Chapter 6
6
Rose sat in the shade in a small courtyard. A bright-orange sweater covered her shoulders like a cape. Her silver hair was covered in a camel-colored beret. Ever the vision of style and sophistication, even with her leg in a ridged brace and seated in a wheelchair, she exuded class married to a sense of fun.
She held out her hand to grab hold of Tovah’s. “Tell me all about the cookout.”
Immediate warmth filled her. “Zach invited some of his riding buddies along with a few of the neighbors.”
She raised a sharp brow. “Did he now? Which ones?”
“Dirx, Weaver, and Bach.” Tovah ran her hands down her legs. Why was she so keyed up and nervous to tell her grandmother about the day before? It wasn’t as if they had shared nuclear secrets or danced naked under a full moon. They had eaten, talked, laughed and had an enjoyable day. Nothing untoward about any of it.
But still, it felt…personal.
“Oh, and I met a lovely wolf hound.”
“Ah, Ian. He is a lovely boy.” A small frown formed between Rose’s perfect brows. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Tovah looked off to the distance, where a few of the patients were doing exercises on the lawn. “I’m going for a ride with Dirx.”
“Oh, he is a tasty morsel.” Rose turned her head to give Tovah the side eye. “But you’d rather go with Zach?”
Tovah was quick to shake her head in denial. “No. He made it perfectly clear that as long as I’m one of his students, he doesn’t even know me outside of class.”
Rose nodded knowingly. “He’s terribly ethical.”
“Which I’m fine with. I don’t think I could respect anyone who relaxed their ethics for something so important.” The lie should have made her tongue bleed. Speaking to her, being her neighbor was not mutually exclusive to her being his student. Once the semester was over, he was no longer obligated to keep his vow of distance.
Next semester, she’d have to make sure she had no classes with him as the professor. Not that he wasn’t a good one, but she wasn’t about to make him uncomfortable in his own classroom.
“Other than that, how is school going?”
Tovah laughed. “Surprisingly well the second time around. I’m finding it much easier in my thirties than I did in my teens and early twenties.”
“Life experience. Never take it for granted.” Rose clapped her hands together as if she’d just remembered something important. “I’ve decided to write my memoirs.”
Oh, boy. They’d be heavily censored. Needed to be, knowing Rose.
“From your youth, or are you going to pick a particular point in time and work from there?”
“Oh, that stuff in the beginning of my life isn’t too exciting. I want to write what I’ve done since becoming a senior. Inspiration for how life doesn’t have to end because the AARP comes knocking with their card.”
Tovah smiled at Rose’s endless stores of energy and enthusiasm for life. “I’m sure it will be a best seller.”
“Damn straight. I’m going to call it, Spicy Senior: A Guide to Living Large in the Silver Era.”
“That sounds more like a how-to than a memoir.”
Rose gave a dismissing gesture. “That comes as I relate various topics to things I’ve done.”
“Sounds like a fun project. When are you starting?”
“I’m making notes in the evenings. People around here go to bed by the time the sun starts setting. I’ve never seen a duller bunch in my life.” She gave a dramatic eye roll. “I might send a free copy or two to leave around here. Maybe it will give them some ideas.”
“Grandma, not everyone has your drive or energy. You have to make allowances for individual personalities, or health levels. Not everyone is here because of a skiing accident.”
“Don’t I know it.” She nodded in the direction of the group of people exercising in the yard. “Most of that group have had a joint replaced from degenerative disease.”
Shocked, Tovah turned to Rose. “How do you know that?”
“You get a group of old people together and they’ll talk about their aches and pains until they fall asleep in their wheelchairs.”
“They aren’t in wheelchairs,” Tovah pointed out as she watched the group.
“I meant in general. Not particular.”
“Look, I know you’re frustrated and want to come home. You only have a few more weeks and you can.”
Rose had stopped listening. She stared off toward the parking lot as a huge smile filled her face. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What?” Tovah turned toward the direction Rose stared.
Tovah’s heartbeat accelerated, and stomach dropped. What was Zach doing at the rehab center? Oh, God. Did she leave her straightening iron on and burn down Rose’s house? Did Trixie get out and hit by a passing vehicle? Why would he come here to visit when she was here if he wanted to avoid her? The cookout, okay. They were neighbors. This, though…
His T-shirt had the picture of a cell waving on it with the words: Cell Ya Later.
