Take a Bow (A Rivervue Community Theatre Romance, #3)

by Fiona Greene

  The mayor kept talking, but Lexi didn’t hear another word. A permanent memorial. A permanent show.

  She tried to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. She hid her shaking hands in the folds of her skirt, kept that vacant smile on her face and focused on breathing.

  ‘I’d also like to acknowledge the playwright that brought Larrikin to life, and I’d like to invite the world-famous, award-winning Draven to join us on the stage. Without Draven, there would be no Larrikin. Please give it up for Draven.’

  Draven was going to be publicly unmasked here.

  Like, right here.

  The man she’d only known as Dylan North until so recently stepped out of the wings and walked across the stage.

  Lexi’s hand went to her chest as the playwright grabbed Kenzie’s hand and stood centre stage with her. The look that passed between them in that moment melted Lexi’s heart.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and joyous barking echoed through the theatre.

  Everyone stopped. Even the Rivervue team.

  Was this another performance from a master in storytelling?

  Then Phantom burst forth from the wings, and barked some more, dancing joyously around his owners. Dylan made a hand signal and Phantom dropped to the stage, watching and waiting for his next cue.

  Dylan took a few moments to gather himself, breathing deeply, concentrating to forge words. But once they came … boy did they come.

  ‘As I was about to say,’ Dylan said, and broke into a smile. ‘Some people say that theatre is a dying art. Well, then, it has been dying for three thousand years and hasn’t turned up its heels yet. Theatre is life. It shows us what it means to be a living, breathing human. It celebrates. It sparks!’

  He took another fortifying breath. Lexi had to force herself to remember how hard this actually was for him; he was such a natural orator. Then again words always were his thing.

  ‘I have worked in many theatres—well, lurked, really—on many productions, and Larrikin has blown me away. You should all be congratulated, for your work onstage, and off. I salute the team who’ve worked tirelessly to keep Rivervue where it is. Mayor, your forward thinking in developing a permanent memorial to Ron de Vue is to be congratulated. This theatre is in excellent hands.’

  Lexi felt the familiar prickle of tears. She nodded at Dylan, and gave him the thumbs up: Good.

  ‘This place has gotten under my skin, too. Feels like home. Thank you, Brachen, for welcoming me to your town and your theatre.’ He turned to Forsdyke again. ‘Mayor, if it’s alright with you I’d like to put my name right now on the top floors of that old Butter Factory. I’m going to need somewhere quiet to work if I’m going to base Draven here in Brachen. Museums are quiet, right?’

  While the audience cheered, he vacated the lectern for the spluttering mayor.

  Eventually, Forsdyke concluded his speech, the theatre lights went up, and the audience began filing out. As the stage lights dimmed, Lexi turned to the mayor. He was grinning as though the entire thing was his doing.

  No matter. It wasn’t how they achieved the outcome, it was the outcome that mattered.

  She closed the distance between them, and conscious she was on a stage filled with microphones, she leaned in close and whispered, ‘Thank you.’ She looked for Mark, but he was already gone, having helped Lucy from the stage.

  Then, head held high, she followed Kenzie and Dylan into the wings.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Finally, Rivervue was safe.

  The celebrations continued long into the night, with Lexi running entirely on adrenaline. She’d danced, she’d toasted, and she’d laughed.

  She’d spent time with Lucy, celebrated with Kenzie and Dylan, who had to be the cutest couple. Except maybe for Bruce and Gabe, who were currently sharing a two-hundred-dollar bottle of sparkling wine as they toasted Gabe’s mum Sofia and celebrated their relationship.

  Mark, though, was once again elusive.

  First, he was busy with Lucy and the members of her senior’s club, then with the mayor, and the VIP delegations. Finally, well after they should have vacated and locked up, the crowd spilled out into the car park and the celebration ended.

  Rivervue was silent again.

  Her gold beaded dress was as heavy as her heart as she finally climbed the stairs to her office. She sat at her desk, kicked off her heels then just sat.

  No thought. No action.

  Just exhausted and winding down from a successful run. One she’d have to repeat two more times, on the next two weekends.

  She cradled the resin paperweight and whispered, ‘We did it, Caleb Joseph, we did it.’ Tonight’s announcement was a dream come true. She should have been ecstatically happy, and she would have been, except for one thing.

  Mark Conroy.

  All the success in the world didn’t matter, if she didn’t have Mark in her life. And that was never going to happen now.

