by Jennie Jones
Edie’s mouth dropped open.
‘Don’t trouble yourself with that,’ Ryan said. ‘I’ll pick them up. I’ll borrow a trailer from Josh. What’s the charge?’
‘I won’t be charging you, Ryan. You can have them gratis.’
‘Thank you, mate.’
A handshake and it was settled.
Edie fumed. She was almost unable to disguise it. Acting ability only went so far.
‘I understand you’ve now got the most to do in the play,’ Ryan said, still not looking at Edie or even attempting to bring her into the conversation. And she was the producer!
‘Official photographer,’ Ryan continued, ‘the dead body, and the pugnacious detective. Oh,’ he said, looking at Edie, ‘was I meant to say that?’
‘Ted doesn’t want the part of the detective.’ She’d have to persuade Josh. She’d just have to be overly persuasive.
‘Ted?’ Ryan asked, looking confused. ‘What’s this?’
‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I said I’d take my time in getting an answer to her.’
‘That was about the chairs,’ Edie interjected.
‘I’ll play the part then,’ Ryan said.
Edie checked his features to see if he was joking. But she knew him well enough to know that the sincere look on his face was entirely insincere.
‘Oh,’ she said, cottoning on. ‘But you’re not right, Ryan.’ She shook her head, expressing utter denial at his offer. ‘You’re too tall.’ And way too muscly. She couldn’t picture Ryan in an ill-fitting suit, being pugnacious with a plastic gun in his hand, as much as she could Ted.
‘I’ll hunch down,’ Ryan said, sloping his shoulders and bending at the knee. ‘Come on, Edie. Give me the part. I’d make a great detective.’
Why was his pathetic performance so endearing? She had to clamp her lips together to stop from smiling.
‘Hang on,’ Ted said. ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t take the part.’
‘So will you?’ Edie asked. ‘Because I don’t want to cast Ryan. I think he’d be useless.’
‘Is that fair?’ Ryan asked.
‘I’ll do it then,’ Ted said, standing tall—or as tall as his five-footseven height let him. ‘When do we start rehearsing?’
‘Tuesday. Six o’clock.’
‘Righto. I’ll mark it in my diary.’
Ted wandered off and Edie let out a breath of relief. Being a producer wasn’t as easy as she’d imagined. She shot a withering look at Ryan, who smiled sheepishly.
‘I’m afraid I was the one who suggested Ted play it cool,’ he said, looking chagrined—or just sneaky. ‘I was trying to make a man out of him. I didn’t think he’d take it this far.’
Edie firmed her mouth.
‘Now don’t go all actress on me,’ he said, tilting his head.
‘Actress?’
‘You know—doing the hair-fling thing and getting theatrical.’
‘Hair fling?’ She threw her hair over her shoulder.
Ryan leaned back as the tips brushed his chest, but his smile widened. ‘That’s the one.’
‘Hair fling?’ she said again. ‘Do you think I’m acting being annoyed with you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, shrugging. ‘You’re not yourself. You haven’t been for years. How am I supposed to know who I’m talking to?’
Her mouth opened but instead of giving him a putdown, she wanted to laugh. He’d managed Ted extremely well. She now had a full cast list and fifty chairs. ‘I was trained to do that,’ she said, in her most up-herself producer’s tone.
He tipped his head. ‘That’s one of the best defensive and theatrical performances I’ve seen from you so far.’
‘Thank you. I’m a natural and therefore unpredictable, so watch out.’
‘Temperamental,’ he said in a slow, even tone, his eyes a smiling challenge.
She took him up. ‘Confident,’ she proclaimed.
‘Melodramatic.’
She gasped, her hand flying to her chest in the most over-the-top manner she could manifest. ‘I’m ardent.’
‘Proud.’
‘Dignified.’
‘Big-headed.’
Shock stumped her. She had trouble drawing a breath. ‘That is so not true,’ she said, stung by his words. ‘I am not big-headed.’
He took hold of her hand quickly. ‘Edie, I was play-acting. I thought that’s what we were doing.’
‘It sounded like you meant it.’ She was trying to remain unaffected but it was hard with all the noise rushing through her head.
