Risking It All for Love (A Christmas in Snow Valley Romance) Page 2

  The guy in his perfect shoes meant for a Sunday sermon or a business meeting at the Trump Towers in Chicago—not Snow Valley, Montana, gave me a small, pacifying smile. Like he had to calm a rabid dog.

  I took a step backward, my finger still wagging. My gesture reminded me of how I reprimanded my annoying younger brother, Sam, when he messed with my CDs or toe shoes back in middle school.

  “Um, I’m not actually following you,” he said. “Although I can see how you might mistake my actions. I didn’t mean to interrupt your solitude or visit to your—your, um brother? Friend?” He gestured behind him, unsure . . .

  My shoulders shook as I huddled in my jacket. Being in the cemetery must be freaking me out. I knew I was totally overreacting, but I couldn’t stop trembling. I should have been wearing boots. Snow galoshes.

  Maybe I wasn’t shaking with rage.

  Maybe I was just freezing.

  I realized then that I couldn’t feel my fingers. The tips were turning blue. My fair, lightly freckled skin was practically thin as paper, almost translucent. I might have been muscular from a life-time of ballet, but I had no fat on me, just like an Olympic athlete. My physicality caused me to feel the cold extra hard every winter. One reason I loved living in New Orleans was due to its humidity and sunshine and warmth. I wasn’t cut out for snow and cold eight months a year. I shouldn’t have been born here. I shouldn’t have known Michael.

  If we hadn’t met he’d still be alive.

  Michael used to say that he could see my veins underneath my skin, and he’d trace them with his finger—right before he kissed me.

  “Are you alright?” the young man asked again, his voice proper and cultured, just like some of the British dancers I’d met.

  I blinked. “Why—why shouldn’t I be alright?”

  “Well, you never answered my question. And you look lost. May I direct you somewhere in town?”

  He was so stiff in his magnificent wool coat, his language so proper, I almost wondered if I was imagining him. Instead, I tried to wiggle my frozen fingers as I gave a quick, sharp laugh. “I’m certainly not lost. I’ve lived here all my life. Well, not at the cemetery, obviously. But here. In Snow Valley. Good old Snow Valley.”

  Now I was rambling. What an incoherent mess I was. And I had to dance tonight. The Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. A Christmas tradition. The small town ballet studio put the ballet on every year and begged me to come home to dance. I’d put them off for three years and guilt finally won out. The Nutcracker performance was the only reason I’d come home a week earlier than I’d first planned.

  Tempted to stick my ice-cold fingers in my mouth to warm them up, I shoved them deeper into my pockets, instead, and glanced around for the parking lot.

  “I appear to have lost my car . . .” I finally said, my cheeks warming with embarrassment.

  “It’s easy to get turned around,” he said. “I’m headed back to the church, but if you follow that snow-covered sidewalk just beyond the big oak there, it will take you directly to the parking area. I think your car is the only one left in the lot.”

  “Thank you,” I said primly, glancing at the darkening afternoon.

  “Would you like me to walk you back?”

  “Oh, no!” I said, horrified. “Snow Valley is probably the safest town in the country. I know everybody.” Except you, my mind whispered.

  His crystal-like blue eyes looked into mine. Chills ran down my neck. Once again I wondered what kind of guy wore this sort of wardrobe in December in Snow Valley? All other Snow Valley males dressed in snow parkas, ski caps pulled over bed hair, and hiking boots when they didn’t have their mucking boots on.

  “You’re lucky,” he said. “I’ve only met a few folks so far from church. New to town as of a month ago.”

  I took another step backward. The cemetery was completely deserted now. His words raised gooseflesh on my arms. My car was the only one left in the parking lot. I wondered if I should make a break for it. Could I run faster than him? Those legs in the dark gray slacks were mighty long.

  “I’m James Douglas,” he introduced himself, and then paused while I mused on the idea of whether a true stalker would give his true name. “What’s yours?” he asked next, despite the fact that I hadn’t made any kind of a welcoming gesture.

  I continued to retreat closer to the sidewalk hoping it wasn’t covered in slippery ice. “Um, just call me the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

  And then I fled again, racing to the parking lot, slip-sliding on patches of ice while I flamed at my silly girly-ness.

