The Gazebo

Concentrate on the entertainment value, he told himself. Here he was, sitting close enough to kiss a woman he figured would never so much as stay in the same room once he’d entered it. Yeah, it was big fun, Stone told himself cynically, except it only made him wonder what she’d taste like. Deirdre was so small, he’d have to bend way over, gather her up against him and—

“…and Hugh Jackman in The Boy from Oz played this gay singer who—Mr. Stone, you’re not listening,” Emma accused.

Stone actually felt the back of his neck get hot.

“Whatever you’re thinking about, it sure isn’t theater,” the girl scolded. “I expect you to tell me right—oh!”

Saved by the bell. Literally. The old-fashioned brass bell above Lagomarcino’s door jangled. Emma’s eyes widened, her face turning a shade pinker than the moment before as a tall kid of about seventeen entered the diner, his sun-streaked blond hair and angular, wind-burned face giving him a kind of Ralph Lauren, preppie outdoorsman look. For a heartbeat, Stone could see the incredible woman Emma would grow into. Then, between one moment and the next, she transformed back into a fluttery teenage girl.

“Ohmigod,” she breathed. Her mother’s gaze pinned her.

“Emma? Are you all right?”

“Mom, cut it out!” Emma hissed under her breath, one hand sweeping up in an effort to smooth her flyaway hair. Wasted effort, Stone wanted to tell her. Like her mother’s unruly locks, Emma’s hair looked best a little tousled.

Of course, on Emma it looked cute. On Deirdre it looked like a man had just buried his hands in the silky locks. Unless, Stone figured, the guy looking at the two McDaniel women was seventeen. There was no missing the appreciation lighting the boy’s hazel eyes. Trula would have called them bedroom eyes. Stone figured they were closer to a golden retriever’s—and not one that had honored the humane society’s mandate for neutering.

Ignoring her daughter’s stammered plea not to embarrass her, Deirdre glanced over her shoulder to see what held her daughter’s attention. She needn’t have bothered. The boy nabbed a can of Dr Pepper from the pop machine, then headed straight for them.

The kid smiled at Emma, something about him so damned shiny and new it made Stone feel a hundred years old.

“Hey, Juliet,” the kid said, shoving one hand into the pocket of jeans his mom had obviously pressed.

“Hey, Romeo.”

So this must be the kid cast opposite Emma in the play. “Romeo” had that soulful, romantic look that would give all the impressionable girls watching the performance something to dream about for months.

So why did the look on Deirdre’s face make Stone wonder if the kid would be giving her nightmares?

Romeo turned respectfully to Deirdre. “You’re Emma’s mom, aren’t you? I’m Drew Lawson.”

“Hello, Drew,” Deirdre replied. Stone knew that tone. It was the icy one she’d used on him so often. Stone had to credit the kid for guts as Drew awkwardly offered the Ice Queen his hand. Deirdre glanced at his fingers, then away, a pointed rejection that astonished Stone. Why didn’t she just kick that poor puppy and be done with it?

Drew tugged at the open collar of a purple-and-green-striped rugby shirt. It looked like the kid registered Deirdre’s chilly reception loud and clear. Even so, the kid didn’t beat feet for the door. He stood there, nervous but determined. “I just want to tell you how glad I am Emma got the lead,” Drew said. “Her audition had half the teachers bawling.”

Drew slid Emma another glance. “I’m looking forward to working with her.”

Yeah, kid, I’ll bet you are, Stone thought. Wasn’t there a kissing scene or two in the play? And it didn’t look like Emma would object to rehearsing it with this particular Romeo. So why was Deirdre giving the kid a glare that could be aimed at barbarian hordes bent on pillage?

The kid wasn’t wearing a Marilyn Manson shirt or sporting enough body-piercing to fill Jake’s grandmother’s pincushion. And he could hardly have offended Deirdre. Drew had just introduced himself.

Besides, Emma was sixteen—and a real looker, like her mother. Even if, by some miracle, Emma hadn’t been kissed yet, it was going to happen and soon. Wasn’t this clean-cut, all-American type kid every mother’s dream boyfriend for her daughter?

