Page 152 of Hope & Harmony

“I have to go,” she said, stepping away and breaking the contact while she still had a shred of willpower.

Baron’s eyes widened with panic. “Wait. Give me five minutes.”

“I can’t?—”

“You said you can’t stay unless you have a gig, right?”

She sighed, studying his features. His eyes were pleading, but there was something else there. Determination.

“I did say that, yes.”

“I have a gig for you.”

She rolled her eyes, trying to reach for irritation, anger, anything that would make getting in the car easier. “I don’t want to be a cocktail waitress for the rest of my life.”

“Okay, how about headlining your own show?”

She winced. “What?”

He pointed past her to the old marquee above the theater. “That’s the Westwood Theater.”

“I know.” She’d spent most of yesterday outside it, singing for strangers. So what?

“And I own it.”

She rolled her eyes again. “I’m happy for you. Also not surprised.”

“And I’ll be completely honest with you. It’s struggling. The building is falling apart, and the ticket sales are shit. But I figure that’s mostly because the guy I have running it—god love him—has no business sense, and the talent around here is slim pickings.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Perform. Put a set together. Let me advertise it and put some shows on the calendar.

“How can I let you pay me if you’re losing money on the place? You’ve been too generous already.”

“All business is risk anyway. I’m willing to take a chance on you and your voice, the same way any producer out in California is going to have to if you want a big break. That’s the way it works, right?”

“I…I guess.”

“It’s an opportunity, that’s all. You do with it what you will. But maybe this could get you closer to those dreams of yours.”

Baron closed the space between them again, taking her hands in his. “What do you say? Give the theater a chance. Give us…” He swallowed and looked down at the sidewalk before meeting her eyes again. “Give us a chance.”

Cora’s lip quivered as more tears fell. Tears of happiness, tears of hope.

“Do you mean it?”

He palmed her cheek, touched her nose with his, and took her mouth in a slow, perfect kiss.

“If you leave right now, Cora, I’m going to have to follow you to California, and it’s going to mess things up for a lot of people here.”

She smiled, her heart tightening at his words. “I couldn’t take their hero away from them now, could I?”

He smiled. “Then say you’ll stay.”

Leaving home for the road had taken all the courage Cora could muster, but somehow, it seemed like a small step now. She was about to take a different kind of leap into a future with Baron in this little town that had stolen her heart in a way, too. As sure as she knew a brighter future lay ahead, she knew now that Baron was a part of that future.

She lifted up her keys and twirled them around her index finger. “You want to show me the theater?”

Baron’s eyes brightened. “You’ll stay?”

She nodded with a grin. “I’ll stay.”

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