  As I shoved the key into the ignition of my car, I shoved James Douglas out of my mind. I had to get ready for tonight, and I was late. I had to focus. Costume, stage makeup. Warm-up—which would take time with how bitterly cold I was. No dinner until afterward, even if my stomach was already growling.

  Flicking on the headlights I roared out of the empty parking lot to the still open gates of the cemetery.

  My last thought before I turned onto Main Street was to wonder why James Douglas was going to the church. On a Saturday night? Pastor John wouldn’t be there. He’d be home prepping for his sermon the next morning.

  Should I call the police?

  “You’re losing it, Jessica,” I said with gritted teeth. Crackers and some herbal tea were in order. I didn’t need to pass out tonight on stage for lack of nourishment to my silly brain cells.

  When I returned to New Orleans I needed to schedule another visit with Madame LeBlanc.

  No, make that a shrink.

  Chapter Three

  I flexed the arch of my foot, rising up on my toes as I tightened the satin ribbons around my calf, snug just as I liked them.

  The crisp, pink tutu was zipped and pinned around my hips. Heavy stage makeup applied, hair sprayed like a helmet, a glittering crown of silver on my head. Drops of makeup glitter sparkled along my arms, neck and décolletage.

  I’d been so distracted at the cemetery I hoped I could remember all the steps. This was a dance I’d first learned in high school and had performed right here in this same concert hall. Madame Dubois, my old instructor, was thrilled I was finally back to perform it again—especially now that I was a professional dancer.

  My jetés were faster, my toes lighter and quieter on the wooden floor, my arabesques higher, but my current mental state was a mess.

  I should not have gone to the cemetery today. A foolish trip when I had this performance. I would have prayed for help to quiet my mind, but I’d stopped praying three years ago when Michael died. I’d never received peace or absolution, despite my tears. Besides, I’d prayed a lot when I moved to New Orleans and had worn out my knees trying to get answers from a silent god.

  I fluffed out my lacy sleeves then rubbed my arms. I was still cold despite cranking up the heater in my car and drinking a gallon of hot herbal tea on the way to the theater.

  My muscles needed to be warmed up now. I hoped I didn’t pull something out of whack.

  The thought of a potential injury annoyed me. I could ruin my ballet career—or seriously set it back a season—for nothing. Because I succumbed to the pleadings of my home town. I shouldn’t have felt obligated. I should have kept saying “no.” This sick feeling in my gut was making me crazy. I never felt it in New Orleans. No one bothered me there, haunted me, looked after me, or pried about my feelings.

  Today had brought it all back. Made worse by that annoying man. With the blue, blue crushed-glass eyes. Tall and solid—and comforting. Why would some strange guy have an aura of comfort surrounding him?

  Annoying and bothersome, that’s what he was. When I’d been trying to have a moment alone with Michael!

  I grimaced and one of the stage hands, whisking Clara’s golden sleigh dusted in fake snow behind the curtains, gave me a startled look. I tried to smile, but I’m sure it was completely insincere.

  “Oh, bother,” I muttered, pacing the floor. I stepped into the box of rosin to grind my toes and the soles of my f
eet with the sticky crystals.

  That’s when it hit me. The reason I’d been trying to communicate with Michael. I’d been hoping for another stupid miracle. To know that he didn’t hate me for not stopping him from getting behind the wheel of his car that terrible night. Murder was an unforgivable sin. Hadn’t I learned that at some point during Sunday School or Summer Bible School?

  A sudden fizz of nerves rose up my throat. Act II was about to begin. The audience, so attentive during all the dances of Act 1, was shuffling their programs beyond the curtains, eager for the special numbers like the Russian dance.

  I shouldn’t be nervous. I could do this dance in my sleep, right?

  The Sugar Plum Fairy dance was, by some critics’ opinions, a silly dance. The most dramatic solo of The Nutcracker, but performed by a character who had no connection with any of the others, least of all, Clara, the girl who is whisked into a magical dreamland where her nursery comes to life to perform for her on her journey to find her beloved lost nutcracker.

