Annie's Answer

by Hanson, Pam Andrews

  “Well, I’m not a baby, and I don’t need a sitter,” Mattie said after a few moments of silence. “But Nathan insists, so we’ll both have to make the best of it. What are you supposed to do for me?”

  “Whatever you like,” Annie said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. “For now, can I fix your breakfast? What would you like?”

  “The day hasn’t dawned when I can’t feed myself,” the older woman said.

  “I’m sure you’re perfectly capable,” Annie said, trying to be as diplomatic as possible. “But since Mr. Sawyer is paying me to hang around, I need something to do.”

  “So you don’t like being idle? I thought you’d be some young thing who’d spend the day watching soap operas on the television.”

  Annie didn’t bother to contradict her. She wasn’t going to be confrontational, no matter how much the woman baited her. If her job at Yum Yum’s had taught her one thing, it was to listen but not argue. She didn’t for one moment believe the customer was always right, but courtesy won more battles than sharp retorts.

  “Let’s see what’s in here,” Annie said, opening a double-doored fridge as large as the one at the restaurant. “Plenty of eggs. How do you like them? Scrambled, fried, boiled? I could try a cheese omelet, but I can’t promise it will turn out well.”

  “Oatmeal.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Annie said, the word muffled because her head was deep in the fridge.

  “I always have oatmeal for breakfast,” Mattie said, seating herself at the table. “With whole milk, none of that watery stuff, and a little brown sugar. I don’t like it runny, but I don’t want it so thick I have to cut it with a knife.”

  “My grandfather makes good oatmeal,” Annie said, noticing that the coffee was ready. She poured out a full mug and put it in front of Mattie. “I think I can do almost as well. Do you want cream or sugar?”

  “No, I drink it black. Your grandfather lives with you?” Mattie sounded interested for the first time since they’d met.

  “Yes, he has for nearly ten years. He’s a widower and a retired minister. Mom and I would probably live on cold cereal and sandwiches without his cooking.” She checked cupboards until she found a familiar red and blue container of fast-cooking oatmeal.

  “Your mother is on her own?” Mattie asked, her eyes following every move Annie made.

  “Yes, my father died when I was quite young.” Annie hadn’t expected Mattie to ask personal questions, but she was there to keep her entertained. A conversation was a good start, although Annie wasn’t comfortable talking about herself with a stranger.

  She could barely reach the pans hanging overhead, but she managed to snag a small kettle. Filling it with a random amount of water, she put it on to boil after figuring out which knob went with a front burner on the gas stove. She’d never cooked on anything but electric, but how hard could it be?

  When the water started boiling—and Mattie had extracted her reason for taking the job—she threw a handful of oats into the water.

  “So you don’t measure,” Mattie said in a challenging voice. “How does that work for you?”

  As it happened, it didn’t work nearly as well for her as it did for Gramps. The bowl she put in front of the older woman was thick enough for the spoon to stand upright, and all she could find was white sugar and two percent milk. Mattie’s only reaction was a muffled huff.

  “So what do you think of my nephew’s son?” she asked after frowning over a few bites of the hot cereal.

  It wasn’t a question Annie was prepared to answer, and she had to think for a few moments.

  “I’m sure he’s very nice.”

  “Nice? That’s a lukewarm word if I ever heard one.”

  “I really don’t know him.” She stood watching Mattie take reluctant bites of her rubbery oatmeal.

  “Do you mean to tell me he hired you without knowing you?” She poured more milk on the cereal and mixed it in.

  “We go to the same church, but he didn’t recognize me at first.”

  “Well, I guess that’s sort of a recommendation. You’re so young and pretty, my first impression was you’d taken the job to get close to Nathan.”

  “I did no such thing!” Annie said, too annoyed to rein in her temper.

  “Well, it’s not as if he couldn’t get any girl in town if he didn’t have his nose in law books all the time,” his great aunt said in a slightly contrite voice.

  Annie refilled the coffee mug without asking while Mattie finished the oatmeal down to the last dab in the bottom of the bowl, pushing it away with a sour face.

