The New Man Read online

  Then he smiled impartially at both women and said, “I’d better get my welcome wagon moving, or I won’t make it all the way around. It was good to meet both of you.” His gaze lingered on Helen’s face. “And thank you for this.” He bounced the soap in his hand like a kid with a baseball.

  “You’re welcome.”

  A moment later, he was gone. Helen pretended she didn’t mind.

  “Enjoy your dinner?”

  Lucinda peered out. “Lucky him, he’s been way-laid by Nancy Pearce. She’ll find something to complain about.”

  “Oh, maybe not.”

  “You’re too charitable,” her blond neighbor said dryly. “Our Nancy likes doing the fancy indoor shows. Outside, the ground is always bumpy, she never likes her assigned spot, and if it isn’t raining it’s too hot.”

  Helen couldn’t help chuckling, even though she felt guilty. “She claimed to have twisted her ankle last week, there was such an awful hole right in the middle of her space.”

  “Conveniently covered by a table skirt, so nobody else could see it.”

  “Well…yes.”

  Still spying, Lucinda said, “She’s laughing! Can you believe it?”

  Yes, Helen thought but didn’t say. She could.

  “Actually—” Lucinda sounded thoughtful “—I’m not totally surprised. He did have a lovely smile. And shoulders.” She craned her neck a little farther as Alec Fraser apparently crossed the aisle. “Oh, hell. He’s gorgeous.” She sighed and turned. “Who could be immune?”

  “Not me,” Helen admitted. “Especially after he unloaded half my stuff for me.”

  “I wonder if he’s married,” Lucinda mused. She pinned her gaze on Helen. “Are you married?”

  “No, and not looking,” Helen said firmly. She lifted a wooden box from a cardboard carton and set it on the table, opening the lid to reveal the soaps packed inside.

  Lucinda touched the silky smooth wood. “Those are beauties. I meant to tell you last week.”

  “Kathleen’s husband is a cabinetmaker. This was his idea. Of course, he makes them.”

  “They’ll sell like hotcakes.” Lucinda wasn’t to be diverted. “Why aren’t you looking?”

  None of your business, trembled on Helen’s lips but remained unsaid. Lucinda had been too nice to her.

  “I’m a widow.” Her words were clipped. “I loved my husband deeply. His illness was…terrible. I won’t face anything like that ever again.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Nearly three years.”

  Voice gruff, the older woman said, “I hope you change your mind. My first husband was killed in Vietnam. I couldn’t imagine going through that a second time. Now, I can’t imagine not having had the past twenty years with Monty.”

  “I didn’t know….”

  “That I was married? We have a deal. I do craft shows, he golfs.” The bawdy grin was unexpected on her weathered face. “The rest of the time, we honeymoon.”

  Helen couldn’t help laughing again. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to meet a Monty someday. But…not yet.”

  “Maybe you’re readier than you know.” Lucinda waggled her eyebrows as she gave a meaningful glance in Alec Fraser’s direction. Then, before Helen could argue, she let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen to my tongue flap. I never give advice, don’t believe in it. Anyway, I still have a ton to do.” She lifted a hand in farewell and rounded the tent walls into her own space.

  A moment later, Helen heard the clank of a rack being assembled and the growl of her neighbor mumbling to herself.

  Helen was left feeling unsettled, her sunny sense of contentment clouded by memories and by the unwelcome awareness of a man who wasn’t Ben Schaefer.

  No, she wasn’t ready. She never would be. Once was enough. Ben couldn’t be replaced.

  She knew even as the thought formed that she was lying to herself. It wasn’t that no one would ever measure up to her husband. He’d had his flaws. Just because he had died, she wasn’t going to turn him into a fairy-tale prince. There probably were men out there with whom she could fall in love.

  She just didn’t want to.

  Having Ben torn from her had hurt too bad. The agony of seeing him lose his hair and his robust color and his muscle tone and finally even the smile in his eyes and the strength in his voice had been unspeakable. Even worse was saying goodbye every day, with every touch and word, for a year and a half.

