Touch Me and Tango (2 page)

She looked away and said, “What happened to the grocery
store that used to be there?”

“Gone.”

“Well, between my mom’s broken leg, her revoked drivers
license, and her obsessive dieting, I doubt the food supply at the house will
be up to much. ”

He couldn’t stop the spontaneous grin.

Seeing his smile, Tanya lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, I know. I
still eat like a horse.”

She’d always been ravenous. For everything.

Their eyes locked on each other’s in silence.

“It’s strange to be back here,” she murmured. Was he
imagining it, or was her tone seductive, her gaze an invitation?

He’d convinced himself what had happened between them
wouldn’t matter anymore. Convinced himself he was over her. Finished. Done. But
seeing her standing there now, hearing that soft, intoxicating voice, it all
came rushing back.

Every kiss, every touch, every word.

Including the bitter ones that had ended it all.

Forcing himself to make a move, he stepped back. Last thing
he needed was another round with Scarlett O’Hara incarnate. “Gotta go.” He turned
and headed off—filled with that same overwhelming sense of loss he’d felt the
last time he walked away from her.

***

Tanya drove past white farmhouses set on acres of green.
When most people thought of eastern Long Island they thought of the Hamptons,
that Malibu of the east, seashore playground to Manhattan’s rich and famous.
That’s the South Fork. The North Fork was a more rural, downhome place, a
collection of farming and fishing villages and quaint towns with a slight New
England feel. It was also called the Napa Valley of the east, thanks to the forty-plus
vineyards that had sprung up along this narrow strip of land between Long
Island Sound and Peconic Bay.

The old neighborhood looked pretty much the same with the
exception of a few new houses sitting on a stretch of land that once belonged
to a farmer named Ben Rayson. That landmark signaled it wouldn’t be long before
the wrought iron fence marking the parameters of the Gentilliano estate came
into view.

When she saw it, Tanya was suddenly back in her teens,
arriving from Manhattan for the weekend, her parents in the front seat of the
Mercedes, completely unaware of their daughter’s fierce anticipation of her
secret meetings with the gardener’s outrageously sexy son.

Truth was she still fantasized about him after all these
years. She wondered about the strange reunion she just had with him.

She’d known right away it was Parker when she’d caught sight
of that tall, powerfully built frame with his easy, athletic stride. That
unkempt crop of dusky brown waves curling like sweet caresses about his face and
neck. The sculpted angles of his face that she’d always adored seemed sharper,
harder. More manly, she supposed. Other than that he hadn’t changed a bit.

Her body’s reaction to him hadn’t changed either. Too bad
she conveniently forgot how cruel she’d been to him. No surprise that he would
still harbor resentment toward her. That had to be the reason he was so
standoffish.

She tried to ignore the tiny needle prick of worry telling
her he just wasn’t attracted to her anymore.

Tanya knew she looked like hell today. Her straight
shoulder-length hair hung in greasy strands. She’d eaten off all her lipstick.
The baggy pants and blazer she’d worn for comfort on the long, overseas flight
now looked like she’d slept in them. (Which of course she had.)

Was that enough to send her tumbling off the pedestal he’d
once placed her on? And why did it matter? Why did something inside her
desperately need to know that she could still unravel him? And what was this
ridiculous wistful yearning for something she couldn’t put her finger on?

She knew it was Mark’s marriage proposal that had started
all this. She just didn’t know what “all this” actually was.

Tanya glided the car to a stop at a double gate of
curly-cued wrought iron. She reached out her window, keyed in the code and
waited for the gates to open. Aside from a deep, unpleasant humming sound,
nothing happened. After one more try she called her mother’s cell.

“Tanya? Where are you?”

“I’m at the front gate. You changed the code?”

“No, dear. You just have to give the gate a little nudge”

“A nudge? Okay.” Tanya knew the gate was old. It had been
there as long as she could remember. Cell to her ear, she left her car and
half-heartedly shoved at the gate with her right foot. “Not moving, Mom.”

“Don’t be gentle. Give it a good kick.”

“Fine.” Tanya stepped back, prepared herself, then uncorked
a dancer’s version of a spinning back kick, her new Sketchers absorbing the
impact and sparing her foot.

