A Soft Place to Fall (29 page)

He flashed a big toothpaste commercial smile
at her foolish friend who all but swooned. "I wouldn't mind taking
a look at it."

Roberta whipped out the brochure and handed
it to him. "You can keep it if you like."

He wasn't listening. He flipped through the
pages, eyes scanning the columns of text like it was the most
fascinating thing he'd ever seen. She and Roberta exchanged
looks.

So handsome!
Roberta's look said.
And so interested in finance.

He's just looking at the pictures,
Claudia's own look retorted. There was something scruffy about him,
even though his clothes were clean and relatively stylish. But then
didn't they all wear jeans and sweaters these days, as if someone
somewhere had decreed everyone under fifty must wear the uniform or
be drummed out of their generation. Just a touch of carelessness
that some women found very attractive. From the foolish look on
Roberta's face, it was clear that she was one of them but not
Claudia. She had always loved the way her Jack had looked in a suit
and tie, so proper and distinguished and above reproach. Kevin
hadn't been quite so formal but he had always been perfectly turned
out in tweed sport coats and fine cords that befitted his position
as a teacher.

" . . . we went to his seminar the other
day," Roberta was saying. "In fact we're –"

"Bobbi," Claudia interrupted her friend, "we
need some more of the sign-up sheets. Would you see if you can find
Dr. Markowitz and ask her if she has any she could spare?"

"In a minute," Roberta said, glaring at
Claudia. She turned back to Sam Butler. "He offers a –"

"Roberta." Claudia employed the same tone of
voice she used to use when her teenagers came home after curfew.
"We need them now."

Roberta smiled at Annie's friend. "Why don't
you keep one of those brochures," she said amiably. "I never knew
money could be so much fun until I started listening to Adam
Winters on the radio!"

From the look on this Sam Butler's face,
Claudia knew she had to say something . After the unpleasant
response from Susan and Annie the other night, she intended to keep
her further workshop plans to herself.

"Roberta is very enthusiastic," she offered,
a bit discomfited by the look of curiosity in his eyes. "We took a
class in Japanese flower arranging and by the time it was over she
was ready to become a Zen master."

He laughed which was exactly what she had
hoped he would do. His rough edges weren't quite as rough as she'd
first thought.

"One of my sisters is the same way," he said
in what was really a very friendly tone of voice for a New Yorker.
"She took three classes in oil painting and was ready to move to
Paris and live in a garret."

She smiled despite herself. "I have two
shelves filled with my experiments in pottery. I tried to bribe my
children but even they won't touch them."

It was clear to Claudia that he was sizing
her up in much the same way she was sizing him up and she wondered
what family stories Annie might have shared with this stranger,
stories that maybe Claudia herself knew nothing about.

You may not last,
she thought as she
smiled at him.
You might be nothing more than a fling.

But there was something in the way he looked
across the green at Annie that told her she was dead wrong.

Chapter Fourteen

"You're
right," Ellen said to Hall as another wave of visitors drifted away
from their booth. "He does look familiar."

"I know," he said as they watched Sam Butler
attempt to charm Claudia Galloway. "Maybe he did some repairs on
one of my boats."

Ellen groaned and hit him in the arm with a
rolled up mammogram fact sheet. "And since I've never stepped foot
on one of your boats, how would that make him look familiar to
me."

He blinked at her in surprise. "You've been
on the sloop."

"Afraid not, Cap'n."

"The small sailboat."

"Nope."

"The kayak I keep up at the cabin."

"Not even close."

He looked at her. "We're going to have to
remedy that, Markowitz."

She ignored him. "Do you really think he
worked on one of your boats?"

"No," Hall said, "but it's the best I can
come up with. The guy's from New York and I'm down there once every
two years if I'm lucky. It doesn't seem likely our paths would've
crossed, does it?"

Her eyes widened. "He's from New York?"

"His accent's worse than yours," he said,
ducking a paper clip tossed in his direction.

