Chapter Eight

Harper wanted to throw her tiara after wicked stepsister #2 left the dressing room. What a drama queen! This week she was mad that her vanity table had been cleaned and, when her makeup was put back, the items weren’t arranged to her liking. Last week her chair pillow wasn’t plumped enough. Every week her tantrums grew worse.

She called it “getting into character.”

Harper called it a prelude to a firing.

She sighed, shoulders slumping, her irritation abating. Of course, she wouldn’t follow through. She couldn’t afford to lose more employees, but she also knew Ruby was a single mom with kids to feed. So she’d sucked it up, painted a smile on her face, and calmed the other woman down.

Now thanks to the tantrum, she was behind schedule and trying to get dressed while watching the clock count down the minutes. Though it was just rehearsal, she liked everyone to be completely in costume. Having that policy had helped to cut down on some of the goofing off among the high school employees. It lent a professional air to the rehearsals. She looked at the clock again.

Rafferty was still a no show. If he was thinking he’d blow off rehearsal and just ad lib his way through the show, she was going to go wicked stepsister on him herself.

She pulled the first dress, made to resemble drab brown rags and dabbed with dark spots to indicate soot, over her head and shimmied it down over her hips. Then she strapped her cell phone in the garter on her thigh in case something went wrong elsewhere on the castle grounds and she was needed. After checking to make sure her face bore traces of chimney soot, she searched for the princess gown and glass slippers she’d need for the later scenes. “Why am I always losing my shoes?” she asked herself.

A sharp knock sounded on her door, and she called for Ivy to come in. Except it wasn’t Ivy. It was Rafferty dressed in his prince costume.

Harper couldn’t think of a sarcastic or witty comment to utter. Apparently, Papa Ron had cut out every single scrap of extra material. The clothes fit Rafferty like he’d been melted and poured back into them.

He was clean-shaven, sexy smiling, and leaning against the doorjamb innocently like his presence didn’t make her feel as if she’d filled her mouth with a handful of taffy and her stomach with a bowling ball. Thanks to their night locked in together, when she looked at him now, she thought about how well he’d kissed her.

“I have a checklist to run through,” she said, grabbing her clipboard, grasping at anything to change her thoughts. “Give me a second.” She flipped through the pages even though it wasn’t necessary. She had every step, every line, for every character memorized. She couldn’t take a chance that something could go wrong, and she wouldn’t know how to get the situation back on track.

Rafferty whistled, pointing to the clipboard. “All those pages for one show?”

“I told you it’s a lot harder than it looks, just like I’m sure your job is a lot harder than it looks to someone on the outside.”

“Sure it is. We have a burn drill coming up. I can talk to the chief about letting you do a walk through. We’ve had a reporter do it before.”

“Oh…um…it doesn’t sound—”

“Safe?”

She huffed and put the clipboard down on her vanity then handed him a copy of the script. “You don’t have to mock me.”

“I wasn’t, I swear. I was filling in the blank before you could, that’s all.”

Tipping her chin up, she said, “I can totally do unsafe. Like you.” She blushed, hating that she did. “I didn’t mean I’d do you… I meant I can do something that’s not safe.”

“You, Harper Bailey? Do something outside her ordinary safety zone? I’d like to see that. In fact, let’s bet on it. I bet you dinner that you won’t do it.”

Of all the smug expressions… “You know what? I’ll do the burn drill.” As soon as she said it, she wanted to gasp and take it back.

“You’ll do it?” Rafferty said doubtfully.

“Yes.”

He shrugged. “Okay, I’ll set it up. Ready to go on?”

“I had my shoes and put them down…” She touched her hand to her hair to try and tuck some strands back into the kerchief while she looked around.

“Let me help.”

He was there, his hands in her hair, smoothing it back before she could gather her wits. Her stomach see-sawed and her concentration was wrecked when the back of his hand brushed against her cheek.

“Rehearsal time,” she said, clearing away the squeak that started at the beginning of her words. “Wait. My shoes.” She spun around the room, searching intently, then saw them on a stool beneath a blanket her grandmother knit for her. After gathering them, her princess dress, and picking the clipboard up again, she shooed him toward the door. “This has to be some kind of metaphor for my life.”

“What does?” Rafferty flipped through the short script as they walked together to the castle’s main room.

