Wife in the Mail

by Marie Ferrarella

  Taking it, Shayne brushed aside the thick layers of dust with his fingertips. As he did, he smiled. Curious, Sara crossed to him and stood on her tiptoes to get a better look.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “That’s Miss Faye.” He held the photograph so that she could get a better look.

  “Oh, let me see.” Careful where she stepped, Sydney made her way over to him. She wondered if he was aware of the fond note in his voice. Had he had a crush on his first teacher? She found that incredibly sweet, especially in light of the brooding face he turned to the world now.

  Sara looked from the photograph to Sydney and back again. “She doesn’t look like you.”

  “Not there, no. But in the family album there’re pictures of her when she was a girl,” Sydney told her. “There’s a family resemblance.”

  “What’s a re-sem-ba-lance?” Sara drawled each syllable.

  Sydney smiled. “It means I have her chin and her eyes.”

  “And her voice.” Shayne hadn’t realized it until just now, listening to Sydney explain things to Sara. Sydney had the same patient tone in her voice, the same lilt as Miss Faye when she had answered her pupils’ never-ending questions.

  Sydney looked at him in surprise. She’d never met Aunt Faye and her father had never mentioned the similarity. “I do?”

  “Yeah.” He looked away, feeling as if he’d left himself too open again. “Of course, you talk a lot faster most of the time.”

  She grinned. “These are faster times.”

  They were certainly moving too fast for him, he thought.

  Crossing to the crumbling wall, he tripped over a pile of dark wood and caught himself at the last minute. “What the—”

  Sydney was beside him in a minute, stunned. Moving aside some of the debris, she discovered half a keyboard. She knelt to examine it more closely.

  “It’s a piano.” She looked at Shayne. “This is her piano. What’s left of it, anyway.”

  Mac crowded between them, elbowing Sara aside. “What happened to it?”

  “Looks like a bear sat on it,” Shayne guessed. The remark elicited giggles from his children, which in turn tickled him, leaving behind a warm feeling.

  “What a shame,” Sydney murmured. Wiping her hands on the back pockets of her jeans, she rose again.

  He tried not to watch her, but it was difficult looking at anything else when she prowled around like a sleek cat, studying everything. Restless, he wanted to get going. “Seen enough?”

  “Yes.” Moving in a complete circle, Sydney took one last long look around. Then she turned to face Shayne. “It’s perfect.”

  He laughed shortly. This was far from perfect by any standards. “For what, a haunted house?”

  “No, to live in.” If she concentrated very hard, she could envision the cabin as it had been. As her aunt had described it in her letters.

  Suspicion began to ripple through him. She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant. ‘For whom?”

  “For me.” Why did he look so surprised? She couldn’t continue living at his house. It wasn’t right. Besides, it was obvious that he really didn’t want her there. As soon as she’d walked into the cabin, she’d known she belonged here. “If I’m going to remain here, I need a place to stay.”

  The idea of not having her underfoot wasn’t quite as pleasing to him as it should have been. He tried to justify his reaction to himself. Sure, he wanted her out, but not staying in a rundown shack. Didn’t the woman have any common sense at all?

  “It’s out of the way,” he noted pointedly.

  “Everything here is out of the way,” she countered. There, she decided, finding a spot. She’d put her sofa right there where it would get light from the window and the fireplace. When she had a sofa, she amended, smiling to herself.

  What was she grinning about? Shayne frowned. “It needs work.”

  She paced off the length of the room, making plans. “Nothing that can’t be fixed with a little effort and some lumber.” Shelves, she thought. She could put shelves in right beside the nook. Her books should be arriving soon. They were already overdue. “Fortunately, I’m pretty handy. My dad loved to work with wood, and he didn’t see anything wrong in passing on his tricks to me.”

  The word caught Mac’s attention despite his best efforts to tune everyone out. In an expression that mimicked his father’s, his dark brows drew together. “Your dad did tricks?”

