by Janet Dailey
In her bedroom, Eve brushed her hair and freshened her lipstick. She didn’t allow herself to wonder why she was taking so much trouble with her appearance when she was going to see an eight-year-old. It would have started her thinking about his father, something she was trying to pretend not to do at this point. She hesitated before taking the brown coat out of her closet, but it was the only one she had that repelled water.
The sheeting rain was almost more than the windshield wipers could handle. It obscured her vision so that, despite Toby’s excellent directions, she nearly missed the turn into the driveway. The lake house was set back in the trees, out of sight of the road. Eve parked her car behind the Jaguar.
The umbrella afforded her little protection from the driving rain. Her coat was stained wet by the time she walked the short distance from the car to the front door. Toby must have been watching for her, because he opened the door a second before she reached it. He pressed a forefinger to his lips and motioned her inside. She hurried in, unable to do anything about the rainwater dripping from her and the umbrella.
“Dad’s still sleeping,” Toby whispered, and explained, “He needs the rest.”
The entry hall skirted the living room, paneled in cedar with a heavy beamed slanted ceiling and a natural stone fireplace. Toby’s glance in that direction indicated it was where Luck was sleeping. Eve looked in when Toby led her past. There, sprawled on a geometric- patterned couch, was Luck, naked, from the waist up, an arm flung over his head in sleep, It was the first time Eve had ever seen anyone frowning in his sleep.
In the kitchen, Toby led her to the table where he had all the ingredients set out. “Will you show me how to make cookies?” he asked, repeating the request he’d made over the phone.
“No, I won’t show you,” Eve said, taking off her wet coat and draping it over a chair back. “I’ll tell you how to do it. The best way to learn is by doing.”
Step by step, she directed him through the mixing process. When the first sheet came out of the oven, Toby was all eyes. He could hardly wait until the cookies were cool enough to taste and, thus, assure himself that they were as good as they looked.
“They taste just like yours,” he declared on a triumphant note after he’d taken the first bite.
“Of course,” Eve laughed, but kept it low so she wouldn’t waken Luck in the next room.
“I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t helped me,” Toby added, all honesty. “You’re a good teacher.”
“That’s what I am. Really,” she emphasized when he failed to understand. “I am a teacher.”
“What subject?”
“Music.”
“Too bad it isn’t English. That’s my worst subject,” he grimaced. “Dad isn’t very good at it, either.”
“We all have subjects that we don’t do as well in as others,” Eve shrugged lightly. “Mine is math.”
“Dad is really good at that, and science, but he has to use it all the time in his work.”
“What does he do?”
“He works for my grandpa.” Then realizing that didn’t answer her question, Toby elaborated, “My grandpa owns North Lakes Lumber. Mostly my dad works on the logging side. That way we can spend more time together in the summer when I’m out of school. He had a meeting with grandpa last night. That’s why he was so late coming home.”
“I thought he had a date.” The words were out before Eve realized she had spoken.
“Sometimes he goes out on dates,” Toby admitted, finding nothing wrong with her comment. “We like going places and doing things together, but sometimes dad is like me. I like to play with kids my own age once in a while; so does he. I imagine you do, too.”
“Yes, that’s true.” She silently marveled at his logical reasoning. He was quite a remarkable boy,
Without being reminded, he checked on the cookies in the oven and concluded they were done. He took the cookie sheet out with a pot holder and rested it on the tabletop while he scooped the cookies off.
“We’ve been talking about dad getting married again,” he announced, and didn’t see the surprised arch of her eyebrow. “Dad gets pretty lonely sometimes. It’s been rough on him since my mother died six years ago. Three weeks ago it was six years exactly,” he stressed, and shook his head in a rueful fashion when he looked at her. “Boy, did he ever go on a binge that night!” He rolled his eyes to emphasize the point.
Three weeks ago. Eve did a fast mental calculation, her mind whirling. “Was…that on a Thursday?”
