A Soft Place to Fall (16 page)

Sonia Yardley was turning out to be one of
his greatest successes. He had met her ten years ago when she was
flying kids for a nickel a pound out of a little air strip near
Wiscasset and using the proceeds to help pay for her college
degree. He did a little discreet checking and discovered she had a
4.0 GPA and damn little else. He never once regretted seeing that a
Bancroft scholarship went her way. Now Sonia had a handsome pilot
husband, a beautiful baby girl, and a future that could take her as
far as she wanted to go.

Warren felt sorry for rich old men and women
who sheltered their money in ice-cold tax havens and never knew the
joy of seeing that money turn a young person's life around.

Of course it didn't always work out the way
he intended it to. Sometimes not even a man's best intentions could
coax good fortune out of hiding for the ones he cared for most of
all. That was how it had been with Annie and Sam. Annie's
blossoming art career had been put aside before house payments and
her husband's problems. When was the last time she had set up her
easel and taken out her paints? Five years. Maybe ten. What about
the carvings and sculptures she'd wanted to make? She'd laughed
when he asked her to consider creating something for the museum and
said she wouldn't remember how. He was saving the place of honor
for her just the same. She used her gifts to create exquisite
floral arrangements and that was all well and good but it wasn't
what she was born to do and anything less was a crying shame.

And look at Sam. He had carved out a
brilliant career that had given him nothing in return except money
and now, not even that. He had sacrificed everything for his
brothers and sisters and they hadn't a clue that he was in the
fight of his life.

Warren understood the boy straight through to
his marrow. There was no greater sorrow in life than letting love
slip through your fingers because you couldn't find it in your
heart to say the two little words she needed to hear.

Don't go.

But that was his story and he had made his
peace with it a long time ago. He had moved onto other loves but
none had ever burned as brightly in his heart than the first.

He wanted Sam and Annie to have the one gift
he had never had: the singular joy of loving and being loved for a
lifetime. For all of their bright promise they were both still
alone and he was determined to change that before his Maker called
him home.

Matchmaking wasn't half as easy as bestowing
scholarships and jobs on deserving candidates. There was no Wharton
School for love, no Harvard Business for romance. The most you
could do was put a man and a woman on the path toward each other
and hope for the best.

When Sam called earlier that afternoon with
his request, it was all Warren could do to keep from offering
unsolicited advice.
She's a fiercely proud woman, boy,
he'd
wanted to say as he listened to the younger man's idea.
If it
smells like charity, she'll throw it back in your face like a
week-old cod.

But Sam was high on the idea and in the end
Warren acquiesced. He wouldn't be at all surprised if Sam found his
offerings in the street before the night was over.

#

It was nearly seven by the time Annie closed
up the shop and climbed behind the wheel of her truck. She waved at
George, one of the local cops, who was ticketing young Vic DeLuca
for a parking violation. George and his wife Sunny had lived next
door to Annie and Kevin for seven years before they moved to a
small farmhouse a few miles outside of town. If George had ever
wondered about some of those late-night visitors who occasionally
found their way to Annie and Kevin's front door, he never gave any
indication. There were times she had almost prayed somebody would
see a strange car idling in her driveway or wonder aloud why so
many of the Galloways' checks bounced each month but it never
happened. Not once in all those years.

People only saw what they wanted to see and
what they had wanted to see was Annie-and-Kevin, everyone's
favorite couple, the high school sweethearts who had almost managed
the happy ending everyone dreams about.

How did you tell the people who loved you
that there was no Annie-and-Kevin anymore? How did you make them
hear you when you said you were suffocating under the weight of the
past? She'd seen Claudia's eyes when Sam Butler walked into the
shop this afternoon. If looks could kill, Sam would have been
knocking on the pearly gates before he said hello.

You have nothing to worry about,
Claudia,
she thought as she pulled into her driveway.
Now
that he's fixed the front door and cleaned out the truck, there
won't be any reason for him to stop by unless he's hoping to catch
me butt naked in the tub again.

