Someone Like Her

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Her chin rose fractionally. “I suppose I do.”

  Adrian shoved his hands in his pockets. “I did look for her some years back.” He rotated his shoulders in discomfiture. “I suppose…not that hard. I thought she was dead.”

  Her brow crinkled. “Why?”

  “Even as a kid, I knew there was something wrong with her. My father claimed she’d gone to a hospital to be treated. Then he told me she’d checked herself out because she didn’t want to get well. I was young enough to believe that if she was alive, she wouldn’t have left me.”

  She stared at him, and prompted, “Young enough to believe…? Does that mean, now that you’re an adult, you don’t have any trouble believing she’d ditch you without a second thought?”

  God. He felt sick. That rich breakfast wasn’t settling well in his stomach.

  “Apparently she did,” he said flatly.

  He felt himself reddening as her extraordinary eyes studied him like a bug under a microscope.

  She surprised him, though, by sounding gentle. “How old were you?”

  His jaw tightened. “Ten.”

  “And you never saw her or heard from her again?”

  He shook his head.

  “How awful,” she murmured, as if to herself. “Your father doesn’t sound like a, um…”

  “Warm man?” Irony in his voice, Adrian finished her thought. “No. You could say that.”

  “Have you told him…” She nodded toward the bed.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.” Compassion and an array of other emotions crossed her face, as if the sunlight coming through the window were suddenly dappled with small, fluttering shadows. “Do you have other family? I didn’t think to ask if you had sisters or brothers.”

  Adrian shook his head. “Just me. Dad remarried, but as far as I know he and my stepmother never considered having kids.”

  She nodded, her gaze softer now, less piercing.

  Without knowing why, he kept talking. “His parents are still alive. I’m not close to them.” He hesitated. “My maternal grandmother is alive, too. I haven’t told her yet.”

  “Oh! But won’t she be thrilled?”

  “I’m not so sure. She might have preferred to think her child was dead. To find out she didn’t care enough to ever call home…” He shrugged.

  “That’s not fair! She forgot who she was!”

  “But then Maman may feel she failed her in some way.”

  “Oh,” Lucy said again. “Maman? Is that what you call her? Is she French?”

  “French Canadian. She lives in Nova Scotia. That’s where I was, with my grandparents, the summer my mother went away.”

  “What a sad story.”

  Oh, good. He’d gone from being a monster in her eyes to being pitiable. Adrian wasn’t sure he welcomed the change.

  When he said nothing, she flushed and rose to her feet. “I really had better go. I don’t do breakfast, but it’s time for me to start lunch.” She hesitated. “If you’d like…”

  What was she going to suggest? That she could feed him free of charge like she had his mother?

  “Like?” he prodded, when she didn’t finish.

  “I was going to say that, after lunch, I could take an hour or two and introduce you to some of the people who knew your mother. They could tell you something about her life.”

  “Your sister started to.”

  He felt weirdly uncomfortable with the idea. But if his mother died without ever coming out of the coma, this might be the only way he’d ever find out who she’d become. Perhaps she’d even given someone a clue as to where she’d been in the years before she came to Middleton. He thought his grandmother, at least, would want to know as much as he could find out.

  After a minute he nodded and said formally, “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

  Lucy smiled, lighting her pale, serious face, making her suddenly, startlingly beautiful in a way unfamiliar to him. Adrian’s chest constricted.

  He thought he took a step toward her, searching her eyes the way she often did his. Her pupils dilated as she stared back at him, her smile dying. He felt cruel when wariness replaced it.

  She inched around him as if afraid to take her gaze from him, then backed toward the door. “I’ll, um, see you later then? Say, two o’clock?”

  “I’ll come and eat lunch first.” He paused. “Your soup was amazing.”

  The tiniest of smiles curved her lips again. “Wait until you taste my basil mushroom tomato soup.”

  His own mouth crooked up. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Well, then…” She backed into the door frame and gave an involuntarily “umph” before she flushed in embarrassment, cast him one more alarmed look and fled.

