Love in the Afternoon (37 page)

"Since both her parents are dead, I'd say her chances of having a great childhood are pretty well screwed by now."

They talked in undertones that cut beneath the subdued conversation

of the mourners. Guests filled their plates at the buffet table, serving spoons clinking against chafing dishes, drinks being poured. From time to time someone laughed quietly at some shared memory. Tissues were pressed

gently against eyes and noses. The rituals of mourning were being observed, and while it seemed to bring comfort to the people around him, it did nothing for Mark.

He had slid covert glances at Halle, who was sitting at a table on the other side of the room with a book. Her soft brown hair, usually neatly braided, was drawn back in an off-center ponytail. Already the loss of a mother was showing. Mark had gone through her closet that morning and had found nothing that looked appropriate for a funeral. Half her wardrobe consisted of sparkly ballgowns, and the other half was bright T-shirts and embroidered jeans.

Halle had been surrounded by women who fussed over her and

brought her little plates of food as she sat at a table with a book. Countless slips of paper with phone numbers had been pressed into Mark's hand, with offers of "help with Halle." One had insisted on entering her number into his iPhone. "You're not alone, Mark," she had told him meaningfully.

More than a few female gazes were drawn to the pair of Nolan

brothers standing in the corner. Neither of the brothers was precisely 238

handsome, but both had looks that carried. They were big-framed and dark-haired, rough-natured but soft-spoken in the way of native-born islanders.

Mark was the only one who'd ever moved away from San Juan Island,

staying in Seattle after he'd graduated from U-Dub.

The city was only a ferry ride or a half-hour flight from Friday

Harbor, but it was a world away. Mark loved Seattle, the gray winter downpours and lemon-colored summers, the culture of books and coffee, the restaurants that always told you where and when the fish was caught. And he loved the spectacular variety of women, stylish, smart, sexy, funny. He had no desire to commit to any particular woman. He wasn't just afraid of commitment, he was allergic to it.

Now, apparently, he was settling down with someone whether he was

ready or not.

And she was eight.

It had been enough to make Mark panic. Except that when he looked

across the room at his niece, the enormity of her loss, her aloneness, had hit him like a ton of bricks. Halle had no choice about what was happening to her. But Mark did have a choice, and for once in his life he was going to try to do the right thing. It was obvious that he was going to be a rotten parent, but maybe that was still better for Halle than being shoved off on strangers.

And then Mark had looked at Sam, and it had occurred to him that

Sam owed her just as much as he did. "We're a family," he had heard himself saying.

Sam had looked at him blankly.

"You, me, and Halle," Mark had said. "There's only the three of us.

We should do this together."

"Do what together? You mean . . . you want me to help you raise Halle? Jesus, Mark. No. Not happening."

"Why not?"

"I don't know anything about kids."

"Neither do I."

"We're not really a family," Sam had said. "I'm pretty sure I don't even like you."

"Tough luck," Mark said, gaining confidence in the idea. "If I'm doing this, you're helping me. Halle and I are moving in with you at Rainshadow.

There's plenty of room."

Sam lived on San Juan Island in a big Victorian country house,

running the vineyard and winery their father had started more than thirty years earlier. The place was named after the rain shadow cast by the Olympic Mountains, which spared the island much of the drizzle and

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grayness that surged over the rest of the Pacific Northwest.

Of the group of islands that formed an archipelago belonging to

Washington State, San Juan was the farthest from the mainland. The air was dry and weighted with ocean salt, sweetened by the lavender harvests in summer. It was an easygoing, bare-limbed, full-flowered island, a place where bald eagles looped from tree to tree, and resident pods of orcas swam and fed and sometimes drifted lazily with the tide.

"There may be room in the house," Sam had said, "but not in my life.

You're not bringing her there, Mark." Seeing the intractable look on his brother's face, he had cursed softly and said, "You're going to do it anyway, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I'm going to do it. Just for a while." He had sighed shortly at Sam's expression. "Damn it, Sam, help me get through this beginning part.

Halle and I don't even know each other."

"And you think Friday Harbor's a better place to raise her than Seattle?" Sam had asked skeptically.

"Yes," Mark had replied without hesitation. "I've got to slow things down. Living on island time is better for both of us."

"What about your business?"

"Seattle's only a half-hour flight from Friday Harbor. I can go back and forth."

They were both quiet for a minute. Sam looked around Mark, at

Halle's downbent head. She was methodically picking raisins out of a cookie and making a little pile on her plate. "Poor kid," Sam whispered. "How do you think we're going to pull this off, Mark?"

"Like the saying goes . . . fake it so real you're beyond fake."

Usually when your life went in a new direction, you had some kind of warning. You got to think it over, try it on for size, back out if it wasn't working. With a child . . . with Halle . . . there was no backing out. Which meant the only thing left to do was give it their best shot. They had made it through six months of painful holidays . . . Halle's first birthday without parents, the first Halloween, the first Thanksgiving without every place at the family table filled. Mark thought they were doing okay.

Until the letter.

. . . I don't want any presents this year except for one thing. I need a new mom.

"You realize what this means," Mark told Sam after Halle had gone to bed that night.

"That we stink as parents," Sam said, staring morosely at the glittering envelope in his hand. "She needs a woman in her life. Maybe we should find 240

her a nanny."

"It means," Mark said quietly, "one of us needs to get married."

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