Fat chance of that. He was probably
installing blackout curtains on his front windows so he wouldn't
run the risk of seeing her without her clothes on. The poor man was
probably still reeling from the sight. He probably thought she was
some needy pathetic widow who couldn't add two plus two without a
man to help her. Cheap champagne. Candles around the tub. A silk
robe nobody but the cats had ever seen her wear. She wouldn't be
surprised if he'd called Warren and told him the whole story, right
down to her hangover.

If that thought wasn't enough to snap her
back to reality, nothing was.

In less than twenty-four hours, her new
neighbor had seen her disheveled, exhausted, exasperated, dead
drunk, butt naked, unconscious, without makeup, hung over, and
stuffing her face with DeeDee's Donuts. So what if there had been
some inexplicable pull of attraction between them? They were human,
weren't they? A man and a woman caught in an intimate situation
couldn't help striking a few sparks. Of course their hormones would
dust themselves off and take a quick spin around the block. It
couldn't be helped. Blame human nature.

Better still, blame the champagne.

She was a serious, thoughtful woman, not the
tipsy bird brain he'd pulled out of the bathtub. She was the one
people turned to when they had a problem. She was the one you could
trust, the one who knew how to hold your secrets close to her
heart.

Of course he had no way of knowing that about
her. All he knew was that she liked to sip champagne and set fire
to her bathrobe. And how could she forget that he also knew that
she had cellulite, two tiny stretch marks, and a birthmark only her
husband and gynecologist had ever seen.

So if he's not interested, why did he ask if
you were seeing Hall?

Because he was nosy, that's why. Sam was new
in town and he was trying to figure out the connections between the
various players. Hall showed up – acting quite proprietary, come to
think of it – and two seconds later Annie was saying yes to dinner
at Cappy's. He was just more direct in his curiosity than most
people she knew.

That still doesn't explain the way you
almost melted into the sidewalk this afternoon, does it?

"I'm an idiot, that's why," she said as she
pulled into her driveway. She knew as much about men as
sixteen-year-old Jennifer and Jen's giggly girlfriends. She'd heard
them talking about boyfriends this afternoon while they worked on
the flowers. Jen was less than half Annie's age and she already had
twice the experience. Annie had fallen in love with her first and
only boyfriend and married him three years later. She was already
part of his family; loving the favorite son just made the whole
thing that much sweeter.

When it came to men, she was stuck somewhere
back in the 1980s with big hair and shoulder pads. She'd learned
everything she would ever know about dating and courtship by the
time she was sixteen which left her thirty-eight year old self
pretty well in the dark when it came to being single.

So what if she and Sam Butler had shared a
few donuts on her front porch. People did that all the time. So
what if they'd shared a chaste and sugary kiss. How else would you
thank someone for saving your life? And it wasn't like he kissed
her back. Their lips met and then it was over. Case closed. There
was a rational, logical reason for every single thing they did and
said and not one of those reasons came embroidered with red hearts
and pink flowers.

And then she opened her front door and found
out just how wrong she was.

Where there had been empty space, there now
was furniture.

Lots of it.

A reading lamp on a dark pine end table. An
upholstered rocker big enough to get lost in. A small maple table
with two chairs that exactly fit the tiny space allotted for a
dining area. A pitcher of wild-picked daisies graced the center of
the table top. George and Gracie had already claimed the
upholstered cat condo by the living room window. She'd always
wanted to buy one of those silly things but could never rationalize
the cost.

Who on earth would do such a thing for her?
Warren, of course, but he would have furnished the entire house and
he knew that would make her very angry. Claudia certainly didn't
have the money. Neither did Susan or any of the others. Besides,
they were all way too practical to risk such an expensive
surprise.