"Did you know I can peg a New Yorker to
within two blocks of his last apartment?" She pushed her unruly mop
of red hair off her face. "I can almost tell you what floor you
lived on."

"Ten bucks says you can't even name the
borough."

She threw back her head and laughed. "You're
on, Doctor. Easiest ten bucks I'll make this year."

#

Adam Winters had put together a first rate,
four-color, glossy pile of bullshit designed to romance the bucks
out of retirement plans up and down the East Coast. He plastered
his boyish face on the cover – big guileless smile, shock of hair
flopping over his unlined forehead – in an attempt to charm his
60-something, female audience into believing he was no more
threatening than one of their own children. He was the son who came
to dinner every Sunday, the one who brought flowers and a box of
candy and telephoned every morning to see how you were.

The dream son who did all that and tripled
your investment before the first year was out.

Sam knew the technique. He'd seen the way it
worked a thousand times during his years on the Street. He'd
employed a few of the tricks himself on more than one occasion,
There was nothing innovative about anything he'd read in the text,
no guarantees that you would end up with more money than you'd
started with. Winters fished familiar waters.
Listen to me and
you won't end up in one of those nursing homes that stink of urine
and decay. I'll show you how you can protect yourself.

They were all scared. You couldn't grow old
in this country and not be. You wanted to make sure your time ran
out before your money did and many a fortune had been made by
capitalizing on those fears.

He could tell Claudia some of these things
but she wouldn't believe him.
Didn't you earn your living the
same way?
she would ask.
Why is this so different?

And he wouldn't be able to answer because he
was every bit as guilty as Adam Waters and all the other half-baked
scam artists who had come along in the last hundred years.

It wasn't a legacy he was proud of.

A tall skinny woman with a curly mop of red
hair appeared at Sam's right elbow.

"Dr. Markowitz," Claudia said with a friendly
smile. "How are you enjoying your first Labor Day picnic in Shelter
Rock Cove?"

"Please call me Ellen," she said with a smile
for both of them. "We can save the 'Dr. Markowitz' for the lady
with the stethoscope."

"Sam Butler," he said, extending his hand. No
point to waiting for Claudia to introduce them.

"Queens," she said, tilting her head to the
right. "Somewhere around Bayside."

He nodded. "Not bad. Bayside it is."

She smiled at him but there was nothing
flirtatious about it. "It was either Queens or western Suffolk
County."

"Manhattan," he guessed. "Upper West Side
near Columbus Circle."

"Guilty as charged. What gave me away?"

"Nothing," he said. "It was the first place I
could think of."

She laughed and even Claudia joined in.

"I was just saying to Hall that you look
familiar," she said. "Have we met before?"

He shook his head. "I didn't spend too much
time around Columbus Circle."

"You must have one of those faces," she said.
"I'll bet you hear that all the time."

He didn't but he let it pass. Ellen Markowitz
seemed like a nice enough woman even if she did have an ulterior
motive. Sam had noticed her talking earnestly with the Good Doctor
Talbot and Annie had told him they were partners in an ob-gyn
practice. Talbot had probably sent her over here on some sort of
half-baked reconnaissance mission.

"This is your fist Labor Day picnic in
Shelter Rock Cove, isn't it, dear?" Claudia asked.

"It is," Ellen said, "and I'm amazed by it.
Our booth has been so busy there hasn't been time to wander around
and sample some of those delicious foods I see everyone
enjoying."

"Have a deviled egg," Claudia offered,
reaching into the ice chest for the platter. "You too," she said to
Sam.

Ellen reached for an egg then caught sight of
the brochure in Sam's hand. "Oh, what's this!" She bent down and
peered at the cover then chuckled. "Don't tell me you're one of his
devotees."

Claudia yanked the glossy folder away from
Sam. "Roberta and I take workshops," she said with a visible
straightening of her Yankee spine. "Mr. Winters is quite a
showman."

