But maybe my friend did understand a little more than I gave her credit for catching. "You're smiling again," she said, making this sound like an accusation. "Was this guy just super-buff or something? What's going on?"
"No!" I stopped, remembering Tanner's body. "Well, yes, he was, but that's not why I let him take me back home. He was also sweet, and funny, and he treated me..." He'd treated me like a normal person, not like the Black Widow. That was really it, what had sold me on him. He hadn't looked at me and seen a wealthy widow who was rumored to have helped her previous husband shuffle off the mortal coil. He'd looked at me as just a woman, in a way that no one else had done since before my marriage ended.
For a minute, we both sat silent; Champagne was focused on her drinking, while I was caught up in swirling memory. Finally, she tossed back the last of her glass and set it down firmly on a side table.
"Well, I'm happy for you," she declared – and suddenly, she was up from her seat and lunging forward to hug me! I barely managed to get my own still-nearly-full glass out of the way before she could knock it over. "I've been saying for a long time that you needed to just let go of all this past and get out there, Helen, and I'm glad that you're taking my advice!"
"It wasn't because of your advice..." I gave up on the sentence before even finishing it. Champagne wouldn't believe my denial. Might as well just roll with it. "Thank you, Champagne."
She gave me one last squeeze, then stood up and brushed her blonde hair back over her shoulders. "Now, tell me his name," she demanded.
I blinked. "What? Why?"
"Because I'm going to go seduce him in a threesome with my husband." She laughed at how my eyes bugged out. "Because I'm going to look him up, silly! Don't you want me to figure out what skeletons he's got in his closet? What if he turns out to be married, or poor, or he's got a warrant out for his arrest?"
"He's not married- wait, you could find out if there's a warrant out for his arrest?" I asked, curious and briefly thrown off balance.
Champagne smiled. "I used to date this cop, and he's now head of some government agency with a bunch of stupid acronyms. He'll look up anyone I want."
A little part of me suspected that giving Champagne any information, no matter how small, was a bad idea – but I also knew that she'd figure it out, one way or another, even if I didn't tell her. "His name's Tanner McCallister," I told her.
She frowned, eyes flicking up in her head as if consulting a mental Rolodex. "Hmm, I don't recognize that name. But I don't read, like, anything that doesn't have Jennifer Aniston's picture on the cover, so maybe that doesn't mean much. I'll do some digging and see what I can find."
"You really don't have to do that!" I insisted, even though I could see my words falling on deaf ears.
Champagne's purse started buzzing. She reached in, rooted around for a minute, and finally tugged out an absolutely massive smartphone that seemed to be vibrating and buzzing. "Oh, shoot. I've got to go. Spa appointment, and they're bloody witches and refuse to let me in if I show up late. If Hilda wasn't the best waxer I've ever met, I'd totally boycott them. You going to be okay, honey?"
"Yes, I'll be fine," I replied after a second of bafflement at this most recent dump of information she'd dropped on me. "Do you want the rest of your wine?"
She flopped a hand at it carelessly. "No, it's not even from the main cellar. You can keep it, or give it to a maid, or something like that."
"Right." All the maids I didn't have. I got up and walked her out to the door.
"Like I said, I'll look up this Tanner fellow, find all his dirty secrets," Champagne promised me at the front door. Once again, without warning, she darted forward to squeeze me tightly in a hug. "But I'm so happy for you, Helen! It's good to see you happy again. You deserve that."
She was gone before I could ask her what she meant. I had been happy before, hadn't I? I couldn't actually recall a specific time before last night that I'd felt explicitly happy, but that didn't mean that I'd been permanently depressed since Marcone died, right?
Right?
I couldn't remember the last time I'd really been happy, but that was normal, I decided as I headed back inside. Normal people didn't always remember the last time they had been happy. What was important, however, was that I was happy now.
I smiled, thinking of Tanner. Maybe I did deserve a couple sips of wine, after all.
Chapter Thirteen
HELEN
*
It was two hours later when a sudden realization hit me, making me sit up straight and yank my hands out of the soil where they'd been half-buried.
