Va-Cay

"Um, yeah! You have to see him! He just went to his room, and it was all I could do not to stare! Mom, I am so not kidding!"

"Okay, okay. I'm sure I'll have the chance to say hello soon."

Tanner stopped and waited for Kayleigh to finish then waited a few more seconds to make it seem like he hadn't heard a word before walking into the kitchen.

Kayleigh saw him first and said much too loudly, "Mr. Patten! How's your room?"

He suppressed a laugh then told her, "It's actually very nice, Kayleigh."

The other woman, obviously her mother, had her back turned to him as she put items from her shopping bag into the large refrigerator.

When she turned around, Tanner was standing a several feet away and looking right at her. She'd put on her best smile, and he was still smiling from his short interaction with Kayleigh as she turned around. But when their eyes met, both smiles faded as they looked at each other for the first time.

"Mrs. Sanders?" he finally said.

"Um...yes. Vanessa," she said, the smile returning as she held out her hand.

"Tanner," he said as he shook it.

He could see Kayleigh staring at him out of the corner of his eye just as she said, "So, Mom. Was I right or what?"

"What?" her mom said, her eyes still locked with Tanner's.

"You know. About that...thing...we were just talking about."

She let go of her guest's hand, kind of shook her head then said, "Oh, yes. That. Yes, I'd say you were...right on the money."

Kayleigh walked between them, turned her head toward her mom and said, "Told ya!"

"That's my daughter, in case you didn't know," Vanessa said, having fully recovered from the shock of seeing someone that handsome.

Tanner, in turn, had had a moment of stunned silence himself as Vanessa was not only extremely attractive, he was having a hard time believing she could be the mother of a girl as old as Kayleigh.

"Yes. We met. She's a very polite young lady," he said.

"She is that. She's quite possibly the most mature girl her age I've ever known. Her recent antics aside."

"Antics?" he said, pretending not to know what was going on.

"Yes. She was just telling me something about one of our guests she evidently thought would matter to me," Vanessa said, thus explaining nothing.

"Oh, I see," Tanner replied acknowledging nothing. "I was just gonna grab the rest of my things and bring them inside."

"Here, let me give you a hand," she said cheerfully.

"No. That's not necessary. I've got it," he told her politely.

"Okay, well, that will let me get started on dinner. You are eating with us, right?"

"Definitely. I skipped lunch so I'd be hungry not knowing when you eat," he told her.

"Six o'clock every day except Sunday when we only offer two meals."

It was Saturday and that explained why a school-aged girl was home.

"Great. Well, if you'll excuse me," he said as he headed for the back door.

Vanessa knew almost nothing about him. He'd said in his profile he was in the security business, that he lived in Oklahoma City, and that we was 28 years old. He didn't have a southern accent, but he was definitely as good looking as Kayleigh had said and then some.

Now that Vanessa was home full-time, she'd taken more of an interest in dating, and had gone out twice recently. Both of them had been huge busts, but she was at least willing to keep giving it a go.

As she watched Tanner walk away, she was thinking that were this gorgeous tenant a little older, and not wearing a wedding ring, she might have even flirted with him a little.

Just the thought of a wedding ring made her think of Adam. That, in turn, reminded her she'd never taken hers off. However, after Kayleigh recently suggested it might be time, she'd promised she'd at least try and give it some thought. Vanessa still couldn't do it, but she couldn't help but think it was only a matter of time now. For today, at least, that just wasn't going to happen.

Tanner hadn't come back out of his room since bringing his things inside, so Vanessa asked Kayleigh to let him know dinner was ready. He'd laid down again, but this time, he fell asleep, and the knock on the door startled him awake.

"Mr. Patten? Dinner's ready," he heard Kayleigh say as he sat up and tried to come to life.

"Thank you. I'll be right there."

He splashed some water on his face, ran a comb through his naturally blond hair then went to sit down and eat.

"Hi, there!" Vanessa said cheerfully. "We have Chilean sea bass with potatoes and herb sauce."

"It looks and smells wonderful," Tanner told her.

"Please have a seat, and let's see if it tastes as good as it looks," she suggested.

Just one bite in, Tanner said, "Oh, my goodness. I think I've died and gone to heaven."

Kayleigh laughed, but Vanessa only smiled for a moment then the smile disappeared causing Tanner to wonder what he might have said wrong.

