Of course, Nick had been a highliner, as the best fishermen were called, for a long time, and he was still in partnership with his brothers Dan and Fred, who were the ones who oversaw the Novak and Sons fishing-boat operation now. But Nick seldom went out on the boats these days because Davey needed him at home. He was truly devoted to the boy.
Hallie wished she knew the full story about where Davey came from and whose child he really was. Even with all the gossip passed on by her sister Wanda, Hallie had never cleared up the mysterious circumstances surrounding Davey's arrival in Nick Novak's home. First it had been just Hallie and Nick in the cabin after Nick's father, old man Novak, died. And then Hallie had decided to move to town to live with her sister Wanda, who was raising five grandchildren and needed Hallie's help. But one day shortly thereafter Nick had shown up with Davey. The fat baby boy's black button eyes had peered fearfully at Hallie from amid the folds of the fluffy white blanket, and Nick had curtly announced that Davey was henceforth going to live with him.
No one knew how or why the baby came to live with Nick, even though the rumors around Ketchikan had flown fast as fur in a cat fight. Pretty soon the gossip had died down to a speculative glance at Nick now and then, usually whenever someone would forget and say, "I wonder why that handsome Nick Novak has never married." Then someone else would reply in a hushed tone, "Well, he has that little boy, and there's something not quite right about the kid."
Hallie had learned to field questions about Nick or Davey with no more than a shrug and a smile, as if to say that the peculiarities of the situation were beyond her. But still, Hallie wondered, too. As far as she knew, Nick had never explained anything about the boy to anyone. If he had, the story would have been all over town. Ketchikan was like a small town anyplace. Everyone knew everyone else's personal business.
Except for Nick Novak's personal business, that is. The only thing that anyone ever really knew about him was that he had a kind heart, because otherwise why would he have taken in a kid who most likely wasn't related to him?
Hallie slapped at a mosquito and extinguished the bug bomb. Time to go in and get to bed. Nick and Davey rose early in the morning, and so did she.
The door to Nick's room was closed, and no light shone from under it. Once again Hallie wondered, Isn't he lonely?
But it was something she'd wondered many times before, and she didn't spend a lot of time on the thought now. She figured that Nick Novak knew what to do about loneliness. And for all she knew, maybe he did.
* * *
Nick always ate a big breakfast, and ordinary breakfast food annoyed him.
"Give me a steak in the morning," he always said. "Don't feed me anything sugary. And for heaven's sake, no waffles." In Nick Novak's opinion, waffles were for wimps.
Part of it was that Nick had grown up hauling nets and rigging outriggers, which was what he was supposed to do as the son of a fisherman. It was cold, damp work that could sap a man's energy. Therefore it was best that energy be at a high level when a man left the house in the morning. Survival on the treacherous sea wasn't easy. You never knew when you'd be swept overboard into waters too cold for survival. If that happened, you'd need to draw on all the remaining strength in your body just to stay alive.
So Hallie understood about breakfast. She cheerfully prepared steaks and salmon and hearty stews, all of which Nick ate in the morning. She drew the line at feeding Davey the same diet, however.
"A kid should have oatmeal," she told Nick. "A kid should know what Cream of Wheat tastes like. And Davey likes scrambled eggs."
"But no waffles," said Nick. He didn't know where he'd acquired this prejudice. He just had it.
"No waffles," Hallie had agreed.
And so this morning, after all the "happy birthdays" had been said to a solemn and unresponsive Davey, Nick and Davey sat down to eat, and Nick ate salmon steaks while Davey ate oatmeal.
Nick paused in the act of lifting a forkful of salmon to his mouth when he noticed that Davey was pointing at it.
"Yes?" he encouraged Davey.
Davey just pointed.
Nick knew that Davey knew what the morsel on his fork was. They ate a lot of salmon in this house. He hoped that Davey would say the word. But Davey's vocabulary seemed sadly limited to Nick's name, Hallie's name, and "okay." It was fortunate, as Hallie pointed out, that Davey's only word other than their names was "okay." It could so easily have been "no," which would have made things harder on all of them.
