“Prima ballerina, huh?” I said with a snort. “Don’t let Sierra hear you. She’ll scratch my eyes out.”
“But you dream about it, don’t you, my sweet?”
Alonso was a new hire this past fall. Fresh from Chicago, with experience in modern dance as well as ballet. He was taller than most dancers, athletic and strong, perfect for lifting me since I was a bit taller than the average petit principal soloist.
I’d never play the leading role of Odette in a production like Swan Lake, but at least I was dancing and getting paid for it. Most ten-year-old girls with stars in their eyes never got this much of a chance.
I’d toyed with the idea of modern dance just to expand the possibilities of working into my 40s or beyond. I was eager to learn from Alonso, even though he was a bit exuberant at times. Like now.
“Arms out!” he commanded, holding me tight. “Pretend you’re la prima ballerina, my pet.”
“I’m not your pet, Alonso.”
He shook his dark hair out of his eyes, knowing he was adorable. “No mind, I call everyone that.”
“And here I thought I was special.”
“Arms, Jessica!” he commanded, ignoring my observation.
It appeared that the only way out of this was to just do the move he wanted and get it over with.
Obeying, I flung out my arms as Alonso dipped me into a daring hold called a fish dive. After a quick pause he turned my hips with his hands to twirl me under his arm. My breath caught. We were practically nose to nose again. He grinned.
Ava, another dancer in the company who had a mad crush on Alonso playfully slapped him on the arm. “Quit goofing off before Maddox sees you.”
Maddox was our director and we exhibited our best hard-working behavior when he was in the building, but I knew the signs of flirting. Ava was jealous of the attention Alonso gave me, although I didn’t encourage it.
Every time Alonso talked to me or initiated a ballet move with me, Ava was suddenly there. Inserting comments about his Italian heritage and traditions like she was an expert on the subject. Her eyes were bright and eager. Alonso liked girls who played hard to get. It was the only reason he pursued me. But I wasn’t playing hard to get—I was already taken.
“Hey,” I said now, ignoring Ava. “I need to finish memorizing these steps from the grand adage and then I’m leaving early.”
“Ah, you have the small town boyfriend visiting,” Alonso said with a knowing wink.
His hand lingered on my waist and I stepped aside. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“But,” Alonso leaned close, his cologne heavy. “What if I want to be your big city Italian boyfriend? It can be our little secret.”
Alonso had the classic Grecian aquiline nose and high cheekbones, soft dark brown hair, the touch of a romantic Italian accent—which I personally thought he faked since he was born in Queens, even if his parents were from the “old country”. The ultimate gorgeous man that made heads turn and women sigh. And for some bizarre reason he’d latched onto me. Why not Sierra Armstrong, the prima ballerina of the company—a girl he danced with regularly during their solos. Or Ava who obviously adored him and would give next week’s paycheck for a date.
“You. Are. Incorrigible,” I told him.
“But you love me anyway.”
“I love your dancing.”
“And our night on the town for Mardi Gras. Except you pooped out on Bourbon Street too early. We were just getting started.”
A group of us had gone out to see the annual craziness of New Orleans. Mardi Gras had come early this year, in February. We’d survived the crush of the main streets of the French Quarter, watched the street clowns and magicians and break dancers, grabbed burgers and then found a small place with a band to go dancing.
“You wouldn’t buy me a beignet to keep my energy up,” I accused. “What could I do?”
“Is that all it takes to win your heart? A donut with powdered sugar from Café du Monde?”
Alonso’s fingers trailed sneakily down my arm, making me shiver. Someone had turned on the air conditioning. “I would buy you a dozen beignets. We’d sit in the park and share tiny bites with our wine.”
I cast a glance at Ava who was now fuming. Desperately trying not to look angry and, well, desperate.
“Alonso,” I said firmly. “No. Okay?”
“I bake my own beignets,” Ava offered. “My mother’s secret recipe.”
“A feat to be sure,” Alonso said, casting the girl a small smile.
