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

him otherwise.

"What the hell am I going to do with you?"

The cats' unblinking stares followed every move he made as he placed her on the mattress, tucked a pillow under her head, hunted around for towels and a blanket to cover her. He tried to wrap a towel around her wet hair but she pushed him away. It would be easier to gather mercury in your bare hands than to convince her to stay put for more than ten seconds. He grabbed an assortment of sweaters and a winter coat from the jumble of garments then covered her with them. She mumbled something he assumed wasn't thank you.

"Don't move," he said, then laughed out loud. As if she had any idea what he was saying.

He stood in the doorway for a minute. Her face was buried against the sleeve of a dark navy wool coat. Her eyes were closed. With a little luck she was sound asleep and would stay that way until morning. He used the opportunity to extinguish the candles in the bathroom, pull the stopper on the tub, and put towels down on the wet floor. Max watched him from the hallway, tail thumping in pure enjoyment.

The front door was a whole other problem. He'd kicked it off its hinges and it now hung crazily in the frame. He'd need to make a trip to a hardware store in the morning so he could set it right again. He fit the door into the opening then pushed a suitcase in front of it. The solution wasn't going to win any awards but it would keep strangers out and Max and the cats in and right now that was the most he could ask for.

He barely had time to secure the door when he heard another thud from the bedroom. He found her sitting naked on the floor in the hallway – the bed took up the entire room – looking so completely astonished that he couldn't help laughing.

"Here," he said, taking off his shirt and handing it to her. "Put this on."

She had trouble coordinating her movements so he helped guide her arms into the proper sleeves. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons.

"Wrong side," he said.

She tried again. "I'm really not this stupid," she said, her words slightly slurred. He knelt down on the floor in front of her. "Here," he said. "I'll do it for you." She

smelled sweet and his body responded fiercely to her nearness. Her fair skin was rosy from the bath. Her curly hair drifted wild and damp across her shoulders. Her breasts were round and full and beautiful and she was completely at his mercy. The champagne had demolished her defenses. It would be easy to draw one of her tightly budded nipples between his lips and tease the tender flesh with his teeth. She would moan softly in the back of her throat and arch her back and he would slip his hand between her legs and feel her desire. It would be quick and fierce and primal. She would come first, he would see to that, and then when she was beginning her slow descent from the pinnacle, he would let himself go and she would rise again with him, higher and higher, until they crashed into the stars.

He thought about flat tires, the Yankees' batting order, the mileage between Shelter Rock Cove and every major city in the United States while he quickly buttoned up her shirt, being careful not to touch even a millimeter of her lush and sensual body. When they made love, he wanted her to be there with him, body and soul.

Chapter Four

"Call her," Susan said as she scrunched down into the pillows with the phone pressed to her ear. "You screwed up. You created an awkward moment. Apologize before it goes any further."

"Apologize for what," Hall demanded, his voice slightly muffled on the other end of the line. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"You acted like a jerk. You let yourself get all bent out of shape over some guy whose dog trashed her car."

"He skips out after his dog trashes her car and you're calling me a jerk?" "You're missing the point."

"And you're missing Letterman," her husband grumbled from his side of the bed. She poked him in the shin with her heel.

"What point?" Hall asked. She could hear the sound of papers rustling in the background. What was it with men and the telephone? They never gave it the full attention it deserved.

"The point is that this guy and his dog aren't the point at all. Why waste time worrying about some tourist passing through town? Annie's here, and so are you. So what are you going to do about it?"

More paper rustling on the other end of the line.

"Stay out of it, Susie," her husband said in a low voice. "You're asking for trouble." She ignored him. He hated it when she played matchmaker but, as she frequently

pointed out to anyone who would listen, she was responsible for three happy marriages in Shelter Rock Cove over the last ten years and she was gunning for number four.

"Quit reading your mail while we're talking," she snapped at Hall. "You've waited twenty years for a chance to ask Annie out. I hope you're not planning to wait another twenty before you actually get around to it."

She slammed down the phone. Sometimes a man needed emphatic punctuation before he got the point.

"You're wasting your time," Jack said as she scooted over closer to him.

"You don't know what you're talking about." She slipped into the crook of his arm and rested her head on his chest.

"It'll never work out between them." "Sure it will."

"Annie doesn't see him that way."

"She doesn't see any man that way yet but when she does --"

He held her close and kissed the top of her head. "When she does it won't be the Good Doctor Talbot."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do," he said, "and so do you. When Annie falls in love again, it won't be with anyone from Shelter Rock Cove."

