Biting Oz: Biting Love, Book 5

by Mary Hughes

  Dedication

  To Jessica Mittendorf, whose friendship and support keeps me going (and whose evil writing challenges keep me on my toes).

  To Mrs. Missive, SheSwitches, Glitrbug and all the rest of my cherished readers at Goodreads and Goodreads KindleSmut.

  To the wonderful Mary Hamilton for sticking with me and getting the story into real shape. You walked where angels feared to tread.

  To the brilliant Christa Desir for her energy, talent and focus, stepping into the breach and making this story shine. Thank you for loving my writing.

  To my husband Gregg, for feeding me when I get deep in edits and forget to eat. You are so stuck with me .

  To you, Dear Reader, for the enormous honor of inviting my story into your life.

  Chapter One

  I was late. Dinner-skipping, running with twenty tons (including a tenor sax case the size, weight and maneuverability of a dead body), panting late by the time I found the theater house doors.

  Chop me into sausage. My first night with the full group and I needed to make a good impression, but I had three minutes to assemble instruments and wet reeds and find my seat and warm up and—

  The tuning note sounded. Chop me into sausage and slap me on a bun. Not only was I late, when I did start playing I’d be out of tune like a fifth grade wire choir. I juggled instrumentalia to free a hand, yanked open the heavy house door and ran through—

  Straight into a sea of Munchkins. Which, since I wasn’t Moses, refused to part.

  Chop me, slap me and serve me with ketchup and a side of kraut fries.

  Running, squirming Munchkins blocked the aisles, crawled over stinky-new seats and generally terrorized the otherwise empty auditorium. Not real Munchkins, of course, but local kids who hoped to sing and dance their way to fame and fortune in the new musical, Oz, Wonderful Oz. The inaugural production would open our brand-spanking-new Meiers Corners Marlene Dietrich Performing Arts Center. Actors and musicians had been rehearsing separately and tonight was our first time together. I was playing reed two in the pit orchestra.

  If I could get to the pit, that was.

  The house lights were at fifty percent, high enough to see two harried adults patting makeup on chubby cheeks. A couple teenage babysitters tried to run herd but were hard pressed just to keep the kids from ripping themselves or the house to shreds. Mayhem in the form of youngsters shed hats and bows and bits of costume like auto parts in a San Francisco car chase. I craned my neck for a way through the seething mass.

  My future depended on getting into that pit on time. We were going to Broadway—if a certain unnamed big-bucks backer was impressed with the show on closing night. All of us, including the musicians. Including me.

  If I could just get to that damned pit.

  Bull my way through? At five-two, I wasn’t much bigger than the rugrats. But with the tenor sax deadweight… I eyed the sea of Munchkins and sighed. It was vital I get to my seat but not at the cost of hurting a kid.

  Besides, those poor harried teenagers needed help. I sloughed my cases and music stand and went to render what aid I could.

  A Lollipop Guilder, scrambling to escape the auditorium, rammed into me. I snagged him by his suspenders and plopped him into a seat. Just as I straightened, a scuffling pair of boys with missing front teeth (not from the scuffle, I hoped) rolled into me. I broke them up, rescued their hats and sat them next to the Lollipopper—who Lolli-popped out of his seat. I grabbed him, but the gap-toothed boys bubbled up, timing it like a tag team. I managed to corral all three with a bear hug and wrestled them into their seats.

  I huffed to catch my breath. No wonder Mom only had the one of me.

  Two giggling girls darted past and bumped me into the boys. Or into their empty seats, as they’d climbed out and were now Spidermanning into the next aisle.

  “Overture, please.” Up front the pit director called the musicians to attention.

  I forked fingers into my hair, forgetting my scalp-tight braid, and nearly tore out a chunk. Not only was I officially screwed, I couldn’t even corral a few kids. Cocktail weenies on a stick, could it get any worse?

  Of course it could. “I’m a filly!”

  Speaking of corral. A stampede of girls playing horse galloped into me, knocking me off my feet again. I fell, trampled under their small hooves. Terrific. My obituary would now read, “Gunter Marie ‘Junior’ Stieg, pit musician and sausage queen, pounded flat by a herd of size-three Mary Janes.” I braced myself for death, or at least a bad bruising.

