A Woman Like Annie

She gave him a look of disagreement, then pressed her lips together as if deciding this wasn’t the time to argue. She reached for the cover draped across the closest chair and yanked it off, sending up a puff of dust. “Give me a couple hours, and I’ll have this place looking livable,” she said, tugging at the sheet on the couch. “If you’d have let me know you were coming, I’d already have it done.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’m only staying a couple nights, Es. That’s all.”

Essie didn’t say anything for several moments, the sheet in her hands slumping to the floor. “You’re really going through with it then? Selling the factory.”

“It’s for the best.”

“For who?” she asked quietly. “Surely, not this town.”

“Essie—”

She raised a hand and cut him off. “I know you think you have your reasons, Jack. And Lord knows at the time, I had a hard time understanding why your father did what he did. But sometimes, you’ve got to step a little closer for the picture to come into focus.”

“Dad left the business to Daphne when he died. I think that made his feelings pretty clear. If he had wanted me to have it, he would have left it to me. Anyway, I didn’t come back to rehash the past,” he said, the words coming out harsher than he’d intended. Meeting the older woman’s sorrowful gaze, he immediately regretted his abruptness.

“Then why did you come back? You could have sold off this place and that business without ever setting foot in this house.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered, his tone softening, honest in this, at least. He’d never been able to lie to Essie. Even at eight when he’d raided the kitchen cookie jar before dinner and had the worst stomachache of his life, he’d owned up.

“Could I ask one thing of you then, son? Don’t leave again until you can answer that question for me.”

CHAPTER THREE

ON THE OTHER end of the country, J. D. McCabe had spent the better part of the day stewing. Stretched out now on a lounge chair by the swimming pool in his backyard, he muttered a few curses at the fairer gender’s inability to see reason.

Dadblame Annie’s hide. What in the world had happened to the moldable woman he’d married? There had been a time when he could snap his fingers, and she’d practically run to meet whatever need he needed met.

She was still mad at him for running off with Cassie, that much he knew. But damn it all to hell, two divorced adults ought to be able to work things out in a dignified manner. He wanted to see his son, and she was bending over backward to make sure that didn’t happen. He was no dummy. Women had an unbelievable need for revenge when they considered themselves mistreated, and Annie had decided to use their son as her weapon of choice.

Why couldn’t she just get over it?

He flipped onto his stomach, reached for the Bloody Mary Cassie had brought out to him a few minutes ago and took a long sip. The generous portion of alcohol she had added to his tomato juice burned a gulch down his throat and lit a simultaneous fire under his already well-stoked indignation. He wasn’t going to stand for Annie being so selfish. He had rights. Not to mention he was a celebrity with five commercials running on network TV.

And Tommy was his son. With his genes. His potential to be a great ball player some day.

But not if she brought him up believing ballet was just as admirable as baseball if that was a person’s chosen passion.

Let him decide if that’s what he wants for himself, J.D.

Wrong! On some things, a child had to be pointed in a certain direction, shoved along a little, if necessary. How the heck was a six-year-old supposed to know what he wanted to do with his life? If J.D. wasn’t mistaken, the boy was going to have his daddy’s arm. And if Tommy was told he was going to be a great baseball player like his dad, then odds were he would be.

But Annie was so convinced she was right not to push the boy. In his opinion, this was just one more way for her to pay him back. By denying him the chance to see his own talent reflected back in his son.

Who did she think she was? She’d been nothing more than a starry-eyed teenager when he’d met her in Atlanta. He’d given her a life most girls would have run barefoot across nails for a chance at. But of course Annie had never appreciated it. Had always looked at the few negatives of his career. She’d hated the traveling, the moving around. Why had she never seen the excitement in it? Exposure to new things, new people. J.D. thrived on that. And Annie’s inability to bend even one iota had been the true cause of the end of their marriage. She could be mad at him until the sun turned blue, but the way he saw it, she was the one at fault for their splitting up, anyway.

And now she wanted to keep him from seeing Tommy.

He let that simmer for a while. Sweat began to bead on his nose, causing his four-hundred-dollar sunglasses to slip. He shoved them back in place.