She ran her hand across the weathered surface
of the maple table, relishing each bump and gouge. She remembered
sitting at a table just like this once upon a time, writing up a
list for Santa Claus on a lined tablet with a big fat No. 2 pencil.
Warren's sister Ellie was baby-sitting for her parents and –

She was out the door in a flash.

#

Sam heard Annie's truck long before he saw
it. The crunch of tires on the sandy road, the marbles-in-a-bowl
sound of her engine that matched his own – funny how quickly a
sound could become part of your personal landscape.

"No turning back now, Max," he said,
scratching the dog behind the left ear. "It's up to her now."

He and Max were sitting on the back step of
Ellie Bancroft's old cottage, watching a trio of seagulls
scavenging for a last tasty morsel before the sun went down. The
idea that had seemed inspired this afternoon when he was fueled on
donuts and coffee and the way her hair looked in the sunshine
seemed dubious now at best. He had planned to tell her when he
brought her house keys to the flower shop but when he saw the other
two women there he decided against it. Public humiliation had never
been his thing.

So he just did it.

He'd never been one for grand gestures. He
thought before he acted, considered every option and their
consequences. You had to when you were nineteen years old and
responsible for five younger brothers and sisters. This was the
first time he had ever acted out of romantic impulse and it felt
great.

Terrifying as hell, but great.

The engine noise cut out. He heard a car door
slam shut. The squeak of a front door opening then closing.
Silence. At least she hadn't screamed. That was a good sign. He
drummed his fingers on the top step. He tapped his foot.

He looked down at Max.

Max looked up at him.

"You're right," Sam said. "I should go over
there and explain."

He put the dog inside the house and made it
halfway down the driveway when he saw Annie Galloway walking up the
road toward him. She was still wearing the sleek black pants and
red sweater he'd seen her in that afternoon. The pants clung to her
womanly hips like a hug while the sweater glided over her breasts,
just snug enough to tantalize. She was backlit by the setting sun;
its red glow made her wild mane of curls shimmer like living fire.
She looked a little tired, a lot curious, real and earthy and
beautiful enough to bring him to his knees.

In other words, nothing had changed.

She stopped a few feet away from him.

Their eyes met.

"You shouldn't have, Sam."

"I wanted to."

"You could have asked."

"Then it wouldn't have been a surprise."

"You know I can't accept it."

"Why not?"

"I barely know you."

"It's just furniture, not a truckload of
Victoria's Secret."

"Strangers usually don't buy each other
living room furniture."

"I didn't buy it."

"Okay, then they usually don't steal living
room furniture for each other either."

"I have a houseful of the stuff. It's either
give Max more to wreck or find a safe haven."

"You can't just give away Warren's
furniture."

"He said you could help yourself."

She jammed her hands in the pockets of her
sleek black pants. Her belly was slightly rounded, womanly and
inviting. His entire body remembered how she had felt naked in his
arms.

"I don't know what to say, Sam."

"I'm so happy . . . wow, what a great idea .
. . how about a wide screen tv while you're at it . . . did you get
those massive muscles moving furniture . . . any one of those would
be okay."

Again that laugh, that wonderful laugh. Did
she have any idea what that laugh did to him?

"Would you settle for a thank you?"

"No," he said. "Not good enough."

A gust of wind blew a lock of hair across her
right cheek. She didn't seem to notice it. "What would be good
enough?"

He looked at her mouth and grinned.

Honeyed warmth spread outward from the center
of her chest.

"I'm not going to ask you," he said.

She nodded.

"I'm just going to do it."

"Good idea," she whispered.

They were in each other's arms before they
drew their next breaths.

"Annie . . . " Did he say her name or was it
already a part of his soul?

"Shhh . . . " No words. No sound. All she
wanted was the feel of his lips burning hers, the cool sweet taste
of his mouth, the smell of his skin. She was on fire from within.
She couldn't think. She didn't want to think. If she thought about
what she was doing she would turn and run and that was the last
thing she wanted to do.