I tried socializing with a few of the stuffed shirts that arrived for the party, but I couldn't really keep up with their topics. They seemed most interested in comparing their investment portfolios, bragging about recent vacations to exotic locales, and how much they'd spent on the latest round of yacht upgrades. None of these were areas where I had much (or any, really) expertise.
Several people also kept pausing to talk to me and ask me if I'd seen someone called the Black Widow, a scary-sounding name that I didn't recognize. "The O'Callahan woman," one man snapped at me when I professed my ignorance. "She's supposed to be coming, and we all want to make sure we stay away from her! She's a killer!"
Well, that didn't seem very nice. I just shrugged and told him that I didn't know anyone by that name. The man rolled his eyes at me, but the perceived insult just slid off without bothering me. I moved away, wondering how this woman earned such an evil nickname. Maybe she made her money from murdering people, or was linked to the Mob, or something along those lines.
Eventually, I retreated out to the back balcony. The back yard of the Stone mansion was about a story lower than the front yard; a visitor could walk in the front door, move through the main level of the house, and then emerge on a large balcony in the rear that overlooked the massive yard, stretching nearly the entire length of the mansion. Ivy descended on trellises anchored to the rear face of the house, and the leaves rustled softly in the gentle breeze. From up here, I could look down at the inky black darkness of the backyard swimming pool, could see the profile of the skyline out beyond the edges of the Stone-owned property.
I'd been relaxing in the night air, enjoying the brief escape from all the stuffed shirts and their bragging about net worth, when the woman stepped out.
I didn't recognize her, but her bearing, the way she carried herself, instantly marked her as one of the wealthy guests, rather than a member of the waitstaff. She had to only be an inch or two shorter than my own height, and her pale skin seemed to almost glow under the light of the moon overhead. With black hair trailing down her shoulders in an inky cascade, she almost looked like a mystical creature, ephemeral and appearing down on Earth.
She stepped over to the edge of the balcony, resting her hands on the railing and looking out. At first, I felt like I should try and sneak back in without alerting her to my presence, but then I saw her shoulders shake and heave, as if she was struggling to take a deep breath. She made a very soft sound that could well have been a sob.
I stepped forward, trying to think of something nonthreatening to say. "Needed to get away from the craziness in there?" I finally settled on, speaking in easygoing tones, as if greeting an old friend.
The woman jerked in surprise. She clearly hadn't even realized that she wasn't alone on the balcony. She jumped and spun around to look at me – but the movement put her on the verge of toppling over the edge of the railing!
Shit. I couldn't have one of Richard's guests dying at his charity ball! He'd definitely kick me out of his house for letting that happen. I darted forward, my hand shooting out to grab hers and pull her back even as I called out a warning.
"Why don't you step over here," I said, tugging the woman away from the edge of the railing. Let's get her closer to safety. The movement drew me into the light, and I put on my most nonthreatening smile. Let's not give this woman the impression that I wanted to do anything unchivalrous to her, out in the darkness of the night.
She looked down at my hand for a moment, and then back up at me. Her lips curled up a little. "Hi," she said.
"Hi," I repeated back to her like an idiot, finally getting a full look at her face – and feeling the strength of her beauty hit me like a sledgehammer.
This woman was gorgeous.
Her pale skin reflected the light shining out from the inside of the mansion, even as her black hair absorbed and drank in the light. She had light and delicate features, high cheekbones that made her look like she'd been sculpted by an artist's chisel, and dark eyes so big that they almost magnetically drew me in. Her smile drew back surprisingly full lips, lips that seemed far too lush to fit with the rest of her delicate features, but it somehow worked.
Dammit. I felt the silence growing, knew that I needed to say something – but my mind was blank, no matter how desperately I scrabbled for some topic of conversation.
"Enjoying the party?" I asked, immediately feeling like an idiot for asking such a bland question.