A faint moaning noise. A series of small clanks.

Geez
.

The gates swung open and she hopped into the car, reigning
in her naturally critical tendencies. After all, she’d come here to help her
mother. Maybe she just didn’t have time to deal with a repairman, being injured
and all.

But halfway down the long, winding drive through the wooded
area that led to the house, she had to slow the car to a crawl in order to
steer around a fallen tree that lay across the road. And when she came to what
used to be a beautiful yard with a neatly trimmed lawn and landscaped garden,
she instead saw a grassland so deep trekkers would need to send up rescue
flares to get airlifted back to civilization.

What was going on here?

Tanya pulled the car up to a wide semi-circular porch that
was flanked by two rectangular wings of her mother’s sixteen-room Neoclassical-style
house. She’d always thought it looked like a wedding cake with its third level
tower and a surface all creamy and white.

Not today. Built in the twenties, the place naturally had
some wear, but it didn’t take an expert from
This Old House
to see it screamed for some big time renovation.
Like a sand blasting and a paint job for starters. One shutter hung loose. A
broken pane of glass in a third floor window. And the second floor balcony she
used to love was missing part of the railing.

Was she going to encounter her mother looming about among
cobwebs like Miss Havisham?

She climbed the broad steps and walked into the central
foyer, lifting her chin to gaze up at the high domed ceiling. No musty gloom or
cobwebs. Instead she was greeted by soft April sunshine filtering through the
skylight and the smell of coffee.

And a waddling, copper-colored dachshund.

“Oh, Oscar, you’re getting to be such an old man.” Tanya
squatted and scrubbed his head and ears.

Same oriental rugs on the floor. And the marble-topped
credenza to her right had the same blue Wedgewood vase and a carved wooden bowl
for keys. She tossed her keys into it and checked herself in the gilt-framed
wall mirror. Yep, she looked as ratty as she’d thought.

“Tannie?”

Hearing the chair creak and a slight grunt, she hurried into
the living room. “Don’t get up, Mom.”

“But I need to give my precious girl a hug.” Eva Rubikoff
Gentilliano let her crutches fall with a clump and reached out. Tanya wrapped
her arms around the bone-thin woman, realizing just how much she’d missed
having her mother in her life.

Living abroad for the past decade, Tanya had at first been
caught up in her ballroom dance training. Working hard at competitions, moving
from amateur to professional, and finally to recognized international star.
Then she’d rushed onto the touring circuit, never turning down a booking,
performing and teaching constantly. Living like a manic gypsy, her home a
string of hotel rooms, her men a blur of faces she didn’t even remember.

Which suited her. She got bored easily and needed excitement
and change. Tanya didn’t do love. She’d thought moving in with Mark might
change that. But it hadn’t. She just happened to find someone a lot like
herself.

“It’s been too long,” her mother said, no doubt sensing her thoughts.
“I’m so sorry I had to cancel my annual visit.” Once a year Eva usually met her
daughter in some European city where they’d spend a week together.

“That’s okay,” Tanya said, her arm around her mom’s waist.
She eased her back onto the kidney-shaped sofa and plunked down next to her,
Oscar at their feet. “You said you had other plans.”

“I lied.” Her mother’s tone was uncharacteristically blunt.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t afford to make the trip and didn’t want you to
know. But now that you’re here I’ll tell you the truth. I asked you to come
home because I need your help.”

“Well, of course. That’s why I came.”

“No. Not for this stupid leg of mine.”

“Your alcohol problem?” Tanya reached for her hand.

Eva pulled it away. “I do
not
have an alcohol problem. Yes, I had a few glasses of wine the
night of my accident. But that is not the reason I hit that tree. I was
worried. Preoccupied. You know how I can get sometimes.”

Did she ever. Growing up, she’d seen her mother as the
ultimate ditzy blonde. Scattered, unfocused and often doing or saying things
that used to put Tanya and her dad in stitches. Her mom’s grasp of real world
matters was often somewhere between Costanza on Seinfeld and a character in a
Judd Apatow flick. Tanya figured that was why Eva had let her husband manage
the considerable wealth she’d inherited.