  “Tomorrow I’ll make my own,” she declared. “I assume you’ll be here then if I haven’t scared you off.”

  “I’m supposed to come at nine, and you don’t frighten me, Mrs.…”

  Nathan had only introduced her as Aunt Mattie.

  “Hayward, Mrs. Tom Hayward, but I answer to Mattie. If we’re stuck with each other, I guess we’ll have to figure out something to do. I don’t suppose you knit.”

  “I’ve never had time to learn,” Annie said, trying not to sound put out.

  “I’m making a sweater for Nathan. I don’t suppose he’ll wear it much, but he does look spiffy in blue. Or maybe you haven’t noticed.”

  Annie took a deep breath and didn’t answer. She suspected Nathan would look good in thrift store rejects, but she wasn’t going to indulge Mattie Hayward by making any comments about him.

  It was going to be a long summer.

  Chapter 4

  Hurriedly Nathan shrugged out of his jacket, feeling like a kid let out of school early. Judge Orville Carlson had called a recess until two o’clock after a morning of particularly tedious testimony from the prosecution’s first witness. If the rest of the trial was as dull as the opening, Nathan’s biggest challenge would be to stay awake.

  “Dad, you stuck me with a loser this time,” he said as he slid into the front seat of his Lincoln. The firm didn’t handle many criminal cases, but embezzlement was the exception. So far he didn’t think his client had a chance, but J.P. Jervis had stubbornly resisted a plea bargain.

  He should have Bonnie bring him a sub so he could work at his desk while he ate, but he couldn’t get Annie Williams out of his mind. He must have been walking around in a fog not to notice her at church, and he still had guilt pangs for leaving her alone with his great aunt. How could a sweet little thing like her cope with Aunt Mattie?

  Racing across town, he went through two yellow lights and turned left after a third turned red. He hadn’t had a traffic ticket in nearly two years, but he was willing to risk one today. He couldn’t even explain to himself why it seemed so urgent to get home.

  The house was silent when he let himself in through the front door. The battered VW bug was hers, so she had to be here.

  “Aunt Mattie,” he called out, loosening his tie as he looked for her. “Hey, anybody here?”

  It was possible Annie had driven his aunt somewhere in his mother’s car, but it didn’t seem probable. More likely Mattie had sent her out of the house in tears, and she was still somewhere on the grounds. His aunt had a razor-sharp tongue and no inhibitions about speaking her mind, although she wasn’t intentionally mean.

  His jaw dropped when he found them in the sunroom.

  “Didn’t expect you home,” Mattie said in a conversational tone.

  “The judge called a long recess. I just dropped in to.…”

  “To see if I scared Annie into leaving.”

  “No, of course not,” he hemmed. “I only wanted to see how you two are getting along.”

  He felt foolish. The two of them were having sandwiches and iced tea, sitting on either side of a low table. Annie had picked some flowers from the garden, and Mattie had her foot propped up on a footstool. It was a picture of domestic bliss, almost too good to be true.

  “As you can see,” Annie said so sweetly it could have been sarcasm, “we’re having a nice lunch.”

  “Her oatmeal i
s dreadful, but her tuna salad isn’t half bad,” Mattie said. “Bits of red pepper and celery mixed in, along with pickle relish and a touch of ranch dressing instead of mayonnaise. I loathe mayonnaise.”

  “There’s some left. Can I fix a sandwich for you?” Annie asked, giving him a challenging look.

  “No—I mean, why not.” He didn’t want to face an afternoon in Judge Carlson’s courtroom on an empty stomach. “I can fix it myself though.”

  “Melt some cheese on his,” Mattie said, ignoring Nathan as Annie stood to go to the kitchen. “It will give me a chance to chat a little with my only grand nephew.”

  “Sure thing,” Annie said, hurrying from the room.

  He was surprised by a feeling of disappointment. He’d come home to check on the two women, not to see his aunt’s companion. Or had he?

