Turning the moment he heard her voice, Shane put the sander back down on the workbench he’d set up and lowered the mask from his nose and mouth.
He looked a little like a surgeon operating in the middle of a sandstorm, Cris thought with an unbidden wave of something that felt very close to affection.
“Excuse me?” he said, fairly certain he’d heard her wrong.
“A miracle,” she reiterated. “You performed a miracle,” she added in a clear, unshakable voice. “We could call it the miracle of the spinach and mashed potatoes, or just call it Shane’s Miracle for short,” she said, really grinning at him this time.
For a second, Shane watched in pure fascination as Cris’s smile coaxed the dimples in her cheeks to emerge, making her look even more appealing—something he hadn’t thought possible until he witnessed it himself.
He cocked his head a bit uncertainly. “Are you talking about lunch?”
“I’m talking about my son, the vegetable hater, eagerly eating spinach. To get him to eat any kind of a vegetable, I’ve tried to bribe him, coax him, do everything short of threatening to leave him wandering in SeaWorld on his own for a week, and you get him to do it in under ten minutes.
Cris shook her head in admiration. “You really must have been some teacher,” she told him with genuine awe.
His answering smile carried a bit of irony. “Never really had the chance to flex my muscles, so to speak,” he said. “I got my degree and suddenly found that I could only get substitute teaching jobs where all they wanted was for me to be a glorified babysitter.” The trace of bitterness she also heard in his voice surprised her. Shane seemed like such a laid-back character, someone who let stress roll off him. “When I started teaching the kids, I wound up ruffling a few feathers, and the jobs, never really plentiful to begin with, started not coming at all,” he finished with an air of disbelief even now.
“Well, the world lost a fantastic teacher the day you were forced to walk away,” she assured him. “If I was in charge of a school, I’d want all my teachers to be like you. You really connected with Ricky, right from the start,” she marveled. “I mean, he’s a friendly little guy, but it does take a bit for him to warm up to a person. With you he showed all the signs of love at first sight.”
Shane self-consciously shrugged off the compliment, not willing to accept what he felt wasn’t rightfully his. “Maybe he just wants a male to connect with and I happened to be handy.”
“You might have been handy, but Ricky’s already ‘connected’ to my dad and he gets along well with Wyatt, Alex’s fiancé. He really wasn’t looking for a male role model or someone to act as a father figure. Nope, Ricky just took to you exceptionally quickly,” Cris told him.
Again he shrugged. He didn’t care to have a spotlight shone on him no matter what his accomplishment.
“Must be my winning personality,” he quipped.
She laughed, not because his personality wasn’t engaging, but because his humor was so droll.
“Must be,” she agreed. “Anyway, I just wanted to thank you. You’ve officially cracked the impenetrable vegetable ceiling,” she told him, amusement curving her mouth. “I was expecting him to turn green or look around for somewhere to ‘deposit’ his mouthful of spinach. Instead, he not only swallowed what was in his mouth, but polished off what was on his plate.”
“I know, I was there,” Shane said with a wink.
Not for the first time, Cris felt something quicken inside her in response and silently argued it was because she’d forgotten to eat again, the way she did all too often when she got involved with what she was doing.
She began to back away. “Well, thank you for being there.”
“Hey, anytime. Let me know if you have more trouble getting Ricky to eat his vegetables. Or doing his homework, for that matter,” Shane added, warming up to the subject. “I’m still awed that kids in kindergarten actually get homework. If he has any trouble at all—not that I think he will,” Shane quickly interjected in case Cris thought he was impugning Ricky’s mental capabilities. “But if he hits a snag while I’m here, let me know. As much as I enjoy working with my hands, I miss the challenge of finding new ways to get kids interested in what I have to teach.”
“Ah, a builder and a scholar,” she said. “I guess that qualifies you as a Renaissance man.”
“Either that or just a guy eager to earn a living and stay ahead of the bill collectors,” he joked.
Still grateful beyond words for the break-through, Cris wanted to show him how thankful she was.
The only thing she had to give was food—so she did.
“Listen, when you’re ready to turn in your tool belt and call it a day,” she said, waving at the work he was doing, “instead of just leaving, why don’t you come by the dining area for dinner. On the house,” she added. “The very least I can do is keep you fed.”
There was no need for that, he thought. He didn’t want her feeling she owed him, especially for doing something he enjoyed: telling stories and getting kids to come around. Ricky seemed like an exceptionally intelligent boy and was incredibly easy to talk to. Getting through to him hadn’t been a real challenge, just a pleasant diversion.
“I like paying my own way,” he told her.
Cris looked at him pointedly. “I guess we’re alike, because so do I.”
CHAPTER FOUR
ORDINARILY, CRIS WOULD have retreated at this point. She had never been known as the pushy sister—that title belonged to Alex. But for some reason, she caught herself digging in.
If asked, she wouldn’t have been able to explain why—she just knew she should.
So she did.
“Correct me if I’m wrong here,” she told Shane, “but you do have to eat at some point later on today, right?” Her eyes challenged his as she waited for him to reply.
