What the Heart Wants (29 page)

Xandra's eyes glistened with interest. “I just adored Colin Sanger. And he was so right for the role of Rhett Butler in the remake of
Gone with the Wind
. Tall, dark, and handsome—and that voice! It sent shivers down me every time he spoke.”

“Everyone tells me that.” Yeah, Colin was a heartthrob. The women wanted him, the men wanted him—she would have had to sweep a pile of adoring fans off the doorstep every morning if they'd lived in a normal house rather than massively built mansion with an eight-foot-tall wall around it. The wonder was that Colin hadn't dug a moat and stocked it with alligators.

The long-necked, long-beaked woman sitting next to Xandra, who seemed to have dyed her hair out of the same pot as her neighbor, moved her head forward like a hissing snake. “He died so young.”

Moira lowered her eyes, struck her best grieving widow pose, and softened her voice to a whisper. “It's been two years, but I miss him still.” Damn this Method acting. She'd convince herself if she wasn't careful.

Xandra took over again. “Too bad there were never any children.”

The twosome stared at Moira pointedly.

Who were these women? Were they tag-teaming? Moira sighed dramatically and gave the same crap answer she'd given countless tabloid reporters. “We were both busy with our careers and thought we had all the time in the world.”

The door opened, and the people seated around the table looked up long enough to identify the newcomer, a tall, angular woman in a peacock-blue squaw dress cinched at the waist and a copper-medallion belt. Her flyaway hair looked like a stray mockingbird had tried to make a nest in it.

Pen motioned toward her. “That's Vashti Atherton, our accompanist. Musical genius. She scored the
Gift of the Magi
. Her younger daughter, Micaela, will play Della, the wife. Phil Schoenfeldt—the man at the end of the table who's waving his hands around—has been cast as the husband. And Travis McAllister will sing the dream sequence. He's the one talking to Vashti right now.”

“Pen, I really do need to see the script.”

“As soon as our chairman gets here, my dear. He's bringing photocopies for everyone.”

The door opened again and an attractive brunette entered, nodding at Pen as she took a seat further on down the table.

“Rebecca Espinoza. Her husband is a city councilman, and they're very supportive of civic theater. Both of their children have appeared in our productions.”

Xandra leaned across the table again. “Lucinda Jane and Melody have been taking dance classes with Sister and me since they were toddlers. Clarette and I choreograph all the numbers and train all the dancers—even the ones who don't patronize our studio.”

Pen beamed at the duo. “The Fontaine sisters have been very generous in contributing their talents and expertise to our theater productions.”

Moira commented the only way she could. “Wonderful!”

Vashti Atheron, Phil Schoenfeldt, Travis McAllister, Rebecca Espinoza, Xandra and Clarette Fontaine. She repeated each name to herself and glued it to a face. She didn't want to accidentally snub anyone in the grocery store—these people would determine whether she stayed in Bosque Bend in triumph or slunk back to Pasadena in disgrace.

A masculine voice rang out from the end of the table, where most of the men seemed to have congregated. “Hey, Pen, what's holding up Chairman Mao? Rafe's photocopier broken again?”

The room roared with laughter. Apparently a running joke.

Pen gave him a quick comeback. “You know more than I do, Travis. He's your brother.” He turned to Moira. “We're not very formal—no elections or anything—but Rafe McAllister runs the show. Great guy.”

“Rafe McAllister? I saw some items in the museum that he'd donated on behalf of the C Bar M Ranch.”

Pen nodded. “Josiah Colby established the ranch in 1855, but couldn't make a go of it until Gilbert McAllister came on the scene right after the Civil War. The Colbys have pretty much died out, but the current generation of the McAllisters is going strong and has been quite generous to Bosque Bend. Now that Rafe's got the museum up and running, he's negotiating for us to buy the old Huaco Theater just off Austin Avenue and restore it as a permanent home for the theater guild. He thinks we can get a historical marker for it too.”

Moira's eyebrows went up. “That's quite an undertaking.”

Pen shrugged. “Rafe's an architect, so he knows what he's doing buildingwise. The plan is to move us onto a more professional footing so we can draw audiences from Waco and some of the smaller towns around here. That's where you come in. Carolyn Gomez-Sweeny, the Eisenhower Consolidated drama teacher who started us out four years ago, said that we've reached the point where we needed to hire somebody full-time.”

Moira glanced around the table. “Is Ms. Gomez-Sweeny here today?”

Pen retrieved a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Carolyn's having to step back—school stuff and the new baby—but she wanted you to have her phone number in case you want to ask her about anything.”

The door opened again and all the heads bobbed up again, but this time, they stayed up. A smile spread across Pendleton Swaim's face. “Rafe!”

Moira turned to see a tall redhead with a cardboard box under his arm enter the room. He gave the group a familiar, easy smile, and his eyes twinkled like summer sparklers.

Nooooo!

Big Red started passing scripts down the table. “Sorry to be late, folks. It was that dang copier again.” Moira froze in place as his gaze moved down the table, then traveled back up and settled on her. “Glad to see our new director made it.”

