Annie's Answer

Text copyright
© 2013 Pam Andrews Hanson

All Rights Reserved

All rights reserved.  Except for use in any review, the
reproduction of this work in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without
the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places
and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.

To Holly Jacobs,
who’s always cheerful

Annie’s
Answer By Pam Andrews Hanson

Dear Reader,

Kindle Originals by Pam Andrews Hanson

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

After 30 plus
books with conventional publishers, I’m pleased to announce that we are now
writing original inspirational romance stories as Kindle Original
e-books. 

My mother,
Barbara Andrews, and I have written a wide range of women’s fiction together
for nearly 20 years. We also write for Guideposts’ fiction program.

You can
connect with other readers by ‘liking’ me on Facebook at my official author
page:
https://www.facebook.com/pamandrewshanson

Also, I blog
about family, faith, and aging not so gracefully at
http://pamshanson.blogspot.com
.
Please stop by to say hello!
All the best,
Pam Andrews Hanson

Faith,
Fireworks and Fir

The Gift of
Hope

Annie’s
Answer

“This could be
the answer to my prayers,” Annie Williams said, reading through the classified
ad she’d just taken from her in-box at the
Weekly News
, Westover,
Ohio’s, only newspaper.

“What on earth
do you want with another job?” Marge Owens, the business manager asked. “How
many do you have already?”

“Three,” Annie
admitted, “but I only work in the church office as a volunteer. She brushed her
dark brown bangs to the side of her forehead, remembering she had to get her
mother to trim them soon or she’d have hair in her eyes like Foo Foo, the Shih
Tzu dog she’d walked every day when she was in middle school.

“I hope you’re
not thinking of quitting here,” Marge said with a worried frown. “Our revenue
has gone up eleven percent since you started selling ads for us. I wish we
could take you on full time,  but you know how it is.”

Annie nodded
her understanding. Making a go of a small town weekly wasn’t easy, but her
salary here and at Yum Yum Pancakes were nowhere enough to make her dream come
true.

“I can call on
our advertisers whenever I have a little spare time,” she assured Marge.

“You don’t
know the meaning of spare time,” her boss said, frowning over the top of the
wire framed glasses that usually perched on the end of her nose.

Since her
fiftieth birthday, Marge had become age-conscious, dyeing her salt-and-pepper
hair a deep auburn shade and working out at Westover’s only health club five
mornings a week.  She owned the struggling weekly with her husband, Ted,
who served as editor and reporter.

“But I’m so
close,” Annie said, not needing to explain her urgent need for more income.

Annie knew she
took on too much, but the clock was running out on achieving her dream. For at
least half of her twenty-six years she’d wanted to own a flower shop. Now her
goal was in sight: Shirley and Bill Polk planned to retire and sell Westover’s
only florist business. They’d promised to give Annie until Labor Day to come up
with a sizeable down payment, or they’d be forced to list it with a realtor.
She was close, so close, but neither her widowed mother nor her grandfather, a
retired minister, qualified to cosign a bank loan.

“If you need a
little help….”

Annie shook
her head, rejecting another offer from Marge. She knew what a struggle it was
to keep the newspaper going. Anyway, she had almost enough in her savings
account to swing the deal, and she didn’t believe the Lord would let her fail
after so many years of scrimping and saving. Whenever she got discouraged, she
daydreamed about the lovely floral arrangements she would make for the church
altar and special occasions like weddings.

She reread the
classified ad:

“Wanted:
Temporary companion for elderly woman. Part-time, daytime hours. Some cooking
and light housekeeping.”

There was a
number to call.

“Before you
get too excited, you should know who brought the ad to our office,” Marge said.

“It doesn’t
matter,” Annie assured her. “It’s only a temporary job.”

“It was Bonnie
Johnson,” Marge said in a warning tone.

“She works
for….”

“Sawyer and
Sawyer.”

“Oh.” Annie
knew the Sawyers by sight, since the father and son both attended her church,
but she had to admit the attorneys  intimidated her. Not only were they
descendents of the town’s founding fathers, they had to be the richest family
in the area.

“Do you think
they want help for Mrs. Sawyer?” Annie had always been in awe of the wife and
mother of the two Sawyers. She dressed in designer clothes and spent as much
time away as she did in Westover.

“Not likely,”
Marge said. “Last I heard she and her husband were in Europe, leaving their
son, Nathan, to handle the law firm.”

“That’s a
relief,” Annie said. “I get nervous just saying good morning to her when I’m a
greeter at church.”

“No need to
be,” Marge said in a stern voice. “Last I heard we got rid of royalty in this
country a few hundred years ago.”

“Well, do you mind
if I answer the ad before it comes out in the paper?” Annie asked.

“I don’t think
you need more work, especially not with your long evening hours at Yum Yum
Pancakes, but it’s okay with me. The ad came in too late for this week’s issue,
so you have a good chance at getting the job if you really want it.”

I don’t want
it. I need it, Annie thought, knowing a good paycheck could tip the balance in
favor of buying the flower shop. It was early June, and she still had a chance
to increase her savings enough to swing the deal.

