Built to Last (Harlequin Heartwarming) (14 page)

She stirred sugar into her coffee. “Boyce’s girlfriend left him, so he’s feeling down. I met her once and wasn’t impressed, but he was halfway to being in love with her.”

“Why’d she leave him?” Ryan didn’t much care about her brother’s romantic troubles, but he did care what she thought and felt, and he was enjoying watching her face, seeing it brighten and shadow, her mouth pucker when she thought, the small creases form between her high arched brows when she was momentarily disturbed. She had a delicacy about her bone structure, a fineness to her porcelain skin, that her personality belied. The contradiction was one of the many fascinations she held for him.

“According to him, because he’s too ‘establishment.’ Even to please her, he wouldn’t pierce his eyebrow.” Now her face lit with laughter. “Which sounds yucky, doesn’t it?”

“I would use a word considerably stronger than ‘yucky,’” he said with feeling.

Her laughter fled. “All I’ve done is talk about my family. How was
your
week with the kids?”

Seeing real interest in her eyes, Ryan told her. He didn’t sugarcoat the visit. If she was to be a real part of his life, she’d see his kids at their worst as well as their best.

She encouraged him to talk about his worries: Melissa’s premature adolescent behavior, Tyler’s depression and their stiff mentions of their mother.

“Do you have any reason to think she isn’t a good parent?” Jo asked.

“I’m not sure she wanted to have kids at all.” He’d never told even Kathleen about Wendy’s reluctance, not wanting his sister to judge his wife. “I’m the one who wanted them. Sometimes I feel guilty, wondering if I pushed too hard….”

Softly, Jo finished his thought. “But if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have Melissa and Tyler.”

“Right.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I know she loves the kids. I also know she loses interest in the day-to-day demands they place on her. I think she did better when she was first married, probably because she was trying to impress Ronald with how devoted she was. I’m guessing, from things they let slip, that she’s quit trying. She’s got him sewed up, right?”

Jo expressed another of his fears. “Or maybe he wants more of her attention.”

Ryan shoved back his chair and rose, suddenly unable to bear just sitting. “I wish I had some grounds to demand custody.”

“Did you try, after the divorce?”

“No.” He gripped the back of the chair. “I thought it was better for the kids if we worked everything out amicably. They were young enough that it made sense for them to be with their mother. Tyler was still coming home at lunchtime. Living with me, he would have had to be in before-and after-school care.” He grunted. “Maybe I was a coward. I didn’t want to start a war.”

Jo stood and came to him, sliding an arm around his waist. “Keep talking to them. Find out what life’s like before you make a decision. Remember, they’ll be back for Christmas. This time, they won’t be wary of you. You’ll just be Dad.”

“Yeah.” He made himself relax, rotating his shoulders, then faced her. “You’re right. Like I said, you have good instincts.”

“I sure didn’t inherit them from my father,” she said.

“If he was such a bad parent, how did you
turn out so well?” Ryan asked, wrapping one hand around her nape and gently massaging.

She gave a laugh that was more than a little sad. “Sometimes I think I’m a bundle of neuroses. What you see is facade.”

“I’m betting that’s not true.” With his other hand he smoothed her hair from her face. “Our choices, our behavior, our relationships with other people, that’s a big part of us. The things we fear, those are just a facet.”

Her sigh was tremulous. “My relationships with other people stink. Do you know how few truly close friends I’ve ever had? I see my father every few years and wish it wasn’t even that often. Boyce and I go a year at a time without getting together. I’ve never stuck with a boyfriend for any length of time. Aunt Julia was my…” She hesitated. “My lode-stone, I guess, and now I’m questioning her. You don’t know me, Ryan.”

“Then let me,” he said with sudden ferocity. “Show me who you are.”

Her eyes were wet with tears when she looked up. “I’m trying,” she said in a choked voice. “I am. I promise.”

He pulled her tight against him and buried his face in her hair. “That’s all you can do.
That’s all I ask. Whoever you are, I love you, Josephine Dubray.”

