The New Man

She just didn’t want to.

Having Ben torn from her had hurt too bad. The agony of seeing him lose his hair and his robust color and his muscle tone and finally even the smile in his eyes and the strength in his voice had been unspeakable. Even worse was saying goodbye every day, with every touch and word, for a year and a half.

After the funeral, people had patted her hand and said kindly, “The worst is over. At least this wasn’t a surprise. You’ve had time to grieve in advance, to say goodbye. I know you’re grateful for the time you had with him this past year.”

Was she? Helen didn’t know. She had tried a thousand times to imagine how it would have been if Ben had been late for dinner one night, and a knock came on her door. She could see herself opening it, finding a police officer standing there with compassion written on his face. “I’m sorry,” he’d say. “Your husband has been in a car accident. He’s dead.”

Perhaps they weren’t that blunt. She didn’t know. Maybe they told you to sit down first, or suggested you call a friend or relative to hold your hand. That wasn’t the point.

The point was the suddenness. Ben—the Ben she had married and held the night before and laughed with that morning—would be gone. Poof. His life snuffed out in an instant rather than inch by excruciating inch.

She knew the shock would have been stunning, the grief overwhelming. Grief, she understood. But her last memory would have been of Ben’s smile, the warmth of his lips when he kissed her goodbye, as he did every morning. As he had every morning, until he became too ill to go to work, and then too ill to get out of bed at all.

Instead she’d had to watch him suffer, his wry humor and intelligence and personality disintegrating until only pain and regret were left. She’d had to believe, for a long time, that each new treatment would work, that he could get better. And then she’d had to pretend that she believed, for his sake and for Ginny’s.

And because she was too stubborn, too selfish, to let go. She had made him try hopeless treatments and suffer longer than he had to because she didn’t want to lose him.

All she knew was, Ben’s death had been so dreadful, she never, ever wanted to love someone else and lose him.

Which meant that these stirrings of sexual interest were unwelcome. Some people could separate sex from love, but she wasn’t one of them.

Studying the display with unseeing eyes, Helen decided that it was lucky Alec Fraser wasn’t an executive at Nordstrom, where she worked, or a neighbor, or a friend of Logan’s, or anyone else she would see on a regular basis. He was a stranger, presumably a resident of Queen Anne, a part of Seattle where she rarely went, and she would very likely never see him again.

Ignoring the sinking sensation she felt at her own pronouncement, she nodded. It was definitely best if she didn’t meet Alec Fraser again.

TWO HOURS LATER, Alec detoured down the first aisle again. Just to see if any of the missing exhibitors had arrived, he told himself.

As a result, he had to waste fifteen minutes explaining to a jackass he remembered from two years ago why he had been assigned a location that was apparently undesirable.

“We weren’t aware that any aisle has consistently earned less revenue,” he said patiently. “Some fairgoers start at one end, some at the other, some in the middle.”

“I’ve been coming here for five years, and I have a piece in your juried show,” the bearded artist said huffily. “I’d have thought I’d earned a spot that wasn’t in Siberia.”

Alec shrugged. “You made no specific request, and I’m not sure we could have honored it if you had. Our main goal is to have variety from booth to booth. That can get complicated.”

“I may not be able to put Queen Anne on my schedule next year,” the painter responded.

“That’s certainly your privilege.” Alec inclined his head. “We have more applicants than we do openings in any case.”

If it were solely up to him, he wouldn’t have invited this idiot, and not just on grounds of personality. Alec didn’t like his grandiose oils, which lacked originality. But they sold well, another member of the screening committee had pointed out. Not everyone had taste, she’d said, adding, “I hope I didn’t just deeply offend somebody here who loves his work.”

Not a soul had admitted to being so shallow.

Ashamed of his pettiness, which he knew stemmed in part from irritation, Alec moved on.

A jeweler who was a newcomer to this show was laying out wonderful, imaginative pendants and earrings on black velvet trays. Witches and mermaids and fat old ladies in yellow danced from delicate wires. Niobium and glass and sequins had somehow been persuaded to come alive.

He complimented her on her work, fingering one pendant with a fiery-haired enchantress apparently dancing in nothing but a childhood fantasy of a tutu, her topless state a mere hint but enough to make him glance down the aisle, toward Number 143.

