A Fool's Gold Christmas (2 page)

“Dante?”

“Sorry,” he said, doing his best to keep his voice from growling. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

Evie gave him a wide-eyed stare, then a strange half laugh. “Right. I work here. I teach dance. Lucky me.”

Dante knew Evie had broken her leg a few months ago, but he didn’t remember hearing anything about a head injury. “Are you all right?”

“No,” she snapped and put her hands on her hips. “Do I look all right?”

He took a step back, not wanting to get in the middle of whatever she had going on. “I came upstairs because I can’t work like this anymore. The pounding, the same piece of music playing over and over again. I have to talk to Shanghai tonight, and instead of peace and quiet, there were clog dancers. You’ve got to make it stop.”

He held out both hands, palms up, speaking in what he knew to be his most reasonable tone.

“Make it stop? Make it
stop?”
Her voice rose with each word. “Are you kidding?”

* * *

E
VIE KNEW SHE SOUNDED
shrill. She was sure she was wide-eyed, flushed and more than a little scary, but right now she didn’t care. She was in full panic mode and now Dante was stuck listening to her rant.

“You want to talk to me about your troubles?” she continued. “Fine. Here are mine. In approximately six weeks it’s Christmas Eve. That night, the town of Fool’s Gold expects yet another chance to see their annual favorite—
The Dance of the Winter King.
You’ve never heard of it, you say? I know. Me, either. But it’s a huge deal here. Huge!”

She paused for breath, wondering if it was possible for her head to actually explode. She could feel a sort of panicked pressure building. It was as if she was in a nightmare where she was going to be naked in front of a room full of strangers. Not that being naked in front of a room full of people she knew was any better.

“I won’t go into the details about the storyline,” she continued, her chest getting tighter and tighter. “Let’s just say it’s a lot of students dancing. Oh, and the dances they’re doing this year are different than the ones they did last year because, hey, they move up. Which wouldn’t be a problem because there’s always Miss Monica, who’s been teaching here for the last five-hundred-and-fifty years.”

She was getting shrill again, she realized, and consciously lowered her voice. “The only problem is Miss Monica has run off with her gentleman friend. The woman has to be pushing seventy, so I should probably be impressed or at least respectful that she has a love life, except she took off with no warning. She left me a note.”

Evie pointed to the piece of paper still taped to the mirror.

“She’s gone,” she repeated. “Left town. Flying out of the country first thing in the morning. Which leaves me with close to sixty girls to teach dances I don’t know for a production I’ve never heard of, let alone seen. There’s no choreography to speak of, I’m not sure of the music and I heard the sets are old and need to be completely refurbished. In the next six weeks.”

She paused for air. “It’s up to me. Do you want to know how long I’ve been teaching dance? Two months. That’s right. This is my first ever, on the planet, teaching job. I have sixty girls depending on me to make their dreams come true. Their dreams of being beautiful and graceful, because you know what? For some of them, this is all they have.”

She knew she was skating uncomfortably close to talking about herself. About how, when she’d been younger, dance had been all
she’d
had. She might not have any teaching experience, but she knew what it was like to want to be special and, by God, she was going to make that happen for her students.

She stalked toward him and jabbed her finger into his chest. More specifically, she felt the cool silk of his fancy tie. It probably cost more than she spent on groceries in a month. She didn’t know very much about Dante Jefferson beyond the fact that he was her brother’s business partner and therefore disgustingly rich. Okay—he was reasonably good-looking, but that didn’t help her right now, so she wasn’t going to care.

“If you for one second think I’m going to stop having practice here,” she told him, “you can forget it. I have a serious crisis. If you want to have a conversation with Shanghai, you can do it somewhere else. I’m hanging on by a thread and when it snaps, we’re all going down.”

Dante stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the studio.

She glared at his retreating back. Sure.
He
got to leave and go back to his fancy life. Not her. She had to figure out what to do next. While running in circles and screaming might feel good in the moment, it wasn’t going to get the job done. Nor was railing at the unfairness, kicking something or eating chocolate. She might have failed in other areas of her life, but she wasn’t going to fail her students.

