Anya asked the barista for refills all around.
Zoey shook her head. “Wait. Are you working at the church now, or...?”
“The church, yes.” Posy sighed. It was difficult to fathom that only two hours ago, she’d been so excited about the prospect of teaching ballet that she’d headed straight to the church once her plane had landed. The fact that the route from the airport to church allowed her to avoid Aurora’s town square and the big evergreen tree that stood at its center was merely convenient. “I’m teaching ballet in the after-school program.”
Anya choked on her coffee. “Ballet? At the church? Does Liam know?”
Posy nodded. “He does now. And needless to say, he’s less than thrilled.”
Even after she’d gotten over the initial shock of realizing that Liam was the youth pastor, she’d thought that maybe, just maybe, his feelings about ballet had changed. A lot of time had passed. She’d hoped it would have been enough time for him to realize it wasn’t ballet that had hurt her. Dancing might have been the cause of her stress fracture, but dancing hadn’t made her hide her injury. Ballet hadn’t shoved those pills down her throat. She’d done those things herself.
She’d been afraid. Afraid of losing her chance at becoming a ballerina. Afraid to find out just what was wrong with her body. God had created her to be a ballet dancer. If she could no longer dance, she no longer knew who she was.
And that had been the irony of the whole ordeal, hadn’t it? She’d never questioned the fact that God had given her the ability to dance, but once the pain came, she’d lost her faith. It had left her so swiftly, she’d never realized it was gone.
The mess had been one of her own making.
“I didn’t even know Liam worked there.” Posy added another dash of sugar to her fresh cup of coffee. “How long has he been the youth pastor, anyway?”
Anya and Zoey grew very quiet. Finally, Anya answered the question.
“A long time. Four years,” she said.
Four years? Liam had been a pastor for four years, and she hadn’t heard a thing about it? How was that possible? “You’re kidding.”
Anya shook her head. “No, I’m not kidding. I’m dead serious. Lou McNeil came to Aurora from Anchorage to take over as the head pastor, and he hired Liam straightaway. It seems Pastor McNeil knows Liam’s dad.”
“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