Anna Meets Her Match

Reeves leaned a shoulder against the mantle, watching as Hypatia waved farewell to Anna Miranda. He didn’t like what was happening here, didn’t trust Anna Miranda to give this matter the attention and importance that it deserved. In fact, he wouldn’t put it past her to turn this into some huge joke at his aunts’ expense. He still smarted inwardly from that opening salvo, but while she could make cracks about him all she wanted, he would not put up with her wielding her malicious sense of humor against his beloved aunties. He decided to stop in at the print shop and have a private chat with her.

“Lovely. Just lovely,” Odelia said from the settee, snagging his attention. “What color is it, do you think?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Antique gold. Yes, that’s it. Antique gold.” She made a swirling motion around her plump face with the lace hanky. “I wish I could wear mine that short.”

Reeves felt at a loss, but then he often did with Auntie Od. Adding Anna Miranda to the mix hadn’t helped. He walked toward the settee. “What about antique gold?”

The hanky swirled again. “Anna Miranda’s hair. Wouldn’t you say that perfectly describes the color of Anna Miranda’s hair?”

Antique gold. Yes, he supposed that did describe the color of Anna Miranda’s short, lustrous hair. It used to be lighter, he recalled, the brassy color of newly minted gold. She’d worn it cropped at chin length as a girl. Now it seemed darker, richer, as if burnished with age, and the style seemed at once wistful and sophisticated.

Unfortunately, while she’d changed on the outside—in some rather interesting ways, he admitted—she appeared not to have done so on the inside. She seemed to be the same cheeky brat who had tried to make his life one long joke. Reeves’s thoughtful gaze went back to the foyer door, through which Hypatia returned just that instant.

“She’s so very lovely,” Odelia prattled on, “and such a sweet girl, too, no matter what Tansy says.”

“Tansy would do better to say less all around, I think,” Hypatia remarked, “but then we are not to judge.” She lowered herself into her chair once more and smiled up at Reeves. “Honeybees,” she said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

He shrugged. “According to the bee handler, we humans and the true killer bees coming up from the south are driving the poor honeybees out of their natural habitat, so they’re adapting by invading every quiet, sheltered space they can find, including attics, hollow walls, even abandoned cars.”

The sisters traded looks. Odelia said what they were both thinking.

“We should have Chester check out the house.”

“I think, according to what the bee handler told me, the attics here would be too high for them,” Reeves assured her.

“We’ll have Chester check, just to be sure,” Hypatia decided.

A crash sounded from the depths of the great old house, followed by a familiar wail, distant and faint but audible. Reeves sighed. “I’ll start looking for another nanny tomorrow.”

Hypatia smiled sympathetically. “It’s all right, dear. I’m sure we’ll manage until you’re ready to go back to your own home.”

Reeves closed his eyes with relief. Finding another nanny was one difficult, time-consuming chore he would gladly put on the back burner for now. He had enough to contend with. He wondered if he should contact his lawyer about Marissa. Just then Mags trundled into the room, huffing for breath.

“No harm done, but Gilli’s not apt to calm down until you go to her.”

Nodding grimly, Reeves strode from the room and headed for the kitchen. The sobs grew louder with every step, but it was a sound Reeves knew only too well. Not hurt and not frightened, rather they were demanding sobs, willful sobs, angry sobs and as hopeless as any tears could ever be. Deep down, even Gilli knew that he could do nothing. He could not make Marissa love them. He could not mend their broken family.

God help us both, he prayed. But perhaps He already had, honeybees and all.

The sanctuary of Chatam House, along with the wise, loving support of the aunties, was the best thing that had happened to them in more than a year. Pray God that it would be enough to help them, finally, find their way

“Poor Reeves,” Odelia said as his hurried footsteps faded.

“Poor Gilli,” Mags snorted. “That boy is deaf, dumb and blind where she’s concerned, though he means well, I’m sure.”

“Yes, of course,” Hypatia said, her gaze seeing back through the years. “Reeves always means well, but how could he know what to do with Gilli? Children learn by example, and while I love our baby sister, Dorinda hasn’t always done best by her oldest two. And that says nothing of their father.”

“Melinda has done well,” Odelia pointed out, referring to Reeves’s one full sibling. He had five half siblings, including twin sisters and a brother, all younger than him.