"Crystal balls," she asked dryly, "or is this just your way of telling me to mind my own business."

He laughed, which was one of the reasons she loved him. "Kevin's shadow is everywhere in this town, Suze, and she knows it. One day some stranger's going to come

riding in and our Annie will take a look at him and pow! We'll get a phone call from Vegas from the happy couple."

Susan pretended to shudder. "That's horrible."

"That's the way it's gonna happen and we both know it." "Vegas?"

"One of those little chapels on the Strip."

"Not with a total stranger. Annie's not the impulsive type." "We all are," Jack said, "given the right circumstances."

"Nope," she said with conviction, "not Annie. She's too levelheaded for that." "Our girl's changing --"

"She is not." Don't lie, Susan Mary Frances Galloway Aldrin. Isn't that exactly what you said to Annie in her kitchen?

"Take another look, Suze. This isn't the same woman who was Kevin's wife."

Tears filled her eyes. She wasn't the type of woman who gave into her feelings easily -- at least, not when anyone could see her. "I don't want things to change." Not in a way that was beyond her control. "Dad's gone, and so is Kevin, and my mother isn't getting any younger . . . who knows what's around the next corner. I've had enough." She struggled to rein in her emotions. "I've just had enough change to last a lifetime."

"You sound like Claudia."

She laughed despite herself. "That's a terrible thing to say."

"You know I love your mother but if she had her way we'd all be watching Lawrence Welk on a black-and-white TV. Can't do it, Suze. Life keeps finding a way."

She understood what he was saying but she wasn't ready to accept it.

"I wish we could stop time . . . just stay the way we are right now." She took his hand and kissed each callused fingertip. "Is that so much to ask?"

"No," said her husband of twenty years. "Not too much at all."

#

Hall hated it when Susan was right. They had been friends since grade school and her taste in his women was a hell of a lot better than his. Women had been interested in him since his voice changed. That had never been a problem. Picking the right one for the long haul – well, that was something else again.

When he married Margaux straight out of med school, Susan had told him it would never work but he refused to listen. Six years later when he was getting ready to walk down the aisle with Denise, Susan had waggled her finger under his nose and ordered him to think very carefully about what he was doing because she absolutely refused to buy him a third wedding present. She had made a joke of it but they both knew she meant every word. She was kind enough not to mention that fact when he married Yvonne.

Funny thing was each time he had believed the marriage would work. He wanted a family. He wanted a marriage that would last a lifetime. He had been brought up with those values and he still believed in them. His ex-wives were beautiful, accomplished women whose backgrounds and beliefs matched his down to the ground. He made good money as a doctor so they could pursue their own careers and other interests without worrying about where the next meal was coming from. There had been no screaming fights during either marriage, no wide expanses of disappointment or disinterest. In both

cases the marriage should have worked and worked well and when he found himself in the middle of an amicable split nobody was more surprised than Hall and nobody less surprised than Susan Galloway Aldrin.

"You're never going to be happy as long as you're still carrying that torch for Annie," she had told him during the Memorial Day Haddock Fry on the town green. "You need closure, Dr. Talbot, and until you find it nothing's going to work out for you."

Four months had passed since that conversation and he was still wondering how in hell to make the first move. How did you tell the woman you'd loved since high school that you knew the reason why she didn't sleep well at night, why she was so determined to keep her flower shop thriving, why she'd sold the beautiful center hall Colonial and all of the furniture in it and moved to a shack by the water? How did you tell her that her husband had asked you for money a few days before he died and that you'd sent him away empty-handed and told yourself you were doing them both a favor when maybe that wasn't strictly true..

Hall had told Kevin it was for his own good, that he had to come clean and figure a way out of the mess he'd made of his life before it was too late. He offered Kevin the name of a financial counselor who could help him figure a way back from the abyss but it was like talking to the wind off the ocean. Kevin was always a gentleman, even when his back was to the wall. He listened, he thanked Hall for his time, then he turned and walked out of the office. That was the last time Hall saw him alive.

Two days later thirty-six year old Kevin Galloway was dead of a massive heart attack. Kevin left behind a grieving widow, a heartbroken family, and an old family friend who wondered if he was somehow to blame. He couldn't look at Annie without feeling responsible for the sorrow in her beautiful eyes.

Call her, Susan had said. Pick up the damn phone and call her. Stop being the Family Friend and start acting like a man.