From the Moment We Met

by Adair, Marina

  A familiar ache settled in Abby’s chest for the woman. She understood better than most how hard it was to go from being a partner to going it solo. For Abby, it wasn’t success or failure, or that it was her decision she’d have to live with. It was that success or failure, in the end she would still be alone.

  “Wow, I just realized I didn’t eat lunch,” Abby said, looking at her watch and noting she had less than two hours before her first student would arrive at her house for their lesson. She looked at Babs’s expression and noted how she shifted on her feet, her normal we-can attitude vanishing completely at the idea of Abby leaving.

  Yup, Babs was stalling.

  “How about we head over to the Sweet and Savory for a little afternoon snack? And maybe over a pastry and cup of coffee you can explain to me what you like about each component of my design and what concerns you might have. If you want, we can even talk about what Leroy would’ve thought.”

  “Oh.” Babs brought her clasped fingers to her lips and let loose a delighted laugh. The Duke even wagged his tail. “That sounds lovely. I adore Lexi’s tarts, and her King Kamehameha Mocha always brings a smile to my day.”

  That’s because her King Kamehameha Mocha was one part Kona coffee, two parts coffee liqueur, and enough kick to bring a smile to even Nora’s normally puckered face.

  “That is, if you have time?” Babs added, and the feet shuffling ensued.

  “Of course I have time,” Abby lied, because even though she had a to-do list a mile long, which included making a wine cake and dropping by the Boulder Holder to pick up something lace and silk for dessert—just in case—she was starting to understand Babs wasn’t the most difficult customer in wine country. She was just lonely. And that was something Abby could relate to on every level.

  If listening to Babs rehash her choices would make her confident in moving forward, then Abby was game.

  With just enough time to change her clothes before her first student arrived, Abby pulled into her driveway exhausted and exhilarated. Exhausted from spending most of the afternoon with Babs, which forced Abby to cram two hours of errands into twenty minutes. Exhilarated because in less than two hours the sexy contractor who had yet to decide which half of her he wanted to start with was set to show up for his piano lesson.

  A lesson he’d said was the highlight of his week.

  Abby felt her skin heat. Had she really asked him where he wanted to start? The real question was, when Tanner made up his mind, would she follow through?

  The answer to both was a resounding yes. Something that terrified her as much as it excited her. Abby wasn’t just dipping her toes into the sex pool. Nope, she was doing a swan dive into the deep end—naked, with no lifeguard on duty.

  Pink pastry box in one hand and a gold bag from the Boulder Holder in the other, Abby bumped the door closed with her hip and hoped the cream puffs made up for the lack of wine cake on the menu. Then she remembered how itty bitty the red silk panties and matching bra she’d bought were and figured Tanner would be too busy trying to see what was under her top to even care about cake.

  Smiling, she stepped around the car and nearly dropped the cream puffs and panties. Hand firmly clutching her chest, the Boulder Holder bag swinging wildly from her fingers, she saw twelve sets of eyes move from Richard’s body to Abby’s bag.

  “This is private property!” Abby said.

  Shirley Bale poked her head out from behind an easel, a smudge of charcoal marring her rosy cheek. Dressed in a stained smock, bright red Crocs, a matching visor, and a face full of wrinkles, Shirley set her charcoal next to a mason jar, filled with what Abby prayed was iced tea and not homemade Angelica, and clapped her hands excitedly.

  “You made it!”

  “I didn’t know I was invited.”

  “Of course you were.” Shirley widened her smile, which only managed to make her look guilty. And standing behind her, the group of gray-haired ladies, all dressed in matching smocks, looked around nervously. “Now, go change. We’re just getting started, so you haven’t missed much, but the rules state that five more minutes and you are officially a no-show, then I have to start calling the waitlist, and I have a dozen ladies on speed dial who are dying to take your easel.”

  “My easel?”

