Never Alone

by Lyn Cote

  It had been devastating to know how easily he could sweep past her defenses and make her recall those first few childish years after her sixteenth birthday, those days when she had been foolish enough to think she might find a way to win Cash. Since then, it had been hard, painful work to put up walls to guard her heart against her own vulnerability to Cash.

  Now her walls would have to be higher and stronger or she ran the risk of becoming even more hurt.

  Chapter Seven

  Jane, seated at her desk in the shop’s brightly lit basement, checked invoices and a balance sheet. From upstairs she heard the scraping of clothes hangers on racks and the steady rhythm of the manual carpet sweeper. Tish was making sure all the sizes were in the right places, and Mel was doing a once-over with the sweeper on the aisles and dressing room floors. Both girls were supposed to be keeping an eye on Angie, who was in her playpen near the cash register. Occasionally Jane heard a bell ring as Angie played with her activity center.

  The shop would open in fifteen minutes. Even in the basement, Jane heard the steady gush and swish of the rain over the pavement. A sharp thunderstorm which had begun an hour after dawn still washed over them. Rain would make for a busy day. Tourists, unable to boat and swim, would come in to browse.

  Though deep in her figures, Jane became gradually aware that the two reassuring sounds above had been replaced by hushed, but heated, voices. Suddenly the long day ahead of sitting for the portrait and working at the shop stretched out even longer before her. The rivals are at it again. God, give me patience. And I need it right now. With a labored sigh, she closed her paperwork and trudged up the steps. In one hand she carried the working cash to start the day.

  “You dumb blonde,” Mel said, nose to nose, with Tish. “He’s just using you to make Nancy Ledbetter jealous.”

  “Who’s jealous? You are! That’s who’s jealous!” Tish tossed back. “Tony says it’s all over between him and Nancy—”

  “Girls,” Jane cut in, “we open in ten minutes.” Both heads swung to her reluctantly. Each of their faces wore a mulish expression.

  “Okay,” Mel said grudgingly, and went back to her sweeping.

  Tish maintained her defiant stance a moment longer and then, with a swish of her golden mane, turned back to the rack nearest her.

  After stopping at the side of the playpen to encourage Angie at her attempt to turn the dial and ring another bell, Jane walked over to the cash register drawer and unlocked it. Methodically she counted the money from her hand into each compartment: ones, fives, tens and twenties, letting the mundane task soothe her ruffled nerves.

  From behind, Jane heard a sharp tapping on the front window. All three of them turned to see Cash, wearing a khaki slicker, peering into the shop. Tish, closest to the door, started forward.

  “I’ll get it,” Jane said. Tish halted, and in a huff went to the rear of the shop. She began shoving hangers along a rack there. Scrape! Scrape!

  Jane strode to the door and opened it. “What brings you to town?”

  His rain-dotted face lifted into a hesitant smile. “Thought I’d offer you and Angie breakfast, then drive you both out to Lucy’s for your sitting. I won’t be able to get anything else done this morning.”

  He sounded ill at ease. She looked up into his eyes and saw the uncertainty there. He was testing her, seeing if she would continue to resist sharing Angie with him.

  The carpet sweeper nipped Jane’s heels.

  “Oh! Sorry, Miss Everett,” Mel said from behind her.

  Jane rotated and found both girls staring at Cash. “That’s all right, Mel,” she said automatically. The decision to go with him suddenly became easy. Let me out of here! To make her escape, Jane swiftly rescued Angie from her playpen and stepped to the door. “Girls, I’ll be back before I go to Grandmother’s.”

  Cash unsnapped the front of his slicker with a jerk and held up one side like a wing.

  With that, she stepped out and under the cover of Cash’s arm. Like children just out of school, Jane and Cash ran the block to the Eagle Café, bumping erratically into each other. Jane smelled the clean scent of rain, but also Cash’s clothing, which held a mingling of forest scents: pine and cedar and his subtle aftershave. Naturally the running made her heart speed up, but the man beside her brought her senses alive and made them intensely sensitive.

