A Tantalizing Tuesday (The Zelda Diaries Book 2) Read online

  A Tantalizing Tuesday

  The Zelda Diaries, Volume 2

  Olivia Gaines

  Published by Olivia Gaines, 2017.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  A TANTALIZING TUESDAY

  First edition. May 7, 2017.

  Copyright © 2017 Olivia Gaines.

  Written by Olivia Gaines.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Davonshire House Publishing

  PO Box 9716

  Augusta, GA 30916

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.

  © 2017 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

  Copy Editor: Teri Thompson Blackwell

  Cover: Koou Graphics

  Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography

  ASIN: B0716B1DD8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8

  First Davonshire House Publishing March 2017

  DEDICATION

  For you. Thank you.

  “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

  - Nathaniel Hawthorne

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.

  Write On!

  Also by Olivia Gaines

  The Slice of Life Series

  The Perfect Man

  Friends with Benefits

  A Letter to My Mother

  The Basement of Mr. McGee

  A New Mommy for Christmas

  The Slivers of Love Series

  The Cost to Play

  Thursday in Savannah

  Girl's Weekend

  Beneath the Well of Dawn

  Santa’s Big Helper

  The Davonshire Series

  Courting Guinevere

  Loving Words

  Vanity's Pleasure

  The Blakemore Files

  Being Mrs. Blakemore

  Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore

  Dancing with Mr. Blakemore

  Cruising with the Blakemores

  Dinner with the Blakemores

  Loving the Czar

  The Value of a Man Series

  My Mail Order Wife

  A Weekend with the Cromwell’s

  Other Novellas

  North to Alaska

  The Brute & The Blogger

  A Better Night in Vegas

  Other Novels

  A Menu for Loving

  Turning the Page

  This is Scott and Zelda

  Chapter 1

  An excited morning sun sprang up over the Houston horizon, welcoming the day and bringing with it another opportunity to get all the misplaced details correct. Zelda had spent the last three weeks self-editing her life to ensure that when Scott arrived in her home, the narration matched the descriptions she’d given to him verbally. She had spoken to him every day over the last three weeks, each time sharing more of her rather boring life with him. He would call every other evening to wish her a good night. She, in turn, would call every other morning to wish him a good day. Several times she’d been tempted to board a plane and pop in to see him, but after losing the argument with her panties to have some self-respect, her focus instead turned to her home.

  The heavy travel schedule of the past few years really didn’t give her much of an opportunity for nesting. Most of the dishes in the kitchen were leftovers from her mother’s time in the home as the matriarch. They had worn well, leaving her no real reason or need to replace them, until now. Those old dishes didn’t really represent her. They didn’t represent her style.

  “I’m going to change that,” she said, looking about her living space.

  The old brown couch, purchased when she’d graduated college, was now filled with wayward popcorn seeds and random stains from red wine. It also kind of smelled. For some reason, the thought of Scott sitting on the old couch didn’t bode well with her. Neither did the idea of him sleeping in the old bed with the lump in the middle of the mattress. Since she slept alone, it was easy to avoid said hump by sleeping either to the left or right of the lump which seemed to grow an extra bump in the middle of the night.

  “This will never do,” she said, looking at the drab drapes hanging about the windows like depressed dream catchers. On Mondays and Tuesdays, she mostly slept, so dark heavy drapes were necessary.

  “He will be here in less than a week,” she told herself as she dressed quickly and headed for the office.

  For the damndest reason, the past week she had found herself watching home decorating shows as people with unlimited teams and resources fixed up old shacks with nice decorative touches. Zelda already knew she wasn’t much of a nester, let alone the stand by your man carry a baby on her hip type of girl. True she wanted to be a mother and staring 37 in the face brought with it some challenges that would have to be addressed really soon. Today wasn’t the day to address those challenges.

  Tomorrow didn’t look like it needed a place on her schedule either.

  Nor did next week.

  During her lunch hour, she found herself standing in a Pier One store, looking at plates, pillows, and place settings. Thirty minutes later, a shopping cart full of items she knew she could buy cheaper at a big box store was abandoned at the register.

  “That is someone else’s style, not my own,” she said to the sales girl who responded with a face full of attitude.

  Truthfully, she didn’t know her own style, but she knew the feel she wanted for her living space. There was a little bit of time, in which after work, she headed toward a small strip mall that sat next to the world’s most hideous antique barn. She’d come here years ago with Grandma Lula, who had a few items on consignment in the store. An hour later, she had a French Country wardrobe, matching headboard, secretary, and end table. In the corner, she found a wonderful glass bowl for a centerpiece for the coffee table.

