by Peggy Bird
She laughed. “I wish my brothers could hear you. They think the way I do things is the wrong way. They say I’ve spent all my adult life purposely avoiding looking ahead.”
“That’s not true, is it?”
“Like a lot of things, there’s an element of truth in it. I haven’t planned my life out, not the way you describe you have. I’ve always done what my family wanted me to do, been the perfect daughter. What I wanted to do myself sort of fell by the wayside at some point.”
“What was it you wanted to do?”
“Write. But it’s hard to support yourself with writing fiction until you have a name and a few books under your belt. I ended up running the family’s real estate office in California until I moved to Portland to take care of ailing parents.”
“How’d you connect with Summer?”
“At a luncheon. We clicked, and she hired me to ghost letters for her clients.”
Immediately, an expression of fear took over from the other expressions on Taylor’s face.
• • •
Shit. Not only does she work for Summer but she writes the damn letters. Suppose she was the one who wrote Allison’s letter? No, fate wouldn’t be that cruel. He had to end this conversation right now.
Luckily, their food arrived, and the need to change subjects was buried in their appreciation of the excellent meals. Topping it off with coffee and a shared cobbler, the subject of her work with BU/MU didn’t come up again. Thank God.
It didn’t surface as they wandered through the Olympic Sculpture Garden either. One of Taylor’s favorite places in the city, he led Isabella to the pieces he loved the most—the pair of giant eyes, the huge abstract design by Louise Bourgeois, the ampersand, all set against the backdrop of the Puget Sound. It was a perfect day. No rain, a bit of sun peeking through the clouds and reflecting off the water. It was chilly but not cold enough to want to be inside. Which was a good thing. The PACCAR Pavilion, where more of the art was exhibited, was closed to the public because a wedding was taking place there.
Usually being with a woman anywhere near a wedding made Taylor skittish. Too much chance an inappropriate woman would get ideas he didn’t want her to have. But this time, he wasn’t nervous. Isabella commented on what a lovely venue it was for a wedding ceremony, he agreed, and they went back to looking at massive sculptures. No further discussion. No uncomfortable silences. No meaningful glances at left hands and ring fingers.
He didn’t stop to think why having her comment on a wedding didn’t bother him. Any more than he stopped to think why he’d always been drawn to the sculpture called “Father and Son.”
As they walked away from the building, a buzz came from his phone. “Sorry, I have to take this,” he said when he saw who was calling.
“Not a problem. I’ll be over by the ampersand when you’re finished. I didn’t get a photo of it.”
A couple minutes later, he joined her. “As much as I hate to end this, I have to get you home. My evening mentoring session got moved up to an hour from now.”
“Mentoring? With whom?” she asked, then quickly added, “You don’t have to tell me, of course. It’s really none of my business.”
“There’s no reason not to tell you. I mentor the owners of a couple small—as in, one person—businesses.”
“I didn’t know MBA worked with such small companies. I’m impressed.”
“We don’t. I’m part of a volunteer, nonprofit program that does.”
“Aren’t you competing with your own firm?”
He laughed. “None of the businesses I’ve ever worked with would have the resources to hire MBA, which is the point of the program. It provides services for microbusinesses that need the help MBA could give them but can’t afford to retain the company.”
“And your colleagues don’t object?”
“The program was started by MBA’s founder, and I’m not the only one in the firm who participates.”
“Amazing.”
“We’re not quite as altruistic as it might sound. A number of the companies we’ve mentored got big enough to need MBA’s help with expansion planning.”
“Still. Pretty impressive.”
“So, now you don’t mind cutting our date short?”
“How can I when you’re off on your white horse to save a microbusiness owner from disaster?”
The memory of his father announcing at the dinner table the latest failure in a long line of business debacles, necessitating yet another move for his family, flashed through his mind. “I do the best I can.”
Chapter Fourteen
There it was again. The glazed-over look. He was someplace else. One of these times, she’d figure out what brought it on and she’d know his secrets. God knows he had them.
When he walked her to the door of her apartment, he leaned in to kiss her, but this time, it wasn’t the hot, passionate kiss she’d been looking forward to. It was softer, almost brotherly. Certainly distracted, like the cloudy look in his eyes. He didn’t wait for her to open the door before leaving, saying, “Talk to you soon.”
“Wait. I haven’t thanked you.” She touched his arm to stop him. “It was another lovely day. Thank you for the delicious brunch. And your guide services.”
“My pleasure. Again. I enjoy showing off the city to such a receptive audience.” Something in their interchange seemed to have shaken off whatever his mood had been because he smiled. “And I think we can call it what it really was, don’t you?”
“Which is?” The hopeful feeling sprouted again as she waited for his answer.
“A date. I’m pretty sure it was a date.”
“I was sure last weekend, but I didn’t want to frighten you by insisting on calling it that.”
“Knights on white horses don’t frighten as easily as you seem to think we do.” His blue eyes had the summer sky in them again.
