“You have a date?”

Helen, Kathleen and Jo sat at the kitchen table. As Kathleen’s question indicated, the two happily married women thought Helen should also be seeking true love. She could see the gleam in their eyes now.

“I thought,” Helen said sedately, “Alec and I could talk about what it’s like losing someone you love.”

Jo’s merriment faded and Kathleen cleared her throat. “I suppose that is part of getting to know each other, but as conversation goes, it sounds pretty grim. Surely the fact that he’s a widower isn’t the only reason you’re having dinner with him!”

Helen laughed at their shock. “Of course not. Having that in common is an attraction for me, though. I’m not very interested in dating.” She saw that they wanted to say more about that and tried to divert them. “You’re sure you don’t mind watching Ginny?”

“She lives here. It hardly qualifies as baby-sitting. Besides—” Kathleen looked pleased again “—I have every intention of being here when he picks you up.”

“So you can quiz him about his intentions?” Helen asked with deceptive tranquillity.

Kathleen flashed a grin. “So I can satisfy my curiosity.”

Helen had to laugh. Okay, they were busybodies. They irritated her sometimes. But the two women were her closest friends. No, they were family. Way more important to her than Alec Fraser ever could be.

Dear Reader,

Suppose we could create an Eden where death and loss don’t exist, where nobody suffers tragedies, where we all have each other forever. My question to you is: would we all be happier than we are now, or even as happy?

My answer is no. I believe that happiness and grief, tears and joy, love and loss are inextricable parts of each other. I feel the sting of happy tears when I have a moment with another person I know I’ll never forget. The poignancy of the moment comes from the knowledge that this closeness, this conversation, this smile may never come again. We all live with the awareness that we can—and someday will—lose these people we love. Even without tragedy, our children leave home, divorce happens, friends move. Our hearts squeeze with the most acute love when we most fear loss.

What a paradox! We must fear loss to love most profoundly. But what if the fear is too great? What if we can’t bring ourselves to risk the pain of loss?

Isn’t this dilemma the core of every romance novel? In The New Man I chose to explore it head-on. I hope this book brings you to tears, even as you feel intense gratitude that you have the people in your life you love most.

Best,

Janice Kay Johnson

The New Man
Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my mother, with love

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

HELEN SCHAEFER DROVE the shiny blue pickup truck across the bumpy field and steered down an aisle of gaily colored tents. Strings of flags hung overhead, unmoving in the still air.

Bless Logan for loaning her the pickup! Helen thought. Without it, she would have had to make three or four trips from the house off Roosevelt in Seattle in her old Ford Escort to haul all the goods to set up a booth of Kathleen’s Soaps at this craft fair on Queen Anne Hill.

She and her business partner, Kathleen, had a wish list, and a cargo van was at the top of it. They were now doing dozens of fairs and craft shows a year, as well as delivering soap to the stores that sold their brand year-round. Logan, Kathleen’s husband, had been generous in letting them use his pickup, but he was a cabinetmaker and often needed it, too.

Helen glanced at the paper on the seat beside her. Number 143. Yes, there it was, printed boldly on a card pinned above the wide entrance of the booth. Number 144 next door was nearly set up, while 142 remained empty. Other exhibitors were working in tents across the aisle.

Helen rolled to a stop in front of her space and turned off the engine. Made it! she thought with relief. The pickup was big, and she was so terrified of hitting something, she was always glad to arrive safely.

“Hi,” she called, getting out.

The woman rolling a rack of silk-screened dresses into place turned with a smile. “Helen! I saw that you two were going to be my neighbors.”

“Let’s hope this weekend will be better than last.” Helen headed toward the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate.

Lucinda Blick scanned the sky. “No kidding! So far, so good.”

“The weathermen claim it’s going to be sunny and hot through Sunday.”

With practiced ease, Helen slid a pile of folding tables out onto the tailgate, then grabbed the smallest one and carried it into the red-and-white-striped tent. This card table sat at the back and held the cash register and business cards. The others, longer and sturdier, along with half a dozen folding plywood pedestals built by Logan, would display the soaps, shampoos, shower gels and bath oils made by Kathleen.

Helen and Lucinda, an improbably blond amazon who had to be in her sixties, continued to chat as they spread tablecloths and stacked wire bins that held bars of soap in Helen’s case and tie-dyed socks and scarves in a variety of hues and sizes in Lucinda’s. Other exhibitors wandered by to say hello and commiserate about last week’s downpour that had made a disaster of a craft fair in Pierce County.

Helen loved this sense of community she and Kathleen had found among other artists and craftspeople. There was gossip and jealousy, of course, but mostly they had met with generosity and friendship. All for one and one for all, as Kathleen had put it. On a good weekend, everyone profited. On a bad one, they all packed home the goods they had hoped to sell.

“Who’s in the next booth?” Helen asked, nodding to the one east of hers.

“Shannon Palmer. Have you met her?” Lucinda shook out a tablecloth. “Stained glass?”

Helen pursed her lips. “I think so. Wasn’t she in Anacortes last summer?”

“Probably.” Lucinda paused, apparently scanning Commercial Street in Anacortes in her mind’s eye. “Wait. Yes!” she exclaimed in triumph. “She was just past what’s-his-name with the flying elephants!”

“Oh, right,” Helen agreed. “He got mad when her rack collapsed.”

“He gets mad if he thinks one of your tables pushes the tent wall two inches into his space. Try not to get stuck next to him if you can help it.” Lucinda shook her head. “I never can remember his name,” she muttered. Hands on her hips, she contemplated her progress. “I’m starving. Will you keep an eye on my stuff?”

“Of course.”

“Can I bring you anything?”

“I packed a sandwich,” Helen said, “but thanks.”

The other woman picked up a bar of soap and sniffed. “Nice. What is it?”

“Tarragon and geranium.”

“You guys use the most peculiar combinations.” Lucinda grinned and headed down the grassy aisle. “See you,” she called, with a flap of her hand.

Enjoying the warm early-summer evening, Helen continued arranging their wares. Baskets, spray-painted and decorated by her, brimmed with selections of soap and oils and gels. Bars of soap, clear and shimmering with color or milky and dark-flecked, went into labeled bins. Carefully constructed stacks of soap went on pedestals and tables, along with bottles of soapwort shampoo and herbal hair rinses and wintergreen-scented bath oil.

New this year were the pet shampoo, the herbal bath bags and the gritty bars of soap for gardeners or mechanics. Helen expected them all to be successful. She was amazed at Kathleen’s creativity. Lucinda was right: the oddest combinations of herbs and essential oils sometimes produced heavenly scents.

She felt incredibly lucky to be Kathleen Carr’s partner. It hardly seemed fair that she should be an equal partner, considering Kathleen made all the soap. Helen had been the one to suggest that her housemate turn a hobby into a business, however, and she had taken over the task of selling the wonderfully fragrant bars. The packaging was hers—she continually tinkered to improve it—and she was the one who girded herself and approached store owners and buyers to try to persuade them to carry Kathleen’s Soaps.

She helped as much as she could when Kathleen went into a frenzy of soap making. Helen did cleanup and stirred and sometimes added pre-measured oils to the bubbling brew when Kathleen told her to. She unmolded bars that had cured with designs imprinted in them and carved into bars glycerine soaps that had been made into long loaves.

But in fact Helen was the business partner, Kathleen the creative one. Extraordinarily, in only their second year Kathleen’s Soaps was taking off. Dozens of retailers, from small gift shops to health food stores and co-ops, carried their soap now. And in a good weekend at a big craft show like this one, they would sell most of the stock Helen had hauled down.

Both Helen and Kathleen still held other jobs, but now worked only part-time. Last summer, the craft fairs had involved a nightmarish juggling of schedules, with everyone else they knew called in to help when both had to be at their other, more mundane, jobs. Even Kathleen’s teenage daughter, Emma, had manned booths alone.

On a day like this, with the sun shining and plenty of time to set up, Helen felt more relaxed and…happier than she had in years. Since before Ben’s cancer was diagnosed.

How amazing! she thought, pausing for a moment. She’d never expected to be happy again.

“Hello,” a man said behind her.

Her reverie interrupted, Helen lifted a basket from the tailgate and turned with a pleasant, “Hi.”

But the man standing there wasn’t one of the craftspeople she knew. In fact, he didn’t look like an artist at all, although she wasn’t quite sure why. Thick, dark hair cut a bit too short, maybe, and graying at the temples in a way that appeared distinguished rather than scruffy.

He was very handsome, with sharply drawn cheekbones and a strong, cleft chin. Despite that hint of gray, she doubted the man was over forty. In jeans and a polo shirt, he was well-built, perhaps six feet tall, with dark blue eyes that appraised her over the bow that decorated the handle of the basket she clutched.

“Alec Fraser.” He nodded at the basket. “Can I take that?”

“Oh…thank you.” Helen held it out. “I’m Helen Schaefer. Just set it anywhere over there.” She reached back to grab the next, more to give herself a moment to recover her composure than because she actually needed to keep working. She hadn’t felt any sexual reaction at all in so long she was surprised she recognized it. Maybe it wasn’t specific to this man, she comforted herself; maybe the brief flutter in her chest was related to the giddy knowledge that she had learned to be happy again.

Waiting inside her tent, Alec Fraser turned slowly to look at the displays she was setting up. He sniffed. “Smells great.”

Feeling steadier, she said, “Oh, thank you.” She was so used to the fragrance that filled their house and cars and even clung to her clothes that she scarcely noticed it anymore. “When they’re browsing, people pick up every soap and sniff it. I love watching their expressions. They’ll go from delight to ‘yuck’ in a heartbeat.”

He laughed, turning handsome into devilish and—damn it! there she went again—sexy.

