And Mommy Makes Three

Chapter One

It was the voice that drew him first. Matt Viviano stood in the middle of Dardenne Library and listened to magic. He tried to resist, even while Jory was pulling at his hand with all the strength a six-year-old could muster. Come on, Dad. I’m going to miss the story lady.

All right. Matt didn’t want to go anywhere there was a voice like that. A voice of husky timbre that sounded on the edge of laughing. A voice of smoky, seductive power.

And this girl had an unusual name. Of course lots of folks back then had unusual names, like Jedediah and Methuselah and Hepsibah. There was laughter from the crowd of children and their parents clustered on the carpeted risers of the storytelling area of the library. Jory tugged his father down to sit on the riser in the back of the area.

He sat and continued to listen even as every bit of his common sense said he should flee. Sitting listening to this woman weave tales was dangerous. It brought back old feelings and memories he thought he’d drowned long ago.

He couldn’t walk away. The voice wouldn’t let him. It was seducing him before he even looked at the owner. Maybe if he didn’t look he could leave. He’d go and read a magazine in the corner of the building farthest from here. Then he might be safe.

This girl’s name was Truelove, the voice continued. Everybody called her that because she was the kindest, gentlest soul you ever wanted to see. She lived with her daddy down in the Ozark Mountains. Her momma had died a long time before, but she’d taught Truelove everything she knew about physicking people before she’d gone. Anybody know what physicking is?

Healing, Matt said silently. Suddenly he knew what this story was, knew where it was going, and he was lost.

It was too late to turn back now. He might as well watch and listen as rapt as Jory, elbows resting on skinned and callused knees, shock of dark blond hair falling over his thin face. He looked in the direction Jory was looking, to the storyteller.

If her voice had begun to seduce him, her face finished the job. She was tall and slender, probably too thin. Her hands were delicate, and wove patterns in the air like birds in flight to go along with her tale. Pale curls bounced around her pointed face. His grandmother would call it a cat’s face.

Nonna told this story. Not the way this woman was telling it, but the old woman had told him this story in his boyhood. It was part of the spell she’d woven, his whole family had woven. The spell that convinced him that people were good, the world was a fine place to be, and he belonged in it. That was before he knew better.

The words flowed around him as he was transported back to a warm kitchen smelling of simmering tomato sauce and the sharpness of fresh grated cheese. His mother was getting dinner and Nonna was sitting in a rocker, telling him this story.

Except when she’d told it, the setting had been Florence and Venice and the fair Gilette was a physician, not a physicker. But it was all here again, no matter what the woman called her heroine.

This heroine was just as brave and true as Nonna’s. Her noble husband, saved by her skills and forced to marry her, was just as awful. And here she was trying to figure out how to do what he ordered and show up with his child in her arms and his ring on her finger. No, wait, there was a change after all.

…leading my favorite horse by its halter, and wearing my ring on your finger. Then you’ll be my Truelove, she said.

So, Matt thought, a revisionist. Not quite so magic after all. He’d have to talk to her after this was over and ask her about this stupid horse. It threw the story off.

Who was he fooling? He didn’t want to ask this woman about a horse. He wanted to ask her to come home with him. To sit in his kitchen in a rocker and weave the magic his grandmother had woven. To make the big, empty barn of a place into a home. He wanted it so badly that he could feel his hands shake. And he didn’t even know her name.

*   *   *

He was still watching her. This was silly, Larissa thought. She’d been at this too long to have someone watching her get her rattled. People were supposed to watch storytellers. But few of them past the age of four watched with this intensity.

He had a child’s hunger for the story, Larissa thought as she tried to keep the story on track and not look at him. That was hard, when he was so compelling. Dark brown hair, a bit unruly, and bright eyes. Hazel, perhaps. He was too far away to be sure. It was good that he was in the last row. She could concentrate on folks farther down and not worry about those intense eyes on her.

There was a child next to him, a little boy. He was enthralled by the story and Larissa decided to tell it to him. That was easy; the little tanned, open face drank in her every word. The boy didn’t have the same kind of scowl as his daddy. Her watcher had to be his daddy. There was too much similarity in the coloring of the pair, and the way they both leaned forward, stretching out long legs.

Larissa forced her concentration back to Truelove. She could tell this story in her sleep. Surely she could tell it while one handsome stranger watched along with her normal library audience. Even after what had happened to her recently, she was a storyteller first and foremost. She could ignore this stranger and go on telling her tale.

Finally she was almost done. The noble young man had to admit that the girl had his best horse. And his ring. And she was standing in front of him. Larissa imagined that she had a smug little grin on her face for finally outsmarting him. Why did she love him so much after all this mess he’d put her through? It didn’t matter. What mattered was the story and telling it.

So he took her in his arms, she said, getting ready to finish. Then he kissed her. And he told her, ‘Surely you’re my own Truelove. And now I’ll take you home.’ So they got up on his finest horse and that’s where they went. Home. And we best be getting there too. Then she stopped and there was a satisfied hum to the audience before they started clapping. The librarian bustled up and the crowd started moving and her stranger faded into it. Without his gaze on her Larissa felt as if someone had turned out a light.

There was a crowd of children around her and she couldn’t go look for one adult stranger. Not when she was getting a raft of hugs and thank yous and one little girl was telling her all about her horse and Larissa had to make interested noises.

