A picture of Annie formed in Jack’s head

As she’d looked that afternoon on the drive back, smiling, a little flushed from the craziness of the day.

He could not remember the last time he’d enjoyed a woman’s company as much as he’d enjoyed Annie’s today. There was something about being with her that felt natural and easy. It seemed as if they had known one another for years.

But then, everything about his attraction to Annie was different.

The admission tripped him a little, and he felt the unbalancing of the convictions he’d held on to for so long. He wondered if he had met the woman who could make him believe once and for all that real love was not a fairy tale.

Dear Reader,

I’ve loved books for as long as I can remember, might actually have read every title in my elementary school library. I was one of those kids who never went anywhere without one in my hand or tucked inside my bag.

I now have three precious daughters who love them, too. One of them promises to be just like me. She’s a toddler, and she likes all books. Sits and looks at the pages, even when there are no pictures, just words. She’s fascinated and comforted by them. That pretty much sums up how I feel about stories that let me, the reader, step into other lives for a while, meet someone I think about long after I’ve finished the book.

If I can do that for someone else, I will consider that my greatest accomplishment as a writer.

I love to hear from readers. Please visit my Web site at www.inglathcooper.com. Or write to me at P.O. Box 973, Rocky Mount, VA 24151.

All best,

Inglath

A Woman Like Annie
Inglath Cooper

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Kavvi, Tatti and Nadia…sweet, sweet daughters.

My life’s blessing.

And for Monica Caltabiano. Truest friend.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

MAYOR ANNIE MCCABE WAS LATE.

Her meeting with Jack Corbin was not the kind of meeting a person was late for. It had taken three weeks of unreturned phone calls to get it. And in less than thirty minutes, she would be sitting across a table from the one man who had the power to prevent the town of Macon’s Point from drying up and blowing right off the Virginia state map.

The population sign standing guard at the Langor County line read 3032. Anyone passing through would likely label the town nothing special. True, there was no hubbub of cultural activity at its center, no opera or art museum. Only a farmer’s market and a once-monthly Friday night bluegrass jamboree. But Macon’s Point had become home to Annie in the past three years.

And to her that meant something.

In the year since her divorce, Annie had found peace in this town, a certainty that she would be perfectly content to spend the rest of her life here. It was that kind of place.

The only problem?

If Jack Corbin auctioned off Corbin Manufacturing, half the town would have to move elsewhere. Somehow, tonight, she had to find the words to make him look for another solution to the company’s problems.

Meanwhile, her hair was still wet, and her blouse was missing its middle button.

“Mama?”

“What, honey?” Annie wrestled a comb through her tangled hair, glancing up with a distracted smile at her six-year-old son’s reflection in the bathroom mirror. Sometimes it shocked her how much he looked like J.D. His hair was a shade of blond women tried to emulate in the priciest salons. His blue eyes had lashes thick enough to generate the same kind of envy. The one concession to cuteness over outright beauty was the dimple in each cheek.

In the father, those dimples had once made her knees go weak. In the son, she was similarly unable to frown on even the most mischievous of deeds when he turned them on her.

“Cyrus sure does like chocolate cake,” Tommy said.

“Did he tell you that?” Annie gave up on the comb and grabbed the hair dryer from the second drawer of her vanity. Tommy was always telling her something Cyrus had said. She sometimes thought the two of them had a language of their own.

“No, but he ate it real fast. Wasn’t it s’posed to be my birthday cake?”

Tommy’s birthday was on Friday. Annie had made the cake early to freeze in an effort to be a step ahead of herself. She dropped the blow-dryer on the sink counter, grabbed her son’s hand and bolted down the stairs. “Cyyyyrus!”

With Tommy still attached to her hand, she skidded to a stop in the kitchen doorway, a run popping up in the right heel of her stockings. Too late. In the middle of the floor sat Cyrus, all one-hundred-plus pounds of him, his nose looking as if it had been dipped in chocolate, the plastic plate on which the cake had been sitting as clean as if it had gone through the dishwasher’s pot-scrubber cycle.

“Oh, Cyrus.”

“See, Mama. I told you he liked it.”

“Bad, Cyrus. At least you look guilty,” Annie said, picking up the plate. Chocolate. The cake had been chocolate. Wasn’t chocolate bad for dogs? She struggled to remember what she’d heard about it, but only came up with the vague recollection that it could damage their nervous systems.

Annie’s own nervous system was well on its way to meltdown.

Cyrus hung his head and plopped down on the floor with a whine. Whether it was guilt or the beginnings of the stomachache that was his destiny, Annie didn’t know.

“Is Cyrus sick, Mommy?”

Worry lines knitted her son’s forehead. Six-year-old boys shouldn’t have worry lines. But more often than not, Tommy did.

“I don’t know, honey. He’ll probably have a bellyache.”

“He’s not gonna die, is he?” The lines on Tommy’s forehead deepened.

Alarm jangled along Annie’s spine. Cyrus was Tommy’s best friend. As much as she had been against getting the dog, she had to admit he had been good for her son at a time when he’d desperately needed a diversion. But then if J.D. hadn’t run off with his all but jail-bait girlfriend, Tommy would have no need for a diversion.

Giving a five-year-old boy a St. Bernard puppy was just the kind of thing J.D. was famous for. At least in the context of their marriage. Tommy had seen one in a dog-food commercial and asked his father if he could have a puppy like that. J.D. had gone right out and bought him one. Of course, doing so had made him a king in Tommy’s eyes. And when Annie had said he couldn’t keep it, she’d been tossed the mantle of Cruella DeVil.

Considering that Tommy had only recently begun to show signs of the carefree child he had once been, she did not want to risk a setback brought on by Cyrus’s sudden demise. And on top of that, Annie now loved him, too. Even if he had been a present from J.D.

“No, honey,” she reassured him. “But we’ll run him over to Doc Angle’s. They’ll know what to do.”

The cordless phone on the kitchen counter rang, rattling Annie’s already rattled nerves. She glared at it, then yanked it up and barked a hello stern enough to deter even the most hardened of the telemarketers who always seemed to call around dinnertime.

“Hey, babe.”

Annie dropped her forehead onto a palm and rubbed the heel of her hand against a budding migraine. She really did have to get caller ID. “I do not have time to talk to you, J.D.”

Tommy glanced up, his eyes widening in happiness just before a mask of indifference slipped up to conceal it. It had been months since he’d asked to speak to his daddy on the rare occasions that J.D. called. Annie’s heart throbbed with the realization that pride demanded this lack of concern even in a boy his age. She and Tommy both had made excuses for J.D. until they’d been forced to admit that was all they were. Excuses.

She turned around so that her back was to Tommy. He got up and trudged into the living room with Cyrus lumbering behind him.

“So the little mayor’s staying busy, huh?”

The amusement behind the words made Annie wish for a voodoo doll with extra pins. Divorce rule number 54: ignore jabs deliberately meant to rile. “What do you want, J.D.?”

“What are you offering?”

Annie balked at the flirtation underlining the question. He was amazing. Truly amazing. “J.D.” she said, her voice sub-zero.

“To see my son. That’s what I want. Put Tommy on a plane and send him out here to visit, sugar-pie. I miss him.”

The command was issued with all the certainty of a man who never entertained even the notion of the word no. “I am not sending Tommy across the country by himself, J.D. He’s six years old, for heaven’s sake!”

“Kids ride airplanes by themselves all the time, Annie,” J.D. said in the same you’re-being-ridiculous voice he’d perfected when they’d been married, and she’d tried to explain why he couldn’t just write checks off their bank account without ever looking to see if they had the funds to cover them. “I have a right to see my son.”

“You know where your son lives, and if you want to see him, you can get on an airplane and come here.” The last two words took a leap toward hysteria, and she forced herself to draw in a calming breath before going on in a lowered voice. “You’ve made no effort to see him in nearly a year, J.D. Do you think you can saunter back into his life as if you just saw him yesterday? How am I supposed to explain that to him?”

“JaaayyyyyDeeeee, I’m still waiting,” a woman’s voice called in the background.

There. She had her explanation. Annie stomped across the kitchen floor and slammed the phone into its wall cradle, hoping the collision would blow a hole in J.D.’s faithless eardrum. But it did little more than rocket a bolt of pain straight up her arm where it landed in the center of the headache now pounding full force.

There had been a time since the demise of their twelve-year marriage when she would have shed a kitchen sink full of tears over that very audible reminder of her husband’s betrayal. But even had she cared to indulge the tradition, she didn’t have time for it tonight. She glanced at her watch. In twenty minutes, Jack Corbin would be waiting for her at Walker’s. Jack Corbin, who hadn’t been back to Macon’s Point since his father’s funeral six years ago, and who, according to Mary Louise Carruthers at the post office, traveled to exotic-sounding places such as St. Tropez, Lyon and San Gimignano (none of which had sounded all that exotic under Mary Louise’s pronunciation).

His track record for changing addresses rivaled even J.D.’s.

Annie’s stomach churned.

