help bring wind energy into the mainstream by reducing costs. Think about it.”
No matter how many times he’d given this speech, genuine passion still infused his voice. “We’re running out of fossil fuels. Dams cause ecological damage. But wind…it has all the power of a great river like the Columbia, and we can’t use it up. We borrow it, then let it whip on its way, unharmed by having spun the blades. It’s a nonpolluting source of electricity, it’s indigenous…” He glanced at her. “We don’t have to buy it from foreign nations. What’s the down side?”
She smiled at his fervor. “You tell me.”
He grimaced. “Well, the wind does die down sometimes, so it’s not a steady flow like a river. Better storage could solve that, though. The turbines do make some noise, and they can kill birds.”
“And they’re ugly,” she finished.
“Alien, maybe,” he conceded. “The beauty of it is, the land where the wind blows hardest is the least populated. Yeah, if we had a row of turbines climbing Capitol Hill or Queen Anne in Seattle, people would protest. But on a bare lava ridge beyond Vantage…why not?”
“The person who lives there might not agree,” she argued.
“That’s true. But what are the alternatives? More dams? Atomic power plants? They’d look like hell rearing above the Columbia River.”
Helen nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true, of course.”
He’d chosen a Greek restaurant right off Broadway on Capitol Hill, near the Harvard Exit Theater, which showed foreign and independent films. He and Linda had come here often, before they’d had children and started going to Disney movies at the multiplex instead.
Parking was always tricky here, but he got lucky and found a spot only a couple of blocks away. Walking the short distance, he asked Helen what movies she enjoyed, and found her tastes were similar to his.
“Actually,” she admitted with a sigh, “I don’t see very many rated much above PG. Sometimes, Kathleen or Jo rent something for us to watch after Ginny has gone to bed. They both like blockbusters. You know, lots of special effects, sex, big-name actors. I’ve always preferred small movies.” She said it almost timidly, as if embarrassed by her tastes. “The kind where nothing huge happens, but you’re left feeling good. Like, a while ago we rented Italian for Beginners. It’s actually Danish. Have you seen it?”
He shook his head.
“It was…sweet.” She laughed. “Okay. Now you can tell me you love Jerry Bruckheimer extravaganzas. Or you’re a James Bond fanatic.”
Alec grinned and took her arm as they crossed the street. “Not me. Hey, I already admitted I was never a car guy, didn’t I? I like numbers and computers. I was a geek.”
She gave him a look that raised his spirits considerably. “I can’t believe you were ever a geek.” Then she blushed as if realizing what she’d given away and added hastily, “Besides, some of them probably live vicariously by watching Terminator and what have you. After all, if Clark Kent can turn into Superman…”
“They, too, can jump from a helicopter onto the roof of a speeding car to rescue the damsel in distress?” He laid a hand on her lower back and steered her into the doorway of the restaurant.
Her chuckle was a delicious gurgle. “Something like that.” Then she looked around. “Oh, this is nice. I don’t go out often.”
“Single parents don’t.”
The hostess approached them with a smile. “Two for dinner?”
They followed her to a corner table in a room with dark beams, murals on plaster walls and tile floors. He liked the atmosphere here as much as the food.
Helen opened her menu. “I suppose you wine and dine customers and investors all the time.”
“Sometimes. But these days, we do most of our business by e-mail or conference call. Why waste hours to get together face-to-face when you can make decisions or discuss a problem in a few minutes?”
They glanced through the menu and ordered in between snatches of conversation. Alec watched her sip wine, her fingers slender on the stem of the glass, her hair shimmering as she tilted her head back to swallow. Her neck was long and slim, her throat white. He imagined kissing her in the hollow at the base, perhaps tasting that pale creamy skin. He would tangle his fingers in her riot of hair as he worked his way to her delicate chin and soft, full mouth. Perhaps by then her cheeks would flush the color of wild roses.
Captivated by the sight of her across the table from him as well as by his parallel fantasy, he took a moment to realize she seemed to be waiting for an answer.
“You’re so pretty.” His voice came out husky.
Her cheeks did turn pink. “Why, thank you.”
He cleared his throat. “Your household seems unusual. Do all those people live there?”
She laughed, her gaze still shy, her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t tell you, did I?”
“Tell me?”
“I only rent a room from Kathleen. It’s actually her house. And, yes, we all live there, except for Raoul, Emma’s boyfriend. He was the one studying in the living room.”
Alec nodded.
She explained that Kathleen had bought the house after her divorce and, to help pay the mortgage, had taken in two housemates, herself and Jo Dubray.
“She was the friend who took care of the booth while I went to lunch that day,” Helen explained. “Kathleen got married, and Logan moved in.” She laughed again at his expression. “He sold his house, which was smaller, and moved his workshop—he’s a cabinetmaker—into the basement, which we weren’t using anyway. He and Kathleen insisted that they wanted Ginny and me to stay. But I’m looking for a place to rent now. Kathleen and Logan have been great, and Ginny loves Emma, but…” She hesitated.
“You want a home of your own.”
She nodded. “Exactly. And also I suppose I want to prove to myself that I can take care of us. That’s probably silly, considering how easy I have it. Do you know how nice it is not to have to make dinner every single night, for example? Right now, we rotate, Logan, Kathleen, Emma and I. So I only cook once or twice a week. That’s pure luxury!”
“So it would be,” he said, amused. And—face it—a little jealous. Linda had loved to cook, so he’d been spoiled. Coming in the door after work every day to the smell of dinner in the oven, the kids running to meet him, his wife smiling and waiting for him to hug them and kiss her.
In one day, that had changed. He’d arrived home only to have Lily put her finger to her mouth and say, “Mommy’s napping ’cuz she’s tired. So we’re supposed to be specially quiet.” But even before that first warning, he had sometimes felt so lucky it scared him. He and his family had stepped from the canvas of a Norman Rockwell painting.
Amid the grief and shock of Linda’s death, putting dinner on the table every night had become an onerous chore. The kids helped as much as they could, but he still had to do the planning, the shopping, and about