The problem with Annie was that she’d developed way too big an opinion of herself. Ever since she’d stepped into his shoes as mayor of Macon’s Point—his own term as mayor had been little more than an amused diversion while he tried to figure out how to accept that he was never going to play pro baseball again—she’d gotten just a little too big for her britches. She actually thought she was going to make a difference in that podunk town. How much difference did she think she was going to make in a place that was never going to be anything special?

“Are you still fretting over that phone call, honeybee?”

J.D. looked up. Cassie stood at the sliding glass door of their Tuscan contemporary house, peering at him over the rim of her four-hundred-dollar sunglasses, identical to his. Why was it that she wanted them to have matching everything?

She was twenty-two to his thirty-five. That explained a lot of it. Youth left a few blanks for maturity to fill in later on. Profound, J.D. He should write that one down in case he got around to penning his memoirs one day.

Cassie’s adoration was kind of cute, but if he wasn’t careful she’d have him parading around L.A. in matching I’m Hers, I’m His T-shirts.

If her youth allowed for a few semi-irritating quirks, it made up for it in other ways. He sent a glance over the strings holding her bikini together in three strategic locations. She had the kind of sex drive that required his presence twice a day. She was damn near about to wear him out. Which was fairly laughable, considering his complaints about the desert-dry sex life he’d had with Annie.

“I’m not fretting,” he said, planting his forehead on the chair and staring at the terra-cotta tile beneath.

She click-clacked across the pool deck and squatted down beside him, one hand lacing through his hair. “You are.”

“I’m not.”

She sighed. “Why don’t you just go get him, J.D.? I wouldn’t mind having the little sweetkins live here with us. We could hire a nanny. Maybe one from South America. I hear that’s all the rage with the better families.”

“The courts always rule in favor of the mother on custody, Cass.”

She raised an eyebrow and sent him a silly-boy look. “But that’s with regular people. You’re J. D. McCabe.”

A grin broke through his gloom. Cassie might be young, but sometimes she did have a point.

THE DOORBELL RANG at two minutes past six-thirty on Sunday morning.

Clarice. Annie knew it before she pulled back the living-room curtain and saw her sister’s green Explorer parked in the driveway. She went to the door in her worn white bathrobe (the one J.D. had called asexual, and she’d therefore kept just as a matter of principle). She opened the door with her hair still sticking out from where she’d slept on it—more like tossed on it—and mascara smudged under her eyes.

“Lovely,” came Clarice’s raised eyebrow assessment.

“It’s still dark outside. Not everyone falls out of bed looking like they’re ready for Star Search.”

Clarice chuckled and sauntered past her, holding up two cups of Krispy Kreme coffee and a paper bag emitting the aroma of glazed doughnuts, her standard offering whenever she showed up on Annie’s doorstep at an hour most people would throttle her for. Looking great, of course. Shoulder-length blond hair just tousled enough that it was hard to tell if she’d come straight from bed or a very expensive hairdresser.

People used words like striking to describe Clarice. Clothes looked great on her—all clothes. At thirty-four, Clarice could pull off even the kind that should normally be reserved for twenty and under. If she weren’t her sister, Annie could have seriously hated her.

She followed Clarice into the kitchen, wiping a hand over eyes that still felt gritty from lack of sleep.

“So, what? I have to hear from the local grapevine that you were at Walker’s last night with the infamous Jack Corbin?”

“I was going to call you this morning.”

“You could have called me before.”

“So you could have one of your star reporters conveniently located at the next table over? Don’t think so.”

“Would I ever—”

“Yes.”

Clarice laughed, making herself at home on one of the bar stools tucked under the island in the center of Annie’s kitchen. “So how’d it go? Have you saved the town yet?”

Annie went to the sink, turned on the faucet and stuck the plate on which Tommy’s birthday cake had once perched under the running water. “I’m glad you can see the humor in it. I haven’t managed to locate any yet. Because I’m the last person who should be trying to convince Jack Corbin of anything.”

Clarice bit into her doughnut, and in a less-than-Clarice-like moment of bad manners, said around a mouthful, “Tell me what you said. What he said.”