  “For our life art class.” Shirley walked over to the statue, who was wearing a painter’s tarp around his waist, and gave herself a little fan of the hand. “Haven’t seen a specimen this impressive since my days sketching in Italy. They breed stallions over there, so mere mortal men can’t compare. But him? Well, we sure got us a real treat today, right ladies?”

  With a single flick of her frail wrist, Shirley yanked the loincloth away and a series of Uh-huhs and Oh mys filled the air, followed by Mrs. Rose, current wine commissioner and head of the Hunting Club, who held the county record for most kills at less than two hundred yards, giving a heartfelt, “Stallion indeed.”

  Abby looked heavenward. This was not happening. Richard, God’s gift to women, was being ogled and admired by a group of women—like he was a god. Granted, they were wrinkly and smelled of turpentine, but they were women all the same. And they were capturing his essence on canvas.

  The worst part was Deidra Potter and her Project Primrose were in full effect, because the statue was surrounded by blue hydrangeas, which gave him the look of walking on water. Combined with his smarmy wink and smile, it was as though the prodigal Casanova had returned and somehow reached sainthood.

  “Sure puts that Stan to shame,” one of the silvered sketchers said.

  “Stan O’Malley?” Abby choked out, then gagged a little because Stan was the local mechanic, owner of Stan’s Soup and Service Station, and wore lifts in his shoes like Tom Cruise. And that was where the similarities ended, since he was old as dirt, missing a few teeth, and like any good mechanic, carried around his spare tire everywhere he went.

  “Yup. He was the first nude model we brought in.”

  “I had to take one of them blue pills just to keep myself awake during that class.” Mrs. Rose laughed, which sounded odd since she usually had a carry-and-conceal kind of attitude. Even odder to see her in a smock with a tray of pastels in reach.

  “Didn’t know you sketched, Mrs. Rose,” Abby said.

  “Don’t,” the older woman said. “But when I heard they were bringing in nude men and it was legal, I signed up. After Stan, we went back to sketching fruit bowls.”

  “How can you get excited about painting a bowl?” Shirley said quietly. “If you’ve sketched one banana, you’ve sketched them all.”

  “Only now it seems we found someone worth sketching.” Mrs. Rose gave Richard a thorough once-over. “He is a no-pill-required banana if you ask me.”

  Blue pills were never Richard’s problem, Abby thought, looking at the statue and back to the group, surprised when the sharp pain, the one that usually started behind her shoulder blade and felt like it went straight through her chest, never came. In fact she felt nothing other than a slight annoyance that Richard was invading her plans. “You know it’s not real, right?”

  “Honey, I was married fifty-one years, been a widow for nine. I’ve forgotten what real even looks like.”

  Abby had only been married to Richard for a year and a widow for eight whole days, and she wasn’t sure she even knew what real was. Which was why she’d taken Tanner up on his offer. He said he wanted to be real—with her.

  Starting tonight.

  Abby looked down at the bag of lingerie and blew out a breath. Somehow she didn’t think Tanner envisioned getting his dessert with the Senior Center’s art club acting as chaperones. Not to mention having an unsanctioned art class on her front lawn was the last thing Abby needed. That Nora had already given her one GN violation for illegal art was bad enough. Two violations wasn’t going to happen.

  “You’ll have to get a permit to hold a class here
,” Abby said apologetically.

  The ladies exchanged glances, but it was Shirley who spoke up. “We were told Richard was supposed to be moved. But yesterday I was in the neighborhood and saw he was still here. So I figured it was a sign the universe had sent me something other than a fruit bowl, something to challenge and stir my creativity, so I called the ladies.”

  “And we went guerilla-style on art,” Mrs. Rose said, her eyes lit with excitement. “You know, no permits, no watercolors, no blending brushes, just our easels, charcoal, and the naked form.”

  “It was either him or another fruit bowl,” Shirley explained, and Abby wondered if fruit bowls were the sketcher’s equivalent to nurseries or doggie habitats. “And I’m ready to sketch a new kind of plums and banana.”

  “No permit means you don’t have approval of the GN,” Abby said, then cringed because—listen to that—she sounded just like Know It All Nora.