  Staying, having to work with Mark on the revitalisation that she hadn’t believed for a second was only proposed, hadn’t been an option. A bland ‘working together for the good of the town and the theatre’ relationship with Mark wasn’t going to cut it. Not after her glimpse of a future she’d never have, that night back at her house.

  Tears burned her eyes as she glanced around the office she loved so much. The job offer had come on Saturday and she’d accepted a role managing the theatre in Queensland.

  At least now, she could leave on a high, hand the custodianship of Rivervue to someone who loved it as much as she did, and take her broken heart somewhere else. Breathe life into another community theatre.

  She thought back to the day the Draven had arrived and she’d called it a gift.

  It was more than that. Because of the play Rivervue was saved, and she had the world at her feet, career wise.

  Lexi reached down under her desk and slipped on her shoes and headed back downstairs. Just as she liked to wake the stage at the start of a run, she wanted to farewell her stage. Tonight was supposed to be the end of the run, and some traditions in the theatre, you didn’t mess with.

  This was hers.

  She slipped into the darkened theatre and onto the stage, lit only by the ghost lights. Instantly she was back in Ron’s Hollywood.

  She stared out at the auditorium, dark and deserted, and a bittersweet smile played over her lips. She was so going to miss Rivervue.

  But not nearly as much as she was going to miss Mark.

  Ron’s experience of love lost was so like her own.

  After listening to his audio recordings, she knew his words by heart. She spoke them out into the darkened theatre. ‘I dream of how it would feel to feel none of it, to remember none of it. I plough through my days delighting and entertaining and raking in the cash and all the while I mourn for a love I’ve lost, a soft touch I will never again feel, a smile that I broke. I no longer see the purpose in what I do. My money buys me nothing, I have no family to go on with, my life is a deception.’

  Lexi started as Mark walked out on stage and joined her. ‘I filled her belly almost the first time we lay together and so she brought my little boy into the world wrapped in a cowl of disgrace. And yet my whole world changed when chance bought her back into my life.’

  As she had changed the words of the play slightly, so did he, yet the cadence and emotion remained. A chill ratcheted down her spine.

  It dropped her out of the performance. ‘You’re actually pretty good.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re not bad yourself.’

  She stared at the man who’d been in her life since she was fifteen. Whose life intertwined briefly with hers before they were catapulted in opposite directions. Then, just when she thought she’d recovered, he reappeared and threw her into chaos all over again.

  Saying goodbye to Rivervue wasn’t going to be the problem.

  Leaving Mark was going to break her.

  She pushed to her feet. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Do you have to?’ He closed the gap be
tween them, as though expecting the spotlight to find them. Just them. Together. Centre stage. ‘There’s something I wanted to say.’

  Lexi’s eyes met his. ‘About the play?’

  ‘No.’ He stepped closer. ‘About us.’

  ‘Mark, there is no us.’ Lexi’s voice cracked. ‘You made that clear. It broke my heart, but I get it.’ She placed a hand on his chest and savoured what might be the last time she would touch him. ‘I do. I’ll leave you alone. I won’t expect anything. We’ll part as work colleagues.’

  ‘What if I said I didn’t want that?’ He inched closer and took hold of her upper arms. ‘What if I said I was wrong, and I’m sorry, and I’d do anything to bring you back to me?’

  ‘You can’t mean that,’ Lexi whispered, her heart thumping.

  ‘I do.’ Mark gathered her close and she could feel his breath on her hair. ‘I’ve fallen in love three times in my life. The first when I was seventeen, and I lost you because I let the adults tell me what to do, the second when I held Emma for the first time, and the third time … the third time is now. With you. I’m sorry for all the hurt I caused, both then and now. I’m sorry I pushed you away when you shared Caleb with me. I hope you can forgive me.’

  Lexi stared into Mark’s eyes, her heart racing. ‘There is nothing to forgive.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘I never intended to keep Caleb a secret. I didn’t know what to do that day in Sydney. It all snowballed from there.’

  Mark drew her into his embrace. ‘I couldn’t have wished for a better mother for my son, and I know you took the best care of him. I loved you back then, Lexi.’ He paused then cleared his throat. ‘And I love you now.’

  Lexi’s heart pounded. She collapsed against Mark’s chest and stared at him, trying to gauge the truth of his words.