“I said please. And he said no.”

“Annniiieee. The long version if you will.”

“He drives a Porsche.”

“Hmm.” With interest. “What’s he look like?”

“Like a guy who drives a Porsche.”

“Hmmmm.” More interest.

“Clar, you’re so deep.”

“It’s one of my good points.” Clarice smiled. “So really. Could you be a little more specific?”

“I don’t know. Good-looking.”

“A detail or two would be appreciated.”

“Dark-brown hair. Nice eyes.”

“Fit or soft?”

“Fit.”

“Like a runner or a weight lifter?”

“In between.”

“Any rings?”

“Didn’t notice.”

“Did, too.”

“Okay, no.”

“Hah. So he was good-looking enough for you to look at his ring finger.”

Annie rolled her eyes and pulled the doughnut Clarice had brought her out of the bag, taking a bite before elaborating. “Jack Corbin doesn’t need that factory or this town. He’s made up his mind. It’s not much more complicated than that.”

“Did you explain how half the town is going to be out of work if he dumps that company?” Clarice’s pretty face drew inward with a frown, her doughnut acting as a pointer for accentuation. “How people have mortgages, and car payments and medical bills—” She broke off there, breathless with indignation. This was Clarice the editor talking, the Star Search beauty contestant having left the room. This was a woman who would gladly run a four-page expose on every awful thing the man had ever done (provided she could dig it up) if it meant convincing him to reverse his decision.

“I did, Clarice. Specifics, examples, every solid argument I could manage to think of in front of a man eating a stack of pancakes.”

“A what?” Clarice’s frown lowered a watt or two.

“Pancakes. He ordered pancakes to keep Tommy from having a tantrum.”

Clarice pondered that for a moment, then said, “That’s odd.”

“You mean in keeping with the monster everyone’s made him out to be?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but it’s true,” Annie said, leaving half her doughnut in the wake of the realization that she’d have to walk into town and back to work off even half those fat grams. She took a sip of her still-hot coffee, adding, “He doesn’t have a life here anymore. I can’t really blame him for not holding on to the company.”

“Yeah, but to dump it at auction, just sell it off piece by piece. That’s not right. He could at least wait for a buyer. Then people wouldn’t have to lose their jobs.”

Ever since she’d left the diner last night, Annie had been unable to shake the sense of failure hanging over her. Yes, she knew how important this was to the town of Macon’s Point. She knew how much hardship the company’s closing would create. And she felt terrible about it. But the fact was that she, by educational credentials, was barely qualified to work at the Star-Vue Drive-in roller-skating burgers between car windows. She’d finished high school by GED after running off and marrying J.D. at eighteen. She knew a lot about baseball travel schedules, shoulder injuries and fastballs. But not a darn thing about how to save a dying town. “I feel like I’ve let everybody down, Clar.”

Clarice looked up, eyes snapping. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it isn’t. I got asked to finish out J.D.’s term because people felt sorry for me. I’ve never had any illusions that I was qualified for the job, but I wanted to prove that they weren’t wrong to offer it to me.”

“They weren’t wrong.”

Annie sighed and took a last sip of her coffee. “Well, after Corbin Manufacturing closes, Macon’s Point won’t be big enough to need a mayor.”

“Aunt Clarice!”

Clarice swung her bar stool around. “Well, hey, sleepyhead, it’s about time you got up.”

Tommy catapulted into Clarice’s arms, nearly sending her over backward on the bar stool. “I didn’t know you were here!”

“I came over for an early visit,” she said, ruffling his blond hair, which was exactly the same color as hers. “Brought you a doughnut, too,” she said, reaching for the bag.

“What kind?”

“Whole wheat,” she said, dead serious.

“Yukkkk,” Tommy said, making a face.

Clarice laughed. “You know what kind I got you. Blueberry filled, of course.”

Tommy grinned. Had it been for anyone other than Clarice, Annie might have been hurt that her son hadn’t even noticed she was in the room yet. Tommy adored Clarice. It was mutual. And she couldn’t blame him. Clarice doted on her nephew, made him feel special.

“Mama, can I watch a video?”