  Big, warm hands slid under my arms, drew me to my feet.

  “Here now,” said a musical baritone. “I’ll take care of this, babi. You sit here, out of the way.”

  The hands assisted me to a plush seat. I sank in. Mmm, comfy. The city sure had gone all out remodeling the theater…babi?

  I blinked. A pair of shoulders wider than a freeway waded out into the sea of kids. The leather-jacketed shoulders belonged to a man, black-haired, tall and strong-looking—but even Gulliver fell to a raging river of Lilliputians. I called out a warning too late. Kids grabbed the man’s hands, his jacket, and climbed him like a tree. He was swarmed, overwhelmed, swallowed up by the horde of prepubescent terrors. I covered my eyes.

  “Sit now, younglings. All in a row, that’s it. Sit quietly until it’s your turn to have makeup.”

  He had a lovely accent. I uncovered my eyes. Somehow he’d freed himself from the swarm of kids and was calmly shepherding them into the first two rows of seats, adjusting a tie here or hat there as they filed neatly by.

  Holy Dr. Spock. There was a handy man to have if I ever wanted kids.

  I smacked myself discreetly between the eyes. No children, at least not right now. First, make a good impression on the director of this show, turn the show into a smash hit, and go to New York.

  Which meant getting into that pit before the overture started. Maybe I still could. I jumped to my feet, snatched up my Manhasset stand and corpse sax, shouldered my instrument bag and trotted down the rapidly clearing aisle.

  And nearly slammed into a six-kid pileup.

  The adults doing Munchkin makeup had stopped the kids from filing into the third row of seats in order to fix one Munchkin’s smears. I screeched to a stop on my toes, off-balance. My bag slipped, dropped off my shoulder, jerked me into stumbling. I nearly dropped the sax, did drop my stand, tangled feet with it and had to wrench myself backward to keep from falling.

  Except the sax didn’t hear about the change in plans. Momentum carried it in my original direction, popping it from of my grip.

  To my horror, the tenor case pitched straight at the kids.

  The man turned instantly, as if preternaturally aware of the danger. But he was behind the kids. He’d have to hurdle like Jesse Owens to get between the deadly sax and those small bodies.

  Palming the wall, he levered against it to kick up and over Munchkin heads, clearing them with incredible grace and ease, landing on my side.

  On the way he snatched my tenor. Midair.

  I set down my instrument bag and blew out my tension. “Wow. Thanks. I…”

  Straightening to his full height of six-OMG, he faced me, emanating strength and energy. Powerful chest muscles pushed into the jacket’s gap right in front of my nose.

  I gaped, realized I was starting to drool and looked up.

  Sondheim shoot me. His face was all dark, dangerous planes. His eyes were twin sapphire flames that hit me in the gut. My breath punched out and none came to replace it. Bad news for a wind player.

  He turned to set the sax down. I started breathing again.

  A tapping caught my ear, the conductor ready to start. I needed to get into that pit now. />
  Half a dozen kids and two makeup adults were still in my way.

  I’d have crawled over the seats myself but my joints weren’t as limber as the kids’…unless I used my black Lara Croft braid as a rope. I was desperate enough to consider it.

  The man, turning back, saw my predicament. He lifted my instrument bag and music stand over kids with the same strength and grace as when he’d snatched the tenor. Then he turned to me.

  And swept me up into his arms.

  An instant of shock, of male heat and rock-hard muscle. A carved face right next to mine, masculine lips beautifully defined—abruptly I was set on my feet beside the pit. The sax landed next to me with a thump.

  “There.” His accent was jagged, as if he were as rattled as me. “There’s your instrument.” He bounded to the back of the theater and was gone.

  I blinked, not sure what had just happened. A handsome, good with kids, preternaturally aware man had swept me off my feet. Literally.

  Checking said tootsies, no ruby slippers or glass pumps had magically appeared. So I hadn’t sideslipped into a fairy tale, which left him being real, and, hey—I was real, which made me shiver with possibilities.

  No. Oh, no.