She shook her head wildly. “You don’t. You can’t.”

“I can,” Ryan said patiently.

“But…it’s too soon,” she muttered into his chest.

She didn’t love him.

Ryan closed his eyes on a surge of agony. No! She was afraid, that was all. Afraid to admit she did care. He had to believe that!

“Maybe. But I love you anyway.” He nuzzled her hair. “I’m not asking for some kind of declaration in return. I just thought you should know I’m in danger of violating our agreement.”

She mumbled something.

He went still. “What?”

Jo drew a deep, shaky breath. “I’m in danger, too,” she whispered, before pressing her face against his chest again.

J
O WENT HOME
late, having dragged herself unwillingly from Ryan’s house. She had a nine o’clock class in the morning.

The house was dark. Jo was grateful to find a parking spot across the street but only
a door or two down. Shivering from the cold night, she hurried in.

A wonderful, powerful fragrance filled the entry. She breathed it in, thinking,
Vanilla. No, cinnamon. Or even lemon and thyme. Or cocoa. Or…was that a whiff of mint?

Kathleen had been cooking in the kitchen earlier. What on earth had she been making? Curious, Jo turned that way, switching on the light as she went.

The kitchen counter was covered with rows of…soap bars. Some sat in molds, while others were laid out on sheets of cardboard. Wonderful, intriguing soap bars, some clear with what might be rose petals captured inside as if in amber, others the color of oatmeal that had been molded into ovals. They were lined up like fresh-baked cookies set out to cool.

Wonderingly, Jo picked up a bar that had layered colors like a fancy dessert and sniffed. Definitely peppermint and a hint of…chocolate? Was it possible? It felt a little soft, and she quickly set it down.

A clear, square bar with petals frozen inside did smell like roses, while a smooth, oatmeal bar flecked with darker colors exuded cinnamon and nutmeg.

How extraordinary, she thought finally, backing away. Imagine, Kathleen making all these! Practical, brisk and sometimes entirely too regal, she of all people was unlikely to have such a…frivolous, if creative, hobby.

The potpourri of scents followed Jo upstairs, seeming to have soaked into the very woodwork of the house.

She was still smiling when she went to bed, feeling absurdly as if something magical had happened.

Turning in bed, she rubbed her cheek against the pillow. Perhaps magic
had
touched her tonight.

He loved her. Despite her prickliness, her contradictions and warnings and independence, Ryan loved her.

If that wasn’t magic, what was?

And no, she wasn’t going to think about the future, not right now. She wouldn’t think about whether she loved him despite her best efforts not to, whether she
wanted
to love him, whether she could imagine marrying him. Becoming Mrs. Somebody instead of forever being Ms. Dubray, a woman entirely unto herself.

She would just think…he loves me, and hug herself like a teenage girl who has joy
ously tossed the last daisy petal into the air. He loves me not.

He loves me.

W
HEN
J
O GOT UP
the next morning, the soap bars had vanished from the kitchen counter, leaving only their fragrance behind. Kathleen must have gotten up extra early.

After her one o’clock class, Jo lurked downstairs until Emma arrived home from school to ask her about the soap-making.

The teenager sank onto a kitchen chair as if she were too tired to stand. She looked even paler today than usual, her skin milky and tinged with blue.

“Yeah, she makes soap sometimes.” Her shrug would have been insolent if it hadn’t also been so weary. “It was, like, one of her ‘See what an incredible homemaker I am’ deals. She can’t just do things like other people. She has to be, like, a
pro
at it.”

“I couldn’t believe how wonderful the house smelled last night when I got home.” Jo carried a glass of milk to the table. “You want this?” she asked casually. “It’s non-fat. I can pour another.”

Emma fixed a hungry gaze on the milk, as if it were a chocolate mousse or a billowing lemon meringue pie. But she averted her face and shook her head. “Thanks. I’m not thirsty.”

Jo sat down, too, and sipped, feeling as if she were cruelly eating a four-course meal in front of a starving refugee.

“Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?” Emma asked.

“Actually, I did.” Jo smiled at her. “You?”

Emma jerked her shoulders again. “Mom and I fought all weekend. She just won’t let up!”

“Let up?”

“I do eat, but she wants me to stuff myself! I can’t!” she exclaimed in agitation. “I won’t!”

Jo hesitated. “We’re all worried about you.”

The teenager pushed back. “Don’t you start!”

“I won’t.” Not a toucher by nature, Jo reached over and laid her hand on Emma’s. It was not only bony but icy cold. Hiding her shock, she said, “I promise.”

“I thought I could talk to you!”

“You can.” Jo kept her voice soothing. “I promised.”

Emma’s blue eyes were wild. “I know what
I’m doing. I feel fine. Why is Mom so determined to…to fatten me? It’s like I’m a beef calf or something, and she’s going to lose money if I don’t put on enough weight.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yes!” She stood, swayed, then straightened with an air of determination. “I wish I were older and I didn’t have to listen to her!” Hefting her book bag as if it weighed a hundred pounds, Emma left. A moment later, the sound of her slow footsteps on the stairs came to the kitchen.

Jo wanted to go help her, but knew better than to offer.

“Oh, Emma,” she said aloud, quietly, sadly.

Ginny came home an hour later and did join Jo at the kitchen table for milk and a peanut butter sandwich. She carried Pirate into the kitchen with her, and he leaped onto her lap when she sat down.

She shook her head vigorously at the suggestion she add jam. “I like just peanut butter.”

“How was your Thanksgiving?” Jo asked. For some reason, she truly did want to know what this Thanksgiving day had been like for her housemates.

Head down, Ginny murmured. “Okay.”

“Emma said she fought with her mom.”

The six-year-old nodded.

“Did you have other family to Thanksgiving dinner?”

The mouse-brown braid swayed when she shook her head.

“Did you miss your dad?”

Without looking up, Ginny said softly, “No.”

Understanding, Jo said, “He’d been sick a long time, hadn’t he?”

She nodded.

“Did Pirate get some turkey?”

This earned her a quick, mischievous smile. “He liked turkey.”

“I’ll bet he did,” Jo said dryly.

“Mom didn’t want me to give him any, but I sneaked it. I saw Auntie Kathleen sneak some, too.” Her forehead puckered. “She told me to call her that. Do you want to be Auntie Jo?”

Jo’s heart gave a bump, skip and squeeze. “Yes, I think I’d like that a lot.”

“Okay.” Ginny munched contentedly.

Jo returned upstairs to her computer and to the research paper she had been writing—and making excuses
not
to write. But when she heard first Helen and then Kathleen come
home after 5:30 p.m., she wandered back down to the kitchen to lurk again.

Tonight, unless she’d lost track entirely, was Kathleen’s turn to cook. When Kathleen did appear, she looked as exhausted as her daughter, if healthier in color. Hair that had probably started the day braided was slipping loose and fluffing around her face. She had a spot of what looked like mustard on the blouse that was half pulled out of the waistband of her skirt. One stocking had run, and she was limping although she wore slippers instead of pumps.

“Bad day?” Jo asked from where she sat at the kitchen table with a book open in front of her.

“Awful,” Kathleen said briefly, opening the refrigerator. Eyes squeezed shut, she closed it. “What’s wrong?”

“Forgot to defrost the chuck steak.” She rubbed her temple. “I guess I can do it in the microwave.”

“You look like you need a nap. Why don’t I cook tonight?”

Hope briefly lifted Kathleen’s head before she sagged again. “That’s not fair. You haven’t
had a chance to plan anything. And you just got in last night.”

“I could make homemade macaroni and cheese. Ginny loves it. And we have plenty of broccoli. Seriously. Why don’t you lie down for an hour? I’ll aim dinner for 6:30 p.m.”

“If I can just take something for my headache, I’ll be fine,” Kathleen said stoutly before offering a weak smile. “I’d be thrilled if I could watch you cook instead of doing it myself, though.”

