Carousel Nights

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_07d045f5-a31e-5ff1-9750-ebdb75656189)

I SURE AM far from Broadway. Right back where I started.

For June Hamilton, standing on the stage of the Midway Theater was pure nostalgia. She had danced her first semiprofessional steps here during the summers. But she had no intention of dancing her last ones on stage at her family’s amusement park. Her legs were still good for six or seven seasons of New York City, and she still had a dream to chase.

“Thank you for spending your summer at Starlight Point,” she said. The performers gathered around her shifted even closer. “You’ll dance your legs off doing five shows a day, but the experience you’ll gain can take you anywhere.”

“You’ve been on Broadway for ages, right?” a girl with a tiny waist and a movie-star face asked.

“Hey,” June said, narrowing her eyes but smiling at the girl. “Only a few years, and I’m going back for the fall season. After I transform this theater and the Starlight Saloon into standing-room-only attractions.”

She had one month until the two theaters at Starlight Point opened for the summer.

Today she and her stage manager, Megan, would begin a marathon of rehearsals and performances. The new crop of college-aged performers gathered on stage at the Midway Theater, leggings and loose sweatshirts ready to come off so they could dance.

June handed a shop broom to one of the guys. “Do you mind knocking off some of the construction dust?”

The young man smiled, perfect white teeth giving him a showbiz gleam. “Didn’t know I’d be dancing in a work zone,” he said, taking the broom and heading downstage.

“Life of the theater,” June said. “You never know what you’re getting into.”

“It’s all good. I’m happy to have a summer job.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Megan said, coming through a back door onto the rear of the stage. “I was battling my computer files and uploading practice music to my phone.” She headed for a small set of speakers propped on a cardboard box. “I love the show you’ve put together,” she continued, fumbling with a cord and searching the back of the speaker for a place to plug it in.

“Everyone loves Broadway, especially people who are willing to take a break from spinny rides and cotton candy,” June said, smiling at the six-months-pregnant stage manager, who still managed to look like a dancer despite her protruding belly. “At least I hope so.”

“You brought the glamour home,” Megan agreed. “I have no idea what we’ll do next year when you’re back to your day job.”

June walked to the front of the stage. The seats were all empty, but she felt the magic anyway. She always had. She faced the rows of seats and the midway wall of the theater where the marquee hung over glass doors.

June breathed deeply, raising her arms and stretching. She imagined the excitement, music, costumes and applause. More than anything, her feet wanted to spell out a routine on the floor that would have the audience wishing for three sets of eyes to take it all in.

But she had a lot of work to do before one patron filled a seat. When June had agreed to come home for the summer and take a hiatus from dancing on Broadway, she’d exacted an agreement from her brother, Jack, and sister, Evie. They had to let her update the old theaters. It was their second year running Starlight Point after the unexpected death of their father. They’d had bumps in the road, major and expensive ones, but ramping up the live shows would be a return on investment.

As she stood on the stage, breathing in theater air and listening to the clicking of tap shoes behind her, June wished she could fast-forward to opening day with a hundred people soaking up the great Broadway revue show she’d sketched out.

“You’re smiling,” Mel said.

She hadn’t heard him come in. How long has he been there? He stood near an exit door at the side of the house five rows back. Mel Preston. Tall. Blue work shirt with Starlight Point over one pocket and his name over the other.

She already knew his name. And plenty of other things about him.

June had left Starlight Point seven years ago, when she was eighteen, to attend college in Manhattan and begin her Broadway career. She didn’t regret striking out on her own and leaving the family business to the rest of the family. But she did have one tiny regret.

Okay, one six-foot-three regret.

“Of course I’m smiling,” June said. “Theater is my life.” She spun on her good leg and tapped out a short rhythm with her foot.

“Even this dinky theater?” he asked, walking down the middle aisle.

Her heart rate sped up with each step he took.

“Careful,” she said. “I know the owners of this place and I could have you fired.”

Mel sat in one of the hundreds of empty seats. He leaned back, a travel mug of coffee in his hand. He’s staying? June needed to concentrate on her rehearsal, and Mel divided her attention with his mere presence.

“How have you been, June?” He sat as if he were a ticket-holding patron waiting for his entertainment. Asked the question as if they were high school classmates bumping into each other at the bank or the grocery store.

June had been home just over a week and she’d somehow avoided a reunion with Mel. But Starlight Point only covered a few square miles. If she was planning to be home all summer, she had to find a way to tune out the way Mel made her feel, even after seven years. Maybe I’ll turn the music up very loud.

“I’ve been fine,” she said with a business-casual tone she hoped would convince at least one of them. “Busy. I’ll tell you all about it when I get my shows open.”

“I heard you’re staying all summer.”

June nodded, unsure if Mel considered it a good thing or a bad thing she was staying all summer. Her two goals of recharging herself and the theaters did not allow room for reviving a romance she’d left on the table. Not that Mel’s tone or posture suggested a return to old feelings. He was busy, too, the head of maintenance at Starlight Point. If he’d already seen her plans for renovation on the Midway Theater and the Starlight Saloon Theater, he was probably ready to drive her to the airport.

“Why did you decide to come home?” he asked.

Why did he want to know? She could tell him to mind his own business...but it was a fair question.

A question she’d been dodging since she’d announced she was coming home. In the competitive world of Broadway, she’d only admitted the pain in her knee to her closest friends. And there was no reason to acknowledge it to Mel now. Especially since it already felt better after weeks off the stage.

“I came home to revitalize these theaters,” she said. “I do own a third of Starlight Point.”

Loud music poured from the small speakers behind her.