Love Inspired March 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Wife for Jacob\The Forest Ranger's Rescue\Alaskan Homecoming (53 page)

But Posy knew better. There was nothing artificial about this snowfall, nor was there anything artificial about her feelings. That was one of the best things about Alaska—its authenticity. Everything was real here. She couldn't hide, and she'd come to realize that was exactly what she'd been doing in San Francisco. It was the reason she'd never come home.

She'd convinced herself she'd simply wanted to dance when, in reality, she'd been running. She didn't want to run anymore. It was time to start dancing in place.

A shiver coursed through her, and the wind skittered across her bare shoulders. She wrapped her arms around the sparkling bodice of her tutu and headed toward the parking lot.

Moisture seeped through the thin satin heels of her pointe shoes, reminding her of the pair she'd once lost to the rain. She'd gone through countless ballet shoes since that night. The company gave her a new pair for every performance. But of all the shoes she'd ever had, the only ones she'd never been able to bring herself to part with had been that muddied pair. They'd been her last link to Liam.

She tiptoed through the slush on demi pointe until she spotted Liam walking toward her from the crowded parking lot. In one arm he carried what looked like a suitcase, which didn't make sense at all. In the other, he held what amounted to a pound of gold this far from the Lower 48—an enormous bouquet of red roses.

“Posy,” he said, his eyes widening as he took in the sight of her. A ballerina in the snow. “You're going to freeze to death. What are you doing out here?”

“Looking for you.” He was wrong. She wasn't anywhere close to freezing to death. Just the sight of him sent a wave of warmth washing over her. “Nice roses. I'm guessing they're for the girls?”

“No, actually. I got pink ones for the girls. Zoey flew them in for me yesterday. They're backstage.” He held the roses toward her. “These are for you.”

She gathered the bouquet in her arms. Snowflakes danced against the crimson petals, a kiss of innocence.

“For me? All of them?” There had to be at least three or four dozen, an unheard-of extravagance in Alaska. “You didn't have to do that, Liam.”

“Who said I had to? I wanted to.” He sounded oddly serious for someone talking about roses. “You were beautiful tonight, Posy. There aren't enough roses in the world to tell you what a beautiful dancer you are.”

“Liam...”

“But maybe this will.” He gestured toward the suitcase in his hands.

Upon closer inspection, it wasn't a suitcase after all. She gasped when she realized what she was looking at—a beat-up blue foldable case for a turntable. Not just any turntable. “Madame Sylvie's record player. How did you know?”

Liam shrugged. “After our night at the skating pond and hearing about your excursion to the thrift shop from Alec, I sort of put two and two together. I'd forgotten it at the church earlier, so I went back to fetch it. That's when I found you and Smokey.”

Our night at the skating pond.

“But I'd already told you I was leaving. Why would you go back for the record player? You couldn't possibly know I'd come back. I didn't even know I would.” As much as she adored what he was saying, it didn't make sense.

“Maybe I had a little more faith in you than you did in yourself,” he said solemnly.

That was all the logic she needed.

For the first time since she'd made the decision to stay, hope stirred in her soul. Then Liam spoke again, and her hopes were promptly dashed. “Take it back to California with you. Maybe then Alaska won't seem so far away. Besides, you need it to play your
Peter and the Wolf
album.”

He was joking. At a time like this. Posy couldn't help smiling despite the way her heart felt as though it was on the verge of breaking all over again. Scars upon scars. New and old.

“I came back, remember?”

“But not for good.” It was a statement, not a question.

Posy wanted to scream
no
all the same. “You don't want me to stay?”

“I never said that. I want very much for you to stay. I want to fall to my knees right here in the snow and beg you to never set foot out of this town again. I want you to teach every kid in the state of Alaska to dance. I want to save you from bears and marauding dogs. I want to take you skating at the place where we skated as kids. I want to see the winter wind in your hair every day until I stop breathing. I want to kiss you under our tree. I want to marry you in the church where you maced me.” He paused, and Posy couldn't help but wonder why he wasn't smiling. She was smiling all the way down to her pointed toes.

Until he finished. “But this isn't about me. It's not about what I want. It's about what you want. What you deserve. And you deserve to dance, Posy. You deserve to dance wherever you want, whether that's California or on the surface of the moon. I can't take that away from you. I can't, and I won't.”

If he thought he was getting rid of her that easily, he'd better think again. “But what if I want to dance right here? What if I want to come home?”

He stared at her long and hard, as if he didn't quite believe what she'd just said. “It's your choice, Posy. I'm not a kid anymore. Neither are you. It's time we get this right. I want whatever—
wherever
—makes you happy.”

You always have a choice.

“Home is what makes me happy.” She could say that now. With complete confidence.

She wouldn't have been able to utter those words six years ago. She'd needed to leave, to run away, if only to appreciate everything and everyone she'd been running from.

