A Soft Place to Fall (12 page)

"I'd better not. Once I start I might not
stop."

He earned full marks for letting the straight
line slide by without the easy double entendre but somehow the
temperature in the room still managed to rise another degree.

"You're not one of those
lettuce-leaves-and-water types, are you?"

"With these hips? I was issued a weight
watchers' warning yesterday and I'm thinking Ceil just might be
right."

"This Ceil must have a problem with her
eyesight."
I know how you look beneath that red sweater, Annie
Galloway. I know how you feel.

"Ceil works register one at Yankee Shopper
and she doesn't exactly mince words with her customers. She's
right. I have put on a few pounds."

He described Ceil down to the mole under her
chin.

"That's terrible," she said. "You shouldn't
mention things like moles and wattles when you describe a
woman."

"Why not?" he asked. "It's not like she
doesn't have both."

"It's rude."

"Rude? That woman knew more about me than the
IRS does."

"Ceil does keep a finger on the pulse of
Shelter Rock."

"You mean she keeps her eye to the
keyhole."

"Ceil is a little nosy."

"I'm surprised she didn't ask who I'm
sleeping with."

"Good thing I'm not sleeping with anyone or
--"
Ohmigod, Annie, what have you done?

"Good thing," he said, not missing a beat,
"because I'm not either."

Her entire body registered his words in one
giant rush of almost ridiculous pleasure. Their eyes met and held
above the bag of DeeDee's Donuts. If she didn't know better, she
would swear she heard music somewhere in the distance.

"Good thing," she repeated.

A very good thing.

Chapter Five

Claudia was beside herself by the time Hall
walked into Annie's Flowers and asked if Annie was around. He had
seen her in various states of emotional anxiety before but this one
was off the chart.

"I haven't seen or heard from her all morning
and it's almost ten o'clock," Claudia said, tugging the leaves off
a perfectly good yellow rose. "She should have been in here by
eight forty-five the latest."

"She didn't call?" he asked, wondering where
Claudia's diastolic pressure was right about now.

"Not a word!" Her voice trembled. "And she
doesn't even have phone service turned on yet in that ridiculous
new house of hers. I told her she should keep the cellular service
but she wouldn't listen to me."

She can't afford it, Claudia. She's lucky
she has a roof over her head.

"I don't know what on earth Warren was
thinking, selling her that miserable little place. I intend to give
him a piece of my mind next time he shows his face around
here."

"Warren cut her a terrific deal," Hall said,
editing much of what he really wanted to say. It was, after all,
none of his business. "She seems happy to me."

"She's made a terrible mistake," Claudia said
in a tone heavy with foreboding. "She'll never be happy in that
place." She ripped another leaf from the rose. "Never!"

He was well acquainted with Claudia's
occasion outbursts. He remembered them from his high school days
when she could clear the basement of Susan's friends with one lift
of her left eyebrow. Just the hint of an outburst was enough to
send everyone running. She didn't unnerve him anymore. Mostly he
felt sorry for her. She had lost her identity when John died.
Everything she was had been tied up in being a wife and mother. She
was at loose ends with half of her job description no longer valid
and that often manifested itself in close scrutiny of her grown
children's behavior. Needless to say, she considered Annie one of
her own and watched over her with hawk-like intensity that had only
increased since Kevin's death.

Hall wasn't much in the mood for hawk-like
intensity that morning.

"Why don't I drive over and see if
everything's all right?" he suggested, eager for an easy exit line.
He still had a few free hours before he was due at the hospital, a
rare occurrence for him, even on a Saturday.

"Would you?" Claudia's face lit up with
gratitude and he felt like a louse. Ulterior motives could do that
to a man. "I would do it myself but somebody has to watch the
store. We're expecting a huge shipment for the Sorenson-Machado
wedding tomorrow and I'd better stay here and make sure
everything's there."

"My pleasure," he said, meaning every word.
"She probably started unpacking and lost track of time."