“Well, then, thank you for our date.” She went up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek, just to have a chance to be close to him, to feel his warmth and smell the aftershave he wore. He must have felt the same way because he held her close when she tried to back away.
“I’m sorry I have to leave.”
She could feel his heartbeat, strong and steady against her. “I wish you could stay, too. Maybe next time.”
He pulled back far enough to look at her face. “Are you saying there’ll be a next time?”
“Unless you think otherwise.”
He answered by returning her to a close embrace and kissing the top of her head.
Without moving from his arms, she said, “I was thinking I wanted to celebrate next week after the planning commission hearing.” She could immediately feel his body become tense. When she looked up at him, he had another unreadable expression on his face.
“Yeah, I imagine you and Summer will be ready to celebrate.”
“Well, yes, on Wednesday night, we’ll have dinner together. I was thinking of a more personal celebration on the weekend. Maybe a two-fold deal.”
“What kind of deal did you have in mind?”
“I thought I’d like to celebrate the end of our troubles with the city and to thank you for your tour guide services for the past two weekends. Maybe make dinner for us here at my place.” She put her hand on his chest and looked him directly in the eye. “What do you think?” She thought she could see not just the beginning of curiosity in his expression but also the release of some of the tension that had been visible in his jaw.
“It sounds great. I mean, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“It would be a pleasure, not trouble. I love to cook. And I bet you’ve never had homemade Cuban food.”
The real Taylor was fully returned in the laugh that broke out. “I’ve never had non-homemade Cuban food, if there is such a thing. I’d be a fool to turn down an invitation to have the real thing. What time shall I be here, and what kind of wine goes with Cuban food?”
“Be here at seven, and bring whatever you like to drink. I�
�m flexible and so’s my food.”
• • •
After months of pushing, shoving, and doing everything but laying siege to the planning department to get their zoning change, the hearing the following Wednesday went so smoothly and quickly, Bella had to wonder what all the fuss had been about.
Mrs. Pennington, the neighborhood association president, was, as they’d been told in advance, the only person testifying in opposition. She objected to the rezoning because it didn’t fit into the planning documents adopted by the city and because there had already been too many commercial rezonings of residences in their neighborhood.
But Summer had done such an excellent job of presenting their proposal, complete with testimonials from their neighbors in Portland, the zoning change was granted with little discussion among the planning commissioners. The only limit was they were not to employ more than four full-time employees. The number was written into the neighborhood land use plan as a way to mitigate parking problems that might occur when businesses took over space in a residential neighborhood. Summer had already known of the restriction when she’d bought the house. Four people were more than enough to run her business, now and for the foreseeable future.
At dinner that evening, Bella and Summer celebrated their win. And strategized what the next steps were.
“What should we do about Mrs. Pennington?” Bella asked.
“I tried to talk to her after the vote, but she hightailed it out of the building before she could be trapped into a conversation,” Summer responded. “I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to talk to us.”
“I’ll see what I can do to track her down. Maybe the city staff can help me.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Summer said. “We won. She lost. We don’t need her anymore.”
“We don’t need her, but it would be smart to see if we could at least neutralize her, if not get her on our side. Otherwise, every little thing we do, from painting the porch to putting up a sign, will be another opportunity for her to complain about us.”
“You might be right, but I hate to see you beat your head against this particular stone wall when it could be a waste of time.”
“I don’t mind trying to mend fences if it makes it easier to do business in the neighborhood.”
“Given how angry the woman looked after the vote was taken, this fence has a hole to mend big enough to drive a herd of cattle through,” Summer said. “But have at it, girlfriend. You’ve done everything else you’ve set out to do so far. I don’t doubt you can pull this off, too.”
Before Summer returned to Portland the next day, Bella walked her through what would be happening to the building now that they had the zoning change. They picked out furniture, decided on a phone service, and began to plan for a formal opening. Everything was humming along nicely.
Everything except trying to track down Mrs. Pennington, Bella discovered after Summer left. She couldn’t get any more traction than her boss had. There was no listing online for her. When she contacted the planning staffer she’d been working with, he wouldn’t give out a phone number. The office of the city neighborhood association hemmed and hawed about giving her a contact number, saying it was against city policy to hand out personal telephone numbers. Finally, the second woman she was referred to took pity on her and made a suggestion: she’d give Bella’s phone number and e-mail address to the woman in question and let her decide if she wanted to make contact. It wasn’t what Bella wanted, but it was better than nothing.
In the meantime, she continued to work her way through the list of former BU/MU clients around the Puget Sound to contact for testimonials. And there were dozens of possibilities. She didn’t know why she was surprised there were so many. The whole reason for Summer to expand her business had been the increasing demand for her services in this part of the Northwest.
She set up appointments with several small businesses ranging from a cupcake bakery wanting to merge with a wedding cake bakery to the founders of a cyber security firm who had worked through a way to split the firm into two distinct and noncompeting businesses when the founders had disagreements on the future of the company.
