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

gossip, some juicy tidbit of information that they could pass around as first-hand information. The Virgin Widow's fall from grace was the hot topic of the day in every home in town.

"Go home and watch CNN," she snapped at poor Mrs. McDougal from the library. "Then you'll know as much as I do."

"The woman's eighty-five," Sweeney said, eyes wide with shock. "You might've gone a little easier on the old girl."

"I hate them all," Annie muttered as she flipped the Open sign to Closed. "Since when do we close for lunch?" Sweeney asked.

"Since right now."

"That's not good for business, honey."

"Neither is assault and battery and that's what I might do to the next person who asks me for the real story."

"You need more peppermint tea and something to eat," Sweeney said. Annie made a face. "What I need is a martini but I'll settle for the tea." "Now's not the time to stop eating."

"Sweeney, for God's sake, don't start acting like you're my mother. I'll eat when I want to eat and that's the end of that."

Wonderful. Now she sounded like a pregnant perimenopausal four-year-old. She was about to make herself that cup of hot tea when somebody rapped on the

door. "Can't you read?" she mumbled. "Closed means closed."

"It's Hall," Sweeney said, peering over the top of her newspaper. "Gee, I wonder what he wants."

Annie unlocked the door and ushered Hall in. "If you're here to gloat or gossip, you might as well leave."

His aristocratic cheeks reddened just enough for her to notice. "I'm here to apologize."

"What for?"

"For being a bastard."

She stared at him in surprise. "Bastard takes in a lot of territory."

He inclined his head in Sweeney's direction. "Is there some place we can talk privately?"

Sweeney looked up. "You can talk right here," she said as she pushed back her chair. "I'll just ask Annie for the details later."

"I didn't mean to insult her," Hall said as Sweeney swept past him and out the back door.

"You can apologize to her too, if you like." "You don't sound like yourself today, Annie."

"Well, maybe that's because I've never had a day like today before." She found it difficult to disguise her impatience. "So why do you think you have to apologize to me?"

"Because I think I'm the one who caused this whole mess."

Take a number, she thought. "And how did you do that?" First Claudia had tried to take the blame for Sam's troubles, and then old Teddy Webb from the Weekly had stopped by to apologize for the Labor Day photo of Annie and Sam kissing. "Never meant to blow his cover," Teddy said, sounding like a character in an old spy movie. Now here was Hall claiming full responsibility.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"I was worried about you, Annie. There was something familiar about Sam. Ellen and I both noticed it. I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew him from somewhere so when that photo of the two of you ran right after the picnic, I faxed a copy of it to a few friends in New York and one of them came back with some information about him."

She hated him in that moment, a fierce burst of emotion that almost buckled her knees. That one selfish decision might have lost her the man she loved.

He told her that Sam had been a financial analyst with a huge clientele and lots of publicity. His track record and gift of gab landed him on a Manhattan cable station which was how both Ellen and Hall were familiar with him. They had watched his show while they were attending a conference in the city. "They fired him this summer, Annie. Rumor has it he was stealing money from his clients and putting into his own account."

"Embezzlement?" It hurt to think of Sam being anything less than the man she had believed him to be.

"Looks like it."

"People don't get fired for embezzlement, Hall. They go to prison." And they don't end up flat broke in Shelter Rock Cove.

Hall looked at her with an expression of such deep sadness that she wanted to haul off and smack him. "That might happen yet."

"And you felt I really needed to know this."

"I didn't want you to get hurt. I felt I owed it to you." "You owed it to me to investigate Sam behind my back?"

"I owed it to you as a friend to give you the information and allow you to make your own choices." He paused and she could see he was struggling with what to say but she refused to feel any compassion for him whatsoever. "It's what I should have done the first time around."

"Now you've lost me."

Their eyes met and suddenly she knew. "Kevin?" she asked and he nodded.

"He came to me for money a few days before he died and I refused him. It wasn't the first time, Annie. Maybe if I'd told you –"

All of the anger and fight went out of her. "It wouldn't have made a difference, Hall. You did what you thought was right, same as I did and Warren did and Claudia and everyone else in town."

"I'm a doctor. I know what stress can do to a man with a bad heart. Maybe if I'd helped him out with a few bucks, his stress level would've gone down and he might have survived the heart attack."

"And maybe I shouldn't have threatened to leave him an hour before he died." "Ah Jesus, Annie --"

"We're all guilty and innocent and every shade of grey in between. I've spent twenty years of my life trying to make sense of this and that's still the best I can do."

"I didn't want to see you get hurt again. That's the only reason I looked into Sam's background."