“True,” Hypatia acknowledged, “but I wonder if Melinda’s happy marriage hasn’t made Reeves’s divorce more difficult for him. He’s a man of faith, though, and he loves his daughter. He’ll learn to deal with Gilli eventually.”

Mags arched an eyebrow. “What that man needs is someone to help him understand what Gilli’s going through and how to handle her.”

“If anyone can understand Gilli, it’s Anna Miranda,” Odelia gushed.

Hypatia’s eyes widened. “You’re exactly right about that, dear.” She tapped the small cleft in her chin. Everyone in the family had one to some degree, but Hypatia wasn’t thinking of that now. She was thinking of Anna Miranda’s childhood. “I believe,” she said, eyes narrowing, “that Anna Miranda is going to be even more help to us than we’d assumed and in more ways than we’d realized.”

Mags sat up straight, both brows rising. After a moment, she slowly grinned. Odelia, however, frowned in puzzlement.

“Do you think she’ll volunteer for one of the committees?” Odelia asked.

“Oh, I think her talents are best used with the printing,” Hypatia mused. “She’s suggested that the fund-raiser should have its own unique logo, and I concur, but designing it will probably require a good deal of her time. After all, we have to pick just the right design.”

“Exactly the right design,” Magnolia agreed.

“Yes,” Hypatia went on, smiling broadly, “I do think that best suits our needs.”

“Ours,” Magnolia purred suggestively, “and Reeves’s.”

“And Gilli’s!” Odelia added brightly, finally seeing the wisdom of this decision.

Hypatia smiled. How perfect was the timing of God and how mysterious His ways. Honeybees, indeed.

Chapter Two

The back door of the shop had barely closed behind Anna before her boss’s voice assaulted her ear. “Took you long enough!”

Dropping her notebook on the front counter, she turned toward his open office door. “I’ll skip lunch to make up for the time.”

She’d been late to work that morning. It happened all too frequently, despite her best efforts, and Dennis despised tardiness. He rose from behind his desk and stalked around it, his big belly leading the way. Looking down his nose at her, his sandy brown mustache quivered with suppressed anger. Her coworker Howard gave her a pitying shake of his graying head before turning back to his task. Dragging up a smile, Anna faced her employer with more aplomb than she truly felt, but that was the story of her life. She had made an art of putting up the careless, heedless front while inwardly cringing.

“They want a lot of stuff,” she told him cheerfully, “and they’re interested in a special logo, something unique to the fund-raiser. I’ll just draw up some designs and get together some estimates.”

“They better be good,” Dennis warned.

“Of course,” she quipped. “Good is my middle name. Isn’t that why you keep me around?”

“Miranda is your middle name,” he pointed out, shaking his head in confusion.

Howard sent her a chiding look. He was right. Dennis was the most sadly humorless man she’d ever known. All attempts at levity were lost on him.

The chime that signaled the opening of the front door sounded. Smile in place, Anna turned to greet a potential customer, only to freeze. Correction. Dennis was the second most humorless man she’d ever known.

“Well, if it isn’t Reeves Leland.” Twice in an hour’s time. Some day this was turning out to be. She bucked up her smile and tossed off a flippant line. “Playing errand boy for your aunties?”

“Something like that.” Reeves opened the front of his tan wool overcoat, revealing the expensive suit that clearly marked him as executive material.

Howard shook his head and turned away, as if to say she’d blundered again. Anna admired Howard. Despite his thickset build, he appeared fit for a man nearing sixty. He and his wife were devoted to one another and led quiet, settled lives, the sort that Anna could never seem to manage. Her parents had died just months after her birth in a drug-fueled automobile accident, leaving her to the oppressive care of her grandmother. Anna had rebelled early against Tansy’s overbearing control, and at twenty-six, she continued to do so.

“Can I help you?” Dennis asked Reeves, elbowing Anna out of the way as he bellied up to the counter.

Reeves barely glanced at the big, blustery man. “Thank you, no. I need to speak to Anna Miranda. About my aunts and the BCBC fund-raiser.”

Trembling inwardly, Anna pulled out her most professional demeanor. Reeves Leland had come to speak with her, and she couldn’t imagine that was good. Please, God, she prayed silently, don’t let him be here to cancel the order. Dennis would blame her for certain. She waved toward her desk around the corner. Whatever Reeves wanted, it was best dealt with in private.

