by Chant, Zoe
The alarm on Tawny’s face was unmistakable. “That’s a pretty big offer,” she squeaked.
Damien frowned, then realized she might think he was frowning at her and tried to smile. “Then I’ll arrange to stay here a little longer. I suppose I’d better start returning these calls.”
Tawny smiled at him hesitantly. “I’m glad you’ll be around a little longer,” she said softly.
“I have a good reason to,” Damien reminded her, reaching to take her hand.
He let her blush, then smiled and added, “After all, I’ve already signed up for piano lessons.”
Tawny laughed. “You don’t have to do that,” she said.
Chapter 17
Tawny watched Damien over the edge of her book.
Nothing in Tawny’s house felt big enough with Damien there.
Her bed was barely big enough for him alone; he could reach off of it in every direction easily. The two of them were crowded and competed for pillows and blankets.
Both of them could barely navigate the kitchen at the same time, and one person had to press up against the wall of the hallway if the other had to pass. Damien usually dropped a kiss on her head when that happened.
The bathroom was simply impossible, with its tiny single sink and its cluttered layout.
Even the living room felt small, with Damien claiming the largest easy chair.
And somehow, it still managed to be perfect, waking up wedged against him, using the excuse of the tiny space to steal hugs. Cooking with him in the kitchen, or washing dishes after dinner, it felt like he belonged there, close and comfortable.
Even when they simply worked together without really interacting like they were now, Damien tapping angrily on his laptop at emails and contracts and Tawny reading, just having him nearby felt deeply right.
He put the lid to his laptop down and looked up, and Tawny realized that her book had been in her lap for some time as she simply gazed at him in wonder.
“I was thinking chicken for dinner,” she said, flustered. “I have a pack of boneless, skinless thighs. Maybe barbecue basted?”
“It sounds delicious,” Damien said.
He said that about almost everything she proposed, and Tawny could not decide if he simply had no sense of taste, or if he was being polite. “I thought I might serve it with bitter greens and over-cooked liver,” she added.
“Sounds... um...” Damien looked like she’d just trapped him.
Tawny laughed. “Just checking to see if you were paying attention. How does a green salad with generic dressing sound?”
“Preferable,” Damien agreed.
“I can’t wait until later in the summer,” Tawny said, getting to her feet. “There is nothing like a salad that you harvested just a few hours before. Even with generic dressing.”
Damien frowned, glancing at his laptop, and Tawny suddenly remembered that he wasn’t planning to be there later in the summer.
He didn’t want to be in Green Valley.
He had important work in the city, work that he was clearly barely keeping up with on the phone and on the computer.
He had not brought up the idea of Tawny going to Minneapolis since he’d sprung the idea to her several days ago and she’d nearly had a panic attack, but he sometimes frowned thoughtfully at her when he thought she didn’t notice.
She went into the kitchen to start the dinner preparations, and tried to tamp down her worries.
She loved Green Valley. Her friends were here, her home, her cats, her garden. She could not imagine being happy in a city without those things.
But now she couldn’t imagine being happy without Damien.
And where did that leave her?
“Can I help with the bitter greens and over-cooked liver?”
Tawny startled. “For such a big guy, you certainly do move quietly. Have you been taking lessons from my cats?”
Damien looked conflicted, like he was trying to decide whether or not to confess something.
“Can you tear up lettuce?” Tawny asked, taking pity on him. She set him up at the kitchen table, making a simple salad while she heated the oven and basted the chicken.
He cut peppers and cucumbers with an engineer’s precision, and Tawny had to stop him from throwing away the irregular ends. “That’s perfectly good food,” she scolded him. “Even if it’s a little ugly.”
She stole one of them. “Still delicious,” she pointed out.
Damien pulled her down into his lap and kissed her. “Still delicious,” he agreed.
Tawny laughed, and tugged on his beard. “Still scratchy,” she complained.
As she cleaned up the kitchen and checked the baking chicken, she couldn’t help glancing back at Damien. He was frowning over his phone, listening to voicemails and checking email.
“More work things?” she ventured.
“My daughter, Shelley,” Damien said, distracted. “She works at my company, in contracts and finance. There’s some kind of contractor drama.”
Tawny stopped in her tracks. “You... have a daughter?”
That was the sort of thing she ought to know, if she was in a serious relationship, Tawny was sure.
Damien seemed to realize that he’d sprung something unexpected on her, and looked up in alarm. “I... er... yes. I assumed Shaun would have... but I guess they’ve never been close.”
“Are you close?” Tawny demanded, trying not feel jealous.
Damien put his phone down. “We weren’t, for a long time. But recently, I’ve been trying to mend fences with my kids. It’s going slowly, with Shelley.”
Tawny shook her head, trying to tell herself that this wasn’t a sign that she didn’t know this man nearly as well as she thought. She slowly sat down opposite from him at the kitchen table. “Is she older or younger than Shaun?” she asked cautiously. Would he think she was prying?
“She’s younger,” Damien said. “After Shaun’s mother, Dana, died when he was young, I married again. Linda and I divorced... ah... mostly amicably, when Shelley was in high school.”
