by Reina Torres
The edge to his tone turned Stella’s head. “Is this going to be a problem?”
She watched him reset his expression as he flattened his hands on the tailgate of the truck. “No,” he blew out a breath, “sorry, I’m just not a big fan of guys that throw their weight around just because they can.”
Stella drew back and looked over her shoulder at Kyle, who was pacing behind the end of the caboose. “Is that what you think?”
“Don’t you?” Alan turned slightly, leaning his hip on the edge of the tailgate. “I didn’t grow up around here like you did, but sometimes it feels like there are some people that feel like they can push others around just because their families have history in St. Helena.”
“I don’t,” she came up short and worried her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, “I don’t think we’re like that.” She felt a bit of tension in her head, radiating out to her temples. “Kyle’s family has been in St. Helena as long as mine,” she turned her gaze away from him and tried to study the intricate blueprints Alan had unrolled, “I guess I’ve never thought about it like that.”
“Hey,” she felt a gentle tug as Alan lifted her chin with his fingertips, “I wasn’t talking about you. You’re not like him.” She looked away again and he let her go, dropping his hand to his side. “Anyway, let’s get to the plans. We have your office to construct.”
She managed to salvage a smile for him, but flinched when the front door of Kyle’s office slammed shut.
Chapter 2
A tentative knock at his office door had Kyle tensing up. He was on hold with the receptionist at Town Hall, waiting to speak to yet another person up the chain of authority. He didn’t want to hang up since he’d been on hold for the last ten minutes straight.
Another knock and he lowered the handset. “Yes?”
The door cracked open and Mrs. Darby poked her head in. “Have a minute?”
He waved her in and poked a button on the phone to put it on speaker.
Stepping into his office, Mrs. Darby held up a notepad that almost completely covered her face.
“What’s wrong?”
There was a bit of pause before she leaned slightly to the side to peer around the notepad’s edge. “Have you calmed down yet?” After she said the words she ducked back behind the notepad to wait for an answer.
“Mrs. Darby?”
“Mmm hmm?” Her voice was muffled behind the pad.
“Is there a reason why you’re hiding behind that notepad?” He tried to keep the edge out of his voice and failed miserably. “Are you hiding from me?”
She peered out from behind the other side of it and grinned. “Basically. I’m just hoping you won’t throw something at me.”
“You?” He scoffed and felt about a hundred years old. “I just want those people out of that lot.”
She giggled, a girlish sound that seemed to echo off of the papers in front of her. “You and Clint sure have a lot in common,” she tittered behind the notepad, “besides all of that amazing bone structure, he’s more whipcord thin and you’re more brawn and muscle.” She dropped the notebook down as she puffed out her chest and squared up her chin. “I sure loved him in those westerns,” she sighed and fanned herself.
“You think I look like a cowboy?” He arched a look at her.
“Heavens no!” She laughed and he felt his pride take a big solid hit. “You remind me of him in that film…”
“Dirty Harry?”
She narrowed her eyes at his face and shook her head. “Hairy, maybe, until you finally shave all that porcupine scruff off your chin.” She shuddered and continued on. “No, I’m talking about Grand Torino.” She gave him a pointed look. “You’ll be shaking your fist at the young folks that dare to step on your lawn before you know it. And you’re not even fifty!”
“Hey,” Kyle was halfway up out of his chair, his hands flattened on the desktop, “I’m not even forty!”
She waved a hand at him, putting him back in his chair. “Could’ve fooled me.” She gave him a look. “But what I came in to tell you was that you got a call back from the Building Commission.”
Now that brought a smile to his face. “Great. What did they say?”
The look in her eyes was quite sharp, and definitely not a happy one. “They are having a meeting two days from now. You are welcome to plead your case, but until then, the building will continue as it has been.” She sighed at his soft groan. “So unless you want me… someone to call Jonah and get you thrown in jail, you’ll leave your shotgun in the safe and keep your sharp tongue to yourself.”
She started for the door, her L’air du Temps perfume wafting behind her, and nearly had it open before Kyle called out to her.
“Mrs. Darby?”
“Yes, Doctor O’Malley,” her tone was nearly ice.
“My shotgun is at home in my safe. And I’m twice the fighter that Jonah is so I’d love to see him try to take me in.”
She tsked at him.
“And as for my sharp tongue. You, my dear Mrs. Darby, have me beat any day of the week.”
Her spine seemed to lengthen a good inch or two as she looked back at him. “Good, as long as we have that settled,” she gave him a smile that said her frosty attitude was melting, “And really, the thought that you’d be so eager to make trouble for Stella, it just boggles my mind.”
“Stella?” He was up again a moment after he sat down. “Stella Vincenzo? What does she have to do with it?”
Mrs. Darby rolled her eyes with practiced ease. “That’s Stella’s project next door,” she waited a long moment and then paced out the rest of her words, “or did you not know that?”
“Why,” embarrassment wasn’t something he suffered from very often, but he was dangerously close to it now, “would I know that?”
“You were ‘all up in her face’ outside.”
