“I swear, Coop. Go down and sit at the kitchen table until I get there.” She pointed with a fury that matched his. “Get!”
Cooper had to pull Chloe down the stairs; she was too manic to locate her sense of direction. All the while, she said over and over, “It’s Anson Gable! Etta’s making out with Anson Gable!” Then she laughed hysterically.
Etta shook as much insanity out of her head as she could before taking a slow step toward Anson. Gone was the man who introduced her to the carefree temptations of the night. The confident man melted away to reveal a shaking shell. “Anson? What can I do?”
Anson tucked himself into the corner of the room, fighting with his lungs to pull in a proper breath. He shook his head, looking up at Etta with a miserable expression. His arm stretched out and he motioned for her to come closer. As soon as her scent reached him, he dragged her down to sit before him and buried his face in her neck. His quaking limbs and clumsy fingers tried to get their fill of her, but his self-loathing was too near the surface to allow him peace. “It’s ruined!” he whispered into her hair.
“What’s ruined? I knew this about you before I fell for you. Nothing’s ruined. Just take a breath.”
“Your friend screamed. They always scream. I hate that!”
“Yeah. Sorry about Chloe. I don’t know what got into her. We’ll straighten it all out.” Etta cast around the room for his backpack. “Do you need your meds? You’re going to have to come downstairs eventually.”
Anson gripped her, his voice mournful. “In the front pocket of my pack. I’ve been doing so well with you, though. I don’t want them! You were enough to calm me down. I just hate when they yell!”
Etta ran her hands through Anson’s messy hair, unsure of how such a gorgeous and strong man could be reduced to this by a simple misunderstanding. “I’ll go talk to Chloe. Make sure she doesn’t do any more freaking out. I don’t know what got into her. Honestly. Does she know you or something?”
“Please, Etta. Please let me stay here with you.”
Etta’s response was slow; very little of the upset made sense to her. “We already decided you would. You get yourself settled and come on down. We’ll straighten whatever it is out. If you’re going to stay here, you’ll be seeing Chloe every now and then. Best get whatever that was dealt with.”
Anson looked like he might cry, and for a moment, Etta wondered if something truly awful was going on. Was he really an axe murderer? Was his picture up in some Wanted ad? Chloe could have recognized him from a police mug shot. Etta pushed the dread away quickly before it caused her to release the man in her arms.
Etta waited until Anson stopped trembling. She kissed his clammy forehead before brushing her lips lightly to his. “Come down soon,” she whispered before leaving for the kitchen.
Outing Anson
Chloe was bouncing up and down in her spot on the couch, a look of glee alleviating Etta’s fears that she was harboring a fugitive upstairs in the honeymoon suite.
Cooper’s face was red, from embarrassment or rage, Etta could not decide. She tread lightly into the living room and stood to face her friends. She made a point of keeping her voice quiet, to set the tone of not allowing any more loud exclamations. “I don’t know what that was all about, but Anson is a guest in my B&B. Please do not scream at him. Please do not yell at him. Please do not threaten him.” She eyed her friends, daring them to talk down to her or over her. “All of these things should go without saying. He’s my first tenant in months. Do not bring your crazy in here and scare my renter.” Cooper opened his mouth to spew venom, but Etta held up her hand. “Yes, I’m with him. No, neither of us planned it. No, I don’t want your opinion about my recklessness. No, it is not up for discussion. Deal or leave. I’m allowed some fun.”
Chloe squealed, unable to contain her joy. She did not have it in her to calm when Etta shot her a warning to keep her cool. “I’m sorry, Etta. It’s just… you’re dating Anson Gable!”
Etta threw her hands up in the air, exasperated at how little her threats meant. “Why do you keep saying his full name like that? Do you know him, or did Vera tell you his name?”
Hysterical tears wet Chloe’s eyes. “You don’t even know who he is! This is priceless! I mean, you’ve kissed Anson Gable! Who else can say that? Except Ekaterina VonHoussen, of course. I feel like I need to touch your hand just to up my cool factor.”