The worst kind of kryptonite ever: a hot guy with a geeky sense of humor.
He stopped in front of them and slid his hands down into his jeans’ pockets. Damn, Rose was staring so hard, Tovah’s skin started to burn with the heat of embarrassment.
Zach leaned over and kissed Rose on the cheek. “How’s my best girl doing?”
“Much better now I have some beefcake to look at.” Rose waved to the empty bench across from them. “Have a seat and visit.”
He moved through the circle of seating and lowered himself to the stone bench. “I’ve been meaning to get back here, but with the new semester started it’s hard.”
“I know. That’s all right. Tovah has been keeping me apprised of what’s going on in the neighborhood.”
Zach shot her a glance looking slightly uncomfortable. “Oh, I bet she has.”
Rose gave a laugh that held much meaning. “Oh, yes. Though she hasn’t mentioned calling the police on you again.”
A reluctant smile lifted his mouth. “No. I think we’re good now.”
Were they? He had more than proven himself capable of keeping her off balance most of the time. From one moment to the next, she didn’t know if he was going to be nice or insulting. Though if she was honest with herself, he claimed he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. And damn her for letting those feelings be hurt. She hated the fact she wasn’t tougher. That she still had that core instinct to believe everyone should be nice when she knew from familial example, they were far from it.
It had taken a major fall in order to find her voice. And she’d shown her family she could stick up for herself in a specular fashion.
Therein lay the crux and paradox of her entire personality.
Rose’s laugh brought Tovah out of her head and back to the conversation. “I believe she will.”
What’s this? Believe who will what? Damn, she should have been paying closer attention. No telling what mischief Rose got up to.
Tovah turned and studied her grandma. Better not to make a comment on the topic than to appear as if she hadn’t heard or understood the implication.
They sat talking for another half hour or so, when a man dressed in scrubs came walking to the courtyard. “Holding court, I see.” He smiled fondly down at Rose. “She’s Miss Popularity with the staff.”
Tovah rose. “I just bet she is.”
“You have therapy in five minutes.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “They delight in torturing me.”
“I’ll leave them to it then.” Tovah kissed Rose on the cheek. “Do what they say and try to be good.”
“I’m always good. Sometimes, I’m really good.”
“Give me strength,” Tovah said under her breath as both men laughed.
Zach leaned over and said goodbye as well, then fell in step with Tovah back to the parking lot. “Rose is the blueprint.”
“She’s one of a kind.” Love and affection filled her voice. “Scared me to death when I saw her in the hospital all broken and bruised. Until that moment, I never really thought of her as mortal. She’s more of an elemental force.”
Zach put his hand on her back in comfort as they walked. The gesture was friendly, her internal reaction didn’t match the gesture in the slightest. Licks of flame moved up her back from the touch.
“It’s hard when someone we think of as invincible shows they are vulnerable as the rest of us.”
Oh, there was a story there. A scab that needed picked off, so the wound healed. Instead of diving deeper into what made Zach tick, Tovah went for a bit of light humor.
“You vulnerable? I would have never pegged you as such.”
He glanced over at her, but his eyes were covered by sunglasses he’d put on as they walked. “Everyone has their weaknesses. I just choose not to indulge mine.”
“Oh, now that is intriguing.” She stopped at her car and turned to him. “Would this be vanity or vice?”
He rubbed his jaw and ran his hand through his beard. “Hmm, a bit of both maybe.”
Since he seemed he wanted her to ask, she refrained. All part of the game he played, and she didn’t know the rules. Better to make a tactical exit than to wade into waters where she might drown. “I’ll see you around.”
“Same.” He retreated to his bike and swung his leg over it.
As she drove away, she reveled in the fact he watched her until she left the parking lot.
Zach took the extremely long way home, letting the fresh mountain air and fall sunshine clear his head. If Tovah would have asked the question about his vices, he would have answered. However, she might not have liked the truth.
Not even a little bit of it.
His truth was down and dirty and as broken as the home he came from. Nothing in his past suggested that he would ever have made a success of himself, or that he lived on the outside of a correctional institution. The fact he’d never even been arrested was cause for surprise to those who still shared his blood.