‘No,’ he said, his voice low. ‘You’re big-hearted. I’d never think you big-headed. Never.’
‘So why say it?’
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Let’s not argue, Edie, please. I don’t want to do that anymore.’
Edie rolled her shoulders, still a bit indignant but not as much as ten seconds ago because he had a regretful, repentant and remorseful look in his eyes. ‘All right,’ she said, and took an unsteady breath.
‘Come on,’ he said, and put his hand on her lower back as he led her towards the pioneer cemetery. ‘Let’s sit on the bench and eat our donuts. You can tell me more about the play. I’m dying to know what the pugnacious detective gets up to and where the penniless opera singer ends up.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course really. I’m your stage manager. I have to know these things.’
He was backing down and attempting to appease her, and she wanted to stay annoyed, but since he was being quite nice …
Maybe he hadn’t meant it about her being big-headed.
As they sat on the iron bench by the side of the road, Ryan handed her the bag of donuts.
‘Oh, my favourite,’ she said when she plucked her pink-iced donut out of the bag. ‘You’re such a chocolate lover,’ she said, handing the bag back to him. ‘I bet you’ve already eaten three.’
He pushed out a relieved laugh that they hadn’t gone through with the argument after all. ‘Only one.’ Should he mention the bracelets they were both wearing? She obviously hadn’t noted his, which was covered by the cuff on his shirt. He saw hers though. A soft-looking piece of lavender-coloured leather.
‘So what happens in Act II when the detective gets onstage?’ he asked, as he watched her pull her donut into delicate balls of dough and plop them into her mouth.
She had such a beautiful mouth. Full lips, wide smile.
‘The detective wants to question the horse,’ she said after swallowing.
He didn’t interrupt. He’d likely not understand the answer even if he asked the question … Anyway, he was more keen on getting them back onto a decent footing. He’d hurt her and he hadn’t meant to. Not in a million years would he hurt her. She was the least big-headed person he knew.
‘The simpleton groom has to—’
‘Hang on.’ This deserved an interruption. ‘Isn’t it a bit off, calling him a simpleton?’
She smiled, and his heartbeat rose for a second because her eyes lit up too.
‘It’s supposed to be,’ she told him. ‘It’s the pugnacious detective who labels him a simpleton. I mean what detective would insist on questioning a horse except a pugnacious one? If you’d waited until I’d finished speaking, you’d have found out that it’s the simpleton groom who did it. It’s a ruse. He’s the man who shot the producer.’
He looked into her brown eyes, so full of joy that cinnamon-coloured flecks danced in them. ‘Fascinating.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she asked, sounding chuffed with herself.
‘How does the out-of-work opera singer fit in?’ He didn’t care, he just wanted to hear her talk. She’d dropped most of the actor tone and her slight Aussie lilt was back.
‘Well …’
As she chattered on, her enthusiasm bubbling over, Ryan’s heart simmered. With regret. And with love. Christ, he was in love with her. From the first—although obviously that had been as a big brother or champion adventurer she’d looked up to. From the se
cond then. From the time she turned twenty-two and he noticed the woman. No, not even then. He hadn’t fallen for her completely until just before the kiss.
But he’d walked away from her because of his embarrassment at being made to feel like an idiot.
He was an idiot. ‘I’m so sorry, Edie.’
She stopped talking and focused on him.
He could have kicked himself. He hadn’t meant to apologise here, now. He didn’t want to bring up the kiss scenario yet either. Not until they understood each other a lot more.
‘Edie,’ he said, his voice pitched low and full of dry amusement. ‘This is the dumbest play I’ve ever heard about.’
‘I know,’ she said, her querying frown replaced by a happiness that made her face shine. ‘I wrote it—and people love it. Isn’t it fabulous?’
He looked into her smiling face and lifted his hand and stroked a strand of her glossy auburn hair behind her ear. ‘Fabulous.’
11
In the Spotlight
Edie had her hands in hot, soapy water at the kitchen sink, washing various household props she’d gathered, and her mobile tucked between her shoulder and her ear. ‘What?’ she asked Tony when he’d finished speaking. ‘Why can’t you come down by Friday?’