This was getting awkward.
“I’m off now,” I said airily, glancing about the large room where dancers had their heads bent over choreography notes or were practicing in small groups. “See you later.”
Alonso reached for me again, but I was too quick, stepping across the room on toe in tiny darting movements out of his reach. The man was friendly and funny, but there were times he really got on my nerves.
At my locker, I grabbed my street clothes, shoes, and a sweatshirt, intending to change at home. When I slipped down the hall toward the exit I saw that Ava had cornered Alonso. He was resignedly showing her a lift. “Ava and Alonso,” I muttered. “The names sound cute together. Go on. Dance. Be happy. Let me live my own life.”
I waved at a few other dancers as I pushed open the glass doors and took the stairs to the parking lot.
The rain was beginning to let up when I turned the key in the ignition of my pathetic little green Honda, ten years old, with worn interior and the dent from the Target parking lot a few months back. Hit and run and not enough to pay the deductible in my bank account.
Bypassing the downtown streets which were already filling with people despite the fact that it was only three o’clock in the afternoon—during Mardi Gras the city didn’t sleep at all—I headed to the outskirts.
The beat of music filtered through the car windows and I grinned at the saucy Cajun zydeco. It had been fun letting loose on the dance floor with the others from the ballet company. Not worrying about perfect arms and toes, elevation and shoulders, but holding our arms high, singing to the lyrics in off-key voices.
I parked on the side of the duplex and hurried inside. It was a thirty minute drive to Oak Alley and the clock was marching forward too fast.
At last. The sanctity of my own bedroom. A tousle of strewn clothes, unopened mail, and dishes from late night snacks. I hadn’t properly cleaned in a month.
“After Swan Lake is over,” I promised myself as I jumped in the shower.
Fifteen minutes later I was dressed in jeans, a cute yellow sweater and brown suede boots, my hair pulled off my face since I hadn’t had time to wash and dry, tendrils of curls popping out along the side.
“You will have to take me as I am, James Douglas,” I said, searching for my handbag under the couch pillows, unable to remember where I’d tossed it.
“And that’s just how I like you,” a voice said at the door. “Every which way you are every single day.”
It was James, standing tall and fresh and perfect in my foyer. Overdressed in a gray woolen overcoat like the Pastor Dude he was. At least that’s what my seventeen-year-old brother, Sam, called him.
I sucked in a breath, trying not to swoon at how good he looked. “How’d you get in?”
“I did knock, but I saw your car outside and the door was unlocked so I took the liberty.” He smiled and his warm blue eyes knocked me over like they always did. Every single time.
“Probably didn’t hear you from the sanctity of the shower.”
“I didn’t attempt to try the handle on your bedroom door. I do have discipline even if it was a temptation. One of these days, Jessica,” he added with a murmur.
“I didn’t think pastors ever got tempted,” I teased, a delicious shiver running down my neck.
“We just pray a lot.”
My mouth quirked up and we grinned at each other before he gave me a single, slow kiss.
James was getting bolder in his affection toward me. Not unexpected. We’d be
en exclusive for quite awhile, despite the 1,800 miles between Snow Valley and New Orleans.
“Shall we, my lady?” James said, tucking my hand into the crook of his arm. He smelled like rich musk and rain—and all man.
“Oh, there it is,” I said with a sudden outburst, before I was too overcome to think straight.
I scooped my handbag from the floor of the kitchen tile, not remembering that I’d dropped it when I flung my work-out clothes helter-skelter to strip down and slam into the shower.
After I slid into the seat of his rental car, I checked for the tour tickets in my handbag. We could have purchased them on site at the plantation, but with so many tourists in town we didn’t want to risk the chance of driving clear up the Mississippi for fifteen miles just to be turned away.
“Nice,” I said. “My car wasn’t good enough?”
“No,” James said, giving me another light kiss. “It’s not good enough for you. I wanted our last evening together to be a little bit more high-class than usual. I left the mud and frozen ground of Snow Valley behind.”
