Snow Angels by Fern Michaels, Rosalind Noonan, Marie Bostwick, Janna McMahan Page B

church that evening, Kendra made him sit down on the sofa and watch as she modeled her new maternity wear.
    “What do you think?” she asked, turning in a slow circle. “Don’t I look the very picture of maternal bliss?”
    “You absolutely do,” Andy affirmed.
    Unlike Kendra, Andy had traveled down the road of parenthood once before, when fourteen-year-old Thea was born. Having been through the emotional ups-and-downs of pregnancy with his first wife, the wife who had deserted them when Thea was just four, Andy knew that Kendra’s pride in her thickening waistline would wane in the coming months. But right now she was happy and nothing on earth pleased Andy Loomis more than that.
    “You’re gorgeous,” he said.
    As happened so frequently now, Kendra’s eyes glistened with unexpected tears. “Do you think so honestly? Or are you just saying that?”
    Andy’s handsome face adopted a slightly offended expression. “Kendra, are you accusing me of dishonesty?” he asked, straightening his shoulders as though to underscore the unquestionable uprightness of his character. “I’m a minister! Would I lie to you?”
    “Well…I guess not,” Kendra said. She ran her hands over her stomach, pulling the fabric of her sweater tight under her little belly to show it off.
    “Oh, Andy! I’m so excited! I can’t believe this is really happening! Growing up in Ohio, I had only two dreams: to be a dancer and to get married and have children. After so many years alone I’d just about given up. Falling in love, marrying you, and getting to be Thea’s mom was the most wonderful thing…” Kendra sniffed.
    “No one could ask for more than I already have and now…this! Andy! We’re having a baby!”
    “We are. In five more months. January fifteenth.”
    “Five months! That sounds like forever. I wonder if I can wait that long?”
    “I don’t see as you have much choice in the matter. Believe me, it’s coming a lot faster than you think. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. Well, not exactly about that—about the Christmas pageant. With the baby coming so soon after Christmas, don’t you think you ought to hand the directing job over to someone else?”
    “Someone else? No way! How can you even suggest that? The Christmas pageant is the whole reason we met in the first place!”
    What Kendra said was absolutely true.
    When she came to Maple Grove three years before, it was the church Christmas pageant that brought her. At the time, she was a Radio City Music Hall Rockette, the iconic chorus line known for its intricate precision dance numbers, gorgeous costumes, and perfectly executed “eye-high” kicks. Every Christmas, for four shows a day, thousands of theatergoers lined up outside New York’s Radio City Music Hall, waiting to see the Rockettes perform in the world-famous Christmas Spectacular. Kendra was a ten-year veteran of the show. If she hadn’t slipped and broken her ankle during rehearsal, she might have continued on that path, living alone in New York and spending every Christmas season dancing at Radio City, and wowing the audiences who crowded the Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular, but never entering into the spirit of the holiday herself or even stopping to consider what Christmas was really about.
    But Providence had other plans for Kendra.
    After Kendra broke her ankle one of the other Rockettes, a nineteen-year-old rookie named Stacey, newly arrived from Vermont, made a few calls home and got Kendra a job directing the Maple Grove Community Church Christmas pageant.
    It was supposed to be a temporary job, something to pay the bills until Kendra’s foot healed and she could return to New York. She never counted on liking Maple Grove so much and she certainly never planned to fall in love with Stacey’s brother, Andy, pastor of the church, but that’s exactly what happened.
    “You can’t expect me to let someone else direct,” Kendra insisted. “That show is my