Somehow, she, pinch-hitter Mayor Annie Mc-Cabe, former housewife, a woman unable to figure out how to keep her husband from straying, had to persuade a man with enough money to live out the rest of his days on some private island sipping piña coladas, not to give Corbin Manufacturing the death knell.

And before she got around to that, all she had to do was finish drying her hair, change her blouse, drop her son off at the baby-sitter’s and deliver Cyrus to the emergency animal hospital. While she was at it, maybe she’d leap a tall building or two just for good measure.

JACK CORBIN PULLED INTO the parking lot of Walker’s Restaurant a few minutes before seven. He cut the engine to the Carrera, and it let out a throaty rumble before going silent.

September twilight gave the near-night sky a rosy glow. An easy breeze fanned the leaves of a giant old beech tree that hugged the right side of the building. Jack had ridden his bike by there the morning Mr. Walker had planted that tree. He must have been eight or nine years old then. He’d stopped to ask what kind it was, and Mr. Walker had told him when the tree grew up it would have roots that looked like gnarled old feet. They did, indeed.

Jack ran a palm across a cheek badly in need of a shave, then reached for his cell phone and punched in his office number.

“Corbin, Mitchell Consulting. Pete Mitchell here.”

“Hey, Pete.”

“You make it out to the boonies?”

“Just got here. And if you weren’t from Arkansas, I’d be offended.”

Pete laughed. “Fair enough. I just got an e-mail from Fogelman in London a little while ago. Wanted to know when you were coming. I told him you were going to be held up for a week or two. They’re anxious for you to get there. But if I had a business in that kind of shape, I’d be anxious, too.”

“Actually, I do have a business in that kind of shape. I just don’t plan to keep it.”

“Auction’s all set?”

“Yep. Wish I could snap my fingers and have it be over.”

“It’s a bummer, that’s for sure. Maybe this London stint will be good for you. British babes and—”

“Fogelman breathing down my neck?”

“That’s the needle across the record. ’Fraid he comes with the deal. It was a lucrative one so suck it up.”

“I knew there was a reason I asked you to be a partner in this firm.”

“Pep talks-r-us.”

“Everybody’s gotta be good for something,” Jack said, reaching for the notepad he kept in the center console and scribbling a reminder to e-mail Fogelman his best guess on when he would be arriving.

“So you’ve got the big meeting with the mayor tonight?”

“During which I’ll try to convince her that even after forty-seven phone calls, I haven’t changed my mind. And I’m not going to.”

“Have to give her an A for persistence.”

“Or aggravation.”

Pete chuckled. “Wonder if she’s hot.”

“Do you ever get your mind wrapped around any other subject?”

“I try to discourage it. You’d do well to borrow the philosophy.”

“Out of the market.”

“When are you going to quit beating yourself up about that, Jack? Lots of people change their mind about getting married. Better before than after.”

“At the altar though?”

“Okay, so right before.”

“Which makes me a very bad cliché.”

“No. Just a man who hasn’t found the right woman.”

Jack aimed the subject in another direction. “I left a file on my desk with some info I need for the lawyers on the auction. How about scanning it and e-mailing it to me?”

“Not a problem. They have phone jacks down there?”

“Watch it.”

“Do it before I leave.”

“Check in with you tomorrow.” Jack hit the end button on his phone, dropped it on the passenger seat.

Another car pulled up beside him. A man and woman got out, fortyish, headed for the restaurant holding hands. She dropped her head back and laughed at something the man said, her hair brushing her shoulders. A single glimpse of the two made it clear they were a couple of long standing, their ease with one another nearly tangible. A pang of envy hit Jack in the chest, surprising him with its lingering sting. Ironic considering that a year and a half ago, he’d broken off his engagement to a perfectly nice woman because in the end, he hadn’t been able to go against his own belief that it wouldn’t last.

Jack got out of the car, closed the door with a solid ka-chunk. He crossed the parking lot, fighting with the knot of his tie. What was he doing here, anyway? In addition to the pile of work stacked up on his desk back in D.C., he had about a thousand loose ends to tie up in Macon’s Point before he could leave for London. He’d driven straight down, still in his work clothes. What he wanted was a good hot shower, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. At least the meeting wouldn’t last long. He’d say his piece and be on his way.

Walker’s hadn’t changed much. Looked the same, in fact, except for the fresh coat of paint dolling up the exterior.

Jack pushed open the front door and stepped inside the well-lit foyer where a waitress greeted him with a bright smile that seemed a watt or two above just-friendly. “Welcome to Walker’s.”

“Thanks. Any chance of getting a table in the back?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, holding up a pink-tipped finger. “Let me just go see.”

The place was jam-packed with the dinner crowd. Several heads turned to send him a curious glance. Sudden awkwardness grabbed him by the throat. His name wasn’t going to be a popular one around Macon’s Point. No doubt about it.

He turned his back to the dining room and shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his gray wool pants, his gaze resting on the vehicles in the lot outside. His stomach did a hungry rumble, the smells wafting out from the kitchen tempting and familiar. Homemade yeast rolls. Coffee brewing behind the counter. His mother had brought him here when he was a boy more times than he could count, to pick up his father’s favorite peach pie on the way home from a visit in town or a dozen chocolate chip cookies for the jar on the kitchen counter. And the three of them had come here for lunch on Sundays when Jack had been in from school. The recollection was poignant, painful.

“Got that table for you.”

The waitress was back, beckoning for him to follow her. Her walk had a seismic wave to it, her hips sending the ruffle at the hem of her skirt left to right like the pendulum on a grandfather clock. “I’m Charlotte,” she threw over her shoulder. “You sure do look familiar.”

“One of those faces.” He somehow knew that if she put a name with it, everyone else in the place would soon do the same.

Stopping at the table, Charlotte cocked a hip. “Now there I’d have to disagree. We don’t see too many faces like yours around here. You new in town?”

“Not really. Just back for a quick visit.”

“Hope you decide to make it a longer one,” she said, adding a not-so-subtle wink to the assertion. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Sweet tea.”

“Southern roots.” She gave him a nod of approval. “Back in a gnat’s blink, honey.”

Again, Jack felt the glances being sent his way from the crowded dining room, most less than friendly. He heard his name mentioned once or twice.

“Have you had time to decide?” Charlotte, true to her word, came right back, placed his tea in front of him, righting the lemon wedge teetering on the rim.

“I’m waiting for someone,” he said.

“That figures,” she said, not bothering to hide her disappointment. “The good ones are always waiting. Just let me know when you’re ready.” She sauntered off then with a regretful smile.

Jack reached for a couple packs of sugar and emptied them into the glass. This was a mistake. Why hadn’t he just called Annie McCabe and cancelled this meeting? Even if he hadn’t had his own reasons for wanting to close this chapter of his life once and for all, Corbin Manufacturing was beyond saving. The company hadn’t made a penny since his father died. In fact, it had been losing increasingly large sums of money for the past six years.

Ironic, really, that Jack had built a career around fixing broken businesses. Going into hopeless situations, finding the terminal wound from which a company’s lifeblood was seeping, and figuring out how to suture it up again.

But in this situation, there was no point in trying to determine a cause when he had no intention of fixing it.

Corbin Manufacturing’s demise was inevitable, whether he put it out of its misery by sticking it on the auction block as he fully intended to do, or let it die the slow death it had been dying for years.

CHAPTER TWO

LATE AND FRAZZLED, Annie pulled into the lot at Walker’s and parked her car beside a black Porsche that stood out among the other vehicles like a woman in a ballgown at a barbecue. Five dollars said it was his.

“Mama, are you sure Cyrus is gonna be all right?”

“You heard Doc Angle, Tommy. Cyrus will spend the night at the hospital, and we’ll pick him up in the morning. He’ll be fine.”

“Do I get another cake?” he asked, beeps sounding from the handheld Nintendo game he had talked her into letting him bring. Maybe it would at least keep him occupied while she talked to Mr. Corbin of the black Porsche. Her bias against the car was personal. At one time, J.D. had owned three, red, white and blue. Patriotic, at least.

“Absolutely.” She flipped open the driver’s side vanity mirror and gave herself a critical perusal in the waning light. Her lipstick had somehow worked its way to the corner of one lip. She dug inside her purse for a tissue and rerouted the errant color. She tucked her hair behind her ears and wriggled her skirt around so that the zipper was where it was supposed to be.

She’d managed to get Cyrus to the animal hospital. But her hair was still damp, and the missing button on her blouse had not been replaced, concealed, at least, beneath her jacket.

Far from perfect, but it would have to do. She darted a glance at the dashboard clock. Fifteen minutes late. Not good. This was not good. After all but begging the man’s lawyer for a meeting, this was not the impression she’d intended to make. She slid out of the vehicle and ran around to Tommy’s door where she unbuckled his seat belt.

“Are we meeting Aunt Clarice?” he asked, hopping out of the car, his gaze still laser-focused on the game.

“No, honey. Mama has a business dinner. Normally, you would have stayed at the sitter’s, but we ran out of time because of Cyrus.”

“Oh. What’s a bizness dinner?”