‘Jonathon’s mother’s going to Greece—a cruise—and she’s landed Jonathon with Sergei.’
‘But cats look after themselves,’ Edie said, remembering Jonathon’s mother’s fluff-ball, indoor-only cat.
‘Not this one, darling. Sergei needs constant company, affection and pats and he hates a smelly litter tray.’
‘Can’t Jonathon take a week off?’
‘There’s a huge bankers conference going on. No way can he miss it.’
‘Can’t you bring Sergei down here?’
‘And have Jonathon’s mother kill me for losing him in the wilds of the country? Are you insane?’
‘All right,’ Edie said, feeling let down, but what could she do?
‘Just slot me into the blocking,’ Tony said. ‘Use a mannequin or something.’
She’d have to do it this way. Tony would be okay being slotted in at the last minute; he’d done the show in Sydney. But would her amateur actors, none of them having done any theatre before except for Simon the farrier, be able to cope with imagining the leading man was on the stage? Maybe Ryan would stand in, since he’d be stage manager and would have to note all the blocking in his script anyway.
‘Now, darling,’ Tony said, ‘there’s something else I have to tell you. Don’t panic but a little birdie told me that Marcus is going to sue you for portraying him in your pathetic melodrama—that’s what he called it, obviously.’
Edie’s jaw dropped. ‘Can he do that? Sue me?’
‘It’s Buchanan Strike, darling, he can do anything. Look at the dozens of rumours he’s spreading about you—they’re working too, because nobody wants to employ you.’
Didn’t she know it.
‘Do you remember that radio presenter,’ Tony continued, ‘the one who asked him leading questions about his extramarital activities, without couching it in those terms? Well, I heard that Marcus sued the pashmina shawl off her shoulders. Hounded her to such an extent the radio station had to sack her.’
Edie gulped. ‘Did he do that because she had an affair with him?’
‘That’s the word around The Green Room,’ Tony said sotto voce. ‘Quite the lothario, is Marcus.’
A vicious one too.
‘I didn’t know he was married,’ she said, hearing the plea in her voice for Tony to believe her. ‘I didn’t have an affair with him.’
‘But you came close, didn’t you?’
Edie wasn’t sure. She hadn’t got to the stage of thinking about sleeping with him. She’d kissed him the night before the hotel incident. ‘I did tell Polly Rogers and Dick Spencer about the casting-couch episode in his hotel room. Do you think they spread it around?’
‘That’s my conclusion, darling.’
Bloody Polly and Dick.
‘Never tell an actor anything. I’ve told you a hundred times.’
‘Can you find out more?’ Tony knew everyone. ‘Or will you be ensconced with Sergei in Jonathon’s flat the whole week?’
‘Telephone. Internet. Facetime. I’m never without means of communicating with my people and the greater world.’
Edie chewed on her fingertips. ‘Why do think he’s pouncing on me with such spitefulness?’
‘Jonathon reckons it’s because of his production company. His wife is the majority shareholder and she’s screaming divorce. Apparently, it’s all over Hollywood already.’
Oh, lord, and that was thousands of miles from Swallow’s Fall.
‘She says she’s going to take his millions off him. Jonathon said he’s probably got around fifty million. That’s not including what Strike has in the pipeline. Heaps of movies in planning stage, darling. Heaps.’
Edie’s heartbeat raced.
‘Oh, got to go,’ Tony said. ‘Here’s Jonathon’s mother with Sergei. I’ll see what else I can dig up on Marcus and his plans for you.’
‘Okay—thanks, Tony,’ she added quickly before he hung up.
She pushed down the desire to call for Ryan. He’d be shocked that she’d got herself into such a mess. He’d probably lose all respect for her and she couldn’t bear the thought. It had been a whole day since he’d bought her a donut and been kind about Ted and the chairs and they’d got themselves back on a friendly basis. Not too friendly, because that donut incident was obviously still sitting between them, unexplained.
He’d touched her; he’d tucked her hair behind her ear and been intimate.