"No other motive?"

"A month earlier there might have been," he admitted, "but even I catch on eventually. You two are right for each other. I hope it works out."

She offered him a cup of tea which he refused. He said he had patients due within a half hour and she didn't press him. Too much had passed between them today. How sad that one gifted man's weakness could still cause so much sadness and dissension even now, two years after his death.

And yet in a strange way, this was exactly what she needed. She had learned more about her own life and marriage in the last twenty-four hours than in the thirty- eight years that had come before it and the things she had learned helped ease the guilt she had carried around like a shield. She had loved Kevin and stood by him but it was time to move on. Kevin had been her first love but it was Sam who would be her last.

#

Annie remained glued to the small television set in the workroom behind the display area while Claudia and Sweeney handled the chores up front. She was hungry for every bit of information she could glean about Sam. Warren had been unable to reach Agent Briscoe and his other sources were suddenly dry as a bone. She noticed a dark blue car that seemed to be following her around and recognized the driver as one of the agents who had answered to Briscoe. Even she was under a cloud of suspicion.

At three o'clock the all-day cable news networks reported that government agents had closed down the firm of Mason, Marx, and Daniels and made numerous arrests. She waited and prayed but there was no news about Sam until the phone rang a little after five o'clock.

"They found him!" Warren's voice was triumphant. "They found him in some shack on St. John's. He's in protective custody."

"Protective custody?" Annie said. "That means they think he's innocent, doesn't it? You don't put a criminal in protective custody."

"Quick!" Claudia called from the front of the store. "Channel 49 – they're talking about Sam."

Annie zapped the channels in time to hear: " . . . found the former top-rated executive in an abandoned building near the piers. He was badly bruised but otherwise unhurt. Local law enforcement took Butler into custody, pending arrival of U. S. officials who will be looking into the apparent kidnapping."

Claudia, who had joined Annie in the work room, gathered her into her arms. "It's going to be okay, honey," she said, smoothing Annie's hair. "It's all over. He'll be home before you know it."

#

But as the days passed Annie began to wonder if Sam was coming home at all. She followed the events as they unfolded around the Mason, Marx, and Daniels sting and committed every sentence about Sam to memory. Thank God, the one thing about which there was no longer any doubt was that he had been in league with the Justice Department against his former company. Talk of a set-up or double sting had been abandoned for the juicier story of an in-house informant. Depending upon who was doing the talking, Sam was either a hero or the worst kind of rat. Popular opinion leaned heavily toward the latter.

By day three well-meaning visits to Annie's Flowers had dwindled to almost nothing. By day four even Claudia was finding it difficult to meet her eyes.

"Isn't this taking an awfully long time?" she asked Warren who seemed to know about such things.

"It takes as long as it takes," said Warren, which was really no help at all. "Let it unfold the way it needs to, Annie. He'll be here before you know it."

"You old coot," said Claudia who had happened into the back room and overheard some of the conversation. "She's in love with the man. Has it been so long that you can't remember how that felt?"

The two of them launched into one of their patented sparring contests that Annie knew were a display of affection between them. Thank God for those two wonderful, generous people. She couldn't imagine how she would have made it through the last few days without their rock-solid love and support. They were parents to her in every way that mattered except blood and she knew her son or daughter would be blessed to have two such wonderful grandparents.

Because that was what Claudia and Warren would be. Maybe it was unorthodox, maybe it would raise an eyebrow or two, but Annie felt the rightness of it deep inside her soul and she knew Sam would feel it too once he came home to her.

If he came home to her.

#

Sam leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. "You can let me out here."

"You were promised door-to-door service," the driver said. "It's on the government. You won't be hearing that again anytime soon."

"Here is good."

"Bet it's good to be home," the driver said and Sam laughed. "Better than you can imagine."

The driver wished him well and left him at the corner of Main Street and the docks. He stood there in the late afternoon sun and breathed in the briny salt air that had always powered his dreams. There was Cappy's about two hundred yards to his left and Rich's Bait and Tackle Shop near the stop sign. If he angled his head just a little bit more he could make out the church steeple where Warren's museum was taking shape.

And, if he followed his heart straight up Main Street, it would lead him home to Annie Galloway.

Home.

He tried the word on for size and found it a perfect fit. This tiny dot on the map called Shelter Rock Cove was home because Annie Galloway was there. For four days his every waking thought had revolved around the woman he loved and his need to be with her again and now that he was a three minute walk away from her arms he found himself scared into immobility.

Would she want him now? He hadn't a clue. He'd been