A Ready-Made Family

Lia paused. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only in Alouette. I’ve lived here for just about a year now and already I’m on a first-name basis with the entire population.” She added chummily, “And you have to wave at them every time your cars pass or they’ll think you’re mad.”

“Then you’d know—” Lia broke off. She had to remember not to be forthcoming.

The woman looked curious, but she covered the awkward silence by introducing herself. “I’m Claire Saari.”

“Lia Howard. We’re not…uh, I’m not sure, but—” She took control of her stumbling tongue. “What I’m trying to say is that we may be only visiting overnight. I haven’t decided.”

“Where are you staying?” When Lia hesitated to answer, Claire laughed. “Sorry. I could blame small-town nosiness, but really it’s that there aren’t many accommodations in town and I run one of them.” She produced a card from her purse. “Bay House, a bed-and-breakfast. June is early in the season yet, so I can get you a room if you’re looking.”

Lia studied the card, which was embossed with a line drawing of a Victorian mansion perched on a cliff-side. Too ritzy by far. “Must be a nice place.”

Claire lowered her voice. “I’ll give you a discount.”

“Thanks. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”

Claire glanced at the food in Lia’s cart. “Your only other local choice may not be viable, but you might prefer it if they’re open. Maxine’s Cottages.” She pointed. “Thataway—on Blackbear Road.”

“I know it.”

“Oh. You’ve been there already? With most of the family away, I wasn’t sure if the cottages—” Claire stopped and looked at Lia with dawning knowledge. “Wait a minute. You’re Rose’s friend from below the bridge, aren’t you? I remember she mentioned a Lia who couldn’t be at the wedding and so she had Tess as her maid of honor instead.”

“This really is a small town,” Lia said with some dread. What had possessed her to believe that she would be able to keep her secrets here? Except that Rose had managed for a very long time—until the man she’d wound up marrying had persuaded her that she could come clean.

“Yes.” Claire had laughing eyes. “We’re terribly small and gossipy. But we don’t hold a grudge if you tell us to butt out when we get too intrusive. Like me now.” She started to wheel her cart away, then stopped again. “Call me if you need anything, all right?”

“I had car trouble,” Lia blurted. It was good to have an honest excuse. “That’s why we missed the wedding. And now we’re here and Rose is gone.”

Claire made a sympathetic tsking sound. “You have to stick around until she comes back. I’m sure she’d want to see you.”

“I’d like to, but…”

“Rose’s brother should be at the cottages. I heard he’s planning to renovate them and reopen.”

“We met him already, the kids and I.”

“Of course.” Claire nodded at the groceries in the basket. “Then you are staying? Rose will be so pleased. She’s not one to gush, but I could tell she’d really hoped to have you at the wedding.”

“We’d been out of touch for a while.” Lia was dismayed that she’d been thinking mostly of herself and how Rose could help her out of a dire situation.

But that had been their pattern as friends, since Rose had always been so cussedly independent, even taciturn, about her own desires. Lia was still having a hard time wrapping her head around the idea of the gruff woman she’d known marrying the town’s widowed basketball coach and making a family that included his daughter and the teenage son Rose had given up for adoption when she was young.

“A few years apart doesn’t matter between friends,” said Claire. She tipped her head. “What did you think of Jake?”

Lia gulped down the thickness that formed in her throat at every thought of him. “He’s a lot like Rose.”

“The old Rose.” Claire’s eyes narrowed slightly as she considered Lia. “Maybe the new Rose, too.”

What did that mean? Lia didn’t want to ask because she suspected the observation involved her and the kids. “I don’t know the new Rose.”

“She’s much like the old one except she smiles more often and even carries on a conversation. She has a great rapport with Lucy, her new stepdaughter.”

“Uh-huh. She was always good with my kids. I have three.” Lia lifted her head to the sound of the trio squabbling in the next aisle of the small grocery store. She gave a wry smile. “That’s them. I’d better go.”

“Tell Jake I said hi.”

“Sure.” Lia made a hurried wave and wheeled away, her face growing warm as she puzzled over the idea of how Jake might be like the newly married, newly mothered Rose. The likeliest explanation was too absurd to hold in her head. She shook it loose. Crazy. Although she barely knew the man, she was certain that Jake was not the family type.

Pretty certain.

CHAPTER THREE

TWENTY MINUTES LATER , Lia poured a sixty-four-ounce can of tomato juice over Jake’s head. The thick red waterfall coated his hair and face, then streamed in slimy globules over his shoulders and chest. He was stoic, not making a sound as she shook the can and the last droplets landed all over his face.

“Cool,” Howie said. “It looks like blood. Dump some on me.”

“Ugh.” Lia cranked open another can.

Jake used a washcloth to smear the juice over his skin. He and Howie sat in a big iron claw-foot tub. Howie had insisted on the communal bath, which was unusual because he’d always been a serious little guy, private about his personal business from an early age. Lia had expected Jake to refuse or at least hesitate, but he’d merely shrugged and climbed into the tub in his boxers. It was the same with the grocery receipt and remaining cash that she’d carefully laid out on the kitchen table so he could see she’d accounted for every penny. He’d barely spared a glance. Jake certainly wasn’t a fussy man.

Not like Larry.

“Sauce me,” Howie said.

“Seinfeld,” Jake said. “The entity.”

Howie pumped a fist, making a splash in the pink water. “Yes!”

“What did I miss?” Lia dumped juice over Howie’s head. He shrieked and sputtered with delight. She smiled to hear it, and her lungs expanded, taking in a deeper breath than she’d known for months, even years.

Jake leaned back in the tub. “Don’t you ever watch Seinfeld reruns?”

“Not really.”

“See, there was this episode with a stink in the car, called ‘the entity,’” Howie said, forgetting to breathe he was so excited.

“The stink clung to everything it touched,” Jake added.

“So Elaine, her hair smelled, and she had to get a tomato-juice shampoo, and she said—”

“Sauce me,” Jake and Howie chorused. They looked at Lia, waiting for a laugh.

“I see.” She shook the empty can. “But this is juice, not sauce.”

“Mom.”

“Same thing.” Jake shook his head at Howie. “She doesn’t get it.”