A brief pause, then Rudolf said with some obvious difficulty “I liked her alright, but I liked the Hardy boys better.”
“Well, they were good too! And the brothers got a lot of good banter. Bess and George weren’t really much for that sort of thing. But George could do karate. That made up for a lot.”
Rudolf laughed.
“That theater isn’t very far away,” he said. “In fact, it’s really close to the science center.”
“So Nancy Drew and then science?”
“If you want?”
“I mean, if you don’t mind?” said Helena, while casting the play poster another longing look. It was one of those things that could be so, so good or so, so bad.
“No, of course not,” said Rudolf. “And I wouldn’t mind if you called me Dolf either. It’s what my friends call me.”
“Dolf,” said Helena, rolling the syllable around in her mouth. She gave a little nod. “Okay! I’ll try.”
Ru – Dolf actually smiled at her. “Thanks.”
The Nancy Drew play was fun! And so, so good; it was a really clever adaptation of the first novel. At the climax, the boy in the seat next to Helena’s got so excited that he kicked her in the ankle. Repeatedly. Not that Helena had much room to complain. She had been clutching at Dolf’s arm the entire time.
After the play, Dolf suggested that they go grab something to eat at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant and Helena, hoping that he hadn’t heard what her stomach had been up to throughout the entire second act, swiftly agreed.
The place that he took her to looked rundown on the outside, and on the inside, the restaurant’s furnishings were utilitarian at best. But there were a lot of customers inside, the staff spoke Vietnamese to each other, and hanging in pride of place on the wall were five newspaper clippings, one for each of the last five years. In them, the restaurant was declared the best in its field and one of the best in Orlando, period.
That, Helena felt, was a very good sign of things to come.
She ordered the shrimp rolls, the yellow fish curry, and a glass of water. Dolf got the spring rolls, the vegetarian curry, and a glass of lemonade.
To Helena’s delight, when the shrimp rolls came, she could literally see the cooked shrimps inside of them through the rolls’ translucent wrappers. And the peanut sauce that came with them was amazing! Helena easily could have drunk the stuff by the gallon.
“I can’t believe you got the spring rolls!”
“I like the mint in them,” said Rudolf mildly.
“Mine have mint in them. I think ours are more or less the same, but mine have shrimp in them.”
“Which obviously makes them better.”
“Exactly!”
Dolf smiled at her. “I take it you like shrimp then.”
“A lot! But then, I like pretty much all seafood, especially shellfish. When I was in grad school, I used to carry tins of sardines around in my purse, just in case I needed a late night snack while I was studying in the library.”
“I’m sure that made you very popular,” deadpanned Rudolf.
“I only ate them in the private reading rooms,” said Helena defensively. “I’m not a complete monster.”
“Are you still in grad school?”
“No, I just graduated. A few days ago, in fact,” said Helena. “I’m going to work a bit before I go for my Ph.D.”
“Yeah? What are you studying?”
“Comparative anatomy,” said Helena, as flirtily as she knew how.
She was entirely gratified when Rudolf Shaw blushed.
He doesn’t hate me, she decided. He might even like me, at least a little bit. He’s just shy.
Shy was something that she could work with.
They never did make it to the science center, but the afternoon was still fun. In fact, it was the most fun that Helena had had in months, if not years.
Conversation got easier between them, and once or twice, Helena even caught Dolf teasing her. It was obvious that, despite his nerves, Rudolf Shaw was really trying to show her a good time. That went a long way towards smoothing any unevenness over. And realizing that he was shy made all his awkward pauses so much cuter!
When they got home from their day out, Dolf said that he needed to go to the gym and, remembering that lovely long pool, Helena said “Then I’ll go to the pool! Unless it’s only for residents?”
“You’re living here. That makes you a resident.”
Helena beamed.
Rudolf Shaw still didn’t talk a lot, but when he did, he said the nicest things.
So he had changed, and then she had changed, pulling on a sarong over her swimsuit. When she exited his bedroom, her skin slathered in sunblock and her flip-flops popping on every step, Helena had expected Rudolf to be long gone.
Instead, he was waiting for her in the kitchen.
As Helena drew nearer, he thrust out his hand, offering her a water bottle. Taking it, Helena discovered that it was both full and cold.
She smiled at Dolf.
“Thank you,” said Helena, and Dolf inclined his handsome head in acknowledgement.
So cute! Helena thought and nearly sighed wistfully.
She had always preferred the strong, silent type, the kind of man who spoke with his actions rather than words.
After all, Tarletons said an awful lot of things, but they only meant about half of them – usually, but not always, the unpleasant half. It was what they didn’t say that mattered most. Their actions spoke to their nature louder than any words that they had ever said aloud.
Rudolf Shaw, it seemed, was the same way.
Happy, Helena followed her host out of the apartment, a towel over her shoulder.
Helena didn’t see her new friend, Mr. Lazarus, anywhere along the way. As they approached the community facilities, Rudolf veered off towards the gym, leaving Helena to find her own way onto the pool deck.
Claiming a lounge chair for her things and then a lap swimming lane in turn, Helena slipped into the water, sighing as the cool water closed around her, cradling her frame.
