Million Dollar Cowboy (Cupid, Texas #5)(114)

Someone had suspended a wedding-bouquet sized clump of mistletoe from the chandelier's central branch, inviting the audience to indulge in stolen kisses. Aww, Christmas in Twilight.

Paige picked up an armful of programs, tucked them into her elbow, and bobbled her way over the thick rose-patterned carpet to the theatre lobby. No one was at the main reception desk, but rummaging sounds came from the closet on the other side of the room. 

"Emma?"

"Nope." Colorfully tattooed, multiply pierced, purple-dreadlocks Jana Gerard popped her head out from the closet.

"Oh."

"Sorry to disappoint. Emma hopped over to Caitlyn's flower shop to replace the blooms." Jana waved at the wilted poinsettia baskets on the long marble countertop.

From the closet, Jana dragged out a life-sized cardboard cutout of an acoustic guitar protected by a sheet of thin clear plastic that the Playhouse had used to decorate the lobby for last summer's performance of Oklahoma.

"What's that for?" Paige asked.

"Sesty's spearheading the Cowboy Christmas music fundraiser, and Emma said we could borrow the guitar." Sesty Langtree was a local event coordinator, and one of Jana's two bosses.

A few years back, Jana had moved to conservative Twilight from keep-things-weird Austin, and with her flamboyant appearance she stood out like a scarlet rose in a planter box of white lilies.

No one knew much about Jana and rumors dogged her heels, usually clad in leather spiked motorcycle boots. The speculating about her past ran the gamut from the absurd; she shot a man for cheating on her. To the sublime; she'd donated a kidney to a sick lover, friend, parent, sibling, child, but alas, they'd tragically died anyway.

While the truth of Jana's abandonment of the state capital for the close-knit lake town of Twilight was probably much more mundane, she did nothing to quell the gossip and at times actively flamed it with sly smiles and knowing glances.

Paige understood the temptation toward mysteriousness. Even though she had relatives in Twilight, and was not nearly as exotic as Jana, she too had been the topic of lively conversation when she'd taken up residence in Uncle Floyd's houseboat.

"Need any help?" Paige asked, as Jana hoisted the cardboard guitar onto her back.

Jana eyed her. "You've got your hands full, and I'm not real confident in your ability to walk a straight line in those heels."

"Me either," Paige admitted, but she set down the programs and moved to open the left side exit door. "Excuse me," she called to the crowd packing the sidewalk. "Woman coming through."

The throng shifted, cutting a narrow path for Jana to join the flow of foot traffic.

"Thanks." And Jana was off, swallowed up as the crowd closed ranks again. The only visible sign of her was the bobbing cardboard guitar surfing heads.

The other five assistants came bustling in through the door Jana had just exited from, red-cheeked and laughing. They greeted Paige merrily, and trundled off to the dressing room.

All the Santa's helpers had been told to get into costume early so the actors could have the dressing rooms. The helpers would work the lobby before the performance, greeting guests, passing out programs, selling refreshments from the bar.

The doors opened at one-thirty. It was now twelve fifty-five.

"You're gonna do great," she said, giving herself a first-day-on-the-job pep talk. "Don't trip and break your neck in the dang boots and you'll be fine."

She glanced around for something to do, spied the droopy poinsettias. A little water and time out from under the heating system and they would rebound. Taking the initiative, she whisked the five baskets away one-by-one to the closet, filled with posters, signs, and various stage props, that Jana had just vacated.

The side door of the Playhouse opened again, this time ushering in a red-cheeked Emma Cheek carrying a giant basket of white winter flowers. Emma was in her mid-thirties, barely five foot, two inches shorter than Paige. She possessed flame-red naturally curly hair, peaches and cream skin, and an easy smile.

Emma had once been a Broadway actress, and still occasionally starred in a movie, but mostly she kept busy running the Twilight Playhouse, and riding herd on her veterinarian husband Sam, Sam's teenage son Charlie from another marriage, and their six-year-old daughter Lauren.



       
         
       
        

Emma stopped short and peered around the basket. "Where did the poinsettias go?"

"I moved them to the closet to make room for the new flowers."

"Why thank you, Paige. That was considerate."

"You're welcome."