by Vicky Loebel
“That’s….” Lane let rumbling thunder cover her lack of words. How had she ever come to have such loyal friends? “That’s lovely. I’m not sure the Captain’s Club will allow it, though, once they own the building.”
Mike put his arm around her. “We’ll sign a contract with Clay’s firm before I sell. That ought to tie their sails in a knot.”
“Maybe.”
Thunder roared—a long, echoing series of blasts joined by searing flashes of lightening. Balloons, tied to the valet sign, jerked, bobbed, and popped. Mike and Lane hurried to the lobby doors to hold umbrellas for departing guests. Rain pelted down as a steady stream of cars rolled up from valet parking.
Lightning strobed brighter. There was a crack so loud Lane wasn’t sure she’d heard it. She stood on the sidewalk, dazzled, and felt Mike’s hand reach for hers. When Lane could think again, the world was dark. All up and down Pleasure Pointe, the only illumination came from car head and tail lights, streaked with rain.
Lane ran inside, relieved to find the auditorium’s emergency lights and red exit signs working properly. Another flash and triple bang of thunder ripped the air, followed by less impressive rumbling as the worst of the storm moved on. The last few guests lined up to get their cars.
Javier, Lane’s valet friend, tossed her a cheerful wave. “I see you got that tune up after all, Ms. T.”
“Mind your own business.” Lane couldn’t help smiling. She brushed dripping wet hair out of her eyes, wondering if there’d be hot water when she finally got to bed. Thinking that maybe she and Mike….
Tom and Gussie ran through the downpour around the building from the parking lot. “Everything’s fine outside,” Gussie reported, laughing. “Food trucks are gone. Barbeque’s out and packed up for tomorrow. The judge let a few stragglers into the Captain’s Club so they wouldn’t be huddled under tents during the lightning.”
Lane nodded, partly irritated but mostly grateful to her meddling father-in-law.
“The barbeque’s out?” Mike frowned, wrinkling his nose. “I still smell smoke.”
Mike and Lane went back through the lobby to the auditorium. Water had streamed in through the boat doors, flooding the plywood floor, but all the costumes were safe and dry in their display cases. Outside, the parking lot shimmered pearl gray in the rain, lit by fainter and fainter bursts of lightning.
“Mom! Mommy!” Gemma’s voice came from the stairs. “We couldn’t sleep.”
“It’s too noisy,” Mima complained.
Lane went to meet them. The glow from the lights seemed brighter, or maybe her eyes were getting used to it.
“We smelled smoke.” Ashley held Gemma’s hand and passed Mima to Lane. “I felt the door to the apartment and it was cool, so I brought the girls downstairs.”
The auditorium was definitely less dark.
“Look.” Gussie pointed. High up along the top of the stage curtains was a red flickering light.
Lane felt her life drain out and pool around her feet.
“Call 911,” Mike said. “Get everyone out. The building’s on fire.”
Chapter Nine
Mike saw Lane’s shocked gaze travel not to the fire but to the wisp of smoke collecting near the stairs and knew she was thinking of where her daughters could have been right now. He noticed Lacey Walker collecting the kids—Ashley, Gemma, Mima—under her wing and heard Clay Walker phoning 911. The building’s fire alarm began to shrill.
Mike’s own attention was racing through the building, mentally checking locked and unlocked doors.
Nick Hershey, also ex-military, voiced Mike’s thoughts. “Lane,” he said, “where else could people be?”
“Theater restrooms,” Tom DeMille offered. “I’ll go look.”
“Me, too.” Gussie went with him.
“Upstairs,” Mike answered for Lane. “Ashley, could anyone else have been in the apartment? Or in the stairwell?”
“No one. I’m positive. We checked the bedrooms before we left, just to be sure. And I locked the apartment door behind me.”
“Good job.” Clay Walker, Ashley’s step-dad, had a phone to his ear. “It’s the lightening,” he said. “They’ve got two other fires in Pleasure Pointe. The dispatcher wants me to stay on the line.”
Mike nodded. “I locked the cloakroom and utility closet myself, and I’ve been checking them.” The place was full of teenagers after all. “The stage door’s locked, but anyone could sneak under the curtain.”
