A Soft Place to Fall (6 page)

Annie considered cupping her hands around her
mouth and bellowing, "Did you lose a yellow Lab?" but thought
better of it. Marcy wasn't the kind of woman who ever lost
anything, including (or so her ex-husband said) her virginity. She
waved instead. The two Coleman girls ran barefoot along the
sidewalk, shrieking as they burst through the laundromat door which
meant Sarah's washing machine was still out of service.

Near the pizza parlor, Fred Custis of Custis
Hardware and Marvin Applegarth of Computer Solutions were engaged
in conversation with Dave Small, owner of the diner up the road.
They were the ones who had supported her successful bid for
president of the Shelter Rock Cove Small Business Association.
Their matching minivans were all parked facing north. She was sure
they'd be glad to help her out of her current predicament.

"Hey guys," she called out. "Anybody lose a
yellow Lab?"

They glanced her way, laughed when they saw
the dog behind the wheel, then shook their heads and kept on
yakking.
That's it, guys? Nobody's going to come over here and
take a closer look?
Whatever happened to chivalry? When it came
to things like spiders, stinging insects, and strange noises after
midnight, Kevin had been her knight in shining armor. She would
have liked to believe his chivalrous nature belonged to her alone
but the truth was, Kevin had loved to ride in on his metaphorical
white charger and make things right for everybody. He was the one
you turned to if you ran out of gas on the back road or your car
wouldn't start on one of those famously frigid Maine mornings. He
was always happy to shovel your walk for you or help you dry-dock
your boat in the fall.

It was only when it came to the bigger
things, like keeping a roof over their heads or trouble away from
their door, that her knight in shining armor revealed his tragic
flaw: real life.

The dog leaned his big face out the window
and looked straight at Annie.

Annie leaned against her shopping cart and
looked straight back at the dog. "I can outwait you, pooch."

The dog, obviously unimpressed, yawned.

Annie didn't.

She considered it a moral victory and settled
down to wait.

#

The cashier, a pillowy white-haired woman
with curious brown eyes, slid the container of milk across the
scanner then pointed toward the fifty-pound bag of dog chow. "Read
me the numbers under the bar code," she told him in a no nonsense
tone of voice. "No reason for me to get myself a hernia for Yankee
Shopper, is there?"

"None that I can think of," Sam said,
wondering when New York attitude had made it up to Maine. He
recited the string of numbers then waited for her to punch them in
before he swung the bag to the end of the counter.

She scrutinized the two dozen eggs, pound of
bacon, bag of blueberry muffins, and can of coffee like his order
was the Rosetta Stone. "You're the one who's moving into the
Bancroft place, aren't you?"

"Lucky guess," he asked, "or do you have a
mug shot of me back there?"

"I know everyone in town," she said in a
matter-of-fact tone, "and I don't know you. If you were passing
through on your way to Bar Harbor, you wouldn't be here buying
fifty pounds of dog chow and two dozen eggs. It's too late for the
summer season and the only place up for rent was Bancroft's place
and I heard it was going to a man from New York and with that
accent where else could you be from?" She said it all without
taking a breath.

"You're good." He was impressed, if a bit
taken aback by this introduction to the intimacy of small town New
England life.

He paid the bill then tucked the bag of dog
chow under his right arm and gathered up his grocery bag in his
left.

"We have a special tomorrow on ground beef,"
she called out as he headed for the exit. "You might want to stock
up."

She probably kept a mental list of the
dietary peculiarities of everyone in town. Buy an extra quart of
milk and she'd suspect you of harboring a fugitive.

He stopped on the narrow strip of sidewalk
outside the store and stared at the handful of vehicles in the
parking lot. Where the hell was his BMW? All he saw were aging
Chevys, a cluster of minivans, and two beat-up SUVs. No sign of his
BMW anywhere. His blood ran cold for a second as he thought about
his beloved car being stripped and sold for parts and then he
remembered that it wasn't his beloved car any longer. He had quit
the lease early, paid off the penalty, then turned around and
bought this junker.

