash can. Horror struck her as she realized that not only was there no wagging tail, there was no tail at all. Period.
Her breath came in short, desperate gasps. She couldn’t seem to get enough air all of a sudden. Her heart hammered so frantically, she was certain she’d perish from cardiac arrest before she even had a chance to be eaten. Blood pumped through her veins so hard she could hear it pulsing in staccato monosyllables.
Bear...bear...bear...
How could this be happening? It was her homecoming all over again, only this time it was real. She’d run into a bear in church. Not Liam’s maniac dog. A real, actual bear.
Stay quiet. Don’t draw any attention to yourself.
She prayed it wasn’t too late to sneak quietly out of the office. After all, the bear was still buried waist deep in the trash can. Maybe all that heavy plastic had muffled her voice, and Smokey had missed out on her lecture.
She took a tentative step backward and stumbled into the wall. She’d never been so afraid in her life. Her knees were on the verge of buckling. And then her worst fear at the moment was realized. The creature backed out of the trash can and spun around to face her.
Dark furry face topped with round ears and a long, blond muzzle. Quivering black nose. And a mouthful of teeth—yellowed, pointy and large. So very large.
A bear. Most definitely.
* * *
With only thirty minutes before the curtain was to go up on the recital, Liam slipped out of the community center.
The girls were all dressed in their new tutus, Anya was busy helping them with their makeup and the music was ready to go. True to her word, Posy had taken care of every detail before she’d left. Except one. And it had been the most important detail of all.
It had killed him to tell the girls she wouldn’t be there to perform. Worse than that, she wouldn’t see them dance. Their collective reaction had been one of disbelief. They’d sat cross-legged on the floor of the community center with their bottom lips quivering, suddenly in no hurry to put on the costumes they’d been so excited about for weeks.
Afterward, once he’d given them his best attempt at a “the show must go on” speech, he’d simply needed to get away for a few minutes. The air in the community center had become unbearably stuffy, weighted down with Posy’s absence.
He was supposed to be the strong one, someone the kids could lean on. He was their adviser, their cheerleader, their friend. Above all, he was their anchor. Someone they could count on in a world that could so often seem overwhelming. He was supposed to have all the answers.
But when Melody had looked at him with a wobble in her chin and tears shining in her eyes and asked him if she would ever see Posy again, he didn’t have an answer for her. What was he supposed to have said?
He’d said the only truth he’d known. “Posy cares about you very much, Melody. She cares about all of us.”
It had been a nonanswer. A placeholder. Words as a stand-in, when what she really needed was Posy. She needed her ballet teacher sitting in that auditorium watching her dance. Or at the very least, an assurance that she’d one day see her again. And it had killed Liam that he couldn’t give it to her.
He needed to get someplace where he could breathe again, where he didn’t feel this crushing sense of loss in his chest. But where?
He sat in his Jeep in the parking lot, not even bothering to turn on the engine. His breath fogged the windows and his hands grew stiff from the cold, but he welcomed the numbness. He wished it to penetrate his bones, his heart, his soul. But it didn’t. At the center of himself, at the very core of his being, he felt it all. Everything—loss, pain, regret.
Love.
Love, even now. Even after she’d gone. Even after she’d left him, left Aurora, left it all behind. Again.
He should have told her how he felt. Would it have made a difference? Would she have stayed? He would never know. And that, more than anything, more than even her absence, was what hurt the most. He’d let himself down. He’d let God down. He hadn’t had the faith to put it all on the line and tell her how he felt about her.
He reached in his pocket for the car keys and cranked the engine to life. He didn’t have much time. Only about twenty minutes, but that would be long enough.
He pulled out of the parking lot, all the while telling himself he’d just left the entire youth group behind to go on what amounted to nothing more than a fool’s errand. But he couldn’t seem to stop his foot from pressing down on the accelerator or his hands from turning the steering wheel.
She’s gone. What are you doing?
He was following his gut. That was what he was doing. His pathetic, delusional gut.
