Something to Prove

by Kimberly Lang

  Helena felt like a tourist in her own hometown.

  The glass doors on the front of the city hall building displayed the Magnolia Beach seal and all twenty of their weekly office hours. Helena paused with her hand on the door.

  She’d never been in through this entrance before. Now, the side entrance into the police station was a different story. . . . She felt oddly grown-up. At the same time, she felt seventeen again.

  One of the problems with coming back to Magnolia Beach was all the people who never left, many of them people she didn’t really want to see. While that list was certainly a long one, Ryan Tanner sat firmly in the top ten. While they hadn’t been archenemies, they certainly hadn’t been friends. Popular football players from “good” families didn’t exactly hang with delinquents and those from the wrong side of the tracks—not that Magnolia Beach was big enough to really have a “right” and “wrong” side of the tracks, but the idea was the same.

  I’m not going to him for a favor. This was a business transaction, and she was an adult now. They didn’t need to be friends or anything else for her to hire him.

  With one last deep breath, she pulled the door open.

  A petite blonde sat behind a desk, her fingers clattering over the keyboard. She looked up as Helena entered, a big smile on her face. “Hi. Can I help . . .”

  The words trailed off as the smile disappeared and her eyes widened. The woman visibly pulled back as her eyes darted side to side.

  Good Lord. You’d think I’d walked in here with a snake wrapped around my neck. The nameplate on the desk said JULIE SWENSON, but Julie Lane probably had a laundry list of grievances against Helena dating back to kindergarten. The “Swenson” told Helena that Julie had married her high school boyfriend, Mike, and the rumors about Mike and Helena at homecoming—she repressed a shudder at the thought—probably fueled part of Julie’s reaction as well. Oh, honey, I’ve never been that drunk.

  She tried for a neutral, friendly tone. “Hi, Julie. You look great.”

  “This is a surprise, Helena. In town for a short visit?”

  There was such hope in the question that Helena took a little pleasure in squashing it. She might have been horrible to Julie, but thinking back, she remembered that Julie had deserved much of it. “Not too short. Grannie will be well enough to come home soon, and I’m going to be looking after her. I’m not really sure how long I’ll be staying.”

  Julie looked like she had something nasty-tasting in her mouth. “That’s very kind of you. I hope Ms. Louise heals quickly.”

  She hadn’t planned on rekindling old animosities on this trip, but it seemed inevitable. “You and me both.” She forced a cool smile. “And that brings me to why I’m here. I need to get in touch with Ryan Tanner about some work to be done to Grannie’s house before she comes home. Tate Harris said you could get me the number?”

  “Well, well, well, the rumors are true. If it isn’t Hell-on-Wheels.”

  Helena spun toward the amused baritone. She was getting much quicker at putting names to faces, but she wouldn’t have needed any help matching the twenty-year-old Ryan Tanner with the version standing in front of her now. Sun-streaked blond hair, strong jaw, green eyes with cute little crinkles from being outside . . . There was something just so damn wholesome about him that he could be the centerfold for Cute Boys Next Door magazine. In jeans, a black polo shirt, and work boots, he certainly didn’t look like he belonged in the mayor’s office, but it did give him an almost edgy sex appeal—not hurt at all by the way the sleeves of his shirt strained against his biceps.

  Under different circumstances . . . hummina. But that mocking “Hell-on-Wheels” comment had her hackles up. “It’s just Helena these days.”

  “I’m sure the chief will be glad to hear it. He’s new and all, but he’s very committed to keeping Magnolia Beach orderly and peaceful.”

  And there it was. She’d rather hoped that Ryan had outgrown his holier-than-Helena attitude. Be an adult. Let it go. “I doubt I’ll have time to make his acquaintance, but please pass along my regards.”

  Ryan walked around Julie’s desk and pulled some papers out of an in-box. “What brings you to the mayor’s office? I don’t think even you’ve been in town long enough to cause any trouble.”

