A Woman Like Annie Read online

“Nice hat,” she said, her smile dimming a little.

  He gave the top a pat. “You missed the mustache. Sacrificed it for the chocolate cake.”

  Behind Clarice, Annie laughed. “You should have seen him, Clar. He could have been on Bonanza.”

  “It was image-changing, all right,” Jack agreed, catching Annie’s eye.

  Annie glanced away, quickly.

  Jack looked at Clarice who was clearly assessing what had just passed between the two of them. She wasn’t smiling.

  His own smile faded. Why, he wasn’t sure. But he found himself saying, “I had some questions for Annie about C.M. We were just about to get around to that.”

  “Oh,” Clarice said. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “Clarice, you aren’t interrupting anything,” Annie said. “How about a piece of Tommy’s cake?”

  “No, thanks. I just wanted to drop by, see how his party went. Give him a hug for me, okay? I’ve gotta go. I really need to get this story over to the paper. Last-minute addition.”

  “But you just got here,” Annie said.

  “I know, but I really shouldn’t have stopped in the first place. Nose to the grindstone. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  She waved at them both, then headed back down the hall. Jack heard the front door open, then close.

  “I’m sorry,” Annie said, looking at him. “I think she just had a really long day.”

  Jack got up, put his fork and plate in the sink. He wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened here, but Clarice’s disapproval still hung in the air like newly sprayed air freshener. He felt, suddenly, that he should go. “You know, our talk can wait until tomorrow. Do you think you could come out to the factory around eleven?”

  “Sure,” she said, “but we can talk now. I’m sorry all the rest of this kept us from—”

  “All the rest was great. Really great. But tomorrow will be just fine,” he said, needing, with increasing urgency, to be on his way. He meant what he’d just said, but there was something about this house, this woman, that made him want to stay. Which meant he had to go. The sooner the better.

  LATER, LYING IN BED, sleep was the last thing on Annie’s mind. Too many questions scuffling for position in her thoughts.

  What horrible punishment could she think up for J.D. without setting foot in California?

  Why had Jack come over in the first place tonight?

  And why had Clarice bolted off as though she’d just seen a ghost?

  The first she’d have to think on. The next she couldn’t answer. The third she could settle with a phone call. Annie had never been able to sleep when there was something wrong between Clarice and her. This time was no different. Two rings, and a groggy hello.

  “Were you asleep?” Annie asked.

  “You know good and well I wasn’t.”

  “Well, I figured, so why’d you leave like that?”

  Silence and then, “I thought you said you weren’t interested in him!”

  “You mean Jack?”

  “Well, who else?” Hurt indignation muffled the question.

  “I’m not!” Annie said. “Clarice, he came over to talk about the factory. He didn’t know I was having a party for Tommy.”

  A pause and then, “Annie, I saw the look he gave you.”

  “What look?”

  “The one that said he’d like to eat you up.”

  “Oh, Clarice,” Annie said, certain now her sister was being ridiculous. Men didn’t look at her that way. Certainly not men like Jack Corbin. They looked at Clarice that way. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but it wasn’t that.”

  “Well, he certainly seemed to be having a good time,” Clarice said, tone still in the hurt category, but leaning toward ready and willing to be convinced she was wrong.

  “He enjoyed roughhousing with all those boys. And he brought Tommy a Hank Aaron baseball card for his birthday.”

  “Did he really?” Clarice asked, obviously impressed. “I bet Tommy loved that.”

  “He did,” Annie said. She started to tell Clarice that J.D. hadn’t bothered to get a present in the mail to his son, but she didn’t want to add any fuel to her sister’s overactive imagination by implying Jack’s gift might have somehow lessened the hurt of that. “I’m not a factor. If you’re interested in Jack, go for it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, her assurance convincing to her own ears except for the pang of disappointment clutching her stomach.

  By the time they hung up, all the tension of earlier had disappeared. Annie felt relieved as she always did to fix whatever might be off-kilter between the two of them. It was a role she was comfortable with. She’d always been the peacemaker even when she wasn’t certain of their conflict.

  Like tonight.

  Obviously, Clarice thought she’d seen something that hadn’t been there. And it really wasn’t like her sister to be insecure where men were concerned. With good reason. A bat of the lashes was usually all it took to hook one. And Clarice had hooked more than her share. She’d just never found one who held her interest long enough that she wanted to keep him.

  Annie had a feeling Jack might prove to be the exception.

  And if that turned out to be the case, it was fine. Really.

  She wasn’t going to deny that she’d enjoyed his company tonight. Was grateful for his kindness to Tommy. And yes, he was an attractive man. Okay, very attractive.

  He’d liked her chocolate cake. She’d give Clarice that much. But that wasn’t exactly what made sparks fly between a man and a woman. Clarice was far better set up to accommodate that than Annie.

  She refluffed her pillow, flopped over on her side. And missed, suddenly, having a man in her bed. She didn’t miss J.D. Any feelings of that sort had climbed in the back seat of his convertible and ridden right on out of town with him.

  But she did miss companionship. In the general sense of the word.

  So why was she thinking about this now?

