Love Inspired March 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Wife for Jacob\The Forest Ranger's Rescue\Alaskan Homecoming (49 page)

He felt it.

At last.

The music, the freedom. The feeling of movement being something of beauty, a work of art. He understood.

Somehow, someway, after all this time, Posy had taught him what it meant to dance.

He knew it didn't change anything. In a matter of weeks, they would go their separate ways. The past might belong to them, but the future never would. Nothing had changed.

Yet somehow, everything had. Because they'd created the perfect moment. A new memory that would live forever. This dance hadn't been about trying to hold on to something. It had been about letting something go. Letting
her
go.

He'd been ready to offer Posy all the love in the world back then, but what would that have mattered if she'd been unhappy? How long would it have taken for the screaming fury of young love to wither to a whisper if she'd chosen him over dance? If she'd stayed.

He wanted more for her. More than Alaska. More than a love that put shackles on her dancing feet. He wanted her to have everything.

“Liam,” she whispered. “After all of this is over, maybe...”

Don't. Don't say it.

“Let's not talk about tomorrows. Not now.” He didn't want her yesterdays, and he didn't have a place in her tomorrows. But now, beneath the star-swept Alaskan sky, the snow fell just for them. This moment was theirs and theirs alone. “Dance with me. Here. Now.”

Meet me. Meet me here, Posy.

He pulled her closer, gazed into her eyes and waited with his heart in his throat as she stepped into the moment. Memories and expectations lifted away, like a shimmering veil. And it was in the subtle, gentle parting of her lips that she left the past behind and the future to its own devices.

“You're beautiful,” he whispered as his skates came to a stop with an agonizingly slow scrape against the ice.

Then the two of them stopped moving, and it was the world that kept on spinning in a dizzying snow-shaker swirl. Liam tried to take it all in—the glittering gold stars, the diamond snowflakes that had gathered in Posy's coppery hair, the way she was looking at him as if he were the only man that ever did, ever could or ever would matter.

And in that moment of innocent grace, Liam lowered his lips to hers.

It was like kissing his past, present and future all at once. Everything he'd ever wanted was wrapped up and tied with ribbons in that tender meeting of their lips. Their mouths were frosty cold, and snow flurries whipped around them as they stood on the mirrored surface of the ice, but there was warmth in Liam's heart. Warmth, tenderness and an ache so fierce that his chest felt as if it were being ripped in two.

There were so many things he wanted to say. Words danced on the tip of his tongue. Dangerous words that he had no business saying aloud. Words like
mine
and
love
. And the most dangerous word of all—
stay
. It was a mighty struggle to hold them back.

Think of her happiness. Think of
her
.

He kissed her again. And again. And this time he was kissing each one of her dreams, willing them to come true.

Then on and on they skated, until the record stopped and the needle came to its noiseless end. In the center of the pond, Liam's feet spun them into a whisper-silent twirl. Round and round they went until the momentum died and they slowed to a halt.

Posy's eyes were wild, the tip of her nose as red as a cherry. Liam had never seen her look this way before—this happy, this carefree—without a pair of ballet shoes on her feet.

“Thank you,” she said, and suddenly Liam realized she was looking at him through eyes filled with glistening, unshed tears.

He released her hand and brushed the hair from her eyes before cupping her cheek. “For what, exactly?”

She blinked up at him, and a lone tear slid down her face. Her eyes had grown stormy once again. Misty gray, like a gathering tempest. Eyes filled with goodbyes.

A bittersweet heaviness settled in Liam's chest. He told himself the burning in his lungs was from the biting-cold air and the exertion of their dance. But deep down he knew it was a lie.

He wiped away her teardrop with a brush of his thumb, but the trail it left in its wake remained. As did the ache in his heart.

Her answer came in a whisper softer than the fall of snowflakes drifting onto the ice. “For the best dance lesson I've ever had.”