A half smile curved his mouth because she’d managed to amuse him. “Right.”
As she recalled, he had been very logical as a teen, so she was approaching this evening meal issue as logically as she could. “Do you cook?”
Shane laughed outright before answering. “If I have to.”
“So your dinner is often what—takeout?” she asked.
But the moment the words were out of her mouth, she suddenly realized she was assuming things again, assuming he was single.
What if he wasn’t?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, her voice hardly above a whisper. Distressed, she wished that she’d thought before speaking or, better yet, that the ground would just open up and swallow her whole.
“For?” he prompted, not following her.
“I just assumed you weren’t married and... Never mind,” she concluded uneasily, feeling that anything she said from there on in would just worsen the situation. She felt she finally understood the meaning of the phrase “sticking your foot in your mouth.” “Ever since I lost Mike, I just see everyone else in the same situation,” she apologized. “Without a partner,” she clarified, realizing that in her embarrassment, she was rambling.
In no way was she prepared to hear him quietly tell her, “I am.”
Cris stared at him, confused. “You are what—single or—?”
“Or,” he told her. At the bewilderment in her eyes, he took pity on her and explained. “I was married for a while.” He’d slipped a ring on Virginia’s finger the moment he got out of the service. “My wife was killed in a car accident a little more than three years ago.”
Sympathy flooded her and she ached for what Shane must have gone through.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she murmured. As her soul reached out to his, she took his hand in hers, silently sealing the painful bond they now shared. “I didn’t even know you were married. I lost touch with Nancy,” she confessed, referring to his sister, who had been o
ne of her two closest friends in high school.
“There’s no reason for you to apologize,” Shane said. Although he had to admit she did look appealing as she was doing so. “Things change, people move on.” He shrugged. “That’s life.”
Nevertheless, she thought, she should have somehow sensed that someone as handsome and outgoing as Shane would easily have found someone to share his life with.
Wanting to change the focus of the conversation, Cris asked, “How is Nancy these days?”
Thinking of his younger sister, Shane smiled. “She lives up near San Francisco now. She’s married, with twin boys and is working for some big design company. I’ll let her know you asked about her,” he promised. “She’ll get a kick out of me doing some work for your family.”
“Give her my love,” Cris told him. Okay, now you can leave, she silently instructed herself. Yet she remained, as if glue had been applied to the soles of her shoes. She heard herself inviting him—again—to dinner. “So, despite my unfortunate foot-in-mouth moment, will you come to dinner tonight?”
He inclined his head. “I’d love to, but I hate to eat and run, and that’s what I’d be doing if I had dinner here,” he confessed. “I’ve got to be somewhere at seven.”
He’s got a date, you idiot, and he’s trying to be nice about it by not waving it in your face. When will you ever be smart enough to take a hint? Not that you have any designs on him, of course—but it certainly looks that way.
“Fair enough,” she said with perhaps a touch too much cheerfulness. “You tell me what you’d like for dinner and I’ll have it waiting for you by the time you come in to eat. Say at six?” she suggested, watching his expression for some sort of clue. “Or do you need to get going earlier? If you’re really in a hurry, I can have it wrapped to take out,” she volunteered.
That would be the easiest solution, but it had its drawbacks. “Tempting, but I’d just as soon eat here. If I brought the food with me, I wouldn’t be able to divide it into enough pieces to share it equally.”
She stared at him. That had to be the strangest comment she’d ever heard about eating one of her meals. What was he talking about?
“You’ve lost me,” she told Shane honestly. “Are you feeding something?” It sounded as though he was working with pets or at least some kind of animal. “Because I can certainly give you more than just a regular portion to take with you—”
“Stop,” he ordered before she continued any further down the wrong path. “You’re way too generous, Cris, but even an extralarge portion still wouldn’t be enough.”
Just what was he planning on feeding? “You realize you’re making me incredibly curious.”
As a rule, Cris didn’t believe in prying—what people did was their own business. But Shane was scattering just enough tasty bread crumbs before a hungry woman to make her ravenous for more.
He grinned at her. “And yet, you’re not asking questions,” he marveled. She had always been an unusual person, Shane recalled with more than a touch of admiration.
“Well, if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me—although,” Cris had to admit in all honesty, “I really do wish you would.”
Again he laughed, intuiting what was likely going on in her mind.
“It’s actually a lot less exciting than you’re probably imagining,” he told Cris. “I volunteer at a homeless shelter two, three evenings a week—more if I’m between jobs,” he confided. “I fix things at the shelter that break down, do whatever heavy lifting might be needed—literally and otherwise,” he tacked on before she could inquire. “In general, I pitch in wherever a body is needed. Kind of like ‘a jack of all trades, master of none’ thing,” he finished.
She took exception to how Shane just naturally played himself down. “I have a feeling you’re good at all,” she told him honestly. An idea hit her. She knew she didn’t have to run it past her father—or Alex, who were both very big on charity and doing their share. “I tell you what. Every night when I close down the kitchen, there’s usually leftover good food that we don’t use the next day—like the bread I bake and some of the extra portions of food. Once they’ve been served in the dining area, we’re not allowed to put them back into our refrigerator to serve the next day. Why don’t I set those items aside and on the days you go to the shelter, you can take them with you. Just give me a heads-up on the days you volunteer.”
