Mel tensed, wriggling his shoulders in his blue work shirt, the tag grating the sensitive skin on the back of his neck. He turned toward June and fought a grin. She looked hopeful and bossy at the same time. Close to the six-foot mark with long, slim arms and legs, she reminded him of Jack. Her green eyes flecked with brown and her full lips made Mel remember she’d briefly been his girlfriend. Until she’d left for college and left him cold.
“I can spare a half hour,” he said. “But you have to help. The wiring in there hasn’t been updated during my lifetime, and the conduit runs up high over the stage.” He strode over and stopped in front of June, eye level with her on the elevated porch. “It’s going to be a real pain in the neck,” he said.
June laughed, stepped back and shoved through the swinging saloon doors.
* * *
IF SHE WANTED to revisit a time when her insides didn’t flip whenever Mel Preston came into view, she’d have to go back about a decade. The first time she’d seen him was at her older brother’s seventh birthday party. Even then, his sandy hair and blue eyes combined with a giant smile had set him miles above Jack’s other friends. When high school rolled around, she’d started to realize just how much she liked him. Now, at six foot three, Mel was easily head and broad shoulders over other men. Except Jack. June’s older brother and Mel had competed for vertical supremacy throughout high school until Jack finally edged Mel out by one inch during a late-teen growth spurt.
Gradually, over the last decade, their easy relationship had heated, tempered, flared, cooled and simmered. But never jelled. It didn’t have a chance to because June couldn’t give up her dream to tap her toes on Broadway. The two live theaters at Starlight Point with their creaking floors and seats were not enough for her then or now.
How ironic that she was standing in one of those theaters and trying to make it sparkle. Temporary, she reminded herself.
She tilted her head to see Mel balanced on a ladder ten feet over the stage. Only his worn work boots were visible from her angle. A screwdriver clattered to the floor, almost clobbering her on its way down.
“Sorry about that,” Mel said. “Can you toss it back up here?”
“I’m a bad throw,” she said, picking it up. The handle still held Mel’s heat.
He chuckled. “I know.”
“Hey,” she said. “I was only ten and you guys were twelve. Big difference. And I didn’t want to play baseball anyway but you were short a player.”
“That was my first time replacing a pane of glass,” Mel said. “I did okay and your parents probably never would’ve known if Evie hadn’t told on us.”
“Too young to know better,” June said. “She was only six or seven.”
June tossed the screwdriver up but missed by several feet, causing Mel to overreach and almost fall off the ladder.
“I better come get it before someone loses an eye,” Mel said.
He backed down the ladder while June crossed the stage to retrieve the fallen tool. Her back to him, she said, “Your son’s about six, isn’t he?”
“He’ll turn six this summer. Starts first grade in the fall.”
She turned to face him as he stepped off the bottom rung, a flicker of silence between them.
Mel jerked his head toward the upper catwalk without taking his eyes off June. “Think that old catwalk for the lighting will hold my weight?” he asked. “I don’t know if it’s been used in years.”
“I hope so. My shows include lots of lighting. Maybe some special effects.”
“In the Wonderful West? Seems out of place,” Mel commented.
June rolled her eyes. “What you know about theater would fit in your back pocket.”
“Maybe,” he said, taking the screwdriver from her outstretched palm, “but that’s where this goes. Lucky for you, I know about electricity.”
June watched him climb one rung at a time. When he reached the junction box ten feet up, he put a small flashlight between his teeth. Although full daylight outside, the theater was dim.
“I’ve gotta follow this line,” Mel said. He climbed another five rungs and eased onto the narrow metal catwalk that hugged the theater on three sides. Ancient spotlights were mounted beneath it and cables snaked over and under it.
“Seems solid,” Mel said. “I’m going down to the junction box in the corner. I have to see where we have spark and where we don’t.”
Good idea, June thought, following his progress as he crawled along the back wall. She held her breath when he slid across a gap between missing supports. When he reached the corner, the flashlight between his teeth threw patterns of light on the wall as he banged at something metallic.
“Any luck?” June called.
“Just...” The flashlight clanked onto the steel catwalk, rolled off and crashed onto the floor near June. The light went dark.
“Shouldn’t have opened my mouth,” Mel said from the darkness above her.
“My fault,” June said. “I asked you a question.”
“You can make it up to me by digging through the toolbox on my cart and finding me another flashlight.”
“Be right back.”
June headed for the daylight streaming through the front windows. Mel’s cart had two toolboxes and she had to dig through both before finding a large industrial-looking flashlight.
Inside, Mel’s long legs hung over the side of the catwalk fifteen feet up. He swung his feet like a kid waiting for his third-grade girlfriend on the playground.
“Can I convince you to bring that up here?” Mel asked.
“I could throw it.”
“I haven’t got a death wish. Just come up the ladder and I’ll crawl along the catwalk and meet you at the top.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. She knew he wouldn’t. June had worked at Starlight Point until she was eighteen. During the off-season, she’d tromped around handing tools to maintenance men after school, climbing the emergency steps on coasters and taking any challenge. When she was old enough to officially work, she’d sold popcorn until she finally convinced her parents to let her dance on stage. Although her parents owned the amusement park, they made their children work regular summer jobs. It was a great way to see Starlight Point from the inside out, and all three of them had earned reputations as hard workers.
Mel had every reason to think she’d scamper up the ladder, flashlight in hand, like she would have done in the past.
But the shining aluminum faced her like a demon.
Her heart rate accelerated as she placed one foot on the bottom rung and pulled herself up with her free hand. One rung down, at least fifteen more to go. Maybe she could do this. Jumper’s knee. That’s what her doctor had called it. If she stretched, did her exercises, and avoided stairs and high-impact jumps, it would get better. She’d been taking it easy, keeping her movements small and not telling a soul. She felt stronger, ready to take on these theaters and get on with her life.
She sucked in a breath and steeled herself for another vertical step.
Pain streaked through her right knee when she put her foot on the next rung and tried to pull herself up. Agonizing pain. Ladders were not on her therapy plan. A wave of nausea hit her and sweat chilled the back of her neck. She dropped the flashlight and grabbed both sides of the ladder. She stepped backward to the floor, fumbling for the light, afraid to look up. Back on both feet, the pain subsided and she took a deep breath.
“What are you doing?” Mel asked.
Trying to pretend everything