Annie's Neighborhood (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Fox, Roz Denny

“Oh, the McBrides live adjacent to the park. Is that why they have perimeter lights? You were right about the park being a disaster, by the way. It’s a crying shame. Gran Ida took care of weeding the flower beds, and trimming the roses. Now the birdbath is broken, swings are torn down and the roses are dead. Restoring the park will be my final tribute to Gran,” she said as she got out of the cruiser.

  Sky shook his head, watching her hurry up the walkway. How could she possibly find more hours in the day to work on the park?

  Annie wasn’t gone long. She ran back to the car and flung herself into the passenger seat. “That was lucky. Charlie was at Roger’s house. They were just sitting down to eat. It smelled so good and I’m about to pass out from hunger.”

  “We can’t have that.” Sky made a U-turn in the street.

  “Wasn’t that illegal?”

  Sky flashed her a guilty grin.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “It’s shorter taking this direction to the restaurant I have in mind.”

  “Well, then, by all means, it’s okay to break the law getting there.” Annie gave him the old evil eye.

  “Hey, I don’t want you fainting away from hunger.” He made two more left turns and merged with the highway that headed toward bluegrass country.

  Annie scarcely had time to read a couple of road signs lit by his headlights when Sky pulled off the road and into the parking lot of a restaurant called Ye Olde Irish Pub. “It says they feature forty kinds of lagers and twenty ales,” Annie said. “And you’re in uniform, Chief.”

  “I got drinking out of my system a long time ago, Annie. Before I became a cop, when I saw how drinking can get out of hand, and the results.” Sky cracked his car door ajar and sniffed the air. “Mmm, smell that grill.”

  “Race you to the door, Cordova. I’m ready to taste whatever smells so good.”

  Annie did beat him, but not by much. Sky reached around her, opened the heavy outer door and ushered her in. The interior was cavernous, but lit by small lanterns in the center of each round table. A bar stretched the length of the room down one wall. Booths lined the other three. It was to one of the booths that a hostess led them.

  Again Sky guided Annie’s steps with his broad hand nestled in the curve of her back. His casual touch felt more intimate to her in this setting. Trying not to think that they looked like a couple, Annie concentrated on checking the food on other diners’ plates as she passed by. Even before the smiling hostess placed a menu in her hands, Annie knew what she wanted.

  When the waiter came, she requested sweet tea with plenty of ice. “It’ll save time if we order now,” she said, glancing across the table at Sky, who’d asked for coffee, black.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about their salad selections, but our waiter will, so you go ahead and order.”

  Annie frowned at him. Closing her menu she said, “I’ll have a T-bone steak medium rare, fries and a double order of mixed vegetables.”

  Sky gaped at her as he managed to stammer out his order. “Give me an eight-ounce sirloin, fries and corn on the cob.” After the waiter left and someone else whizzed past, dropping off a basket filled with steaming dark bread, Sky watched bemusedly as Annie pulled off two slices and slathered them with honey-butter. She moved her plate aside to let the waiter deliver drinks.

  “I guess you plan to take half your meal home,” Sky said.

  She opened her eyes, because she’d closed them to savor her first bite of the heavy brown bread dripping with its sweet topping. “I intend to eat every morsel. Oh, I didn’t mean to hog all the bread.” She pushed the basket to his side of the table.

  He helped himself. “I meant their T-bone is big enough for two.”

  They ate their bread in silence and when it was gone, Annie asked, “Are you one of those guys who thinks a woman should nibble like a mouse?”

  “Most do, don’t they?”

  A heated discussion ensued on that topic. Annie broke off and smiled at the waiter who carried their steaming plates to the table. “Mmm.”

  “These are piping hot, so be careful,” he warned. The metal plates he set before them sizzled. “Can I get either of you anything else?”

  “Ketchup,” Sky said at the same time Annie asked for steak sauce.

  Both appeared like magic.

  They dived into cutting and eating their steaks. For a time, talk fell by the wayside. Sky spoke first as he buttered his corn. “This is my favorite vegetable. I wish it was easier to eat in public.”