“It’s when people meet in a restaurant and talk about business,” Annie said, taking Tommy’s hand and hurrying toward the front door of Walker’s, her heels refusing to cooperate with the gravel parking lot. Not a brilliant answer, but it seemed to satisfy him. Making a quick vow to do better with the next question her son asked her, Annie attempted to collect her thoughts. She’d intended to be prepared for her meeting with Corbin, to have all her arguments neatly lined up in her head. Facts and figures. Names of people who’d been with the factory thirty years or more. So much for that. She felt as if someone had set up an industrial-size fan inside her brain, and there wasn’t a well-planned argument in sight.

Inside the restaurant, Charlotte Turner greeted them, waving a menu at Annie. “Hello, Mayor McCabe,” she said with amused emphasis on the mayor part of the greeting. Annie half expected the woman to ruffle her hair and offer up an “Aren’t you cute?” to go with it. But then her attitude was no surprise. The biggest part of the town thought Annie’s stepping in as a replacement for her husband was one of those things to chuckle about over coffee and a doughnut at the Krispy Kreme.

“How are you, Charlotte?” Annie asked with a deliberately sincere smile.

“Fine. Busy. Hello, Tommy,” she said, bending down to tweak his cheek and lift his glasses from his nose. “If you’re not the spittin’ image of your daddy. Without the specs, of course.”

Tommy’s smile fell. He hated wearing glasses. The comparison to his father, however, appeared to lessen the blow, temporarily suspending Annie’s desire to pour the contents of the water pitcher sitting by the register on top of Charlotte’s set-once-a-week hairdo.

“You gonna play baseball like him when you get big?” Charlotte asked.

Tommy nodded with absolute certainty.

Annie bit back a grimace. She took Tommy’s hand and said, “I’m meeting someone for dinner. He’s probably already here.”

“Tall, dark, mysterious-looking as heck?” Before Annie could reply, Charlotte pointed toward the back and said, “That who you looking for?”

The man wasn’t facing the door. Annie had no idea what he looked like. “Maybe.”

Charlotte shook her head and said, “No wonder you didn’t mind taking over as mayor, Annie. If this is the kind of thing you get to do, I might just run myself next term.” A big wink followed the assertion.

Not trusting herself to respond, Annie put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder and steered him toward the back of the restaurant, waving at familiar faces as she wound her way through the tables.

She stopped at the booth Charlotte had pointed out. “Mr. Corbin?”

The man stood. “Mayor McCabe?”

Annie nodded, momentarily struck mute. Charlotte Turner might need sensitivity training when it came to little boys, but she was right on this. Annie would never have put a face this good-looking on a man who was about to do to Macon’s Point what this one was about to do. In her mind’s eye, she’d penciled in something much more weasel-like, sinister, even. And, yes, he did look like the kind of guy who would drive a black Porsche, or closer still, head up the ad campaign for one. He had dark brown hair and the kind of lean, high-cheekboned face that spoke of good genetics and an athletic lifestyle. “I, ah, I hope you don’t mind, but my son Tommy is joining us for dinner. Tommy, this is Mr. Corbin.”

“H’lo,” Tommy said, staring at the man with open curiosity.

“Hello, Tommy,” he said, looking, to his credit, only a little taken aback. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“We had a little emergency at home,” Annie said, “and I didn’t have time to get him to the sitter’s.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

She shook her head. “Oh, no. Just a St. Bernard, a chocolate cake and a trip to the vet’s.”

He nodded as if he understood, but Annie suspected she might as well have spouted off a paragraph of Greek for all he would understand of that. Her own life was an unending series of such events, and for one un-maternal moment, she wondered what it would be like to have arrived on time with her hair dry and all her buttons in place.

“May I take your coat?” he asked.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling a little awkward as she slipped her arms free of the heavy garment and then helped Tommy slip out of his. He took both coats and hung them on the rack a few feet from their table.

“Please, sit down,” he said. “I went ahead and ordered some iced tea. May I ask the waitress to bring you both something?”

His manners surprised her. J.D. had been used to having other people scurry to do things for him, open a door, “Take your coat, Mr. McCabe?” As for Annie, she’d gotten used to doing things for herself. Hanging up her own coat. Ordering her own drink.

“Your tea looks good, actually.”

“Can I have hot choc’late?” Tommy piped in.

“May you have hot chocolate,” Annie automatically corrected. “And yes, you may.”

“One iced tea and one hot chocolate coming right up,” Jack Corbin said and went off to tell the waitress. Annie helped Tommy climb onto the booth seat, waited while he scooted toward the wall, then sat down herself.

Corbin was back in less than a minute, sliding into the other side of the booth. Before Annie could say a word, Tommy raised his gaze from his Nintendo game and said, “We’re gonna talk bizness.”

Unexpected though it was, the comment served as an effective icebreaker. The man across the table smiled and said, “So we are, but why don’t we order our dinner first?” He pulled three menus from the stand next to the wall and handed one to them.

“I can’t read,” Tommy said, but appeared impressed that it had been assumed he could.

“Maybe your mom can take a look at it then.”

“Sure, honey,” Annie said, anxious to decide on something so she could focus on her speech. “Let’s find something you’ll like. How about the macaroni and cheese?”

“Uh-uh.”

Annie ran her finger down the list of tonight’s specials. “Mashed potatoes?”

Tommy shook his head again, this time with more emphasis.

“A hamburger?”

Another headshake.

“How about some soup?”

“No.”

Annie heard the dissatisfaction in her son’s voice, recognizing where it was headed. For the most part, Tommy was an angel of a child. But ever since J.D. had left, temper tantrums had become a way of life. There was no predicting them, and Tommy’s counselor had told her that she should simply let them run their course, that they were the boy’s way of punishing her for the changes since his father had left. Another notch on life’s belt of unfairness since J.D. had made that decision all by himself, without any help from her.

“Okay,” she said in a reasoning tone, praying that she could head this off, “how about a grilled cheese?”

“No,” he said, his voice growing louder.

This was not going at all as planned. Sitting across from her was the man who held the fate of this town in the palm of his hand. Annie figured she had one chance and one chance only to get him to at least consider not selling Corbin Manufacturing, and how on earth was she going to do that with Tommy throwing a fit beside her?

“You know what my favorite thing here was when I was your age, Tommy?” Corbin’s question was casual.

Tommy looked up, no doubt intrigued that a man as big as the one sitting in front of them could ever have been his age. “What?”

“Pancakes.”

“For supper?”

“For anytime. In fact, I think that’s what I’ll have tonight.”

Tommy pondered that for a moment, then looked at Annie and said, “Can I get pancakes, Mama?”

“May you have them. And yes, you may,” Annie said. In another less-than-admirable motherhood moment, she would have let him order jelly beans if that’s what it took to head off the storm about to erupt.

Tommy went back to his game, his bad mood dissipating as quickly as it had started.

Annie breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Thank you for your patience, Mr. Corbin. I realize this isn’t what—”

“It’s Jack. And this is fine.”

Jack, then. His response wasn’t the one she would have expected. Her own self-painted portrait of Jack Corbin, playboy extraordinaire, did not include the ability to deter little boys from temper tantrums with the finesse of a conductor leading an orchestra through Beethoven’s Fifth. Guys who drove Porsches didn’t do that, did they?

Charlotte appeared then with their drinks, an iced tea for Annie and a hot chocolate with an extra bowl of marshmallows on the side for Tommy.

“Another of your favorites?” Annie asked, surprised and more than a little appreciative.

“Hot chocolate’s nothing without the marshmallows.”

Annie had no doubt that Jack Corbin had just moved up another level in Tommy’s estimation. Next to chocolate cake, marshmallows ruled.

“Careful now. It’s hot,” Annie warned while Tommy filled the cup with as many of the gooey treats as it would hold.

“What can I get for you?” Charlotte asked. “I’ll take you first, Mayor.”

Food was the last thing Annie wanted, so she said the first thing that came to mind. “A tossed salad, please. Thousand island on the side.”

“All right.” Charlotte scribbled on her pad. “And the gentlemen?”

“We’re having pancakes,” Jack Corbin said as seriously as if he’d just ordered the two of them the best steaks on the menu.

Tommy beamed.

Charlotte looked at Annie and said, “Unpredictable, too? Two stacks of pancakes coming right up.”

As soon as she’d headed off toward the kitchen with their order, Tommy said, “Do people always get to order pancakes when they talk about bizness?”

“Not always,” Jack said. “But I’d have to say it’s a pretty good idea.”

Annie smiled and smoothed down a wayward strand of Tommy’s hair. Her son had managed to defuse some of the nervousness she would have no doubt been feeling had she been here alone with Jack Corbin. She’d been lucky to get the man to meet her at all, and she couldn’t afford to waste any more of the limited time she had to make her case.

“Jack.” She cleared her throat and willed her nerves to settle. “I know I mentioned this in my letters and calls to your attorney—”

“All of them?” he interrupted.