Etta shook her head to clear it. “Okay. I really don’t know what you’re going on about, but you need to cool it. He has some social anxiety, and you screaming and acting like a lunatic isn’t helping him. Honestly, what’s gotten into you?” Chloe was always a little hyper, but this was a new level. “Ekaterina? Was that his old girlfriend or something? Did you know her? Is that how you know him?”
Chloe laughed and wiped the moisture from her eyes. “Oh, Etta. Sweet Etta. I love everything about you, including how little you know about life outside of the mountain. This is like, the best day of my life, just so you know. This can be my birthday and Christmas presents rolled into one. No, I don’t know Anson Gable. No one knows Anson Gable.” The excitement was too much when she heard the door open upstairs. She mimed a squeal and waved her hands around like she was fanning herself. Etta thought her friend looked like she was thirteen again.
“Man, Chloe. Chill out. He’s not that special.” Cooper’s arms remained firmly crossed over his chest, his scowl growing more pronounced when Anson entered the living room.
The handsome stranger hung by the back of the room, awaiting an invitation to join the exclusive three. Etta walked slowly to him, as if she was approaching a rabid animal. Gingerly, she lifted his hand, sifting his fingers through hers. She looked up and offered a reassuring smile, which he tried to return. “You don’t have to do this,” she told him, wishing she could make him feel more at home.
Anson exhaled, willing his hand not to shake in hers. “No. I want to stay. Paradise can’t last forever. Real life. We can do it.” He nodded once, gearing himself up for battle as he took a step forward.
Etta smirked that this simple, secluded life with her was considered paradise to the beautiful man. She turned to her friends with her chin level to the ground, demanding a rare display of maturity from them. “Guys, this is Anson. He needed a place to stay when the storm rolled in, and everyone was booked. Vera sent him home with me,” she lied, covering over Vera’s sin. “Now that the snow’s letting up, he’s going to rent a room from me for the month so we can get to know each other better.” She gestured to her friends, noting the stark difference between them. One looked like he might turn purple from tension, and the other, like she might skyrocket to the moon with giddiness. “Anson, this is Chloe, and you met Cooper already.”
“Hi, Anson Gable.” Chloe stood, grinning like an idiot as she stuck her hand out to the man.
Anson examined her hand before shaking it briefly and retracting from the contact. As if there was no one in the world he hated more than himself, he kissed Etta on the top of her hair and excused himself to go wash his hands. Chloe and Cooper conversed quietly while Etta watched Anson scrub his knuckles and nails six times in a row, each time with more vigor. She could finally take no more. She turned the water off and patted his hands dry with the dishtowel. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to meet my friends yet if this is all too much. I’m sorry Chloe’s being a space cadet today. I honestly don’t know what got into her. She’s normally pretty great. I’m so sorry.”
“No. I want to stay with you, and that means meeting your friends.” He held her hand and took a deep breath as he led Etta back to the living room where Chloe and Cooper were still waiting for them on the couch. Anson turned to the lovely woman beside him, shoulders slumping as he spoke. “Etta, you might want to sit down.”
“Huh? Oh, sure. Sit with me.”
The perfection of their short time together began to crumble before his eyes as he pictured her face after he told her the secret he had been hiding. “No, I mean, I h
ave to tell you something, and you should probably be sitting down.”
“What?” Etta looked from Anson to Chloe, and then finally to Cooper, who stared resolutely in the opposite direction. “What’s wrong?”
Anson took a deep breath as Etta sat on the couch before him. He took a seat on the coffee table and touched his lips to his pressed together hands. He began to speak, but stopped himself four times in a row, not getting farther than saying her name.
“Anson, seriously. What?”
He blew a lungful of air out in a nervous raspberry as tiny beads of sweat began to dot his forehead. “Etta, there are some things you should know about me.”
Anson Clark Gable
“You’re what?” Etta exclaimed, foregoing all pretense of an inside voice.
