Playing the Maestro (15 page)

The entrance of Ms. Maxhammer overshadowed Wolf’s joke. She walked gingerly with her cane around the right swell of the stage. At first, Wolf thought the president of the board had come to hear the orchestra play, but the solemn expression on the old woman’s face told him otherwise.

Lightning zapped his heart.
What now?

He didn’t have time to guess. Ms. Maxhammer walked at a breakneck pace for a woman in her eighties. Wolf stood and met her halfway. “Ms. Maxhammer. What a pleasure to have you grace our rehearsal with your presence.”

She gave Melody a dubious frown, than turned to Wolf. “Mr. Braun, I need to speak with you in private.”

Melody took the cue, bowed her head before the old woman, and climbed the steps to the stage. Wolf led the president of the board to the seats in the back. “What can I do for you?”

He gestured for her to take a seat, but she shook her head. “I won’t be here long.”

A trumpet ran through a fanfare, and the old woman waited until the sound tapered off to speak.

She cleared her throat. “I’ve just spoken with the chief of the Easthampton police, who has spoken with Der Polizeipräsident in Berlin.” She pronounced the words so clearly, he wondered if she did indeed speak German.

Absently, she touched the chunky beads at her neck. “It seems Ms. Schuhmacher’s been writing bad checks. If we’d given back her money, she would have conned us out of more than five thousand dollars.”

“
Verdammt
!” Wolf bunched his fists as anger ripped through him. Everyone Alda touched was cursed.

Ms. Maxhammer tapped her cane against his leg. “You were right, Mr. Braun.”

Wolf wondered if his scorning Alda had been part of her plan all along. Was he still a piece on her chessboard? It didn’t matter now, because the police were onto her game. She couldn’t run forever. “I’m just glad I caught her before she got away with it.”

“Yes, I reviewed the documents you’d sent us, and I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Alda’s actions pushed me to come to the States, to take this job.” Wolf looked to the stage where Melody assembled her flute, standing in front of the orchestra to play her concerto instead of sitting in the back. “It was worth it.”

Ms. Maxhammer’s eyes grew misty with melancholy. “You love her, don’t you?” She gazed into the distance, where Melody played a few notes.

Wolf paused. He couldn’t continue to lie about Melody. He loved her and he owed her more than that, even if it meant losing his job. Because of Alda, he was sick of charades.

“I do.” A blush rushed up his neck. “It was all my fault, not hers. If anyone needs to go, let it be me.”

“As far as I’m concerned, no one’s going anywhere.” Ms. Maxhammer set her lips in a tight line and looked out into the empty audience. “You’ve done great things with this orchestra so far.”

“Thank you.” Wolf breathed a sigh of relief. He wondered how an old woman could make him as nervous as a schoolboy. Had there ever been a Mr. Maxhammer in her life? He’d heard rumors of a millionaire love interest who died in Vietnam, leaving her all his wealth, but someday he’d have to get to know her better and ask the real story.

“Go on, then.” She tapped his foot with her cane. Still looking ahead, a smile leaked from the corner of her mouth. “Make it count.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Judgment Day

The sound of chatter, folding programs, and little kids kicking the backs of seats filled the Wallsworth Auditorium. Melody picked up the many skirts of her new black evening gown and tiptoed to the velvety curtains that lay across the stage. She pulled one back and peeked.

Half the audience was full.

She checked the clock backstage. Ten more minutes to the performance. Had the deal not gone through?

“Seems Mr. Braun’s great debut is under-attended.” Blake’s voice made her jump, and she felt the diamond earrings Wolf had given her for her concerto performance bob in her ears.

“We still have time,” she growled, wanting to hit him with her flute. Too bad she’d left it in her dressing room.

He grinned. “Ten minutes and counting. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my time. Mr. Braun failed, and the committee will meet tomorrow and write his resignation letter.”

“And who’s going to conduct this orchestra if you get rid of him? You?”

Blake shrugged. “I could certainly do a better job with concert attendance by bringing in some very big names.”

Anger erupted inside her. She got up right in his face. “You can’t even keep track of the music parts.”

Blake locked eyes with her, and in that instant, she knew he knew she knew. She challenged him with a flare of her eyes, ready to have it out with him right here, right now in her four-inch heels.

The swell of voices rose behind the curtain, followed by clicks of a hundred cameras and a sea of laughter. Both Melody and Blake whirled around and moved the red velvet out of the way.

Children poured from the doorway, like the opening of a candy shop. They ran down the aisles and jumped into empty seats, squealing with excitement. Women and men in scrubs came next, followed by a few doctors still wearing their white coats. A camera crew followed, with local reporters documenting the scene.

