For the Girls' Sake (20 page)

Or perhaps, she thought with a small sigh as she checked the lasagna in the oven, Angela and Rob McCloskey would know perfectly well that they had no reason to resent her. She might be Mrs. Adam Landry in their daughter’s place, but she hadn’t replaced Jennifer in his heart and probably never would.

The girls were playing in Rose’s bedroom when the doorbell rang. Suddenly flustered, Lynn pulled off her apron and hurried to the front door, meeting Adam in the foyer. On a wash of greetings, Adam waved them in. The night was wet and chilly, and even the dash from the car had left water beading on their hair and coats.

Jovial and bluff, Rob McCloskey was clearly a man’s man, who looked as if he belonged out on the golf course with a foursome. His elegant wife gave Lynn an immediate pang, because Shelly might look like this when she was in her fifties. Lynn could see her in the shape of Angela McCloskey’s face, the set of her eyes. Lynn heard her daughter in this stranger’s musical voice.

The resemblance confirmed a truth that her heart didn’t want to accept: Shelly wasn’t really hers. She came from these people. Lynn’s claim was emotional.

The introductions were cordial. Adam hung wet coats in the closet and ushered the McCloskeys into the living room. Lynn smiled because she didn’t know what else to do.

"What can I get you?" Adam asked.

"White wine," his mother-in-law said with a pat on his arm. She then turned to study Lynn with a thoroughness that might have seemed rude under other circumstances.

"I do see Rose. My dear, you have the same hair!"

"You mean, the same impossible hair?" Lynn laughed ruefully. "And I would have known you for Shelly’s grandmother anywhere."

A crack in her smiling demeanor let pathetic eagerness show. "It’s true, then? Adam said she looks like Jennifer."

The men were talking a few feet away. Lynn bit her lip and asked in a low voice, "He did warn you, then? From the pictures he’s shown me of your daughter, the resemblance is uncanny. I didn’t want you to be taken by surprise."

"He did, and we’ve been so excited about meeting Shelly. With our Jenny gone, you can’t imagine how we felt when Adam told us Rose wasn’t hers. Not that we don’t love Rose. We do, of course. But Jennifer was our only child."

Hoping she sounded more comfortable than she felt, Lynn said, "Yes, Adam’s told me. I know this must be very difficult for you."

Through a shimmer of tears, Angela McCloskey smiled radiantly. "Oh, it was! But now she’s home. Oh! Not that you didn’t give her a home. But, oh, you know what I mean."

Lynn knew exactly what she meant. She chose her next words carefully. "I love Shelly dearly, although I admit that sometimes she’s a mystery to me. Finding out she didn’t carry my genes explained a few things. She’s so fearless! And a chatterbox."

"So was our Jenny. She was so sunny from the moment she was born. People adored her, you know!"

Lynn kept smiling, hard as it was. "I know Adam did."

Or should she say
does?

"Well, where’s our little girl?" Rob boomed.

"Why don’t we go on up there?" Adam suggested, adding deliberately, "Rose is excited that you’re coming."

"Rose is such a delight," Angela said confidingly, as Adam herded them toward the stairs. "What a gentle, sweet girl. Perhaps more like you."

Kindly phrased and meant, perhaps, but Lynn had the uneasy feeling she and her daughter both had just been damned with faint praise.

Lynn hung back as they neared the girls’ open bedroom door.
Please, please,
she thought,
don’t scare Shelly. Don’t hurt Rose.

"Girls," Adam said quietly, "your grandparents are here."

Drawn despite herself, a pedestrian to a car accident, Lynn followed the others into the bedroom, where the girls were plumbing the new dress-up box Lynn had begun here.

Rose tried to scramble to her feet but teetered on her high heels. "Grandma. Grandpa."

Shelly had wrapped a purple feather boa around her neck. A glittery tiara tilted rakishly in her hair. She looked like a tiny, garish elf queen.

Staring up, she asked boldly, "Are you my grandma and grandpa?"

Angela McCloskey choked. Lynn couldn’t see her face, but she knew tears must be streaming down it.

Lynn was startled when Adam reached out and took her hand in a bruising grip as he watched the drama unfold. She hadn’t even realized he’d dropped back to her side. Or had she come to his?