“Me always losing the slipper that’s supposed to change Cinderella’s life. Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me a handsome prince isn’t in the cards for me.”

“I think some guy will sweep you off your feet when you least expect it.”

“Hmph. That’s what Mom thought, and look what happened. She became a single mom, and then she ended up as a widow.”

“I know it was tough.”

Memories assailed her. “The worst I think was when we ended up losing our home to foreclosure and had to move in with my aunt Helen and Shelly. Since we no longer had a barn to keep my horse, we had to let her go, too. I haven’t been horse riding since.”
“Why not?”

“As a kid, I didn’t want to ride any horse but mine. I guess I felt disloyal and, I don’t know, I couldn’t bear the thought. Maybe I was grieving.”

“What about now?”

“Now…there’s the castle and trying to keep it afloat…and I work long hours…”

“You should take time to enjoy life, Harper. You only get one.”

“Hmm. Hold on.” She paused to talk to the Fairy Godmother, who was frantically waving a broken wand. When she finally settled that, she resumed walking with Rafferty. “Any problems understanding your role?”

“Nope. It’s blah-blah-blah dance. Shoe. Wedding. Kiss.”

Harper’s heart lurched. “Wha—”

“I’m teasing. The script is pretty good. Who wrote it?”

“My mom. We’ve tweaked it over time. Adding some things, taking away others. The show only lasts an hour and ten minutes on a good night.”

“Love in just over an hour,” he quipped.

Harper lifted one shoulder. “It’s a living.”

They took their places backstage, waiting for the first cue. Through a space between the heavy velvet curtains, Harper swept her gaze across the seats half filled with people waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Most of the rehearsal audience was made up of employees of the amusement park or employee family members.

She sent Ivy a little wave then crooked her finger at Rafferty to come closer. “Is that your family?”

He joined her, peeking through the curtain, and groaned. “Yes. I see Grandma and my mother. And there’s Grayson, too.”

Harper saw Josie slip in beside Lincoln. “You’re not nervous, are you?” she asked Rafferty.

“I’m not.” He gave her a smile. “I hope the show is a sell out for your sake.”

Harper quickly looked away, batting down the pull of attraction. The dumbest thing she would ever do would be to lower her guard and fan the flames started with the kiss they’d shared.

When the rehearsal began, Harper put any further thoughts of Rafferty from her mind. She went through each of her scenes on autopilot, showing Rafferty how to slip on- and offstage quietly and where to stand. The rehearsal went sort of smoothly. She only had to remind Rafferty of his lines once, and the time flew by until they were ready for the ball scene.

Then a thought struck her. She’d forgotten to ask Rafferty if he knew how to dance. Some men didn’t, and she hoped he wouldn’t be embarrassed when the music swelled, and he was supposed to take her in his arms and sweep her across the floor.

Harper lifted the sides of her princess gown and stepped onto the stage. Rafferty turned to look at her, and her heartbeat drummed in her ear. It was all an act, she knew that, but he stared at her like she was the only woman in the world. Then he moved, brushing by the employees acting as the stepsisters, past the actor playing the king, until he was standing right in front of her.

Slowly, he took her hand in his and bowed like the script called for.

She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, and he covered it with his as they moved to the center of the stage. The beginning strands of the waltz filled the room, and they started to dance together. He led them smoothly, confidently, across the floor.

Harper feared the microphones picked up the sound of her pounding heart. She locked eyes with his. Her lungs didn’t want to expand even as she called herself all kinds of a fool. The shortest fairy tale in the world would be the one starring Rafferty as her real-life romantic interest. And what am I even thinking like that for?

The clock struck midnight, breaking the daze Harper was in. Gathering the sides of her dress, she turned and fled up the small stairs built as part of the set, taking care to make sure she left one of her slippers on a step in prominent view of the audience.

…

The shoe fit, and now it was time for the show wedding and the kiss. The next thing Rafferty knew, he was a faux-married prince holding his new bride. How strange that she fit into his arms like there was a space carved out just for her. He’d noticed it in the supply room but hadn’t let himself dwell on it. What if he allowed his thoughts to dwell on Harper? On the flush of her cheeks, the slow blink of her long eyelashes, the warmth of her against him… His lips parted, and he said her name in a quick exhale, as if by voicing it, he’d be free of the confusion churning his stomach.

