A Long Time Coming Read online

  A Long Time Coming

  Copyright © 2012 by Cate Swannell

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  More Yellow Rose Titles by Cate Swannell

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  A Long Time Coming

  by

  Cate Swannell

  Copyright © 2012 by Cate Swannell

  ISBN 978-1-61929-063-1 (eBook)

  eBook Conversion July 2012

  Cover design by Donna Pawlowski

  Published by:

  Regal Crest Enterprises, LLC

  3520 Avenue H

  Port Arthur, Texas 77627

  Find us on the World Wide Web at http://www.regalcrest.biz

  Published in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Lori L Lake and Patty Cronin from Regal Crest for their patience, persistence and editing skills.

  Dedication

  To Sue. For patience, tolerance, and sense of humour.

  A Long Time Coming

  by

  Cate Swannell

  Chapter One

  Brisbane, Australia Present day

  SHELBY GLANCED DOWN at the stopwatch that rested on the slanted surface of her stage manager’s desk. One look at the glowing digital figures told her it was time to get the show on the road. She reached for the phone on the wall above the desk and keyed the switch to broadcast her voice to the orchestra pit, dressing rooms and the green room backstage.

  “Five minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Five minutes to curtain. Men’s and women’s chorus, Mr. Browning, Ms. Fleming, to the stage please.”

  Shelby replaced the handset and turned back to the stage, giving everything a final visual once-over. Her desk was tucked into the dark front corner, stage left, and although all was quiet onstage, she could hear the constant rumble of the incoming audience. For a few seconds she closed her eyes and imagined the people taking their seats, reading their programs, settling in for their night of entertainment. She stepped out of the darkness and into the dim illumination provided by the working lights. Right now all was tranquil here, the players still backstage, and Shelby wandered to centre stage, her back to the heavy velvet curtain. She heard a brief crackle in her headset.

  “Everything all right, boss?” Karen, Shelby’s deputy stage manager, asked. She was tucked into her own dark niche on stage right. Shelby peered toward Karen’s position and smiled as she keyed the transmit button.

  “No problems,” she said quietly. “Just checking.”

  She heard Karen chuckling. “You love this time of the evening, don’t you, boss?”

  “You know it. We’ve done everything to get it ready. The actors are happy, the follow-spot operators are hanging from the ceiling, and all’s right with my world.” Shelby walked back to her desk, smiling at the laughter from the two operators in question as it came through the cans. As she reached her position, the first of the actors moved past her and stepped on to the stage, settling themselves into their places.

  The next few minutes passed in silence. Shelby watched the seconds tick by until all the actors were in place. “Dim working lights,” she said into her microphone, “and bring up orchestra lights, please. Standby house lights.”

  “Working and orchestra, house standing by,” came the confirmation from the lighting operator. Shelby heard the bells ringing in the foyer, warning the stragglers to get to their seats or risk missing the first half of the show. All went dark around her, except for the glow-worm-like illumination from the orchestra, peeking up from under the bottom edge of the curtain.

  “Call it in, folks,” Shelby said softly.

  “Lighting operator ready.”

  “Follow-spot one ready.”

  “Follow-spot two ready.”

  “Orchestra ready.”

  “Stage right ready,” Karen said, confirming that all the actors were where they should be for the start of the performance. All she needed now was to hear from the front-ofhouse manager, and that wasn’t long coming. “Doors are closed and we’re ready.”

  “Thank you.” Shelby opened the first page of her script and smoothed the paper with the flat of her hand. One more glance at the stopwatch, and Shelby took a deep breath. “Lower house lights, standby light cue one.”

  “House lights out,” the LO confirmed, and Shelby saw the darkness descend under the lower edge of the curtain. Almost immediately she heard applause and knew the conductor had stepped into the orchestra pit. Within seconds, the opening strains of the overture began and she let out a long slow breath. If the musicians went at their usual pace, she had about three minutes and forty-five seconds before she needed to cue the next part of the process.

  Shelby let her eyes drift to the card pinned to the top of her desk. The front cover was a black and white close-up of a cat’s face, a paw brushing lazily forward across its eye. She opened it, re-reading the words that were scrawled in Eve’s characteristic hand.

  Break a leg tonight. Here’s to a long run and a happy show. Love, Eve.

  As she had done since opening night a week ago, Shelby frowned slightly as she read the inscription on the inside of the card. Despite living in Eve’s back pocket, so to speak, for eighteen months, this was the first time Eve had chosen to mark the opening of one of Shelby’s shows in such a personal way.

  Not that Shelby was complaining. Not by any means. In fact, it had given her the warmest feeling she’d experienced in a long time. She wished Eve would come to see the show, but so far that hadn’t happened.

  Shelby cast her mind back to the day she spent with Eve on the couch in front of the big-screen television. After the movies were finished they had kept each other company through a long and leisurely picnic-style dinner. And although they’d had plenty to talk about, neither had chosen to approach the subject of their close encounter earlier in the day.

