A Soft Place to Fall (Shelter Rock Cove)

by Barbara Bretton

  #

  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 were 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."

  "I looked the other way when I should have been doing something to help. I hurt innocent people."

  Her eyes welled with tears. "I know all about looking the other way, Sam. I did that for most of my marriage to Kevin."

  Her words were balm to his soul, the first step in his journey to regain his self-respect.

  "I love you," he said. "I've never said that to a woman before." The power of those words and all they represented – you built families on their foundation. You built generations.

  "You're my soulmate," she said softly. "I've never said that to a man before." Her voice broke on the last word. "I never will again."

  "I'm not rich," he said, "and my prospects these days are lousy." It would take time for his reputation to be restored and by then, that world would have long since passed him by.

  "I'm one step up from being flat broke," she said, "but I'd say my prospects are terrific."

  "I might end up building canoes for a living."

  "Sounds good to me."

  "If you'd met me this time last year, you would've gotten a hell of a better deal." He'd had a career, a new car, money in the bank. Now all he had was his heart on his sleeve.

  "I'll be the judge of that. I fell in love with the guy in the ratty old Trooper, didn't I?"

  "The one with the pizza-eating dog."

  "Yep," she said, "that's the one. He stole my heart and I don't want it back."

  "There are a whole lot of Butlers out there for you to meet."

  She took a deep breath. "Actually there's one more Butler even you haven't met yet."

  He looked at her. "You want to say that again?"

  "One more Butler," she said, taking his hand and placing it against her soft belly, "due to join us around June 15th. That's what I was coming to tell you that afternoon."

  "But I thought you couldn't –"

  "So did I," she said, "but when we found each other more than one miracle happened." New life where there had been none before. Laughter where there had been only silence. Joy where sorrow had lived for too long. "I know we never talked about this – I mean, you may not even want children. You've spent your whole life raising kids and now here I am telling you that you're going to be starting all over."

  She looked radiant and joyful and so uncertain his heart ached with love for her and the future she carried deep within her beautiful body.

  "Tell me again." He bent down and pressed his lips to the roundness of her belly. "Tell me this is really happening for us."

  "It's really happening for us," she said as her tears fell softly onto his forehead. He could feel her relief flowing into his bones. "Just one miracle after another from the moment we met."

  He told her of the dream he had dreamed of children with her eyes and her smile, children who would carry their love into the future the way it was meant to be.

  "And your heart," she said as he took her in his arms and held her close. "I couldn't ask for more for our child."

  Everything he was, everything he had ever done or dreamed of doing, came together in that moment when she smiled at him and he saw their future in her eyes. He loved Annie Galloway and she loved him and they were going to have a baby.

  Sam Butler had finally come home.

  The Way It All Ended Up

  Late June

  "Push, Annie!" Ellen Markowitz urged. "One good push and you'll have your baby."

  "I . . . don't . . . want . . . to push!" Annie yelped in the voice everyone in the birthing room had come to know. "I want to get out of here." What was the matter with these people? Didn't they know she had been in labor for the last eighteen hours? Weren't they paying attention?

  Sam, who was sweating almost as much as his wife, leaned over and brushed her lips with an ice cube. "One more push, Annie. You can do it." Ellen had said he could be the one to receive the baby – if Annie would only push.

  Her eyes locked with his. "I can't, Sam, I can't –"

  "You can and you will. She's almost here, Annie, all you have to do is push."

  Next to her, Claudia squeezed her left hand. "All these years and still
nobody's come up with a better way to get the job done. You can do it, Annie. I promise you, you can do it."

  "Oh, look!" Ellen cried. "We're almost there, Annie . . . just one more push."

  "Come on, Annie," Sam urged. "It's time we met our little girl."

  Annie took a deep breath and reached down deep to a place she didn't know existed but all women somehow found, a place where the power of love could perform miracles, and she pushed their daughter out into Sam's waiting arms.

  "Sarah Joy Butler," her husband said through his tears, "welcome to the world."

  A second later a small cry filled the room and a new life officially began.

  Annie and Sam had their miracle.

  #

  It hurt to look at them. Ellen had helped deliver hundreds of babies but she had never been as deeply moved by the experience as she was today. Sam kept kissing Annie and telling her how much he loved her, how much love and joy she had brought into his life, while Annie – oh God, the look of wonder and joy on her face was so profound that Ellen turned away. She talked Sam through cutting the cord then she went back to the work of delivering the afterbirth and making sure the baby's vital statistics had been duly recorded.

  Then came the moment she always waited for, that magical moment when a couple became a family. Sam laid the baby down on Annie's chest. Sarah Joy was slick with blood and birth fluids, a squalling little bundle of humanity whose nursing instinct guided her right to her target. Annie's tears fell onto the baby's fuzzy head while Sam tried to wipe away his own tears with the back of his sleeve. There were no celestial fireworks, no host of angels sent down from on high, but the sense of almost heavenly wonder couldn't be denied.

  Ellen waited a moment while Claudia drank in the sight of the newborn family and then the two of them stepped out into the waiting room where forty-two assorted Butlers, Galloways, and their friends all jumped up at once and gathered around them.

  Warren Bancroft, who looked like he'd been in hard labor himself, met Claudia's eyes. Claudia, who was laughing and crying simultaneously, nodded her head and Warren shouted with joy.