Pastor!” Ronnie called from midway across the ice. He skidded toward the edge while juggling his empty red bucket.
“Don’t look now, but that trouble I mentioned is about to rear its ugly head,” Alec muttered under his breath.
The crunch of tires on snow caused Liam to turn around, and when he saw the familiar silver truck, he knew at once why Ronnie was in such a hurry to get off the ice.
He turned back around, and sure enough, Ronnie stood before him, red-faced from exertion, scowling at Melody’s truck. “What’s she doing here?”
Liam inhaled calmly. “Melody practices here sometimes before the pond opens up for the night. You know that.”
Ronnie rolled his eyes. “She thinks she’s going to be a real skater one day. Please.”
“She already is a real skater.” Graceful. Almost balletic. Sometimes it was like watching a memory glide over the frosted mirror surface of the ice. “Why don’t you stick around while she skates? I think you’ll be impressed.”
Ronnie looked at Liam in abject horror. “No. Way.”
Behind his back, Alec stifled a grin.
“Ronnie.” Liam lifted a brow. A warning.
“I mean no, thanks.” Ronnie shoved his hands in his pockets and looked everywhere except in the direction of the truck, where Melody was climbing down from the passenger seat, her skates slung over her shoulder by their laces. “I’ve got homework.”
Sure he did.
“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow after school, then,” Liam said.
“See you, Pastor.” Ronnie trudged toward his rust bucket of a car.
Liam called after him, “Thanks for the help fixing the ice.”
Ronnie waved, steadfastly avoiding Melody’s gaze as she walked past him. Once he’d just about reached his car, he turned slightly. He ventured a glance at Melody right as she looked at him over her shoulder. She smiled. He smiled in return, then seemed to realize what he was doing. He scowled. She scowled back and stomped toward a bench to sit and put on her skates.
“What did I tell you?” Alec muttered. “Young love. It’s a classic case.”
Liam’s gut tightened. Alec was right. How had he not seen it before? The two of them were about as subtle as a moose in striped pajamas.
Then again, what had Liam ever known about love?
* * *
Posy had never felt so exhausted and yet so awake at the same time. Three hours and four cups of coffee after arriving at the Northern Lights Inn, she finally left and headed to her parents’ house.
Her house. At least she still thought of it as her house, even though she hadn’t darkened its door in seven years.
Six. Not seven.
She wanted to strangle Liam. She kept thinking about him sitting beside her, across from Lou, making his case for why she shouldn’t be teaching ballet at the church.
I’m just not sure ballet is the answer. Posy hasn’t set foot in Alaska in seven years.
It wasn’t a crime. People were allowed to leave home. It was normal. Natural. Liam just felt differently about it because of the way he’d been brought up, always moving from place to place. Home was a sacred concept to Liam. Aurora was sacred.
The town was sacred to her, too. Didn’t he understand that?
How could he possibly when you left and never looked back?
She slid her key into the lock on the front door, but it was unnecessary. The knob turned and the door fell open, just as it always had. There were no such things as locked doors in Aurora. Just one of the many differences between a tiny Alaskan town and a big city like San Francisco.
She pocketed her key ring and stepped over the threshold. The interior of the house was dark, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d intentionally stayed out later than originally planned. After everything that had transpired at the church, she just wasn’t up to seeing her parents. Not yet.
“Posy?” a voice called from the darkened living room. “Is that you?”
So much for avoidance.
“Yes, it’s me, Mom.” She limped into the living room, dragging her rolling suitcase behind her. The television, a huge flat-screen Posy had never seen before, flickered quietly in the dark. “What are you doing awake this time of night?”
Her parents went to bed after the ten o’clock news every night. They watched the weather report, kept up with what was happening in Anchorage and headed to bed right after her dad’s favorite feature—the daily moose-sighting report, wherein viewers submitted photos of moose out and about town. Her dad held the record in Aurora for the most moose photos ever shown on the local news. Posy had sent him a new smartphone with a good-quality camera feature to replace his ancient flip phone for his birthday after she’d had her first three months’ pay as a professional dancer under her belt. He’d been ecstatic.
“What am I doing awake?” Her mother crossed the living room and gave her a tight hug. For some reason, it felt less comforting than the embraces of her girlfriends. More suffocating. “Waiting for you, of course. Your father headed to bed a little before ten, though. He has an early day tomorrow.”
“How early? He went to bed before the moose report?”
“Oh, honey. They don’t do the moose report anymore. They haven’t for a few years now.” Her mother released her. She smiled, and even in the dim light of the silent television, Posy could see lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“Oh. Wow. I had no idea.” The demise of the moose report struck her as profoundly sad, which was silly, really.
She probably just needed sleep. She’d had an early-morning four-hour flight to Anchorage, followed by her commuter flight to Aurora. Then the church, followed by the coffee date. It was a tribute to the power of Alaska’s finest caffeine that she could still hold her head up.
“People were getting carried away. They decided it was dangerous when Ed Candy from the dry cleaners got trampled and broke his foot while he was chasing a moose into the hospital with a camera.”
The hospital? Trampled?
First Liam’s crazy dog, now the moose. The animals had gone crazy since she’d been away. Although she could sympathize with poor Ed Candy’s broken foot.
Posy’s foot throbbed with pain. She’d probably been up and about too much today. She needed to lie down and get it elevated. She needed an ice pack. She needed an Advil. Desperately.
Don’t go there.
As if she were reading her mind, Posy’s mother asked, “Can I get you anything?”
“Mom, you don’t have to wait on me. This is my home, too.” Posy forced herself to smile, even though she suddenly felt like crying.
She would not cry. Not now. She shouldn’t feel sad. She should feel mad.
She pretended she was onstage and rearranged her features in a mask of neutrality. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Oh?” Her mom’s gaze flitted about the room, which told Posy she knew perfectly well what was coming. “It’s awfully late. You said so yourself. We can talk in the morning.” She extended a hand toward Posy’s suitcase.
Posy wheeled it out of reach. “No. I want to talk about it now.”
“Okay. Sit down, sit down.” Her mom patted the sofa cushions and then took a seat opposite in the chair where her dad used to sit when he watched the moose report. Who knew where he sat these days?
Posy