Big mistake.

“I hope it wasn’t me you were worried about.”

Eva gave her an affectionate pat on the cheek. “No. I know
you can take care of yourself. You’re smart and cunning like your father. But
I’m glad you don’t have his selfish mean streak.”

Tanya wasn’t so sure. She’d been the apple of Daddy’s eye
and so eager to please him she’d grown up emulating his treacherous,
self-serving ways. Who knew what kind of person she would have become if her
father hadn’t run off with a younger, richer woman after his risky investments
depleted the bulk of her mother’s funds. “So, what is this help you need from
me?”

“I’m broke, Tannie. Clean out of money.”

“Okay. I have a savings account. It’s not much, but—”

“Even if I accepted your offer, which I won’t, it wouldn’t
be enough. My debts are huge. Taxes alone on this place are over twenty
thousand annually, and I’m behind a few years.”

“A few years? How did Joel let that happen? He’s always been
such a dependable money manager.”

Her mother sighed. “Cupcake, I never told you about my
little falling out with Joel.”

“And you never hired someone new?”

“I forgot. And then things got so confusing and, well, I was
too embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?”

“You know how you father used to insinuate I wasn’t too
bright. I didn’t want some stranger thinking—”

“That’s idiotic.”

“You sound just like him. If you’re going to insult me you
can go right back to London.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.” She softened her tone. “I just think you
should have some kind of money manager.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter because now I can’t afford
one and there’s nothing left to manage.”

Tanya massaged the bridge of her nose. A headache was coming
on. Big surprise.

A gentle hand rubbed her back. “Hungry? I made chicken salad
sandwiches. Not as good as Sylvia used to make, of course.”

“So sad that she passed away. You never hired anyone to
replace her, did you?”

“No one could. She started working for me before you were
born. Besides, I can’t afford to hire help anymore. I just wish my cooking
weren’t so awful.”

“So do I. But who’s perfect?” Tanya gazed up at a face so
like her own. Although she had her father’s olive skin and dark eyes, she was
grateful to have inherited her mother’s gold-blonde hair and her Russian high
cheekbones. But this afternoon Mom looked tired. She wasn’t wearing her usual
makeup, and her short-cropped hair showed a bit of pillow head. “Do I smell
coffee?”

Eva smiled. “I made it fresh when you called.”

As they walked to the kitchen, she refused Tanya’s arm. “I
can get around pretty well. That’s not why I asked you to come home. I need you
to take on a much bigger project.”

Tanya headed for the coffeemaker and poured two cups. “You
mean selling the house.”

Eva dropped into a kitchen chair and glared at her. “No. I
am
not
selling this house. I will
never
sell this house.”

“But you just told me you can’t pay your taxes. You should
sell the property fast, before the government puts a lien on it. You could live
quite well on—”

“This house came from
my
family,” she growled. “Just like everything else we ever had. And your father
took it all from me. I remember how angry you were when he sold our gorgeous
Manhattan apartment to bail himself out after wasting my money on his sleazy
schemes. Not to mention spending it on other women. If my grandma hadn’t
insisted this house’s deed stay in my name alone, Lord knows where we’d be
right now.”

She leveled a sorrowful gaze at Tanya. “I know how badly
your father hurt you when he abandoned us. You think I couldn’t see you were
spiting him when you quit that Ivy League school he wanted you in so badly?
When you dumped that rich little boyfriend you didn’t really like and ran off
to live like a gypsy dancer?”

Her mom called it right, but there was even more to it. There
was the Parker Richardson piece of the puzzle that Tanya didn’t want to reveal
just now. She added milk to a cup of coffee and set it in front of her mother.
“I know, but I don’t see any other way out. This house is your only asset.”

Eva gave a bitter laugh. “This house was my only triumph in
the battle with your father. Giving it up will mean he won. And if that happens
I’ll walk into the Sound and let my leg cast take me down.”

“Mom!” Tanya hoped her mother was just being dramatic, but
she wasn’t about to take any chances. “It won’t come to that. I promise. I’ll
do whatever I can. Get a job around here. Sell our furniture, jewelry…”