Was he teasing her? The thought tripped her up a bit. “Ah, yes, I’m sure. I would like to reiterate again just how much Macon’s Point would like to see Corbin Manufacturing remain in business. A great many of the people who live here rely on your factory for their—”

“My daddy’s famous.”

The announcement came from Tommy who had looked up from his game and was waiting for a reaction.

“He is?” Jack asked with a raised eyebrow. “What’s he do?”

“He plays baseball.”

“Tommy, honey, Mr. Corbin and I are discussing—”

“For what team?”

“He used to be with the Braves, but he got hurt.”

“Is your daddy J. D. McCabe?”

Tommy nodded, so proud that Annie’s heart hurt.

“He is famous,” Jack said, looking impressed enough to make Tommy light up again. “He’s quite a player.”

“I want to be just like him when I get big. He lives in Los—” Tommy hesitated and then looked up at Annie. “Where is it, Mama?”

“Los Angeles, honey.”

“Mama and Daddy are divorced, so he has to live out there.”

“Oh,” Jack said, the response admirably neutral.

Annie drew in a quick breath, put a hand on her son’s hair and said, “Tommy, we’ll have to tell Mr. Corbin about Daddy’s baseball career another time. We can’t keep him here all night, and he and I have some very important things to discuss.”

“Do you like baseball, Mr. Corbin?” Tommy asked, completely ignoring Annie’s attempt at reason.

“I like to watch it, but I never was very good at playing it.”

Tommy considered this for a moment, and then said, “Not everybody can be a great baseball player.”

Annie recognized the words her son had used in an attempt to console Jack. They were the same ones she’d used since Tommy had first started asking her if she thought he’d grow up to be a great baseball player like his father. One of her greatest fears was that Tommy would hinge his sense of self-worth on whether or not he could play like J.D., and this was the last thing she wanted for him. “Tommy, honey—”

“You’re right about that,” Jack said. “Everyone is born with different strengths and abilities.”

Tommy considered this for a brief moment. “What’s yours?”

Jack rubbed a hand around the back of his neck and said, “Hmm. I guess I would say I might have a talent for putting things back together again.”

Annie could see that the comment was as intriguing to her six-year-old son as it was to her.

“Like puzzles?” Tommy asked.

“Sort of, but with real-life situations.”

“Oh.”

Tommy let it go, and for once Annie wished her son would persist with another question.

Charlotte appeared with their dinners.

“Let’s see, one tossed salad for our mayor,” she said, placing the bowl of lettuce and vegetables in front of Annie. “And for our boys, pancakes.”

She set the loaded plates in front of “the boys,” bestowing a there-you-are-sugar on Tommy and then landing a what-do-you-say-we-meet-up-later smile on Jack Corbin.

“Mama, will you cut up my pancakes?”

“Sure, honey.” Annie darted a glance at Jack who was waiting politely for the two of them to begin eating. “Go ahead, please,” she said.

He reached for the syrup bottle and poured liberally until his plate was a pond with the pancakes floating in the center like a stack of lily pads.

“Can I have as much syrup as Mr. Corbin, Mama?”

Annie tried not to smile. “I’ll pour, and you say when, okay?”

Jack passed the syrup bottle to her with a slightly embarrassed shrug, which startled her with its unexpected appeal. “Okay, so in some ways, a man never grows up.”

“In most ways,” Annie said, the remark slipping out before she had given it an edit.

He cocked an eyebrow and passed up commenting on that, but Annie didn’t miss the curiosity in his eyes.

After finishing with Tommy’s pancakes, Annie drizzled dressing across her salad, took a few token bites and then put down her fork, feeling as if the lettuce were sticking in her throat. The sooner she said what she’d come to say, the sooner the knot of nerves inside her would dissolve. “As I was saying, Jack—” She stopped, cleared her throat, then tried again. “Five hundred people in this town will be out of work if you close down your factory. That means they won’t be able to pay their mortgages or car payments. They will be without health insurance. If you shut down that factory, you might as well shut down the whole town.”

She’d gained momentum near the end, strong and not a little accusatory. Annie happened to believe that every word she had just said was true, and she somehow needed to make him understand that. “There must be something that can be done. It’s not as if the company is in bankruptcy.”

Jack Corbin studied her for several long seconds. Annie resisted the distinct urge to fidget under that level stare and remained still in her seat. It was the most intimidating stare she’d ever faced in her life. Don’t look away, Annie. If you do, he wins.

“Close enough,” he said, a glimmer of respect in his eyes when he said, “Look, Mrs. McCabe—”

“Annie.”

“Annie,” he inclined his head, “I appreciate your position. And I’m sorry that things have ended this way. My father’s company provided the people of this town with livelihoods for a lot of years. But he’s not here anymore. And Corbin Manufacturing was his vision, not mine.”

Annie’s heart sank. As explanations went, his sounded as if it had been forged in steel. The set look to his jaw told her that she didn’t have an icicle’s chance in Tahiti of turning this particular situation around. She suddenly felt tired and resigned and downright sad.

Some combination of those emotions must have been reflected in her face. He sighed and said, “Look, I appreciate the difficulty of your position, Annie. I hope you can do the same of mine.”

Annie toyed with a piece of lettuce at the edge of her bowl, avoiding his gaze. She looked up then and met it head on. “Actually, I can’t. You see, I know most of these people as individuals. I know Sam Crawford who works in your finishing department. He has a wife with MS and three children he’s somehow managing to raise while working and taking care of her. I know Milly Thomsen who works in the front office. She’s supporting herself and twin girls after her husband was killed in a logging accident last year. I see the individual tragedies that will happen in this town if that factory closes down, and no, I can’t accept the rightness of that. Not if there’s any way at all to avoid it.”

Tommy’s heels thunked against the lower panel of the booth. “I’m sleepy, Mama. Are you done talkin’ bizness?”

“I think we’re just about finished, Tommy,” Jack said, shifting his unreadable gaze from Annie to her son who was rubbing his eyes with the back of a fist.

Annie put an arm around Tommy’s shoulders, her heavy heart dropping a few more inches. “Thank you for listening. I only wish I could have said something to make you reconsider.”

She got up from the booth then, pulled her wallet from her purse and put a twenty on the table. “Let’s go home, Tommy.”

Tommy blinked with sleepy eyes and said, “You didn’t eat all your pancakes, Mr. Corbin.”

Jack got up and stood politely to the side. “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

“Well, we’ll be going,” Annie said stiffly, taking Tommy’s hand.

“Good night,” Tommy said.

“Nice to meet you, Tommy.”

“Good night,” Annie said. She led her son back through the restaurant, the weight of failure heavy on her shoulders.

AFTER LEAVING WALKER’S, Jack followed South Main out of town, winding through the September night, leaving his window cracked to reacquaint himself with the smells of the country. Burning leaves in the front yard of what had once been the old Jefferson house. Corn silage at Saul’s Dairy.

He traveled the last two miles of the secondary road that led to Glenn Hall behind a seen-better-days Ford pickup with a missing taillight and a lopsided bumper, the right side of which nearly touched the pavement every time the driver tapped his brakes.

For once, Jack didn’t mind the pace. His regular life revolved around being in a hurry. Last-minute trips. Nearly-missed planes. A new city every week. He’d set his life up that way, and most of the time, it suited him just fine. Slowing down gave a man too much time to think, often enough about things that didn’t bear up under scrutiny. Like where he’d been instead of where he was going. That he couldn’t go back and erase tracks he’d already made. All he could do was point his feet in another direction next time out.

Jack hated letting people down, and it seemed as if lately he’d become an expert at it.

He’d certainly let Annie McCabe down tonight. And he felt like a heel.

Okay, so maybe it hadn’t been as easy as he’d expected it to be. Saying no to a woman with eyes the color of Swiss chocolate and a little boy at her side. It had been the most unconventional business meeting Jack had ever attended.

He didn’t know what he’d expected in Annie, maybe forty-five and frumpy. Nix that image. She was cute like a Meg Ryan where a first glance says, hmm, nice. Second glance, very nice.

She had the kind of mouth that got him distracted fast. Full lower lip which she worried with even, white teeth in between the arguments she’d been launching at him with fastball accuracy.

And she’d been married to J. D. McCabe. J.D. had been a couple years older than Jack. Jack had gone to a private school, so their paths rarely crossed. But he remembered J.D. as a guy with a laser-beam smile and more than his share of confidence. He wondered why the idea of Annie with him didn’t quite gel.

The truck in front of him slowed to a crawl, then angled right and rolled off down a gravel driveway, freeing up the road. Jack nudged the accelerator to the floor, suddenly anxious to knock out each of the obligations standing between him and tying up for good these last connections to Macon’s Point.

The Porsche raced up the next hill, rounded a curve, and there it was. Glenn Hall. The car’s headlights arced across two enormous fieldstone columns marking the entrance to the farm his father had left to Daphne Corbin, his second wife. Now Jack’s by default.

He stopped and got out to open the gate with the key his attorney had sent him. He swung the gate arms wide. A three-quarter moon backlit a white four-rail fence in need of paint. Standing beneath an old maple some twenty feet inside the pasture were two big Percheron horses gazing at him with open curiosity.

