Holding the buckle up to the dim light, Tracy squinted, trying to make out the inscription. It was barely readable, but she finally got it: tracy, darling, be careful what you wish for—love, grandma
Tracy sucked in a breath. The belt was meant for her, complete with a mysterious message. How very odd. And how very unlike her grandmother.
Tahlula Tannin had loved letting Tracy play with the clothes and jewelry that she would one day inherit. They had played dress-up together and had tea parties and generally had a wonderful time.
So why hadn’t Tahlula ever shown Tracy the belt?
The phone rang, the shrill noise echoing through the house, but Tracy barely even heard, too wrapped up was she in memories. Once again, she tried to remember if she’d seen Tahlula actually wearing the belt. She didn’t think so. Around the house, her grandmother had often tried to escape her star persona and just puttered around in a housedress.
The situation just didn’t make any sense. Clearly the belt was important. So why had Tahlula worn it all the time during her early film days, then stopped?
Maybe she’d only worn it when she wanted to be “on” and up for the camera or her fans. Maybe, like Tracy, Tahlula knew the belt was odd, and it had been a symbol of her film career. Maybe it was her personal talisman, and she only quit wearing it when she felt like her career had really taken off. Tracy would probably never know—all she knew was that her grandmother had thought the belt was important.
And it looked like she’d wanted it to be Tracy’s.
Tracy slipped it around her waist, enjoying the way it seemed to meld to her almost non-existent curves. The belt felt right, natural. As if out of everything her grandmother had willed to her, this was the one thing into which she’d put her heart and soul. So why had she shoved it into a box?
The phone rang again, and Missy started running in circles, her toenails skittering on the slick tile floor.
Tracy ignored them both, uninterested in either the skittering dog or the ringing phone. Instead, her attention was totally focused on the belt. It had done well by her grandmother; maybe now it could be Tracy’s very own self-proclaimed good-luck charm.
Releasing the clasp, she let the belt slip off her hips, catching it before it fell to the ground. Though metal, it was remarkably light, and she let it hang over her open palm, her brow furrowing as she considered what to do. The belt was so gaudy that the fashion police would never approve of it for daily wear. But Tracy was so intrigued that that didn’t matter. If Madonna got away with wearing a bra instead of a blouse, surely no one in Los Angeles would freak out if Tracy Tannin wore her grandmother’s belt. Right? Right.
As she dropped the belt back into the box, she made up her mind; she’d wear it to work tomorrow. After all, her wardrobe could use some spice. And—especially after the episodes with Leon and Walter—her luck definitely could use a boost.
* * *
“I COME BEARING coffee cake.”
Tracy stifled a giggle as she listened to the disembodied voice from the phone. After about two dozen more rings she had clued in to the fact that her machine wasn’t working, and she’d answered. Now she was talking to Mel, who had called from a few blocks away on her cell phone.
“Is that a threat?” Tracy teased.
“It’s a promise. And a bribe. We need to talk. And I want to hear more about what happened after you showered Leon with tiger excrement.”
Tracy ran her hands through her hair. “If that’s what you want to talk about, I’m tempted not to let you in.”
“Ah, but then you wouldn’t get the coffee cake.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” Tracy admitted, trying to keep the smile out of her voice.
“Nah. I just play dirty.”
After hanging up, Tracy packed all her grandma’s stuff back into the boxes, then headed from the kitchen to the front door. She stepped onto the front porch just as Melissa maneuvered her hulking Jeep Grand Cherokee up the drive.
The yard was a mess, but Tracy couldn’t afford a gardener and she didn’t have time to take care of it by herself. She was grateful her grandmother had willed her the sprawling old estate, but it would have been nice if the woman had left her a little money to take care of it, too. As it was, Tracy was scrambling to come up with enough money to pay the property taxes. While she was scrambling, things like landscaping and fixing the pool would have to wait. A roommate would help, but so far no one had called.
