by Kathryn Shay
He slowly raised his head, bringing his gaze to hers. The air in her lungs heated, caught fire.
“Makes them feel like they’ve never felt before,” he repeated.
She knew what he was saying. She knew what he felt. She felt it, too.
But if they went too far down that road...
She tried a smile. “And then the, uh, the birds and the wildlife move on. Happy to have had that time. That —” She cleared her throat. “— magical time. Grateful. But knowing they were moving on, while the snowberry... wasn’t.” He’d said snowberry reminded him of her, but she was the wildlife, he was the snowberry. “Because it grew in that spot, drawing strength from the land through deep, deep roots.”
Tears glazed her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. She looked at him, letting him see into her, looking into him. It was all there in that look.
All that they couldn’t have.
“Christmas music,” he said abruptly.
Even as she blinked at the harshness in his voice, she recognized what he was doing.
She should be glad. But she didn’t want to play their game. She wanted — No. She couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t her fault. It just was.
“Perry Como,” she said after a long moment.
“Bing Crosby.”
“Nat King Cole.”
“The Chipmunks.”
That snapped her out of robot mode. “Really? The Chipmunks”
“Sure. ‘Christmas Don’t Be Late.’ I sing it to the cattle.”
“Surprised you haven’t started stampedes.”
“Who says I haven’t?”
She grinned. Creaky, but a real grin. She suspected Ed Currick could make her grin under any circumstances if he set his mind to it. “ ‘Oh, Holy Night.’ ”
“ ‘All I Want For Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth.’ ”
He settled against the headboard, circled her with one arm and drew her in, so her head rested on his shoulder.
“ ‘What Child Is This,’ ” she said.
“The weather outside is frightful.”
“That’s called ‘Winter Wonderland.’ ”
“I like the part about Parson Brown, marrying them when they’re in town.”
She tried to look at him without moving her head, but all she saw was his chin. She swallowed. “Which carols don’t you like?”
“ ‘Blue Christmas.’ You?”
“ ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’ — I foresee therapy in that child’s future.”
“Good point. My favorite was ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ until I found out what it’s about — a World War II soldier who can’t be home for Christmas and dreams about it.”
She sat up. “It is?”
“Yup. Your guy Bing made it during World War II.”
“But the dreaming helps him. Or...” She thought of the undercurrent of melancholy in the words. “Or maybe it’s better not to dream.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Saturday
THEY’D LOST TRACK of time while figuring out a new way to make love in the shower without flooding the bathroom.
A cab got them to the theater just in time for her to make call for the matinee.
With time to kill before he joined the audience, he went to a drugstore and found a phone booth.
“Slash-C,” his father’s voice came.
“Dad.”
“Ed? Are you o— Is everything okay? You sound, uh, tired.”
“Everything’s okay. Just wanted...” What did he want that anyone could give him? He wanted Donna. He wanted Donna to be happy. He didn’t want to imagine walking in a world where Donna wasn’t happy.
Since that college girlfriend, he’d been sure he’d marry a ranch girl. Someone who knew his way of life. Knew the land, the animals.
Donna didn’t know any of that.
He closed his eyes and saw the Slash-C, and she was there.
On a horse, laughing down at him. Sitting beside him on one of his favorite rocks, looking out across the land. Standing on the home ranch’s back porch, waving to him as he rode out for the day. Standing on the porch, welcoming him home at night.
No matter what he did now, he couldn’t see it without her.
He’d never marry a ranch girl.
“Ed?” his father said.
“I’ll be home Monday night, like I told you. Just wanted to let you know.”
BETWEEN PERFORMANCES, THEY ate at the little Mexican restaurant again.
Not the best choice before a performance, but it didn’t matter because she ate very little. They talked even less.
She tried a few times.
Bright, Ado Annie comments about the food, the season, the weather. The weather for heaven’s sake. What did she care? Unless a blizzard or monsoon or hurricane roared in and kept the company and Ed marooned here. Days, weeks, years, like Robinson Crusoe, except they’d be together.
EVERYONE WAS CHECKING their makeup for the last time, taking that final breath before “places” for the evening performance when Angela appeared at the doorway in full Charity regalia.
That was the first surprise, since she usually ran right up to, sometimes past, the time she needed to be on stage.
“This afternoon’s show was not up to standard,” she announced.
That silenced the surprised murmurs at her arrival. She was wrong, for one thing. Plus, she never commented on performances. As far as anyone could tell, she wasn’t aware of what anyone else did on stage. Henri said she acted from inside a glass booth.
Angela’s gaze raked down the row of those at the communal makeup table, flicked to Nora, then to Donna. It stayed there as she moved to behind Donna, leaning over, as if needing the mirror to adjust an eyebrow hair with a fingernail.
“Donna, if you hope to push out Nora and grab that Helene role, you need to hit your cues. Very sloppy. You’ve let yourself be distracted by that country bumpkin cowboy. Screw whoever you want, but don’t let it show on stage.”
