For the Girls' Sake (17 page)

Carols played in the background, the delicious smell of turkey and stuffing in the oven drifted from the kitchen, the decorations were more affecting for being modest and homemade. If Shelly hadn’t gotten as many gifts as Rose, she hadn’t suffered. She and Rose would have plenty to do today.

A cold rain fell outside, but the early darkness pressing at the windows suited the season and made him all the gladder for the golden glow of life and liking in here. With four adults and two children, there were hardly enough places to sit; except for the girls and Grandma, who insisted on joining them at the kitchen table, they ate with plates on their laps and drinks carefully set on the floor at their feet. He and Hal Miller, Lynn’s stepfather, talked about the economy and the stock market. Miller had enough investments to be interested and to have some intelligent questions and observations.

"I’ve bought shares in several of the more solid Internet companies,” he commented. "It’s got to be the future."

Lynn made a face. "Don’t tell me you’ve invested in my competition?"

"’Fraid so." He grinned. "Figured we’d better have a cushion just in case."

She rolled her eyes, but grinned. "Oh, thank you. I’ll have you know we had a fabulous Christmas season!"

"Weather was good this fall," Adam said. "Did that keep tourists coming?"

"It didn’t hurt, but tourism is booming over here no matter what the weather," she answered. "Off-season rates entice people to get away for a few days. I guess an ocean storm sounds exotic and wonderful compared to a Portland or Seattle drizzle. Everyone hopes to find a treasure washed up on the beach afterward. In the meantime, they get here and it’s rainy and cold and they didn’t bring enough to do in their hotel rooms." She sounded smug. "They come and see me."

"Ah." Her stepfather nodded seriously. "Not hard to find something to read in your place. I browsed yesterday." He glanced at Adam. "Good section on money and investing."

"I noticed." Adam had browsed, too. Wanting—
well admit it,
he thought—to find out how smart Lynn Chanak was.

Very, he had concluded. She knew her business, which a surprising number of people who hung out a shingle didn’t.

Lynn excused herself to dish up apple pie, à la mode, for those who wanted it. The pie was warm and obviously homemade. Flaky crust, the apples spicy, tart and melt-on-the-tongue soft.

Taking a sip of coffee followed by a mouthful of pie, Adam almost groaned in pleasure.

In one corner of the living room, Rosebud and Shelly squealed happily over a game that seemed to involve contorting their bodies into absurd positions to put hand or foot on big bright colored circles on a mat. Grandma Miller spun a dial and announced, "Right hand, blue!" and the girls both collapsed in an attempt to move their hands.

The next round, they spun the dial while Grandma and Mom played. Adam enjoyed watching Lynn as she struggled to keep left foot on yellow, right on blue, and her hands on two different colors. Her hair was a glorious tousle that tumbled to the mat and exposed a pale, delicate nape. Her cheeks were flushed with laughter, her eyes bright.

He was
happy,
Adam realized in some astonishment. He and Rose had good times, but it wasn’t the same. He
liked
being here, or having Lynn—and Shelly, of course—staying at his place. He wished they could do it more often. He was amazingly comfortable with Lynn. As far as he was concerned, she could just move in with Shelly...

Bang.
He might as well have walked into a sliding glass door. Dazed, head pounding, Adam saw the answer to everything through the clarity of the glass.

A marriage of convenience. Miraculous convenience. They could share the girls, each have a legal claim on the other one. The grandparent problem would be solved. He could help Shelly and Lynn financially. He didn’t have to miss them. Rose and Shelly would be sisters in truth.

He hardly saw Lynn fall amid giggles, leaving Grandma triumphant but needing a hand to straighten up and unkink her back. Adam was too busy examining his incredible idea.

Yeah, okay, he argued with himself out of habit, he wasn’t in love with her. Presumably she wasn’t with him. But he wasn’t seeing anyone else, and he hadn’t heard even a hint that she was. He liked her. They could talk about things he usually stayed closemouthed about, and he had an idea she felt the same about him. And of course, they had something profound in common: their daughters.

He wasn’t looking for a love match. Once was enough. But he missed having a woman in his life. He’d been disconcerted by his attraction to Lynn, but what had formerly been a problem now was a bonus. Despite the peculiar beginning, they might make a comfortable, affectionate marriage out of it. It didn’t have to be temporary. He could see himself growing old with her.