  Here in the dark it was hard to deny the reason. She could deny it to Clarice all day long, but with the lights out, truth had a way of glowing so it was difficult to miss.

  She flopped over again and gave her pillow another punch. Well, what red-blooded woman wouldn’t get a little stirred up when a man like Jack walked in the room?

  His appeal didn’t need a lot of interpretation. But it had been a very long time since a man had affected Annie that way, good-looking or not. So maybe she should be glad of it. Happy to discover J.D. hadn’t managed to deaden every nerve ending with his rejection of her and their family.

  For a long time, that was exactly what she’d thought he had done. For months after he’d left Macon’s Point, Annie had walked around feeling as if she’d been pumped full of Novocain. She could pinch herself and feel nothing.

  Maybe part of it had been the realization that J.D. had turned into someone completely different from the man she’d married. Born with the kind of good looks and talent that seem like an unfair combination for one person to receive, he’d always had more than his share of confidence. And when he’d turned his attention on eighteen-year-old-greener-than-grass Annie, she’d been powerless to resist.

  But when he’d started playing professional ball, he’d begun to change, seeing Annie as a roadblock to the extras that came with success. Women. Parties. She was the ball and chain tied to his ankle.

  J.D.’s career-ending shoulder injury had come at a time when she’d been ready to leave him. She had thought their move to Macon’s Point and the change in lifestyle would save their marriage.

  She’d been wrong.

  She’d wallowed in the pain of that until one day she’d finally realized that she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life trying to turn J.D. into something he wasn’t. And so, with a new resolution—yes, I do want to have a life again—she had told herself that more than likely someone would come along, a man who might make her pulse leap, fill her stomach with butterflies.
Only this time, she would be leading the charge with sharply-honed common sense and a fine-tuned checklist of husband/father character traits.

  And so the numbness had finally faded into feeling again.

  The next time she let someone into her life, she’d make sure they were on the same page about what they each considered important. For Annie, that was roots, belonging, being needed.

  Clearly, Jack’s life was anything but rooted. So even if Clarice hadn’t set her sights on him, Jack wasn’t the kind of man Annie would be looking for when she started looking.

  And if Clarice wanted him, that was fine by her. She wanted her sister to be happy. Goodness knows she’d spent the better part of the last year helping Annie put her life back together.

  Mistaken impression or not, Annie would make sure Clarice didn’t see her as being in the way. If Clarice thought Jack might be the one, then that was exactly what Annie wanted for her.

  They were sisters, after all, and sisters always put each other first.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  NINE MILES AWAY, Clarice hung up the phone, slid the slipping strap of her skimpy negligee back onto her shoulder and yanked the comforter all the way up to her neck. One day she was going to buy pajamas. The flannel kind like Annie wore when it was cold. One day. Clarice had always believed a woman should look like a woman in the bedroom. Which she did, pretty much without question. The only problem was there was no one here to tell her so. Or to appreciate it.

  She was tired of being alone. Really tired.

  She picked up the remote from the nightstand by the bed, zapped on the TV. Home Shopping Network. Another onion slicer for sale. This one was the best ever made, though. Slices in seconds. No mess, no fuss.

  She flipped forward. MTV. What was he wearing?

  Old reruns of Magnum P.I. Now, there was a man. That Tom Selleck… She put down the remote, smiled while Higgins gave the contrite-looking detective yet another lecture.

  Clarice rolled over on her side, scuffled with her 310-count cotton sheets again. A commercial wiped Magnum from the screen, the announcer’s voice blaring into the room as if intent on getting his message across before the viewer had time to slap the mute button. Which she now did. And welcomed the silence. Oh, forget it, she just needed to get to sleep altogether. She flipped the TV off and lay there in the dark, waiting for sleepiness to hit her.

  But she was wide awake, and the target of her thoughts was the conversation she’d just had with her sister. Questions kept aiming themselves like darts with the bull’s-eye being: Was Jack interested in Annie?

  He didn’t seem like the domestic type. Annie defined domestic. Put Clarice to shame with her cooking. Annie was a born homemaker, had always wanted a real home. She needed a man now who could appreciate those good qualities in her. Someone unlike J.D. who never had. There were plenty of men out there who wanted the same things Annie wanted. But Clarice didn’t think Jack was one of them.

  There was no sibling rivalry involved here, was there? They were too old for that. Clarice loved her sister. Wanted nothing but the best for her. And if the right man for Annie came along, she’d be the first to step out of the way.

  EARLY GUNTER HAD BEEN the security guard at the entrance of Corbin Manufacturing for at least a couple of decades. He waved when Annie pulled up to the gate just before eleven on Saturday morning.

  Annie lowered her window. “Hey, Early.”

  Early was short with narrow shoulders and even less prominent hips. Despite the slight build, what was there was lean and muscled, strong like a locust fence post. He and his family went to the same church as Annie, and his wife was known as one of the best cooks in the congregation. “Annie,” he said, inclining his head. “How you doin’ today?”

  “Just fine. And you?”

  “Good as gold. Mr. Corbin said you’d be comin’ by and to tell you to come through the glass door at the front.”

