Fixing His Broken Ballerina: Volume 2

Books by Sheila Holmes

Wedding Woes Series

A Wedding Disaster… Or Was It?

A Catastrophic Wedding Reception… Or Maybe Not?

Wedding Designed by Email… KiirstiAan's Nightmare?

Non-Fiction

With This Ring: Creative Ways to Give Your Purity Ring to Your Future Spouse

Christmas Romance Plans (How-to) Series

Christmas Romance: 25 Dazzling Days to Romance Your Spouse 'til Christmas

The Twelve Days of Christmas: A Romance Plan

Awesome Love Series

Becoming His Awesome Beauty: Volume 1

Becoming His Awesome Beauty: Volume 2

Fixing His Broken Ballerina: Volume 1

Fixing His Broken Ballerina: Volume 2

All in a Name Series

Joyful, Joyful

From Grace Abounds Grace (coming Winter 2016)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Books by Sheila Holmes

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

A Word about Joyful, Joyful

About the Author

"And we know that all things work together

for good to them that love God, to them who

are the called according to his purpose."

Romans 8:28, The Bible.

Prologue

When the big, beautiful new black Lexus rammed into Giselle’s old, rusty non-descript-colored clunker, more was lost than just two cars. Cars, after all, could be replaced. What was truly lost was to Giselle of far greater value. She had lost her healthy, pristine, strong and unmarked body. It was replaced with over one hundred sutures closing lacerations that covered her arms, legs, and torso. Scars, hideous scars resulted. Permanent… oh, so permanent!

The truth was, though, that the partial disfigurement, permanent though its status, wasn’t the worst of Giselle’s woes. She figured tights and her ballet costumes could hide a multitude of laceration scars. What devastated her was knowing that she’d have no reason to ever wear those pieces of performance clothing again, because her ability to dance had been violently taken away from her, as well. Both legs were needed, and she’d just been robbed of one of them. The knee had been shattered. Even with the new screw that gave the knee integrity for daily living, the fact was just exactly that. The screw would only give her the ability to live a relatively normal life. But ballet? Out of the question!

Giselle Danvers could forget traveling to Europe to perform in grand theaters such as Palais Garnier. She could forget the applause and adulation of adoring fans. And, she could forget the paychecks that would provide her a living.

If it weren’t enough that her life as she’d known it until the moment of impact was tragically gone, she knew who had caused all her grief. He’d shown up in her hospital room, having the audacity to try to make friends with her. Like that would ever happen!

Conyer Whitefield, the person guilty of running her down on the road and causing her physical injuries, was an imbecile! Did he think that all he had to do was show up at her hospital bed admitting he’d been in that Lexus, then move on to being chums? Never would happen! He would always be the enemy…

Until he wasn’t!

Giselle managed to be civil to Conyer with time. But there was still no love lost between them…

Until there was the possibility of a love gained.

She remembered that Sunday morning, as though it were yesterday, which is exactly when it was… yesterday.

She’d gone to the morning worship service at church, where right there in the middle of the morning service, Conyer was introduced by the pastor as the leader of a team heading to Central America to build a church/school facility and a small hospital in a poor and desolate village. What?! He was a Christian?! He went to this same church Giselle went to?! She knew the church was big, but was it that big?! They were sending him to minister to the unchurched in Central America, including building facilities for their mental-, physical- and spiritual needs?!

Giselle knew her church was huge, probably five or six thousand congregants, but she couldn’t seem to comprehend the fact that in those months she’d been attending she had never one time even seen a glimpse of Conyer. She didn’t know that during that time period he had been placed in the pulpit of a neighboring church to hold down the fort until the ailing pastor recovered and returned to his flock.

When Conyer and his missions team were brought up before the church body to be prayed over before leaving that very day between services, Giselle was completely overcome with a hefty guilt over the ugly way she had been treating him since the car accident. She just couldn’t believe that after indicting him, finding him guilty, and exiling him to any place in the world in which she wasn’t, she had also been wrong and he wasn’t even the driver of the car that struck her that fateful day.

Conyer introduced himself to the many parishioners, including how he had recently lost his only living family member, his Aunt Tierney, who had just recently died when she had a massive heart attack while driving, and had violently hit an oncoming car, seriously injuring the driver. Her? He was talking about her?! Conyer wasn’t the driver?! He was a victim as well as herself?! And, yet he’d been doing everything he could think of to make her life easier since that day.

When the tears began spilling from her eyes, Giselle left the worship center, and made her exit to the ladies’ room, definitely in need of a tear-swiping and a good nose-blowing. But, before she even reached her destination, she’d almost run directly into Conyer, who was exiting to go join the missions team on their buses outside beneath the church portico.

What could she possibly say to Conyer at that moment in the church hallway, other than to apologize. She had wrongly judged him. Obviously, he was a good man with good motives who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time on the day of the accident.

