The New Man

by Janice Kay Johnson

Devlin picked at a hole in his jeans and didn’t say anything.

  “Didn’t you notice she was getting scared?”

  “Kyle came over. We didn’t watch.” He raised his head, the same anger darkening his eyes. “You make me baby-sit, but I don’t have to do everything with her.”

  “No, you don’t. But it would be nice if you had paid enough attention to notice she was afraid to turn her light off.”

  Devlin flushed. “Why do I have to baby-sit anyway? None of my friends do! I can never go anywhere, because I’m stuck with my sister.”

  The loathing in his voice rocked Alec back on his heels. Dev resented having the responsibility of staying with Lily that much? Or was this just part of the bigger problem: the fact that he wanted nothing to do with his father or home?

  Quietly Alec said, “You know if you have something specific to do, I can get someone to stay with Lily. Or she can spend the night with a friend. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask you to stay home with her sometimes. Kyle doesn’t have to do the same because he’s the youngest in his family. Don’t I remember his big sister taking care of him?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll be on the computer for a while. Please clean the kitchen before you go to bed.”

  Smoldering silence was the answer. His jaw clenched, Alec strode from the room. After glancing in at Lily, he headed downstairs and took refuge in his office.

  He didn’t turn on the computer, only sat frowning at the dark screen. He’d had such a good evening. Talking about Linda had hurt, but not as much as he’d expected. He was glad he and Helen were past that hurdle. She probably hadn’t wanted Linda to become real to her any more than he had wanted to imagine Helen with her husband.

  But the way they had talked had left Alec feeling at peace about their past marriages. They had both loved, lost and grieved. It sounded like Helen, too, had finally reached a stage where she could let somebody else into her life without any feeling of guilt.

  He had been glad to see that he didn’t bear any resemblance to Ben. That might have bothered him. He liked, too, the fact that Helen was very different from Linda, except that both loved their children fiercely. He didn’t want a carbon copy of Linda. He wanted to love a different woman, to have her share his life as completely as Linda had.

  Helen, he was becoming increasingly certain, was that woman. She was smart, compassionate, direct, kind to his kids. And, from the moment he first saw her, he had wanted her. His body tightened whenever she popped into his mind. Sitting here right now, his fingers curled into fists as he imagined the heavy silk of her hair, always sleek against her head because she confined it. There was a fragility about her, in part because of that porcelain skin. Slender ankles, delicate wrists—he’d swear they weren’t any bigger around than Lily’s, an intriguing, unnameable scent that clung to her whatever she wore, a mouth that smiled easily and tasted like…vanilla. Home. She was all contrast: pale face against the dark fire of her hair, vulnerability and strength, doubt and certainty.

  He was fast falling in love with Helen Schaefer, and thought she might be reciprocating.

  Hearing the thud of footsteps on the stairs, followed by cupboard doors banging in the kitchen, Alec grimaced.

  Nothing like knowing that your much-loved first-born child was likely to derail a new romance. Who in their right mind would want to take on stepparenting a sullen, rude, resentful teenage boy?

  Helen was making some gutsy changes in her own life. Alec just hoped she was up to one more: taking the huge risk of loving him, encumbrances and all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HELEN SAW ALEC half a dozen times in the next two weeks, but always around other people. She and Kathleen had scheduled craft fairs that ran Friday through Sunday the last weekend in July and the first in August. Helen also tried to spend as much time with Ginny as she could to make up for her planned absence the following week.

  Ginny insisted on doing every day of both fairs with Helen, despite invitations to do fun stuff with her friends.

  On the way to Anacortes on Saturday morning, Helen asked, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have gone to Hood Canal with Jennifer?”

  Jennifer’s parents owned a waterfront weekend “cabin,” with four bedrooms, just south of the Hood Canal bridge. It apparently included a dock, several boats, a gigantic trampoline, and a fire pit.

  “Making S’mores over a beach fire sounds like fun to me,” Helen continued.

  Ginny shrugged. “I just didn’t want to go.”

  It occurred to Helen suddenly, with amazement at her own denseness, that Ginny had never spent a night away from home. Sleepovers hadn’t interested her.

