Rafa
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Grace’s expression had told Rafa everything he needed to know: she did like him too. She’d looked delighted when he’d asked her out. But then the happiness lighting up her face vanished, to be replaced with disappointment, hurt, and anger.
“God! Isn’t Paris enough for you?” she demanded.
Rafa instantly realized the misunderstanding. He knew what his relationship with Paris really was, but he also understood what it must look like from the outside.
“She and I are just friends,” he assured her.
“Really,” she said, with a clear subtext of bullshit.
“Really. We’re close, sure. But it’s because we’re old high school buddies. Look into my eyes, Grace, so you can see I’m telling the truth.” He stared hard at her, making sure she could see his conviction. With complete honesty, he vowed, “Paris and I have never been romantically involved.”
For a brief and shining moment, he was delighted to see his one true mate finally, finally stop eyeing him with the deepest suspicion. On the contrary, she gave him a grin, full of relief and camaraderie.
“Oh,” Grace said. “OH! Okay, then. In that case, I’d love to go out with you.”
And that was the moment when Rafa remembered that he and Paris had once been married.
He suppressed the urge to go and bang his head against the wall. All else aside, it was adorned with mangy old theatre posters where it wasn’t speckled with mold. And he hated getting blood in his mane.
What the hell had he been thinking?
That you and Paris were never in love, replied his lion, with the distinct subtext of you idiot. Loftily, as if he was addressing a toddler, he went on, That you never courted each other, longed for each other, or made truthful vows to each other. And, most importantly, that you do not pine for her now.
That explanation is not going to fly, Rafa retorted. What happens when Grace finds out that Paris is my ex-wife?
Nothing, if you tell her right now, said his lion. Go on.
Rafa opened his mouth to do so. And then another horrible realization fell on him like a ten-ton cement truck.
He had two difficult explanations to make, not one. At some point he’d have to reveal that he was a shifter. She couldn’t be one herself, or she too would have known at first sight that they were mates. So he not only had to explain that he was the ex-husband of the woman he’d just said he’d never been romantically involved with, he also had to claim to be something people thought didn’t even exist. He’d not only seem like a liar, he’d seem like a lying lunatic.
Grace was still smiling, her purple hair glinting like amethysts in the beam from an overhead light. She looked absolutely radiant at the prospect of going on a date with him. He couldn’t bear to do anything to wipe that smile from her face.
He couldn’t tell her now. It was too soon. They’d only just met. He’d wait, court her like she deserved to be courted, build up a solid basis of trust and love, and then tell her, when she’d be more willing to hear him out.
Yes. That was the only possible option.
But he couldn’t help feeling like he’d already made a catastrophic, life-ruining mistake.
Grace, still beaming in a way that made him feel 50% blissfully happy and 50% like the floor was going to crumble beneath his feet at any second, said, “I have to get back down. Want to come with me, or do some more detecting from up here? You can listen in backstage with the headsets.”
“Just listen?” Rafa asked. “You don’t have closed-circuit cameras?”
She shook her head. “Wish we did. Maybe we’d have caught My Fair Villain by now.”
“I’ll install some tomorrow.”
“I don’t think we can afford them,” Grace said regretfully. “Maybe I could get Lubomir to spring for one nanny-cam.”
“A nanny-cam’s not a bad idea.” He looked down at the stage. The fifteen minute break had ended, and the actors were rehearsing again. For all he knew, the mystery villain was backstage, hidden from sight, busy as a bee with a very vicious sting. “Don’t mention it, though. The saboteur’s more likely to strike on camera if he or she doesn’t know they’re being filmed. If we haven’t caught them before opening night, I’ll put in a real system so you can watch what’s going on backstage from here.”
“Sounds good.” She got up. “So, are you coming?”
“Yeah. I need to take Paris aside and explain that I’ll be guarding everyone, not just her.” And while he was at it, he could also explain the list of words he didn’t want her to say. Such as “Vegas,” “married,” and “24 hours.”
He followed Grace down the ladder and into the audience.
Her assistant Carl was speaking softly into a headset, like she had been earlier, but was clearly struggling. “Stand by sound—no, sorry, not yet—ask me later, I’m on stand by—go! Go! Yes, sound go! No, set change is still on stand—sets go!”
Carl hit a button. Lights brightened onstage, but not where the actors were. Their singing faltered as they were plunged into darkness. He hurriedly hit another button, bringing the lights up on them, and muttered a curse.