I never gave Tanner my number! And more importantly, I didn't have his! What if he wanted to contact me? How would he be able to get in touch with me?
I sat back on my boots, frowning. This was a problem, I decided, but not an insurmountable one. In fact, not even that big of one. Surely, I could call around and figure out how to get in contact with a wealthy, handsome young author named Tanner McCallister. How many people could there be matching that description?
I'd attend to it after some lunch, I decided. Right now, I kind of wanted to finish this current task of transplanting these tulip bulbs. I couldn't exactly stop halfway through and leave them to dry out and maybe even die, not now that I'd spent more than an hour digging them out of the ground and breaking them apart!
After Champagne left, I'd gone back inside – but the dreary interior didn't hold the same attraction for me that it had over the last few months. It was as if Tanner's presence in my house, in my bed, had been enough to inject new life into me. Suddenly, the inside of the house was dark, the stack of books by my bedside looked drearily boring, and I wanted to get up and go out and actually do something!
The drawer on my dresser stuck a little, and I had to grit my teeth and give it a good yank before it finally popped open. Was that from disuse? I had to admit that I'd spent most of the last few months just spending most of my time in pajamas or sweatpants, but surely my furniture couldn't have started sealing itself shut in so little time, right?
I dug through the clothes, settling on a pair of shorts and a bright, flower-patterned top that felt soft and silky against my fingers. Both the top and the shorts were too loose, and I realized belatedly that, after not eating much of anything for a while, I'd probably need a new wardrobe – or, at the very least, to invest in more belts. I found a woven leather belt tucked away in another drawer, and managed to get it tight enough around my waist to keep the shorts from slipping down to my ankles.
Now dressed, I stopped in my bathroom long enough to dig some sunscreen out of a cupboard and slather my skin. I'd learned the hard way, as a child, that sunscreen would be a perennial purchase for me. My pale skin started growing pink and tender from practically the first second that I stepped out into the naked sun.
Descending to the ground floor, I caught sight of Julius's surprised face looking at me from his dominion of the kitchen. "Ah, Mrs. O'Callahan," he said, managing to mostly – but not completely – hide his surprise behind that English accent. "Very good to see you up and about, if I might be so bold."
"You may be so bold, yes," I replied, smiling at him and fighting a silly little urge to curtsey like a schoolgirl! "And it's Miss, not Missus, if you would."
"Of course, my deepest apologies," he replied on autopilot as his eyes grew even a little wider. "And what might you have planned for today, Mrs. O'Callahan?"
Oh well. So much for changing how he addressed me. I knew that fighting with Julius was like trying to box against smoke.
"I thought I'd step out into the garden and see how badly it's faring." The idea only just occurred to me as I spoke the words, but I instantly liked it. Once upon a time, I'd been known for the beautiful flowers that I coaxed forth from the soil in the gardens of the O'Callahan mansion. Most of them would have probably gone to seed or been overgrown by this point, but hopefully most of the roses would be salvageable.
"An excellent idea." Juliu
s recovered quickly, stepping quickly to open the door to the rear gardens for me. I thanked him and headed outside into the bright morning sun, veering straight towards the little shed where I kept my gardening tools and supplies.
Surprisingly, the garden wasn't quite as damaged as I'd feared. There had definitely been plenty of weeds that sprouted up in my neglectful absence, and some of the more delicate plants that I'd carefully transplanted and nurtured into growing in this foreign climate had passed away without my continued attention. But the roses looked strong and healthy, although they'd need pruning. Several other plants, including the lilies and tulips, had also held on, although quite a few individual plants were now threatened by encroaching crabgrass. I quickly set to work freeing them from the strangling roots of the invading grass.
"Begone from here," I commanded happily as I ripped out a big chunk, swinging my little trowel to sever its string-thin roots.
A couple hours later, when I realized that I didn't have a way to contact Tanner, I sat back and wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of one gardening glove. Working out here had built up more of a sweat than I'd realized! I'd need a shower when I headed back inside.
