A Mom For Christmas

“Not if it’s true.”

The hurt tone in his voice made her stop and study him more closely. “Noah, what happened to you? To us? We were close friends. We always supported each other. I was going to be the famous dancer, and you were going to design architectural wonders.”

Noah sat on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his chest. “I figured out pretty quick I didn’t have the imagination needed to be a successful architect. I was better suited for engineering. Numbers and equations. Things that are always solid and predictable.” He stood and went around the desk. “I learned to look at the future more realistically.” He faced her, his blue eyes cold. “I learned a lot that year. Like who my real friends were, and who could be depended on and who couldn’t.”

“We used to depend on each other.”

“I thought so—until you ran off to New York and never looked back. I guess friendship didn’t count as much as pursuing your career.”

How could she make him understand? “I had no choice. The call came in, and I had to be in New York the next day to begin rehearsing. My mom and I were running around packing, trying to make plane reservations. It was hectic.”

“Too hectic to find a second to call your friend and share the good news?”

His barb made a direct hit. “I meant to call you and explain.”

Noah’s gaze searing into hers. “When? The next day? The next week? I had to find out about you joining the ballet company in the newspaper.” He worked his jaw, his eyes dark. “That’s how much our friendship meant to you.”

“It meant a great deal to me. But I didn’t think it meant much to you.”

“I waited in the gazebo until midnight for you to show up. I called you a dozen times. I finally called your house and talked to one of your brothers, but all they knew was that something had come up and you and your mom had left.”

Her heart sank. They’d agreed to meet that evening at the gazebo to exchange gifts. Noah was leaving for the summer semester at Mississippi State the next morning. She hadn’t shown up at the gazebo because after he’d rebuffed her affections earlier in the day, she’d wanted to avoid him. It had been easy to dismiss that night amid all the rush to leave. Is that what was behind his attitude? Her failure to show up to say goodbye?

“I’m sorry, Noah, I was so busy. You know how crushed I was when I wasn’t chosen after my audition. This sudden opening with the company was the answer to my dreams.”

Noah worked his jaw from side to side. “And your dream trumped a casual friendship. I get it. We all have priorities, and I learned yours that night.” He stood. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

Without a word, he walked to the back office, leaving her alone, a hundred questions swirling in her mind.

Seated at her desk again, Beth replayed the events of that last day with Noah. She couldn’t tell him how heartbroken and embarrassed she’d been by his rejection. It wasn’t his fault she’d read too much in to their friendship. She couldn’t remain friends and pretend to be happy when he found someone else.

And he had. She’d heard through her mother that he’d abruptly transferred from Mississippi State to Stanford and married a year later. Proving once and for all his heart had never been hers. Her last thin strand of hope had died. It hadn’t been a misunderstanding. He truly hadn’t loved her.

With her mother out of the office, Beth tried to work, but her gaze kept wandering to Noah’s office. He never appeared again. He was either really busy in the back room, or he’d slipped out the back door to avoid seeing her.

A lump formed in her throat. Noah had been more than a friend. He’d been her strong shoulder, her soft place to fall. The man she’d loved. But she’d never told him that. She’d always worried that to do so would ruin the special bond between them. When she’d finally found the courage to open her heart, he’d been embarrassed and uncomfortable. He’d made it clear that the words of love she’d had engraved on the small key chain she’d given him weren’t welcome.

A sudden contradiction formed in her mind. If Noah had no feelings for her back then, why was he still so upset that she’d left town without telling him? His bristly attitude and his cutting comments didn’t sound like someone who had forgotten the past. They sounded like someone who still carried the pain.

What that meant, she had no idea. In the past, if she was confused about something, she would go to Noah and discuss it with him. No subject was off limits. But now, when she was so confused, he was the last person she could turn to. The realization stung.

She had to find a way to repair their relationship because being at odds with Noah hurt more deeply than she’d thought possible.

* * *

Noah’s encounter with Beth wore on his nerves like a pebble in his shoe. Thankfully, his job with the city had kept him busy all afternoon doing structural inspections, but he couldn’t shake the fact that he owed her an apology. He’d been rude and hurtful. What had happened, or not happened, between them was in the past. Beth had a right to live her life. Just because seeing her again stirred up old emotional wounds wasn’t her fault. He needed to recommit to his original plan. Stay away. Keep his distance. Then everything would be fine.