“Take a seat.”

She tucked her notepad under one arm and followed. Reeves glanced around at the illustrations pinned to the walls, his expression just shy of forbidding. Be still my foolish heart, she thought. But it was no joke. To her disgust, Reeves Leland, with his sinewy strength, cleft chin and dark hair, still had the power to send her pulse racing.

Dropping her notebook on the desk, Anna parked her hands at her waist and cut to the chase. “What’s up?”

Reeves just looked at her before folding himself down onto the thinly padded steel-framed chair beside her utilitarian desk. He made himself comfortable, stretching out his long legs and crossing his ankles. All righty then. She’d play. Pulling out her armless chair, she turned it sideways and sat down, facing him.

“Okay. First guess. You’re going to pay the print costs for the fund-raiser. Sky’s the limit, right? Oh, joy,” she deadpanned, waving her hands. “My job’s secure.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do,” he asked, “secure your job at my aunt’s expense?”

She blinked at that. “Hey. They called us. I didn’t call them.”

Reeves folded his hands over his belt buckle, appearing to relax. “Okay, so maybe you didn’t solicit their business, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a secret agenda.”

“Like what?”

“You tell me.”

Suddenly angry, she snapped her fingers. “I never could pull anything over on you, could I, Stick? After all these years I’ve finally found a way to get you back for not asking me to the homecoming dance.”

Ack! Had she said that out loud? It wasn’t as if she’d ever actually expected him to ask her to the homecoming dance. But she’d hoped. Oh, how she’d hoped. Not that he’d believe it. He smiled thinly and sat forward, one forearm braced against the corner of her desk.

“I’m warning you, Anna Miranda,” he rumbled in a low voice. “You better not make my aunts the object of one of your pranks.”

Pranks? Anna goggled. She hadn’t pulled a prank in years, since high school, at least. She’d been much too busy trying to feed and house herself.

“And to think,” she hissed, “that I was feeling sorry for that crack I made. I heard about your wife, how she took off, and I felt bad about saying women made a habit of leaving you. Now I’m thinking maybe they got it right.”

The color drained from his face. For an instant, raw pain dulled his copper-brown gaze, and once more regret slammed her. “Reeves, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“My aunts,” he said in a strangled voice, climbing to his feet. “I’m watching you, Anna Miranda Burdett. If you hurt or disappoint them…” Shaking his head, he started to turn away.

Desperate to convince him of her sincere regret, she reached for his arm. They jerked apart as if zapped by electricity.

“Never,” she vowed, gazing up at him repentantly, her tingling hand clenched at her side. “I would never hurt your aunts. They’ve always been kind to me. I have the greatest respect for them, and I’ll give them my very best work. You have my word.”

“I haven’t always found your word trustworthy,” he reminded her quietly, “like the day you swore you hadn’t seen my keys.”

Anna flushed. “Oh, that.”

What was it with men and their precious cars? She’d been fourteen, for pity’s sake, just a kid caught in the throes of an unrequited crush. She wasn’t about to apologize for something that had happened twelve years ago.

Reeves nodded sharply. “Yeah, that.” After staring at her for several seconds, he whirled and strode away.

Anna slumped against her chair, feeling more alone than usual, though why that should be the case, she couldn’t say. She’d always been alone, after all. Obviously, that was how God intended her to be. But at least she could show Reeves Leland that he was wrong about some things. She did have talent, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

As she’d promised Reeves, she would give the Chatams her very best effort, if for no other reason than to secure her job. She’d only been here a few months. After a long string of pointless, temporary positions, she’d finally found work that she enjoyed, even if the boss was difficult. She would hate to lose that, especially since her grandmother expected her to. Also because she had to pay the rent.

The tiny one-bedroom apartment where she had lived since the age of eighteen in no way compared to the two-story, gingerbread-Victorian house where she had grown up, but Anna would crawl across glass on a daily basis to keep from moving back in with Tansy. She would do worse, she realized suddenly, to raise Reeves Leland’s poor opinion of her, and that’s exactly what she feared she would do. Worse.