“Sure, honey.”

Tommy took his doughnut and headed for the living room.

“I can’t believe I actually thought I could turn this situation around, Clarice. Why did I ever take on this job, anyway?”

“Because you care about this town, and it needs somebody who cares about it.” She resumed her position on the bar stool. “So. Here’s an idea.”

Annie recognized the tone in her sister’s voice. Failure did not exist in Clarice’s vocabulary. Never had. Never would. “What?” Knowing even as she asked the question that she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Let’s go out to see him this morning. Together. I’ll go as editor of the county newspaper. You as town mayor. We’ll state our case for letting another company buy him out. See if we can get him to at least agree to consider it.”

“Oh, Clarice, I don’t think—”

“But you don’t know. And how can we not at least give it a shot?”

She was right. Annie knew it and couldn’t deny it with any real conviction. It was the kind of thing Clarice had always been able to do. Put herself on the line. But then it almost always worked out in her favor. Maybe it would this time as well. In all likelihood, she should have been the one to talk to him in the first place. “You don’t think he’ll have us thrown off his property?” she asked, half kidding, half not.

“Two babes like us?” Clarice tossed her Star Search hair. “I don’t think so.”

“A MAN COULD get used to living this way.”

Essie stood in front of the gas-top Viking range, flipping strips of bacon with a long-handle fork. “You move yourself back in this house, Jack Corbin, and I’ll see to it that you do get used to it.”

Jack smiled. Lord, he’d missed this woman. Hadn’t realized how much until this morning when he’d followed his nose down to the kitchen where she had a pot of the best coffee he’d ever tasted going. Essie’s view of the world was one he wished he could bottle and sell. Her face stamped with wrinkles, it was Essie who had long ago taught him the value of a smile. That it opened doors. Made people feel welcome.

Damn shame, then, that he hadn’t been able to summon up one last night when Annie McCabe had thanked him in her cool, composed voice, taken her son’s hand and left Walker’s with an admirable, but unsuccessful, attempt to hide her disappointment. He’d woken up this morning to the nagging feeling that he wanted her to know it wasn’t personal. That it had nothing to do with her, but everything to do with him and the fact that he had no intention of cleaning up the mess Daphne had managed to make of his father’s business.

He was sure he looked like a monster to her.

And it bothered him.

Movement just past the window caught his eye. Sam, one of the Percherons, stood at the board fence at the edge of the yard, using a post top to reach an itch under his jaw. In the daylight, Jack could see that gray hair had long since threaded its way through the horse’s mane, but there was still a dignity to him that made Jack remember how proud his father had been of the team. As proud of those horses as he’d been of the business he’d built from the ground up. A wave of sadness hit him for the fact that they would not live out the rest of their lives here, and for the imminent demise of the furniture business his father had put his life into.

But Jack wasn’t responsible for the collapse of the company. Only the decision to let it go. And it was the right decision.

He thought about Annie and the disappointment in her eyes. It was the right decision.

Essie set a plate in front of him, covered with enough bacon, eggs and homemade biscuits to feed a family of four. “That’s the best-looking meal I’ve seen in ages,” Jack said, turning off the laptop he’d used to download the file Pete had sent him last night. “Aren’t you eating, Es?”

“Already did,” she said, dropping a frying pan in the sink and reaching for a scrub brush. “You go ahead. Enjoy.”

He’d just polished off the last of his bacon when he heard himself asking, “Do you know Annie McCabe, Essie?”

“Everybody knows Annie,” Essie said, taking a dish towel to the frying pan she’d just finished scrubbing.

“I met her last night. Seems like a nice woman.”

“Maybe too nice. Got herself lassoed into finishing out her ex-husband’s term as mayor. Far as I’m concerned, she’s done a much better job at it than he ever would have, too. How a man could leave a wife and son like that to run off with some young thing he hadn’t known more than a few days—” Essie broke off there, shaking her head. “I don’t understand people anymore. Commitments just don’t mean what they used to.”

On that Jack had to agree. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago. And yet he’d somehow managed to live his own life as a perfect example of a man unable to commit.