"This is salmon, Davey," Nick said. "Would you like some?"
Davey nodded.
With a clatter, Hallie slid a plate across the table and Nick transferred a good-sized piece of salmon to it before setting the plate in front of Davey.
"There," Nick said. "That looks good. Go ahead and eat it, Davey."
Davey's eyes lit up, and he dug into the salmon. Nick had smoked it himself with alder wood cut from the trees in the forest surrounding the cabin, the way his father taught him.
Suddenly Nick thought of something.
"Hallie, will you please put some of that salmon in a plastic bag?"
"Sure," Hallie said as she complied. This was nothing new. Nick often took a bit of breakfast along and ate it at his office in the cannery when he thought he might not have time for a lunch break.
Nick stood up and dropped a kiss on top of Davey's shiny black hair. "I'll see you tonight," he told him. "Make sure you save room for plenty of that chocolate birthday cake." He looked at Hallie standing behind the boy. She, with her Tlingit features, might have been the boy's grandmother, they looked so much alike. But, of course, Hallie was not related to Davey in any way.
"Bye, Davey," Nick said, waiting as he always did for the boy to answer. As usual, the boy said nothing, merely staring up at him with huge dark eyes—eyes to break your heart.
Down at the dock, Nick cast a practiced glance at the gray clouds dragging their petticoats on the mountaintops before he donned his yellow slicker, and then he cast his father's old trawler, the Tabor, off from the dock. The only way into Ketchikan from Mooseleg Bay was by water or air. Like many Alaskans, Nick was a licensed pilot and owned a floatplane, but when he wasn't in a hurry he preferred the water to the air.
Still a fisherman at heart, Nick had never been able to bring himself to sell his father's old boat. It provided reliable transportation from the cabin on Mooseleg Bay to the Ketchikan dock and back. Nick felt at home at the helm, probably because he'd grown up there. Nick had always been able to reach a certain clarity of thought on the water; the motion of rolling waves had a soothing effect. There was nothing to interrupt his train of thought when he was in his captain's chair except the sight of other boats far away in the mist and the forlorn piping of gulls overhead. Nick thought about Davey this morning as he rested his big hands on the ship's wheel.
For a long time it had been easy to fool himself into believing that everything was going to be all right with Davey, but he was unable to tell himself that anymore. This birthday was a milestone in that regard. A four-year-old should be jabbering away, laughing, teasing, telling jokes. Davey did none of that.
Nick was sure that Davey was a bright child. Intelligence shone from the boy's dark eyes. Also, it was obvious that Davey heard everything that he and Hallie said to him, so it couldn't be a hearing problem. Furthermore, the words that Davey did use were always clear and well articulated. Davey's failure to talk wasn't a speech problem. And Hallie was wonderful. She talked to Davey a lot, since she was a talkative person anyway.
"So what is it?" he whispered softly to himself as he drew the boat alongside the dock. "Why wouldn't a smart kid like Davey talk like other kids?"
Take those three kids up on the dock, the two boys and a girl clustered around the new Bagel Barn. They looked as though they belonged to a harried young couple who were evidently tourists out for an early-morning walk. They must have stopped to buy breakfast on the run.
Anyway, the kids were pushing and shoving, comp
laining about one another and petitioning their parents most volubly for the kind of bagels they wanted. None of them was over, say, the age of six.
Then Nick remembered the smoked salmon he had shoved deep down in the pocket of his slicker. He pulled it out and, still wearing the yellow rain slicker, stopped at the Bagel Barn just as the noisy family was settling themselves on a nearby bench.
"Hi," he said to Martha.
Her eyes opened wide as she recognized him. Her lips curved into a smile and her eyes crinkled at the outer edges. It was amazing how her smile brightened those eyes, and he was surprisingly gratified to think that he was the one who had sparked such an enthusiastic response from her.
"Well, hello," she said cheerfully.
"I brought you some alder-smoked salmon. Why don't you try it on a bagel?" He favored her with his most convincing smile.
