Va-Cay

"Oh. OH! Oh, my...goodness. You heard us?" she said, wondering if one really could die of embarrassment.

"Just once. I came home from Amanda's house during a sleepover to get something, and you guys didn't hear me, but I heard..."

"Okay! Stop! I get it," her mom said.

"Mom, don't be embarrassed. Dad was very handsome, and you guys were married and in love."

Vanessa's short-lived embarrassment passed and she felt herself tearing up as she said almost absentmindedly, "Yes, we were. Very much so."

"Besides, remember how you guys gave me the 'birds and bees' talk a few months before Dad died? You told me it was a part of life."

She smiled then said, "Dad said that. You said, 'A very pleasant part of life'. I still remember the way you looked at Dad when you said it. I wasn't old enough to really understand, but well, now I am. So anyway, if that happens, I won't be embarrassed, okay?"

Her mom blinked several times then said, "How did you grow up so fast?"

"By eating my Wheaties?" Kayleigh teased. She'd never even tried the whole-wheat cereal, but that was something else her father used to say.

"Your dad would be so proud of you," Vanessa said as she pulled her daughter onto her lap.

She was too big for that, but since no one else was around Kayleigh let it happen.

Vanessa hugged then said, "So am I. You know that, right?"

"Yes. And enough of the sappy stuff, okay? Between the movie and now this, it's a bit too much, Mom."

That was Kayleigh. She had a dry sense of humor and said things like that off the cuff, and most of the time they were downright funny.

"Sorry, honey. Thinking about your dad does that to me."

Kayleigh hugged her mom then said, "It really is time you started looking, Mom. I know it's not my business, but I do know how lonely you are. So please don't not go out because of me, okay? I kind of see why Jack isn't someone you'd want to date, but there have to be plenty of good, decent..."

She paused, looked right at her mom, then said, "Really hot guys who want to date my gorgeous mom."

Vanessa couldn't help smiling back as she hugged her daughter before saying, "I don't avoid going out because of you, Kale," using her nickname. "It's just so hard after loving your father. He was not only the most handsome man I ever knew, he was the nicest, and the kindest, and the most roman..."

When she started to cry, Kayleigh stood up, smiled, grabbed her mom's hand, and said, "Come on, crybaby. Let's check the website again. What do you say?"

Vanessa knew what she was doing and was grateful for yet another distraction even though they'd just looked.

"Good idea. Let's go see how rich we're going to be!" her mom said as she let her daughter pull her along.

"Ha! See? Another tenant!" Kayleigh announced. "And look! Two weeks."

She looked over her shoulder at her mom who had her hands on her shoulders and said, "Sweet!"

"Wow. Two whole weeks. Yes, sweet indeed," her mom said as she continued looking over and around her daughter's head.

"If this keeps up, we might actually be able to go out for dinner sometime."

"Mom. You need some new clothes first. BAD!" Kayleigh told her. "How about you buy yourself something nice first?"

"No. Not until you get some new things," Vanessa told her. "And not until we're no longer drowning in debt. If I can keep things afloat for another month, we just might be able to dig our way out of this hole."

"You mean the Grand Canyon, right?" Kayleigh quipped.

Normally, she wouldn't even think of joking about something so serious, but with so much new money coming in, her mom even laughed.

"Yes. Yes, I do, because that's just about how deep we're in. But this is definitely the light at the end of the tunnel we've been hoping for," she said before squeezing Kayleigh's shoulders then kissing her on top of the head.

"We'll get through this, Mom. Remember, we always do," her daughter said, using the line Vanessa had said so many times it was becoming a kind of family mantra.

Vanessa had to turn away because she was tearing up yet again. She almost felt guilty for having a teenage daughter who was not only not a problem but a blessing. She realized that were Kayleigh a typical teenage girl and a real handful, it might just be the proverbial straw that would break her back. But Kayleigh was anything but a handful, and once again her maturity had touched her deeply.

Vanessa used half of that first $300 to help catch up on the mortgage and the other half on her delinquent power bill. The woman at the power company let her know her power was scheduled to be turned off just three days later, but this money would buy her until the end of the month. By then, she'd paid the power company in full, and was making some real progress with the bank.