“You have to rally,” she told herself. “You’re tough. You can do it.”

And she would, she thought as she sank onto the floor and rested her head on her knees. She would figure out
The
Dance of the Winter King
and teach her students and let them have one magical night.

First thing in the morning. But now, she was going to take a few minutes and feel massively sorry for herself. It was a small thing to ask, and she’d earned it.

* * *

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Evie started her day with a heart full of determination. She had survived worse than this before and probably would have to again. Mounting a production she’d never seen with no help might seem daunting, but so what? Her pep talk lasted through her first cup of coffee, then faded completely, leaving the sense of panic to return and knot her stomach. Obviously the first step was to stop trying to do this all alone. She needed help. The question was, where to get it.

She was new in town, which meant no support network. Well, that wasn’t totally true. Her brothers had taken a surprising interest in her lately. Rafe had even prepaid for her townhouse, against her wishes. But they would be useless in this situation, her mother wasn’t an option and going up to strangers to ask them what they knew about
The Dance of the Winter King
seemed questionable at best. Which left the women in her brothers’ lives.

She had one sister-in-law and two sisters-in-law to-be. Of the three of them, Charlie seemed the easiest to approach. She was blunt but kindhearted. So after a quick routine of stretching to overcome the stiffness of her still-healing leg, Evie got dressed and started out for the center of town.

Fool’s Gold was a small town nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada—on the California side. The residential areas boasted tidy lawns and well-kept houses while the downtown held nearly a half-dozen traffic lights, making it practically metropolitan. There were plenty of pumpkins by front doors and paper turkeys in windows. Orange, red and yellow leaves flew across the sidewalk. It had yet to snow at this elevation, but the temperatures were close to freezing at night, and the ski resorts higher up the mountain had opened the previous weekend.

The whole place was one happy small town postcard, Evie thought, shoving her hands into her coat pockets and longing to be somewhere else. Los Angeles would be nice. Warm and, hey, big enough that nobody knew her name—which was how she preferred things. She just wanted to live her life without getting involved with other people. Was that too much to ask?

A stupid question, she reminded herself. She was here now, and responsible for a holiday tradition. She would get it right because she knew what it was like to be disappointed, and there was no way she was doing that to her students.

She rounded a corner and walked up to the fire station in the center of town. The building was older, mostly brick, with giant garage doors that would open if there was an emergency.

Charlie was a firefighter. From what Evie had been able to piece together, Charlie drove one of the big trucks. She was competent, sarcastic and just a little intimidating. She was also a bit of a misfit, which made Evie more comfortable around her. In addition, Clay, Evie’s youngest brother, was crazy about her. Over-the-moon, can’t-stop-looking-at-her in love.

Clay had been married before, and Evie had adored his late wife. Now that she thought about it, Clay kind of had extraordinary taste when it came to women. After years of mourning his first wife, he’d stumbled into a relationship with Charlie, only to find himself giving his heart and everything else he had. It was kind of nice to see someone as perfect as Clay brought to his knees by an emotion.

Evie hesitated by the entrance leading into the fire station. She told herself to just open the door and walk in. Which she would. In a second. It was just…asking for help was not her favorite thing. She could easily list ninety-seven ways she would rather spend her time. Maybe more.

The door swung open unexpectedly, and Charlie Dixon stepped out. “Evie? Are you okay?”

Charlie was a little taller than Evie, and much bigger. The other woman was all broad shoulders and muscle. The latter no doubt necessary because of her job. Evie had spent her life in search of the perfect combination of being strong enough to dance and thin enough to look good in whatever costume her job required. Which meant being hungry every day of her life since her fourteenth birthday.

“Hey, Charlie,” Evie said and forced a smile. “Do you have a second?”

“Sure. Come on in.”