"I'm sure that's it," Claudia agreed. "Anne
is extremely punctual" A beat pause. "Most of the time. I'm sure
there's a good reason."

He turned to leave but a hand on his forearm
stopped him.

"You went to DeeDee's for us!" Claudia
exclaimed, laying claim to the bag of still warm donuts. "Aren't
you the sweetest thing?"

#

Since Annie didn't have a kitchen table or
chairs yet, she and Sam carried their coffee and donuts out to the
front porch where they could enjoy the morning sunshine. The
ever-vigilant Max began dancing for donuts and Sam, obviously a
pushover, rewarded him with a chunk torn from a glazed
whole-wheat.

"That will go well with the pizza I gave him
for breakfast," Annie observed. "I don't know how you're going to
reintroduce him to plain old dog food."

"I already told him not to get used to pizza
and donuts but I don't think he believed me."

She sipped her coffee, savoring the sweet
warmth against her tongue. Had there ever been a more perfect
morning? Sam Butler was right. All she had needed to vanquish her
champagne hangover was caffeine, sugar, and two thousand calories'
worth of DeeDee's donuts.

Max finished his whole-wheat then eyed her
strawberry jelly with mournful desire.

"Don't even think about it," she warned him.
"You're as bad as George and Gracie."

Sam glanced at her over his mug of black
coffee. "George and Gracie?"

"My cats. You must have seen them last
night."

He grimaced and gestured toward his right
shin. "See them? I still have the scars."

"They scratched you?"

"Nothing serious," he said. "I don't think
they appreciated sharing the bed with me."

"They're a tad territorial."

"Territorial." There was that great smile
again. "And Max is just high-spirited."

"Let me see."

"It's just a scratch."

"Cat scratches can be nasty. You should put
some antiseptic on it."

"Don't worry. I'm fine."

"I have some Neosporin in the medicine
cabinet. It'll only take a second."

He put his coffee mug on the railing then
lifted his right pants leg above the ankle. "See? No big deal."
Nothing but a faint red line above his snowy white sock.

"I'd still put something on it if I were
you." Max sidled up to Annie and settled down with his head in her
lap. "For a while there I thought you'd left Max behind as a
housewarming present."

"
I tried to take him with me but he
refused to leave. I think he's in love with you."
I wanted to
grab Max and get the hell out of here before it was too
late.

She scratched the dog behind the ear and
Max's eyes closed in blissful enjoyment. "We've bonded," she said.
"I think it was the pizza."

He felt her touch along his nerve endings,
same as Max. "Speaking of pizza, if you'll leave me your truck
today, I'll take care of the cleanup."

"You don't have to do that."

"I can take care of it this morning after I
fix your front door."

"How will I get to work?"

"You have to work today?"

"Saturday's a big day in my business."
Weddings, birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, all of which
required mountains of beautiful blooms.

"Take my truck."

"Then you'll be stuck here."

"We'll trade back when I'm finished."

"You're not going to take no for an answer,
are you?"

"Not this time."

"My tools are stashed in the shed behind the
house. I must have a half-dozen jars of nails and screws back there
too. I was planning on fixing the door when I came home
tonight."

"You know your way around a ballpeen
hammer?"

She flexed a muscle and laughed. "Good thing,
too, because my husband had no talent for home repairs."

"That's how I met Warren Bancroft."

She looked at him over the rim of her coffee
mug. "Doing home repairs?"

"Boat repairs," he said. "I was still in high
school and working part-time at the marina near the old World's
Fair grounds in Queens. I was your typical smartass city kid who
thought he knew everything. Warren made it his business to prove me
wrong."

"So he took you under his wing, too." She
told him about the Bancroft scholarship that had enabled her to
obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Bowdoin College down in
Brunswick.

"I'm surprised he never had kids," Sam said,
polishing off the last donut in the bag.

"He made up for it in wives," Annie said then
laughed at the look of surprise on Sam's face. "Don't tell me you
didn't know about the wives."

"We never talked about personal stuff."

"Male conversation," she said with a sigh.
"Name, rank, and serial number."