  Oh, dear, Helen thought.

  She let a few miles pass before commenting, “I’m going to miss you next week.”

  Ginny fastened eager eyes on her mother’s face. “I could go with you!”

  Helen squeezed her daughter’s small hand. “I did think about taking you. But it would be an awfully boring trip for you—”

  “I don’t care!”

  “And,” Helen continued, “it wouldn’t look very professional to have a child with me when I go into stores.”

  “I could wait in the car.” Ginny almost quivered as she pleaded. “Please? Please?”

  Of course Helen wanted to succumb. How could she say no to that face?

  Are you ever going to be able to say no to her if you give in every time? an inner voice asked tartly.

  Ginny couldn’t always go with her. They might as well get over the hurdle right away, rather than putting it off until the next business trip.

  “Ginny…”

  “Please?”

  Helen sighed. “Let me think about it, okay? I suspect you’d have a better time staying home. We’d be driving miles and miles through dry, uninteresting country. You’ll be bored while I’m talking to store owners. We wouldn’t have time to do much that’s fun for you.”

  Ginny began to protest again, but Helen raised her hand.

  “Let me finish. I was going to say that, on the other hand, you can’t go with me once school starts, whereas this time you could. And you’re good company. But let me think about it. No,” she said, before Ginny could get her mouth open. “No pleading. I’ll say no right now if you keep arguing.”

  Ginny pretended to “zip” her lips.

  Helen couldn’t help laughing.

  The Anacortes Arts and Crafts Fair was one of Helen’s favorites. The town itself was charming, full of wonderful Victorian houses. The ferry to the San Juan Islands left from here, and the main drag, Commercial Street, ran directly down to the shore. A marina was only blocks away, seagulls soared and the scent of the Sound was everywhere. Antique stores, kitchen shops, B and Bs and boutiques attracted tourists. This year, like last, the closed street was jammed with shoppers by ten in the morning, and the stacks of soap kept having to be replenished during one of the busiest days Helen and Kathleen had ever had.

  Late in the afternoon, Emma took Ginny off to look at other booths. The crowd on Commercial Street had thinned, leaving trash strewn on the pavement and exhausted exhibitors—Helen and Kathleen included—slumped in lawn chairs.

  When Helen asked her about Ginny tagging along the sales trip, Kathleen frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe you should take her,” she said at last. “It might help when you have to leave her if she can picture what you’re doing. And she’ll know you’re not exactly having fun.”

  Helen puffed out a breath. “Ginny doesn’t care about fun. Haven’t you noticed? She’s less interested in playing than any kid I’ve ever met.”

  “Hmm.” Kathleen weighed that. “You’re right. She’s awfully solemn.”

  “I don’t know if she’s actually scared about being left, or just afraid she’ll miss me, or what.” Helen gazed sightlessly at the booth across from them. “I’m sorry! If she’s scared to sleep or really freaks out, you’re the one who’ll have to deal with her.”

  Kathleen patted her arm. “What are ‘aunts
’ for?”

  Helen gave a choked laugh. “What would I do without you guys?”

  “Make an honest-to-goodness salary, instead of putting in ridiculous hours trying to start up a business?” Kathleen suggested.

  This laugh felt more genuine. “Ah, but you’re my road to obscene wealth.”

  Kathleen’s face brightened. “We’re doing really well again this weekend, aren’t we?”

  “Do you have any idea how many people have stopped by and said, ‘Oh! I bought some of your soap here last summer and I loved it’? After which they loaded up.”

  “Isn’t that amazing?” Kathleen smiled at a woman who wandered into their tent. Raising her voice, she said, “Hi. Ignore us. We’re too tired to stand up.”

  The woman laughed. “Actually I have a booth down the way—jewelry.” She took a card from her shorts pocket. “I swore I was going to find time to look at everyone else’s stuff. And I’ve got to tell you, I love your soap! I’ve been buying it at Whole Foods in Seattle.”

  Helen met Kathleen’s eyes and both burst out laughing. After Helen explained their recent conversation, the woman nodded. “Isn’t that the best compliment you can get?”