Did Helen Schaefer, businesswoman, ever abandon conventions and let herself feel purely joyful?

Alec frowned. Damn it, he’d barely met her! She probably had a Mr. Schaefer at home. He was pretty sure she’d worn a wedding ring. He doubted that she’d meant to flirt, despite that remark about him smelling good enough to eat.

“I’ll give you a discount.” Smiling, the young, pierced and tattooed jeweler nodded at the pendant in his hand. “You look taken with it.”

For a moment, he hesitated, tempted. But what would he do with the darned thing if… No. It wasn’t the kind of gift you gave your dark-haired sister for her thirty-fifth birthday. And he wasn’t even dating these days.

“Thanks, but I don’t think so.” With a pang of regret, he laid it back on its spot. “Your jewelry is going to sell like Beanie Babies did in their prime.”

He ambled on, nodding and exchanging a few words with vendors he had already met, checking out a booth of framed black-and-white photos of staircases and shadows and faces turned away that stood out from the usual wildlife and scenery fare. The photographer was off somewhere, and Alec made a mental note to stop by the next morning.

He was only a few tents away, engaged in conversation with a candlemaker, when he saw Helen Schaefer come out of hers, close the flaps and climb into her pickup truck without a backward glance. In seconds, the truck maneuevered around the corner, turned into the school playground and was gone.

She’d be back, he reminded himself. Tomorrow he could stop by and say hello, thank her again for the soap. Maybe ask about her family, in the hope that she wore the wedding ring out of sentiment rather than as a label.

As he did. Alec glanced down at the plain gold band on his left hand. It was a part of him. He hadn’t taken it off in sixteen years, not since the moment he said, “I do,” and kissed his bride.

He wondered how Linda would feel about him taking it off now, maybe putting it in the carved wooden box from Poland she had given him for Christmas many years ago that sat on his dresser. Was she anywhere she could know?

Damn it, Alec thought, what was wrong with him? This wasn’t the time to let himself get sucked into an eddy of regret or sorrow. There was no reason to dredge up the past just because he’d met a woman who had fleetingly made him imagine falling in love again.

Still he walked faster and made his last few greetings briefer. It was nine o’clock on Thursday night. Yeah, okay, Devlin was fourteen and therefore old enough to be in charge, but chances were he’d have spent the evening closeted in his bedroom, the door firmly shut, music shaking the timbers of the house. If his sister was being abducted, he wouldn’t hear her bloodcurdling screams.

Not that Lily wasn’t responsible, too. She knew better than to answer the door without being sure she knew who was on the other side. But she was only eleven, teetering between childhood and adolescence, her body dragging her along despite any protests her father occasionally uttered to God. Lately she’d taken to hunching her shoulders and wearing sacky sweatshirts stolen from her brother’s closet. Alec guessed it was time to tackle buying her first bra. Not the kind of purchase he had ever envisioned having any part in.

There weren’t any police cars parked in front of his house, and he didn’t feel a bass thumping through his bones when he got out of his Mercedes in the garage. Alec frowned. Dev wouldn’t have taken off and left his sister alone, would he?

But upstairs he found unusual harmony, the two slouched at opposite ends of the couch as they watched a movie that wasn’t familiar to Alec. The coffee table was littered with plates, empty pop cans and candy wrappers.

“Hey, guys.” He leaned against the back of the couch. “I’m home.”

“We noticed,” his son said disagreeably.

“Hi, Daddy.” Lily didn’t tear her eyes from the big-screen TV.

“What are you watching?”

His son gave him an impatient glance. “Don’t worry. It’s PG13. We rented it. Last night. Remember?”

Alec did vaguely recall paying for a couple of DVD rentals while they were grocery shopping. He’d glanced to see what they had chosen. He hadn’t recognized either title, but neither had appeared inappropriately gory or racy for an eleven-year-old.

“Good enough,” he said. “I take it you had dinner.”

“We ordered pizza. There’s some left in the fridge,” Devlin added begrudgingly.

“Thanks.” Obviously not needed in the family room, Alec retreated to the kitchen, where he put a couple of slices of pizza in the microwave. He shouldn’t eat crap like that, but he didn’t have the energy to hunt for something more nutritious.

While the microwave hummed, he checked his voice mail and glanced through the day’s snail mail. Neither produced anything interesting or urgent to distract him from his restlessness.