  She placed her hand on Mac’s shoulder in a gesture that was pure camaraderie. With something akin to envy, Shayne noted that the boy didn’t pull away. “Sometimes, when it came to wood, he did magic.”

  The list of her abilities, at least as seen through her own eyes, seemed endless, Shayne mused, his mouth curving in amused cynicism. “A premed carpenter who teaches elementary school. Some would say you were becoming a very valuable asset here in Hades.”

  “Some,” she attested, looking at him over her shoulder. “And what would you say?”

  He wasn’t about to comment on the effect of her presence in his life, on the town. “I say you’re biting off more than you can chew, taking this old cabin on.”

  She never hesitated. “All right, you can help me.”

  She could whip things around faster than an old-fashioned turntable. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “No, but it’s what I meant.” The wind’s whistle was turning into a howl as it came through the large, gaping chinks in the walls. There was no doubt that the cabin was going to need a great deal of work. “It’ll go faster if there’s two of us working on it.”

  Sara cleared her throat. Looking down, Sydney laughed and caressed Sara’s cheek. “Three,” she amended, then looked toward Mac. In a voice that would have done an auctioneer proud, she called out, “Do I hear four?”

  Mac looked down at his feet to hide the pleasure on his face at being included. Up until a second ago, he’d been feeling like an outsider. “Yeah, maybe.”

  She exchanged looks with Shayne. His amazement tickled her. “I have a definite maybe. Far better than a firm no, I’d say.”

  She would say, Shayne had come to realize, a lot of things. At any given moment.

  “Just how in the hell did you manage all this?” The question, directed at Sydney, was one Shayne had found himself asking—or thinking in one form or another—a lot these past few weeks.

  All forms of the question revolved around Sydney.

  This particular time came five days after she’d announced she wanted to move into the cabin. He wanted to know now how she had managed to rope in all the men swarming around to renovate Miss Faye’s old cabin for her. Because she surely had roped them in. What had begun as a work party of four had multiplied until almost every available man, married or otherwise, had volunteered his services. Some of the men had brought along their wives, their families, and enough food to feed the whole town.

  What they had here, Shayne realized, was an old-fashioned barn raising without the barn. And without electricity. The lines leading to the old cabin had long since gone down and fallen into disrepair. Several of the men had brought their own emergency generators to provide whatever power they absolutely couldn’t do without.

  Maybe someone should have thought of plugging the machines into Sydney, Shayne mused, because at the center of this whirlwind of activity, issuing orders in a velvety-soft voice, was Sydney who, he’d discovered, really did know her way around lumber and construction. She seemed completely tireless.

  He was beginning to believe that she could do anything she claimed she could.

  Sydney held a glass under the beer barrel’s spigot and turned it. Beer foamed as it poured from the keg. “I just asked Ike to spread the word that I was going to renovate Aunt Faye’s cabin and that I needed help,” she confessed, holding the glass out to him.

  He thought of passing, then decided that there’d be no harm in having just one. He’d been at this since early morning and welcomed the break.

  The beer
felt good, going down.

  Looking around, he saw Sara playing with Bill Hanson’s little girl, Gem. Even Mac had stopped hanging back and was earnestly hammering in nails under the supervision of Tate Kellogg. He looked as though he was having a good time, too.

  She saw where he was looking. “Why don’t you go over and help him?”

  When was she going to stop interfering in his life? He hadn’t asked her for advice. “Mac’s doing fine on his own.”

  “Fine” wasn’t quite the word she would have used. “A boy could always use some time with his father.”

  Hadn’t she been paying attention these past few weeks? “Mac wants nothing to do with me.”

  He was wrong there, Sidney thought. “Mac wants nothing to do with the pain he’s feeling inside, you just happen to be a handy target.”

  She debated her next words. Maybe she was overstepping a boundary that the good doctor had drawn all around himself, but she couldn’t let that stop her from saying what needed to be said. After all, if things had worked out differently, she’d be family by now. She’d been raised to believe that, in the name of love, family had a right to interfere.