  Not long after, Ginny’s hand tucked securely in Emma’s, the two girls returned from their expedition. Helen was conscious of the way her daughter’s gaze sought her out when the girls were still half a block away, as if Ginny had been afraid her mother would disappear while she was out of sight.

  Maybe, Helen thought, she’d better find the money for Ginny to have some counseling.

  Or was this fear something shared by all children who’d had a parent die? Ginny clung; Devlin Fraser, apparently, was testing his father constantly. Are you really here to stay? he seemed to be asking.

  But why? Ginny’s insecurity, Helen could understand. It might stem as much from Helen’s emotional withdrawal during that last year of Ben’s illness and the months following the funeral as it did from the loss of her father. Her mom’s grief had scared Ginny. Now she had to be sure all the time that her mommy really was here.

  Had Alec, too, withdrawn from his children? Was that what had scared his son? Or was something way more complicated going on inside the boy’s head?

  Well, he wasn’t Helen’s worry; Ginny was.

  On the drive home, Helen said, “I’ve decided you can come with me next week.”

  “Yeah!” Ginny bounced happily, restrained from hugging her mother only by the seat belt.

  “We’ll try to have a good time. Make the trip a little bit of a vacation, too. After all, you’ve never seen the Columbia River, or the apple orchards in Wenatchee, or the wheat fields near Walla Walla.”

  “Alec says lots of wine comes from eastern Washington. I guess they grow grapes there or something.”

  “So I understand.” Helen grinned at her daughter. “I doubt we’ll tour any wineries, though?”

  Her daughter’s nose wrinkled. “Wine is gross!”

  Helen laughed. “It’s an acquired taste.”

  Of course she had to explain “acquired.” When Ginny concentrated, the mechanics of her mental storage were visible, as if a file drawer was pulled out, a new card dropped in, the drawer slid back in place.

  “Oh,” Ginny said, the process complete.

  “You do understand that you can’t come with me every time.”

  The delight on Ginny’s face faded, reminding Helen painfully of the wraithlike child Ginny had been when they first moved into Kathleen’s house.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you scared by the idea of me leaving?”

  Ginny bent her head and nibbled on a fingernail. Her voice was small. “Not scared ’zactly.”

  “You can’t get homesick, because you’ll be home.”

  “But I won’t know what you’re doing.”

  Helen cast her a puzzled glance. “Sure you will. Especially after you go with me once.”

  Ginny was quiet.

  Helen drove, sneaking sidelong looks at the curtain of pale brown hair veiling her daughter’s face. Finally, gently, she said, “What do you think I’ll be doing?”

  Ginny’s shoulders jerked.

  Helen waited.

  “What if something happens to you?” the eight-year-old burst out. “And we don’t know? What if you just don’t come home?”

  “Oh, honey! Nothing will happen to me! I’m a careful driver. Besides, I’ll have my cell phone and I’ll call at least once a day so you know where I am.”

  Ginny stole one desperate look at her mother’s face. “Do you promise?”

  Cross my heart almost slipped out. Thankfully, Helen remembered the rest: …and hope to die.

  “I swear. And I will keep my purse with me every minute so if I were to get in a car accident or faint gracefully on a sidewalk, anyone could look to see who I am and where I live.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “Faint gracefully?” She gave Ginny’s small hand a last squeeze. “Probably not. I’d probably topple over like that piano the Lanskys were moving. Remember?”

  She was rewarded with a giggle. The neighbors had been sure they didn’t need to hire a mover when they bought a used upright piano. Unfortunately, they’d gotten it halfway up the front steps of their house when it began falling back. The two men below had jumped out of the way and the piano had crashed to the cement walk with a spectacular symphony of splintering wood and discordant notes. The neighbors who had gathered to watch had stared in horror.

  “No,” Ginny said, “you’d flop like Pirate does.” She lurched to the side to mimic their orange tabby, who loved to have his tummy rubbed.

  “Well, thanks,” Helen said in mock annoyance.

  Her daughter giggled again.

  Helen hoped she’d done the right thing, giving in this time. But that night, when told about the trip, Jo wasn’t so sure, shaking Helen’s confidence. Logan, on the other hand, snorted when Helen told him that Jo thought Ginny needed to experience her mom going away—and coming back safely.