Jack ducked back inside the Porsche and found two pieces of peppermint candy in the glove compartment. He crossed the driveway to the fence. One of the horses nickered and ambled over.

“Hey, Sam,” Jack said, unwrapping the candy and giving it to him. “Still the brave one, I see.”

The other horse edged up beside them, not quite as courageous, but unwilling to be left out. “Hey, Ned, old boy.” Jack gave him the candy and rubbed his forehead. Both horses stood there, crunching their candy and sniffing Jack’s arm.

Just the sight of them cut off the air in his lungs, flooding him with vivid memories of his father. Hooking up the team on a Sunday afternoon, taking Jack and his mother for a wagon ride down the old country roads surrounding the farm. To most people, this side of Joshua Corbin had never meshed with the image of a CEO whose business provided a big percentage of the town’s jobs. But to Jack, it had. As a little boy, it was seeing his father drive those gigantic horses that had made his heart swell with pride, made him want to tell the world that was his father up there. He’d taught Jack a lot about life through those horses. How to care for things that depended on you. That a soft voice brought about the desire to please in a way a harsh hand never could.

They were old now. In their late twenties at least. There had been four at one time. He threw a glance across the pasture behind him. If the other two had been out there grazing, they would have made their way to the fence already. He was surprised any of them were still alive, more so that Daphne hadn’t sold them all long ago. He almost wished she had just so he didn’t have to.

Sam and Ned had spent their entire lives here. He’d find a good home for them, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

He gave them a last rub, got back in the car and followed the winding driveway to the house that sat on a slight rise some quarter mile away. From the outside, at least, nothing had changed. The house had been built from fieldstone. White wooden shutters bracketed each window. An enormous mahogany door marked the center entrance. Jack’s father had built it for his mother, the two of them using an old pickup on weekends to load up the rock for the house from the edges of the fields on the farm. It was she who should have lived here all these years. She who should have left it to him. Not Daphne.

He got out, leaving the couple of bags he’d brought with him in the back of the car.

Jack pulled the key from his pocket and opened the front door. He’d expected to be greeted with the musty scent of neglect. Instead, the house smelled clean, fresh, as if someone had just been through with a bottle of lemon Pledge and a bucket of soapy water.

Jack flicked on a light, then stood in the hallway, giving himself a moment to acquaint memory with reality. He ventured down the front hallway, his footsteps echoing around him. It was a sad, no-one-lives-here sound that did not fit his memories of a childhood rich with all the things that make a house a home. Warm cooking smells. Winter evenings spent in front of a crackling fire. Summer afternoons on the back porch drinking lemonade.

The memories stung.

“Jack?”

He swung around, and there in the doorway stood Essie Poindexter. Rounder than he remembered. But with the same smile that connected in a straight line from her mouth to her eyes.

Emotion had a lock on his throat. “Essie,” he finally said.

“Land’s sake, I can’t believe it’s really you, son.”

They stepped forward at the same time, meeting halfway across the room in a fierce hug, he towering over her short, stout frame, she with her chubby arms locked tight about his waist.

When he finally pulled back, tears marked her round cheeks. He reached out and rubbed them away with his thumbs. She hadn’t changed much, a few more lines in her face, maybe, softened, though, by the warm welcome there. The sight of her deluged him with reminders of a childhood in which she had played a more-than-significant part. For as long as he could remember, she had lived in a house his father had built for her at one end of the farm. She’d been hired as a housekeeper to help out Jack’s mother, but Jack had always thought of her as family.

“I saw lights coming up the driveway and figured I better see who it was. Thought you could slip in without seeing old Essie, huh?” she asked, the hurt behind the question barely concealed.

He pulled her against his chest again and rubbed her slightly humped back with the palm of his hand. “Of course I was coming to see you, Es.”

“I’d say it’s about time,” she said, pulling away to squint up at him. She stepped farther back and took a longer look. “I remember your father at thirty-three. You look just like him. Handsome as the day is long. I just wish you two had mended your fences.”

He held up a hand. “Essie, don’t, okay?”

“I expected to see you here for the funeral, son,” she said, her words colored with equal doses of admonishment and disappointment. “I know you never got to know her, but she was your stepmother. She was sick for a good while.”

“I didn’t know. But I’m sorry about it, Essie. I was out of the country when it happened. I didn’t receive word until the day after the funeral. Besides, I wouldn’t have belonged there, anyway.”

She gave him a look of disagreement, then pressed her lips together as if deciding this wasn’t the time to argue. She reached for the cover draped across the closest chair and yanked it off, sending up a puff of dust. “Give me a couple hours, and I’ll have this place looking livable,” she said, tugging at the sheet on the couch. “If you’d have let me know you were coming, I’d already have it done.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’m only staying a couple nights, Es. That’s all.”

Essie didn’t say anything for several moments, the sheet in her hands slumping to the floor. “You’re really going through with it then? Selling the factory.”

“It’s for the best.”

“For who?” she asked quietly. “Surely, not this town.”

“Essie—”

She raised a hand and cut him off. “I know you think you have your reasons, Jack. And Lord knows at the time, I had a hard time understanding why your father did what he did. But sometimes, you’ve got to step a little closer for the picture to come into focus.”

“Dad left the business to Daphne when he died. I think that made his feelings pretty clear. If he had wanted me to have it, he would have left it to me. Anyway, I didn’t come back to rehash the past,” he said, the words coming out harsher than he’d intended. Meeting the older woman’s sorrowful gaze, he immediately regretted his abruptness.

“Then why did you come back? You could have sold off this place and that business without ever setting foot in this house.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered, his tone softening, honest in this, at least. He’d never been able to lie to Essie. Even at eight when he’d raided the kitchen cookie jar before dinner and had the worst stomachache of his life, he’d owned up.

“Could I ask one thing of you then, son? Don’t leave again until you can answer that question for me.”

CHAPTER THREE

ON THE OTHER end of the country, J. D. McCabe had spent the better part of the day stewing. Stretched out now on a lounge chair by the swimming pool in his backyard, he muttered a few curses at the fairer gender’s inability to see reason.

Dadblame Annie’s hide. What in the world had happened to the moldable woman he’d married? There had been a time when he could snap his fingers, and she’d practically run to meet whatever need he needed met.

She was still mad at him for running off with Cassie, that much he knew. But damn it all to hell, two divorced adults ought to be able to work things out in a dignified manner. He wanted to see his son, and she was bending over backward to make sure that didn’t happen. He was no dummy. Women had an unbelievable need for revenge when they considered themselves mistreated, and Annie had decided to use their son as her weapon of choice.

Why couldn’t she just get over it?

He flipped onto his stomach, reached for the Bloody Mary Cassie had brought out to him a few minutes ago and took a long sip. The generous portion of alcohol she had added to his tomato juice burned a gulch down his throat and lit a simultaneous fire under his already well-stoked indignation. He wasn’t going to stand for Annie being so selfish. He had rights. Not to mention he was a celebrity with five commercials running on network TV.

And Tommy was his son. With his genes. His potential to be a great ball player some day.

But not if she brought him up believing ballet was just as admirable as baseball if that was a person’s chosen passion.

Let him decide if that’s what he wants for himself, J.D.

Wrong! On some things, a child had to be pointed in a certain direction, shoved along a little, if necessary. How the heck was a six-year-old supposed to know what he wanted to do with his life? If J.D. wasn’t mistaken, the boy was going to have his daddy’s arm. And if Tommy was told he was going to be a great baseball player like his dad, then odds were he would be.

But Annie was so convinced she was right not to push the boy. In his opinion, this was just one more way for her to pay him back. By denying him the chance to see his own talent reflected back in his son.

Who did she think she was? She’d been nothing more than a starry-eyed teenager when he’d met her in Atlanta. He’d given her a life most girls would have run barefoot across nails for a chance at. But of course Annie had never appreciated it. Had always looked at the few negatives of his career. She’d hated the traveling, the moving around. Why had she never seen the excitement in it? Exposure to new things, new people. J.D. thrived on that. And Annie’s inability to bend even one iota had been the true cause of the end of their marriage. She could be mad at him until the sun turned blue, but the way he saw it, she was the one at fault for their splitting up, anyway.

And now she wanted to keep him from seeing Tommy.

He let that simmer for a while. Sweat began to bead on his nose, causing his four-hundred-dollar sunglasses to slip. He shoved them back in place.

The problem with Annie was that she’d developed way too big an opinion of herself. Ever since she’d stepped into his shoes as mayor of Macon’s Point—his own term as mayor had been little more than an amused diversion while he tried to figure out how to accept that he was never going to play pro baseball again—she’d gotten just a little too big for her britches. She actually thought she was going to make a difference in that podunk town. How much difference did she think she was going to make in a place that was never going to be anything special?

“Are you still fretting over that phone call, honeybee?”

J.D. looked up. Cassie stood at the sliding glass door of their Tuscan contemporary house, peering at him over the rim of her four-hundred-dollar sunglasses, identical to his. Why was it that she wanted them to have matching everything?