  She held up her hand in apology. “You know what? Never mind. Have fun painting, ladies.”

  “You’re going to let us stay?” Shirley asked, her black-penciled brows disappearing into her hairline.

  Abby just shrugged. “I know what it’s like to draw the same fruit bowl. As long as you are gone by sunset, I say paint away.”

  By the time Abby made it into her house, she’d had enough hugs and cheek pinches to last her a decade. Dropping the cream puffs in the refrigerator and her gold bag on the bed, she searched through her closet for one of “those little shirts” Tanner seemed to like so much.

  Pressed for time, she settled on a deep scoop-neck tank top and her new bra—the panties would have to wait until next time, since she wasn’t sure if she was that bold—and went downstairs to prepare for her first student of the night.

  She was just setting out the sheet music when her five o’clock knocked at the door. When she opened it, instead of greeting a four-foot-tall kid with freckles and a Kool-Aid mustache, she found herself staring up at six and a half feet of the best dessert ever.

  Fully equipped and licensed to rock her foundation, Tanner rested a hip against her porch rail, that easy smile of his ready to demolish any last hesitations she harbored.

  “Well, no wonder you didn’t want to paint with us,” Mrs. Rose hollered from the grass. “Seems you got a live one there.”

  “They told me I couldn’t pass until I showed a little skin,” Tanner explained, and Abby laughed.

  “Well, did you?”

  “No, I outran them,” he explained. “Although there was a moment where I thought Mrs. Rose was going to bring out her guns.”

  “I still might unless you give us a little shimmy. I’ve got a hundred bucks riding on you being the real deal, Hard Hammer Tanner,” Mrs. Rose said, and the tips of Tanner’s ears went pink. “Peg here thinks those pictures of you in your birthday suit were enhanced.”

  Abby crossed her arms. “Seems like a pretty serious allegation to me. I think you better take care of it.”

  “Is that right?” And boom, a smile that said he was more than up to the challenge spread across his face and both of those dimples came into play. “Tell me. What did you have in mind?”

  Oh, Abby had many things in mind. Some ranked higher on her list than others, but unfortunately, none of them included an audience, so she tapped a finger to her chin, taking her sweet time to make him sweat a little. Only Tanner never sweat, he just stood there perfectly at ease.

  “All right, take off the shirt and show us the goods,” she said and gestured for him to turn around and—oh my—the show was just beginning.

  Eyes locked on hers, Tanner grabbed the back of his shirt with one hand and pulled it up and over his head, exposing yards and yards of tan skin, sculpted muscles, and enough testosterone to have Abby sweating. With a cocky wink that said Got ya, he turned around to face the ladies, then gave a little shimmy when his back was once again to the crowd.

  The ladies gave an elated clap and a few dreamy sighs before fanning themselves. Abby was doing a little fanning of her own when Tanner flashed the most self-conscious smile she’d ever seen him wear.

  Huh, between the ladies making his ears go pink and this smile, it seemed the man wasn’t totally unflappable.

  “I’m sorry, Peg, but I think Mrs. Rose won this one. Tanner is one hundred percent real,” Abby said, and she wasn’t just talking about his fine-tuned and carefully honed body. Tanner might be a little too charming, a little too flirty, and a whole lot too tempting for Abby’s well-being, but the more time she spent with him, the more Abby began to realize there wasn’t anything fake about Jack Tanner.

  “Tightest tush in the NFL,” Mrs. Rose declared. “Now, pay up!”

  While the women argued about who owed what, Tanner walked to the doormat, and instead of tugging his shirt on, he tucked it in his back pocket.

  “Aren’t you going to put your shirt back on?” Abby asked his chest. The well-muscled, too-impressive-not-to-stare chest that was gloriously tan and slick with summer heat.

  “Nope. You going to take yours off?” His eyes took a slow journey all the way south, which meant he still hadn’t made up his mind where to start. Or maybe he had and he wanted a little reminder to make sure he’d chosen well. Either way, his blatantly male appreciation caused every cell in her body to go into party mode. Even her nipples popped their corks. His grin said he noticed. “Or you want to talk about the little shopping spree you did earlier today?”