Grace tapped him on the shoulder, put on his headset, and slid into his seat. She began to speak as smoothly as if she’d never stopped. “Stand by sound. Stand by scene change. How many of the alien artifacts are missing? Sound and scene change... Go!” She hit a button, adding a red glow to the lights. “Okay, substitute Mars potatoes for the missing artifacts so Brady will still have something to pick up. Stand by...”
The sound of her voice was hypnotic. Rafa could have listened to her all night. He was only distracted when someone cleared his throat.
It was Carl. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure,” Rafa said absently, most his attention still on Grace as she arranged for one of the stagehands to sneak onstage during a blackout to warn Brady that Mars potatoes would be standing in for two of the alien artifacts. “Cream and sugar, please.”
Rafa sat down behind Grace and beside Ruth. Tycho the rat was still perched on the NASA consultant’s shoulder. Both of them were intently watching the scene onstage.
Ruth wrote in her notebook, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN INTELLIGENT LIFE ON MARS!!! Her pen punched through the paper on the third exclamation point.
The lights came up onstage, revealing Brady carefully excavating one small, fossilized machine and two shimmering blue potatoes from a lump of red clay.
“An alien artifact!” Brady exclaimed. Then, with a wink directed at the audience, he ad-libbed, “And alien potatoes. Yum!”
Grace glared at him and muttered, “Catch me ever warning you again.”
With a soft, despairing moan, Ruth wrote, THERE ARE NO POTATOES ON MARS EITHER!!!!
Her little white rat gave her ear a consoling nibble.
Paris came onstage. “Alien artifacts? I knew it!”
The musicians struck up a wistful tune as Paris began to sing. Grace made the lights change to a beautiful outer space effect, with twinkling stars shining on the stage floor.
“Somewhere out there
Somewhere up there,
There is wonder,” Paris sang.
“Wonder,” echoed Brady.
The actors playing moons emerged and danced around them as Brady brandished an alien artifact in one hand and a blue potato in the other, and Paris sang about how she’d always believed in impossible things.
“At least the song admits they’re impossible,” Ruth muttered. But she didn’t sound unhappy. In fact, Rafa could swear a little smile hovered over her lips as she listened to Paris sing. Paris did have a beautiful voice.
As Paris belted the final note, she flung her arms out wide in a dramatic gesture. Her tight silver jumpsuit ripped from collarbone to belly-button.
She let out a shriek so loud that Rafa was surprised that no glass shattered, then flung up her arms to hide her breasts. Brady jumped and dropped the potato. It ricocheted into the lights at the edge of the stage. Then glass shattered.
“HOLD!” Grace and Lubomir shouted.
“I need stagehands to clean up broken glass,” Grace added into the headset. “And a replacement for footlight number nine. Please tell wardrobe that Paris’s spacesuit tore and needs to be sewn back together, ASAP.”
Grace ran onstage, followed by Ruth.
“I can tape the suit together,” Grace said, waving a roll of silver duct tape.
“Or you could borrow my coat,” offered Ruth, pulling it off. “Here, take it.”
Paris smiled at them both. “Thanks, but I think I’ll just go backstage and change into my street clothes.”
Two stagehands hurried onstage with a dustpan and broom, and began sweeping up the glass. A third came in with a replacement light. Brady went to retrieve the Mars potato.
Rafa felt a huge grin spreading across his face. He hadn’t been involved in theatre since high school, with the exception of going to Paris’s plays. But he’d only watched those from the audience and congratulated her afterward. Now he remembered how much he’d enjoyed the camaraderie and teamship that came from actually working on a show. Despite the outsize egos, melodrama, and ridiculous mishaps, everyone always ended up becoming a sort of found family by the time the show opened.
If Rafa hadn’t found the same bonding through shared effort in the face of seemingly impossible odds, first in the Navy SEALs and later with Protection, Inc., maybe he would have stayed in theatre. And then maybe he’d have met Grace earlier, and saved himself all those years of loneliness and unsatisfying one-night stands and having to make up way more one-night stands than he’d actually had. Not to mention his twenty-four hour disaster marriage.
But it had all worked out. He loved the job he had. And now he had met Grace. Everything he’d ever wanted was within his grasp. All he had to do was make sure she didn’t find out about his Vegas marriage until he found the perfect time and way to inform her, make sure she didn’t find out he was a shifter until he found the perfect time and way to inform her, court her the way she deserved to be courted, catch the Mars: The Musical saboteur, and save the show. All in time for Christmas, so he could take her home to meet his pride.