  Don’t take the bait. “I’m looking for you, actually.”

  Ryan’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Then maybe we should step into my office.”

  “It’s not official Magnolia Beach business. I need to talk to you about my grandmother.”

  His attitude changed. It was subtle, but it was there all the same. Ryan indicated she should go into his office anyway. Somehow, she’d been expecting it to be dated and stuck in time, but it was modern, with nice but not-too-expensive-looking furniture. Ryan’s eyes were concerned as he asked, “How is Ms. Louise?”

  There was something very heartening about how much everyone seemed to care about Grannie. Her hospital room had remained full of fresh flowers, and she’d had a steady stream of visitors at the convalescent center. That knowledge had helped mitigate her own guilt at not being able to be there every day.

  Growing up, Helena never understood why Grannie loved living in Magnolia Beach, but then again, Grannie had never done anything to irritate the people. Well, besides having a hellion for a grandchild, of course. But even then, everyone had considered Helena to be Louise’s personal cross to bear and kept Grannie as a permanent fixture on the church’s prayer list for her patience and attempts to rein Helena in.

  “She’s chomping at the bit to be released.”

  “I’m not surprised. When will she be coming home?”

  “Two, maybe three, weeks. That’s why I’m here.”

  “So you’ll be staying awhile?” Ryan’s eyebrows went up again, as if he were calculating the cost of adding an additional officer or the possible property damage. Helena reminded herself not to be annoyed.

  “A little while.” She sat in the guest chair in front of his desk. “Grannie is going to need a lot of help when she comes home. Which brings me back to you. She can’t come home until the house is ready for her. I need ramps built and one of those walk-in bathtubs installed downstairs. We need some grab bars, stuff like that throughout the house, because I don’t want her falling again.” Just the thought put a sick feeling in her stomach. “Grannie wants you, specifically, to do the work.”

  Ryan leaned against his desk. “Tell Ms. Louise that I’m flattered.”

  “But . . . ?” she prompted.

  “No but. I’ll be happy to do it.”

  “Great. That’s a big relief.” And it was. The construction on the house was the biggest weight on her shoulders right now. And since she really didn’t have the time to vet a parade of contractors, she’d go with Grannie’s assurance that he was the best in Magnolia Beach. “I have some errands to run this morning, but I’ll be home after that. You can come by anytime this afternoon or tonight to take a look and give me some estimates.”

  Ryan pulled out his phone and checked something. “Sometime after five okay?”

  “That’ll be great.” She started to offer the address, but caught herself. “I think you know how to get to the house.”

  “That I do.” There was that smirk again.

  Helena was desperate to ask him what was so damn funny, but she restrained herself. “Then I’ll see you this evening, Mayor Tanner.” She stood and hitched her bag over her shoulder.

  He nodded, and Helena showed herself to the door. “Welcome back to Magnolia Beach, Hell-on-Wheels,” Ryan called from behind her. “Stay out of trouble, okay?”

  She had to bite her tongue to keep from taking the bait this time. With a nod to Julie on her way out, she pushed through the glass doors and into the sunshine.

  Lord have mercy. If this morning was the baseline for what life was going to be like for her the next few
weeks . . .

  Magnolia Beach had a lot of new businesses. She sincerely hoped one of them was a liquor store.

  * * *

  Ryan watched as Helena left in what could best be called a mild huff. Maybe he shouldn’t have needled her like that. It wasn’t his best move, but since the other choice had been to drop his tongue to his toes, he’d probably made the better choice out of self-preservation.

  Helena had been the stuff of teenage fantasy: pretty, but not unapproachably beautiful, wild and possibly dangerous, inspiring fear and envy and disdain at the same time. She ran with a crowd of mostly older boys—many of them delinquents themselves—giving her a scary-sharp edge and a mouth that could cut you down to size without missing a beat.