"My aunt got involved with one of those radio
financial wizards," Ellen said, shaking her head. "She ended up
losing everything but her house. Stay away from guys like this,
Claudia. They have radar when it comes to women and money."

"Good heavens," said Claudia with a little
laugh. "You take these things much too seriously. For us it's
investments one week and tai chi the next." She looked calm and
completely in control, not at all the type of woman who handed over
the keys to the kingdom without a full background check.

They were usually the first to fall.

"You tell her," Ellen said, turning to
Sam.

"Why me?" A ripple of alarm moved along his
spine.

"You seemed pretty absorbed in that brochure
when I barged in. I just assumed –" Something in his eyes must have
registered on her because she stopped abruptly. "Delicious deviled
eggs," she said, wiping the corner of her mouth with a paper
napkin. "Good to see you, Claudia. Great to meet you, Sam. I'd
better get back to the booth before Hall sends out a search
party."

"Well," said Claudia as the doctor dashed off
across the green, "that was certainly rude."

Sam, who wasn't about to stick a toe in the
waters of Shelter Rock Cove politics, kept quiet and thanked his
lucky stars.

#

He brought her icy cold lemonade, a platter
piled high with fried clams and fresh lobster meat and french
fries, and a slice of juicy blueberry pie fit for the gods.

"Sam, this is too much!" Annie said,
laughing, as he placed the bounty down on the table in front of
her. "You have to share it with me."

"I was hoping you'd say that." He reached for
a crisp, golden curl of clam then popped it into her mouth.

"I've missed you," she said, popping a fry
into his mouth in return. "I hope this hasn't been too deadly dull
for you."

"I hung out with the fire department," he
said. "The dentist tried to recruit me but I told him I was just
passing through."

Some of the day's brightness dimmed. "Are you
just passing through?"

"I can't freeload off Warren forever."

"Sure you could," she said lightly. "Warren
loves you. He'd be thrilled if you decided to make Shelter Rock
Cove your home."

He didn't say anything and who could blame
him. She had backed him into a spot like one of those terrible
women on the afternoon talk shows, the ones who ended up stalking
some poor guy and soaping his car windows when he took another
woman to dinner.

Well, now you've done it, Galloway. Why
don't you just sew your heart to the sleeve of your sweater while
you're at it.

"Forget I said that." She picked at the
lobster with a plastic fork. "It's the lemonade speaking."

"I didn't know I'd find you here," he said
quietly. "I wasn't expecting this."

"Really," she said, wishing she could crawl
under the bandstand and stay there until New Year's Eve, "you don't
have to say anything. This is what happens when your last date was
during the Reagan Administration."

She was embarrassed and upset. He could see
it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and the fact that there was
nothing he could say to make it all better tore at his heart. He
wanted to tell her that this was forever, that nothing in the world
could tear him away from her but that would be unfair to her. He
had no right to ask her to hand over her heart into his keeping
when, hovering out there just out of sight, was the real world and
all that went with it. One day soon it would come calling for him
and he would have no choice but to answer.

The less Annie knew, the better. He didn't
want to see her dragged into a mess she had nothing to do with, all
because he was too selfish to keep his own troubles to himself.

How could you promise a woman forever when
you couldn't see around the next corner to tomorrow?

He took her hand and as he raised it to his
lips he saw the narrow white strip that marked where her wedding
ring had been. The band of paler skin spoke volumes.

"It was time," she said. "I was always
catching the ring on the florist's wires at the shop –"

"This is real," he said as he kissed the
place where her wedding ring had been. "Whatever happens, I want
you to remember that."

"I know that," she said. "I knew it the first
moment I saw you."

But she didn't understand, not really, and in
a way he was glad. She thought he was talking about the
uncertainties of life and death and in a way he wished he was. It
would be easier to explain the hand of fate than the series of
decisions and compromises that had brought him into her life.

All they had, all anyone had, was the moment
and although it wasn't close to being enough, for now it was the
best he could do.