Piece of cake, purred his lion. We are mighty.
“Fifteen minute break!” Lubomir called belatedly.
Paris headed backstage, now with Ruth’s coat buttoned on top of her spacesuit. Rafa leaped up and followed her. He didn’t like the thought of her venturing backstage by herself, before he got the nanny cam installed. And it would be the perfect opportunity to talk to Paris alone.
He kept a careful lookout for trip-wires, open trapdoors, and other booby traps as he escorted he, but there were none. Maybe the theatre gremlin was done for the night.
Paris opened the door to the tiny dressing room crammed with costumes and makeup mirrors. “Turn your back.”
“Of course.” Rafa turned around, closed the door, and kept his eyes fixed on it. “Let me catch you up on what I’ve figured out so far...”
He quickly explained his theory and that he wanted to guard the whole show, not just Paris. She didn’t object. He hadn’t thought she would.
“I’m glad, to be honest,” she said. “It’s pretty scary to feel like someone’s trying to kill me specifically. And I was nervous that someone else might get hurt in a trap that was meant for me. Now that you’ll be guarding everyone, I actually feel a lot safer.”
“There’s something else,” he began.
Inexplicably, his heart started pounding. That was strange. He was a lion shifter, the king of beasts, not to mention a former Navy SEAL. Nothing scared him. But all he’d done was think of the possibility that his secrets would ruin the relationship with Grace that he didn’t even have yet, and he was overwhelmed by a horrifying sense of impending doom.
“You can turn around now,” Paris said. “What’s up?”
He turned. She had shucked off her ripped spacesuit costume, and was now sitting in front of a makeup mirror in the same dress she’d worn to Protection, Inc., with Ruth’s coat over one arm.
Rafa hesitated. Close as they were, he had never told her that he was a shifter. For the protection of all shifters, that had to be kept a secret from anyone but your mate. Which meant that he couldn’t say that Grace was his mate. That was awkward.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked.
“Nope,” Paris replied immediately.
Even more awkward, growled his lion. Say something smooth. Quickly!
“Well... I do,” Rafa said.
His lion let out a growl of despair at his total lack of smooth.
Shut up, Rafa told him. This is Paris. She doesn’t care.
Trying to ignore his lion’s annoyed rumblings, he went on, “At least, I do now.”
Paris, quick to catch on, stared at him, then grinned. “Seriously? Who is it? Melissa? One of the musicians? It’s the oboe player, right? She’s really beautiful.”
“It’s not the oboe player. It’s Grace.”
“No way!”
Irritated, Rafa said, “She’s much prettier than the oboe player. Hotter, too. Much hotter. And it’s not just her looks. I’ve seen her in action, and she’s incredibly quick-witted. Funny. Assertive. Hard-working. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she has a terrific body. Her legs alone—”
Paris’s laugh cut him off before he could continue listing his mate’s virtues, though he hadn’t even come close to running out of them. “Oh, I’m not arguing. Grace is fantastic. I didn’t think she was your type, that’s all.”
“Neither did I,” Rafa admitted. “I suppose that’s why it took me so long to find her. I’ve been looking in all the wrong places. Anyway, I don’t want to screw this up. Does anyone here know about our Vegas thing?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Don’t say a word about it. I want to explain it to her myself.”
Paris rolled her eyes at him. “Of course I won’t say anything. But you better explain it ASAP, or it’ll look like you’ve been lying to her. And you really don’t want her to find out on her own.”
“There’s no way that could happen. You’re the only one who knows about it. And yeah, I’ll tell her soon.” He couldn’t bring himself to confess his idiotic claim to Grace that he and Paris had never been romantically involved. Why had he blurted that out? It made his inevitable explanation so much harder. “Thanks. Oh, and when I do, is it all right with you if I let her know the entire story? I’ll tell her not to repeat it.”
Paris considered it, her head cocked and her blonde hair bright under the makeup lights. “Yeah, it’s fine. Honestly, I’m tired of keeping secrets. I guess I’m just looking for the right time to let it all hang out.”
“Me too.”
She smiled at him. “Love at first sight, huh? It’s funny, I’ve been in so many plays where that happens, but I’ve never seen it in real life. I’ve always thought love is something that sneaks up on you over time.”