Anson flinched at her volume. “I was going to tell you. I was just waiting for the right time.”
“Which would have been before I fell asleep in bed with you!” she stormed.
“It’s not who I am. It’s what I do.”
“You told me you were a warehouse worker,” she accused, struggling to assemble enough pieces of sanity into a sensible reality.
“Technically,” Anson said as he rubbed his temples, “my last film was shot in a warehouse. I told you I worked in production in a warehouse. Both of those things are true. It was my first producer’s credit.”
Dozens of questions threatened to burst out from her and choke Anson with their accusation, but Etta did her best to remain in control of her faculties. Surely her Papa never yelled at a tenant. Of course, he never kissed one, either.
Chloe spoke up while Etta attempted to collect herself. “Etta, why is this a bad thing? You just met him a couple days ago. Did you really think you knew everything about him? You kissed him,” she said, and then inserted a giggle she could not stifle, “knowing he was a stranger.”
“It was my first real kiss!” Etta’s cheeks reddened. She wished Cooper was not there. Horror washed over her, and she held her face in her hands. “My first kiss was with a complete and total stranger!” She looked up at Anson, not bothering to hide how utterly turned around and lost she was in that moment. “Was anything you told me true?”
Self-hatred washed over Anson, dropping him to his knees before her. He ignored Chloe’s glee and Cooper’s irritation and scooped up Etta’s hands. “You are the only person I’ve told the truth to about a lot of things we talked about together. I never talk about growing up or my… issues. I got to be myself around you, and it worked! I never get to be myself! When people find out who I am, everything changes. I got to be a person with you. I didn’t lie, Etta. I didn’t lie.” He shook his head morosely. “I just wanted to be a person for a while. And you… you’re perfect. I wanted to tell you everything, but I couldn’t get out the words. I don’t want you to look at me like that.” He pointed at Chloe’s giddy grin. “You’re the only one who’s seen me in a long time.”
“But I don’t know who you are.”
“Then get to know me. Take me up on my offer. Let me rent from you for the month. Knowing what you know now, please let me stay.”
Chloe’s mouth was wide open, gawking at the movie star who was begging at the feet of her best friend. “She accepts!”
Lost as ever, Etta looked over to Chloe, hoping there was wisdom beneath the junior high girlishness. “Anson, I…” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This was more than she bargained for. He was more than she bargained for. At the beginning of the week, she was set on staying secluded in her house, nursing her injuries. One day with him changed everything. She could only imagine what a month would do. She already felt infinitely freer than she had before he came along, sitting on Vera’s stoop, frozen to his core.
He warmed her. They warmed each other.
Etta opened her eyes to take in the stricken face before her. “Okay.”
Like Christmas had come early, Anson lit up from head to toe. He pulled her forward by her thighs and hugged her to him. “Thank you,” he breathed. “You won’t regret it.”
Etta’s expression was stern. “Is that a promise? I mean it, Anson. No more secrets. I ask you something, you answer the whole question. No holding back. If I ask you your social security number, you give it without a blink.”
Anson hesitated, and then nodded into her abdomen. “Alright, Etta. No more secrets.”
The hint of a smile broke Etta’s stern demeanor. “I won’t ask you your social. Goodness gracious, you really are going to take this seriously.”
“I’ll always be serious about you,” he declared, holding her closer, not caring who was watching him grovel at her feet.
* * *
Part Three
Chloe and Etta
Three months of sharing the Bed and Breakfast led to an extraordinary closeness that surpassed the honeymoon phase. Etta and Anson spent nearly every waking and sleeping moment together. They invested their time fixing up the B&B and enjoying the leisure of seclusion.
Chloe and Cooper were sworn to secrecy. Cooper was more than happy to keep his mouth shut about his best friend shacking up with the handsome actor. He would just as soon forget the whole thing. Whenever Chloe was asked about Etta’s new boyfriend, she would just giggle incessantly until the other person gave up seeking useful information. Since most occupants on the mountain were senior citizens, it was a safe bet that none of them knew who Anson was.