A lick of flame broke through the top edge of the velvet drapes.
“That’s our cue, flyboy.” Nick punched Mike’s shoulder.
“OK.” Mike wasn’t going to argue with a Navy Seal. “We’ll check the stage.”
“Wait.” Lane shook herself. “I’ll come—”
“You’ll get your daughters out.” Mike kissed her fast and hard. “Put Clay in front and stand guard by the boat doors to keep people out. And make sure there’s room for fire trucks in the parking lot.
“We’re on it.” Lacey took Lane’s arm.
Mike pulled out keys, thumbing the mini-mag light on his keychain. “Side door.” No ducking under burning curtains. He led Nick partway up Lane’s staircase and pressed his own palm flat against the door to test for heat.
“You thinking flashover?” Nick asked above the shrilling alarm.
“Maybe.” The curtains might have restricted the flow of air to the stage, in which case opening the door could let in a rush of oxygen that set off a fireball. “Door’s not hot,” he reported. “We’re probably OK.”
Nick dropped and felt the crack along the sill. “No draft.”
“Right.” Mike unlocked the door. “I’ll open. You stand aside to pull me clear.” He turned the doorknob, preparing to dive for cover, but nothing happened.
Mike peered into the stage wings. Inside was darkness—emergency lights obscured by a high layer of inky smoke—lit by a ghastly flickering line of fire on the back wall.
“Hello!” Nick strode in. “Anyone here?”
The stage looked empty, but there were nooks and crannies everywhere.
“Kids hide from fire,” Nick said. “Look inside things. I’ll take the other wing.”
Mike signaled thumbs up and started opening cupboards, looking behind and under props. Knowing the theater better, he finished ahead of Nick. The room was definitely warming up.
There was a trap door operated by a handle on the back wall. Mike had played in the utility room under the stage as a boy. It was the perfect place to hide, but would anyone else know how to get down there? He glanced up at the thickening smoke, coughing, thinking there was a narrow margin between being thorough and getting yourself cooked alive.
One of the curtains dropped in a shower of sparks. Smoke roiled into the auditorium. Screw it. Mike grabbed a piece of wood, ran to the back, and hit the red-hot handle. He met Nick in the middle of the stage and they both stuck their heads down through the trapdoor, shouting.
The space was black, filled with bits of scenery and old machines. There could have been a dozen kids inside. Mike aimed his little light into the corners.
Nick grabbed the flashlight, jumped in, and disappeared. Forty-five very long seconds later he was back.
“We’re clear.”
Mike hauled him out. He wasn’t sure who made the stairway first. Ten seconds after that, they were in the auditorium. One second later, the building began to rain.
“Sprinklers?” He turned to stare. “The goddamn sprinklers just came on?”
“Leave now.” Nick pushed him toward the boat doors. “Rubberneck later.”
Rubberneck? But Mike couldn’t argue with getting out. He jogged through light rain in the puddled parking lot and joined the knot of desperately worried watchers standing in the sweet air.
“Nick Hershey, you idiot so-and-so.” Willow exploded out of the group into Nick’s arms. “I ought to break your neck.”
“We’re fine,” Nick said. “It wasn’t even scary.”
Mike had been moderately terrified, a fact that hadn’t registered until now. He reached Lane who was standing, shivering in the warm drizzle, clutching her girls.
“Rain guy!” Gemma and Mima cheered.
A fire truck rolled up with sirens and flashing lights. Nick went to talk to them. Inside the Mimosa Theater, the fire alarm warbled uncertainly and fell silent.
“It’s me.” Lane’s teeth chattered. “It’s all my fault.”
Mike got an emergency blanket out of his truck and helped Lane and her daughters out of the rain into the big back seat of the cab.
“You said….” She hiccupped. “The judge…everyone said the building wasn’t safe.”
“It’s OK. The sprinklers came on. Everyone’s fine.”
Lane clutched her daughters.
“I’m hungry,” Mima lifted her nose. “I smell food.”
Mike’s nostrils were still full of smoke. He turned and coughed into his sleeve. “That’s the Cubanos. I left them in the front.” He got the bag of sandwiches and some bottles of water. “Here you go.”
