Nothing could have been further from the truth.
If anything, minute by minute, Helena grew more thankful for her modern conveniences. With new eyes, she regarded Rudolf Shaw’s apartment. The last ten thousand years of human civilization had gone into crafting it for human habitation, after all. And it was magnificent! Especially the air conditioning, the electricity, the indoor plumbing, and the hot and cold running water!
At least he finally seems to be relaxing around me, thought Helena, while eyeing her companion warily from the corners of her eyes.
More than that, he even seemed to be enjoying himself. His expression had brightened, and sometimes, he even smiled.
Rudolf Shaw had a really nice smile. The mere sight of it was enough to distract Helena from what he was saying and make her stomach flutter.
It was too bad that he wasn’t smiling at her, though. He was smiling at his memory, as he told her a funny story about – making an effort to ignore his smile for a moment, Helena listened harder – self-sufficiency and catching what you eat while camping.
Fishing! Helena liked fish!
“I’ve never been fishing,” admitted Helena. “But I always thought that I’d like it. I’ve always enjoyed eating fish, at any rate.”
“Yeah? What’s your favorite kind?”
“All of them,” said Helena, and then laughed at his expression. “No, I mean it! I’ve never eaten a fish that I didn’t like. Everything tastes better with fish.” She gestured at his empty plate. “Can I take that for you?”
Rudolf blinked at her twice then looked down at the plate in his lap as if surprised to find it resting there.
“Um, sure,” he said, all of his former awkwardness seemingly returning at once.
Helena nearly sighed. There went all his lovely smiles.
She took Rudolf’s plate and carried it into the kitchen for him, along with her own. While Rudolf ladled out the soup, Helena washed their salad plates and forks in the sink. Washing dishes was just as unpleasant as she had always imagined it being. When she was done, Helena propped the cleaned plates up in the drying rack to one side of the sink, thanked her lucky stars to be done, and vowed never to do it again, not unless she absolutely had to.
The soup course, although not particularly smooth or pretty as far as soups went, was surprisingly good. When Helena complimented her host on its taste, he actually looked embarrassed, but he thanked her, nonetheless.
“Do you cook often?” asked Helena, something which made her host’s mouth turn down.
Rudolf shrugged at her.
Helena waited another moment or two, hoping that he might like cooking as much as he did camping, but that seemed to be all that he meant to say on the matter.
It was frustrating.
Helena was wracking her brain for another line of conversation when Rudolf added, seemingly of his own accord, “My physical eval is coming up, so I’m trying to eat a bit healthier than usual.”
Interested, Helena looked him over with a more critical eye.
Rudolf Shaw was a big man, and when they were standing next to each other, he towered over Helena. Even sitting, he still seemed to tower over her. And either way, he made her feel nervous, but never in an unpleasant way, because as far as Helena could tell, there was nothing in Rudolf Shaw that enjoyed intimidating others. He had not once done it deliberately to her or anyone else.
And as her grandfather’s grandchild, Helena knew intimidation, deliberate or otherwise, when she saw it.
Rudolf was just so large and always so close – granted, because she kept sitting near him, rather than any actual effort on his part. And he was so handsome! Helena loved his broad shoulders, lovely muscular arms, and most especially his icicle blue eyes. His hair was a medium shade of brown, nothing particularly unusual there, but it was thick. And although it was neatly combed now, Helena had a feeling that his hair would be distracting in disarray. He also had a little cleft in his chin, which Helena occasionally wanted to rest her forefinger against, and a dimple in one cheek when he smiled.
Rudolf Shaw was a handsome man, and mere proximity to him was enough to make Helena’s belly tighten with anticipation. His smiles were downright distracting. Heaven forbid that he ever smile directly at her! Or worse, for her! Helena thought that she might never recover from that!
“Well?” asked Rudolf, his voice lower and a little rougher than it had been previously. “What do you think? Do I pass muster?”
Helena blinked.