“You mean, the vanilla fan doesn’t like the, uh, avocado-dill soap?” He took an experimental whiff of that one and looked torn.

Helen smiled at his expression. “Exactly. I’ve wondered whether you could generalize about character type from responses to particular scents, but I’m afraid results aren’t consistent.”

“What about you?” Alec Fraser asked, nodding toward one of the pyramids of soap, his blue eyes not leaving her face. “What’s your favorite?”

She knew she was blushing; her cheeks were warm. “Oh, I’m afraid I’m bland. I like gentle, homey scents. Vanilla and cinnamon and blueberry.”

“And yet—” he lifted a hand as if he were going to touch her auburn hair, secured in a ponytail, before he seemed to think better of it and let his arm drop “—you look as if you could be fiery.”

Fiery? The idea was laughable. A mouse like her!

“Appearances can be deceptive,” she told him, her good mood crumbling at the edges. She made her voice deliberately polite. “Do you have a booth here?”

“No, I’m with the committee putting on the fair. I’m just making the rounds to welcome everyone. I think I forgot to say thanks for coming.”

“You’re very welcome.” She made a business of returning to the truck, only to discover she’d grabbed the last basket or box within reach. Hoisting herself onto the tailgate wasn’t the most dignified performance to put on in front of a man Emma would say was “hot—for an older guy.”

“Let me,” the older guy said, and swung himself up with a fraction of the effort it would have taken her. He then very efficiently moved boxes and the few stray baskets to the tailgate, where she could reach them.

Since he seemed determined to help, Helen ferried goods into the tent as he pushed them within her reach. After a few minutes, he jumped down and helped her, the muscles in his arms flexing nicely as he lifted the heavier boxes.

“You don’t have to…really I can…” she tried to say several times only to be silenced with a glance or a firm “I want to.”

Finally Helen let him haul while she unpacked. When he set down a box and said, “Well, that’s the last.” She tilted her head to be sure she liked the display on the table in front of her, nodded in satisfaction, and turned to him.

“You were a huge help. Thank you. Do you unload for every exhibitor?”

“Ah…no. You just looked like you could use some volunteer labor.”

In other words, she thought, she had looked helpless. Weak.

He picked up a bar of soap and took the standard sniff. His expression suggested that he thought raspberry sorbet was interesting but not altogether pleasing. “Is there a Kathleen?”

“Kathleen?” She blinked, realizing she sounded like an idiot. “Oh. Yes. She’s my partner. She creates, I market.”

“A businesswoman.”

“Well…” How silly to hesitate. “I suppose I am.”

His perceptive gaze noted the uncertainty. “You sound doubtful.”

“This is a relatively new venture for us. I’m not used to thinking of myself that way.” She didn’t like to admit to shaky self-esteem.

He lifted an eyebrow. “We’re selective here in Queen Anne. You wouldn’t have a booth if you didn’t have a great product and you weren’t persuasive.”

“Kathleen makes the best soap in the world.” On impulse, Helen said, “Take one. It’s on us.”

He gave her a rakish grin. “Bribing me?”

“No, no.” She kept her expression innocent. “Just curious what scent appeals to you.”

Alec Fraser was already sampling bars, his reactions subtle but visible. “So, I’m a guinea pig.”

“Something like that.” Helen crossed her arms and watched him. “I need new subjects, you know.”

“You’re probably a graduate student working on a dissertation,” he muttered. After smelling the watermelon glycerin soap, he looked undecided, then set it down.

Rather than thanking her and grabbing the first bar, to her secret amusement, he took the choosing quite seriously. Maybe he didn’t want to smell tropical when he emerged from his morning shower.

Blueberry? His face said maybe. Goat’s milk and cucumber? No. Definitely. Vehemently, even. Lemon tart pleased him, but not enough.

The winner, when he turned from the wire bins, was aloe and eucalyptus.

“Good choice.”

He smiled. “Most of these were making me hungry.”

“You don’t want to smell good enough to eat?” Helen couldn’t believe she’d said that, especially in such a, well, flirtatious way.

His eyes glinted, and his voice seemed to deepen. “I could be persuaded.”

Lucinda Blick caroled, “I’m back!” The smell of fish and chips arrived with her. “Thanks for watching…oh.” She stopped in the entrance to the tent, immediately noticing Alec Fraser. “Hello.”

He smiled easily and introduced himself. When Lucinda identified herself as the neighboring vendor, he commented on her beautiful silk scarves with a charm that struck Helen as practiced, or perhaps only rehearsed.

Then he smiled impartially at both women and said, “I’d better get my welcome wagon moving, or I won’t make it all the way around. It was good to meet both of you.” His gaze lingered on Helen’s face. “And thank you for this.” He bounced the soap in his hand like a kid with a baseball.

“You’re welcome.”

A moment later, he was gone. Helen pretended she didn’t mind.

“Enjoy your dinner?”

Lucinda peered out. “Lucky him, he’s been way-laid by Nancy Pearce. She’ll find something to complain about.”

“Oh, maybe not.”

“You’re too charitable,” her blond neighbor said dryly. “Our Nancy likes doing the fancy indoor shows. Outside, the ground is always bumpy, she never likes her assigned spot, and if it isn’t raining it’s too hot.”

Helen couldn’t help chuckling, even though she felt guilty. “She claimed to have twisted her ankle last week, there was such an awful hole right in the middle of her space.”

“Conveniently covered by a table skirt, so nobody else could see it.”

“Well…yes.”

Still spying, Lucinda said, “She’s laughing! Can you believe it?”

Yes, Helen thought but didn’t say. She could.

“Actually—” Lucinda sounded thoughtful “—I’m not totally surprised. He did have a lovely smile. And shoulders.” She craned her neck a little farther as Alec Fraser apparently crossed the aisle. “Oh, hell. He’s gorgeous.” She sighed and turned. “Who could be immune?”

“Not me,” Helen admitted. “Especially after he unloaded half my stuff for me.”

“I wonder if he’s married,” Lucinda mused. She pinned her gaze on Helen. “Are you married?”

“No, and not looking,” Helen said firmly. She lifted a wooden box from a cardboard carton and set it on the table, opening the lid to reveal the soaps packed inside.

Lucinda touched the silky smooth wood. “Those are beauties. I meant to tell you last week.”

“Kathleen’s husband is a cabinetmaker. This was his idea. Of course, he makes them.”

“They’ll sell like hotcakes.” Lucinda wasn’t to be diverted. “Why aren’t you looking?”

None of your business, trembled on Helen’s lips but remained unsaid. Lucinda had been too nice to her.

“I’m a widow.” Her words were clipped. “I loved my husband deeply. His illness was…terrible. I won’t face anything like that ever again.”

“How long ago?”

“Nearly three years.”

Voice gruff, the older woman said, “I hope you change your mind. My first husband was killed in Vietnam. I couldn’t imagine going through that a second time. Now, I can’t imagine not having had the past twenty years with Monty.”

“I didn’t know….”

“That I was married? We have a deal. I do craft shows, he golfs.” The bawdy grin was unexpected on her weathered face. “The rest of the time, we honeymoon.”

Helen couldn’t help laughing again. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to meet a Monty someday. But…not yet.”

“Maybe you’re readier than you know.” Lucinda waggled her eyebrows as she gave a meaningful glance in Alec Fraser’s direction. Then, before Helen could argue, she let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen to my tongue flap. I never give advice, don’t believe in it. Anyway, I still have a ton to do.” She lifted a hand in farewell and rounded the tent walls into her own space.

A moment later, Helen heard the clank of a rack being assembled and the growl of her neighbor mumbling to herself.

Helen was left feeling unsettled, her sunny sense of contentment clouded by memories and by the unwelcome awareness of a man who wasn’t Ben Schaefer.

No, she wasn’t ready. She never would be. Once was enough. Ben couldn’t be replaced.

She knew even as the thought formed that she was lying to herself. It wasn’t that no one would ever measure up to her husband. He’d had his flaws. Just because he had died, she wasn’t going to turn him into a fairy-tale prince. There probably were men out there with whom she could fall in love.

She just didn’t want to.

Having Ben torn from her had hurt too bad. The agony of seeing him lose his hair and his robust color and his muscle tone and finally even the smile in his eyes and the strength in his voice had been unspeakable. Even worse was saying goodbye every day, with every touch and word, for a year and a half.

After the funeral, people had patted her hand and said kindly, “The worst is over. At least this wasn’t a surprise. You’ve had time to grieve in advance, to say goodbye. I know you’re grateful for the time you had with him this past year.”

Was she? Helen didn’t know. She had tried a thousand times to imagine how it would have been if Ben had been late for dinner one night, and a knock came on her door. She could see herself opening it, finding a police officer standing there with compassion written on his face. “I’m sorry,” he’d say. “Your husband has been in a car accident. He’s dead.”

Perhaps they weren’t that blunt. She didn’t know. Maybe they told you to sit down first, or suggested you call a friend or relative to hold your hand. That wasn’t the point.

The point was the suddenness. Ben—the Ben she had married and held the night before and laughed with that morning—would be gone. Poof. His life snuffed out in an instant rather than inch by excruciating inch.

She knew the shock would have been stunning, the grief overwhelming. Grief, she understood. But her last memory would have been of Ben’s smile, the warmth of his lips when he kissed her goodbye, as he did every morning. As he had every morning, until he became too ill to go to work, and then too ill to get out of bed at all.

Instead she’d had to watch him suffer, his wry humor and intelligence and personality disintegrating until only pain and regret were left. She’d had to believe, for a long time, that each new treatment would work, that he could get better. And then she’d had to pretend that she believed, for his sake and for Ginny’s.

And because she was too stubborn, too selfish, to let go. She had made him try hopeless treatments and suffer longer than he had to because she didn’t want to lose him.

