The Mighty Quinns: Ronan (11 page)

She walked over to him and grabbed the front of his shirt, twisting it in her fingers. “Listen, Ronan Quinn. If you don’t stop teasing me about this I will never kiss you again. Ever.”

“You couldn’t stop kissing me if you tried.” He pulled her into his arms and bent close, but Charlie pressed her lips tight and turned her head away.

With a low growl, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom, tossing her down on the bed. When he crawled on top of her and caught her hands above her head, Charlie was ready to admit that he was right. “Okay, okay, I give up.” She gave him a quick kiss and then struggled to crawl out from underneath him. “We need to go now.”

Ronan leapt up from the bed. “Let’s do it.”

They held hands as they hurried out to Charlotte’s SUV. He helped her inside, then followed her directions as they drove through town. The theatre was housed in an old stone building that had once been the Sibleyville High School. Now it served as a community center and museum with the village offices located on the first floor.

Ronan parked the SUV and they walked inside together. The smell of the place brought back so many memories for Charlie. She’d appeared in every high school and community production from the time she’d been thirteen and knew the stage as well as she knew the oyster beds on Mistry Bay.

As she walked down the aisle, Lettie caught sight of her and clapped her hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our new Moira Quinn, our very own Broadway star, Miss Charlotte Sibley.”

The people in the theatre erupted in applause and Charlie felt a blush warm her cheeks. Ronan gave her hand a squeeze and then let go, taking a seat near the middle of the auditorium. Charlie continued down he stairs until she was standing next to Lettie.

“Remember your promise,” she warned the older woman.

“You know most of the cast. Maxine Forman will be playing Bridie, your mother.”

Charlie smiled at Maxine, who usually manned the front desk at the visitor’s center.

“And we have a very special surprise for you. We have a new Edward, too.”

Charlie watched as a familiar figure stepped out of the crowd. Her heart stopped and she sucked in a sharp breath.

“Hello, Charlie,” he said.

“Danny. I’m surprised to see you back in town.”

“Oh, I’m just visiting. Doing Lettie a favor. How are you?”

Charlie’s heart was slamming so hard, she wasn’t sure she could draw another breath to speak. What was Danny Merrick doing back in town? She hadn’t seen him in more than a year, hadn’t spoken to him in all that time. And suddenly, he just turns up? She glanced over at Lettie, wondering if this was all part of some master scheme.

“I’m doing really well,” she said. “Great, in fact.”

“You’re working for your father?”

“Yes, I am.” She heard the hint of defensiveness in her voice and she fought the urge to turn and run. She didn’t need to explain any of her decisions to Danny. He wasn’t a part of her life anymore.

“Well, I know that Sally has missed you. You remember Sally Franklin, our agent, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” she muttered. What kind of game was he playing? Or more accurately, what kind of part was he playing, Charlie wondered.

“She told me that she’s had a couple of calls for you but when she tried to contact you about the auditions, you never returned her call. One of them was for a nice spot on a primetime show.”

“I’m not an actress anymore, Danny,” she said.

“And yet, here you are. Back to doing what you do best.”

Charlie wanted to turn around and walk out of the theatre. She suspected that Danny was all part of the push to get her back on the stage again, even if it was in some silly, homegrown melodrama. She glanced over her shoulder at Ronan and he smiled at her, unaware of the conversation taking place on stage.

“Let’s just get started,” Charlie said. “I have an early day tomorrow and I need to get out of here as fast as I can.”

Danny stepped over to her and placed his hand on the small of her back. “Come with me. I’ll go over the blocking with you and we can run through our lines real quick.” He steered her up onto the stage and they walked over to a table with chairs around it. “You look good, Charlie. Better than good.”

“Danny, I’m here as a favor to Lettie. Had I known you’d be playing opposite me, I would have refused the part. But it looks like it’s a little late for that. So I’m sure you’ll agree that we’ll be as professional as possible and just do the job we were hired to do.” She studied him shrewdly. “So how much are you getting paid for this?”

