smirking over Evie’s heavy-handed cat eye. She could only imagine how she looked right now.
She caught a glimpse of herself in a gilded mirror on the wall.
Scratch that. She wished she could only imagine how she looked right now.
Her long red braid fell to her waist, and the short green satin gown hugged her figure. Her avocado-cream face stared back at her. Basically, she was Mrs. Shrek.
Well, at least that settled what she was going to be for Halloween this year.
Theodore followed Bree as she moved over to the row of coats and dug inside the pockets of her beaten parka. She pulled out a crumpled package of makeup-remover wipes and yanked a few out. Oh, the price of the career; she was ever finding a bit of green behind the ear.
“So,” she said, rubbing from the cheek inward, “any word on the fall lineup? What’s the inside scoop?”
Theodore Watkins III, financial adviser to the Barter’s chief administrator, well-known supporter of the arts, and heir to the town’s beloved Christmas tree farm, set down his flute of champagne. His amiable brow creased. “I don’t know what the ‘inside scoop’ is, but I do believe Mr. and Mrs. Richardson were just discussing the next show with some interested parties.” He tipped his chin up and over, where sure enough the reclusive Mr. Richardson and his wife were standing among a small party, all furs and feathers.
While caking her wipe in green foundation, Bree kept her eyes on the renowned chief administrator, his wife, and the “interested parties” who circled the couple. With large and intense eyes, they resembled chickens awaiting their after-dinner scraps.
There was interested, and there was interested.
And now Bree, too, was interested.
“Do you mind?” Bree heard Theodore say, and she forced her eyes back his way. He inched closer, tugging one of the wipes free from her palm.
He smiled tentatively as he held it up.
“Oh. Oh yes. Sure.” Bree lowered her wipe to let him sub in. She sucked in her breath as he stepped closer and entered her bubble. He had never entered the bubble before. And yet every chance encounter since their first six weeks ago seemed to present another opportunity for them to draw closer. Greetings lengthened. Greetings disappeared altogether as the two slid directly into conversation, as though the days between their last meeting had been but a pause. Their smiles widened when they saw each other. And as of last week, for the first time, they didn’t even pretend not to look for the other after the Friday show.
He rubbed the wipe against the tip of her green nose.
He moved to her cheek.
Each brow.
The business of the room slowed.
“There now,” Theodore said at last, pushing the wipe into his pants pocket as if it was one of his many monogrammed silk handkerchiefs. He took a step back and the room returned to a breezy 72 degrees. “Much better.”
“So . . .” Bree released a breath. Where was she? Her eyes ticked back to Mrs. Richardson. Oh yes. “Let’s get a little closer, shall we?”
“You mean you want to spy on your employers from an auspicious distance instead of walking into the group and joining the conversation.”
She smiled. “Exactly.”
Bree led the way and together they danced around clusters of people, sidestepping platters of shrimp and the stray arm flinging out in dramatic story. Theodore followed her lead as they melted into the regal drapery, twenty feet of royal blue cascading from an empire valance. The perfect vantage point for eavesdropping.
Mr. Richardson glanced toward his wife. “And yet as much as I’d love to put our actors to work, I can only imagine how they’d handle a paint bucket and a brush. Things have changed just a bit since Porterfield’s time.”
“Nonsense!” replied Mr. Thieves, owner of no fewer than four restaurants in town and never spotted in any of them. He set his quiche cup on his plate. “If the casts of old days could earn their keep collecting props and running the cafeteria, they certainly could be useful to you now with some hammers and caulk. After all, besides their little acts, what else must they do during the day? Might be good to keep them busy.” He leaned in conspiratorially and tapped his nose. “Might even get the crime down.”
Theodore raised his brow to Bree with a tilted smile. In this town, with a verifiable crime rate of nil, the cast’s weekend trips to the farmer’s market were positively barbarous.