She was twenty-two to his thirty-five. That explained a lot of it. Youth left a few blanks for maturity to fill in later on. Profound, J.D. He should write that one down in case he got around to penning his memoirs one day.

Cassie’s adoration was kind of cute, but if he wasn’t careful she’d have him parading around L.A. in matching I’m Hers, I’m His T-shirts.

If her youth allowed for a few semi-irritating quirks, it made up for it in other ways. He sent a glance over the strings holding her bikini together in three strategic locations. She had the kind of sex drive that required his presence twice a day. She was damn near about to wear him out. Which was fairly laughable, considering his complaints about the desert-dry sex life he’d had with Annie.

“I’m not fretting,” he said, planting his forehead on the chair and staring at the terra-cotta tile beneath.

She click-clacked across the pool deck and squatted down beside him, one hand lacing through his hair. “You are.”

“I’m not.”

She sighed. “Why don’t you just go get him, J.D.? I wouldn’t mind having the little sweetkins live here with us. We could hire a nanny. Maybe one from South America. I hear that’s all the rage with the better families.”

“The courts always rule in favor of the mother on custody, Cass.”

She raised an eyebrow and sent him a silly-boy look. “But that’s with regular people. You’re J. D. McCabe.”

A grin broke through his gloom. Cassie might be young, but sometimes she did have a point.

THE DOORBELL RANG at two minutes past six-thirty on Sunday morning.

Clarice. Annie knew it before she pulled back the living-room curtain and saw her sister’s green Explorer parked in the driveway. She went to the door in her worn white bathrobe (the one J.D. had called asexual, and she’d therefore kept just as a matter of principle). She opened the door with her hair still sticking out from where she’d slept on it—more like tossed on it—and mascara smudged under her eyes.

“Lovely,” came Clarice’s raised eyebrow assessment.

“It’s still dark outside. Not everyone falls out of bed looking like they’re ready for Star Search.”

Clarice chuckled and sauntered past her, holding up two cups of Krispy Kreme coffee and a paper bag emitting the aroma of glazed doughnuts, her standard offering whenever she showed up on Annie’s doorstep at an hour most people would throttle her for. Looking great, of course. Shoulder-length blond hair just tousled enough that it was hard to tell if she’d come straight from bed or a very expensive hairdresser.

People used words like striking to describe Clarice. Clothes looked great on her—all clothes. At thirty-four, Clarice could pull off even the kind that should normally be reserved for twenty and under. If she weren’t her sister, Annie could have seriously hated her.

She followed Clarice into the kitchen, wiping a hand over eyes that still felt gritty from lack of sleep.

“So, what? I have to hear from the local grapevine that you were at Walker’s last night with the infamous Jack Corbin?”

“I was going to call you this morning.”

“You could have called me before.”

“So you could have one of your star reporters conveniently located at the next table over? Don’t think so.”

“Would I ever—”

“Yes.”

Clarice laughed, making herself at home on one of the bar stools tucked under the island in the center of Annie’s kitchen. “So how’d it go? Have you saved the town yet?”

Annie went to the sink, turned on the faucet and stuck the plate on which Tommy’s birthday cake had once perched under the running water. “I’m glad you can see the humor in it. I haven’t managed to locate any yet. Because I’m the last person who should be trying to convince Jack Corbin of anything.”

Clarice bit into her doughnut, and in a less-than-Clarice-like moment of bad manners, said around a mouthful, “Tell me what you said. What he said.”

“I said please. And he said no.”

“Annniiieee. The long version if you will.”

“He drives a Porsche.”

“Hmm.” With interest. “What’s he look like?”

“Like a guy who drives a Porsche.”

“Hmmmm.” More interest.

“Clar, you’re so deep.”

“It’s one of my good points.” Clarice smiled. “So really. Could you be a little more specific?”

“I don’t know. Good-looking.”

“A detail or two would be appreciated.”

“Dark-brown hair. Nice eyes.”

“Fit or soft?”

“Fit.”

“Like a runner or a weight lifter?”

“In between.”

“Any rings?”

“Didn’t notice.”

“Did, too.”

“Okay, no.”

“Hah. So he was good-looking enough for you to look at his ring finger.”

Annie rolled her eyes and pulled the doughnut Clarice had brought her out of the bag, taking a bite before elaborating. “Jack Corbin doesn’t need that factory or this town. He’s made up his mind. It’s not much more complicated than that.”

“Did you explain how half the town is going to be out of work if he dumps that company?” Clarice’s pretty face drew inward with a frown, her doughnut acting as a pointer for accentuation. “How people have mortgages, and car payments and medical bills—” She broke off there, breathless with indignation. This was Clarice the editor talking, the Star Search beauty contestant having left the room. This was a woman who would gladly run a four-page expose on every awful thing the man had ever done (provided she could dig it up) if it meant convincing him to reverse his decision.

“I did, Clarice. Specifics, examples, every solid argument I could manage to think of in front of a man eating a stack of pancakes.”

“A what?” Clarice’s frown lowered a watt or two.

“Pancakes. He ordered pancakes to keep Tommy from having a tantrum.”

Clarice pondered that for a moment, then said, “That’s odd.”

“You mean in keeping with the monster everyone’s made him out to be?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but it’s true,” Annie said, leaving half her doughnut in the wake of the realization that she’d have to walk into town and back to work off even half those fat grams. She took a sip of her still-hot coffee, adding, “He doesn’t have a life here anymore. I can’t really blame him for not holding on to the company.”

“Yeah, but to dump it at auction, just sell it off piece by piece. That’s not right. He could at least wait for a buyer. Then people wouldn’t have to lose their jobs.”

Ever since she’d left the diner last night, Annie had been unable to shake the sense of failure hanging over her. Yes, she knew how important this was to the town of Macon’s Point. She knew how much hardship the company’s closing would create. And she felt terrible about it. But the fact was that she, by educational credentials, was barely qualified to work at the Star-Vue Drive-in roller-skating burgers between car windows. She’d finished high school by GED after running off and marrying J.D. at eighteen. She knew a lot about baseball travel schedules, shoulder injuries and fastballs. But not a darn thing about how to save a dying town. “I feel like I’ve let everybody down, Clar.”

Clarice looked up, eyes snapping. “That’s ridiculous.”

“No, it isn’t. I got asked to finish out J.D.’s term because people felt sorry for me. I’ve never had any illusions that I was qualified for the job, but I wanted to prove that they weren’t wrong to offer it to me.”

“They weren’t wrong.”

Annie sighed and took a last sip of her coffee. “Well, after Corbin Manufacturing closes, Macon’s Point won’t be big enough to need a mayor.”

“Aunt Clarice!”

Clarice swung her bar stool around. “Well, hey, sleepyhead, it’s about time you got up.”

Tommy catapulted into Clarice’s arms, nearly sending her over backward on the bar stool. “I didn’t know you were here!”

“I came over for an early visit,” she said, ruffling his blond hair, which was exactly the same color as hers. “Brought you a doughnut, too,” she said, reaching for the bag.

“What kind?”

“Whole wheat,” she said, dead serious.

“Yukkkk,” Tommy said, making a face.

Clarice laughed. “You know what kind I got you. Blueberry filled, of course.”

Tommy grinned. Had it been for anyone other than Clarice, Annie might have been hurt that her son hadn’t even noticed she was in the room yet. Tommy adored Clarice. It was mutual. And she couldn’t blame him. Clarice doted on her nephew, made him feel special.

“Mama, can I watch a video?”

“Sure, honey.”

Tommy took his doughnut and headed for the living room.

“I can’t believe I actually thought I could turn this situation around, Clarice. Why did I ever take on this job, anyway?”

“Because you care about this town, and it needs somebody who cares about it.” She resumed her position on the bar stool. “So. Here’s an idea.”

Annie recognized the tone in her sister’s voice. Failure did not exist in Clarice’s vocabulary. Never had. Never would. “What?” Knowing even as she asked the question that she wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Let’s go out to see him this morning. Together. I’ll go as editor of the county newspaper. You as town mayor. We’ll state our case for letting another company buy him out. See if we can get him to at least agree to consider it.”

“Oh, Clarice, I don’t think—”

“But you don’t know. And how can we not at least give it a shot?”

She was right. Annie knew it and couldn’t deny it with any real conviction. It was the kind of thing Clarice had always been able to do. Put herself on the line. But then it almost always worked out in her favor. Maybe it would this time as well. In all likelihood, she should have been the one to talk to him in the first place. “You don’t think he’ll have us thrown off his property?” she asked, half kidding, half not.

“Two babes like us?” Clarice tossed her Star Search hair. “I don’t think so.”

“A MAN COULD get used to living this way.”

Essie stood in front of the gas-top Viking range, flipping strips of bacon with a long-handle fork. “You move yourself back in this house, Jack Corbin, and I’ll see to it that you do get used to it.”

