Chapter 2

She twirled around as the snowflakes drifted slowly toward the oak trees. Snow in Canden Valley. Her favorite thing in the world. It had only happened twice before in her lifetime. She wasn’t about to pass up the chance to celebrate, and celebration to Anne McCullough Jameson meant one thing. Dance.

“Anne! What are you doing?”

She stopped twirling for a moment and looked up at her mother who stood on the porch of the Victorian farmhouse. “What do you think I’m doing?”

Nan Jameson laughed at her daughter. “Silly me,” she mumbled. “Well, when you’re finished twirling, come in the house for some hot chocolate.”

“I’ll be too busy leaping and skipping.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re no longer six years old.”

Anne grinned at her mother. “Yes, but I can still dance as if I am. I think I just came up with the perfect change for the sugar plum choreography.”

Nan watched her daughter for a moment, then ran into the house to retrieve her video camera. How many feet of film had she taken over the years of her dancing daughter? Yes, she had filled tapes of Alex, her oldest, riding horses. And she had boxes of footage of the twins who had come much later than Alex and Anne, building forts and castles and creating secret gardens—secret from everyone but their mother—but the footage she had taken over the years of her dancer daughter far surpassed what she’d taken of her other children. Even under the threat of torture, she would not confess that fact to anyone.

“Ohhh, Mom!”

Nan turned off the camera as her daughter leaped up the stairs toward her.

“You don’t have to record everything I do!”

“Oh, yes I do, at least when you’re dancing. I have rights, you know. Especially since you’re still living here.”

Anne groaned. She didn’t need to be reminded that she was twenty-six and back living at her parents’ home.

Nan slung her arm over her daughter’s shoulder and escorted her inside to the warmth of their very large but cozy farmhouse. “It only makes sense that you live here. You’re gone half the year on tour anyway. Why rent a place?”

“It’s more like three or four months out of the year.”

“Yes, but if you moved out, you’d have to do your own cooking.”

Anne smiled. “I could still stop by for dinner every night.”

“And breakfast and lunch?”

“Good point.” Her dad always seemed to have breakfast prepared no matter how early she got up. Even on Sunday morning before she headed out to teach her crack-of-dawn yoga class.

“So, enough of that. Let’s talk turkey.”

“Turkey?” Anne stepped out of her boots, slipped off her coat and hung it up by the front door, then followed her mother into the country kitchen where she knew homemade hot chocolate was waiting. Maybe her Aunt Ivy had stopped by with cookies or freshly-baked pumpkin muffins. Judging from the scents wafting her way, she was right on all counts.

“Turkey as in Christmas,” Nan said. “Have you finished your shopping?”

“Mom, there are three more weeks until Christmas.”

“In other words, you haven’t started.”

Anne took a sip of the divine chocolate liquid and broke off a piece of pumpkin muffin to pop into her mouth. “Hey, I’ve started. I’ve ordered a necklace from Skye for Allie. She’ll love it, especially if her Cousin Skye made it.”

“Good thinking. What’s it look like?”

“Lots of silver. Some blue stone that Skye thinks she’ll love—chalcedony or something like that. I just hope she finishes it in time.”

“She has been a bit preoccupied since she and Nick moved in together.”

Preoccupied was a good word for it. Her favorite cousin who had sworn off marriage was now engaged, planning her wedding, and obsessed with her fiancé. Her relationship with Nick had definitely transformed her best friend. She was the happiest Anne could remember her ever being. She was pleased for Skye. She swallowed hard against the other emotion that was threatening. Loneliness.

But how could she be lonely when she was part of such a wonderful family? And she lived in Canden Valley for crying out loud, where everyone truly did know your name. And yes, there was even a pub in the family, owned by her Aunt Emily and Uncle Palmer. And she could go there any time she wanted company. And most of that time one of her McCullough cousins would be there, usually Skye who, when she wasn’t making jewelry, was working as a bartender.

But things had changed when Skye fell in love with Nick. Anne no longer had a comrade in bachelorhood. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t want to get married. It was more that her lifestyle wasn’t compatible with marriage, definitely not as long as she was still touring. Although Arielle, the wife of their oldest cousin, Matt, happened to be a therapist and had suggested that it was possible that she just hadn’t found the right man, a man who would love her and appreciate her lifestyle and her dance career. As far as she could see, that was asking a lot. That was asking a man to tolerate her traipsing off to San Francisco to rehearse before going out on tour three times a year. What man would put up with that, let alone appreciate it?

