A Soft Place to Fall

by Barbara Bretton

  Annie's spirits plummeted. That would only fuel Briscoe's set-up theory. Warren handed the phone to Briscoe, who listened, said little, then hung up.

  "We may need to speak with you again tomorrow," Briscoe said to Annie. "Where can I find you?"

  She gave him the address and phone number for Annie's Flowers.

  "We'll be in touch," said Briscoe. "Remember: the public story will be that Mr. Butler was arrested. It's in his best interest and yours that you stick with that."

  #

  The news of Sam's arrest spread from one end of Shelter Rock Cove to the other at the speed of light. By the time she got home, everyone in town knew that Annie Galloway's boyfriend had been seen being taken away in handcuffs. Nobody knew where he had been taken, or by whom for that matter, but that didn't stop the gossip. Ceil from Yankee Shopper said her brother-in-law Stan had seen them boarding a private plane at the landing strip north of town but everyone knew Stan had a deeply personal relationship with Jack Daniel's and couldn't be counted on for accurate reportage.

  Still, the bare bones of the story stayed the same no matter who did the telling. Poor Annie had picked herself a real loser. Oh, the sex was probably great – did you see the way they looked at each other and in public no less– but what good was great sex if the guy was behind bars? Maybe next time she would use her head and not her hormones and pick a man like that nice Hall Talbot. Everyone in town knew he'd been carrying a torch for her since high school. Wouldn't it be grand to see her with someone who had grown up in town same as she had?

  Warren, who was a world-class worrier, drove home behind her to make sure she was okay. She invited him in for a cup of coffee and so he could satisfy himself that no bad guys were hiding in her closet or under the sleigh bed.

  She played back her phone messages then deleted most of them. Sweeney sounded genuinely concerned. Susan sounded shocked. Hall sounded almost guilty. "I'm sorry about this. It's all my fault," he said. "Call me." Too ridiculous to even think about.

  She poured Warren a cup of coffee and they sat down at the kitchen table to compare notes.

  "You've known Sam a long time," Annie said. There was no point to beating around the bush. "Is there something you're not telling me? Some deep dark secret, maybe, that –"

  "He's not like Kevin, honey."

  Her head snapped back in surprise.

  "Didn't mean to throw you a curveball but we don't have time to mince words."

  "You knew about Kevin and his . . . " She couldn't get the word out. She had spent too many years keeping his secrets from the people who knew and loved him so they could go on loving him.

  "Gambling," Warren said. "He asked me for money not long before he died."

  "And you gave it to him?"

  "No." Warren looked sadder than she had ever seen him and his sadness served as a balm to her aching heart. "I tried to help him work his way out of it, I volunteered to go with him to Gamblers Anonymous." He dragged a gnarled hand through his still-thick white hair. "I was afraid to give him the money. I figured he'd gamble it away before the ink was dry on the check."

  "You're right," she said. "That's exactly what would have happened."

  "I didn't want to embarrass you," he said. "I know the way you guarded your privacy. You protected Kevin's reputation with your own."

  "I was wrong," she said. "I should have shouted it from the rooftops and forced him to get help."

  "You did what your heart told you to do. Can't ask more than that of a person."

  "You knew why I had to sell the house."

  "Ay-up," said Warren. "I knew."

  "And you lowered the price on this one to help me out."

  He scowled but the twinkle in his eyes gave him away. "This dump? I was lucky anyone wanted it."

  "I love this place," she said, then reached for his hand. "Almost as much as I love you."

  They went over the afternoon's events again from beginning to end but still came up empty-handed. Warren whipped out his cell phone and made a few calls to his attorneys and a private investigator who kept track of comings and goings in the area. "I want every scrap you can dig up on who these guys were and where they were headed," he ordered, "and I want it yesterday."

  "Yesterday?" Annie arched a brow. "You've been watching too much TV, Warren."