It took her a moment to remember what they had been talking about, as it probably wasn’t about the things that his smiles did to her or the thickness of his thighs; although, for the completeness of record, they were quite thick.
Swallowing her first response – a demand that he take off his shirt so that she could better study the question – Helena said, more breathlessly than she had intended, “Yes, I think so.” Quickly, she tried to inject a more humorous note into her voice, adding, “Would you like a note to that effect from Dr. Helena?”
“Are you a doctor then?”
“Not yet,” admitted Helena. “I just finished my masters. In a couple of years, I’m going to go for my doctorate in, er, something.”
Was he closer than before? He was probably closer than before. Or maybe she was closer to him? Either way, their proximity to one another was making it completely impossible for her to think properly!
Ransacking her brain for something, anything to say, Helena added triumphantly, “But that something is definitely going to involve comparative anatomy. I’m going to be a comparative anatomist.”
“Comparative anatomy, huh? That’s close enough,” decided Rudolf Shaw. Sounding wistful, he added, “I wish that they’d just take your word for it, and let me skip the test.” He nodded at Helena’s lap – no, at the empty bowl in it. “Are you finished with that?”
“Yes!” said Helena quickly.
He held out his hand, and after a moment’s mental scramble, Helena passed her bowl off to him rather than slipping her hand into his. Rising, he went to take their dirty dishes into the kitchen.
Helena, though, hung back, mesmerized by the play of muscles in his back.
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, at least not one that Helena’s critical gaze could detect, although she wouldn’t have minded giving it another look, say without his shirt next time.
Possibly without his pants too, thought Helena, her gaze dropping several inches. His pants weren’t nearly as tight or as worn as his t-shirt, but it was still a fine sight.
Helena had never enjoyed watching a man walk away from her quite so much before.
From the kitchen came the sound of water hitting metal, breaking Helena’s lustful reverie. Scrambling to her feet, she went to help Rudolf do the dishes.
After lunch, Rudolf briefly disappeared into his bedroom to change clothes and dig out a spare key to his apartment. As he passed it to her, he said “The code for the alarm is the number five and then the word moons, whatever numbers those work out to be. Feel free to wander around and get familiar with the place. I’ve got to get to the gym. If you need me, it’s near the clubhouse.”
Helena nodded. “Thanks.”
“It’s no problem.”
“No, I mean – Well, yes, thank you for the key and the code. But also, thanks for letting me stay with you until Declan gets home.”
Helena didn’t understand why Rudolf had been so insistent that she stay with him rather than letting her stay alone in Declan’s empty apartment, especially since she very obviously made him extremely uncomfortable. But whatever his reasons, she appreciated that he was trying so hard to be a good friend to her cousin.
“Don’t mention it.”
“But –”
“I mean it,” said Rudolf sharply. “Don’t mention it.”
Helena couldn’t see her own face, of course, but her expression must have been rather eloquent, because Rudolf sighed.
“It’s nothing personal,” h
e said. “My second nature is just very territorial. I’ll get used to you being here.”
“Second nature?” asked Helena, her interest perked. “You shift?”
Rudolf nodded. “Into a wolf.”
“How wonderful for you!” said Helena, feeling genuinely pleased for him.
“Yeah. Well.” Rudolf shrugged. “I’ll see you after I get back, then?”
“Yes, I’ll be here,” said Helena, nodding.
That seemed to satisfy Rudolf, because with another nod, he grabbed his keys and abruptly left. That might have been awkward, but the way that his worn gym shorts were clinging to his butt was of great consolation to Helena in those trying times.
Finally alone in his apartment, Helena not so discreetly checked the corners of her mouth for drool – none, thank goodness – and then went to put her key to his apartment on her key ring. Then she went out, taking care to lock up behind herself.
Rudolf and Declan’s apartment complex was laid out a bit like a flower with the club house and other amenities located at its center. It was there that Helena headed.