She shrugged, her smile fading, and I immediately sensed that I'd started the conversation with a misstep. "Everyone in there is the same," she said softly, her eyes looking away, off into the night. "Somehow, I thought that maybe they'd have changed."
That didn't sound good. I tried to think of some way to cheer her up. An unhappy guest at a charity ball for the poor and homeless of the city probably wouldn't feel very moved to donate.
"I'm not the same as them," I said. Sure. I wasn't even a guest, for starters.
Her eyes returned to me, eyebrows rising slightly in challenge. "And how's that?"
"I'm a writer," I answered, the first thing that sprang to mind.
"A writer?" she repeated, her eyes once again sizing me up. "Now, that sounds like what many pampered, wealthy men claim, when in truth the only thing that they've written is their signature on credit card receipts. Is that the case for you?"
"Of course not!" I protested, guiltily thinking of the overdue balance on my only credit card, my anemic bank account. It never even occurred to me that she might have mistaken me for one of the other guests, someone rich, rather than just a part of the waitstaff that catered to them. "I'm definitely a real writer!"
"I see," she said, still measuring me with her gaze. "Of what?"
"Novels," I said, and then hastened to explain before I dug myself too deeply in a hole of lies. "Well, I'm working on a novel. My first real one. I've only done short stories before this. It's tough going."
"I hear that they can be challenging," she replied, still watching me carefully. "And what's your novel about?"
I sighed, opening my mouth to tell her that I didn't have the slightest idea, that I'd been struggling with writer's block for weeks. But as I looked at her, the light from inside the house casting a deep shadow that nearly obscured one of her eyes and painting her face in black and white, new words suddenly flowed off my tongue without bothering to pass through my brain first for inspection.
"It's a story of growth," I said. "It's about the American Dream, in a way, but how it can be hollow and unfulfilling. It's about a person growing up with oppression, overcoming it all and achieving great success – but it's not the reward that everyone thinks it will be. Instead, it only brings her problems into greater relief, highlighting them instead of making them fade away. It's about climbing a mountain in one respect, but still standing at the foot of another, too afraid to take that first step and strain for the summit."
As I spoke, I felt the idea growing in my mind, spreading out lines of burning light in a dozen different directions like a spider's web. How had I never thought of this idea before? It had so much promise, so much potential, and it would touch on so many of the themes that I'd felt as I grew up! I could incorporate my own struggle, tie it to real life and make sure that it was grounded, and yet it would also be a powerful and precautionary tale for so many other hopefuls out there...
The woman listened, although in truth, I was barely aware of her standing there. She could have interrupted to call me an idiot, and I might not have noticed. My brain burned almost feverishly with the brightness of this idea. Why the hell didn't I have a voice recorder, so I could capture this flash of inspiration?
Finally, I finished, out of breath and all but panting. The woman still stood there, her eyebrows still slightly raised, those dark eyes still locked on me. I closed my mouth, but felt even more of the idea still pushing at the inside of my skull. This was more than just a brief flash of inspiration. This was an entire book, all but complete already inside
my head and demanding that I capture its ephemeral perfection in the more permanent medium of pen and paper.
"Helen," she said.
"What?"
She once again held out a pale, surprisingly small hand to me. "I'm Helen."
Oh, introductions. "Tanner McCallister," I replied, taking her hand. Her fingers felt cold in my own, and I held them perhaps a second or two longer than was necessary – purely to warm them up a bit, that was all. "I'm sorry for babbling on, but the idea's just so strong inside my head."
"That's okay," she answered, and although the words would have sounded patronizing coming from anyone else, I could tell that she meant them. "You speak with so much passion that it's clear you're not just pretending to be a writer."
"Perish the thought!" I said in a mock gasp, pressing my other hand against my chest as if making sure my heart still beat inside my ribs. "I'm most certainly a writer! It's all I've wanted to do, ever since I was young!"
"And now you're doing it," she said softly. Those surprisingly full lips quirked up a little, but the smile didn't seem to reach all the way to her eyes. "That's inspiring."
