Everything but a Husband

And take back the underwear. Which of course she couldn’t do because she’d worn it. If only for five minutes.

When she’d finally thrown it out, she didn’t fully understand, not then, why she felt like something’d been stolen from her.

“Okay.” Galen turned around, arms folded across her waist, mentally whapping at the heebie-jeebies. Wondering who she might have been, if she hadn’t made some of the choices she had. If she hadn’t let desperation cloud reason, all those years ago. How long, she wondered, could a seed remain dormant before it would no longer spring to life? Guess she was about to find out, huh? “You’re doing green beans. What can I do?”

“Do?” Cora leaned back, her features twisted. “Baby, unless I’m very mistaken, this is the closest thing you’ve had to a vacation in years. Nobody expects you to so much as lift a finger while you’re here.”

Galen squinted at her. “You’re forgetting. This is the woman who loves to cook, who hasn’t had a chance to strut her stuff for nearly five years. Invalids and old ladies aren’t very appreciative when it comes to anything fancier than custard and boiled chicken.” She grinned, several possibilities swirling around in her brain. “You wouldn’t have a pasta maker by any chance?”

Cora’s eyes went wide. “You make pasta?”

“It’s the only way.”

“Uh, no. The only way is to buy stuff in boxes, throw it in boiling water, ten minutes later you eat.”

“You’d make a lousy Italian, Cora.”

“Not something that keeps me awake at nights, believe me.” Cora stood again and tramped to the door, still hanging on to the moony-faced dog. “Besides, Miss Irish-Slovak Mutt, you weren’t exactly born singing ‘O Sole Mio’ yourself.”

“Minor point.”

Cora chuckled, then said on her way out the door, “But, as it happens, I do have a pasta maker.”

Galen followed, confused. “But you said—”

“Didn’t say I used it.” Cora started down the narrow stairs, one wide hand braced on what seemed to Galen to be a very flimsy banister. “Rod and Nancy—you’ll meet them tomorrow, friends of Elizabeth’s and Guy’s, she’s crazier than a loon but they’re both just the sweetest people you’d ever want to meet—anyway, they gave me one when I moved in here. He’s some sort of gourmet cook himself, you should see his kitchen, honey. Mm-mm. But back to what I was saying before…” Now at the bottom of the stairs, she turned back to Galen, brows drawn together. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

Galen stopped, two steps from the bottom, hands tucked in her pockets. “For heaven’s sake, Cora. I’m on vacation, not convalescent. So where’s this pasta maker?”

“You don’t have to do this—”

“Hey—you want me to go to this thing? You let me bring something.”

“Oh, Lord.” Shaking her head, Cora pivoted on the bare wooden floor, her leather-soled flats tapping against the boards as she made her way to the kitchen. “Now I’m beginning to remember what you were like as a child. Like to give your mama fits, what with you always getting a bee in your bonnet about one thing or another.” She finally jettisoned the dog, then opened and closed several heavily enameled white kitchen cupboard doors before she found what she was looking for. She lugged the machine off the shelf, thunking it down onto a badly worn Formica counter in a hideous shade of aqua.

Galen oohed at the pasta maker for several seconds before Cora’s words sank in. She looked up, brow puckered. “What are you talking about?”

“Baby, you were a real piece of work when you were little. Stubborn? Hardheaded? Willful?” Cora laughed. “Take your pick.” She nodded toward the appliance. “That okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” Her brain spinning, Galen caressed the glistening surface of the appliance. “This is like the Rolls-Royce of pasta makers.”

“Yeah?” Cora looked at it the way those people did on the “Antiques Road-show” when the appraiser told them the piece of junk that had been sitting in their great-aunt’s attic for a thousand years was worth more than their house, then shrugged. “Still.” Then she took off for the living room, leaving Galen, once again, to follow. Which she only did because she wanted Cora to tell her what the heck she was talking about.

Cora grabbed the clicker from the coffee table, settled herself on one end of the nubby, striped sofa. “Now, I’m not saying you were a bad child. Nothing like that. You never sassed your mama, least not that I ever heard. And you were always so good with my girls, even though they were so much younger than you. But you sure were a determined little thing. When you wanted something, you’d either drive your mama nuts until she gave in, or figured out some way to get whatever it was you wanted on your own.” She angled her head, frowning. “You don’t remember that?”