  The combination had been both alluring and detracting, much talked about in locker rooms and over illicit beers on the beach. So while Helena might have inspired the fantasies and starred in the dreams of many Magnolia Beach boys, very few had had the courage to act. They all knew she was way out of their league. Hitting on Helena seemed like a good way to have your head handed back to you.

  He’d managed to stay out of her direct line of fire—most of the time—mainly because they’d run in different social circles. And though those circles didn’t overlap, they did grate against each other pretty regularly with the expected antagonistic results. He knew Helena hadn’t cared for him back then, but any chance he might have ever had to change her mind had ended when she up and left with a deckhand from one of the charter boats.

  She never came back. Until now.

  That allure should have faded over time, so the fresh rush of temptation had rocked him back on his heels. She’d certainly grown up pretty—the big brown eyes and dark hair were just as he remembered, but there was something . . . softer about her. More approachable.

  She’d been casually dressed—jeans, a V-neck tee that just hinted at cleavage, minimal makeup—but that didn’t have a girl-next-door effect. And the spike in his blood pressure wasn’t adolescent at all.

  Damn.

  Julie stuck her head around the door. “Well, she’s back. Can you believe it?”

  “You thought she wouldn’t come home?”

  “I’m just surprised. Lord knows, she hasn’t set foot in town for anything else. Not that I’m complaining, mind you,” she added, “but it seems like she just fell off the face of the earth.”

  That was somewhat true. Helena’s legendary status had only grown in her absence—mainly because it was a complete absence. Ms. Louise was always quick to mention a gift sent by Helena, and her neighbors had given her rides to the Mobile airport for what she called her “girl trips,” but for the most part, even Ms. Louise had stayed silent about Helena’s life after Magnolia Beach. “I think an injured grandmother who needs care trumps everything else.”

  “Ms. Louise has friends and neighbors who would be happy to help.”

  “It’s not the same thing as family.”

  Julie shook her head sadly. “And even there the poor woman hasn’t had much luck, has she?”

  In a town the size of Magnolia Beach, where everything was everyone’s business and fence-row gossip was the local pastime, it was considered a real shame that someone as well-liked and good as Ms. Louise had been dealt a rather poor hand: widowed young, then left to raise Helena on her own after her son died and Helena’s mother ran off. Not that anyone would say that to her face, though. People shook their heads over Helena but maintained that Ms. Louise had done the best she could, considering the circumstances. “I don’t think Helena is a bad grandchild, only one who lives far away.”

  It wasn’t uncommon or anything; Magnolia Beach was a small town, and many of its young people left, never to return. As mayor, though, he was working hard to make Magnolia Beach a place they’d want to come back to.

  Julie merely shrugged.

  “Well, Helena’s here now, when it counts, so give her credit for that much.”

  Julie’s mouth twisted, and Ryan bit back a smile. Old grudges died hard, it seemed. Everyone knew about Mike and Helena at homecoming, and Julie obviously wasn’t ready to let that go just yet.

  “No one ever accused her of lacking nerve—that’s for sure. Anyway,” Julie said, her tone changing the subject rather nicely as she put a folder on his desk, “there’s not much happening here today. Just a few things you need to sign.” She left, leaving the door open behind her.

  A few moments later, he heard the clatter of her fingers flying over her keyboard and figured e-mails were pinging into in-boxes all over town, heralding Helena’s return.

  Shaking his head, he flipped open the file. A couple of permits, the winners’ certificates for the school’s spelling bee, the minutes from the last council meeting. An average day and the reason this job was only part-time at best. Magnolia Beach was a good place, with good people, and it pretty much rolled along without much hassle or drama.

  That was part of its charm.

  And since he sincerely doubted Helena would find time to set fire to the football equipment shed again, he could enjoy the minor shake-up she’d cause by being here.

  His mayoral duties completed for the day, he had a full half hour before he needed to be anywhere else, so he logged on to check his e-mail. With nothing important awaiting him there, either, he went online to Google Helena’s name.

  Seconds before he could, though, Julie stuck her head around the door. “Your brother just called—”

  “Adam or Eli?” he asked without looking up.