I felt almost self-conscious from the way she looked at me. "It's only inspiring if I manage to finish the book," I admitted, a little ruefully. "To tell the truth, I haven't had nearly as much of the book's idea worked out as I said just now. It only just now seemed to finally click into place."
I realized that I still held Helen's fingers in my own, and hastily released them. Her smile, however, grew a tiny bit broader. She moved in a little closer to me, turning so that she looked past me, out at the darkness of the Stone family grounds.
"Tell me more about it, then," she said. Although she looked away, she moved a step closer so that her hip bumped ever so lightly against me. Even through the heavy fabric of the military outfit I'd been given to wear by Richard, giving me the impression of a homeless veteran who needed aid, I felt that light touch.
I opened my mouth, not sure what to say, but more inspiration came coursing through my body, like I had just touched a live, electrified wire. I spoke again, my words filled with adjectives as I imagined my main character, a woman going through the traditional rags to riches story, but with an added look at the melancholy inside her head that wouldn't be cured by any amount of success and fame.
Helen listened, still brushing ever so lightly against me – and each time I felt her, new ideas lit up my mind like fireworks.
Chapter Six
HELEN
*
I stood on the balcony next to this young man, Tanner McCallister, and listened with surprise to the torrent of words that he spoke to me.
When he first declared that he was a "writer," I nearly turned and walked away from him right then and there without giving him the benefit of one more word. I'd spoken to plenty of pampered, arrogant young scions of wealthy families who claimed to be "writers," when in truth they could barely manage to string a coherent sentence together. Idle time, hanging out in coffee shops, and the thinnest, most expensive laptop available did not a writer make!
But Tanner... from the moment he began talking about the story he held captive inside his head, I knew that he was the real deal. He spoke with great passion about a story that didn't yet exist, as if he was watching the movie play out before his eyes in a private cinema screening. He gestured out at nothingness, as if I could look out and see the same scenes that danced in his imagination. He spoke in hushed tones that couldn't quite contain all his excitement, as if he simultaneously feared that spies would steal the idea from him if they overheard it, but at the same time he had to share the story or it would consume him from the inside out.
A couple times, he paused and asked me a question, checking to see if I understood some literary concept that he referenced. Honestly, most of them went way over my head (the idea of "trading narratives", for instance – what was that?), but I nodded, spellbound more by his passion than by his actual words. I couldn't remember the last time that I'd spoken to anyone, wealthy or poor, who'd been so devoted to an idea.
A breeze blew up from out in the wilderness beyond the balcony, rushing in to remind me of how thin the fabric of my dress truly was. I winced and leaned in a little closer to Tanner, seeking to feel the warmth of his strong body in that costume of dirty military fatigues. He didn't seem to really notice the touch of my body against him, but he was warm and comfortingly strong, and I realized that it had been a long time since I'd had real contact with another living, breathing person.
I sized Tanner up, trying to get a sense of this unexpected young man. The beard that covered his chin looked too well attached to be a fake, although he'd clearly done something to it to make it more ragged and dirty for the sake of his costume. His hair was similarly wild; he must have gone without a haircut for several weeks to get it so long and uneven.
But beneath those superficial little costume details, he had strong and confident lines to his face. He looked strangely like a grizzled lumberjack, the kind of man that I'd expect to find striding around in the north woods of Canada, a heavy woodcutter's axe slung easily over one shoulder. His blue eyes gleamed with a clear and obvious intellect. He had a large nose, almost like an axe blade, but it fit with his other strong features, made him look commanding and forceful instead of hawkish.
I shifted my attention down to his body, feeling a little silly as I did so. Despite gulping down a couple of glasses of champagne inside, I certainly wasn't interested in hooking up with a man at a high society function like this!
