He stood up and grinned. She stood too. He slid an arm companionably around her shoulders.
"How about some of your delicious chocolate-chip cookies?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye, and that was when Martha knew for sure that she had found a kindred spirit.
"Better yet, I can give you Faye's mother's recipe. You can take it home to Hallie."
For that, Nick gave her a thumbs-up, and she rewarded him with a luminous smile.
* * *
Nick drove back to the cannery, where he had a cot set up in his office for nights when he needed to stay in town. It was still raining, and the gentle swish of the windshield wipers of his company car was rhythmic and comforting.
It had been so easy to talk to Martha because she radiated kindness and compassion. Usually he couldn't talk to women. They didn't want to listen. Or if they did listen, they were just waiting for a chance to say what they wanted to say. And if he tried to change the subject back to a topic of importance to him, he was likely to be accused of being uncaring and uncommunicative.
Communication! Everyone was always exhorting everyone else to communicate. But communication took two people, one to send the signals and one to receive. The sender and receiver should switch places once in a while. That, to him, was what communication was all about.
Well, Martha had been a wonderful listener tonight. Her eyes had revealed interest and intelligence, and her attitude was helpful and nonjudgmental. He'd never considered confiding in a woman before, although now that he'd done it, it made sense. His best friend Hank had died tragically in an accident, and now that Nick had Davey it seemed that he didn't have any close men friends anymore. Most of them couldn't identify with Nick at all.
Nick hadn't told Martha the whole story about Davey, but then he'd never told anyone that. He'd talked out his anguish about Davey's problem, though, and somehow he could think about it more clearly now that he'd put it into words. He needed to find a specialist for Davey. Dr. Andy was good, and his heart was in the right place, but his knowledge wasn't sufficient to help Davey now.
Nick supposed that the logical place to start was to find a pediatric speech-and-hearing specialist in Juneau, the nearest big city. He'd make an appointment for Davey as soon as possible, and then he'd take Davey there. He'd tell Martha about this plan next time he saw her.
And next time he saw her he'd be the listener and let her do most of the talking. He'd like to know more about her. Who was she, really? All he knew was that she was a visitor from the Lower Forty-eight who would be leaving at the end of the summer. Like a lot of the other women who came here, she'd tire of the rain and the isolation. He'd seen it happen before. Maybe the rain and the dampness and the lack of interesting things to do would depress her. That happened often enough to people from the Outside. She might need someone to talk to.
If Martha was leaving at the end of the summer, that didn't give him much time to get to know her. The thought shot an unexpected pang of sadness through him, much more than the situation warranted. He had become attached to her in a ridiculously short time, and he wasn't used to becoming attached to anyone.
He hadn't even made a date to see her again. Why hadn't he? He'd merely eaten the cookies she'd offered, sipped at the tea she'd brewed, and wandered off into the rain as though he hadn't appreciated the warmth and pleasure of her company at all.
She'd gazed up at him before he left, and he knew that it was more than loneliness he saw in her face. He knew she'd been lonely here; she'd told him so. It would have been easy to take advantage of that loneliness, and pleasurable, too. Tonight they'd established an undeniable emotional connection on which they could build.
That was why he hadn't even considered kissing Martha. It was much too early for that. It wasn't that he didn't want to—he had been jolted by the sexual intensity of those final moments in her apartment as much as she had. She was beautiful, with her great, glowing eyes and her dark, glossy hair, and he had felt a sensual stirring tonight that he hadn't felt in a long, long time. She was the kind of woman a man had fantasies about, the kind of dreams that kept you awake at night.
Considering their mutual attraction, why hadn't he made a date to see her again? He didn't even have her cell phone number. He wasn't used to asking for a woman's number; there was no landline at the cabin on Mooseleg Bay, only the shortwave radio, and his cell phone didn't work there.
Faye's apartment lights had been on when he left Martha's, and he knew she was a night owl, so he called and asked for Martha's number. Faye gave it to him without hesitation, sounding intrigued and delighted.