Rob McCloskey started to speak and had to clear his throat. "Yes," he said at last, thickly. "Yes, your mommy was our daughter."

"But
my
mommy’s right there," Shelly began, but stopped as her forehead puckered. "Oh. You mean, the mommy who had me in her tummy."

"That’s right," her grandfather said. "She was once our little girl. Our Jenny."

"Did she play dress-up, too?"

"Oh, yes." Angela knelt beside the trunk and reached in. Her voice was almost steady, but tears tracked mascara down her cheeks. "She was as pretty as you are."

"I’m a princess," Shelly said with satisfaction.

Angela lifted out a filmy white shawl. "A very beautiful princess."

Quiet Rose burst out, "
I’m
a princess, too, Grandma." Her voice went very soft. "Me, too."

Angela McCloskey won Lynn’s liking and respect forever when she smiled through her tears and held out the shawl for Rose, not Shelly. "Of course you are! Our princess. And this is just what you need to finish your outfit."

Adam’s fingers laced with Lynn’s and he drew her out into the hall. Gently he shut the bedroom door, leaving the McCloskeys alone with their granddaughters. Both their granddaughters.

And then he brushed his knuckles across his wife’s cheek. They came away wet with her tears.

* * *

A
DAM PULLED INTO
his driveway, laptop and briefcase on the seat beside him, and felt like a Norman Rockwell man of the house: eager to throw open the front door to the delicious scent of dinner in the oven, hear the squeal of delight as his children raced to fling themselves at him, and kiss his wife’s soft, demurely presented cheek.

He gave a grunt of amusement. The picture was surprisingly accurate except for the last part. So far, the only time he’d kissed his wife’s cheek was at their wedding when the pastor said, "You may kiss the bride," and somehow she’d turned at just the right time so that their lips didn’t meet.

But he looked forward to getting home anyway, a pleasant change from the last difficult years. Instead of Rosebud being with him, slumped wearily in her car seat, thumb in her mouth, she was at home ready to dash to meet him with Shelly, her eyes bright, her face animated, her giggle floating behind like a vapor cloud.

Why hadn’t he realized how much easier life was when you were married?

Or would be, he reflected, if theirs wasn’t a commuter marriage. Today was good; tomorrow would be, too. Then he and Rose would be alone for two days, after which they’d pack up and make the too-familiar trek across the rolling Coast Range to a first glimpse of the broad Pacific Ocean, the constant throb of the surf, and the tiny apartment above the bookstore.

But that wasn’t so bad, either. The trip got old, sure. He wished the apartment was bigger. But even on rainy days, Adam liked to run on the beach in the early morning. In the short months he’d known Lynn, the bookstore had come to feel homey with its dark wood, bright book covers, playroom for children and the quiet talk in the background. He’d sit at a table with the
New York Times
spread in front of him while the girls disappeared into the castle. He enjoyed watching Lynn greet people with her warm, gentle smile, guide them to a shelf, chat with them as if the conversation was the most fascinating of her day. When someone loved a book on her list of favorites, her face lit up with the joy of finding a kindred spirit. Days when she seemed unusually quiet, he was almost tempted to draw a lone shopper aside and whisper, "Tell that woman your favorite writer is E. B. White."

He had been surreptitiously reading the man’s essays and had discovered the charm. They were whimsical, sharp-witted, good-hearted: everything that Lynn was and valued.

Tonight, in his lonely bed, Adam intended to start her favorite fantasy novel by an author named Robin McKinley. Reading the books Lynn admired was a backdoor way to get to know her, but worth the effort. She was passionate about reading and her children.

Adam was beginning to wish she was passionate about him.

They had been married only a few weeks, and his good intentions and patience were eroding with stunning speed. Take tonight: he parked in the garage and went straight into the kitchen.

"I’m home," he said unnecessarily, because Lynn was already turning from the stove with a welcoming smile.

"Girls!" she called. "Dad’s home!"

Feet thundered from the living room and he found himself enveloped in giggling little girls. He tossed them in turn into the air and rejoiced in the squealed "Daddy!" from both.

Such a small word, to mean so much.

Satisfied, they galloped away just as quickly, and he went toward his wife who was stirring something on the stove.

"Spaghetti," he said, seeing the bubbling sauce.

