First Time, Forever

He opened the closets and looked through the cupboards. She didn’t follow him into the basement, but he came back up the stairs, and proclaimed her new home varmint free.

Mac, obviously disappointed that his lilac-induced collapse on the front lawn had failed to convince anyone of his distress, came through the door, a sour expression on his face.

“What a dump,” he proclaimed. “This whole town is like the dumpiest dump that I’ve ever seen and I hate it here.”

Evan ignored him. “Ma’am, do you need a hand with your things?”

This was offered only politely.

“No, thanks,” she said proudly.

She wanted the man out of her house. So she could concentrate. So that she could deal with Mac, figure out what had to be done to make the place livable, and then shut herself in the bathroom and cry.

Chapter Two

“Thank you for giving it a fair chance,” she said icily to Mac, after Evan had left. “I cannot believe you behaved like that. Broke Mr. Atkins’s antenna off his truck, wrote that word. What on earth has gotten into you?”

Mac looked at his toe, clad in expensive sneakers that he had to have, and that seemed to have brought him joy and contentment for exactly ten seconds, and then shoved his hands deep into his pockets before he shot her a look loaded with defiance. “I hate it here, that’s why. I want to go home.”

“This is going to be home,” Kathleen said with determination. Her eyes were adjusting to the gloom in the room, and she noticed the floors were old gray linoleum, peeling back in places, the walls needed paint desperately, there were spiderwebs in the corners. She went over and tugged at a blind. It rolled up with a snap, and the sunlight poured into the empty room, but did nothing to improve it. This was going to be home? She thought of her and Mac’s cozy little apartment in Vancouver and felt heartsick.

“You won’t believe how rotten I can be,” Mac warned her.

She let none of her own doubts show. She said calmly, “Then you will just have to get very good at shoveling manure. I’ll bet there is no shortage of that around here.”

“Well, you got that right,” Mac said heatedly. “How could you do this to me? You’ve ruined my whole life. Me. Mac Miles in Poop Gulch, Saskatchewan.” Only he didn’t say poop.

“The first thing I’m going to do at work tomorrow is find out about that soap,” Kathleen said.

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re at work?”

“You already sorted that out, Mac. You’ll be shoveling manure.” Only she didn’t say manure, either.

He stared at her, obviously stunned that his aunt would use that word. He changed directions swiftly. “I suppose you thought that guy was good-looking.”

And for the briefest moment, she saw the little boy in him, and saw how scared he was. He was sad and scared and he was too anxious to be a man to say so.

“Oh, Mac, come here.”

He came, and even allowed her to put her arms around him and she found herself saying, “Everything will be fine.” With him snuggled against her, those words felt true, and it actually did feel as if it could be home here.

Mac tolerated her embrace for three seconds or so, then pulled away and walked down the narrow hall. “I guess I’ll have this room,” he said after a minute. “Auntie Kathy, you never answered me. Did you think that dust hopper was good-looking?”

“Dust hopper?”

“The goof with the truck.”

She didn’t answer, appalled by this creature who was her nephew.

“I thought he was real ugly,” Mac said. “Real. And way too young for you. Way.” He slammed his bedroom door.

She thought of him sitting in that empty room, nursing his own bad humor, and sighed. She looked around again at her homely house, and went into the bathroom. More aging linoleum. She thought of Evan Atkins being way too young for her, and him not even commenting, when he’d been given the opportunity, that the house was obviously years older than she was.

Howard’s new fiancée was young, blond, perky.

You broke up with him five years ago, Kathleen reminded herself savagely. You’re over it. She barely locked the door before the tears started to fall.

It had been a stupid thing to do, to take a job in a place she had never heard of. Stupid, stupid. Stupid. When she’d been hired sight unseen, when that letter had arrived, she’d actually thought, naively, whimsically, that it had been heaven sent. She had told herself this was her chance to start anew. To be somebody new. Somebody who worried less and laughed more. Who did daring and bold things—like moved to a town they had never heard of.

Kathleen allowed herself to snivel for ten minutes, and then came out, knocked firmly on Mac’s bedroom door and told him they had a great deal of work to do to make this house into their home.

Stupid or not, they were here, and she had to make the best of it.

She unlocked the U-haul and after some rummaging handed Mac a broom. When he rolled his eyes, she said, “Be thankful it’s not a shovel.”

“I don’t like this house,” Mac said.

“It didn’t live up to my expectations, either,” she admitted, “but I can make it clean, and in time it’ll be cute, too.”

“Oh, cute.” He shot her a sideways glance. “Did you think he was? Cute?”

“No,” she said, “not at all.”

Her response was completely honest. Evan Atkins cute? It would be like calling a grizzly bear adorable. Howard had been cute with his big brown eyes, his curly hair, his little potbelly.

Mac was clearly relieved with her answer.

She spent the rest of the day feverishly cleaning the little house from top to bottom, scrubbing walls and floors and appliances. Mac was surprisingly helpful, but only until his boom box came out of the trailer. By nightfall, Kathleen had only the energy left to move in two mattresses and a box of bedding.

“You don’t have to get up with me in the morning,” Mac told her. “You look really tired.” When she got up in the morning, he was gone, but he had found the coffeepot and made coffee for her. Just when she was about to lose hope in him, he would win her back by doing something sweet and thoughtful like that.

She walked the three blocks to work, noting they comprised most of the town. She spent the day at the Outpost, learning the inventory, which was extensive, and prices, and how to use the archaic cash register.

She was amazed by the number of people who came through the store, until Ma told her they were coming from miles around to check her out. She was asked on six dates before noon! It did wonders for her flagging spirits, even if she did say no to all of them.

At four she headed home, exhausted, knowing she had that U-haul to unload. Still, she had all the ingredients for Mac’s favorite spaghetti supper, and couldn’t wait to fill up that little house with the good smells of garlic and tomatoes and pasta.

But by five o’clock Mac still wasn’t home.

She scanned the road yet again. She thought she had heard a truck, but it proved to be a large farm vehicle.

Mac had left at five this morning. Twelve hours? Didn’t that seem a little long to work a twelve-year-old?

It occurred to her he might have been in an accident.

She laughed nervously at that. It would be the worst of ironies if she moved from busy Vancouver to sleepy Saskatchewan, mostly for Mac’s sake, only to have him maimed or killed in an accident.

Of course, she had never actually seen Evan pick him up. What if he had gone to the highway and hitchhiked away? What if even now—