  He stood there by the curtain, the soft beep of the machines that monitored his mother’s life signs in his ears, and wondered what in hell had just happened.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE CAFÉ WAS BUSY, which made it even more ridiculous that Lucy’s heart insisted on skipping a beat every time the door opened and a customer entered. Was she excited at the prospect of spending more time with Adrian? Nervous about it? She didn’t even know, but she didn’t like reacting so strongly for no good reason at all.

  For goodness’ sake, he was going to eat lunch in the café! He’d eaten here last night. She planned to introduce him to a few people. He’d probably freeze her out in between stops. He was good at that.

  Reason didn’t seem to be helping. Something had changed between them this morning. He’d let her see the cracks in his facade of invulnerability. Well, he might not have chosen to show them, but they were there. He did hurt. This wasn’t easy for him.

  And he’d looked at her. Really looked, and maybe even liked what he’d seen. For just a moment, she’d seen something on his face that had stolen her breath and panicked her.

  Common sense and reason did work to stifle any sense of expectation that he was suddenly, madly attracted to her. Okay, there might have been a brief flicker. But Lucy hated to think how she compared to the women he usually dated.

  Her hands froze in the act of tossing salad in a huge bowl.

  Dated? He could conceivably be married. When she researched him on the Internet before going over to Seattle that day, she didn’t see anything to make her think he was, and he certainly hadn’t mentioned a wife, as in, My wife will visit any nursing homes my assistant finds, which you’d think would be natural. But he was closemouthed enough that it was still possible.

  And what difference did it make if he was? she asked herself with unaccountable depression. He was here in Middleton until Tuesday. Today was Saturday. Once he was gone, she’d probably get a nice note thanking her for taking care of his mother and that was it. Oh, and the chances were his assistant would’ve written the note. Wasn’t that what assistants did?

  Mabel stuck her head in the kitchen. “Erin just called in sick. She has a cold.”

  Lucy groaned. “Oh, no. Is it bad? Or an I-need-a-personal-day bug?”

  “I didn’t recognize her voice. It sounded like she has a doozy of a cold.”

  “Which we’d better not catch.” Lucy frowned. “Okay. Why don’t you call Bridget? I was going to hire her anyway. See if she can start tonight. She’s spent enough time here she ought to be able to jump right in.”

  Mabel knew Lucy’s aunt as well as Lucy did. “Beth doesn’t want her to work.”

  “Yeah, I kinda suspected that. That’s between them. I can’t imagine she’d mind Bridget filling in.”

  “Probably not,” Mabel conceded. She flapped a hand and retreated.

  The bell on the door tinkled and Lucy’s head snapped around. For the hundredth time.

  It was him. He looked more human today, wearing running shoes, jeans and a V-neck blue jersey. Sexier, she realized, her pulse tap-dancing. Even his hair was a little disheveled.

  Unlike last night, when his single glance around the café had been distant and even dismissive, tod
ay his gaze moved slowly and comprehensively from the old-fashioned, gilt-trimmed cash register and the jar of free mints to the artwork hanging on the walls, the windows with their red-checked curtains below lacy valances, the townsfolk and tourists nearly filling the tables and row of booths along the back wall and finally the cutout that allowed her to see him.

  Their eyes met, and he nodded.

  Lucy nodded, too, hastily, and ducked out of sight, her cheeks hot. He’d caught her gaping.

  No, he hadn’t. She’d glanced up because a patron had entered the café. She always kept half an eye on the front of the house even while she was cooking. Of course she did; it was her restaurant.

  He had no reason to suspect he made her heart flutter, and she wouldn’t give him any reason to.

  What the heck. He’d probably be rude this afternoon to someone she really liked, and her heart would quit fluttering anyway.