“What is it, dear?” Nan asked.

“Just thinking about all that Christmas shopping I have to do.”

“Well, at least it will be easier now that we finally wised up and we’re just getting one present for each person from our whole family. Except for our immediate family, of course.”

“Except I always get something for Skye. And now we have new members of the family—Sophie, Nick, Arielle, and Cassie.”

“Oh dear, can you imagine when all fourteen of you cousins are married! We’ll have twenty-eight gifts to buy!”

That subject again. She distracted her mother with another thought. “And when they all start having children . . .”

Nan grinned. “I can’t wait.”

“No kidding. I saw all those baby gifts you bought for Cassie and Alex’s baby, and she’s only what, a month pregnant?”

“Hey, I’m going to be a grandmother for the first time.”

“Don’t you think you should be helping plan their wedding first?”

Nan cringed. Thank goodness it was December when a lot of her horseback riding students took the month off from lessons. Hopefully the wedding would be small. She laughed to herself. If it involved the McCulloughs, it was guaranteed not to be small. Of course, Sherry Callahan, her good friend and neighbor, would be helping her daughter with the majority of the planning, but because Alex was Nan’s first child to get married, she wanted to be involved. She figured she could learn a lot from this wedding. And it would be in plenty of time for when she had a daughter walking down the aisle.

She looked over at her ravenous daughter who had finished off a pumpkin muffin and was indulging in a chocolate chip cookie bar. She could get away with that. She was a dancer. And she had inherited her own slim build. Nan just wondered if it would be Anne’s wedding she would be helping plan some day, or her younger daughter Allie’s.

“Do you really think they can put together a wedding by the end of January?” Anne asked.

“Before the baby starts showing?”

Anne chuckled. “I don’t really think they care about that. But Alex sure is anxious to get that ring on her finger.”

“It’s about time,” Nan said.

Her mother was right about that. It had taken her brother several years and a long detour to realize that he belonged with the girl-next-door.

“So, onto the next subject.”

Anne could read her mother’s mind as well as her mother could read hers. Almost. “No, I don’t have a date for the winter ball. I’m not even sure I have time to go.”

“You’ve gone every year of your life! Even before you were born!”

“I know, Mom. But we’re doing a contemporary version of The Nutcracker this year. I’m still finalizing the choreography. I have rehearsals every weekend. Some of the kids are still struggling with the dances.”

“You know the parents will love it no matter what.”

“Yes, but it would be nice if they at least know their routines so they don’t bump into each other and knock over the props.”

“Certainly you can take an evening off for the ball. I’m sure there will be plenty of men to dance with—not that you need a partner.”

Anne’s head tilted to the side in acquiescence. This was true. She had been known to get up on a dance floor and dance alone on more than one occasion. “Okay, I’ll put in an appearance.”

“Good. Now, when do you want to go over to Winslow and do a little shopping?”

“Tomorrow? Noon? I have about four hours between my morning and afternoon classes.”

“Perfect. I’ll pick you up at the studio and we’ll head over.” Nan patted her daughter’s hand and stood up. “Now, I’m off to tame a stallion. We’ll see how he likes the snow.”

Anne shook her head as she watched her cowgirl mother pull on her boots and jacket and head out the kitchen door. She had considered moving to the city and dancing full time instead of staying in the valley and teaching part of the time. But she’d never been able to bring herself to do it. She’d miss the valley, the scent of the eucalyptus and oak trees. The eternal evergreens. The jasmine and honeysuckle in summer. She’d miss the family pub and general store and the local book café and knowing when someone new had moved to town or how many tourists were passing through. She’d miss teaching the children of people she’d known all her life. And she’d miss her family.

She had left for college with every intention of staying away and living in a big city with a contemporary dance company. But when she had come home for the summer after graduation, and her parents had offered to finance a much-needed dance studio in the valley, she couldn’t turn them down. She didn’t want to. She wanted to know that when she wasn’t on tour, she could come home to her family’s horse ranch, to the village where she’d been raised. She needed the comfort of family because she knew it was unlikely that she would have a family of her own, that she would meet a man who could handle her dance career and her lifestyle, a man who would love her enough to accept her the way she was.