by Tina Leonard
“Thank God,” he replied with spirit. “What a shrew. What a she-troll. Ugh.”
Annie tried not to smile at the relief in his voice. “Thank you for your support,” she murmured.
“Support, hell. I want the same thing for my son that I had.”
“What is that?”
He paused for a moment, his eyes lowered, before he met her gaze fully. “You remind me of my Catalina, Zach’s mother.”
Annie hesitated. The memory of Zach sitting with Mary at the edge of the pond filtered back to her, misty and tinged with sadness. She remembered how gentle and soothing Zach had been as he’d rubbed Mary’s back. I have a feeling neither one of them wanted to leave us that way, he’d said.
Obviously, this was sacred ground she was treading on right now. “How do I remind you of her?” she asked softly.
“Well, you’re dark, like she was. You’re taller, though,” he said, squinting across the table at Annie. Her pizza lay on the plate, completely untouched now, as the old man glanced down the hall. Zach had finally quit singing, which somehow Annie missed. He’d sounded so lighthearted, it pleased her to think she’d done that for him.
“Course, she was a looker, my Cati,” George continued, lost in his own reminiscences. “You’re pretty, too, though I guess Zach’s told you that.”
Annie smiled. “Thank you.”
“And she was kind and gentle, but she had pride you couldn’t bust with a rock.” He was quiet for a few moments before speaking shakily. “And she loved that boy of hers.”
Annie was astonished to hear what sounded like a sniffle., “Ah, hell,” the old man said, getting up from the table. “I’m sorry I tricked you down here, Annie, but I ain’t sorry you came. Guess I’ll be off to my room, if you’ll excuse me, ’cause I’m embarrassing myself. Besides, nobody wants to hear the ramblings of an old man. Though I appreciate you listening,” he said, walking slowly out of the room. At the doorway, he paused. “Now that I’ve thought about it, you’re exactly what I should have expected, Annie.”
He disappeared and Annie took a deep breath. The pizza had turned cold and unappealing, but she’d lost her appetite anyway. She drank some water and got up from the table too, putting her dishes in the sink. Slowly, she gathered up her purse and keys as she thought about Zach’s father’s regrets.
Zach’s door opened and he came down the hall, nicely dressed in trousers and a blazer. Her breath caught at the sight of him, his hair still slightly wet but shining ebony in the light. He was so handsome it hurt. Somehow it was hard to believe that this man might one day be all hers.
“I see you got something to eat,” he told her.
“Actually, I wasn’t very hungry.”
He glanced into the kitchen before looking down at her. “It’s pretty slim pickings around here.”
“Depends on what you’re picking,” she replied.
Zach smiled, but Annie could tell he was anxious to be off. And, for that matter, so was she. “Well, I guess I’ll be going now,” she said reluctantly, not knowing how to end their leave-taking gracefully. She felt so awkward.
Lightly putting his hands on her shoulders, Zach pulled her forward for a lingering kiss. “I’ll let you know something when I can,” he promised when the kiss finally ended.
She could only hope he would. “Good luck,” she said before turning toward the front door. Walking outside into the day that was passing into late afternoon, Annie looked back as she reached her car. Zach was right behind her, his expression protective and serious as she got into the hearse.
Annie fought back the strange and overwhelming sensation that this might be the last time she ever saw Zach. Although she desperately wanted to hear him say he’d call her tomorrow, or this weekend, or whenever, she had to make do with the fact he honestly seemed to think they’d be together soon.
“Don’t take any wooden nickels,” she said, forcing herself to sound light.
He gave her a quick kiss through the open car window. “Drive safely,” he replied.
Annie started the car and drove to the end of the block, where she made a cautious circuit around all the cars that had come to the bridge circle at Zach’s neighbor’s house. She waved as she drove past Zach, and he did the same.
In her rearview mirror, Annie saw Zach standing on the sidewalk, watching her drive away, until she could no longer see him. Taking a deep breath, she headed toward Desperado, feeling like she’d just left half of her soul behind.