  “Sounds sort of like the kind of swim lessons where you shove the kid in the deep end and see if he drowns.”

  “But eventually I’m going to have to shove her in!” Helen heard the desperation threading her voice. “Aren’t I?”

  Logan, who had been pouring a cup of coffee, joined her at the kitchen table. Built like a longshoreman, with shaggy dark hair, he had the kindest eyes she had ever seen.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, between sips. “Aren’t you giving her lessons already? You’ve been working, dating. Here’s my suggestion. After this trip, why don’t you make the next one short? Just an overnighter. You could go over to the Peninsula, maybe, or up to Bellingham. Time after that, you can be gone a couple of nights. Hell, you don’t want to be on the road all the time anyway, do you?”

  “No,” she said gratefully. “No, I don’t. I’d miss Ginny. I’d miss all of you!” She flashed a brilliant smile at him. “I’d kiss you if I wasn’t afraid of your wife.”

  His low, rough chuckle was almost as sexy as Alec’s.

  Alec came up to Anacortes Sunday and dragged her away from the booth for some of what he called comparison shopping.

  “I want to see what artists haven’t applied to Queen Anne. And whether we want ’em.”

  Ginny materialized at her side. “Can I come, too, Mom?”

  Much as she loved her daughter, Helen’s heart sank just the tiniest bit. Visions of stolen kisses had danced in her head.

  “Nope,” Kathleen said from the depths of the tent. “Ginny, I need you. We can’t spare more than one of us at a time.”

  Ginny shot Alec a resentful look, but turned dutifully. “Oh. Okay.”

  “I won’t be gone long,” Helen promised, then mouthed to Kathleen, Thank you.

  Kathleen winked, provoking the very chuckle from Alec that Helen had been thinking about last night.

  He fell silent so quickly, however, that Helen glanced at him in surprise. As they made thei
r way through the crowd, a frown drew his brows together.

  “Ginny doesn’t like me much, does she?”

  Surprised, Helen replied, “She hasn’t actually said. And I haven’t asked.”

  He looked down at her. “Afraid?”

  “No-o.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She punched his arm. “Come on. Have you asked Devlin how he feels about me?”

  Somewhat grimly, Alec said, “I don’t have to.”

  Nudged by the crowd, they were briefly separated. When they came together again, Helen said, “That bad, huh?”

  “He hasn’t exchanged ten words with you. Heck, he doesn’t like me, either.”

  Helen didn’t know what to say. Alec must know his son loved him, whatever the boy’s behavior suggested. She simply didn’t know enough about their conflict to offer any ideas. She’d seen them together only the once, at Nordstrom. Maybe the problem wasn’t all Devlin; maybe Alec was too stern, expected too much, felt a sense of competition and tried to assert dominance. She couldn’t be sure that she was hearing the whole story from Alec.

  “Where are your kids today?” she asked.

  He had paused at a booth displaying wrought-iron garden stakes, trellises and arbors. “Both at friends’ houses. I’d have brought Lily otherwise.”

  “Ginny liked her. She’s spent so much time with Emma, she thinks kids her own age are silly.”

  “Lily seemed to like her, too.”

  They bought caramel apples and ate them as they walked. Alec kissed the tip of her nose and said it was sweet. And sticky.

  Helen greeted exhibitors she knew and studied the displays of those she didn’t. Traffic control in one booth was cleverly designed, she thought; the mood another created was somehow chic and upscale, making her think of shops in Belltown, Seattle’s exclusive neighborhood. She grabbed a couple of particularly catchy business cards. The ones for Kathleen’s Soaps had been cheap and needed a redo. Too bad they couldn’t capture the scent of raspberry cream or cinnamon-oatmeal in heavy card stock.

  Alec spoke with a few vendors, suggesting they apply to the Queen Anne arts and craft fair next year. Because it was a relatively new one, some of the well-established crafters hadn’t yet tried it out. While Lucinda and Helen and Kathleen spent virtually every weekend all summer at fairs, other artists who depended more on retail sales or showed in galleries might only do a few. Helen was beginning to think Kathleen’s Soaps might follow suit in a couple of years. These fairs were fun but exhausting.