sure there are a great number of things you’ve forgotten. You’ve been gone a long time.”
She flinched a little. Her stormy eyes narrowed. “Six years. Not that long.”
He lifted a brow. “Long enough to forget that bears hibernate.” What self-respecting Alaskan didn’t know that?
But that was precisely the point, wasn’t it? Posy hadn’t been an Alaskan for quite a while. In truth, Liam envied her. Not because she’d left, but because she’d forgotten. There were plenty of things he’d like to forget.
Her cheeks flushed pink. “The bears are sleeping. Duly noted.” Her tone had gone colder than a glacier.
She was angry. Good. So was he. Why exactly, he wasn’t quite sure. But he had a feeling it had less to do with his stinging eyes than it did Posy’s sudden reappearance in their hometown.
His hometown. He was the one who loved it here. He was the one who’d stayed.
“So when did you get back?” If forced to guess, he would have said a day. Two, tops. Any longer than that, and he would have heard about it. Someone would have seen her and run to him with the news. Over half a decade had passed since they’d been high school sweethearts, but small towns like Aurora had long memories.
At the change of subject, her expression softened. Just a bit. “I came in with Bill Warren this afternoon on his mail run from Anchorage.”
“I see.”
He didn’t see. Not really. As one of only a handful of small-aircraft pilots in Aurora, Bill made a daily jaunt to Anchorage on behalf of the postal service. He never flew up there until after lunch, to be sure the mail was ready. Everyone in Aurora knew the drill.
Liam glanced at his watch. Three o’clock, which meant Posy had been back in town less than an hour. And her first stop was church? That seemed odd.
He started to ask her if he could point her in the direction of the prayer room or the senior pastor’s office, in case she was lost. If she thought there were bears in the trash cans, it wasn’t such a big leap to think she might have forgotten her way around, even though they’d spent a fair amount of time in this place as teenagers. In this very room, now that he thought about it.
“Listen.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got some things to do around here. Can I help you find someone?”
He still had an hour or so before the kids showed up after school. But he had an appointment on his calendar with an actual grown-up, a rarity since he spent most of his time with teenagers. A grown-up who he hoped would be the answer to his prayers—a long-awaited assistant for the after-school program.
“Oh. Well, thank you for the rescue, and I apologize again for macing you. I’m sure you have someplace you need to be.” She just stood there on her crutches, as if waiting for him to leave.
“Actually, right here is where I need to be.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, unease snaking its way up his spine.
He’d been so thrown by seeing her that he hadn’t thought to wonder why she was there in the first place. No. No, it can’t be. It just can’t.
Posy grew very still, as if contemplating the same uncomfortable possibility that was running through his head. “You followed your big unruly dog in here, right? That’s the only reason you’re here.”
She stated it as fact, as if any other possibility was a thought too horrifying to consider.
He gave his head a slow shake.
She swallowed. Liam’s eyes traced the movement up and down the slender column of her throat. She was elegance personified. She always had been. Those willowy limbs. Her every movement so fluid that she gave the impression she was made of liquid instead of flesh and bone. She didn’t just look like a swan. She was a swan.
“My dog might be big, but he’s not unruly,” he said.
Posy rolled her eyes. “He knocked over a trash can and ate half its contents.”
“He’s on a diet. It’s a recent thing.” Why were they making what amounted to small talk and avoiding the issue at hand?
Because I know what’s going on here, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.
“Why are you here, Posy?” he asked.
He knew the answer before she even opened her mouth.
“I work here,” she said warily.
A pain sprang into existence somewhere in Liam’s head. “You work here?”
He’d been asking the senior pastor to hire an assistant for the after-school program for months. There was a new city grant up for grabs, and with a little help, the youth program at the church might prove a worthy recipient. It would mean winter coats for those kids he’d noticed who were still wearing last year’s threadbare hand-me-downs. It would mean computers and internet for the teens who couldn’t afford such luxuries at home. How it meant that he would be working alongside Posy was a mystery.
What was happening?
He lifted his gaze briefly to the ceiling. Really, Lord?
“Yes. I’m looking for my new boss. The youth pastor. You don’t know where he is, do you?” She looked around as if waiting for someone else, anyone else, to materialize out of thin air.
Oh, how Liam wished someone would. “I’m afraid you’re looking at him.”
She shook her head, clearly unwilling or unable to believe him.
I’m not any happier about this than you are, darling.
“Liam, if this is your idea of a joke, it’s really not funny,” she said. Her voice shook a little. Nerves? Anger?
He wasn’t sure. It came as somewhat of a shock that he no longer knew what was going on in her head simply by reading her pretty face. It shouldn’t have. But it did.
He swallowed. “Do I look like I’m laughing?”
There had to be some mistake.
“You’re the youth pastor?” she asked, praying she’d somehow misunderstood. Of all the people in Alaska, Liam couldn’t be her new boss. He just couldn’t.
Her mother was the one who’d told her about the job. Her mother. And she hadn’t thought to mention that Liam was the youth pastor?
“Yep. I’m the youth pastor.” He folded his arms and nodded. “Did you think I still worked at the pond?”
The pond. Aurora’s skating rink. It was like something out of a Snoopy cartoon—a small, oblong-shaped patch of ice surrounded by thick snowbanks, evergreens and a collection of spindly trees, their bare branches piled with snow. Back when she was in high school, you could rent skates for a dollar a day. Paper cups of hot chocolate