My stomach rumbled up at me loudly, reminding me that it had also been forsaken as I cut a swath of destruction through the weeds trying to overtake my garden. I climbed up to my feet, wiping my trowel carelessly on my shorts. It left some dirt behind, but I brushed that off as I headed back indoors.
After asking for a hearty lunch from the still-surprised Julius, I picked up my phone. I frowned down at it, trying to figure out how I'd go about getting in touch with Tanner McCallister. I did a quick internet search for him, and flipped through a phone book that Julius produced from somewhere, but neither approach turned up any results.
That made sense, didn't it? Most authors would be fairly secretive and reclusive, I imagined, and a wealthy one would want even more to protect his privacy. But if Tanner had been a guest at the Poverty Ball last night, that meant he moved in certain circles – and surely, I could convince Richard Stone, the party's host, to divulge a method for contacting this other esteemed guest.
I dialed the number for the Stone mansion and waited as it rang. Long ago, the Stone family had employed plenty of their own servants, but I'd heard that Richard Stone's wife was a strong feminist and opposed the idea of any help. I agreed with that, I supposed, with the exception of Julius. He'd been with me so long that I couldn't imagine surviving without him – and, I guessed, he wouldn't know what else to do out in the world, either, if I ever attempted to fire him.
Finally, after fourteen rings and just as I was about to consider hanging up and trying again later, the connection clicked. "Hello?"
I froze for an instant at the unmistakable voice. "Tanner?" I said in surprise.
"Helen?" He sounded as shocked as I felt. "Why are you calling?"
"I..." I hesitated for a second, but fought to overcome a surge of shyness. Why couldn't I be direct about this? The man had been in my bed, fewer than twelve hours previously! I'd invited him to lay with me – to be the first man I'd had since my husband. Why in the world was I feeling self-conscious and shy now?
"I'm at Richard's because I promised him that I'd help him with cleaning up," Tanner said, as I tried to fight against that sudden surge of shyness. "That's why I'm here, by the way. In case you were wondering."
I hadn't asked, but it did make sense. Tanner seemed like the true kind of friend who wouldn't mind getting his hands dirty to help with cleanup after a charity function. "I wanted to talk to you again," I burst out.
He was silent for a second, and my fear lurched up inside my throat – but then, when he spoke again, his voice was warm. "You know, I was thinking about you, too," he confessed, and I didn't even try to stop the smile from growing huge on my face. "I got back, sat down to put a few words of my recent story inspiration down on my computer – and next thing I know, it's been hours, and I've written a quarter of a novel!"
"That's incredible!" I couldn't imagine writing a quarter of a novel at all, much less in just a few hours! Tanner was incredible to have such ability. "So I guess I did a pretty good job as your muse?"
"Yeah, you did." He sounded a little incredulous about the whole thing. "Seriously, this is more than I've written in months."
"That's good to hear." I could feel myself dancing around the topic that I wanted to address, but I couldn't quite muster up the nerve to just go straight for it. "How's the cleanup going?"
"The what?" He sounded distracted for a second, but then snapped back to reality. "Oh, right, the cleanup. It's going slowly, I guess. You'd be astonished at how much of a mess rich people can make."
"Just because we're rich, it doesn't mean that we can afford manners," I said, smiling. "We're just as capable of making a mess as anyone who's working-class. Maybe more, because they have limits on how much they can spend."
"Yeah, no kidding. Someone managed to get some duck pate up on the ceiling." Tanner sounded somewhere between appalled and impressed. "I don't even know how they got it up there – the ballroom ceilings are twelve feet up!"
"So..." I felt myself wavering. "You had a good time last night, right?"
Oh god, I sounded like a strangely insecure hooker! I had to fight to keep from groaning and dropping my face down into the nearest cushion so that I could muffle a scream. Tanner paused for a second before answering.