By Hollywood standards, the place wasn’t huge, though Tracy certainly thought the five-acre lot and eight-thousand-square-foot house was rather massive. And it was located in Beverly Hills just off Sunset Boulevard. Which meant it had the three desirable things in the world of real estate: location, location, location.
Even though she had to scrimp to afford taxes, Tracy loved the place—just as her grandmother had. The year after Gone With the Wind premiered, Tahlula Tannin had decided she needed land as much as Scarlet did. She’d used the fortune she’d earned starring on the silver screen in the days before income taxes to buy this Beverly Hills manor and a little beach house in Malibu. She’d coveted the role of Scarlet and, for whatever reason, had named the beach house Atlanta, and the Beverly Hills house Tara-too.
In a twist of fate worthy of Hollywood, the beach house had succumbed to one of Malibu’s famous fires, but Tara-too still stood. It was a bit rough around the edges these days, but Tracy wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else.
True to her word, Melissa bounded up the front steps with a box from the La Brea Bakery. “Ta-da!”
Tracy bent low and sniffed the box, her mood already improving as she savored the decadent pastry smells that escaped. “If you weren’t already my best friend, I’d give you the job.”
“That’s serious stuff,” Melissa said, following her through the marble foyer to the recently modernized kitchen. “What could I finagle if I’d brought an entire Italian cream cake?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Tracy cut them both very large pieces, then passed a plate to Melissa. “I’m baking cookies. But I think I need this, too.”
Mel’s eyebrows went up. “Either your day improved, or it got a hell of a lot worse.”
Tracy shoveled a huge bite into her mouth. “Bof,” she mumbled.
“Excuse me?”
She chewed, swallowed, and tried again. “Both. First it got better. Then it got worse.”
“Worse than the pooper-scooper incident?”
“Oh, yeah. I can’t even begin to tell you how much worse. So much worse, that the word doesn’t do it justice.”
“Rotten?”
“More.”
“Horrid?”
“Not even close.”
Melissa shrugged. “I give up.”
“What’s the absolute best?”
Mel squinted. “Best of what?”
“Just a word to describe the best. The top. The pinnacle.”
“Orgasmic,” Mel said without a pause.
“Fine.” Tracy nodded, then took another bite. “I had the most anti-orgasmic, frigid evening from hell.” She met Mel’s eyes. “And the last hour I spent in the attic going through my grandmother’s things. A hard-core dose of added sentimentality, you know?”
Mel nodded, and Tracy knew she really did understand.
“Well, tell,” Mel said. “Don’t leave me sitting here all curious.”
Tracy leaned forward, glad to finally have an audience for bitching about the lousy, horrible, no-good, very bad evening.
“Well, you know about how it started. I mean, this morning was okay, but then that whole thing with Leon.”
The corner of Mel’s mouth twisted as she held back laughter. “Tiger poop. I love it.”
“Trust me. Leon did not love it. Leon did not love me. Leon was furious.”
“But he won’t forget you.”
At that, Tracy smiled. “Believe me, I’ve been consoling myself with that all day.” She waved a hand in
the air. “Afterward, though, it got better.”
Mel leaned forward. “You’re blushing. What happened?”
“I am not!” But Tracy’s hands automatically went to her cheeks. “Anyway, you’d blush, too. This guy was gorgeous. And he was flirting with me. Really.”
“Who?”
“I have no idea.” She proceeded to tell Mel the whole story, starting with her dead battery and ending with the oh-so-nice view she’d had of the stranger’s backside.
Mel sighed. “That’s great.” She crumpled her napkin and tossed it at Tracy. “But I can’t believe you didn’t get a name. A phone number. Heck, did you even get his license plate number?”
“Nope. Not a thing. Which is a shame, too, because the day dropped to an all-time low after he left.”
“Lower than tiger poop?” Mel asked with a smile.
Tracy half-shrugged. “Okay, maybe not lower, but it definitely dropped to that general vicinity. That’s for sure.”
“Poor baby.” Melissa swallowed her last bite of cake, then cut herself another piece. “Tell Auntie Mel all about it.”