  When she looked out at the restaurant again, Mabel had seated him and he was studying a menu. Other people were covertly watching him. Lucy’s cousin Jen was murmuring behind her hand to her best friend, Rhonda, who owned the Clip and Curl, the competition to the Hair Do. Rhonda had been heard saying disdainfully, “I wouldn’t have washed some homeless woman’s hair. Imagine how disgusting it must be.” Lucy didn’t like Rhonda, and Jen wasn’t her favorite relative, either. Jen, who liked feeling important, would be telling all she knew about the rich lawyer who was the homeless woman’s son. The two were probably both thrilled that he’d be ridding Middleton of the scourge of homelessness.

  Jen had come by her tendency to gossip naturally. Her mom was Lucy’s Aunt Lynn. The one who was a trial.

  Lucy had worked herself up to being annoyed enough that she took off her apron and marched out, ignoring Jen and Rhonda, straight to Adrian.

  Maybe, if she were lucky, she’d start the whole family talking. Hadn’t she wished for years that she’d done something exciting enough to scandalize them?

  “I’m glad you made it,” she said.

  He looked up from the menu. “You thought I was afraid to show up?” Before she could answer, he said, “How’s the grilled-chicken sandwich with red-pepper aioli?”

  “Fabulous,” Lucy assured him. “Sam bakes the focaccia bread for us.”

  “Ah.” That apparently decided him, because he set down the menu. “This is a family enterprise, huh?”

  “No, it’s mine, except that I’ve been buying baked goods from Sam. And now we’re talking about me catering dinners for some special events she’s thinking of holding at the B and B. Like a mystery weekend. You know.” She paused. “Well, and I just added one of my cousins to the waitstaff. Although her mom won’t be happy.” Oh, brilliant. Like he’d care. “Are you ready for me to take your order?”

  His eyes held a glint. “Did you think I wasn’t going to show?”

  “No. I doubt you ever back away from whatever you’ve decided is the best course.”

  Did that sound as rude to him as it had to her own ears?

  His mouth twisted. “Oh, I have my cowardly impulses.” Then his expression closed and he said, “I’d like the grilled-chicken sandwich and a cup of your soup.”

  “Anything to drink?”

  “Just coffee.”

  “It’ll be right out,” she said, and went back to the kitchen.

  Mabel was dishing up soup. Voice dry, she said, “Bridget squealed and said, ‘I can start tonight? Awesome!’”

  “She’s young.”

  “She’ll do fine,” Mabel said comfortably. “If she’s floundering, I’ll stay late.”

  Lucy smiled at her. “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”

  “What’d Mr. Attorney order?”

  “Adrian.” Lucy moderated a voice that had come out sharper than she’d intended. “His name is Adrian Rutledge.”

  Mabel’s carefully plucked eyebrows rose. “Didn’t mean to be insulting.”

  “It sounded insulting.” Lucy sighed. “Forget it. Rhonda and Jen are out there whispering, and that got my back up.”

  “They get my back up every time they come in here. Don’t worry.” She nodded toward the front. “Are you getting his order?”

  “Yes, and I’m going to take a couple of hours after the rush is over to introduce him to people who knew his mom. He wants to find out what he can about her.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mabel’s skepticism was plain, but she grabbed two salads and whisked out of the kitchen before Lucy could demand to know why she was hostile to Adrian.

  Lucy did deliver his food, but she didn’t have time to sit with him any more than she had with the hat lady the last time she’d come here. The better business was, the less time Lucy had to do anything but hustle. Between cooking and doing the ordering, she had precious few hours away from the café, and in some of those she kept the books, made deposits and created new recipes.

  She liked cooking. She liked experimenting, and chatting with customers, and showing everyone she could succeed. But the responsibility of owning the place and having half a dozen other people’s livelihoods depend on her was so overwhelming, she had no chance to even imagine what else she could do with her life. She hadn’t been on a date in…Lucy had to count back. Four and a half months, and that was playing tennis at the club in Port Angeles and lunch afterward with Owen Marshall. And that hadn’t been what you’d call a success. After watching him throw a temper tantrum when he lost a set to her, she hadn’t hesitated to say no the next time he called.