Thirty-five and he was losing it already. One
of those beat-up black SUVs belonged to him, the one with the big
yellow Lab sitting behind the wheel. But wait a second. The truck
with the dog had Maine plates while the dogless truck boasted tags
from the Empire State.

Near the trucks a girl was leaning over a
shopping cart piled high with potato chips, pretzels, and cases of
soda. She wore a pair of faded and patched jeans, high-top
sneakers, a denim shirt big enough to cover the cast of
Friends
, both male and female, but not so big that he
couldn't see the dip of her waist or the sweet curve of her hips.
Her hair, soft and curly and chestnut brown, was pulled back into a
ponytail that danced between her shoulder blades. Sexy, artless,
and off-limits because she couldn't be more than seventeen.

"Your truck?" he asked.

She nodded her head then turned slightly and
looked up at him. "Your dog?"

She wasn't seventeen after all and the
realization brought him up short.Her dark blue eyes crinkled a bit
at the outer corners and there were faint worry lines between her
brows. She wore no makeup. Her skin was fair and the slightest
shadow of freckles dusted her straight nose. She looked exhausted
and more than a little bemused and he found himself imagining a
husband and horde of hungry kids waiting for her at home.

Definitely off-limits.

"I didn't know Max could pick locks," he said
for lack of anything better.

"He didn't have to," she said, gesturing
toward his vehicle. "He used the window.".

"Impossible," he said, looking back at Max
who seemed to be having the time of his life. "Max only moves when
there's food involved."

She groaned. "Oh, no! I have three pizzas in
there."

"Not anymore you don't." He reached into his
back pocket and pulled out two twenties. "It's the least I can do,"
he said, handing them to her.

"That's not necessary."

"My dog ate your pizzas."

"I should've kept my windows closed."

"I should've watched kept a closer eye on
Max."

Her serious expression softened and he felt
something shift slightly deep inside his chest. A small shift, but
significant, as if time had stopped for an instant then started
again when she smiled at him. Her mouth was full and he saw the
faintest memory of smile lines at either side. He had never been
the kind of man who read deeper meanings into every gesture a woman
made but somehow he knew she hadn't been smiling a lot lately.

Not your problem, Butler. Don't you have
enough of your own these days?
Married women had married
problems and it was the wise single man who kept his distance.
Especially if the single man found himself wondering how the
married woman would look with that beautiful hair cascading over
her bare shoulders . . .

She pushed away his money with a firm but
friendly gesture. "I don't know how such a big dog managed to get
through such a small opening."

"I have newfound respect for him."

Her gaze drifted discreetly to the watch on
his left wrist. "I tried to lure him out but I haven't had much
luck." She gave him another one of those sideways looks that
exerted an almost gravitational pull on his erotic imagination. "I
think he showed his teeth."

"All six of them?"
Who's waiting at home
for you? Do they know how lucky they are?

"I don't know how many there were but the
ones I saw were pretty big."

"Max wouldn't bite you."

"You don't sound very sure." The frown lines
between her brows deepened. "He is your dog, isn't he?"

"As of two weeks ago. We're still getting to
know each other."

Another quick glance at her watch. "I don't
mean to be rude, but do you think you could continue the process in
your truck? If I don't get home soon, they'll come out looking for
me."

Her family. The ones who were waiting for the
sound of her truck in the driveway. Funny how those words acted
like a metaphorical cold shower. He knew without being told that
she had three freckle-faced kids and a husband who wore plaid
flannel shirts and a gold wedding band that matched the one on her
left hand.

He dumped his packages on the ground and
swung open the driver's door. "C'mon, Max," he said. "You've had
enough fun for one day. Let's go."

Max rested his noble head on the steering
wheel and closed his eyes. Pizza sauce was clearly visible on his
greying muzzle. It was clear the dog wasn't going anywhere in a
hurry.

They didn't call them man's best friend for
nothing.