All she knew was, Ben’s death had been so dreadful, she never, ever wanted to love someone else and lose him.

Which meant that these stirrings of sexual interest were unwelcome. Some people could separate sex from love, but she wasn’t one of them.

Studying the display with unseeing eyes, Helen decided that it was lucky Alec Fraser wasn’t an executive at Nordstrom, where she worked, or a neighbor, or a friend of Logan’s, or anyone else she would see on a regular basis. He was a stranger, presumably a resident of Queen Anne, a part of Seattle where she rarely went, and she would very likely never see him again.

Ignoring the sinking sensation she felt at her own pronouncement, she nodded. It was definitely best if she didn’t meet Alec Fraser again.

TWO HOURS LATER, Alec detoured down the first aisle again. Just to see if any of the missing exhibitors had arrived, he told himself.

As a result, he had to waste fifteen minutes explaining to a jackass he remembered from two years ago why he had been assigned a location that was apparently undesirable.

“We weren’t aware that any aisle has consistently earned less revenue,” he said patiently. “Some fairgoers start at one end, some at the other, some in the middle.”

“I’ve been coming here for five years, and I have a piece in your juried show,” the bearded artist said huffily. “I’d have thought I’d earned a spot that wasn’t in Siberia.”

Alec shrugged. “You made no specific request, and I’m not sure we could have honored it if you had. Our main goal is to have variety from booth to booth. That can get complicated.”

“I may not be able to put Queen Anne on my schedule next year,” the painter responded.

“That’s certainly your privilege.” Alec inclined his head. “We have more applicants than we do openings in any case.”

If it were solely up to him, he wouldn’t have invited this idiot, and not just on grounds of personality. Alec didn’t like his grandiose oils, which lacked originality. But they sold well, another member of the screening committee had pointed out. Not everyone had taste, she’d said, adding, “I hope I didn’t just deeply offend somebody here who loves his work.”

Not a soul had admitted to being so shallow.

Ashamed of his pettiness, which he knew stemmed in part from irritation, Alec moved on.

A jeweler who was a newcomer to this show was laying out wonderful, imaginative pendants and earrings on black velvet trays. Witches and mermaids and fat old ladies in yellow danced from delicate wires. Niobium and glass and sequins had somehow been persuaded to come alive.

He complimented her on her work, fingering one pendant with a fiery-haired enchantress apparently dancing in nothing but a childhood fantasy of a tutu, her topless state a mere hint but enough to make him glance down the aisle, toward Number 143.

Did Helen Schaefer, businesswoman, ever abandon conventions and let herself feel purely joyful?

Alec frowned. Damn it, he’d barely met her! She probably had a Mr. Schaefer at home. He was pretty sure she’d worn a wedding ring. He doubted that she’d meant to flirt, despite that remark about him smelling good enough to eat.

“I’ll give you a discount.” Smiling, the young, pierced and tattooed jeweler nodded at the pendant in his hand. “You look taken with it.”

For a moment, he hesitated, tempted. But what would he do with the darned thing if… No. It wasn’t the kind of gift you gave your dark-haired sister for her thirty-fifth birthday. And he wasn’t even dating these days.

“Thanks, but I don’t think so.” With a pang of regret, he laid it back on its spot. “Your jewelry is going to sell like Beanie Babies did in their prime.”

He ambled on, nodding and exchanging a few words with vendors he had already met, checking out a booth of framed black-and-white photos of staircases and shadows and faces turned away that stood out from the usual wildlife and scenery fare. The photographer was off somewhere, and Alec made a mental note to stop by the next morning.

He was only a few tents away, engaged in conversation with a candlemaker, when he saw Helen Schaefer come out of hers, close the flaps and climb into her pickup truck without a backward glance. In seconds, the truck maneuevered around the corner, turned into the school playground and was gone.

She’d be back, he reminded himself. Tomorrow he could stop by and say hello, thank her again for the soap. Maybe ask about her family, in the hope that she wore the wedding ring out of sentiment rather than as a label.

As he did. Alec glanced down at the plain gold band on his left hand. It was a part of him. He hadn’t taken it off in sixteen years, not since the moment he said, “I do,” and kissed his bride.

He wondered how Linda would feel about him taking it off now, maybe putting it in the carved wooden box from Poland she had given him for Christmas many years ago that sat on his dresser. Was she anywhere she could know?

Damn it, Alec thought, what was wrong with him? This wasn’t the time to let himself get sucked into an eddy of regret or sorrow. There was no reason to dredge up the past just because he’d met a woman who had fleetingly made him imagine falling in love again.

Still he walked faster and made his last few greetings briefer. It was nine o’clock on Thursday night. Yeah, okay, Devlin was fourteen and therefore old enough to be in charge, but chances were he’d have spent the evening closeted in his bedroom, the door firmly shut, music shaking the timbers of the house. If his sister was being abducted, he wouldn’t hear her bloodcurdling screams.

Not that Lily wasn’t responsible, too. She knew better than to answer the door without being sure she knew who was on the other side. But she was only eleven, teetering between childhood and adolescence, her body dragging her along despite any protests her father occasionally uttered to God. Lately she’d taken to hunching her shoulders and wearing sacky sweatshirts stolen from her brother’s closet. Alec guessed it was time to tackle buying her first bra. Not the kind of purchase he had ever envisioned having any part in.

There weren’t any police cars parked in front of his house, and he didn’t feel a bass thumping through his bones when he got out of his Mercedes in the garage. Alec frowned. Dev wouldn’t have taken off and left his sister alone, would he?

But upstairs he found unusual harmony, the two slouched at opposite ends of the couch as they watched a movie that wasn’t familiar to Alec. The coffee table was littered with plates, empty pop cans and candy wrappers.

“Hey, guys.” He leaned against the back of the couch. “I’m home.”

“We noticed,” his son said disagreeably.

“Hi, Daddy.” Lily didn’t tear her eyes from the big-screen TV.

“What are you watching?”

His son gave him an impatient glance. “Don’t worry. It’s PG13. We rented it. Last night. Remember?”

Alec did vaguely recall paying for a couple of DVD rentals while they were grocery shopping. He’d glanced to see what they had chosen. He hadn’t recognized either title, but neither had appeared inappropriately gory or racy for an eleven-year-old.

“Good enough,” he said. “I take it you had dinner.”

“We ordered pizza. There’s some left in the fridge,” Devlin added begrudgingly.

“Thanks.” Obviously not needed in the family room, Alec retreated to the kitchen, where he put a couple of slices of pizza in the microwave. He shouldn’t eat crap like that, but he didn’t have the energy to hunt for something more nutritious.

While the microwave hummed, he checked his voice mail and glanced through the day’s snail mail. Neither produced anything interesting or urgent to distract him from his restlessness.

Setup for the annual arts and craft fair, which he and Linda had been involved in starting, was going smoothly. The quality of work for sale was better than ever, publicity had gone like clockwork, and the weather was cooperating. His kids were getting along.

So what the hell was wrong with him?

Of course he knew. Something about Helen Schaefer’s big brown eyes had gotten to him. He’d loved her smile, her gurgle of a laugh, her puckered forehead when she concentrated on laying out the soap. His hand had itched to touch her hair, a shade of auburn that could be subtle or brash depending on the light.

He was pretty sure she’d worn no makeup to enhance her creamy skin. Her hair had been scraped back in a ponytail so tight it looked painful. Her gray T-shirt and faded blue jeans sure hadn’t been worn to entice. But something about her had punched him in the gut.

He scowled at the microwave, which beeped obediently as if he’d terrified it into finishing. About time. He didn’t like hanging around the kitchen.

Carrying a soda and his plate of pizza, he stopped in his tracks. Funny, it hadn’t occurred to him until this minute how uncomfortable he was out here.

He turned around and looked at the room he and Linda had redone when the kids were little. Small-paned windows framed a view over roof-tops of Puget Sound. Mexican tiles covered the floor, their warm russet color echoed in the smaller hand-painted tiles that formed the countertop and backsplash. They’d eaten most of their meals at the antique table in the center of the room. In those days, he had paid bills at the desk in a nook that had once been the pantry. A refinished armoire had held toys and games, and the kids played on rag rugs Linda wove on crude looms. She had always kept several vases filled with flowers in here. They’d loved the kitchen when they were done remodeling it. They had lived in here.

The kids still ate at the kitchen table when they gobbled breakfast or lunch, but when the three of them sat down for a meal together, it was in the dining room. He didn’t even remember what excuse he’d used to initiate the change. They were all probably too numb to notice.

He couldn’t stand the kitchen because it reminded him of his wife. As if he’d conjured her, he saw Linda turning from the stove, smiling at him. She had been a tall woman, only a couple of inches shorter than Alec, her Swedish blond beauty flawed only by a nose she claimed was too big, and by a tendency to be clumsy. The first time they met, she fell into his arms. Literally. Given her size, he’d barely kept her from crashing to the ground.

“Linda,” he whispered, and she faded, taking with her the clear memory of her face.

Turning abruptly, he fled the kitchen for his office. There, the photograph of his wife was too familiar to bring her to life.

Looking away from it, he had a flash of memory in which he saw another woman’s face, another woman’s smile.

And the glint of gold and diamonds on the other woman’s left hand.

As he lifted the can of soda to take a swallow, he eyed his own wedding ring.

There was undoubtedly a Mr. Schaefer, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask, would it? There was something about Helen, who confessed to loving scents redolent of kitchen and home, that had given him hope he might love again.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he remembered the bar of soap still sitting on the seat in the car. He’d have to go get it. Start his day tomorrow with the pungent scent of eucalyptus.

CHAPTER TWO

“DO YOU HAVE the cash box?” eight-year-old Ginny asked, with the air of someone who constantly has to remind her mother how to drive, cook and tie her shoelaces.