They started out slow, acclimating Anson to life in the mountain. The first trip was a much-needed restocking excursion to the general store. Cooper’s uncle and cousin were excited to meet Etta’s first boyfriend, so their glint of teasing was to be expected. Jamie’s crush on Etta was put on the back burner once Anson asked the twenty-one year old if he could teach him how to change a tire.
The masculine task endeared Jamie to Anson. He took him out back and walked him through the task, ensuring him that it would be just as easy on Etta’s truck, should hers ever break down. The more people Anson met and won over, the easier Etta began to breathe. No, it was not all a dream. Every day that he attempted to make himself a more permanent part of her life, he became realer and realer.
Anson’s burst of charisma was granted partly by the nature of his job, partly by Etta’s calming presence, and partly from the meds she insisted he go back on. He was down to half a dose of his anti-anxiety medications. Stopping altogether was something they discussed frequently, but Etta insisted it was too much adjustment to go through without some assistance. Her trump card was always that he was supposed to be talking about his options with his doctor, so he should not go off them without his physician’s blessing.
The two were knee-deep in the honeymoon phase, working on household projects, cooking together and making out whenever the mood struck them.
Chloe was invited over once a week for dinner. At first, she giggled far too much, and oftentimes was given to fits of squeals for no reason at all. After a few visits (and harsh dressing downs by Etta), she acclimated to the celebrity, and eventually was able to be herself around him. Chloe’s acceptance of Anson went a long way to push the two forward as a stable couple.
That night after dinner while Anson did the dishes, Chloe and Etta caught up over tea in the living room. They kept their conversation hushed, since it was mostly about Anson or Chloe’s illicit sexploits.
“So I made him put his legs up in the air the whole time. See how he liked it.” Chloe gave a dignified look to her friend, who laughed.
“Why do we never talk about where you were during the snow storm?” Etta inquired, eyeing Chloe for false moves. “You talk about legs in the air guy with gusto, but not a word on that missing week.”
“Nothing to say. I stayed in the motel next to the bar, and that’s that. Watched TV until the power went out, and then plotted world domination during the blackout.”
“Suspicious,” Etta commented, blowing on her tea. “And I don’t believe a word of it. Except the world domination part. You’ve always had short
man’s disease.”
“My blessing and my curse.” Chloe tipped her mug to Etta’s in salute. “So how long is your movie star staying? It’s been three months. Are you really still making him pay rent?”
“I never made him pay in the first place. That was his choice. I won’t say I’m not grateful for it. Nice to have the repairs bankrolled instead of taking it out of my savings.”
“When’s the grand reopening?”
Etta shrugged evasively. “I dunno.”
“Ah. Did I just ask when scheduled naked time was coming to an end?”
“More like when the real world would come knocking on our door. You know we’re not getting naked.”
Chloe raised her eyebrow. “‘Our’?”
Etta breezed past that point without pause. “It’s been so nice having this time. It’s easy to pretend we’re not so different when it’s just us. Did I tell you he met Harold?”
“Oo!” Chloe winced. “And the Vietnam exhibit with all the pictures and war stories?”
“Three-hour visit, and we survived. I think Harold’s in love.”
“Harold’s gonna have to get in line.” Chloe forsook her smirk momentarily. “A lot of people are going to have to get in line. You do know he was third runner up for last year’s sexiest man poll, right?”
Etta looked up at the ceiling in feigned exasperation. “Why would I know that?”
“Um, because you’re dating him. Why wouldn’t he brag about something like that?”
“Because that doesn’t impress me, and because he’s more than his job. I don’t tell him about all the amazing home repairs I’ve done over the years.”
Chloe shifted in her seat. “I get it. Well, I think I get it, anyway. But what’s going to happen when you start renting again and your first guest gets an eyeful of their favorite movie star? Whether you like it or not, your relationship has to go public.”
Liberating Mr. Gable Page 11