The tension in the kitchen was as thick as soup when he arrived home that night. Gram was at the stove, stirring the contents of a pot with vigor. Chloe was hunched up in the sunroom, her thumbs flying over her cell phone. He debated which female to approach first. Gram seemed less threatening.

He moved to the stove and looked down at the contents of the pot. “So did the sauce talk back to you, or was it Chloe?”

She huffed out a breath and straightened, peering over the rim of her glasses. “Neither. Merely a run-in with that brick wall we’ve been living with for the last few weeks. Apparently, the Carlisle stubborn streak didn’t skip a generation.”

Now he understood. “Chloe won’t do her exercises.”

“She says she will if Bethany teaches her to dance.” Gram stopped stirring and faced him. “What can it hurt, Noah? She’s nine. It’s not like she’s going to run off and join a ballet company at her age. This thing you have with keeping her away from anything involving the arts is just plain silly.”

Noah rubbed his forehead. “I’m just trying to protect her.”

“From what? Exploring new things and having fun? You can’t control what your daughter dreams about, Noah. Sooner or later you have to face the fact that she’s going to grow up and leave you, too. She’ll make a life of her own. Denying her things she wants to do will only hasten that along, and I know you don’t want that.”

He knew that, but he could keep her focused on things that were more productive. Things that would instill solid values for life and a future family. He took a seat in the sunroom on the footstool across from Chloe and stretched out his palm. She sighed and handed over her phone. That was their deal. She could have a cell phone, minus internet access, and he had the right to check her call and text history. “Shouldn’t you be doing your exercises?”

“They hurt.”

“Don’t you want to play soccer in the spring?”

“I want to dance.”

“There aren’t any dance schools in Dover.”

“Miss Beth could show me. She’s famous. She knows all about dancing.”

Every word his daughter spoke poked an anthill of emotions. “Miss Beth has no time for teaching.”

“Yes, she does. She told me we could practice at her studio at Miss Francie’s house.”

He handed back her phone. “When did you talk to Beth?”

“Gram and I stopped in to see you after school today, only you weren’t there. I stayed and talked to her while Gram went to the bank.”

Noah set his jaw. He’d have to have a talk with his grandmother. He didn’t want Chloe getting too attached to Beth. Better yet, he’d have a talk with Beth himself and set her straight about a few things.

* * *

The next morning, Noah parked his car beside the small building behind the Montgomery home that had been converted into Beth’s dance studio. Yesterday he’d been determined to tell Beth to back off and not mention dancing to Chloe. But he’d been unable to dismiss his gram’s advice. Chloe was growing up, and she would strike out on her own. He didn’t want her resenting him for denying her something she longed to do. But there was one other fact that wore away at his resentment. What if Gram was right, and Beth could never dance en pointe again?

He knew what it was like to have your dreams shattered and see the future you dreamed of go up in smoke. Beth must be suffering greatly with the prospect of never being a ballerina again. It had been her whole life.

He stepped inside the studio and found her on the small settee, her head resting on her knees. A twinge of concern hit him. As he approached, he saw her shoulder shake, which elevated his concern. “Beth, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

She jerked, lifting her head and blinking away tears. “Noah. What are you doing here?”

Taking a tissue from the box on the side table, she wiped her eyes, then rose to face him. His heart lodged in his throat. She was the essence of femininity. The black leotard and tights highlighted every feminine curve. The filmy overskirt that ended around her knees swished enticingly as she moved. Her dark hair, usually floating around her face, was pulled back into a haphazard knot at the back of her head. She looked every inch the professional ballerina—except for the sadness in her hazel eyes that brought an unfamiliar ache to his chest. He fought the sudden need to pull her close and comfort her. “You first. Why are you crying?”

She lifted her chin in a defiant gesture, only to sigh and lower her gaze, her fingers toying with strings on her skirt. “I was thinking about my daddy and how much I miss him. It’s been a year already, and I still have this horrible hole in my heart.”

It was not what he’d expected her to say, but he was very familiar with the emotion. “My gramps has been gone two years, and I still expect him to walk into the shop or come up behind me and squeeze my shoulder.”