by Geri Krotow
She hadn’t been surprised. Why should women who had been through a public scandal at such a tender age seek publicity?
Still, she knew the basic facts. Rowena was the eldest, and the only one with gypsy-black hair. The youngest was Penelope, and the one picture of her as a child showed a honey-brown fall of hair half-hiding a sweet, timid face.
Rowena was obviously the pack leader. Her air of authority was unmistakable. It showed in her indifference to how she tracked slush into the pristine space, in her willingness to bluster into Serenity Central and never be cowed for a second.
Rowena was living proof that everything Tess had been thinking was true. Tess Spencer, the hard-scrabbling itinerant employee with a chip on her shoulder the size of Colorado, had nothing in common with the poised, ebullient Wright sisters.
“You must be Tess!” Rowena turned the amazing green eyes toward her, and her smile deepened, projecting warmth in spite of the chill that still clung to her gold sweater and cords. “I’m Rowena! I’m so sorry I’m late. Gawd, why do I keep saying that? I couldn’t help it, really I couldn’t. Some meddling fool called the health inspector, and now I’m going to have to dance him around, proving we’re not serving ptomaine every night for dinner.”
“Ro.” Bree pursed her lips, though her eyes had an inner light that hinted at repressed laughter. “You know you’re saying this stuff out loud, right? And everyone can hear you?”
“I can’t hear her,” a male voice called out from behind the reception area. “And I’m not planning a lawsuit as we speak.”
Rowena and Brianna burst into laughter. “You’d better not be, Jude,” Rowena said merrily, raising her voice a little to be sure the invisible man could hear her. “What would be the point? You know firsthand how broke we are. In fact, if you get paid this week, you’ll be lucky!”
“Ro.” Bree shook her head, giving the starchy client a meaningful glance. “Again. You said that out loud.”
Ro gave the woman a look of her own. “Oh, we don’t have any secrets at Bell River. Silverdell’s too small a town for secrets, isn’t it, Mrs. Fillmore?”
Tess raised her eyebrows. Again, the subtext of irony. These two didn’t like Mrs. Fillmore one bit. She wondered if the feeling was mutual, but the scowl on Mrs. Fillmore’s face was too firmly entrenched to be sure it meant anything.
“Indeed,” the woman said, pinching her nose with a sniff. “Too small, and sadly too addicted to petty gossiping.” She twisted her wrist to look at her watch. “Rowena, my masseuse is ten minutes late.”
Tess bristled. No one said masseuse anymore. It had been used too often as a substitute for activities a lot less professional.
“Your massage therapist is Ashley today, Mrs. Fillmore.”
One point for Rowena, who had corrected Mrs. Fillmore without making an issue of it.
“And?” Mrs. Fillmore seemed to find Rowena’s explanation inadequate.
“You know Ashley always gives everyone a little extra attention if they need it.” Rowena smiled warmly. “That’s why you always ask for her, I’m sure.”
Another sniff. Mrs. Fillmore looked down without answering, turning the pages of her magazine, as if intensely interested in the paparazzi photo spread.
How exactly that differed from petty gossip, Tess couldn’t say. But she didn’t have the job yet, and she couldn’t be snarky with the clients. Luckily, she rarely wanted to. Once she got her hands on a person, even a person like Mrs. Fillmore—
Tess was a tactile person. She thought, and heard, and spoke, and even learned, through her hands. It was her talent. Really, her only talent. If she’d had a choice, she would have chosen something far more lucrative, like computer programming or rocket science.
But she hadn’t had a choice. All she had was the ability to learn about a person by touching their skin, working their body. By hearing the tension in their muscles and the strain in their joints. By knowing which pressure points they responded to, what made their blood flow more easily, what drained the unhappiness from their faces.
Once she worked on someone, she understood them in a new way, and the urge to judge, or mock, or take down a peg simply vanished.
