Crashing the Congressman’s Wedding (Crimson Romance) (13 page)

Alice reached into her pockets for her cell phone and the remaining light bulbs. She walked over to the desk and lodged the light bulbs between a stack of old playbills she’d found upstairs and her foam container from lunch.
Lunch.

“I bet you guys are hungry.” She opened the lid and pulled turkey from her leftover sandwich.

Grabbing a paper towel from the roll, Alice cleaned a spot on the floor and tore the meat into cat-sized pieces. Oscar ate.

As she sat and watched the black kitten chow down, the gray kitten emerged. “Hey, you,” Alice whispered, not wanting to scare him off. “You better hurry up before Oscar eats it all.”

He made it in the nick of time.

Oscar grazed Alice’s knee as she watched the gray one eat. “So we’re friends now, huh?” She chuckled. “I see how you are. You must be a man. Feed you, and you’re sweet as pie.”

The gray one finished the turkey. “And you … you’re Rodgers by default. I can’t have an Oscar Hammerstein without a Richard Rodgers. Welcome to my theatre, Rodgers and Hammerstein.”

Alice smiled. It would be nice having somebody to talk to while she worked. Better yet, maybe they could chase away the rodents.

Strains of
Climb Every Mountain
echoed through the box office, causing Alice to jump to her feet.
Charlie
, she thought before she saw the caller ID.

She was right.

“Hello.”

“I’m here.” He sounded tired — and very far away.

Alice wrapped her free arm around her waist and hugged. “Have you seen her?”

“She won’t take my calls.”

Alice had been afraid of that.

“But I’m going to keep trying,” he said, yawning. “What else can I do?”

“Where are you going to stay, Charlie?”

“I’ll sleep in my car, save my money for gas.”

God, she knew the feeling. Only she had a house and a bed. “Let me send you some money.”

“No,” he snapped. “This is my battle, Alice. Keep focused on that theatre.”

She was trying to, but it was getting harder all the time.

• • •

Justin ducked his head and charged into the wind, heading across the street to the theatre. He’d put this conversation off long enough. Truth be told, he would’ve kept procrastinating if he hadn’t seen her lights come on. But now that he knew she was in there, he needed to relay the bad news so they could figure out what to do next.

He pushed against the door. It didn’t budge. Damn it. Since when did she lock her door?
Probably right after you left the last time, buddy.

He knocked. The wind swirled around him as sprays of icy water chilled his cheeks. He knocked again. At this rate, he might get his wish to procrastinate awhile longer. If she didn’t answer soon, he’d be forced to leave.

This time he pounded.

The door cracked open.

Alice glared at him through narrowed eyes. “No soliciting.”

“Who says I’ve come to solicit you?”

Her face reddened. He wasn’t even through the door and already the air heated between them.

Justin resisted the urge to pull her to him and warm his soul. “Can I come in?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Why?”

“It’s wet.”

She lowered her lid over one eye, looking unmoved.

“And I have news.” He hated the direct approach.

“News about what?” Batting thick lashes over those baby blues, she looked him over from wet head to soaking loafers.

“The grant,” he ground out, wishing she wasn’t making him work so hard for entrance.

At the mention of the grant, she couldn’t move aside fast enough.

When he was safely inside, she locked the door behind him. Too bad she hadn’t taken the same care last time. Then they wouldn’t have been so rudely interrupted.

Justin forced a hand through his wet hair. Why was he thinking about last time? Last time could not happen this time. He was here to help her, not to seduce her.

“What about the grant?” she asked, punctuating the question with the perfect pout.

With his attention on her lips, he couldn’t stop thinking about their kiss. The ill-timed thought frustrated him.

“It’s bad news. I can tell by the look on your face.” Her shoulders slumped. “Just say it, Justin.”

“I’m sorry … ” He started to apologize for his distracted behavior.

“I didn’t get the grant, did I?”

He shook his head. “No, you didn’t.”

She took a deep breath through her open mouth, widening her eyes as her lungs lifted with air, and then she huffed an exhale. “It figures.” She sucked another breath, even longer this time. When she exhaled, she looked smaller. “How do you know?”