  After the funeral, people had patted her hand and said kindly, “The worst is over. At least this wasn’t a surprise. You’ve had time to grieve in advance, to say goodbye. I know you’re grateful for the time you had with him this past year.”

  Was she? Helen didn’t know. She had tried a thousand times to imagine how it would have been if Ben had been late for dinner one night, and a knock came on her door. She could see herself opening it, finding a police officer standing there with compassion written on his face. “I’m sorry,” he’d say. “Your husband has been in a car accident. He’s dead.”

  Perhaps they weren’t that blunt. She didn’t know. Maybe they told you to sit down first, or suggested you call a friend or relative to hold your hand. That wasn’t the point.

  The point was the suddenness. Ben—the Ben she had married and held the night before and laughed with that morning—would be gone. Poof. His life snuffed out in an instant rather than inch by excruciating inch.

  She knew the shock would have been stunning, the grief overwhelming. Grief, she understood. But her last memory would have been of Ben’s smile, the warmth of his lips when he kissed her goodbye, as he did every morning. As he had every morning, until he became too ill to go to work, and then too ill to get out of bed at all.

  Instead she’d had to watch him suffer, his wry humor and intelligence and personality disintegrating until only pain and regret were left. She’d had to believe, for a long time, that each new treatment would work, that he could get better. And then she’d had to pretend that she believed, for his sake and for Ginny’s.

  And because she was too stubborn, too selfish, to let go. She had made him try hopeless treatments and suffer longer than he had to because she didn’t want to lose him.

  All she knew was, Ben’s death had been so dreadful, she never, ever wanted to love someone else and lose him.

  Which meant that these stirrings of sexual interest were unwelcome. Some people could separate sex from love, but she wasn’t one of them.

  Studying the display with unseeing eyes, Helen decided that it was lucky Alec Fraser wasn’t an executive at Nordstrom, where she worked, or a neighbor, or a friend of Logan’s, or anyone else she would see on a regular basis. He was a stranger, presumably a resident of Queen Anne, a part of Seattle where she rarely went, and she would very likely never see him again.

  Ignoring the sinking sensation she felt at her own pronouncement, she nodded. It was definitely best if she didn’t meet Alec Fraser again.

  TWO HOURS LATER, Alec detoured down the first aisle again. Just to see if any of the missing exhibitors had arrived, he told himself.

  As a result, he had to waste fifteen minutes explaining to a jackass he remembered from two years ago why he had been assigned a location that was apparently undesirable.

  “We weren’t aware that any aisle has consistently earned less revenue,” he said patiently. “Some fairgoers start at one end, some at the other, some in the middle.”

  “I’ve been coming here for five years, and I have a piece in your juried show,” the bearded artist said huffily. “I’d have thought I’d earned a spot that wasn’t in Siberia.”

  Alec shrugged. “You made no specific request, and I’m not sure we could have honored it if you had. Our main goal is to have variety from booth to booth. That can get complicated.”

  “I may not be able to put Queen Anne on my schedule next year,” the painter responded.

  “That’s certainly your privilege.” Alec inclined his head. “We have more applicants than we do openings in a
ny case.”

  If it were solely up to him, he wouldn’t have invited this idiot, and not just on grounds of personality. Alec didn’t like his grandiose oils, which lacked originality. But they sold well, another member of the screening committee had pointed out. Not everyone had taste, she’d said, adding, “I hope I didn’t just deeply offend somebody here who loves his work.”

  Not a soul had admitted to being so shallow.

  Ashamed of his pettiness, which he knew stemmed in part from irritation, Alec moved on.

  A jeweler who was a newcomer to this show was laying out wonderful, imaginative pendants and earrings on black velvet trays. Witches and mermaids and fat old ladies in yellow danced from delicate wires. Niobium and glass and sequins had somehow been persuaded to come alive.

  He complimented her on her work, fingering one pendant with a fiery-haired enchantress apparently dancing in nothing but a childhood fantasy of a tutu, her topless state a mere hint but enough to make him glance down the aisle, toward Number 143.

  Did Helen Schaefer, businesswoman, ever abandon conventions and let herself feel purely joyful?