They all hated him.
And that was more than all right with him.
He’d done what he had to do at the time to stay alive.
Coming out of a turn, he passed another bike going in the opposite direction. Weaver. They raised a hand to each other in greeting.
Most of their club was probably out riding the hills. None of them had made plans to go together today. Not unusual, since it wasn’t supposed to be nice out. The forecast had called for rain and wind, but the storm had moved through during the early morning hours and left the sky pristine.
By the time he arrived home, his head was clear and the need to lay himself bare to Tovah was gone. Right up until he noticed her car wasn’t in the driveway.
She should have beat him home. Been there for a while in Rose’s house studying. She had a test this week. If she thought he was going to give her bonus points for being his neighbor, she was dead wrong. Never had he compromised the grading system. What a student got was what they gave. He believed in that philosophy as surely as breathing air.
Another two hours passed before her car rolled up in the drive. She got out and opened the trunk of her car. It was loaded down with shopping bags.
Yep, he really needed to get his head and ass wired together where Tovah was concerned. Poor woman couldn’t even go get groceries without his overactive imagination seeing unseemly scenarios where none existed.
She glanced up and waved to him.
And he was caught staring out the window at her like a latter-day Gladys Kravitz.
Better to bluff it out than pretend he did nothing wrong. He opened the door and stepped outside. “You feeding an army?”
She laughed and it sounded like music. “No. Just a few things to throw a picnic together. Dirx mentioned riding through the state park. He said there were picnic areas along the road.”
A picnic! Dirx was taking her on a ride with a picnic. Oh, hell no.
He knew what happened on one of Dirx’s picnics and it usually ended up with a huge, horrible scene some weeks later at the Gus Stop.
Zach might have pushed them together to save his ethics and sanity, but he wasn’t about to let her fall down that rabbit hole of empty romance.
He scratched his beard. “You sure you want to do that?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
Did he have to spell it out for her? “Because it’s never going to come to anything. I love the man like a brother—more than my brother, but he isn’t the settling down type.”
A frown came and went between her brows so fast that if he hadn’t been watching her face closely, he’d have missed it. “Are you sure you want to speak for him? He might think otherwise.”
For a few blind seconds his brain and mouth disengaged completely. No response came. Nothing wise or foolish. Zilch.
Had they been texting each other or had they met outside of the cookout that Zach knew nothing about? As his blood went from cold to a slow boil, he picked up a couple of her bags out of the trunk and followed her inside.
Trixie bounced up on the back of a chair as he came in the door, demanding his attention with a mew. He put both the bags in one hand so he could stroke the cat, then caught up with Tovah as she set her bundle on the bar.
“So, it’s serious? You felt a spark with him?”
Tovah didn’t even glance up as she pulled containers of marinated olives and cheese out of the bag. “He’s a hottie, as Rose would say. Plus, he’s a nice guy. I even like his dog.”
Zach put the bags on the bar. The thought of her being intimate with Dirx put a sick feeling in his stomach. He’d only meant to ask his friends to help her experience life until the semester was over. This…planned romantic ride through the mountains wasn’t what he had in mind. At all.
“So, when is this supposed to take place?”
Tovah glanced at the clock. “He should be here soon. I need to go get changed and pack all this into a tote.”
When she only stared at him, he took the hint. “I suppose that’s my cue to leave.”
“Yes.”
She didn’t even seem sorry about rubbing it in that she was going out with one of his friends. If anything, she acted as if she looked forward to the experience. Not at all as if he’d pawned her off. Which was exactly what he had done.
“If he starts coming onto you, I want you to call me.”
Shock registered a split second before incredulousness. “You want a play by play or something?”
“No. In case you need a ride home.”
“Is that likely?” She tilted her head and studied him as one might a particularly difficult equation. “If I thought for one moment you had fixed me up with someone who might do me physical harm, I wouldn’t be going. Since I haven’t gotten any creepy vibes or seen any red flags, I’m going to assume I’m safe.”
Zach raised his hands and backed away. “Offer stands.”
“Thank you.”
He wasn’t even crossed the yards when he pulled his phone out and shot a quick text to Dirx. “Treat her with respect.”
The only reply was a rolling laughing emoji.