“I think so. Why?” Toby eyed her with an unblinking look.
The night she’d bumped into him outside the tavern. He had wanted someone to talk to, Eve remembered. A man can talk to a brown mouse, Luck had said. But she had refused, and he had gone back inside the tavern.
“No reason.” She shook her head absently. “It was nothing important.” But she couldn’t resist going back to the subject. “You said he got drunk that night.” She tried to sound mildly interested.
“I guess,” Toby agreed emphatically. “He even had hallucinations.”
“He did?”
“After I helped him into bed, he claimed that he had talked to a brown mouse.” He looked at her, laughter suddenly dancing in his eyes. “Can you imagine that?”
“Yes.” Eve swallowed and tried to smile. “Yes, I can.” Her suspicions were confirmed beyond question. Now she wanted off the subject. “I’ll help you spoon the cookie dough on the tray,” she volunteered, letting action take the place of words.
When the last sheet of cookies came out of the oven, Eve washed the baking dishes while Toby wiped them and put them away. He leaned an elbow on the counter and watched her scrub at the baked-on crumbs on the cookie sheet.
“I don’t really mind helping with dishes, or even making my bed,” Toby said, and propped his head up with his hand. “But I’m going to like having a mother.”
She didn’t see the connection between the two statements. “Why is that?”
“Because sometimes my friends tease me when I have to dust furniture or fold clothes,” he explained. “Dad told me that mothers clean and cook and do all those kinds of things.”
“That’s true.” Eve tried very hard not to smile. It had to be rough to have your manhood questioned by your peers when you were only eight years old. Reading between the lines, she could see where Toby had acquired his air of maturity. Responsibility had been given to him at an early age, so he didn’t possess that carefree attitude typical of most children his age.
She rinsed the last cookie sheet and handed it to Toby to dry. Draining the dishwater from the sink, she wiped off the counter, then dried her hands. She glanced at the wall clock and wondered where the afternoon had gone.
“Now that we have everything cleaned up, it’s time I was leaving,” she declared.
“Can’t you stay a little while longer?”
“No, it’s late,” She removed her brown coat from the chair back and slipped it on.
Toby brought her the umbrella. “Thanks for coming, Eve.” He stopped for an instant as a thought occurred to him. “Maybe I should call you Miss Rowland, since you’re a teacher,”
“I’d like it better if you called me Eve,” she replied, and started toward the entry hall.
“Okay, Eve,” he grinned, and walked with her.
As she passed the living room, her gaze was automatically drawn inside. Luck was sitting up, rubbing his hands over his face as though he had just wakened. The movement in front of him attracted his attention. He glanced up and became motionless for an instant when he saw Eve.
Because of the clouds blocking out the sun, there was little light in the entry way. Eve didn’t think about the dimness as she started to speak, smiling at the grogginess that was evident in his expression.
But Luck spoke before she did. “Don’t scurry off into the darkness…brown mouse.” There was a trancelike quality to his voice.
Her steps faltered. She had escaped recognition for so
long that she had stopped dreading it, Now that he remembered her, she felt sick. Tearing her gaze from him, she hurried toward the front door. As she jerked it open, she heard him call her name.
“Eve!”
She didn’t stop. She didn’t even remember to open the umbrella until the slow rain drenched her face. There was water on the ground. It splashed beneath her running feet as she hurried toward her car.
Four
A STARTLED OUTCRY was torn from her throat by the hand that caught her arm and spun her around. Eve hadn’t thought Luck would come after her — not out in the rain. But there he was, standing before her with his naked chest glistening a hard bronze from the rain, the sprinkling of chest hairs curling tightly in the wetness. The steady rain beat at his dark hair, driving it onto his forehead. Reluctantly, Eve lifted her gaze to the blue of his eyes, drowning in the full recognition of his look.
“You are the girl I bumped into outside the tavern that night,” Luck stated in final acceptance of the fact.