She smiled again just as quickly as it faded then said, "May I ask what brings you out here to the sunny Pacific Northwest?"

Tanner laughed politely then told her he'd grown up here.

"Really. I had no idea," Vanessa said as she took a bite of her own food. It really was quite good, and she was very happy she'd decided to do this full time.

"It's true. I'm from Enumclaw originally," he told her.

"Oh, my goodness. We used to go through there on our way to Spokane to visit my grandmother," Kayleigh said.

"I like Spokane," Tanner said. "I think I could enjoy living there."

"Same here although I think I'd miss the green," Vanessa said. "Just not the rain and the gray skies."

"So do you have family out there, Mr. Patten?" Kayleigh asked.

"I'd prefer to be called Tanner, but that's up to you," he told her with a smile.

Kayleigh was clearly pleased and said, "Okay...Tanner."

Vanessa understood why. He really was a very attractive man, and it was only natural that Kayleigh would have a kind of crush on him in spite of her unusual level of maturity.

"Actually, my father just passed away, and I'm going to be heading out there tomorrow to make arrangements."

"I am so sorry, Tanner," Vanessa told him sincerely.

"Thank you. We grew apart over the last ten years or so and especially the last five, but he was my father, and I will definitely miss him. I also plan to fix up his house—if it can be salvaged—and put it up for sale."

"Gosh, I haven't been out there in at least two years," Vanessa said. "Not since..."

Her voice trailed off and she stopped talking.

Again, she recovered quickly and asked Kayleigh how the food was.

"Great as usual, Mom," she said. "I forgot what a good cook you are."

Cooking wasn't something people forgot how to do, and Tanner must have made a face of some kind causing Kayleigh to say, "We went through a bit of a difficult time when my Mom and I didn't have a lot of money so eating something like this wasn't an option."

He didn't say anything, and Kayleigh kept explaining.

"Mom started doing the Va-Cay thing a few months ago, and once we opened up our second room, things got a whole lot better. Good enough that Mom was able to quit her job and do this full time."

"Well, I'm glad you got through that, and that this is working out so well for you. I'd never heard of Va-Cay until my boss told me about it. All I can say is it's really nice to be able to stay in a home rather than an impersonal motel. And your cooking really is first-rate, Vanessa."

"Thank you so much. We're both happy things have turned around, too. It's been a tough couple of years, and there were times we weren't sure we were going to make it. But then a friend of my husband's..."

Vanessa paused slightly and looked at her daughter then continued speaking.

"He told me about Va-Cay, and we signed ourselves up that very night. We started getting tenants the very next day, and we've had a fairly steady stream of guests ever since. You're our longest-staying, by the way," she said with a very big smile.

"Oh, wow. I didn't know I was breaking records," he said with a smile of his own. "I'm not sure I'll be here the full 30 days. If my dad's house is beyond repair, I'll probably leave shortly after the funeral service early next week."

"A month is a long time to be away," Vanessa said. "Will your wife be able to join you if you do need to stay the entire time?"

It was a very reasonable question, and it was obvious it was asked out of innocence, but it still caught Tanner a little bit off guard.

"Um...no. I uh...I lost my wife—Hannah—about three years ago."

He assumed the stunned, almost-horrified looks on their faces was due to feeling bad for not knowing so he said, "It's okay. Really."

"Tanner, again, I'm beyond sorry," Vanessa told him.

"My dad died two years ago. In a fire," Kayleigh said rather quietly.

"Not directly due to the fire," Vanessa explained. "He was a firefighter going back into a burning building to try and rescue someone when he was...crushed...by falling debris."

Tanner set his fork down, and suddenly forget about his own grief.

"Vanessa? Kayleigh? I know there are no words that help, but I'm so, so sorry. He sounds like a true hero."

"We think so," Vanessa said as cheerfully as she could.

"My dad was amazing," Kayleigh said.

"It's funny how even though I lost my wife, and have heard countless people tell me how sorry they are for my loss, I still don't really have any words of comfort to offer."

"No, I understand," Vanessa told him. "What can you really say? If you haven't been through it yourself, you have no idea how awful it is. And if you have, you know there just isn't anything to say."

They ate in silence for a minute or so before Vanessa tried to clear the air.

