Inglath Cooper - A Woman Like Annie

“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.