by Nancy Warren
She rolled her gaze. "Very funny. Towels are in the bathroom in the long cupboard."
He thanked her briefly, and headed to the only door that could possibly lead to her bedroom.
Everything about Tasmine's bedroom said that she was a romantic. She had a big bed, the bedspread in a pale hue of purple that glowed with the sheen of silk. It was pretty obvious that her furniture came from that fancy furniture company she worked for. It was a lot nicer than what most people her age could afford. He was about to head for the bathroom when he stopped dead in his tracks.
"What the hell?" He must've said the words louder than he realized for Tasmine came running in.
"What's the matter?" Then she followed his gaze to where a very familiar bridal gown hung on her bedroom wall, mounted the way a big game hunter might mount a trophy.
Her hand flew to her cheek. "Oh my gosh, I forgot that was there. I'm so sorry. Is it painful for you?"
The last time he'd seen that gown, it had been hanging in Ashley's room, after his bride-to-be-had abandoned it, and him.
But, there had always been something kind of unreal about that whole wedding thing and, the way things had turned out, he thought he was going to be a whole lot better off. And he hoped Ashley would be too. "No. Not painful exactly. Doesn’t bring back the greatest memories. But what's it doing here?"
She had that kind of fair skin that when she blushed, there was no denying her discomfort. "Ashley’s aunt Millicent didn't want the dress, in fact, she wanted it gone, right off the property. Ashley’s mom didn't want it either so she asked me to get rid of it. But it's such a beautiful gown. It really is a piece of art. So I thought I'd try hanging it on the wall."
He looked at the gown for a moment. He couldn't imagine going to bed and waking up with a great big dress hanging on his wall, but he was the first one to admit he didn't know much about art. Or fashion. He made a noncommittal sound, and continued on his way to the bathroom.
He stood gratefully under the pounding hot water, showering off the dirt and some of the fatigue of the day. Her towels were big, fluffy and purple. He pulled out the shaving kit he always kept in his gym bag, combed his hair, brushed his teeth, put on a clean pair of jeans and a clean shirt and felt like a new man.
When he walked into her main room, he discovered that while he was in the shower she’d changed her own clothes. She also wore jeans, and a blue shirt made of some kind of stretchy material with an alluring V in the front. She had taken her hair down so it hung in loose curls around her shoulders, exactly the way he liked it, but of course she didn't know that.
She had her laptop open and was drinking a glass of water. "I was just checking my email. Word’s really got around about me. I've been asked to be a bridesmaid four more times this summer."
"That's a lot of weddings.”
"I know. It's a nice side hustle for me. I get to wear pretty dresses and go to parties and I get paid for it.”
Since he’d seen her at work on his own wedding, he knew how much effort went into her second job. He liked that she was such a go-getter. In fact, there was a lot he liked about Tasmine. "I wish somebody would pay me to go to weddings. I seem to have one every other weekend. I wonder if we're at any of the same ones?"
"I don't know." She pushed a couple keys on her laptop and up came a color-coded schedule on a calendar app. "Have a look.” She stood. “Do you want water?"
"Sure." He scanned through the names and sure enough saw a familiar one. "You're doing Donovan and Kylie’s wedding?”
"Yes, I am. I think probably it was Ashley who told Kylie about me."
"Well, now at least I’ll have a reason to look forward to that one."
She handed him the water and didn’t answer since she had no idea what to say.
He perused the calendar some more. “Stacey Cron is a friend of my sister’s. They invited all of us. I was trying to get out of it, but if you’re going, maybe I’ll go too.” He drank the water down while she closed her laptop and grabbed her bag.
He asked, “ Do you have a favorite place around here?"
“There’s a good Mexican place a couple of blocks from here.”
“Perfect.”
They walked the two blocks to the restaurant and sat outside on the patio. He ordered a beer, and she had a margarita and then he ordered the biggest combo platter on the menu while she ordered a taco salad.
