Secret Admirer

by Julie

  “And the hair."

  Trixie threaded her fingers up under the heavy strands and lifted them. They sifted down to spread on Annie's shoulders. "It is gorgeous."

  "You know what? Cut it." A little thrill shot through Annie as she said those words.

  "You don't mean...?"

  Annie nodded. "Exactly. Short."

  Two and a half hours later, Annie left Shear Indulgence feeling pampered as you please. A slight breeze tickled her neck. It was wonderful not to have all that heavy hair weighing her down. And she liked the way it looked, too. Straight and soft and feathery around her face. She thought the style brought out her eyes and accentuated her cheekbones.

  Mama would probably have a fit. Annie's mom had short hair herself, but she'd always loved that Annie kept hers long. "You've got the hair for it," Naomi Grant would say. "Stick-straight, thick and so shiny."

  Yeah, Mama might be miffed. But she'd get used to it soon enough. Mama was getting better and better about accepting things she couldn't control.

  After Hank died, both her mother and dad had become way too protective and interfering. Annie had put up with it for a couple of years.

  She'd missed Hank so bad - still did - but she couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for her mom and dad. They say when you lose a child you never really get over it. When you lose a brother, you didn't either; Annie knew that from her own experience.

  But Annie still understood that it was even worse for her parents. For a long time, her dad wandered around like a ghost of himself. And her mama would sometimes go whole days without getting out of her bathrobe. So Annie had let them boss her and coddle her because she knew it was something she could stand for a while, something that gave them a tiny bit of comfort in their suffering. Eventually, though, she'd made her stand and gotten it clear to them that they had to let her live her life for herself.

  Now, except for the saddest times - Hank's birthday, a little at Christmas, always on the anniversary of the day he died - they were as "over" his death as they were ever going to get.

  Greg, though...

  In some ways, seven years later, he seemed the least over it of all of them. As if he had doors in his mind and heart now, doors that he always kept shut. And parts of himself that he couldn't even get to.

  It - the shutting of those hidden doors - had happened really slowly. At first, after the accident, Greg had seemed the strongest one. They'd made him go to grief counseling and it had seemed as if it had really helped him. Greg and his parents. Patty and Joe, had been the rocks the Grant family had clung to when their lives were one big, terrible shipwreck of unhappiness.

  Over time, so gradually you could hardly see the change occurring, things had gotten better. Annie's dad started smiling again now and then. Her mother quit spending the day in her robe with her hair sticking out all over the place.

  But Greg...

  Well, okay. Maybe he'd had those shut doors inside himself since the accident and Annie just hadn't seen them - maybe she only saw them now because of what had finally happened between them. Or maybe she was totally off base about the whole thing. She wanted Greg and he'd made it painfully clear she wasn't going to have him.

  So she was inventing all this stuff about him and the shut doors. If there were shut doors, well, that was something to open, then, wasn't it? Something to break down...

  Oh, and why was she even thinking about him anyway?

  Today wasn't about Greg. Today was about the beginning of the changes she, Annie Elizabeth Grant, was going to make in her life.

  The really cool thing, too, was that Trixie would donate Annie's long hair to be made into wigs for chemotherapy patients. That pleased Annie greatly.

  The makeup, though...

  It was a little too much, Annie thought as she walked along, a little too sculptured looking. A little too glam.

  So she made a quick detour home before returning to the bank. There, in the privacy of her own bathroom, she washed her face and reapplied the blusher, liner, mascara and lipstick Trixie had sold her, but with a lighter hand. She strolled back to the bank feeling pretty good about everything. Definitely the best she'd felt since Saturday morning, no doubt about that.

  But then, just as she made it to the parking lot and was heading for the big glass doors, a police-issue Blazer pulled up beside her. Greg leaned across the passenger seat and shoved open the passenger door.

  Annie stepped back. "What? Am I getting arrested?"

  He looked... she wasn't quite sure. Even behind the dark glasses he wore to cut the bright Texas sun, he still seemed kind of...stricken, maybe. As if he'd just gotten some terrible news. "Get in," he said. "Please. Just for a minute."

