Alaskan Homecoming

“So Liam’s dad is still preaching?” Posy asked.

“Yes, although I have no idea where.” Anya reached for the half-and-half and added a dollop to her coffee. “No one can keep up with Liam’s parents. Once they sold their house here, they stopped coming back to Aurora altogether. Not that they ever spent much time here to begin with.”

So the house had sold.

Posy’s last memory of Liam’s childhood home had been the day his dad had driven the post of the for-sale sign into the nearly frozen yard. A stake through Liam’s heart.

“You mean your mom never told you that Liam is a pastor now?” Zoey asked.

“No. She didn’t.” Posy set down her coffee cup. Suddenly, she was no longer thirsty.

Surely her mom didn’t want her to work at the church so Liam could keep an eye on her. That couldn’t be possible. Her parents couldn’t actually expect her old boyfriend to make sure she handled her injury better than she had last time. Because that would be mortifying beyond words. And wrong. Just plain wrong.

“You know, all of this awkwardness could have been avoided if you’d come back to visit. Even once,” Zoey said, her tone not at all judgmental, but wistful.

Anya nodded, her gaze flitting ever so briefly to the sparkling diamond on her ring finger. She was married now. As was Zoey. And Posy hadn’t even met their husbands.

“You know I have my pilot’s license now, right? And my own plane?” Zoey’s face lit up the way Posy’s always did when she slipped on a pristine pair of pointe shoes.

“Now, that I did know.” Her mother had filled her in on that much. Funny how she’d remembered to mention Zoey’s plane, but not the fact that Posy would be working with Liam. She and her mom were going to have a chat about that. Soon. Very soon. “Actually, I wanted to ask you if you could fly me to Anchorage a few times a week for my physical-therapy appointments for my foot.”

Zoey grinned. “Of course. I’d love that. We can fly over the ranch, and you can see the reindeer. They look so pretty from the sky.”

Posy had almost forgotten. Zoey and her husband lived on a reindeer farm.

She’d missed so much.

Liam was a man of God now, Zoey was both a pilot and a reindeer farmer, and Posy wasn’t the only one with a different name. Anya and Zoey both had new last names. Her mother had told her all about their weddings, of course, but seeing the shiny rings on their fingers made it seem much more real than it had from far away.

They were her closest friends. Granted, she hadn’t seen them in a while, and she definitely could have been better about keeping in touch. But they still knew more about her than any of her San Francisco friends. They cared. They genuinely cared. And they were married to men Posy had never laid eyes on. Perfect strangers.

“Don’t worry.” Anya gave her a friendly nudge. “We’ll get you all caught up on everything you’ve missed. Before long, you’ll know more than you ever wanted to know about the fair citizens of Aurora. Right, Zoey?”

“Oh, sure. Where to start... Let’s see. Did you know that Anya’s husband sometimes dresses up as a bear?”

Just what Posy needed. Another bear scare. “What?”

Anya rolled her eyes. “It’s not as silly as it sounds. Trust me.”

The two of them launched into a laughter-filled discussion about everyone in Aurora—people Posy knew and others she’d never heard of before. She managed to keep up with the conversation, making mental notes every now and then of new names. There were new babies, new marriages, new stores, new streets. Even new dogs, Liam’s shaggy beast included.

But as Posy sat with her two oldest friends, drinking coffee and chatting like old times, she was beginning to get the feeling that the only stranger in town was one named Josephine.

* * *

“Stay here.” Liam aimed a stern look toward the passenger sitting beside him in the front seat of his Jeep. “And try to resist the urge to eat anything. The headrest, for instance.”

Oblivious, Sundog panted, his tongue hanging sideways out of his mouth.

Liam issued one final warning before exiting the vehicle. “I’m being serious. Stay. Behave. Or whatever the proper command is for this situation.”

He was probably going to have to do something about the plundering problem. And the chewing. Posy hadn’t been altogether wrong when she’d called the dog unruly. But Liam liked to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was a rescue. He’d lived on the streets. It was only normal for him to worry about where the next meal was coming from. Liam just wished it wasn’t the stuffing of the Jeep’s passenger seat, as it had been last time. Or the center of the bedroom mattress back at his house.

