A Soft Place to Fall (14 page)

The words were no sooner out of her mouth
when the bell over the front door jingled and Sam Butler walked in
and the petals hit the fan.

Chapter Six

As soon as he walked through the door,
Claudia knew the man would be trouble. She didn't often take an
instant dislike to someone but this time she made an exception. He
looked dangerous, like he knew exactly where they kept the cash
box. Just looking at him made her want to hide her jewelry in her
shoe.

"Whoa," said Sweeney from her perch on the
step ladder. "Wouldn't I like a piece of that."

Claudia glared at the woman. She prayed the
man hadn't heard her. What on earth was the matter with the younger
generation? Sweeney sounded like one of those tramps on
Sex and
the City
. A fifty-year-old tramp.

Annie was halfway to the kitchen so Claudia
stepped forward.

"Can I help you?" she asked him in her most
professional tones.

He smiled and to her dismay Claudia noted
that it was a most extraordinary smile. It seemed to light up his
ordinary face in a way that made him almost handsome. Claudia
waited for him to say something but he kept on smiling and she
realized he was looking right past her and straight at Annie who
was standing a few feet behind her with the most ridiculous look on
her face.

How long had it been since Annie had looked
that young or that pretty? Claudia couldn't remember and she hated
this stranger for having that kind of power over her.

"I brought your house keys," he said. He
spoke directly to Annie. Claudia didn't know if he even realized
there was anyone else in the shop.

Annie glided forward as if drawn to him by
some unseen force. "You didn't have to do that." She sounded so
happy, happier than Claudia could remember her sounding in years.
"I told you that you could leave them under the mat."

"I'm from New York, remember?" His voice was
deep, a little rough. Not at all like Kevin's golden baritone. "I
couldn't do it."

A New Yorker? He couldn't possibly be the
neighbor Annie had been talking about, could he?

"Helllooooo!" Sweeney called out, waving her
staple gun in an attempt to catch their attention. "Isn't anyone
going to introduce us? New talent is hard to come by around here
and I'm all for building up the home team."

To his credit, the man looked slightly
discomfited but that was nothing compared to the look of
embarrassment on Annie's bright pink face.
Oh, Anne,
she
thought sadly.
You always did wear your heart on your
sleeve.
Was it really so long ago when a ten-year-old Annie
used to follow Kevin around town, just so she could be near him?
The memory was etched on Claudia's heart.

"This is Sam Butler," Annie said. "He's
renting Ellie Bancroft's place on the water." She placed a hand on
Claudia's shoulder. "This is my mother-in-law Claudia
Galloway."

"Beautiful shop you have here," Sam Butler
said as he shook her hand.

"It's Annie's shop. She deserves all the
credit." She smiled when she said it although the effort to be
gracious cost her dearly. She wanted to bar the door and build a
moat around Annie's heart and the fierceness of her emotions
startled her.

Poor Annie had eyes for no one but this Sam
Butler as she continued her introductions. "And that vision in
paisley is Mary Sweeney. She made the stained glass inset on our
front door and every other beautiful glass piece you see around
here."

Sweeney leaned down and pumped his hand.
"Just call me Sweeney," she said with one of her trademark lusty
laughs. "And I do mean call me." Her dark eyes flickered from Annie
to Sam to Annie again and the last of Claudia's hopes were
shattered. Sweeney saw it too.

Annie laughed and after a moment so did this
Butler person. Claudia could manage only the tightest smile. She
was grateful when the phone in the work room rang and she excused
herself to answer it.

"I'm sorry," she said to the person on the
other end of the line. "Of course I'm listening to you . . . yes,
yes . . . a dozen red . . . long-stemmed . . . no card . . .
absolutely . . . I understand . . . we'll have them ready by five
o'clock."