Jo smiled in return. “Done. Can I get you a cup of tea first?”

“Oh, yes, please!” Kathleen sank onto the same chair Emma had sat earlier. “What a day.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Jo asked above the water she was running into the sink.

“Hurt…? Oh. No. I wore a pair of shoes I’ve always hated just because they go with this skirt.” She waved at the navy-and-green tweed. “I have blisters you wouldn’t believe. I swear, I’m throwing those dumb shoes away this time!”

Jo handed her a bottle of pain relievers and a glass of water. “We could have a ceremony. We’d each offer the shoes that have caused the most agony. Maybe burn them. Or—
wait!—we could torture them first. Smash them against a concrete wall.”

Kathleen chuckled, sounding almost like herself. “How was your holiday?”

Was the question genuinely curious, or polite? Jo wondered. “Good.”

“We missed you.”

“How could you? You had Ryan’s crew, didn’t you?”

“Mmm. But Emma was in a sulk, Helen burst into tears in the middle of dinner and the turkey was dry.”

“Oh, dear.” Jo poured boiling water over the tea bag and carried the mug to the table, knowing her offering was inadequate. “I hear Pirate liked it anyway.”

Kathleen laughed. “He did. And Ginny caught me redhanded, sneaking him some.”

“She told me.” Jo brought her own tea to the table. “Now, tell me about the soap. I couldn’t believe the glorious fragrance when I got home last night!”

Her beautiful blond roommate grimaced. “When I’m upset, I have to
do
something. I hadn’t made soap in ages, I’ve been buying it at the grocery store, so I thought,
that’s
what I’ll do. I got carried away. And we won’t even be able to use it for weeks.”

“Carried away over what?” Helen shuffled into the kitchen in a pair of baggy sweatpants, a flannel shirt and down booties.

“Cold?” Kathleen asked.

Helen glanced down at herself. “Comfortable. My feet killed me all day.”

The other two women laughed, which required explanation. After they further plotted the demise of their most elegant and therefore excruciating dress shoes, they went back to the subject.

“The soap?” Helen prodded, adding honey to the tea she’d poured herself. “Were you making Christmas presents for everyone on your list for the next ten years?”

“Christmas presents.” Kathleen’s face brightened. “That’s what I’ll do with it!”

Thinking of the rows and rows of bars, Jo said, “Some of it.”

“Oh, we can use it, too.” She frowned. “Maybe I’ll take some over to the women’s shelter once it cures.”

Sounding tentative, Helen suggested, “You could also sell some.”

“Sell it?” Kathleen lifted her brows.

She looked, Jo thought, faintly amazed and even disdainful, as if the idea of selling the products of her hands was foreign to her.

“Was that your soap in the bathroom when I first moved in?” Helen asked.

“I guess it must have been. Oh, I remember finding a couple of bars and putting them out.” Kathleen smiled wryly. “I was trying to be welcoming.”

“They were wonderful!” Helen said with more spirit than Jo often credited to her. “That soap left my skin so soft. And there was this one day especially, when I felt really low. But I kept catching these whiffs of cinnamon. This probably sounds weird, but the smell is so…homey, I guess, it raised my spirits. If money wasn’t so tight, I’d buy handmade ones more often. Yours smelled better than any I’ve ever looked at in stores.”

“You really think so?” Kathleen asked doubtfully.

Jo chimed in. “Last night I came in the kitchen to see what you’d made that smelled so great, and I felt as if I’d discovered something magical.”

Kathleen paused with her mug halfway to her mouth, seeming to take the idea seriously. After a moment, she shook her head. “I’m just not a salesperson. I mean, where would I sell it? On street corners? I can’t imagine approaching shop owners, hat in hand. And do
you know how many lines of handmade soap are already available out there? Just look at Whole Foods! They have dozens! Why would they, or anyone else, add one more?”

“Why did they add the last one?” Helen asked stubbornly. “Because someone approached them, and they liked the product.”

