She looked around the dark wood-paneled walls of the Northern Lights Inn and the sweeping views of the Chugach Mountain Range afforded by the coffee bar’s big picture window, expecting at least a tiny wave of nostalgia to wash over her. It didn’t. Being back in Alaska was even stranger than she’d expected. It no longer felt like home.
Strange body. Strange town.
Somewhere in her head she heard Liam’s voice again.
You’ve been gone a long time.
Her throat grew tight for some odd reason, and she suddenly felt like crying. Which was patently ridiculous. So she had a broken bone in her foot. It would heal. In a matter of six weeks it would heal, and she’d be back in San Francisco doing what she loved most: dancing. Her foot would repair itself, good as new. Just as it had before.
It had to.
Everything was going to be fine. She was rattled, that was all. It might be home, but Alaska was the polar opposite of San Francisco. A sea change. And she’d had her feet on the snowy ground for only two hours. Anyone would be disoriented. What she needed right now was coffee. And her girlfriends.
“Posy! You’re really here. I can’t believe it.” Zoey Wynne, her oldest childhood friend, hopped off one of the bar stools at the coffee bar and wrapped her in a tight embrace.
“I’m here, all right.” Posy kept a grip on her wayward crutches and let herself be hugged.
The moment Zoey let her go, Posy found herself in the arms of Anya Parker, another close friend from the days of skating at the pond and trekking through the woods on snowshoes after school. It was nice being hugged. Dancers hugged one another all the time on performance nights—good-luck hugs in the dressing rooms, congratulatory hugs in the wings. But it had been a while since she’d been embraced like this.
Like it mattered.
Posy’s soul breathed a relieved sigh. For the first time since she’d been back, Aurora, Alaska, actually felt like home.
“Come sit down.” Anya glanced briefly at the cast on Posy’s foot, but if she was shocked to see it, she didn’t let it show.
News traveled fast. For once, Posy was grateful for small-town gossip. She’d spent enough time dwelling on her injury without having to explain it again and again.
She slid onto one of the bar stools and ordered a cup of coffee. Black, with the smallest possible amount of sugar.
“Gosh, this is good.” She closed her eyes, savoring the first sip. “I’d forgotten how great the coffee is here.”
Anya snickered. “Don’t they have coffee in San Francisco?”
“Theater coffee.” Posy shook her head, thinking about the food truck perpetually parked at the curb by the back door of the theater where her company rehearsed six days a week. She shuddered to think about how many to-go cups of coffee she’d consumed from that truck over the course of the past six years. “Not the same thing at all.”
“It’s all part of our plan.” Zoey winked at Anya and then aimed her gaze back at Posy. “We’ve got you here, finally. Now we’re going to convince you to stay by pouring Alaska’s finest java down your throat.”
Posy gave her an uneasy smile. She had no intention of staying once her foot was healed. What in the world would she do in Aurora? Work for Liam the rest of her life?
Anya frowned. “What was that look for?”
“What look?” Posy shrugged and drained the remainder of her coffee.
“That look on your face just now. The one that indicated staying here would be a fate worse than death.” Zoey’s eyebrows lifted.
Half a dozen years had passed, and her friends could still read her like a book. “It’s not like that. I’m happy to be back. If I can’t dance, there’s no place I’d rather be.”
She wiggled her toes in her cast just the slightest bit. Pain shot from her foot all the way up her shin.
Please, God. Please let me be able to dance again.
“Then what’s wrong? Because you seem less than thrilled.” Anya covered Posy’s hand with her own. “Are you worried about your foot? It’s the same one, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was the same one. And yes, she was worried. But Posy didn’t think that was what Anya really wanted to know. “I’m taking care of it. I promise.”
“You’re not still dancing, are you?” Zoey asked.
“No.” She laughed and motioned toward the cast. “It’s a little difficult with this ball and chain.”
Unlike last time, there was no hiding the fact that she was injured. The cast guaranteed that much, as had her spectacular fall in the middle of Cinderella. She was walking around with her heart visible for the entire world to see.
The other time had been different. The break hadn’t occurred with the drama of a sickening crack, but over time. A stress fracture. At first, Posy had thought she’d just been overdoing it. It was audition season. High school graduation was right around the corner. She’d been traveling on weekends, trying out for spots in various dance companies up and down the West Coast. Of course, her dream was to dance in Seattle or even Anchorage. Somewhere close to home. Close to Liam.
She’d felt so torn between the two of them—Liam and ballet. She’d loved dance for as long as she could remember. Her parents told stories of how she’d bounced to the beat of push-button toys in the church nursery when she was only two years old.
Somewhere deep down she possessed an unquenchable need to move in the presence of music. She didn’t just hear music. She felt it, down to her core. And her ability to move to it, to dance, was God-given. She’d known that since before she could fully articulate it.
Then Liam had come along. And for the first time, she’d felt the same way about a person that she’d felt about ballet. It was bewildering. It was exhilarating. It was love. But they were young. And why should she have to choose? Being a dancer didn’t mean she couldn’t be in love.
After two weeks of icing her throbbing foot at night under the covers of her bed so her parents wouldn’t see, Posy had known something was seriously wrong. She couldn’t walk without limping. And when she danced, she had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from crying out in pain. She should have told someone then. She didn’t. She didn’t breathe a word about it to anyone, not even Liam.
She should have said something. She should have gone straight to the doctor instead of doing her best to wish it away as she danced on, from one audition to the next, for fear of missing out on her big chance at becoming a professional ballerina.
She should have done a lot of things differently.
“I’m not taking any pills, if that’s what you’re wondering. Not even Advil,” Posy said.
It was humiliating to have to give these kinds of assurances. Humiliating, but necessary. She might as well get used to it. Anya and Zoey had both been wondering. She could see it on their faces, just as she’d seen it in Liam’s eyes as they’d sat next to one another in the pastor’s office.
“Good.” Anya gave her hand a squeeze before letting go.
“Seriously. It’s not the foot that’s bothering me so much as something else.” Or someone else.
Zoey frowned. “What’s wrong, then?”
Posy looked up, and her gazed fixed on the stuffed grizzly bear that stood in the corner behind the coffee bar. Like she needed an enormous furry reminder of the stellar afternoon she’d had. “Liam