In the week since they’d broken their stalemate, he’d made excuses to see her. He took over the daily supply run for the hotel job just for the chance to make her smile at the start of the day. And it had been a simple matter to start taking his lunch breaks when she did, either eating take out at the store or over at Dinner Belles, where they shared a slice of Mama Pearl’s pie. That they could share a meal and a joke without that angry tension hovering between them was a minor miracle. Though there’d been no more of those blistering kisses, she was spending time with him, willingly, without trying to push him away. It was progress, and that should’ve been enough for him.
But it wasn’t.
Time was galloping by, and each workday brought a reminder of the end of the job and the start of the next, which would take him away from Wishful, away from Tyler. He didn’t bring it up, knowing that would hardly help his case. At least half of her caution was wrapped up in the brevity of their time together. But urgency nipped at his heels, urging him to push, to demand.
He’d promised he wouldn’t. She wanted to take things slow and easy so she could figure things out, and Brody respected that. But what was there to figure out? They practically combusted when they got within three feet of each other. For all that she said he didn’t know her anymore, he hadn’t seen anything that made him love her any less.
Patience is a virtue, Jensen, he reminded himself. Albeit not one he’d ever been blessed with, particularly when it came to one Tyler Edison.
A sense of relief and anticipation flooded through him at the opening bars to “Mandy.” Keeping his promise not to push had meant keeping his hands to himself. But all bets were off when they danced. His eyes followed her as she made her way down the risers, dancing and flirting past all the guys on the cast. She was glorious. Lithe and charismatic in a way that had every set of eyes centered on her. At the bottom of the stairs, she linked arms with him and Myles for the easy tap portion of the number, which Myles pulled off with more aplomb than he’d managed on the previous run. And at last the cue came and Brody took Tyler’s hand, spinning her into his arms for the complicated part of the routine.
Her eyes sparked and her smile spread. Brody lost himself—in the music, in her, in the unique intimacy they shared while dancing. She arched back over his knee, pointing one long leg high into the air in a manner that had him thinking all about other uses for her miraculous flexibility. She moved with him, responsive to every touch, every step, fully in sync. Heat and awareness flared between them. The pace of the music picked up and they danced their way through the pack, and up the risers for the finale of the song, where she ended, perched on his shoulder.
“Finally, something went right!” called Nate.
Tyler’s hands curled around Brody’s forearms as he slid her down the length of his body. The pulse at her throat beat like a hummingbird’s wings, and her chest rose and fell against his as she worked to catch her breath. Brody didn’t release her when her feet hit the step, and she made no effort to move away, instead staring up at him with dark, hungry eyes.
“Well this is going to be the hottest Christmas to date,” Myles whispered.
“Pretty sure that’s the most provocative version of that song ever done,” someone else added.
Abruptly conscious of their audience, Brody ran his hands from Tyler’s shoulders to her waist, squeezing once before setting her away from him. The long groan came again. The theater offering up sympathy for his frustrated libido, no doubt.
“The next scene requires some set changes,” called Nate. “Let’s take care of that and pick up there tomorrow night.”
The set change burned off a little of the energy humming in Brody’s blood, giving him something else to focus on besides the remembered feel of Tyler’s body flush against his. At least until he caught her looking at him from across the stage as Nate made his end-of-rehearsal announcements. As soon as rehearsal wrapped, he gathered his gear and met Tyler at the head of the aisle to walk out.
“Good rehearsal tonight,” he said.
“For one of us anyway,” she grinned. “Nate’s gonna kill you if you don’t focus.”
“You could help me with that, you know. We could go get a drink or a late supper. Discuss the possibility of running lines.”
Tyler slanted him a glance, one corner of that luscious mouth lifting in delighted amusement. “Right. I remember exactly what you used to call running lines.”
Brody swung an arm around her shoulders and bent to whisper in her ear, “I’ve still got the old sofa of my parents where we used to do that. We could—”
The groan came again, bigger, louder this time, rising to a shriek above them. As the ceiling above began to cave, Brody shouted, “Move!” He swung around and dove backward, landing hard on Tyler as a huge portion of the mezzanine balcony collapsed behind them. Debris rained over them both. Brody curled his body over Tyler’s, taking the brunt of the impact.
In the wake of the crash, the silence was deafening. Brody lifted his head, squint
ing through the dust to see people running toward them down the aisles. He rolled to the side, hauling himself into a kneeling position beside Tyler. Her face was white. “Are you all right?” he demanded. He didn’t wait for her response, already running his hands over her limbs, checking for breaks and abrasions.
“I’m fine.” She coughed. “You just knocked the wind out of me.”
“Somebody go out the side door, check to make sure everybody made it into the lobby,” ordered Tucker from somewhere behind them.
A quick search and head count assured them that no one had been caught in the collapse.
“Thank God,” said Tyler. When she reached for him, Brody pulled her close. “You kept me from becoming a pancake.”
“I guess all those noises weren’t old Mr. Stanton after all,” said Piper.
Nate laced his hands behind his head and stared at the central section of the balcony, now blocking the auditorium doors. “This is a disaster.”
“The important thing is that no one was hurt,” said Barbara Monahan.
“We can’t have a show in a theater that’s falling apart. There’s barely money to put on the show. We don’t have the kind of time or money to get this fixed, and Stanton’s kids aren’t going to shell out for this,” said Nate.