Kisses in the Rain

by Pamela Browning

  After dinner, Stella and Dan left. "Have to get back to the kids. We left them alone tonight. I guess our daughter at thirteen is old enough to keep the six-year-old in line, but I don't like to leave them alone too long."

  "Do your kids like cookies?" Martha asked on impulse.

  "My Wendy is the original cookie monster," Stella told her.

  Martha wrapped some of her chocolate-chip cookies in aluminum foil. "Here, take these. There are plenty for the other guests."

  "Why, thanks. They're delicious cookies, Martha," Stella said.

  "I've baked a lot of them for the party. I even have a couple of extra tins of cookies in my apartment," Martha said with a laugh.

  When Stella and Dan were gone, Nick turned to her curiously. "Do you really have more cookies in your apartment? There are trays of cookies already here."

  "I've been baking batch after batch, perfecting Faye's mother's recipe for this party. Not that the cookies weren't wonderful to begin with, but there was this place in San Francisco where I used to buy the best fresh-baked cookies every day. I brought a big supply with me, but I ran out and now I'm trying to duplicate that flavor. Anyway, I don't have anything else to do after work, so I like baking the cookies to occupy my time."

  "If you don't have anything to do after work," Nick said slowly, fighting his own embarrassment, "maybe we could get together for that drink sometime."

  Her startled gray eyes flashed astonishment at this unexpected invitation.

  "Maybe we could," she said when she had recovered.

  "Maybe," he said, even more slowly, trying to get to the bottom of the confusion in her eyes, "maybe we wouldn't have to wait until after work. We could get together sooner if you like."

  "When?" she said, unaware that she was almost whispering, but overwhelmingly aware that he was standing closer to her than he had all evening and that the hair on her arms was standing on end. Certainly no man had ever had this effect on her.

  "Would you like to go somewhere tonight after the party? I don't have to be home early." He held his breath. He was certain that, because he had once turned her down, she would want to get even with him by refusing his impromptu invitation.

  "I'm the guest of honor. My obligations—"

  He caught one of her hands between his and held it still. "I've always been sorry I couldn't take you up on your invitation to meet you after work that day. My previous engagement was important or I wouldn't have said no. Now I want to make up for it. Is it too late?" His eyes darkened. She would have died before she'd have disappointed him. She would have died before she'd have disappointed herself.

  Convinced that he could hear her answer pounding in her blood and singing in her heart before she even gave it, she paused for a respectable moment and said, "Yes! I'd love to go somewhere with you!" all in a rush. Then, embarrassed, she laughed up at him.

  Nick was so relieved that she'd accepted that he had the almost uncontrollable urge to call her "darling" and then to go on to tell her how happy he was. But the word darling was not one that had ever sprung to his lips before, and he did not say it now. In fact, he was totally astounded to find such a word rattling around in his brain in the presence of a woman whom he barely knew. He had called women "dearie" from time to time, meaning nothing in particular. He had occasionally addressed his high school sweetheart as "sweetie," but that was because that was what she called him. But—"darling"?

  As she looked up at him, her cheeks rosy, her eyes sparkling, her irises the exact shade of Mooseleg Bay on a day when the sun was on the verge of peeping through the clouds, Martha Rose did bring the endearment "darling" to mind. Thank goodness he hadn't said it. Thank goodness he wasn't that open with women when he was beginning to get to know them. No telling what a woman like Martha would infer from being called "darling." She might think it meant more than it did. All it meant, his wanting to call her that, was that she looked, to his eyes, darling at this moment.

  So all he said was, "Later we'll figure out where and when. Tomorrow's Sunday. Do you have to work?"

  "No," she said.

  "We can go out late then tonight, if the party ends late?"

  "I suppose so," she said, not at all reluctantly.

  "Unless you'd rather wait until tomorrow night," he amended, hoping that she wouldn't prefer that.

  "No!" Martha exclaimed.

  "You're already telling Nick Novak no, and you've only been here for a couple of hours? Nick, I do believe you've met your match in this young woman," Faye said.