  “Mac won’t know that you love him unless you let him know.”

  There she went again, orchestrating his life. It was a damn good thing she was going to be moving out. “If I let him know, it won’t be with a crowd of people buzzing around.”

  “It doesn’t have to be in words,” Sydney said. There were a great many ways to let someone know you cared. A touch, a nod, a thoughtful gesture. “At least, not here.”

  He finished his beer, then set down the mug. “You just want more work out of me.”

  She smiled. The man loved to grouse. It’s what he hid behind, she thought. “You’ve already done a great deal.”

  How would she know that? There were men everywhere, getting in each other’s way. “Watching me?”

  “Noticing things. I’ve always paid a great deal of attention to things around me.”

  He had no doubts of that. Shayne wiped his hands on the back of his jeans. “You know, when you said you were handy, I didn’t realize you meant that in the Tom Sawyer sense of the word. He got those boys to whitewash the fence for him by pretending he liked doing the work himself.”

  She knew exactly what he was driving at. “I’m familiar with Tom Sawyer.” She smiled. “And Tom pretended. I’m not pretending. I really like the feeling of creating something out of rough materials. And I love the feel of wood in my hands.”

  “Then, darlin’,” Ike announced, coming up behind them, “I’d say you came to the right place.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the saw mill. “Lots of wood to be had here. Of course,” he added, taking a seat on the overturned crate, “you could have picked a warmer time of year to do this. But then, just looking at you makes it suddenly seem plenty warm to me.” Ike pretended to fan himself.

  Sydney laughed. She’d grown to like Shayne’s friend a great deal. “You make a woman feel good, Ike.”

  Ike raised and lowered his eyebrows, a full-blown leer on his lips as he looked her over. “You don’t know the half of it, darlin’.”

  Shayne frowned. If she wanted to flirt with Ike, that was her business, but he didn’t have to stand around and watch. “I’ll go see if Mac needs help.”

  She watched Shayne walk away. “I don’t think he likes me very much.” She wasn’t accustomed to people not responding to her.

  Ike helped himself to his own beer. “Funny, I was just thinking that he did.”

  “What gave him away, his biting off my head, or his growling at me?”

  Ike laughed, giving her a chaste squeeze that left him wistful. “You’re all right, darlin’.”

  He never addressed her by her name, Sydney noticed. “Why don’t you call me Sydney?”

  “Because no one with curves like yours should be called Sydney, darlin’. And as for our good doctor over there—” Ike nodded toward Shayne “—his late ex-wife did a real good number on him before she took off. And continued doing a number on him even after the divorce.”

  Ike knew how closed-mouth Shayne could be. While Shayne had shared a little of what had happened with him, although by no means all, he’d done a lot of reading between the lines. “He’d never been an outgoing person, so having his heart shredded by a bandsaw the one time he put himself on the line made him twice as leery of opening up.” Ike studied Sydney’s face, seeing more than possibly even she was aware of. “He’s a good man, darlin’, worth coaxing out of his shell.”

  Oh, no, not that tender trap. Sydney had been there twice already. “I’m really not interested in coaxing,” she told him. “I’ve been seriously involved twice in my life and come up a loser both times. I’m not about to try for a third strike.”

  Ike had a feeling that this time it would be a home run, but for now he kept that to himself. “You’ve got that wrong, darlin’. You weren’t the loser. The men who dropped out of your life were.” He winked at her, then sighed as he looked toward the staircase that was being reconstructed. “Better keep my cousin from nailing his fingers to the side of your new home. He won’t be any use to me, then.” He patted the side of the keg as he turned to walk away. “You think on what I said.”

  He left her doing exactly that.