“I’m not worried about the health inspector, really,” Rowena went on, indicating to both Brianna and Tess in her explanation. “There’s nothing to find, so he can dig away. Whoever phoned is just causing trouble for the fun of it. The real problem is that I will have to dance him around, which means I won’t be available for the working massage, Tess. We’ll have to find someone else for you to work on.”
Rowena turned a hopeful gaze toward her sister, who shook her head implacably. “Sorry,” Bree said. “Much as I’d love to let someone work out these kinks, I’ve got nine eight-year-olds waiting to take a sleigh ride to see Santa in downtown Silverdell.”
Rowena made a raspberry of annoyance. “Drat. Forgot about that. Really, next year we are going to have to close from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, like we planned. Won’t that be heavenly? I’ll sleep the whole time.” She gave Tess a rueful glance. “This year, we can’t afford to close a single minute. Which is why we’re interviewing four days before Christmas, in case you thought that was nuts.”
Tess smiled neutrally. She had been part of start-ups before, and she knew the first couple of years were insane, and very touch-and-go, financially. Rowena might be optimistic to think they’d be on solid footing in twelve months.
Besides, Tess couldn’t bring herself to think about Christmas this year. Her mother had died two months ago, and the jingling bells and twinkling lights all over town were a jarring reminder of what she’d lost.
She didn’t intend to celebrate any holidays for a while. The only toast she’d raise this year was to a new beginning and an entirely new life.
“I’m glad you were,” she said, “since four days before Christmas just happened to be when I was looking for a job.”
Rowena accepted that logic with a nod, then turned to Bree. “What about Becky? Can’t she take over?”
“Nope. She’s leading Pilates. We’d have a mutiny if we canceled Pilates.”
“Mark? He’s good with kids!”
“Good with kids?” Brianna laughed. “Are you kidding? Mark threatened to tie Alec to a tree yesterday if he didn’t stop putting snowballs down Ellen’s back.”
“So?” Rowena grinned. “I threaten to tie Alec to a tree every day.”
“Well, you’re his stepmother. I think it’s written in the job description.”
“Hey,” Tess interrupted, finally realizing that if she waited for an opening she’d be here all day. “It’s okay. Really. I can come back tomorrow.”
Rowena shook her head. “No, that’s silly. I need you to start tomorrow, if everything works out. With Devon leaving in a week, there’s hardly any time to get you up to speed.”
Rowena chewed on her lower lip, narrowing her eyes with fierce determination. “There has to be a way...there must be someone.” Her eyes opened wide. “Mrs. Fillmore! Is there any chance you would be willing to let Tess do your massage today? She has excellent credentials, and we need some feedback on a working massage, so that—”
“No.” The older woman folded her magazine tightly, the paper crackling under the force of her fingers.
Rowena frowned. “Of course it would be a complimentary session, as you’d be doing us a favor. And if for any reason it wasn’t satisfactory, we could ask Ashley to—”
“No.” For a minute it seemed Mrs. Fillmore wasn’t going to elaborate, and would let the rejection hang there like a slap in the face. But apparently she realized how rude it sounded and bent a little.
“My sciatica is acting up today. Ashley is the only one who knows how to give me any relief. I’m sorry, but I just can’t take chances with a...” She paused, wrinkling her nose slightly. “A be
ginner.”
Heat flooded Tess’s face. Beginner was insulting enough, given that she had three degrees and five years of experience. But she had, in her intuitive way, “heard” all the other words that Mrs. Fillmore had considered saying. A nobody. A stranger. A loser. An urchin. A child.
It struck a nerve. Tess was always being taken for younger than she was. She was only five-three. She’d always been too thin, the kind of thin that broadcast the years of going to bed hungry when her mother got laid off. The kind of thin that made her breasts look ridiculous.
And she wasn’t one bit glamorous, didn’t possess an ounce of the confident gloss that rich, well-tended women acquired. She had a small chip out one of her front teeth that should have been repaired long ago, but there’d never been enough money. She worried off her lipstick and couldn’t be bothered applying mascara.