“What is this? The ER or the circus?” Blake frowned as if he’d never been a kid himself.

Melody breathed in triumph and her chest swelled against the rhinestone-crusted straps of her evening gown. Laini had come through.

“They’re here courtesy of the Make-A-Dream Foundation.” Melody almost burst with pride.

It began with a few eager voices, then caught like wildfire throughout the auditorium. The kids chanted, “Mo-zart. Mo-zart. MO-ZART. MO-ZART.”

Happiness rose inside of Melody as she spotted Laini, along with Derek and Violet taking seats in the front row. “You see, they all wrote letters last week asking to see Mozart in concert.”

Of course, Blake would think she meant Mozart’s music, when in fact, they meant Wolfgang Braun. She nudged Blake’s shoulder as no seats were left unfilled. “Looks like our new conductor is here to stay.”

Melody brought out a sealed envelope. “Oh and by the way, Wolf and I reported your music hiding to the board, with evidence. They’d like to meet with you after the concert.”

Blake’s face paled, and he blinked in disbelief. “I don’t have to take this, especially not from
you
. I’m sending my resignation anyway. Besides, this job doesn’t pay me nearly enough.”

Smiling to herself, Melody wondered if that wasn’t so bad.

A stagehand gestured for her to move so he could pull back the curtains, and Melody shuffled back to the dressing rooms. Making sure no one saw her, she knocked lightly on Wolf’s door and his voice echoed out. “Come in.”

Melody slipped in and closed the door behind her. Wolf turned from his music scores and his face brightened. “You look gorgeous.”

“You can stop flattering me.” Melody kissed his cheek. “I’m already yours.”

He cast a nervous look at the door. “How’s it going out there?”

Melody teased him by biting her lower lip just like he’d teased her about the results of the concerto competition. “They’re here.”

He sighed in relief. “Thank you, Mel. You’ve made this concert succeed and saved my job.”

She squeezed his shoulder. “It’s little payback for saving my life.”

He waved her away like she’d overestimated him. “I was just in the right place at the right time.”

In the right place at the right time.
That was the biggest understatement of the year. He dropped in on her orchestra just when she was losing hope of the entire male musician population. “I’ll say.” She nudged his arm. “You should go out there and peek. They’re shouting for you.”

“For me or for Mozart?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“I guess the facade never bothered Bruce Wayne. If Batman can do it, then so can I.”

Melody laughed. “You’d certainly give Batman a run for his money.”

“If he played the harpsichord.”

The thought of the Caped Crusader sitting at a filigreed harpsichord gave Melody the giggles. If she didn’t get out of there, she’d lose all her concentration. She moved to the door. “Good luck. I’ve got to go warm up.”

“Mel?”

She turned from the door. “Yeah?”

“Do you think the real Mozart would mind? My stealing his identity and all for the kids?”

Melody thought back to everything she’d learned about him in her history classes. “If anything, I think he’d cheer you on.”

The concert began with the racing runs of Strauss’s
Don Juan.
The strings played like they were on fire, followed by a trumpet fanfare and a pattering of timpani. Melody pictured Don Juan leaping from rooftop to rooftop and landing in the bedroom of his most recent conquest. Her flute resonated under her fingers as she blazed through triumphant runs. Carly’s solo after letter L started on a low D and rose up like pure emotion into a gorgeous melody, like an older woman remembering her first love. Melody heard such exquisite subtlety in her friend’s tone, she wondered if there were stories Carly wasn’t telling her about.

The symphonic poem ended in ominous French horn tones and a staggering heartbeat of strings, followed by a surge of applause.

Wolf spoke to the audience in between pieces, making the children giggle and sing. His stories educated the audience about the music while entertaining them at the same time. He told all the young girls how they wouldn’t want to kiss Don Juan, because of all the ladies he’d kissed before. They giggled, and Melody wondered how she could have ever thought Wolf was like the seventeenth-century libertine. Before she knew it, he’d finished his story, and the audience clapped as the lights dimmed.

Heart racing and adrenaline pumping, Melody walked on stage, taking her position in front of the orchestra. Wolf smiled and his eyebrows rose in question. She nodded, and he brought the orchestra to life with a downbeat.

Melody gazed out into the audience and soaked in the moment as she waited for her opening entrance. She’d come so far from the girl who didn’t have the music just a few weeks ago, to the soloist in front of the stage. She’d found the extra confidence and drive to beat Sandra Templeton, fall in love with a musician—a conductor at that—and stand up to Blake, all in the course of a few weeks. She’d changed so much, and her music had grown as well. Now she was going to show the world.

Taking in a deep breath, Melody put her flute to her lips.

