a-soft-place-to-fall - Rakhibul hasan (story books to read .TXT) 📗

came with a lifetime guarantee. She couldn't prove it, but she was reasonably sure Warren had made a few improvements on the place since she had last seen it. The kitchen seemed brighter and that pedestal sink in the bathroom didn't look like original equipment. She would have to take him to task on Tuesday when she dropped off the latest batch of freshly typed memoir pages.

"I'd be happy to hold a mortgage for you, Annie," he had said a few days before closing. "No need for you to be cash-poor just because you bought a house."

Annie had been adamant in her refusal and the deal had gone down in cash. No mortgage. No bank. No strangers at the door or phone calls in the middle of the night. Nobody could take it away from her. If that wasn't cause for celebration, she didn't know what was.

Maybe a celebration was just what she needed. A housewarming party for one. She'd splurged on a bottle of domestic champagne the day the Flemings closed on her old house with the intention of popping the cork when she moved into her new place. Well, she'd moved into her new place and the cork was still in the bottle and that struck her as a terrible waste of occasion, not to mention champagne.

Ten minutes later she stripped off her clothes and sank into the warm, fragrant claw-foot tub. Chunky white candles scented with freesia glowed from the windowsill, the counter, and along the baseboard. Good thing candles didn't come with an expiration date or she would have passed it five years ago. The door was closed against an onslaught of cats but the gentle sounds of Mozart found her just the same. A stack of new towels, a housewarming gift from Susan, were piled high on the shelf next to the window and her favorite silky green robe was tossed over the towel rod by the door. The belt, a beautiful braid of green and gold cord, swayed gently to the music a few inches above the floor like a charmed snake. She'd indulged in a glass of champagne while the bathtub was filling and she felt relaxed in a lovely boneless way that was unfamiliar to her. She reached for the beautiful crystal flute of golden liquid balanced on the edge of the sink then sank back down into the warm and welcoming water.

"To me!" she said, lifting the glass high. She took a sip. "To the future!"

For the first time since Kevin's death she actually believed she had one. She decided that deserved another sip of bubbly.

Champagne? She could hear Claudia's voice clear as a bell. Champagne will give you a terrible headache, honey, especially on an empty stomach.

"Shut up, Claudia," she said out loud. "Champagne is the elixir of the gods."

You really should eat something, Anne. A slice of pizza or a nice sandwich. Pour yourself a glass of milk.

"I don't want milk, Claudia. I want champagne. And if you don't keep your thoughts out of my head, I just might drink the entire bottle."

#

The house was at the end of the road, as far east as Sam could drive without plunging into the Atlantic. It was larger than he had expected and a hell of a lot older.

He pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, then opened the door. Max, eager to respond to nature's call, was the first one out.

"Stay close," he warned the dog. "You might be a Lab but I'm not convinced you know how to swim."

Max, giddy with freedom, took off down the road at a surprising clip.

"We're getting you a leash tomorrow," Sam grumbled as he headed after the dog. He didn't have far to go. Max came to a screeching halt in front of the only other

house on the block, a small shingled cottage half-hidden in the trees. Max barked once, then twice more at increasing volume.

This wasn't the right way to meet the neighbors. Sam made to grab the dog by the collar but Max ran closer to the house. He barked again. Nancy said a widow had just moved into the house. He could imagine the poor old woman cowering behind the door while a strange man and his crazed dog lurked outside. For all he knew she was dialing 911 right now.

He grabbed for Max again and managed to make contact but the dog ran straight up the porch steps and began scratching at the door.

What the hell was going on? The dog bounded off the porch then ran to the side of the house where his frantic barks brought Sam running. The dog's full attention was directed to the single small window where a faint yellow and red light flickered crazily behind the shade.

#

Annie was floating naked on a raft in the middle of a turquoise lagoon while tropical sun kissed every part of her body. Her right hand clutched a pina colada while her left hand trailed lazily through the balmy waters. Somewhere on shore a campfire burned merrily. If only the crazy man would stop yelling in her ear –

"Fire!"

She opened her eyes and saw the man from the Yankee Shopper parking lot advancing toward her, brandishing a flaming bathrobe.

She sighed deeply and closed her eyes again. Empty stomach. Lots of champagne. Terrible combination. She was quite happily drunk and he was a figment of her grape-sodden imagination.

"Out of the tub, now!"

Since when did gorgeous figments of the imagination yell at you? They were supposed to be obedient and cheerful, no matter what you told them to do. She grumbled to herself and wished she had the energy, not to mention the dexterity, to add some more water to the bath. She heard water running some place close by and even imagined she felt droplets of cold water splashing against her exposed skin. Caribbean rain, that's what it was. Everyone knew it rained a lot in the Caribbean. She tried to will it away but the droplets flew at her faster and colder and the whole thing was becoming quite annoying.

