From the Moment We Met (18 page)

“Thanks, you saved me a trip,” Abby said, taking a seat next to him. “I figured he was avoiding my calls so I was going to stop by. Surprise him.”

He sent her a sidelong look. “He would have just had Roz tell you he was out.”

“But you knew he’d answer if you called?”

Tanner shrugged.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I thought you left.”

“I did, then I realized I forgot my swatches for my meeting with Babs later. But I heard you laughing and it was the same kind of laugh you gave when my brothers were threatening to kick your ass, so I wanted to make sure they weren’t paying you another visit.”

At that he laughed, and this time it was real. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a pretty big guy.” To prove it he held his hand out, palm down. “Your brothers aren’t even tall enough to reach my face.”

Marc was, but Tanner could totally take him.

Then Abby did something that had his chest tightening even further. She laced her tiny fingers through his and squeezed. “I wasn’t afraid for your face, Jack. I was afraid they’d say something to hurt your feelings.”

“Don’t worry about me, Abs. My delicate man feelings are intact.”

Although he was afraid his heart no longer was. Not after that one sentence. Not after the way she’d said it—as if he was important to her. As if his happiness was important to her. Not because she needed something from him, but because she wanted to make sure he was okay. Make sure he knew that he meant something to her.

Tanner was on the cusp of having everything he’d always wanted, and while that had something catching high in his chest, it also scared the shit out of him.

CHAPTER 12

A
n hour and a half later, Abby stood in the back room of Valley Textiles, staring at the gold-leafed tile sample Babs placed on the counter and hoping to God the woman was joking. Out of the thousands of tiles to choose from, the woman had picked the most expensive and obnoxious tile available. Not to mention it was a special order—which meant extra ship time.

“It’s just so bright and happy,” Babs said, flipping through the fabric catalogue as though they hadn’t already exhausted it an hour ago. “Everyone needs more happy in their day, right? Happy people make happy customers.”

Normally Abby would entertain the idea, try to figure out a way to incorporate a tile more fitted toward Her Royal Highness’s loo than a cheese and wine tasting room with the already agreed-upon rustic earthy pallet. But today her patience was in limited supply.

Maybe it had something to do with Babs’s suggestion to paint over the nineteenth-century handcrafted bricks that covered the Roman cross-vault ceiling. Or how their ten-minute “finalize the order” meeting had turned into Babs selecting a whole new creative direction based on the excitement level in The Duke’s eyes.

Either way, Abby needed to get this design train back on track before they ended up with a Liberace-inspired cheese shop.

“I really think we should stick with the reclaimed limestone in the original designs,” Abby said, keeping a watchful eye on the way The Duke inched closer every time she shot down one of Babs’s ridiculous suggestions. When she explained that replacing the factory windows with stained glass ones altered the historical integrity of the building, Abby thought she was going to lose a hand. “It pairs so beautifully with the distressed brick walls and the hammered steel countertops Tanner is making out of the old steel doors.”

Babs flapped her hand as though unconcerned with how changing direction this far into the game could affect the timeline. “We can always change the countertops. In fact, I love the idea of maybe using dark wood, like the whole counter is one big cutting board. Very Western style, so it could match the barstools, which I think will be the pièce de résistance of the room.”

Only if that room were a saloon in the Wild West, Abby thought as she looked at the picture of barstools Babs had been clutching to her chest all afternoon.

“Is that goat hide?”

“Yes, aren’t they lovely? I found them on this website last night and just knew they’d be perfect. You know, cheese shop . . . goat hide . . . get it?”

Oh, Abby got it. Just like she got that, if left to Babs’s whims, the Pungent Barrel would be boycotted by every animal activist group on the planet. Because they weren’t just goat-hide-covered seats; the feet of the barstools looked to be made of hooves. “You don’t think eating on the carcass of the animal that provided the food might ruin people’s appetite?”

Babs actually had the gall to look horrified, as though Abby were the insensitive one. The Duke just bared his teeth.

“I think people will find it a fun play on cheese shop couture.”

“Well,” Abby said, relieved to see the fine print. “It says here all stools are handcrafted at time of order, and due to flux in herd size”—
gross
—“to expect four to six months delivery.”

“What’s a few more months when the goal is perfection?” Babs said with dramatic flair.

Abby took a breath. If she could get Babs to stick with the original plan, they could be open next month. She was sure of it.

“It’s a goal we can accomplish in a fraction of the time by sticking to the original designs. But I like this idea of the goatskin,” she added.

Babs blanched a little. “You do?”

No, not really. And suddenly, Abby wasn’t so sure Babs did either. Which made no sense.

“What if we ordered one for the shop office?” Abby ventured. “We could even get a few of the gold tiles and use them as the top for the shop desk. Maybe even go a little flashier with the hardware. That way you get everything you want and we still stay on schedule. Because in the end, that’s why you hired me, right? To keep this project on budget and on schedule?”

Babs nodded, but didn’t look convinced. Her eyes scanned all of the tiles and swatches and yards and yards of fabric bolts. Then she picked up the packet of samples Abby had compiled for the proposal and thumbed through them—yet again. It was as if the woman would rather stand there for the next year exploring possibilities than make a decision.

“You want this to be an elegant shop that people come from all over to visit, then talk about. And I want to give that to you,” Abby said with so much confidence even she believed herself. “With these designs, I can.”

“I don’t know,” Babs said, her eyes big with uncertainty and maybe a little touch of sadness. And for the first time since she’d taken this job, Abby noticed how lost the woman appeared. “Maybe we should wait until Ferris sees these. I took pictures of the samples and your preliminary designs, even figured out how to send them to him via that interweb, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

A small knot of panic settled low in her belly at the word
preliminary
. As far as Abby was concerned, those designs were final. “Does Ferris usually weigh in on these kinds of things?”

“No,” Babs said, her apricot halo bouncing with each shake of the head. “But my Leroy used to sit for hours with me, making sure every decision was right. This is the first project I’m doing without him.”

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.