Chapter Fourteen

“W
hat exactly are we looking for again?” Zoey walked alongside Posy toward the entrance to the Aurora Community Church Thrift Store, juggling a cardboard tray loaded down with four cups of coffee from the Northern Lights Inn.

“Record albums,” Posy said. “Remember those?”

“Vaguely.” Anya frowned.

“No.” Zoey shook her head. “I actually don't.”

“You're kidding. I find that profoundly sad.” Posy stared down at the ground as she walked, picking her way through the snow, careful to avoid any patches of ice. As happy as she was to be rid of the plaster cast, her foot felt oddly vulnerable and exposed without it. She couldn't quite get past the fear of falling.

Realistically, she knew she wasn't going to fall. The only danger of falling had been the night when Liam had taken her skating. And that had been a falling of a different variety.

Don't go there. You are
not
falling in love with him. You can't.

But no matter how hard she fought against it, she feared there was a tiny part of her heart that had already begun that rarest of descents. She could almost feel herself free-falling into an everlasting tombé.

Zoey laughed, pulling her thoughts back to the matter at hand. What was that again? Oh, right. Madame Sylvie's records.

“I'm just teasing,” Zoey said. “I know what a record album is. What I don't understand is why we're on a wild-goose chase to find some.”

“Try not to think of it as a wild-goose chase. It's more like a treasure hunt.” Posy grinned.

She'd been telling herself all morning not to get her hopes up. Even if the record player that she'd seen the other night at the skating pond had been the one that belonged to Madame Sylvie, it didn't mean the albums would still be around. Most of them had been nothing but ballet practice music, repetitive eight counts of piano chords composed for the routine of barre exercises. Pliés, tendus, battements, rond de jambes. They weren't exactly typical fare for iPod playlists. But to Posy, they were precious. Those soothing notes sounded like her childhood, like dance itself. Like her dreams.

“Well, if anyone can help you find them, my mom can.” Anya pushed through the door of the thrift shop and held it open for Zoey. She plucked one of the coffees off the tray as Zoey passed. “Give me one of those. I'm dying for some caffeine. And the smell is out of this world.”

“I aim to please.” Zoey handed Posy a cup. “Here, have one.”

“Thanks.” She took a sip. The explosion of flavor that hit her tongue was so unexpected that she stopped dead in her tracks. “What is this? I thought I was drinking coffee.”

Zoey and Anya exchanged bemused glances.

“You are,” Anya said.

“This is not coffee.” Posy had consumed copious amounts of coffee. Ballerinas lived on coffee. Bad coffee, mediocre coffee and what she'd always thought of as good coffee. But nothing like what she held in her hand.

“Yes, it is. Specifically, it's a caramel latte.” Zoey smiled, then added, “With whip.”

“Let me translate that for you—normal-people coffee.” Anya sipped hers again. “Good, isn't it?”

A caramel latte with whipped cream. There had to be more calories in that cup than what Posy normally consumed in an actual, edible meal. She couldn't bring herself to question the fat content of the milk. Whole milk hadn't passed her lips since she'd slipped on her first pair of pointe shoes.

Zoey set the cardboard tray beside the cash register on the counter at the entrance to the thrift shop. “Come on, Posy. Live a little. There's more to life than all ballet, all the time.”

She stared into her cardboard cup. “I know that.”

She'd gone ice-skating a few nights ago, hadn't she?

She took a defiant swig of her latte.

“Can I help you?” Kirimi, Anya's mother, came bustling through the narrow aisles of the shop, eyes cast down at a bundle of neatly folded clothes in her arms. When she looked up, her olive face split into a wide grin. “Girls! It's so great to see you all here. What brings you by?”

Anya gave her mom a tight hug, then handed her a latte. “Posy is looking for some music. Plus we brought you coffee.”

“Thank you.” She took a sip. How she didn't faint from elation was a mystery to Posy.
Normal-people coffee.
What else had she been missing out on all this time? “What kind of music do you need, Posy?”