Then there were the individuals: husbands who wanted to get back together with estranged wives. Girlfriends who wanted to break it off with their boyfriends. Boyfriends who wanted to tell their boyfriends how they felt but wanted something with a bit more pizzazz than a simple “I love you.”
Her favorites were the letters to and from animals: dogs that wanted to find a mate or, conversely, wanted another dog to stay out of their territory. A parakeet that needed company. There were never requests from cats, she noticed. Cats never seemed to care enough about anyone or anything else to bother to send a letter.
By the end of the day on Friday, she had appointments set for the following week with more than a dozen former clients all around the Puget Sound. She was obviously going to spend most of the week driving from Tacoma to Everett, as well as a few towns and neighborhoods around Seattle. She was looking forward to it. Traveling around for her appointments would help her get to know the area better. Taylor had inspired her to explore a little more, and she was excited about doing some of it herself, even if she’d loved having him show her around for the past few weeks.
She’d started out with an easy phone call—Allison Lindberg. She was meeting her for coffee on Monday, and she was looking forward to reconnecting with her. Not only did she hope to pick up an endorsement from Allison for their brochure but she hoped to find out what had happened with Teej.
Her satisfaction from her successful week must have bubbled over on the phone Friday evening when her brother Javier called to check in with her. Because the second thing he said, after “How you doing?” was “What’s making you so happy? You find some guy or something?” Then he laughed.
Which infuriated her. It was bad enough one of her brothers called every week to check up on her. To assume only being with a guy would make her happy then to laugh at the idea she might be was too much.
“Remind me again why you’re my favorite brother?” she said.
“Oh, come on, Bella. I’m joking.” He paused for a moment. “Or maybe I shouldn’t make a joke about something serious. Is there someone?”
“Why would it take a guy to make me happy? Why wouldn’t I be happy because, oh, I don’t know, maybe because my job’s going well and I’m loving Seattle? How about that for a reason to be happy?”
“Jesus, okay. I didn’t mean to make you go ballistic. So, the job’s going well?”
Now he was trying to calm her down. If he’d been sitting next to her, he would have stroked her arm. “Yes, it’s going great. We finally got the rezoning done, and the renovations are underway. I’m putting together a marketing brochure after I interview our clients from the area for testimonials. And I’ve lined up a pool of counselors, attorneys, and writers to use when the office opens in a few months. In fact, it should open in time for my birthday. Which, I might add, will be much better this year than the last one was.”
There was silence at Javier’s end of the call. “Are you still there?” she asked.
“Yup. I was waiting to make sure you were finished telling me how wonderful you are before I said anything.”
“Oh, crap, Javier. You are so full of it.”
“But I can always make you laugh, can’t I?”
“Yes, you can.” Now it was her turn to be quiet for a moment.
“I’m sensing there’s more to this story.”
She sighed. “Yes, there is. Actually, I have met someone. He’s a partner with MBA Consulting, the firm we’ve hired to develop a marketing plan for us. He’s been showing me around Seattle a little.”
“I knew it. The sound of your voice practically reeked sex. What do you know about him? When did you plan to tell us about him? Where’s he from? We have to meet him.”
“Hold it. No sex. Not in my voice. Not in my life. He’s a nice guy, from Seattle.”
“Surel
y you know more than that about him. You can’t be that naive.”
Trying to deflect her brother’s interest, she said, “I know Marius Hernandez likes him.” At least, if Marius was willing to set her up with him, she assumed he liked Taylor.
“That’s something, I guess. Maybe I’ll call Marius and see what he has to say about this guy. What’s his name?”
“Don’t you dare call Marius.”
“Okay, I’ll come see you instead and make you introduce us.”
“You come here, and I’ll tell Sandra Daniels you’re on your way and arrange for her to be here to greet you.”
“That was over ... Wait. How’d you know about Sandra and me? What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything. But you just did.” She couldn’t help the smug tone to her voice. “Here’s the deal, brother mine: You stay out of my life, and I won’t interfere in yours.”
“I don’t have much choice since I have too much going on here to make good on my threat to come to Seattle anyway. And I’m not trying to interfere. We all worry about you. You’re on your own for the first time in your life, and we know nothing about what you’re up to. Not to mention not knowing who you’re going out with. Maybe this guy’s all wrong for you.”
“I don’t think so, but whether he is or isn’t, I’ll figure it out for myself. Look, Javier, I’ve got a job I love, and I’m doing it well. I’m living in a place I love. And I’m dating a nice guy. This is what you all told me you wanted, isn’t it? So what’s the problem?”
Silence again, then it was his turn to sigh. “Yeah, that’s what we said. The problem is, I’m not sure until now I understood what it really meant.”
Chapter Fifteen
Bella spent most of Saturday prepping for the dinner she was making for Taylor that evening. Her apartment needed serious attention before she was comfortable having anyone see the mess she’d created while she focused on work over the past few weeks. Well, work and weekends consisting of one day of fun with Taylor and another day of mooning over him like a teenager. No mooning today. Only getting things in order.