"I saw from your profile you're in the security business. Does that keep you busy and on the road a lot?"

"Busy? Yes. But I don't travel much. Pretty much everything I do is in the local area back in Oklahoma City," Tanner told her.

"Do you do security for websites and that sort of thing?" Kayleigh asked.

"Oh, no. Not at all," Tanner said without volunteering anything about what he did.

"I really like math and science, and I've thinking about getting into some kind of program involving computers or maybe something software-related," she said.

"You're a very mature young lady," Tanner told her. "May I ask how old you are?"

"I'll be 14 in a week," she told him.

"Oh, wow. Congratulations in advance," he said. "Got any big plans?"

Vanessa still hadn't mentioned the party so Kayleigh said, "No, not really. I'll probably just have my best friend, Becca, come over and hang out."

"Well, not every birthday has to be a big celebration. I only had one party growing up and that was when I ten," Tanner told them.

He saw the way they looked then said, "We didn't have a lot of money so parties were considered frivolous. It was no big deal."

"Well, my mom has a birthday coming up about a month or so after mine, and maybe..."

"Okay, let's not talk about that," Vanessa said.

Kayleigh put her hand up as though she was hiding her words from her mom as she said, "It's the big four-oh, and Mom's kind of freaking out."

"Oh, my goodness! What part of 'let's not talk about that' didn't you understand, Kayleigh?" she said, the exasperation showing through.

"You're going to be...forty?" Tanner said before realizing he, too, evidently hadn't been paying attention.

"I know, right?" Kayleigh said. "My mom is so pretty and looks so young."

"Is anyone listening at this table?" Vanessa said even though she loved what her daughter had just said.

"I second that. I was trying to make sense of how someone so young could have a teenage daughter, and couldn't. Now at least, I understand, even though I agree with Kayleigh. You don't look anything close to for...that age."

"Well, thank you for saying that, and for not using that number," Vanessa told him.

"How old are you, Tanner?" Kayleigh asked before her mother's eyes bugged out.

"Okay. That's it. No more age-related questions! They are hereby banned at this table!"

Tanner couldn't help but laugh then Kayleigh did, too.

He put his hand up like Kayleigh then said, "I'm 28, but I didn't just say that."

Everyone laughed then made small talk for the rest of the meal. When dinner was over, Tanner thanked both of the 'ladies' for the food and the conversation then excused himself and went back to his room.

There was a small television mounted on the wall, so he turned it down low while he sat in the only chair and, against his better judgment, spent some time thinking back on his life. Growing up poor, playing sports in high school, working his way through college, meeting Hannah, the Bureau, and the crushing pain of losing the only woman he ever loved. Tanner wasn't normally a melancholy kind of guy, but when he wasn't busy, it could sneak up on him, and it had done just that.

He wasn't paying any attention to the TV and assumed the noise he thought he heard came from it until he heard it again. He realized someone was knocking on his door so he got up, walked over, and opened it.

To his pleasant surprise, there was Vanessa, standing in the hall with a smile on her face.

"Hi, Vanessa," he said, a smile now on his, too.

"I saw the light was on and I heard the television. I hope you don't mind me stopping by, but I felt like I owed you an apology for bringing up...you know, the whole subject of..."

"Marriage?" he said before asking her to join him.

"Oh, no. I couldn't," she said. "I mean, this is your room so..."

"I'd be happy to sit and talk with you some place more appropriate," he offered.

"I don't want to keep you up. I just wanted to tell you I was sorry if I stirred up any painful memories."

"You're not keeping me up, and you know as well as I do those memories are always with us. I'm not a night owl, but it's only ten here and not that much later to me because of the time change, and I really would enjoy talking to you."

"Well...me, too," she said pleasantly.

"Kayleigh is very much a morning person, and she's rarely up past ten which I fully understand is not normal for a teenager. But very little about my daughter is normal," she said with a pleasant smile as he closed the door.

"I'd offer to buy you a drink, but I don't know if the bar is open," Tanner told her as they headed toward the kitchen.

"Oh, my. I suppose I could talk the bartender into a glass of wine. Would that work for you?"

"That sounds very nice," Tanner told her.

Vanessa poured them each a glass then handed him one and said, "Thank you."

"Um...you poured the wine for me," he let her know with a smile.