She was good company, and he found her very easy to talk to. Plus, he didn’t bother trying to impress her since she already knew he was a screw-up. Even though they were distant cousins who met somewhere in the family tree, he had a lot of distant cousins so their families had never been close. They’d spent some time together as kids, but he hadn’t seen her for years. So, he asked all the usual first date questions. Not that this was a date, exactly, but being out for dinner with an attractive woman made him fall back on dating behavior.
He discovered that she enjoyed yoga, that she’d taken dance all through school and had been a cheerleader. If there was ever a woman born to shake pom-poms, it was Tasmine.
"So, you go to so many weddings, do you ever want to get married?”
She blinked at him and for some reason a slight blush stole into her cheeks. She glanced down at her salad and stabbed a chunk of lettuce. "Yes, of course I do." Then she glanced up and he saw that single dimple appear as she gave him her quirky smile. "And who could plan a more perfect wedding than me?” Then she said, "How about you? You’ve had a bad experience, do you think you’d tried again?"
"I think for guys it's different. I've always assumed I’ll get married, in the same way I assume I’ll get a job that involves wearing a suit and tie, and I'll join the same business club my father belongs to, but it's not like a big dream or anything."
She nodded. "Plus, I don't care what anyone says, women do have a biological clock ticking and men don't."
He looked slightly alarmed. "You have a biological ticking clock? Already? Aren’t you kind of young?"
She laughed. "I'm twenty-six. Same age as you. But I don't want to be one of these women waiting until forty to have my first child. I love kids. I want to be young with them. I plan to have my first baby before thirty."
"Wow. That's quite a life plan you’ve got there. Got the guy picked out?"
"No. Some things, I leave to fate."
“Like the olives?”
She had a great laugh. "Something like that."
It was a nice walk back to her apartment and he felt an urge to take her hand, but he didn't. This wasn't a real first date, she knew he’d only been un-engaged for a few weeks, and he didn't want to screw up a friendship that he was beginning to care about.
When they got back to her apartment, she hesitated outside and said, "Well, thanks a lot for dinner."
"You're welcome. I had fun. But I need to come up to your place. I left my gym bag in your bedroom."
She sent him a look, like, really?
"I didn't mean to. I forgot it was there."
"Well, you'd better come up and get it, then."
When they got to her place, he sprinted into her bedroom, grabbed his bag and returned, not wanting her to think he’d fake forgotten the bag. He never stooped to tricks like that. He’d never had to. When he came out of her bedroom, he noticed she’d flipped some lights on in her living room. She said, "I was just going to make some chamomile tea. Do you want some?"
He’d love to stay longer in her company, but he thought she was simply being polite. "I'd love to, but I've got to drive home and then I have to be at work at seven in the morning."
"Right, I forgot you still lived at home." She made him sound like one of those failure-to-launch slackers, which he supposed he was. He had the money from his trust fund if he wanted to go get an apartment, but he’d never had any reason to leave. Everything was taken care of at home; he liked his parents, had a wing of the house pretty much to himself and Millie to pack his lunches. But, Tasmine’s comment made him think that if he
was more independent she would find him more interesting. It was something to think about.
She rose to see him out. "That was amazing what you did today. I need to refresh my CPR and my first aid. I don't think I can remember how to do the Heimlich maneuver."
"I didn't think I remembered, either. But it's amazing how that stuff comes back to you in an emergency." Then he said, "Come here. I'll show you."
Chapter 7
She walked closer. He explained how to make the fist with her thumb side toward the victim’s body and then gently nudged her up against him. He wrapped his arms around her and brought his fisted hands gently under ribs. "You see, what you have to do is press in and up so you force the air from the diaphragm to dislodge whatever's caught in the person's throat. With Judge Bailey, I don't think I was forceful enough at first so it took a few tries.
He pressed ever so gently against her, giving her the feel of pressure against her diaphragm.