"I knew you two would like each other! I knew it!" Faye said before clicking off.
Martha answered on the second ring, sounding slightly apprehensive.
"It's me, Nick," he said.
"Oh, Nick. When the phone rang, all I could think of is a disaster of some sort because it's so late. Is everything all right?"
He'd been away from her for only twenty minutes, and just the sound of her voice almost made him forget what he wanted to say.
"Everything is fine," he said, "especially if you're free to go somewhere with me tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" she said, with a little catch in her throat.
For a moment he thought she might be busy. But hadn't she told him that she didn't have enough to do to fill her free time? She'd said that was why she'd baked so many chocolate-chip cookies.
She said, "Why, tomorrow would be fine, Nick," but the hint of disbelief filtering through her words made him wonder if she was angry about his calling so late.
"I'm sorry about calling so late," he apologized. "But since I just left..." He let the sentence hang there.
"That's perfectly okay," Martha said, and in his relief he knew from the agreeable sound of her voice that she was smiling.
"What would you like to do? We could take in some sight-seeing if you haven't had time for it yet, or we could eat lunch, or we could climb Deer Mountain—or possibly we could do all three."
Martha laughed. He loved the sound of her laughter; it reminded him of birdsong, but not from any bird he knew. Her laugh was the trill of an imaginary bird, bright and golden and sleekly feathered.
"I'll let you decide," she said.
"I'll pick you up at nine, then."
After they hung up, Nick had second thoughts. If he picked Martha up at nine, would that mean he had to spend the whole day with her? What if things didn't go well tomorrow and he wanted out? Could he reasonably leave her at, say, noon? No. She'd expect more than that. Anyway, why wouldn't things go well? Everything had been very natural between them tonight. Why shouldn't it be that way again tomorrow?
Of course it would be. But what if it wasn't? What had he gotten himself into, anyway?
He should go straight home to Williwaw Lodge tomorrow morning and spend his Sunday with Davey, but it was too late for that now. He was committed to spending the day with Martha Rose.
He unbuttoned his shirt and lay down on the cool, damp sheets of his narrow cot, picturing her lovely gray eyes in his mind, and he thought about how much he hated sleeping alone.
* * *
When he arrived at Martha's apartment in the morning, she was decked out in something called harem pants and a filmy but regrettably nontransparent blouse. He had to explain to her that what was appropriate dress in San Francisco was not appropriate for strolling in downtown Ketchikan in wind-driven rain.
"But I don't have anything suitable," Martha said, thinking of her closetful of useless fluttery skirts, silk dresses and open-toed shoes. "I know," she said quickly after seeing the resigned look on his face, "I'll borrow something from Faye."
She ran next door and came back wearing a sensible plaid shirt, faded jeans, and waterproof boots. She pulled a yellow crewneck sweater over her head.
"That's better," he said with a grin.
With an answering grin, Martha dragged her umbrella out from behind the door and said, "Shall we go?" Nick knew then th
at he'd found a woman who knew how to adapt. She couldn't possibly have known how happy that made him.
"There are three driving tours," he informed her as they drove away from her house in his company car. "There's the route to the north end of the road, the route to the south end of the road, and if you're feeling truly adventurous we can hazard the road east to the lake."
"I thought we were going to take a look at the historic district. Faye says it's charming."
"But to do that we'd have to walk in the rain," he objected.
"That's what I'd like," she insisted.
"It's also very windy," he said dubiously. On the inevitable day that Martha became disgusted with Ketchikan's wind and rain, he'd rather she wasn't with him, although he couldn't quite imagine Martha being disgusted with anything.
She only said happily, "I know, but don't you love the way the rain looks sweeping over the Narrows?" and when he parked the car on Front Street, she tumbled out into the puddles with an eagerness that surprised him. His doubts about spending the whole day with her evaporated then and there. He raised her umbrella, and they had to walk very close together in order not to get wet.