She huffed out a sigh. “You mean you just went outside and started firing volleys without doing that ‘recon’ thing you military men are so famous for? Huh, go figure?” She stepped out into the hallway and started to close the door behind her. “Some would say you just put your big combats boots in it.”
And he was alone.
That should have been the end of it. He leaned over and picked up the phone handset he’d left on his desk and plopped it back into the cradle. He’d say what he needed to say when he went to the meeting at Town Hall in a few days. Determined to get something done, he opened the folder on his desk and tried to concentrate on the words he’d written during the last session with his patient and found them swimming on the paper.
“Stella Vincenzo.” He struggled to remember the scene outside. The man he’d spoken to hadn’t been familiar at all, not that Kyle tried to go through any of the social niceties. He hadn’t even asked his name. But the girl, no the woman who had been there, didn’t seem familiar at all.
“And I’d know Stella if I saw her.”
He was sure of it. For most of his childhood, Stella had been a fixture in his life. Sure, she had been underfoot the whole time, tagging after him at all the gatherings. His only respite had been when she was tagging along with the Santini boys. Teodoro had been the nicest to her, treating her more like a cherished sister than a frustrating little shadow. But the woman he’d seen outside had been a far cry from the bespectacled girl with straight limp hair and saucer-round eyes.
Just to prove the point to himself, he pushed up from his chair and crossed the short distance to the window to pull apart the venetian blinds and peak out into the parking lot.
The hulk of metal, that was little more than a skeleton seemed quiet for the most part, but then he saw some motion on the other side of the old train car. The first thing he saw was her hair. Long and curly, it had been pulled back into a ponytail that still covered most of her back. When she turned to look into the wreck he caught sight of her face. Delicate features and a warm tan graced her skin. Between her gracefully arched eye brows and her full bottom lip, she was the pictur
e of elegant beauty.
Kyle shook his head. “There’s no way,” he reassured himself, “that’s not Stella.” And when she stepped around the broken down train car and grabbed a hold of one of the long metal rails, he was ready to go back to his work. Something kept him standing there at the window peering out between the blinds like some kind of old school private eye. She set her booted foot on the step and pulled herself up and he knew just at a glance that she wasn’t going to get enough of her weight up there to keep her balance.
And he was right, she slipped, her hand pulling free of the rail as she pitched back.
“Hey!” Kyle found himself up against the glass, nearly ready to break through the pane to help, when she suddenly found herself in the arms of the man he’d exchanged words with less than an hour ago. It was only after his heart had started to beat again that he realized that along with his eyes roving over her to make sure she wasn’t injured, and in his experience, he knew the thousands of ways that she could have been injured falling from a few feet above the ground, he tried to ignore the fact that his eyes seemed to focus on the rounded curve of her hips and the tight fit of her jeans over her generous backside.
And in that moment, fear became frustration, and not just the kind that had him pacing his office and calling every phone number in town hall, it was the kind of frustration that meant he wasn’t going to be able to sit down in his chair without leaning back and taking a few deep breaths to ease the fit of his slacks.
Whoever she was, she wasn’t just beautiful, she was sexy as hell, and if he let this go on, she was going to be the kind of distraction he couldn’t afford if he wanted to make this work.
And Kyle needed to make this work. He’d spent too many years and a large portion of his savings making a couple thousand square feet of space into the beginnings of a state of the art Physical Therapy center. All he needed to do now was keep it a calm and tranquil space that would promote healing.
Motion outside his window caught his eye again. As he watched, leaning on the wall, he saw an old Chevy truck rumble up onto the unpaved part of the lot. Before the driver’s door swung open, he’d already rattled the window with the contact of his forehead on the glass. The man getting out of the truck was someone he could recognize by his stature alone. Nico Vincenzo, his grandfather’s best friend and one of the premier olive growers in St. Helena placed a fatherly kiss on an upturned cheek. The dawning revelation made Kyle slightly dizzy, because the woman whose curves had him all rattled and hot under the collar, must indeed be Nico’s daughter. Before Kyle could manage to wrap his head around the idea, the intercom came alive with the news that his next patient had arrived.
Later on, he told himself, he’d wonder when the stick-thin tomboy had gone and become a gorgeous woman. Grabbing up his coat from the back of the chair, he headed for the door. He had a feeling that puzzle was going to take him a long time to work out.
By the time they broke for lunch, Stella’s whole body hurt. Sure, this wasn’t the first time she’d helped remodel one of the railroad cars. In fact, she’d helped with all of them. Half a dozen different railroad cars had already been taken apart down to the studs and then rebuilt into individual ‘rooms’ in her dream Bed and Breakfast. And if it hadn’t been a cruel twist of fate she would be finishing the project on site, but that had all changed a month ago when they were leveling out the space for the last car, which would serve as her lobby and office. The excavator tracked over the area marked out for the driveway and the office site and ended up sliding nearly five feet as some of the ground shifted beneath it on a pocket of loose earth.
When things looked like she’d have to give up on the project altogether, one of Jack Tanner’s men came up with a solution, not only to get the land shored up in preparation for the installation of the last building, but to finish the remodel in the shortened timeframe. Alan had been a god send to her when everything seemed to be sliding downhill.