  The Sugar Plum Fairy dance was the most anticipated and exquisite dance of the ballet, but difficult to truly connect with the audience because her character wasn’t developed at all. She was like a dream, an empty character.

  “Pardon me,” a voice said behind me. One of the female dancers looked at me pointedly, then dropped her eyes to the box. I’d been standing there daydreaming like an idiot.

  I jumped out, trailing white powder. My cue was nearly here.

  The music changed, and I flung myself out through the curtains.

  Forget everything I ordered myself.

  I tried to wipe my mind. Just do the steps.

  The lights were bright and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. That was odd. The lights should help warm me up. The man’s face from the cemetery broke through my memory again. Damn him! My legs felt as though they were suddenly crafted from wood, but I pushed through it.

  Relax, Jessica. It’s only Snow Valley—not the San Francisco Ballet Company.

  I forced my brain to repeat the steps: Ten series of small, delicate steps against the music Tchaikovsky wanted to sound like raindrops. The violins plopped, the notes dropping to a pool of water as I did quick brushes with my toes. Then I spun, staying en pointe throughout until the rear arabesque. Demi-pliè . . . en pointe, hold. Arms overhead, delicate, hooooold. A quick intake of air and then I performed the series of turns across the stage; a brief pause for another string of quick brushes, tiny steps, not too fast, up and down, neck erect, posture perfect.

  The final jetés back to center. Leaping, in control. I was almost done. And then I could crawl back into my bed in my sweats with a bowl of butter-less popcorn and Christopher Reeve in the DVR to watch Somewhere in Time. First time I ever watched I sobbed in Michael’s arms. And then he’d kissed me as tenderly as Christopher Reeve had kissed Jane Seymour. Cradling her face in his hands.

  The lights swirled a rainbow of colors. There was Clara, hands folded, sitting in her beautiful decorated sleigh. There were the dancer’s playing Clara’s parents, and the dreamland sets surrounding me.

  The music playing through the speakers was slightly brash, an edge of grating tin from the less than professional sound system, but I tried to ignore it, and hear the music I’d known since childhood and played on my sound system while leaping about my bedroom and doing arabesques down the hallway to the kitchen.

  I tried to become the Sugar Plum Fairy. A being of sugar and sweetness and beauty and magic. Lighter, lighter, float through the air, I repeated in my mind as I did a series of leaps and spinning twirls.

  Then I saw him.

  Sitting in the audience. Right in front of my parents, sister, and brother, Sam.

  The man. From the cemetery.

  A tiny whimper sounded in my throat.

  Second row, stage right, crisp white shirt, suit coat, red tie, legs crossed sticking out into the aisle seat due to their long length.

  No, it couldn’t be that same guy. He was too uptight, too perfect and suave and—and crisp in his starched white shirt. He wasn’t the type to come to a ballet, was he? Wasn’t he more of an opera person?

  Maybe it was someone who just looked like him. But this dude was staring at me. Intensely.

  I tried to catch his eyes in the dimness, just to determine if I was seeing things, but the stage lights were too bright. I blinked during my final spins, seeing the four lights against the back of my lids. This was my moment, the choreography I’d been so proud to add to the basic routine that was usually not that difficult—and wobbled. Nooooooooo!!! My mind screamed. Hold it! Hold it! I ordered.

  I tried to do the final grand battement and slide my right leg into the concluding Sugar Plum Fairy bow, head lifted, a smile on my lips for the audience. But my crown began to wobble, my legs still stiff with the strange coldness I’d suffered all day. My crazy torment was too much of a distraction—with that stranger watching me.

  I fell. Crashed to the stage. My ankle burned.

  Gasps filled the hall.

  I was so stunned I couldn’t even breathe, couldn’t move.

  I’d become one of the wooden marionettes at Stage Left staring at me in horror. The other dancers glanced at each other, not knowing what to do.

  I fought against a torrent of tears.

  Me, the Snow Valley professional dancer, fell. To the floor. At an amateur performance.

  I’d never live this down. How could I ever publicly dance again? My reputation was ruined, perhaps my entire career. There was no doubt in my mind that my New Orleans dance company would hear about this and replace me.