Yep. He probably needed to take a training class or something, but with the sudden reappearance of Posy, Sundog had shifted to a lower position on the priority list. Oh, how he longed for the time when chewed-up pillows were his biggest problem.

Was it only this morning that she’d shown up at the church?

He felt as though he’d lived a lifetime since then, and it wasn’t even dark outside yet.

He glanced at his watch. Half an hour until school got out. He needed to make this quick so he could get back to the church in time. He never left the premises this late in the day, but he’d heard Posy telling Lou that she was getting together with Anya and Zoey at the Northern Lights Inn this afternoon. Now might be his only chance. He would already be working with her day in and day out. He definitely didn’t want her finding him standing in the living room of her childhood home.

He rang the doorbell and waited, shooting a final glance at Sundog, who already appeared to be gnawing on the dashboard.

The door swung open, and Posy’s mother stood on the other side of the threshold. Just like old times. Really old times. “Liam. What a surprise.”

“Mrs. Sutton.” He nodded. “May I come in?”

“Of course, of course. Please do.” She held the door open wide, and Liam stepped into the past.

Everything was the same, at least everything within Liam’s field of vision. Same gold-framed mirror hanging in the entryway—the one where Posy had always checked her reflection right before she breezed out the door for school, ballet class or a day at the pond. Same brown leather sofa where he’d sat on more than one occasion with a boxed corsage in his hands, waiting for her to come downstairs so he could take her to the school dance. He resisted the urge to look at those stairs now, half-afraid that same tingle-tangle of anticipation would stir in his gut. As though she were about to descend that staircase wearing a pretty tulle dress and a smile just for him.

He cleared his throat and tried to shake the memories, breathing a sigh of relief when he spotted the new big-screen television hanging above the fireplace mantel, a shiny, hi-def reminder that he hadn’t, in fact, stepped inside a time warp.

“Can I get you anything, Liam?” Mrs. Sutton gestured toward the kitchen, where Liam knew a pitcher of Alaskan blackberry tea rested on the top shelf of the refrigerator and a ceramic cookie jar shaped like a black bear cub sat atop the butcher-block counter.

This was just a little too surreal for his taste. Better to get in and out. Besides, the kids would be arriving at the church soon. “No, thank you.”

“Have a seat, then. Make yourself at home.” She gestured toward the sofa.

Make yourself at home.

Liam purposefully sank into one of the upholstered armchairs with his back to the staircase. “I’m sorry to drop by unannounced like this.”

“It’s no trouble at all, Liam. You’re always welcome here.” She offered him a motherly smile.

Mrs. Sutton had always been fond of him, even before that night he’d shown up at this very house, rain-soaked, heart torn in two as he spilled each and every one of Posy’s secrets. Afterward, Posy’s parents had put him on a virtual pedestal. So high up he was out of Posy’s reach.

He swallowed. He didn’t like to think about that night. And he hadn’t. For the better part of six and a half years, he’d managed to successfully put it out of his head. But along with Posy, all those memories had come rushing back this afternoon.

“How are your parents, Liam?”

“Great, I suppose.” He hadn’t actually spoken to them in weeks. A month maybe. But their latest postcard had arrived the other day. From Kivalina, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, which made it one of Alaska’s most remote villages.

“Do they have any plans to visit soon?” Mrs. Sutton smiled warmly. She’d never really understood his parents.

Liam wasn’t altogether sure he understood them himself. As overinvolved as the Suttons could be in their daughter’s life, his parents swung in the opposite direction. They were more interested in seeing every square inch of frozen tundra this side of the North Pole than they were in the particulars of Liam’s life. They didn’t know about the dog. Or the new lights he’d strung across the skating pond. Or that he’d stopped dating Sara, and that breakup had occurred over four months ago. Not that he thought of it as an actual breakup. They’d gone out once or twice a week for a few months, but that special spark had never been there. It had been casual. All of Liam’s relationships had been casual since Posy.

He cleared his throat. “My folks don’t have any plans to visit, so far as I know. Getting planes in and out of the Arctic Circle can be complicated.”