Chapter One #2
"I have to go," I said. "I need to prep for tonight."
My grandmother squeezed my hand. "Rainey—"
"I'll be fine. I'm always fine."
It was only half a lie.
THE DAY'S HUMIDITY had given way to evening's mercy.
By seven o'clock, the October air had cooled enough that I'd grabbed a light sweater for the walk to the theater—one of those perfect East Texas autumn evenings when the temperature finally dropped from the eighties to the sixties, making you remember why you loved this season.
Dense foliage threw shadows across the sidewalk, and somewhere in the distance, that oil derrick kept pumping its steady rhythm.
The Midnight Springs Community Theater had been built as an opera house in 1899, back when the town was flush with cotton money and railroad ambitions.
Now the two hundred seats groaned under weight, the exposed rafters held shadows, and the whole building seemed to lean slightly to the left, looking weary from all those years.
But tonight, with candles lit for the séance scene we were blocking, it transformed into something eerie and otherworldly. The theater smelled like dust and old velvet and decades of memory—that particular mustiness of a building that remembered better days.
I stood center stage at my mark while Mason Davenport adjusted the overhead lights, his paint-stained hands steady on the ladder.
Vivian sat in the third row as Clay Burnett, the stage manager, tracked our positions from the wings.
The other actors waited for their entrances—June Caldwell going over her saloon owner's lines, Knox Phillips practicing his sheriff's drawl, Bennett Cooper mouthing his doctor's dialogue with exaggerated gestures.
The old building settled around us, wood groaning here and there.
"More shadow on stage left," Vivian called to Mason. "This is a séance, not a birthday party. I want atmosphere, drama, danger! Remember, this is for Murder at Midnight Saloon—we need that Gothic Western feel!"
The door at the back of the theater opened.
I glanced up, expecting to see whatever local rancher Vivian had recruited.
The air stuck in my throat.
You've got to be kidding me. My past had come back to haunt me, and fate apparently had a sick sense of humor.
Ransom Hollis himself stood in the doorway, all solid flesh and blood, and my mouth instantly went dry.
God, he looked good. Five years had turned the lean cowboy I'd once known into a walking hazard.
Time had sharpened his jaw, added lines around his eyes that somehow made him more attractive, broadened shoulders that had already been impressive.
He wore a worn denim shirt rolled to the elbows, showing forearms I remembered in dreams I'd never admit to—the strength of them, the calluses, the scar on his left arm from that rodeo injury the summer we'd fallen in love, when I'd believed in forever.
Our eyes met across the stage.
Time didn't just stop—it rewound. I was twenty-three again, wrapped in his arms on his truck tailgate, believing his promises.
Then it snapped forward, and I was twenty-eight, standing on a stage pretending I didn't remember every detail of his mouth, his hands, the way he'd said my name like it was sacred.
His gaze locked on mine with an intensity that made my pulse race.
The way he focused on me—like he was remembering exactly what we used to be like together—was dangerous.
Very dangerous. The flickering light from our séance setup played across his face, making him look like he'd actually stepped out of the Old West. Or maybe that was just the effect he'd always had on me.
"Ransom!" Vivian's voice shattered the moment. "There you are. Everyone, this is our ghost cowboy—the man who returns from the dead seeking revenge." She gestured grandly. "Ransom Hollis will be playing Silas Black, the murdered gunslinger who haunts our leading lady, Evangeline Vale."
Our leading lady—me.
Which meant love scenes. Death scenes. Scenes where he'd hold me, touch me, speak words written for fictional characters but delivered in his voice, with his hands, with his focus locked on mine.
"Let's block the séance," Vivian called. "Rainey, you're trying to contact Ransom's ghost. Ransom, you appear behind her, drawn by her voice. This is the first moment they've 'seen' each other since his death. Make me believe it."
I moved to my mark on autopilot. Candlelight caught on velvet curtains and antique chandeliers. Somewhere in the rafters, a board protested. A floorboard gave under someone's weight backstage.
I felt him before I saw him—that electric awareness making my skin tingle.
He moved into position behind me, close enough that the heat from his body made me hyperaware of every inch of space between us.
My pulse jumped when his breath stirred the hair at the nape of my neck.
My body clearly hadn't gotten the memo that we were over.
"Why did you leave me?" I whispered.
The line was from the script. The question was all mine—five years of wondering compressed into four words.
His voice dropped, rough and intimate, meant only for me even though twenty people watched us. "I never wanted to."
The words hit like a physical touch. Heat flooded through me, pooling low in my belly, and I hated my body for betraying me like this. For remembering. For wanting.
Ten days. Ten days of love scenes with Ransom Hollis. His hands on me, his mouth close enough to feel his breath, his eyes looking at me like I was the only person in the room.
Ten days of pretending it was just acting.
God help me.