  She felt her shoulders starting to slump and jerked them back. "Why?"

  "Annie," he said, as if that was any kind of answer.

  With extreme reluctance, she climbed in and shut the door. "You're blocking traffic." She stared straight ahead. "Better move this thing."

  He pulled forward into an empty space, then put the Blazer in park and turned off the engine.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his hand draped on the steering wheel. He was turned toward her. But he wasn't saying a word. The black police radio in the dash crackled. A voice gave instructions.

  Annie tipped her head toward the sound. "Shouldn't you get that?”

  “It's not for me."

  Another voice came on. There was a quick exchange and then silence. Annie gave up staring straight ahead and looked at Greg. "So? The minutes are passing and you haven't said anything I needed to hear."

  He took off his hat, dropped it on the console between them and shook his golden head. "What the hell did you do to your hair?"

  She gaped at him. "You know, that is about the rudest thing I've heard all day. And is that why you're wearing that low-down, brokenhearted expression - because you hate my hair?"

  He took off the shades and tossed them on the dash above the steering wheel. "Look. It's just...it's fine. It shocked me, that's all."

  "You are such a bad liar."

  Those blue eyes shifted away, and then back. "I'm not lying.”

  “You hate it."

  "Hell, Annie..." He was the picture of manly misery. "It's only... did you do that to yourself because of me?"

  She'd heard about enough. "Excuse me. I didn't do anything to myself. I got a haircut. People get haircuts all the time." She ran her hand over the short, feathery strands. "And you know what? I happen to like it. I think it looks good on me."

  He kind of squinted at her, and then shook his head. "It's not that it looks bad."

  "Gee, thanks.”

  “It's only..."

  She waited for him to finish. He didn't. She reached for the door handle.

  "Damn it, Annie. Wait."

  "For?"

  "Look..."

  "Any time you're ready to actually say something, just let me know."

  "It's only that I keep thinking...”

  “What?"

  "Well, why can't we just go back to the way it used to be between us?"

  The way it used to be...

  Greg, the big-brother figure - Annie the adoring "little" sister. They'd go to movies together, hang out at the lake. Play pool sometimes over at that roadhouse right outside of town. Greg would always win. Sometimes - like last Friday night - they'd rent a movie and watch it at her place, a huge bowl of popcorn on the couch between them, his hand bumping hers when they both reached in the bowl at the same time.

  Greg and Annie. The way they used to be. Everything fun and innocent, the only kisses the occasional peck on the cheek.

  And then, maybe, as he had two years ago, he'd find someone special, start taking her out. Break Annie's heart all over again. Two years ago, he'd even gotten engaged. Her name was Heather Delmasio. Greg had known her since middle school. She was sweet and pretty, a really good person. But it didn't matter how swee
t and good Heather was. Annie had hated her for having Greg as her guy - hated her, and despised herself for feeling that way.

  In the end, it hadn't worked out between Greg and Heather. Heather had moved to Corpus. And Annie and Greg had gone back to their just-like-brother-and-sis-ter act.

  The way it used to be...

  Impossible. And he really ought to know that. "Because it's not the way it used to be," Annie said. He looked so lost and sad, she couldn't help softening toward him a little. 'That's it?" she asked, gently now. "That's what you wanted to talk to me about? You and me, going back like it was?"

  After a moment, he nodded. "Yeah. I miss you, damn it." What was she supposed to say to that? Before she could come up with something constructive, he added, "I feel like the world's biggest jerk, you know."

  "Well, my advice on that would be, stop it. As I've already told you about a hundred times, I did what I wanted to do. And now you 're doing what you want to do. Period. Over. End of story."

  He kind of leaned toward her. She saw such confusion in those beautiful blue eyes - and also a certain spark that made heat flare down inside her. He sank back to his own seat. "I hate this."

  What could she say? "Yeah, well...me, too." She reached for the door handle again. "I'd better go."

