For the Girls' Sake - By Janice Kay Johnson Page 0,33

each other," Adam said suddenly. "I think that’s my fault."

Lynn set down her fork. "Yes. It is."

He acknowledged the hit with a grimace. "I’d like to change that. Tell me something about yourself. Where did you grow up? How’d you end up with a bookstore?"

"Eugene." She sounded rusty. She had the sweaty-palmed feel of a fifth-grader standing up in front of the class to give a presentation. "I grew up in Eugene." That sounded bald all by itself, so words kept coming. "My mother was the secretary for the History department at the university. I never met my father. I think my mother had an affair, which isn’t at all like her, but she wasn’t married and didn’t like to talk about him. ‘It was just one of those things,’ she always says."

Adam listened to her with the same concentration he probably gave to stock quotes on the Internet. He didn’t interrupt, didn’t look away, gave no sign of being bored. Lynn couldn’t remember the last time anyone had really wanted to hear about her.

Which might have explained why even then she didn’t shut up.

"I don’t know. Maybe that’s not the truth, either. Maybe Mom went to a sperm bank and just didn’t want me to know my father was nothing but a few statistics in a catalog. You know—gray eyes, 130 IQ, five foot eleven, red hair." Oh no, she thought belatedly. Why was she telling him this private suspicion?

"I do know my father," Adam said unexpectedly, "and I couldn’t tell you much more than that about him. He and my mother suit each other, but he’s not a warm man."

"What’s he do?"

His grunt must have been a laugh. "He’s a pathologist. Appropriate, isn’t it? He’s very, very smart, and cold as a morgue."

"But your mother..."

"Is an artist. A potter. She doesn’t do dinner plates or pitchers. These strange shapes connect..." His hands tried to form one of his mother’s creations out of thin air, but he shrugged and gave up. "Ugly, some of what she does, but the critics don’t see it that way. It ‘speaks to the heart."’ He fell silent.

Beginning to be puzzled, Lynn asked tentatively, "Are you proud of her?"

"Mmm?" He looked startled. "Sure. I have one of her pieces in the living room. Remind me to show you. The thing is...she’s pretty distant, too. If I hadn’t seen her working at her wheel, I’d have a hard time imagining how I was conceived."

Lynn blinked.

He closed his eyes briefly and rotated his neck. "I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry."

"No. That’s okay. I shouldn’t have said what I did about the sperm bank, either." He’d offered her a trade, she realized. A glimpse into his privacy in exchange for one into hers. Whatever else Adam Landry might be, he wasn’t selfish. His generosity compelled Lynn to continue, "But you’re right, we should get to know each other. Warts and all."

Adam met her eyes, his breathtakingly intense. "What I’m trying to say is, ever since I brought Rose home I’ve been parenting by guess. I’m the one browsing the parenting section in the bookstore. I can’t call Mom and ask how to handle a two-year-old whose only word is ‘no."’ Adam made another of those rough sounds meant to be a laugh. "Mom says, ‘Why ask me?"’

"Why ask her?" Lynn echoed incredulously.

His mouth curved into something more closely approximating genuine amusement. "See, she handled it when she had to, but...absently. I guess that’s the best way to put it. She was always focused on her art. I’ll bet she doesn’t remember me at two or three."

"But...that’s appalling!" And terribly sad.

He ran a hand over a chin bristly with the day’s growth of dark beard. "No, that’s Mom. She’s a cool lady in her own way. Brilliant, passionate about her art, smart about the business side of it. Just not all that interested in wiping snotty noses or leading preschoolers around the zoo."

Fascinated, Lynn pushed her plate back and crossed her forearms on the table. "Why did she have children, then?"

"An accident?" One cheek creased. "I’ve never had the guts to ask her."

Lynn sat there absorbing what he’d told her. Finally, she mused, "At least I had my mother. She might have been a little mysterious about my father, but, you know, I never really cared. She was always enough. Maybe that’s why being a single parent hasn’t been that hard for me." She smiled crookedly. "You might say, that’s the pattern I know. But you..." She started