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But, still, whenever he greeted her with a hug, or touched the back of her hand to make a point, something inside her stirred. Did Joe feel it too? If so, he kept it hidden. He was careful—too careful, maybe?—always greeting her with a kiss—as a brother-in-law would, and

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a lover would not. They kept it light, affectionate, jokey, especially in front of Laurel, and sometimes the whole thing seemed real even to Annie. But she knew it wasn’t; it was an act, with its own unique rituals, as elaborate as Kabuki theatre.

If only …

Annie resolutely shut her mind against the thought that seemed always to be crouching there. She could not, would not, let herself imagine what her life would be like now if she had been the one to marry Joe. He was her sister’s husband … end of story. If she let herself venture off that narrow, stony path, even for one second, they could all be lost.

I should call Emmett instead, she thought. Remind him to pick up his new suit at the tailor’s so he’ll have it for tonight. The party they were going to was to celebrate the publication of Tansy Boone’s newest dessert cookbook, which included several of Tout de Suite’s recipes. Tansy, of course, would be there, along with media types, publishing people … and, most important, food critics from Gourmand and Cuisine and Connoisseur. Tansy had even persuaded Stanley Zabar, an old friend, to let her hold the party in his store.

Annie, determined to get maximum mileage out of this for Tout de Suite, had offered to supply her desserts for the occasion. She made a mental note to check with Tansy to see if any last-minute guests had been added to the list, and also to have an advance copy of And Then There Was Chocolate, along with an invitation to the party, messengered over to Hyman Felder.

Yes, that was it, she’d focus on Felder, on pulling out of the red, no looking to the right or the left, no distractions, no way she could go astray with Joe, even by accident.

Annie left Louise, and briskly made her rounds about the factory, taking in the cluttered workstations with butcher-block counters and shelving underneath, which were set cattycorner to one another like walls in a maze. Workers in white aprons and white elasticized caps scurried from one to the next, whisking trays of paper-thin

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chocolate dessert cups, pistachio toffee, chocolate-dipped orange crescents, praline fondant, finished truffles ready to be boxed. Along one wall stood a row of stainless ovens, cooktops, deep sinks, tempering melters, with her old enrober and two newer ones taking up one end of the large space-which, Emmett had told her when he first showed her the place, had originally held a goodsized millinery factory.

She saw plump, coffee-skinned Netta carrying a tray of ladyfingers. Had Netta remembered to spread cardboard over the baking sheets before putting the ladyfingers in the oven? The last few batches had been a little dry, but the cardboard would keep the moisture in. Her gaze fell on a stack of wooden crates. Those grapefruits … they would have to be thrown out if they weren’t used soon. Even candied, the peel had to be fresh … when you bit into it, it had to bite back.

Annie walked over to the counter at which Doug stood, a frown bringing his heavy black brows together in a single bushy hedge. He was having trouble with one of the conveyor belts-a traffic jam of empty cast-iron molds stood at one end, waiting to be passed under jets that would spray them with liquid chocolate. After these molded “tops” were cooled and dried, they would be filled with various liqueur-based cream fillings, and chocolate bottoms then slipped on. But there would be no bonbons if they couldn’t get the belt working. Damn. She’d better call the manufacturer, and have them send someone.

She told Doug to keep tinkering with it, and moved on to the worktable where Lise was busy melting sugar in a large copper pot for the chocolate-pecan brittle. Had the Christmas molds been unpacked? Lise, wearing a white net cap and baker’s apron, said something, but the hum of machinery and clattering of trays and pans drowned out her words. Holding out a hand smeared with chocolate, Lise pointed toward the industrial shelving lining the east wall.

In a box, on a high shelf, Annie found what she was looking for-a set of Victorian cast-iron molds, quaint and priceless: a Santa Claus straight out of Clement Moore,

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an elf wearing knickers and a stocking cap, an angel with a pouty Burne-Jones face, a pair of intertwined cats. She’d discovered them two years ago, in an antique store on Portobello Road in London, and had fallen instantly in love. That first Christmas, she’d made a hundred solid chocolate molds of each, and had sold every one the very first day. Now they were her great holiday staple. It was early in the season still, but wouldn’t they make a charming addition to her display at the fair?