Tracy rolled her eyes but complied. The fact was, she wanted all the sympathy she could get. “After the stranger left, it was ice cream.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad.”
“An entire cone, dumped all over me when some jerk in a pinstripe suit scared Missy.”
Mel made a wooshing motion over her head. “You lost me. Suit? Missy? Where’s the ice cream?”
“I took Missy to the Promenade for a walk, and I wanted some ice cream, so I bought a cone. But then some jerk came along and scared Missy. She yanked the leash, I tripped, and all three scoops of double mocha chocolate chip landed on my shirt.”
“That is a tragedy,” Mel agreed soberly. “The ice cream, I mean.”
“I know.” Tracy nodded, still mourning the lost chocolate. “That’s my absolute favorite flavor. But it gets even better.”
Mel cocked her head. “By ‘better’ you mean worse?”
“Of course.”
“Something in this world is worse than wasted ice cream?” Mel asked in mock horror.
Tracy stifled a grin, not quite ready to have her mood lifted. “Very little, true. But this definitely qualifies.”
“So tell.”
Tracy finished off her slice of coffee cake, then slid her fork directly into its pan, snagging a huge slab. “Walter,” she said, then shoved the piece in her mouth.
“Walter? Your ex, Walter?”
Still chewing, Tracy nodded. “One and the same.” Four years ago, she’d shared eight lousy months with Walter. Lousy because she’d thought they were getting along just fine until one day—about a week after they’d moved in together—he’d said he needed more space. She’d suggested they rent a bigger apartment.
Apparently that wasn’t the kind of space he meant, because he’d moved out the next day—taking her television with him—and she hadn’t seen him since. For a while, Tracy had entertained the vague hope that he’d been kidnapped by aliens and had been living the last four years in the Mother Ship, having all sorts of gruesome experiments performed on him. It turned out he’d just moved to San Diego.
Mel’s blue eyes were huge. “What about him?”
“He was in the coffee shop.”
“Coffee shop? I thought you were eating ice cream.”
Tracy nodded. “I was. But after the whole shirt fiasco, I headed for the car. Only the battery was dead again. I guess I didn’t let it run long enough.”
“Figures.”
“That’s what I thought. Pretty much par for the course considering the day I was having.” She contemplated the cake, decided one benefit of having skinny thighs was that she could pig out, and cut another piece. “Anyway, I was parked in front of the coffee shop, and so I tied Missy’s leash to the bike rack and went in, figuring maybe somebody had jumper cables.”
“And Walter saw you.”
“Oh, yeah. He saw me, all right.” She leaned forward, wishing she could adequately convey the utter humiliating ickiness of the situation. “He looked right at me... and didn’t have a clue who I was.”
“Oh.”
Tracy stifled a grin. Seeing her friend this speechless was almost worth her humiliation.
Mel frowned, clearly searching for a reply. “Maybe he was preoccupied?”
“That’s what I thought. So I said, ‘Hey Walter. Have you got jumper cables with you?’ He just sort of gaped at me, then asked if we’d met.” With a sigh, she flopped back against her chair. “If it weren’t so utterly pathetic, it would be hysterical.”
“Oh yeah. A laugh a minute.”
Tracy got up and poured Mel a fragrant cup of coffee, then got one for herself. She leaned back against the counter, letting the healing smell surround her. “It’s like I said earlier. Men just don’t notice me.”
“It’s not men. It’s Walter. He’s a first-class creep. The man has so many women in his eye, it’s a wonder he can pick out any face.”
“I’m willing to agree with you on that.” It turned out Walter had had something of a roving eye. Not that Tracy was surprised. She had yet to go out with a man who didn’t suffer from the grass-is-greener syndrome. And Tracy was grass that perpetually needed watering.
She sighed, wondering if she’d ever find a man who’d stick around. “The thing is, even creeps remember the women they’ve slept with. Don’t they? I know my hair’s changed, but he couldn’t even place me. Totally clueless.” She took a sip of coffee, then shook her head. “This doesn’t speak well of my skill in that particular department.”