  “Shopping?” Her face heated. Did he know she bought a pair of home team panties? And if so, would he be disappointed she hadn’t put them on?

  “I was talking about getting Babs to finally sign off on the hardware, flooring, and counter.” Tanner held up an order slip from Valley Textiles. “But judging by the look on your face, it seems you had a different kind of shopping in mind.”

  Abby skipped right over that one, and in one smooth move, she grabbed the shirt from his back pocket and pressed it to his chest. Then focused really hard on the order slip, and even harder on not watching him get dressed.

  “Great, Valley Textiles got the order placed. I was afraid we’d missed the cutoff for today.”

  “They even put a rush on it. Free of charge. Tom doesn’t even do rush orders for me, extra cost or not.”

  Abby shrugged. “Tom’s son, Kyle, takes piano from me.”

  Tanner stepped forward, resting his palms on the top of the doorframe, not coming in the house but invading her space all the same. “I know, I remember him from the last recital. He’s one of your favorites.”

  He was also one of the first students she’d taken on when she’d moved back to St. Helena. And over the last two years he had gone from a shy little boy who cried at the thought of playing in front of a crowd to a proficient pianist who played every Sunday at church.

  “I don’t have favorites.” She smiled. “I love all of my students the same.”

  He leaned in even farther, the movement causing his arm muscles to bunch and his shirt to pull taut across his chest. He tilted his head until she could smell the sawdust on his clothes and feel his lips brush her cheek. “Liar.”

  “Why are you here”—she gave his stomach a little shove and, after he flexed for her gripping pleasure, moved back enough so she could breathe without her body going into meltdown—“a whole two hours early?”

  “To tell you your guy Carlos is perfect for the job and, more importantly, he can start right away.” That was exactly the kind of news she needed to hear. “He’s meeting me at the shop in an hour to look at the electrical panel in person so he can figure out what he needs to order.”

  “That’s great. Does he think he’ll be done in time for you guys to finish the wiring?”

  “We’re going to run all of the wires and take care of the outlets this week while he refits the panel. He thinks he can be done by Thursday, so we have Friday morning to get the chiller
s in and finish up. He won’t know for sure until he gets here, but he sounded optimistic.”

  Tanner’s smile faded and a weird feeling started in the pit of Abby’s belly.

  “Why do I feel like there is a big but coming?”

  “Because he said he’d need at least three or four hours tonight to get a feel for the project and understand the way the original electrician wired the place, which means—”

  “You have to cancel our lesson,” Abby said, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

  “Date,” Tanner clarified, sounding disappointed himself. “And not cancel, postpone. I was thinking Saturday. That way the inspection is over.”

  “Saturday? That’s four days away.” Her body couldn’t last four whole days. Especially not when those days would be spent working in close proximity while he hauled two-by-fours, lifted pipes with those big arms, and handled everything in the factory—but her.

  “I know, trust me,” Tanner said, his eyes dropping to her strategically selected top. “But with everything left to do, just getting the place ready by Friday will be crazy.” His gaze locked on hers, hot and hungry, and suddenly she wasn’t so sure she could wait. “You drive me crazy.”

  “You came here to tell me I drive you crazy?”

  God, she hoped not. She drove her brothers crazy, her grandmother crazy, her neighbors crazy. The last person she wanted to drive crazy was the first potential date she’d had since college.

  “No, I came here to tell you it’s five o’clock.” He stepped into her, his good parts crowding all hers, forcing her into the house. He kicked the door shut, and before she could register what was happening, his hands were in her hair and his mouth, oh God, that mouth, was on hers. And Abby knew she was in trouble.

  Serious trouble.

  Because Tanner was wrong—this wasn’t crazy. It was beyond all reason. The heat generated by a single kiss was damn near combustible. Because just like that, with one taste, her brain clocked out.