Page 41 of A Whim and a Prayer

“I’m really sorry …”

He gave a snort. “Not as sorry as you’re gonna be,” he muttered loudly, shoving the script Mrs. Cullen had given him in his back pocket before slashing the cowboy hat onto his head. With his mood as hard as his jaw, he was ready to give her a piece of his mind as he flung the door wide, but as always, she stole his thunder, a half pint of a girl nibbling on her lip while her brows tilted up in apology. He hated that she looked so bloomin’ cute in her threadbare calico dress with apron and bloomers and a rifle strapped over her shoulder. And those wild near-platinum curls were barely restrained in two messy braids that framed a sweet face smudged with dirt. “Will you forgive me?” she whispered.

“Maybe someday,” he said as he pushed past her with a squirm of a smile, battling the affection she always managed to elicit from him.

Mrs. Cullen hurried over when he entered the auditorium while Winnie was hot on his heels, blathering on and on about how she’d owe him for the rest of her life.

His mouth tamped down. You got that right, kiddo.

“Oh my, Beck, you look so very handsome!” Mrs. Cullen literally flew to crush him in a grateful hug, giving an extra squeeze to underscore just how very much she appreciated him. Not wasting time, she dragged him toward the stage.

“How’s Thomas?” he asked.

She released a mournful sigh as she all but pushed him up the steps. “Oh dear me, not good at all. His leg is definitely broken, so he’ll be on crutches for a good long time, I’m afraid.” She hurried Winnie up the steps as well, practically shooing them both. “Everybody’s in place, except you two. The curtain will go up as soon as I make an announcement, so break a leg!” She put a hand to cover her sheepish smile. “But not like Thomas, for heaven’s sake.” With a haphazard wave, she slipped through the front of the curtain to the microphone.

Winnie gave an awkward shrug. “Well, here goes nothing, huh?”

He slid her a sideways glare. “No, it’s totally something, Dennehy, and payback will be coming for a good long time.” With a curt tip of his hat, he strode over to Frank Butler’s marked spot on the floor and waited as the ensemble got into place, townspeople and cowboys—of which he was to have been one—ready to mill about as soon as the curtain opened.

The opening instrumental began, and Beck instantly stiffened, sending up a quick prayer that he had most of the lines down cold after practicing with Winnie for the last two months. The lines with her, that is, which fortunately, were most of them. But for the scenes without her? He glanced at his opening lines from the script Mrs. Cullen had given him before shoving it in his back pocket, grateful he had at least some time to memorize those for the actual performances.

When the curtain slowly rose and the audience of kids and administrators came into view, all tension, frustration, and worry slowly siphoned out as always, reminding him just why he loved drama so much.

Drama had been one of the many glues that had bonded Winnie and him together—their love of the arts. And like it had done for her all through high school, it had transformed him as well, allowing him to step out of his naturally reserved and reflective personality onto a stage where he could be someone else—a hero to the world like he always wanted to be to Winnie.

The overture filled the auditorium as he and the ensemble went into silent action—townspeople milling about and men setting up the shooting match on the fairgrounds that Beck had personally helped build and paint. With the rise of that curtain, he immediately transitioned into the confident and competitive Frank Butler, bold and brash as he shook hands with various businessmen on stage, slightly smug as he boasted about being the “best shot in the world.”

But the moment he came face-to-face with Winnie in Act 1, electricity zipped through his body like a high-voltage wire, positioning him not as her platonic best friend, but the eventual love interest of Annie Oakley, the unknown sharpshooter from the sticks. A little slip of a girl who challenges the star marksman of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show—Frank Butler—in a shooting match and wins. A win that not only kicks off the play itself, but also a rousing rivalry that eventually blossoms into love.

Eventually? Arms in a tight fold, Beck grunted as he watched Winnie take the winning shot, a Frank Butler scowl on his face that matched Beck’s to a T.

Yeah, been there, done that.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Land sakes, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I shot straighter, that’s all.” Seated at a scarred, wooden table in the backstage setting of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Winnie proceeded to clean her gun in her scene with Dolly Tate, Buffalo Bill’s assistant and secretary. “I mean, I didn’t cheat. I didn’t sneak ahead. I just did what I know how to do—and somehow that makes me the problem.”

Winnie shivered, gun across her knees and eyes down as she carefully wiped the rifle, this scene about Annie’s frustration with Frank Butler a little too close to home to her and Beck’s. Like Annie, all Winnie did was what she knew how to do—fix the problem of finding a leading man, and Beck was flat-out perfect, everybody knew that.

“Everybody keeps saying I hurt Frank. Like I reached out and done it on purpose. He’s the one who said he was the best shot in the world.” Winnie held her gun up, squinting through the barrel as she turned it. “Now he won’t eyeball me without that sour look on his face — like I took something that belonged to him.”

Just like Beck.

Winnie sighed, her hands going still on her gun as she lapsed into a bleak stare like Annie. Sure, Beck got peeved whenever she pushed him too far, always had, but he mostly got over it quickly and never held a grudge. Suddenly he was Frank Butler personified, stubborn as a fence post in making her pay.

“I ain’t sorry for bein’ good,” Winnie said as she wiped the barrel slowly, lifting it one last time to check the balance before tossing a glance at Dolly. “I worked for it. I slept in the dirt for it. I shot when my hands were freezing and when my stomach was empty.” She slowly rested the gun back on her knees, fingertips brushing the familiar contours, as if for reassurance. “If that makes him feel small … well, then, I don’t know how to fix that.”

And she didn’t. This was a different Beck. As if slipping into Frank Butler’s clothes had also slipped him into Frank Butler’s personality—in charge, no nonsense, and dominant. All traits that confused Winnie because she found herself attracted to them, in her best friend of all people, who was merely playing a part.

Or was he?

Somehow, it felt more personal this time, which scared her silly because the last thing she needed—or wanted—was an attraction to her best friend. A knot ducked in her throat as she slumped back into the mind of Annie Oakley, which at the moment, was not so very different from her own. “But I do know this,” she said in a quiet voice, her tone laced with both melancholy and a touch of despair, “when he’s mad, it don’t feel like winnin’ no more. It feels … lonesome.” She turned to face Dolly with a hangdog look. “And that ain’t something I ever aimed for.”

Never had she thought performing with Beck would be this hard, this challenging. Suddenly she was face-to-face with a man who made her heart race more and more with each passing scene, bringing front and center the sculpted jaw and broad shoulders she’d overlooked so many times before. Muscled arms and searing blue-green eyes that made her pulse skip several beats.

Waiting offstage for her next cue, she kneaded her temple as if to clear this impossible attraction from her brain. This was Beck playing a role, albeit all too well, and nothing more. Frank Butler seducing Annie Oakley with his male prowess, so naturally Winnie had to respond.

Didn’t she?