  And since then...Shelby contemplated. Since then we’ve barely crossed paths. Just too damn busy, the both of us.

  “Standby light queue one, standby curtain,” she muttered into her headset, the telltale bars of music filtering through her thoughts. Tension rose among the cast as everyone readied themselves. “And...curtain,” Shelby directed, waiting a half beat before she ordered the first light cue. A warm glow suffused the stage as the curtain rose, and immediately the heat from the lights washed across the players and into the wings.

  “Up and running, boss,” came Karen’s soft tones.

  “Mmhmm. One light cue down, eighty-seven to go,” Shelby murmured back.

  EVE SETTLED BACK in her seat as the curtain rose.

  I probably should have told Shelby I was coming, she thought as she took in the first impression of the set and the actors draped across the stage. I didn’t want to disappoint her if I was too tired to come again. I wonder if she’ll have time to have a cup of coffee with me afterwards. We need to talk.

  Eve felt like she had missed an opportunity when she and Shelby had skirted the issue ten days earlier during their picnic dinner. Her natural instinct, therapist-like, was to let Shelby dictate where the conversation went, and she was now regretting it. Damn, it wasn’t a therapy session. I should have talked about what I wanted to talk about. This is a friendship and it's been that way for a long time. Besides, Shelby wasn't going
to bring it up. Sixteen years we’ve known each other and she’s still so concerned about offending me.

  Eve knew every inch of Shelby’s psyche and it didn’t surprise her to find Shelby hesitating to press her advantage. After all, that’s how it had to be for a long time. That’s how I wanted it, needed it to be. Or I couldn’t have done what she was paying me to do. And now...Now, I want more. When did that happen?

  Refocusing on the stage, she watched the actors moving through the opening scene of the musical. And why would it surprise me that she’s hesitating? By all appearances, I’ve done a 180-degree turnaround about what kind of relationship I want with her, without any explanation.

  And as the days had passed since the near-kiss, with little chance to catch up with Shelby, Eve felt the growing need to talk with her.

  She glanced toward the wings, wondering where Shelby was stationed. One day I must ask for a tour backstage. I’d love to know more about what she’s doing, what her job is about. Her attention was drawn back to centre stage and she watched as the lighting changed somewhat as the focus of the action moved. I guess that’s Shelby calling those shots.

  And with that, Eve put further thoughts of her evolving relationship with Shelby to the back of her mind and concentrated on the onstage entertainment.

  SHELBY LET OUT a long, slow breath of satisfaction as she watched the highly-rehearsed mechanism that was her stage crew complete the most complicated of the show’s set changes. While the biggest pieces of the set were shifted hydraulically by computer-controlled jacks and tracks, there was still plenty for the humans to do in the 15 to 20 seconds afforded them between scenes. The changes were a close-run thing, as they had been every night of the run so far.

  Karen made one last quick foray to centre stage before ducking out of sight as the lights came back up. Shelby was gratified to see that the changeover was getting smoother with each performance.

  Give us another few shows and we won’t remember what we were worried about, she thought.

  She noted a palpable sense of relaxation among the crew as the action resumed onstage. Everyone knew it should be a calm cruise to the end of the show now, and chatter between crew members on the cans picked up, both in frivolity and volume. Shelby didn’t want to squelch that too much, but she also knew it was easy to lose track of things. And the last thing she needed was the cast bitching about the crew.

  “Keep it to the noisy bits, please,” she said into her mike, gratified when there was an immediate decrease in output. Shelby hated being a hard-ass and had many happy memories of her own hi-jinks in the wings, but those were in her days as an amateur. These days she was a professional and, what’s more, a professional with responsibility.

  That didn’t stop her grinning when she heard a familiar line of banter in the hushed undertones known as ‘wing whisper.’

  “Come on, Karen, how about a command performance?” the senior of the two follow-spot operators, a burly Scotsman called, incongruously, Tiny. “You keep promising me paradise.”

  Shelby heard Karen sigh dramatically. “Tiny, you know I only do that for special people. I can’t do it on cue, y’know.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” Ryan, the number two follow-spot operator, said. Shelby lifted an eyebrow. At nineteen he was the youngest member of the crew, and it wasn’t like the teenager to pipe up in this kind of exchange.

  He must be starting to feel like a part of the team, Shelby thought, pleased.

  “Cheeky bastard,” Karen said playfully. “I’ll have you know my world-famous patented fake orgasm party trick is only rolled out for the privileged few.”

  “Oh, so we don’t qualify?” Tiny asked, and Shelby could almost see the hopeful hangdog look on his red-bearded face.

  “Mmmmm, well, I don’t know,” Karen mused. “What am I going to get out of it?”

  Shelby keyed her transmit button and couldn’t resist saying, “Doesn’t that depend on how fake it is?”

  “Boss!” Karen’s mock outrage was almost believable.

  “Rumor is, you’d know for sure, boss,” came Tiny’s retort, confirming Shelby’s suspicion that the crew believed she and Karen were more than friends.