  Nick was glad he'd already completed his arrangements with Martha. If the truth were told, he'd always been shy.

  "Now, Nick," Faye went on, "you've been monopolizing Martha all evening, and I want her to meet some other people. That's why I'm having this party, after all, so people can mingle. Mingle, mingle! You just go over and chat with Lynore Parham. She wants to tell you all about her trip to the Lower Forty-eight. Go on, Nick." She gave him a little shove in the direction of a round-shouldered, lackluster loner who looked like a misfit in this congenial group.

  "I hope you don't mind," Faye whispered. "Lynore's so depressing that hardly anyone wants to talk to her. I'm afraid it was Nick's turn to be bored next. Aren't you lucky, Martha, that you don't have that problem? Everyone here just loves you to pieces already. Here's Perry Thompson. Perry, this is Martha." And Faye left her to talk with Perry, who played up to her unashamedly even though her attention kept wandering to Nick, who was gallantly doing his best to hold up his end of the conversation with Lynore.

  Martha didn't get a chance to see Nick throughout the rest of the party. It wasn't, however, for lack of trying. In between mingling, she kept working her way to the fringes of the group, easing her way around little clumps of people, excusing herself occasionally to freshen a drink that she never really refilled.

  She kept hoping that Nick would join her, but the opportunity never presented itself. He was tied up with Lynore until a watchful Faye intervened with her cry of "Mingle! Mingle!" Then Dr. Andy occupied the whole group's attention by telling about the time he'd won a twenty-day-long sled-dog race on the Iditarod Trail.

  Although Martha was fascinated by Dr. Andy's story, she kept watching Nick to see if he was observing her. When he caught her at it she looked away quickly, but she smiled, and out of the corner of her eye she saw that he smiled too. How silly, she thought. It had always struck her as funny that when a man and a woman wanted to get together they had to go through a ritual of eyeing each other first.

  When the rain began to fall more heavily and the temperature became colder, many guests decided to head for home and a warm fireplace. Perry unexpectedly offered to give Lynore a lift to her apartment, Faye began to pick up paper plates and cups and stuff them into plastic garbage bags, and Martha worked with Dr. Andy to wrap the leftover food.

  Then Faye said, "My age is finally beginning to catch up with me. I'm going to call it a night," and Dr. Andy bade them a quick farewell before driving off in his Jeep.

  Nick and Martha were suddenly alone.

  "Somebody should pull the plug on all those colored lights," he said.

  "I think the plug's over here," Martha said, and when she pulled the plug out of its socket the surroundings went suddenly and blindingly dark, the blackness punctuated by the patter of softly falling rain.

  "You'll have to send out radar signals," said Nick, who was holding two trays of cookies. "I can't see a thing."

  "I'm over here," Martha said.

  "Keep talking so I'll know where you are," he said.

  "It's as black as the inside of a cow," Martha replied, a giggle catching in her throat.

  "Have you ever been inside one?"

  "No, but I have a good imagination. Watch your step, the floor's damp."

  He followed her around the porch and into her apartment, looking around curiously to see if her home was decorated in the same glitzy way Martha dressed. He was relieved to see that it was a typical rental efficiency, noth
ing special, nothing fancy. The kitchen was small but modern. She'd brightened the ho-hum decor with assorted hand-woven baskets and a bouquet of fresh flowers on the coffee table. Her laptop occupied a corner desk.

  While Martha dumped the cookies into a tin, Nick stood at the living room window looking out at the rain.

  "Where would you like to go tonight?" he asked.

  She shoved the container of cookies into a cabinet and joined him at the window. "I don't know many places in Ketchikan," she said. She was beginning to feel nervous at being alone with him. This jitteriness hadn't happened to her in years. Usually she felt in control when she was with a man. Now she didn't feel in control at all. Nick was such an unknown quantity.

  "There's a nice little pub where I go sometimes."

  "That sounds fine. Only—"

  He turned and looked at her. There were question marks in his eyes. Why was she suddenly reluctant?