Helena had always loved the water best.
If the pool had been saltwater rather than fresh and chlorinated, everything would have been just perfect.
Of course, had the pool’s water been saltwater rather than fresh and chlorinated, she would have had soft, shimmer scales from her navel to her toes. She would have had to wear her long swimsuit into the pool, rather than her cute one.
It still might have been worth it.
Sucking in a deep breath, Helena ducked under the water. And then she began to swim, all her thoughts and fears and exciting new experiences melting away. There was just her and the water and the pull of her muscles as she moved through it.
It was a long time later, and Helena was tired, when she finally touched the wall without kicking off of it again. Standing, Helena reached for her water bottle where she had left it at the top of her lane. Greedily, she drank from it.
It was only after her thirst was sated that Helena realized there was someone lounging in her lounge chair.
And that someone was Rudolf Shaw, looking more distractingly handsome than usual with his sweaty skin and mussed hair and his icicle blue eyes fixed squarely on her.
How long has he been waiting for me? Helena wondered, as she put her water bottle aside.
Bracing her hands shoulder’s width apart on the deck, Helena pulled herself out of the pool. And Rudolf’s face as he watched her emerge from the water, his expression, the way that his eyes darkened, all made Helena’s lips twitch with the beginnings of a smile and her belly tighten with anticipation.
So the pool was fresh, chlorinated water rather than saltwater?
Swimming in it was totally worth it, decided Helena, her heart glowing with smug satisfaction.
Every girl liked to be appreciated, after all.
Chapter 10 – Dolf
Watching Helena emerge from the lap swimming pool – water streaming down her long limbs, the s
ubtle curves of her accentuated with golden sunshine and shadow, and her blue eyes somehow bigger without her blonde hair lying loose around her face – was a revelation. Dolf wasn’t a religious man, but at that moment, he had wanted to worship every inch of Helena with his hands and lips and tongue.
Instead, he had passed Helena her towel.
It was a mistake; a terrible, terrible mistake that sent all of his blood rushing south as he watched her briskly towel off.
Dolf, who had trouble stringing together a coherent sentence around her at the best of times, found himself biting his tongue against an entirely inadvisable desire to offer to do all that pesky drying off for her.
She was his teammate Declan’s cousin!
He was supposed to be looking out for her, not taking advantage of her!
And he definitely wasn’t supposed to be enjoying the scenery as much as he was. But she was just so beautiful and so oddly endearing, despite the clumsiness and the old-fashioned formality that sometimes seemed to hang about her like a cloak. Or it was maybe because of them?
Dolf wasn’t sure, just like he wasn’t sure if it was a relief or a disappointment when Helena wrapped her towel around her head and a fine, colorful cloth around her body. She looked cute now rather than smokin’ hot.
Still bone-able though, decided Dolf, and then wanted to smack himself.
He didn’t bone clients.
Except Helena wasn’t technically a client, now was she? She hadn’t contracted his services through the office. He wasn’t protecting her – except from himself, because she was Declan’s cousin, and this was a favor to his teammate, Declan.
If he kept repeating that to himself, he might even remember it sometimes when he was looking at Helena.
When Helena was ready, a towel tucked around her torso and her flip-flops on her feet, Dolf stood, and they went upstairs together.
Although it might have been quicker and more water efficient to share, or so insisted Dolf’s libido, they took turns in the shower. At her insistence, he went first.
During her turn in the shower, Dolf warmed the leftover soup and prepared fixings for wraps. When she joined him, they assembled their dinner – a bowl of leftover soup and a turkey wrap fat with meat, cheese, lettuce, and various other fillings, most of them healthy – and absolutely no one got hurt.
Maybe she’s not as clumsy as I’d thought, contemplated Dolf, and then grabbed Helena’s hip to steady her as she reached up into one of the cabinets to fetch down the glasses.
Or maybe she was.
Either way, dinner was a smashing success. And, thanks to the science center, they had actually had a starting point for conversation that night.
Maybe I can actually do this. Maybe this won’t be so bad, thought Dolf that night as he got ready for bed. In her closet, he could hear Helena doing the same, although he was pretending very hard that he couldn’t. That way lay imagining his houseguest naked, something that he definitely shouldn’t do while said houseguest was in the next room.
The temptation, however, remained. And, thanks to seeing her emerge from that pool, Helena was dripping wet as she emerged from the bathtub, naked, in all those thoughts that he definitely wasn’t having about her.
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, Dolf determinedly focused on other things, things that would help to make his pajama pants less restricting.
He was nearly successful, when Helena emerged from her closet on a cloud of artificial scents, her shiny blond hair falling in waves around her narrow shoulders. She was wearing a set of very short, silky blue shorts, which left the length of her long and shapely legs exposed to his admiration, and a silky button down nightshirt, also dark blue. It made her eyes look very blue.
With her looking like that, it’s no wonder that I have trouble managing full sentences when she isn’t in mortal danger of accidentally killing herself… or at least abruptly removing a finger, thought Dolf, feeling slightly dazed.
Helena blinked those blue, blue eyes up at him, and Dolf dove into his bed, least she get too good of an idea of the effect that she had on him.