  Ah, well, you can’t help bad luck, she decided. “Guess you’ll have to let me be the judge, then, won’t you, big fella?” A look around one of the black sightscreens showed her Karen’s grinning face in the gloom of the wings, stage right. Her deputy stuck her tongue out at Shelby, who chuckled.

  “Come on, Karen, you’re not going to let that challenge go by, are you?” Tiny asked.

  “Rightio, then, I’ll give it my best shot,” Karen said.

  “Wait for the song, please,” Shelby pleaded, knowing her entire complement of backstage staff was about to be reduced to gibbering idiots, one way or another.

  Three more light cues and then the opening bars of the second act’s biggest musical number struck up. Shelby could almost hear the held breath of the four men in the crew. Not to mention the three lesbians.

  Once the music was in full swing, Karen started her own performance.

  “Ohhh yes,” she said, her voice low and husky.

  “Bloody hell,” came a squeak from someone. Shelby thought it was the usually taciturn lighting operator, Phil.

  “Steady, man, it’s early days yet,” Tiny said, high in the rafters of the theatre.

  Karen moaned, and a ripple went down Shelby’s spine. “Jesus,” she muttered, glad that, of all the crew, only she could choose when to transmit to the rest. A very good thing.

  As the song built toward its crescendo, so too did Karen, working her way to a masterpiece of erotic fakery. Shelby felt her palms sweating and could only imagine what the effect was on the rest of the crew.

  “Ohhhhh yesssssss, yesssssssss, oohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

  As applause broke out in the auditorium, Karen panted her way down from her “high” until there was nothing but a pregnant silence in the cans. Shelby was sure she could hear several sets of heavy breathing, and was once again glad nobody was listening to her own respiration.

  “Holy Mother of God,” came a Scottish-tinged moan from somewhere over the stalls. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “Hey, you challenged me, Tiny. Ya gets what ya paid for.”

  “Standby light cues eighty-two and eighty-three,” Shelby said, letting the grin that split her face sound in her voice.

  “Standing by,” came the rasping, desperately heated-sounding response from the LO.

  “Oh, and Karen?” Shelby said.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Bravissima.”

  Soft laughter all round.

  “So how did it compare to the real thing, boss?” That was Ryan.

  Shelby glanced right and again saw Karen grinning at her from the wings. “I never kiss and tell,” she said. “Light cue eighty-two, go...and light cue eighty-three...go.”

  “MS. MACROSSAN?” THE voice in her ear was unfamiliar, but whoever it was had to be connected to the system, so...Shelby keyed her transmit button.

  “Right here,” she muttered as she packed away a piece of scenery, securing it to its place on the wall with a long octopus strap.

  “It’s Charlie from the green room reception desk,” he said. “There’s a lady here says she’s a friend of yours and she wants to come in and say hello, but she’s not on the list.”

  Shelby’s brow furrowed. “Sure she is. Lynne Wright. I put her on the list this afternoon.”

  “Oh, no, Ms. Wright is already here and inside,” Charlie said. “This is someone else.”

  “What’s the name?” Shelby tossed her gloves on to her desk.

  “Ms. Eve Morgan.”

  Shelby stopped in her tracks. She came. She felt the silly grin widening on her face. How cool is that? A glance around told her there was still work to be done though.

  “Charlie, that’s Doctor Eve Morgan, and please let the lady in, find her a drink and something to eat. And do me a f
avor? Let her know that it’s probably going to be another twenty minutes or so before I can come out.”

  “Will do.”

  Shelby clapped her hands sharply and strode out into centre stage. “Come on, let’s get this done.”

  EVE SAT IN a comfortable armchair, nursing a glass of white wine. It had turned out to be quite a fascinating evening. She had never been in a theatre’s green room before and the passing parade of artistes was entertaining in and of itself. Actors mixed with musicians and crew members, who stood out in their all-black outfits. There was also a smattering of what Eve would call “civilians,” people who were obviously friends of the company and were sporting the same visitor’s badge that she had pinned to her lapel.

  Eve’s chair was part of a quartet down the left-hand side of the long room. At the far end, and up a level, was a cafeteria, complete with six tables and their accompanying chairs. The lower level was filled with sofas.

  “Hello. You looked lonely, so I thought I’d come and keep you company.”

  Eve looked up to see a rotund, short woman in a diamanteencrusted black evening gown flouncing into the chair opposite her.

  “Hello.” Eve smiled slightly as the stranger made herself comfortable.

  “I couldn’t stand up for one more second,” the woman said dramatically. “You don’t mind do you? Don’t be alarmed by me. I’m only half as eccentric as I seem.”

  “No problem,” Eve said. If you knew what came through my office doors every day you wouldn’t even begin to think of yourself as eccentric.

  “Who are you waiting for? I’m Lynne, by the way.”

  “Eve,” she murmured. “Um, a friend of mine is the stage manager.”