  “Thanks, Early. See you in church tomorrow?”

  “Sure will. Don’t miss one. Can’t afford to.” He smiled and directed her through the gate.

  Annie’s stomach had been in knots since she’d gotten out of bed this morning. In the wake of everything else that had happened last night, she hadn’t given a lot of analysis to the reason Jack had wanted to see her. But while she straightened the house and greeted each of the boys’ mothers when they came to pick them up, curiosity had her willing the clock forward.

  She followed the road to the front of the factory where Early had indicated she should park, punching off the classical music station she’d turned on in an effort to soothe her anxiety.

  She got out of the Tahoe, a breeze catching the hem of her lightweight coat and blowing it out behind her. The air had a nip to it this morning, a precursor to the cold front predicted to move in by evening, lowering temperatures into the fifties by dawn.

  Annie climbed the steps to the glass door now, wondering if she should knock or just go in. But the door opened, and Jack stood in front of her, looking like the unsmiling twin brother of the man who’d been giving pony rides to the group of boys at her house last night.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Hi,” she said, his seriousness giving her optimism good cause for concern.

  “Come on in, Annie,” he said, and stepped aside to let her enter. He indicated the way with one hand, letting her lead with the good manners that so far were consistent with him. J.D. had been the kind of guy who pulled a chair out for a woman if someone else was looking.

  “Take a right down the next hallway,” Jack said.

  From the corner of her eye, Annie thought she saw his gaze drop over her. Had he just checked her out? Her face grew warm, and she did an instant checklist of all the things he could have been noticing: Cyrus’s ever-shedding hair on her pants, a spot the dry cleaner had missed.

  Or maybe he was just checking her out.

  That’s what it had felt like.

  Wrong, Annie.

  Men like Jack didn’t lust after women like her. She’d never really thought of herself as the kind of woman to inspire lust, period. But definitely not in a man like this one.

  The hallway dead-ended.

  “This is my father’s old office,” Jack said.

  Annie nodded, her voice having decided not to make an appearance yet. It was a handsome room, a lot of big furniture, cherry wood, but most noticeable were the dozens of family pictures adorning the walls and desktop. A lot of them were of Jack, as a boy, as a teenager. Those early versions had hinted well at the man to come.

  “Sit down,” he said, going around to the other end of the desk on which stacks of folders were piled up like snowdrifts. “I actually came back here after I left your house last night.”

  “You’ve been here since then?”

  “I went home this morning to shower and inject a few cups of coffee.”

  Annie nodded, noticing that he’d called Glenn Hall home. Was he beginning to think of it that way again? “So what is all this?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m still not sure.”

  The assertion stood for a few moments until Annie finally said, “And what is it I can help you with?”

  He got up and closed the door. Back at the desk, he said, “I was hoping you could answer a few things for me, Annie. I didn’t want to ask any of the employees and get everyone stirred up when there very well may be no reason for it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she said, crossing her legs and sitting straighter in her chair. Uneasiness thumped its presence against the wall of her chest. Her palms began to sweat.

  “I’ve been looking at the financial statements for the past six years. Starting after my father died,” he said.

  Jack sat down in the leather chair behind the desk. “What can you tell me about Hugh Kroner?”

  “He’s your controller, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Annie drew in a deep breath. “Let’s see. He and his family go to my church. I think
he has three girls in college. His wife does a lot of volunteer work in the county. I don’t know either of them very well, but they seem like good people.”

  Jack nodded. And then threw out several other names, three of whom she knew well enough to comment on, two she did not.

  While she talked, he made some notes on the yellow legal pad in front of him.

  He touched a hand to some papers on his desk. “The thing that keeps jumping out at me is the size of the inventory adjustment made each month.”

  She waved a hand in the air. “Non-business person aboard.”

  “Each month the company conducts a physical inventory count and compares that to the computer’s numbers. It’s normal for a slight adjustment to be made when the numbers don’t match. But the differences here are unusually high. And it looks as if over the last year or so, they’ve gotten even higher.”

  “So does that mean someone’s stealing inventory?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Is there a way to dig deeper?”

  “Yes. By looking at the inventory counts and adjustments in detail. For example, the physical inventory might say we had ninety-five dining room tables and the computer says we had one hundred.”

  “That means five are missing,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “How many months have you looked at?”

  “I’ve just pulled out several at random from the past few years.”

  “Could we take a look at each month? I’d love to help.”

  “I’m talking about hours and hours of work, Annie. I couldn’t ask—”

  “I want to,” she said, standing, imploring him to see she meant it. She’d do a twenty-four hour shift if it meant giving this company a chance to survive. “Can we start now?”

  “You must have other things to do.”

  “Nothing that can’t wait. And Mrs. Parker, my regular sitter, is at the house with Tommy. So really, I’m at your disposal.”

  Jack studied her for several moments that felt like minutes. Her cheeks grew warm under the perusal. She was vividly aware of the minimal makeup she’d put on that morning. When was the last time she’d plucked her eyebrows? Was the lighting that good in here? Why hadn’t she straightened her hair with the blow-dryer instead of letting it go its own maddening way?