Annie closed her eyes for a moment and tried to picture where in the display she’d fit these holiday treats. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her.

“Annie?”

She turned, startled. “Joe!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” Smiling that slip-sliding smile of his, he put out a hand, palm up, in a conciliatory gesture. He was wearing faded jeans and a flannel-lined denim jacket over a navy fisherman’s sweater. Even through the perfume of cocoa and vanilla beans that filled the air, she could smell him; he smelled of blood and sawdust-he’d been to the meat market. “You have a minute? You feel like taking a walk?”

Annie had about nine hundred things to do, but she found herself nodding. “Sure, why not?”

Once she got outside, she was glad she’d said yes. Fall was here, really here, and until now she’d hardly noticed. Leaves from the catalpa tree outside her building littered the sidewalk, and the sky was the crisp mentholblue of aftershave. The sun, setting into Jersey, still shone brightly, gilding these old warehouses and factory buildings with shafts of glorious light. Joe turned his face up to sample the breeze, his glasses catching the light, and she saw a wisp of cloud reflected on the twin mirrors of his lenses. In his taffy-colored hair, she was startled to see glints of silver.

They walked side by side down Washington Street without talking. Joe was so quiet that Annie began to worry. He obviously hadn’t asked her to take a walk with him just for the pleasure of her company. No, there had

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to be something wrong … something he wanted to tell her.

Was it about Laurel? Annie suspected that Laurel and Joe were having problems. Though her sister had never confided anything in particular to her, whenever she talked about Joe in general a kind of overbrightness crept into her voice, as if she needed to make Annie believe everything was wonderful with her marriage, couldn’t be better, in fact.

Maybe I’m imagining problems where there aren’t any, Annie thought. Maybe, deep down, she wanted to believe things weren’t a hundred percent marvelous with Mr. and Mrs. Joe Daugherty. Could that be why Laurel seemed so reluctant to confide in her? And why, despite how close they now were, how they teased each other and gossiped endlessly over the phone, she and her sister still held each other a bit at arm’s length?

They reached Morton Street and turned the corner toward the sun and the Hudson. This part of town had once been storehouses for ocean freighters and huge printing plants. But here and there, Annie now saw scaffolding erected outside of sooty buildings, and workmen scurrying in and out of them with lumber, Sheetrock, wheelbarrows of cement. These places would be converted into living lofts and apartments, filled with the children and maybe even the grandchildren of those who had once labored fourteen hours a day in these very spaces. And, God, it was happening so fast. Why did it sometimes seem as if everything was moving forward except her?

Finally, Joe turned to her and said, “It’s my father. He’s getting worse.”

“Joe . . : I’m sorry,” Annie badly wanted to take his hand, but she resisted.

Marcus had gone downhill since Joe’s mother died last May; Annie had seen that much herself. Another minor heart attack … then he’d started having those weird mood swings, and memory lapses. The doctors called it Alzheimer’s, but to Joe it was his father’s way of coping with an orderly life that somehow had jumped its rails. Since he couldn’t bring back either his health or his wife,

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the old man was simply, as Joe had put it, “locking the door and pulling down the shade.”

“Even with half his mind gone, he’s an impossible bastard.” He sounded angry, but she could see the lines of weariness in his face … and, yes, the caring. “I’ve had three nurses quit on me in the last month and a half. The last one showed me her arms-bruises all the way to the elbows-and said she hoped I wasn’t thinking she was the sort who’d sue as some would … no, what she needed was a good rest, but who could afford to take that kind of time off with bills to pay?” Joe shoved a hand through his hair, and gave a short, incredulous laugh. “Christ, do you believe it?”

“What are you going to do?”

“It’s not the money,” he went on. “She can sue me all she wants. It’s him, my father. He’s … falling apart.” He took a deep breath. “Last week, I made an appointment with Naomi Jenkins … she’s that counselor I told you about. She assesses people … families, really … in this kind of situation. You know, helps you decide if it’s … well, time. She visited Dad the other day, and then she came to see me today at the restaurant.”

