The World is a Stage (15 page)

“Does it come in anything larger?”

Peterson groaned. “Seriously, Mikey. Do what the lady says. It’s not going to kill you.”

Michael took a deep breath and calmly asked Mary to give them a few minutes. This was it—the wall, the stopping point, the straw that killed the camel or whatever. He was getting damn tired of being told what to do, and it was about time Peterson heard it.

He ushered Mary out the door, shutting it firmly behind her with promises of trying on everything in the place as soon as she came back. When he turned, it was to find Peterson standing there with a velvety-looking box open in one hand, a doofy-looking smile on his face.

“Why, Eric Peterson—are you finally making an honest man out of me?” he asked. But even as the smile spread on his face and congratulations sprang to the tip of his tongue, his stomach grew heavy.
Damn.
There went all thoughts of lunch. “The least you could do is get down on one knee.”

“What do you think?” Peterson asked, the jokes flying right over his head and lodging into the wall. Michael would never want a woman so much his sense of humor disappeared. That just wasn’t right.

“What the fuck do I know? It’s big and glittery. I’ve heard that does the trick.”

“Not just the ring.” Peterson snapped the case shut and tucked it in his pocket. “Do you think it’s too soon?”

Yes.
But he wasn’t about to say that. The bro code didn’t exactly cover what to do when a man was willing to shackle himself to a woman after a few short months, but it seemed pretty par for the course that complete and total agreement was in order. Michael gave his friend a hearty hug and finished with a slap on the back.

“Congratulations, dude. I mean it,” Michael said. “But…ah…aren’t you forgetting one small thing?”

“I’ve got a new tie, reservations at Clink’s, and the lifetime warranty on this baby. The girls love her. What could I possibly be missing?”

“Rachel?”

Peterson sat heavily in the chair recently vacated by Mary. “Oh, yeah. That.”

“Why am I here, Peterson?” Michael asked. He sat opposite his friend and nudged him with a swift kick to the shin.

“Ow.”

“Why are you so afraid of Rachel, and what exactly is my being here supposed to do? Other than comedic value, of course.” Michael nodded toward the various-hued tights hanging along a clothesline strung across the room. “I mean, I’m having a good time and all…but how long is this supposed to keep going? Until you’ve got grandkids?”

For the first time, Peterson showed some emotion other than dopey adulation. He dropped his head to his hands and blew out a long, loud breath. “It’s not me I’m worried about. I’d tell Rachel to back the fuck out of my business right now if I could.” His eyes, when he looked up, were stricken. “That’s not true. I wouldn’t do that to Molly. But it’s more than that—it’s more than just me and her at stake here.”

“Nick?”

Peterson nodded, slowly at first and then gaining momentum. “You remember a few months ago when he got into trouble with those guys across the state line? Those jerks from Hayden Lake?”

“I remember it happening, yes. But you never told me what went down.”

“There’s a reason. One of the guys messed with Nick’s girlfriend—not just disrespected, mind you. Some serious shit. He convinced me to go to this in-the-sticks dive bar called Angelo’s to give them a little scare and teach them how to behave towards a woman.”

Michael grinned. That sounded like Peterson to an inch—always the muscle. “You know Jules and I would have been happy to help out.”

His smile wasn’t returned. “Be glad we didn’t ask. It turns one of the dickheads Nick took a baseball bat to is the nephew of a hick cop on the force out there. We left before the cops got there, and none of the guys dared turn us in, but the uncle was able to coerce a witness to do an artist’s sketch.”

“A baseball bat? That’s not like you.”

Peterson groaned. “I know. We were just supposed to rough them up a little, teach them a lesson. I didn’t realize Nick had the bat until it was too late. I stopped him as soon as I could, but the kid spent a few weeks in the hospital. I’m not saying the bastard didn’t deserve it…but if someone IDs us from the sketches and the fight gets filed as a felony, we could both be looking at extradition and jail time.”

Michael let out a low whistle. That was a lot worse than he imagined. Roughing up guys in a fair fight was one thing—using weapons was another. “And if someone IDs you?”

Peterson splayed his hands helplessly. “I can’t let it happen, Mikey. That’s all there is to it. I’ve been talking with a lawyer, trying to figure out if there’s an easy way out of this. I can’t go to jail—there’s just too much at stake.”

“Sammy and Pris,” Michael said, nodding.

“And Molly. There’s her to think of now too.”

Shit.
Peterson was a good guy, always had been, but there was a fierce protective streak in him that few people had the mettle to test. His ex, Sarah, learned that the hard way when Peterson came home from work one night to find she’d left their daughters, just two and newborn at the time, alone in their cribs while she shot up with some friends of hers across town. The poor kids had been screaming there for who knew how many hours.

The separation and custody battle had been a nightmare—legally and emotionally. Peterson had barely made it through intact.

With Nick, Michael knew, the loyalty ran just as deep. It went way beyond bounds to attack a man with a weapon, but Nick was young and green in a lot of ways. Poor Peterson would have a hell of a time choosing between saving his brother’s ass and saving his own—especially with the crew of females he’d accumulated over the years depending on him.

Double shit.
If there was anyone who deserved some happiness in his life for once, it was Peterson.

“Does Molly know?”

“Parts. Most of it, anyway.” Peterson reached in his pocket and pulled out the ring box. “She knows there might be a police artist’s sketch of me floating out there in the world somewhere and that any PI worth his salt laying an investigation on me would stumble across it eventually.”

Michael crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, so far it tipped over and came to rest against the wall. He hated to resort to such obvious and uncreative means, but… “Has it occurred to you to just talk to Rachel? She’s pretty reasonable once you get to know her.”

