The Perfect Mum

Ian had valued fine wines, she thought irrelevantly. Their house had been a showplace in Magnolia, but it was no more than an appropriate and deserved backdrop, as far as he was concerned. The house had given her pleasure. These days, she tried not to think about the gleaming inlaid floors, stained-glass sidelights and granite kitchen counters.

If she ever had a beautiful house again, she would have earned it herself, and that had come to mean more than the possessing. In his eagerness to help her, Ryan refused to understand that. She had the odd feeling that Logan would.

She led him to the downstairs bathroom, really more of a powder room in the traditional sense.

He stepped past her and, filling the opening, contemplated the tiny room. “Nice,” he said finally.

Feeling a glow, she said, “Thank you. We did it ourselves.”

He glanced at her, surprise in his raised brows. “We?”

“Jo, Helen and I did the work. Especially Jo,” she admitted. “Except for the plumbing. We called Ryan for that.”

He took another look. “You did a hell of a job.”

They had, if she did say so herself—although she felt a little immodest even thinking as much, given how little she’d contributed compared to Jo. Still…

The floor and walls, up to the wainscoting, were covered with two-inch tiles the color of milky coffee, with darker grout. The sink was a graceful free-standing one, the medicine cabinet an antique Jo had discovered at a garage sale. They’d splurged on a reproduction toilet with an old-fashioned oak tank. A cream, rose and spring-green paisley paper covered the upper walls. Just stepping in here made Kathleen happy. At least they’d accomplished something, even if the floors in the rest of the house were still scuffed, the plaster peeling in the stairwell, the kitchen a 1940s nightmare.

“We’ll skip our home office,” she nodded down the hall. “It’s a disaster. That door leads to the basement, which at the moment is our construction workshop, such as it is, and has the washer and dryer. We’ve all got piles of boxes stored down there, too.”

As she climbed the stairs, Kathleen was very conscious of him behind her. She wondered if he was at all aware of her as a woman. Or—she didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to her—was he married? She glanced back and made a point of noticing his left hand—no ring. Which didn’t necessarily mean a thing. Not all men liked wearing a wedding ring. For one who worked with power tools, wearing a ring might be dangerous.

He hadn’t mentioned children of his own, she remembered.

It wouldn’t hurt to make conversation, she decided.

“Do you have kids?” she asked casually, as they reached the hallway above.

“Afraid not.”

Frustrated, she nodded at the first bedroom door, shut. “Jo’s room. Then Helen’s.”

This door stood half open, and without stopping he glanced in at the high-ceilinged room. “No closets?”

“A couple of the bedrooms have them, but small ones. What would be wonderful, down the line, is to eliminate one of the four bedrooms and create big walk-in closets for the other rooms.” She laughed ruefully. “Wa-ay down the line.”

“You have to have a plan,” he said matter-of-factly.

He believed in dreaming. She liked that about him. Maybe he didn’t actually swill beer and belch.

But maybe he had a wife at home, washing up their dinner dishes, wondering why he was taking so long to present a bid for a small job.

She opened the door on the other side of the hall with a flourish. “And the other bathroom.”

Every time she stepped in here now, she had a flash of memory—Emma sprawled, unconscious and bleached-white, on the tiled floor. Death was an all too real possibility for Emma, but that morning, it had hit Kathleen like a punch in the stomach.

Emma is dead. I’ve failed her.

She crossed her arms and squeezed, momentarily chilly. Logan gave her a sharp look but didn’t comment. Instead he examined this larger bathroom and gave another nod of approval.

“I could have done a better job on the cabinets, but it looks great.”

“They’re ready-made,” she admitted.

“I know.” He propped one shoulder on the door-jamb and smiled. “Sorry. I think I just crossed over from confidence to cockiness.”

She found herself smiling back, probably foolishly. “No, no. I’m sure I heard nothing but confidence.”

His eyes seemed to darken, his voice to deepen. “Thank you for that.”

Cheeks warming, she backed away. “Um…my bedroom is the last,” she flapped a hand toward the end of the hall, “but I haven’t done anything except cover the floor with a rug and the peeling wallpaper with pictures.”

He glanced that way thoughtfully, then nodded, accepting her unspoken reluctance to show him her private sanctum. Her bedroom. Ryan was the only man to have stepped foot into it, and that was on moving day when he’d helped carry in the garage sale and thrift store furniture.

She found the idea of this man in her bedroom disturbing. It wasn’t so much the notion of him studying her bed with that contemplative gaze as the fact that he would be out of place. Ridiculously so. She imagined his bedroom as spare, with white walls and beautiful wood pieces and perhaps a simple print hung above the bed. Maybe not even blinds or curtains at the window.

Unless, of course, his wife had decorated their house.

Ian had liked their master bedroom luxurious but modern, the deep plush of the charcoal-gray carpet unadorned, the vast bed the centerpiece of the room, the only other focal point the wall of windows looking out at Puget Sound and passing ferries.

To please herself, and because she couldn’t afford luxurious anyway since she’d refused alimony and a split of the possessions she had realized were really his, Kathleen had indulged in a very feminine bedroom for herself, in this house that was her own. Dried hydrangeas and roses filled cream-colored pitchers and vases. The cherry bed frame needed refinishing, but she never noticed, so heaped was the bed with lacy pillows and quilts and a crocheted spread she’d bought for peanuts at the Salvation Army because it had been stained. Armed with a book on caring for old fabrics, she had resuscitated it as well as the pink and white pinwheel quilt the mover had been using as padding, and the lace that edged several of the pillows. Whenever she saw an unusual old picture frame for a price she could afford, she bought it, and had covered the walls with family photos dating back to the 1840s and ending with a laughing Emma, caught only a few months back in an unwary moment. Kathleen’s dresser top was cluttered with her collection of ceramic and wood boxes. A caned Lincoln rocker that had been handed down in her mother’s family gave her a place to sit and read by the light of a Tiffany-imitation lamp that sat on a carved end table, its battered top hidden beneath a tatted doily.

Emma, of course, sneered at the room. “It’s old stuff. Dad would say it was all junk and throw it away.”

So he would—which was very likely the reason she’d decorated the room the way she had.

Kathleen had managed to keep her voice mild. “Old stuff is all I can afford. You know that.”

Emma, dear Emma, had flared, “And it’s all my fault that we’re poor! Of course! I didn’t ask you to leave Daddy!”

She hadn’t had to ask, not after the horrific scene when Ian had lost his temper, held her down and shoved food into her mouth.

“Look at it this way,” Logan Carr said now. “Not a penny spent on this house is wasted. You’ll get it all back if you re-sell. These old houses can’t do anything but gain value.”

“Even Ryan concedes as much.”

Logan gave her a quizzical glance. “I take it you and your brother aren’t close?”

“Actually, we are.” She smiled at his surprise. “Jo says we squabble like a couple of kids on a family vacation. Insulting, but accurate.”

He laughed again, which pleased her. She liked his laugh.

“Well, I’d best get out of your hair,” he said, pushing away from the door frame. “You must have a million things to do.”

Like climb into bed, pull the covers over her head and pretend all her troubles would go away. Or cry. She hadn’t decided which.

“Well, not a million, I hope,” she said with a practiced chuckle. “You probably have plenty waiting for you at home, too.”