Jack smiled. Lord, he’d missed this woman. Hadn’t realized how much until this morning when he’d followed his nose down to the kitchen where she had a pot of the best coffee he’d ever tasted going. Essie’s view of the world was one he wished he could bottle and sell. Her face stamped with wrinkles, it was Essie who had long ago taught him the value of a smile. That it opened doors. Made people feel welcome.

Damn shame, then, that he hadn’t been able to summon up one last night when Annie McCabe had thanked him in her cool, composed voice, taken her son’s hand and left Walker’s with an admirable, but unsuccessful, attempt to hide her disappointment. He’d woken up this morning to the nagging feeling that he wanted her to know it wasn’t personal. That it had nothing to do with her, but everything to do with him and the fact that he had no intention of cleaning up the mess Daphne had managed to make of his father’s business.

He was sure he looked like a monster to her.

And it bothered him.

Movement just past the window caught his eye. Sam, one of the Percherons, stood at the board fence at the edge of the yard, using a post top to reach an itch under his jaw. In the daylight, Jack could see that gray hair had long since threaded its way through the horse’s mane, but there was still a dignity to him that made Jack remember how proud his father had been of the team. As proud of those horses as he’d been of the business he’d built from the ground up. A wave of sadness hit him for the fact that they would not live out the rest of their lives here, and for the imminent demise of the furniture business his father had put his life into.

But Jack wasn’t responsible for the collapse of the company. Only the decision to let it go. And it was the right decision.

He thought about Annie and the disappointment in her eyes. It was the right decision.

Essie set a plate in front of him, covered with enough bacon, eggs and homemade biscuits to feed a family of four. “That’s the best-looking meal I’ve seen in ages,” Jack said, turning off the laptop he’d used to download the file Pete had sent him last night. “Aren’t you eating, Es?”

“Already did,” she said, dropping a frying pan in the sink and reaching for a scrub brush. “You go ahead. Enjoy.”

He’d just polished off the last of his bacon when he heard himself asking, “Do you know Annie McCabe, Essie?”

“Everybody knows Annie,” Essie said, taking a dish towel to the frying pan she’d just finished scrubbing.

“I met her last night. Seems like a nice woman.”

“Maybe too nice. Got herself lassoed into finishing out her ex-husband’s term as mayor. Far as I’m concerned, she’s done a much better job at it than he ever would have, too. How a man could leave a wife and son like that to run off with some young thing he hadn’t known more than a few days—” Essie broke off there, shaking her head. “I don’t understand people anymore. Commitments just don’t mean what they used to.”

On that Jack had to agree. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago. And yet he’d somehow managed to live his own life as a perfect example of a man unable to commit.

Jack was still thinking about that thirty minutes later over another cup of coffee and the rest of the morning paper. Essie had gone off to do an errand in town. The doorbell rang and he went to answer it.

Annie McCabe stood on his front porch, looking as though she’d rather be anywhere else in the world. Another woman stood next to her, her body language making it clear she was the one who’d brought them here.

“I’m sorry to come by so early,” Annie said. “This is—”

“Hi, I’m Clarice Atkins,” the other woman interrupted, sticking out a hand. “Annie’s sister and editor of the county newspaper. Is there any way we could take up a little of your time this morning?”

Never would have guessed the sisters part. The two women bore no physical resemblance whatsoever. Not even in the way they carried themselves. The world had never said no to the sister.

“Come in,” he said, stepping aside and waving them past him. “How about some coffee?”

“We’ve had our quota, but thank you,” Clarice said. “What a beautiful house. I’ve admired it so many times from the road.”

“Thanks.” He pointed them toward the kitchen, followed behind, noticing some details of the two: Annie was three or four inches taller, had full, shoulder-length hair, a sort of sun-dappled blond. Clarice’s hair hung mid-back, the color more along the lines of Marilyn Monroe. Most interesting, still, the body language. Annie, looking as if she’d been dragged here. Clarice, pretty sure she was going to get what she came for.

In the kitchen, they stood for a moment, he not exactly sure what was expected of him.

“Lovely view,” Clarice said, looking out the big kitchen window where Sam was still hanging out by the fence. “What kind of horses?”

“Percherons. They were my father’s. Retired now.”

“My, they’re big. Like the ones in the beer commercial?”

“Those are Clydesdales, aren’t they?” This from Annie.

Jack nodded.

“They’re beautiful,” Annie said. “Did your father drive them?”

“Four in hand. He had two more at one time.”

“I bet that was something to see.”

“It was,” Jack said, surprised by the long-tamped-down pride for his father that rose up to color the admission.

He looked at Annie, and their gazes held in a moment of something he would have been hard-pressed to put a label on. Surprised him with the vague regret that he had not met her under circumstances where he wasn’t set up to play the role of bad guy.

“I—we wanted to invite you to a picnic,” Annie said, no longer looking directly at him. “Tuesday afternoon at the factory. Kind of a farewell thing the employees are having. Everyone’s bringing a dish.”

He remembered then that he had liked her voice last night. Soft blurs on the end of certain words giving away the fact that she’d spent a good part of her life in the South.

He folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the kitchen counter, and put that realization back in the drawer labeled inappropriate where it belonged. “Seems like I’d be the last person they’d want there.”

“Seems that way,” she agreed. “But they might surprise you. And it would give you a chance to put faces to the process.”

That last part was thrown out as a challenge. He’d expected the sister to be the one coming at him with a few sharp knives, but so far she was letting Annie do the job. He didn’t miss the underlying accusation. If you’re going to take away the livelihood of all those people, you could at least know who they are.

And he wouldn’t back down. She was right. He had no problem standing behind his decision, especially in front of the people who worked at Corbin Manufacturing. This was a business decision, and as far as they were concerned, nothing personal about it.

“When does it start?”

“Five-thirty.” Clarice now. “We could swing by and pick you up if you like.”

Surprise flickered across Annie’s face and then disappeared behind a veil of casual agreement. She would not have issued that invitation, Jack knew. “Thanks, but I’ve got my car,” he said, sparing her.

Her relief was visible, and he found himself vaguely unsettled by the realization that Annie didn’t care to spend any more time with him than she had to.

“Okay, then,” she said, in a let’s-go-now tone of voice. “We’ll look for you on Tuesday.”

“What should I bring?”

“Just yourself would be fine,” Clarice said, the surface of the reply nothing more than a polite answer, but if Jack wasn’t mistaken, there was subtle flirtatiousness beneath.

“Whatever you’d like,” Annie said, a strait-laced reply that made her sister’s stand out in stark contrast.

“I’ll see what I can rustle up.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I. WANT. HIM.”

Clarice made her dazed declaration with Glenn Hall still framed in the rearview mirror of Annie’s Tahoe.

Annie accelerated, and a cloud of dust kicked up behind them on the gravel driveway. “Clarice,” she said in her best you-know-better voice.

“I know. I’m not supposed to like him.”

“I didn’t say that,” Annie objected. “It’s just that a lot is riding on whether or not he changes his mind.”

“Agreed. Point being?”

“Point being that needs to be our focus.”

“You afraid that steering wheel’s going somewhere?”

“What?” Annie looked down at her own white-knuckled grip, immediately loosened it. “I guess I feel a lot of pressure on this, Clarice. It’s important.”

“Well, I know that. But what harm can come from me showing a little interest in him?”

“I don’t know. Just that maybe it’s not a good time to distract him.”

“There are distractions, and there are distractions.”

It was pointless to argue. Annie knew her sister well enough to recognize immediate infatuation when it struck.

Clarice popped on a pair of black Armani sunglasses, slid down in her seat and blew out a sigh. “Sorry I was zero help in there. But mercy, I have never in my life seen a man that good-looking.”

“You think?” Annie shot some deliberate neutrality into her response. Clarice hardly needed encouragement.

“Think? You’re kidding, right?” Disbelief reverberated through the Tahoe’s interior. “Annie, surely J.D. didn’t do that much damage to your eligible man antennae.”

“Mine’s on temporary hiatus in the hall closet.”

Clarice laughed. “At least you can joke about it now.”

“They call that progress in therapy circles.”

“Well, it is, actually. For a long time, I couldn’t bring myself to say his name because it hurt too much to see the pain on your face.”

The mood in the Tahoe had gone suddenly somber. Annie heard the love in her sister’s voice and was grateful for it. Clarice had indeed seen her on the down side of disillusion. Not a pretty sight. “I have a feeling J.D. and Jack Corbin have a lot in common.”

Clarice’s perfectly arched eyebrows shot toward the roof. “How so?”

“Self-interest being their number one priority.”

“Well, I won’t deny it where J.D. is concerned. But isn’t it jumping the gun to hang that sign in Jack Corbin’s window just yet?”

Annie kept her gaze on the road, maneuvered around a brown bag in the middle of her lane that had fallen off the A&E Seed truck in front of them. Guilt needled at her. Maybe it was a tad unfair. She was going on surface impressions, after all. Hadn’t she been the one defending him to Clarice just a couple of hours ago? And now she was ready to put him in the same box with J.D. and toss the key in Lake Heron. “I just wish he would give the company a chance to get on its feet. That’s all.”