  “Adam. He said to let you know that your uncle Dave just left his office and will be here in about one minute.”

  Damn it. He quickly closed the search window and stood. “That’s not much warning.”

  “He said it would give you enough time to prepare yourself but not enough time to escape,” she said with a smirk.

  Hard on her words, he heard the front door open. Julie shrugged a halfhearted apology and stepped aside as his uncle Dave’s burly frame filled the doorway.

  “I was just out for my walk and thought I’d stop in to say hello.” Without waiting for an invitation, Uncle Dave came in and sat.

  Ryan believed in an open-door policy, and there was a high level of casualness to the position of mayor of Magnolia Beach, but this was no spur-of-the-moment drive-by visit. His uncle had been mayor for too many years and had never quite let the job go. He was just lucky Uncle Dave deigned to sit in the guest chair instead of behind the desk. These casual “just stopped in to say hello” visits had led to the last two mayors severely limiting their terms.

  It hadn’t taken Ryan long to understand why, but he had it worse than his predecessors. It was different when it was family. As his uncle liked to remind him when he protested, someone who’d changed his diapers was not going to be put off easily. And that basically included an entire generation of Magnolia Beach residents.

  At least Uncle Dave didn’t beat around the bush. “Word has it you’re going to sign off on that new cell tower.”

  Not again. “I am aware of your objections, but it has to be done. We’re trying to attract people to Magnolia Beach, and folks just don’t like to go places where they can’t get a good cell signal. They don’t like to be disconnected from the world.”

  “I think it would be a selling point. To really get away from it all. That is the purpose of vacations.”

  “You said the same thing when we put in the town Wi-Fi, and it’s proven itself a good investment.”

  “It’ll be an eyesore.”

  “So are many necessities of modern life. But you’ll be glad to know that the council chose a site specifically not to mar the view.” The cell tower itself wasn’t the problem, and Ryan knew it. The real problem was that the new cell tower was another step in his larger plan to improve Magnolia Beach, and that made some people nervous.

  Uncle Dave began mumbli
ng about how it would give them all brain cancer, and Ryan crossed that topic off his mental list. They could now move on to the prospects of the football team, people flying flags improperly, and, his perennial favorite, the length of his hair. Ryan furrowed his brow and pointedly gave his watch a worried look, hoping he would take the hint.

  No such luck. Uncle Dave sat back in the chair and got comfortable. “I hear Hell-on-Wheels rolled back into town today. And that she was looking for you.”

  He hadn’t been expecting that particular topic. Good to know the Magnolia Beach grapevine is in full working order, though. “I hear she prefers to just go by Helena these days. And, yes, she found me. There’s some work that needs to be done on Ms. Louise’s house, and I’ve agreed to do it. Hopefully Ms. Louise will get to come home soon.”

  “Glad to hear it. It’ll be good to have her back. I’m looking forward to seeing how she turned out.”

  Ryan had only been half listening, nodding along, pretending to be busy, but that last bit had his head snapping up. He thought Uncle Dave had been talking about Ms. Louise. “How who turned out? Helena?”

  “Of course Helena. I remember when the sheriff hauled her and that Paul Chatham in, both of them soaked to the bone, covered in mud, and madder than wet hens. . . .” He trailed off into chuckles. “He knew they’d been up to something, but he just couldn’t prove what. The man was half-crazed for weeks trying to find a crime to fit the suspects.” The chuckles morphed into full-belly laughs that had tears rolling down his cheeks. “Definitely a pistol, that girl. Always loaded and no safety. She kept everyone on their toes.”

  Ryan thought he was doing an admirable job of keeping his jaw from dropping open. “Yet you’re the one who hauled her in front of the town council over the water tower incident.” Uncle Dave certainly hadn’t found that quite so amusing at the time.

  Uncle Dave shrugged. “It had to be done. I thought it might put the fear of God in her before she got into some kind of real trouble.”