“Home?” Liam stepped toward her, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. She could have stayed right there forever in her tutu in the snow, wrapped in the rose-scented embrace of the man she'd loved since she was just a girl. “Where is home exactly?”

“Here.” She rested her hand on his chest and felt the pounding strength of his pulse. It beat in the most glorious of rhythms, a cadence she could never grow tired of dancing to. “Not California. Not Alaska. You. You're my home, Liam. It's always been you.”

* * *

Yukon Reporter

News from the Last Frontier

March 27

Aurora Youth Program Awarded Grant

by reporter Ben Grayson

The after-school youth ministry at Aurora Community Church was awarded a substantial monetary grant from the state of Alaska this week. Chosen from among over one hundred applicants, the youth program was selected for the award based on the work of ballet dancer and Aurora native Posy Sutton. Working in partnership with youth pastor Liam Blake, Miss Sutton established an instructional ballet program at the church, which caught the eye of the state government with a dance recital featuring her students. According to Pastor Blake, funds from the grant will be used to purchase computers and learning equipment for the youth ministry, in addition to winter clothing items, which will be donated to families in need in the remote village of Kivalina in the Arctic Circle.

Miss Sutton has left the youth ministry at Aurora Community Church in order to open the Sylvie Martin Dance Conservatory, a studio to be devoted to dance education in downtown Aurora. Pastor Blake remains on staff at the church, where the two will be married this summer.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from ENGAGED TO THE SINGLE MOM by Lee Tobin McClain.

Dear Reader

Welcome back to Aurora, Alaska!

This book has been a long time coming. I love dance, and for a while now, I've wanted to write a story with a ballerina heroine. I just had to figure out how to get her to Alaska, so I decided to make this a book about coming home.

Homecomings can be bittersweet even under the best of circumstances. When you throw in a career-threatening injury, a bear, an enormous dog and a former high school sweetheart, things get hopelessly complicated. But those are only the start of Posy's problems. What she struggles with most on these pages is the very concept of home, of where she belongs. I think that is a struggle that everyone can understand. But even amid confusion and an uncertain future, God always gives us time to dance.

If this is your first trip to the winter wonderland of Aurora, Alaska, I hope you'll go back and read the other books in this series,
Alaskan Hearts
,
Alaskan Hero
and
Sleigh Bell Sweethearts
.

Until next time. As always, thank you so much for reading!

Teri Wilson

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired story.

You believe hearts can heal.
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stories show that faith, forgiveness and hope have the power to lift spirits and change lives—always.

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Chapter One

“Y
ou can let me off here.” Angelica Camden practically shouted the words over the roar of her grandfather's mufflerless truck. The hot July air, blowing in through the pickup's open windows, did nothing to dispel the sweat that dampened her neck and face.

She rubbed her hands down the legs of the full-length jeans she preferred to wear despite the heat, took a deep breath and blew it out yoga-style between pursed lips. She could do this. Had to do it.

Gramps raised bushy white eyebrows as he braked at the top of a long driveway. “I'm taking you right up to that arrogant something-or-other's door. You're a lady and should be treated as one.”

No chance of that.
Angelica's stomach churned at the thought of the man she was about to face. She'd fight lions for her kid, had done the equivalent plenty of times, but this particular lion terrified her, brought back feelings of longing and shame and sadness that made her feel about two inches tall.

This particular lion had every right to eat her alive. Her heart fluttered hard against her ribs, and when she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, the truck's exhaust fumes made her feel light-headed.

I can't do this, Lord
.

Immediately the verse from this morning's devotional, read hastily while she'd stirred oatmeal on Gramps's old gas stove, swam before her eyes:
I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.

She believed it. She'd recited it to herself many times in the past couple of difficult years. She could do all things through Christ.

But this, Lord? Are you sure?

She knew Gramps would gladly go on the warpath for her, but using an eighty-year-old man to fight her battles wasn't an option. The problem was hers. She'd brought it on herself, mostly, and she was the one who had to solve it. “I'd rather do it my own way, Gramps. Please.”

Ignoring her—of course—he started to turn into the driveway.

She yanked the handle, shoved the truck door open and put a booted foot on the running board, ready to jump.

“Hey, careful!” Gramps screeched to a stop just in front of a wooden sign: A Dog's Last Chance: No-Cage Canine Rescue. Troy Hinton, DVM, Proprietor
.
“DVM, eh? Well, he's still a—”

“Shhh.” She swung back around to face him, hands braced on the door guards, and nodded sideways toward the focus of her entire life.

Gramps grunted and, thankfully, lapsed into silence.

“Mama, can I go in with you?” Xavier shot her a pleading look—one he'd perfected and used at will, the rascal—from the truck's backseat. “I want to see the dogs.”