Edie had been struck dumb. He’d done it so tenderly and his eyes had been glowy, although she’d seen something like regret in them too. About having been intimate, probably, knowing her luck …
‘Viv!’ Her heart soared when she saw her sister through the kitchen window, rolling up the concrete path to the house in her wheelchair. She left the sink and dashed to the door, opening it wide. ‘Vivie!’ She bent and kissed her sister’s cheek, emotion overwhelming her. She hadn’t seen Viv for days.
‘Hello, sis. How’s production going? Don’t need a crippled vet in the play, do you? I can bring my own wheelchair.’
Edie laughed at the chirpy tone in Viv’s voice. ‘It’s so good to see you. Even with your stupid jokes.’
Viv grinned, then looked down at the step to the kitchen. ‘Just need a strong, muscular man to carry me over the threshold.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Oh, there’s one.’ She waved at Ryan who was heading over from the barn.
When he got to them he put a hand on the back of the wheelchair, bent down and kissed Viv’s cheek. ‘Heard Ethan’s ute. Thought it might be you.’
‘Dad had to dash off,’ Viv said. ‘Serious problem with a downer cow. Just calved. Milk fever. It’s a calcium level issue.’
Edie loved hearing her sister talk about her job. Even when she didn’t understand a single thing Viv was saying.
‘I told Dad to drop me at the gate. I like a bit of a walk.’
Edie smiled, a little nonplussed at Viv’s self-supporting humour but loving it anyway. It felt like normality had suddenly hit her in the midst of her many worries.
Viv raised her arms and Ryan lifted her easily out of the wheelchair. She’d got the short genes from Sammy—Viv was only five foot five. It was Lachlan and Edie who’d got the tall genes from their dad.
‘Oh, so strong,’ Viv said, and threw a smile Edie’s way. ‘You should get him to lift you up sometimes. What an experience.’
Ryan laughed good-naturedly. ‘Rather you than a F2 Mortar any day, Viv.’
Edie dashed back into the kitchen and held the door open.
‘The armchair by the fire, my good man,’ Viv said, and Ryan obliged, lowering her carefully onto the armchair. ‘This is the life. I’ll take a coffee, please, Edie.’
‘Coming right up, your majesty.’ Edie grinned a
nd caught Ryan’s eye. Her smile stuck fast for a moment before she looked away and moved to get cups as he made for the kettle. They’d been doing a lot of this eye-catching these last twenty-four hours. Much more than usual. Something told her that this time it was different. As though they were each seeking the other out, questioningly. But what answers were they searching for?
Ryan made the coffee while Edie chatted with Viv about the sick cow and its low calcium levels. The poor cow. But Viv said their father would get to it in time. Edie hoped so. How could her sister and father cope with such stress? This is why, as an adult, she’d never owned a dog or a cat. Not that she could tour with either, mind you.
‘So when do rehearsals start?’ Viv asked, sipping her coffee.
‘Tomorrow night,’ Edie said. ‘Six o’clock but Ted will be late due to his afternoon round.’ He was only the dead body at the start, but Edie would wait for him to arrive before they did a read-through of the play.
‘I’d better get on with Edie’s stage,’ Ryan said. ‘See you before you go, Viv.’
‘See you later, gorgeous.’
Viv and Edie watched Ryan leave the kitchen, then raised their chins to watch him out the kitchen window as he sauntered to the barn.
‘So strong,’ Viv said again.
Edie didn’t answer. Viv was canny. She’d probably seen Ryan and Edie’s eye-catching moment. ‘Tony can’t get down this week after all,’ she said, taking Viv’s attention off whatever she was thinking. ‘He’s cat sitting.’
‘I adore Tony. Remember when I came to stay with you when you were both doing that costume romp, The Birdwatcher? I was only sixteen and he made me feel like an adult. He even laughed at my jokes, and they were pretty bad back then.’
‘He is a gorgeous person, isn’t he?’ And hopefully a fantastic finder of rumour-mongers.
Edie looked down at her coffee mug.
Marcus had probably seen her as a pushover, after everything she’d stupidly put up with from him—like being impressed. Now he was killing her career one rumour at a time. She might only get work as an understudy from now on. Forever waiting offstage hoping the leading lady went down with pneumonia so she got the chance to go on.
She stilled, icy tentacles grabbing her.