“Two thousand,” he said. “I was stunned at first. I just got the call a few days ago. Lettie said something about her leading man getting arrested? I guess the mayor was going to play the role but then just dropped out. Very strange. How much did they offer you?”

“Same,” she lied.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away. It’s in your blood, Charlie. You belong in New York, on the stage. It’s your career.”

Charlie cursed beneath her breath. “What career? I didn’t have a career, Danny. I had a series of small jobs that didn’t even come close to paying the bills.”

“I just read for a big part in a soap,” he said. “I should find out about that next week. If it happens, I’m going to be heading out to the west coast.”

“That’s wonderful.”

They started with a scene between Edward and his father and Charlie sat down at the table and copied the stage directions out of the stage manager’s script and into her own. As she watched her ex-boyfriend, she couldn’t help but compare him to the current man in her life.

It was only now, with distance and time between them that she could see Danny’s obvious flaws. What she used to take as confidence now seemed like arrogance. And his preoccupation with his looks, the constant messing with his hair or checking his image in any reflective surface now made him appear shallow and vapid instead of simply cool. And the silly acting affectations, the way he talked about “his craft” was enough to drive her right up a wall.

How had she missed all this? Had it simply gotten worse since she’d left New York or had he always been a jerk? She turned her attention back to the script, but it was impossible to study her lines. Instead, her thoughts kept jumping to the guy waiting for her in the audience.

Unlike Danny, Ronan was a real man, one who didn’t pretend to be something that he wasn’t. A man completely comfortable in his own skin. The thought that she’d given so much of her life to someone she could barely tolerate now was…embarrassing. And humiliating.

But Charlie still had to wonder whether there were other motives for bringing Danny back to Sibleyville. The more she thought about the possibility, the more confusing it became. Did they expect her to fall in love with him all over again, just like some silly schoolgirl? Or was the opposite supposed to happen? Was she supposed to find Ronan a much superior choice.

She turned her attention back to the script. She had three days to memorize her lines and a few more to figure the whole thing out. But the first thing she’d need to work out is how to tell Ronan that her old boyfriend was back in town. If Charlie knew anything, she knew that no one in Sibleyville was going to keep
that
a secret.

* * *

R
EHEARSAL
LASTED
LONGER
than Ronan anticipated, but the time seemed to fly by. He’d never really thought about Charlie’s career as an actress. Though they’d talked about her time in New York, it had never seemed real to him. But watching her move around the stage, inhabiting a completely different character than her own, was endlessly fascinating to him.

She spoke with a realistic Irish accent. Living with his grandfather for all those years, he knew what an Irish person was supposed to sound like. But more than anything, she managed to make Lettie’s clumsy dialogue sound interesting.

The majority of the cast was dismissed after the first hour and Lettie worked with Charlie and the other lead for a hour longer. Ronan had been watching the male actor all evening, noticing how he reacted to Charlie, how he touched her, how he looked directly into her eyes when he spoke to her.

For an amateur actor, he wasn’t bad. A little overblown in a few scenes, but he and Charlie seemed to make a good team, which was a relief considering all of Charlie’s doubts about the play. Between the two of them, the story was almost believable.

When rehearsal ended, he watched as Charlie made her way up the aisle, smiling at him.

“Hey, Charlie, wait up!”

She glanced over her shoulder at her fellow actor, then quickened her pace. As she passed him, she reached out and grabbed his arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Ronan looked back and forth between Charlie and the guy standing on the stage, then followed Charlie out of the auditorium. “He was asking you to wait,” Ronan said.

“I know. I didn’t want to.”

He’d never known Charlie to be impolite. “Okay,” he said.

When they reached the parking lot, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her into a kiss. “You were really good.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“I’m not just saying that. You made the play better than it deserved to be. And your Irish accent was spot on. My grandfather would agree.”

“I should quit,” Charlie muttered. “I can’t believe Lettie did this.”

“Did what?”

She drew a deep breath and turned to him. “The guy playing opposite me is Danny Merrick. She convinced him to come back from New York to appear in her play. In fact, she paid him two thousand dollars to do it.”

