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

effort to be gracious cost her dearly. She wanted to bar the door and build a moat around Annie's heart and the fierceness of her emotions startled her.

Poor Annie had eyes for no one but this Sam Butler as she continued her introductions. "And that vision in paisley is Mary Sweeney. She made the stained glass inset on our front door and every other beautiful glass piece you see around here."

Sweeney leaned down and pumped his hand. "Just call me Sweeney," she said with one of her trademark lusty laughs. "And I do mean call me." Her dark eyes flickered from Annie to Sam to Annie again and the last of Claudia's hopes were shattered. Sweeney saw it too.

Annie laughed and after a moment so did this Butler person. Claudia could manage only the tightest smile. She was grateful when the phone in the work room rang and she excused herself to answer it.

"I'm sorry," she said to the person on the other end of the line. "Of course I'm listening to you . . . yes, yes . . . a dozen red . . . long-stemmed . . . no card . . .

absolutely . . . I understand . . . we'll have them ready by five o'clock."

She hung up the phone and her eye was caught by a small photo of Kevin and John tacked to the corkboard over the phone table. Annie had pinned it up there the day the store opened and there it had stayed for almost twelve years. Sometimes you couldn't see it for the blizzard of notes and orders but if you looked hard enough you would always find it. The photo had been taken at the end of Kevin's first year in Little League – oh, how that uniform had swamped his skinny body. John called him The Shrimp and Kevin had despaired ever growing as big and brawny as his father. The years, however, took care of that and by the time Kevin and Annie married, he looked like a younger version of John with the same towering height, wide shoulders, and ready smile.

They had been alike in other ways too. They had both loved their family above all, both believed in a world filled with poetry and laughter, and to Claudia's eternal regret, they both died much too soon.

"Oh John," she whispered, touching the edge of the photo with the tip of her finger. "Why does everything have to change?"

#

Sam gave Annie her house keys, made a minimum of small talk with a cool Claudia and a very warm Sweeney, then said he'd better get moving.

"I looped Max's leash around the bicycle rack outside," he said. "Knowing Max that isn't going to hold him for long."

Claudia sniffed loudly and Annie wished she could stick a planter over her mother-in-law's well-coiffed head. Sweeney watched them quietly with a Cheshire cat smile on her face. All of this because a man returned the keys to her house.

Annie walked Sam outside. "I don't know what's the matter with them," she said by way of apology. "That was outrageous, even for Sweeney." She shook her head in dismay. "And I won't even try to explain Claudia. She's really a very nice woman although you'd never know it by the way she acted."

"I didn't stop by to see them," he said. "I came to see you."

"And I really appreciate it. I guess leaving the keys under the mat really wasn't the greatest idea. I –"

"What's the story between you and the doctor?" "What?" His question left her flat-footed. "You and the doctor. Is there a story?"

"You don't waste time on small talk, do you?" "Is there something between the two of you?"

"He's an old friend."

"You're going out with him tomorrow."

"He took me by surprise. I didn't know what to say." "He thinks it's a date."

"He's wrong." "Are you sure?"

"I don't think that's any of your business." "I think it will be."

I'm melting, she thought as she looked deep into his eyes. Right here in front of the store with Claudia and Sweeney watching. She was melting just like one of those women in the books Claudia kept hidden under the TV Guide. All she needed was the pirate ship and the beautiful gown.

"No," she said at last. "It isn't a date." "I'm glad."

"So am I." Could you have an out-of-body experience right there on Main Street with everybody watching? Their gazes held for what seemed like forever. She thought he was going to take her hand or maybe even pull her into his arms and kiss her but he did none of those things. He just looked at her, longer and more deeply than anyone had ever looked at her before, then he unraveled Max's leash from the bike rack and started off down the street, leaving Annie feeling thoroughly kissed just the same.

He walked the way they walked in the city, quickly and with purpose. She had the sense that he knew his relative position to everyone else on the street and she wondered what had happened in his life to bring him to Warren's house by the water. Men like that had high-powered careers and lovers who wore little black dresses and a single strand of pearls. They didn't show up in Shelter Rock Cove in a beat-up truck with a wild yellow Lab and turn a woman's heart inside out over a bag of donuts and a cup of coffee.

Somebody tapped on the window behind her. She could feel Claudia's and Sweeney's eyes burning holes in the back of her sweater but she couldn't go back inside. Not until she managed to push all of her unruly emotions back inside her chest where they belonged.

As it was, it took all of her self-control to keep from touching her fingertip to her lips to capture a kiss that never was.

She stood there on the sidewalk until Sam and Max turned the corner from Main to Mariner and then when the memory of his walk turned the corner after him, she went back inside.

"So where have you been hiding him?" Sweeney demanded the second she stepped into the shop. "He's sure not home grown."