Gert and Travis were playing cards at the kitchen table when Annie got home. She peeked at both their hands, saw that Gert was going to trounce Travis soundly, and went to get a drink from the refrigerator.
“Was Mary good?” she asked.
“Of course,” Travis replied. “When isn’t she?”
Annie smiled at her father’s praise of her daughter. “Thanks for looking after her. Where is she, anyway?”
“Tucked safely in bed,” Gert replied. “I’d brought over some books from my house and she wanted to hear every one.”
“Oh, thank you, Gert.” Annie’s gratitude was palpable. “You sure have been heaven-sent for my family.”
“I’m glad.” The woman nodded and laid down her hand of cards. “I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you I’ve got to be getting back to work at the hospital.”
“What?” Travis sounded stunned. “What do you want to do that for, woman?”
Annie stared at her father. He sounded as if he didn’t want Gert to leave. Was this the same man who’d once called the nurse a gray-haired battle axe?
“It’s not that I want to do it, as much as I have to,” Gert replied serenely. “You may know that a paycheck and health insurance and retirement benefits are necessary if I want to continue to eat.”
“Ain’t you getting enough to eat around here?” he demanded.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
Annie thought Gert’s calmness was admirable, considering her father’s rudeness. Obviously, the thought that the nurse needed to return to her own life bothered him. Setting her drink down, she walked over to Travis and sat down beside him. “Papa, if Gert needs to go, we can’t stop her. We’ve been lucky to have her so long.”
“I don’t feel lucky right now,” he complained. “She’s beat me at every hand—”
“Fixing to beat you at this one too,” Gert inserted.
“See? And she pushes me around and makes me do things I don’t want to do, like wear short pants! Which I’m doing to please her, but do you think that matters? No!”
Annie held back a smile. It was good to know that her father had found someone he liked. Because it was plain as day to her that Travis was fighting like a fish on a line so that he wouldn’t have to face Gert’s leaving.
“I’ll come around once in a while to see you, old man,” she said placidly. “You’ll still have to do what I tell you.”
Travis got up, stomping jerkily across the kitchen to the doorway with his walker. Then he circled back to stare down at Gert. “No, I won’t. Just for once, Nurse Gert, I think the patient ought to have a chance to tell you what to do.” He took a deep breath. “If you have to return to the hospital, fine. But I think you ought to come home here at night.”
Annie and Gert were silent as they stared up at Travis. The quiet dimness of the kitchen seemed to shroud the three of them in a frozen frame of surprise.
“What are you saying, Travis Cade? That you want me to work all day and then come here and take care of you at night?” Gert sounded like she might be working herself up for some anger of her own.
“Hell, yes! I mean, hell, no! You’re twisting me around, Gert! I’m trying to ask you to marry me, but you’re making a fine mess of the whole thing.”
Travis looked completely unraveled by his speech. Annie slid a glance at Gert, who looked as shocked as Annie felt. But she smiled, thinking that her father deserved a good woman like Gert. He’d been without a soul mate for a long time.
>
Too long.
“Well, Annie, what do you think about this astonishing turn of events?” Gert asked. “You’re too old to have a stepmother, and I wouldn’t want to horn in where I wouldn’t be wanted.”
Annie smiled, pushing back warm tears of happiness. “Oh, you’re wanted, Gert, if you feel like accepting my father’s rather unique proposal.” She gave the woman a hug, which was returned gratefully.
“Well, old man, I guess you’ve got yourself a wife, then.” Gert looked pleased and somehow younger as she stood to look him in the eyes. “Though you should know this doesn’t change anything. I’ll still be wearing the long pants around here.”
She nodded at his compliant silence. “Now, off to bed with you.” As was her normal brisk manner, Gert pushed past Travis, leaving him to follow behind her. But he reached out, snagging her arm and turning her around as she got to the doorway.
“You may wear the long pants, woman, but I’m still the one making the important decisions. And I say, I ain’t going till I get a proper kiss for my marriage proposal.”