By the end of the second month, Vanessa was doing so well with the one room, she decided, with Kayleigh's blessing, to open the second spare room to guests. At the ninety-day mark, she was in the black on her mortgage, and the only thing left to pay off were the credit cards, and she'd made a pretty good dent in one of those, too.

She finally splurged or rather spent a few dollars on her daughter, surprising her with a $250 gift card to her favorite store. Kayleigh cried when, after insisting her mom buy something for herself, that this was her way of thanking her beautiful daughter for being so understanding and supportive. Her mom insisted she go and buy herself whatever she wanted, and Kayleigh was so moved she became emotional causing her mom to do the same.

Her daughter made every dollar count, starting with some makeup she'd never been able to afford to wear. She then picked up two cute tops, a pair of jeans, and a decent pair of shoes on sale. It was more than she'd had at one time since her father was alive, and she was beside her herself with happiness. Until she got home and realized her mother hadn't set aside even twenty dollars for herself.

"My turn's coming, honey. And soon. The way things are going, I'm seriously thinking about quitting my job, and offering meals. I love to cook and bake, and we'd get quite a bit more per day—a lot more than it would cost to feed our guests."

"And I could help out, too. Baking and cooking are things I know how to do," Kayleigh said immediately.

"How about you take the time to be a 13-old girl?" her mom said.

"Who's turning 14 pretty soon, remember?" her daughter reminded her.

Vanessa had been putting a few dollars aside here and there to be able to let her daughter finally have a birthday party after nearly three years since her last one. She wasn't going to ruin the surprise, but every time she added money to the pot, it made her feel incredible—just as it had to give her the gift card she'd used so responsibly.

"I'm fine, Mom. And I'd like to help. In fact, I insist," Kayleigh told her.

"Well, okay, but maybe you could at least have a friend come over and help you out while you're helping me out every now and then?" her mom suggested.

"Hmmm. Maybe I could," her daughter told her with a smile.

"And maybe you could finally start going out every once in a while," Kayleigh said with a smile.

"Don't push it, sister," her mom said trying to sound upset.

The truth was, she couldn't be upset. This Va-Cay thing had exceeded her wildest expectations. She'd never get rich off of it, but she could pay all of her bills, keep the house, and have money left over as long as things continued going well. And were she able to stay home and be a mom again, well, it was hard to imagine things getting any better than that.

*****

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, FBI Field Office

"Sir? Do you have a minute?"

"Tanner. Sure, come in. What's going on?" his bureau chief asked.

"I uh, I need some time off."

"Yeah, sure. Of course. You haven't taken a day off in what...two years?" the older man asked.

"Closer to three, sir," the young FBI agent replied quietly.

"Yes. Of course. I'm sorry. I should have known. That was right around the time you lost Hannah. You've buried yourself in your work ever since, so if you want some time off, please, take it."

"It's not so much that I want it, sir. It's more that I need it. I just got a call from a former neighbor who told me my father passed away sometime last night."

"Jesus, Tanner. I'm beyond sorry. You lost your wife and now your father? What can I do to help?"

"Nothing, really, sir. Just sign off on my leave form, and I'll handle it from here."

"Consider it done," the bureau chief said.

As he signed the paperwork, he asked, "You're originally from the Seattle area, right?"

"I am. Born and raised in a little town called Enumclaw. I graduated from high school there ten years ago then went to the University of Washington before joining the Bureau."

"Enum...what?" his boss asked.

Tanner forced a smile then said, "It's Chinook Indian for 'town of thunder'. It's a quiet little place about 35 miles southeast of Seattle that sits right at the base of the Cascade Mountains."

"How much time do you think you'll need?" his supervisor asked.

"I've got a ton of days on the books, sir. Is a month too much to ask?"

"Wow. A whole month, huh?"

"I could wrap things up in less time, but I will need to do a ton of work on the house which really isn't even livable and then put it on the market. Plus, it might be nice to do a little fishing if I can fit it in."

"Well, as I said, all you've done is work, and everyone here including me knows I'm sitting in this office largely because of your work on the MS-13 gang/cartel task force. So if you need a month, you got it."