“And got rain.”
He peered up through the windshield, his fingers sliding into mine for a moment when he pulled into traffic. “It’s letting up. I brought an umbrella.”
“You’re prepared,” I said, nudging him to tease him again. “But I didn’t dress up as you can see.”
“I did notice that, but like I told you, I love you just the way you are. Plus, New Orleans doesn’t have much of a dress code.”
“True, but that’s not exactly how you said it.”
He braked for a red light and a group of party-goers took the crosswalk, dressed in costumes and quirky hats, talking and laughing loudly.
James lifted my hand and placed his lips on the back of it. “No, I added a little something.”
We so rarely spent actual in-person time together it made my stomach flutter to hear him say—in person—that he loved me. We wrote it in text messages or quick at the end of a phone call, but James was being more direct than he’d ever been before.
Chapter 2
I cleared my throat and pointed out the next turn to the River Road. We were quiet, just happy to be together while the road twisted and turned for several miles. We passed a few other plantations set back along the road, oak trees dripping with Spanish moss.
“There’s the sign,” I said. “Oak Alley. One mile.”
The rain had now stopped and blue sky peeked out behind the clouds.
“See?” James said. “The sun is cooperating just for us. Just like I prayed for.”
I laughed. James was comfortable and easy with his faith and his choice of careers. I still couldn’t reconcile that I was in love with a pastor. Me, Jessica Mason, who turned her back on God more than four years before. Until I finally put aside the grief and blame over Michael’s death in the car accident when we were seniors in high school. Because of James. Not that he’d bopped me over the head with preaching—quite the opposite. I was able to heal because he loved me unconditionally.
We parked in the gravel lot and James took my hand while we walked to the entrance.
The house was grand in pre-Civil War splendor. The alley of dozens of enormous oak trees on both sides of the plantation entrance were picturesque and majestic. Trees that had guarded the house for centuries.
“What are you thinking about?” James whispered as our guide took us through the grand front parlors, ball room and dining room, then on upstairs to the bedroom suites of more than a hundred and fifty years ago.
“Trying to imagine myself living here in 1860. Wrangling an unmanageable hoop skirt through the doorways. Wearing a corset so tight I can’t breathe. Dancing the Virginia Reel on the marble ballroom floor without fainting.”
He grinned at me, his smile making me swoon with its perfectness. “The men held the ladies upright so they didn’t pass out.”
“So that’s what men are good for,” I murmured as we fell behind the rest of the tour.
James put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my hair. “You are incorrigible.”
His choice of words reminded me of what I’d said to Alonso earlier, and I didn’t want to think about Alonso right now.
After the tour, James led me out to the sprawling oak tree drive. Our feet squished in the sopping wet grass for a quarter mile. The sun grew stronger behind the diminishing storm clouds.
He guided us behind the house to the old-fashioned gardens and rolling swaths of green lawn lay before us. “See? Praying works.”
“Are all your prayers answered just like you want them to?” I teased.
“Most of them,” he said, lifting his eyebrows from under his brown fedora hat. The hat went well with his long overcoat in both style, color, and mood. I felt like a teenager next to him—or a hired servant discussing duties next to the owner of the mansion. Despite the warmth of my hand tucked into his arm.
I gave a deep contented sigh while we walked across the paving stones next to roses and flowering azaleas in a profusion of pinks, purples, and reds.
“You’re taking to this southern living, aren’t you?” James asked.
“I am,” I admitted. “At first it was so different from Snow Valley, but I’m falling in love with the beauty of the south. The people’s warmth and friendliness, the charm, and the food, of course. Gumbo, crawfish, perfect shrimp, and beignets. What’s not to love? Besides, my mother’s parents were born and raised in Alabama so I guess it’s in the genes.”
The gardens were quiet. The tour ended at five, but the grounds were open until six. We still had about forty-five minutes and the rest of the tourists were long gone with their umbrellas and damp shoes.
