needed to order a special part and came back a few days later….”
Julia could just picture it. For Lester’s second visit, her mother probably got a facial and a manicure and prepared a special lunch. Served on the good china.
She knew how Lucy operated once she had her eye on a man. Julia didn’t need to hear any more.
“It’s okay, Mom. I get the picture.”
“We got along so well. So in tune. Right from the first.”
Lucy shook her head, a soft smile lighting her face. Remembering those early moments of the courtship, Julia guessed, as Lester diagnosed and unclogged the ailing disposal, then lunched on Lucy’s notorious “stuffed tomato.”
Kismet.
“How long ago was that? When you met, I mean,” Julia asked.
Lucy shrugged. She carefully rolled a linen napkin and slipped it into a shiny silver ring. “Let’s see…about a month or so, I guess. It’s hard to remember. It feels like I’ve known Les my whole life. I just feel so…comfortable with him.”
Julia nodded, not daring to say a word.
This was how it always started.
Julia knew now she’d been right to suspect that something was going on. Lester Baxter was going on.
Julia picked up the tray with the dishes and silverware and carried it into the dining room, then helped her mother set up the table.
“How old is he?” she asked.
“A few years older than me. But not too old.” Lucy glanced up briefly. Julia knew she was thinking about Earl T. Walker and his unfortunate demise.
“He’s ready to retire. He’s had enough of fixing appliances. But he wants to keep busy. Start a whole new business. He has some exciting plans. He’s not one of these men who just want to loaf around under a palm tree and play golf for the rest of their life.”
Julia knew her mother was talking about her ex-husband now, Julia’s father. Perhaps Lucy had been widowed three times, if you count being a golf widow while married to Tom Martinelli.
The doorbell rang. Lucy set down the napkins. She flapped her hands in the air.
“That must be him, now. Come with me, Julia. Come say hello.” She coaxed her daughter, tugging on Julia’s sleeve as if she were nine instead of thirty-one.
Lucy smoothed her dress and quickly checked her lipstick in the foyer mirror. Julia thought her Mom looked great. As usual.
For a woman in her late fifties, her mother still dressed with style and had a great figure—owing to her yoga and Jazzercise classes. She even still wore sexy high heels, the kind Julia mainly avoided due to her height and because they were so darned uncomfortable. Who was benefitting from all that agony anyway? Men, of course. Pure exploitation, Julia believed.
But Lucy didn’t have a feminist bone in her body. Including her feet. She didn’t understand what Julia meant, calling it exploitation. She enjoyed being admired. “Isn’t that what it was all about?” she’d once asked her daughter.
Julia had long ago given up trying to enlighten her. There was clearly no chance of changing Lucy’s thinking at this point about the power struggle in male-female relationships. She obviously didn’t think there was any.
Ready for the games to begin, Lucy pulled open the door with a welcoming smile that stretched from hoop earring to hoop earring.
The man on the other side of the door wore as smile just as wide.
Julia took in his looks with a glance. Medium height with a round face, bright blue eyes and a warm, friendly expression that distracted from his shiny bald head.
Nicely dressed, Julia thought. While she hadn’t expected him to wear a uniform with his name on the pocket, the brown tweed sports coat, pale yellow wool vest and patterned tie looked rather country club-ish.
He was no movie star however. Not even an aging one. But not bad-looking, she amended. Most of all, Lester Baxter looked…friendly. Kind. Even patient. The type of man who would find her mother’s eccentricities charming and endearing.
Julia wasn’t sure how she could tell all that from just a glance. But she could.
He held out a huge bouquet of pink roses and offered them to Lucy. “Some flowers for the hostess.”
He handed them down to her, looking eager to see if the gift was pleasing. Lucy accepted the bouquet with a radiant smile. “Lester…you shouldn’t have. They’re just beautiful.”
“Just like you. You look like Miss America holding that bouquet, Lucy. I wish I had a camera,” Lester teased.
“Oh, stop.” Lucy shook her head, but Julia knew she was definitely enjoying the compliments and could have had him go on all night.
Julia sighed and rolled her eyes. This was worse than she imagined. Much worse.
“I brought you another surprise,” he added. “I told you my son was coming down from Boston for a visit? Well, he got to town a little sooner than I expected. He pulled up to the house just as I was walking out the door, so I brought him along. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Oh…of course not. Come in, come in….” Lucy stepped aside and Julia could see now that another man stood just behind Lester. He must have purposely been standing aside, waiting out of view.
Now he stepped into the light. He glanced at Lucy and smiled briefly. Then looked up, over Lucy’s head, at Julia.
Their eyes met. Julia felt her mouth go dry, her heartbeat go from zero to a hundred and ten in two seconds flat.
Lester—the bald, paunchy, eager-to-please repair man—had fathered that?
Impossible.
Lester’s son must have been adopted. He was without question the very definition of tall, dark and totally hot.
He stepped through the doorway, towering over all of them, Julia included. She rarely had to tip her head back to make eye contact with a man. But now she found herself staring up at him. And they were all in such close quarters in the small entrance to Lucy’s house. At least, it suddenly seemed much smaller and crowded, Julia thought. Draped in a dark leather jacket, his shoulders looked endlessly wide, his dark eyes looked endlessly deep.
“Sam, this is Lucy Martinelli. My Lucy,” he added, with a meaningful glance at Julia’s mother.
Sam Baxter held out his hand to Lucy and flashed a brief but brilliant smile. Julia blinked as the gesture transformed his features so completely from serious to something that was warm and full of light. Deep dimples creased the lean cheeks. His teeth were white and strong. Tiny lines fanned out at the sides of his eyes, a rich, dark, chocolaty shade of brown.
“Lucy…great to meet you. My father’s told me a lot about you.”
“And I’ve heard so much about you, Sam. I feel as if I already