“I think it is for most people.” Most people who weren’t shifters. “Just not for me.”
“Lucky you. Though I kind of like the sneaking up.”
Paris brought a bag with her when they went back. Carl returned at the same time, with coffee for everyone.
Rafa accepted his with thanks, noting that Grace too drank hers with cream and sugar. It was a tiny, silly thing that they had in common, but noticing it made him feel good. It was something that they shared. He watched her full lips sip her coffee as he drank his own, imagined how soft they would feel on his own, and felt like all was right with the world.
“Herbal tea?” Ruth asked hopefully.
Carl shook his head. “Sorry, the machine’s broken again.”
“HA!” Paris’s trained voice shook the rafters. With a flourish, she reached into her bag and pulled out a thermos. She unscrewed it and poured steaming liquid into a cup, which she handed to Ruth. “I hope you like chamomile.”
The scientist’s face lit up. “My favorite! How did you know?”
“I’m psychic,” Paris replied, then grinned. “No, I heard you asking Carl, back when you thought that machine was going to start working at any moment.”
Ruth sipped her tea with a deep sigh of contentment. “Give me a cupcake, and I’d die happy.”
“What’s your favorite type of cupcake?” Paris asked.
Ruth glanced around guiltily, as if admitting to some secret crime, and admitted, “Chocolate. The richer the better. I know it’s not healthy...”
Paris gave an airy wave of her hand. “Everyone needs a vice.”
A brilliant idea leapt into Rafa’s mind. Paris had sometimes baked cookies for the cast and crew of their high school plays, and he bet her skills had only improved since then. “Grace, what’s your favorite cupcake flavor?”
Grace also looked slightly guilty. “I like the, uh, unusual ones. Lavender, Captain Crunch, red licorice, that sort of thing. I know, I’m weird.”
“You’re quirky,” Paris said kindly.
Rafa caught Paris’s eye and tried to telepathically signal to her, Can you make unusual cupcakes for my love-at-first-sight? I’d do it myself but I don’t know how to bake.
Paris apparently understood, or at least understood the please bake unusual cupcakes part, because she winked and gave him a little nod.
“What about you, Rafa?” Grace asked. “What are your cupcake needs and desires?”
The way her voice got a little throaty as she said “needs and desires” instantly plunged him into an incredibly vivid fantasy of her asking him, “What are your needs and desires?” while they both lay naked in bed.
No, while he lay naked in bed while she knelt naked atop his hips, so he had the best view of her luscious breasts. He could practically feel the weight of her soft thighs. Maybe he’d have scattered red rose petals across the sheets, so their sweet perfume rose up and mixed with Grace’s own natural scent—
Grace snapped her fingers. “Earth to bodyguard. Favorite cupcake?”
Rafa’s mind went completely blank. It was like the image of Grace naked had melted it down. Finally, floundering, he said, “Rose?”
He immediately cursed himself. That wasn’t even a real flavor, and it wasn’t manly. A man presents a woman with a bouquet of roses. He doesn’t make them into cupcakes and eat them himself. He was opening his mouth to take it back and claim that he loved some other flavor, any flavor, when Grace replied.
“Hey, I like rose cupcakes too. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who doesn’t think they taste like soap. High-five!”
She held up her hand. A little dazed, Rafa smacked it. Her hands were just as soft as he’d thought. Well, he certainly wasn’t going to say he didn’t like rose-flavored cupcakes now. And also, he was definitely putting rose petals on the bed the first chance he got.
Paris polled the rest of the cast and crew on cupcake preferences, and then Grace and Lubomir called them all back to work. Brady returned to the stage, where he gave a suspicious prod to a wobbly red thing resting on a squiggly green thing.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Rafa whispered to Grace.
“Martian food,” she whispered back. “It’s strawberry jello in a... Martian shape. On a Martian plate.”
Brady sliced into the Martian jello with a squiggly green knife, then popped a bite into his mouth with a squiggly green fork. An expression of disgust came over his face as he chewed and swallowed.
“Grace!” he bellowed.
She sighed. “What’s wrong with it this time?”
“Too much sugar,” replied the actor.
“Didn’t he say he wanted more sugar?” Rafa whispered.
“Yep,” Grace whispered back. “He’s like Goldilocks on Mars: this Martian jello is too sweet, that Martian jello is too sour. Except he never finds the Martian jello that’s just right.” To Brady, she called out, “I’ll tell props to put in less next time.”