But, such as is the way of a good man with good motives, Conyer comforted her with a hug, acknowledged that she really had thought he was responsible that horrible and hurtful day, and accepted her apology for wrongly judging him.

As Conyer left Giselle’s presence in the hallway of the church, she called him to wait just one minute. Then, she had sweetly offered him a goodbye kiss on his cheek. His response was to say that he would accept the kiss as a down payment for what would come in the future, when he returned from his missions trip. Giselle wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but was pretty sure she was pleased about it.

As they parted that day, Conyer asked Giselle if she’d noticed the email address on the worship center screens that he could be reached at while gone to Central America. She grinned and affirmed she had it neatly tucked away in her brain. They agreed to use his time away, through emails, to get to know each other, something they both whole-heartedly wanted to do. And, needed to do. They still knew very little about each other, other than that there was an immense attraction between them.

And, with one final long gaze between them, Conyer was gone… but hopefully for not too long.

Chapter 1

Giselle was not a morning person. She always walked around in a glassy-eyed funk until after her morning cup of coffee and her standard small carton of crunchy granola yogurt. But, when the alarm went off at six-thirty that Monday morning, she didn’t walk around in any funk, mainly because she hadn’t been to sleep once all night. Well… maybe she dozed off for a few minutes a couple of times, but basically she remained in a heightened sense of excitement the entire night.

At first, she attributed it to the apartment temperature. She knew Doris was right in setting a thermostat standard of sixty-eight degrees, even during the cold fall and winter months. After all, who wanted to spend their hard-earned money on high heating bills, when there were so many fun things they’d rather spend it on? Like lunches at Mexicale Rose, cupcakes from The Cupcakery, purses and shoes at the discount accessory store, and Trini’s.. oh, Trini’s.. the store that had without a doubt the cutest dresses in all the world. Yes, the whole world! Giselle was convinced that she could probably spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars at that store each month. Maybe even thousands!

But, the truth was, even if she’d run out into the hall and cranked the heat up to seventy-five degrees, she still wouldn’t have been able to sleep. Two things were rolling around in her head, and she just flipped back and forth all night from one to the other.

That very day she was to begin working fulltime for Grace Abounding Dance Studio, and… that very night she would write her first email to Conyer. And frankly, she didn’t know which one she was more excited about. Well, yeah, she did. It was getting started in a relationship with Conyer, starting with their emails back and forth for the next… well, however long it ended up being. She knew the others on the missions trip team were coming home in three weeks. But, Conyer had indicated at church the day before, that it could be a couple of months before he’d be returning. She vacillated between hating that it would be so long before she’d see him again, and being so proud and grateful for the godly man she was so attracted to, who was giving up all his usual comforts to go minister to a village somewhere in Central America.

After applying some extra concealer under her eyes, and finishing her makeup regimen, Giselle headed to her bedroom to dress for her first day as a… a… a what? The email that announced her employment at Grace Abounding Dance Studio didn’t really tell her what her position was. Her assumption had been that she would be an instructor. But, of what level students she didn’t know. Nor did she know who her boss was, what her pay would be, or… well, actually, anything else. She decided before dressing, perhaps she should read through her email-generated employment acceptance again. The only thing she knew right then was that she was supposed to report to the studio at eight a.m.

Sitting on the edge of her as-yet unmade bed, Giselle opened the folded official hard copy of that email acceptance letter. She had printed it out the night before, so that she could take it with her when she showed up for her first day at her new job.

However, before her eyes even absorbed one word, Giselle had a flashback of her last day at Giordino’s. Why that thought intruded she had no idea, but it caused her to pause. Allowing her gaze to fall on her bedside table, she leaned over to pick up the small envelope that contained a coupon card. She smiled as she saw the caricature that nestled under the arched name of the restaurant. It was a drawing of a very handsome Italian man’s face, slightly turned, accentuating his strong jaw, full head of black hair, and long lashes. Her mind wandered back when it had been given her on Friday, her last day of work at the restaurant.

Mr. Martino had not thrown Giselle a farewell party among the employees after she’d announced that she’d be leaving. Not that he wouldn’t have liked that, but since he didn’t do that for any other exiting employees, wisdom dictated that he shouldn’t do it for her. There would be a resultant revolt among the other employees, and possibly a mass exodus if he did. But, he did want to do something special for her.

As was usual on any employee’s last day of work for him, Mr. Martino called Giselle to his office. That was normal, so no one questioned what was going on in his office that should include Giselle. They knew he’d be giving her her final paycheck, and probably thanking her face-to-face for her service.

Instead, however, once Mr. Martino summoned Giselle into his office and had her close the door behind her, he asked her to sit down with him a moment at his desk. Handing her three envelopes, he told her to open them in the order he had given them to her.