  "If you don't tell them yesterday, you'll get it a week from tomorrow," Warren said. "Now let's start again from the beginning."

  Annie had just begun to run through the sequence of events when they heard Claudia's footsteps coming up the walk.

  Warren shook his head. "I don't know how such a little woman can make so much noise."

  Annie glanced around the room as if she were looking for an escape hatch. "I'm not up for this," she said. "I can't face a round of I-told-you-sos from Claudia."

  "I'll keep her in line," Warren said. "Any nonsense from her and I'll boot her narrow butt out the door."

  Claudia knocked politely, waited a half second, then said, "I know you're in there. I'll camp out here all night if I have to."

  Warren rolled his eyes as Annie got up to open the door for her mother-in-law.

  "How are you?" Claudia cupped Annie's face in her hands and inspected her for signs of wear. "You look exhausted."

  "I'm okay," Annie said, "all things considered." She motioned for Claudia to join them at the tiny kitchen table.

  "I should've known I'd find you here." Claudia fixed Warren with a stern look. "Sticking your nose where you don't belong."

  "Put a sock in it, old woman," he said. "If you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say anything."

  "I'm here for Anne." Claudia claimed the rocking chair Annie had pulled over to the table. "And I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head."

  "If you two don't –" The room started to spin and Annie grabbed the back of the rocker for support.

  "Good God Almighty!" Warren was on his feet in an instant. He put an arm around her waist and sat her down in his chair. "The girl's about to faint."

  Claudia leaped to her feet and pushed Warren out of the way. She bent down and peered into Annie's eyes. "When did you last eat?"

  "I – I don't know."

  "Make yourself useful," Claudia snapped at Warren, "and get her some crackers and a glass of milk." She waited until Warren hurried away then looked again into Annie's eyes. "Your doctor visit this afternoon," she said in a much softer tone. "It went well?"

  Their history together filled the room. Playing in the Galloways' big backyard when she was a little girl. Helping Claudia carry out the giant pitchers of cold lemonade. Learning how to make blueberry jam from her new mother-in-law. Sharing her grief with the one person who loved Kevin as much as she had. Working side by side with the strongest woman she had ever known. It was all there in the room with them, every year, every minute of it.

  Annie nodded her head. "It went well," she whispered. "Very well."

  #

  It only hurt for a moment. One exquisite, blinding moment of pain so intense that Claudia thought she might die from it. All those years of trying, the monthly heartbreak that Annie and Kevin had tried to hide, and now this miracle. Annie, her beloved Annie, was going to finally have her baby and the last link remaining between them would be broken.

  Life went on, no matter how hard you tried to stop it in its tracks. Love bloomed where you least expected it and that was part of what made life such a wonder to behold. Claudia didn't have to understand Annie's need to build a new life of her own; all she had to do was find it in her heart to send her on her way.

  It was the hardest thing she had ever been asked to do and in some ways the easiest.

  Claudia took Annie's hands in hers and squeezed them tightly. "A baby," she whispered, her voice cracking ever so slightly. "God's finest miracle."

  Annie managed a small laugh. "Definitely a miracle. I'm thirty-eight, Claude. I'm looking at fertility's last outpost."

  She looked into Annie's lovely blue eyes a
nd wished she could erase the years of fear and loneliness. How blind she had been to the younger woman's pain. How devoted to polishing Kevin's tarnished halo in the eyes of a town that knew better. It all seemed such a tragic waste in the face of the new life inside Annie's belly.

  "I was going to tell Sam this afternoon," Annie said. "I know you don't like him but –"

  "I was wrong." The words hurt less than she would have imagined. She should have said them a long time ago. She should have said so many things. "I saw him only as Kevin's replacement and that wasn't fair to any of us. Sam has a good heart, Annie, a generous heart, and he loves you."

  "You can't possibly know that."

  "Honey, everyone in this blessed town knows how Sam Butler feels about you."

  "Do they know how I feel about him?"