"Yes, I hope that’s okay."

He didn’t like it when she sounded anxious.

"I’ve told you. I’m not picky."

"That doesn’t mean there aren’t foods you hate," she said with some spirit.

The sauce smelled good, but he liked even better the clean citrus scent of her hair, caught in a ponytail today. Gorgeous as it was tumbling around her shoulders, Adam found her most irresistible when her hair was up, tiny tendrils escaping to draw his gaze to her slender neck. He wanted to kiss her nape in the worst way.

She stole a shy look at him and then ducked to clatter in the pan cupboard. "Let me get the spaghetti on," she said in a muffled voice, "and we can eat in ten minutes."

What if he just kissed her? Was she shy because she was intrigued by him too, or because she saw his intent in his eyes and it scared her?

Nothing in his experience told him how to handle this courtship. He knew how to romance a woman he was dating, although it had been a long time since he’d done so seriously. But Lynn was his
wife.
They were getting to know each other, developing a degree of comfort. What if he made an unwelcome advance and blew what progress they’d made?

Another difficulty was that he didn’t want to be dishonest with her. He liked her, he found her very appealing. But he hadn’t let go of his feelings for Jenny, and he didn’t know if he ever could or wanted to.

Tenderness, liking, sparks—he was hoping for all those this time around. But he was afraid that if he started bringing home roses, Lynn would get the wrong idea.

Adam wasn’t sure why that bothered him. He’d
married
her, after all. He took the vows seriously. He wouldn’t be unfaithful.

But when he took to thinking about love, he started feeling edgy, uncomfortable. Disloyal. He didn’t want to be a man who slipped on a new wife to replace the old as if they were nothing more than a succession of favorite shirts. He’d
loved
his Jenny, although already memories were slipping away. He wouldn’t so quickly dishonor her or his feelings.

But he really wanted to get closer to his second wife.

Loneliness had been no more than an occasional irritation until he had a woman in his house. Now it was more like a bad back, an ever-present ache that stabbed sharply when he moved wrong.

Proximity explained it, he kept telling himself. Lynn was a pretty woman, but would he especially have noticed her if he’d happened into her bookstore? No. Love was when you were struck by lightning, when you knew this was
it.

This was just attraction. Plain and simple.

But something told him putting it that way to her wouldn’t lure her into his arms.
Lure.
See? Even his choice of words to himself implied a lie.

"Why don’t you help the girls wash their hands?" She was bustling around him as if he were an inconvenient post holding up the kitchen ceiling. If he’d been staring, she hadn’t noticed or was pretending not to.

A lot of pretence going on, Adam thought grimly.

But he was still glad to be home, glad that dinner was bubbling on the stove instead of sitting in the refrigerator with a sticky note from his housekeeper telling him how to cook it. He was glad Rose hadn’t had to spend ten hours at preschool today, and that Shelly had been here to hug him when he walked in the door.

And he was glad that Lynn would be there after the girls went to bed tonight, quiet company if they both read, good conversation if they chose not to.

"Sure," he said, "if I can’t do anything here."

She cast him a mildly amused look as she dumped spaghetti and boiling water into a colander. "Nope. Just get Rose and Shelly."

At the dinner table, she insisted on good manners, something he’d never done but which seemed, if nothing else, to introduce a different note to mealtimes for the two three-year-olds. At breakfast or lunch, they’d giggle, make messes, even occasionally start food fights. At dinner they were on their best behavior. He liked the change, as he liked most that Lynn had brought with her.

Tonight the girls told him about the playground and how it had started to snow—slushy rain, Lynn interjected with crinkled nose—and they got all wet but they played anyway—did Daddy know your bottom stuck to a wet slide?—and Mommy made them take a hot bath when they got home.

"We were sea lions," Shelly told him. Bouncing in her chair, she barked like the ones on the rocks offshore from Otter Beach. "Like that."

"Yeah. We were
both
sea lions!" Rose said.

Lynn laughed. "Of course, most of the bathwater washed up on the beach."

"The beach!" They thought that was hysterically funny.

He grinned at her. "Sounds like fun. I hope you had some beach towels."

"I used half the contents of your linen closet," she said, a smile shimmering in her eyes. "Thank goodness for your little elf."