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“I’m a leg man myself,” Shane said with a hint of a smile that made Cris think perhaps the information applied to more than chickens.
“Me, too, Mama,” Ricky piped up right after Shane. “I’m a leg man, too.”
Cris banked the urge to hug Ricky to her and laugh. She knew that would only embarrass him before his new hero. But resisting the desire wasn’t easy.
“Two orders of fried chicken drumsticks coming up,” Cris told Shane and her son.
Ricky turned his attention back to Shane. “Who’s this sailor guy you said eats spinach?” he prodded. His expression clearly indicated he thought that anyone willing to eat the weed was less than a hero type, as well as somewhat weird.
With a smile, Shane proceeded to tell the little boy a story the way he recalled it from watching Saturday-television when he was about Ricky’s age.
As she listened to Shane, Cris concluded that the man was as wrapped up in the story as the boy was.
* * *
HE HAD A gift, Cris thought.
She’d gone to work the moment Shane had pulled his stool closer to Ricky’s and started telling the boy an elaborate story complete with a villain, a fair damsel in distress and the green seaweedlike vegetable that turned a somewhat aging sailor into almost a superhero with inflated forearms. Spinach gave the sailor, Popeye, the ability to pummel his enemy into the ground while rescuing a damsel only the one-eyed hero could love.
Cris caught herself listening to the details on more than one occasion as she prepared their lunches. It got to the point that she had to order herself to concentrate so as to block out Shane’s storytelling.
She noticed that Shane timed his story to finish almost at the exact same moment that she announced, “Lunch is ready.”
She placed both plates on the shiny stainless-steel counter, then slid one in front of Shane and the other in front of her son.
Ricky gazed at the vegetable combination a little uneasily, then raised his eyes to see what his newly discovered idol would do.
When Shane dug in, Ricky obviously felt compelled to follow suit, which he did, albeit reluctantly and in what seemed like slow motion. The first bite he took of the mashed potatoes and spinach combination produced a surprised expression on his small, angular face. His eyes looked ready to pop out. “Hey, this is good,” he told Shane.
Which was exactly the way Shane had reacted the first time he’d taken a bite. Ricky, Shane decided, reminded him somewhat of himself.
“Told you,” Shane said to the boy with a wide, satisfied smile.
Through hooded eyes, Cris watched in amazement as her son ate the spinach and potatoes she’d made for him. She expected him to leave at least half on his plate, but he ate until it was all gone. Not a moment’s hesitation, not a myriad of sour faces above his plate and certainly no begging or bargaining the way there usually was when Ricky faced something he would as soon walk away from than eat.
Ricky cleared his plate just as his hero did, then, still emulating Shane, pushed the plate back and patted his stomach.
“That was very good,” Shane told Cris.
“Yeah, very good,” Ricky echoed gleefully, emitting a huge, satisfied sigh the way Shane had half a minute ago.
“Well, I’ve got to be getting back to the job before your sister starts thinking she’s hired a freeloader.”
“What’s a freeloader?” Ricky wanted to know, looking from Shane to his mother for an answer.
“Something Mr. McCallister is definitely not,” Cris assured her son with certainty. The man more than earned his pay—in all departments. Her eyes met Shane’s and she murmured, “Thank you.”
The corners of his mouth curved ever so slightly as Shane said, “There’s no need to thank me.”
And with that, he left the kitchen.
Two sets of eyes watched him until he’d completely disappeared from view.
* * *
“THAT WAS NOTHING short of a miracle. I just wanted you to know that,” Cris said later on that day. Taking a break from her kitchen duties, she’d sought Shane out and found him exactly where he was supposed to be—hip deep in renovations. He was standing with his back toward her, intent on what he was doing on the workbench.
Coming up behind Shane, she was careful not to startle him. She didn’t want to be responsible for him making any unintentional cuts in either his project or himself.
Shane was running a power sander over the plank he intended to use for a new floorboard to match the ones throughout the inn, and he had on a mask to cut down on inhaling the dust.
Cris patiently waited until he’d stopped running the sander before she spoke again, knowing she’d either have to shout to be heard or get in his way so he could see her. Just waiting him out was simpler.
Turning the moment he heard her voice, Shane put the sander back down on the workbench he’d set up and lowered the mask from his nose and mouth.
He looked a little like a surgeon operating in the middle of a sandstorm, Cris thought with an unbidden wave of something that felt very close to affection.
“Excuse me?” he said, fairly certain he’d heard her wrong.
“A miracle,” she reiterated. “You performed a miracle,” she added in a clear, unshakable voice. “We could call it the miracle of the spinach and mashed potatoes, or just call it Shane’s Miracle for short,” she said, really grinning at him this time.
For a second, Shane watched in pure fascination as Cris’s smile coaxed the dimples in her cheeks to emerge, making her look even more appealing—something he hadn’t thought possible until he witnessed it himself.
He cocked his head a bit uncertainly. “Are you talking about lunch?”