  “So things are going well?” he said, pulling a chair up to the table.

  “What did you expect? I’m not an ogre. If you insist on having someone baby-sit with me, we’ll both make the best of it,” his aunt said.

  “It’s not babysitting,” Nathan said, irritated although he usually took her outspoken ways in stride. “You don’t know anyone in town, and I can’t come home to check on you every day.”

  “Why did you come home today?” Mattie raised one eyebrow in a skeptical expression.

  “I wanted to see how you were doing.” Another stretch of the truth, but he didn’t want to admit he felt protective of Annie.

  “Ha!”

  He never had been able to fool his great aunt, although he had pleasant memories of several summer vacations on her farm. Uncle Tom had been a quiet man, but he let Nathan follow him around like a puppy. He made his living raising corn and drying and storing it on his own property, waiting for the right price to sell. His father called it an agri-business and respected how profitable it was, but Tom Hayward was a typical family farmer from his well-worn overalls to the cap red with a seed company logo that seldom left his balding head.

  Aunt Mattie, on the other hand, was seldom silent and always spoke her mind. Nathan had been cautious about provoking her, but she’d never been unkind to him. Since his mother rarely cooked, it fascinated him that Mattie had a farmhands’ dinner on the table at exactly twelve noon every day. His mouth still watered when he thought of her fried chicken, thick Iowa pork chops stuffed with sage dressing, and cantaloupe halves filled with homemade ice cream.

  Inhaling deeply, he didn’t know whether the beguiling scent in the air came from the vase of flowers or was a lingering fragrance from Annie’s perfume.

  “I asked how your case is going,” Aunt Mattie said with a trace of irritation in her voice.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, realizing she’d been talking to him. “I was thinking of Uncle Tom and the big dinners you always had ready for him at noon.”

  “He never said much, but if dinner was late, he surely let me know,” Mattie said with a wistful smile that softened her face. “Now about this girl.…”

  “Young woman,” Nathan said, “and you’re not going to talk me into firing her.

  “I suppose not,” she said with an air of resignation. “I just want to know what I’m supposed to do with her all day. I can see already she isn’t one to sit around doing nothing.”

  “She’s here to look after you,” Nathan said, on the alert for her return to the sunroom. “You don’t have to do anything with her.”

  “How come you suddenly had time to run home from your big law case?” His aunt’s habit of switching topics had caught him off balance more than once.

  “The judge called the noon recess early. I didn’t expect to have time.”

  “Well, you don’t have to rush home on my account. I’m fine with or without a babysitter.”

  “She’s not.…” He dropped what he was going to say when he heard Annie’s footsteps near the door.

  “One tuna melt, sir. Is there anything else I can get you?”

  She sounded like a waitress, and it took him a few seconds to remember she was one. He’d had breakfast a time or two at the pancake place, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing her there. In fact, he’d somehow missed seeing her anywhere, although they must have attended the same large church since they were children. Of course, she was three or four years younger, and his parents had sent him to a private school after the fifth grade.

  “Thank you, Annie. This looks delicious.” Did he sound as stuffy to her as he did to himself?

  She’d put his sandwich on one of the plates from his mother’s fragile English china tea set, one Mom had never allowed him to touch. His mother might not be a cook herself, but she loved entertaining and had even small get-togethers catered. Annie had made him feel special without knowing she did.

  “My grandfather is the one who taught me everything I know about cooking. Of course, melted cheese on a sandwich isn’t exactly gourmet cuisine.”

  “Don’t do that,” he said without thinking.

  “What?” She hovered over him with a worried expression.

  “Don’t belittle yourself or what you do. Not many women would be willing to take on two full time jobs.”

  “She wants to buy a flower shop,” Aunt Mattie said.

  He was startled his aunt had already learned that about Annie.

  “Oh. Well, please sit down, Annie. You haven’t finished your sandwich,” Nathan said.

  He watched as she slid her chair a little farther from him and gracefully lowered herself onto the thick cushion. She looked even smaller than he’d remembered in the big wicker chair.