  Lately, no one else was asking, and it didn’t appear likely anyone would in the near future. She knew every single guy in Middleton entirely too well to be interested, and anyway, when would she go out with a guy? Friday and Saturday were the busiest nights of the week at the café. She had to be here.

  What’s more, she knew she wasn’t any more than pretty. Lucy wasn’t alone in considering herself to be the plain one in her family. Put her next to her sisters Samantha and Melissa, and she faded into the background. Disconcerting but true. They had regular dates.

  Which was undoubtedly why her heart had bounced just because Adrian Rutledge had looked intrigued by her for one brief moment. How often did that happen?

  Never?

  You’re pathetic, she told herself, before stealing another look out to see how he liked his lunch.

  Hard to tell, when a man was chewing then swallowing.

  It was two o’clock before she could escape, and then not without guilt. But Shea, her assistant cook, had shown up, and Bridget was to come at four to help set the tables for dinner. Lucy could spare a couple of hours.

  Adrian had waited with apparent patience, sipping coffee and reading the weekly Middleton Courier.

  “My mother’s accident is in here,” he said, closing the newspaper and folding it when Lucy walked up.

  “Well, of course it is. I told you, everyone knows her. And we don’t have that many accidents right here in town.”

  The editor had referred to her as “the kind woman known affectionately as ‘the hat lady,’” which Lucy had thought was particularly tactful. She was glad he hadn’t mentioned that the hat lady was homeless. From his write-up, it sounded as if she might have been a respectable senior citizen who was borrowing a Safeway shopping cart to get her groceries home, rather than an indigent whose shopping cart was the next thing to a home. Adrian wouldn’t have to be embarrassed after reading the article in the Courier.

  “Where do we start?” he asked.

  “The library.” Lucy had already decided. “I know Wendy is working this afternoon. She was really fond of your mother.”

  He held open the door for her. “She’s the librarian?”

  Lucy nodded, and after suggesting they walk since the library was only three blocks away, she said, “Yes. Wendy’s from Yakima, but she married Glenn Monsey who was working for a builder over there. Our old librarian was ready to retire when Glenn decided to come home to work with his dad, who’s a contractor.”

  “I hadn’t noti
ced any new building.”

  Was he bored? Or sneering at her town? Just because she sometimes thought Middleton was dull didn’t mean she’d put up with an outsider saying so. Eyeing him suspiciously, she said, “They do more over in Sequim than here in town, but we have new houses, too. Plus, they do remodeling.”

  He nodded, but she wasn’t sure he’d even paid attention to what she said. His steps had slowed. “You have an attorney in town.”

  The office that had caught his attention was narrow, sandwiched between a gift-and-card shop and Middleton’s only real estate office. On the window, gold letters announced in an elegant script, Elton Weatherby, Attorney-At-Law.

  She waved through the window at Mr. Weatherby, who she happened to know was seventy-four years old. He and her grandfather had been in the same grade in school. He was thin and stooped, with a white shock of hair and a luxuriant mustache that actually curled up on the ends. He waved back.

  “I suppose he doesn’t do much but write wills,” Adrian said thoughtfully.

  “Why would you think that? Middleton’s a normal town with all the usual lawsuits and squabbles. He does quite a bit of criminal defense, although most of it might be small potatoes by your standards.”

  “Tavern brawls?”

  Lucy was pleased to find that she was starting once again to dislike Adrian Rutledge. His condescension annoyed her.

  “We have murder and rape and domestic disturbances, just like everyone else,” she said shortly, then nodded at a business on the next corner. “We’ll stop at the Hair Do later and talk to Cindy.”

  “Your sister mentioned her. She said Cindy cut my mother’s hair.”

  He always said my mother in the same, stilted way. On impulse Lucy asked, “You must have called her Mom when you were a kid.”

  Adrian glanced at her. “That was a long time ago.”

  “You just always sound so…uncomfortable. As if you don’t want to acknowledge her.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw his jaw muscles knot. After a minute he said, “But I have, haven’t I? I’m here.”

  Immediately ashamed, Lucy said, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”