  Now he was the one looking straight ahead. "Guess so."

  "Greg?"

  He made a low noise, just to let her know he was listening, though he continued to stare at the adobe facade of the bank as if there was something totally fascinating about it.

  She wanted... oh, she didn't know. To ease his misery a little, she supposed. She loved him. Even if he couldn't let himself love her back except in a brotherly way, she wanted the very best for him. She told him, keeping her voice gentle and low, "You've always been too hard on yourself about things, you know that? Sometimes you act like everything that ever went wrong in this world is your own personal fault. But it's not. It's just not."

  He turned toward her then. What she saw in his eyes melted her midsection and got her heart going in a deep, heavy rhythm. She stared at him and he stared at her and she wondered how he could lie to himself the way he did. How could he even think that they might go back the way they'd been?

  He said her name, on a breath. "Annie..." And, so slowly, he leaned her way.

  She waited, heart pounding, every nerve burning. Knowing he was going to kiss her. Not quite sure that she would kiss him back - but wanting to.

  Longing to...

  The scent of him came to her: soap and manliness and a hint of aftershave. "Greg," she whispered.

  And then, without warning, he jerked back into his seat. He swore low. "Sorry. So damn sorry."

  "See?" She leaned on the door and it swung open. "You just proved it. You just showed yourself why we can never be the way we were." She swung her feet to the blacktop and got out. "We aren't the way we were. And we're never going to be again."

  Shoving the door shut, she turned for the bank. She walked fast. And never once did she look back.

  Chapter 4

  After work, Annie dropped by the main house to deliver the pound of coffee her mom had asked her to pick up on the way home. Her folks were sitting at the kitchen table, eating their evening meal, when she walked in.

  At first, there was dead, stunned silence as both of her parents stared at her - specifically, at her hair.

  And then her father cleared his throat. "Why, Annie. You look...beautiful. Just beautiful."

  Right about then, her mother dropped her fork and burst into tears.

  "Naomi? Sweetheart?" Her dad had that look he always got when her mother became emotional - as if he wanted to make it all better but he didn't have the faintest idea how.

  Annie set the coffee on the counter, whipped a tissue from the box that waited on an open shelf and rushed to her mother's side. "Here you go, Mama."

  Naomi snatched the tissue with a sob. "Oh. Oh, my." She wiped her eyes. "Why am I doing this?" She sobbed some more.

  Ted Grant unfolded his long, thin body from his chair. He stood six foot five, even taller than Greg, and towered over his tiny wife. "Ahem. Well. I'll just leave you two ladies alone for a few minutes, I think."

  Naomi waved her tissue at him. "Sit right back down, honey. Your food'll get cold." Annie's dad dropped into his chair again and Naomi commanded, "Just eat. Eat."

  So Ted Grant dutifully picked up his knife and fork, sawed off a bite of pork chop and stuck it in his mouth.

  Annie knelt by her mother's chair. "Better?"

  "Oh. Oh, yes. It's only..." She reached out a hesitant hand and touched Annie's hair. "My, my," she said in a kind of wonderment that managed to be both infinitely sad and happy at the same time. "It does suit you."

  Annie beamed up at her. "Whew. Had me worried there for a minute."

  Naomi waved her soggy tissue again. "Yes, well." She took a moment to blow her nose. "It does kind of make me realize. You're not my little girl anymore."

  "Sure I am. Mama. But maybe just not quite so little - and more a woman than a girl."

  "Yes. That's so true. And isn't it crazy? But when I looked up and saw you standing there in the doorway,I remembered that time Hank took you for your first ride on his motorcycle. You had on a helmet, but when he rode off with you, your long hair was streaming out from under it, blowing in the wind."

  Annie felt her own eyes filling. "Yeah. That was the first time he got the thing started. He was so proud."

  Naomi swallowed a sob. "He was. Oh, he was."

  Annie surged up and wrapped her arms around her mother. "It's hard, huh?" she whispered.

