by Webb, Peggy
Only Yesterday
Peggy Webb
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by Peggy Webb
Cover design copyright 2011 by Kim Van Meter
Publishing History/Bantam Loveswept
Copyright 1998 by Peggy Webb
CHAPTER ONE
She hadn't set out to buy a clock that day. She'd been intent on getting a new latch for the screen door. But the temperature hovered near ninety, and Ann had detoured by the ice-cream shop to get something cool to eat, then she'd caught a glimpse of the sign over the door of the quaint little shop in the middle of the block. Blast from the Past the sign promised, and she wasn't disappointed by the delivery.
John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean stood in the back of the shop, life-size, cardboard smiles frozen for posterity. Through the speakers mounted over the soda fountain, Percy Sledge crooned, "When A Man Loves A Woman." A leather trunk plastered with stickers from the Hotel Palace in Mar del Plata and the Continental Hotel in Tangier hinted of grand adventures in times gone by.
But it was the clock that drew her to the shelves at the back of the store, a black plastic cat, tail wagging, big pop eyes rolling.
"Aren't you the sassiest little thing?" Standing on tiptoe, she tried to get the clock off the shelf, but it was out of reach.
Out of the blue a pair of very tanned, very masculine hands plucked the clock from the shelf. Ann was not the kind of woman who agonized over possessions, but all of a sudden she wanted that clock in a way that made her almost frantic.
"That's my clock."
She whirled around, puffed up for a fight, but what she saw took the wind right out of her sails. He had a smile that would light the entire South in a blackout and enough body heat to raise the temperature ten degrees. He was standing so close, her nose was only inches away from his broad chest, and he showed no intention of moving. Furthermore, she'd stepped on his fine black leather boots.
"Pardon me." Her apology only increased his amusement. Ann wanted to hit something.
"Do you always talk to yourself?" he asked.
His voice matched the rest of him, big and dark and mysterious, the kind of voice that set foolish women shivering. Darned if she hadn't joined the ranks of the foolish. Her tank top was plastered to her back with sweat, but she was shivering like a willow in a spring storm. And over a perfect stranger.
Ann felt like a traitor. Unconsciously she twisted the diamond on her finger. The minute she got to Windchime House she would phone Rob.
"Don't you ever reply to anything anybody says to you?" She removed her foot from his boot and tried to take a step back, but the shelves were in her way. This gloriously gorgeous man had her trapped and had her clock, to boot, and she couldn't even muster up enough sparks for a stinging rebuke.
"Down here we do things in a more leisurely fashion."
Leaning in close, he propped one elbow on the shelf near her head. Ann wondered why swooning had gone out of style. For a moment she thought about reviving the lost Victorian art, right there in the heart of downtown Fairhope, Alabama.
"For instance, we introduce ourselves, and then if we like the person we've just met, we might sit down together and have a cool drink of lemonade." He turned up the voltage on his smile. "Colt Butler. I'm buying."
"I'm engaged."
The minute the words were out of her mouth she wanted to bite her tongue off. She sounded prissy and defensive, two qualities she deplored.
"My congratulations to the lucky man."
He actually tipped his hat, a battered old baseball cap without lettering, a faded butternut twill that looked soft to the touch. Ann curled her fingers tightly together to keep from reaching toward that tattered cap. Seeking relief, she slid her gaze lower. It came to rest on a pair of shocking blue eyes. As brilliant as neon. As mesmerizing as bits of bottle glass found in the surf.
When her toes curled under she knew she was in serious trouble. The Debeau curse.
"When your toes curl under, that's when you know," her great aunt Gilly had told her. Had it been only weeks ago?
"Know what, Aunt Gilly?"
"That it's true love."
Ann had laughed. She'd waited years for the famous Debeau sign, but when she'd met Rob she knew that love was choice, not fate.
"Rob and I don't need silly signs. When something is right, it's right, Aunt Gilly."