Ronan wasn’t sure what to do with that revelation. She’d talked so little about her previous relationship that it never seemed like it would be an issue in theirs. Considering the ex was all the way in New York City, Ronan had simply put Danny Merrick out of his thoughts. But now, the guy was in town, spending time with Charlie, touching her—and at some point kissing her.

“Say something,” Charlie prodded.

“Well, that’s a surprise.” He opened the door to the SUV for her and she hopped inside. When he got behind the wheel, she was staring at him, a perplexed expression on her face. “It is a surprise.”

“That’s all you have to say?” she asked.

“He’s a pretty good actor, too,” Ronan added. He started the vehicle and pulled out of the parking lot. “What do you want me to say?”

“I just thought you’d be more…upset. I’m furious. It’s like Lettie tricked me. She knew I’d never agree to work with him. And she’s even
paying
him. Like she honestly believes that I’d just let him breeze back into my life as though nothing had happened.”

Ronan really was at a loss. He knew he ought to act jealous, but it was hard to work up any anger against a guy that Charlie so obviously detested. “Okay. I am angry.”

“Good. Why?”

“Because you are,” he said, knowing that he’d have to tread carefully. “Why are you angry?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just feel like something is going on here and I’m stuck in the middle of it.” She cursed softly. “I really don’t need him telling me that I ought to go back to New York and resurrect my pitiful career.”

Ronan frowned. “He wants you to go back to New York? With him?”

“Yes. I would assume with him. He said that my agent had a few job offers for me. She’s left me a few voicemails, but I haven’t returned her calls.”

Suddenly, the anger that Ronan thought he ought to feel was beginning to bubble up inside him. “You’re not going to go back, are you?”

“No!” she said. “Of course not. I’m curious as to what she found for me. I mean, it’s kind of ironic that the moment I leave New York people want to hire me.” She drew a deep breath. “If he sticks his tongue in my mouth when he kisses me, I’m going to kill him.”

“I could probably take care of that for you,” Ronan said.

Charlie laughed. “Will you help me with my lines? I have to get these memorized before tomorrow night. The play is only thirty minutes long, but I should at least give it my best effort. Not that Lettie deserves my best effort, but there probably will be a few people in the audience.”

Charlie’s cell phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket. Ronan glanced over at her to see a look of unease cross her face. “Who is it?”

“Danny,” she said. “He must have gotten my phone number from Lettie. He wants to have a drink. So that we can discuss the play.” She groaned. “Oh, my God. I’m going to go crazy here.”

“Do you want to talk to him?”

“I have plenty to say to him, but no, I don’t want to talk to him. You know what I’d like to do. I’d like to go get a drink. You and me. I need something to relax me or I’ll never get any sleep.”

Ronan could think of a few things that would relax her just fine, but obviously she wasn’t looking in that direction. “Where do you want to go?”

“Windjammer,” she said.

Ronan knew the place. It was just a few blocks from the boathouse. “Why don’t we leave the SUV at the boathouse and walk over there. Then we can both have a drink if we want to.”

By the time they reached the bar, Charlie’s temper had faded and she seemed resigned to whatever Lettie had in store for her. But Ronan wasn’t feeling as charitable. He knew how difficult the next few days were going to be for her, balancing work and play practice, all while seeing her ex-lover.

They found a booth in the corner and Ronan went to the bar and ordered them a couple of beers. He also placed an order for two cheeseburgers and a basket of fries.

“I ordered us something to eat,” he said when he returned to the table.

“I think I know what Lettie is up to,” Charlie said.

He took a sip of his beer. “What?”

“She’s not trying to manipulate me. She’s trying to manipulate you! She’s trying to make you jealous. She thinks if she throws Danny back into my life that you’ll get all possessive and declare your undying love for me.”

Ronan couldn’t help but wonder it Lettie’s plan was already working. He didn’t really like the fact that she’d be spending so much time with Danny Merrick. And the guy’s appearance had managed to remind him that his feelings for Charlie were getting deeper by the day.