  Annie blotted her lips with her napkin. “Everyone here seems too busy eating to pay attention to you, Sky. Me included.”

  He scanned the room. “You’re right,” he said as he unbuttoned the sleeves on his uniform shirt and rolled them up to his elbows. “I’m self-conscious, I guess. One time in Maryland at one of Corrine’s horsey banquets, I ordered lobster and corn on the cob. Melted butter dripped down the backs of my hands onto the cuffs of my dress shirt. She ranted all week about how I’d humiliated her. Anytime we went out after that she’d remind me. I pretty much stopped eating corn until I found this restaurant.”

  Annie cut another slice of meat off her T-bone. “The messiest things to eat taste the best. If those things were on your banquet menu, I doubt you were the only one dripping butter.”

  “I was the only one at our table,” he said, biting into his corn.

  “Food is meant to be enjoyed.” Annie dipped one of her fat golden fries into a pile of ketchup and grinned. “This place was a great choice. I feel like I’ll never be hungry again.”

  Sky dispatched his corn, then wiped his face and fingers. “Skinny as you are, I don’t know where you put all that food.”

  “I’m not skinny.”

  He held up his hands, fingertips touching. “I could circle your waist with my hands.”

  She started to say he had big hands, but the waiter came with the check and she snatched it.

  “I was joking when I suggested you buy me dinner, Annie. Come on, give me the bill. I eat so many meals alone, tonight was a treat.”

  “You know, it was nice for me, too.” She looked up with real surprise at that discovery as she tucked cash inside the folder.

  Sky’s cell phone rang, cutting short the dance of slow-dawning comprehension their eyes had engaged in. He frowned down at his phone’s readout. “It’s my lawyer,” he murmured, and his expression turned to one of apprehension. “Lyle? Sky here. Is something wrong?”

  Annie handed the waiter the check folder and told him to keep the change while Sky listened intently to his caller. “Okay, that’s good. Tomorrow’s pretty short notice, but I agree that we should take what we can get. Do I need to give her advance notice of my plans? Maybe we’ll take in a movie, or hang out at my place watching TV. Do I ask what she does with Zack, Lyle? Do I ask her how often she goes riding and leaves him in the care of Archibald’s teenage daughters?”

  Indicating with gestures that she was going to the restroom, Annie slid out of the booth and headed for the ladies’ lounge.

  By the time she came back, Sky was off the phone. He rose as soon as he saw her. “Are you ready to leave?”

  “Trouble?” she asked, collecting the bag she always carried.

  “No, but apparently one of my new visitation days is going to be tomorrow―or not at all this week. Corrine knows it’s a hardship on me to switch duty on such short notice. I’m reasonably sure Koot will trade with me, but it’s hard when we’re both on most days. Corrine knows that, too. She chose tomorrow out of spite.”

  “Maybe not, Sky,” Annie said quietly as they moved toward the door. “Why don’t you pick up the phone and discuss things with her directly?”

  He let out a jagged laugh. “We communicate through our lawyers.”

  “Since she’s happily remar
ried, I should think the two of you―or even all three of you, if she wants to include Zack’s stepfather―could sit down over coffee and arrange a plan that covers six months or a year.”

  “The only plan that will suit Corrine is to cut me out of Zachary’s life completely,” Sky said grimly. “She’s not a reasonable person like you are, Annie.”

  “Perhaps that’s because you immediately get defensive or hostile,” she said as he unlocked her door.

  “You’re darned right I do.” He slammed her door after she got in, and stomped around the car, throwing himself into his seat.

  “I’m not the enemy, Sky. I’m just saying you and your ex face coparenting for at least thirteen more years, or beyond if your son gets married and you share a grandchild or grandchildren.”

  “You just ruined a perfectly good meal,” he muttered as he started the car.