  Her shoulder accidentally connected with his chest, and she felt his solid strength. As she ran under his open slicker, with Angie in her arms, she was blindsided by an elemental oneness—man, woman, child.

  Entering the half-filled restaurant, Jane found herself grinning in spite of being wet up to her ankles and sprinkled all over. Cash joined in the lighthearted mood by theatrically sweeping off his dripping cloak. Raindrops flew into the air around him. He then held it outside the door and flapped it twice like a scatter rug. Finally he swung it up on one of a row of hooks where other raincoats, swamp jackets and umbrellas already dripped along the wall.

  A possessive arm under hers, he escorted her and Angie to a booth near the front. For those few moments she let herself revel in his special courtesy, and she wondered if he had been aware of the fleeting connection between the three of them. They slid in across from each other, still grinning. On Jane’s lap, Angie spontaneously clapped her hands, and Jane bent to kiss her forehead.

  At this gesture of love, Cash felt a clutch at his heart. Dena must have known how much Jane would love Angie. Covering this sudden rush of poignant emotion, he signaled to the waitress to bring them two coffees.

  Cash lifted the heavy white mug. As long as he could recall, this café had used the same style cups. All this summer since he had moved north, he had savored the continuity of the past, present and future here. He felt as though he had come home at last. He had deep roots here from when he was young, and he wondered if Jane felt the same way about Eagle Lake. Was that why she had opened her business and established her life here?

  Jane leaned back against the red vinyl and took her first sip, then sighed luxuriously. Dressed in a tan skirt and an ivory short-sleeved sweater, Jane fit in perfectly with the backdrop of the maroon-and-white café.

  Jane Everett is a beautiful woman. The thought still had the power to startle him. She wasn’t gawky and fourteen—she hadn’t been for over a decade. How could he have been so blind? She ran the fingers of her right hand through her burnished hair, coaxing it into its own natural waves. Watching her brought an ache, a lack, an emptiness inside him. Then it became a name, a plea. Jane.

  The waitress brought over two menus and a high chair, which she placed at the end of their booth. Once Angie was in it, she playfully patted the tray and tapped her heels against its footrest. Reeling with his inner confusion over Red, Cash hid behind the plastic-covered menu.

  Jane smelled a mouth-watering mix of aromas in the air, but she conquered her urge to order a second breakfast. She turned her attention to the man across from her. His longish, black hair caught the fluorescent light and shone. Raindrops glistened on the crown of his head. Her fingers longed to tousle his hair and make the raindrops dance then disappear.

  Why had she been cursed with the Everett family trait of constancy? Other women fell in and out of love. Why couldn’t she—once and for all—get Cash out of her system? Six years ago she had become infatuated or fascinated with him. She knew that there would never be anything but Angie between Cash and her, so why did she still react to him?

  Sternly she turned her thoughts to the present. She cleared her throat. “How’s your work going? Has the rain held you back much?”

  “A little, but fortunately it’s so hot between storms that it dries out pretty fast. Today, however, I would have been sitting around just watching the mud ooze till it was time to be at Lucy’s.”

  Before long the waitress set a platter down in front of him and recited, “Two eggs over easy, four slices of bacon, soft, two griddle cakes plate-sized and a hill of hash browns”. She grinned and placed a saucer of gold
en, buttered toast and a small plastic glass of apple juice in front of Angie’s tray. Apologetically she eased a towering homemade cinnamon roll in front of Jane. “It’s the last one. I thought you might change your mind about not wanting anything.”

  “Thanks.” Jane pointed to Cash’s overflowing platter. “You’re right. I can’t hold out in the face of that!” The waitress grinned and left them. Angie wiggled and babbled for her juice, so Jane held the glass to the baby’s mouth and let her take a long swallow.

  With a smile Cash speared a combination bite of eggbacon-pancake. “I’ll help you finish that roll.”

  “I don’t think so.” She buttered her roll with real butter and refused to think about cholesterol or calories. An Eagle Café cinnamon roll was a true indulgence and should be enjoyed as such.

  “Come on. You’ll never finish it,” he teased between bites.

