A Soft Place to Fall (21 page)

"Have you ever been to the Air and Space
Museum at the Smithsonian?" Warren asked.

Sam shrugged. "Maybe when I was a kid."

"I'm looking to follow their lead and hang
some of the exhibits from the ceiling using very thin wires. Your
new neighbor Annie Galloway has been helping out with the lighting
and the interior landscaping and we think the effect will be pretty
damn striking if I do say so." The church's vaulted ceiling made it
a natural for the technique. Warren envisioned a range of handmade
canoes, dating from 17
^th
century Penobscot to
19
^th
century Passamaquoddy to 21
^st
century
third-generation Irish-American, swinging out over the main display
area. "Kieran O'Connor was set to make us three canoes but he
busted both arms and a leg in a car wreck in Montreal and he's out
of business for a while." He waited a good long moment then
exploded, "You're too smart to be this dumb. Do I have to spell it
out for you? I need you to make the canoes for the museum."

"That's a whole different craft," Sam said.
"I'm better at repairs and restorations."

"How difficult can it be?" Warren pressed. He
hadn't gotten where he was by throwing in the towel at the first
sign of resistance. "You get some wood, a few hand tools, none of
that fancy stuff, and you make a canoe."

"I'd rather work on finishing the restoration
on your old man's fishing boat."

"Nope," said Warren, laying a fond hand on
the still-battered hull of the
Sally B
. "This is mine. I'll
be seeing her through."

"We'll need two kinds of wood for the canoe,"
Sam said, "another steamer so I can bend the hull, that old one
doesn't –" He caught himself. "You old SOB. You knew I wouldn't be
able to say no."

"That's what I was hoping."
"Why not farm it out to one of those canoe-makers near Boothbay?
They do great work."

"They're not local."

"Neither are the restorers down in Bath."

"Jake and Eli were born and bred in Shelter
Rock Cove. I don't hold the move against them."

"I'm not a Mainer," Sam pointed out. "All I
have to do is open my mouth and everyone knows where I'm from. If
you're looking for authenticity –"

"You're third-generation Irish, right?"

"Yeah, but –"

"And you put in some time here when you were
a boy."

"That still doesn't make me –"

"And you're living here now."

"Only until I figure out my next step."

"Who knows," said Warren as he pulled the
plans for the canoe from the back pocket of his trousers. "Maybe
you're looking at it."

Chapter Nine

Annie broke
a few speed limits between the church and The Overlook but luck was
with her and the Shelter Rock Cove police force of two officers and
one chief were apparently busy elsewhere. The Overlook was situated
atop one of the cliffs that, appropriately enough, overlooked the
Cove itself. It had been built some eighty years ago by a wealthy
shipbuilder who intended to use it as his summer mansion. The Great
Depression, however, put an end to that dream and over the ensuing
years the beautiful structure had served as an orphanage, a spa, a
hotel, and now most recently as a reception hall for weddings,
conventions, and other large and noisy gatherings.

Sweeney's old VW bus was angled crazily into
the spot nearest the tradesman's door and she was busy unloading
centerpieces onto the pair of rolling carts Annie had found at a
going-out-of-business auction over in Bangor a few months ago.

"You're awfully punctual for a woman who
refuses to wear a watch," Annie said when Sweeney turned around to
see who was approaching.

"All those years on the commune taught me how
to –" Sweeney threw back her head and laughed with delight. "As I
live and breathe! Whisker burns on Annie Galloway's cheeks!"

This time Annie was prepared. "Blame George
and Gracie," she said as she reached into the bus for one of the
centerpieces. "Cat owners deserve hazard pay."

"Oh no," said Sweeney with a shake of her
head, "those aren't cat scratches. I live with six of the little
beasties and those aren't cat scratches, honey, those are
manmade."

"You've been reading too many romance
novels."

"And you haven't been reading enough of
them," Sweeney countered. "I think it's great, honey." She grabbed
for a centerpiece herself. "In fact, if the whisker burns are from
the man I think they're from, I think it's downright
fantastic."

Annie couldn't help herself. She started to
laugh. "You don't know the first thing about him, Sweeney. He could
be married and have six kids."

