Kisses in the Rain (18 page)

"Let's get a glass jar," Martha suggested. "We'll put dirt in it and you can keep your worms in the jar and watch them. They'll dig tunnels next to the glass and you can see them. That'll be fun, won't it?" She was enjoying this, almost as if she were a kid again herself.

"Okay," Davey said.

The word was so unexpected that Martha gaped at him. That was the first word he'd ever spoken directly to her. She glanced at Nick. His expression, astonished at first, turned to one of triumph.

"I'll get the jar," Nick said, heading toward the house. He felt as though he could perform handsprings all the way to the back stoop. He couldn't recall Davey's speaking directly to anyone except Hallie and him—not his cousins, his aunts or uncles or any of Hallie's numerous family members, including Wanda's five grandchildren. But now Davey had spoken one word of his limited three-word vocabulary to Martha—this was indeed a sign of progress. It pleased him immensely to see Davey and Martha having fun together.

Nick returned with a clean pickle jar he'd found under the sink, and with Davey's avid participation they shoveled dirt into it and set the earthworms on top of the dirt. Then they took the jar into the kitchen and covered it with paper held fast by a rubber band. They set the jar on a kitchen windowsill and Davey sat entranced, watching the worms wriggle their way below the surface of the dirt.

"Hallie will be delighted, I'm sure, to see her new terrarium," Martha said wryly.

Nick only laughed. "Hallie won't mind," he said.

They washed their hands at the kitchen sink, and when they had finished Nick peeked into the refrigerator to take stock of the meal Hallie had left.

"We'll eat around six," Nick said, glancing out the window. "I'll want to get you back to Ketchikan before eight. The weather service is reporting a squall line out to sea, and I won't be able to fly when it comes into the area."

"When will it arrive?" Martha asked.

"You can never count on what the weather's going to do, but I checked earlier, and the weather service was forecasting good weather until after ten o'clock tonight. Come on, I want to show you those photographs of the mountain chickadee that I took the first day you visited here. I printed them out for Davey, and they're terrific."

They sat side by side on the couch, and Nick pulled an album out of a trunk. He opened it to a page displaying the chickadee photos and some others he'd taken.

"When did you get interested in photography?"

"I guess it was when I was a teenager. My friend Hank bought a camera, and I borrowed it. When I was out on the boat working with my father or brothers we'd see whales and sea otters, all kinds of wildlife. I finally bought my own camera to help me while away the time on long wheel watches. I've been a photography buff ever since."

Martha's gaze flew involuntarily to the picture on the wall, the one of the nude woman silhouetted against a rock, and it occurred to her to make a wisecrack about the amazing diversity of Alaskan wildlife, but as she was opening her mouth to say it they heard a crash in the kitchen and Davey called, "Nick! Nick!" Nick immediately pushed the album into Martha's lap and rushed to find out what was wrong, which Martha figured was just as well. Sarcastic remarks from her probably wouldn't help their relationship at this point.

Evidently Davey had spilled something when he was pouring it, and Nick stayed in the kitchen to clean it up. While he was gone, Martha idly flipped through the pages of the album. She saw many family pictures that Nick had taken of his father and his two brothers. She hoped to find a picture of Nick's mother, who had died when he was a boy.

She turned another page, and the loose color photograph of a woman fell out of the book. Martha bent to pick it up before holding it up to the light from the window to study it further.

The woman was obviously pregnant. Her abdomen was big and round beneath the shapeless garment she wore, and she was laughing into the camera lens as though she hadn't a care in the world. But this woman could not be Nick's mother. This woman was an Indian.

She was beautiful. She sat on the bow of a boat, and spread out behind her were a sky fleeced with clouds and a sea of silvery blue. Her teeth were white and straight, and there was something familiar in the way her high cheekbones rounded into the planes of her face and in the way her thick hair tumbled over her forehead.

This was Davey's mother. There was no doubt in Martha's mind about that. Martha felt a blank, numb chill stealing over her as she continued to look at the picture. She swallowed and blinked away sudden stinging tears. To her way of thinking, there could be only one reason Nick Novak would have a picture of this pregnant woman in his photo album.

She shut the album quickly, blindly. She didn't want to look at the photo any longer. The woman's happy, smiling face and her look of total well-being were imprinted on Martha's brain forever.

There was nowhere Martha could go to think this over. She couldn't run away as she had in the restaurant. She'd have to tough it out for the rest of the day because she couldn't leave until Nick flew her home in the plane. At present she was in an emotional ferment and didn't know what to think. She loved Nick, and despite his disappearance last week, she wanted to believe that double-dealing and deception were not part of his character.

But as Faye had said, how would Martha find out the true story if she called an end to her relationship with Nick now?

Her mind raced to form a conclusion that would get her through the rest of the day. Martha could confront Nick with the picture, point out the woman's marked resemblance to Davey and ask him point-blank what his relationship with her was. She was sure she knew what response this would elicit in Nick. He would clamp his mouth tightly shut and refuse to answer the question. He would repeat that she must not ask questions about certain parts of his life. She knew that was what would happen. She knew Nick Novak.

Or she could curb her impulse to ask, stay here and play the part of the Martha who knew nothing, who suspected nothing. She could continue to give Nick the impression that she was recovering from their quarrel last week, and in that way perhaps she could get him to open up, to tell her something about Davey and his mysterious origins. She already knew in her heart that Davey and this woman in the photograph were mother and son.

"Martha?" Nick stood at the door to the kitchen. Her heart jumped at the sight of him, and she felt the instant attraction that had bowled her over the first morning she'd seen him leaning against the lamppost, drinking coffee from a plastic cup. Compared to falling in love with Nick Novak, the experience of being struck by lightning would have been relatively mild.