“I’m talking about my son, the vegetable hater, eagerly eating spinach. To get him to eat any kind of a vegetable, I’ve tried to bribe him, coax him, do everything short of threatening to leave him wandering in SeaWorld on his own for a week, and you get him to do it in under ten minutes.
Cris shook her head in admiration. “You really must have been some teacher,” she told him with genuine awe.
His answering smile carried a bit of irony. “Never really had the chance to flex my muscles, so to speak,” he said. “I got my degree and suddenly found that I could only get substitute teaching jobs where all they wanted was for me to be a glorified babysitter.” The trace of bitterness she also heard in his voice surprised her. Shane seemed like such a laid-back character, someone who let stress roll off him. “When I started teaching the kids, I wound up ruffling a few feathers, and the jobs, never really plentiful to begin with, started not coming at all,” he finished with an air of disbelief even now.
“Well, the world lost a fantastic teacher the day you were forced to walk away,” she assured him. “If I was in charge of a school, I’d want all my teachers to be like you. You really connected with Ricky, right from the start,” she marveled. “I mean, he’s a friendly little guy, but it does take a bit for him to warm up to a person. With you he showed all the signs of love at first sight.”
Shane self-consciously shrugged off the compliment, not willing to accept what he felt wasn’t rightfully his. “Maybe he just wants a male to connect with and I happened to be handy.”
“You might have been handy, but Ricky’s already ‘connected’ to my dad and he gets along well with Wyatt, Alex’s fiancé. He really wasn’t looking for a male role model or someone to act as a father figure. Nope, Ricky just took to you exceptionally quickly,” Cris told him.
Again he shrugged. He didn’t care to have a spotlight shone on him no matter what his accomplishment.
“Must be my winning personality,” he quipped.
She laughed, not because his personality wasn’t engaging, but because his humor was so droll.
“Must be,” she agreed. “Anyway, I just wanted to thank you. You’ve officially cracked the impenetrable vegetable ceiling,” she told him, amusement curving her mouth. “I was expecting him to turn green or look around for somewhere to ‘deposit’ his mouthful of spinach. Instead, he not only swallowed what was in his mouth, but polished off what was on his plate.”
“I know, I was there,” Shane said with a wink.
Not for the first time, Cris felt something quicken inside her in response and silently argued it was because she’d forgotten to eat again, the way she did all too often when she got involved with what she was doing.
She began to back away. “Well, thank you for being there.”
“Hey, anytime. Let me know if you have more trouble getting Ricky to eat his vegetables. Or doing his homework, for that matter,” Shane added, warming up to the subject. “I’m still awed that kids in kindergarten actually get homework. If he has any trouble at all—not that I think he will,” Shane quickly interjected in case Cris thought he was impugning Ricky’s mental capabilities. “But if he hits a snag while I’m here, let me know. As much as I enjoy working with my hands, I miss the challenge of finding new ways to get kids interested in what I have to teach.”
“Ah, a builder and a scholar,” she said. “I guess that qualifies you as a Renaissance man.”
“Either that or just a guy eager to earn a living and stay ahead of the bill collectors,” he joked.
Still grateful beyond words for the break-through, Cris wanted to show him how thankful she was.
The only thing she had to give was food—so she did.
“Listen, when you’re ready to turn in your tool belt and call it a day,” she said, waving at the work he was doing, “instead of just leaving, why don’t you come by the dining area for dinner. On the house,” she added. “The very least I can do is keep you fed.”
There was no need for that, he thought. He didn’t want her feeling she owed him, especially for doing something he enjoyed: telling stories and getting kids to come around. Ricky seemed like an exceptionally intelligent boy and was incredibly easy to talk to. Getting through to him hadn’t been a real challenge, just a pleasant diversion.
“I like paying my own way,” he told her.
Cris looked at him pointedly. “I guess we’re alike, because so do I.”
CHAPTER FOUR
ORDINARILY, CRIS WOULD have retreated at this point. She had never been known as the pushy sister—that title belonged to Alex. But for some reason, she caught herself digging in.
If asked, she wouldn’t have been able to explain why—she just knew she should.
So she did.
“Correct me if I’m wrong here,” she told Shane, “but you do have to eat at some point later on today, right?” Her eyes challenged his as she waited for him to reply.
A half smile curved his mouth because she’d managed to amuse him. “Right.”
As she recalled, he had been very logical as a teen, so she was approaching this evening meal issue as logically as she could. “Do you cook?”
Shane laughed outright before answering. “If I have to.”
“So your dinner is often what—takeout?” she asked.
But the moment the words were out of her mouth, she suddenly realized she was assuming things again, assuming he was single.
What if he wasn’t?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, her voice hardly above a whisper. Distressed, she wished that she’d thought before speaking or, better yet, that the ground would just open up and swallow her whole.
“For?” he prompted, not following her.