She grinned. "How'd you know I never got down to that store you recommended?"
"I figured that 'someday' hadn't arrived yet. I also figured that you're going to love the taste of this salmon." His eyes teased hers, communicating a challenge that might mean he wanted her to try more than smoked Alaskan salmon.
Martha's mind raced. Here he was again, and he had sought her out on purpose, and she had no idea how to keep him here. She didn't even know his name.
"If you decide you want some more of this salmon for your customers, here's my card. You could call me." He handed her a white rectangle, and Martha glanced down at it. Her lashes were long and dark, lying smoothly against her cheek like tiny feathers.
"Nick Novak," she read out loud. "Novak and Sons." To Martha, this encounter seemed like an opportunity sent from heaven. She lifted her head and held out her hand. "I'm Martha Rose," she said. His hand was big and warm, and his touch raised the hairs on her arm, surprising her so much that she withdrew her hand from his a microsecond too rapidly for good manners.
Confused by the way she snatched her fingers from his, Nick swallowed so that the muscular contour of his throat moved in a most mesmerizing way. She stared at his throat, fascinated. He thought she was being brashly forward staring at him like that, and suddenly he noticed the slim-skirted linen dress she wore underneath the silly red checkered apron. This woman wore high heels and gold bracelets that jingled, and the heady scent of her expensive perfume filled his head. On the dock in Ketchikan, she looked exotic and out of place. For all he knew, she might be laughing at him and his fellow townspeople for their simple rustic ways.
"Let me know how you like the salmon," he blurted, all his confidence evaporating in the face of Martha's glossy sophistication. And then he was gone, striding off along the dock with his slicker flying behind him in the wind off Tongass Narrows.
The hair on her arms settled down, and so did Martha's heartbeat. "Nick Novak," Martha mumbled. "His name's Nick Novak." She was completely unaware that her sophistication intimidated him, and she wished he hadn't left so abruptly.
"I beg your pardon?" said Randy.
"Oh, nothing," was Martha's quick reply, and then she laughed. Here she was practically drooling over a man and she had no one to tell about him. She felt a pang of homesickness for Lindsay and decided to phone her soon. What good was it to meet Mr. Wonderful Plus—and to have no one to tell?
Today cruise ships clustered in the harbor to disgorge more than their usual number of passengers, and Martha was busy serving her customers until after noon.
"Well, Randy," she said finally, prepared to take a breather when the line of customers had dwindled, "I think I'll eat lunch."
"Here's a bagel," he said. Randy was in charge of toasting bagels this morning. Martha was in charge of toppings.
She spread her toasted bagel with cream cheese and realized that she had never tried Nick's salmon. She found the little plastic bag where she had put it in the refrigerator and arranged the salmon on top of the cream cheese.
"I'm going for a stroll, Randy," she told her helper. "You can take your lunch break when I come back."
It felt good to get away from the confinement of the Bagel Barn. Tourists chattered as they left the nearby information booth, and a group of beautiful dark-eyed Tlingit girls giggled as they thumbed through a teenage magazine.
Martha, bagel in hand, sauntered down the wooden boardwalk along the waterfront. Boats, both for business and pleasure, bobbed at their moorings on the dock, and although a stiff breeze blew in from the Narrows, the clouds overhead shone with the pearly light of the sun behind them.
Martha sat down on a bench and watched a man with a ladder carefully climb it to water the hanging flower baskets on each lamppost. Watering the plants was an awkward task because the man had to carry a large watering can up the ladder.
Nick saw her gawking openmouthed and paused to smile. She still wore the linen dress, which was a pale pink that brought out the translucence of her skin. From the way she was gawking, he'd never have guessed that she was the same self-possessed woman he'd talked with this morning. Suddenly he considered the possibility that her sophistication was just an act. Surprising himself, he sauntered over to her.
"He's pretty good at that balancing act of his, isn't he?" said a familiar voice over her shoulder, and Martha looked up into Nick Novak's gorgeous face.
"I was just about to try your salmon," she said, self-consciously waving her bagel in the air.