Unlike the judge, Tasmine had the abs of an athlete. Where she was pressed against him, he felt the warmth of her back against his front as a current of awareness flowed between them. When he looked down over her shoulder in the direction of his fisted hands he could see down the alluring V of her top. She had nice curves on her, that was for sure.
They stayed like that for quite a few seconds longer than was necessary for his demonstration and then he stepped back and said, “Why don’t you try it on me?"
She turned around so she was facing him. "Me? Try it on you? Don't you have to be a lot bigger than the person?"
"I don't know. Probably, if I was choking, I'd be sitting down. Let's try it." He was curious to know whether it would work or not. He was as much at risk of choking as anybody else. He didn’t want to think that he was doomed to die just because most people in the world were smaller than him. He settled himself in one of the chairs at the fancy bistro set and she came up behind him. He put his hands to his throat in the classic I'm choking gesture, similar to what the judge had done earlier.
She bent down, clasping her hands together into a fist as he’d showed her and then scooping her arms around him and aiming for the same spot on his belly, in between the ribs and the navel. In order to make it easier for her he leaned forward so that when she scooped in she got the right spot. She put her all into it and the result was that he felt like his lungs were being squeezed, and he gave an oof that he was pretty sure would send a stray olive flying. "Okay, I think you got it." He put his hands over hers. “Nice job."
Her hair hung down and a curl brushed his shoulder. He could smell something flowery that she used on her hair, and underneath that, her own scent, as individual as DNA. He thought he could sit here and breathe her in all day.
"Thanks. It's a good thing to know. I should really get my CPR and first aid updated. You never know when someone's going to need your help.” He stood up, reminding himself that she had not invited him up to her apartment. He had come up to pick up his bag, and he did not want her to think he was a man she couldn't trust.
He headed back towards the door where’d he dropped his bag earlier and picked it up. "Thanks again for coming out with me. Maybe we can do it again sometime?”
She came forward so she was standing within a foot of him. "I'd like that."
"Okay, then."
He didn't open the door. She didn't open it for him. He felt the possibility of a kiss floating in the air. He didn't want to blow this relationship. If she only wanted to be his friend, he didn't want to mess that up. He was beginning to realize that he needed to get himself some new friends. His old buddies were great for a laugh, but he was getting a feeling, like an itch under his skin, that he was stuck in some bad patterns and that it was time to change.
Ashley had done that. As much as the humiliation of the wedding day still hurt, Ash and he had not been good for each other. She’d found Ben, and then suddenly she was learning to drive and helping an A list screenwriter with his screenplays. She’d moved on, and he hadn’t.
Tasmine, he realized, had a lot of qualities he admired. She was smart, independent, ambitious, and hardworking. In his life so far, he had been exactly none of those things. Well, except smart, but how would anyone ever know that? He'd hidden it so well.
Tasmine was also sexy as hell. He wanted to pull her against him and kiss the breath out of her, and see if he could talk his way into that big beautiful bed of hers. But, he was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. He could give her a quick hug, the kind of thing that he did with his female friends when there was nothing between them. But that seemed so cold.
So, figuring he had nothing to lose, he went for something in the middle. He leaned in and, if she turned her face he would've kissed her cheek, but she didn't so he pressed his mouth briefly to hers. It was the briefest touch of lips and yet he felt warmth and softness and, unless he was completely crazy, he felt a slight tremor run through her that fired his blood.
It took all his willpower to pull away. "Will I see you tomorrow?"
She nodded. "I'll finish up measuring the bedrooms that Mrs. Bailey wants to decorate."
"Well, you'll know where to find me."
Tasmine checked in with her office first thing the next morning. She took care of a few emails, checked on a shipment that had been delayed, and then headed for the Bailey's estate. She felt stupidly jumpy at the notion of seeing Eric again. What was the matter with her? He barely even knew she existed. Had been engaged to someone else until she’d left him at the altar. He’d pretty much made it clear he only wanted to be friends with Tasmine. Which was good for her. She couldn't afford to get sidetracked from her life plan.