She waited to
make the call until Marge went to her office at the rear of the building and
closed the door. One of the luxuries she denied herself was a cell phone, so
she hurriedly called the number in the advertisement using the newspaper’s
landline.

“Sawyer and
Sawyer,” a professional sounding woman’s voice said. “How may I help you.”

“I’m answering
the ad for a companion,” Annie said, embarrassed because her voice cracked with
nervousness. Of all the people in town she might work for, the Sawyers were the
most off-putting. What would such a prominent family expect of an employee,
however temporary?

“Oh, yes,” the
receptionist said. “Mr. Sawyer is eager to fill the position. Let me check his
calendar.”

It only took
her a minute to get back on the phone, but it was long enough for Annie to have
serious doubts about interviewing for the job. After all, she wasn’t a nurse or
any other kind of caregiver. Maybe she was overreaching herself by trying to
get a job as a companion.

“Mr. Sawyer can
see you at four fifteen. Will that be satisfactory.”

“Yes, thank
you. Should I come to your offices?”

“Of course,
and please do be prompt. Mr. Sawyer has a dinner engagement, so if you’re late,
I’m afraid he won’t be here. May I have your name?”

“Annie Williams.
I’ll be there on time, I promise.”

Had that
sounded too childish? She’d applied for jobs many times in the last ten years,
but none of the interviews had made her this uneasy. Was it because the Sawyer
family was so prominent? Or maybe it was because Nathan Sawyer was drop-dead
gorgeous and by far the most eligible bachelor in Westover. Either way, she
would be happy when the interview was over, whether she got the job or not.

She checked
her wristwatch, a gift from her grandfather when she graduated from high
school. Fortunately it still kept good time, since she was on a tight schedule
even without adding another job to her responsibilities.

Calculating
how long it would take her to drive home in her aging, rust-pocked VW, change
into her waitress uniform, go to the downtown office of the Sawyers’, and still
get to Yum Yum Pancakes by five, she had a moment of panic. Her boss at the
restaurant was a fanatic about being on time, and she couldn’t afford to lose
one job while she was trying to get another.

Her uniform!
She had to wear it. There wouldn’t be time to change between the interview and
starting her shift at the restaurant. Hurrying out to her car, she wished it
would rain. That would give her a reason to cover the uniform with a raincoat,
but there wasn’t a cloud in sight in the bright blue June sky.

The drive home
was short, but the car was one convenience  she couldn’t do without. Her
life was a whirlwind of activity rushing from her volunteer job to paid ones.

“Hi, Gramps,”
she called out when she got to the small brick mid-century ranch house she
shared with him and her widowed mother.

Dwight
Bartlett, a retired minister, had lived with them for nearly ten years since
giving up his church position, not that he sat around doing nothing. He spent
much of his day doing volunteer work, especially calling on members of the
congregation who were homebound or in nursing homes.

“You’re home
early,” he said, coming into the front room from the kitchen at the back of the
house. “Hope you have time for a bowl of my split pea soup. I made Italian
bread to go with it.”

Gramps had
taken up cooking years ago after his wife passed away, and he prided himself on
fixing good meals for Annie and her mother, who often worked beyond the dinner
hour in her job as a bank teller. He was a small, slender man with thinning
white hair, and the delicious dishes he fixed didn’t seem to affect his weight.
Annie felt fortunate that the same was true for her, although her mother
struggled.

“I wish I did.
I’ll warm a bowl when I get off work,” Annie promised.

“Ten o’clock
at night is no time for supper,” Gramps pointed out in the deep voice honed
from years of speaking from the pulpit. “Why such a big hurry? It isn’t even
four o’clock.”

“I have a job
interview,” she said, hoping to get to her room without a lengthy explanation.

“If you
weren’t as stubborn as me, you’d let me help you more,” he said in a kindly
voice.

It was an old
argument, but Annie had no intention of letting him give her his hard earned
pension, not even as a loan. Although he was still healthy and active in his
mid-seventies, she refused to use money he might need for health care in the
future. Anyway, buying the flower shop was all about being independent,
standing on her own two feet.

“Sorry,
Gramps, but I have to change.”

She hated the
thought of wearing the pink polyester uniform to an interview with a Sawyer,
especially since she’d bought it second hand from a waitress who was leaving.
It was too long and too loose, but she’d just have to explain why she was
wearing it.

When she came
downstairs, she felt as unready for a job interview as it was possible to be.

“What kind of
job is it?” Gramps asked before she got to the door.

“Companion to
an older woman. My interview is with Nathan Sawyer,” she explained somewhat
reluctantly.

“A companion?”
Her grandfather sounded puzzled.

“I know I
don’t have any qualifications for the job, but how hard can it be? Anyway it
would only be temporary.” She’d lived with her grandfather for a long time, but
he was too self sufficient to qualify as an elderly person who required care.

“I guess I
have to remember you’re not my little girl anymore,” he said with a wistful
smile. “If it’s something you want, I’ll pray you get it.”

“I appreciate
that.” Annie started toward door to leave, but her grandfather stopped her.