“In my bag,” Helen confirmed, hiding her smile. She locked her car, parked on the gravel shoulder of a side street. “Ready?”

“Of course,” her daughter said with preternatural composure. A small, slight figure, she adjusted her day pack on her shoulder. “We’d better hurry.”

It was true, Helen saw with a glance at her watch. A minor accident on Aurora had slowed traffic to a crawl.

She and Ginny walked as fast as they could the few blocks to the elementary school field where the arts and craft fair had sprouted like a peculiar mushroom after a rainfall. Even first thing on Friday morning, tantalizing aromas drifted from the food booths that had sprung up around the periphery. Colorful flags fluttered above the red-and-white-striped tents. The juried art show was in the gymnasium, and another displaying children’s art filled the halls of the school. Banners were slung along chain-link fences.

Helen had just time to tie back the front flaps of her tent, say hi to her neighboring exhibitors and put money in the cash register before the first shoppers, a pair of women, wandered in.

“Ooh!” one exclaimed, lifting a bar of soap. “Smell this one.”

Ginny gave her mother a satisfied smile.

Kathleen was working at her day job today, but, with her daughter Emma, could handle the booth tomorrow. Jo, who had roomed with the two women until she married Kathleen’s brother, Ryan, had promised to spend a few hours here this afternoon to give Helen a break.

By ten-thirty in the morning, the grassy aisles between the rows of tents were clogged with mothers pushing strollers, fathers bouncing toddlers on their shoulders and grandmothers outfitted with walkers and flowery hats. Overshirts were vanishing into tote bags. Spaghetti straps and straw hats abounded. The day promised to be the hottest yet in July, which meant the mercury would top eighty. Given the humidity, Helen was glad to be in the shade most of the time.

Ginny’s shyness vanished at craft fairs. She gravely answered questions, helped people find particular soaps and assured them that the shampoo was “the best.”

“My hair is really clean.” She tilted her head so these particular women could see. “Some of the stuff from stores makes me itch. Mom says my skin is sensitive.”

One of the women hid her smile. “Really. Mine is, too. Heck, I’ll give it a try.”

“So’s Buster’s skin.” Her companion reached for a bottle of the pet shampoo. “That darn dog is allergic to everything!”

Ginny smiled her approval. “Auntie Kathleen doesn’t put anything artificial in her shampoos or soaps.”

Both women laughed. Ginny looked puzzled. Her solemnity and adult speech came naturally to her. Somehow, after her father’s death, she’d quit being a child. Once she came out of her shell, she was a miniature adult. She could never understand why real grown-ups found her amusing.

“What a doll!” The woman with the pet shampoo took bills from her wallet. “Is she yours?”

“Yes.” Helen smiled as she made change. “She’s eight going on forty.”

“And what a saleswoman.”

Helen laughed, too, although she worried about Ginny. An eight-year-old should be playing with Barbies or jumping rope with friends, not going to work with her mom. But this was almost always Ginny’s preference. She did have a few friends, which was an improvement over two years ago, but she would politely turn down offers to go to one of their houses if her mother was working a craft fair that day. Helen could never decide whether Ginny loved selling soap so much, or whether this was another manifestation of the way she’d clung after Ben died.

But if Helen argued, Ginny would gaze up at her with wounded eyes and say, “But aren’t I a help? You always say I am.”

What could Helen do but throw up her hands. “Of course you are! I just don’t want you to feel you have to come.”

“I want to.”

So here Ginny was, a skinny little girl with mouse-brown hair in two braids, a thin face and great big eyes, patrolling their booth with the relaxed efficiency of an experienced saleswoman.

Jo showed up at noon on the nose. Despite the heat of the day, she managed to look cool in khaki shorts, sandals and a white tank top, her short dark hair shining and bouncy. In contrast, Helen kept pushing escaping strands off her sweaty forehead.

Jo made a face. “I had to park about a mile away. This place is jammed!”

“Business is really good.” Helen turned from her and smiled at a customer who was holding one of Logan’s beautifully made wooden boxes packed with Kathleen’s products. “Oh, you’ll enjoy this,” she said, ringing up the purchase. “The mint is wonderful.”

“Actually, I’m going to tuck it away for Christmas. This—” she set down a citrus bar on the card table “—is for me.”

“Ah. Well, I’ll put a card in your bag in case you decide you want more after you use this one up. A number of stores in Seattle stock our soaps.” She glanced at the total. “That’ll be $68.73.”

“You do take checks?”

“You bet.”

Another satisfied customer. In the lull that followed her departure, Jo asked, “Do you want to grab a lunch break?”

Helen looked around. “I’d better make it a quick one. I don’t know if you can keep up by yourself.”

“I’m Wonder Woman.” Jo flexed what biceps she had. “Of course I can.”

Helen laughed. “Well, Ginny is itching to see the children’s art. I wish her teacher had known how to enter her students’ work.”

“Wouldn’t she love that?” Jo flapped her hands. “Go, go! I’ll be fine. Get something to eat while you’re at it.”

“Bless you.” Helen was starting toward Ginny when the sight of a man entering the tent made her heart give a funny bump.

Alec Fraser, of course.

He looked directly at her, as if half a dozen other people didn’t crowd the tent. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She returned his smile.

He sidestepped so a young woman pushing a stroller could maneuver between him and a pyramid of soap bars. “Looks like business is good.”

“It’s amazing. If it stays this busy all weekend, we’ll sell everything.”

“That’s the way we want it.” He paused. “Can I get you anything? I can bring you lunch, if you tell me what you like.”

She almost asked if he was offering this service, too, to all exhibitors, but refrained. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“Oh, thank you, but I have help. In fact, I was just about to take my daughter to look at the children’s art.”

“Really?” His gaze followed hers to Ginny, who was getting a bar of soap from a bin and handing it to an elderly woman with a cane. “I’m heading that way.”

Helen’s heart gave another lurch. She knew a lie when she heard one. He wanted to spend time with her. She didn’t understand why. As handsome as he was, he must be fending off women with considerably more style—not to mention looks—than she had. But he stood there with his hands in the pockets of his chinos, smiling warmly at her and waiting as if in sublime confidence that she would say “How nice. I’d love your company.”

Blinking, she realized she’d actually said it, not just thought it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jo wink and give her a surreptitious thumbs-up. Helen blushed.

She raised her voice. “Um…Ginny? Jo’s here. Let’s go look at the art inside.”

Ginny pointed the elderly woman toward Jo and joined her mother. “Okay. Can we get lunch after?”

“Of course.” Helen put a hand on her shoulder and steered her out of the tent. “Ginny, meet Mr. Fraser. He’s on the committee putting on this fair. Alec, this is my daughter, Ginny.”

“Nice to meet you.” He smiled at her. “I have a daughter not much older than you. Lily is eleven.”

“Lily is a nice name.”

“Thank you.”

Her brow furrowed. “Are you coming with us?”

“I thought I would, if you don’t mind.”

The furrows deepened.

Helen squeezed her shoulder meaningfully.

“Okay,” Ginny mumbled.

“Thank you.” Looking over the eight-year-old’s head, Alec met Helen’s gaze. His eyes were very blue.

She felt sure she was blushing again, and hoped he’d attribute it to the heat.

They made their way through the crowd toward the school, Ginny lingering at food booths to check out the choices, before they entered the cool building.

A few people wandered about, looking at the children’s artwork and talking in low voices, but there were nowhere near as many as were outside. Helen had a long drink from the fountain beside the rest rooms. Ginny was already twenty feet ahead, crouching in that effortless way children have to examine a brightly colored picture that hung low on the wall.

Alec looked at Helen’s mouth, then back to her eyes. “Feel better?”

“Lots,” she admitted. “Crowds get to me.”

“Claustrophobic?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe a little. Oh, I don’t know. I really enjoy selling, which is weird since I don’t exactly have the right personality. I work at Nordstrom, too.” As if he cared, she chided herself. But he looked as if he did, her shy glance told her. “But when it’s crowded like today, I can hardly take a breath between helping people. Not,” she added, “that I’m complaining.”

“I didn’t think you were.” He stayed at her side as she slowed to look—oh, admit it! she was pretending to look—at some charcoal drawings.

When she glanced at him again, she saw that he was watching Ginny, who had her head tilted like a bird as she examined something with intense concentration.

“Is she artistic?”

“Yes, actually she is.” Helen watched her daughter, too. “I think her drawing is really extraordinary for an eight-year-old. She takes it seriously. I wish…” She stopped.

“You wish?” Alec Fraser’s focus, as intense as Ginny’s, was on her face.

“Oh, just that I could give her more opportunities.”

“I wonder,” he said thoughtfully, “if expensive art classes really are valuable. Your Ginny may learn more sketching on her own, without any pressure, than she would if she had lessons.”

“I wish I could be sure.”

Ginny had moved on to a case of what appeared to be ceramics. Her nose nearly touched the glass.

“What parent is ever sure?” Alec’s tone was dry.

“You said you have an eleven-year-old?”

“And a fourteen-year-old son, who is in a sullen phase. I’m praying Lily doesn’t decide to imitate her brother.” His smile wasn’t quite a smile. “My wife died two years ago. It’s been tough on the kids.”

Helen’s chest felt squeezed and her voice came out sounding thin, not her own. “And on you. I know, because I’m a widow.”

They had both stopped walking and stood facing each other. His eyes narrowed. “When?”

“Three years ago.”

“What happened?”

“Ben had a brain tumor. It was…drawn out.” Those few words barely began to hint at the agony of the two years that followed his diagnosis. “Your wife?”

“Leukemia. She started feeling tired, went to the doctor, and six weeks later she was dead. That quick.”

“You were very, very lucky then,” Helen said simply.