"You mean now?" Giselle asked, stumped at there being more than one, which she knew would be her paycheck.

"Please. But, before you do, Giselle, let me say that it truly has been a pleasure having you work here. No matter what the day held, you maintained a gracious attitude. And, the way you would step in and help the servers was way beyond the call of duty.

"I never told you, but I had several personal friends who’ve come to dinner here during the time you’ve worked for me. A number of them either caught me before leaving, or called me later to tell me that I would be a fool if I let you go. Most of them told me that whatever I was paying you, it wasn’t enough. They said you have a way of making customers feel like they’re actual friends of yours, and that you’re so happy they came to eat here.

"Well, I agreed, but I knew that no matter what, you wouldn’t be staying. I don’t know if you even realized it each time, but sometimes when no one was in the entry, I would catch you positioning your feet in what I knew were ballet poses, even though I only have sons, so no ballet lessons or recitals are a part of my past. And just those few times I knew that your heart would always be for ballet.

"But, I want to, in my small way, show you how much I’ve appreciated having you here.

"So, now go ahead and open the envelopes."

Taking up the first envelope, Giselle opened its flap, which was not sealed. It was, in fact, the paycheck she expected. But, it was one hundred dollars more than she should be getting. She re-read the amount, then looked up at Mr. Martino.

"When you told me about your new position at the dance studio, he began, you said that you had so many ideas in your head that you hoped you would eventually be allowed to implement, and I know that will take money. So, the extra money in your paycheck hopefully will help you."

Starting to feel a lump rising in her throat, Giselle could only mouth, Thank you.

When she picked up the second envelope, she had no inkling of what it would be. Inside she found that card.

"I don’t understand," Giselle said, with a confused expression, as she turned the card over, then right side up again.

"It’s a coupon card. That picture is me. It’s kind of a combination of what I looked like thirty years ago, and what I wish I looked like now."

Giselle remembered it was hard keeping a straight face when he explained the picture, considering he had nothing but a hair fringe around his head, his eyes had almost no lashes, and both his jowls and loose-skinned neck betrayed his age.

"See the little circles all around the edges. There are twelve of them…" he said, as he leaned over his desk and pointed to them.

"You are welcome to come twelve times… and bring a guest too… and have a free dinner. I know how much you love my Pasta Arabiatta, so you’ll probably be eating plenty of that on these cards. When you come, just give your server the card at the end of the meal. He or she will punch one hole out. So, at least I know I can feed you some, even after you leave."

Giselle’s eyes were so round and she was afraid to blink, for fear she’d cry. Again, she could only say, Thank you.

When she opened the last envelope she gasped and ran her hand lovingly over what was inside. Two tickets to Sleeping Beauty, the ballet that would be showcased at the War Memorial Auditorium downtown in a little over a month.

Well, by that time, try as she might have, Giselle could no longer hold her tears, but she added to them a big hug and a small cheek kiss for Mr. Martino.

One thing she knew for sure, Giselle was thankful for the time she had spent in Mr. Martino’s employ, and she would never forget that dear man. She determined that very moment that she would make a great effort to stop by and let Mr. Martino know how things were progressing at the dance studio.

Oh… the dance studio! Giselle realized she need to get a move on if she didn’t want to be late for her first day on the job… doing whatever it was she’d be doing!

After mentally going through a list of pros and cons on each clothing choice for the day, Giselle finally decided on black long tights, a black sleeveless leotard, and black ballet slippers. Even with the jean jacket she threw over it, she knew she couldn’t go out without something over the leotard, so she scrounged in her closet until she found a mid-calf flowing performance skirt in a cross between maroon and mauve. What had she even worn that for? As many performances as she’d been in, it was un-telling. Especially, since she hadn’t thrown away a single costume since her first performance when she was seven years old.

Once her outfit was complete, Giselle took one final evaluative look in her full-length bedroom mirror. After approving the garments and her pristine back-of-head bun, she looked at herself as she raised both hands into fists, shook them, and squealed, I’m a ballerina again! Thank you, Lord!

As Giselle ran out the front door of Doris’ and her apartment, Giselle whispered, I can hardly wait to email Conyer tonight and tell him all about today! It was barely one minute later that she stumbled on a downstairs step and slightly wrenched her offending knee. Oww… she squeaked.

Grabbing her knee, she almost succumbed to a poor-me frame of mind, but made the quick conscious decision to instead be thankful that although she’d never dance on stage again, she was given the opportunity and privilege to teach ballet to some little physically-challenged ones who someday might do that very thing… dance on stage.

A grin, inspired by unadulterated joy, spread from ear-to-ear on Giselle’s face as she continued down the apartment stairs and on to work.

Chapter 2

Giselle went through her