She forced the corners of her mouth to curve up, but her blood ran cold.

Wet autumn leaves slushed under her tires as Moira backed her six-year-old Toyota out of its parking space in the asphalt lot across the street from the museum. The mid-October temperatures in central Texas seemed to be as mild as back in Pasadena, but this intermittent rainfall was driving her crazy. Pray God it wouldn't get too cold later on. She and Isis didn't have a heavy coat between them.

Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she waited at the street for a break in the traffic.
Damn!
That was Rafe McAllister standing at the curb in front of the museum, and he was looking her way. She'd like to run the jerk down.
No, Moira, play the game.
Isis is depending on you. Arne is depending on you. Gram and Gramps are depending on you.

Moira thought she was off the financial hook when she married Colin Sanger and he arranged for a monthly allowance to help support her family. But when Colin died, not only did the allowance cease, but Moira also learned that he'd hadn't changed his will after they were married. That meant his ex-wife was now enormously rich and the Actors Guild's coffers were overflowing. All Moira's family had to live on was the sale of the jewelry Colin had given her, the yearly stipend she received from the father she'd only met once in her life, and residuals from
The Clancy Family
reruns.

She was still better off than Isis, whose father had never bothered to contact her after Kimiko left him for another man. But then, Bennie Birdsong had been their mother's second husband—or maybe her third. It was hard to keep track. Her mother was currently preening herself as Kimiko O'Donnell, Lady Eglantine. That wouldn't last long, but at least she'd sent a couple of checks back home to Pasadena this time. Not much, of course—it cost a lot of money for a fifty-two-year-old woman to maintain her looks enough to compete with the latest wave of twenty-year-old honeybuns.

Moira mulled over her meeting with the theater guild as she drove onto Bowie Avenue, then cut over to Austin Avenue, Bosque Bend's main drag. Apparently the major purpose of the get-together had been for everyone to look her over. Accordingly, she'd smiled like a demented dolphin and shaken everyone's hand, even Rafe McAllister's.

And his gorgeous eyes had sparkled at her the whole time.

Rafe gave Moira Farrar a wave as she drove out onto the street, but she didn't respond. Probably didn't see him—or didn't want to.

What was going on with the woman? He'd felt an immediate connection with her in the museum and followed up in kind, but she'd gone cold on him. Maybe he shouldn't have made a move on her right off the bat, but she was such a cute little thing. The sitcom camera had never caught those high cheekbones and exotic eyes, the eyebrows that looked like they'd been painted on with a feather, the fanlike lashes, the sweetness of her smile. And that rasping voice, which had been used for comic effect in
The Clancy Family
, had sent shivers down him to right there where it mattered.

He watched her car turn the corner at the end of the block. Colin Sanger had died two years ago—dived into a half-empty swimming pool was the story. Did Moira Farrar have a current boyfriend?
Boyfriend
—a stupid term for an adult male.
Say it out, Rafe—does she have a lover?

A red Mustang pulled over to the curb, and Rafe's brother lowered the passenger window. “Hey, Mao. You gonna stand there all day holdin' down the sidewalk?”

Rafe bent to rest his arms on the rolled-down window ledge. “Trying to think what else I can do to fix that damn photocopier.”

Although actually the machine worked like a charm. The real reason he'd run late was that Delilah had pitched a fit when he'd tried to drop her off at Sissy's. Only the promise that he would invite “the pretty lady” out to the ranch over the weekend had reconciled her to stay with Baby Zoey, but he wasn't about to announce that devil's bargain.

Travis laughed. “Guy, give up and buy a new copier. You got the money—if you haven't driven yourself into bankruptcy paying for that cutie-pie little director to come to town.”

“You noticed?”

“I'm married, not blind.”

“Speakin' of being married,” Rafe smiled, “I hear tell Rocky's not happy about the amount of time you've been spendin' with Micaela Atherton lately.”

Travis snorted. “Rocky's on my back if I so much as hold the door open for a little old lady.”

“Rocky's your wife, Trav, and Micaela's not a little old lady. Half the town saw you cuddlin' up to her at Good Times last weekend.”

“Lay off, Rafe. Micaela and I were singing a love song and had to make it look good. For God's sake, we had a spotlight on us and everyone in the damn honky-tonk was singing along.”

“Just be careful.”

Travis grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. “You don't know how it is. Rocky's after me again to hang up the band. Hell, all I need is a decent break and I could hit the big time, maybe make the Grand Ole Opry.” His face lit up. “Hey, how about you corralling Ms. Farrar and bringing her out to Good Times tonight so she can hear me? That woman has showbiz connections up the wazoo, and I want to be in her address book.”

“Don't think she likes me, Trav.”

“Rafe, every woman on the face of the earth likes you. It's those eyes of yours. You hypnotize them.” He glanced around as the light turned and the traffic started moving behind him. “Gotta go before I get myself rammed.”

Rafe stepped back from the curb. “Later, guy.”

Good Times.
It just might work, for him as well as Travis. He'd tell Moira he needed to discuss her ideas for
Gift of the Magi
, and maybe he could warm up the ice princess after all.

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