Nevertheless, for the remainder of the week, she concentrated on showing up for work early and giving the BCBC job her best. She contacted the university and got permission to incorporate their insignia into her designs, then she experimented with fonts, illustrations and document styles until she had a handful of satisfactory possibilities to offer for consideration, along with detailed estimates for those items already discussed. She was ready by midmorning on the following Monday to meet with Reeve’s aunts once again. Dennis elected to make the call informing them of that. Afterward, he told her that she had a four o’ clock appointment at Chatam House. She blinked as Dennis shook a finger in her face.

“And don’t think you’re going to cut out at five o’clock, either. You stay until those old ladies are satisfied, or I’ll wash my hands of you!”

“Be easier to wash me out of your hair,” Anna quipped, eyeing the thin strands covering his poor crown. The instant the words were out, she wished them back. Dennis literally snarled at her until she muttered, “Sorry. Won’t let you down. Promise.”

Dennis turned away, leaving Anna to ponder whether Reeves would be there or if he would, as in years past, go out of his way to avoid her. He’d said he would be watching, but she didn’t take that literally, especially as he’d shown such a marked disdain for her company. It shouldn’t have bothered her so much—she had made a career, after all, of earning disapproval, especially that of her grandmother—but Reeves Leland’s attitude had always wounded her. Only when she was tweaking that handsome, aristocratic nose of his had he deigned to look her way. Even then, he had only seen “the brat.” Apparently that was all he saw now, too.

What hurt most was that he had always seemed unfailingly polite and kind to everyone else. Indeed, Reeves Leland had a reputation for being a fine Christian man, which was why the town had been so shocked when his wife had left him.

Pushing him out of mind, she concentrated instead on getting through the day. Howard, the dear, made sure that she got away from the office in plenty of time for her appointment. In fact, when she pulled up in front of Chatam House the dashboard clock of her old car told her that she had nearly ten minutes to spare.

Gathering her materials, she stepped out into the cold February air, tucking her chin into the rainbow-striped muffler wound about her throat inside the collar of her bright orange corduroy coat. The instant she straightened a whirling dervish came out of nowhere and knocked her on her behind. Anna instinctively put out a hand and grabbed hold. Simultaneously Carol Petty, one of the Chatams’ household staff, huffed into view, her dark slacks and bulky sweater dusted with white powder, her light brown hair slipping free of the clasp at her nape. While Carol gasped for breath, the little tornado who had knocked Anna down screeched.

“Gilli Leland, stop it!” Carol scolded, stomping forward across the deep gravel to take hold of the girl. “You are going to have a bath, and that’s that.”

Anna hauled herself to her feet and picked up her portfolio, thankful she’d had the foresight to zip it closed as that was not always the case. Dusting off her jeans, she turned to take in the girl who had flattened her.

So this was Reeves Leland’s daughter. Pretty little thing, with all that curly hair, provided one disregarded the wailing and white powder. What was that stuff covering her anyway? Talcum? Chancing a sniff, Anna leaned forward, only to draw back in surprise. The kid had coated herself in flour. Hopefully, no one planned to pan fry her, though given Carol’s exasperation, Anna wouldn’t have been surprised.

“I wanna make cookies!” the girl sobbed.

“Hilda is saving the cookies until you get cleaned up,” Carol told the distraught child. She cast an apologetic look at Anna. “I’m sorry, Miss Burdett. A mishap in the kitchen. The misses are expecting you.”

“Uh-huh, and Mr. Leland?” Anna glanced around, expecting Reeves to arrive at any moment to take his wayward offspring in hand.

Carol shook her head. “He’s not in from work yet.” Glancing at Gilli, she muttered, “Works too much, if you ask me.”

“Hmm. Well. I’ll, uh, just ring the bell, I guess.”

“If you don’t mind,” Carol said, dragging Gilli back the way they had come.

Gilli stopped howling long enough to glance back at Anna, who impulsively stuck out her tongue and crossed her eyes. Gilli first looked surprised, but then she giggled, causing Carol to pause and look down at her. Grinning, Anna climbed the shallow brick steps and rang the bell. Odelia let her in, swinging black onyx chandeliers from her earlobes and chattering gaily about how excited they all were to see her designs.