He considered her offer less than a moment. “Well, I pass by the shelter on my way home from here. I can drop off your donation every night if you’re really serious.”
She thought that an odd way for him to word his acceptance. “Why wouldn’t I be serious?” she wanted to know, puzzled.
“Sorry, just my basic wariness rising to the surface.” He had to remember who he was dealing with. Cris had always struck him as one of the “good ones.”
“I deal with a lot of people whose favorite phrase is ‘the check’s in the mail’ when it isn’t. I tend to forget that there are really honest, decent people like you and your family around.”
That there were gave him hope, the will to continue in a world made suddenly and painfully empty three years ago. He was just now finding his way again, finding how to rebuild himself and be whole once more.
Shane also realized that he liked working at the inn, liked interacting with Cris and her entire family. He was getting a kick out of her son. He’d have to be careful not to allow that to influence him. If he wasn’t alert, his feelings might unconsciously cause him to slow down so he could continue working in this atmosphere, soaking in these people’s company.
The compliment he’d just paid Cris and her family caused Cris to blush. She sensed her cheeks growing warm. Which meant they were already turning pink.
There were moments when she would have killed for a darker complexion, she thought wistfully.
It was really time to retreat—before she started guiding in ships from the sea with her glowing cheeks. “Well, I’d better be getting back to the kitchen and start making dinner.” She paused one last time, cocking her head. “You’ll stop by?” she asked, realizing that the matter really hadn’t been settled.
“I’d be a fool not to.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Cris declared, turning on her heel.
Cris heard Shane humming “What A Wonderful World” as he raised his mask again to cover his mouth and nose then lowered the goggles he’d had on when she’d walked into the work area.
Cris smiled without realizing it as she hurried back to the kitchen.
* * *
CRIS GLANCED AT her watch again. She’d lost count of how many times she had looked at it in the past half hour. Right now, it was a little past six o’clock and neither Stevi nor Andy had ducked into the kitchen to tell her Shane was in the dining area.
Where was he?
If he planned on being at the homeless shelter at seven, that didn’t leave him much time to eat and get there... That was when she realized she had no idea where this homeless shelter was located.
Also, as a volunteer, Shane didn’t punch a time clock, she reminded herself. He could be a few minutes late getting there—if he ever got here first.
You’re spending way too much time thinking about something you have no business thinking about, Cris upbraided herself.
But in a way, she knew why she was fixating on Shane. Seeing him after all these years reminded her of a far simpler time. A time when life, with all its promises, lay before her, fresh and new. A time before the scaly hand of death had twisted her heart from her chest. In short, a time when innocence still surrounded her and anything was possible because ugliness had not yet reared its head in her world.
And, she had to admit, when she saw Shane playing with Ricky, it also reminded her of what her life could have been like if Mike had returned from his tour of duty on his own powe
r rather than lying in a coffin.
“That is the fifth time in the past few minutes I have heard you sigh,” Jorge, her assistant, observed. “Is everything all right?” he wanted to know, concerned.
“I can’t breathe,” she told him, the less-than-truthful reason coming automatically to her lips. “Allergies,” she added for good measure.
Jorge stopped stirring the giant pot of potatoes he’d already mashed, now warming to perfection, and reached beneath the white tunic he always wore while in the kitchen. He extracted a small rectangular package from his pocket and held it out to her.
“Here, have one,” he urged. “I take two a day for my allergies. They say to take one, but that doesn’t work for the whole day,” he told her. When she made no effort to reach for the small, over-the-counter medication from him, Jorge held it closer to her. “C’mon, try it, Miss Cris,” he coaxed.
Embarrassed because she’d lied, Cris shook her head, sinking a little deeper into her untruth. “No, I already took something. Wouldn’t want to mix the two medications, just in case.”
“No, of course not,” Jorge agreed, although his tone really didn’t tell her whether he believed her or was just playing along so she could save face.
Just then, Andy, the youngest of the Roman sisters, burst into the kitchen. “Red alert,” she cried. “Hunky contractor guy has just landed in the dining room.”
Cris caught Jorge looking at her knowingly. “I think that your allergy medication has arrived,” he told her just before he turned back to his work.
Maybe she should have sent a tray to Shane’s work area, Cris thought. Too late now.
“He’s an old friend,” she protested to Jorge, not wanting the man to think that anything was going on between Shane and her. She’d dated once in the five years since Mike’s death and had vowed never again.
Everyone at the inn had watched her one attempt at dating go down in flames when she’d started seeing a man who, it swiftly became evident, wasn’t fit to polish the boots of Mike’s shadow. In addition, he tried to isolate her from her family and felt she wasn’t being strict enough with Ricky. That had been the last straw.
[Ladera by the Sea 01] - A Wedding for Christmas Page 4
