Annie's Answer (4 page)

“We go to the
same church, but he didn’t recognize me at first.”

“Well, I guess
that’s sort of a recommendation. You’re so young and pretty, my first
impression was you’d taken the job to get close to Nathan.”

“I did no such
thing!” Annie said, too annoyed to rein in her temper.

“Well, it’s
not as if he couldn’t get any girl in town if he didn’t have his nose in law
books all the time,” his great aunt said in a slightly contrite voice.

Annie refilled
the coffee mug without asking while Mattie finished the oatmeal down to the
last dab in the bottom of the bowl, pushing it away with a sour face.

“Tomorrow I’ll
make my own,” she declared. “I assume you’ll be here then if I haven’t scared
you off.”

“I’m supposed
to come at nine, and you don’t frighten me, Mrs.…”

Nathan had
only introduced her as Aunt Mattie.

“Hayward, Mrs.
Tom Hayward, but I answer to Mattie. If we’re stuck with each other, I guess
we’ll have to figure out something to do. I don’t suppose you knit.”

“I’ve never
had time to learn,” Annie said, trying not to sound put out.

“I’m making a
sweater for Nathan. I don’t suppose he’ll wear it much, but he does look spiffy
in blue. Or maybe you haven’t noticed.”

Annie took a
deep breath and didn’t answer. She suspected Nathan would look good in thrift
store rejects, but she wasn’t going to indulge Mattie Hayward by making any
comments about him.

It was going
to be a long summer.

Hurriedly
Nathan shrugged out of his jacket, feeling like a kid let out of school early.
Judge Orville Carlson had called a recess until two o’clock after a morning of
particularly tedious testimony from the prosecution’s first witness. If the
rest of the trial was as dull as the opening, Nathan’s biggest challenge would
be to stay awake.

“Dad, you
stuck me with a loser this time,” he said as he slid into the front seat of his
Lincoln. The firm didn’t handle many criminal cases, but embezzlement was the
exception. So far he didn’t think his client had a chance, but J.P. Jervis had
stubbornly resisted a plea bargain.

He should have
Bonnie bring him a sub so he could work at his desk while he ate, but he
couldn’t get Annie Williams out of his mind.  He must have been walking
around in a fog not to notice her at church, and he still had guilt pangs for
leaving her alone with his great aunt. How could a sweet little thing like her
cope with Aunt Mattie?

Racing across
town, he went through two yellow lights and turned left after a third turned
red. He hadn’t had a traffic ticket in nearly two years, but he was willing to
risk one today. He couldn’t even explain to himself why it seemed so urgent to
get home.

The house was
silent when he let himself in through the front door. The battered VW bug was
hers, so she had to be here.

“Aunt Mattie,”
he called out, loosening his tie as he looked for her. “Hey, anybody here?”

It was
possible Annie had driven his aunt somewhere in his mother’s car, but it didn’t
seem probable. More likely Mattie had sent her out of the house in tears, and
she was still somewhere on the grounds. His aunt had a razor-sharp tongue and
no inhibitions about speaking her mind, although she wasn’t intentionally mean.

His jaw
dropped when he found them in the sunroom.

“Didn’t expect
you home,” Mattie said in a conversational tone.

“The judge
called a long recess. I just dropped in to.…”

“To see if I
scared Annie into leaving.”

“No, of course
not,” he hemmed. “I only wanted to see how you two are getting along.”

He felt
foolish. The two of them were having sandwiches and iced tea, sitting on either
side of a low table. Annie had picked some flowers from the garden, and Mattie
had her foot propped up on a footstool. It was a picture of domestic bliss,
almost too good to be true.

“As you can
see,” Annie said so sweetly it could have been sarcasm, “we’re having a nice
lunch.”

“Her oatmeal
is dreadful, but her tuna salad isn’t half bad,” Mattie said. “Bits of red
pepper and celery mixed in, along with pickle relish and a touch of ranch
dressing instead of mayonnaise. I loathe mayonnaise.”

“There’s some
left. Can I fix a sandwich for you?” Annie asked, giving him a challenging
look.

“No—I
mean, why not.” He didn’t want to face an afternoon in Judge Carlson’s
courtroom on an empty stomach. “I can fix it myself though.”

