“No way!” Shelby said.
“Believe me,” Vanni grinned. “I suspected they were getting to be more than just neighbors, but then you arrived and Tom came home on leave, and he’s been sticking around a lot.”
“Do you know her?”
Vanni smiled. “Ever see that movie Never Too Late?”
“Yeah,” Shelby said, perplexed. “I loved that movie.”
“Muriel St. Claire. She played the new divorcée.”
Shelby gasped. “She’s here?”
“She bought the ranch downriver a little over a mile. She retired to Virgin River, is done making movies and is restoring the house herself. I’ve only seen Muriel and Dad in the same room three times—they’re playing it real cool. But let me tell you—their eyes twinkle when they’re together. I’ve asked Dad if we can have her to dinner soon and he says he doesn’t mind an evening away from the house now and then. He also says there’s plenty of time for that. I think he’s trying to keep her to himself. I’d bet my life something hot’s going on there, but neither of them will fess up. The second I ask questions, he clams right up.”
“Uncle Walt has a woman?” Shelby asked in shock. “A famous actress?”
“Well, it took him a long enough. I don’t think it even crossed his mind after my mother died, five years ago. It’s high time. Everyone needs someone. Age certainly has nothing to do with it. But I wish they’d loosen up. I’d like to hear about all the famous people she knows.”
Now they all had a special someone, her young cousin, even her Uncle Walt.
As a teenager, Shelby had been in most ways a typical girl, if a little on the shy side. She got good grades, had girlfriends, was active in school activities. She’d had a nice little part-time job at the library after school and had even gone through a few boyfriends. She went to games, slumber parties, dances. Her friends tended to run in a pack more often than as dating couples; some had high-school boyfriends who were serious, but most of them, including Shelby, were damn happy if they had dates to the homecoming dance or the prom.
She might’ve been a little more cautious than the average teenage girl—her mom had been very honest about her accidental pregnancy at the age of eighteen, her short marriage that had become a nonevent as she was divorced when Shelby was just a baby. No way Shelby was letting something like that happen to her. She knew she’d be a late bloomer.
She hadn’t thought it would be quite this late….
Shelby was only nineteen when the life typical of a girl her age halted and a whole new set of responsibilities took over. Uncle Walt had been more than willing to cover the cost of nursing-home care for his sister, but Shelby had said, “This isn’t going to be an issue for long. In fact, much sooner than I like to think about, she’ll be gone. She gave me her whole adult life, always putting me first. If I don’t give her a few years of mine, the rest of my life won’t matter a damn.”
Then it was over and time to think about what was ahead for her. Before Vanni had even uttered those words about Uncle Walt, Shelby had been thinking, I want to join the ranks of women my age, women who are my friends, both old and new, and have what they have—the relationship building, romantic and physical love, idealism and passion and even the struggles. She wanted all of it. She was due. She wanted to be whole.
She wanted a man.
Walt gave a couple of taps on Muriel’s guesthouse door, then pushed it open. Muriel had fixed up the old bunkhouse to live in while she worked on the larger house. Unlike most of the times he called on her, finding her in her work clothes and waiting for him to arrive before cleaning up, she was not only showered and changed, but had set a small table with plates and utensils and a candle in the middle. He smiled and handed her a sack of takeout from Jack’s bar, then bent to scratch behind the ears of two excited Labs, Luce and Buff. “Looks like a celebration,” he said, indicating the table.
“It is. I finished the floors upstairs. One coat of paint in the bedroom and hall and I could live there if I wanted to. And yesterday I bought a pie safe for the dining room. I found it up near Arcata at this little antique shop. It’s big—I can’t get it out of the truck bed, so I parked it in the barn. Maybe you’ll help me tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
She looked in the sack. “What is it?”
“Brisket, steamed red potatoes, green and wax beans.”
She inhaled. “Pie?”
“Of course pie.”
“Where did you tell your daughter and your niece you were going?” she asked, tilting her head and smiling at him.
“I told them I was going out for a beer,” he answered. And grinned.
“Walt,” she admonished. “Don’t you think you’re having a little too much fun with this? I bet you’re not fooling anyone. Besides, I’m not sure how I feel about being hidden like this.”
He got a startled expression on his face. “Muriel, I’m not hiding you. Not at all! And I did have a beer, while I waited for the food.”
“Then why haven’t you invited me to dinner with the family?”
“You want to come over for dinner?”
“Walt, I’m not going to let you get away with this. Remember, I know what I’m doing, I know about men. You’re not moving forward, you’re not backing off. I’m more than happy to be your good friend, as long as nothing’s wrong.”
He looked down briefly. “All right,” he said uneasily. “You caught me. I’m enjoying the hell out of this, Muriel. The riding, the dinners here with you, even when I’m helping you paint or sand or move furniture. But…I’m waiting for you to say something very Hollywood to me, like, I find romantic relationships pedestrian and beneath me. And I’m dreading it.”
She laughed at him. “What’s this? Isn’t this a relationship? And I’m enjoying it, too. Besides, that’s not what they say in Hollywood.”