A short walk later, Helena found herself at the main office. Behind it, there were the pools: a long lap swimming pool with an amoeba-shaped kids’ pool, complete with a splashy jungle gym, squirty water jets, and a twisty slide, to one side of it and a couple of smaller hot tubs to the other side of it. The hot tubs were tucked behind some shrubs, giving them a modicum of privacy, as was the playground, which was located to one side of the splashy kids’ pool.
Best of all, Helena could smell the faint scent of chlorine lingering in the air. Chlorine was good, great even. It meant that she could enjoy swimming in the pool without any… unfortunate side effects showing up. If it had been a saltwater lap swimming pool, well, that would have been an entirely different story. She would have had to avoid the swimming facilities like the plague… or invest in a wetsuit and swim shoes, she supposed.
The club house catty-corner to the left of the main office housed the apartment complex’s business center and community room. The one directly opposite the main office across the length of the lap swimming pool held the apartment complex’s fitness center and the pool side bar. In front of the bar were arranged a cluster of wrought iron tables and chairs, all of which had already been claimed by clusters of people. In fact, the pool area was hopping, and through the gym’s long windows, Helena could see that the fitness center was equally busy.
Leaving the center of the blossom, Helena headed outwards. Near the apartment complex, she found a cute little French pastry shop that also served a limited breakfast and lunch menu as well as a handful of specialty shops. Further away, there was also a grocery store.
At the grocery store, Helena bought an ice cream sandwich, a small tub of strawberry ice cream, and a bottle of water before heading back the way that she had come. Helena ate the ice cream sandwich as she went.
She was at the outmost edge of the sprawling apartment complex when someone called “On your right!” A heartbeat later, a man on a bicycle whizzed past her, so close that Helena yelped and dropped both her shopping bag and the remnants of her ice cream sandwich. She stumbled backwards, freezing when someone else shouted “Watch it!”
Another bicyclist whizzed past her, this time behind her. And then, maybe three heartbeats after that, a lot of people on bicycles whizzed past her, splitting to either side of Helena like a stream of water splitting around a stone. Some of them even said things like “’Scuse me!” and “On your left!” and “Move it!” while Helena cringed, worried sick that any one of them was going to roll over her toes.
In a very few moments, it was over, and they were gone, leaving Helena breathless but unharmed.
“My dear!” called a man’s voice, and Helena looked his way, thinking, What fresh hell is this?
She braced herself, prepared for all sorts of startling indignities, but the man merely took her shoulder and looked her over, saying with obvious concern, “I saw the whole thing. Shameful, absolutely shameful, and on a public sidewalk, no less! They didn’t bump you about too badly or roll over your toes did they?”
“N-No, I don’t think so,” said Helena, bewildered. Her blood relatives had shown less care for her, and in far more dire circumstances.
“Well, that’s good,” said the other, leaning back.
Now, Helena could see that she should perhaps have been fussing over him. He was of maybe average height for a man, which certainly made him taller than her, and maybe thirty years older than her. He was skinny as a rail, his clothing hanging off of his frame, with limp brown hair and warm blue-green eyes. Looking into his haggard face, it was obvious that he was in the process of slowly getting over some awful illness or terrible injury. But he had once been quite handsome, and vestiges of it still remained even now.
Helena particularly liked his eyes. Looking into them felt a bit like swimming in a warm river. But then, she had always been partial to the water, as well as things that reminded her of it.
At Helena’s assurance that she was well, most of the energy seemed to go out of the stranger, and he slumped, staggering to one side. Automatically, Helena reached out to steady him, saying, “Come lean against the planters. I don’t think you’re so heavy that you could knock over a whole tub of – of whatever those are.”
“Oleanders,” huffed the man. “They’re poisonous.”
“Then I’ll try to resist the urge to stuff them in my mouth,” said Helena, making the man smile. “Where were you going? Can I help you get there?”
“No, no, I was just taking my groceries up to my apartment,” said the stranger, and gestured past Helena.
