All That You Are (23 page)

With running the bar and taking care of Terran, Dana hadn't allowed romantic notions into her thoughts—at least none that she'd told Suni. Dana had more common sense now than to lose herself in love without seriously thinking things through.

But the truth, such as it was, still made Dana living the rest of her life alone quite unrealistic.

Dana was lovely and young herself, and Suni was reconciled to her wanting a family of her own, a house to call hers and a husband to share her bed and entwine her
mind. While Dana wouldn't discuss such dreams, Suni knew every woman wanted to love and be loved.

“Can you hand me those sixteen-penny nails?” Mark asked as he moved to gather two-by-fours.

“I'm not sure what those are,” Dana replied, rising to her feet. She nosed through the supplies in plastic bags that he'd brought over.

Leaning across a sheet of plywood with his measuring tape and a pencil in hand, he said, “The boxes are marked.”

Dana found what he needed and handed him the nails.

Suni inched forward in her chair to check what Mark was doing with a keen eye. She caught her reflection in a mirror that leaned against the inside of the garage.

Once belonging to the bedroom set she and Oscar shared, the mirror had cracked when she'd moved the dresser to get a necklace of hers that had fallen behind it.

She saw herself as she was. Her blunt-cut black hair rested on her shoulders, her cheeks brushed with beige-pink—the only makeup she wore. For a woman her age, she admitted she had a timeless appeal. Both classically Anglo, yet with Chinese features chiseled in her nose and the almond shape of her eyes.

What would a man her age ever think of her…?

Unlike Dana, she would never know. By choice, she had no desire to ever be one with another.

“Your mother told me you built her a birdhouse when you were sixteen and in high school wood shop.” Suni's comment brought a faint smile to Mark as if he remembered that birdhouse.

“Mom,” Dana said in a slow enunciation, as it to warn,
Don't let him know you and his mother talked about him.

Dana's hidden message wasn't necessary. Too late for caution, Suni already had her pressing questions answered by Mariangela. Suni looked forward to the other woman's e-mails on a daily basis, writing her back with stories of her own life. Mark had been right. She and Mariangela indeed had commonalities.

“It's not a problem, Dana,” Mark said with an easygoing tone. “I told her to ask my mom anything she wanted about me.”

Dana's brows slightly arched, although why, Suni wasn't sure. She'd mentioned to Dana that she'd been corresponding with Mrs. Moretti.

Crouching, Mark wrote notations on a wood scrap, then stood. The sound of his tool belt filled the small space, the metal of a hammer and other such things that hung from the leather. “Suni, I've built a lot of things.”

Suni inquired politely, “How do you know how to do it without a pattern? I've sewn clothing before and without the tissue to lay on the fabric, I wouldn't have known which way to cut.”

Mark swung one of the plywood sheets onto the sawhorses he'd snagged from the Blue Note renovation. “I guess I've used wood so much in my life, I just know how it all goes together. And I watched my dad build the same ramp for me in my garage. Only this one will be smaller.”

“What kind of skateboard do I get him?” Dana sat back down. “I've seen a bunch at Wal-Mart. He'd like the one with the Spiderman decals.”

Suni would have had to be blind as a hundred-year-old woman not to notice the way Dana furtively moved and
spoke. Deliberate actions caused reactions and Dana wanted Mark to react to her—even if she hadn't realized it.

Mark tucked the measuring tape into a pocket on his leather belt. “No superheros. You can't skimp on the board—he'll hurt himself on a cheap one. The quality sold at a toy store is garbage. The wheels are constructed from poor material. The trucks are weak and the bearings freeze or the board breaks.” He took a step over to plug a saw into a power cord. “Besides, I already ordered him an Element online. It's coming by two-day air.”

“That was kind of you,” Suni said before Dana could protest. In her pride, she would have cut off her nose to spite herself.

Mariangela had sung praises for her son's generosity. She said his reliability toward the family couldn't be matched. They called on him to help when something needed repair. He'd drywalled his brother's basement after a plumbing flood, wired new lighting in his sister's house and built a deck for Mariangela.

“I've never heard of them,” Dana replied.

And that wasn't the only thing she obviously appreciated. Suni noted Dana's eyes drinking in the curve of Mark's taut behind in his jeans. The man did have a strong physical appeal, and Dana tried to keep her interest concealed. It didn't work. Suni easily caught on to her.

Mark finished marking the two-by-fours and stood. “Element's been around for a long time. They make one of the higher-quality boards. They don't have Spiderman—” he grinned “—but their graphic style rocks with crisp imagery and colors.”

“Sounds expensive,” Dana interjected, taking a sip from a can of cola. “How much do I owe you?”

“Dana, you don't ask a man that.” Suni turned slightly toward her daughter. “Just say thank-you.”

Looking pained, Dana murmured, “Um, thanks.”

Then on a whim, Suni opted to reveal something about her daughter to Mark—as repayment for the tidbits Mariangela had shared.

“I'm sure you've noticed by now that my daughter isn't one to ask for help. Because of that, she hasn't practiced her thank-yous like I taught her when she was a little girl.” With a softness to her mouth, Suni added honestly, “But she's appreciated everything you've done. She told me so.”

“Mom, I'll talk to you later,” Dana replied, her face set with a stubborn frown.

Suni merely smiled, taking her daughter's warning in stride as she put an arm around her and gave her a side hug. “Beloved mine, do not criticize the heart of help.”

“Tell you what, Dana,” Mark said, looking away from his jigsaw, “you can buy him a helmet, elbow and knee pads.”

“Of course.”

