Alaskan Homecoming

“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.

“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.

“Lou.” There it was again. Lou. Seated in the chair beside him, Posy aimed a smile across the desk toward Pastor McNeil. “It seems there’s been some sort of misunderstanding.”

The understatement of the century.

Liam leaned forward in his chair. “Posy says she’s here to teach ballet.”

“Posy?” Pastor McNeil’s face went blank for a moment. “Oh, you mean Miss Sutton. Josephine.”

“Josephine?” Liam blinked. Had he gone mad and forgotten everyone’s name all of a sudden? Pastor McNeil was now Lou, and Posy had morphed into someone named Josephine?

“That’s me.” Posy smiled innocently, as if up and changing one’s name was an everyday occurrence.

Liam stared at her. “Since when?”

“Since I left Alaska. I guess you could say it’s my stage name, and it just sort of stuck.” She shrugged, but the implied nonchalance of the gesture was belied by a barely discernible tremor in her hands, knotted in her lap. Nerves. She’d always been good at hiding them.

And Liam had always been good at seeing the parts of her that others missed. Apparently some things, unlike names, never changed.

Did she really expect him to call her Josephine now? He wasn’t sure he could do that. It would probably be better for everyone involved if Josephine, whoever she was, danced back to San Francisco.

He directed his attention back to his boss. “Josephine says she’s here to teach ballet.”

The senior pastor’s gaze flitted back and forth between the two of them before landing on Liam. “That’s right.”

Liam shook his head. Maybe if he shook it hard enough, he could undo whatever was happening. “I don’t understand.”

“You indicated you needed help with the after-school program, did you not?” Pastor McNeil eyed him over the top of his glasses.

“Yes, I did.” But I said absolutely nothing about ballet.

Liam’s boss shrugged. “You’ve got the boys busy with the competitive snowballing team, right?”

At the mention of the word snowball, Sundog lifted his head, ears pricked forward at attention.

“Competitive snowballing?” Posy slid her gaze toward Liam. “Seriously? That’s a thing?”

He lifted a brow. “Yes, it’s a thing. An Alaskan thing.”

“It’s like dodgeball, only with snowballs,” Pastor McNeil said.

Sundog let out an excited woof. Posy nearly jumped out of her chair.