“Well, then.” Gert leaned over, careful of Travis’s walker. She gave him a quick peck on the mouth. He frowned. Thoughtful for a moment, Gert leaned over and gave him a kiss that lasted a full five seconds longer and which he appeared to return. Annie lowered her eyes but couldn’t disguise her grin.
“There. That’s all the excitement you’re getting tonight, old man.”
Gert turned and headed down the hall. Travis hurried his walker behind her, calling, “I love you, too, old woman.”
Annie sat alone in the kitchen, listening to the noises of Travis resisting Gert’s attempts to settle him into bed to sleep. They made a good couple, and she couldn’t have wished for a better woman for her father.
But in spite of her happiness for the newly engaged couple, Annie couldn’t help hoping—wishing—that she and Zach might find their relationship heading down the same rosy path. She flipped over one of the abandoned playing cards absently. The queen of hearts turned up, content in her allure, and Annie put her back down. Was she the queen of Zach’s heart? Annie didn’t know. Suddenly, she remembered Grandmother Day’s journals, long forgotten in the attic. She’d been a woman who had completely possessed the heart of the man she’d chosen.
If there was ever a time to read about the two lovers who had turned their backs on everything but each other, if there was anything Annie could learn from her grandmother’s words, now was the time to find out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zach watched Carter leave the upscale condo where he lived. His eyes narrowed as he observed the man’s confident swagger.
Well, he wouldn’t be cocky for long. It was time to give Carter what he had coming to him.
“There he is. Come on,” he murmured to the man standing behind him in the darkness.
“Hey, Carter,” Zach called. “Wait a minute.” Carter halted at the sound of his name, standing stock-still with a goofy grin on his face the moment he realized Sam Lindale was with Zach. Which was exactly what Zach had expected. With Lindale being a stockholder, and Carter knowing of the close relationship between Zach and Sam, no doubt the egotistical idiot assumed that they’d come to offer him his job back.
The two bigger men stood on either side of Carter, staring down at him in an intimidating fashion. Carter’s grin started to fade a bit.
“What’s up, Zach?”
“I wanted to talk to you about a little article that showed up in the paper yesterday,” Zach began.
But he didn’t need to continue. “Hell, Zach, I didn’t have anything to do with that!” Carter looked at Lindale beseechingly. “You know I wouldn’t have taken any stories about Ritter outside!”
Sam nodded grimly. “Maybe. But who else could it have been?”
“I don’t know. But it wasn’t me. I wouldn’t have done that to you, Zach, man.”
Zach commanded himself not to shove Carter’s lying tongue down his throat and to let the cooler head—Lindale’s—prevail.
“That’s not what LouAnn Harrison says, Carter.” Sam kept his eyes trained on his ex-employee. “She says you’ve been out to get at Zach since day one. That you’ve always been jealous of him, and the first chance you got to tear into him, you did.” Sam frowned down at Carter. “I guess I’d have to believe her, since she was sleeping with you while engaged to Zach.”
Carter’s eyes bugged. “She’s lying. She just made that up because Zach dumped her.”
Zach had to look away for a moment in order to keep from strangling Carter on the spot.
Sam crossed his arms. “I don’t know. LouAnn’s father is one of the most respected businessmen in the community. Don’t know why she’d need to make up lies about you to get her kicks. You’re not going to say that LouAnn had something to do with the article, are you?”
“No, I—yes, I am saying that,” Carter said hurriedly. “She convinced me to talk to the paper about Zach after he broke their engagement. I didn’t want to. And then they twisted around everything I said. I never told them anything about you embezzling money from the company, or—”
“I wasn’t embezzling from Ritter.” Zach’s expression turned harder. “Don’t say it again or I’ll kill you on the spot.”
He hadn’t meant to make the threat, but it came pouring out of his mouth like lava from a volcano. Carter and his lies and deviousness had filled him with a burning anger that might explode any second.