  It was there in his eyes. She stared into them for the longest time. ‘I love you, Mark. I don’t think I ever stopped.’ She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close, but as she did, he winced. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot you were sore.’

  ‘Just here.’ Mark swept his hand over his heart. ‘And it’s not a broken heart because I thought I had lost you.’ He reached up and undid the top buttons of his shirt, pushing it aside to reveal a bandage, stark white against his skin.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Caleb Joseph happened,’ Mark said, smiling down into her eyes. ‘You did have the drawing for your art in the memorial box.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ Lexi itched to pull the bandage down.

  ‘Emma tells me tattoos are cool.’

  ‘You did? Oh, Mark.’ Joy bubbled up within her. ‘That is the most moving, most gorgeous thing you’ve ever done.’ Tears blurred her vision. ‘You’ve made me so happy. When did you get it done?’

  ‘They finished the wings this morning.’

  Mark pulled her close, and this time she went gently into his embrace. She lifted her face and brushed her lips against his. ‘This means so much to me.’

  He dropped his head, put his lips to hers and kissed her until her knees went weak and she saw stars.

  ‘I love you, Lexi, and if you’ll let me, I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much.’

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  ‘The view from up here is awesome.’ Lexi let go of Mark’s hand and walked over to the temporary balustrade to stare down the river toward Brachen.

  ‘Never thought we’d get you to set foot in the old Butter Factory again,’ Mark joked as he joined her at the rail.

  ‘It’s not the building I objected to,’ she reminded him, as they returned to their friends.

  ‘This,’ Dylan did a full three-sixty, complete with sweeping hand gesture, ‘will be the rooftop garden. There’ll be grass for Phantom, somewhere for guests, and of course Bruce, you will make all of these ugly things—’ he gestured to the safety rails, ‘—disappear.’

  ‘Glass, then mate,’ Bruce said. His eyes glazed over, and Lexi knew he was busy adding up the number of panels he’d need to fence off the entire terrace. ‘Bit pricey, but it’ll be great when it’s done.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to fit out that shell floor?’ Gabe was still walking around with his sketchbook and pencil. ‘I could do a dining table for twenty if you were prepared to live over two levels.’

  Words came so freely for Dylan now, with them, with his friends. Even humour found its way out now. ‘How would I keep up the whole reclusive playwright thing, if there’s no separation from the de Vue museum? My condition for buying both levels was that I get to design and build them as I see fit. The soundproofing must be exceptional, and that means keeping the shell floor between the two spaces. We need to live here, Kenzie and me. I don’t want the tourists to even know there is a house up here.’

  ‘I can make your house invisible to the outside world, but Dylan, mate. Think of the pool table. The his-and-hers walk-in robe. The six-car garage serviced by a vehicle lift.’

  Kenzie laughed. ‘He rides a bike, Gabe.’ She linked hands with Dylan. ‘So long as this house and garden is finished ASAP and has an arbour draped in jasmine and a nursery off the main, I don’t care what else it has.’

  ‘Not long now.’ Lexi’s grin matched Kenzie’s. ‘How is little Lucy?’

  Emma, who’d been playing with Phantom, danced over and rested her cheek on Kenzie’s convex belly.

  ‘She’s a lot more active than her namesake, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Nanna’s teaching me how to knit baby things,’ Emma laughed. ‘I’m not great but she’s good at fixing anything I get wrong.’

  Over Emma’s head, Kenzie laughed. ‘You know the one thing that my nan wasn’t expecting when she was outed as Ron de Vue’s daughter was that she’d become Nanna to pretty much the entire theatre. Anyone who doesn’t have a nan, has one now.’

  ‘It’s lovely of her.’ Mark threw his arm over Emma’s shoulder. ‘I know Emma appreciates having an adopted grandma. She’s been teaching her to bake as well.’

  ‘We’re one big happy family now,’ Lexi said. ‘The Rivervue family.’ She raised her glass. ‘To Rivervue.’

  ‘To Rivervue,’ her friends responded, and as they drank their toast, Lexi marvelled at how different their lives were from this time last year.

  Kenzie and Dylan.

  Bruce and Gabe.

  Mark, Emma and her.

  Together as families, and part of the wider Rivervue community.

  As if on cue, Phantom raised his head and gave three joyous barks.

  Thanks for reading Take A Bow: A Rivervue Community Theatre Romance, Book 3. I hope you enjoyed it.

  If you liked this book, here is my other title, Home For Christmas.

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