  "I can't speak for the town, but I'm pretty certain I know." You love him, Annie Lacy Galloway. You always did wear your heart on your sleeve.

  She looked so young, like the girl she had been just the day before yesterday. "One day I just might ask for your blessing."

  Claudia's eyes filled with tears. "As if you needed such a thing! You were a good wife to my son, Annie. I know it wasn't always easy. Maybe if the rest of us hadn't always looked the other way –" She sighed deeply. "But that's the way it was handled in our family." She pushed Annie slightly away and met her eyes. "That's the way we handled it when I was the one with the problem.".

  "You?" She looked the way Claudia's youngest had looked when she found out there was no Santa Claus. "I can't believe this."

  "I'm not proud of what I did," Claudia said, "but I am proud that I managed to beat it. I had hoped Kevin would be able to follow my example but it wasn't meant to be." Kevin had been the dearest son a mother could have asked for, the gold standard by which she had judged her other children and found them wanting. If they hadn't all loved him just as much, she would be a very lonely woman today.

  "I tried, Claude," Annie said through her own tears. "I did everything I could think of. I even told him I would leave if he didn't get help."

  "Shh," Claudia said, stroking her hair. "My John threatened to leave me many times but it wasn't until I was ready to change that the changes began to happen. We all loved Kevin and we all helped keep his secrets. This whole town helped. No wife could have done more than you did. Your mother would have been very proud of the woman you've become." She hesitated a moment, praying she still had the right. "The same way that I'm so very proud of you."

  Annie could feel both women's blessings raining down on her, surrounding her with love. If love could keep you safe from harm, she had it made.

  #

  The sleigh bed seemed empty without Sam there with her. George and Gracie were curled up together near the foot of the bed which left plenty of room for Max to join them but not even his solid presence was enough to fool Annie into forgetting Sam was gone.

  She could hear Claudia and Warren chatting softly while they played cards at her kitchen table. She had told them it wasn't necessary for them to stay but they had insisted and, to be honest, she was grateful for their company. It felt good knowing they were out there bickering and laughing together. It helped her to believe everything was going to work out the way it should.

  Keeping the truth from Claudia had been impossible, and the three of them had spent a long time trying to figure out why someone would want to kidnap Sam and they had all come up empty.

  "He's unemployed," Warren said, "which means he has no power."

  "And he has no money," Claudia added.

  "But maybe he has something more important," Annie had said. "Maybe he has information."

  She had never thought much about what he had done for a living before he showed up in Shelter Rock Cove. He had told her that he had worked for a big Wall Street firm but he might as well have told her that he cracked coconuts for fun and profit for all that it meant to her. The man she knew and loved was the man who owned a big yellow Lab and drove around in a beat-up Trooper just like her own. He lived in a borrowed house and he made canoes for Warren's museum when he wasn't making love to her.

  She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to kidnap that man but the one who had worked on Wall Street just might be another story.

  #

  "Your boyfriend sure knows how to grab the headlines," Sweeney said when Annie walked through the door of Annie's Flowers the next morning. Claudia stayed behind at the cottage in case Sam called. "This is some story, kiddo."

  "I'm afraid to look," Annie said, taking a quick glance at the county daily which was probably a risky thing to do with her stomach threatening to secede from her body every morning. It was worse than she'd feared. There was the photo of Annie and Sam from the Labor Day picnic and above it the headline Local Shopkeeper's Friend Arrested at Gun Point.

  They flipped on CNN Headline News just in time to hear "Wall Street sting goes bust as former executive disappears." The newsreader launched into a brief synopsis of a developing story that included fraud at Mason, Marx, and Daniels, the company where Sam had worked. Thousands of investors had been bilked out of millions of dollars at the hands of top level executives. A photo of Sam looking almost unrecognizable in a sleek and pricey suit flashed on the screen just long enough to push Annie into a bout of tears that sent Sweeney scurrying for some hot peppermint tea with lots of sugar.