His mouth twisted. “It…didn’t feel that way. But I know you’re right. If she couldn’t get better…”

Her voice hardened. “Watching a person you love suffer is a living hell.” Especially when you knew you were the one responsible. The one who insisted one more treatment be tried, that—however irrationally—hope not be abandoned.

“Yes.” That was all he said; all he had to say.

Together they turned and started down the hall again, shoulder to shoulder.

“You haven’t remarried?” he asked after a minute.

“No.” She thought of all the things she could say, but chose not to. “You?”

“No. I’ve barely dated. Helping the kids through this has consumed me. Linda and I were involved in starting up this arts and craft fair and administering the scholarships we give with the proceeds, but I didn’t even come last year. I just…couldn’t.”

Hearing the anguish in his voice, Helen asked, “Did Linda come the year before?”

Looking straight ahead, he talked. “Sick and shaking, she insisted. We both knew she was dying, but we pretended. She bought a hat to cover her bald head. She wouldn’t wear a wig.” He was silent for a moment. “She died eight days later.”

“I am so sorry,” Helen whispered, reaching for his hand in an instinctive need to comfort.

He glanced down in surprise, then turned his hand in hers to return her grip. The smile he gave her—tried to give her—was flavored with grief and lacked the charm of his earlier ones. “Thanks.”

They were gaining on Ginny, who was spending long minutes in deep concentration on works of art that interested her. Helen gave his hand a gentle squeeze before letting go. The last thing she needed was to have to explain to her daughter why she was being so friendly with a man she barely knew.

“Hey, kiddo. See anything you like?”

“This one.” Ginny turned her head several ways, as if to change the perspective. “I wish I could draw like that.”

In the colored pencil work that had attracted her attention, a boy and a puppy wrestled on a shaggy lawn, scattering fluffy dandelion heads. The detail, shading and lifelike quality were extraordinary. Especially for an artist who was only…

“Seventeen,” Helen said. “The girl who drew this has nine years on you, Ginny. Imagine what you can learn in nine years.”

“I don’t know if I can learn this much.” Ginny sighed and said abruptly, “I’m hungry. Can we go eat?”

“Sure. Did you decide what you want?”

Ginny, of course, was a connoisseur of fair-type food. “I think I’ll have a gyro today. A chicken one. With feta cheese.”

“Sounds good.” Helen bent to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll have the same.”

“It’s one of my favorites,” Alec said. “Do you ladies mind if I join you?”

Ginny eyed him but remembered her manners. “No, that’s okay.”

Alec did know how to talk to kids well enough to get her chatting about what things she especially liked that were for sale outside.

“There’s pretty jewelry,” she conceded, “but I don’t like jewelry. I’m not old enough. I like some of the paintings, but some of them aren’t very good. The stained glass right next to Mom’s tent is especially beautiful. I wish I knew how to make stained glass.”

“More expensive lessons,” Alec murmured out of the corner of his mouth to Helen.

“Lots of the stuff looks kind of alike,” Ginny continued. “If I had the money today, I’d buy—” she frowned in thought “—one of those mosaic mirrors.” Pushing out her lower lip, she gave a decisive nod. “Have you seen them? You can stand them on your chest of drawers, or hang them on the wall. The lady had one last week with green and blue tiles mixed with silvery ones. It was like a swimming pool. Somebody bought it, though.”

As they emerged into sunlight to the noise of a band tuning guitars in the pavilion set up behind the gym, Alec asked, “Have you seen the porcelain dolls a couple of rows over?”

Ginny gave him a look that spoke louder than words. Why would she have any interest in a doll? But, very politely, she said, “No, I haven’t.”

Alec hid a grin.

“Does your Lily collect dolls?” Helen asked.

“Actually, she does. She doesn’t play with them, but she still seems interested. I thought of picking one out for her birthday.”

They joined the short line to order at the Greek gyro booth.

“When is her birthday?” Helen asked.

“August thirtieth.”

The person ahead of her stepped away and Helen ordered for herself and Ginny. “Lemonade?” she asked her daughter, then confirmed their order with the teenager inside the trailer, “Two lemonades.”

Alec tried to persuade her to let him pay for all three lunches, but she was already handing over bills. Ginny gave him a suspicious look. Helen poked her under the guise of moving her to the next window where they waited for their gyros.

“He was just being nice,” she whispered.

“Why is he being so nice?” Ginny asked, her voice carrying.

“Because he’s a nice man!” Helen hissed, then gave him a bright smile when he joined them. “Your kids here?”

He shook his head. “Lily went swimming with friends, and Devlin…well, in theory he’s mowing our lawn and several of the neighbors’ lawns today. He’s set himself up in business.”

“Enterprising.”

Alec grunted. “Honestly, I think he just wants to buy more CDs and go to more movies with his friends than I’m willing to pay for.”

“But at least he’s willing to work for them.”

“True enough.”

His frown hadn’t entirely cleared, though, telling her that he worried about his son. Helen thought perhaps she was lucky that Ginny had been so young when her father died. The two awful years of Ben’s illness had changed Ginny forever, of course. Helen hadn’t had the time and energy for her the way she once had, and, at four and five years old, Ginny just hadn’t understood what was happening. She became scared of her daddy near the end, and Helen had feared that she would be haunted because she hadn’t said a proper farewell. But so far Ginny hadn’t asked questions and hadn’t expressed regrets.

Maybe it was worse when children did understand what was happening. Alec’s son would have been twelve, a transitional age anyway. Helen remembered how confused she’d been at twelve and thirteen. What if she’d had to say goodbye to her dying mother? She shuddered at the idea. Did the boy blame himself somehow, as kids so often did, for his mother’s illness? Was he mad at her for leaving him? Did he fear that his father would die or desert him, too?

The dreadful thing was, Helen hadn’t been able to afford counseling for Ginny, and she had no idea whether her own daughter harbored anger or fear or guilt. By the time Helen had crawled out of her own grief enough to worry about Ginny, she didn’t want to talk about the past. She claimed she didn’t remember her father that well. Maybe she didn’t. She’d only been three when he was diagnosed, and by her fifth birthday he was a skeleton with tubes going into his veins and nose, the hiss of the respirator enough to drown out his feeble voice. By then all she knew was that her mother cried constantly and spent hours of the day at the scary man’s side. He wasn’t Daddy; couldn’t even pretend to be.

Alec, Helen and Ginny found a shady spot at one end of a picnic table. Despite the crowds, Helen was grateful to sit for a few minutes, and she drained her lemonade even before she finished the gyro. They chatted about past craft fairs and how this one compared to others in the region.

When Ginny lost interest in the remnants of her gyro and asked if she could go closer to the band, Helen nodded. “But stay where I can see you.” Once her daughter was out of earshot, Helen asked, “Have your kids been in counseling?”

“We’ve tried it.” His expression still didn’t clear. “Lily seems okay, although I keep wondering what’ll happen when puberty hits. Dev just talks in monosyllables to the counselor. He tells me it’s stupid. He doesn’t want to talk about his mother.” Alec sighed. “We’re taking a break from it this summer.” He looked at her. “How about you? Have you seen anyone, or taken Ginny?”

She shook her head. “My health insurance, such as it is, doesn’t cover stuff like that. I just couldn’t afford it. I’m not sure I’d have wanted to go anyway. I’m afraid I’d have felt a little like your son does.”

She’d earned a shadow of a grin. “Don’t like spilling your guts to a stranger, huh?”

“It’s not at the top of my list,” Helen confessed. Besides, there were things she didn’t want to talk about, didn’t want to tell anyone, not even a counselor. With a sigh of her own, she wadded up her wrappings. “I’d better get back. It must be wall-to-wall in our booth. Nice as it is to sit here…”

“Duty calls.” He gathered his own garbage. “For me, too. I’ve enjoyed the break, though.”

“So have I.” More than she liked to admit even to herself. How long had it been since an attractive man had wanted to spend time with her? Maybe she’d never see him again, but she appreciated the boost to her ego.

She swung her legs over the bench and stood. “Maybe I’ll see you another day.”

“I hope so.” His gaze held hers over the table. “Would you have dinner with me some night, Helen?”

She shouldn’t have been so shocked, but…oh, dear. It had been a long time.

“Dinner?” she squeaked, then felt gauche.

He raised a brow. “Maybe a movie.”

Dinner? A date. That’s what he meant. Did she want to go out with a man? Helen wondered.

“Tough decision?” Alec’s tone was light, but he couldn’t be enjoying having a woman he’d asked out stare as if he’d suggested she strip for him.

“No, I…I’m so sorry! You just took me by surprise. I haven’t…” She flushed. “It’s been a long time, you see, and…” Better and better. “Yes,” she finished in a rush. “I think I’d like that.”

He didn’t puff up with indignation and say, You think? Instead, he nodded in an undemanding way. “I picked up one of your business cards. Is that your home phone number?”

“No, but I check that voice mail daily. Or, if you have a pen, I can give you my home number.”

She scribbled it on one of her business cards and watched as he tucked it carefully into his wallet. Then he smiled at her. “I’ll call,” he promised, and left.

She looked after him until he disappeared into the crowd, then went to fetch Ginny.

“Where’s that man?” her daughter asked, peering around as if he was going to leap out and say, Boo!

“He’s busy making sure the fair runs smoothly.” Helen steered Ginny ahead of her. “I hope Jo managed without us.”

The going was slow, with the crowd shuffling along, exclaiming over new delights and abruptly veering into booths, bumping into each other, apologizing, maneuvering strollers. Her friend looked like a drowning woman when Helen and Ginny squeezed into their tent.

“Did you have a good break?” Jo asked in a low voice as she rang up a sale.

“Wonderful. Thank you!”

“Excuse me,” a woman said right behind her.

Helen turned with a practiced smile. “May I help you?”

