Dancing in Lake Mistletoe (Lake Mistletoe #4)

Chapter Fourteen

Dutch

J osie stands patiently, watching me in the mirror. She’s dressed in a little leotard and tights, her tiny ballet slippers dangling from her fingers as she waits. Her hair is silky and soft, slipping easily through my fingers as I try to twist and secure it.

“All right, hold still, kiddo,” I murmur, squinting as I wrap the band around her hair. With careful fingers, I tuck in the loose strands and reach for a few bobby pins set out on the bathroom counter.

“There,” I say, stepping back.

The bun is a bit lopsided with a few wisps escaping here and there, but she turns around with a proud grin, lifting her chin. I watch her beam and feel a small tug at my heart as she twirls away, ready for class.

I’m getting the hang of it, I think proudly to myself.

She stuffs her slippers into her bag, and I toss it over my shoulder before helping her tug on her coat and boots.

We got our first snow of the season last night and woke up to a blanket of fresh white powder on the ground, so I carefully lead her down the porch steps to my truck.

“We’re going to stop by the Gingerbread Inn first,” I tell her as she fastens her seat belt.

“We are?”

“Yes. I asked Mindi if she wanted to go with me to take you to class tonight. Is that okay?”

Her eyes widen. “Yes! Is she going to get cheeseburgers with us too?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.”

“I bet she will. She probably likes cheeseburgers as much as we do.”

When we pull up to the inn, Mindi is waiting at the back door. She’s dressed in jeans, a red long-sleeved shirt, and a camel-colored coat. Her hair is peeking out from a white cable-knit hat, and she has a matching scarf wrapped around her neck.

She darts to the truck, and I pay close attention to her right foot. It seems stable in her brown ankle boots.

I unlock the door, and Josie undoes her seat belt and slides closer to me to give Mindi room to sit.

“Hi, guys,” she says as she settles in.

The drive is filled with Josie telling Mindi all about her day at school and her afternoon of building a snowman with my dad. When we reach the dance studio, I walk Josie in while Mindi waits for me in the lobby.

I find her standing at the glass case, looking over the vast collection of trophies.

“I remember these days,” she says wistfully.

“I bet. You probably danced your fair share of recitals.”

“Too many to count,” she agrees. “So, where to now?”

I take her hand and lead her out into the parking lot. As I guide her around the building and onto the walking trail that encompasses the lake, snow begins to fall again, the flakes twirling in the air around us.

“I love the snow,” she says.

“You probably get plenty of it in New York, don’t you?” I muse.

“We do, but it’s different. It’s pretty for a minute, but by midday, it’s trampled over, patted down, and scraped away. Then, all that’s left is a cold gray slush pile next to the curb. Here, it’s like you’re living inside a snow globe.”

“Yeah, Boston was the same. It’s one thing I really missed about the mountains when I left,” I agree. “Have you always lived in the city?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Where’s home?” I ask.

“Everywhere. Nowhere,” she says.

“Nowhere?” I question.

“I was born in Kentucky. Fort Campbell, to be exact. My mom was in the military.”

“Ah, gotcha. That must have been tough.”

She shrugs. “It wasn’t like growing up in a place like this. Lake Mistletoe seems like a town built on generations of people who’ve been here forever. We bounced from place to place, never settling anywhere long enough to grow roots. But it wasn’t bad, not really,” she says, her breath visible in the cold air. “I mean, when you’re an Army brat, it’s just normal. Moving around a lot, never staying in one place for too long … that’s all I knew.”

I listen quietly, my gaze steady on her as she continues, “My mom was a single parent.” She glances up at the snow-dusted trees lining the street. “She joined the Army before I was born, and she raised me on her own. I never knew my dad. He was just another soldier, a guy my mom had a brief thing with while on a deployment. Nothing serious. When she told him she was pregnant, he made it pretty clear he didn’t want a family.”

My grip tightens on her hand. I can’t understand a man knowing a child of his existed in the world and choosing to walk away and never know them.

“That must have been hard,” I say.

She shrugs. “I don’t really remember feeling like I missed out on anything. My mom did everything. She was strong, and she worked hard, and she never let me feel like we were lacking. But … I guess it wasn’t always easy. It was just the two of us. No big family Christmases, no traditions to hold on to. We were always somewhere new, always starting over.”

“So, no Christmas traditions?”

She shakes her head. “Nope. It was hard to have traditions when we were never in the same place two years in a row. Some years, we’d be in a base housing unit overseas, and other years, we’d be in some random apartment stateside. There were even a few years when she was on deployment, and a non-military caregiver moved into our base housing to look after me. Christmas just came and went like any other day. If Mom was around, she’d make sure there was a tree, even if it was a tiny plastic one, and we’d have dinner together if she wasn’t on duty. But that was about it.”

“That sounds … awful,” I say honestly.

She shrugs again. “It was what it was. I didn’t know any different. Other kids on the base were in the same situation, so it wasn’t like I felt out of place. But, yeah, we didn’t have those family traditions. There wasn’t much stability, you know? Being here is the closest I’ve come to having a true Christmas with a family. I thought I was going to spend it with my ex-boyfriend’s family this year, but it didn’t work out.”

“Do you miss him?” I ask.

“I miss the idea of him.”

“Love shouldn’t just be an idea. Love should be tangible. Real,” I say.

“Touché.”

“What about grandparents? Aunts? Uncles? Cousins?” I ask.

“No. My grandparents died before I was born, and my mom was an only child.”

I nod. “Was that why you started ballet? To have something that stayed the same, no matter where you were?”

She smiles. “Yeah,” she says, her voice softening. “Ballet was the one constant in my life. Every time we moved, my mom would find a new ballet studio for me. It didn’t matter if we were in Germany or Texas or some little town no one’s ever heard of. As long as I had ballet, I felt like I was home. Like I did have a family.”

We stop walking as we reach the bridge that cuts across the lake to the town square, and I turn to face her, my hands sliding down to hold both of hers. “That makes sense,” I say. “It’s like you had something to ground you, even when everything else kept changing.”

She nods. “Exactly. Ballet gave me structure when everything else felt unpredictable. It was my anchor. It still is in a way. No matter how chaotic life gets, I always have dance.”

“You don’t need a past full of traditions to build your own,” I say. “You can start now.”

“I guess. Christmas has always been just another chilly day. You don’t really miss something you never had, but if I have a family of my own one day, I’ll make sure they do. I’ll be one of those over-the-top moms every holiday. My kids are going to think I’m insane.”

I chuckle at that. “I live here. I don’t think over the top exists.”

She glances at our surroundings, which looks like a scene straight out of a Christmas fairy tale. “I think you’re right.”