“I just assumed you weren’t married and... Never mind,” she concluded uneasily, feeling that anything she said from there on in would just worsen the situation. She felt she finally understood the meaning of the phrase “sticking your foot in your mouth.” “Ever since I lost Mike, I just see everyone else in the same situation,” she apologized. “Without a partner,” she clarified, realizing that in her embarrassment, she was rambling.
In no way was she prepared to hear him quietly tell her, “I am.”
Cris stared at him, confused. “You are what—single or—?”
“Or,” he told her. At the bewilderment in her eyes, he took pity on her and explained. “I was married for a while.” He’d slipped a ring on Virginia’s finger the moment he got out of the service. “My wife was killed in a car accident a little more than three years ago.”
Sympathy flooded her and she ached for what Shane must have gone through.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she murmured. As her soul reached out to his, she took his hand in hers, silently sealing the painful bond they now shared. “I didn’t even know you were married. I lost touch with Nancy,” she confessed, referring to his sister, who had been one of her two closest friends in high school.
“There’s no reason for you to apologize,” Shane said. Although he had to admit she did look appealing as she was doing so. “Things change, people move on.” He shrugged. “That’s life.”
Nevertheless, she thought, she should have somehow sensed that someone as handsome and outgoing as Shane would easily have found someone to share his life with.
Wanting to change the focus of the conversation, Cris asked, “How is Nancy these days?”
Thinking of his younger sister, Shane smiled. “She lives up near San Francisco now. She’s married, with twin boys and is working for some big design company. I’ll let her know you asked about her,” he promised. “She’ll get a kick out of me doing some work for your family.”
“Give her my love,” Cris told him. Okay, now you can leave, she silently instructed herself. Yet she remained, as if glue had been applied to the soles of her shoes. She heard herself inviting him—again—to dinner. “So, despite my unfortunate foot-in-mouth moment, will you come to dinner tonight?”
He inclined his head. “I’d love to, but I hate to eat and run, and that’s what I’d be doing if I had dinner here,” he confessed. “I’ve got to be somewhere at seven.”
He’s got a date, you idiot, and he’s trying to be nice about it by not waving it in your face. When will you ever be smart enough to take a hint? Not that you have any designs on him, of course—but it certainly looks that way.
“Fair enough,” she said with perhaps a touch too much cheerfulness. “You tell me what you’d like for dinner and I’ll have it waiting for you by the time you come in to eat. Say at six?” she suggested, watching his expression for some sort of clue. “Or do you need to get going earlier? If you’re really in a hurry, I can have it wrapped to take out,” she volunteered.
That would be the easiest solution, but it had its drawbacks. “Tempting, but I’d just as soon eat here. If I brought the food with me, I wouldn’t be able to divide it into enough pieces to share it equally.”
She stared at him. That had to be the strangest comment she’d ever heard about eating one of her meals. What was he talking about?
“You’ve lost me,” she told Shane honestly. “Are you feeding something?” It sounded as though he was working with pets or at least some kind of animal. “Because I can certainly give you more than just a regular portion to take with you—”
“Stop,” he ordered before she continued any further down the wrong path. “You’re way too generous, Cris, but even an extralarge portion still wouldn’t be enough.”
Just what was he planning on feeding? “You realize you’re making me incredibly curious.”
As a rule, Cris didn’t believe in prying—what people did was their own business. But Shane was scattering just enough tasty bread crumbs before a hungry woman to make her ravenous for more.
He grinned at her. “And yet, you’re not asking questions,” he marveled. She had always been an unusual person, Shane recalled with more than a touch of admiration.
“Well, if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me—although,” Cris had to admit in all honesty, “I really do wish you would.”
Again he laughed, intuiting what was likely going on in her mind.
“It’s actually a lot less exciting than you’re probably imagining,” he told Cris. “I volunteer at a homeless shelter two, three evenings a week—more if I’m between jobs,” he confided. “I fix things at the shelter that break down, do whatever heavy lifting might be needed—literally and otherwise,” he tacked on before she could inquire. “In general, I pitch in wherever a body is needed. Kind of like ‘a jack of all trades, master of none’ thing,” he finished.
She took exception to how Shane just naturally played himself down. “I have a feeling you’re good at all,” she told him honestly. An idea hit her. She knew she didn’t have to run it past her father—or Alex, who were both very big on charity and doing their share. “I tell you what. Every night when I close down the kitchen, there’s usually leftover good food that we don’t use the next day—like the bread I bake and some of the extra portions of food. Once they’ve been served in the dining area, we’re not allowed to put them back into our refrigerator to serve the next day. Why don’t I set those items aside and on the days you go to the shelter, you can take them with you. Just give me a heads-up on the days you volunteer.”
He considered her offer less than a moment. “Well, I pass by the shelter on my way home from here. I can drop off your donation every night if you’re really serious.”
She thought that an odd way for him to word his acceptance. “Why wouldn’t I be serious?” she wanted to know, puzzled.