Her only real asset, a mass of curly brown hair that bounced and shone without spending a fortune on it, had to be pinned back ruthlessly when she worked. No one wanted the massage therapist’s curls tickling their bare back.
The compliment she’d heard most often from kind-hearted clients was that she had a sweet face. She knew that was shorthand for “not ugly, of course, a perfectly nice-looking girl, but...”
“Beginner? Beginner?” Rowena’s high cheekbones were tipped with red. “Tess isn’t a beginner, I assure you, Mrs. Fillmore. In fact, we’re quite lucky to get her. Her last job was at the—”
“It’s okay,” Tess said, wondering about Rowena’s temper. There was zero chance that Mrs. Fillmore would have heard of the Pink Roses Salon, the luxury spa where Tess had worked a year before her mother’s death. Impressing Mrs. Fillmore was impossible. “Really,” Tess added firmly. “Mrs. Fillmore is right. Sciatica can be debilitating. She should have the massage therapist she trusts.”
And Tess should have a fair judge of her talents. A woman bullied into accepting an unwanted massage didn’t look like the most impartial critic.
To her credit, Rowena seemed suddenly to get that. “Oh. Right.” She took a deep breath, clearly tamping down the irritation with the older lady. “Of course.”
Bree, who clearly either didn’t have a temper or knew how to hide it, smiled. “I know. What about Jude?”
“What about Jude?” The man’s amused voice came from behind the wall, and was followed by a rustling sound, then the appearance of a large body.
For a minute, Tess wasn’t sure he was real. Surely people that exquisite, that drop-dead gorgeous, didn’t just emerge from behind walls on command. Not even here, at the fairy-tale Bell River Ranch.
Tumbling black waves of hair. Eyes bluer than cornflowers. Lips, jaw, cheekbones, forehead—all chiseled Michelangelo perfect. Tall, lean, perfectly proportioned.
The beautiful creature was dressed as a laborer. A carpenter, probably, judging from the leather apron slung low on his trim hips, like a gunslinger’s belt. His weapons appeared to be screwdrivers, wrenches and other tools she was too ignorant to name.
She almost laughed. If he’d been sent to a movie set by central casting, the director would have rejected him instantly, on the grounds that no real person, carpenter or king, ever looked like this.
“Jude, this is Tess Spencer. She’s applying for Devon’s job.” Rowena spoke, but neither she nor Bree seemed surprised at the appearance of Adonis. “Tess, this is Jude Calhoun. Our carpenter and general woodworking genius. He’s single-handedly responsible for building the spa. And about half the other buildings at the ranch, too.”
Jude came forward, brushing his palms lightly across his back pockets, as if to remove sawdust. Then he held out his right hand to Tess. “She’s exaggerating, of course. Rowena doesn’t do anything by half measures, including compliments.”
Tess put her hand out, too, rather numbly.
His shake was warm and firm. “Nice to meet you, Tess.”
Rowena checked her watch. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot, Jude, but I’ve got to meet the inspector. Would you mind letting Tess do her working massage on you? You’ve gotta need one, after being on that ladder all day.”
Inexplicably, Tess felt her cheeks flushing, but she couldn’t demur about this recruit, too, not after rushing to rule out Mrs. Fillmore. She might look as if she were afraid to do the working massage.
At least this guy didn’t seem as if he’d be bitchy about it.
“Well...” He smiled at Tess, his cheeks dimpling about an inch from the corners of his lips. Of course. If he’d been a computer-generated image, the dimples couldn’t have been placed more effectively. “It’s a terrible imposition, being blindsided like this, and asked to accept a free massage. But I suppose I can take one for the team.”
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER, Tess was ready. She’d received the quickie tour of the facilities from Bree, essentially killing time while Jude had a shower.
As they went through the spa, Tess noted again that the Wrights had spared no expense, and she congratulated their taste. One of the indefinables that characterized any successful retreat was a soothing, almost spiritual feeling. This one had it.