“Let’s sit here,” James said, pulling me toward a bench sitting under one of the giant oak trees. Miraculously it wasn’t wet with puddles.
I pulled my jacket close and dug my hands into my pockets.
“Cold? I’ll keep you warm.” James pulled me tight against him and I rested my head on his shoulder.
“You are good at that,” I said. “Let’s get hot chocolate after this.”
“Hot chocolate reminds me of the night I watched you dance for the first time during the Christmas recital.”
“Oh, please! My most embarrassing moment ever. Falling on stage was all your fault.”
“I will be forever blamed,” he said with a laugh. “But I never did get the rain check for the hot chocolate. You finally paying up?”
“Surely we’ve shared cocoa at my parents’ house,” I said lightly.
“Oh, my sweet Jess,” he said, placing his forehead against mine. “I remember every moment with you.”
“Don’t do that,” I whispered. Melancholy swept over me, so sudden it caught me off guard.
“Do what?”
“Make me cry. For a pastor you’re pretty darn romantic. So just stop it. You’re going to be gone by tomorrow afternoon,” I said. “And I have no idea when I’ll see you again.”
“Three days goes by much too fast,” he agreed. Then he lowered his voice. “But I don’t have to go. We can see each other every single day if we want. We can change all of this.”
“How, Jamie?” I asked, using the nickname I’d christened him with. A nickname he wouldn’t let anybody else use. “The reason you’re leaving at the crack of dawn is to be home in time for Sunday meetings. Pastor John is going to retire soon, right? And then you’ll be Pastor James of Snow Valley Community Church forever more.”
“Not necessarily,” he said, rubbing his fingers over mine. He lifted his face and I gave him a small, sad smile.
We sat there for a moment, not speaking, just staring at each other, and before I could take my next breath he’d slid off the bench and knelt in front of me, gripping both my hands in his. An earnest look filled his face.
“What are you doing—?”
“Ssh!” A hand went into his breast pocket and then he produced a small velvet case and snapped it open.
“Oh, my gos
h!” I choked out. The most gorgeous diamond ring sparkled in a sudden ray of sunlight, slanting through a cloud as though James had ordered it for exactly 5:36 p.m.
“Does that mean you like it?” he asked, voice suddenly hoarse.
“It’s stunning. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect.”
“Miss Jessica Mason, I love you. I adore you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to wake up to you every morning. I want to laugh with you, argue with you, and make babies with you.”
My eyes widened and I couldn’t help teasing him. “Should a man of the Lord say such things?”
A gleam came into his expression. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
I stalled for time. “But you need to ask my father’s permission first.”
“I did. Before I boarded that plane three days ago.”
“Really?” I was surprised and touched. And suddenly terrified. This proposal wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. Even my father knew! “So this isn’t merely a product of the romantic south? You’re not overcome by Gone with the Wind romantic notions?”
He chuckled. “The last vestiges of Mardi Gras isn’t exactly inspiring.”
“But you and I have been touring history and gallantry, not getting drunk every night.”
“How about last night’s rehearsal of Swan Lake I sneaked into. That’s a pretty romantic ballet.”
“True.” I went silent, staring at the dazzling ring waiting for me in its velvet case. Frozen in the moment—as time rushed past. I was tempted to reach out and slip it on. Show it off at practice tomorrow. Keep Alonso Bellomini at bay.
While at the same time I wanted to run screaming to the parking lot.
“Say something,” James begged. He leaned forward, carefully slipped the ring onto my finger where it felt cold and hard and heavy. And dazzling. Cupping my face in his hands, he kissed me and his lips were warm and perfect. My breath caught and my stomach fizzed into my throat. I always had that reaction when he kissed me. Every. Single. Time.
Our lips broke apart and we were nose to nose, eye to eye. “I—I. James, it’s beautiful. I’m in awe. I wasn’t expecting this at all. Not for a long time. You’ve caught me by surprise. I don’t know what to say.”
Spring in Snow Valley Page 40