“I'm looking for some record albums. Specific ones. They would have come here from the ballet studio that closed a few years ago.”

“Oh.” Kirimi's face fell. “That was a while ago. We have some record albums, but I doubt any of them have been around that long. You're welcome to go through them. I'm afraid they're not in any kind of order. We're perpetually shorthanded around here.”

Posy looked around at the crowded shelves of books, knickknacks and clothes, clothes and more clothes. She wasn't surprised to hear that the shop was shorthanded. It was obviously a lot to keep up with. But Posy couldn't help feeling as though she were standing in the middle of a treasure chest. These weren't just items from the past. Everything here represented a story. A life.

“I don't mind doing some digging,” she said.

Suddenly, the opening bars of the
Swan Lake
score rang from inside her handbag. Her cell phone. It had begun to elicit a Pavlovian response in her every time it rang. One that felt vaguely like panic.

She glanced at her phone.
Incoming call: Gabriel.

She flipped the ringer to the off position and dropped the phone back in her purse. She'd call him back later. She couldn't very well talk to him now. It would be rude.

“I'm so sorry, Kirimi.” Posy smiled and pushed away thoughts of Gabriel's repeated calls. It was surprising that he seemed so interested in the progress of her recovery. Flattering, but strange.

“It's no trouble. Did you need to take that call?” Kirimi asked.

“No. It can wait.” She'd call Gabriel later when she had more time. Not that she had much time to spare at the moment. Plans for the recital were eating up every free moment. “Lead the way to the records.”

“Alrighty. Follow me.” Kirimi led them to the back of the store, where a row of milk crates, each one crammed with record albums, were lined up on waist-high shelves. “Here you go. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Posy took a fortifying sip of her coffee and took a deep breath. “Here we go.”

Anya flipped through one of the crates. “I'm keeping my eyes peeled for anything with ballerinas on the cover.”

“Me, too,” said Zoey. “Or just anything with one of the presidents on it.”

“One of the presidents?” Posy frowned.

Zoey shrugged. “You're looking for classical stuff, right? Classical composers look an awful lot like our country's Founding Fathers. Don't tell me you've never noticed the resemblance between Mozart and George Washington.”

Anya paused. “Hey, you're right. Although for Washington, I'd choose Haydn. Mozart gives off more of a Jefferson vibe.”

Posy shook her head and laughed. “I am most definitely no longer in the land of ballerinas.”

Zoey lifted a brow. “Is that so bad?”

No, actually. It wasn't. Posy would miss this once she was gone—the camaraderie, the laughter. She would miss a lot of things.

“Speaking of ballerinas...look!” Anya grabbed a record album from her crate and triumphantly held it over her head.

Posy gasped. She recognized the record at once. Its cover was slightly more faded than it had been the last time she'd seen it, but the photograph of girls in black leotards lined up along a ballet barre, their slippered feet pointed at identical angles, was forever seared in her memory.
The Etudes II.

She had to stop herself from automatically moving into a glissade. “Yes! That's one of them.”

Anya handed her the record. “If one of them is here, then surely there are more.”

They sped up the search process, and in the next fifteen minutes, they'd gone through every crate and collected a stack of eleven albums, all of which Posy recognized. Not just with her eyes, but with her feet, her heart and her pointed toes.

“I can't believe it.” She gathered the pile in her arms. The worn edges of the old records were softer than felt. “Madame Sylvie's records. All of them.”

She was holding on to history.

She thought of all the endless movements her body had made to the music in her arms and of the way she still sometimes heard Madame Sylvie's rhythmic counting in her sleep.
One, two, three, four, and up, two, three, four, and plié, two, three, four...

Then she thought of the black satin ribbon in her pointe shoe when she'd danced
Swan Lake
, and a lump lodged in her throat.

“They're your records now,” Anya said.

My records.
The thought made her both happy and sad at the same time.
She set them on the counter and fished through her purse for her wallet.

Zoey glanced at the shelf full of CD players and old jam boxes. “Too bad there's not a record player here for sale.”

