A Soft Place to Fall

by Barbara Bretton

  "I didn't mean to insult her," Hall said as Sweeney swept past him and out the back door.

  "You can apologize to her too, if you like."

  "You don't sound like yourself today, Annie."

  "Well, maybe that's because I've never had a day like today before." She found it difficult to disguise her impatience. "So why do you think you have to apologize to me?"

  "Because I think I'm the one who caused this whole mess."

  Take a number, she thought. "And how did you do that?" First Claudia had tried to take the blame for Sam's troubles, and then old Teddy Webb from the Weekly had stopped by to apologize for the Labor Day photo of Annie and Sam kissing. "Never meant to blow his cover," Teddy said, sounding like a character in an old spy movie. Now here was Hall claiming full responsibility.

  She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

  "I was worried about you, Annie. There was something familiar about Sam. Ellen and I both noticed it. I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew him from somewhere so when that photo of the two of you ran right after the picnic, I faxed a copy of it to a few friends in New York and one of them came back with some information about him."

  She hated him in that moment, a fierce burst of emotion that almost buckled her knees. That one selfish decision might have lost her the man she loved.

  He told her that Sam had been a financial analyst with a huge clientele and lots of publicity. His track record and gift of gab landed him on a Manhattan cable station which was how both Ellen and Hall were familiar with him. They had watched his show while they were attending a conference in the city. "They fired him this summer, Annie. Rumor has it he was stealing money from his clients and putting into his own account."

  "Embezzlement?" It hurt to think of Sam being anything less than the man she had believed him to be.

  "Looks like it."

  "People don't get fired for embezzlement, Hall. They go to prison." And they don't end up flat broke in Shelter Rock Cove.

  Hall looked at her with an expression of such deep sadness that she wanted to haul off and smack him. "That might happen yet."

  "And you felt I really needed to know this."

  "I didn't want you to get hurt. I felt I owed it to you."

  "You owed it to me to investigate Sam behind my back?"

  "I owed it to you as a friend to give you the information and allow you to make your own choices." He paused and she could see he was struggling with what to say but she refused to feel any compassion for him whatsoever. "It's what I should have done the first time around."

  "Now you've lost me."

  Their eyes met and suddenly she knew.

  "Kevin?" she asked and he nodded.

  "He came to me for money a few days before he died and I refused him. It wasn't the first time, Annie. Maybe if I'd told you –"

  All of the anger and fight went out of her. "It wouldn't have made a difference, Hall. You did what you thought was right, same as I did and Warren did and Claudia and everyone else in town."

  "I'm a doctor. I know what stress can do to a man with a bad heart. Maybe if I'd helped him out with a few bucks, his stress level would've gone down and he might have survived the heart attack."

  "And maybe I shouldn't have threatened to leave him an hour before he died."

  "Ah Jesus, Annie --"

  "We're all guilty and innocent and every shade of grey in between. I've spent twenty years of my life trying to make sense of this and that's still the best I can do."

  "I didn't want to see you get hurt again. That's the only reason I looked into Sam's background."

  "No other motive?"

  "A month earlier there might have been," he admitted, "but even I catch on eventually. You two are right for each other. I hope it works out."

  She offered him a cup of tea which he refused. He said he had patients due within a half hour and she didn't press him. Too much had passed between them today. How sad that one gifted man's weakness could still cause so much sadness and dissension even now, two years after his death.

  And yet in a strange way, this was exactly what she needed. She had learned more about her own life and marriage in the last twenty-four hours than in the thirty-eight years that had come before it and the things she had learned helped ease the guilt she had carried around like a shield. She had loved Kevin and stood by him but it was time to move on. Kevin had been her first love but it was Sam who would be her last.

  #

  Annie remained glued to the small television set in the workroom behind the display area while Claudia and Sweeney handled the chores up front. She was hungry for every bit of information she could glean about Sam. Warren had been unable to reach Agent Briscoe and his other sources were suddenly dry as a bone. She noticed a dark blue car that seemed to be following her around and recognized the driver as one of the agents who had answered to Briscoe. Even she was under a cloud of suspicion.

  At three o'clock the all-day cable news networks reported that government agents had closed down the firm of Mason, Marx, and Daniels and made numerous arrests. She waited and prayed but there was no news about Sam until the phone rang a little after five o'clock.

  "They found him!" Warren's voice was triumphant. "They found him in some shack on St. John's. He's in protective custody."

  "Protective custody?" Annie said. "That means they think he's innocent, doesn't it? You don't put a criminal in protective custody."

  "Quick!" Claudia called from the front of the store. "Channel 49 – they're talking about Sam."

  Annie zapped the channels in time to hear: " . . . found the former top-rated executive in an abandoned building near the piers. He was badly bruised but otherwise unhurt. Local law enforcement took Butler into custody, pending arrival of U. S. officials who will be looking into the apparent kidnapping."

  Claudia, who had joined Annie in the work room, gathered her into her arms. "It's going to be okay, honey," she said, smoothing Annie's hair. "It's all over. He'll be home before you know it."

