Janice Johnson - The Perfect Mum

They both turned at the sound of a footstep. Looking like a different woman, Kathleen came into the kitchen.

Her face was expertly made up, her thick golden hair loosely French braided. She wore a long, black, knit skirt that clung to her hips and thighs, and over it a simple T-shirt in a vivid shade of aqua. She looked like a million dollars.

“I’m back,” she said with a warm but somehow practiced smile. “Ready to beg your pardon for forgetting you were coming, and then weeping all over you.”

Her face was maybe still a little puffy, her eyes a little red. Even so, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, from her high graceful forehead to pronounced cheekbones and a full, sensuous mouth. She had the kind of translucent skin, faintly touched with freckles, that gives a woman an ageless quality. He couldn’t tell if she was twenty-five or forty. Either way, her face would have looked fine on the cover of one of those fashion magazines.

“Ms. Schaefer was just telling me about the soap-making,” he said. “I gather you work out of the house.”

“We both have real jobs, too,” Helen Schaefer said almost apologetically, “but we have faith this will take off.”

Kathleen Monroe smelled good, Logan discovered when she stopped beside him. The scent was citrus, a little tart but also delicious. He wanted to bury his face in her hair.

Cabinets, he reminded himself. He was here to make a bid. Not make a move on a woman.

They showed him their supplies and the small pantry, which currently held row upon row of bars of soap, all “curing” according to them. Here was where the smell emanated from. Shelves and the single countertop overflowed, and more circled the floor.

There were long square-edged “loaves” that would be sliced into bars, according to Kathleen. Some of these were clear but vividly colored, sea-green or shocking pink or rainbow streaked. Others were cloudy, dark-flecked and oatmeal colored, another a deep, speckled plum. Some soaps, looking more conventional, had been molded into ovals and rounds, with intricate designs of flowers and leaves pressed into the tops. They were beautiful, he realized, bemused. Not delicate and feminine, but solid and colorful and even sensual. He resisted the urge to touch or bend over to sniff individual bars.

The fragrance swelled in this tiny enclosed area, a symphony where a few notes strummed on a guitar would have been plenty. Cinnamon and flowers and God knew what swirled together to overload his nose.

As he backed out, the two women laughed.

“Gets to you, doesn’t it?” Helen asked.

“Ventilation,” Logan said. “You’ll want a fan out here and maybe another one in the pantry.”

“That would be great,” Kathleen agreed. “Sometimes it’s hard to eat, oh, say, Thai food when what you’re smelling are vanilla and cinnamon.”

He took out his clipboard and started to make notes: broad, double sinks, a stove top, storage for the tools of soap making: scales, jugs and huge pots and measuring cups and spoons.

“Oh, and molds,” Kathleen said, her face animated. She opened a kitchen cupboard so he could see the odd conglomeration of containers used to mold soap, some—he guessed—meant for the purpose, others as simple as ice cube trays, muffin tins and boxes. “A cupboard with nooks designed specifically for the molds would be great.”

Her main need, he gathered, was for work and storage space. He took his tape measure from his belt and began making notes while they watched, the kid still clinging to mom and staring as if she thought he was an ax murderer.

“Get my name from Ryan?” he asked casually.

“He says you’re the best,” Kathleen said.

“Oh, is Ryan a friend of yours?” the redhead asked. “He’s marrying Jo.”

Joe? The tape measure strung on the floor, Logan turned to see if they were pulling his leg.

Both laughed. “J-O,” Kathleen told him kindly. “Short for Josephine.”

Ah. Satisfied, he jotted down the measurement.

“So, you didn’t put me on your calendar,” he remarked.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her flush.

“I did. But the day went hayfire from the get-go.”

The kid decided, at last, to speak. In a loud, clear voice, she said, “I thought Emma was dead. She fell on the floor and there was blood and she didn’t talk to me.”

“Hush,” her mother murmured.

“My daughter fainted and hit her head,” Kathleen said. “We had an ambulance here and everything. I just got back from the hospital. I’m sorry! It was scary, and everything else just left my mind.”

“She okay?”

“Just has a concussion. They’re keeping her overnight.”

Uh-huh. She’d fallen apart because her daughter had bumped her head.

He wasn’t buying.

Writing down another measurement, he asked, “How old is she?”

“Sixteen. Almost seventeen.”

A teenager. Well, that explained the “she hates me” part. It also upped his estimate of her mom’s age. Kathleen Monroe had to be mid-thirties, at least.

Satisfied with his measurements, Logan turned to them. “Let’s talk about wood and styles.”

They sat at the kitchen table. Ginny at last became bored and, after a murmured consultation with her mother, wandered away. A moment later, canned voices came from the living room.

He nodded after her. “How old is she?”

“Ginny just turned six. She’s in first grade.”

He hadn’t been around children enough to judge ages. Opening his clipboard, Logan took out a sheaf of pictures.

They discussed panel doors versus plain, maple versus oak, open shelves versus ones hidden behind cupboard doors.

As expensive as Kathleen Monroe looked, Logan half expected her to choose something fancy: mahogany with gothic panels and glossy finish, maybe.

Instead she went for a simple Shaker style in a warm brown maple. “I want it to suit the era of the house,” she explained. “Later, when—if—I can afford it, we’ll re-do the rest of the kitchen to match.”

He sketched out an L shape of cabinets to fit in the corner, then lightly turned it into a U. “A peninsula there,” he said, pointing, “would visually separate your work area from the dining area. Plus, it would give you more counter space. You could have suspended shelves or cabinets from the ceiling, too.”

“Um…” Kathleen frowned into space. “It sounds wonderful,” she finally decided, “but it may be beyond my means. This may all be beyond my means,” she admitted frankly. “We looked at ready-made cabinets at Home Depot and Lowe’s, but Ryan thought we could do as well going to you, plus you could configure them more specifically for our needs.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, standing. “I’ll have the bid to you in a couple of days.”

The bottom line would be affordable, he already knew, even if he took a dive on the job. He wanted to help these women achieve their dream, he wanted to know why Kathleen Monroe had been sobbing—and he wanted to find out what a woman that classy would feel like in his arms when she wasn’t crying her heart out.

Even if that didn’t have a damn thing to do with building cabinets.

EMMA LAY IN THE DARK, feeling the sugar trickling into her body. It was like…like sipping on soda pop nonstop, all day long, until you ballooned with fat. She could feel it sliding through her veins, cool and sticky. Every time a bag emptied, somebody came and changed it.

She hated the nurses who had put the IV needle back in three times, and even more the ones who had finally tied her hands to the bars of the hospital bed so she couldn’t tear it out again.

But most of all, so much it corroded her belly, she hated her mother for letting them do this. For making them do it. Mom could have said, “I’m taking her home.” She could have told them not to force calories on her.