  I lifted my head, tried to rise as gracefully as possible with a sore ankle—to an auditorium of absolute silence. There was supposed to be thunderous applause, not this horror of quiet.

  I wanted to get on the next bus out of town and never return to Snow Valley again in my entire, miserable life.

  The idea of coming home had been a colossal mistake from the moment I’d finally broken down and told my mother over the telephone, “Okay, already. I’ll come home for Christmas.”

  Summoning the tiny scrap of dignity I had left, I bowed again to a fragile, stuttering, smatter of applause.

  Then I hobbled off the stage like a zombie, certain I would never dance again in my entire life.

  Chapter Four

  Within moments, a crowd surrounded me.

  The stage hands gaped, the little girls with the flowers of baskets blinked in wonder at me, the prima ballerina on the floor, rubbing my ankle, my glittering crown askew. Except I wasn’t actually a prima ballerina. Not by a long shot.

  I closed my eyes, mortification washing over me like a tidal wave. I was only a member of the ballet corps who’d finally received her first actual pay raise two months ago. Secretly pleased to dance a solo at the small town production of The Nutcracker. Although I’d never admit it.

  Strong male hands gently wrapped around my ankle, gently pressing my muscles and tendons to inspect any injury.

  When my chin came up, I stared into broken glass blue eyes. The guy from the cemetery was kneeling right next to me. He must have jumped over the edge of the stage.

  “What are you doing here?” I snapped. “You’re not allowed backstage. Security!” I called, forgetting that the most security we had in Snow Valley was the janitor who was probably catching a nap before he had to clean up after the show.

  Even though the other dancers and stage hands had created a huge circle around me, they suddenly stepped back as though the guy in the long wool coat had magic powers.

  “I’m a doctor,” he said with a simple shrug of his shoulders. “Well, I should amend that. I almost became a doctor, but I quit after my second year of medical school. Now I’m a—”

  I put up a hand to interrupt. “Spare me the resume. But just for your information, my falling is all your fault.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “My fault?” he echoed.

  “You—you distracted me.” Oh my gosh, would I
just shut up? All dancers had a cardinal rule—don’t get distracted by the audience—and I was acting like an amateur. “Just go away, please. I’ll be fine. I’m fine. See, no swelling? Probably just a bruise. I’ll go home, ice it and—”

  “I’d recommend an x-ray just to be on the safe side. After all, you are a dancer. You shouldn’t take risks with your health.”

  “Let me decide how hurt I might be, and what risks I’ll take, thank you very much, Mr—Mr—” My cheeks burned. I couldn’t remember his name. Why couldn’t floors actually open and let you quietly disappear from the world?

  His mouth lifted in a soft smile, his perfect white teeth perfect under the stage lights. “No Mr. Just James. James Douglas.” He glanced at my lopsided crown. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you went down?”

  I growled under my breath. “I’m positive!” I flapped my hands around the stage. “Go, go. I’m walking off the stage, see? Get ready for the final scene, everyone.”

  The stage manager clapped her hands and the dancers scurried to their positions for the finale.

  I was grateful the curtains had been yanked down immediately. At least the audience hadn’t been able to watch the entire production of Mr. James Whatever-His-Name-Was do his “not-doctor” thing on my ankle.

  A small cry sounded behind the black stage draperies to my left. My parents. “Are you okay?” my mother hissed, darting around the prop boys redoing the set.

  I put up a sharp hand. “Stay there, Mom! I’m fine. Just go back to your seats.”

  My dad gave me a sheepish look, holding up a red sucker. One of the many I’d seen over the years when I’d gone to his office to hang out in between dance lessons since the studio was within walking distance of the dentistry. When the kids were finished with their exams they received a sugar-free sucker. Cherry-flavored was, of course, my favorite.

  “My father’s probably more of a doctor than you are,” I said, my voice laced with sarcasm as I threw a glance toward Mr. Stranger Dude, who was still kneeling next to me like he’d become my new best friend. “Dr. Mason. Snow Valley General Practitioner of Dentistry. He’s quite adept at tending crying children with Tender Loving Care, and anesthetizing hysterical patients.”