“And?”

“She’s recommending that he be placed in a home. There’s really no other way.”

“Joe, I’m sorry …” Before she had time to think what she was doing, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard. She stood that way for a long moment, linked to him in sympathy and in longing … afraid to let go for fear of what it might imply, and even more afraid of hanging on.

It was Joe who drew away first, bending to retrieve a penny on the sidewalk. An old penny, blackened and half hidden among a drift of fallen leaves; how had he managed to spot it? He stared at it for a second, then tossed it out over the pavement, his long body arching back, a small whuff of breath escaping him.

He turned to Annie, a sad smile surfacing on his beautiful, sensitive face. “The other night when I was tucking Adam in, he looked up at me and said, ‘You know,

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Dad, sometimes second grade sucks.’ ” Joe laughed, this time with genuine amusement. “That about sums it up, don’t you think? Sometimes life sucks. I think my father would agree.”

So would I, Annie thought, but she wasn’t thinking of old age or nursing homes. Just how unfair it was that you could love two people as much as she loved Joe and Laurel, and know that one love must cancel the other.

Unfair to Emmett, too. They’d been together so long, sometimes it felt like they were married … but she hadn’t ever been able to take that final step. Maybe she never would. Not until she believed, truly believed, that Joe wouldn’t care … or, even if he did mind, that she wouldn’t.

Damn, why did she have to feel all this now, when Tout de Suite needed everything she could give it? Why couldn’t she let it just ride?

It’s been six years, so isn’t it about time you accepted reality?

Okay, yes. But what exactly is going on here?

“I’m sorry,” she told him, not sure who exactly she was sorry for. “It isn’t fair.”

“I haven’t told Laurey. It’ll really upset her. You know, it’s funny, because they’re about as opposite as two people can be, but from the very start she and Dad really got along. She’s really crazy about him. She knew how to get around him in all kinds of little ways. Me, I’d always go head to head … and end up losing my temper.”

“You’ll have to tell her.”

“I know.” He looked down, but not fast enough. She had seen something in his eyes … something dark and unsettling.

“Joe … is … is everything okay between you and Laurey?”

He paused a beat too long, then shrugged. “Sure. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. Forget it. It’s none of my business anyway.”

He smiled. “Well, well, you have changed.”

Annie, relieved by his change in tone, eased grate-

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fully into their old teasing routine. “Only during business hours,” she quipped. “Evenings I turn back into a yenta. Rivka says I’m so good at it, I could give lessons.”

He touched her arm. “How is Rivka these days?”

“Still counting heads … only this time it’s grandchildren. She’s up to nine, I think, with two more on the way. I’m embarrassed to say I can’t keep all their names straight.” She paused. “Joe, about your father. If there’s anything I can do …”

He shrugged. “Thanks. I’m okay … just needed to unload on someone, I guess. I got Emma to promise she’d stay until the end of the month, bruises and all.”

“God, Joe, what did you have to bribe her with?”

“A cruise to the Bahamas. Believe me, by the time she climbs on board, she’ll have earned it.”

Annie laughed. “I’ll bet.”

“You know something?” he said, staring off into the distance. “Sometimes I think it’d be easier on all of us if the old man would just die.” He stopped, and scrubbed his jaw, looking rueful. “Jesus, I’ve never admitted that to anyone.”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m not shocked. In fact, I think your father would prefer it that way, too.”

He touched her arm, and said softly, “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For listening. For not telling me what a heartless bastard Marcus Daugherty has for a son.”

She stared at him. “I think,” she said slowly, “I think what you’re doing takes a lot of guts … and a lot of love.”

“Funny.” He squinted up at the sky, as if looking for confirmation of this. She watched his Adam’s apple work. Tears stood in his eyes, making them glitter. Finally, in a strained voice, he said, “I never thought of him that way. In terms of love. He was just … my father.”

This time, it was Joe who took her hand, and they walked that way, back to Washington Street, under the golden, biblical sun, as if they had been doing it all their lives.