  I hauled the sax case next to the pit wall, threw it open and put the tenor together by instinct. I grabbed beat-up brass…pale gold, like his smooth skin. I fisted hard plastic mouthpiece…he had rock-hard muscles, and something else I fisted would be rock-hard too. I realized what I was doing and jammed mouthpiece onto cork without the benefit of new grease. It was tough, but I reveled in twisting it down tight.

  Because I could not afford to get sidetracked by sex. I had priorities. Family duty was A-numero-uno. Plans for my future were a close second. This show was a big step toward satisfying both. Right now, any attraction would be a distraction. A huge, muscled distraction. A broad-shouldered, black-jacketed distraction… The overture started.

  Lust was making me solo in stupid. I snatched up everything and ran to the pit, pushing sapphire eyes and lilting accents out of my head. Whoever the babi guy was, I’d have to stay far, far away.

  Entering the pit, I slid slowly and carefully through the tightly packed musicians. We’d had a couple instrumental-only rehearsals before this (the pit didn’t join the cast until the first dress rehearsal), but not in the theater, so this was the first time I’d had to navigate the squeeze. I chafed to find my seat, but a bull in a china shop is nothing compared to a bull with premenstrual bloat wading through a pit of high-priced, handmade horns. Only in my case, it was instru-menstrual bloat, ha.

  I finally found my chair and was assembling my clarinet when the oboe played a two-measure figure and paused.

  A gap went by. My solo, missed. Stuff me in a tuba and blast me into space. Late and now this. I slammed music onto stand, flipped a page and found my place. We were at Dorothy’s entrance. I jammed clarinet into my mouth so fast I nearly broke teeth, and sucked breath to play.

  “Stop-stop-stop!” Six feet of coral chinos, cravat and Fuh-Q cologne sashayed onstage, clapping his hands. With a coral-and-chartreuse silk scarf wrapped around his head like a fashion patrol Rambo, the man reminded me of Darren Nichols in Slings and Arrows, or a bendy fashion doll. Or a metrosexual Gumby. Obviously the show’s director, the guy who called the shots—like whether I got to New York or not.

  Act professional, act professional… Distracted, my sucked breath released—into the clarinet. My note squawked into the sudden silence like a skewered pig.

  “What, exactly, was that?” The man loomed over the pit. I fussed with my music, pretended not to notice him. This is not the cantina droid you’re looking for.

  He receded, tapping an impatient, silver-capped toe. “Where is the offstage choir? They must be in place before you start. And who said you could start?” He pointed into the pit. “Did I say go?”

  Our music director, Takashi Ishikawa (no relation to the wrestler), fingered his short white stick. “I—”

  “Did you hear me give the go on your headset? Do you have a headset? Who has their headset? Soundboard? Light board?” The director tapped his toe faster. “Come on, people. I know this isn’t Broadway, but that’s where we’re supposed to be headed. Everyone must have a headset and use it. Steve! Where is that boy?”

  A skeletal young man slunk sullenly from the wings. His head was shaved except for a fringe of bangs, and ripped jeans hung from his bony ass. He looked like a deathmetal Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. “The name’s not Steve. It’s Shi—”

  “Steve. Do we have headsets distributed or not? How else am I to make such a large endeavor a brilliant success? Because only Brilliant Successes go to New York.” The director whirled, glared at Takashi. “Turn on your headset.”

  Takashi obediently clicked, then surreptitiously clicked again. His set had already been on.

  “Good.” The director very deliberately clicked the button on his control set. “Ready? Then—go.” He spun offstage.

  We started from the top. My sax was only slightly sharp from jamming the mouthpiece to the hilt. No time to fix it now, not with all my fingers engaged in low B-flats and Cs. Five measures in, I switched to flute. This time the “oohs” of the offstage choir joined us, and when my clarinet solo came, I dropped it in perfectly. (If this sounds like the movie or Royal Shakespeare Company version of The Wizard of Oz, well, the instrumentation was the same. Oz, Wonderful Oz was a completely new production, but you gotta sound like the movie or patrons get weirded out.)

  We segued into “Dorothy’s Got Trouble”, and the house doors opened. A spotlight clicked on, catching traditional ankle socks, gingham and braids.

  Our Dorothy. The lynchpin of the show. If she was good, we were headed for New York. If she was bad, we’d be playing dinner theater in What Cheer, Iowa, and then only if we offered free soft-serve.