With a sigh, Galen sank into the overstuffed cushions beside Cora, her arms knotted at her waist. “Vaguely. But somewhere along the line…” She stopped, trying to figure out how to put what she felt into words. The dog hopped up onto her lap, bestowing two tiny kisses on her knuckles. Galen smiled in spite of herself. “I guess my parents’ deaths shook me more than I even realized.”

“Knocked all the fight out of you, in other words.”

“Maybe. Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, honey—” Cora aimed the clicker at the TV, surfing through several channels until she lit on some sitcom Galen had watched once and vowed to never watch again “—ain’t nobody around to tell you what to do anymore, is there? You wanna make something for dinner, you go right ahead.” Without waiting for a reply, she waved at the TV. “You like this show?”

Galen reached around to finger a stray hair tickling the back of her neck. “Actually…” Cora pinned her with a look she’d seen a thousand times on her grandmother’s face. “Sure. It’s…one of my favorites.”

“Good. I was hoping you’d say that.”

Galen just sighed.

Even though the brilliant flush of high autumn was long past, Thanksgiving decided to be clear and bright and crisp, a day to do Norman Rockwell proud. Around two, Cora’s little Ford Probe slid in behind a conga line of minivans snaking around from the front of Elizabeth’s and Guy’s corner-lotted Victorian. They got out, carefully withdrawing the terry-blanketed casseroles from the floor behind the front seat: Cora’s green-bean casserole and a dish Galen had learned to make on the sly by watching Vinnie’s grandmother. Galen had dragged Cora all over creation for two hours yesterday before she found a store with the right kind of prosciutto ham, the Parmesan cheese—fresh, not the Kraft stuff—the ricotta. Then, this morning, she’d spent a couple more blissful hours in the kitchen, humming contentedly as she chopped and stirred and layered, while Cora made assorted “better you than me, baby” comments.

To tell the truth, Galen had often thought she preferred cooking to sex. A revelation she kept to herself, for obvious reasons. Sex had always left her feeling…what? Agitated, somehow. Like there should be more, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what the “more” should be. It wasn’t that Vinnie was bad in bed as much as he just didn’t seem all that interested.

So much for the passionate Italian lover theory.

Instead, she found incredible satisfaction in making even the most intricate, complicated dishes from scratch. When she was in the kitchen, rolling out pasta, chopping herbs, layering cheeses and meats in obscenely expensive pans, she was at peace. Since she’d been married to an Italian, she’d learned to cook Italian. Learned to cook it well.

Even if she rarely had the opportunity to show off her talents.

A gaggle of shrieking, laughing children swooped past them, tossing huge armfuls of curled, crinkly leaves in a hundred shades of brown at each other, as Galen and Cora waded through the arboreous debris up to the house, a dusty-blue-trimmed white Victorian with a wide wraparound porch on three sides. The house was set far back on a large lot over-flowing with lush evergreens and the graceful skeletons of a dozen or more deciduous trees, slashes of charcoal against the sharp blue sky; a few blocks to Galen’s left, she could see the glint of water sparkling at the end of what looked like a park. She inhaled deeply, delighting in the pungent-sweet scent of moldering leaves and fireplace smoke, even as a strange, inexplicable mixture of contentment, apprehension and regret swirled around her heart.

“Cora!”

A laughing woman’s voice cut through Galen’s thoughts. They’d just about reached the porch steps; she looked up to see a petite blonde standing in front of the open door. Slung on the woman’s trim hip was a toddler in pink overalls and flyaway blond hair, guzzling something in a Sippee cup. This was one classy lady, Galen decided at once, feeling downright dowdy in her brown sweater and slacks, her hair pulled back in its standard clip. A finely knit, obviously expensive, heathery blue turtleneck sweater hugged the woman’s slender figure, dipped into matching wool slacks. She wore her pale hair pulled into a neat twist at the back of her head, a few wisps floating around her delicately featured face. Simple pearl earrings glinted in her ears; her makeup was understated, perfectly applied. Her lightly glossed lips, however, were pulled up into a broad, welcoming smile. She held out her free hand…which is when Galen spotted the Popsicle stick turkey, enthusiastically and messily painted, pinned to one shoulder.