If I was going to choose a man to grace my bed, the champagne whispered to me treacherously, I'd want to choose one like Tanner. He had strength reflected both in his body and mind. Using the excuse of another breeze that blew in from beyond the balcony, I leaned in closer to him, felt the flexing of his abdominal muscles as I bumped against him. He looked lean, his arms corded with muscle that didn't hide beneath any fat. Unlike most wealthy men, who put on perfectly balanced muscles under the shouted instructions of their hundred-dollar-an-hour personal trainers, Tanner looked like he'd earned his muscles the old-fashioned way, through hard work and sweat.
Tanner was still talking, but he paused as I leaned against him, guiltily attempting to surreptitiously feel him up – just to satisfy that tiny little inner voice of the champagne, of course! "Sorry, am I boring you?" he asked, contrite.
I shook my head. "No, not at all! I'm just..." I cast about for something to say, something other than the truth that a treacherous little part of my mind missed the feel of a man, hadn't experienced that in far longer than I ever would have chosen normally for myself. "I'm just cold."
"Oh, I'm sorry! I should have realized." And a second later, before I knew what he was doing, Tanner had the military jacket off his shoulders! He slipped it around me, one of his hands on each side of me, the corded muscle in his forearms now exposed and flexing as he pulled the heavy jacket up over my shoulders.
"I've probably been babbling on, anyway," Tanner went on, as the warmth and the smell from his body swirled up around me from that jacket now on my shoulders. "I've just never had so much of a novel idea come to me at once, before! Not like this."
"Well, you could have fooled me." The jacket smelled intoxicating, slightly spicy with a hint of cinnamon and cloves. Was that how Tanner smelled? If I peeled the rest of the clothing off his body, pressed my face against his taut abs, would I get that scent?
I gave my head a little shake. What had gotten into me? I never thought this way, like an aroused schoolgirl at her very first prom. I wasn't some teenager, filled with rivers of hormones dictating my actions. But suddenly, without warning, I felt a new burst of warmth ignite inside me, one that I hadn't felt in... years, was it?
Thankfully, Tanner didn't seem to have any idea what might be going on inside of me. "No, really, you've given me a huge step forward on my novel's idea," he insisted. He smiled down at me, and those blue eyes crinkled in his cheeks. The little flame of warmth insid
e me, just behind my belly button, grew brighter and stronger. "It's almost like you're my..."
"Your what?" I asked, hoping that his words would distract from that little burning ember inside me. Had the champagne been bad? Had I been drugged?
But I didn't feel drugged. I didn't feel woozy, or sick. If anything, I felt more alive than I could remember feeling in months, experiencing more of the moment, my skin hyper-aware of the breeze still sneaking in beneath the bottom of Tanner's jacket, of his hands still resting lightly against my own upper arms, keeping the jacket wrapped around me.
"My muse," he said softly, suddenly totally serious.
"Muse?" I repeated.
"Sure. The ancient Greeks believed in the Muses, goddesses of inspiration that would visit the greats and bestow ideas upon them. They would pray to these Muses for insight and that spark of a new idea, and believed that the best ideas came straight from the lips of these goddesses."
Lips. As Tanner said those words, his eyes dipped down momentarily to linger on my own body part of the same name. That fire inside of me roared, as if it had just received a healthy dose of pure oxygen. The flames leapt up into my chest, up to burn away the normal, logical thoughts from inside my head. Instead, the bright dancing red and orange replaced them with residues of desire, pushing me forward.
The little part of my mind that managed to evade the fire, that remained cool and logical, cried out in aghast surprise. What was I doing? I'd only just met this man! I was out in public, at a charity function, surrounded by just about every member of high society! If any of them saw me being so forward, they'd...
"They'd what?" countered the flame, speaking up inside my head to argue. "They already gossip about you, spread all sorts of nasty rumors. They call you the Black Widow. How much worse can things really get? And don't you think that you deserve to indulge in some of those desires that you've been repressing for so long?"
For Love of Passion (Stone Brothers Book 4) Page 4