“Yes.” The hand holding the umbrella wavered, causing Luck to dodge his head and duck under the wire spines stretching the material.
His gaze swept her face, hair and eyes. “I thought I’d conjured you out of a whiskey bottle. I don’t know why nothing clicked when I met you.” A frown flickered between his brows, then vanished when his gaze slid to her coat. “It must have been the combination of the shadows and the brown coat…and the fogginess of sleep. Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“And remind you that I was the brown mouse?” There was bitterness in the laughing breath she released.
“What’s wrong with being a brown mouse?” The corners of his mouth deepened in an attractive smile. “I recall that I happened to like the brown mouse I met.”
“A brown mouse is just a small rat. It’s hardly a name that someone wants to be called.” This time Eve worked to keep the bitterness out of her voice and turn the comment into a joke for her pride’s sake. She succeeded to a large degree. “You certainly don’t want to remind someone of it if they’ve forgotten.”
“It’s all in the eye of the beholder, Eve,” Luck corrected with a rueful twist of his mouth. “You see a rat, and I see a soft furry creature. You are a strong sensitive woman, but you aren’t very sure of yourself. I wish you had stayed that night. It all might have turned out differently.”
How could she say that she wished she had, too, knowing what she knew now. Hindsight always altered a person’s perspective.
“Dad!” Toby shouted from the opened front door. “You’d better come inside! You’re getting soaking wet out there!”
“Toby’s right.” Her gaze fell to the rivulets of rainwater running down the muscled contours of his bare chest, ail hard sinew and taut sun-browned skin. His blatant maleness spun a whole new set of evocative sensations. “You’re getting drenched. You should go in the house.”
“Come in with me.” Luck didn’t let go of her arms, holding her as he issued the invitation.
“No. I have to go home.” She resisted the temptation to accept, listening to the steady drip of rain off her umbrella, its swift fall in the same rhythm as her pulse.
His mouth quirked. “That’s what you said then, too.”
“It’s late. I — ” The sentence went no farther as the wetness of his palm cupped her cheek. Eve completely forgot what she was going to say, her thoughts scattered by the disturbing caress of his touch.
“Dad!” Toby sounded impatient and irritated. “You’re going to catch your death of pneumonia!”
It was the diversion Eve needed to collect her senses before she did something foolish. “You’d better go.” She turned away, breaking contact with his hand and lifting the umbrella high enough to clear his head. There was no resistance as she slipped out of his grasp to walk the last few steps to the car.
“We’ll see you again, Eve.” It was a definite statement.
But she wasn’t certain what promise it contained. “Yes.” She opened the car door and slipped inside, struggling to close the wet umbrella. Luck continued to stand in the rain, watching her.
“Do you think it will be sunny tomorrow?” he asked unexpectedly.
“I haven’t been paying any attention to the weather forecast,” Eve replied.
“Neither have I,” Luck admitted.
HE WAS INDIFFERENT to the slow rain falling on him as he watched Eve reverse the car at a right angle to turn around in the drive. The incident had not been a figment of an alcoholic imagination. The woman he’d thought he had only dreamed about had actually been under his nose all this time.
The one good feeling he’d experienced in six years had happened when he had held her in his arms, but he hadn’t believed it was real. Even now Luck wasn’t sure that part hadn’t been imagined. Comfortable didn’t describe the feeling it had aroused. It was something more basic than that. It had been right and natural with his arms around her, feeling the softness of her body against his.
The woman had been Eve. It was strange he hadn’t realized it before. She was quiet and warm, with an inner resiliency and a gentle humor that he liked. A smile twitched his mouth as Luck remembered she had a definite will of her own, as well. She wasn’t easily intimidated.
“Dad!”
He turned, letting his gaze leave the red taillights of her car, and walked to the house, wet feet squishing in wet shoes. A smile curved his mouth at the disapproving expression on his son’s face when he reached the door.