In her mind, Posy saw Liam turning his back, the golden glow of the fairy lights dancing on his hair, the fall of his soft flannel shirt as it stretched across the width of his shoulders. She saw him reaching for the arm of the record player, his hands as they lifted the vinyl from the spindle and replaced it with another.

She could ask him to sell it to her. She could buy him another, nicer record player for the skating pond. But she wouldn't. It seemed appropriate that there were people moving to its melody, dancing on the ice. What would she do with it, anyway? Her foot was nearly healed. She had a life to return to. A life a world away, where Madame Sylvie's record player would sit silent, gathering dust.

The lump in her throat grew tenfold. “Yeah, too bad.”

* * *

A week into rehearsals for the recital, Posy realized that the shortage of ballet apparel in Aurora was the least of her problems. In fact, all fashion-related obstacles had been eliminated on day one with a brief phone call to Martha, the costume mistress for Posy's dance company in San Francisco.

She'd pleaded the girls' case, and once Martha heard that there was a group of teenagers in Alaska who'd never had the opportunity to slip their feet into a pair of ballet slippers, she'd gone about rectifying the situation immediately. Within days, a box had arrived, packed to the brim with pale pink leather ballet shoes. They were discards from company dancers throughout the years that Martha had been holding on to for some inexplicable reason. They'd been previously worn, of course, which the girls seemed to think made them infinitely more valuable than if they'd been brand-new. In the words of Melody, they were
real
ballet shoes that had been worn by
real
dancers. Thus, they'd been deemed priceless, irrespective of the threadbare areas around the toes.

Even more surprising than the girls' steadfast affection for their hand-me-down ballet shoes were the seven sets of white leotards and matching tutus that had been buried at the bottom of the box. In those first few days of planning, costumes had been a luxury that Posy hadn't allowed herself to think about. She'd certainly never expected Martha to whip up tutus for the girls or purchase leotards and tights with company funds. But that was exactly what she'd done, with approval from the company's charitable foundation. Less than a week after Liam had approached her with the idea of putting on a recital, she'd managed to procure ballet shoes and full costumes for all seven girls. The disinterested teenagers that she'd first met just weeks ago would dance the part of winter-wonderland snowflakes.

Other details quickly fell into place, as well. The Aurora Community Center had a stage available free of charge. Posy's mother had been thrilled to put together a program on her laptop. Even her dad had decided to pitch in, agreeing to put his photography skills to use taking photos at the recital instead of chasing moose into public buildings. Posy had decided that perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing after all that the moose report on the nightly news had bitten the dust.

The problem wasn't the shoes, the costumes, the music, the staging or the programs. It wasn't even the choreography. Inspired by the snowy-white tutus, Posy had decided to put together a simple dance to the music from the Winter Fairy's Variation in
Cinderella
. She knew the music like the back of her hand since it had been her most recent performance piece. She'd just never gotten a chance to dance to it onstage since she'd fallen during the opening bars.

Even her broken foot was no longer her biggest problem. She'd been dancing in tiny increments as recommended by Dr. Cooper, and every day she felt stronger and more sure of herself.

The problem was none of these things. The problem, unfortunately, was the dancing.

It wasn't for lack of trying. Posy had done her absolute best. So had the girls. But the amount of skills that a dancer could acquire in four short weeks simply wasn't sufficient to put together a classical-ballet number. At least not one that wasn't a complete and total snooze fest.

“What do you think?” she asked Liam during rehearsal one day in the fellowship hall. “I added an eight count of tendus to that section.”

Seated beside her, he was notably silent.

“Liam, I asked you a question.” She swiveled in her seat to look at him, and only then did she realize that he was asleep. To add insult to injury, he started snoring when she tried to wake him.

“Liam!”
She jabbed him with her elbow.

He woke with a start and jammed a hand through his hair. “What? I'm watching.”

Posy rolled her eyes. “No, you aren't. You were asleep.”