And so she only looked up innocently, concealing her true feelings. Then she went to help him heat up Hallie's pot roast. They ate in the big kitchen, Davey kicking the legs of his chair until Nick told him to stop, Martha feigning bright conversation, and together they cleaned up when they'd finished.

How many ways human beings find not to communicate with one another, mused Martha. In order to get along with others we pretend we're something we're not, or we pretend we're not something we are. We retreat within ourselves, become defensive and aloof, anything to keep a distance. We even use noncommunication as a tool to foster eventual communication, which she realized was what she was doing. Did any of it make sense? Maybe not. Time would tell.

Later, as they flew back to Ketchikan early in order to beat the squall line that was advancing in the form of a pewter-colored glaze on the horizon, Nick congratulated himself on how well the day had gone. Martha and Davey seemed to have achieved a rapport at last, and Martha had apparently recovered from her fit of pique over his disappearance last week.

Everything was all right. And it would stay all right, he supposed, unless Elsa Long got sick again.

* * *

"Dump him," Lindsay said.

"That's easy for you to say," Martha said with feeling. She had called Lindsay as soon as she'd gotten home from her visit at Nick's.

"What do you mean?"

"Lindsay, you've got Sigmund, who lives in your house. You're madly in love and he's practically eating out of your hand. Why, his favorite crystal sits in the middle of your coffee table. He's not going anywhere. But I've hardly had a chance to get to know Nick."

"I'd say you know enough about him right now. He's unreliable, and there's no telling what he's doing when he goes off somewhere."

"He likes chocolate-chip cookies and he doesn't smoke."

"He keeps a picture of a pregnant woman who is obviously Davey's mother in his photo album. I'd say get out before you get hurt any worse."

"I'll be leaving after Labor Day anyway," Martha said unhappily. She bit down into one of the latest batch of cookies. It tasted pretty good, almost as good as the ones she used to buy in San Francisco.

"Right. According to statistics, there are nine other men in Alaska looking for you. Why hang out with a loser, Martha?"

"Nick isn't a loser," protested Martha after swallowing quickly. "He's built up his family business, and he's very smart. He's also wonderful with Davey. He takes his responsibility to that little boy quite seriously. Anyway, Nick makes the hair on my arms stand on end. That must mean something."

"It must mean you're shivering in an icy blast from the North Pole," sighed Lindsay.

"Clever. But I'm not that far north."

"Martha, you're not making good sense. You're obviously seriously confused by the whole mess. What you need to comfort you is some of those cookies from that kiosk where you used to buy them. Want me to send you some? Maybe a few chocolate chips will straighten out your thinking. I could even throw in a jar of my favorite hair mousse. To keep the hair on your arms in place, you know."

By this time, Martha was paying no attention to Lindsay. Martha was regarding the cookie she held in her hand with growing excitement. The texture was perfect—firm and yet moist—and the flavor was ideal. Finally she had hit on the exact flavor-and-texture combination she'd been trying hard to achieve.

"You won't need to send cookies," she said. "Instead, I'll overnight you some of the latest batch I've made. They're good—in fact, I think they might even be better than the ones I used to buy there."

"No kidding! Now that's an accomplishment!"

Martha studiously and appraisingly ate the rest of the cookie, not caring in the least that Lindsay was listening to her munch.

"It even
sounds
like the ones you used to buy here," Lindsay said dryly.

Martha swallowed. "No, really, I'm delighted that I've finally found the right combination. Don't let Sigmund eat all of them. I'm interested in your opinion."

"Why? You didn't think much of my opinion about what to do about Nick Novak."

Martha reached for another cookie. "I love him," she said again. "I love him and I want to find out what the real story is."

"And if you don't like the answers you get?"

"Well," Martha said thoughtfully, "I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles."

* * *

Hoping against hope that she would win his confidence, Martha continued to see Nick every day. It was a time of rebuilding a relationship that had turned out to be weaker than Martha had thought. She knew Nick had the ability to be open, tender and intimate. She waited for him to be that way again. Superficially, everything went on the way it had before between them; to the casual observer, everything seemed fine. They never spoke of Nick's unexplained absence. Deep down, though, Martha still wondered,
Why?

About a week after her phone conversation with Lindsay, Martha took several dozen chocolate-chip cookies down to the Bagel Barn and tried them on Randy. He loved them. Later, she and Nick ate chocolate-chip cookies after their lunch of bagels with cream cheese and salmon. She anxiously awaited Nick's opinion.

"You know," he said appreciatively, "this is the best chocolate-chip cookie you've baked yet. The flavor is superb."

"Do you really think so?"

"It's great. Not too crisp; it doesn't fall apart when I bite into it. And you've finally figured out the perfect proportion of vanilla. I can barely taste it, and yet I know it's there."

Martha beamed. "You and Randy have been my main test pilots. And you both think this cookie is ready to fly."

"Fly?"

"Sure. I'm going to package two very large cookies in cellophane, and I'm going to try selling them to the customers at the Bagel Barn. Chocolate-chip cookies are going to be Randy's special during the week after next."

"You'll have to call it the Bagel and Cookie Barn if you don't watch out," teased Nick. He loved to see Martha so enthusiastic about things.

"If I start calling it the Bagel and Cookie Barn, Sidney Pollov will have a stroke." Martha shuddered. She'd discovered that Sidney was a stickler for detail and that he stood for no foolishness. She was convinced that the only thing that had spared her his wrath last week when she'd sent in her order late was that Sidney's work load was heavy while he was trying to open his chain of Thai fast-food places.

"You're a long way from Sidney here in Ketchikan," Nick said soothingly. "He'll never be the wiser if you sell a few cookies. What will you do with the profits?"