“I called on your behalf.”

“To make up for insulting my family the last time you were here?”

“Partly.” It was the other part he dreaded the most.

“And there’s nothing I can do? It’s a final decision?”

“I’m afraid so. For what it’s worth, Kathleen did encourage you to apply again next year.”

Alice’s laugh was hollow. When the mirthless sound quieted, another sound took its place. Scratching.

“What’s that?” Justin asked, looking over his shoulder toward the sound.

Alice sighed. “More mouths to feed.” And then she passed him, walking to the box office door where she turned the knob and unleashed two scrawny kittens. “I found them in the alley.”

Justin stared at the balls of matted fur. It was just like Alice to be rescuing kittens when she couldn’t even rescue herself.

She bent to pull one away from a rotted floorboard. “I’ll have to keep my eye on them when they’re out of the office. It’s not exactly safe around here.” The dejection in her voice relayed what they both knew — without the grant, it wasn’t going to get better anytime soon.

The gray kitten scurried towards a loose wall vent.

“Grab him, will you?” she asked, her hands full of one squirmy kitten. “I don’t want him getting lost in the wall.”

Justin snatched the kitten out of harm’s way. Two bright blue eyes peeked at him through a puff of gray fur. “He’s cute.”

“Exactly. That’s how they ended up in here.” She was standing beside him, clutching the black cat to her chest, massaging the tiny space between his ears with her fingertips. And she was smiling — even after the news about the grant.

“How do you do it?” Justin whispered, letting his gaze wander over her beautiful face.

“Do what?”

“How do you keep smiling even when things go wrong?”

She shrugged. “There’s always going to be bad news, especially when you’re a Cramer.” Her smile faltered. “I learned a long time ago to take my smiles wherever and whenever I could.”

And that made his attack on the Cramer name even worse. Self-disgust bubbled in his throat, and he knew her forgiveness was the only antidote. “I’m sorry I insulted your family.”

She blinked. “Don’t worry about it. I’m used to it.”

“But you shouldn’t be. And you shouldn’t be judged for what your father did or what your brother is doing.”

A flash of fear danced across her face, widening her eyes and halting her breath. “What’s my brother doing?”

Justin blinked this time. “I just meant the drinking, the carrying on with … ”

She tipped her head and scoffed. “It’s my understanding that Charlie and Morgan love each other, and you tried to come between that. Do I get to judge you for that?” She shifted the black kitten into the crook of her left arm and then slipped her right hand beneath the kitten in Justin’s arms. “I’ll put them back.”

Justin didn’t make the transfer easy. He held on a second too long, making her move closer and shove her hand deeper. “Go ahead and judge me, just know you’ll never judge me half as harshly as I’ve been judging myself these last few days.” Silence, dark and deep, swirled around them, tying them together until neither one of them moved. “Everything’s changed, Alice. Everything.”

She didn’t look at him. It was probably a good thing. If she raised her face to his, he was going to kiss her to wipe away her judgment and to prove the changes, and he shouldn’t — for lots of reasons, the biggest of which was the fact that he hadn’t told her about the Parrish threat to her theatre.

Justin released the kitten, and Alice stepped away. “There’s more news,” he said, deciding it was best to nip the wayward feelings in the bud with a good dose of reality.

Her face littered with lines as she nodded and scurried off to close the kittens into their room. When she returned, the lines remained, and her hands busied with wringing. “What?”

Justin crossed to her and raised a hand to smooth her upper arm. “Harold Parrish wants to buy your theatre.”

She raised a brow. “Why would Harold want to own a theatre?”

“It’s not about the theatre. He wants the land. He already purchased the property on either side of you.”

She shook her head as she brushed his hand from her arm. “My theatre’s not for sale.”

Justin smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

“Was there ever any question?”

“A little.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then you don’t know me very well.”

They were innocent words, but somehow they presented a challenge. Her eyes sparkling, staring, waiting didn’t lessen the pressure he felt.