  Annie knew that tone, that closed look. She’d encountered this attitude numerous times in counseling divorced couples. She wasn’t Sky’s counselor, but where was his? she wondered. “Divorce doesn’t have to be contentious,” she ventured, hoping she could make Sky see that his life and his son’s would be happier if the people who loved Zack got along. “Even if you don’t agree on everything, it’s infinitely better if you’re not always at war. I can tell you, having worked with older kids from divided homes, that they have more trouble if the parents fight.”

  “Take it from me, she’s made our divorce contentious. And if she thinks I’ll go away quietly and not fight for more time with Zachary, she’s mistaken. This last judge increased my visitations to once a week, but there’s still the matter of holidays. Corrine’s demanded she have him for birthdays and Christmas. When I first got back from military duty, I mailed him his gifts. Anytime I asked how Zachary liked them, she claimed they hadn’t arrived. I put a tracker on one, and then she changed her story―said the box got smashed in the mail. So now, I make sure I hand him his gifts in person. I have to do it on one of my visits, which never coincide with his birthday. And heaven forbid I’d get to see him Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Archibald’s family always spends the holidays at their mountain cabin.”

  Annie faced him. “Holidays and vacations should be evenly split,” she said matter-of-factly. “You need to keep plugging away through the courts, Sky.”

  “I need to win a lottery,” he said. “Keeping a lawyer on retainer isn’t cheap. As Corrine is well aware.”

  “Doesn’t her husband shell out alimony or child support for his children?”

  “They’re older and they live with him—I mean, them. Anyway, his wife died. Lyle Baker, my lawyer, found out by nosing around the horse community that Archibald’s wife operated a riding school and Corrine took riding lessons from her for years. According to a couple of Corrine’s friends, she heard Archibald needed someone to live in and take care of his kids after his wife’s death. I was gone, Zack was a baby. Corrine knew Archibald and his girls. She lived in, all right. I got divorce papers handed to me at an army camp in Afghanistan, with bullets raining all around. Next thing I hear, she’s on a honeymoon in Bahrain where her new hubby went to buy a racehorse.”

  As she listened to Sky rant, something occurred to Annie. “Do you still love Corrine?”

  “Love her? Are you kidding? Would you love someone who treated you the way she treats me?”

  “Well, I’ve seen kids who love abusive parents. At times, it seemed as if the worse a child was treated by his mom or dad, the more he stuck up for them, or wanted to go back and live with them. Those cases taught me that love isn’t always logical.”

  “It is for me,” Sky said emphatically.

  “Mmm-hmm. Do you hate her?” Annie thought that would be telling. Hate could render people incapable of moving on with their lives.

  Sky had pulled up in front of Annie’s house. He reached down and turned off the engine, but not before he studied her in the glow of the dashboard lights. “You should’ve been a lawyer, Annie, the way you cross-examine. Hate...it’s a strong term. Hate does terrible things to people. I witnessed hatred in two war-torn countries—often blind hatred. So my short answer to your question is no, I don’t hate Corrine. The question I wrestle with most is did I ever love her? Did I love her enough? The answer comes back to two things. I cared enough once to marry her. And our marriage, however brief, resulted in a son I wouldn’t give up for anything in the world.”

  Moved by his from-the-heart statements, Annie stretched across the console and squeezed his hand. Her fingers felt the slight roughness of a big hand that identified Sky as all male. She felt his pulse quicken and she drew back. “It’s getting late. I’d better go in. I want to play around on the computer with some ideas for the teen center. And morning comes earlier these days as we move into summer.”

  Sky tried to catch her hand, and sighed loudly when she eluded him. “I should get home, too,” he said. “I’ll probably have a message telling me what time I can pick Zack up. I still have to clear trading shifts with Koot.” He opened his door. “I’ll walk you to your door,” he said as the dome light spilled over them.

  “There’s no need. I’m quite capable of making it from the curb to my door.”

  “Capable, no doubt. But...you didn’t leave your porch light on. What kind of cop would let a woman march into darkness that might be full of boogeymen?” he teased.

  “It was daylight when we left,” Annie mumbled, deciding, however, that it was useless to try and dissuade him.

  Sky let her go a step ahead of him, but as usual, he placed a hand lightly on her waist. “Got your house key?”