  #

  But as the days passed Annie began to wonder if Sam was coming home at all. She followed the events as they unfolded around the Mason, Marx, and Daniels sting and committed every sentence about Sam to memory. Thank God, the one thing about which there was no longer any doubt was that he had been in league with the Justice Department against his former company. Talk of a set-up or double sting had been abandoned for the juicier story of an in-house informant. Depending upon who was doing the talking, Sam was either a hero or the worst kind of rat. Popular opinion leaned heavily toward the latter.

  By day three well-meaning visits to Annie's Flowers had dwindled to almost nothing. By day four even Claudia was finding it difficult to meet her eyes.

  "Isn't this taking an awfully long time?" she asked Warren who seemed to know about such things.

  "It takes as long as it takes," said Warren, which was really no help at all. "Let it unfold the way it needs to, Annie. He'll be here before you know it."

  "You old coot," said Claudia who had happened into the back room and overheard some of the conversation. "She's in love with the man. Has it been so long that you can't remember how that felt?"

  The two of them launched into one of their patented sparring contests that Annie knew were a display of affection between them. Thank God for those two wonderful, generous people. She couldn't imagine how she would have made it through the last few days without their rock-solid love and support. They were parents to her in every way that mattered except blood and she knew her son or daughter would be blessed to have two such wonderful grandparents.

  Because that was what Claudia and Warren would be. Maybe it was unorthodox, maybe it would raise an eyebrow or two, but Annie felt the rightness of it deep inside her soul and she knew Sam would feel it too once he came home to her.

  If he came home to her.

  #

  Sam leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. "You can let me out here."

  "You we
re promised door-to-door service," the driver said. "It's on the government. You won't be hearing that again anytime soon."

  "Here is good."

  "Bet it's good to be home," the driver said and Sam laughed.

  "Better than you can imagine."

  The driver wished him well and left him at the corner of Main Street and the docks. He stood there in the late afternoon sun and breathed in the briny salt air that had always powered his dreams. There was Cappy's about two hundred yards to his left and Rich's Bait and Tackle Shop near the stop sign. If he angled his head just a little bit more he could make out the church steeple where Warren's museum was taking shape.

  And, if he followed his heart straight up Main Street, it would lead him home to Annie Galloway.

  Home.

  He tried the word on for size and found it a perfect fit. This tiny dot on the map called Shelter Rock Cove was home because Annie Galloway was there. For four days his every waking thought had revolved around the woman he loved and his need to be with her again and now that he was a three minute walk away from her arms he found himself scared into immobility.

  Would she want him now? He hadn't a clue. He'd been shown some of the news coverage of the downfall of Mason, Marx, and Daniels and it hadn't been pretty. He had been portrayed in an unfavorable light in most of it and, the world being what it was, it wasn't very likely that his redemption would be mentioned at all. Annie had cast him early on as a hero. How would she feel about him as a man who had made mistakes a better man would have had the strength to avoid?

  He had no answers for any of it. All he knew, all he cared about, was seeing her again.

  Much of the last few days was a blur for him. He'd regained consciousness when they landed for refueling somewhere near Miami where he conned one of his captors into uncuffing him so he could use the john. He had managed to pry open the window over the toilet and was about to shove himself through the opening when the son of a bitch came in to see what was taking him so long.

  They would both be carrying around a shitload of bruises after that encounter.

  The plan had been to deliver him to a designated safe house in the Bahamas where some of Mason, Marx, and Daniels' best and brightest would try to convince him that his life would be much happier if he took them up on their generous offer of money for silence. He never did get to hear the details – or the chance to tell them to shove it – because by the time they reached the safe house it was clear that the bottom had dropped out of their scheme. The Justice Department was closing in on associates in New York, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, and London.

  They tied Sam to a chair in the middle of the safe house then took off, and that was where local cops finally found him. They turned him over to the f,eds who ferried him to a small hospital where he remained overnight for observation then spirited him back to Miami where he was subjected to intense questioning by a series of interrogators, each of whom seemed determined to prove him guilty.

  He had a lot to tell Annie, but there would be time enough for all of the stories. A lifetime, if they were lucky. One day he wanted her to meet Mrs. Ruggiero; he owed the old woman a debt of gratitude even if Mrs. R didn't know it. The same act of compassion that had cost him his job had turned out to be the key to setting him free. The trail he had inadvertently created when he tried to bail out Mrs. R, Lila, and Mr. Ashkenazy ran counter to the one the company had hung his name on and only his trail stood up under questioning. His own sense of guilt ran deep but in the eyes of the law he was innocent. He would be deposed at a later date and eventually called upon to testify in court but all charges against him had been officially dropped and he was a free man.

  But not for long. Life was too short and he loved her too much to wait any longer. He liked the man he was when he was with her. He liked the way she made him laugh and think and dream. He knew that in the eyes of the world he was a loser, a thirty-five year old man who could fit everything he owned in the back seat of his Trooper, but when Annie Galloway smiled at him he felt like a king.