“What do they say?”
“Well, it’s almost always in newsprint, right near the grocery checkout stand, and it usually sounds something like, St. Claire Caught In Sordid Affair. Or, St. Claire’s Husband Seen With Swimsuit Model. Or hooker.” She shrugged. “Or something equally gauche.” But he had such a soft expression on his hard, handsome face, it startled her eyes open wide. She put the take-out sack on the table and her hands on her hips. “Oh Jesus, you think I’m letting you come over and pester me all the time because you’re the only available man in my age group!”
He lifted one black bushy brow. “But am I?”
“That’s so irrelevant! Chasing a good-looking thirty-year-old was never beneath me!”
She made him laugh. That was the linchpin—she always made him laugh. “That doesn’t surprise me. Not that there are many of those, either.”
“Walt, for God’s sake, I have my own transportation if Virgin River isn’t amusing enough for me.” She stalked over to him, put her arms on his shoulders, got up on her toes and laid a lip-lock on him that shocked his eyebrows up high and his eyes round. But she kept at him until he finally put his big arms around her slim body, pulled her hard against him, let his lips open, opened hers and experienced, for the first time since they met almost three months ago, a wholly passionate, wet, deep kiss. It was fantastic. Delicious. And long. When he finally relaxed his arms a bit, she pulled back and gave him a whack in the chest. “Now stop being a fool or you’re going to mess this up. I’ll come to dinner Friday night. You cook. I’ll bring wine.”
“Okay, fine,” he said a little breathlessly. “Dinner. With the family.”
“Not because I’m getting ready to propose, but because I’d like to know your family. And more to the point, they’d like to know me, to be sure you’re in no danger.” She went to the sack and began removing cartons, placing them on the table.
“Do you suppose we’ll be doing that again?” he asked. “That kind of kissing?”
“Beats the hell out of those little pecks and pats, don’t you think?” she asked.
“I have to agree with that, yes,” he answered. Leave it to some aging starlet to bring a tough old general to his knees. In fact, he thought he felt his knees wobbling and a slight vibration under his skin. Given a little more time, he was going to feel something else; something he didn’t feel all that often, but often enough to know it still worked.
“Maybe after brisket. I’m a little annoyed with you at the moment.”
“Shame,” he said. “I’m completely happy with you.”
“I shouldn’t have to make the first move,” she complained. “Jesus. Men. They’re either too ambitious or not ambitious enough.” Her phone rang and she said, “Excuse me one second.”
He listened to her side of the conversation. “Hmm…Well, much as I appreciate you keeping me in mind, it would take something monumental to pull me back into films…. A year from now? We’ll see what you have a year from now, Mason. But really, I’m not going back to Los Angeles for some shitty little supporting role in a B movie—I’m having too much fun. And I have horses and dogs—they don’t transport all that easily. No, it’s not about the horses and dogs, it’s about being retired from acting, and not convinced you have a worthwhile project where I’m concerned. Fine, fine—send the script and I’ll look at it, but I highly doubt it’s going to change my mind, so be prepared for that. Yes, Mason—you, too.” She hung up.
Walt had an unpleasant look on his face. “You mind if I ask…”
“Mason. My agent.”
“And ex-husband? Fifteen years older than you? Isn’t he getting close to retirement himself…at seventy-one?”
“You’d never know it. The man’s going to be dancing on my grave.”
“Trying to get you to come back?” Walt asked.
“Trying to get me to work. And I’m not inclined to do that….” She looked at Walt and for just a second frowned at his frown. Then she laughed. “Oh, Walt, are you worried? Relax. He calls almost every day. He sends scripts sometimes—nothing but junk. But Mason has always been one to throw everything he has at the wall to see what sticks.” She walked up against him and rubbed her hands over his chest. “Really, he’d have to come at me with something as good as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or Gone with the Wind to even get my attention.” She smiled at him. “Now, can we please have some of Preacher’s brisket? You’ve been a little high maintenance tonight. Not like you. And I’m starving!”
He ran his big rough hands through her soft blond hair. “You’re starving? When we met, you didn’t eat anything but celery and hummus.”
“Yeah, I know. And hanging out with you is starting to show on my rump.”
“Looks damn fine to me, Muriel. Light the candle and load up your plate.” And he smiled.
A few days later, Vanessa and Shelby were in a fever of excitement as they tidied the house for their famous dinner guest. They would have her captive, to ask all the movie-star questions they were kicking around, trying them out on each other. They wanted the scoop, but didn’t want to be a tabloidlike invasive. Of course, they wanted to know things like, who was the sexiest man you ever slept with?
“You can’t ask that!” Shelby said with a gasp.
“Of course not,” Vanessa agreed. “Try to think if there’s a way to ask her which big Hollywood hunk turned out to be the biggest dud?”
Giggles erupted from both of them.
Walt listened to a lot of this from the kitchen. He had insisted he was cooking—it was what he had promised Muriel. And he found himself wondering about the answer to those questions, himself. Vanessa and Shelby shouldn’t ask, but given time, he might.
