Love Inspired March 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Wife for Jacob\The Forest Ranger's Rescue\Alaskan Homecoming (36 page)
Authors: Rebecca Kertz
Tags: #Harlequin Love Inspired
While she knew it would be completely insane for her to get involved with this guy, she couldn't shake the feeling that he needed her. With every instinct screaming for her to back away and leave him be, she heard herself say, “All this digging sure is thirsty work. Can I buy you a glass of iced tea at The Whistlestop?”
At first, he didn't react at all. Then, slowly, as if something that had been frozen was thawing a bit, a slow grin worked its way across his chiseled features. “You're not from the South, are you?”
“Chicago. Why?”
“Around here, we call it sweet tea. And you don't have to buy me any, 'cause I've got a gallon jug of Mom's at the house. No one makes it any better.”
A quick glance around showed her nothing but trees and gravestones. “I don't see a car or a house for that matter. How far did you walk to get here?”
“Over that hill,” he replied, pointing to a modest rise that led into the nearby woods. When she hesitated, he frowned. “Unless you'd rather not be alone out in the boonies with a guy you just met. I'd totally understand.”
“It's not that,” she assured him quickly, relieved to see some of the tension leave his face. “It's just that I've been all over the area painting landscapes, and I didn't realize there was a house over this way. It's so overgrown, I figured it was all woods and deer trails.”
“It is.” Chuckling, he picked up her empty basket and balanced the shovel on his shoulder. “That's what I like most about it.”
When he stepped back, she realized he was cueing her to walk in front of him. A Southern gentleman in raggedy jeans and a faded T-shirt, she mused with a little grin. That was the last thing she'd expect to find in this tall, quiet man clearly laboring to steer his life back on track.
Intuition told her there was a lot more to Scott Barrett than his good looks and cool reserve. Peeling away those layers would be fascinating. Or dangerous, that irritating little voice cautioned her while she and Scott walked side by side toward the top of the hill. Harsh experience had taught her that the male species was like that, which was why she resisted getting tangled up with anyone in particular. Her gypsy lifestyle enabled her to stay clear of the doomed cycle she'd watched her hopelessly romantic mother go through over and over like a hamster on a wheel. Always frantically running at top speed, never getting anywhere.
Determined to avoid that sort of endless heartache, Jenna had chosen to live each day as it came. When circumstances allowed, she shared those moments with someone. When that wasn't reasonable, she enjoyed them on her own. As an only child, she'd grown up appreciating her own company, so solitude didn't bother her. To her mind, it was better than throwing everything you had into a relationship only to wind up bitter and lonely in the end.
It was a beautiful day, she chided herself, not the time for serious thoughts. As she and Scott made their way through the sunlit hillside meadow, she took a deep breath of air scented with honeysuckle and the wild roses that rambled alongside the faint path that wound through the tall grass. Spots of color here and there showed her patches of fresh buttercups and lilies of the valley, along with wildflowers that ranged from periwinkle blue to deep, vibrant pink. A hawk soared into view overhead, sailing effortlessly on the warm spring breeze in search of his breakfast.
He spotted something and dived, arcing back into the sky with a small rodent clutched in his claws. Impressed by his hunting display, Jenna watched him until he banked in midair and sped off into the distance with his prize.
“Amazing, huh?” Scott asked in a tone laced with the same respect she'd felt for the hawk. “I've always wondered what they see from up there.”
“Us?”
“Yeah, but what does he think of us?” When she gave him a blank look, he went on. “I mean, does he think we're interesting, like we do with him? Or does he think we're nuts, racing around all the time and not accomplishing much of anything?”
“So you're the philosophical type,” she teased. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“I don't know. Is there?” Raising an eyebrow, he gave her a mischievous grin that made her laugh.
“Don't you be trying that on me, Barrett. I've met all your brothers, and I've seen enough of that troublemaker smile to know better.”
“Busted.” Still grinning, he said, “But to answer your question, I guess I was always the thinker in the family. Greg and Connor are the responsible ones, Paul's the jock, Jason's the clown and I'm the serious one.”
If that was the case, how on earth had he landed in such a bad situation in Texas? she wondered. She'd never ask him that, of course, but she couldn't help wondering, just the same.
“Her name was Kelly,” he said, completely out of the blue. “And yes, I was in love with her, and yes, she used that against me. She asked me to pick her and her brothers up at the bank.” Pausing, he grimaced and shook his head. “Unfortunately, she neglected to tell me they'd be coming out carrying a bunch of cash that didn't belong to them. By the time I knew what was happening, we were on the run from the cops.”