  He was going to tell her that he loved her, that she was the home he had always longed for, that without her the future was nothing but a string of days and nights without meaning. He was going to tell her what he had never told a woman before. He was going to say, "I love you."

  And then he was going to pray she loved him back.

  #

  "We're not taking no for an answer." Susan said as she, Claudia, and Sweeney surrounded Annie. "You're coming out for supper with us or we'll know the reason why."

  Annie, who was seated on her stool behnd her workbench in the back of the shop, mustered up a smile. "That's a nice idea, really it is, but I think I'd better get some more work done on the Selkirk-Holder wedding preparations."

  Susan groaned loud enough to be heard at Cappy's. "You need a break, Annie. You can't spend every moment staring at CNN and waiting for the phone to ring. You need to get out for a while."

  "What if Sam –"

  "He'll find you," Sweeney said, laughing. "This is a small town and he's the number one topic of conversation. If he shows up, I guarantee the entire population of Shelter Rock Cove will escort him to Cappy's for the reunion."

  "There's a good reason to work late," Annie muttered.

  Claudia placed a gentle hand on Annie's shoulder. "You need to keep up your strength," she said softly. "The baby deserves that much."

  Claudia was right. They were all right. And they would keep on hammering away at her until she agreed. "Okay," she said. "I give up. You've worn me down." She slid off the stool and stood up. "Give me two minutes to wash my face and try to do something with this hair and I'll be ready."

  The three of them exchanged glances. Annie could just imagine what those glances meant. They were worried about her. They thought she was spending too much time brooding over Sam who just might not decide to come back to Shelter Rock Cove after all. He had a life down there in New York City. He had an apartment down there and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, all of whom loved and needed him. Why would he want to leave all of that to live in some little town in Maine where it snowed too much in the winter and rained too much in the summer and couldn't make up its mind the rest of the year?

  Because he loves you.

  That would be a wonderful reason if it were true, but was it? How could she possibly know for sure when they had never said those words to each other, those magical words that unlocked the heart and soul. They had danced all around them but never once had either one of them stepped out to the edge of that cliff and said, "I love you."

  She wished she could do it all over again. She would tell him she loved him, tell him about the baby, tell him that in a lifetime spent searching for a home of her own she had finally found it in his arms.

  She would tell him all of that and more if only he would come back to Shelter Rock Cove.

  #

  The door to Annie's Flowers swung open and Sweeney leaned out and grabbed Sam by the sleeve. "Hurry!" she said, dragging him inside. "Get in here!"

  "That's what I tried to do five minutes ago when you shoved me out the door."

  "Shh!" she said, holding a paint-stained finger to her lips. "We want this to be a surprise, don't we?"

  It occurred to Sam that it couldn't be anything but a surprise to Annie but he had three sisters. He knew there was no dealing with a woman on a mission.

  Claudia Galloway and her daughter Susan were leaning against the counter. They sported matching cat-that-ate-a-cageful-of-canaries smiles.

  "Congratulations," said Susan. "I think you'll learn to – ouch!" She turned to glare at her mother who had administered an elbow to her ribs. "What was that for?"

  "My daughter is only forty-two," Claudia said with a wicked twinkle in her eye. "Sometimes she forgets her manners."

  Sam grinned back at her. He could learn to like the woman. He glanced around the store. "Where's Annie?"

  "Will you keep your voice down!" Sweeney ordered. "She's
in the bathroom fixing her hair. She thinks we're going to Cappy's."

  They heard footsteps moving down the hallway.

  "Quick," Sweeney said. "Hide behind that display."

  He felt like a damn fool but he let himself be pushed behind one of those froufrou displays of flowers and little breakables that no sane person would have in the house.

  "So who's driving?" Annie sounded exhausted. That had to mean she loved him, didn't it? "We can all go in my Trooper, if you want."

  "There's someone to see you," Sweeney said.

  "Oh no." Annie groaned. "Who is it this time?"

  Sweeney poked her head behind the display. "Now, you dope!"

  He rounded the display and there she was. Tired, a little rumpled, the most beautiful woman he had ever known.

  "This wasn't my idea," he said but his words were lost as ran into each other's arms.

  "You're home," she said against his mouth. "You're home!"

  His heart soared. She was laughing and crying and so was everyone around them but he only had eyes for Annie. He drank in the sight of her, those beautiful blue eyes with the dusky shadows beneath them, the laugh lines, the smile that told him that he could open his heart to her and she would understand.

  He heard a lot of sniffling all around him and then the sound of footsteps heading for the door.

  "I thought they'd never leave," he said.

  "Just as long as you never leave me again." The look in her eyes was so filled with love and longing that he wondered how he had ever walked through his days without her. "You're hurt," she said, gently tracing his battered face. "Oh Sam –"

  "You should've seen the other guy." He gathered up the last of his courage. "I have a lot to tell you, Annie. I'm not too proud of most of it."

  "I've followed the news," she said, "and I know the kind of man you are. When you're ready to talk, I want to listen."