  She stumbled on a raised corner of sidewalk as she dug in the front pocket of her jeans. “I took it out of my bag so I’d have it within easy reach.”

  Sky grabbed her waist with both hands, and they both laughed as she dangled the key in front of his nose. His touch always rattled Annie’s nerves, and he never seemed to be in any rush to break the connection. She reached the porch first and pulled free to skip lightly up the steps.

  Neither of them was prepared for two flying bodies to separate from the shadows on the dark porch, both slamming into Annie, knocking her off her feet, and then into Sky. His quick reflexes were all that saved him from falling, too, as her bag and house key flew into the garden.

  Annie pulled herself together quickly. Lifting her feet from her position on the ground, she wrapped her ankles around the thigh of one assailant. He went down with a thud, tumbling backward into the porch steps with a grunt.

  The second intruder didn’t give Sky time to check on Annie. A wiry guy dressed in black butted him in the stomach. Sky fought to keep his breath. His ears rang and his head snapped back. It was a miracle that he maintained his footing. There was no time to get his Glock from his holster before the guy struck a blow to his shoulder with a fist.

  A cloud drifted across the moon and plunged the struggling quartet into blackness. Just before that, Sky saw Annie in a crouch. She sprang up, kicking out at her attacker, who’d gotten up to charge her again. Sky knew that the force of her kick, with her whole body weight behind it, would send the guy reeling.

  It felt as though the fight went on and on. And yet, in real time, it was over fast. Sky and Annie ended up back to back, winded, but with prone assailants lying at their feet.

  Sky unhooked handcuffs from his belt. Bending, he secured the man he’d struggled with. “If you’d left your porch light on, we could see these jokers.”

  An involuntary laugh bubbled from Annie’s throat. “I know it’s not funny, but if the light had been on, they couldn’t have hidden on my dark porch. Since I took out all the foliage around the foundation, they wouldn’t have had any place to lie in wait.”

  “True. Do you have rope somewhere so I can tie up the dude you took down? Then I’ll call Teddy and have him bring a second pair of cuffs so I can transport
these yahoos.”

  “I dropped my house key and bag in the scuffle. I’ll sit on this guy while you phone for backup. When Ted arrives, I’ll get a flashlight from your car and search for my stuff. I doubt my key flew too far.”

  Sky knew she was capable of handling the perp. He hauled out his phone and called Ted. The two talked briefly. The man Sky had knocked down began moving. He cursed and wheezed and wobbled to his knees. Sky shoved him back. “You’re already in a mountain of trouble,” he said, sounding tough. “What’s your name, fella?”

  The guy on the ground curled into a ball, but remained mute.

  The clouds that had occluded the moon blew past. Sky saw Annie pull the shoelaces out of her sneakers and tie them together. She rolled the guy Sky had told her to watch onto his back. After giving the laces a yank, she looped them around the man’s wrists and secured them to his belt. He was stirring, too, and attempted to get up. Failing, he made rude accusations to his friend as he flopped around the walkway on his belly.

  “Where did you learn to use shoelaces as makeshift handcuffs?” Sky sounded surprised ―and approving. “Is that something they teach in tae kwon do?”

  “It’s a trick I learned from a retired LAPD cop who gave our staff a workshop on self-defense.”

  “I’ve used a perp’s belt to bind his hands, or feet, but I never thought of using shoelaces. And neither of these guys is wearing a belt.”

  “Shoelaces are effective,” she said, leaning over the guy on the ground. “If you wiggle too much, they pull tighter and either cut off your circulation or slice through your wrist. Get it?”

  The man on the ground swore again, but stopped moving.

  They heard a siren down the block. Annie straightened and joined Sky. “Oh, I couldn’t see it before, but your nose is bloody.”

  Sky gingerly wiped under his nose. “I knew he landed a punch to my face.”

  “There’s my key,” Annie said, spotting a flash of silver peeking out from under the leg of her trussed-up attacker. Looking around, she found her bag and pulled out a tissue. “Here. I’ll run inside and fix you an ice compress.”