The fire station was warm and brightly lit. The big trucks gleamed, and holiday music played over a hidden sound system. Charlie led the way to a massive kitchen with seating for maybe fifteen or twenty, long counters and a six-burner, restaurant-style stove. A big pot of coffee sat by the window, and there was an open box of donuts on the table.

Charlie poured them each a mug of coffee and handed her one, then settled right next to the box of donuts and grabbed a maple bar. As Evie watched, she took a bite and chewed.

Just like that, Evie thought, both impressed and horrified. Depending on the size of the donut, the maple bar would be anywhere from two hundred and fifty calories to over five hundred. Evie had learned shortly after puberty, she was destined to be pear-shaped, with every extra ounce going to her hips, thighs and butt. While the medical community might want her to believe that pear-shaped was perfectly healthy, more than one costume director had pointed out no one wanted to watch a ballerina with a big ass and jiggly thighs.

Evie gripped her coffee mug with both hands, averted her gaze from the box of donuts, whose contents had started to quietly call her name, and stared at Charlie.

“I wondered if I could talk to you about
The Dance of the Winter King.
Do you know about the production?”

“Sure,” Charlie said, dropping half the donut onto a napkin and reaching for her coffee. “It happens every year on Christmas Eve. It’s kind of a big deal.” She smiled, her blue eyes bright with humor. “That’s right. You’re working for Miss Monica now. Nervous about the big show?”

“You have no idea.” Evie knew the situation was complicated even more by the fact that, while Miss Monica was in charge of the studio, the business had recently been purchased by Charlie’s mother. Evie had left the new owner a message the previous night, bringing her up to date, but had yet to hear from her.

“Miss Monica ran off yesterday.” Evie quickly explained about the older woman’s flight with her gentleman friend. “I’ve never seen the dance, and there aren’t very many notes on the production. Miss Monica mentioned many of the sets need to be refurbished, and I don’t even know where they’re kept. I have sixty students who expect to dance in front of their families in six weeks and no idea what I’m doing. Worse, there aren’t any videos of the production in the studio. If Miss Monica had any, they’re in her house, and she’s on her way to Italy.”

She stopped and forced herself to inhale. The panic had returned and with it the need for sugar. She started to reach for a small, plain cake donut, then gave in to the inevitable and picked up a chocolate glazed. As her teeth sank into the sweet, light center, the world slowly righted itself.

Charlie ran her hands through her short hair and groaned. “I’m trying desperately not to imagine Miss Monica and her gentleman friend.”

Evie chewed and swallowed. “I know exactly what you mean. The terror helps me overcome that image.”

“I’ll bet.” Charlie reached for her coffee. “Okay, let me think. I’ve seen the dance every year I’ve been in town, but I can’t remember the details. So, start with your students. Their parents will have the production on video, right? You can watch them and figure out what’s going on.”

Evie sagged back in the chair and nodded. “You’re right. They’ll all have it filmed. That’s perfect. Thanks.”

Charlie stood and moved back toward the kitchen. She pulled open a drawer. When she returned to the table, she had a pad of paper and a pen.

“The sets are going to be in one of the warehouses on the edge of town. There should be a receipt for the monthly rent in the studio’s records. This is the guy who manages the warehouses.” She wrote down a name. “Tell him who you are, and he’ll let you in, even without a key. Then you can evaluate the sets. Let me know how much work there is and we’ll organize a work party.”

Evie blinked at her. “A what?”

“A work party. People come and help repair the sets. You’ll have to provide the materials, but they’ll give you all the labor you need.”

“I don’t understand. You mean there’s a group I can hire to fix the sets?” She wasn’t sure what the budget would be. Maybe her new boss would want to cancel the production completely.

Charlie sighed and patted her hand. “Not hire. People will help you with the sets for free. Because they want to.”

“Why?”

“Because this is Fool’s Gold and that’s what we do. Just pick a day and I’ll get the word out. Trust me, it will be fine.”

“Sure,” Evie murmured, even though she didn’t believe it for a second. Why would people she didn’t know show up to work on sets for her production? For free? “I don’t suppose these miracle workers can also alter costumes and do hair for the show?”