"Sooner or later it happens to all the Debeau women."
"You're going to love Rob. You'll be the first to dance at our wedding. In fact, I'm going to send you a ticket so you can come up to New York and help me pick out the wedding dress."
A month later she'd sent the ticket, but by then it had been too late. Gilly Debeau was hospitalized, heavily sedated with painkillers, struggling through the final stages of the liver cancer nobody'd even known she had.
"Hey . . ." Colt Butler cupped her cheek, his hand warm and reassuring. "Are you all right? If it's the clock I—"
"It's not the clock." Ann tucked her dark hair behind her left ear, a habit Rob was trying to break her of.
Colt Butler took her arm, and before she could protest she was sitting beside him on a bar stool at the soda fountain.
"Two of your banana split specials, Marge," he said.
"That's very thoughtful of you." Ann didn't even tell him she'd just had a strawberry ice cream. What the heck? She'd skip supper. Not that there was anything in the cabinets to cook. She'd spent the days prior to Aunt Gilly's death at the hospital, and the days since the funeral organizing her aunt's possessions and trying to decide what to do about the house. Eating was secondary.
"How did you know I love ice cream?" She plowed into the banana split with gusto.
"I have this special radar. It hones in on fat gram counters a mile away. I always head in the opposite direction." Suddenly he leaned over and wiped the corner of her mouth with the tip of his index finger. Her toes curled under again.
"Berry juice," he said. "It looked so good I started to lick it off."
"Shocking. And you don't even know my name."
Was that her laughing with such reckless abandon, as if she didn't have a care in the world, as if she didn't have the world's most wonderful man waiting for her in Brooklyn, as if Colt Butler didn't still have her Felix the Cat clock?
"What is your name?"
"Ann Debeau. Charlotte Ann, actually, named for my grandmother, only nobody ever calls me that except when I come back home to the South."
He studied her a long time, but never once during his intense scrutiny did she feel uncomfortable. And that surprised her almost as much as her toes curling under. She'd always guarded her privacy as much as she'd guarded her time. And yet here she was, telling this strange man things she'd never even told Rob.
"The name suits you." He nodded, adding his stamp of approval, then kissed her hand in the courtly manner of a long-ago era. "I'm pleased to meet you, Annie Debeau."
Annie. Something stirred inside her, as soft as the brush of angel wings. Nobody had ever called her Annie, and yet the name felt as familiar to her as if she awakened every day to the sound of it on her lover's lips.
"I might reciprocate except that you stole my clock right out from under my nose."
"This sassy little thing?" The clock's tail never missed a beat as Colt set it on the counter.
"You were eavesdropping."
"No. I was right behind you, thinking the same thing myself. Only not about the clock."
With any other man she would have taken offense, but Colt had a warm, easy manner that allowed him to pass off outrageous remarks as refreshing honesty.
"You probably say that to all the girls."
"Probably," he agreed, laughing to himself.
Later s
he would mull over the encounter bit by bit, as she always did, and be mortified at her own behavior, but the heat and the banana split, combined with Colt Butler's natural charm, put her in a mellow mood. He could suggest they swim naked in the moonlight, and she doubted she'd blink twice.
"So you're at Windchime House?" he added.
"How did you know?"
"The name. Your grandmother's house is a familiar landmark around here. Beautiful and strangely haunting in a way I can't describe."
"Exactly." She was amazed that he'd seen beyond the beauty.
"Do you ever swim naked in the bay?"
She nearly dropped her spoon. "In the moonlight?"
"Yes." It was his turn to be flustered.
"Do you read minds?" she asked.
"No. I barely have time to read newspapers." Under the guise of savoring his cherries and whipped cream, he studied her. "You were thinking the same thing?"
"I don't want you to get the wrong idea."
"Neither do I. I've been called a rake and a Southern-fried Romeo, but I've never been called a cad." He lifted her hand and twisted the ring on her finger. "The first thing you told me was that you'd made a pledge, and I respect that." His grin was wicked. "I don't like it, but I respect it."