He lowered his head, and before he made contact with her lips, Harper turned her head and the kiss landed on the side of her face. “And cut,” she called out, moving away from him so fast it was as if he’d imagined her in his arms.

Applause rippled through the room, and seconds later, they were swarmed by employees.

Rafferty’s family joined them, and he smiled while the good-natured teasing began, but his attention kept drifting back to Harper and the way she’d brushed him off.

“Make sure you let Shelly know she’s invited for Sunday dinner as well,” his mother was saying to Harper.

He saw his grandmother glance at Grayson, then Ivy, and she smiled her sly, matchmaking smile. “And Ivy, you come, too,” she piped up.

“I’d love to,” Ivy agreed.

Rafferty heard all the conversation, but it was like he wasn’t part of it. He could be coming down with something. One of the firefighters had been sick a week ago. Maybe that’s why he felt like he was trying to think through fog. When Harper excused herself from the gathering, Rafferty went after her, catching up to her in the hallway.

“Great rehearsal,” she said, speaking in a rushed, clipped voice when she noticed him. “You have a funny look on your face. What’s wrong?”

“You changed the script at the last minute. I was supposed to kiss you.”

“You did.”

“That’s how I kiss my grandmother. Not the woman I’m supposed to be in love with.”

“The kiss wasn’t necessary for the rehearsal.”

“But everyone getting in costume is?”

“Right.”

Rafferty couldn’t put his finger on what was going on, but something was off with the way she was acting.

“Hey, Prince Charming!”

Rafferty looked down the hallway and waved Grayson off, but his brother kept walking toward them. When he reached them, he gave Rafferty a devilish grin. “You were great out there, Harper. I know with Rafferty you didn’t have a lot to work with, but you pulled it off.”

“Actually, Rafferty was amazing.”

Rafferty gave Grayson a smug take that smile. “On that note, I’ll see you later, Grayson.”

“Oh. Are you going somewhere?”

Rafferty clenched his teeth at his brother’s deliberate thick-headedness. He wanted to be alone with Harper. “That was your invitation to leave.”

“I’m not going back out there. A handful of single women walked over where I was at with Grandma, and she told them I didn’t need to be on a singles’ dating site with available women right here in Morganville.”

Rafferty frowned. “You’re on a dating site?”

“No! The women were agreeing with her, and Grandma started asking for their phone numbers and telling them she’d call when I realized I was ready to settle down.”

“Brutal to be put on the spot like that,” Rafferty couldn’t stop a grin. Better his brother on the matchmaking hot seat than him.

“She has to be stopped. You need to help me.”

Rafferty shook his head. “No, no. That’s your little red wagon to pull.”

Harper looked amused at the exchange between them.

“Keep in mind that if she takes me down, it’ll embolden her, and she will focus all her efforts on you next.” Grayson looked at Harper. “Probably by pushing you and Rafferty together.”

The amusement on her face faded. “Not going to happen. Your brother and I are work colleagues. Nothing more.”

Grayson snorted. “You’re not the first person to think she could stand against the wiles of my grandmother. She does have a tendency to get her way.”

“You’re right,” Harper said. “Well…I guess there’s only one thing left I can say that will help you.”

“What?” Grayson asked eagerly.

“Do you have a tuxedo?”

Rafferty laughed.

Grayson wagged his finger. “Not funny.”

“Give us a minute, will you?” Rafferty said.

“Why? Want me to go so you can kiss Harper good night?”

Harper’s eyes widened in alarm. “Actually, I was just leaving. Good night, guys.”

Rafferty watched her slip into her dressing room then slung his arm around Grayson’s neck and pulled his head down so he could scrub his knuckles across his head. “You’re such a pain.”

Grayson pushed him off and smoothed his hair down. “Just admit that’s exactly what you were thinking. I kept you from making a huge mistake. You wanted to kiss her good night.”

“Nope.”

“Wow. Man, you really are good at acting.”

“You heard the lady. We’re work colleagues.” And I intend to keep it that way. I hope. He looked back over his shoulder as Harper’s door opened. Their eyes met. She smiled at him, and it warmed his insides.

He smiled back and walked into an open door. Bouncing off it, he choked off a curse and put his hand against the side of his face.

Grayson laughed until he wheezed. “Just work colleagues,” he gasped out. “Better learn how to lie and walk at the same time.”