Page 31 of Christmas at Hart's Ridge

“You don’t have throw yourself at me, Red. I’m only ever going to say yes to you,” he said teasingly, his warm breath tickling my ear. “Although I’m not opposed to begging.”

“Guhhhh,” I said, to my everlasting mortification.

Ugh. Three a.m. was going to be rough.

Emma was already there when we arrived. She had rallied her friends to help, who were all standing by the banquet folding table Emma had set up with coffee and donuts.

There was Suzie Barnett, who I remembered as one of Luke’s friends from back in the day. Kate Gonzales, infamously a teen mom, then military widow, and all-around town sweetheart, was standing between her daughter and Suzie.

And the short, dark-haired woman I recognized from a couple nights ago, when she was at Goat’s Tavern with Suzie’s older brother, Michael. Nora something-or-other, not that it mattered, because the diamond on her finger suggested her name would probably be changing soon, anyway.

Emma caught sight of me. She clapped her hands. “Great! You’re here. The kids will be here in thirty minutes. Until then—” She stopped short, her forehead wrinkling in confusion. “Luke.”

“You said you needed help,” his voice rumbled behind me.

“Oh! Right.” She looked from Luke to me and back to Luke again. “Great. I hope you brought your tools.”

“In my truck. What do we need?”

“Show me what you have.”

Since Emma had never finished her sentence—leaving me uninformed as to what she wanted me to do until the kids arrived for rehearsal—I meandered toward the stage. The community center theater wasn’t much different from when I had danced here as a young child. The burgundy carpet was a little more threadbare. The white painted walls were full of marks and scuffs. There were a few folding chairs set up, the kind with velvet-padded seats that were a slight upgrade from cold steel. Several more hung in racks along the wall, where they were stored between performances.

I was dimly aware that Emma’s friends were watching me curiously, but my attention was absorbed by the stage. This was where I had danced my firstNutcracker. The place where my wispy dreams crystalized into laser-focused ambition. My throat clogged with emotion and I pressed my palms against the lacquered oak beams, as though to assure myself that it was real.

Like the rest of the theater, surprisingly little had changed. Then again, maybe that was to be expected. Hart’s Ridge had never been a rich town, unlike Evergreen on the other side of the mountain ridge. There were a couple small cattle ranches—nothing like the sprawling farms of a hundred years ago—and a Christmas tree farm. The main industry had been chickens, until the processing plant closed a few years ago. Since then, Emma had made it her mission as mayor of Hart’s Ridge to bring in tourism dollars. And she had succeeded.

But so far, it didn’t appear that the tourism revenue had trickled down to the community center. Not yet, anyway. I had the feeling, given how dedicated Emma was to this ballet, that she aimed to change that.

For now, the same scenery that had graced my firstNutcrackerperformance twenty years ago was still with us, looking more than a little worse for wear. Right now, the stage was set for the opening scene, at the Christmas party where Clara would receive the nutcracker from her weird uncle.

Everything needed a fresh coat of paint and a good scrub with disinfectant. The upholstered sofa was shabby, with several stains of unknown origin. One of the legs had fallen off the cabinet. The staircase was the biggest problem of all. Several steps were missing and the whole thing looked like a death trap. I could see why Emma had called in Luke.

I turned around, intending to get a second cup of coffee. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with Emma’s friends. I had been so engrossed with my perusal of the stage that I hadn’t heard them approach.

Why were they staring at me like that? I was used to meeting fans after shows. They would line up outside the theater exit for autographs or pictures. This felt different. Somehow, I didn’t think an autograph was what these women wanted.

“Hi,” I ventured. “Am I supposed to be doing something?”

“I don’t know. Did Emma give you an assignment?” Kate asked. Her smile, at least, was friendly.

I shook my head.

“Don’t worry, she will,” Kate’s daughter, Jessica, said drily.

“She went to look at Luke’s tools,” I explained. “Figure out what we need.”

The foursome exchanged a look that spoke volumes to each other but left me in the dark. What the heck was going on here?

“Speaking of Luke,” Suzie said. Or pounced, because that’s what it felt like.

Because suddenly I knew what this was about. They had ambushed me to talk about Luke. I just didn’t know why.

“What’s that about?” Suzie asked.

I looked behind me, as though the answer to her question was over my shoulder.

“I mean, Luke,” she clarified. “What’s the situation there?”

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