“Melt some
cheese on his,” Mattie said, ignoring Nathan as Annie stood to go to the
kitchen. “It will give me a chance to chat a little with my only grand nephew.”

“Sure thing,”
Annie said, hurrying from the room.

He was
surprised by a feeling of disappointment. He’d come home to check on the two
women, not to see his aunt’s companion. Or had he?

“So things are
going well?” he said, pulling a chair up to the table.

“What did you
expect? I’m not an ogre. If you insist on having someone baby-sit with me,
we’ll both make the best of it,” his aunt said.

“It’s not
babysitting,” Nathan said, irritated although he usually took her outspoken
ways in stride. “You don’t know anyone in town, and I can’t come home to check
on you every day.”

“Why did you
come home today?” Mattie raised one eyebrow in a skeptical expression.

“I wanted to
see how you were doing.” Another stretch of the truth, but he didn’t want to
admit he felt protective of Annie.

“Ha!”

He never had
been able to fool his great aunt, although he had pleasant memories of several
summer vacations on her farm. Uncle Tom had been a quiet man, but he let Nathan
follow him around like a puppy. He made his living raising corn and drying and
storing it on his own property, waiting for the right price to sell. His father
called it an agri-business and respected how profitable it was, but Tom Hayward
was a typical family farmer from his well-worn overalls to the cap red with a
seed company logo that seldom left his balding head.

Aunt Mattie,
on the other hand, was seldom silent and always spoke her mind. Nathan had been
cautious about provoking her, but she’d never been unkind to him. Since his
mother rarely cooked, it fascinated him that Mattie had a farmhands’ dinner on
the table at exactly twelve noon every day. His mouth still watered when he
thought of her fried chicken, thick Iowa pork chops stuffed with sage dressing,
and cantaloupe halves filled with homemade ice cream.

Inhaling
deeply, he didn’t know whether the beguiling scent in the air came from the
vase of flowers or was a lingering fragrance from Annie’s perfume.

“I asked how
your case is going,” Aunt Mattie said with a trace of irritation in her voice.

“Oh, sorry,”
he said, realizing she’d been talking to him. “I was thinking of Uncle Tom and
the big dinners you always had ready for him at noon.”

“He never said
much, but if dinner was late, he surely let me know,” Mattie said with a
wistful smile that softened her face. “Now about this girl.…”

“Young woman,”
Nathan said, “and you’re not going to talk me into firing her.

“I suppose
not,” she said with an air of resignation. “I just want to know what I’m
supposed to do with her all day. I can see already she isn’t one to sit around
doing nothing.”

“She’s here to
look after you,” Nathan said, on the alert for her return to the sunroom. “You
don’t have to do anything with her.”

“How come you
suddenly had time to run home from your big law case?” His aunt’s habit of
switching topics had caught him off balance more than once.

“The judge
called the noon recess early. I didn’t expect to have time.”

“Well, you
don’t have to rush home on my account. I’m fine with or without a babysitter.”

“She’s not.…”
He dropped what he was going to say when he heard Annie’s footsteps near the
door.

“One tuna
melt, sir. Is there anything else I can get you?”

She sounded
like a waitress, and it took him a few seconds to remember she was one. He’d
had breakfast a time or two at the pancake place, but he couldn’t remember ever
seeing her there. In fact, he’d somehow missed seeing her anywhere, although
they must have attended the same large church since they were children. Of
course, she was three or four years younger, and his parents had sent him to a
private school after the fifth grade.

“Thank you,
Annie. This looks delicious.” Did he sound as stuffy to her as he did to
himself?

She’d put his
sandwich on one of the plates from his mother’s fragile English china tea set,
one Mom had never allowed him to touch. His mother might not be a cook herself,
but she loved entertaining and had even small get-togethers catered. Annie had
made him feel special without knowing she did.

“My
grandfather is the one who taught me everything I know about cooking. Of
course, melted cheese on a sandwich isn’t   exactly gourmet cuisine.”

“Don’t do
that,” he said without thinking.

“What?” She
hovered over him with a worried expression.

