For the Girls' Sake - By Janice Kay Johnson Page 0,36

were her favorites, the contents of her drawers...well, he’d bet they were perfumed by homemade bags of dried lavender and rose petals.

That one glimpse into her sanctum was enough, thank you. The bed was an old-fashioned double with a mahogany spooled head and footboard. It was heaped with pillows in lacy cases and covered by a fluffy chenille spread the color of butter. The makeup was arranged on embroidered linen darkened to old ivory. Late roses spilled languorously from a cream-colored stoneware pitcher.

The room was utterly feminine and graceful. Pretty, but in a womanly way rather than a girlish one. The fact that Lynn Chanak was a woman, and a beautiful one at that, was something he tried hard not to think about.

He’d become good at blocking out that kind of awareness. Living like a monk, a man had to build some defenses.

Oh, he’d tried dating after the first year of mourning. Rhonda McIntyre, a commodities broker, had cornered him in the elevator and flirted with so little subtlety even he’d noticed. Why not? he’d figured.

The evening was a flop. She made plain her disinterest in children. They talked trading and the bull market for lack of any other topic. He kissed her on her doorstep and declined her invitation to go in.

A couple of months later, he’d dated another woman a few times—a single mother he’d met at the preschool. She was struggling to make ends meet as a secretary, and she had a hungry, desperate quality that scared him. She wanted marriage, and she wanted it soon.

Since then, he hadn’t bothered. Nights, Adam stayed up later than he should, because climbing into bed alone was when he felt the loss. Jenny came to him most readily then, with an airy laugh or a teasing tickle of her fingers, and he would almost roll to gather her into his arms, then he’d remember with a painful stab that she was gone for good.

Her death had come so fast. No time to prepare, to say goodbye.

The afternoon it happened, he’d talked to her quickly from the office, half his attention on the notes he’d been making on a new software company. He had dropped his car off for new brakes that morning, and the mechanic had let him know they had to wait for a part. "No problem," Jenny had declared. They chose one of their favorite restaurants in downtown Portland and arranged to meet there. He’d walk over, they’d go home together.

"If you’re sure you don’t mind being seen with a woman shaped like a gray whale," she’d said, so blithely he could smile into the telephone knowing she was only fishing for a compliment. She was well aware of her beauty, body swollen with his child. Jennifer had never lacked in confidence, during her pregnancy least of all.

Grinning, the last thing he’d said to her was, "Just make sure they seat you before I arrive," and she’d told him he was a rat.

Neither of them had said goodbye or "I love you."

He was ten minutes late. Jenny wasn’t there, hadn’t been seated. He had a drink while he waited. Punctuality never had been one of her virtues. When she was half an hour late, he tried her at home. No answer. She had a way of forgetting to turn on her cell phone, but he tried it, too.

A police officer had answered, told him his wife had been hit head-on by a drunk driver. She had been transported to the hospital with a potential head injury.

She was already gone, his Jenny. Dead in every way that mattered, except that the beat of her heart and the soft machine-induced breaths sustained their baby.

From that day forward, he looked at other women, and he saw Jenny.

So he remained alone, while he longed for something more.

Like tonight.

Thinking about Lynn had more to do with his restlessness than the lumpy cushions did.

At bedtime she’d used the bathroom first. Thinking he’d heard her door shut, Adam went down the hall with his toothbrush just in time to meet her face-to-face outside the bathroom. Her faded flannel bathrobe gaped enough to expose a fine white cotton nightgown edged with lace as pretty as that on her sheets. Brushed until it crackled with energy, her hair tumbled over her shoulders. She smelled like soap and woman, her cheeks pink from scrubbing.

He’d looked down to see her bare feet peeking out beneath the ragged hem of her robe. Her toes, curled on the cold floorboards, were