Excited they might have been, but see her designs they did not. Neither were they interested in her estimates. Instead, Hypatia presented her with a “more complete list,” of the items they would be needing: place cards, menu cards, table assignment cards, letterheads, donation forms, receipts, a spiral-bound auction catalog, name tags, item tags, signs…The list seemed endless.

While Anna tried to take in the expanding size of the order, the sisters chatted about their various ideas for the final logo design, all three at the same time. Anna mentally tossed everything she’d done to this point and quickly jotted down ideas as the sisters shot them to her. At one point she put her hand to her hair, just trying to take it all in. Hypatia reached over then to lay her manicured hand on Anna’s shoulder.

“How would it be,” Hypatia asked, “if you worked up designs for each of us?”

“Using your individual ideas, you mean?” Anna raised a mental eyebrow at Miss Magnolia’s “nature” theme, Miss Odelia’s “lace and satin” and Miss Hypatia’s “biblical” motif. “I can do that.” Along with a new idea of her own, she decided, suddenly picturing the fluted, Roman Doric columns of Chatam House topped with an elegant swag of flowers intertwined with the BCBC emblem, which itself contained a Bible.

“You just let us know when you’re ready to meet again,” Mags said. “We’ll have the teapot simmering.”

“That’s very nice of you,” Anna returned, a thought occurring. “So you’ll be wanting me to continue coming here?”

“Is there a problem with that?” Hypatia asked.

“No, no. Not so far as I’m concerned. Dennis may not always go for it, though.”

Hypatia just smiled. “Oh, he seems perfectly willing to indulge three old ladies who like their creature comforts too well.”

Anna laughed. “Well, I certainly can’t argue that the print shop compares in any way to Chatam House.”

“What does?” a smooth male voiced asked.

Anna looked up as Reeves strolled into the room, dispensing kisses and smiles on everyone but her. At last, he turned a cool nod in her direction. “Anna Miranda.”

Anna grit her teeth. She hated her full name. Hated it. Sometimes the chants of children’s voices rang in her dreams. Anna Miranda the brat. Anna Miranda the brat…

She couldn’t blame them really. They’d had parents and siblings, and she had resented that fact greatly. Of course, as children do, they had picked up on her envy. Accordingly, they had sneered, and she had made their lives miserable in every way she could imagine. Eventually she’d learned to channel her animosity into jokes, earning herself a few friends and the designation of class clown. Reeves had never thought her the least bit funny, though. She faced him and returned his greeting in kind.

“Reeves Kyle.”

He lifted an eyebrow before turning his back on her. “More printing?” he asked his aunts.

Anna bit her tongue, literally.

While the aunts gushed about everything they had discussed, Anna secured her notes, reminding herself that this was business between her and the Chatam sisters. Reeves’s opinion did not matter, and she had been foolish to think for a moment that it did. Or that it might ever change.

“Aunt Hypatia,” Reeves asked, having listened carefully for some minutes, “are you certain that this printer is the right one for the job?”

He’d thought about it a lot. Actually, to be completely honest with himself, he’d thought about Anna Miranda, almost constantly. For some reason, he couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. He kept picturing her contrite face as she’d made her apology last week, and somehow he now felt in the wrong.

She’d always done that to him. She made his life miserable and one way or another he always felt to blame. How did she do that, and why did she have to turn up again after all these years? What was God trying to tell him? That his life could be worse? That was exactly what he was trying to avoid and not just for himself. Having seen the print shop and knowing his aunts’ expansive plans, Reeves truly felt that they would be better off taking their business elsewhere. Yet, because of one thing or another—primarily the complaining e-mails he’d been receiving daily from Marissa—he’d put off making the argument until now.

Hypatia smiled her serene smile, the one that could make a troubled ten-year-old feel that all might actually one day be right with his world, and answered him. “Absolutely certain. Why do you ask, dear?”

Why? Because he didn’t trust Anna Miranda. No matter what she said, there would surely be a shocking message buried in a letterhead or something else inappropriate. His aunts had always defended her, however, telling him that he didn’t understand her situation. The opposite seemed true to him. At least she hadn’t shuttled back and forth between her warring parents throughout her childhood as he had, never quite belonging either place. Maybe her grandmother, Tansy, was a bit difficult and not the warmest person, but at least she’d provided Anna Miranda with a stable home.