It was just a feeling, nothing more than the faintest of instincts. Some vague, insistent voice that he found difficult to ignore. Realistically, he knew it was probably simply his own wishful thinking. But it was the same nebulous whisper that he’d heard as a kid when he’d decided to make Aurora his home. The same one that had prompted him to buy the skating pond. The same one that had caused him to look in Posy’s purse the night of her accident.
Yeah, and look how that particular decision turned out.
He wasn’t remorseful. Not deep down, where it mattered. He never had been. Sad, yes. Back then, he’d been shattered when she’d refused to come to the door when he tried to see her and when she’d stopped taking his calls. But he’d never been sorry he’d told her parents about the pills. It was the right thing to do. He’d saved her.
The problem was that she hadn’t wanted to be saved.
But none of that mattered anymore. He pushed the past away, ready to leave it behind once and for all. Since Posy had been back, he’d been living there. Walking through the pages of history. Her return had brought everything rushing back, everything he’d thought he’d forgotten. Not just their shared past, but everything that had been going on at the time—graduating from high school, facing the idea of being a nineteen-year-old kid all on his own while his family moved on to the next town, wishing that for once he had a place with four walls and rooms that he recognized that he could call home.
It had been a season of heartbreaking change, but now was the season for a heart-changing break. A break from the events that had occurred so long ago. It was time to leave them in the past, where they belonged. Past time. If he’d been living fully in the present, he would have made things work with Sara. He would keep in touch more with his parents. He would have been able to say the one word to Posy that he’d been unable to utter.
Stay.
He hit every red light between the community center and his destination. At the last one, he nearly gave up on his nonsensical mission and turned around. Right as he was about to jerk the gearshift into Reverse, the light changed. He breezed on through it and turned into the church parking lot.
He didn’t expect to see a vehicle in the lot. Particularly not Zoey’s car. Didn’t she have a flight to Anchorage this afternoon? And wasn’t Posy on that flight?
He frowned at the car and tried to shake the feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong. Surely there was a simple explanation. Her flight had probably taken off early or something. Maybe she’d made sure to get back in time to catch the recital. Maybe she’d even pushed her schedule back so Posy could be here to see the girls.
His teeth ground together. Nope. If that were the case, she’d miss her audition altogether. He climbed out of his Jeep, slammed the door and headed inside, u
nable to shake the nagging feeling that things weren’t quite right.
It wasn’t until his hand was on the doorknob that he heard the first scream.
No, not a scream exactly. More like a groan. A deep guttural groan that didn’t sound quite human. In the eerie silence that followed, the hairs on the back of Liam’s neck stood on end. His skin broke out in goose bumps. When the second growl pierced the air, a riot of sensations swelled inside Liam. Not panic, which would have been perfectly logical, but determination. Determination, with a generous dose of anger.
He didn’t think, didn’t plot or plan. He just ran toward the sounds, which grew louder and more frequent as he dashed in their direction. He skidded around the corner of the hallway and realized they were coming from his office at the end of the corridor, where his door stood open and the light glowed gold.
He could see trash cans knocked over, a dark brown blur, a graceful arm wrapped around the doorjamb and, at the end of that arm, a white-knuckled hand gripping the wood in terror.
Posy.
If he’d paused to take in the scene before him once he reached his office, he would have been paralyzed by fright. But the sight of Posy backed against a wall, mere inches from a large black bear swatting its massive paws at her face and abdomen, barely registered before he started screaming and banging on the door.
“Hey! Get out of here!” he yelled, beating on the door so hard that he heard what sounded like a bone breaking in his hand.
The bear’s paw froze midair. He swung his head around to face Liam and snorted. Once, twice, three times. His breath was hot and rancid. Bile rose to the back of Liam’s throat.
“I said get out of here!” he yelled again, this time waving his arms above his head in an effort to make himself look as big and intimidating as possible.
“Liam,” Posy whimpered. She trembled so hard she could barely speak, and a river of tears ran down her face. “Thank goodness. Is it really you?”
“It’s me. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.” He wasn’t sure where the calm assurance in his voice came from.
Love Inspired March 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Wife for JacobThe Forest Ranger's RescueAlaskan Homecoming Page 57