A Soft Place to Fall (Shelter Rock Cove)

by Barbara Bretton

  She found Claudia on the back steps, clipboard in hand, checking their order against what Bangor Blooms had actually delivered. Her brow was furrowed and the girl from Bangor, who was still unloading crates of flowers, didn't look too happy.

  "Sorry I'm late," Annie said as she joined them. Claudia didn't look up. "Did they remember the anthurium?"

  "The anthuriums are here," Claudia said, ripping the top sheet with the force of her checkmark.

  "Good," said Annie, a bit surprised by the vehemence of Claudia's response. "And the ginger blossoms? We ordered –"

  "Done."

  Claudia was obviously annoyed with Annie for being late and was letting her know it in no uncertain terms. She had seen Claudia in one of her moods many times over the years and they always passed as swiftly as they came, leaving only tiny bruises behind. Annie left her mother-in-law to her inventory and pitched in to help the delivery girl finish unloading the crates of flowers.

  "She scares me," the girl whispered to Annie as they both tugged on a huge box of plumeria.

  "She scares everybody," Annie whispered back and the girl tried not to laugh. "She's all bark and no bite, I promise you."

  The girl didn't look convinced and she continued to give Claudia a wide berth which, all things considered, was probably a very wise idea.

  "I hate to bother you when you're so busy," Sweeney said, poking her head out the door, "but we have a small problem inside with a hospital order."

  Claudia looked up from her clipboard. "I'll take it," she said. "Anne seems to have everything in hand out here."

  Annie, who wasn't quite sure if she had been complimented or reprimanded, thanked her. "If it's about the McGowan order, let me know," she said to Claudia's retreating back. "They moved her to intensive care and forgot to tell us to hold up on the arrangement until she's in a private room."

  Twenty minutes later the girl from Bangor was on her way back to the turnpike and Annie was tucking her bags into the storage bin under the order desk when Claudia finally came out with it.

  "I was worried sick about you today, Anne," she said. "When it got to be nine-thirty and you still hadn't shown up, why I –" Her voice quavered and she paused to draw in a breath. "The least you could have done was phone."

  You know I love you, Claudia. Why are we always at loggerheads these days?"I'm so sorry," Annie began, choosing her words with care, "but you know my phone won't be turned on until this afternoon."

  "You could have used your cellular."

  "I don't have a cellular any longer, remember? I cancelled it last spring."

  "I don't know why you'd do such a ridiculous thing. With all the driving you do, you shouldn't be without a phone. It's a dangerous world, Anne, and –"

  "—and cell phones cost an arm and a leg, and it was time for me to cut costs. I explained this to you at the time."

  "Cut costs? The shop is doing splendidly and you must have pocketed a pretty penny from the sale of the house. Surely you can afford a phone."

  "I don't want to talk about this with you, Claudia. I'm sorry if you were worried about me but that won't be a problem once my phone service at home is up and running."

  Claudia's stern expression softened, which made Annie feel more like a rebellious sixteen-year-old kid than ever. A mother's guilt was a powerful thing, even when it was your late husband's mother wielding the sword.

  "I'm a worrier," Claudia said, patting Annie's forearm. "I always was and I always will be. Now that you're in that little house in the back of beyond, you need to be more careful than ever."

  "I met my new neighbor last night," Annie said, wondering about the bag of DeeDee's Donuts near the cash register. She could feel the extra fat cells settling themselves around her hips and thighs just thinking about more donuts.

  Claudia was measuring out lengths of shimmery white satin ribbon. "Susan told me that a New Yorker was moving into Ellie Bancroft's old place." She reached for the shears. "Is he nice?"

  Annie told her about their first meeting in the parking lot of Yankee Shopper.

  Claudia looked up from what she was doing. "I hope he's going to pay to have your interior cleaned."

  "He said he'd take care of it."

  "Good," said Claudia, scissoring her way through the glossy ribbon. "You have to set certain standards with a new neighbor. Let them know where your boundaries are. Otherwise you'll wake up one morning and he'll be sitting on your front porch saying, 'What's for breakfast?' and you'll never get rid of him." Claudia looked at her across the litter of ribbon and wire. "Hall brought over some donuts this morning." She pointed her shears in the general direction of the kitchen. "I put them next to the coffeemaker."

  Donuts as metaphor. Hall was a local. He knew that DeeDee's donuts were serious business around Shelter Rock Cove, at least among townies their age. The thought gave her a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. And now she had a dinner date with him for tomorrow night, all because she was so flustered with Sam Butler's eyes on them that she said yes just to put an end to the discussion. If Hall got the wrong idea she had nobody to blame but herself.

  "Is something wrong?" Claudia asked.

  "No," she said. "Nothing at all."

  They worked in silence for a while until Sweeney drifted back into the front of the store. Sweeney didn't believe in silence. She was always talking or singing or humming along to the radio she kept hidden somewhere in that enormous caftan of hers. Today she was whistling selections from The Sound of Music and Annie was reasonably sure she would be reaching for the earplugs before Sweeney launched into "Edelweiss."

  At a few minutes before one, Annie put down her shears and stretched. "I don't know about you two ladies, but it's my lunchtime. Why don't I go in the back and heat up some soup for us?"

  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 y
ou 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.