Then the first wave of children was gone and the boy she’d told the story to was in front of her. Up close she could see that his eyes were hazel. And his knees were skinned. And on his face was a slightly hungry expression that made her want to smooth his hair off his forehead. My daddy says you made up the horse, he said solemnly.

Larissa felt as if something viable had taken hold of her shoulders and rocked her back on her heels. He’s right. I did make up the horse.

He says it’s better the other way. The story, I mean. Would you tell it to me? The way without the horse?

Well, maybe sometime, Larissa hedged. It was hard to tell someone quite so solemn and forthright no.

My grandma’s fixing spaghetti for supper. Want to come home with me now and tell it?

Now she really was stuck. I don’t think so. It’s nice of you to ask, but most grown-ups have a rule about knowing the people they feed supper to.

I know you already, the child insisted. It’s not like you’re a stranger or something.

But that’s exactly what I am, Larissa said, knowing even as she said it that she hadn’t been a stranger to this child since the moment she laid eyes on him.

No, you’re not. You’re the story lady. Let me ask my dad.

He was gone before Larissa could protest. While he vanished she looked around for the canvas bag that held her things. Perhaps she could gather it and her purse and be gone before he came back for the awkward part after his father told him no.

The bag was easy, but she had no idea where Tess, the librarian, had put her purse. Probably behind that huge counter she called a desk over in the corner. It was besieged with children getting stickers for the summer reading program.

Larissa wedged her way through the mass of small bodies and looked under Tess’s counter. There was her battered purse. As she slipped the strap on her shoulder, the boy was back.

Tess says you’re okay. Jory’s invitation stands, the man next to him said. He was as solemn as the child and his eyes were the same shade of hazel.

That’s real nice, but I don’t know you. And even if Tess would vouch for you as well as me, I’m not going to impose on total strangers, Larissa said.

Even as she said it she knew she wanted to go with him. To see what kind of home the man in the tan shirt had. To see how he knew she’d made up the horse. Every shred of her common sense told her she should head for the hills, but here she was still standing next to him.

I’m Matt Viviano. Jory’s dad, he said as if the last addition made everything all right. And Tess will vouch for me. And my mother cooks like she’s feeding the seventh fleet. There will be plenty of spaghetti, so you don’t need to feel as if you’re imposing.

I’m Larissa Camden. Tess’s houseguest, at least for the time being. Let me go talk to her.

Tess, in the middle of handing out stickers to the masses, looked at Larissa with sparkling eyes. Yes, of anybody that was here today, if you’re going to go home with somebody, go home with Matt. He’s a conservation agent, he’s lived here forever, and he has the one house in Defiance that didn’t even have a wet basement in the flood. If he invited you for supper, you’re welcome to go.

Larissa had planned to tell Tess why she wasn’t going with the handsome stranger, but now she reconsidered. Tess and her family had been putting up with her night and day for two weeks. Surely they’d like a little bit of normal life back without company. She hadn’t found a place of her own yet, and she knew virtually no one except Tess and the principal of the elementary school who’d hired her. Maybe she would go to Matt’s for dinner.

No, she corrected herself, she’d go to Jory’s for dinner. The child was the one she should concentrate on. He looked as if he could soak up love like rain. She winced inside, knowing that she was about to do it again. She was about to reach out to someone and cause herself a world of hurt. Someday she’d learn not to reach out.

But she hadn’t learned yet, and Jory was still standing next to his father, one bare leg rubbing the other where several mosquito bites decorated his tan skin. All right, she said, crossing the space between them. Tell me how to get to this spaghetti dinner. She had to be out of her mind.

Pulling up to the house in his battered truck, Matt looked at it the way a stranger might. What had he been thinking at the library, telling Jory the story lady could come home for supper? Sure, his mom’s spaghetti was the greatest. Even now the place would smell like heaven inside, the air heavy with basil.

But outside the lawn hadn’t recovered from being underwater this summer, and the siding was weathered. It looked like exactly what it was, a big old barn of a house with a single owner too busy to keep it up.

When was the last time the windows had been washed? There was a bicycle on the front porch, leaning drunkenly against the house because it had no kickstand. He’d taken Jory’s training wheels off, but never put the kickstand on the bike.

There were no curtains in the living room. The windows stared back at him as he got out of the truck. They looked dull and empty. The whole room was pretty empty once you went inside. No furniture in there at all anymore except his desk and a couple of plastic crates full of conservation pamphlets and books. Damn, what had he been thinking?

It had just been too tempting, he guessed. A beautiful woman whose hands wove magic. Dark gold eyes and a lilting voice, and her story, one that could touch his heart like no other. It had spoken to him in places he didn’t know existed anymore and when Jory begged to take her home he’d agreed, as if she were some raccoon that had knocked over the trash instead of a dangerous, adult human being of the female persuasion.

Now she was pulling up into the driveway in her little yellow car. What sane human being drove a car that color? She bounced out of the car, not bothering to lock the door, and bounded over to the truck.

Tess says you didn’t get too wet in the flood. I’ll bet you’re glad. This house must be a hundred years old.

Close to, Matt said, feeling shy and withdrawn again. Come on in.

The house looked every bit of its age as he ushered her through the front hall. On the table there was a