  “I have to make a call,” Aunt Mattie said, swinging her leg off the footstool and groping for the crutches propped up behind her chair.

  “Let me get them for you,” Annie said, quick to stand and try to help his aunt.

  “Nonsense. I’m perfectly capable of getting where I want to go,” Mattie said in a voice not even his father would be able to contradict. “You two finish your lunches.”

  Nathan glanced at his wristwatch and had to admit his aunt was right. He had to eat and get back to the courthouse. One of the strict rules in Judge Carlson’s courtroom was always be prompt. He didn’t have the time or inclination to remember the other six. He picked up half of the open-face tuna melt and bit in as the top layer slid off the bread and down his front, landing on the napkin on his lap.

  “Oh, dear, I should’ve brought a knife and fork,” Annie said with genuine distress. “Look at your tie.”

  Looking down, he saw a smear from the knot to the tip and remembered another of the judge’s rules: Attorneys must be appropriately and neatly dressed.

  “It’s okay,” he quickly said. “I’ll run and change.”

  “No, please, finish the other half. I’ll get a tie for you. Where do you keep them?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind—I really have to get back.” He quickly told her how to get to the bedroom of his apartment. “The ties are in the walk-in closet on the left. Anything will do.” He couldn’t remember the judge ever objecting to the color of a necktie.

  He wolfed down the second half of the tuna melt, leaning over the plate to avoid dropping any of it. The prospect of the afternoon’s proceedings was daunting enough without doing it on an empty stomach. Maybe he was nuts to come home, but then he remembered why he had. He had to admit his rest of the day would be a little brighter after seeing how well Annie was coping with his aunt—so far.

  Unless she could fly, she must have run all the way to his room and back. Presenting a necktie for his approval, she was pinked cheeked and slightly breathless. The flush on her face only made her look more beguiling.

  “Good choice,” he said, realizing it was true. She’d picked a shimmering bronze silk tie that was perfect with his suit.

  “I’ll have your tie dry-cleaned,” she said.

  “Not necessary. I’m the one who messed it up.” He stood and switched ties, careful not to get any of the tuna mix on his shirt. “I’ll try to get home by five, but yo
u can leave whether I’m here or not. I know you have to get to your other job.”

  He didn’t say he was hoping to see her after work, but the thought crossed his mind.

  “Have a good afternoon,” she said as he left.

  People said things like that so often it usually meant nothing. Somehow, coming from her, it sounded sincere. He hurried out to his car wondering what had gotten into him. He wasn’t ready to put his bachelor days behind him, but Annie wasn’t like any woman he knew. Had he made a big mistake, hiring her to keep his aunt company? Maybe he should avoid her, but that prospect didn’t please him. Why did she seem so appealing? After all, he’d only known her for less than a day.

  With his father away for the summer, indulging his mother’s passion for foreign locations and art museums, he had a double load of cases and no time to dwell on anything but the practice. He had to put Annie out of his mind, but he was knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  He’d been afraid she wouldn’t last a week with his aunt. Now he was afraid she would.

  Chapter 5

  “Well, how was your first day on the new job?” Gramps asked when she came downstairs for breakfast Friday morning. “I was too sleepy to wait up for you last night.”

  “You don’t have to stay up until I get home,” Annie said. “You need your sleep.”

  “And you don’t?” her grandfather asked.

  “Don’t what?” her mother asked, coming into the kitchen dressed for work in a lightweight gray pantsuit and a patterned blouse in shades of blue and lavender.

  “Need more sleep,” Gramps said.

  “I am a little worried about how much you’re taking on, Annie,” her mom said. “I don’t want you getting sick.”

  Annie smiled at her mother’s familiar refrain. She tended to blame any and all illnesses on a lack of sleep, although Annie had been robustly healthy since having chickenpox in the fourth grade.

  “What can I get you ladies for breakfast?” Gramps asked.

  “Just toast and tea for me, Dwight,” her mother said.