"Is he?"

Annie hesitated. "I – uh, I don't think so."
Of course he isn't, Annie. Didn't he say he wasn't sleeping with
anyone?

"You don't sound terribly sure."

"We didn't exchange resumes, Sweeney."

"I did a reading on him last night," Sweeney
said as they started trundling the dozen centerpieces into the
building, "and I saw lots of family but no wife or children."

"Not those tarot cards again."

"I know, I know," said Sweeney. "You're much
too practical to believe in the cards but the second I saw the two
of you standing together outside, I had this funny feeling –"

Annie made a face and resumed pushing her
cart toward the entrance. "It's probably that bag of Oreos you
carry around with you."

"Believe me, honey, if I thought I had a
chance with the man I wouldn't be here right now talking with you.
I'd be doing the Dance of the Seven Veils on his front porch. I
threw those cards three times and each time the answer was the
same: your futures are intertwined."

Annie tried to make a joke out of Sweeney's
prediction.

You knew it all the time, Annie, from the
first second you saw him in the parking lot.

Damn Sweeney anyway for putting these
ridiculous thoughts in her head. If their futures were intertwined,
why did she run for the exit last night like her life depended on
it?

You know the answer to that one, too. You
had a glimpse of the future and it scared the hell out of you.

"Oh, shut up," Annie muttered as she
navigated the cart of flowers through the doorway.

"Shut up?" Sweeney sounded much
aggrieved.

"Not you," Annie said. "I'm talking to
myself."

"You too?" Sweeney held the interior door
open with her behind and motioned for Annie to precede her. "That's
why I have cats," she said as she pushed her own cart into the main
ballroom. "When someone catches me talking to myself, I just say
I'm talking to the cats. Sounds weird but it's surprisingly
effective."

"I did that last week when the Flemings did
the walkthrough on the house. They're dog people but I think they
understood."

Whisker burns, bouts of talking to herself.
Before long Annie would be blaming George and Gracie for her bad
taste in window treatments and the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.

The idea tickled her fancy and, more than
that, kept her mind away from the thornier problem of Sam Butler
and her feelings for him for at least six minutes. She considered
that a genuine triumph. It seemed to Annie that he had been
dominating her every waking thought since she first laid eyes on
him in the Yankee Shopper parking lot. One moment she was the Annie
Lacy Galloway everyone knew and depended on and the next she was
some hot-blooded stranger, ripping the clothes off a man she barely
knew and loving every second of it. How could you live thirty-eight
years on this planet and know so little about yourself?

She doubted if even Sweeney's tarot cards had
an answer for that one.

#

Susan looked at Hall over the top of her
reading glasses. The entire contents of all the major New England
Sunday newspapers were spread across the picnic table, along with
crumbs from a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and chocolate chip
cookies.

"Let me see if I got this right," Susan said,
obviously trying to torture him. "You forgot your kids were coming
to spend the night."

"Completely," said Hall, resting one foot on
the bench across from his friend. "I was in the shower when they
started pounding on the front door."

"The big ones or the little ones?"

"Little ones," he said.

Susan groaned. "Yvonne must've loved
that."

"She put a good face on it," Hall said, "but
she looked pretty disappointed."

"I'll bet." She glanced around her backyard.
"Where are they?"

"Waiting by the car."

"Go get them. They can hang out with Jeannie
by the pool." She laughed at the look on his face. "Don't worry.
Jack's playing lifeguard. They'll be fine."

Five minutes later Hall was back in position,
one foot on the picnic bench, gaze riveted to his oldest friend,
butterflies flapping around inside his abdominal cavity.

"Since when can't you entertain your own
children for the afternoon?" Susan asked him, cutting to the chase
as usual. "Unless you're trying to wangle dinner invitations for
the lot of you."

"Just two."

Susan's eyebrows lifted. "You have other
plans?"

Disappointment welled up inside him, giving
the butterflies a run for their money. "She didn't tell you."

Susan was smart. She knew without being told
that "she" meant Annie. "I haven't spoken to her since she moved
into the new house. Tell me what?"

"Cappy's," he said, trying not to hang too
many hopes on one word. "Seven o'clock."