  Chapter Ten

  Looking for paper, any paper, Sydney ventured into Shayne’s den. He’d dropped her off at home and gone on to see a patient. Ever since renovations on the cabin had begun last week, he seemed to be trying to keep even more distance than usual between them. She knew that he wouldn’t be very happy about her going through his desk drawer, but her goal was harmless enough. All she wanted was a piece of paper to make a list of things she still needed at the cabin. She had almost a houseful of furniture, thanks to donations from the people who had come to accept her as a citizen of their small town.

  The cabin still needed a telephone line, and the electrical lines repaired, and the stairs still needed to be finished, but for the most part, it was almost renovated.

  When she opened the first drawer, she found a jumble of papers, all with writing on them.

  “You’d think a doctor would be more organized than this,” she murmured under her breath. But then, she’d seen his office before she’d taken over. Organization was not very high on his list of priorities.

  Abandoning the middle drawer, she opened the side drawers one by one. Not a single pad was available. She’d almost given up when she discovered the box buried on the bottom of the double drawer. It was a battered box, the kind that might have once held a jacket. She opened it, though she thought she’d probably just find old medical journals or something equally as dry inside.

  Instead, what was beneath the lid inside the sagging box were photographs. Dozens and dozens of well-handled photographs of all sizes. And all of the same two subjects. Mac and Sara.

  She pulled out one photograph from the bottom. The date written on the back was six years old. Intrigued, Sydney flipped more photos over, pulling them out from various places within the box. He had an entire pictorial history of his children’s past six years.

  “Well, well, well. So you do have a sentimental bone in your body after all,” she said smiling to herself.

  “It’s here, Sydney!” Sara’s boots thumped along the wooden floor as she ran into the house. The outer door banged against the wall, announcing her entrance before it sprang shut again.

  Sydney’s heart leaped into her throat. Quickly, she slid the lid back into place and replaced the box where she’d found it. She piled the other papers on top of it, hoping Shayne wouldn’t notice the invasion of privacy. She knew he wouldn’t appreciate her knowing that he had a softer side. He might not appreciate it, but she did.

  Sydney looked out from the den, prepared for almost anything. Though she’d pretty much adjusted to Hades, and to her father, life was still one huge adventure for Sara.

  She caught the little girl as she sailed by the d
en, obviously looking for her. “What’s here, Sara?”

  “The moving truck’s here!”

  The next moment Sydney found her hand firmly grasped within Sara’s as the little girl dragged her to the front door.

  “Van,” Sydney corrected. She paused only long enough to snare her parka from the rack.

  Glancing behind her, Sydney saw Mac hanging over the banister, drawn by the commotion, curious. Asia came trotting out of the kitchen, her interest piqued. Even the most minor thing became a major event in Hades, given half the chance. Boredom was as much an adversary out here as the cold, and nearly as deadly.

  Sydney beckoned Mac forward. “Grab your parka and come out,” she called.

  There was, indeed, a large moving van parked in what amounted to Shayne’s front yard. Pulling on her parka as she came out of the house, Sydney noted that the drivers were still sitting in the cab, eyeing the terrain, obviously reluctant to brave the cold.

  To her it was invigorating.

  Shoving her hands into her pockets, she approached the driver’s side. “Where were you guys?” She’d almost given up hope of ever seeing her things again. “You were supposed to be here three weeks ago.”

  Resigned, braced, the driver pushed his door open, then got out. “Had some trouble with the rig. We got snowed in twice coming up the coast.” It was obvious that he thought the only thing crazier than shipping possessions up here was electing to live here in the first place.

  Rounding the back of the long vehicle, he hopped up on the rear platform and unlocked the double doors. The handle stuck and he wrestled with it in vain for a second before muttering a curse under his breath.

  “Hey, Tom, get over here,” he called to the front of the rig.

  The other man, taller and broader than the driver, jumped down from the cab and made his way to the rear of the van. He gave the handle one good yank and the door opened.

  The driver returned to the cab, took his clipboard from the front seat and, after glancing at the inventory that was listed, looked at Sydney. “It ain’t none of my business, but you sure must want these things, considering what you paid to have them sent all the way up here.”