  “Will to.” She gave him a superior smile, then took a bite of her cinnamon roll. A spot of butter slipped off her lower lip and melted its way down her chin.

  Before Cash gave it conscious thought, he caught the butter with his index finger, and the tenor of their exchange instantly altered, becoming intimate, charged. Their eyes connected and held. The richness of those moments on July Fourth flooded him, making him long to reach for her hand.

  Jane couldn’t take her eyes from Cash’s face. As he moved his hand away, his fingers brushed the underside of her chin. The touch careened through her, lighting flash fires in her veins.

  A burst of laughter from behind them shattered their connection. Cash drew back his hand completely and sat up straighter.

  Without invitation, Carmine Vitelli, Mel’s dad, slid into the booth beside Cash. He greeted Angie, “Hi, Toots.”

  Angie giggled. Crumbs from her toast dotted her face and bib, and her chin was slick with butter shine.

  “Now that’s a breakfast,” Carmine said, ogling Cash’s platter.

  Cash raised his shoulder, blocking Carmine’s threat to his breakfast. “Get your own, Vitelli.”

  “Get your own, Vitelli,” Jane mimicked, protecting her cinnamon roll from Carmine. Joining in the gaiety, Angie giggled and clapped again.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Carmine tipped his hand up as though drinking coffee. Reading his signal, the waitress came over with a fresh mug for him and took his order. Then he turned to Cash. “So what are you going to do about Hallawell?”

  Cash swallowed a long draught of his coffee. “Why should I do anything? This summer’s delightful weather is the only thing interfering with my construction project.”

  Carmine teased Angie by acting as if he were going to steal her apple juice. “I’ve heard he’s tried to strong-arm some of the suppliers to slow down your materials deliveries.”

  “You listen to gossip too much, Carmine.” A steely confidence dominated Cash’s features.

  Suddenly Jane felt very sorry for Roger Hallawell.

  After their breakfast Jane checked in at the shop and changed into her portrait dress downstairs in her office. Feeling slightly festive as she always did in her grandmother’s peach-toned flowered dress, she slipped into Cash’s Jeep, and he drove the three of them out to Lucy’s cottage for another sitting.

  The memory of Cash’s hand against her chin this morning dominated Jane’s thoughts as they walked toward Lucy’s door. “It’s stopped raining. That’s something,” he said, sounding doubtful.

  “Yes, now we’ll steam for the rest of the day.” Jane blew through her mouth and fanned herself with her hand against the humidity and heat which at midmorning already suffocated them.

  Lucy was waiting at the cottage door. “Good morning, sweetheart,” Lucy called and waved to Angie.

  “We’re here, too, you know,” Jane scolded.

  Ignoring Jane and Cash, Lucy lifted Angie out of Cash’s arms and spun around, making the child laugh in delight.

  “I feel a bit slighted myself,” Cash complained broadly.

  “Oh, you two are just spoiled brats. Who would want you?” Lucy laughed at them and carried Angie into the house.

  After a few minutes of chatter, Lucy led Jane into the living room and began preparing to paint. Taking up her palette, she said to Jane, “Spread and smooth your skirt a bit more, Jane. And then tilt your chin down and to the right. Show us your best side.”

  Jane obediently tilted her head. Lucy adjusted it slightly more to the right, then stepped behind the easel and began touching her small, round brush painstakingly to the canvas.

  Cash sat on the dark green wicker chair near the large window overlooking the lake. Out of the corner of her eye, Jane watched him hold a blue, circular shape sorter in front of Angie and help the baby find the right slot for each of the red and yellow blocks. Angie pushed and growled, trying to force a square block into a star-shaped opening. Cash slowly rotated the shape sorter till he found the matching square hole. Angie pushed the block in and yelled her approval at conquering the challenge. Jane smiled. Did every mother think her child was brilliant?

  Cash’s gaze caught Jane’s eye. He smiled at her, sharing the joy of Angie’s small victory. In that smile Jane read his abundant love for this beautiful child they shared. She felt her eyes misting.

  “What is our topic of discussion today?” Lucy asked, invisible behind her easel.