She was proud of how far she’d come in her twenty-six years on earth. Unlike Eric, she had worked for everything she had and now possessed a good degree, a job she enjoyed, and a part-time bridesmaid gig that was building her savings nicely. But she still had a long way to go.
An overgrown juvenile delinquent like Eric was not part of her plan. She shouldn’t feel jumpy at the idea of seeing him.
It was that kiss. So brief that it could barely even be called a kiss, the swiftest pressing together of lips. And yet, she had felt something. Something she hadn't felt in her previous relationships. She could not even imagine what he could do to her if he put some effort into it. She had to remind herself to be on guard. She was convenient for Eric, the perfect rebound love affair after Ashley. But she was not interested in being anyone’s rebound. She was looking for the real thing. Even if Eric made her toes curl, he was not for her.
But, when she got to the Baileys’ place, she couldn't stop herself from first going to see Eric.
His back was to her when she came to the edge of the pool. He was giving it a new layer of paint, doing a careful, thorough job. He had his earbuds in his ears so he hadn't heard her approach. She took a moment to enjoy looking at him. Tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular. He was clearly an athletic guy, but these weeks he'd spent at hard physical labor had toughened him up. As he painted she could see the movement of muscles in his back even under his shirt, and his exposed arms were as cut as a professional athlete’s. She could have watched him paint all day. His skin was bronzed, kissed by the sun, and the way he slapped paint on a pool bed was poetry in motion.
She didn't move, or call out, but suddenly he stopped painting and, as though aware of her presence, turned slowly to face her. When their gazes connected she felt the sucker punch of lust.
She waved, trying to give the impression that she had only arrived that second, not that she had been standing there drooling over his gorgeous body for the last couple of minutes. He put down the paintbrush and pulled out his earbuds. "Morning," he said, giving her his slow, easy smile. He was too much of a charmer. She could almost imagine that he was attracted to her as she was to him.
"What are you listening to?" she asked, wondering if they shared any taste in music and suspecting they probably didn't.
"Stephen Hawking," he said.
Sh
e laughed. Always with the jokes. "Okay, don't tell me. It's probably one of those awful rap songs with misogynistic lyrics."
He merely shrugged his powerful shoulders. “You back on decorating duty?”
“Yes. I’m headed for the main house. Thought I’d check and see if you needed anything.” Really? What was she, his mother?
"Millie packed me enough lunch to feed most of California. If you get finished and feel like a sandwich and her most excellent apple cake come back and join me."
"Thanks." Even though she knew his only other option other than eating with her was to lunch by himself, she still felt excited by his casual offer, as though he’d invited her to the prom.
When she went to the main house, Mrs. Bailey seemed genuinely pleased to see her. "Oh my dear, do come in. Do you have time for cup of coffee before we start?"
Usually, Tasmine tried to keep her clients focused on the work. But she liked Mrs. Bailey, and besides, she felt that her client needed to talk. She could imagine that having her husband almost choke to death yesterday had shaken her up.
“Sure. How’s the judge feeling today?”
“He’s fine. The only lasting injury was to his pride.”
Maria served them coffee in a pretty room that overlooked the rose garden. She supposed it would be a morning room. The furniture was overstuffed chintz and family portraits cluttered every surface. Maria brought the coffee on a silver tray that gleamed from a recent polishing. The cups, the coffee pot, and the creamer and sugar bowl were made of the most exquisite china, which she thought might be Sevres. A plate with two kinds of cookies also sat on the tray. She wondered what it would be like to be this rich and was fairly certain she’d never know.
“Thank you, Maria.” Mrs. Bailey poured the coffee herself and handed it to Tasmine, inviting her to help herself to cream and sugar. Then she offered her the plate of cookies. "These are the cook's own recipe. They are the most delicious ginger cookies. She protects the recipe fiercely and won’t share it with anyone. There's also shortbread if you prefer."