Why was it, the simplest little thing he said could make her hot all over? What she needed was a good dose of Rob. His practical manner was the perfect counterbalance for her unconventional, unpredictable nature, the perfect antidote for the outrageous man sitting beside her.
"Thanks for the ice cream, Colt. I have to run. I have a million things to do."
"You didn't finish."
She gazed with longing at her dish. Laughing, Colt scooped up the whipped cream and cherries, and held the spoon to her mouth. How could she resist?
"You always save the best for last," he said.
"How did you know?" He offered another bite, and she took it.
"I do too." He scraped the last bite from her bowl, then cupped her chin while she ate.
She closed her eyes in sheer appreciation of the moment—the ice cream, the ceiling fans stirring the balmy air, the tender touch of a man's hand on her skin.
"Hmmm . . . the last bite is always the best"
Suddenly she felt another touch, on her lips this time, whisper-soft, gentle as dew falling on roses. Colt's lips on hers.
It was a brief kiss, so brief that when she opened her eyes she thought she might have dreamed it. Except for the gleam in his eyes.
"So it is," he murmured.
She jumped off the stool. "I have to be going."
"I know. You have a million things to do."
His smile caught her hard up under her rib cage, and for a moment she thought she might faint. Unable to take her eyes off him, she angled sideways toward the door muttering, "Pardon me," more times than she could count as she bumped into hapless bystanders and stepped on toes.
She was as confused as Alice in Wonderland. Swinging open the door, she gulped deep breaths of fresh air.
"You forgot something."
His voice was all too familiar. Familiar, too, was the floating sensation she felt from something as simple as the sound of his voice.
"You forgot this."
There was the clock in all its forties splendor, tail merrily wagging, eyes rolling as if Felix the Cat knew things nobody else knew.
"But I didn't forget it. It's yours. You got to it first."
"No. You were there first." He pressed the clock into her hands. "I want to buy it for you."
"Here." She reached into her purse. "How much—?"
He stilled her with a firm grip over her hand. "My gift to you, Annie Debeau. To mark the time until we meet again."
Before she could protest he strolled over to the cashier, turning only long enough for a wink and a smile.
o0o
Felix the Cat sat on the mantel, looking as out of place in Windchime House as a thorn on a morning glory.
"Rob?" Curled into a ball on the Victorian love seat, Ann cradled the receiver close.
"Honey?" The static on the line made him sound as if he were on another planet. And that's exactly how Ann felt, as if Rob were on Jupiter and she'd been abandoned somewhere between the moon and Venus. "What's wrong?"
"Does something have to be wrong for me to call you?"
"No. But we usually call each other in the evening, so the question stands."
"Nothing." Certainly nothing she could tell him.
"Is there something on your mind, Ann?"
Where was that rush of relief she'd expected to feel when she called him? Where was the lifting of the spirits, the music in the heart?
It had been too long since she'd seen him. That was all.
"Rob, did I ever tell you I was born the day my grandmother died?"
"No."
"You don't sound very interested."
"Now, Ann, don't get your dander up. I know it's been rough down there these last few weeks, but, honey, it's the middle of the afternoon."
Why was it that everything he said irritated her?
"Well, don't let me keep you from your clients."
"I am on a tight schedule today—contracts to get out, Charlie Battingham breathing down my neck, getting ready for court tomorrow, plus the usual mountain of paper on my desk. It's hell around here."
"It's pretty hot down here too."
Rob didn't even chuckle. "I'll call you tonight, honey, after you're all tucked in bed."
"Okay. Fine."
She held on to the receiver, waiting for him to say something more. Maybe she was expecting too much. Maybe dealing with her aunt's death had made her want more from life. But shouldn't there be words of comfort and tenderness and longing? Shouldn't there be soft sighs and heavy breathing? Shouldn't there be a mention of love?