  Alec frowned. Damn it, he’d barely met her! She probably had a Mr. Schaefer at home. He was pretty sure she’d worn a wedding ring. He doubted that she’d meant to flirt, despite that remark about him smelling good enough to eat.

  “I’ll give you a discount.” Smiling, the young, pierced and tattooed jeweler nodded at the pendant in his hand. “You look taken with it.”

  For a moment, he hesitated, tempted. But what would he do with the darned thing if… No. It wasn’t the kind of gift you gave your dark-haired sister for her thirty-fifth birthday. And he wasn’t even dating these days.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think so.” With a pang of regret, he laid it back on its spot. “Your jewelry is going to sell like Beanie Babies did in their prime.”

  He ambled on, nodding and exchanging a few words with vendors he had already met, checking out a booth of framed black-and-white photos of staircases and shadows and faces turned away that stood out from the usual wildlife and scenery fare. The photographer was off somewhere, and Alec made a mental note to stop by the next morning.

  He was only a few tents away, engaged in conversation with a candlemaker, when he saw Helen Schaefer come out of hers, close the flaps and climb into her pickup truck without a backward glance. In seconds, the truck maneuevered around the corner, turned into the school playground and was gone.

  She’d be back, he reminded himself. Tomorrow he could stop by and say hello, thank her again for the soap. Maybe ask about her family, in the hope that she wore the wedding ring out of sentiment rather than as a label.

  As he did. Alec glanced down at the plain gold band on his left hand. It was a part of him. He hadn’t taken it off in sixteen years, not since the moment he said, “I do,” and kissed his bride.

  He wondered how Linda would feel about him taking it off now, maybe putting it in the carved wooden box from Poland she had given him for Christmas many years ago that sat on his dresser. Was she anywhere she could know?

  Damn it, Alec thought, what was wrong with him? This wasn’t the time to let himself get sucked into an eddy of regret or sorrow. There was no reason to dredge up the past just because he’d met a woman who had fleetingly made him imagine falling in love again.

  Still he walked faster and made his last few greetings briefer. It was nine o’clock on Thursday night. Yeah, okay, Devlin was fourteen and therefore old enough to be in charge, but chances were he’d have spent the evening closeted in his bedroom, the door firmly shut, music shaking the timbers of the house. If his sister was being abducted, he wouldn’t hear her bloodcurdling screams.

  Not that Lily wasn’t responsible, too. She knew better than to answer the door without being sure she knew who was on the other side. But she was only eleven, teetering between childhood and adolescence, her body dragging her along despite any protests her father occasionally uttered to God. Lately she’d taken to hunching her shoulders and wearing sacky sweatshirts stolen from her brother’s closet. Alec guessed it was time to tackle buying her first bra. Not the kind of purchase he had ever envisioned having any part in.

  There weren’t any police cars parked in front of his house, and he didn’t feel a bass thumping through his bones when he got out of his Mercedes in the garage. Alec frowned. Dev wouldn’t have taken off and left his sister alone, would he?

  But upstairs he found unusual harmony, the two slouched at opposite ends of the couch as they watched a movie that wasn’t familiar to Alec. The coffee table was littered with plates, empty pop cans and candy wrappers.

  “Hey, guys.” He leaned against the back of the couch. “I’m home.”

  “We noticed,” his son said disagreeably.

  “Hi, Daddy.” Lily didn’t tear her eyes from the big-screen TV.

  “What are you watching?”

  His son gave him an impatient glance. “Don’t worry. It’s PG13. We rented it. Last night. Remember?”

  Alec did vaguely recall paying for a couple of DVD rentals while they were grocery shopping. He’d glanced to see what they had chosen. He hadn’t recognized either title, but neither had appeared inappropriately gory or racy for an eleven-year-old.

  “Good enough,” he said. “I take it you had dinner.”

  “We ordered pizza. There’s some left in the fridge,” Devlin added begrudgingly.

  “Thanks.” Obviously not needed in the family room, Alec retreated to the kitchen, where he put a couple of slices of pizza in the microwave. He shouldn’t eat crap like that, but he didn’t have the energy to hunt for something more nutritious.