As the afternoon wore on, she didn’t have much time to think about Alec Fraser or the fact that he’d asked for her phone number, but it was always at the back of her mind. In brief pauses, she would picture his smile, or his face as he told her his wife had died.

We both knew she was dying, but we pretended.

Oh, how well she knew what that was like! The smiles, the way you avoided meeting each other’s eyes, the chatter to cover the sick dread, the wondering. Had Ben really thought he could get better, or had he known, too, that he was dying? Or she would ask herself, Am I being a coward in pretending to believe? In insisting on believing? Would it have been better for Ben to talk about his impending death than to keep up the front? Would she have been able to work through her own grief sooner if they had talked more frankly early on, when he still could? She didn’t know.

She hadn’t joined a support group for widows, but she’d thought about it. There were so many things she’d never say even to Jo and Kathleen because they hadn’t gone through that kind of loss. And her friends from before had disappeared from her life after the funeral and brief sympathy calls. Death made them uncomfortable. Or perhaps her ties with them had already eroded during the two years she’d been so occupied nursing Ben. She wasn’t sure. All she did know was that within a week or two of the funeral, the doorbell and phone had quit ringing. Maybe she’d ask Alec if it was the same for him.

It wasn’t very romantic of her to be excited about going on a date because he was a widower and they could talk about illness and death and grieving. But still… She knew he, too, had felt the connection. He might have regrets and guilt of his own he’d want to talk about.

Yes, she decided with new confidence, dating would be good for her. It didn’t have to be the first step to love, commitment and loss.

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU HAVE A DATE?” Kathleen exclaimed in delight. “Good for you!”

“With a hottie,” Jo told her, grinning at Helen.

The three women sat at the kitchen table in the big brick house in Seattle’s Ravenna district where Helen and Kathleen still lived. Of the original three housemates, only Jo, now married, had moved out. She had just finished getting her master’s degree in librarianship at the University of Washington and had accepted a job with the Seattle Public Library.

Feeling pleasantly reminiscent as she sipped her orange spice tea, Helen thought of the huge changes in all their lives since that September when they came together under one roof. Three women used to living independent lives, they had rubbed along together with some difficulty at first. Jo had been sure she didn’t like children, and was appalled to discover that Helen had a six-year-old. Kathleen, the perfectionist—or the “princess,” as Jo had dubbed her—had made all her housemates uncomfortable with her insistence on a perfectly ordered and spotless home. Once upon a time, she’d alphabetized the soup cans, for goodness’ sake! Blond and elegantly beautiful, she had seemed out of place without a housekeeper and gardener.

And Helen… Well, she’d lived in such a daze of grief and forgetfulness, she could have stepped on their toes until they were black and blue, and never noticed. Neither she nor Ginny had been good company for a long time.

Helen was intensely grateful that Kathleen had let her move in, and that both women had been kind but not pitying. They had let her mourn, but also dragged her along with them on their journey of self-discovery as they began new lives.

They had both found love along the way, Jo with Kathleen’s brother Ryan and Kathleen with Logan, the cabinetmaker who had built the gorgeous cabinets that gave this old high-ceilinged kitchen such warmth. Unfortunately, that meant the other two women thought Helen should also be seeking true love. She could see the gleam in their eyes now.

“I thought,” she said sedately, “Alec and I could talk about what it’s like losing someone you love. And helping kids through it, and so on.”

Jo’s merriment faded.

Kathleen cleared her throat. “I suppose that is part of getting to know each other, but…gosh, as conversation goes, it sounds pretty grim. Surely the fact that he’s a widower isn’t the only reason you’re having dinner with him!”

Helen laughed at their shock. “No, of course not! Having that in common is an attraction for me, though. Honestly, I’m not very interested in dating. But I liked him, and he sounds like he’s going through a tough time with his son, and…I did think it might be good for me to be able to talk to someone who’d understand.”

Jo lifted her mug in salute. “Sex is a nice thing to have in common.”

Helen felt her cheeks warm. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

“Of course you are! It’s been three years.” Jo gave her a shrewd look. “No, it’s probably been way longer than that, hasn’t it?”

“Four years, two months,” she blurted, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Oh, Lord, had she actually admitted she knew to the month?

Jo only gave a brisk nod. “There you go. I enjoy sex. Four years of celibacy sounds way too long to me.”

“Me, too,” Kathleen admitted. “Especially now that I’ve discovered how fabulous it is.” She pursed her lips, fixing a compassionate gaze on Helen. “It can be, you know. Even if it was only pleasant with Ben, at its best, making love is pretty incredible.”

“It was more than pleasant with Ben,” Helen said hastily. “But Ben’s the only man I’ve ever…” She stopped. “What I’m trying to say is, sex isn’t just recreational for me.”

“You think it is for us?” Kathleen asked, just a little tartly.

“No! I didn’t mean… Oh, damn it.” She frowned at them. “You know that’s not what I was suggesting. I just can’t see myself separating sex from love and commitment and so on. And…I don’t want that.”

They knew how she felt, and only shook their heads.

“Someday…” Kathleen muttered.

Jo set down her cup. “When I was falling in love with Ryan, and was all confused, I asked you one night whether it was worth it. Do you remember? You’d been crying, and I wanted to know whether you would have taken it all back if you could. If you’d foreseen how Ben would die, would you have said no when he asked you to marry him?”

Helen was already shaking her head.

“That night, you told me it was all worth it. So…how can you refuse to think about being happy again?”

“You don’t believe in once-in-a-lifetime love?” Helen asked them. “Would I face the agony of losing him again, if I could have him back for a while?” She tried to smile. “Yes. Of course I would. Do I want to face it so I can have a companion in middle age?” She shook her head. “I’d say I’m okay on my own, except that, thanks to you two, I’m not exactly on my own.”

“And isn’t that nice?” Jo said with satisfaction.

Kathleen said nothing, only watched Helen. She knew what was coming.

“I’ve been looking for a small place for Ginny and me,” Helen told them. “Maybe just an apartment.”

Jo’s mug clunked to the table. “What?”

“I think it’s time Kathleen and Logan and Emma had the house to themselves. They’re a family. They’ve been very nice about letting Ginny and me stay, but none of us intended it to be forever.”

“Logan and I did.” Kathleen’s jaw squared. “You are part of the family.”

“He may not feel the same.”

“He does. When he asked me to marry him, we talked about my moving in with him and renting this house to you. But…all of us together makes this home. He wanted that, too.”

“It’s not as though I won’t be over here half the time anyway,” Helen said mildly. Her sidelong glance was aimed at Jo. “Like someone we know and love.”

Jo tilted her head. In the year since her wedding, she had made a habit of dropping by and even studying here on evenings when Ryan’s kids had friends over.

Looking straight at Kathleen, Helen continued, “When you told me you were getting married, I was terrified at the idea of having to find a place for Ginny and myself. I’d come to depend on the two of you. I wasn’t ready then.” She paused a beat. “Now I am.”

“I don’t like it.” Kathleen scowled at her. “I’d miss you!”

“No, you won’t. Like I said, I’ll be over here all the time anyway. What with the business, I’ll have to be, won’t I?”

“Then why move?” Kathleen asked, clearly believing the question was unanswerable.

“I suppose…” Helen groped to explain. “I suppose because I need to know I can take care of myself and Ginny. Because you and Logan ought to be able to have privacy when you want it. And because, honestly, I feel a little like a houseguest, now that you don’t need my rent money.”

Kathleen let out an impatient huff. “This argument isn’t over.”

“I know it isn’t.”

“Did you find some place?” Jo interjected.

“Not yet,” she admitted. So far, everything she’d looked at had either been beyond her means or so crummy she hadn’t been able to contemplate moving in. She didn’t want to live in a place where she’d lie awake at night expecting a break-in, or have to battle cockroaches, or walk from her parking spot to her front door past half a dozen men who seemed to spend their days leaning on their cars eyeing passing women. But sooner or later she’d get lucky. She wanted Kathleen to know that she was serious.

“Business has really taken off, hasn’t it?” Jo sipped tea.

“Um.” Kathleen still watched Helen with a brooding expression, but she went on, “I’m having trouble keeping up with demand.”

“Are you thinking of quitting your job at the chiropractor’s?”

“Actually, yes.”

This was news to Helen. “Really?”

“You know how much I hate it. Logan has been getting really annoyed at me. He makes good money and likes what he’s doing. He wants me to ditch the job and concentrate on making soap, which I enjoy. If I don’t pay half the bills for a while, so what?”

“I think we’re at the point where you need to do that anyway,” Helen said thoughtfully. “I’ve been worrying about it. If we add even a couple more outlets where the soap sells well, we won’t be able to keep up and continue the craft fairs.”

“I was thinking,” Kathleen said, “that if I quit my job, you should, too. We need to expand to other markets. Portland is a natural. Spokane, Boise, even the smaller towns like Walla Walla, Yakima and Bend. As things stand, you can’t travel. I can’t make soap and try to sell it, too.”

Helen didn’t like to be suspicious, but… “Is this an excuse to keep me from moving out?”

Kathleen tried to look wounded but wasn’t a good enough actress. “What do the two things have to do with each other?”

“You know I can’t afford to pay for my own place on what I make from Kathleen’s Soaps.”

Kathleen leaned forward. “But you can if we expand. And we can’t expand if we don’t both commit ourselves full-time.”

Catch-22. Helen, too, had dreams of Kathleen’s Soaps expanding throughout the Pacific Northwest and even farther. The idea of making Kathleen’s hobby a business had been hers in the first place! They needed a better Web site, to run ads in national magazines and perhaps create a catalog. Kathleen had been making some soaps lately with patterns and even pictures embedded in them. Now was the time to be aggressive.

But Helen also knew the time had come for her and Ginny to have their own home.

“I’ll think about it.”