They strolled past the closed and shuttered Bagel Barn, and Martha told him how Sidney was going to cut her in on the profits eventually. Nick had already decided that it was Martha's turn to talk today. He prodded her now and then with interested questions, impressed by how much she knew about running a business.
Running a business was something they had in common. He'd only managed to get two years of college under his belt before he'd come home to help his brothers run the fishing fleet when their father became ill. Martha, with her degree in business administration, impressed him as a shrewd businesswoman. He didn't mind mining her for information, which she was pleased to give.
Martha thought that his accountant was giving him unsound advice, and she suggested getting the opinion of another accountant. She told him she thought he needed to replace the outdated software system for Novak and Sons, which was something he'd been thinking about. It turned out that she had helped set up such a system for the owner of a chain of boutiques in Indiana. They had plenty to talk about; she had plenty to talk about. They only lapsed into silliness when they reached the bridge spanning Ketchikan Creek in the historic district with its wooden sidewalk and rustic wooden buildings.
"This," he told her expansively, "is the notorious former red-light district of Ketchikan. Back in the olden days when loggers and fishermen hung out here, they used to say that this was the only spot in Alaska where both fishermen and fish went upstream to spawn."
She laughed, and he glanced over at her. Her hair was misted by tiny bright droplets, and the warm pink coloring of her cheeks was sheened with moisture. Little ringlets, which he had never noticed before, curled over her forehead. He looked away, thinking that no one had ever been so beautiful.
Leaning on the wet railing on the Ketchikan Creek bridge beside Nick Novak, Martha knew that their gears had finally meshed. She wasn't sure why she thought of their relationship in terms of gears; Martha was not a particularly mechanical person. It was simply, she knew in retrospect, that the wheels of their romance had started turning way back when she'd seen him propped against the lamppost near the Bagel Barn. When he took her hand today after they stepped out of his car into a rain blowing sideways in a southeasterly wind, she knew that he knew that they both knew they were more than just friends.
"What's the worst thing about you?" he asked suddenly.
"The worst thing?" She had to think for a minute. It wasn't eating chocolate-chip cookies in bed at night and getting crumbs all over the sheets. It wasn't forgetting to water her houseplants until they were gasping their last.
"Well," she said finally, "something happens to my hands when I get nervous. They fly around like frightened bats, or I crack my knuckles. I chew on the skin at the sides of my fingernails. It used to drive my friend Lindsay crazy."
He looked down at one of her manicured nails. Sure enough, the skin on the sides looked slightly gnawed. "Why don't you just bite your fingernails like everyone else? Why do you chew on the skin?"
She shrugged. His rain poncho nearly slid from her shoulders; he had to grab it to keep it from falling in the creek. He left his arm there, and she wasn't about to object.
"I can't bite my fingernails. It would ruin a perfectly good coat of nail polish," she said.
"In Ketchikan you won't have to wear nail polish. And you may want to keep your fingernails short for the outdoor life. Speaking of which, are you tired of walking in the rain yet?"
"No," she said. She'd always liked rain, and walking in it with someone special seemed fitting and right. It also kept the hair on her arms slicked down. She still hadn't figured out why it stood on end whenever he was around.
"Aren't you glad you changed clothes?" he asked.
"I'd forgotten how comfortable sweaters and jeans can be. And thank goodness I can wear boots here instead of three-inch heels. Any woman who says she likes wearing those little instruments of torture ought to have her head examined." She'd always felt this way; why then had she become so enamored of high-heeled shoes? At the moment, she couldn't imagine.
By this time it was close to noon, and they had been rambling around in the rain for a couple of hours. He said as much.
"As long as we keep moving, mold won't grow on us," she said solemnly.
"We can walk between the drops," he said.
"The rain washes down my umbrella," she said. "You'd be surprised how dusty my umbrella gets when it sits behind the door for a day or two."