“Where are we sleeping?” Gemma asked. “In the truck?”
“How about my boat? It’s got a room with bunkbeds just right for little girls.”
“The boat that used to be in the theater?” She shook her head. “We’re not allowed anywhere near it on pain of you-don’t-want-to-find-out-what.”
“I think it’s OK if we bring your mom.”
Mima swallowed a bite of sandwich. “Cowboy-monster-truck-fairies don’t live on boats.”
“Of course not,” Mike said. “On a boat you’d be a cowboy-monster-truck-fairy-pirate.”
“Pirate?” Mima’s small mouth dropped open. “Pirate!”
“Pirate princess,” Gemma demanded.
“Queen of the sea.”
Mima put down her sandwich and stood on the seat. “This is the best night ever,” she yelled to no one in particular.
Mike shook his head. “Ever?”
But Lane, much calmer now, smiled in agreement. “We’re safe.” She clasped Mike’s hand. “You’re safe. Everyone’s here. Life doesn’t get any better than that.”
Chapter Ten
“OK. First the good news.” Clay Walker escorted Mike and Lane through the side door into the Mimosa Theater and up the steps to her apartment. “The good news is the building’s safe. Lots of smoke damage and what was left of the wiring is shot, so no electricity. But everything’s structurally sound.”
“Thanks for talking to the insurance adjustors,” Mike said. “They’ve expedited my claim.”
Lane listened numbly. She’d spent the last few days cocooned on Mike’s boat, playing with Gemma and Jemima, listening to people say how lucky she was the sprinklers had put out the fire, that it was caused by a freak lightning strike and not the wiring problems she’d ignored for years, that the Midsummer Night’s Dream costumes—locked safely in glass cases—had escaped undamaged.
But what if Ashely hadn’t smelled smoke? Lane trudged upward. What if the girls had been asleep?
“The bad news,” Clay continued, resting one hand on the doorknob, “is that even if you fix the wiring, the upstairs flat is pretty much ruined.”
Lane forced herself to react. “You’ve been wonderful, Clay. Thanks.” As Ashley’s stepfather, the man had every right to be as upset as she was. Instead he’d taken charge, bringing in his own structural engineer, attending walk-throughs and meetings between Mike and the contractors, fire inspectors, and insurance adjustors who’d been swarming through the building. Not for the first time, Lane found herself indebted to friends at Casa Blanca. But for the first time she felt completely unworthy.
Mike’s arm went comfortingly around her waist.
“Ready?” Clay opened the door.
The smell assaulted her first, the sour, poisonous odor of things never meant to be burned. Ceiling, walls, furniture, the bits and pieces of costumes she’d left lying around were covered in squelching layers of soot, tracked with tears where sprinkler water had hit the surfaces and run down. Actual flames had never reached the apartment, but the air conditioning vents had poured deadly smoke straight into the flat.
Mike said, “Gussie thinks most of the clothes are salvageable.” He squeezed Lane’s waist. “She and Willow carted them off to some miracle cleaner they know. I’ll get a stack of boxes this afternoon and we can go through the rest of your things together.”
“That isn’t necessary.” Mike had delayed his cruise once already to deal with this mess. “Janet will help. And anyway, everything that matters got out during the fire.” She turned to Clay. “Ashley was wonderful, checking bedrooms, locking the door. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay her.”
Clay surprised Lane by laughing. “I think she’s planning to cash in on a part in Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“With MCT? Whatever she wants.” Lane glanced at Mike. “I mean, assuming we get the theater repaired.”
“I’ll leave that to the two of you.” Clay shook Mike’s hand, accepted a hug from Lane, and headed out, abandoning the two of them to the wreckage.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Mike said. “It’s too depressing in here.”
“Upstairs?”
“I used to go up on the roof all the time.” He carried a kitchen chair to the landing outside her flat, climbed on it, and opened a trap door in the ceiling before unfolding a hidden ladder and offering Lane his hand.
The roof was hot and flat, surrounded by a three-foot-high parapet wall, shaded by towering royal palms that grew in the neighbor’s yard. A stiff breeze from the turquoise Gulf reduced the stench of fire from their clothes.