She was much more patient with Brady than Rafa would have if he’d been her. But then, that was what made her good at her job.
Much as Rafa would have liked to spend the rest of the rehearsal sitting beside her, enjoying her warmth and voice and presence, there had been enough mishaps—or sabotage attempts—that he decided to divide his time between the audience, the stage manager’s booth, and backstage. He made sure that he wasn’t dividing it evenly, so no one could predict when he’d show up backstage. But he didn’t catch anyone doing anything worse than secretly swigging from a flask (the conductor) or carving obscene graffiti into the bottom of a Mars rock (a bored stagehand).
There were no more “accidents” for the rest of the rehearsal. But Lubomir wasn’t happy with one of the main song-and-dance numbers, in which the entire chorus came out dressed as Martians to act out Paris’s fever dream while she was lost and dehydrated on Mars. The rehearsal ran overtime, but finally ended.
The actors and musicians changed into their street clothes, then left. They were followed by the light and sound people, and then the stagehands. Rafa took the opportunity to grab Melissa’s rat pants. Once he was alone, he’d shift and sniff them. His lion might be able to catch a scent undetectable to humans.
Lubomir, Grace, and Carl discussed a problem with the sound effects. Grace said she’d stay to fix it. Carl offered to help, but she told him to go home and get some sleep. He left, along with a yawning Lubomir.
At last, Grace and Rafa were alone in the theatre.
They stood looking at each other. Heat seemed to fill the air between them. Rafa was certain she could feel it too. The chemistry between them was electric. He knew that if he reached out to pull her in for their very first kiss, she would melt into his arms.
He was about to do it when he remembered his secrets. Should he tell her before they did anything at all, even kiss? But they’d known each other for such a short time. Maybe it was too soon...
She took a deep breath, then swallowed. “I better go work on the sound board. You don’t have to stay.”
“Of course I’m staying,” Rafa said instantly. “I have to protect you.”
“From deadly wires and jacks?” Her tone was light, but she gave an uneasy glance around the mostly-darkened theatre. “Well—all right. If you don’t mind not getting much sleep tonight. This could take a while. And it’ll be pretty boring.”
“Spending time with you? I doubt that.”
They walked together to the ladder.
“Ladies first,” said Rafa.
“Uh-uh.” Grace shook her head, making her purple curls swing, and gave him an unbearably sexy wink. “You got to stare at my ass last time. My turn now.”
“With such a classy invitation, how can I refuse?”
“You can’t. That’s why I don’t do subtle.” She snapped her fingers. “Go on. Give me a show.”
He took his time climbing the ladder, grinning to himself. She certainly knew how to keep him on his toes. He loved her boldness. And if she wanted to get a good look at his ass, well, she was absolutely welcome to it. She could ogle any or all parts of him, clothed or nude, any time she liked.
The stage manager’s booth was very small; Grace moved easily within it, but Rafa had to be careful not to hit his head on the ceiling or knock anything over with a careless move. And though the rest of the theatre was cool, it was hot, both because heat rises and because it had a lot of machines in a confined space.
Grace indicated two control panels built into a pair of tables, with as many switches and dials as an airplane cockpit. “Those are the light and sound boards. Sound’s the one with the problem. It’s been acting up a lot. It might be best for me to rewire it from scratch.”
Rafa vaguely recalled stage managers from high school. They had usually been the people from the drama club who’d tried out for roles they didn’t get, and ran around looking harried and resentful. He definitely didn’t recall them doing any electrical repairs.
“How’d you get to be a stage manager?” he asked. “Do you have to go to school for it?”
“I think most of us learn on the job,” she replied. “You start out as a stagehand, then become an assistant like Carl, then a stage manager.”
“But how did you know it was what you wanted?”
“I always liked tinkering with things. When I was five, my parents gave me Malibu Barbie and her pink Corvette. I took them both apart and put them back together into a freaky cyborg vehicle with hands and feet and long blonde hair.”
Rafa laughed.
Grace grinned at him, then went on, “When I was in high school, my shop teacher recommended me to the drama teacher. I started out setting up the lights, and then she asked if I’d like to run them, and then she asked if I’d like to run the whole show. I said sure. She said I’d need to be assertive. I said, ‘No problem.’ I was an outcast in high school, and I liked the idea of being able to order all my classmates around.”
