Lost Cause

“Knitting. I sell supplies, give classes. Business is taking off really well.”

Knitting. He hadn’t known that anyone younger than eighty did it.

“I sell my own work, too,” she continued. “And I’ve had a bunch of patterns published. I’m hoping for a book of patterns one of these days.”

“Do they sell well?”

“Hugely,” she assured him. “The thing is, they don’t go out of print the way the average novel does. They sell and sell and sell. For years. I’ve made thousands just on a single pattern.”

Who’d have thought?

“You have employees?” he asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “Not really. I’m working long hours. I open, eat lunch and run to the bathroom during lulls, close, then do the books.”

He remembered those days. You didn’t make it with a small business if you weren’t prepared to put in twelve-hour-plus days and maybe go months on end without taking a day off.

“A couple of my customers are experienced knitters who live locally and enjoy working a few hours here and there, so I have women to call if I’m sick or need time to get to the bank. Today, one of them is filling in because of my appointment.”

“With Ms. Wilson?” He put the faintest of emphasis on Ms.

“Yes. I’m trying to adopt a child. Today was my home visit.”

He’d been rocking back in the chair. Now all four feet clunked down. “She’s a social worker?” Lawyers and politicians were commonly despised. He saved his loathing for the group of managing, high-minded people who were determined to tell everyone how to live. “Home visit?” His mouth curled. “You mean, she was here to decide whether you were good enough to be a parent?”

“Don’t you think an agency should be sure they’re placing children in homes where they’ll be loved and well taken care of?”

His laugh wasn’t pleasant even to his ears. “And you think they can tell from one visit? Lie halfway decently, you can fool ’em. Haven’t you read about all the kids raped by their adoptive daddies or hurt by the woman who was so sweet when the social worker interviewed her?”

Suzanne’s eyes had gone wide. “You weren’t…” she whispered.

“Raped?” He made himself lean back and ostensibly relax. “No.”

“Or…or…?”

“Hurt?” He shrugged. “Harold used his belt or his fists sometimes, sure. He didn’t put my hand on a hot stove, if that’s what you mean.”

Damned if her eyes didn’t start brimming with tears again. “Oh, Lucien! I would have done anything… Anything…”

Abruptly, his throat closed and he couldn’t breathe. He lunged to his feet.

“Listen, I’ve got some things to do. I’ll, ah, be back later. If that’s okay.”

She rose, too, staring at him as if he’d gone loco. He didn’t care. He had to get out of here, away from her affection, from her sympathy, from her tears. He was feeling smothered.

“Of course it is.” She hurried around the counter into the kitchen and fumbled in a drawer, coming back with a key held in her outstretched hand. “Here. In case I’m not home. The first bedroom on the left is yours.”

“I…thanks.” He lurched toward the living room, his leg almost giving out on him. “I’ll just be an hour or two.” Or three or four.

With more dignity than he’d expected, she said to his back, “I told you if you needed space that was okay. While you’re here, consider this your home. You don’t need permission to come and go.”

At the front door, his hand on the knob, he paused with his head bent and his back still to her. “I’m sorry.”

Voice gentle, she said, “Don’t be. You’ve given me a gift today. You never, ever, have anything to be sorry for.”

After a moment, he nodded and blundered out, wishing that was true but knowing it wouldn’t be. He hadn’t yet had a relationship with another human being that hadn’t meant being sorry most of the time.

He doubted shared genes were going to change that.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT IN THE HELL had happened to him back there?

Gary rested his elbows on his knees and stared out at a body of water that smelled like ocean but seemed to lack waves. He’d hoped there was a beach and had ridden downhill until he found the ferry landing and—sure enough—a public beach, mostly empty if he ignored the dock fifty yards to his left and the idling cars and people leaning on the railing.

If he looked straight out, he could almost imagine he was all alone. The hoarse cries of seagulls suited his mood, and he liked the smell of salt and drying seaweed and rotting fish carried by the cool, strong breeze. Once he thought he saw a dark head crown the choppy water. A seal or sea lion. He didn’t know one from the other.

Feet crunched on gravel but passed behind him without the owner feeling compelled to initiate cheery greetings, for which he was grateful. Not much given to self-examination, Gary knew he needed to make an exception.

He valued his ability to stay in control of himself, his emotions, his destiny, above all else. Holly Lynn had accused him of being a cold son of a bitch, which had irritated him no end. Why did she marry him if she wanted all that crap? He hadn’t changed because he put a ring on her finger. He felt; he just didn’t like to lay himself open.

Gary envisioned emotions as oil spewing from a well, thick and black. It would shoot skyward and splatter the landscape with gummy blobs if you didn’t cap it. If he’d learned one lesson growing up in the Lindstrom house, it was to cap every sickening gush of rage and fear.

But today… Damn it, he’d panicked! A man who was better at being reckless than cautious, he’d run like a scared bunny rabbit.

And he didn’t even know why.

He’d been doing okay, talking about the parents who’d died without making adequate arrangements for their children, getting a sense of a sister who was unlike any other woman he’d ever known, telling her a little about himself. After the way he’d acted, what was she thinking to give him a key to her house?

It wasn’t even the subject of social workers, although he did detest them, or Harold’s belt, that had gotten to him. Brooding, Gary realized it was her reaction. She’d wanted to go back in time and leap between him and his adoptive father. Her instinct had been to defend him.

Why? He was genuinely baffled.

He was also freaked. This woman he didn’t know felt something for him he didn’t understand. Something no one else had ever felt. Not even his adoptive mother, who had at least pretended to love him but deferred to her husband’s harsh brand of discipline.

So, okay. The way things happened, he could see some emotions getting frozen in time. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been a little kid, and she was the big sister. Maybe she still thought she needed to protect him.

What he didn’t get was why her trying had sucked all the air out of the room and made him feel… He drew a blank. He didn’t even know what he’d felt. Thinking about feelings wasn’t something he did much. Capping them, sure. Conducting analysis on them…not so much.

All he knew was, she’d scared the crap out of him.

He wanted to head back to Santa Fe. Leave her a phone message saying, You’re a nice woman, but I’m not the little boy you remember. Nothing to do with you, but I just don’t see this reunion going anywhere.

Two reasons he knew he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. One was the curiosity she’d aroused, and the other was his memory of that pang of regret because he hadn’t died.

A week, he reminded himself. Maybe two weeks. Look at the pictures, get to know the sisters, then promise to exchange Christmas cards. Everybody would be satisfied, including him.

Inhaling a deep breath of sea air, he nodded. Yeah, a week. He could do that.