And what happened to the sweet smell of flowers? Instead of scented candles, she smelled burnt fabric. She forced her eyes open again. She wasn't focusing very well but there he was, holding her poor bathrobe under running water. Had she let him in? She couldn't remember but it was clear somebody had because there he was.

Or then again maybe he wasn't. Why would he be washing a silk bathrobe in her sink? Surely she could think of something more interesting for him to do.

Of course he wasn't really there. Good thing he was the by-product of three glasses of extremely cheap champagne because otherwise the fact that she was lying there naked in the bath tub while a strange man ruined her favorite robe might actually be something to worry about.

#

Sam was no detective but it wasn't hard to figure out what was going on there. The empty bottle of cheap champagne, the drained glass on the rim of the tub, candles burning everywhere, and a tipsy naked woman who was starting to add up the clues.

"My robe . . . " She sounded fuzzy, like she had a mouthful of cotton candy. "Water ruins silk."

"Yeah?" He tried not to glance her way but he was, after all, a man and she was naked. "Fire does a better job."

"Fire?"

Talking to someone who'd made short work of a bottle of bubbly was never easy, not even when the someone in question was a woman with a body he'd be seeing in his dreams for the next twenty years. "Not too hard to figure, is it? You have enough candlepower going here to light the way to Bangor." As far as he could tell, the belt on her robe had touched the open flame of a candle and things went from there.

"And you --?"

"You're not going to remember a word of this later, are you?" he asked, wringing out the sopping wet robe over the sink. "For the record, you have Max to thank. He knew something was wrong. I'm just the guy with the prehensile thumbs who did the breaking and entering."

She gave him a loopy, dreamy smile. "Kiss Max for me."

Looking at her was dangerous business. He redirected his attention to the robe. The left side of the robe was badly scorched. Another two or three minutes and the entire garment would have been in flames, followed by the house. Maybe Max did deserve a kiss.

He held up the robe to show her. "Not much point to saving this." Her eyelids fluttered open. "I love that robe."

"Not any more you don't."

She sighed deeply and lifted a bare foot, toes pointed. "New beginnings," she said. "Lots of 'em today." She frowned slightly, as if she were trying to focus in on just one of him. "Goodnight."

"That's it?" He started to laugh. "No 'thanks for saving my life' or 'who the hell are you'?"

"Too sleepy . . . some other time." She closed her eyes and started to slip beneath the surface of the water.

"C'mon, don't do that –" What choice did he have? He dropped the robe in the sink then tried to find the least incendiary part of her slippery wet body to grab hold of. There wasn't one. He slid his hands under her arms and pulled her against his chest, trying to pretend she wasn't round and soft and naked. Her head dropped against his shoulder. He could feel her breath against the side of his neck. Hell, he could feel it everywhere. Her

long curly hair was wet and smelled of shampoo. He wondered how it would feel, spilling across his bare chest while she straddled him.

Dangerous ground. He'd never taken advantage of a woman and he wasn't about to start now, even if his mind was taking him places he hadn't been in a long time.

Somehow he managed to get her to loop an arm around his neck long enough for him to scoop her out of the tub.

She murmured something then nuzzled closer and he struggled to hang on to his rapidly shredding sense of all that was right and decent. The connection he had felt when he first saw her leaning over her shopping cart in the parking lot was nothing compared to the powerful desire that was wreaking havoc on him.

"What the hell am I going to do with you?" he said aloud.

He had saved her from fire and drowning. All he had to do now was save her from himself.

The cottage was tiny and ten steps later he found himself in the doorway to a bedroom that seemed to be all bed and no room. A beautiful sleigh bed, the wood smooth and unstained, rose up from the polished floor like something from a Russian fairy tale. Two black and white cats watched from the foot, alert to Max's whimpering from the doorway. All Sam had to do was settle the bundle of woman onto the mattress without enjoying himself any more than necessary.

The bed was piled high with clothes: jeans, sweaters, a velvet dress the color of the midnight sky. Everything but sheets and a blanket.

"Work with me," he said as he tried to sit her up at the edge of the bed. "I have to clear a spot for you."

She bestowed another one of those loopy smiles on him then proceeded to slide off the bed onto the floor where Max tried to sniff her hair.

"She has enough trouble," Sam said, and gave the dog a gentle push toward the living room.

He quickly shoved the clothes to the far side of the mattress then picked her up one more time. He told her to stay put while he searched out some towels and blankets but the soft thud as he left the room told