If she played this right, he'd be able to do more than just see the dogs during a short visit. He'd fulfill a dream, and right now Angelica's life pretty much revolved around helping Xavier fulfill his dreams.

“It's a job interview, honey. You go for a little drive with Gramps.” At his disappointed expression, she reached back to pat his too-skinny leg. “Maybe you can see the dogs later, if I get the job.”

“You'll get it, Mama.”

His brilliant smile and total confidence warmed her heart at the same time that tension attacked her stomach. She shot a glance at Gramps and clung harder to the truck, which suddenly felt like security in a storm.

He must have read her expression, because his gnarled hands gripped the steering wheel hard. “You don't have to do this. We can try to get by for another couple of weeks at the Towers.”

Seeing the concern in his eyes took Angelica out of herself and her fears. Gramps wasn't as healthy as he used to be, and he didn't need any extra stress on account of her. Two weeks at the Senior Towers was the maximum visit from relatives with kids, and even though she'd tried to keep Xavier quiet and neat, he'd bumped into a resident who used a walker, spilled red punch in the hallway and generally made too much noise. In other words, he was a kid. And the Senior Towers was no place to raise a kid.

They'd already outstayed their welcome, and she knew Gramps was concerned about it. She leaned back in to rub his shoulder. “I know what I'm doing. I'll be fine.”

“You're sure?”

She nodded. “Don't worry about me.”

But once the truck pulled away, bearing with it the only two males in North America she trusted, Angelica's strength failed her. She put a hand on one of the wooden fence posts and closed her eyes, shooting up a desperate prayer for courage.

As the truck sounds faded, the Ohio farmland came to life around her. A tiny creek rippled its way along the driveway. Two fence posts down, a red-winged blackbird landed, trilling the
oka-oka-LEE
she hadn't heard in years. She inhaled the pungent scent of new-mown hay.

This was where she'd come from. Surely the Lord had a reason for bringing her home.

Taking another deep breath, she straightened her spine. She was of farm stock. She could do this. She reached into her pocket, clutched the key chain holding a cross and a photo of her son in better days, and headed toward the faint sound of barking dogs. Toward the home of the man who had every reason to hate her.

* * *

As the sound of the pickup faded, Troy Hinton used his arms to lift himself halfway out of the porch rocker. In front of him, his cast-clad leg rested on a wicker table, stiff and useless.

“A real man plays ball, even if he's hurt. Get back up and into the game, son.”
His dad's words echoed in his head, even though his logical side knew he couldn't risk worsening his compound fracture just so he could stride down the porch steps and impress the raven-haired beauty slowly approaching his home.

Not that he had any chance of impressing Angelica Camden. Nor any interest in doing so. She was one mistake he wouldn't make again.

His dog, Bull, scrabbled against the floorboards beside him, trying to stand despite his arthritic hips. Troy sank back down and put a hand on the dog's back. “It's okay, boy. Relax.”

He watched Angelica's slow, reluctant walk toward his house. Why she'd applied to be his assistant, he didn't know. And why he'd agreed to talk to her was an even bigger puzzle.

She'd avoided him for the past seven years, ever since she'd jilted him with a handwritten letter and disappeared not only from his life, but from the state. A surge of the old bitterness rose in him, and he clenched his fists. Humiliation. Embarrassment. And worse, a broken heart and shattered faith that had never fully recovered.

She'd arrived in her grandfather's truck, but the old man had no use for him or any of his family, so why had he brought her out here for her interview? And why wasn't he standing guard with a shotgun? In fact, given the old man's reputation for thrift, he'd probably use the very same shotgun with which he'd ordered Troy off his hardscrabble farm seven years ago.

Troy had come looking for explanations about why Angelica had left town. Where she was. What her letter had meant. How she was surviving; whether she was okay.

The old man had raved at him, gone back into the past feud between their families over the miserable acre of land he called a farm. That acre had rapidly gone to seed, as had Angelica's grandfather, and a short while later he'd moved into the Senior Towers.

In a way, the old man had been abandoned, too, by the granddaughter he'd helped to raise. Fair warning. No matter how sweet she seemed, no matter what promises she made, she was a runner. Disloyal. Not to be counted on.

As Angelica approached, Troy studied her. She was way thinner than the curvy little thing she'd been at twenty-one. Her black hair, once shiny and flowing down her back in waves, was now captured in a careless bun. She wore baggy jeans and a loose, dusty-red T-shirt.

But with her full lips and almond-shaped eyes and coppery bronze skin, she still glowed like an exotic flower in the middle of a plain midwestern cornfield. And doggone it if his heart didn't leap out of his chest to see her.

“Down, boy,” Troy ordered Bull—or maybe himself—as he pushed up into a standing position and hopped over to get his crutches.

His movements must have caught the attention of Lou Ann Miller, and now she hobbled out the front screen door.