The cream-and-taupe marble was peaceful, and Tess recognized top-of-the-line products everywhere. But the real magic was the location. The spa had been brilliantly designed in a V shape, obviously to provide all the main rooms with a view of a waterfall mere yards from the building.
The small waterfall had frozen in this unnaturally cold December, and it sparkled like white crystal ribbons in the sun. Tess could only imagine how transcendent the view would be when the water spilled liquid diamonds in the summer.
“That’s Little Bell Falls,” Bree said. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? You should see it during wildflower season.”
Interestingly, Bree’s placid face didn’t register the same delight Tess felt, but she didn’t comment further. Was there a problem? Perhaps proximity to water presented a dampness concern? Had there been a debate about where to build the spa?
Tess was surprised to realize how curious she was to know everything about the Wrights and Bell River. Should a secret blood connection she’d discovered only three months ago, and which had been no part of her life for twenty-seven years, affect her so profoundly?
In the end, these people were strangers, and probably would never be more to Tess than amiable employers. And not even that, if she didn’t nail this massage.
“Sorry you can’t work in one of the cozier single rooms,” Bree said as she led Tess into a large space that obviously was set aside for couples massage. Two tables, a hot tub, its own nail station. “But we have just the two singles. Chelsea is using the Taupe Room, and Ashley’s got Mrs. Fillmore in the Blue Room.”
Mrs. Fillmore. Another nuance Tess would have loved to explore. Another detail that was none of her business.
“I don’t mind at all,” she said honestly. The frills—the decor, the candles, the music, the lighting—were mostly for the clients’ benefit. When Tess worked, she went into a zone and didn’t register anything except the body under her hands.
Bree seemed ready to leave Tess, but she paused about halfway to the door. She glanced down the hall, toward the faint, distant hiss of water where Jude had disappeared to “wash the work off.”
“You know, there’s nothing to be nervous about,” Bree said, turning to Tess with a disconcertingly sharp gaze. “He’s a nice man, very down-to-earth. Not an ounce of arrogance in him, amazingly.”
“It hadn’t occurred—”
“No?” Bree smiled. “Come on. We grew up with him. He’s always been around—he and Mitch, Rowena’s brother-in-law, are best friends, so he’s practically like a brother to us all. And yet sometimes even we can’t believe how good-looking he is.”
Tess shrugged. “I’ve lived in L.A. all my life. Even before I went to work for Pink Roses, I’d see
n some amazing things.”
“Oh? I didn’t know that. That’ll give you something in common, then. Jude spent a little more than six years in Hollywood.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Bree’s elegant brow pinched a fraction. “Not that I’d mention it. It wasn’t an entirely happy experience for him.”
Tess tried not to bristle. Massage therapists weren’t priests, but discretion was definitely desirable. “I don’t tend to chitchat while I’m working. I need to concentrate, and the clients usually prefer to relax. Even if they talk, I mostly listen.”
“Good. Well, I guess that’s everything.” Bree fidgeted with her earring, clearly a bit uncertain about leaving Tess without supervision. “Except...I probably should mention that—”
“I’m fine.” Tess hoped her voice didn’t sound too tight. The hovering was a little annoying. Five years, remember? She’d worked her way up to some of the most demanding spas in the country, spas that catered to people who expected perfection, even in their massage therapists.
Yet Bree acted as if she were leaving a kid at kindergarten on the first day.
Tess forced a smile. “Really. I’ll be fine.”
Nodding, Bree turned, practically running into Jude, who stood in the doorway, wearing a white terry robe monogrammed with the initials BRR across the breast.
“There you are!” She patted his chest casually. “Okay, then, if you guys are both set, I’d better run. Remember, if you need anything, both Chelsea and Ashley are a shout away.”
“Thanks,” Tess said.
And then she and Jude were alone. For an awkward minute, she was ridiculously tongue-tied, forgetting her protocols as if she really were the newbie that Mrs. Fillmore and Bree took her for.
His coloring and perfect features had been striking enough, even in his work clothes, but like this, half-dressed, tousled and damp from the shower...