Thick black hair fell on Mark's forehead as he reached forward to engage the saw in position. Eyes down, he added without looking up, “You know Terran's going to wipe out. Don't be chasing after him with a box of Band-Aids.”

“A Band-Aid won't fix a broken arm,” Dana replied. Then to Suni she added, “Mark broke his arm on his.”

The dangerous angle of this ramp had crossed Suni's mind, but she'd not thought that far ahead. Too interested
in watching Mark and her daughter together, she said, “And we're letting him build one for Terran?”

“Mom, half the kids on the hockey team have had a limb wrapped in plaster at one time or another. And remember when Jeremy got his front tooth knocked in and he swallowed it? If he hadn't thrown up on the ice, the Tooth Fairy wouldn't have come for a visit.”

Suni gave a darting glance to Dana. “Bad karma.”

Mark's laughter pulled Suni's attention. His face had a cheerful look marked with sincerity. “The two of you amuse me. You remind me of my mom and sister.” Then before squeezing the jigsaw's trigger, he cautioned, “This is going to be loud.”

As Mark ripped a cut through the wood, Dana's eyes never left him. Her gaze caressed the flex of his upper arm, his body, the way he crouched on the garage floor, the strong line of his legs.

Suni noticed that for the first time in forever, Dana seemed happy or at the very least, content. Mark had been good for her. Suni's admission surprised even herself. She'd never thought she would find favor in a man entering her daughter's life. If only—

Shaking her head, Suni let her thoughts dissipate in a vapor. Idealizing the facts was fruitless.

Mark Moretti would be leaving in just over two weeks.

 

C
OMPLETING AS MUCH
as he could on the ramp tonight, Mark called it quits. He still had to soak the plywood pieces for about an hour in order to make them flexible enough to nail on the quarter curve framework. Dana had suggested using Terran's plastic pool for this. She retrieved it from the yard. It would work great.

“Can I get you a beer?” Dana offered, reaching for the white refrigerator in the garage.

“Sure.” He sat in the chair Suni had vacated about an hour ago when she'd retired to the house.

Slapping sawdust off his jeans, Mark gazed into the near-black night through the open garage door. The evening held some warmth to it, but not much. Lights in the garage's interior beamed a pale yellow into the space. They were fluorescents, not single bulbs. The one on the end was burning out, its four-foot tube intermittently flickering.

The street in front of Dana's house was quiet—the homes across the street were invisible—tree silhouettes fringed the sky, and in the distance, winking bright stars. Mark could smell the woods and the flowers drifting on the air. Alaska nights always smelled so clean.

Dana handed him a bottle of beer and he twisted the cap. She sat next to him, crossing her legs. She had on sweats and a T-shirt, simple clothing that looked enticing on her. She was so beautiful he could hardly keep from pulling her onto his lap.

Her hair fell about her shoulders in loose curls that framed her face and cascaded to the middle of her back. When she wore it like this, he imagined her just getting out of bed with sleep-tumbled hair. She gave him a fleeting smile, then stared out the garage, too.

“No rain again,” he commented. “You kind of get used to it and then it's gone and you forget how much you like it when it's not coming down.”

Dana's words filled the quiet night. “Rain is a funny thing. It breeds readers, musicians or drug addicts.”

Mark held on to a laugh, but grinned. “I guess that's one way to sum things up.”

“Rain's just a part of Ketchikan. Like salmon dip's a part of every party or event in town.”

“Is that right, sunshine? You make it?”

She grimaced. “I hate salmon dip.”

“But you like salmon.”

“Go figure. Sometimes things just don't make sense but that's the way they are.” As she spoke, he got the feeling she was thinking about something other than a party spread. Maybe him and her and the relationship they'd formed.

Mark had never met a woman he'd started out with as friends, then grown to admire, respect and more than likely, love. If he could be totally honest with himself, he'd admit that he was falling in love with Dana. But he saved that thought for another time. He usually went in with full-torpedo charm, setting out to win a woman over; it ended up in bed, both of them satisfied, then bored with the pursuit. Chase and capture. Conquest. No sense in continuing.

But Mark hadn't felt like that around Dana Jackson. Quite the opposite. He'd taken more time with her, done more to help her life along, and had more conversations with her, than any women in his past.

One flicker of the overhead light, the span in the middle of the long tube turned to ash-gray. The two ends glowed like the cherry of a burning cigarette.

Mark mused, “I'll change that light for you.”

“I can do it. It's just a bulb.”

“It's not. That ballast just died.”

“What's that?”

“The metal box inside the fixture.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“I just do.” He took a sip of beer, the cold beverage quenching his thirst. “So how do you know how to run a bar?”

“I had to learn.”

Gazing at Dana, he contemplated asking her a question that had been at the back of his mind for some time. The personal side of it was none of his business. But he felt compelled to ask just the same. “Dana, are you and your mom financially okay? Is that why you're keeping the Blue Note going? You need the money?”

“No—no, not at all.” There was a sputter to her response, but no false answer. “My dad made sure we were taken care of, and the bar turns a decent profit to fill in the cracks. Fish Tail isn't doing so hot, but we'll be okay.”

“Then mind if I ask you a question?”

She turned toward him, her eyes meeting his with their green-silver color shooting straight to his heart. Her sweet pink lips were lush, the lower full and ripe. It was all he could do to remember his train of thought.

“Why not sell the Blue Note?” Mark asked, bringing his hand over his lap to disguise his lust. “Why run the place at all? It's not a great environment for you. Granted, you're hooked up with a damn nice posse of people who'd do anything for you there. It's just that you've got your boy to look after—”

“I look after him fine,” she snapped, fire lighting across her oval face. Her next comment came out clipped and tactful. “You don't know me.”