Rafa’s amusement at Monster Car Barbie vanished at his anger that anyone, even immature teenagers, had shunned her. How dare they!
“I’d thought of being an engineer before that,” Grace said. “But once I tried stage management, it was love at first sight. I’ve never wanted to act or sing or anything like that, but I love taking a huge production with tons of moving pieces and making the whole thing run perfectly.”
“This show has a ton of moving pieces, all right,” Rafa remarked. “Actors... Mars rocks... Rats...”
Grace chuckled. She had an incredibly sexy laugh, low and throaty. “Hopefully there won’t be any more rats. But yeah, this is the most complicated show I’ve ever worked on. I’m from a little Florida town called Delbert-on-the-Sea, and even commuting into the nearest city, there wasn’t much work for a stage manager. I came here to get my big break.”
“And here it is. Mars: Mission Accomplished.”
She gave him a wistful smile. “I sure hope so. The thing is, this isn’t the first time something’s seemed like my big break. I moved to Santa Martina to stage manage a different show. It was supposed to be my big break, but it turned out to be a big bust.”
“Another musical?”
“No. It was an extremely serious play about alcoholism, The Bottom of the Bottle. The sort of serious that tips over into accidentally funny. It had this ridiculous dream sequence where a bunch of actors came out dressed up as beer cans...”
“In a serious play about alcoholism?!”
“Yep,” Grace said, grinning. “They grabbed the star and wrapped him up in black leather straps. It was supposed to represent how he was imprisoned by his addiction, but it looked more like he was seriously into bondage. They put him in a black leather harness, which made the whole thing seem even more like a scene from Fifty Shades of Grey, and suspended him from the ceiling. Just like we do in Mars for the zero-gravity scenes, actually, only for no good reason. He dangled overhead like an S&M spider while the beer cans marched around him in a circle, chanting, ‘Chug! Chug! Chug!’”
By the end of the story, Rafa was laughing so hard that tears came to his eyes. He wiped them away. “I can see why that theatrical masterpiece wasn’t your big break. Did it close after opening night, or last an entire week?”
“Believe it or not, it’s still running. What happened ou7n opening night was that I got fired.”
“What?” Rafa couldn’t believe it. “Why?”
“Opening night sold out,” Grace said. “I guess there’s no accounting for taste. After we’d sold out, people were still showing up and asking for tickets. The producer said, ‘Let’s move in some folding chairs, and sell tickets for those!’ But that’s illegal. It’s a fire hazard. I took him aside and explained why we couldn’t do it, and then I went to double-check the equipment for the flying scene.”
“Uh-oh. And while you were gone...?”
“You got it. He had a row of folding chairs blocking the fire exits, and a row perched on a high ledge without a rail, so if the person sitting in them leaned back too far, they’d flip over backward, fall ten feet, and land on cement. Probably on their head.”
“Holy shit.”
Grace nodded in grim agreement. “I went to the producer and told him I was getting rid of those seats. He said, ‘Touch them and you’re fired.’ I said, ‘It’s my duty as a stage manager to protect the safety of everyone involved in this show, and that includes the audience.’ I started folding up the chairs. And he fired me. Had my assistant run the show. No one fell over backward and the safety inspectors didn’t do a surprise check that night, so he got away with it.”
“He was lucky.” Inside Rafa, his lion was snarling in fury. “And he was an asshole. He fired you for doing the right thing. Some day that’ll come back to bite him.”
“It might. It’s a pretty popular show. I keep wondering if he’s still bringing out the danger chairs every time it sells out. Some day his luck will run out. I just hope no one gets killed.”
“You could try anonymously tipping off the safety inspectors,” Rafa suggested.
Grace gave him a slightly guilty grin. “I have, actually. So far they haven’t caught him in the act. I know it’s not my problem...”
He recognized the sound of someone repeating what they’d been told rather than saying something they actually believed. “Who said that?”
“Everyone who I told about calling the safety inspectors after I left the show. It was my responsibility while I was stage managing, but afterward, I guess it just seems like I’m a busybody and a control freak and trying to get revenge.” Her bright smile flashed. “I mean, I’d also like to get revenge. But even if it does make me nosy and vengeful, I still don’t want some unsuspecting audience member to crack their skull. Or to have them trapped if there was a fire.”