  "It's raining so hard," she said in explanation. She laughed a little, and she knew she sounded jumpy. "I guess I'm just not accustomed to rain like a native—Ketchikaner?"

  He laughed. "I think the proper term is Ketchikanite. And I can understand your distaste for the rain. Our liquid sunshine takes some getting used to." He paused for a moment. "You know," he said more intimately, "we wouldn't have to go out. We could stay right here. I'm not trying to invite myself, and I promise I won't wear out my welcome. But if you'd be more comfortable—"

  She thought about it, a lightning-flash kind of thought. She certainly didn't want him to think he was invited to spend the night, but she didn't read that expectation into either his words or his expression. She sensed that he wanted her to feel more at ease than she obviously was. She could have been embarrassed that he understood her so readily, but she wasn't.

  "Let's stay here, then," she said. "No crowds to battle, no rain, no interruptions." She smiled at him and sat down on the couch. She patted the cushion beside her. Now that she was sure of her ground, in her own territory, she knew how to act. Making the other person feel at home was something she instinctively knew how to do.

  "I've told you about myself and how I happened to be in Ketchikan," she said as he sat beside her. "Why don't you tell me about Nick Novak?"

  He relaxed. It was easy with Martha gazing at him so warmly. The rain outside the window seemed far distant, and her smile was bright and glowing.

  He grinned at her. "I'm really just a fisherman," he said. "I grew up just outside Ketchikan. My father homesteaded our place on Mooseleg Bay, and he married my mother, who was the daughter of a gold miner who settled in Ketchikan after he failed to strike it as rich as he would have liked in the Klondike. Papa fished for a living, and my brothers and I followed along."

  "What kind of fish?"

  "Salmon, halibut, herring. We had a fleet of boats and part ownership of the cannery by the time my dad died. I'm still a full partner in my brothers' fishing fleet. We bought out the other partner in the cannery a few years ago. We needed a little place to store the fish that are being shipped out of Ketchikan; that's why I added Novak Cold Storage to the cannery. And the store—well, that's just an offshoot of all the rest."

  Martha had seen the store. It swarmed with tourists. As a businesswoman, such things interested her.

  "We're doing very well. In fact, it's all I could have hoped for when I took over the management from Papa. My brothers leave the business end of everything to me because they have their hands full with the fishing fleet. I mind being away from home more than they do, and fishing with the fleet means months and weeks away from home at a time. Dan and Fred don't mind that, so it works out fine."

  That seemed odd to Martha. "Dan and Stella have children, don't they? And Fred and Andrea do, too?"

  "Two each."

  "I should think you'd be more free to leave home than they would," she said slowly. Her eyes met his, only to realize that he had retreated somehow. "Of course, it's none of my business," she said, making her own fast retreat.

  He was silent for a few seconds, seeming to weigh his thoughts. When he spoke, it was quietly.

  "I'm responsible for a child," he said. "Davey. He lives with me."

  "Oh," Martha said, taken aback. She had not expected the conversation to take this turn, although now she recalled that Stella had mentioned someone named Davey at dinner.

  "Davey just turned four."

  "That's a nice age," Martha responded, determined not to let the conversation die. "At four they're out of the baby stage, and the terrible twos are finally behind them, and they can walk and talk and begin to be good company." Her last roommate before Lindsay had a four-year-old daughter named Tiffany. Martha loved Tiffany and considered herself the child's honorary aunt.

  Nick looked at her strangely for a moment. "Davey hardly talks," he said abruptly.

  "I—uh," Martha said. From the cautious tone of Nick's voice, she sensed that he didn't want to talk about Davey. But the expression in his eyes made her think that he did.

  "Would you like to tell me about Davey?" she asked softly, deciding to go with the expression on his face rather than the tone of his voice.

  Nick stared at the floor for a moment. He'd managed to keep mum about Davey ever since the boy came to live with him. Even his family really didn't know the whole story, and he didn't intend to tell them, either. But recently he had become so worried about Davey. He felt completely at a loss when it came to figuring out how to help the boy.