"Is there something else, Ann?"
"No. Nothing. 'Bye, Rob."
"Good-bye, Ann. Talk to you later."
She hugged her legs and pressed her cheek on her knees, taking comfort from the sweaty feel of her own skin and the smell of the lotion she'd found in Aunt Gilly's bathroom. Rose. A favorite scent of the Debeau women. It was everywhere—in the potpourri on the marble-topped tables, in the drying petals of the huge bouquets friends had sent for the memorial services. The sweet scent even clung to the velvet drapes, as if cascades of rose petals had been crushed against the heavy fabric.
Suddenly Ann couldn't breathe. Barefoot, she padded onto the front porch. It was more properly called a veranda, spanning the entire front of the white three-story house that overlooked the water and wrapping halfway around the sides. The sun streaked the western sky with magenta and purple, and ceiling fans stirred the humid air, setting the wind chimes a’sway. First her grandmother and then her aunt had collected them from all over the world, tuned chimes whose tinkling music carried across the wide sweep of lawn and down to the dock where a sailboat lay at anchor.
Nostalgic, she touched the star on the chimes she’d sent Aunt Gilly at Christmas, then leaned on the front porch railing and looked out across the water. The bay was spectacular in the setting sun, a scene that was balm to an artist's soul.
She could work here. For the hundredth time in the last few days she wondered what she was going to do about Windchime House. It had belonged to her grandmother, then her aunt Gilly, and now it was hers.
But her life was in New York. Wasn't it?
The sea lapped against the shore, its music as compelling as a siren's song. Ann looked out over the water and thought about swimming naked in the moonlight.
CHAPTER TWO
Colt's mind wasn't on the movie, and it certainly wasn't on the woman at his side—Linda Levine, the new pharmacist at Harco. He'd been looking forward to their date all week, but now he could barely suppress a yawn as they sat in the darkened theater. He wished he were home with his Labs.
"Do you want to stay for the rest of the movie?" he asked.
"Whatever you want."
An early night was what he wanted, an hour in his easy chair with a good Whitley Strieber book, Buck and Sam curled at his feet, then that long, deep fall into a dreamless sleep. But he owed Linda more than a quick dismissal.
"How about ice cream?"
"Great."
He took her to Blast from the Past, hoping to rid himself of the spell he'd been under since early afternoon. But the minute he walked in the door the memories came flooding back—the shapely tanned legs, the tiny nipped-in waist, the shining cap of black hair that slid across one cheek when she tilted her head, the incredible green eyes.
But more than the memory was the feeling, as if he'd been squeezed high up under the ribs, as if he'd come face-to-face with one of his own dreams.
"What a glorious place," Linda said. "Do you come here often?"
"It's a favorite haunt of mine." The same bar stools he and Annie had sat on were empty, but Colt steered Linda in the opposite direction. "What kind of ice cream do you like?"
"Sorbet or sherbet." She laughed at the expression on his face. "Too many fat grams in the real stuff."
An hour later Colt was in his own den, both dogs rubbing against his legs, vying for his attention.
"I had a narrow escape, boys, from a fat gram counter. Man, I can't believe I made such a mistake."
"Talking to the dogs again?"
Colt's spirits lifted every time he saw Uncle Pete. Grizzled and bowlegged, with more hair in his eyebrows than on his head, he was still the grandest man Colt had ever known, mother and father to him since Colt was five years old, the best parent in Alabama, the best horse trainer in the world.
"Who is there to talk to except you, and all you want to talk about is horses?"
Pete chuckled. "Let's talk about women then."
"You don't know squat about women."
"Neither do you, from all I can hear."
"You shouldn't listen to idle gossip."
"It wasn't idle; it was solicited."
Laughing, Colt slung his arm around his uncle's shoulders, towering over the old man. "What am I going to do with you, you old reprobate?"
"Many and give me grandchildren."
"What? And make Buck and Sam jealous? Not a chance."