Tawny wondered if she looked as gobsmacked as she felt. Damien had a daughter and an ex-wife she’d never even heard of.
It wasn’t as if she should have expected Damien to bring them up to her, she told herself. But it reminded her beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did not know this man, had no idea who he was outside of his charming and flattering courtship here in Green Valley.
“I didn’t mean this to be a surprise,” Damien said, scowling at her in that way he did whenever he thought things weren’t going the way they should.
“No, I understand,” Tawny was quick to assure him, hoping that her smile was convincing. “We had whole lives before we met.”
“Do you have an ex-husband lurking in your past? Or kids?” Damien asked, his scowl lightening at least. Tawny wondered if he didn’t sound the slightest bit jealous.
“Only pets,” Tawny assured him. “And boyfriends from my youth that never lasted more than a few dates. This is Green Valley,” she reminded him. “If there were skeletons in my closet, Marta or Andrea would have told you all about them, weeks ago when we met.”
Damien gave a gruff laugh. “Marta told me all about the boyfriends of your youth,” he confessed a little guiltily.
Tawny let her face fall to her hands. “Oh, she didn’t!” But she was laughing when she lifted her head. “You have nothing to worry about,” she promised him.
Damien smirked. “I am sure I don’t,” he said confidently.
The timer for the chicken went off then, and Tawny went to turn the pieces, wondering wryly if she had anything to worry about.
Chapter 18
“Nice kitty,” Damien said, crouching down to make eye contact with Prints under the porch.
Prints hissed, her black fur high across her shoulders, and retreated until Damien could only see her green eyes against the shadows.
Damien tried to decide if the hiss was a little less angry than the last dozen
times they had encountered each other, if the fur was a little less raised, or if the retreat was a little bit slower.
“I’ve got a nice treat for you,” he said, waving it invitingly. “Delicious. Real salmon.”
Prints stopped hissing, but didn’t volunteer to come forward.
“I know you like this kind,” Damien said coaxingly. He had gotten Prints to eat them from a distance, but this time, he didn’t plan to simply leave the treat for her. “Come and get it...”
Prints took a single step forward and crouched down, eyes narrow and suspicious.
Damien wasn’t sure how long they were going to stay like that... the sunlight was hot on his shoulders and he was beginning to think that the wretched creature really could outlast him.
He was almost glad when his phone rang and Prints took off underneath the porch. Damien growled and tossed the treat into the darkness after her, then stood and answered the phone.
“How’s Green Valley?” Shelley asked, deceptively casual. She must be in a mood, Damien guessed, not fooled by her smooth voice.
“Small, nosy, squalid, completely lacking in culture, the dining options are non-existent, and it distinctly smells like cows if there’s any breeze at all.”
Shelley gave a short, sharp laugh. “Well, that explains why you’ve been there so long.” Which of course, it didn’t.
“I’ve been busy,” he told her, not bothering to explain.
“Too busy to return calls regarding a one point three million dollar goddamn change order that didn’t get approved?” Shelley demanded. “What is going on, Dad?”
Damien could hear the stress in her voice and felt guilty knowing that the extra work he had dumped on her was probably the cause. “I just got off the phone with the contractor. He says our foreman approved the change order. If our guys said they could de-mobi...”
“Our foreman didn’t,” Shelley snapped. “He doesn’t even have the authority to make that kind of approval. Which you should know!”
Damien frowned. He wasn’t usually this out of the loop.
“The contractor said...”
“The contractor is a lying asshole,” Shelley snapped.
Damien had to laugh. “The business is full of assholes,” he agreed amicably.
Shelley was quiet a moment. “What is going on, Dad?”
“None of your goddam business,” Damien said cheerfully.
He realized that there was a pair of eyes looking through a gap in the fence. A pair of young eyes, connected to the face of a boy about the same age as Trevor.
“Shi—er, let me call you back later, Shelley.”
“Don’t you leave this hanging,” Shelley threatened. “We’ve got another contract in negotiations with these jackasses...”
“Sorry, gotta go! My piano lesson starts in just a few minutes!” Damien hung up the phone as Shelley spluttered in surprise.
“You said bad words,” a small voice informed him through the gap in the fence.
“Yeah, I did,” Damien growled. “You shouldn’t repeat them.”
There was a moment of silence. “My name is Aaron,” he was informed then. “It has two As. Not an E like a girl.”
“Noted,” Damien said gruffly.
“You’re Trevor’s grandpa,” Aaron observed.
Damien was scrolling through his emails, deleting and forwarding anything he wasn’t directly responsible for. “I am,” he said briefly.
“Can Trevor come play with me?” Aaron asked plaintively. “When he’s through with his piano lesson?”
“I don’t see why not,” Damien said with a shrug. It sounded like Trevor’s lesson was winding down.
“What are you doing?” Aaron asked through the fence.
“Trying to answer emails,” Damien said shortly. “Before this entire project implodes and we end up millions of dollars in the hole.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Aaron observed. “Can I play a game on your phone?”
“Certainly not,” Damien said, shocked.
“There’s Trevor!” Aaron said cheerfully. “Trevor! Come over and play with me! Your grandpa said it’s okay!”