  "It's not something I want to discuss with everyone," Nick said at last. "Davey is special to me."

  "Don't talk about it if you don't want to," Martha said softly, although she felt a great need to draw Nick out of himself and to find out why he was so concerned about Davey. She tried to convey her interest in her attitude and in the warmth of her expression. Finally she yielded to her impulse to take Nick's hand and wrapped her fingers gently around his. Her touch generated instant emotional electricity, intimate in nature but not sexual.

  The expression in her eyes was one of total absorption, and instead of wanting to back off as he usually did, Nick found himself feeling profound relief that he'd finally happened upon someone who cared.

  "But I do want to," he said, slowly and with surprise. "I want to very much."

  And because this was true, and because it seemed like the most marvelous thing in the world to have met someone whom he could trust instinctively, and because he somehow sensed without a doubt that Martha was the thoughtful and loyal friend he hadn't had since his friend Hank died, Nick began to talk about Davey.

  Chapter 5

  Nick must have talked for over an hour, telling Martha how frustrating it was to live with a little boy who would not talk. The ready sympathy in her eyes made him reveal his feelings more than he had intended, but he felt much better after he had expressed his frustration over Davey in words.

  "And Hallie—does she have any idea what's wrong with Davey?" Martha asked.

  Nick shrugged. "Hallie's a fine woman, and she's been around kids a lot. She's cared for her sister's grandchildren from time to time, but Hallie doesn't have any more idea what could be wrong with Davey than I do."

  "If Davey is as bright as you believe he is, he ought to be talking by now," Martha said. She was thinking of Tiffany, her former roommate's little girl. Tiffany was a nonstop chatterer.

  "That's what I think, too," Nick said.

  "Have you taken Davey to a doctor?" She was genuinely concerned.

  "Dr. Andy has taken care of Davey since he was a baby. He seems to think that Davey will talk when he gets ready. I used to believe that, too. Now I've changed my mind. Something is wrong with Davey, and I don't know what it is."

  "My mother is a kindergarten teacher. She had a kid in one of her classes years ago who wouldn't talk. I've forgotten what the reason was. I'll ask Mother about it next time I talk to her on the phone."

  "Would you?"

  "Nick, of course I will." She could tell that Nick was worried sick abo
ut Davey.

  Nick leaned back on the couch cushions. "It's hard rearing a child alone," he said, almost as if to himself. "Mothers have a network. They tend to confide in each other and pool their knowledge about child-rearing. But men don't do that. I don't know any single fathers. My brothers leave the upbringing of their kids to their wives. Sometimes I feel as though—" Nick stopped, suddenly aware that he'd been rambling.

  "You feel as though what, Nick?" Martha prompted gently.

  "Like I'm the only man in the world with a kid who has a problem. It's such an isolated—and isolating—feeling."

  "I wish I knew how to help," she said.

  He turned his gaze on her, and in his eyes she noted an intensity that she had never seen there before.

  "You have helped," he said. "I don't feel so isolated anymore," he went on. His voice was low, and its uncharacteristic roughness exposed his vulnerability; she hadn't thought of him as vulnerable before. She was aware of a wave of warmth emanating from him, and she suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

  She had known she was sexually attracted to him from the first time she'd seen him, but for over an hour that attraction had been suspended. They had done away with pretense, with trying to impress each other, with banalities. Compared to what she usually experienced with men in the early stages of a relationship, this honest communication was refreshingly different.

  "And now," he said more lightly than he felt, "I've taken up too much of your time telling you all my troubles. I ought to go."

  What should she say? She certainly wasn't ready for him to leave, and yet she feared that any suggestion that he stay would be misconstrued. A bond had begun to form between them when he disclosed his fears about Davey, but the bond wasn't solidly forged yet. The bond wouldn't be really strong until he knew more about her. She realized that, and yet she still didn't know what to tell him about herself. Especially when he seemed so ready to leave.

  "Would you like something to eat or drink before you go?" she said, because it was the only thing she could think of to keep him there.