“You’re sopping wet,” Toby accused. “You wouldn’t let me run out there like that with no coat or anything. You tell me I’ll catch cold. How come you can do it?”
“Because I’m stupid,” Luck replied, because he couldn’t argue with the point his son had raised.
“You’d better get out of those wet clothes,” Toby advised.
“I intend to.” He left a watery trail behind him as he walked to the private bath off his bedroom where he stripped and put on the toweling robe Toby brought him. “Why was Eve here?” he asked, vigorously rubbing his wet hair with a bath towel.
“She came over to help me make cookies. They’re good, too.” A sharp questioning glance from Luck prompted Toby to explain. “I called and asked her to come over ’cause I was having trouble with the directions and you were asleep.” Then it was his turn to tip his head to one side and send a questioning look at his father. “How come you called her a brown mouse?”
“It turns out Eve was the one I talked to that night and referred to as a brown mouse,” he shrugged, and tossed the towel over a rack.
“I thought you were drunk that night.”
“I had a few drinks, more after I met her than before. Which probably explains why I wasn’t sure whether it had happened or I had imagined it.”
“But why did you call her a brown mouse?” Toby didn’t understand that yet.
“It’s a long story,” Luck began.
“I know,” Toby inserted with a resigned sigh. “You’ll tell me all about it some other time.”
“That’s right.” A smile played with the corners of his mouth as he turned his son around and pushed him in front of him out of the bathroom. “Is there any coffee made?”
“Yeah.” Toby tilted his head way back to frown at him. “I just hope you remember all the things you’re going to tell me ‘some other time.’”
In the kitchen, Luck filled a mug with coffee and helped himself to a handful of the cookies stacked on the table. “What did you and Eve talk about?” Settling onto a chair, he bit into one of the cookies and eyed Toby skeptically. “Did you really make these?”
“Yeah,” was the defensive retort. “Eve told me how. She says you learn best by doing. She’s a teacher. Did you know that? I mean a for real teacher. She teaches music.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Luck admitted.
“We talked about that some and a bunch of other things.” Toby frowned in an attempt to recall the subjects he’d discussed with Eve. “I told he
r you were thinking about getting married again.”
Luck choked on the drink of coffee he’d taken and coughed, “You did what?!!” He set the mug down to stare at his son, controlling the anger that trembled beneath his disbelieving look.
“I mentioned that you were talking about getting married again,” he repeated with all the round-eyed innocence of an eight-year-old. “Well, it’s true.”
“No, you’ve been talking about it.” Luck pointed a finger at his son, shaking it slightly in his direction. “Why on earth did you mention it to Eve? I thought it was a private discussion between you and me.”
“Gosh, dad, I didn’t know you wanted to keep it a secret,” Toby blinked.
“Toby, you don’t go around discussing personal matters with strangers.” He ran his fingers through his damp haft in a gesture of exasperation. “My God, you’ll be blabbing it to the whole neighborhood next. Why don’t you just take an ad out in the paper? Wanted: A wife for a widower with an eightyear- old blabbermouth.”
“Do you think anyone would apply?” Behind the thoughtful frown, there was the beginnings of a plan.
“No!” Luck slammed his hand on the table. “If I find out that you’ve put an advertisement in any paper, I swear you won’t be able to sit down for a week! This marriage business has gone far enough!”
“But you said — ” Toby started to protest.
“I don’t care what I said,” Luck interrupted with a slicing wave of his hand to dismiss that argument. “I’ve played along with this marriage idea of yours, but it’s got to stop. I’ll decide when and if I’m getting married again without any prompting from you!”
“But face it, dad, you should get married,” Toby patiently insisted. “You need somebody to keep you company and to look after you. I’m getting too old to be doing all this woman’s work around the house.”
“You don’t get married just for companionship and someone to keep house.” Luck regretted his earlier, imprecise explanation of another’s role. It had started this whole mess. “There is more involved than that. A man is supposed to love the woman he marries.”