  Naomi made a tight sound in her throat and hugged Annie back. When they broke apart, they both looked across at Ted. Annie gave her father a big brave smile. "Okay over there, Daddy?"

  Her dad put down his fork. "I remember that day, the first day Hank got that old bike going. Not a day goes by I don't..." He paused, swallowed. "You know, you two'll have me bawling if you keep this up."

  Naomi dabbed her eyes some more and looked up at Annie. "Sit with us. Eat. There's plenty."

  Annie hesitated. "I've got my class in half an hour. And I have to go up and feed Muffy."

  "Just sit with us then, for a minute or two."

  Annie glanced at the clock on the wall over the stove. She did have a few minutes to spare. "I might have some applesauce."

  Her mother beamed. "Yes. Good idea."

  So Annie washed her hands, got a bowl and a spoon and sat down with her parents. They talked of the big neighborhood barbecue coming up that weekend, and of the Red Rock Spring Fling, the weekend after that.

  The annual neighborhood barbecue was always held around the corner in Crockett Park. Annie was doing the tables for that- - crepe-paper flowers and checked tablecloths, nice and casual and bright.

  When her mother mentioned Spring Fling, Annie couldn't help thinking how she'd always dreamed of someday attending the Fling on Greg's arm. And not as his "little sister," but as his date.

  Never going to happen, she reminded herself, and tried not to let herself feel low about it.

  Her mom was watching. "Annie, hon, why the long face?"

  She smiled wide. "Long face? Not me. And Mama. Daddy..." They both looked at her expectantly. She forged ahead. "I've been thinking of making a move. You know, shaking things up a little. Trying something new. I'm considering San Antonio, or maybe even Dallas."

  Later, at the Posy Peddler, as she learned to make really cute, inexpensive mini-arrangements using a champagne glass as a vase, Annie congratulated herself on how well it had gone with her folks.

  Her dad had gotten kind of misty-eyed and her mom had required another tissue, but they'd both promised to support her, one hundred percent, in anything she decided to do.

  It would be quite a change.

  For her whole life up till then, Annie had never considered living anywhere else but Red Rock. She loved her hometown an
d she'd always pictured herself there - getting married, having kids. But in her dreams, it was Greg she married, Greg who was the father of her babies. In her dreams, she'd never given up hope that the day would come when he'd finally see her as a woman, when he'd ask her out for real and they could get started on the rest of their lives... together, in the truest sense.

  Without him, well, life was too short to hang around in her hometown, wishing. And hoping...

  And after what had happened Monday with poor Dirk and the squirt gun, she kept asking herself, what if it had been a real gun? What if Dirk had actually shot her?

  You just never knew what might happen in life, and if she ended up dying too young the way Hank had, she wanted to go knowing she'd taken a few chances, that she'd gotten out there, seen the big wide world a little. If she couldn't spend her life at Greg's side, she simply wasn't going to waste it hanging around in Red Rock, mooning after him.

  And both San Antonio and Dallas had whole schools dedicated to the study of floral design. She could take more classes, get a broader range of expertise. And her dad had said he and her mom would definitely help her when she opened her shop - whether the shop ended up in Dallas, or right there in Red Rock.

  So, then. Onward and upward and she wasn't looking back.

  That night at home she spent two hours on the Internet, checking out the options for floral-design trainingin Dallas and San Antonio. And Thursday, at work, she talked to Aleta. The Fortunes had banking connections all over the state. It was just possible that she could have a job set up and ready to walk right into, wherever she decided to go.

  Aleta said how she'd hate to lose Annie, but she did understand how Annie might want to broaden her horizons a little. She'd check into what was available statewide and get back to Annie in the next week or so.

  Then Aleta held up that morning's Gazette. "Did you happen to get a look in the paper today?"

  Annie hadn't.

  Aleta handed it over. The squirt-gun holdup had made the bottom of the first page. Terrific, Annie thought glumly. Dirk and his squirt gun were getting almost as much attention around town as the ongoing mystery of the unsigned love letter.