Sam put a restraining hand on Zach’s arm. “Tell you the truth, Carter, we have enough information on your involvement in this matter to go to the authorities. And Zach here can sue you for libel, and win easily.”
Carter blanched. “Please…don’t do that. I’ll call the newspaper and have the article retracted.”
“That’s not good enough. A man’s reputation has been ruined and a simple retraction isn’t going to do the job. Zach has suffered a lot of damage because of you.”
“Tell me what you want, Zach. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Carter seemed terrified now. Zach became intensely aware of one thing: if Carter was this frightened of the authorities investigating him, then he no doubt had been embezzling from Ritter. No doubt he’d stolen enough money to give himself vacation time in Tahiti for the rest of his life.
Harshly, Zach said, “I want the deed to the property in Desperado that you bought.”
“No way.” Carter shook his head, trying to look brave again. “No can do, amigo.”
“Shut up, Carter,” Zach hissed. Carter calling him friend in Spanish was more than his temper could stand. “Give me the gun, Sam.”
“All right, all right!” Carter capitulated instantly. “You can have the damn deed!”
Zach pulled from his pocket the worthless deed that his father had given over to him. “I’ve already got the deed. And my name’s on it. What I want is you signing your name off this deed, and authorization for total ownership to me.” Zach’s smile was thin. “Here are the legal documents, all drawn up nice and neat.” He handed Carter a Mont Blanc pen. “Start signing, you son of a bitch.”
Carter paused for a moment. He stared at Zach, then at Sam. “He’s crazy, you know,” he said to Sam, as if Zach weren’t standing on the other side of him. “You won’t let him make me sign away property I bought without giving me some payment, will you?”
Sam pointed at the documents Carter held in his shaking hands. “I suggest you sign fast, Carter. Zach’s been dying to take a chunk out of your hide ever since he discovered who’d talked to the newspaper.”
Reluctantly, Carter lowered his pen to the paper. “Hey, this says I deed over your father’s old shack, too. You’re leaving me without anything.”
“It’s not worth a dime, so why do you care?” Zach asked.
“Because I’ve just about got it sold to a guy who—”
Zach’s mouth thinned to a grim line. “Who what, Carter?”
“Well, it’s a bad section of town, Zach
. And across from that bingo parlor, the land is nearly worthless, unless one opens a…”
Carter’s voice trailed off. A curious sensation hit Zach that Carter was afraid to tell him what his plans for Pop’s house were.
“I believe what our friend is trying to tell you is that he’s going to open a little house of whores, Zach,” Lindale finished. “Isn’t that right, Carter?”
Zach stared, disbelieving. He ground his teeth as his eyes met Carter’s and saw the guilty truth in his expression. “God. You don’t care how you make money, do you?”
Carter didn’t reply, obviously becoming petrified of Zach’s burgeoning rage.
“Sign it,” Zach commanded. “You’ll just have to find a way to make a profit somewhere else.” No way in hell was he going to allow any sex shops to be opened on the ground where his mother had once lived, had once raised him with her gentle love.
“What good is it to you?” Carter asked, still unwilling to give up his investment.
“I don’t know. I’ll probably give the property to a church or a charity, where it can be used in a suitable manner. That area of town could use some spiritual uplifting. Now, sign, damn it.”
Reluctantly, Carter obeyed. “Are we finished conducting business now? I have an important meeting to go to.”
“You sure do.” Lindale tucked his beefy arm securely through Carter’s. “As a matter of fact, the board has thoroughly examined Ritter’s financial records, and we’ve discovered that we are indeed missing a bit of change in the company. Coincidentally, we also found a like amount in your bank account.”
“So,” Zach began, taking hold of Carter’s other arm and leading him forward to Zach’s car, “we think the police will be interested to hear your tale of how you became instantly rich.”
Carter struggled between them, but Zach’s grip was determined and fierce. “And,” Zach finished, “when they’re through talking to you, the Desperado sheriff is sending someone to discuss a little bitty fire some firebug set down that way.”