  "They said he disappeared," Sweeney said as she sugared her own cup of peppermint tea. "I thought you said he was arrested."

  "That's what it looked like," Annie said. "What would you think if some guy whipped out a pair of handcuffs?"

  "Honey, you don't want to know what I'd think."

  Annie tried to call Agent Briscoe but reached his voice mail instead. She phoned Warren who had been trying all morning to glean information from various sources but he kept butting his head against a brick wall of silence.

  "Nothing new to report," Warren said. "Considering the plane was registered to Marcella Dixon, my guess is somebody from his old company saw that photo of Sam from the Labor Day picnic and that's how they tracked him down."

  "Tracked him down to do what?" Annie asked. "You're scaring me, Warren."

  "Don't mean to but they might try to buy his silence with a ticket to Switzerland or some little Caribbean island without a zip code."

  "The news reports make it sound like he's taken them up on it." Five minutes of CNN or MSNBC would convince anyone that Sam was a high-flying financial type who would sell out his mother to shore up his own bottom line. The idea that the whole kidnapping had been a set-up, staged to whisk Sam out of the government's reach, was getting more air play than Annie could cope with..

  "Don't give up on him," Warren said. "This will all work out."

  But the question of which side Sam was on wouldn't go away. Had he been one of the executives accused of stealing monies from clients or had he been working with the government from the start to nab them? Was it possible to straddle both sides of the fence and escape unscathed? She didn't want to touch the ethics involved in that one.

  A man who would take on the responsibility for five brothers and sisters couldn't possibly be the kind of man who took money from innocent people. Or could he? The financial pressures on him must have been unbearable at times. Who could say what you might do to get by when the futures of five innocent kids rested on your shoulders and you were barely old enough to vote. The world wasn't the black-and-white place of her childhood and she knew the truth was often buried deep in shades of grey. It was true of her own life and it was probably equally true of Sam's.

  Everyone she had ever known or gone to school with or even bumped into at Yankee Shopper found a reason to drop into her flower shop that morning. Some of them at least had the decency to buy a single rose or a half dozen daisies but the majority didn't bother to sugarcoat the reason they were there. They wanted gossip, some juicy tidbit of information that they could pass around as first-hand information. The Virgin Widow's fall from grace
was the hot topic of the day in every home in town.

  "Go home and watch CNN," she snapped at poor Mrs. McDougal from the library. "Then you'll know as much as I do."

  "The woman's eighty-five," Sweeney said, eyes wide with shock. "You might've gone a little easier on the old girl."

  "I hate them all," Annie muttered as she flipped the Open sign to Closed.

  "Since when do we close for lunch?" Sweeney asked.

  "Since right now."

  "That's not good for business, honey."

  "Neither is assault and battery and that's what I might do to the next person who asks me for the real story."

  "You need more peppermint tea and something to eat," Sweeney said.

  Annie made a face. "What I need is a martini but I'll settle for the tea."

  "Now's not the time to stop eating."

  "Sweeney, for God's sake, don't start acting like you're my mother. I'll eat when I want to eat and that's the end of that."

  Wonderful. Now she sounded like a pregnant perimenopausal four-year-old.

  She was about to make herself that cup of hot tea when somebody rapped on the door. "Can't you read?" she mumbled. "Closed means closed."

  "It's Hall," Sweeney said, peering over the top of her newspaper. "Gee, I wonder what he wants."

  Annie unlocked the door and ushered Hall in. "If you're here to gloat or gossip, you might as well leave."

  His aristocratic cheeks reddened just enough for her to notice. "I'm here to apologize."

  "What for?"

  "For being a bastard."

  She stared at him in surprise. "Bastard takes in a lot of territory."

  He inclined his head in Sweeney's direction. "Is there some place we can talk privately?"

  Sweeney looked up. "You can talk right here," she said as she pushed back her chair. "I'll just ask Annie for the details later."