She met Donna’s gaze in the mirror for an instant, then picked up the brush.
Before Angela completed a first step toward the door, Donna stood, jostling her with a hip on the way up, and snatched back the brush.
“You’re wrong, Angela. On every point. This afternoon’s performance was one of the best by all members of this company except one. I hit my cues perfectly, as well as my marks. I am not taking the role of Helene — or as you called her today, Ellen — Lydia is. I am going to play Nikki. And Nora is leaving us for an excellent role in an upcoming movie.”
Donna didn’t even have a chance to utter a prayer that the backstage gossip about Nora’s future was right before the “places!” call echoed through the open doorway.
She pivoted away from open-mouthed Angela, walked to the door, where Maudie waited — as always, on hand during a crisis — and handed her the brush with a low, “Guard this with your life.”
With the best timing she’d ever shown, Nora rose, said, “Donna’s got that right,” and fell in line behind her. Then Lydia, MaryBeth, and Raeanne.
But Donna hadn’t left the doorway yet. “And, finally, Ed Currick of the Slash-C Ranch in Knighton, Wyoming, is not a country bumpkin. He is a rancher. He is my rancher. And the lovemaking is better than you could ever imagine.”
Then she marched out. Followed by the others.
Their shared air of triumph was slightly diminished when Brad hissed that they were supposed to be world-weary taxi dancers, not ready to take on the Russian army, and they all had to concentrate on finding their Fandango Ballroom slouch before the curtain rose.
Whispered “Atta girls” came at Donna in under-their-breath snatches throughout the performance, drifted from dark shadows where crew members toiled, and even rose up from the orchestra.
Maudie stopped her after the last curtain call, drawing her into her room, though neither of them sat.
“Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have said any of that to her,” Donna said.
“I don’t ca-.” She caught a gleam in Maudie’s eyes and bit it off.
The older woman didn’t challenge her, instead saying, “A milquetoast does not succeed in this business. Standing up for yourself is good if you want to go to the top. But you are now targeted as a potential threat to her ambitions, since yours are the same.”
That last phrase might have held a question, but Donna felt no obligation to answer.
Only Nora remained in the dressing room when Donna began the high-speed makeup removal routine she’d perfected since arriving in Denver.
She had her coat half on as she passed Nora’s table, but the other woman’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“Thank you. I know — Well. But you reminded me tonight that I used to be you. Nice.”
Donna swallowed. Nora had been catty and waspish and sometimes downright unpleasant, and she wasn’t exactly apologizing. Still... “I wish you well, Nora.”
The usual mocking smile returned. “I do, too — wish me well.”
Donna nodded, accepting the thank you... and the other woman’s limitations.
Grover was nowhere to be seen, but as soon as Donna opened the exterior door, she spotted Lydia talking fast to Ed, whose gaze had already zeroed in on her.
Lydia turned, following the direction of Ed’s look, said one last thing, then waved at Donna and hurried down the alleyway to catch up with the others.
Ed brought Donna to him with one arm, lowered his head and kissed her thoroughly.
When they both had to breathe, he said, “I hear you defended my honor. Thank you.”
She sighed. “Lydia.”
“Oh, no, she was the latecomer to the party. I’d heard about it from the minute I showed up back here. Grover, stagehands, a woman from the orchestra I don’t know, and Henri came out still in full makeup to fill me in on Killer Donna. According to him, you called me a stud and —”
“I did not —”
“ — said Angela should be so lucky.”
“Well, I did sort of imply that.”
He laughed, tightened his hold, and kissed her even more thoroughly.
This time when the paltry need for oxygen forced their mouths apart, he said, “I have something for you.”
She looked quickly to his face, saw the pleasure there. Then down, and saw a small box in his hands.
She sucked in a breath.
A jewelry box. A jewelry — oh my God...
No — not a jewelry box. At least not that kind of jewelry. Wrong shape. More like a box for a necklace. Wrapped in blue paper with an inexpertly manipulated gold ribbon and bow.
A somewhat chunky necklace, come to think of it.
The box tipped in Ed’s hands, and whatever was inside slid to one end with a sound that didn’t seem quite right for a necklace.
She looked into eyes that had lost their smile, replaced by uncertainty.
“Donna —?”
“For me?” she asked. She couldn’t let him ask about her reaction. She couldn’t even think about it herself. “What is it?”
The box leveled off, and his smile edged back. “That’s what unwrapping’s for.”
He extended it, and she took it, smiling at his pleasure, shutting away any other reaction.
One tug and the ribbon untied. Then she tore at the paper.
“Ah, you’re one of those unwrappers, huh?” he teased.
“You expected me to delicately peel away one corner at a time?”
“Not for a second.”
She ignored his chuckle, tossing the paper, and taking the top off the box.
It took an extra beat, blinking down at what she held.
“Buttons?” She said the word more to confirm her recognition of the flat, round objects than to draw an answer. “Oh... Oh! My buttons. The buttons for my coat. Are these —? They are. The original designer buttons. How on earth did you — where did you —?”