“Gets in your mouth.” Mike handed Lane a peppermint candy and unwrapped one for himself. “The smoke.” He gazed down at a flock of seagulls at the docks. “I think that’s the worst part, when nobody’s hurt.”
He seemed to be speaking from experience. “Have you been in a fire before?”
“Not directly. A plane crashed and burned on base way back when I was in training. They had the BTs—recruits—work cleanup, hoping it would impress us.” He looked at Lane. “It did.”
Lane didn’t know anything about the Air Force except what she’d researched since meeting Mike. “I found a picture of you in an old online newsletter. Pushing paratroopers out of the back of an airplane.” She watched his eyebrows rise. “I mean, not that I’m cyber stalking….”
“I wouldn’t mind if you were.”
Her stomach fluttered. “But I feel like I’ve been pushed out of an airplane. I’m falling and I don’t know what comes next.”
“Five-point landing, free your chute, regroup. Unless you haven’t got a parachute. In which case, you hope you’ve got a friend nearby who does.” Mike took her hand. “You’ve got lots of friends. What do you want?”
“I don’t know.” Maybe that was her problem. “I can’t think past moving back in with the judge and Janet.”
“You could come with me on my cruise. You and Gemma and Mima.”
Did he mean that? “For two months?”
“It will be tight quarters with my other guests. But we can make it work.” He put his hands behind Lane’s back and pulled her to him. “I’m very skilled….” Their kiss tasted of peppermint and promise.
“At organizing,” Lane breathed. “I know—” His second kiss took her breath away. Lane ran her hands up Mike’s muscular shoulders, wondering how she’d lived without a man so long, how she could ever live without this man again.
“Organizing,” he murmured huskily, “is just one skill I plan to use to keep you happy in tight quarters.”
“Sounds amazing.” What a wonderful fantasy, to pack the girls and leave her problems behind. “Thank you so, so much for asking. I’d love to. But I can’t.”
“Is it….” He hesitated. “Is it because I’m not an actor? Not college educated? Not like….”
“Alex?” Did that worry him? “Heavens, no.”
�
��He made you happy. Maybe you’re not ready to leave that behind.”
“I’m not,” Lane said. “I’ll never leave it behind completely. It’s too much part of who I am. But that doesn’t mean I can’t, um….” Was she falling in love with Mike? Don’t be clingy. “Can’t have other relationships.”
That sounded cold. Lane swallowed and tried to explain.
“I was a kid when I got married. Barely twenty. Alex adored my innocence, and I loved being adored.” Who could resist the handsome, debonair Alex Talmadge? “I gave up acting, skated through school, had kids all in a glamorous whirl. But it was his world. Big, bold, and wonderful, but everything revolved around him.”
She took a breath. “After his accident, when Alex was more and more bedridden, we made a new world, full of books and cozy intimacy. But that was his, too—revolving around his health, his relationship with the children, his needs.”
A yellow sailboat was beating its way around Pleasure Pointe. Lane watched it tack into the wind.
“Alex’s last year, when we both knew he was losing ground, he started asking for time alone, sending me off to work with Essie. At first I thought he didn’t want me to see how bad the pain was getting, but that wasn’t the main reason. He wanted me to find a world of my own.”
A seagull settled on the parapet and tipped its head at them. “That world’s the theater, and it’s the first time in ten years I’ve had my own ambition.” Lane understood now what she wanted. “I don’t expect you to stay with me or sink a lot of money into repairing the building. It wouldn’t be fair.” She looked at Mike. “But I can’t run away, however great it sounds. My dream, the world Alex and Esther helped me find, is here.” It didn’t matter if she and the gidgets had their own flat or lived in Janet’s extra rooms. “I’m going to keep bringing theater to Mimosa Key. In schools, under the causeway, or barefoot on the beach. Because that’s what I am. Because, at least for now, it’s what I have to do.”
“OK.” Mike gazed at the horizon. “That makes sense.”
“So, it’s all right if you don’t want to use the insurance money to fix the theater. Honestly. The building’s just a shell.”