“With you as the innocent getaway driver.” Jenna filled in the blank tersely. “Nice girl.”
“Well, not so innocent,” he corrected her in a tone devoid of emotion. “I could've climbed outta the car and left them to the cops, but I didn't. I tried to talk them into surrendering, but that went about how you'd expect. By the time the police caught up to us, I was pretty much as guilty as they were. I told the detective I had no idea what they had planned for that bank, but Kelly and her brothers claimed otherwise. It ended up being their word against mine, and there were three of them.”
When he stopped talking, Jenna tried to come up with some encouraging words. He'd been through a lot, and she didn't want to make him feel any worse than he already did by saying the wrong thing. “Well, now you're here, at home with your family. You can put all those bad times behind you.”
He didn't respond to that, but from his sigh, she knew he wasn't buying her upbeat assessment of his situation. For some reason she didn't begin to understand, she really wanted to prove it to him. The question was, how?
As they crested the hill, that dilemma was blown from her mind as she took in the view down in the shallow valley. She knew she was standing there like some kind of moronic statue, but all she could think of to say was “Wow.”
Copyright © 2015 by Andrea Chermak
ISBN-13: 9781460378847
The Forest Ranger's Rescue
Copyright © 2015 by Lora Lee Bale
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Second-Chance Reunion
Ballet dancer Posy Sutton is only back in her hometown of Aurora, Alaska, until her injury heals. It's a decision that'd be easier to stick to if she didn't keep bumping into her charming ex-boyfriend, Liam Blake. After six years, she should be over himâbut instead all she can see is the mistake she made when she left him. She's not sure she can handle choosing between Liam and ballet a second timeâ¦if Liam is even willing to risk his heart again. When her time in Alaska is up, will she and Liam be part of the sweetest dance of all?
“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.”
How things had changed over the course of five short days. She was back here in Alaska, where the snow was real, where bears took naps and where her new boss was her old love. She could still hear the echo of that horrifying crack in her foot.
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.
Teri Wilson
grew up as an only child and could often be found with her head in a book, lost in a world of heroes, heroines and exotic places. As an adult, her love of books has led her to her dream careerâwriting. Teri's other passions include dance and travel. She lives in Texas, and loves to hear from readers. Teri can be contacted via her website,
teriwilson.net
.
Books by Teri Wilson
Love Inspired
Alaskan Homecoming
Visit the Author Profile page at
Harlequin.com
for more titles
ALASKAN HOMECOMING
By Teri Wilson
A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
âEcclesiastes
3:4
For Crystal, my favorite ballerina
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Crystal Serrano for her expert ballet knowledge and for making my legs shake in barre class; Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein and everyone at McIntosh & Otis; Rachel Burkot, Melissa Endlich and the wonderful staff at Harlequin Books; my critique partner, Meg Benjamin; and my family and friends for their unwavering support.
And as always, I thank God for making my dreams come true and allowing me to write for a living.
Chapter One
B
e still. Do not move a muscle. And whatever you do, don't scream.
Posy Sutton bit her lip to prevent the forbidden scream from slipping out. She wanted very much to yell for help at the top of her lungs. Who wouldn't, standing there with an awkward plaster cast on her foot and looking at what was a mere ten feet in front of her?
A bear.
From the looks of its wooly brown backside, a brown bear. Or possibly a grizzly, which, as bears went, was the very worst sort to bump into. Not that a brown bear would be a picnic.
Don't do it. Don't scream.
Posy might have been back in her hometown of Aurora, Alaska, for only a matter of hours, but she was no cheechakoâAlaska's common nickname for newcomers. She'd grown up here. Six years in San Francisco couldn't erase the lessons she'd had drilled into her as a child. She knew how to behave around bears in the wildernessâ
avoid eye contact, do not scream or yell. If the bear doesn't see you, walk away very slowly. If the bear does see you, play dead.
The problem was that she wasn't exactly in the wilderness at the moment. In fact, she wasn't outdoors at all. She was standing in the fellowship hall of Aurora Community Church. All alone. There wasn't another soul in sight.
Unless the bear whose tail end was currently sticking out of the overturned trash can in the corner was to be counted. Bears had souls, didn't they?