"You forgot baseball scores."

"You do know you're living in his sister
Ellie's old house, don't you?"

"We managed to cover that."

She gestured over her shoulder. "Did you know
he grew up right here?"

"In your house?"

"Four rooms, eight Bancrofts. Boggles the
imagination, doesn't it?"

She told him about Warren's parents, first
generation Irish who had moved up from Gloucester to fish the
friendlier waters off Shelter Rock Cove. She wove the story of a
family deeply rooted in tradition who didn't understand why their
eldest son kept saying that there was a better way.

He loved the sound of her low-pitched voice.
She hit her consonants precisely then eluded her vowels like the
true Yankee daughter she was. There was a musical rhythm to her
speech that seemed to turn his brain into cotton candy. Her face
came alive as she spoke of the sea, an odd mixture of love and
sorrow. He tried to concentrate on Warren's history but it was her
own that engaged his curiosity.

She was around his age, too young to be a
widow. He tried to imagine her as a young bride, a contented wife,
a loving mother. Did she have children? He hadn't seen any evidence
of them. No bronzed baby shoes or graduation pictures on the mantel
over the fireplace. He knew that marriages were like fingerprints;
there were no two alike. He wondered if hers had been close and
companionable or volatile and sexually charged. Maybe they had been
one of those couples who inhabited the same space but not the same
lives. Had she been happy? She liked to laugh and did it better
than most. He couldn't imagine her in a laughless marriage. He
hoped her memories were all good ones.

#

A few minutes later a donutless Hall made the
turn onto Bancroft Road toward Annie's house. What could he have
said to Kevin's mother?
Sorry the donuts aren't for you,
Claudia, but I'm hoping to use them to seduce your former
daughter-in-law.

Seduce? The word actually made him laugh out
loud. Hell, at this point he'd settle for a lobster roll and a
movie with Annie Galloway.

Annie's truck was parked down at the curb and
he wondered why she hadn't bothered to pull it into the garage or
at least park it in the driveway. He didn't notice the New York
plates until he pulled in behind it. Had Sean Galloway driven up
from Albany to help his sister-in-law with the move? That made
sense. Sean was one of the good guys, the kind who would give up
part of his Labor Day weekend to be there for family.

Too bad that wasn't Sean sitting on the front
porch with Annie, staring at her over a bag of DeeDee's damn
donuts. A code blue alarm went off inside his chest when he
realized she was staring right back at the guy, staring and leaning
toward him with the kind of body language women used so well when
the moment was right. Where had he seen that junker SUV before?
That couldn't be the guy whose pizza-eating mutt trashed Annie's
Trooper yesterday. There was something about the guy that seemed
vaguely familiar but Hall couldn't quite place him.

He pasted a fake smile on his face as he
walked toward them but only the dog seemed to register his
presence. Hall coughed discreetly.

"Hall!" Annie leaped to her feet. She seemed
startled, disoriented. Like a woman waking from a dream.

"Sorry to drop by without calling." He used
the upbeat, slightly impersonal tone he employed when he made
rounds at the hospital with the residents in tow. "I stopped in at
the store and Claudia was --."

"Oh no!" Annie looked at the man's watch
strapped to her left wrist. "The Sorenson flowers are due in and
Claudia doesn't have a clue what to look for." She dusted pale
flecks of powdered sugar from her sleek red sweater and black
pants. She looked better than he had ever seen her before, glowing
and radiant. "You don't know Claudia in a crisis."

She gathered up her tote bag and other
assorted carry-alls then turned toward the guy with the New York
license plates. "Thanks for the donuts," she said. "I hate to run
like this and leave you in the lurch."

"I told you I'd take care of everything," he
said. "Don't worry."

The man rose to his feet and Hall noted that
the guy was a good two inches shorter than he was. He wasn't above
taking petty satisfaction in that fact.

"Make sure George and Gracie don't escape,"
she said to Shorty. "You can use one of the white bowls by the sink
if Max needs some water."