LITMIR.BIZ

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floated down the staircase toward him on a cloud of white. The dress hugged her upper body, showed the sensuous curve of her recently sun kissed shoulders, then flared out, sweeping around her. She looked like a princess in a fairy tale.

      “What?” she asked, pausing on the stairs.

      Could she not know what a vision she was?

      “Where on earth did that dress come from?” he managed to choke out when that was not what he wanted to say at all. “I’m pretty sure the Emporium does not stock anything like that.”

      “Have you ever seen The Sound of Music?”

      “Uh, yeah.”

      “Curtains,” she said. “I’m afraid I owe you a set of curtains.”

      He vaguely recalled a scene in that movie where curtains had been transformed into play clothes. It was a movie. They would have had a team of tailors and seamstresses working on that.

      “How did you do this?” he asked. Another movie came to mind. Cinderella, where the cleaning girl was transformed.

      As if drawn to her by an invisible cord, he went and stood before her, looking up the stairs at her, at the sweep of the dress, the delicacy of her naked shoulder, the formfitting bodice.

      “This is what I always wanted to do,” she said. “I wanted to design clothes.”

      “And you didn’t, why?” He could hear the astonishment in his own voice.

      “Because I was told to pick a practical career, and that’s what I did. Instead of following my own heart.”

      She was looking at him with an unnerving intensity, as if that was all changed now. As if she fully intended to follow her own heart from now on.

      He realized it was not the dress, alone, that made her beautiful. He realized it was her radiance. He had invited her to go to the dance as a gift to her, to give her something she had always wanted.

      Jefferson contemplated the nature of gifts.

      For this one had come back to him. It felt as if what he had given her since she arrived, the gift of sanctuary, had unveiled her bit by bit.

      Now she stood before him, confident and radiant, the woman she really was, the woman she had always been meant to be.

      And so the gift was returned to him. In leading her back to herself, it was he who had come fully alive. This gift of awareness did not fall gently against him. No, it smashed into him with all the force that was needed to take what was left of the severely compromised armor he had put around his heart and leave it in shards.

      It felt as though he was stepping over that shattered armor as he reached for her, as her hand came into his, as he placed his kiss of recognition and welcome first on the top of her hand and then on her cheek.

      He could fight no more.

      They went by boat to Anslow. That journey, through inky waters, the spray from the boat white against blackness of the sky and the lake was the beginning of the magic. When they arrived he had to squeeze in to find a place to tie up, there were so many boats at the dock. A horse and carriage were at the end of it, waiting to take guests who had arrived by water to the community hall.

      The interior of the hall had been transformed with thousands of bright fairy lights. They illuminated the line of the roof, climbing the walls like vines, tracing the outlines of linen-covered tables.

      The place was packed. The people of Anslow loved an occasion—weddings, graduations, fund-raisers—they kept finery that would not have been out of place in New York City for these community events.

      There were no speeches, just a dinner followed by a clearing of the tables, a bar being set up, a band taking their places on the raised stage at one end of the room.

      He introduced Angie to people who had been his family and his friends and his neighbors since he was six years old.

      They welcomed him into the fold of their lives as if he was a soldier who had been away from home for too long. They extended their acceptance of him to Angie. But almost too much so! He could not get near the woman he had escorted to the dance.

      She quickly became the belle of the ball. For the first set, every old geezer in Anslow had to claim a dance with her. By the second set, the young men who had been fortifying their courage at the bar were jostling to have a turn around the hall with her.

      Angie, amazing in that dress, was an astonishing dancer. Her movements were fluid and natural and unconsciously sensual. Her laughter carried through the hall. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were radiant. She was a princess, casting an enchantment.

      Watching her, dance, watching her shine, Jefferson had a sense of having done the right thing. This is what she had led him to again and again since she had arrived at his door.

      She required him to do the right thing. She forced him to be a better man.

      And then, for the third set, he wearied of all the attention being paid to her and went and claimed her for his own. When Gerry Mack tried to cut in, he told him no. By the time the fourth and final set of the evening arrived, no one was trying to cut in anymore.

      They danced until their feet ached. They danced until they could hardly breathe. They danced until the last dance, when he held her tight, rested his chin on the top of her head and realized something had happened that he thought would never happen again.

      He was happy.

      The evening broke up, and the poor old horse and carriage could not keep up with people flocking down to the dock, so he and Angie walked along the boardwalk, hand in hand. The night was filled with the laughter and chatter of the crowds. They were not the only ones walking.

      As they turned at the entrance of the dock, a flurry of farewells filled the air.

      “So good to see you, Jefferson. Angie, nice to meet you.”

      “Safe journey over the water, Jeff. Angie, thank you for coming.”

      Finally, he helped her into the boat and settled her in her seat. He went and got the blanket from below and tucked it over her shoulders.

      “They love you,” Angie said, tugging the blanket around herself. She was glowing.

      He contemplated her words. How right it seemed for the word love to have floated into the enchantment that was tonight.

      He started the engine, put on the running lights, backed away from the dock and pointed the nose of his boat toward the dark main body of water of Kootenay Lake. Driving at night was extraordinarily beautiful, but it held some extra challenges.

      “Jefferson?”

      He turned his focus from the water, looked at her.

      “They love you. And so do I.”

      For the second time that night, it felt as if his breath had quit and his heart had stopped. What was he doing? Hadn’t he known all along this is where it was going?

      “They only think they love me,” he told her. “And so do you.”

      “No,” she said stubbornly.

      Rather than respond, he checked for other boats leaving the harbor and, seeing none, opened up the throttle. Everybody only thought they loved him. If only they knew how unworthy he was.

      He realized he could give the boat all the gas he wanted, but he could not go fast enough to outrun what had to be done.

      He had to tell her. He had to put this to a stop right now, before he undid every bit of good the past two weeks had done for her.

      He didn’t respond to her at first. He drove them over the quiet lake—so much of it now held memories of their times together—and pulled into the cove where they had taken refuge from the storm. He stopped the boat and put out the anchor.

      The boat rocked gently. The

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