  In the mood and feeling pretty pleased with herself, she headed to the linen store in the adjacent strip mall. The store had the perfect bedding set with matching drapes, coordinating pillows, bathroom rugs, towels, and shower curtain. She even bought the solid colored soap dish with matching pump bottle. As she loaded the items into the trunk of her Honda, Zelda looked up to see the air blown thin man who moved from side to side and up and down while he advertised the mattress sale happening now at what was labeled as “the mattress warehouse.”

  “Why not?” she said, wandering into the store.

  It took less than fifteen minutes to end her relationship with said lump which doubled as a bump in the middle of the old mattress. Luck was on her side since the headboard and other items would be delivered on Wednesday and the mattress would arrive on Thursday. Now, she only needed to find a new sofa and coffee table to arrive on Friday.

  Scott was arriving on Sunday evening, staying through until Tuesday night, possibly Wednesday morning. Luck wa
s still on the lady’s side since he would be arriving after Sunday dinner with Grandma Lula. She’d only introduced one man to her Grandma. He was the last man she’d introduced to Grandma Lula Canterburg. Scott was ready to meet her after dinner. She didn’t know if she was ready for that step yet. No one person should have Grandma Lula unleashed on them unless the engagement ring was already in place.

  Zelda had grown particular about the men in her life who made contact with her family. Her last two boyfriends had met her brother but never stayed over in the house. It felt creepy to her. Michael knew she had sex. She just didn’t want to have him hear her doing it.

  In her mind, she thought it would lessen her brother’s opinion of her. The thoughts of him hearing her have sex with Scott didn’t seem to bother her as much. Honestly, she didn’t care who heard her have sex with that man.

  “Odd,” she thought, as she lay on the king-sized mattress in the store, staring up at the ceiling. It hadn’t seemed to bother her either to have a room full of people watch her make an ass out of herself to get a kiss from him as well. “I am going mad with lust for this man.”

  “I hope you are going mad for lust for that mattress. That is our best seller,” the balding, round-bellied salesman told her, interrupting her private conversation with herself. “We also have a sale on couches, love seats, coffee and end tables.”

  “Can those be delivered on Thursday with the mattress?”

  “Sure can, Ma’am,” he said.

  “Then I want the pretty blue couch with the small yellow flowers, the overstuffed yellow recliner, that small coffee table over there with the claw feet, and that matching end table. Since I just dropped almost three grand, I think you should throw in that blue lamp over there, too,” she told the salesman.

  The lamp in hand, she walked out of the store, grinning from ear to ear. Sunday, Scott would be sitting on that couch, sleeping in that bed next to her, and sharing stories from his life. She strapped the lamp into the front seat with a seat belt like it was a well-shaped child.

  “Spectacular,” she said, climbing into the nearly full Honda.

  Michael Fitzsimmons was tired. It had been one of those days when nothing went right and what went right turned left and became wrong. He’d worked at the engineering firm since he was eighteen and started as an intern the summer his parents died. He was a quick study and fast learner, which earned him a part-time job as a journeyman surveyor after his parent’s death. Several of the men in the company worked with him to obtain a family lawyer so that he could maintain custody of his sister.

  Dole Bokman, his boss, paid his personal accountant to set up the financial plan for both Michael and his sister, allocating a monthly allowance so that he would not and could not go through all the funds his parents had left them. High-yield interest-bearing accounts held the lump of the funds, ensuring that both he and Zelda would be set for a while. Their college funds were still intact even after paying off the mortgage and his mother’s Honda, which is how he managed to go to college, hold down a part-time job, and take care of his little sister.

  It wasn’t easy. There were nights he cried himself to sleep from the sheer exhaustion of shouldering so much responsibility. Fun times with friends and all night parties were not in his life since he needed to be home every evening with his sister. Friends who wanted to hang around or sleep over were not permitted. The last thing he ever wanted was to find out one of his friends decided in the middle of the night to go creeping into his sister’s room. He’d spent most of his life protecting her from that sort of end.

  He’d heard the nightmares from other friends.

  It wouldn’t happen to him.

  He wouldn’t let it happen to her from any of his friends, nor any of their family. Especially not from some drunken adult who accidently wandered into the wrong room at night. He’d heard of those horror stories as well. There were too many predators out there after a pretty young girl’s innocence. He’d protected hers, at a hefty cost to them both, but some ugliness needed to stay dead.

  He also didn’t let many of her friends stay over until she was well past sixteen years old. Even then, he’d divided the house so she and her gal pals could have privacy. On one occasion, a friend of his sister’s, too developed, too young, and too eager, found her way to his side of the house. He politely, with the aid of Grandma Lula’s extra cane, escorted her hot little ass back to the other side of the house.