“You must be Galen,” she said, her handshake firm and warm. “Welcome to the funny farm. I’m Elizabeth, and this is Chloe, my daughter, and I’m not even gonna try to introduce you to everyone else! It’s each person for him-or herself today.”

Just then, a dark-haired man with the brightest blue eyes Galen had ever seen poked his head out the front door, a single gold stud gleaming in one ear. “There you are,” he said to the blonde. “Wondered where you went.”

“I escaped,” Elizabeth announced. “Between your mother, my mother and Rod, that kitchen is way too crowded. Galen…Granata, isn’t it?” Galen nodded, impressed she remembered. “My husband, Guy Sanford. Well, come on in,” she said, sidling through the door, the baby beating on her shoulder with the empty cup. “We’re still waiting on a few stragglers. In the meantime, we’re setting everything up on the dining table.”

The scent of roast turkey and spices and just-cleaned house washed over Galen as they walked through the high-ceilinged entry hall, the ivory walls splashed with splinters of sunlight from the cut-glass panes in the transom over the front door. Elizabeth glanced at Cora’s foil-covered dish. “Green beans?”

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you, Miss Nosybody?” And with that, she tromped off, leaving Galen standing alone with Elizabeth, feeling abandoned and awkward. Guy had also disappeared; Elizabeth lowered the fussy toddler to the floor, who headed toward the living room, a warm, cluttered collection of leather furniture and antiques in shades of golds and dark reds. The baby was making fast tracks toward the largest, scruffiest dog Galen had ever seen.

“Chloe?” The baby pivoted around, her mouth tucked into a “who, me?” expression. “Be nice to Einstein, okay?”

Chloe babbled something completely unintelligible, then resumed the pursuit of her quarry, who seemed not the least bit concerned he was about to be attacked by twenty pounds of unbridled affection.

Elizabeth watched for a moment as the dog slowly rolled to his back so the little girl could pat his stomach, sighed, then turned her attention back to Galen. “I know he’s ten times bigger than she is, but those cute little hands of hers can be lethal. Come on back,” she said, her low-heeled pumps soundless on the Oriental-patterned runner leading back to the dining room, then glanced back at the dish in Galen’s hands. “More green beans?”

“Uh, no. Spinach and prosciutto pasta.”

Brows lifted, Elizabeth stopped in her tracks, lifted a corner of the foil covering the dish. “Ooooh…that smells absolutely wonderful.” She took the dish from Galen’s hands, carrying it over to the lace-covered dining room table herself. “Hey, you two!” she said to a pair of little boys, one blond, one dark-haired, black olives tipping all their fingers. “Go on, scoot! It’s not time yet—”

“Mama,” the darker-haired boy said, stuffing three olives in his mouth, then tugging on her sleeve. “Look what Micah did to the pumpkin pie—”

“I did not!” the blond kid shot back. “It was already like that!”

“Oh, yeah? Then how come your breath smells like pumpkin pie?”

“Boys?” They both looked up at their mother. “Go away.”

Exchanging half-hearted jabs, they did. Bracing Galen’s casserole against her hip, Elizabeth scanned the table, already smothered in assorted baskets and casseroles and plastic bowls. “Here—move those rolls over there—yeah, that’s right—and that bowl of…whatever it is, to the right of the Jell-O mold—” Galen smiled at the ill-concealed grimace “—there!” Elizabeth set the casserole down, clearly pleased with herself.

“Okay, where you want the ice?”

Galen whipped around to run smack into Del Farentino’s startled smile.

“Oh, great!” Elizabeth said. “There’s an ice chest…” She peeked around the corner of the table. “Ah. Right here. Just plop it on in there.” She looked up, then from one to the other. “Oh, uh…you two already met?”

Galen folded her arms against her ribs, quickly taking in Del’s unbuttoned, untucked plaid shirt casually framing a torso-hugging T-shirt disappearing into the waistband of a pair of worn jeans. “Del picked me up from the airport the other day,” she said, silently pleading for him not to say anything else.

“Oh, that’s right. Cora told me.” Elizabeth snatched an olive herself, then headed toward the swinging door which Galen assumed led to the kitchen. “Where’s Wendy?”

Del grinned. A little unsteadily, Galen thought. “God only knows. She saw the kids playing in the leaves, took off like a shot.” Galen saw his glance swerve toward the table, after which he let out a long, low whistle. “Man oh man, that’s a lot of food.”