"I appreciate it, sir. I'll do my best to get back sooner, but if I could show you that house, you'd understand. My dad's been there alone since my mom passed away, and he became a kind of recluse and a hoarder a few years after that. I haven't been home since...wow...I guess it's been five years. The house was bad then, and my neighbor warned me it took the local police department quite a while to plow their way through all the mess to get to him. The only reason anyone suspected something was wrong is because he leaves the house once day at exactly 11am to check the mail. When he didn't, the neighbors got concerned and started knocking on the door."

The agent-in-charge shook his head. He was a good fifteen years older and both of his parents were still alive and well. He and his wife were also happily married, and it was very hard trying to imagine someone that age having lost both parents and his wife. On top of that, he really was the best agent he had, so if a month off was what he needed, so be it.

"I'll check in with you periodically, sir," the younger man told him after standing up and shaking his boss's hand.

"Please do, Agent Patten. Oh, do you know where you're staying yet?"

"No, sir. I haven't had time to check. I'm sure I can find a motel in the local area, though."

The younger man smiled and said, "Don't tell me you know someone out there."

The Bureau Chief seemed to know someone pretty much everywhere, but in this case he didn't.

"No, unfortunately, I don't. I do have an old friend in the Seattle Field Office, but I don't know anyone out near...the thunder place. But I do have a suggestion. Have you heard of Va-Cay Stations, by any chance?"

"No, sir. What's it all about?"

"Sit back down and I'll give you the down and dirty."

Later that afternoon, Special Agent Tanner Patten checked out the site and found a place in the south end of the nearby town of Auburn which was less than fifteen minutes away from his dad's place. Or...shack...as the case may be.

He saw there were two rooms available in the home of a woman named Vanessa Sanders and requested one of them for an entire month. By the time he finished checking on real estate values back home, he had approval for the room and deposited a $1,000 in her PayPal account to cover the cover the first week's meals and lodging.

He was stunned to learn that Zillow showed his father's place listed for close to $300,000. He knew King County, Washington's property values were insanely high, but this floored him. They weren't anything like Manhattan, but they were getting to close to those in Orange County, California. The little wooden shack was barely a thousand square feet although it did sit on just over an acre of land.

He checked a few more homes near his dad's and understood why. They were larger, nicer places on roughly the same amount of land and were listed at anywhere from $400,000 to $550,000.

Tanner just shook his head and thought, "Thank God I don't have to buy a place out there."

After graduating from the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, almost six years ago, he'd been sent to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where real estate was some of the cheapest in the country. He and Hannah had rented a very nice, two-bedroom apartment, but they could have easily afforded to buy a beautiful, brand new four-bedroom home. They decided that could wait until they started a family somewhere down the road and were both very happy living a the upscale apartment.

But after Hannah's death nearly three years ago due to a drunk driver, there was no reason to surround himself with even more empty living space. He'd moved to a new one-bedroom apartment just to avoid 'seeing' her every time he turned around, and it was more than adequate for someone who spent as much time at work as he possibly could.

He'd met his late wife, Hannah, during his senior year of college, and he'd married her the day after graduation. She then waited patiently for him to graduate from the Academy, then flew out for the ceremony, and they'd been together every day until she was taken from him that cold winter night by someone who'd been arrested for driving under the influence twice before.

The driver was drunk on his ass, and driving without a license when he hit Hannah head on doing close to 70mph. She'd been killed instantly, and a part of Tanner died with her that day. Now, work was all he had to keep himself from going crazy, and he'd made quite a name for himself—and his boss—at the Oklahoma City Field Office.

He spent the rest of the evening packing, and making sure his place would be cared for then went to sleep before heading to the airport the following morning.

He asked an older man who lived alone down the hall, and who'd become a friend to look after his place while he was gone. The man assured him he'd take care of everything from the mail to getting the place vacuumed every week or so. With that, Tanner dropped his spare key off with him before he left, and he assured him he'd take care of everything.

There was also a single woman a couple of doors down from his new friend, and she'd made it clear she was very interested in the handsome, tightly-groomed lawman on quite a few different occasions.