She hung up the phone and her eye was caught
by a small photo of Kevin and John tacked to the corkboard over the
phone table. Annie had pinned it up there the day the store opened
and there it had stayed for almost twelve years. Sometimes you
couldn't see it for the blizzard of notes and orders but if you
looked hard enough you would always find it. The photo had been
taken at the end of Kevin's first year in Little League – oh, how
that uniform had swamped his skinny body. John called him The
Shrimp and Kevin had despaired ever growing as big and brawny as
his father. The years, however, took care of that and by the time
Kevin and Annie married, he looked like a younger version of John
with the same towering height, wide shoulders, and ready smile.

They had been alike in other ways too. They
had both loved their family above all, both believed in a world
filled with poetry and laughter, and to Claudia's eternal regret,
they both died much too soon.

"Oh John," she whispered, touching the edge
of the photo with the tip of her finger. "Why does everything have
to change?"

#

Sam gave Annie her house keys, made a minimum
of small talk with a cool Claudia and a very warm Sweeney, then
said he'd better get moving.

"I looped Max's leash around the bicycle rack
outside," he said. "Knowing Max that isn't going to hold him for
long."

Claudia sniffed loudly and Annie wished she
could stick a planter over her mother-in-law's well-coiffed head.
Sweeney watched them quietly with a Cheshire cat smile on her face.
All of this because a man returned the keys to her house.

Annie walked Sam outside. "I don't know
what's the matter with them," she said by way of apology. "That was
outrageous, even for Sweeney." She shook her head in dismay. "And I
won't even try to explain Claudia. She's really a very nice woman
although you'd never know it by the way she acted."

"I didn't stop by to see them," he said. "I
came to see you."

"And I really appreciate it. I guess leaving
the keys under the mat really wasn't the greatest idea. I –"

"What's the story between you and the
doctor?"

"What?" His question left her
flat-footed.

"You and the doctor. Is there a story?"

"You don't waste time on small talk, do
you?"

"Is there something between the two of
you?"

"He's an old friend."

"You're going out with him tomorrow."

"He took me by surprise. I didn't know what
to say."

"He thinks it's a date."

"He's wrong."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't think that's any of your
business."

"I think it will be."

I'm melting,
she thought as she looked
deep into his eyes.
Right here in front of the store with
Claudia and Sweeney watching.
She was melting just like one of
those women in the books Claudia kept hidden under the TV Guide.
All she needed was the pirate ship and the beautiful gown.

"No," she said at last. "It isn't a
date."

"I'm glad."

"So am I." Could you have an out-of-body
experience right there on Main Street with everybody watching?
Their gazes held for what seemed like forever. She thought he was
going to take her hand or maybe even pull her into his arms and
kiss her but he did none of those things. He just looked at her,
longer and more deeply than anyone had ever looked at her before,
then he unraveled Max's leash from the bike rack and started off
down the street, leaving Annie feeling thoroughly kissed just the
same.

He walked the way they walked in the city,
quickly and with purpose. She had the sense that he knew his
relative position to everyone else on the street and she wondered
what had happened in his life to bring him to Warren's house by the
water. Men like that had high-powered careers and lovers who wore
little black dresses and a single strand of pearls. They didn't
show up in Shelter Rock Cove in a beat-up truck with a wild yellow
Lab and turn a woman's heart inside out over a bag of donuts and a
cup of coffee.

Somebody tapped on the window behind her. She
could feel Claudia's and Sweeney's eyes burning holes in the back
of her sweater but she couldn't go back inside. Not until she
managed to push all of her unruly emotions back inside her chest
where they belonged.

As it was, it took all of her self-control to
keep from touching her fingertip to her lips to capture a kiss that
never was.

She stood there on the sidewalk until Sam and
Max turned the corner from Main to Mariner and then when the memory
of his walk turned the corner after him, she went back inside.

"So where have you been hiding him?" Sweeney
demanded the second she stepped into the shop. "He's sure not home
grown."

She tried for cool nonchalance. The way she
felt inside was new to her and she wasn't about to share it with
anybody. "He moved into Ellie Bancroft's place yesterday." She
reclaimed her wire cutters and took her place behind the counter.
"His dog had a run-in with my truck and he was making amends." She
carefully edited out the champagne, the nudity, and the night he
spent in her bed .