“I’m sure you’re fine in that department.” A devious grin spread across Mel’s face. “But it never hurts to practice. Maybe I could set you up with—”
“Your leftovers? No, thank you.” Tracy sighed. She wanted her own men, men who chose her for her. It wasn’t as if she needed to be a knockout like her grandmother, though that would certainly be nice. She just wanted to be noticed. “I’m too shy and I’m too plain.”
“Shy? Oh, please.”
“Maybe not around you, but I don’t do well around new people.”
“Oh, Trace. Who does?”
“You do. My grandmother did.”
“I fake it. I’m always worrying about what people think. And I bet your grandmother was painfully shy. That’s probably how she ended up in movies—so she could live another life.”
“Maybe.” Tracy’s brow furrowed as she considered the point. The truth was, her grandmother never had liked public appearances, and she’d always called them a necessary evil. “But that still doesn’t help when I’m trying to meet a guy”
“You know what they say. Picture them naked. It’ll put you at ease.”
Tracy laughed. “If I’d pictured Leon naked earlier today, I would’ve keeled over from heart failure. Yowza.”
“And you’re not plain,” Mel added, apparently unwilling to acknowledge Leon-the-jerk’s oh-so-substantial attributes.
“Of course I’m plain. It’s a universal truth. Like gravity. The world is round. We need oxygen to breathe. Tracy Tannin is plain.”
Mel aimed her gaze at the ceiling and held out her hands in a silent plea.
“Seriously. I’m too skinny. I’ve got no boobs, no hips, not one single curve—”
“Worked for Kate Moss.”
“—and there’s nothing at all interesting about my face,” she finished, shooting Mel a do-you-mind look. “It’s just there. Surrounded by perfectly straight, stringy hair that frizzes if I perm it.”
She swallowed yet another sigh of self-pity. “My family’s overflowing with beauty. So how the heck did I get stuck with the recessive dull, dull, dull gene?”
“You may not be drop-dead gorgeous, but I think you’re plenty pretty.”
“Then why didn’t my own ex-boyfriend recognize me?”
“Well...” Mel floundered, and Tracy shrugged. Pathetic or not, she’d gotten her point across.
“No, you are. You want to feel the earth move.”
Tracy pounded her fork on the table. “Exactly. I may not be looking for the love of my life—hell, right now I probably wouldn’t know him if I tripped over him. But I still want—”
“A fling. Like we were talking about before.” Mel grinned. “A wild, hot, passionate, throbbing kind of fling.”
“Yes. Exactly,” Tracy said. “That’s precisely what I need.” She gnawed on her lower lip, feeling wanton and decadent. “I want to experience that sizzle, that passion. But...”
“But you’re not interested in commitment,” Mel put in.
“Not yet,” Tracy agreed. Sometime, yes. “Right now, I just want—”
“Fire.”
She nodded, liking the sound of that. “Enough fire to burn me down to my toes.” Smiling, she caught Mel’s eye. “A flaming fling. That’s what I’m looking for.”
“With Leon?” Mel’s voice rose, incredulous.
Tracy shrugged. “I guess he’s out of the running.” As nice as that fantasy might be, the realization of it didn’t look too likely. Tracy blinked, steering her thoughts back to her friend. “This is all just silly. For one thing, I’m too chicken to have a fling. For another, no male worth anything is going to want to have a fling with me.” She held up her hands. “I’m right back where I started. Boring, plain, and pretty damn close to invisible.”
“I don’t believe that,” Mel said. “But if you do, we’ll just figure out a way to show you off.” She tapped her lip, thinking. “We can find some way to add a little pizazz to your looks. You know. Give you a new image. A touch more sex appeal.”
“More? I don’t have any.”
Mel shot her a stern glance but basically ignored the comment. “A look to boost your confidence.”
Bodyguards Boxed Set Page 84