The truth was, Tanner Patten generated a lot of interest from the opposite sex wherever he went. He was without doubt the best-looking male agent in the local bureau, and one of the better looking men his age in the city. But no matter how hard he'd tried, he just couldn't gin up any interest in dating, in spite of the well-intentioned efforts of a couple of his colleagues who were always trying to set him up.

He no longer teared up when he thought about Hannah, but his heart still ached for her. She'd been so beautiful it took his breath away, and she'd also been one of the smartest women he'd ever known. She, too, could have been an FBI agent or pretty much anything she wanted. But after meeting and falling in love with Tanner, being his wife was the only thing that interested her.

That had been true until about six months before she was killed when she began dropping hints about starting a family. Within a month, she stopped using birth control, and a month after that, she'd rocked her husband's world when she made a celebratory, candlelight dinner to break the news to him.

"I'm gonna be a father," he kept saying over and over. "Me. Tanner Patten. A father!"

So when a local police officer knocked on his door around 9pm that night, he not only lost the love of his life, he felt like he'd also lost his future.

So until he could find someone who made his heart sing the way Hannah had, work would have to be enough. And yet he was oddly grateful for this much-needed break, even though it was hurtful to think he'd lost his father, even though they'd barely spoken since his last visit home.

When his flight approached the Cascade Mountains, Tanner remembered how beautiful his home state was. Or at least the western half of it. The scenery below turned from yellow and brown to rugged, snowcapped mountains. The captain told them they could see 14,000-foot Mount Rainier to their right, and there it was in all its majestic beauty. Within minutes, everything below them was a solid sheet of green until they got closer to the Seattle-Tacoma airport where everything looked like an urban, concrete jungle.

It was one of those unusual, cold, clear Spring days, and on those rare occasions when they happened, the view was spectacular. Tanner rented a vehicle then stowed his bags in the trunk, and headed out for the city of Auburn, and more specifically, the south end of it, looking forward to enjoying the blue sky and the lush green. Until he got in the car and pulled into traffic.

Traffic was even worse than he'd remembered, but he turned up the radio and did his best to deal with the wall-to-wall snarl of cars until he got to a point where he could get off the freeway and onto Highway 167 in Renton, a larger city just to the north of Auburn.

Everything had changed so much that it looked like a different place to him. There were new roads and new buildings and a whole lot more traffic than ever before. Once he got out of Renton, the traffic became more manageable, and by the time he got close to his Va-Cay destination, things began to look a little more familiar to him. He double-checked the address before pulling into the driveway and finding a place to park.

It was a reasonably nice house that looked to be in pretty good condition. He knew from the website it was 2,600 square feet with four bedrooms, and three bathrooms. Having his own bathroom was a key factor in choosing this particular place, along with it being so close to the 'Town of Thunder'.

He grabbed his smallest bag, then knocked on the door and waited. Moments later, a very pretty girl who looked to be maybe 15 or so opened it and smiled.

"Hi! You must be Mr. Patten," she said cheerfully. "Please come in and I'll show you to your room."

He thanked her and she told him, "You're very welcome. We're glad to have you, and my name is Kayleigh. My mother, Vanessa, owns the house, and we're very grateful you chose to stay with us. She's out right now buying groceries but should be back any minute."

She showed him to his room, gave him the key, as well as one to the house, then asked if she could get him anything.

"No, thank you, Kayleigh. You've been very helpful, and I appreciate it.

"Just let me know if you need anything, okay?" she said very sweetly.

"I will, and thanks again," he told her before stepping inside and setting his bag on the bed.

"Not bad. Not bad at all," he said as he checked it, and the bathroom, out.

He laid down on the bed, and that too, was a very pleasant surprise. The room was more than adequate and very tastefully decorated, and the bathroom was spotlessly clean.

Tanner sat back up and decided to go grab his other two bags and get things put away. As he walked back down the hallway he heard Kayleigh's voice from the kitchen.

"Mom! Oh...my...God! We have the most gorgeous guest ever!"

Her mom sat the groceries she'd just bought down and said, "Who? Mr. Patten?"