Trevor came bolting off of the porch and barely paused at the gate to wave at Damien before he was skittering next door.
“Will that be okay?” Damien asked Tawny, who had come out on the porch more sedately. “Have I unleashed some unknown terror on Aaron’s mother?” There were already rowdy shrieks of laughter from beyond the fence.
Tawny smiled. “It’s a known terror; Aaron’s dad will be glad for the entertainment. Trevor often goes over there after his lesson.”
Damien silenced his phone and slid it into his pocket. “I trust you received the payment for my piano lessons?”
Tawny laughed. “Certified mail, yesterday. You know, you don’t have to take these lessons,” she said, exasperated. “It’s rather ridiculous of you.”
Damien came up on the porch and Tawny gave him a quick, casual kiss. “I’m already sleeping with you, clearly you don’t need to butter me up anymore,” she teased.
“I want to,” Damien said simply.
And unexpectedly, he did.
It wasn’t just that he wanted Tawny, it was that he wanted to be with Tawny. He wanted to sit next to her on the piano bench and laugh his way through lessons. He wanted to read the paper with her in the morning and debate with her at book club. It was awkward, living out of a suitcase in her postage-stamp house, but it was worth it.
He followed her into the house and steeled himself to be her very best student.
Chapter 19
Sitting so close to a gorgeous man on the piano bench was a distraction that Tawny had never had to face before. It was worse than a squirmy child. Or a sibling playing video games on a toy behind them. Or a mother talking too loudly on the phone in the kitchen.
Worse, or better. Tawny wasn’t sure.
Damien listened gravely to her introduction. It was a lecture better suited for children, but Tawny had taught several adults before, and found that the material was basically universal.
She’d never been so self-conscious about it before, wondering as she explained how the piano worked if Damien would find it condescending or boring.
“Let’s talk posture,” she said automatically, then swallowed hard as her traitorous brain immediately thought about what he looked like underneath his clothing and imagined him sprawled across her bed. “You’re sitting up straight, that’s excellent. You want to adjust your seat so that your arms are relaxed, you don’t want to cinch up your elbows and shoulders while you are playing.” Tawny demonstrated with the tyrannosaurus rex impression that always made kids giggle and relax. “And you don’t want to be reaching across the room for the keys.”
They moved the bench until it fit Damien’s tall figure, and Tawny had to perch at the very edge of the bench to reach the keys. “That’s fine,” she said, when Damien seemed to think he should adjust for her shorter legs. “You’ll be doing most of the playing, and I’m used to compensating for kids of all sizes.”
She quizzed him on musical theory and tested him on sheet music, happy to find that she wasn’t going to have to start completely from scratch. “Everything you learned before will still apply,” she assured him. “And you’ll find that a lot of it comes back as you go.”
Then, she finally let him play, starting with both hands resting on the keys, playing the first five notes of a C-major scale.
“Relax your fingers,” she reminded him. “It doesn’t take as much strength as you might think, to play the notes.”
“That sounds easier than it actually is,” Damien said, gamely running haltingly up and down the notes with a look of frustration on his face.
“Your fingers aren’t used to this kind of action,” Tawny said, gently resting her fingers over his. “Don’t be too impatient with them.”
His hands were warm, and so strong. Tawny snatched her hand back. “Keep practicing,” she squeaked, as the timer sh
e had set went off.
“That was thirty minutes?” Damien said in surprise.
“We had a lot to cover,” Tawny said apologetically. “And it will seem overwhelming at first. Before your lesson next week, I want you practice sitting at the piano and getting your posture correct, and doing five repetitions of these simple up-and-downs. Watch your rhythm and concentrate on keeping even time with each note, even if some are easier than others. Do it at least five times a day, and make sure you stand up and push in the bench between practices. Next week we’ll add crossovers and start on full scales. I have a worksheet on music notes that I want you to complete—it’s for kids, I’m sorry, but it’s important information to get into your head.”
Damien was watching her with half a smile hidden in his beard, and Tawny was briefly cross at him for having it to keep his expressions from her. “Thank you, teacher Tawny,” he said warmly.
“You really don’t have to do this,” she reminded him. “I can refund the remainder from your check.”
Eyes dancing, Damien scooted closer to her on the bench, his warm thigh against hers. “I don’t want a refund, but I noticed you gave Trevor a treat at the end of his lesson last week.”
“I’ve got a jar of chocolates by the front door,” Tawny told him, shivering at his proximity and unable to keep from smiling foolishly.
“Can I have my treat in kisses?” Damien asked slyly.
“There are chocolate kisses in the jar,” Tawny teased him, but she lifted her mouth to him expectantly.
Then there was a boyish shriek from outside the open window, a new tenor of alarm and fear from the playful noises of before, and a strange animal yowl.
More swiftly and gracefully than Tawny would have guessed possible, Damien was vaulting over the bench and fleeing the house. “Stay here,” he called desperately as he disappeared. “Please, I’ll be back in a moment! Wait here!”
Mystified and worried, Tawny waited.
Chapter 20
The scene Damien found next door was exactly what he dreaded.