  Michael, 21 at the time, found no amusement in the young woman or her half-naked, forward approach to him. Carefully he explained to her how a man should treat a young woman. Further, he described what a young woman should expect from a man.

  “Any man willing to exploit or take advantage of a sixteen-year-old, young lady, isn’t the type of man you want in your life,” he told Zelda’s friend.

  He pretty much felt the same way about women his own age. Too many had tried to come through and want to play mother to his sister. She had a mother. Unfortunately, their mother was no longer alive, and no woman was going to take his mother’s place. Not in their lives, nor in his heart. He would be damned if he allowed one to try and take over Zelda’s.

  His little sister was tough.

  She was independent.

  She was a free thinker.

  He’d taught her those things.

  Michael sighed. Sometimes he felt she was still single because she was too much like a man. From what he could tell, she never confused sex with her emotions or her emotions with sex. The few men she had brought home were never allowed to stay over or be too affectionate with her in front of him. She was very reserved with her emotions, frugal even. Frugality had taught them well. Zelda only shopped for what she needed. The girliest parts about her were getting her nails and hair done.

  Frowning, he’d admonished himself for the way he’d trained his little sister. He’d taught her to be a dude. Even her living space was minimal. There was very little fluff about her living quarters. That was until today.

  To his shock, she was unloading bedding, drapery, bags of towels, rugs, and what looked like dishes.

  “Hey, Sis, you need a hand?” he asked.

  “Yes, please. Grab the lamp and some of that stuff from the trunk. I also need you to help me put that couch on the curb and dismantle that bed. I called one of those shelter places to come and get it,” Zelda told him.

  “What is going on?” he asked, truly wanting to know.

  “Scott is coming Sunday for a visit. I did tell you that, right? He is arriving Sunday afternoon, well after dinner with Grandma, but early enough to catch The Walking Dead. I sure hope he watches the show,” she said, grinning.

  “New furniture? For Scott’s visit?” Michael did know what to think about all this change in Zelda.

  “Well, I hope it’s not his only visit,” she said, scrunching her nose. “I really like this guy.”

  “He is staying over?”

  “Yes. Didn’t I mention that, Mike? He arrives Sunday and is leaving Tuesday evening or maybe Wednesday morning,” she said with a huge smile. “He’s like my great big hairy teddy bear. I really want him to be comfortable here.”

  “Oh...okay,” Michael responded. He didn’t know who this Scott dude was, but his sister never acted like this about any man. “I look forward to meeting him.”

  “I think you are going to really like him. Like I said, he is somewhat different than the men I usually date. He is so big and strong. Did I mention he was kind of hairy?”

  “You did,” he said.

  She shrugged her shoulders and nearly skipped off. At 36 years old, he’d never seen her so...happy? Is that what I am seeing?

  “I can’t wait to meet this Scott,” he told her, unstrapping the lamp in the front seat of the car. He only hoped that Scott was having a similar reaction to spending time with his sister.

  Chapter 2

  Scott Berger was more anxious than a hooker on trial for committing lewd acts with the judge’s son who was about to tr
y her case. Yesterday he’d made the call to the Lasik ophthalmologist. Today he was getting the surgery. For years, he’d put it off and avoided any conversations about the procedure.

  All of that was behind him.

  This month, he was getting his eyes fixed and eyebrows trimmed and shaped.

  Next month, he had an appointment with the dermatologist for a chemical peel, although he had begun using cleansers on his face which burned a bit. Before he was set to fly out to Houston, he also had a visit scheduled with an orthodontist for some invisible tooth aligners. His sisters, Sarah and Rebekah, both had gotten braces. He never wanted them, well, not until now.

  Zelda kissed him and bumped her pretty perfect teeth against the two beaver-like meat cutters he called incisors. She was an absolutely amazing woman, a fantastic lover, a great dancer, and she liked to eat actual food. Every time he thought about her, his junk got harder than advanced calculus and linear equations in an honors math class at Harvard. Twice in the middle of the day, he found himself in the gym working out like a hairy madman to stave off the desire that was distracting him to the point of missing deadlines. He never missed deadlines.

  A body could set their watch by how prompt and accurate he was.

  In the last few days, the only thing he’d become accurate at was whacking off first thing in the morning after he’d hear her voice. Four times, he was ready to ask Chandler to drive him to the airport, just so he could show up at her office, spread her over the desk, and sink himself so deep in her love that he would be able to take the temperature of her right ovary. Suddenly, his mind went to the scene after breakfast on the couch last month.

  Zelda had performed a perfect split, riding him like some Cirque de Soleil nasty porn scene.

  “Damn,” he said, shifting in the backseat of the town car. His junk was hard again. At this rate, he was never going to get anything accomplished.