“Nobody’ll leave here starving, that’s for sure,” Elizabeth agreed, then vanished through the door, leaving it swinging in her wake.

Leaving Galen alone with Del. She was gonna kill Cora when she saw her again. She laced her hands together, only to immediately unlace them. Then she turned to the table, fiddling with the pile of plastic flatware dumped on the corner. Ridiculous, the way her heart was pounding. Like she was interested or something. Jiminy Christmas.

“Wonder where everyone else is?” she said through a scratchy throat.

“Oh, that’s easy. Kids are all outside, men are all in the family room watching a game and the women are either in the kitchen or upstairs criticizing the decor.”

She smiled. But not at him.

He stepped closer, smelling of cold air and aftershave and some indefinable unique scent that made her want to smell more. That made her want to run away. She shut her eyes, reminding herself it was a trap, making men smell good. Nature’s way of derailing a woman, making her believe in things that weren’t real. Of making her miss the point. Not to mention the boat.

“Which one’s yours?” he asked, looming over the table, his hands braced on his hips. “And please don’t tell me it’s the Jell-O mold.”

Her own laugh surprised her. She’d really have to watch that. Letting him make her laugh. Because then, see, she might discover she really liked him. And even that was too great a risk. “No. It’s the one over there, by the cranberry sauce. Oh! What are you doing?”

Del had made an exaggerated show of peering over his shoulder before snitching one of the individually sliced rolls, holding it over the palm of his other hand as he munched. “Sampling,” he said around the bite, then groaned.

Galen shrugged, trying not to take it personally. “It’s not to everyone’s liking, I know—”

“Are you kidding?” Del stuffed another bite into his mouth, promptly speared another piece with a plastic fork. “You made this from scratch?”

She nodded, feeling a blush of pride sweep up her cheeks.

“God, I haven’t had anything this good since I was a kid at my grandmother’s house.” Then he gave her a smile, all goofy and wonderful and warm.

With a little cry, she ran from the room.

Chapter 4

What the hell?

Still chewing, Del stared in the direction Galen had fled. Great. Five minutes with the woman, she either throws up or runs away. Real boost for the old male ego.

Not that it mattered one way or the other what Galen Granata thought of him, especially since she was leaving in three days. Especially since he felt downright…unfinished next to her. No, she didn’t exude the studied perfection of Maureen or Elizabeth, or even the casual stylishness of Nancy Braden, Elizabeth’s best friend. But there was something about Galen’s naturalness, her quiet reticence, that just knocked him for a loop whenever he saw her. She was, quite simply, flawless.

Del was, equally simply, not.

“What was that all about?”

He hadn’t heard the kitchen door open, or seen Guy, armed with two cans of black olives, head in his direction. His head humming, Del turned to his step-brother-in-law. “Damned if I know. I complimented Galen on her contribution to the groaning board, and she lit out of here like I’d insulted her.”

“Huh.” Guy dumped the olives into the almost empty crystal dish, his layered, shoulder-length hair swishing over a bold, geometric-patterned sweater in shades of black, purple and bright blue. “Women are strange beasts, no doubt about it. Forget it, dog,” he said to Einstein, who’d wandered into the room on the off-chance someone had called him to dinner. With a groan, the shaggy beast slunk out again, head and tail hanging. Guy set down the empty cans on the corner of the table, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Good-looking woman,” he said, too casually.

Del shrugged, refusing to take the bait. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Bet she doesn’t think she is, either.”

“I couldn’t say.”

Silence.

Guy rubbed his index finger under his lower lip, surveying the spread. “So. What’d she bring?”

Del bit back a smile at the way Guy had just backed down. For the moment, at least. “I don’t know the real name. Pasta rolls, stuffed with cheese and ham. My grandmother used to make it when I was a kid. Go ahead—try one.”

Guy picked up a piece, opened his mouth. Shut it again, his brow wrinkled. “What’s the green stuff?”

“Spinach. Least, that’s the way my grandmother made it.”

Incredulous blue eyes met his. “And you liked it?”

“Hey—you ain’t tasted spinach until you’ve tasted what an Italian can do with spinach.”

Guy squinted. “I thought Cora said Granata was Galen’s married name.”

“Close enough.”

Still, Guy took a cautious bite, chewing slowly at first, then more quickly, his expression changing from skeptical to “wow” within three seconds.