"You mean on days when it doesn't rain? I don't remember any."
"I remember one. I think it was one of the first days I was here. The sun came but decided there must be someplace better to go and hurried back where it came from."
"Martha, I do believe you're the first Cheechako I've ever heard joke about our weather."
"Cheechako? What's that?"
"Someone who hasn't been in Alaska for a year yet."
"I'm going to fool people into thinking I'm a real Alaskan by getting my own pair of Southeast sandals," she said.
"You do that and I'll take you on a hike. We have some of the most beautiful scenery around here, and I want to be the one to show it to you."
She beamed up at him. "And I'd like you to be."
"For now, though," he said thoughtfully, "maybe you'd like to take a look at Novak and Sons' cannery." It wasn't anything he would have suggested to just anyone, because a cannery operation was messy. He had an idea, however, that Martha would be interested.
And she was.
The cannery hunkered on the edge of the island not far from the boat basin. It was an awkward arrangement of white painted buildings. Rain ran in streams off corrugated metal roofs. A pier jutted out into the water, its pilings thick with barnacles.
They went inside the office building through the outer door of Nick's office. Martha sent him an inquiring look when she saw the cot folded up in a corner.
"I slept in my office last night," he said. "I often do that when the weather is too bad for me to go home to Mooseleg Bay."
He led her through other offices and past a bulletin board. They climbed metal stairs to a catwalk suspended above huge bins of halibut. Workers below slapped fish onto conveyor belts from which the fish were swallowed up by big machines, only to emerge as cans of food at the end of the complicated process. It was noisy and smelly, but Martha watched avidly. She glanced once at Nick. He looked as if he enjoyed this.
"Come on," he said finally.
He took her to the section where the cans of fish were stacked in cartons. She had to jump out of the way of a speedy forklift carrying a load of sealed boxes to a loading dock.
"I'm surprised that so many people are working on Sunday," she shouted over the clang and the clamor.
"Fresh fish don't stay fresh for long," he shouted back. "Seiners bring their catch in by Saturday, because usual
ly they don't work on weekends. By the time the quitting whistle blows tonight, we'll have this batch of fish put away." He motioned for her to follow him.
Back in his office, with several doors shut between them and the din, he turned and grinned. "Well?"
"I had no idea the cannery was such a big operation," she said.
"It wasn't until a few years ago. I built it up. I installed a shower off my office so I don't reek of fish when I leave here, and I keep my workers happy with high wages and fringe benefits. I like what I do."
They went outside, and Martha inhaled a breath of fresh, salt-scented air. The rain had stopped sweeping off the Narrows, and a fog was rolling in.
Nick took her hand. "How about a bowl of chili?" he offered. "There's a café down the street that makes the best in town."
They sat together at a little table. The air was steamy with the smell of wet wool, and the floor was damp with tracked-in water. He watched the way Martha studied the menu, the way she smiled at the waitress, the way her spirits seemed not to have been dampened by a day in the rain or the smells of the cannery.
And he knew that he had reached a turning point in his life. Whoever and whatever he had been before he met her was on the verge of becoming something different. Something more. That she was here with him now, blissfully spooning up chili, amazed him. He had spent all his life until this point without her, unaware that she even existed. Now it seemed impossible that Martha could have been somewhere in the world without his knowing it. The fact that she had appeared so suddenly on this cold, damp island in Alaska seemed like a miracle.
Martha looked up from her chili to find that Nick was watching her. His ruddy skin looked paler than normal, and at first she thought that perhaps he didn't feel well. In spite of his paler-than-normal skin, however, he was smiling at her.
"Is anything wrong?" she asked, though by this time she knew there wasn't. With a sudden flip of her heart, she knew he was in love with her.
"My dear Cheechako," he said gently, coining an endearment uniquely hers. "Nothing is wrong. In fact, everything seems perfectly right."
Kisses in the Rain Page 7