But it had been a long day filled with a sort of low level stress that Dolf wasn’t used to – he rarely needed to make small talk with clients – and once in the safety of his bed, it was easy to relax. So easy, in fact, that he drifted off to sleep while listening to Helena brush her teeth.
Working for a supernatural protection agency sometimes meant working odd days and hours.
Helena had shown up on a Friday, a day which Rudolf had had off. Saturday, he had taken her to the science center. On Sunday, Rudolf had to go into work, which naturally meant leaving Helena on her own for the day; on her own and alone in his apartment.
Just thinking about it made the fine hairs on the back of Dolf’s neck stand on end.
He was attracted to her, there was no denying that, and sometimes he worried about her, especially around knives and walls, but that wasn’t the same as trusting her to be alone and unescorted in his territory.
And yet, he really needed to go.
This is what you signed up for, thought Dolf grimly, reminding himself. So just go already.
And yet, he lingered on the living room’s threshold, watching as Helena spread first butter and then strawberry jam over a slice of toast. She slid the plate of dressed toast across the table, clearly offering it to him.
Surprised, Rudolf blinked first at it then her.
“You looked hungry?” she said and, at a disadvantage, Rudolf shook his head.
“Will you be alright?” he demanded, more abruptly than he liked. Helena looked first startled and then confused, so he elaborated, adding, “Here. On your own, I mean.”
Helena’s expression cleared.
“Yes,” she said. “I can take care of myself, after all.”
He must have looked somewhat doubtful, because Helena bristled.
“I can!”
Dolf’s eyes flicked to her various injuries, all of them accidental but all of them self-inflicted, nonetheless.
Helena scowled at him.
“That’s not fair!” she snapped, still indignant. “Anyway, if you don’t leave soon, you’re going to be late to work.”
Dolf knew a last minute gambit when he saw one. Unfortunately, the one that she had selected was also true.
She was smart was Helena Tarleton.
It’ll probably be fine, thought Dolf. It’s not like anyone knows where she is, after all.
After that, there was just his own lingering unease to deal with. Dolf ignored it as best he could.
“All right,” he said at last. “But call me if you need anything. And do me a favor?”
“Of course!”
“Stay away from the oven? And the knives. And maybe the scissors…”
Indignation filled Helena’s face, and her plush lips twisted down into a scowl. Her blue eyes were snapping with her sudden ire, and tiny little frissons of electricity seemed to snap between the locks of her hair.
She looked magnificent.
Ignoring his most immediate and instinctual reaction to her – which was to pick her up and carry her directly to his bed – Dolf quickly said, “I don’t – just – Try to be safe, okay? I worry.”
At his words, most of Helena’s previous indignation melted away. Instead, she looked almost touched. Helena nodded.
“I will,” she promised. A brief hesitation, then, “Have a good day at work.”
“I will.”
Well, he probably would. Dolf didn’t particularly like his current clients, but that was a burden shared, and it was a job that was almost over anyway.
And if there was one thing that Rudolf Shaw enjoyed, it was his job.
Chapter 11 – Helena
After Rudolf left, Helena got out her laptop. She spent awhile composing, editing, and re-editing her messages before firing off a couple of e-mails, both of them to the place where she was supposed to start work in a couple of weeks. Helena hoped that, given her sud
den and surprising change in circumstances, they would be willing to make the position into a satellite posting. It was either that or she would have to find a new job. Helena didn’t want to be anywhere that her family might think to look for her.
That done, Helena tamped down on her nervousness as best she could. She surfed the web for a bit, then explored Rudolf’s bookshelf for a bit.
But although he had several interesting volumes, she was feeling far too antsy to settle down and read anything, so Helena abandoned Rudolf’s library in favor of something more active. Helena pulled on her bathing suit, slathered on some sunblock, and went downstairs to enjoy the apartment complex’s lap swimming pool.
Swimming, especially swimming long distances, had always soothed Helena’s heart, and this time was no exception.
A couple of miles later, Helena pulled herself out of the pool, feeling loose and tired and happy. She tripped over to her lounge chair, where she applied more sunblock to her skin before laying her chair flat. All of that done, Helena laid herself out, first on her back and then on her belly, tanning, relaxing, and finally losing herself in a scientific article on grey wolves.
Although he didn’t specifically say it was a grey wolf, noted Helena absently. There were other kinds. He could be one of them.
Helena made a mental note to ask Rudolf exactly what kind of wolf that he was the next time that the subject came up.
When she finally put her cell phone aside, Helena found her new friend, Mr. Lazarus, relaxing on the lounge chair next to hers. He was reading a battered hardback book, a leather-bound volume of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.
Thinking not to disturb him, Helena put her things and stood. She had meant to retreat back to Rudolf’s apartment for a shower and lunch, but Mr. Lazarus looked up then, stopping Helena in her tracks.
“I didn’t meant to disturb you.”
“I wouldn’t have sat here if I didn’t hope to be disturbed by you.”
“That was my favorite book when I was a little girl,” enthused Helena, feeling genuinely delighted by his choice. “I read it so many times that my copy fell apart.”
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