Kathleen nodded.

“Logan’s boxes seemed to sell well,” Jo remarked.

“We sold out this weekend,” Helen said. “In fact, I’ve been thinking that we should be selling soap dishes, too. I saw a wire one with curlicue feet in an antique store the other day. It had been painted white and was really distinctive. I wonder if we could find someone to copy it?”

Kathleen got up to pour herself another cup of tea. “Do you think we could make them ourselves?”

Helen mulled it over and finally nodded. “I’ll try.”

They continued chatting about upcoming craft shows, a change in packaging, and Jo’s plans for the branch library she’d be taking over in a few weeks.

Eventually, inevitably, Kathleen asked again about Alec. “What’s he do for a living?”

“I have no idea,” Helen admitted. “I didn’t think to ask.”

“He must live on Queen Anne or he wouldn’t be involved in something like the fair.”

“I guess so.”

Her friends gazed at her in exasperation. “Don’t you know anything about the man?” Jo asked.

“He has an eleven-year-old daughter and a fourteen-year-old son. His wife died of leukemia. He said she felt tired one day, and six weeks later she was dead.”

“Okay, okay. It’s a start.” Jo studied Helen critically. “What are you planning to wear?”

“Nothing fancy. It’s supposed to be casual.”

“You won’t wear your hair up.” Kathleen sounded as if she were announcing an undisputed fact.

“Why not?” Feeling defensive, Helen touched her ponytail. “It doesn’t look that bad.”

“You have glorious hair,” Kathleen said. “The way you yank it back looks…”

“Repressed,” Jo finished for her.

As sulky as a teenager, Helen just about snapped, If I want to be repressed, I will be!

Instead she muttered, “I don’t like hair in my face.”

The way Kathleen scrutinized her, Helen felt like a mannequin in a store window waiting to be posed and dressed.

“If you won’t wear it loose, we can do something to it that’s still softer.”

“Maybe.” And they wondered why she was ready to move out! Deliberately she changed the subject. “You’re sure you don’t mind watching Ginny?”

“She lives here. It hardly qualifies as baby-sitting.”

“No, but it does mean you and Logan can’t go out.”

“Unless Emma is home.” But they both knew that wasn’t likely. Emma, between her junior and senior years in high school and nearly eighteen, was dating a freshman at Seattle U. She was almost never home on Friday or Saturday nights anymore. “Besides—” Kathleen had a gleam in her eye “—I have every intention of being here when he picks you up.”

“So you can quiz him about his intentions?” Helen asked with deceptive tranquility.

Kathleen flashed a grin. “So I can satisfy my curiosity.”

Helen had to laugh. So, okay, they were busybodies. They irritated her sometimes. But the two women were her closest friends. No, they were family. Way more important to her than Alec Fraser ever could be.

ALEC PARKED his Mercedes on the street a few driveways down from Helen’s place. It was a nice brick house dating from the 1920s, if he was any judge. Big leafy maples and sycamores overhung the street, buckling sidewalks, while flowers tumbled over retaining walls. The flower bed above Helen’s wall looked new, the earth dark and the rosebushes spindly.

At six in the evening, the sun still baked the un-shaded pavement and the small, dry lawns. At midsummer in Seattle, night didn’t fall until nearly ten o’clock.

It was irrational but Alec felt better leaving the kids alone with the sun still shining. As if teenage boys only did stupid things in the dark.

He rang the doorbell. A woman he didn’t know answered. Beautiful and assured, she had honey-blond hair worn in a loose French braid.

“Hi. You must be Alec Fraser?”

“That’s right. I’m here for Helen.”

“I’m Kathleen Carr.” Smiling, she held out her hand. “Her housemate.”

He shook. “The Kathleen.”

“Of Kathleen’s Soaps, you mean? The same.” She stepped back. “Come on in.”

As he followed her, a slender teenage girl with an unmistakable resemblance to Kathleen came down the stairs. Her ponytailed hair was a shade lighter, and she had the impossibly delicate build of a ballerina, but her inquisitive blue eyes could have been her mother’s.

“Oh, Emma. This is Alec Fraser. Alec, my daughter.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He could see through an archway into the living room, where a dark-haired young man slouched on the sofa with a laptop computer open on his knees. From the other direction came music; Alec recognized the voice of a singer who recorded CDs for children. A man called for Kathleen from some other part of the house.

Who were all these people?

“In a minute, Logan,” Kathleen called back. “Helen, Alec’s here!”

He was reassured to hear her voice float from above, “I’ll be right down.”

A moment later, she appeared, coming down the stairs as lightly as the teenage girl had. Something squeezed in his chest at the sight of her in linen slacks and a rust-colored, sleeveless top that he thought must be made of silk. Her hair was drawn up in two tortoiseshell clips and then flowed, like rivers of dark molten lava, over her shoulders. She was…oh, hell, not beautiful, but something better. Not so artificial. Her eyes were a warm, smiling brown, her skin the creamy pale of a true redhead—although her cheeks and shoulders were rather pink—but she lacked the freckles. Instead, her nose was peeling.

“You got sunburned.” Way to go, he congratulated himself. Surely he could have thought of a greeting that was slightly more suave. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kathleen and Emma agreed.

But Helen only smiled. “Yup. I always get sunburned. I’m incapable of tanning. If I don’t put enough suntan lotion on, I burn, over and over, all summer long.”

“It’s not good for you.” Oh, better and better.

“I know.” She wrinkled her nose, then winced. “Truly. I try.”

“Sorry. I bug my kids to wear suntan lotion, and…” He smiled crookedly. “It’s that parent thing. There’s a secretary at work always having to brush her bangs away from her eyes. I want to clip them back with barrettes in the worst way.”

Helen laughed. “Oh, dear. I know the feeling.” She started down the hall. “Let me go say good-night to Ginny.”

Ah. Well, at least there wasn’t yet another child in the house.

Alec turned to Kathleen. “I’m going to have to buy more of your soap. My son stole the bar Helen gave me. He’s at that stage where he showers three times a day. You wouldn’t know it from his hair or choice of clothes, but he really likes to be clean.”

“Helen said he’s fourteen?”

Alec nodded.

“Trouble with acne?”

He pictured his son’s face. “Uh…some.”

“I have just the thing for him.” She’d gone into saleswoman mode. “We’re not selling it yet because I haven’t made enough, but this soap has eucalyptus, aloe and peppermint. It’s really good for oily complexions.”

“I’d love to buy a bar.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll get you one.” She flapped a hand and headed into what he presumed was the kitchen.

Emma looked at him. “It really works.”

Her delicate porcelain skin didn’t look as if anything as unsightly as a pimple would dare mar it.

“Devlin will appreciate it.” Alec had pretended to be irritated but had actually been amused when his soap disappeared and he found it in the kids’ bathroom. So, his son had taken to browsing Dad’s bathroom for personal hygiene products.

“The soap in our shower smells girly,” Dev had groused, when Alec mentioned the case of the missing bar.

“That’s good stuff, isn’t it?” Alec had asked, and gotten a surprisingly enthusiastic response.

“Yeah, it lathered great and it smells really cool.”

Maybe, Alec thought, he should suggest the boy star in a TV ad for Kathleen’s soaps. He could see it, Devlin scrubbing his underarms and grinning disarmingly at the camera.

“Smells cool and lathers great. Any guy my age would love it.”

Right. Nice picture, except Dev didn’t smile very often these days. He’d apparently forgotten how.

The two women returned from the kitchen, Kathleen with a grocery sack in her hand.

“Here’s several bars.” She handed it to him. “Compliments of the house.”

“Hey, thanks.”

“The green one is for your son.”

“He’ll appreciate it.”

“Shall we go?” Helen asked.

The heat hit them the minute they stepped outside.

“Doesn’t that feel good?” She raised her face to the sun. “I swear, I’m cold most of the time.”

“Maybe you should move to Arizona.”

“I’ve thought about it, but then I’d be freezing all the time because everyone cranks the air-conditioning up so high. Besides…I like a green landscape. So let me enjoy this rare summer heat wave.”

“And get sunburned,” he added.

Reaching the sidewalk ahead of him, she looked back with a guilty face. “I can’t resist basking just a little. Why can’t I have a skin that likes to brown?”

“Because—” he flipped one of her curls “—it wouldn’t go with this.”

“You know, there are no redheads in my family?” She sounded outraged at the genetic betrayal. “Not one. Dad still teases my mother about having a changeling. But, she insists his great-grandmother looks like her hair is auburn, too, in a couple of old pictures.”

“Which are black-and-white.” Alec stopped beside his car, unlocked the passenger door and opened it for her.

“Mm-hmm. And if my great-great was a redhead, she didn’t have freckles either.”

Helen was buckled up by the time he got in.

“This is nice.” Helen stroked the leather seat. “I’ve never been in a Mercedes before.”

“I felt like I’d arrived when I could afford one.” She could see the boyish pleasure he felt owning the luxury sedan. “I’m not a car guy, but growing up, I used to look at them and think, now, that’s status.”

Her big brown eyes held curiosity. “I didn’t think to ask what you do for a living.”

“I manage a small company working on wind turbines.”

“Wind?” She sounded as mystified as if he’d said he made thingamajigs.

He’d gotten the same reaction often enough to have a practiced explanation. “Same concept as windmills. Have you been to eastern Washington lately? Seen the rows of turbines on ridges?”

“No.”

“I’ll have to take you,” he said absently, backing out of the parking spot. “They’re quite a sight. Some people think they’re ugly. I don’t. In that barren country along the Columbia River, they seem to belong. There’s something spare and clean about them, like the landscape.”

“I vaguely knew that the utility companies were buying some wind power. I guess I hadn’t thought about how it was generated.” Her brow furrowed. “And your company builds them?”