She leaned over to look at his watch. "And
it's –"

"Five forty-two."

"I suppose you want to go home and
shower."

"Something like that."

"And it's easier without having the kids
hanging around, asking all sorts of embarrassing questions."

"Definitely."

"So go," she said, giving him an affectionate
swat on the arm with the Arts and Leisure section of the
New
York Times
. "And tell her to call me. I want the scoop from
both of you."

"I owe you for this, Susie," he said,
pressing an affectionate kiss to the top of her head.

"Darn right you do," she called out as he
dashed for the car. He was older and a tiny bit grayer but it was
the same Hall she remembered from high school, single-minded focus
hidden behind a casual, easy-going exterior that never failed to
charm.

She managed to wait until his car was halfway
down the driveway before she hurried around to the pool where Jack
was supervising the kids in a game of water volleyball.

She sat down next to him and dangled her feet
in the water. "I have big news," she said.

He shot her one of those husbandly looks that
sometimes made her want to hit him. "Don't tell me you're
pregnant."

"Wash your mouth out," she said, then lowered
her voice. "Hall and Annie are going out tonight."

"Jeez, Susan, I told you to –"

"I had nothing to do with it. Apparently he
drove over to Annie's house yesterday morning at Claudia's request
and one thing led to another and they have a date tonight."

"You don't really think anything's going to
come of this, do you?"

"Hall can be terribly charming," she said
then paused a beat. "And he's a doctor. That doesn't exactly
hurt."

"And she's known him all her life. If
something was going to develop between them, you'd think you
might've seen a hint somewhere along the way."

"There was always Kevin," she said softly, as
thoughts of her brother tugged at her heart. "He's a tough act to
follow."

"You know what I'm talking about," Jack said.
"Like you and Tony Dee at the real estate office.

"Jack!" She sounded both outraged and deeply
flattered. "Tony Dee!?"

"I've seen the two of you at those office
get-togethers," her husband said in his matter-of-fact way. "Your
flirting generates a hell of a lot of heat."

"Oh, don't be silly. We just –"

"I'm not criticizing you, Suz. Just stating a
fact. You've never seen anything like that between Hall and Annie,
have you."

"Well, no, but –"

"Case closed."

"Now wait a minute. Annie's a very serious
person. She never even flirted with Kevin."

"The hell she didn't."

"Not so you'd notice."

"But it was there," her suddenly observant
husband confirmed. "It either is or it isn't, Suz, and I'm telling
you it's not there for Annie and Hall."

Susan watched her youngest daughter throw a
volleyball at her little brother's head. He didn't scream and there
was no blood so she dismissed the action as business as usual.

Things changed as the years passed. The
dreams you dreamed when you were twenty-five and thirty might not
seem quite so compelling when you were knocking on forty's door.
Nobody doubted that Kevin had been the love of Annie's life, her
soulmate. All you'd had to do was watch them together and instantly
you knew that all those two needed to be happy was each other. They
guarded their time alone together and were loath to squander a
precious weekday evening or weekend with friends or family when
they could be spending it alone together.

She barely managed to suppress a sigh. Kevin
had adored Annie. Right up until the very end, he was still writing
poems for her and sending her flowers just because. She'd never
admitted to anyone how much she had envied Annie. Oh, it wasn't
that Jack didn't love her. He did. She was as sure about that as
she was sure about tomorrow's sunrise. Jack's love for her was a
cozy comforter on a cold winter's night but Kevin's love for Annie
had been starlight and moonbeams and the sound of violins and
sometimes a woman longed for a little night music.

It was silly and she knew it, envying a widow
the marriage she no longer had, but there you had it. No wonder
Annie wasn't striking sparks with anyone. Who could ever compete
with what she'd had with Kevin? Maybe Hall hadn't been Annie's
knight in shining armor back when they were young but who could say
he wasn't just right for her today? She'd had her
once-in-a-lifetime love. Now she needed someone mature and
responsible, someone who would fit right in with the family,
someone who grew up in the same town and knew the same people, to
share her life with and as far as Susan was concerned, Hall fit the
bill to a T.