"Go ahead," he said. He came around the bench, propped one boot up on the seat beside her, and leaned forward expectantly. With him looking down at her in that appealing way, Martha doubted that she would be able to swallow. It was all she could do not to emit a deep sigh of pleasure.
"Well?" he prompted. Now she was the one who appeared uncomfortable in his presence. He wondered why. He decided to stick around to see what happened.
She took a breath, took a bite, and tried to concentrate on the taste for Nick's sake. The salmon had a distinct flavor, smoky but not too smoky. Salty but not too salty. She chewed thoughtfully, fully aware that Nick Novak was assessing her.
She wondered how she looked when she chewed. She felt a wave of gratitude to her mother, who had insisted long ago that Martha learn to chew with her mouth closed. If she hadn't she'd have looked like a cement mixer, and no doubt Nick Novak would take off at a run. As it was, it looked as though he meant to stay right where he was, a fact for which Martha was supremely thankful.
Martha swallowed. "It's mild and moist," she told him. "And the flavor is superb."
"You see? I told you."
"How do you get that distinctive flavor?" She hoped that the smoking of the salmon was a long and involved process and that Nick would tell her every detail, bar none.
"First I go out into the woods and I find an alder tree," began Nick, but then she was concentrating on his hands, which were big enough to hold a couple of split bagels each, and his chin, which had an interesting scar on the right side, and his eyes, which were the most interesting thing about his whole face. His face looked chiseled from Mount Rushmore and scaled to human size, and naturally it had a liveliness that a face of stone wouldn't have.
There was more of him that she found interesting, but he finished telling her about smoking salmon before she could concentrate on each individual feature in rapt appreciation. She hadn't, for instance, had time to spend marveling at his broad shoulders or his ears, which weren't from Mount Rushmore at all. They reminded her more of the ears on one of the Seven Dwarfs at Disneyland. The cute one, Dopey.
But there wasn't anything dopey about Nick. He exhibited a keen intelligence that Martha wanted to explore. How to explore it, though?
She wanted to keep his interest as long as possible. Long enough to impress him in some way. Long enough to become his friend. She did miss all her friends, though there had been no one like Nick in Kokomo.
"We sure didn't have anything like him in Kokomo," she whispered, half to herself, missing Lindsay and Sigmund's instant laughter.
"In Kokomo? Is that your home?" His voice was a deep ru
mble in his chest. It appealed to her, that voice.
"Why don't you sit down?" she suggested suddenly.
He hesitated a moment, and Martha thought, Maybe he doesn't want to spend time with me, but then Nick sat, stretched his boots out in front of him and lifted his face into a ray of sun that had managed to penetrate the clouds.
And so then she told him about managing the boutique in Kokomo, and how she had moved to San Francisco on an impulse, and how she had ended up in Alaska on another impulse.
Nick smiled at her. Now that he knew she had worked at one of those trendy little boutiques, he understood the shimmery eye shadow, the well-cut linen dress, and the high heels. She was making a fashion statement. He wondered what she was really like, and he was impressed with her enterprising spirit.
"You know, I haven't done this in a long time," he confessed, scarcely believing that he was actually relaxing in her company. Since Davey had come to live with him, he'd seldom sought the company of women. They found him, and whatever urges he needed fulfilled were usually fulfilled quickly and urgently, after which Nick would again be alone. The competition for women in Alaska was keen. Add to that Nick's high standards, and women—or at least a steady relationship with one—didn't seem worth the trouble.
"What is there to do in Ketchikan? For single people, I mean?" A glance at Nick's ring finger had revealed no wedding band. He could still be spoken for, however. She held her breath, waiting to see if he'd give her an indication.
"The usual," he said. "I'm not into the singles scene much."
She wanted to laugh out loud in relief, but she only said, "I haven't been here long, but I wonder if it'll be difficult to meet people. I was hoping it would be easy to find people I like here, but..." She let her voice trail off self-consciously. If he had half a brain, he'd see that she was practically handing him an opening to ask her out.
Kisses in the Rain Page 4