“Emma is very talented,” Deirdre said firmly. “But I can’t say Juliet is a part I think she’s suited for.”

“Really?” Drew asked, incredulous.

“Emma’s got far too good a head on her shoulders to be sucked into that whole star-crossed-lover bit—she’s going to have to work hard to make it believable. I mean, the whole thing—the poison, the suicide, the whole parents-being-evil bit just isn’t her style.”

Emma grimaced. “That’s why they call it acting, Mom.”

“I knew there had to be a reason.” Deirdre smiled at her daughter. “I’m glad Emma got the part, and I know she’ll be phenomenal, but the role of Juliet seems a better fit for your girlfriend.”

“Huh?” Drew glanced from mother to daughter in genuine puzzlement.

Emma kicked under the table, missing her intended target and slamming square into Stone’s shin instead.

“Yeow!” Stone exclaimed as pain shot up his leg. He felt the press of three pairs of eyes on his face, both McDaniel females and this Drew character looking at him as if he’d gone crazy. “Y’all know, I, uh, really need some coffee,” he improvised, signaling the waitress, a high school girl with bottle-blond hair and inch-thick makeup who seemed to be studiously ignoring them.

Was Stone imagining it, or did the waitress really give Emma a nasty look from above the edge of her order pad? Drew looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Chris,” he called, the girl unable to ignore his summons. “They’d like to order over here.”

“Be right there,” the girl said sourly, turning to fiddle with a tray of water glasses. Stone wondered what the story was.

But Emma was too busy trying to do damage control to notice. “I was telling my mom that everybody assumed Brandi Bates would get the part and that the two of you were going out.”

“People assume a lot of things,” Drew said, his gaze holding Emma’s a little too intently. “That doesn’t mean they’re true.”

Emma blushed. “Listen, about rehearsing—Mom said we could use the gazebo out in the garden at March Winds.”

Deirdre’s eyes flashed. “You know, I’m not so sure that’s such a good idea. The guests love the gazebo and—”

“The guests will understand,” Stone interrupted, figuring he could lend Emma and Romeo a hand. “What mom could resist looking out her kitchen window to watch the whole process of her daughter developing her lead performance? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

Emma didn’t look pleased about the setup he’d described, but Deirdre seemed to reconsider. “I don’t know,” she mused grudgingly.

“Emma’s dad will be jealous as hell.” Stone told himself he wasn’t fishing for information. He was just trying to make the deal irresistible. From what he’d seen of broken marriages, nothing delighted an ex-spouse more than sticking the knife in and breaking it off. But the flash of something in Deirdre’s all-too-expressive eyes made the back of his neck prickle.

“Emma’s father isn’t—”

“He vanished before I was born and never cared about seeing me again. And that’s fine with me. I never needed a dad, anyway.” Emma gave her mother a pointed glance. “I have Uncle Cade and the Captain.”

Drew looked even more uncomfortable than he’d been moments before. If Deirdre’s obvious disapproval hadn’t chased him off, the tension thickening the air this time seemed to make him look for an exit line.

“Actually, I’d better get going,” he said. “I was heading home to work on learning my lines now.”

“Oh.” Emma wasn’t quite a good enough actress to hide her disappointment. “Yeah, sure.”

Drew hung in there a moment longer in spite of The Mother from Hell. “Some of the language in this play…well, it’s not like normal dialogue, you know? It doesn’t exactly roll real easy off my tongue.”

“It can’t be too difficult,” Deirdre said. “People have been performing it for five hundred years.”

“It’s brilliant,” Drew said, brave enough to risk the evil eye in defense of the Bard. “I love listening to it, reading it, seeing it performed. I just feel a little dorky doing it alone. My kid brother and I share a room, and he’s a real pain in the a—neck when I try to practice lines. You know how brothers are.”

“No, I don’t,” Emma said. Was that wistfulness Stone detected in her voice? “It’s just Mom and me at home.”

Drew almost looked envious. “Wow. That must be awesome when you’re trying to practice.”

Maybe it was great at times like that, Stone mused, the hint of loneliness in Emma’s dark eyes echoing memories of his own childhood. It was the rest of the time that stunk.