Posy rolled her eyes. Now wasn't exactly the time to contemplate the eternal salvation of Smokey, Paddington and the like.
The bear grunted, its rumbling voice echoing from within the metal trash can. It sounded so...so...
sinister
. And hungry. Very hungry. Like every growling stomach in the universe all rolled into one. Posy's heart thumped so hard, she thought it might beat right out of her chest. She'd never been so terrified in her life. Not even the first time she'd danced the role of Clara in
The Nutcracker
as a ten-year-old. Nor opening night of her debut as a soloist with the West Coast Arts Ballet Company, plucked from the corps de ballet and thrust directly into the spotlight.
She was standing in an enclosed space with a grizzly. And she was on crutches. Could it get any worse?
One sound, one telltale movement and the bear would realize she was there. And she'd be taken down like a weak zebra on the National Geographic Channel.
She tightened her grip on her crutches and took a deep, calming breath, much like the one she always took in the final seconds before the red velvet curtains parted on performance nights. Only this breath wasn't all that calming. Her chest grew tighter. She thought she might be hyperventilating. She prayed for a paper bag. Or better yet, a can of bear repellent.
Bear repellent.
Posy hadn't seen a can of bear spray in years. San Francisco wasn't without its dangers, but bears didn't exactly make the short list. Or the long list. Or any variation of the list whatsoever. Bear repellent was obviously no longer a staple in her handbag. But hair spray certainly was. Ballerina buns didn't stay put on their own.
Without taking her eyes off the bear's broad, furry hindquarters, she anchored her right crutch firmly under her arm and reached into her purse for the can of Aqua Net that she never went anywhere without. Okay, so it wasn't exactly Mace for wild animals, but maybe it would do in a pinch. As carefully and quietly as she could manage, she pried off the lid. But her hands were shaking so badly that it fell to the ground before she could catch it.
To Posy's ears, it sounded louder than a gunshot when it hit the tile floor and bounced what had to be at least a dozen times. The world came to an abrupt standstill. Save for the lid to the Aqua Net clattering around like a pinball, nothing moved. Not Posy. Not the dust in the air. Not even the bear. All rummaging had ceased. Not a muscle moved in that furry back end, until the bear slowly began walking backward, extricating itself from the trash can.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.
Posy took an instinctive step backward with her left foot. The injured one. Pain shot through her plaster cast, and she stumbled. One crutch clattered to the ground. She seized on to the other with both desperate hands and teetered sideways. The crutch wobbled. And the tile floor suddenly seemed to be rising up to meet her. Just as she realized she was going down, the bear shot the rest of the way out of the trash can in a fuzzy brown blur.
Posy screamed. She no longer cared about the rules. If she was about to become bear chow, someone somewhere was going to hear about it. Her scream echoed off the walls of the fellowship hall as she tumbled to the ground.
Then, before her body made contact with the hard tile, she was lifted into the air from behind by a powerful force. Her terror grew tenfold. And her first thought was that she was being tag teamed. By bears.
Well, she wasn't going down without a fight. She had only one weapon left at her disposal, and she didn't hesitate to use it. She pressed down on the Aqua Net nozzle as hard as she could and aimed the can over her shoulder, screaming all the while.
“Ouch! What the...”
The talking bearâ
talking bear?â
released its hold on her and she toppled to the floor, landing squarely on her backside, which was good. She didn't mind a bruised behind as long as she didn't reinjure her foot. Assuming she wasn't about to be eaten, she needed that foot to heal in time for the spring production of
Firebird
.
“What was that for?”
Posy glanced up at the figure towering over her.
A man. Not another bear.
A man.
A man pressing the heels of his hands into his puffy red eyes and groaning as though he'd been doused with pepper spray or something.
Posy glanced at the can of Aqua Net still clutched in her hand. Great. Just great. Someone had actually come to her aid, and she'd maced him.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spray you. I meant to spray him.” She pointed toward the bear, which had extricated itself from the trash can and was now spinning happy circles chasing its tail.
Posy stared at it. That didn't seem like normal bear behavior. And now that she got a good look at the creature, it looked less like a bear and more like a...
“My dog?” the man barked. “You wanted to spray my dog with hair spray?”
“Yes.” She scrambled rather inelegantly to her feet, gathering up her crutches along the way. “I mean, no.”
“Which is it? Yes or no? Me or the dog?” He sounded angry. Angrier than a mama bear defending her cub.