Jack was still thinking about that thirty minutes later over another cup of coffee and the rest of the morning paper. Essie had gone off to do an errand in town. The doorbell rang and he went to answer it.

Annie McCabe stood on his front porch, looking as though she’d rather be anywhere else in the world. Another woman stood next to her, her body language making it clear she was the one who’d brought them here.

“I’m sorry to come by so early,” Annie said. “This is—”

“Hi, I’m Clarice Atkins,” the other woman interrupted, sticking out a hand. “Annie’s sister and editor of the county newspaper. Is there any way we could take up a little of your time this morning?”

Never would have guessed the sisters part. The two women bore no physical resemblance whatsoever. Not even in the way they carried themselves. The world had never said no to the sister.

“Come in,” he said, stepping aside and waving them past him. “How about some coffee?”

“We’ve had our quota, but thank you,” Clarice said. “What a beautiful house. I’ve admired it so many times from the road.”

“Thanks.” He pointed them toward the kitchen, followed behind, noticing some details of the two: Annie was three or four inches taller, had full, shoulder-length hair, a sort of sun-dappled blond. Clarice’s hair hung mid-back, the color more along the lines of Marilyn Monroe. Most interesting, still, the body language. Annie, looking as if she’d been dragged here. Clarice, pretty sure she was going to get what she came for.

In the kitchen, they stood for a moment, he not exactly sure what was expected of him.

“Lovely view,” Clarice said, looking out the big kitchen window where Sam was still hanging out by the fence. “What kind of horses?”

“Percherons. They were my father’s. Retired now.”

“My, they’re big. Like the ones in the beer commercial?”

“Those are Clydesdales, aren’t they?” This from Annie.

Jack nodded.

“They’re beautiful,” Annie said. “Did your father drive them?”

“Four in hand. He had two more at one time.”

“I bet that was something to see.”

“It was,” Jack said, surprised by the long-tamped-down pride for his father that rose up to color the admission.

He looked at Annie, and their gazes held in a moment of something he would have been hard-pressed to put a label on. Surprised him with the vague regret that he had not met her under circumstances where he wasn’t set up to play the role of bad guy.

“I—we wanted to invite you to a picnic,” Annie said, no longer looking directly at him. “Tuesday afternoon at the factory. Kind of a farewell thing the employees are having. Everyone’s bringing a dish.”

He remembered then that he had liked her voice last night. Soft blurs on the end of certain words giving away the fact that she’d spent a good part of her life in the South.

He folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the kitchen counter, and put that realization back in the drawer labeled inappropriate where it belonged. “Seems like I’d be the last person they’d want there.”

“Seems that way,” she agreed. “But they might surprise you. And it would give you a chance to put faces to the process.”

That last part was thrown out as a challenge. He’d expected the sister to be the one coming at him with a few sharp knives, but so far she was letting Annie do the job. He didn’t miss the underlying accusation. If you’re going to take away the livelihood of all those people, you could at least know who they are.

And he wouldn’t back down. She was right. He had no problem standing behind his decision, especially in front of the people who worked at Corbin Manufacturing. This was a business decision, and as far as they were concerned, nothing personal about it.

“When does it start?”

“Five-thirty.” Clarice now. “We could swing by and pick you up if you like.”

Surprise flickered across Annie’s face and then disappeared behind a veil of casual agreement. She would not have issued that invitation, Jack knew. “Thanks, but I’ve got my car,” he said, sparing her.

Her relief was visible, and he found himself vaguely unsettled by the realization that Annie didn’t care to spend any more time with him than she had to.

“Okay, then,” she said, in a let’s-go-now tone of voice. “We’ll look for you on Tuesday.”

“What should I bring?”

“Just yourself would be fine,” Clarice said, the surface of the reply nothing more than a polite answer, but if Jack wasn’t mistaken, there was subtle flirtatiousness beneath.

“Whatever you’d like,” Annie said, a strait-laced reply that made her sister’s stand out in stark contrast.

“I’ll see what I can rustle up.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I. WANT. HIM.”

Clarice made her dazed declaration with Glenn Hall still framed in the rearview mirror of Annie’s Tahoe.