“I know you, Alice,” he said, tightening the gap between them until he could feel her body’s heat. “I know that as soon as I leave, you’ll sit with this news and stare at these walls and wonder what you’re going to do without the grant. I know that despite that smile, you carry a gut load of worry. I know you go home alone, where you miss your mother and pray for Charlie — and fall asleep clinging to your dreams.”

She closed her eyes and a tear rode the curve of her cheek. He swiped at it with his thumb. Yeah, he knew her pretty damn well, so well he couldn’t get her out from underneath his skin. So he did the only thing he could do.

He kissed her, sliding his lips across her wet cheek to her mouth, where she breathed through parted lips, tickling his tongue with her exhale.

Her hands came to rest on his chest beneath his suit coat. “We’re going to keep doing this until we really mess things up, aren’t we?” she asked, nipping his bottom lip.

“Yes, we are … unless you want me to stop.” He wound his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. “Should I stop?”

“No.”

So he didn’t. And he wasn’t going to this time. With the front door locked and his phone in his car, he couldn’t imagine what could interfere. With her body pressed against his, he didn’t care.

She edged up on tiptoes, tightening her arms around his neck. “All I want is you. All I’ve ever wanted was you.”

There was power in those words. They rocketed through him like a lightning strike, charging every cell. He dropped his hands to her bottom and lifted her to his waist, kissing the breath from both of them as she grasped him with her legs. He backed them into a wall, grinding against her, feeling her mouth on his neck, her fingernails on his back.

More kisses. A groan. He dragged her shirt over her back to feel her hot skin. But when she sunk her teeth into his earlobe and chased away the sting with a swirl of her tongue, his knees buckled.

“Put me down. You’re going to get hurt.”

He pressed his body against hers and silenced her self-deprecation. Somewhere between the unsteady knees and the mind-blowing mixture of tongues, she ended up with feet flat on the floor, her hands shoved into the waistband of his dress pants.

She was right, wasn’t she? Life was full of lots of crap. Why not seize every smile?

Alice wrapped her hands around Justin’s belt buckle and tugged, pulling him toward the far side of the room. Of course there wasn’t a bed in the theatre — not even a blanket. There was no couch either. No padded armchair. And since the grant was a bust, it looked like the building would remain empty for a long, long time.

Good thing she knew how to improvise.

Even better, she had years of practice shedding the skin of poor downtrodden Alice. It was easy really — take on the persona of someone else, someone without a care in the world. Usually that someone else was a singing nun or a sweet, simple farm girl. Tonight, she was channeling Gypsy Rose Lee.

And that was going to get her something she’d always wanted — Justin — without disappointment over the grant getting in her way.

A deep breath and a shake of her head, and she let Alice Cramer go. As a nameless, fearless woman, she pulled a devastatingly handsome man through the theatre’s double doors. Once inside the dimly lit house, he backed her against the wall and stole another kiss, piling goose pimples on top of goose pimples. When he came up for air, she shook the tingles from her head and dragged him down the center aisle.

“Sit,” she commanded, twisting him around until the front row was at his rear.

He didn’t hesitate. What man would? She was already unbuttoning her shirt.

“Welcome to the show.” She winked.

He pulled on his tie as he cleared his throat.

She grinned and unbuttoned another button. “You’re in for a treat.” So was she. There was no way she’d squander another opportunity where Justin was concerned.

He reached for her wrist, but she jerked away, giving her hips a sassy swing. “Keep your hands to yourself, sir. No unauthorized touching in my club.” She released the bottom button and slipped the shirt off one shoulder, careful not to show too much skin.

Running the fingers of her opposite hand down the curve of her neck, she bared a few more inches.

His eyes grew dark.

She loved the power he was letting her have. She loved the want written all over his face. And she was just getting started.

“Sometimes when I’m alone, I imagine you touching me here,” she said as she dragged fingers over her collarbone to the split in her shirt, creating a deep V. “And here.” Then she flattened her palm and pulled it across her breast. “And here.”

He released a good-natured growl. “Alice, you’re killing me.”

She flashed him a sultry pout. “My name’s not Alice.”

“Of course not. Who are you?”

“Whoever you want me to be,” she said, dipping her body to the floor, rolling her hips while she gripped the shirt to her chest.