Toward the parking lot, Helena realized, as she turned to look in the direct that he had indicated.
It was easy to see which car was his. Parked in the first row was an electric car, blue and new with sleek lines and a pair of tattered dice hanging from the rearview mirror. The driver’s side door was hanging open, left that way when the car’s driver had rushed to her aid.
Leaving her would-be rescuer where he was slumped against the planter, Helena went to his car to collect his keys and the two bags of groceries that had been arranged in the front passenger’s side foot well. Leaving the groceries briefly on the hood of the car, Helena shut the car’s doors, locked the vehicle, and dropped the man’s keys into her own purse.
That done, Helena rescued her shopping bag from the sidewalk, looping its handles over her forearm, before she retrieved the two bags of groceries from the hood of the car. Then she returned to her companion, who looked slightly better for his small rest.
He still looked pretty ghastly, though.
“So,” said Helena, hitching the bags higher against her chest. Who knew that groceries were so heavy? “Where are we going?”
The man made a wry face, but he didn’t try to reclaim his things from her. Instead, he let Helena carry them as he laboriously led her to the nearest building, in which he thankfully had a ground floor apartment.
Helena patiently waited while he fished his keys out of her handbag and fumbled with the door, finally opening it with a flourish.
“Ta da!” chirped Helena, since it seemed to be lacking, and the man grinned.
As she passed him, he said “Just put them on the counter, my dear. And then perhaps you’d like a cup of tea?”
“Yes, please,” said Helena eagerly. She liked tea.
She not only put his things on the counter, she helped him put them away, following his directions as to where the less obvious things went as he filled the electric kettle with water and plugged it into the wall.
That, Helena felt, was odd. Americans didn’t often drink tea, but when they did, it certainly wasn’t prepared in a kettle. When she said as much to her host, he laughed.
“I got into the habit while on my long honeymoon,” he said cheerfully. “My wife always swore that she could taste the difference between water that was boiled in a tea kettle and that which was heated up in
a microwave.”
“Microwave water tastes flatter,” said Helena promptly. “Deader too.”
Her host laughed.
Holding up two boxes, he asked “Would you prefer green tea or English breakfast?”
“English breakfast,” said Helena promptly, and her host smile.
“I was hoping you’d say that. It’s my favorite too.”
Helena beamed. “I’m Helena Tarleton!”
Her host’s smile widened into a grin. “Please consider me Greg Lazarus.”
Perhaps she had found her first friend in this new place?
Helena hoped so, at any rate.
Chapter 08 – Dolf
Such an idiot! Dolf thought, as he ran. I must have sounded so stupid to her!
Annoyed with himself, he pressed one of the up arrows on the treadmill, increasing the speed of his run.
Dolf was the sort of man who was at his best advantage among friends. He knew that, he accepted it, and it generally didn’t bother him. But it was going to be a long week if he couldn’t get it together enough to keep up his side of a simple conversation with his teammate’s very pretty cousin.
Stupid, unlucky Declan getting his bad luck all over me, thought Dolf, not for the first time since he had allowed Helena Tarleton to stay with him.
Annoyed with himself, Dolf worked out harder.
Dolf worked out until his body ached then went for a swim to cool down. He hadn’t thought to bring a towel down with him, so he was dripping wet but thoroughly satisfied as he made his way back upstairs again.
Helena was out – Maybe she had decided to take a walk along the bike trail? – so Dolf headed directly to the bathroom for a long, hot shower.
Dolf was rubbing conditioner into his short hair, when he heard the sound of his front door opening. It startled him, his heart rate picking up in his chest, until he remembered his house guest.
My houseguest! Dolf realized, embarrassed as he recognized his mistake: he hadn’t brought a change of clothes into the bathroom with him.
Panicked, Dolf’s mind darted first to the wet clothes on the floor of the bathroom and then away from them. There was no way that he was putting on his wet clothes again.
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