Alec Fraser was already sampling bars, his reactions subtle but visible. “So, I’m a guinea pig.”
“Something like that.” Helen crossed her arms and watched him. “I need new subjects, you know.”
“You’re probably a graduate student working on a dissertation,” he muttered. After smelling the watermelon glycerin soap, he looked undecided, then set it down.
Rather than thanking her and grabbing the first bar, to her secret amusement, he took the choosing quite seriously. Maybe he didn’t want to smell tropical when he emerged from his morning shower.
Blueberry? His face said maybe. Goat’s milk and cucumber? No. Definitely. Vehemently, even. Lemon tart pleased him, but not enough.
The winner, when he turned from the wire bins, was aloe and eucalyptus.
“Good choice.”
He smiled. “Most of these were making me hungry.”
“You don’t want to smell good enough to eat?” Helen couldn’t believe she’d said that, especially in such a, well, flirtatious way.
His eyes glinted, and his voice seemed to deepen. “I could be persuaded.”
Lucinda Blick caroled, “I’m back!” The smell of fish and chips arrived with her. “Thanks for watching…oh.” She stopped in the entrance to the tent, immediately noticing Alec Fraser. “Hello.”
He smiled easily and introduced himself. When Lucinda identified herself as the neighboring vendor, he commented on her beautiful silk scarves with a charm that struck Helen as practiced, or perhaps only rehearsed.
Then he smiled impartially at both women and said, “I’d better get my welcome wagon moving, or I won’t make it all the way around. It was good to meet both of you.” His gaze lingered on Helen’s face. “And thank you for this.” He bounced the soap in his hand like a kid with a baseball.
“You’re welcome.”
A moment later, he was gone. Helen pretended she didn’t mind.
“Enjoy your dinner?”
Lucinda peered out. “Lucky him, he’s been way-laid by Nancy Pearce. She’ll find something to complain about.”
“Oh, maybe not.”
“You’re too charitable,” her blond neighbor said dryly. “Our Nancy likes doing the fancy indoor shows. Outside, the ground is always bumpy, she never likes her assigned spot, and if it isn’t raining it’s too hot.”
Helen couldn’t help chuckling, even though she felt guilty. “She claimed to have twisted her ankle last week, there was such an awful hole right in the middle of her space.”
“Conveniently covered by a table skirt, so nobody else could see it.”
“Well…yes.”
Still spying, Lucinda said, “She’s laughing! Can you believe it?”
Yes, Helen thought but didn’t say. She could.
“Actually—” Lucinda sounded thoughtful “—I’m not totally surprised. He did have a lovely smile. And shoulders.” She craned her neck a little farther as Alec Fraser apparently crossed the aisle. “Oh, hell. He’s gorgeous.” She sighed and turned. “Who could be immune?”
“Not me,” Helen admitted. “Especially after he unloaded half my stuff for me.”
“I wonder if he’s married,” Lucinda mused. She pinned her gaze on Helen. “Are you married?”
“No, and not looking,” Helen said firmly. She lifted a wooden box from a cardboard carton and set it on the table, opening the lid to reveal the soaps packed inside.
Lucinda touched the silky smooth wood. “Those are beauties. I meant to tell you last week.”
“Kathleen’s husband is a cabinetmaker. This was his idea. Of course, he makes them.”
“They’ll sell like hotcakes.” Lucinda wasn’t to be diverted. “Why aren’t you looking?”
None of your business, trembled on Helen’s lips but remained unsaid. Lucinda had been too nice to her.
“I’m a widow.” Her words were clipped. “I loved my husband deeply. His illness was…terrible. I won’t face anything like that ever again.”
“How long ago?”
“Nearly three years.”
Voice gruff, the older woman said, “I hope you change your mind. My first husband was killed in Vietnam. I couldn’t imagine going through that a second time. Now, I can’t imagine not having had the past twenty years with Monty.”
“I didn’t know….”
“That I was married? We have a deal. I do craft shows, he golfs.” The bawdy grin was unexpected on her weathered face. “The rest of the time, we honeymoon.”
Helen couldn’t help laughing again. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to meet a Monty someday. But…not yet.”
“Maybe you’re readier than you know.” Lucinda waggled her eyebrows as she gave a meaningful glance in Alec Fraser’s direction. Then, before Helen could argue, she let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen to my tongue flap. I never give advice, don’t believe in it. Anyway, I still have a ton to do.” She lifted a hand in farewell and rounded the tent walls into her own space.
A moment later, Helen heard the clank of a rack being assembled and the growl of her neighbor mumbling to herself.
Helen was left feeling unsettled, her sunny sense of contentment clouded by memories and by the unwelcome awareness of a man who wasn’t Ben Schaefer.
No, she wasn’t ready. She never would be. Once was enough. Ben couldn’t be replaced.
She knew even as the thought formed that she was lying to herself. It wasn’t that no one would ever measure up to her husband. He’d had his flaws. Just because he had died, she wasn’t going to turn him into a fairy-tale prince. There probably were men out there with whom she could fall in love.
She just didn’t want to.
Having Ben torn from her had hurt too bad. The agony of seeing him lose his hair and his robust color and his muscle tone and finally even the smile in his eyes and the strength in his voice had been unspeakable. Even worse was saying goodbye every day, with every touch and word, for a year and a half.
After the funeral, people had patted her hand and said kindly, “The worst is over. At least this wasn’t a surprise. You’ve had time to grieve in advance, to say goodbye. I know you’re grateful for the time you had with him this past year.”
Was she? Helen didn’t know. She had tried a thousand times to imagine how it would have been if Ben had been late for dinner one night, and a knock came on her door. She could see herself opening it, finding a police officer standing there with compassion written on his face. “I’m sorry,” he’d say. “Your husband has been in a car accident. He’s dead.”
Perhaps they weren’t that blunt. She didn’t know. Maybe they told you to sit down first, or suggested you call a friend or relative to hold your hand. That wasn’t the point.
The point was the suddenness. Ben—the Ben she had married and held the night before and laughed with that morning—would be gone. Poof. His life snuffed out in an instant rather than inch by excruciating inch.
She knew the shock would have been stunning, the grief overwhelming. Grief, she understood. But her last memory would have been of Ben’s smile, the warmth of his lips when he kissed her goodbye, as he did every morning. As he had every morning, until he became too ill to go to work, and then too ill to get out of bed