Free Can't Stop Loving You by Peggy Webb Page B

shut it good before she went to
bed. The way old houses shifted and settled, she was going to have
to prop a chair against her door.
    Marsha got up to shut her door and saw
them—Brick and Helen. Together. Helen in his arms. His face tender,
hers enraptured.
    Marsha didn’t mean to be spying, but she
couldn’t help herself. Lord, if ever two people belonged together,
it was the two of them.
    Brick carried his ex-wife into her bedroom
and shut the door. Marsha dabbed a tear out of her eye and settled
back into bed.
    Was it wrong of her to hope?
    o0o
    Down the hall another door opened. Barb
peered through the crack in the bedroom door, then scuttled back
inside.
    “Shoot,” she said.
    “What’s wrong, honey?”
    Matt Rider leaned against the headboard of
his bed, the sheet drawn up around his waist.
    “I can’t leave yet. Brick and Helen are in
the hallway.”
    “Brick and Helen?” Grinning, Matt wrapped the
sheet around his waist and hurried to the door to peek over her
shoulder. “Well, I’ll be...”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It’s about time.”
    He peered over her shoulder until Brick had
disappeared into his ex-wife’s bedroom, carrying his ex-wife with
him.
    “I guess this means I won’t have to put my
plan into action after all,” Barb said.
    “What plan is that, darlin’?”
    “I was going to pick a public fight with
Brick and return his engagement ring. Shoot, I was kinda looking
forward to it.”
    Matt hooted with laughter. “You’d have done
it, wouldn’t you?”
    “It was the only way I could think of to let
Helen know I was out of the picture without betraying Brick.”
    Matt cupped her neck and threaded his fingers
in her hair.
    “Do you have to go yet?”
    She melted against him. “I could stay. It’s a
few more hours till morning.”
    Matt took her hand and led her back to the
bed.
    o0o
    From the moment Clifford had called act 2,
scene 1 he’d been nervous as a bird in a pet shop full of cats.
Much to his relief Brick and Helen Sullivan were breezing through
the rehearsal without any signs of the personal upheaval that had
marred yesterday’s rehearsal—though they both looked a little
peaked, as if they hadn’t slept a wink. He guessed even actors were
human.
    In spite of their appearances, both Brick and
Helen were in fine form. Brick strutted around like a turkey-cock,
spouting Petruchio’s lines as if he were the only actor alive who
could do them justice.
    Clifford thought that perhaps he was.
    “‘We will have rings, and things, and fine
array,’” he said.
    Bravo,
Clifford thought. This
reunion of the great Sullivans was going to be a smashing success,
and
he
was going to get his share of the credit.
    “‘And, kiss me, Kate,’” Brick said. “‘We will
be married o’ Sunday.’”
    Clifford leaned forward in his seat for the
kiss. Onstage the Sullivans had always been magic together.
    o0o
    The moment Helen had been dreading finally
came. She braced herself for the torrid kiss she knew was coming.
She’d seen it in Brick’s eyes. From the moment he’d walked onstage,
his eyes had been burning with passion.
    It was the very reason she had not gone down
to breakfast, the reason she had been as late as possible at
rehearsals... so she wouldn’t have to have any personal contact
with Brick, so all their interaction would take place onstage.
    Brick’s arm came around her waist. She
stiffened, expecting to be yanked so close, she could feel each of
his individual ribs.
    “Loosen up, Helen,” Brick said. “I don’t
bite.”
    “You’d better not. I have a lethal knee.”
    Brick turned to Clifford. “Sorry, Cliff.
Let’s take that from the top.”
    “Fine. From the top.”
    Helen mentally smoothed her ruffled emotions.
Just that mere touch had been enough to set off fireworks
underneath her skin. What was she to do? She had fallen in love
with her husband again... and he belonged to another woman.
    “‘We will have rings, and things...’”