“But I don’t have a product! I have a few extra bars with no packaging! They haven’t even cured yet.”

“We could come up with packaging by the time they do. Something simple.” Helen frowned into space. “Your soaps are so gorgeous, we wouldn’t want to hide them in paper wrappings. Clear, I think, tied up with coordinating ribbons in casual bows. Or the molded ones with the more intricate designs could be boxed in sets of two or four.”

Kathleen set down her mug. “You’re serious.”

“Well, of course I am!” Helen looked surprised. “You hate your job, right?”

“Well, sure I do, but…”

“I’m not saying you could quit, but you could supplement your income. Make enough to remodel this place. And who knows, down the line? Unless you don’t enjoy making the soap, either?”

“I do enjoy making it, but…”

Showing rare determination, Helen continued. “All you have to do is nerve yourself to find a few outlets. How hard is that?”

The two women seemed to have forgotten their tea, their tiredness and Jo. Both sat up straight, elbows on the table as they talked intensely.

“Hard,” Kathleen admitted. “I was good at being a businessman’s wife, if I do say so myself, because all I had to do was please people with conversation and food. I didn’t have to ask for anything, or try to influence anybody. I sure didn’t have to try to sell
myself.
”

“Well,
I
could sell you.” Helen gave a small nod. “I don’t mind. Let me try, if you’re willing to supply any orders.”

“You want to go into business with me.” Kathleen sounded stunned but intrigued.

“No, I’m offering to help
you
go into business.”

Jo watched with interest as Kathleen shook her head firmly. “Nope. If we do this, it’s as partners. We can design packaging and a name together, I’ll make the soap and you can sell it.”

Helen went very still. “You mean that?”
Her voice was almost…hushed. As if hope was such a tiny flicker, she might blow it out.

“Sure I mean it.” Kathleen leaned forward, enthusiasm lighting her face. “We could start with half a dozen of the soaps I already make, but I’d love to experiment with others. I could aim for some that were really distinctive.”

“Like the chocolate one.”

“Right. Go for the unexpected, the…the…”

“Sybaritic,” Jo contributed.

Both heads swung toward her.

“Luxurious,” she said helpfully. “Sensual. Voluptuous.”

“Yeah. That,” Helen agreed, turning back to Kathleen. “Instead of just the citrus scents or the lavender that everybody does—although I like both—we could market you more effectively if your soaps are unique.”

“Market
me.
” If she still had a headache, she’d forgotten it. “Your skill.”

“You really think we can do this?”

For the first time, Jo realized that Helen was pretty, perhaps even beautiful when she glowed with purpose and enthusiasm.

Cheeks pink, eyes sparkling, she radiated excitement. “I do.”

“It’ll mean more work. After we get home from our actual paying jobs.”

“Yes, but just think. What if we built a real business? If we started selling through a website, or talked one of the major catalogs into carrying your soap, or started our own catalog…?”

Kathleen threw back her head and laughed. “Do you have the slightest idea how to do any of those things?”

Helen laughed merrily, too. “No, but I can learn.”

Jo stood and started work on dinner, leaving her two housemates to plot. Soon they were passing a notebook back and forth with scribbled designs for a label even as they talked about ways to expand into baby soap, bath herbs, pet shampoo for the indulgent owner and laundry soap that would leave hand-washables delicately fragrant for weeks.

Kathleen explained the process of soap-making and the difference between cold-process, hand-milled and melt-and-pour soaps. “The hand-milled is made from already cured cold-process, so of course I didn’t make any last night, but it makes a harder bar with a smoother texture than either of the other methods.” She talked about why it had to
“cure” for anywhere from two to eight weeks, depending on the recipe. “We’d have to have room for huge quantities to be curing,” she worried. “I don’t know about the temperature in the garage….”

“We could heat it,” Helen suggested. “Or, for now, clear out the den, put in makeshift shelves and use it. If Jo doesn’t mind,” she added scrupulously.