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

Unfortunately, Michael didn’t find me in New Orleans. His ghost
never appeared or spoke to me; no matter how much I paid Madame LeBlanc.

And then I was angry because he didn’t talk to me. “I thought you
loved me,” I’d whisper angrily to my apartment window overlooking the row of
pink and blue shotgun houses of the city.

An old newspaper blew down the dirty street.

Michael’s grave was dead and silent, too.

I felt nothing.

And that made me angry. I missed him. I wanted assurances that he
didn’t blame me. That he forgave me for that terrible night.

And then my anger made me guilty all over again.

“Did I truly love
you
?” I whispered into the icy Montana
winter. It was so quiet a chill crawled up my neck, like cold fingers.

“Hey!” a voice suddenly called out.

My chin jerked as I rose to my feet. It was the man in the wool
overcoat. Close now. Too close. I could see his eyes staring hard at me, as if
he was trying to figure out if we knew each other. His brow furrowed when he
ran his fingers through that thick brown hair.

I blinked away the memory of Michael. It wasn’t Michael. Of course
it wasn’t. Michael was dead. Forever.

“I’m sorry,” the young man said. “Gates are closing now, it’s
after four-thirty.” His gaze swept over me. Taking in the black striped
leggings, my oversized baggy button-down shirt under the dirty-white jacket,
bright red scarf thrown carelessly over my shoulder, sneakers untied, laces
dangling. Dangling like me on a precipice.

His expression grew concerned as he took a step forward. “Are you
okay?” he asked.

It was probably my frost encrusted wild hair that made him worried.
My eyes cut away to gaze off into the woods. My heart was thrumming, my muscles
tense. All the nerves in my body vibrated with the need to disappear.

“You don’t look so well. Your face is turning blue—”

A whimper sounded in my throat. Gulping it down, my eyes burned. I
was mortified that a stranger had caught me here, vulnerable, red-eyed with
grief.

And then I did the only thing a sane girl could do. I jumped to my
feet and took off running.

I
may
have been small-boned and super skinny, but I was a dancer, which meant I had
muscles of steel. Which also meant that I had a huge head start before the man
behind me gave a cry and took chase.

Of course, I wasn’t a long distance runner and even dancing had
its limits for stamina—and speed. Besides, his legs were a whole lot
longer than mine.

He was fast closing in on me. Despite the fact that he was wearing
a long wool coat and black dress shoes.
Who wears dress shoes in the middle
of the week anyway? In a snow-filled cemetery?

I picked up my pace. Clouds of white huffed from my panting mouth.
Just as he was about to descend on me, I whirled around and stuck my finger out
like I was a schoolteacher reprimanding him. “What? Are you a stalker?” I
practically yelled, waving my hands around. “Or some kind of crazy in your
slacks and polished wingtips?”

He was so calm it was infuriating. A tiny wrinkle of a frown formed
between his eyes. As in
blue.
Really blue. Not pale or weak, but a deep
blue like the clearest ocean. Sparkling like cut glass.

Which made me realize just how
close
he was standing to me.
And how I wanted to smooth away the funny little wrinkle between his ocean eyes.

Immediately, I felt totally
stupid.
It must be this place,
the graveyard. The spirits under the earth reaching out and making me crazy.
Someone else had blue eyes, too, and the memories were flooding me, taking over
the last sliver of the sane part of my brain
.

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?” H
e 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.

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 feet 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.