Kisses in the Rain (19 page)

"Oh, I'm not going to keep them. I consider all this cookie-baking part of 'product development' for Sidney Pollov Enterprises. Bagel Barn sells bagels for a meal, and we sell tea or soda pop for drinks, so why not sell cookies for dessert? I don't see how I can lose money. After I test-market cookies here, maybe other Bagel Barns will want to try selling them." She thought Sidney would appreciate her initiative.

"If you were my employee," Nick said, leaning toward her and crooking his arm nonchalantly around the back of the bench where they sat, "I'd give you a bonus. How about dinner tonight?"

"That's bonus enough for me," she said, allowing herself to snuggle into his arm for a moment before they headed their separate ways.

On Thursday, Nick and Davey left for Juneau and Davey's appointment with Dr. Whitmer. This time Nick, rather touchingly in Martha's view, made his itinerary clear before he left. He told her the name and telephone number of his hotel and the name of the psychiatrist. He told her where he and Davey would be likely to eat dinner. He left no loose ends, no room for suspicion, and he made a date for her to come to Williwaw Lodge again to spend the day with him and Davey on the Sunday after his return.

Almost as much as his elaborate explanations about his whereabouts, the invitation to the lodge pleased her. She had begun to feel comfortable and at home there. And she loved the wild beauty of the scenery.

Martha missed Nick while he was in Juneau with Davey, but this time he was only gone for two days. On Sunday morning she flew with Nick and Davey to the lodge, where they had a picnic that was cut short by a sudden rainstorm.

"I take it that the visit to Dr. Whitmer was a success," Martha said as she and Nick set up the chessboard on the table in front of the blazing fire he'd built in the fireplace. Davey sat playing with his toy trucks and cars on an oval braided rug on the other side of the room. From time to time Davey would stop and pop another of Martha's chocolate-chip cookies into his mouth from the bowl beside him.

"Our visit was very encouraging," Nick said. "We mapped out a plan for separate counseling sessions for Davey and me and one for Davey and me together every two weeks. Because we live so far away, Dr. Whitmer will spend a little more time working with Davey in each session than he normally would with his local clients, but he thinks that we can eventually get to the bottom of Davey's problem. Davey likes the doctor a lot, which helps."

"What does he think Davey's problem is?"

Nick hesitated. He'd vowed never to speak of what had happened to Davey, but he'd known he had to tell the psychiatrist in order to help the boy. That was different from discussing Davey's trauma with Martha, however. He couldn't tell her. To tell her would be to betray an old friend.

He swallowed, and if Martha detected any mental turmoil on his part, she didn't let on. "I'm not quite sure," he said, rationalizing that this was not quite a fib.

"Davey's always looked so sad," whispered Martha as she watched Davey wheel his cars and trucks around the edge of the rug. "Since he's been seeing Dr. Whitmer, I think he looks less tense."

"Yes," Nick said, glad that she was focusing on Davey and not on what they had been talking about.

As they watched, Davey reached into the bowl where Martha's cookies had been and scrabbled around for another. But there were no more. He had eaten the last one.

He pulled himself up on his knees and peered into the bowl. When he saw that all the cookies were gone, he looked dismayed.

"Don't say anything," Nick whispered. "Don't speak."

And so Martha sat motionless, watching the thought processes flit across Davey's face. Left to herself, she would have said to Davey, "I'll get you more cookies," without his having to ask her. Like everyone else, Martha had fallen into the habit of doing things for Davey because she knew he wouldn't ask.

Nick held his breath. He didn't know why he had chosen this moment to withhold something that Davey wanted. He'd never tried it before. Davey stood up, picked up the bowl and marched over to where Nick and Martha sat.

He raised his eyes, thrust out the bowl, blinked at Martha and said, "More."

Chapter 10

It didn't surprise Nick that Davey loved Martha's cookies. Davey had always loved chocolate in any form. What did surprise him was that Davey liked them so much that he was moved to ask for more.

But Nick didn't question Davey. He and Martha put a few more cookies in Davey's bowl and waited breathlessly to see if he'd again ask for more cookies when the bowl was empty. He did.

In his rejoicing over Davey's addition of a new word to his vocabulary, Nick almost didn't allow himself to hope that this was only the beginning, that Davey would eventually talk like other children. And yet he kept watching for signs.

Dr. Whitmer had suggested that Davey needed more stimulation from other children than his isolation at Williwaw Lodge provided. Nick accordingly sent Davey with Hallie to spend a day in town now and then with Wanda, where Wanda's two youngest grandchildren might provide the stimulus that Davey needed. Three weeks passed, and they all waited for Davey to speak more words. Nothing happened. Except for his visits with other children, his pattern remained the same. Davey still spoke only four words.

Most of the talk that went on was between Nick and Martha in their re-establishment of communication after his secret trip to take care of Elsa Long. By this time, the talk between Nick and Martha was good. Very good. And yet Nick knew that Martha didn't quite trust him. Despite her sharing of his happiness that Davey now knew another word, despite the returning ease of their relationship, trust was slow to rebuild.

Nick admitted to himself that he really couldn't blame Martha for her wary attitude. He had the uncomfortable feeling that she was watching and waiting for him to make another misstep.