“Don’t
belittle yourself or what you do. Not many women would be willing to take on
two full time jobs.”

“She wants to
buy a flower shop,” Aunt Mattie said.

He was
startled his aunt had already learned that about Annie.

“Oh. Well,
please sit down, Annie. You haven’t finished your sandwich,” Nathan said.

He watched as
she slid her chair a little farther from him and gracefully lowered herself
onto the thick cushion. She looked even smaller than he’d remembered in the big
wicker chair.

“I have to
make a call,” Aunt Mattie said, swinging her leg off the footstool and groping
for the crutches propped up behind her chair.

“Let me get
them for you,” Annie said, quick to stand and try to help his aunt.

“Nonsense. I’m
perfectly capable of getting where I want to go,” Mattie said in a voice not
even his father would be able to contradict. “You two finish your lunches.”

Nathan glanced
at his wristwatch and had to admit his aunt was right. He had to eat and get
back to the courthouse. One of the strict rules in Judge Carlson’s courtroom
was always be prompt. He didn’t have the time or inclination to remember the
other six. He picked up half of the open-face tuna melt and bit in as the top
layer slid off the bread and down his front, landing on the napkin on his lap.

“Oh, dear, I
should’ve brought a knife and fork,” Annie said with genuine distress. “Look at
your tie.”

Looking down,
he saw a smear from the knot to the tip and remembered another of the judge’s
rules: Attorneys must be appropriately and neatly dressed.

“It’s okay,”
he quickly said. “I’ll run and change.”

“No, please,
finish the other half. I’ll get a tie for you. Where do you keep them?”

“If you
wouldn’t mind—I really have to get back.” He quickly told her how to get
to the bedroom of his apartment. “The ties are in the walk-in closet on the
left. Anything will do.” He couldn’t remember the judge ever objecting to the
color of a necktie.

He wolfed down
the second half of the tuna melt, leaning over the plate to avoid dropping any
of it. The prospect of the afternoon’s proceedings was daunting enough without
doing it on an empty stomach. Maybe he was nuts to come home, but then he
remembered why he had. He had to admit his rest of the day would be a little
brighter after seeing how well Annie was coping with his aunt—so far.

Unless she
could fly, she must have run all the way to his room and back. Presenting a
necktie for his approval, she was pinked cheeked and slightly breathless. The
flush on her face only made her look more beguiling.

“Good choice,”
he said, realizing it was true. She’d picked a shimmering bronze silk tie that
was perfect with his suit.

“I’ll have
your tie dry-cleaned,” she said.

“Not
necessary. I’m the one who messed it up.” He stood and switched ties, careful
not to get any of the tuna mix on his shirt. “I’ll try to get home by five, but
you can leave whether I’m here or not. I know you have to get to your other
job.”

He didn’t say
he was hoping to see her after work, but the thought crossed his mind.

“Have a good
afternoon,” she said as he left.

People said
things like that so often it usually meant nothing. Somehow, coming from her,
it sounded sincere. He hurried out to his car wondering what had gotten into
him. He wasn’t ready to put his bachelor days behind him, but Annie wasn’t like
any woman he knew. Had he made a big mistake, hiring her to keep his aunt
company? Maybe he should avoid her, but that prospect didn’t please him. Why
did she seem so appealing?  After all, he’d only known her for less than a
day.

With his father
away for the summer, indulging his mother’s passion for foreign locations and
art museums, he had a double load of cases and no time to dwell on anything but
the practice. He had to put Annie out of his mind, but he was knew it wouldn’t
be easy.

He’d been
afraid she wouldn’t last a week with his aunt. Now he was afraid she would.

“Well, how was
your first day on the new job?” Gramps asked when she came downstairs for
breakfast Friday morning. “I was too sleepy to wait up for you last night.”

“You don’t
have to stay up until I get home,” Annie said. “You need your sleep.”

“And you
don’t?” her grandfather asked.

“Don’t what?”
her mother asked, coming into the kitchen dressed for work in a lightweight
gray pantsuit and a patterned blouse in shades of blue and lavender.

“Need more
sleep,” Gramps said.

“I am a little
worried about how much you’re taking on, Annie,” her mom said. “I don’t want
you getting sick.”