"Yes, but you're the one who paid for it, so you really are buying me a drink," she replied, that beautiful smile still on her very pretty face.

He laughed, raised his glass, then said, "To better days?"

Vanessa touched hers to his and said, "I'll drink to that."

They spent the next hour or so talking about life and love, but mostly the conversation focused on the love they'd had and lost. How they met, why they loved them so much, and how ungodly awful it was losing them.

"I've never talked to anyone about that before," Tanner told her just after eleven o'clock.

"Really? There's no one in your life you trust to share things with?" she asked, finding it hard to imagine not having someone that close.

"My mom, but she was gone long before I even met Hannah. My dad wasn't much of a talker, and he didn't 'do' emotions. Everything was simple in his world. It was all black and white, and even when it wasn't, he just painted the issue one of those colors and steamrolled his way through it. So, no, there hasn't been anyone."

"For me, it's Kayleigh. She had a terrible first year, but even then we could sit and talk or sometimes we just held each other and cried. But she's always been there for me like some kind of little sister as much as a daughter."

"She seems amazing, Vanessa," Tanner told her truthfully.

"She really is. And from what you've said, Hannah was, too."

"She was. And I feel the same way about Adam. That kind of altruism is rare."

He turned toward Vanessa then said, "How does that saying go? It's rare that a good man will lay down his life for his friends, but even more so for someone he doesn't even know. I'm sure I'm misquoting it, but it's still true. Adam gave his life in the hope of helping a stranger. In my book, it doesn't get any more selfless than than that. I wish I could have known him."

"He was amazing, Tanner," she said as she fought back tears.

She managed a smile then said more cheerfully, "Okay. Enough of that. What are you going to try and get done tomorrow at your dad's place?"

"Right. Well, I want to go take a look at it first. Then I need to go see his attorney who supposedly has his will. Depending on how bad the house is, I'll either need to have a dumpster delivered to get it cleaned out, or gee, I'm not sure. It may have to be demolished."

"Wow. Is it really that bad?" she asked.

"It was in terrible shape the last time I was there in 2013. Dad had just started hoarding, and from what the neighbors told me, it's pretty much falling apart. So I'll assess it then make some decisions."

"Kayleigh's back in school tomorrow, and I don't have anyone else coming in until next weekend. If you think you might like some help, or even just some company, I'd be happy to go with you. My daughter is old enough to be here by herself now, so if we're not back before she gets home, it isn't a big deal."

"I have to admit, I'd very much enjoy having someone to talk you, and it's been such a pleasure getting to know you, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have come along," he told her.

She smiled then said, "I believe I'm also the only choice you have."

Her smile was full and her mood playful, and it made Tanner laugh.

"Even so, you're still my first choice," he said just as playfully.

"What time do you plan on leaving?" she asked.

"After breakfast maybe?"

"Okay. I serve breakfast around 7am normally, but since it's just us, you can decide when you'd like to eat."

"Seven finds fine," he told her.

Vanessa thanked him again for the wine, and that too, caused him to chuckle. He thanked her for the most pleasant conversation he'd had since losing Hannah, and Vanessa told him if that was true he really needed to get out more.

He laughed again then let her know he agreed.

"I do need to get out more. In fact, I just need to get out," he said.

"As in...on a date?"

"Yes. I've been on a grand total of zero, and quite frankly, I have zero interest in going on one."

"Oh, I understand. Trust me," she told him as she put their glasses in the dishwasher. "I've only recently started dating, and it's been nothing short of painful."

"But at least you're trying. I'm not even brave enough to put myself out there."

"Well, one day you'll meet someone you feel is worth the risk. Until then, you have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, right?"

"Well said," Tanner told her. "I've worked six or seven days a week since Hannah's memorial service. It's the only think I've had to hold on to."

"I had no idea the security business was so demanding," she said with a smile.

"I don't have to work that much, but when work helps you avoid thinking about things, then you work. Or at least I do."

They stood there in the kitchen in an awkward silence for a few moments before Tanner said, "I should really get back to my room and try and get some sleep."

"Yes. Me, too," she said very pleasantly before thanking him for his time.

"My pleasure. And I'm glad you're going with me. I was actually kind of dreading it."

"I can invite myself with the best of them," she said keeping up the playfulness.

"Feel free to do so anytime," Tanner told her before saying goodnight.