Peterson’s laugh was short and bitter. It was an unusual sound for him. “Did you not hear the part where she kicked me in the nuts and almost pressed charges?”

“There was that,” Michael agreed. “But I think you may have a little too much faith in my ability to woo and conquer. As much as Rachel loves insulting me, I don’t think she’d miss her sister buying a wedding dress and ordering white doves.”

Peterson sighed. “I know. You’re right.”

“And…?” Michael was waiting for the part where he was off the hook. For tights. For theater games. For babysitting Rachel.

“And I just need more time. I need to talk to Nick and meet a few more times with the lawyer and figure this out. I won’t propose yet—it’s not right to put my feelings for Molly before the girls. That’s all I can do.”

Michael’s look must have contained more of his thoughts than he meant, because Peterson suddenly grinned and narrowed his eyes. “Besides. I think you like her.”

“That’s not the point.” Michael picked up the codpiece and examined it. Really, it defied the laws of nature. “This is a matter of pride. Of manhood.”

“And your manhood is getting inside there right now, or I’m throwing the lot of you off the show.” Mary stormed through the door, a look of perseverance in her face and an enormous piece of molded plastic in her hand. She tossed the item at Michael. “That’s as big as it’s gonna get, honey.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, holding it up like a trophy. Bigger. Better. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peterson tuck the ring box away, one more lovelorn sigh escaping his lips before he put his game face back on.

So that was it, then. Their conversation wasn’t over, but Michael had to keep playing.

For now.

If Rachel never saw another set of red and blue flashing lights in her life, she would have given up her antagonistic ways and joined a convent or something.

“Oh God. What is it now?” Molly cried. “There’s no way…?”

“There’s no way,” Rachel said firmly, scanning the exterior of the theater for signs of catastrophe. They’d just left their mom quietly at home. It was a good day today, and neither one of them wanted to dwell on the fact that it was the direct result of actually being on hand to take care of her for once. “I’m sure it’s nothing. One of the interns probably fainted or something.”

Despite her calm façade, Rachel was in panic mode. Pretty much the only people in the world she cared about were inside the theater right now. Dominic, Mary, Doris…

“Michael!” She slammed the car door shut and blinked, rooted to the spot with a weightiness that scared her. The last person in the world she ever thought to find lying flat on a stretcher was that man, possibilities of extensive steroid use aside. He was like a mountain.

Mountains didn’t just fall.

Molly reached over as if to grab her hand and provide support, but Rachel pulled away. She didn’t want Molly’s touch or gentle ministrations. She wanted—

“If you don’t stop treating me like some little old lady with a heart attack, I swear I will throw this bed so far you’ll have to catch a plane to pick it up.”

“He’s fine,” Rachel muttered. Of course he was fine. Knocking that man off his high horse would be like felling a tree using a butter knife. Still, her pace was clipped as she made her way over to where he was being loaded into the ambulance, her feet doing a strange wobbly thing she didn’t quite like.

“You’re acting like a mammoth of a baby,” she called out. Her hand reached out of its own volition to rest on his leg, which was underneath the thin white sheet but thrashing to get out. He instantly stilled under her light touch. “I should have known. The big ones always cry the hardest.”

Michael threw off the bracing arm of a harassed-looking paramedic and sat up. The normally relaxed features of his face were pinched, and his signature blond hair fell in his eyes, which sparkled with something other than mirth for once. “Oh? And you have lots of experience with big ones?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Rachel said, her smile wobbly. “Especially at making them cry.”

“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands together and bit back a wince, obviously determined to put on a brave front. “Then for the love of all that is holy, get the guy driving this rig to let me out. I’m
fine
.”

Rachel glanced at the paramedic in question, who looked as immovable as Michael. “What happened to him, and what do you need me to do to make him listen?”

Sensing a kindred spirit, the man, who was almost as wide as he was tall, allied himself at her side. “He was lifting a piece of the set and his knee gave out under him. Which wouldn’t be a big deal, except he’s had orders to avoid doing exactly that thing.”

“You,” Michael said, lifting his finger and pointing it at the paramedic as though he were cursing him for all eternity, “are not my doctor. All it needs is a little ice.”

Curious, Rachel pulled back the blanket. A strangled sound escaped her throat. “For crying out loud, Michael. Go to the hospital.”

She’d seen his knee before, a battlefield of surgery scars and twisted ligaments that he seemed to consider a badge of honor, but when it was swollen like this, pulsating with fluid and God knew what else, she had a hard time finding the shape of a human leg in there.

Is there a human leg in there?
She poked it.

“I, ah, wouldn’t do that,” the medic warned.

Rachel quelled him with a glance—one of the sharp ones she saved for special occasions. It worked, of course.

“Does it hurt when I do that?”

Michael’s lips spread into a thin smile as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Nope. Not a bit.”

She poked a little harder, trying not to let even a flicker of sympathy pain cross her face. “What about that time?”

“It’s like being gummed by your grandmother,” Michael said. His voice was strained.

“I can tell just by looking at it there’s more scar tissue in there than anything else,” the medic said. He seemed to have reached the end of his generosity. “Your boss called nine-one-one, we’re here, and you need medical help. Let’s get you up into the rig.”

“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Everyone knows that.” Michael swung his legs off the edge of the stretcher and used Rachel as a brace as he stood up. “This is me, formally denying medical care. You can go ahead and write that down. Hold still, will you, Rachel?”

She did, but not easily. The amount of pressure he put on her spoke volumes—this man was clearly in pain and unwilling to admit it.

“You’d do well to tell your boyfriend to take it easy, okay? And make an appointment with his doctor. I’m releasing him to your care.” The medic handed Michael a clipboard and showed him where to sign.