So, instead of working on the construction on the weekends or off days at the olive grove, Stella was doing much of the labor herself with her father as another willing participant. When they needed extra hands, she hoped she’d have the money they needed to hire it.
“You doing okay?”
She turned and smiled up at Alan. “Sure, just great.”
“You’ve been working pretty hard this morning.” He looked up at the caboose and noticed the exposed metalwork of the body. “You did a great job on the sanding, getting all of that old paint off. Looks like there hasn’t been a lot of rust inside the car.”
“I think we got lucky.” The hope in her voice was tentative and precious.
“Lucky is good.” Alan’s grin was infectious. “We could use a little luck to get this completed in time.” He set a hand on her shoulder and she ground her back teeth together to keep from groaning in pain. Even though his touch was gentle, her muscles were screaming for rest and a good soak.
“Well, I think we’re in for some luck.” Her father rounded the other side of the car and set a basket down on the makeshift table they’d set up for supplies. “Why don’t you two see what we’ve got in here,” he tilted his head back the way he came, “and I’ll help Velia bring out the rest.”
Alan must have heard the rumble of her stomach, laughing at the color that touched her cheeks. “Hungry?”
“Of course!” She moved away from him and grabbed the top flaps of the basket and flipped them open. “But once you taste anything Velia makes, you’ll understand.” Stella reached in and lifted out a plastic container with a riot of colors inside. “Looks like we’re in for a big treat today.”
As Stella arranged the containers on the table Alan outlined some of his new plans. “I have a couple of contacts that I called. A trade school has a few construction students who need some extra credit and hands on work.”
He took a plate and a fork and she spooned some pasta onto it, piping hot.
“And a couple of volunteers from the Train Museum in Old Sacramento are interested in coming out for a weekend or two.”
Stella reached for the tongs to serve up some salad and winced, hissing out a breath.
“Hey,” Alan set down his plate and leaned down to look her in the eye, “are you okay?”
When he held out his hand to take the tongs she surrendered them easily. “I'm a little sore.” It was an understatement of the worst kind, but there was no way that she was going to tell him how bad she was really hurting. One look at him, told her he could tell.
“You know,” he managed to get salad on both of their plates, “if you don't want to rush this, we could rig up a smaller building, like a depot ticket office instead of struggling to finish this one.”
She looked up at him, a stricken look in her eyes. “Are you saying we can't get this done?” She felt her heart constrict in her chest, her breath puffing out in a short blast.
“No,” he tried to lift his tone to help her mood, “I didn't say that. But I just thought this would be easier on you if we didn't have to rush.”
The words washed over her and she nodded, understanding that he was trying to help. “And I just need to know what we can do. I don't need empty promises, Alan. I know we’re up against a tight schedule, but I need you to be honest with me. Either we can do this, or we can't, but either way I just need the truth.”
“Well, goodness!” The arrival of Velia and Nico changed the mood between them. Alan got to his feet and smiled as Stella’s father set down a small cooler on the table, “looks like we have our work cut out for us.”
“It's going to be work, but I’m ready for it.” Stella managed a big grin as Velia wrapped her arms around her in a gentle embrace. She appreciated the gesture, but the hug reminded her of more than Velia’s love, it reminded her of who she'd been. There was a time that Velia would have given her a tight squeeze, but that was years ago, and most people in St. Helena knew enough about her past to treat her with kid gloves. It didn't mean that they didn't care, in fact it was
the opposite. Pretty much everyone that knew her history treated her like spun glass. They’d seen her at the worst time of her life, but they'd also been there to share the joy of her life beyond cancer. And still, gentle hugs, most one armed and from the side, had become the norm for Stella.
“Of, course you are, dear.” Velia’s voice was full of warmth and support. She didn't do platitudes. And she also didn't do empty gestures either. “Teodoro will be by when he gets back from Los Angeles.” Her grandson had recently moved back home, but he was part owner in a microbrewery with his elder brother. “They’re closing the sale, but he's ready to come and swing a hammer when he’s back.”
“Wonderful,” Stella handed Alan a drink and sat down with her plate, “right?”
He nodded and popped the top on the can. “If we can get all the prep work done by the weekend, we’re in good shape.”
The soda had a bitter taste in her mouth. ‘The weekend’ was just a couple of days away and her eyes roamed over the caboose car. It had been the last car that they’d rescued from the over growth near the old train yard, but it was also the largest. It would serve as the office of the Bed and Breakfast, but it would also be the fourth ‘room’ available for people to sleep in. She was ready to do this. She had the plans in place, but she had a distinct twisting feeling in her middle that the run in with Kyle that morning wasn't going to be the last.
Chapter 3
Two days later, Kyle was already on thin ice with his grandfather and he was in danger of losing Mrs. Darby if things continued the way they were going. If it had been Christmas, he was pretty sure the town would have cast him as the Grinch at the new Dinner Theater on Elm Street. But as it stood, he was pretty sure it wouldn't take much more to label him as St. Helena’s number one jerk. Even Nora Kincaid turned off her camera when he’d bumped into her at Picker’s Produce, turning up her nose at him before turning and leaving him alone in the aisle.