Not that Posy could blame him. She'd had an eyeful of Aqua Net on more than one occasion, particularly in her early years with the dance company when she'd shared a cramped dressing room with every one of the other thirteen members of the corps. It wasn't pleasant.
She forced herself to tear her gaze away from the dog. Not such an easy task. It was an enormous, hulking beast. Very bearlike in appearance, other than the lolling tongue and great swinging tail. She kept doing double takes to make sure it was, in fact, a dog. It let out a woof, and she finally felt safe enough to take her eyes off it.
“Again, I'm sorry. Very sorry.” Her cheeks flared with heat. “I thought your dog was a bear.”
He removed his hands from his face and looked down at her with incredulous eyes. Red, puffy, incredulous eyes.
Posy lost her balance for a moment, then righted herself. She found it difficult to breathe all of a sudden.
She stared at the man, sure she was hallucinating. A nameâ
the
nameâfrom her past echoed in her ears, along with the pounding of her suddenly out-of-control pulse.
Liam.
No. It couldn't be. It looked like himâsame charmingly rumpled dark hair, same broad shoulders, same chiseled jaw. Except now those shoulders seemed even broader, the jaw more finely sculpted and covered with a dark shadow of masculine stubble. Six years was a long time. Long enough to change a boy into a man, apparently.
“Posy?” he said, the shock she felt down to her core mirrored in his expression.
And for the briefest of moments she was eighteen again, living in a snow-globe world of young love, cozy Alaskan winters and wild-heartbeat romance. Laughter. Long walks among snow-laden evergreens. The thrill of her frosty first kiss while swirling snowflakes gathered in her hair.
She swallowed. “Liam.”
His name felt somehow both familiar and foreign on her tongue. Like a favorite thick, cozy cardigan sweater that looked the same as it always had, but no longer seemed to fit once you slipped it on.
“Posy,” he said again, a coldness creeping into his voice.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but then Liam's gaze dropped lower. To her foot. And the ugly anchor attached to itâher plaster cast.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Without even realizing what she was doing, she closed her eyes. Only five days had passed since her injury, but that was long enough for Posy to grow more than weary of the looks of pity that the chunk of plaster elicited from people who knew she was a ballerina. It was like walking around with your biggest inadequacy on display for all the world to see.
If Liam looked at her with even the smallest amount of pity in his gaze, the brave front she'd been putting on for the past five days just might crumble to pieces. Dancing had taught her a lot of thingsâdetermination, discipline, how to tolerate pain. But it hadn't prepared her for this: coming face-to-face with her past.
With Liam Blake. The last person in Alaska she wanted to see.
Truth be told, she much preferred the idea of a run-in with a grizzly.
* * *
Posy Sutton.
Liam blinked. His eyes burned like a wildfire, and his vision was still a bit fuzzy, but even through the fog of hair spray he could see that familiar swan neck, those long, graceful limbs, those huge, haunted eyes.
Posy Sutton.
With a cast on her foot.
She was injured. Of course. Why else would she have come back? She'd danced away from Alaska as quickly as she could. He should have known there was a reason she'd returned. A reason that had nothing whatsoever to do with the past. With him.
Get over yourself. It was six years ago. She's moved on.
You've
moved on.
He ground his teeth. He might have moved on, but that didn't mean he had to ask about her foot. Or how it was affecting her dancing. If he so much as uttered the word
ballet
, he might sound like a jealous lover. Posy may have been his first love, but dance had been hers.
Her first love. Her only love. She'd sacrificed everything for it.
He'd never stood a chance.
He forced his gaze away from the cast. He'd seen a cast on the very same foot before. That first cast had been what started it all. The beginning of the end. He'd felt sorry for her then, which was how he'd let things get so out of hand. In the end, he'd done the right thing, and she'd never forgiven him. In a single bittersweet moment, he'd saved her and lost her at the same time.
If she expected sympathy from him now, she was in for a big disappointment. He'd been down that road before and had no intention of traveling that way again. He jammed his hands on his hips and paid no attention to the cast or the crutches she seemed to be struggling to keep from sliding out from under her.
The injury must be recent.
He chastised himself for wondering about it, pretended not to notice the foot and refocused on her face. Her eyes were closed for some strange reason. He pretended not to notice that, as well. “You thought my dog was a bear?”
“I did.” Her lashes fluttered open, and she met his gaze. Full-on eye contact.
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 âhouse,' but âbear' 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.”