He had tried to see his leaving town from her point of view, and he knew that if he'd been in Martha's place he would have felt the same way. What if she'd disappeared suddenly without a word, had skipped out on a commitment to him and returned several days later only to inform him that she couldn't tell him where she'd gone or what she'd been doing? He'd have suspected the worst, wouldn't he?

What the two of them needed was extended time together away from Davey and the Bagel Barn and other influences. They needed time alone in which to recapture the trust, pleasure and companionship of those first happy weeks when they had fallen in love.

Nick discarded the idea of a long hike in the wilderness because he didn't think Martha was ready for it. He considered proposing a camping and kayaking trip together on the Salmon River and discarded it for the same reason.

And then he thought of the perfect outing. The
Tabor
, his father's old fishing trawler. The
Tabor
was where Nick went when he wanted to be alone. On the
Tabor
he could feel far away from problems and their evasive solutions. On the
Tabor
he could begin to feel whole again and communicate within himself. Or with another.

Nick could send Hallie and Davey to stay with Wanda for a few days. That would not only provide the stimulation Davey needed, it would be a nice vacation for Hallie as well. Martha could get Randy to take over at the Bagel Barn. She'd been talking about how she hadn't had much time off since she'd arrived in Ketchikan and about how capable an employee Randy was.

He and Martha would go away on the
Tabor
for a few days, and then everything would be all right between them. Martha would again be convinced that he truly loved her, and away from Faye's or Hallie's prying eyes they would be able to express their love in the way that it should be expressed. Physically.

The physical expression of their love was what he wanted, and what she wanted, too, in her heart of hearts. Nick understood why Martha hung back. He knew that their lovemaking would be important to her, and that she worried about walking away from it at the end of the summer. But he also understood that he loved her, and loving her, he desired her. He would romance her; he would win her. They'd worry about the end of the summer later.

* * *

The coffeepot was perking on the small diesel-fueled stove in the tiny galley, and the boat's engine vibrated the smooth fir planking of the
Tabor's
deck. Nick had already pumped the bilge and was presently hauling anchor. He turned off the winch, and the anchor, thickly coated with mud, clunked heavily against the bow.

He joined Martha in the wheelhouse and accepted a mug of coffee from her hands. It was dark, foggy, and damp on the Tongass Narrows in this hour before dawn, but he and Martha were preparing to leave like any other fishermen anchored in the Ketchikan harbor.

"Are you cold?" he asked.

Martha, bundled up in a bright windbreaker with her curls peeking out from under its hood, shook her head and clasped both hands around her steaming coffee mug. She smiled at him. "No. I feel wonderful." The cold, bracing air made her feel healthy and robust.

Nick smiled back at her, not minding the chill himself and marveling at how she could brighten even the darkest of mornings.

They were going to be real fishermen on this trip, although that wasn't the way Nick had originally planned it. He'd envisioned a pleasure trip, drifting with the tides and reveling in each other's company. He was surprised to find out that wasn't what Martha wanted at all.

"I can't imagine being out there on the wide ocean with nothing to do," she told him when he first brought up the idea.

"Wouldn't you enjoy a vacation from work?"

"Of course, especially with you. But I'm used to filling every minute. I'd go stir-crazy on a boat, Nick."

"Then I'll show you how I used to make my living. We'll do some trolling for salmon while we're out there. That should keep us both busy."

She became so enthusiastic over salmon trolling that he was surprised. She wanted to know what it was like to fish for this staple of the Alaskan economy, she said. She wanted to experience living as a fisherman for a few days. It would be a new experience for her, one that none of her friends had had.

Martha was always surprising him, making events out of happenings that should have been ordinary and being interested in things in which no other woman he knew had ever been. Most wives and girlfriends of the fishermen he knew hated, or at best only tolerated, the sea and what it represented because it took their men away from them for months or weeks at a time. But Martha was different, and he was glad.

Now their rapidly churning wake separated them from the receding shore of Ketchikan. Wispy white swatches of fog clung to the mountainsides, and faint streamers of gray light lay across the tops of the trees. Nick grasped the wheel in one big hand and cradled his coffee mug with the other.

Martha rested her head against his shoulder as they cruised past other fishing boats with lighted galleys. A flock of petrels swept across the crests of the waves ahead. Nick couldn't remember ever having known such peace and contentment in all of his life.

As they watched, the eastern sky became a ferment of changing color. Gradually the dawn layered itself up from the horizon like successive, ever larger layers of pastel-colored tissue paper, at last tearing away to reveal the bright orange sun.

Martha was overwhelmed by the wild majesty of the scene surrounding her. The far-flung mountain peaks were gilded by the first light of morning, and the lights of Ketchikan winked in the glossy black waters of the Narrows.

"Beautiful," Martha said, her shining eyes taking it all in.

"Yes," Nick said, gazing at her rapt face, but he wasn't referring to the scenery.

Nick took it easy handling the
Tabor
out of the Narrows, aiming for one of his favorite fishing grounds off the coast of nearby Prince of Wales Island. The
Tabor
rocked steadily on ever-increasing swells, and Nick watched Martha carefully for the first signs of seasickness.

He soon realized that he didn't have to worry about Martha's finding her sea legs. She kept her balance with admirable ease, gliding without a misstep to the stove in the galley aft of the wheelhouse to check the coffeepot, then returning to insert herself again into the circle of his arm as he tended the wheel. She grinned up at him, and little diamonds of mist winked from her fog-damp hair. He was glad that she was enjoying this.