She pointed a spatula at him. “You get back in that chair.”

“You get back in that kitchen.” He narrowed his eyes at the woman who'd practically raised him. “This is something I have to do alone. And standing up.”

“If you fall down those steps, you'll have to hire yet another helper, and you've barely got the charm to keep me.” She put her hands on bony hips. “I expect you to treat that girl decent. What I hear, she's been through a lot.”

Curiosity tugged at him. People in town were too kind to tell him the latest gossip about Angelica. They danced around the subject, sparing his ego and his feelings.

What had Angelica been through? How had it affected her?

The idea that she'd suffered or been hurt plucked at the chords of his heart, remnants of a time he'd have moved mountains to protect her and care for her. She'd had such a hard time growing up, and it had made him feel ten feet tall that she'd chosen him to help her escape her rough past.

Women weren't the only ones who liked stories of knights in shining armor. Lots of men wanted to be heroes as well, and Angelica was the kind of woman who could bring out the heroic side of a guy.

At least for a while. He swallowed down his questions and the bad taste in his mouth and forced a lightness he didn't feel into his tone. “Who says I won't treat her well? She's the only person who's applied for the job. I'd better.” Looking at his cast, he could only shake his head. What an idiot he'd been to try to fix the barn roof by himself, all because he didn't want to ask anyone for help.

“I'll leave you alone, but I'll know if you raise your voice,” Lou Ann warned, pointing the spatula at him again.

He hopped to the door and held it for her. Partly to urge her inside, and partly to catch her if she stumbled. She was seventy-five if she was a day, and despite her high energy and general bossiness, he felt protective.

Not that he'd be much help if she fell, with this broken leg.

She rolled her eyes and walked inside, shaking her head.

When he turned back, Angelica was about ten feet away from the front porch. She'd stopped and was watching him. Eyes huge, wide, wary. From here, he could see the dark circles under them.

Unwanted concern nudged at him. She looked as though she hadn't slept, hadn't been eating right. Her clothes were worn, suggesting poverty. And the flirty sparkle in her eyes, the one that had kept all the farm boys buying gallons of lemonade from her concession stand at the county fair...that was completely gone.

She looked defeated. At the end of her rope.

What had happened to her?

Their mutual sizing-up stare-fest lasted way too long, and then he beckoned her forward. “Come on up. I'm afraid I can't greet you properly with this bum leg.”

She trotted up the stairs, belying his impression that she was beaten down. “Was that Lou Ann Miller?”

“It was.” He felt an illogical urge to step closer to her, which he ascribed to the fact that he didn't get out much and didn't meet many women. “She runs my life.”

“Miss Lou Ann!” Angelica called through the screen door, seemingly determined to ignore Troy. “Haven't seen you in ages!”

Lou Ann, who must have been directly inside, hurried back out.

Angelica's face broke into a smile as she pulled the older woman into a gentle hug. “It's so nice to see you! How's Caleb?”

Troy drummed his fingers on the handle of his crutch. Caleb was Lou Ann's grandson, who'd been in Angelica's grade in school, and whom Angelica had dated before the two of them had gotten together. He was just one of the many members of Angelica's fan club back then, and Troy, with his young-guy pride and testosterone, had been crazy jealous of all of them.

Maybe with good reason.

“He's fine, fine. Got two young boys.” Lou Ann held Angelica's shoulders and studied her. “You're way too thin. I'll bring out some cookies.” She glared at Troy. “They're not for you, so don't you go eating all of them.”

And then she was gone and it was just the two of them.

* * *

Angelica studied the man she'd been so madly in love with seven years ago.

He was as handsome as ever, despite the cast on his leg and the two-day ragged beard on his chin. His shoulders were still impossibly broad, but now there were tiny wrinkles beside his eyes, and his short haircut didn't conceal the fact that his hairline was a little higher than it used to be. The hand he held out to her was huge.

Angelica's stomach knotted, but she forced herself to reach out and put her hand into his.

The hard-calloused palm engulfed hers and she yanked her hand back, feeling trapped. She squatted down to pet the grizzled bulldog at Troy's side. “Who's this?”

“That's Bull.”

She blinked. Was he calling her on her skittishness?

That impression increased as he cocked his head to one side. “You're not afraid of me, are you?”

“No!” She gulped air. “I'm not afraid of you. Like I said when we texted, I'm here to apply for the job you advertised in the
Tribune
.”

He gestured toward one of the rockers. “Have a seat. Let's talk about that. I'm curious about why you're interested.”

Of course he was. And she'd spent much of last night sleepless, wondering how much she'd have to tell him to get the job she desperately needed, the job that would make things as good as they could be, at least for a while.

Once she sat down, he made his way back to his own rocker and sat, grimacing as he propped his leg on the low table in front of him.

She didn't like the rush of sympathy she felt. “What happened?”