Assuming she saw the logic of his proposal.

Proposal,
he thought in astonishment. Did he mean it?

"Is something wrong?"

Adam swung his head around sharply enough to crack a vertebra. Lynn had sat down on the couch beside him and was gazing at him with soft concern.

"Wrong?" he croaked. "No. Nothing’s wrong." It was right. He wanted to shout and seize her hand. Go to his knees.

Now? Her parents were making leaving motions. He could let her tuck the girls into bed, and then ask.

But he wasn’t a man of impulse. No. Wait until the chill gray light of morning and see whether his idea seemed as brilliant. Maybe he’d be dying to escape back to his big solitary house after a look at Lynn in her bathrobe before a cup of coffee.

Of course, he’d seen her that way before, and she’d looked cute.

Wait. Don’t be an idiot,
he told himself.
Be sure before you jump.

Morning was soon enough.

* * *

A
DAM AWAKENED
at the crack of dawn after another wretched, chivalrous night on Lynn’s too-short couch. His head pounded, his mouth was dry, and his joints ached. He dreaded the drive home.

Christmas was gone, and with it his cheer.

He couldn’t stand under the hot spray in a shower, because that might wake everyone else up. Disgruntled, he rooted in his overnight bag and got dressed in clean clothes. After gulping a couple of painkillers in the bathroom, Adam went to the kitchen, put water on to boil and dumped two teaspoons of instant coffee into a mug. Then he braced his hands on the edge of the counter and stared at the kettle, waiting for steam and gurgling.

What if she walked into the kitchen right now? Smiled shyly, offered to make breakfast? Adam asked himself. Would he be annoyed, or feel his mood lift?

The kettle stayed still. The force of his stare didn’t heat the water.

His thoughts stumbled back into a rut worn by a night’s worth of brooding.

Was he insane to think of marrying a woman he didn’t love, didn’t even know all that well except as the mother of his three-year-old daughter?

No.

The answer stayed the same. It made sense. So much sense, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of the possibility before. He wondered if Lynn had.

Maybe it would have occurred to him before if he didn’t find the idea of a temporary marriage abhorrent. He was old-fashioned in believing that a wedding vow should be kept. No matter how convenient it would be to take Lynn and Shelly into his household, he wouldn’t have considered proposing if he didn’t think they could make the marriage work for the long haul.

The teakettle whispered and gave a little hop.

He heard a footstep a second before Lynn said, "Good morning."

There she was in a new, nubby cotton bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, with her tousled hair, sleepy eyes and sweet smile reminding him sharply of his—no,
her
—daughter on early weekday mornings. Yet there was nothing childlike about her. The bathrobe sagged open above a loosely knotted tie, giving him a glimpse of flowery flannel and creamy throat with a sprinkling of cinnamon freckles. He had to tear his gaze away.

"Good morning." After hearing his scratchy voice, he cleared his throat. "Did I wake you?"

"No, I just didn’t sleep well." Her gaze flew to his. "Oh, dear. There’s no way you did, either. I wish you’d let me take the couch."

"Maybe next time."

"I’ll hold you to that." Lynn advanced hesitantly into the kitchen. "Your water’s boiling."

"It is?" The kettle was rattling on the burner, steam bursting out. "Oh. Right. Can I get you something?"

"I’ll make a cup of tea." She stood on tiptoe and took down a copper canister that held tea bags.

Adam wanted to take a step across the tiny kitchen, wrap his hands around her waist and bury his face in her wild, soft curls.

Hands fisting, he managed to stay put as she murmured under her breath and got out a mug, adding sugar and one of those tea bags that brought the scent of oranges and spice into the kitchen. With an apology, she took the step to him, but reached past him for the kettle. Adam stood frozen as she poured boiling water into first her own cup and then his.

"Are you hungry yet?" she asked.

"Um? Oh." The grit was in his throat again. "No." Still he didn’t move, watching as she took her mug to the table. "Were the girls still asleep?"

Her smile was fond. "Rose was giving little snorts. Shelly has her head under her pillow."

She’d momentarily distracted him. "Rose sounds like a little pig when she’s deep under. I’ve wondered if her tonsils will need taking out."