#

The moment the man turned his back, Annie
frantically tried to smooth her hair, her work shirt, and her
hormones back into place. Unfortunately she failed on all fronts.
Her hair was determined to spring free of any and all attempts to
tame it. Her work shirt refused to morph into her favorite red
sweater, the one with the sexy zipper up the front. And her
hormones? They were careening through her veins like bumper cars
gone amok.

The fates had themselves one strange sense of
humor. Why else would they send a woman out looking like an unmade
bed when that poor unsuspecting woman was on a collision course
with a man so hot he could boil water just by looking at it. It
wasn't simply unfair, it was downright sadistic. She never went out
of the house looking like this. She always wore a little lipstick,
a pair of earrings, a dab of perfume. Even on her worst days she
managed to be presentable.

But not today. Today she had to go out
looking like an unemployed lumberjack who ate like one. Even the
contents of her shopping cart embarrassed her. He must think she
was a sexless, middle-aged woman whose hobby was drinking beer and
eating nachos in front of the television.

Which, all things considered, wasn't that far
off the mark.

No wonder he had turned his full attention to
his dog.

Annie almost felt sorry for him as he
struggled to lure his sleepy, pizza-sated Lab out of her truck. He
was trying so hard it made her smile. He coaxed. He prodded. He
demanded. He even opened up the sack of dog chow and offered the
dog a bribe. Max merely opened one eye, surveyed the situation,
then went back to sleep.

What a wonderful dog!

Good boy. I'll buy you another pizza if
you'll nap just a little bit longer.
What a pleasure it was to
lean against a shopping cart in the Yankee Shopper parking lot and
ogle a gorgeous man who didn't know or care that you were ogling.
She might look like a hausfrau but inside she was still
sixteen.

Clay,
she thought. It had been years
since she'd last brought an image to life with clay but the sense
memory was sharp and clear. Slick hot clay between her fingers,
clinging to her skin as she molded it slowly into the torso of a
man. She could feel the deltoids taking shape, the swell of bicep,
the clean power of shoulder and chest. Naked he would be a god. If
he had any fat on his frame it was well concealed. What Annie saw
was sinewy muscle and coiled strength beneath a wrinkled work shirt
and seen-better-days jeans. All he would have to do was walk into
an art class at Bowdoin and offer to model and he would have work
well into his golden years.

Enjoy him while you can, Galloway. He's
probably married with five kids and a minivan in the driveway.

She tried to picture him in a small Colonial
with a smiling wife and kids who brushed after every meal but the
image wouldn't stay in focus.

"Open the other door," he said over his
shoulder. "Maybe if we double team him . . . "

She crossed in front of the truck and opened
the door on the passenger side. The smell of pizza and dog breath
hit her right between the eyes. "Whoa!" she said, waving a hand in
front of her face.

Max sat up and looked at her, then his gaze
fixed on a point just beyond her head. A dog person might have
recognized that look but Annie was owned by cats, and that was all
it took.

The yellow Lab exploded out of the truck. He
slammed into Annie, sending her spinning into the door where her
shoulder clipped the frame. The collision apparently surprised the
dog as much as it surprised Annie because he sat down quite
abruptly and took stock of the situation.

Max's owner was by her side in a flash. He
gripped her shoulders to steady her and the rest of the universe
dropped away. He smelled like like soap and cinnamon and freshly
cut grass. She wanted to bury her nose against his neck and just
breathe for a year or two.

"Are you okay?" The warmth of his hand came
right through her shirt. "You hit your shoulder on the door."

"I did?" Right now her shoulders were the
blissful center of her universe. How long had it been since she had
been touched with tenderness and concern by a man? Longer than she
could remember, years, maybe eons. His hands were large and strong,
his touch wonderfully gentle. Something inside her chest went a
little bit haywire.

"Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "Max," she said. "You
should –"

Their gazes locked. His eyes were green with
golden flecks, like sunlight splashing through a forest and they
came alive when he smiled.