“It took some doing,” he admitted. “It was mostly Maudie. She gave me a list of places to look Thursday afternoon, and wherever I went and mentioned her name they’d dug into every last corner, trying to find what I was after. It was a longshot, but we hit it.”
“Maudie. Ah, so that’s what you two were conspiring about the other night.”
“Yup. Was afraid you’d worm it out of me right then. And I was afraid you’d notice we took a button from your sleeve.”
“My sleeve?” Her fingers went to the cuff.
He grinned. “Other one. You touch this one a lot, and I figured you’d notice. So I asked Maudie to take it from the other one.”
“Oh!” She switched to the other sleeve and her fingers immediately discovered two buttons instead of three. “Maudie cut it off? You two were conspiring.”
“Only so you can sew on those buttons and —”
“And have a perfect coat. Thank you, Ed. Thank you so much.” She sighed with huge satisfaction. “My coat will be absolutely perfect.”
“I was going to say you can sew on those buttons and stay warm.”
She laughed. “I will, I will. But for now... Would you rather I sew on buttons? Or shall we find another way to stay warm?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sunday
NO SEWING WAS accomplished Saturday night.
After making love, they fell asleep. But when he woke in the early morning he seemed to know she was awake, too.
He kissed her hair, and said, “Egg nog.”
“Hot coffee with cinnamon, and whipped cream.”
“Mulled cider.”
“Hot-buttered —” Her voice broke. “Hold me, Ed. Please, just hold me.”
He held her. As night lifted and the December daylight found them.
There was no mention of what the passing time was leading to. Even as they packed, quickly, badly, in the short time left before she needed to leave for the finale’s special five o’clock curtain.
Only when she was four feet from the stage door did she stop and turn to him. “Will you —?”
“I’ll be here after the show,” he said. It sounded grim. “I’ll be here.”
She nodded. Their bubble was stretched to its limits.
She went up on tiptoe and he came down to her for a kiss. His tongue claimed hers with a rhythm and heat that was theirs. She clung to him. Wanting to sob, but unwilling to waste seconds of this kiss on something so useless.
“It’s final call, Donna!” Grover’s shout came as if from far away. “Get in here, girl!”
She spun away, not letting herself look back, moving automatically into the routines of a last show.
She sensed Ed in the audience, as always. But it didn’t buoy her this time.
Something else got her through that performance. Professionalism, or the audience’s enthusiasm, or self-protective numbness. She floated through it without once connecting with the reality of the moment. Even when the curtain came down for the last time after enthusiastic curtain calls from the Denver theater-goers applauding their thanks and farewells.
Farewells...
Yes, that is what she would wish Ed. That he fare well always. Always.
“C’mon, Donna! Lots to do. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go,” barked Brad. And she realized she was standing alone, the rest of the company streaming toward the dressing rooms to get out of costumes and makeup and into their departure day routines to head —
She didn’t know where. She didn’t care.
THE BUS WAS in the alley behind the theater. If he looked down this side-alley toward the back, he could see workers moving around, packing up.
Ed didn’t look that way. He kept his eyes on the stage door, and his mind blank.
The door opened. Grover gave him a quick salute, then looked back into the building.
The doorkeeper barely had time to move aside before Donna came flying out. Ed met her, engulfed her in his arms, even as he turne
d her away from the interested gazes of those waiting for mundane autographs.
“Ed—”
He stopped her words with a kiss, now that he had her in a shadowed spot beyond the stage door.
He tasted the sorrow on her lips. He was beyond caring what she might taste on his.
They kissed, and kissed. Their bodies aligning themselves for what they most wanted to do this very instant. Her buttonless coat swung open, eliminating one obtrusive layer of clothing.
She unbuttoned his jacket, burrowing inside it, so they pressed that much closer together.
Then her hands pulled at his shirt at the back of his waist, finding his skin, and he did the same at her waist. So there, just there and where their mouths met, they were skin to skin, as they longed to be everywhere.
THE BUS HORN blasted twice this time. She’d ignored the first, single warning. This one she couldn’t.
Donna broke from him.
“I have to —” She clamped her mouth closed, afraid her next sound would be a wail.
He spun around, grabbed her hand and headed toward the bus, with her in tow. Moving so fast that she half stumbled, trying to keep up.
His hold kept her from falling, but he didn’t slow.
And then they were there. Just beyond a shifting clump of humanity beginning to send individuals up the bus steps, one by one.
“Everybody on the bus, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.” Even Brad’s bark was muted in the nighttime chill.
Ed put an arm around her, carrying her bag in his other hand. “I should have gotten the buttons sewed on for you. If that damned coat had buttons on it, you wouldn’t be shivering.”
Yes she would.
It was now. Right now.
The moment she’d known would come from the beginning.
She smiled brightly. “It’s been wonderful, Ed. I’ll never for —” She couldn’t finish the word. “One of those ships passing in the night romances that you remember always, but —”