She tried for cool nonchalance. The way she felt inside was new to her and she wasn't about to share it with anybody. "He moved into Ellie Bancroft's place yesterday." She reclaimed her wire cutters and took her place behind the counter. "His dog had a run-in with my truck and he was making amends." She carefully edited out the champagne, the nudity, and the night he spent in her bed .

"Can I borrow the beasts for a week or two?" Sweeney asked. "Sounds better than spending another Friday night over a pint at the Yardarm Inn."

"Oh please," Claudia snapped, tearing the head off a perfectly innocent white lily. "You two sound like teenagers."

Annie moved the basket of blooms out of her mother-in-law's reach. At the rate Claudia was going, they would need to double their orders. Claudia's reaction struck Annie as every bit as over the top as Sweeney's and she refused to rise to the bait.

Instead, she centered herself and gave them more information.

"My front door wouldn't close properly and Sam offered to fix it for me. I told him to leave the keys under the mat but, as you heard, he wasn't comfortable with that." Clear, concise, factually accurate. They seemed happy with her explanation. Clearly full disclosure was highly overrated.

"No wonder my stomach's growling," Sweeney said, with a glance at the time piece dangling between her breasts from a velvet cord. "It's almost one o'clock."

"I was going to heat up some tomato soup," Annie said, brushing her hands along the sides of her black pants. "I think we have some crackers back there too."

"If you can scare up some Tabasco sauce, count me in," said Sweeney.

"Do you think I could live without Tabasco?" She turned toward Claudia. "Do you want your soup with or without hot sauce?"

Claudia reached behind the counter and extracted her purse. "If you don't mind, I think I'll go to Bernie's for a half turkey and brie on rye. I won't be long."

"Don't let her get to you," Sweeney said as soon as the door closed behind Claudia. "If you want him, go for it. She'll come around."

"You know, Sweeney, if you were half as good at marketing your stained glass as you are at managing people's lives, you'd be the next Tiffany."

"I know," said Sweeney with a good-natured laugh. "It's a gift, isn't it?"

A few minutes later they sat down to eat. The sight of the creamy red soup sloshing around the bowl made Annie queasy. Lifting her spoon to her mouth required major effort.

"Migraine or hangover?" Sweeney asked. "My bet is on the latter."

"Cheap champagne on an empty stomach," Annie said, massaging her temples with cautious fingers. "Now I know why I'm not much of a drinker."

"Moderation, honey, in all things but love and chocolate. That's my motto." She rummaged deep into a pocket and withdrew a small bottle. "Industrial strength Advil and lots of caffeine. That'll set you right."

Of course it wasn't just the hangover that was making Annie's head pound like a steel drum in the Bahamas: it was the shock of seeing Sam Butler walk through the door of Annie's Flowers and onto Claudia's radar screen. Not that you could keep a newcomer secret in Shelter Rock Cove. Annie knew that was downright impossible. Still there was something very unnerving about introducing the man in whose arms you'd slept the night before to your mother-in-law. It wasn't something most sane women would care to repeat.

Sweeney, who had been watching Annie carefully, pushed her bowl aside and leaned across the counter. "So how long have we known each other?"

"I can't remember ever not knowing you." Sweeney's colorful dress and language had been part of the landscape since Annie was a little girl dreaming of a career in the arts herself.

"Then you know I only want the best for you."

"Uh-oh." Annie dusted crumbs from her fingertips then reached for the slender bottle of Tabasco. "That sounds ominous."

"I went down this road myself after Number Two died and I know how hard it is to start over again."

"The house will work itself out. I don't know what Claudia's been telling you about it but –"

"Annie." Sweeney's tone brooked no argument. "We both know I'm not talking about your new house."

Annie pushed her own soup bowl aside and fiddled with her paper napkin. "I think you're jumping the gun."

"Maybe I am," Sweeney conceded, "but I know what I saw and you can't deny it." "Really, Sweeney, a relationship is the last thing I'm interested in right now."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. Between the store and the new house, when would I have time for anything like that?"

"You might be able to fool yourself but you don't fool me. I've seen you tap dance away from Dr. Talbot and the other men who've come calling around here. You didn't do that today, Annie."

"Claudia noticed too, didn't she?"

"You bet your patootie she did and she's out there right now, trying to figure out what to do about it."

"Claudia is strong-minded, but I don't think she's manipulative."

"Neither do I, sweetie, but I do know she's scared and she's lonely and she's not about to lose you if she can help it."

"Lose me? She's not going to lose me."

"You know what I'm saying. More so than any of her own children, you're her link to her son. She wanted you to turn your big house into a shrine to him the same way she did for John."

Sweeney was right. Selling the house had cut Claudia to the quick. She could only imagine how Claudia would feel if she knew the real reason for the sale.

"I'm not looking to replace Kevin