“What it makes you is an honorable, responsible person who cares about other people,” Rafa said. “You’re like me: you want to protect people. That’s a good quality! The world would be a better place if more people were like you.”
Grace stared at him as if she couldn’t quite believe what he’d said. She was silent, but her eyes took on a liquid shine. Had he actually made her cry just by saying that she was a good person and had done the right thing? Hadn’t anyone ever told her that before?
She swallowed and blinked. In a slightly husky voice, she said, “And more people were like you?”
“Well, of course.”
She chuckled, as he had hoped she would. Then she gave a wistful glance down at the stage. “I really like this show. I know you’ve only seen it in bits and pieces, but it’s a lot of fun, the music’s catchy, and it’s visually spectacular. I hope it’s a hit. I’d love to keep working on it. But even if it wasn’t much good, I’d hate for it to fail. If it does, I have to go back to Delbert-on-the-Sea. I just don’t want to have to give up on my dream.”
“You won’t,” Rafa assured her. “I’m sure it’ll be a hit. But even if it isn’t, you’re too tough to give up forever. It’d be a setback, that’s all.”
“A long setback,” she said glumly. “It took me years to save enough money to come here.”
“Still not forever. But like I said, I don’t think it’ll flop. What I’ve seen of it looked great. And I’m here to make sure the sabotage stops.”
To himself, he vowed, I’m here to make your all your dreams come true.
“Thanks. I’m sure you will. I bet the theatre gremlin took one look at you and fled in terror.” Grace glanced at her watch. “Whoa, time flies when you’re going on and on about yourself. I better get started on the sound board.”
She took out a toolbox, plunked herself down on the floor, and wriggled under the table.
“Told you it’d be boring,” she said, her voice muffled. “You won’t be able to see anything but my legs.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Rafa returned. “But is there anything I can do to help? Pass you tools, maybe?”
“I don’t know. Can you fit?”
He surveyed the tight space below the table. “Let’s see.”
Rafa crouched down. He unbuckled his belt and took off his gun, then placed it where he’d be able to see and reach it. The booth was too small for him to lie flat, like Grace was doing, so he bent his legs back, flattened his chest to the floor, and slithered under the table.
“I’m impressed,” Grace remarked. They were crammed so close together that he could feel her warm, sweet breath on his face. “I didn’t think a big guy like you would be able to squeeze under here.”
The question is, can we squeeze out? his lion remarked pessimistically.
“I got in—and out—of much tighter places than this in BUD/S,” Rafa said. Automatically, he began to explain, “That means Basic Underwater Demolition—”
“Whoa!” Grace exclaimed. “You were a SEAL?”
“Yeah. My boss now was my best buddy on our team. When Hal and I were done with the SEALs, I helped him found Protection, Inc. Hey, how come you know what BUD/S stands for?”
“I just love reading Navy SEAL romance novels.” Her voice dropped to that throaty register again, making Rafa feel slightly dizzy. And also glad he was lying on his stomach, because otherwise he’d be rudely prodding her with the biggest hard-on of his entire life.
“You do?” Rafa managed.
She laughed. “I’m kidding. One side of my family has a lot of people in the military. Mostly Navy, though I have a cousin here in Santa Martina who’s an Army vet. No SEALs, but I have an uncle who tried and didn’t make it.”
“Did he get into BUD/S?”
“Yeah, but he got injured in Hell Week and had to drop out.”
“That’s pretty good,” Rafa said. “Most people don’t even qualify for the training.”
She squirmed around to give him a curious look, which pushed one of her legs into his. “What percentage of the ones who do get in make it through?”
“Uh...” It was hard to think of anything with her warm, soft body lightly touching his. He felt like he was about to spontaneously combust. “About twenty percent.”
“So, if about twenty percent qualify, and only twenty percent of them pass, then the percentage of everyone who becomes a Navy SEAL is... I swear I know how to calculate that... It’s impressive, anyway. I’m impressed. Man, it’s hot in here.” She took a deep breath, which pushed her breasts into him.
Rafa’s head swam. Was she doing it on purpose? She had to be doing it on purpose. Right? Normally he could easily follow women’s cues, but something about Grace got to him. Made it so he couldn’t think straight.
“Do you... Do you want me to...?” As Rafa heard his stumbling voice, he wanted to kick himself. Where was his suave? What woman would respond to that?
“Yes,” Grace replied fervently. “I do.”
His lion roared in triumph.