"Can I borrow the beasts for a week or two?"
Sweeney asked. "Sounds better than spending another Friday night
over a pint at the Yardarm Inn."

"Oh please," Claudia snapped, tearing the
head off a perfectly innocent white lily. "You two sound like
teenagers."

Annie moved the basket of blooms out of her
mother-in-law's reach. At the rate Claudia was going, they would
need to double their orders. Claudia's reaction struck Annie as
every bit as over the top as Sweeney's and she refused to rise to
the bait. Instead, she centered herself and gave them more
information.

"My front door wouldn't close properly and
Sam offered to fix it for me. I told him to leave the keys under
the mat but, as you heard, he wasn't comfortable with that." Clear,
concise, factually accurate. They seemed happy with her
explanation. Clearly full disclosure was highly overrated.

"No wonder my stomach's growling," Sweeney
said, with a glance at the time piece dangling between her breasts
from a velvet cord. "It's almost one o'clock."

"I was going to heat up some tomato soup,"
Annie said, brushing her hands along the sides of her black pants.
"I think we have some crackers back there too."

"If you can scare up some Tabasco sauce,
count me in," said Sweeney.

"Do you think I could live without Tabasco?"
She turned toward Claudia. "Do you want your soup with or without
hot sauce?"

Claudia reached behind the counter and
extracted her purse. "If you don't mind, I think I'll go to
Bernie's for a half turkey and brie on rye. I won't be long."

"Don't let her get to you," Sweeney said as
soon as the door closed behind Claudia. "If you want him, go for
it. She'll come around."

"You know, Sweeney, if you were half as good
at marketing your stained glass as you are at managing people's
lives, you'd be the next Tiffany."

"I know," said Sweeney with a good-natured
laugh. "It's a gift, isn't it?"

A few minutes later they sat down to eat. The
sight of the creamy red soup sloshing around the bowl made Annie
queasy. Lifting her spoon to her mouth required major effort.

"Migraine or hangover?" Sweeney asked. "My
bet is on the latter."

"Cheap champagne on an empty stomach," Annie
said, massaging her temples with cautious fingers. "Now I know why
I'm not much of a drinker."

"Moderation, honey, in all things but love
and chocolate. That's my motto." She rummaged deep into a pocket
and withdrew a small bottle. "Industrial strength Advil and lots of
caffeine. That'll set you right."

Of course it wasn't just the hangover that
was making Annie's head pound like a steel drum in the Bahamas: it
was the shock of seeing Sam Butler walk through the door of Annie's
Flowers and onto Claudia's radar screen. Not that you could keep a
newcomer secret in Shelter Rock Cove. Annie knew that was downright
impossible. Still there was something very unnerving about
introducing the man in whose arms you'd slept the night before to
your mother-in-law. It wasn't something most sane women would care
to repeat.

Sweeney, who had been watching Annie
carefully, pushed her bowl aside and leaned across the counter. "So
how long have we known each other?"

"I can't remember ever not knowing you."
Sweeney's colorful dress and language had been part of the
landscape since Annie was a little girl dreaming of a career in the
arts herself.

"Then you know I only want the best for
you."

"Uh-oh." Annie dusted crumbs from her
fingertips then reached for the slender bottle of Tabasco. "That
sounds ominous."

"I went down this road myself after Number
Two died and I know how hard it is to start over again."

"The house will work itself out. I don't know
what Claudia's been telling you about it but –"

"Annie." Sweeney's tone brooked no argument.
"We both know I'm not talking about your new house."

Annie pushed her own soup bowl aside and
fiddled with her paper napkin. "I think you're jumping the
gun."

"Maybe I am," Sweeney conceded, "but I know
what I saw and you can't deny it."

"Really, Sweeney, a relationship is the last
thing I'm interested in right now."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. Between the store and the
new house, when would I have time for anything like that?"

"You might be able to fool yourself but you
don't fool me. I've seen you tap dance away from Dr. Talbot and the
other men who've come calling around here. You didn't do that
today, Annie."