“Was I right or what? Good stuff, huh?”

Guy shoved in another piece. “Any woman who can do this to spinach…” Still chewing, he grabbed the cans and went back into the kitchen, leaving Del to finish the sentence any old way he pleased.

Her heart pounding painfully inside her chest, Galen ducked outside, hoping maybe a few breaths of fresh air would clear her head. She strode across the porch, down the steps, sinking onto the bottom one, her head clamped between her hands.

This had to stop.

Too many thoughts were stampeding through her brain for her to sort them all out, to make enough sense, even, of them to get control. She felt dizzy, off-balance, as if someone had tilted the floor underneath her feet. For heaven’s sake, all Del had done was compliment her cooking and smile at her. Period. He wasn’t flirting, coming on to her, or otherwise threatening her in any way. He probably wasn’t even attracted to her. Not really. Not in the I’d-like-to-get-to-know-you-better sense, at least.

Heat seared her cheeks, again.

Okay, so it had been a while since a male-type person had even looked at her, let alone been nice to her. Other than the occasional bag boy at the Giant Eagle, maybe. And she was feeling a bit odd woman outish, in this house filled with people she didn’t know. Refined, classy people. Oh, sure, Elizabeth and Guy were friendly ‘n’ that, and it wasn’t like their house looked like a museum or anything. But even with four kids, from what she could tell, it still looked like something from one of those home decorating magazines. Like grown-ups lived there, too.

Galen hooked her hands around one knee, listening to the cacophony of children laughing and calling out to each other from the other side of the house. She knew she wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t that. But not having gone to college or pursued a career put her at a definite disadvantage. She simply didn’t fit in with these people.

As much as she ached to be like them.

She frowned, thinking about that. She’d never envied anyone before, not that she could remember. Not even when the other girls in her class got to date or wear makeup and she couldn’t. She guessed she’d always been one of those types who just accepted her lot in life. Her chin found its way into her palm as she let out a long, bewildered sigh. When had that changed? When had she changed? And what was it about the people inside that house she envied?

The answer came almost immediately: confidence.

She sat up straight, as if she’d been prodded. It wasn’t their clothes or education or the material trappings of their lives, but the self-confidence they all radiated. They knew who they were, what they were about, what their purpose was in life. And it didn’t matter, she realized, what that purpose was. Just that they had one. A purpose of their own choosing, whether it be family or career or whatever.

At that moment, Galen didn’t know whether it had been family interference or just plain old-fashioned circumstances that had robbed her of the drive and focus all those people inside that house had in spades. But without it, she was faceless, a non-entity.

With it, she’d never have to run from a man’s presence again, would she?

She got up from the steps, hugging herself as she walked toward the sound of the children’s voices. The wind snatched at her hair, tugging it out of its clasp; she pushed it back as she watched the impromptu game of tag in front of her. A couple of the older children, particularly a tall, spiked-haired blond girl of about eighteen, kept watch over the toddlers while the middle-aged children raced away from whoever was “it,” their voices shrill and clear. Galen recognized Elizabeth’s and Guy’s two boys in the pack, their shirts untucked from their pants, their faces flushed with cold and laughter. She folded her arms against her ribs, pushing back the pang of melancholy that still, no matter how hard she fought it, swept through her from time to time. She’d told herself, when Vinnie died, it was for the best they never had those babies they’d planned on.

But then, she’d at least have that purpose, wouldn’t she?

Someone—a gangly boy with glasses, maybe fifteen or so—yelled out to one of Elizabeth’s boys, blindly headed toward a little girl with white-blond hair, a doll of a child in a rust-colored jumper and white tights. Del’s daughter, Galen realized, only a second before she also realized the child, who’d bent down to scratch the huge dog, now lying in the leaves, couldn’t see that Elizabeth’s boy had lost his balance and was about to land right on top of her.

“Hey!” Galen shouted, wishing she could remember the child’s name. Leaves flew in all directions as she took off toward her, yelling “Watch out!” at the top of her lungs. She dove for the child, snatching her out of the way a split second before the boy tripped over the dog. Both of them tumbled into a pile of leaves, the little girl landing, her mouth open in shock, on top of Galen.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said, more winded than anything else. “You almost got creamed. Didn’t you hear us calling you?”