“We don’t actually install them. Or manufacture the tower. What we’ve done is to design a turbine with flexible, hinged blades that reduce fatigue, so the turbine can be quite a bit lighter and therefore cheaper.”

“Are you an engineer, then?”

He shook his head. “Financial management. I have degrees in economics. I’m a C.P.A.”

“Oh, dear.” She cast him an embarrassed look. “Our little business must seem like awfully small potatoes to you.”

“All businesses start small.”

“Did your wind company?”

“We had big financial backing, but we faced a lot of the same challenges. We needed to manufacture our turbine and then prove it worked as well if not better than existing ones. It was several years after start-up before we actually had any commercial success.”

“You mean, before you sold one?” Helen sounded horrified. “Several years?”

Alec laughed. “That’s normal, believe it or not. The investors were gambling. We could have spent all that money and never made a sale.”

“Good heavens.” She gazed at him in awe. “How terrifying.”

“It was a little scary,” he admitted, merging onto the freeway. “But I’ve worked in the wind industry before, so I recognized the brilliance of my partner’s concept. I thought it could help bring wind energy into the mainstream by reducing costs. Think about it.”

No matter how many times he’d given this speech, genuine passion still infused his voice. “We’re running out of fossil fuels. Dams cause ecological damage. But wind…it has all the power of a great river like the Columbia, and we can’t use it up. We borrow it, then let it whip on its way, unharmed by having spun the blades. It’s a nonpolluting source of electricity, it’s indigenous…” He glanced at her. “We don’t have to buy it from foreign nations. What’s the down side?”

She smiled at his fervor. “You tell me.”

He grimaced. “Well, the wind does die down sometimes, so it’s not a steady flow like a river. Better storage could solve that, though. The turbines do make some noise, and they can kill birds.”

“And they’re ugly,” she finished.

“Alien, maybe,” he conceded. “The beauty of it is, the land where the wind blows hardest is the least populated. Yeah, if we had a row of turbines climbing Capitol Hill or Queen Anne in Seattle, people would protest. But on a bare lava ridge beyond Vantage…why not?”

“The person who lives there might not agree,” she argued.

“That’s true. But what are the alternatives? More dams? Atomic power plants? They’d look like hell rearing above the Columbia River.”

Helen nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true, of course.”

He’d chosen a Greek restaurant right off Broadway on Capitol Hill, near the Harvard Exit Theater, which showed foreign and independent films. He and Linda had come here often, before they’d had children and started going to Disney movies at the multiplex instead.

Parking was always tricky here, but he got lucky and found a spot only a couple of blocks away. Walking the short distance, he asked Helen what movies she enjoyed, and found her tastes were similar to his.

“Actually,” she admitted with a sigh, “I don’t see very many rated much above PG. Sometimes, Kathleen or Jo rent something for us to watch after Ginny has gone to bed. They both like blockbusters. You know, lots of special effects, sex, big-name actors. I’ve always preferred small movies.” She said it almost timidly, as if embarrassed by her tastes. “The kind where nothing huge happens, but you’re left feeling good. Like, a while ago we rented Italian for Beginners. It’s actually Danish. Have you seen it?”

He shook his head.

“It was…sweet.” She laughed. “Okay. Now you can tell me you love Jerry Bruckheimer extravaganzas. Or you’re a James Bond fanatic.”

Alec grinned and took her arm as they crossed the street. “Not me. Hey, I already admitted I was never a car guy, didn’t I? I like numbers and computers. I was a geek.”

She gave him a look that raised his spirits considerably. “I can’t believe you were ever a geek.” Then she blushed as if realizing what she’d given away and added hastily, “Besides, some of them probably live vicariously by watching Terminator and what have you. After all, if Clark Kent can turn into Superman…”

“They, too, can jump from a helicopter onto the roof of a speeding car to rescue the damsel in distress?” He laid a hand on her lower back and steered her into the doorway of the restaurant.

Her chuckle was a delicious gurgle. “Something like that.” Then she looked around. “Oh, this is nice. I don’t go out often.”

“Single parents don’t.”

The hostess approached them with a smile. “Two for dinner?”

They followed her to a corner table in a room with dark beams, murals on plaster walls and tile floors. He liked the atmosphere here as much as the food.

Helen opened her menu. “I suppose you wine and dine customers and investors all the time.”

“Sometimes. But these days, we do most of our business by e-mail or conference call. Why waste hours to get together face-to-face when you can make decisions or discuss a problem in a few minutes?”

They glanced through the menu and ordered in between snatches of conversation. Alec watched her sip wine, her fingers slender on the stem of the glass, her hair shimmering as she tilted her head back to swallow. Her neck was long and slim, her throat white. He imagined kissing her in the hollow at the base, perhaps tasting that pale creamy skin. He would tangle his fingers in her riot of hair as he worked his way to her delicate chin and soft, full mouth. Perhaps by then her cheeks would flush the color of wild roses.

Captivated by the sight of her across the table from him as well as by his parallel fantasy, he took a moment to realize she seemed to be waiting for an answer.

“You’re so pretty.” His voice came out husky.

Her cheeks did turn pink. “Why, thank you.”

He cleared his throat. “Your household seems unusual. Do all those people live there?”

She laughed, her gaze still shy, her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t tell you, did I?”

“Tell me?”

“I only rent a room from Kathleen. It’s actually her house. And, yes, we all live there, except for Raoul, Emma’s boyfriend. He was the one studying in the living room.”

Alec nodded.

She explained that Kathleen had bought the house after her divorce and, to help pay the mortgage, had taken in two housemates, herself and Jo Dubray.

“She was the friend who took care of the booth while I went to lunch that day,” Helen explained. “Kathleen got married, and Logan moved in.” She laughed again at his expression. “He sold his house, which was smaller, and moved his workshop—he’s a cabinetmaker—into the basement, which we weren’t using anyway. He and Kathleen insisted that they wanted Ginny and me to stay. But I’m looking for a place to rent now. Kathleen and Logan have been great, and Ginny loves Emma, but…” She hesitated.

“You want a home of your own.”

She nodded. “Exactly. And also I suppose I want to prove to myself that I can take care of us. That’s probably silly, considering how easy I have it. Do you know how nice it is not to have to make dinner every single night, for example? Right now, we rotate, Logan, Kathleen, Emma and I. So I only cook once or twice a week. That’s pure luxury!”

“So it would be,” he said, amused. And—face it—a little jealous. Linda had loved to cook, so he’d been spoiled. Coming in the door after work every day to the smell of dinner in the oven, the kids running to meet him, his wife smiling and waiting for him to hug them and kiss her.

In one day, that had changed. He’d arrived home only to have Lily put her finger to her mouth and say, “Mommy’s napping ’cuz she’s tired. So we’re supposed to be specially quiet.” But even before that first warning, he had sometimes felt so lucky it scared him. He and his family had stepped from the canvas of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Amid the grief and shock of Linda’s death, putting dinner on the table every night had become an onerous chore. The kids helped as much as they could, but he still had to do the planning, the shopping, and about seventy-five percent of the cooking.

“Maybe you don’t want to move out,” he said, only half kidding. “Do you know what I’d give to have someone else make dinner some nights?”

“But would you give up having privacy? I do have my own bedroom, but sometimes I’d like to watch what I want on TV, or pig out on ice cream in the kitchen without having to share, or cry without having to explain. Or wander around without a bathrobe, or hear about Ginny’s day at school without at least a couple of other people commenting, too, or contradicting me if I’m trying to be stern.” She let out a gusty sigh. “And, oh, I feel so petty and ungrateful even saying that!”

Alec found there was so much he wanted to know about her, he ate without tasting his dinner, and didn’t notice when the waitress cleared their table. The one subject he avoided was her marriage and her husband’s death. He wanted to hear about her husband—eventually. But not tonight.

And he didn’t want to talk about Linda yet, either.

So he heard about Helen’s parents, her dad a mechanic, her mother a nurse, devoted to their only child, and told her in turn about his own upbringing with well-educated, financially successful parents who didn’t have much time for their two offspring.

They each talked a little about their children, and about grandparents and pets and co-workers. Two, then three hours flowed by. Entranced by her every expression, the purse of her lips or brief thoughtful frown or amusement that quivered at the corners of her mouth, he scarcely took his eyes from Helen’s face the entire evening.

He was startled when she suddenly gave a cry and said, “Oh, it’s ten o’clock! How did it get to be so late?”

“That’s not exactly the wee hours,” he teased.

She made a face at him. “No, but I have to work in the morning, believe it or not. Some of us don’t rest on Sundays.”

Alec was surprised himself to realize how reluctant he was for the evening to end. They’d hardly scratched the surface of each other’s lives!

Glancing at the check, he tossed bills on the table and stood. “Then we’d better get you home.”

Night had fallen now. The walk back to the car felt curiously intimate, only the two of them on the dark sidewalk. In the car he was even more conscious of being alone with her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so eager and awkward and nervous.

How would she feel about him kissing her? He hadn’t dated much; she hadn’t at all, apparently. Maybe she’d thought this was just a friendly dinner. Had he imagined the sparkle in her eyes or the warmth of her smile or the way she’d looked at him when she said, “I can’t believe you were ever a geek.” Maybe her apparent fascination with his life had been mere politeness.

She was quiet during the drive, responding with only a few words to his comments or questions. In the light of a streetlamp he saw that her fingers were knotted on her lap and she sat with her knees primly together and her back very straight.

Was she nervous, too?

Scowling ahead, he couldn’t decide if he was glad or sorry. He hated the idea that he scared her. But if she wasn’t nervous at all, then that would mean she didn’t feel the anticipation he did.

He pulled in right in front of her driveway, then turned off the engine. In the sudden silence, Helen gave him the look of a wild creature, cornered.

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