"Yeah, I did," he said, sounding rather cautious, as if he feared that he was stepping into some sort of verbal trap. That wasn't what I intended! I was just too much of a chicken to ask him what I really wanted to say! "It was... a good break to a streak."
I didn't know if he was talking about a streak for him, or for me. Maybe for both of us. "Yes, I think so." Silence again loomed as I winced and dug my nails into my palm, trying to force the words out of my mouth that didn't want to appear. "So..."
"Are you okay, Helen?"
Oh my god, I was totally screwing this up. Julius had appeared in the doorway of the living room, a tray in his hands with a sandwich and a bowl of soup on it, but he paused at the contorted expression on my face. I forced my features to smooth themselves out, gestured at the table where he could set the food.
"Yes, I'm okay," I got out. I took a deep breath, let it out, tried to calm my rapidly beating heart. "Listen, Tanner, could I see you again?" There, I'd gotten it out. "Maybe this Friday, for example?"
I held my breath, trying to brace myself against his rejection. Oh god, I shouldn't have asked. I should have just waited on him, not been so forward! What was I doing? I didn't know anything about dating etiquette – I'd been out of the game forever! He was going to think that I was foolish, that I was just throwing myself at him, would see me as needy and clinging to him only because no one else had made a move on the damn Black Widow since her husband passed away-
"I'd like that," Tanner said, and I had to blink, wondering if I'd just hallucinated his words. Was there such a thing as an auditory hallucination?
"Really?" I exclaimed before I could stop myself.
"Yeah, really. If you're willing to let me take you out. If you're willing to be seen in public with me."
"Of course I am!" I burst out, feeling delighted bubbles rise inside my chest, as if I'd just downed an entire bottle of champagne. "This Friday, then. It's a date!"
"Great!" he replied. "I'll plan to drop by and pick you up." He paused for a second. "Listen, though, I don't always go to super-nice restaurants, though. As a writer," he added quickly.
"I understand," I assured him. "You need to connect with the common man for your books. You can't do that at normal restaurants, so you need to go to cheaper places. Joints, they're called, right?"
He laughed, although I wasn't quite sure why. "Yeah, that's right. Is that okay with you? Slumming it at a place where the wine list isn't as long as my arm?"
"As long as it's with you, I'm happy to go," I told him, and I meant it.
"Grea
t. I'll give you a call on Friday to confirm, then?"
"Bye, Tanner," I said, and ended the call with a smile. I turned and beamed up at Julius, who hovered near me with concern evident on the deep lines of his face. "I've got a date!"
"Very good, Mrs. O'Callahan," he replied, and his graveness made me laugh again. "Congratulations."
I gave him a big smile as I dug into the soup and sandwich he'd brought me, not even bothering to correct him on using the wrong title for me. Already, I was thinking ahead – to flowers in the garden, to looking forward all week to this date, to getting to see Tanner again and listen to him talk with such passion about his story and his devotion to his work.
I could barely wait.
Chapter Fourteen
TANNER
*
Oh no. I'm in such deep shit that I can't even tell which way is up, much less see the sky. I'm not just in a hole – they've already started burying me alive.
For a minute, I just sat on the sofa in the sitting room beside my bedroom, staring down blankly at the cordless phone receiver resting on my lap. I'd just spoken with Helen, right after I told myself that I couldn't possibly see her again, couldn't have anything to do with her. Even more than just speaking with her – I'd agreed to take her out on a date this coming Friday!
What the hell had I been thinking?
I hadn't been thinking at all, I corrected that last thought. That was obvious. Helen and I belonged in different worlds, even putting aside the whole "Black Widow, may have offed her past husband" deal. And if I remembered the conversations from last night and this morning, she also thought that I had been another guest at the Poverty Ball rather than an employee, that I was fabulously wealthy rather than having barely twenty bucks to my name!
Putting aside all other concerns, I couldn't even afford to take her out on a date, at least not the type that she probably imagined as normal! I couldn't afford a single bottle of champagne, not unless it came in a bottle with a screw top!
For Love of Passion (Stone Brothers Book 4) Page 9