  Jane blinked rapidly, holding off tears. She spoke up to divert herself, keeping her voice light, “I’m afraid I have another chapter in the continuing saga of What’s Missing at Jane’s Shop?”

  “The skirt returned?” Cash asked.

  Jane caught herself just before she nodded. During posings, she let herself become a puppet with invisible strings connected to Lucy’s hand and brush. “The skirt returned and a quilted jacket vanished—”

  “And now the jacket returned?” Lucy stepped around the easel.

  Jane replied, “It must have, because I think Mel bought it.”

  “I am having a hard time figuring out what the point of all this is,” Cash said.

  Jane continued. “At the very least, it means that someone is taking clothes from the store, then returning them for some bizarre reason. In the case of this jacket, it’s tempting to assume that, since Mel bought the jacket, she is the one who had taken it out. But why? She could have just asked, couldn’t she?”

  “Not if she only decided to buy it after taking it out as she had the first two items,” Cash commented. “So I can’t see where her buying it makes any difference in this mystery.”

  “If I may,” Lucy said, “I would like to offer a bizarre reason for taking and returning clothes.”

  “Please do, Watson,” Jane directed from her seat.

  “It’s called How to Have a Larger Wardrobe without Spending any Money.”

  Jane suppressed a frown, maintaining her pose expression. “Ah, I see. I’m selling some slightly used clothing.”

  Peering at Jane, Lucy nodded and bit her lower lip in concentration. Then she began making very short strokes and alternately eyeing Jane and the portrait.

  “This really has you tangled up,” Cash said. “Does it matter so much? After all, nothing is actually being stolen…”

  “I think you’re only playing devil’s advocate with me, Mr. Langley.” In spite of herself, Jane tingled at the sound of his voice and the knowledge that his attention had turned to her. “I have a reputation for distinctive clothing here. Usually I only carry a few of each item in a very few sizes. In a small town, women count on that. They don’t want to see someone at church or at a restaurant in the identical dress they are wearing. And I’m charging healthy retail prices, not thrift shop ones. I have a reputation of honesty to maintain.”

  “Go over the events of this weekend again,” Cash said softly. “The jacket Mel bought?”

  Jane watched Angie in Cash’s arms. Fighting her morning nap time, Angie repeatedly fluttered open her eyes, but they drooped lower and lower each time. Finally they closed in sleep, and Cash very gently arranged Angie’
s neck in a more comfortable position across his arm. The baby stirred, but did not wake. Again the sight of his tender care of Angie in contrast to their separateness nearly moved Jane to tears.

  “I was out of the shop the day before yesterday, the Fourth.” Jane pushed away her memories of that emotionally draining day. “It could have been returned that day, and then Mel could have bought it yesterday while I was on break. She didn’t mention it to me, but we were very busy, and then I didn’t go through all of yesterday’s receipts till this morning. I’m baffled. If some stranger were shoplifting and returning items, the clothing would not be retagged neatly as though it had never left. It must be Mel or Tish because the items are always repriced and replaced exactly where they should be.”

  Lucy clucked her tongue over the problem. “And there isn’t any reason for either girl to do this. That’s what’s vexing to me. I’m sure Carmine and Rona are very generous with Mel, and I think Claire’s whole income goes on Tish’s back. So what’s the point?”

  “There isn’t any.” Jane forgot and momentarily pursed her lips. She quickly reshaped her mouth into a half smile.

  “I’m sure you’ll find out what’s going on and why,” Cash said. “Whoever is doing it will overlook something and indict herself.”

  Jane glanced at him. In contrast to his matter-of-fact tone, his eyes were on her, and their intensity made her shiver. After their showdown, she was able to see Cash and their situation more clearly, but a new danger to her peace of mind had moved her to tears twice in the past hour. They were man, woman and child—but not husband, wife and daughter…and they never would be. She must always keep this clearly in mind or she might presume to behave inappropriately to their situation and bring embarrassment down on herself. A tremor of uneasiness quivered through her.

  A polite tap on her back door startled Jane from her reading.

  “Jane, got a minute?” Rona peered through the screen to where Jane sat on her back porch.