Janice Johnson - The New Man

Helen, Kathleen and Jo sat at the kitchen table. As Kathleen’s question indicated, the two happily married women thought Helen should also be seeking true love. She could see the gleam in their eyes now.

“I thought,” Helen said sedately, “Alec and I could talk about what it’s like losing someone you love.”

Jo’s merriment faded and Kathleen cleared her throat. “I suppose that is part of getting to know each other, but as conversation goes, it sounds pretty grim. Surely the fact that he’s a widower isn’t the only reason you’re having dinner with him!”

Helen laughed at their shock. “Of course not. Having that in common is an attraction for me, though. I’m not very interested in dating.” She saw that they wanted to say more about that and tried to divert them. “You’re sure you don’t mind watching Ginny?”

“She lives here. It hardly qualifies as baby-sitting. Besides—” Kathleen looked pleased again “—I have every intention of being here when he picks you up.”

“So you can quiz him about his intentions?” Helen asked with deceptive tranquillity.

Kathleen flashed a grin. “So I can satisfy my curiosity.”

Helen had to laugh. Okay, they were busybodies. They irritated her sometimes. But the two women were her closest friends. No, they were family. Way more important to her than Alec Fraser ever could be.

Dear Reader,

Suppose we could create an Eden where death and loss don’t exist, where nobody suffers tragedies, where we all have each other forever. My question to you is: would we all be happier than we are now, or even as happy?

My answer is no. I believe that happiness and grief, tears and joy, love and loss are inextricable parts of each other. I feel the sting of happy tears when I have a moment with another person I know I’ll never forget. The poignancy of the moment comes from the knowledge that this closeness, this conversation, this smile may never come again. We all live with the awareness that we can—and someday will—lose these people we love. Even without tragedy, our children leave home, divorce happens, friends move. Our hearts squeeze with the most acute love when we most fear loss.

What a paradox! We must fear loss to love most profoundly. But what if the fear is too great? What if we can’t bring ourselves to risk the pain of loss?

Isn’t this dilemma the core of every romance novel? In The New Man I chose to explore it head-on. I hope this book brings you to tears, even as you feel intense gratitude that you have the people in your life you love most.

Best,

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my mother, with love

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HELEN SCHAEFER DROVE the shiny blue pickup truck across the bumpy field and steered down an aisle of gaily colored tents. Strings of flags hung overhead, unmoving in the still air.

Bless Logan for loaning her the pickup! Helen thought. Without it, she would have had to make three or four trips from the house off Roosevelt in Seattle in her old Ford Escort to haul all the goods to set up a booth of Kathleen’s Soaps at this craft fair on Queen Anne Hill.

She and her business partner, Kathleen, had a wish list, and a cargo van was at the top of it. They were now doing dozens of fairs and craft shows a year, as well as delivering soap to the stores that sold their brand year-round. Logan, Kathleen’s husband, had been generous in letting them use his pickup, but he was a cabinetmaker and often needed it, too.

Helen glanced at the paper on the seat beside her. Number 143. Yes, there it was, printed boldly on a card pinned above the wide entrance of the booth. Number 144 next door was nearly set up, while 142 remained empty. Other exhibitors were working in tents across the aisle.

Helen rolled to a stop in front of her space and turned off the engine. Made it! she thought with relief. The pickup was big, and she was so terrified of hitting something, she was always glad to arrive safely.

“Hi,” she called, getting out.

The woman rolling a rack of silk-screened dresses into place turned with a smile. “Helen! I saw that you two were going to be my neighbors.”

“Let’s hope this weekend will be better than last.” Helen headed toward the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate.

Lucinda Blick scanned the sky. “No kidding! So far, so good.”

“The weathermen claim it’s going to be sunny and hot through Sunday.”

With practiced ease, Helen slid a pile of folding tables out onto the tailgate, then grabbed the smallest one and carried it into the red-and-white-striped tent. This card table sat at the back and held the cash register and business cards. The others, longer and sturdier, along with half a dozen folding plywood pedestals built by Logan, would display the soaps, shampoos, shower gels and bath oils made by Kathleen.

Helen and Lucinda, an improbably blond amazon who had to be in her sixties, continued to chat as they spread tablecloths and stacked wire bins that held bars of soap in Helen’s case and tie-dyed socks and scarves in a variety of hues and sizes in Lucinda’s. Other exhibitors wandered by to say hello and commiserate about last week’s downpour that had made a disaster of a craft fair in Pierce County.

Helen loved this sense of community she and Kathleen had found among other artists and craftspeople. There was gossip and jealousy, of course, but mostly they had met with generosity and friendship. All for one and one for all, as Kathleen had put it. On a good weekend, everyone profited. On a bad one, they all packed home the goods they had hoped to sell.

“Who’s in the next booth?” Helen asked, nodding to the one east of hers.

“Shannon Palmer. Have you met her?” Lucinda shook out a tablecloth. “Stained glass?”

Helen pursed her lips. “I think so. Wasn’t she in Anacortes last summer?”

“Probably.” Lucinda paused, apparently scanning Commercial Street in Anacortes in her mind’s eye. “Wait. Yes!” she exclaimed in triumph. “She was just past what’s-his-name with the flying elephants!”

“Oh, right,” Helen agreed. “He got mad when her rack collapsed.”

“He gets mad if he thinks one of your tables pushes the tent wall two inches into his space. Try not to get stuck next to him if you can help it.” Lucinda shook her head. “I never can remember his name,” she muttered. Hands on her hips, she contemplated her progress. “I’m starving. Will you keep an eye on my stuff?”

“Of course.”

“Can I bring you anything?”

“I packed a sandwich,” Helen said, “but thanks.”

The other woman picked up a bar of soap and sniffed. “Nice. What is it?”

“Tarragon and geranium.”

“You guys use the most peculiar combinations.” Lucinda grinned and headed down the grassy aisle. “See you,” she called, with a flap of her hand.

Enjoying the warm early-summer evening, Helen continued arranging their wares. Baskets, spray-painted and decorated by her, brimmed with selections of soap and oils and gels. Bars of soap, clear and shimmering with color or milky and dark-flecked, went into labeled bins. Carefully constructed stacks of soap went on pedestals and tables, along with bottles of soapwort shampoo and herbal hair rinses and wintergreen-scented bath oil.

New this year were the pet shampoo, the herbal bath bags and the gritty bars of soap for gardeners or mechanics. Helen expected them all to be successful. She was amazed at Kathleen’s creativity. Lucinda was right: the oddest combinations of herbs and essential oils sometimes produced heavenly scents.