The sound resonated over the orchestra in vibrant tones. She played the large leaps in the exposition with grace, ending on a cadential trill. In her next entrance of the second theme, her tone turned mysterious and melancholy in stark contrast with the fanfare quality in the beginning. She opened her heart, pouring her emotion into her flute. She could feel the audience experiencing the music and breathing with her as she played.

The orchestra tapered off and silence descended as she launched into a virtuosic cadenza, bringing all the themes of the exposition together in one final show of brilliance. When the piece ended, she put down her flute and gazed at Wolf. Thunderous applause rained around them. Wolf stepped off the podium and kissed the back of her hand.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, his lips brushing the top of her earlobe. “Well done. Please stay here after your second bow. I have a special surprise for you.”

She left the stage breathless. A special surprise? What did he mean?

The applause kept thundering, and it took all of her courage to go back out there and face him again.

Melody bowed again then and stood, awkwardly holding her flute as a board member presented her with a bouquet of roses. Was that the surprise? It wasn’t much considering the tradition was to give the soloist flowers at the end of her performance.

Wolf took the microphone in his hands and turned toward her. When his eyes met hers, they locked together, and everyone else in the room disappeared.

“When I first conducted this orchestra, you impressed me with your phenomenal sight-reading ability and your musicality. Then, when we first talked, you demonstrated your loyalty to this orchestra and everyone in it. When we attended the concert, you impressed me again with your bright ideas and dedication to making this orchestra succeed. And now, you’ve saved us all with our new alliance with the Make-A-Dream Foundation. You are an asset to this orchestra.”

The crowd erupted in applause, and Melody remembered they were on stage in front of hundreds, if not a thousand onlookers.

Wolf raised his hand to silence the applause. “You showed me how one person can make a difference in this world. You gave me a home here in the States and made me feel welcome and needed. You worked with me to build this orchestra into everything we wanted it to be. Lastly, you showed me I could trust you with everything, including my heart. I love you, Mel.”

A collective sigh came from the audience as Wolf stepped off the podium and kissed her gently. Mel’s cheeks blazed red hot, and her knees threatened to bend.
Is this really happening?
She didn’t have time to digest Wolf’s lovely ode to her, because the concert had to go on, and she was supposed to play in the next piece. Melody blew Wolf a heartfelt kiss and walked off stage for intermission.

The concert ended with the Hiefinger, the newly commissioned work by Wolf’s friend. The music began with the hum of a gorgeous chord, then a deep grumble from the basses morphed into a sweet melody in the first violins. The final brassy chords echoed throughout the hall, and the orchestra received a standing ovation.

“You sounded amazing.” Carly tapped her flute case. “And Wolf’s little speech was quite the pièce de résistance. Took him long enough. It must have been my ticket move at the gala. You can thank me later, hon.”

Melody blushed and rolled her eyes. Typical Carly. But she was too enraptured with the concert to care. “He’ll grow on you. You watch.”

Carly shrugged but then winked at her. “With the magic he made tonight, he already has.”

Melody scanned the stage for Wolf. She still hadn’t told him she loved him back, and she couldn’t keep it in much longer. Violet ran down the aisle, distracting her, and she swung the little girl up in her arms.

“You’re a star.” Violet touched her moussed curls in awe.

“Thank you.” For the first time in a long time, Melody actually felt like one. She put her niece down and hugged Laini and Derek. “So, Make-A-Dream came through with flying colors, eh?”

“I’d say.” Laini looked around at all the kids. “Some of them haven’t been out of the hospital in months. You really made a difference in their lives.”

“Me?” Melody adjusted her flute strap on her arm, trying to balance her humongous bunch of roses.

“Yes.” Laini squeezed her shoulder. “You were the one who thought of it.”

Laini’s gaze moved past her shoulder. “Look who’s here.”

Melody whirled around. Wolf was walking down the aisle in his tux with a smile beaming across his gorgeous face. She ran into his arms, and he picked her up and twirled her around. When he put her back down again, she felt like the room had disappeared around them. Someday, she wondered if he’d be wearing that same tux while reciting vows, but for now she was more than happy to enjoy the feeling of being in love.

Wolf touched her cheek gently. “Did you like my surprise?”

“It was much better than a sour face.” Melody laughed. “And you know I’ve seen enough of those.”

Wolf narrowed his eyes lightheartedly. “You played me right from day one when you called me out.”

“What are you talking about?” Melody teased him by pointing a finger into his hard chest. “The only thing I ever played was my flute.”

He glanced at her skeptically.

Melody brought his head down to hers. “There’s no playing going on now.”

“Are you sure?” His breath fell on her lips.

Melody nodded and pulled him closer, so her mouth touched his. “Sure as anything that I love you, too.”