  She glided up the aisle, something furry in her arms, and spoke her first lines. And then suddenly I was there, in Kansas, and here was Dorothy worried about her dog and her mean neighbor.

  The girl wasn’t simply good. She was stunning.

  We went through the plot setup, the wicked old witch neighbor threatening Dorothy’s only friend, Toto. Nobody on the farm seemed to care, too busy with their own work.

  Leaving Dorothy to sit on the stoop of her farmhouse and sing her hopefully-soon-to-be-famous lament, “Dreams Beyond the Rainbow”. Hearing her rich voice, filled with longing, I shivered, and I don’t shiver easily.

  The girl used the wavering, pouting Judy Garland alto but imbued it with something more, something that made it her own. She took traditional Dorothy and layered it with her own interpretation, making it fresh. I wondered how old the girl was, really.

  As she sang, a shadow appeared in the wings. A big shadow with shoulders that brushed the curtain on either side. The babi guy. His sapphire eyes were intent on Dorothy.

  Another shiver hit me, this one down low, and I missed my changeover. No big loss as all ears were on Dorothy—except for Takashi’s. He gave me a short, meaningful stare. For a grad student, the guy heard everything. Even without this Oz, he’d make Broadway someday.

  Me, I wouldn’t even make the soft-serve follies unless I got my head out of my panties and focused. I put flute to lip and concentrated on playing the tag, a little triplet fillip. That segued into “Mean Old Nieghbor” (Neighbor to the rest of the world, but Nieghbor on the hand-notated, hand-lettered part. Welcome to the world of pit music). The change to clarinet took my full attention. When I looked up again at the end of a menacing chord, Mr. Babi was gone.

  Despite concentrating on the music, I was still shivering. That worried me. I’m a musician but also a businesswoman. Emotions tempered by, as Pop puts it, hard-headed dollars and sense. Ha.

  My part had nothing until the tornado, so I had a few scenes to try to figure it out. Did I want to? Hell no. I poked around in my own innards with dread. But the missed cue said it was eating me bad enough to throw me off. I had to
poke or potentially screw up this pit gig.

  And the gig was bottom-line, underscore-underscore, red ink important.

  So. What was throwing me? Being so blasted late? Squirting a clarinet fart in front of the show’s director? Dorothy and her soul-shredding voice?

  Surely my shivers weren’t from the gorgeous hunk of sapphire-eyed male who’d watched her.

  Not thinking about him. I latched on to my last thought, Dorothy’s voice…yes, that alto certainly was haunting, especially singing about her rainbow dream.

  Emotion hit me so hard I gasped. Rainbow dream. That was it.

  I’m an only child. Not the doting-parents-smothering-with-money-and-affection kind. The you-have-a-duty kind. I’m rather of proud of that.

  Duty to my parents was vital to me. They raised me and gave me food and a roof, not to mention the whole gift-of-life thing. My mother even gave up her career for me (although that’s another issue). They’re older, maybe a decade from retiring, but they can’t because they run their own business and sink every spare pfennig into it.

  So I help them in the store and I’m glad to do it. I love them; they’re my world.

  But sometimes I want…more.

  Dorothy’s rainbow dream resonated deep. Like Kansas, my home is small. Meiers Corners is just west of Chicago in miles, but it’s worlds removed in attitude. In some ways, the Corners is even smaller and more black-and-white than Dorothy’s Kansas. I feel trapped in my small backyard, knowing there’s a big, wide, Technicolor world out there, just waiting for me.

  New York is my Emerald City. That’s why this pit gig was so important. The director was aiming to do a Rent, go viral and get to Broadway. My friend Nixie, who had recruited the pit orchestra musicians, managed to work an agreement out that if the show went, the Meiers Corners’s musicians would go along.

  That was when I signed up. Not only would I get to New York—I’d get there with a job that’d support me and have cash left over for my parents.

  If the show did well. If I was a professional and could cut the part.

  Takashi raised one finger, our cue that the tornado was coming. I checked my music for the proper instrument (pig squeal ain’t nothin’ on honking a flute part out on tenor). I used color highlights to reinforce instrument name, and in this case CLAR was highlighted in blue, like eyes as blue as an Irish sea…