  While the microwave hummed, he checked his voice mail and glanced through the day’s snail mail. Neither produced anything interesting or urgent to distract him from his restlessness.

  Setup for the annual arts and craft fair, which he and Linda had been involved in starting, was going smoothly. The quality of work for sale was better than ever, publicity had gone like clockwork, and the weather was cooperating. His kids were getting along.

  So what the hell was wrong with him?

  Of course he knew. Something about Helen Schaefer’s big brown eyes had gotten to him. He’d loved her smile, her gurgle of a laugh, her puckered forehead when she concentrated on laying out the soap. His hand had itched to touch her hair, a shade of auburn that could be subtle or brash depending on the light.

  He was pretty sure she’d worn no makeup to enhance her creamy skin. Her hair had been scraped back in a ponytail so tight it looked painful. Her gray T-shirt and faded blue jeans sure hadn’t been worn to entice. But something about her had punched him in the gut.

  He scowled at the microwave, which beeped obediently as if he’d terrified it into finishing. About time. He didn’t like hanging around the kitchen.

  Carrying a soda and his plate of pizza, he stopped in his tracks. Funny, it hadn’t occurred to him until this minute how uncomfortable he was out here.

  He turned around and looked at the room he and Linda had redone when the kids were little. Small-paned windows framed a view over roof-tops of Puget Sound. Mexican tiles covered the floor, their warm russet color echoed in the smaller hand-painted tiles that formed the countertop and backsplash. They’d eaten most of their meals at the antique table in the center of the room. In those days, he had paid bills at the desk in a nook that had once been the pantry. A refinished armoire had held toys and games, and the kids played on rag rugs Linda wove on crude looms. She had always kept several vases filled with flowers in here. They’d loved the kitchen when they were done remodeling it. They had lived in here.

  The kids still ate at the kitchen table when they gobbled breakfast or lunch, but when the three of them sat down for a meal together, it was in the dining room. He didn’t even remember what excuse he’d used to initiate the change. They were all probably too numb to notice.

  He couldn’t stand the kitchen because it reminded him of his wife. As if he’d
conjured her, he saw Linda turning from the stove, smiling at him. She had been a tall woman, only a couple of inches shorter than Alec, her Swedish blond beauty flawed only by a nose she claimed was too big, and by a tendency to be clumsy. The first time they met, she fell into his arms. Literally. Given her size, he’d barely kept her from crashing to the ground.

  “Linda,” he whispered, and she faded, taking with her the clear memory of her face.

  Turning abruptly, he fled the kitchen for his office. There, the photograph of his wife was too familiar to bring her to life.

  Looking away from it, he had a flash of memory in which he saw another woman’s face, another woman’s smile.

  And the glint of gold and diamonds on the other woman’s left hand.

  As he lifted the can of soda to take a swallow, he eyed his own wedding ring.

  There was undoubtedly a Mr. Schaefer, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask, would it? There was something about Helen, who confessed to loving scents redolent of kitchen and home, that had given him hope he might love again.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he remembered the bar of soap still sitting on the seat in the car. He’d have to go get it. Start his day tomorrow with the pungent scent of eucalyptus.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “DO YOU HAVE the cash box?” eight-year-old Ginny asked, with the air of someone who constantly has to remind her mother how to drive, cook and tie her shoelaces.

  “In my bag,” Helen confirmed, hiding her smile. She locked her car, parked on the gravel shoulder of a side street. “Ready?”

  “Of course,” her daughter said with preternatural composure. A small, slight figure, she adjusted her day pack on her shoulder. “We’d better hurry.”

  It was true, Helen saw with a glance at her watch. A minor accident on Aurora had slowed traffic to a crawl.

  She and Ginny walked as fast as they could the few blocks to the elementary school field where the arts and craft fair had sprouted like a peculiar mushroom after a rainfall. Even first thing on Friday morning, tantalizing aromas drifted from the food booths that had sprung up around the periphery. Colorful flags fluttered above the red-and-white-striped tents. The juried art show was in the gymnasium, and another displaying children’s art filled the halls of the school. Banners were slung along chain-link fences.