"Well, snoring is not hereditary," she said in amusement. "Brian didn’t, and I’m pretty sure I don’t."

So she slept quietly. Would she burrow like Rosebud did when she slept with him? Would she murmur under her breath, the way she did when she was puttering around the house? Would he wake to find her head on his shoulder?

He grabbed his mug and took a scalding gulp. The burst of caffeine failed to clear his head.

"I’m not looking forward to going home," he said abruptly.
Okay, it was a beginning.

Lynn looked up in surprise. "You’re welcome to stay another day if you’d like. I know Shelly would be pleased. In fact, stay as long as you’d like. Are you taking the week until New Year’s off?"

"No, I wasn’t planning to."

Actually, a generally disappointing Christmas retail season was wreaking havoc on the stock market. Right now, he didn’t even care.

He took another gulp of coffee, then tried a new tack. "I was thinking."

"Yes?" Her eyes were wide and clear, a gray as luminous as the dawn sky.

"I’ve thought of a solution to this back-and-forth business."

Her lips parted and he imagined that her expression became wary, but she said nothing.

"Will you marry me?"

She stared at him for the longest time. Adam shifted uneasily.

"Say something." He sounded gruff. Defensive.

"I..." Lynn swallowed. "You mean as a...a sort of convenience?"

"At first." He rubbed his hands on his thighs. "For the girls. We can take it slowly." Dimly he realized that this wasn’t coming out the way he’d intended it to. He sounded as though he was proposing a cold-blooded legal contract, not a flesh-and-blood marriage. "I’m not saying we’ll get divorced. Down the line, I mean." Oh, yeah, that was coherent. "I thought maybe we could make it work," he stumbled on. "You and me."

He’d have sworn she hadn’t blinked in two minutes. The owl-like stare had him twitching like a second-grader in trouble with Teacher.

"Is this another way of convincing me to sell the bookstore and move to Portland?" she finally asked.

"No." Yes. Of course he wanted her to. She’d no longer need the income.

No, he realized in confusion, he didn’t want her to give up something she loved. Besides, he liked this house, its creaks, the sound of the ocean always throbbing in the background.

"I thought," he tried again, "that for now we could commute. I could come over here two or three days a week, and you could bring Shelly to Portland on the days when the bookstore is closed. We could be together most of the time without changing anything."

Who was he kidding?

But she didn’t call him on it. Instead she continued to study him with grave eyes. "You’re serious," she said at last.

"I am." He was getting irritated. "It would let you be Rose’s mother, me be Shelly’s father. It would solve all our problems."

"But...marriage."

She
hadn’t
considered the possibility, he could see. She was too shocked.

"We get along well. We want the best for Shelly and Rose." They had to talk about everything. "I won’t push you, but I thought, down the line..." He’d said that already. Spit it out, he told himself. "I find you attractive. I can wait, but I don’t, uh, find the idea unappealing." The palms he rubbed on his thighs were sweaty now. "If you do..."

"I..." Suddenly she wasn’t looking at him. "No, I suppose not. I just hadn’t..." Her voice died away.

"I hadn’t, either."

"Marriage."

He wished she’d quit saying the word in that incredulous way. "I think we can pull it off."

Her pretty greenish-gray eyes flashed with annoyance. "Pull it off? We’re not talking about a corporate merger. Or...or a buyout."

He went to her at last, sitting across the tiny Formica table. "Lynn, I won’t pretend to be in love with you. I haven’t thought of you that way. But I like you, and I do love my daughters. Both of them. I know you do, too. Can’t we learn to love each other, too?"

Her soft exhalation sounded as if he’d landed a blow to her body. She seemed to sag inside that thick chenille robe. "I need to keep the bookstore."

"That’s fine."

She looked fiercely at him. "It’ll mean compromises for you, too."

Hardly daring to breath, he agreed, "Of course."

"Then—" her eyes closed briefly, and when she met his gaze again, hers was dazed "—yes. I’ll marry you."

He was shaken by a surge of exhilaration out of proportion to the deal they’d just struck. Disquieted, he hid that response. Instead, he stood, took a step and kissed her cheek.

"Good," he said inadequately. "When?"