“Maybe he will. Party’s not over yet. And even though I talked a big game before going over there this morning, I wimped. But I’ve got all the googly-eyed stuff out of the way now, so maybe I’ll actually be able to string together a few coherent sentences at the picnic.”

Annie smiled.

“You aren’t interested in him, are you?” Clarice asked, failing to hide her worry.

“Oh, Clarice, of course not,” Annie said. As sisters, they’d had this conversation numerous times in their lives. And Annie always said the same thing because if Clarice really wanted the guy, she didn’t stand a chance, anyway. Not that she was interested in Jack Corbin. Or any other man at the moment. “I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I am very, no, extremely, happy with things the way they are in my life. I’ve finally proved to myself I don’t need a man to be complete.”

Clarice shot her an exaggeratedly appalled look over the rim of her sunglasses. “Heresy.”

“No, if I ever start looking again, it’ll be the flip side of J.D. The kind of man who drives a nice ordinary Buick or Chevrolet. A man with roots. Feet on the ground. Steady. Dependable.”

“Boorrring!”

Annie laughed. “Boring can have its selling points.”

“Not if you’re talking about men. You’ve got to be willing to get burned a time or two to ferret out a good one.”

“Then they ought to come with warning labels.”

Clarice laughed now. “Oh, Annie, most of the time they do, we just choose to ignore them.”

NO DENYING IT. Jack was having his share of serious misgivings by the time he pulled into the C.M. parking lot just after five o’clock on Tuesday afternoon.

Who, of all the employees at this picnic, would be glad to see him coming? No one. He, after all, was the guy in the black cape, the one with villain scrawled across his back in big bold letters. Had he secretly hoped they might understand that everything ran its course, had its time? That the glory days of C.M. were over, and he was merely the one taking the steps to put it out of its misery.

No, he didn’t expect them to understand that. Probably should never have said he’d come to the thing in the first place, but Annie had flung the invitation at him as a challenge. And he wasn’t a man to ignore a challenge.

He parked his car at the back of the lot, got out, and reached in the back seat for the basket of fried chicken he and Essie had spent the past two hours making. He’d been more hindrance than help, he was sure, but Essie had been so thrilled to hear that he was attending the picnic, she had practically floated around the kitchen fixing his mistakes, two of which had included a dozen eggs splattered on the brick floor and a measuring cup of flour upended on the countertop.

The parking lot was full. The factory itself sat on twenty acres of what had once been prime farmland. Its owners had sold out and moved back to Ohio some twenty-five years ago. Jack’s father had bought the property for its flatness and the fact that it was surrounded by Virginia mountains, the trees lit up every fall with colors only nature could blend. Now, in September, they hugged the level piece of land on which C.M. sat in an embrace of green.

Music floated out from behind the building. Bluegrass. It had been years since he’d heard the twangy notes of a fiddle. Homesickness knifed through him with an unexpected edge. The sound brought with it a deluge of memory, fiddler’s conventions he’d gone to as a boy with his dad who had loved the folk music and taught Jack to appreciate it. Booths set up with candy apples and hot cakes, Jack’s father letting him use his own money and his own judgment in buying the treats. Jack had always gone home with a stomachache. Joshua had believed in letting his son make his own mistakes, reasoning that was the only way he would remember them.

The factory itself was an enormous brick building, tall pane windows letting in plenty of natural light. Joshua Corbin had wanted to give his employees an appealing place to come to work every day. “Light affects a man’s soul, son. We weren’t made to live in the dark.” The words echoed in Jack’s head as if he’d just heard his father say them.

He followed the music, rounding the corner of the building. Hundreds of people filled the grass yard in front of him. Adults—young, old—teenagers and toddlers. What looked like the whole town. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but not this. Laughter. Smiling faces. Some flat foot dancing up front by the bluegrass trio. On the stage hung a banner that read: C.M. THANK YOU FOR THE GOOD YEARS.

Jack blinked, surprised.

Fifty feet or so out from the music were tables of food. He looked down at the basket of chicken in his own hand and felt like an intruder at someone else’s party.

But a round-faced woman with soft gray hair bustled up just then, taking the offering from him. “Come right on in. Um, this smells good. You make it yourself?”

“Had a little help,” he said.

“What’s your name, young man?”

“Jack,” he said, feeling like the Grinch about to steal Christmas.

“I’m Ethel Myers. Retired now. Worked here for twenty years, though. Still miss it.”

He could do little more than nod.

She waved him inside. “Go in and get comfortable now. We’re just about ready to eat. Iced tea and lemonade set up on those tables over there.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re surely welcome,” she said and waved a greeting to another latecomer.

Jack weaved his way through the crowd, recognizing some faces, sure he heard someone murmur his name. He picked up a glass of sweet tea from the table Ethel had directed him to, then stood there on the periphery of the crowd, wondering at the jovial tone of the gathering. His understanding from Annie had been that this was a farewell picnic of sorts for those who had worked at C.M. He’d fully expected to be the target of seriously grim head-shaking. Had maybe even brought himself here because on some level, he thought he deserved their ire for not giving the factory another chance.

There wasn’t any to be found.

This felt more like a celebration. Balloons in a rainbow of colors bracketed the tables set up around him, all of which were loaded with so much food they practically groaned beneath the weight.

“Well, I’ll be darned.”

A man in bib overalls and a red plaid shirt stuck his hand out to Jack and said, “You’re Joshua’s boy, aren’t you?”

Jack shook the man’s hand and nodded. “Yes, sir, I am.”

“Woulda known you anywhere. Look just like him.”

The statement was made with a thread of surprise running through it, but mostly gladness, which startled Jack more than a little.

“I’m Henry Sigmon. Your daddy hired me, let’s see, nineteen years ago, I guess. Company wasn’t such a big thing then. But I needed a job, and he gave me one. Been here ever since. I remember him bringing you to the Christmas lunches. Sure was proud of you.”

“Lot of good food at those lunches.”

Henry gave a you-better-believe-it nod. “We’ve got some unbelievable cooks around here.”

Jack managed a smile, the man’s recollection stirring up an unexpected pang inside him. Even then, he had known his father was proud of him, and there wasn’t anything else in Jack’s life since then that had created that same sense of worthiness. Not a degree from Duke. Nor the career he’d made for himself.

“Wish this had ended up differently, you know?” Henry’s smile had disappeared, in its place obvious disappointment. “For the last couple years, most of the people here have done what they could to lighten the load. Taking regular pay for overtime hours, closing down the day-care center your father built.”

“Day-care center?” The question was out before Jack had time to wonder what the man would think about his not knowing such a thing.

Henry looked surprised but said, “Yeah. Built about ten years ago, I guess. Sure did make a difference for a lot of families. Moms and dads could go spend their breaks and lunches with their children. Not having the expense of child care made working more realistic for a number of people. But no doubt it took a lot to keep it running, so everybody voted to close it six months ago since the company just seemed to keep losing money.”

Henry shook his head. “Wish we could have pulled it out for you. Would have meant a lot to a good many of us. Being able to do that for your father. It would’ve been a nice way to pay him back for everything he did for us.”

Jack tried for a response, but the words stuck in his throat. Again all he could do was nod. None of what Henry Sigmon had just said should have made any difference to him. But it did somehow. He’d convinced himself there wasn’t anything personal about the closing of this factory. He had a feeling he was going to be very, very wrong.

ANNIE SPOTTED HIM from the other side of the crowd.

It would have been impossible to miss him.

First of all, he was taller than nearly every other man at the picnic. Second, he looked about as comfortable being here as a cat in the middle of a dog show.

Her first inclination—the one she would have followed last night while lamenting the fact that anyone could be heartless enough to just auction off this place—was to let him feel the pinch of that a while longer.

Her second—the one that could not deny that Jack Corbin didn’t seem like a bad guy, just one misled—had her weaving her way through the crowd.

She tapped him on the shoulder. “You made it,” she said.

He turned, looking relieved to see her. “Yeah. Even brought some chicken.”

“No pancakes?”

A smile touched his too-appealing mouth.

She took pity on him. Couldn’t help it. She’d invited him here, not sure what his welcome would be. He didn’t strike her as a man to be cowed by much in life, but in his shoes, most people would have been.

“How about saying hello to a few people?”

“Sure,” he said with a nod.

Annie led the way to a group a few yards away. She put a hand on Estelle Thompson’s shoulder and said, “Estelle, this is Jack Corbin.”

Estelle stepped back to allow the two of them entrance into the circle. “Well, I’d recognize you anywhere,” Estelle said, beaming a smile at Jack. “I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I started working here shortly after your daddy built on the new section.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said. “It’s nice to see you.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Annie introduced and re-introduced Jack to as many people as she could. Maybe she could make him see that real people with real families were going to be devastated by the closing of this factory.

Several dozen introductions later, Annie tipped her head toward the end of the field opposite the bluegrass band where Tommy and a group of boys were hurling baseballs at one another’s gloves. “Say hi?”

Looking relieved, Jack nodded and followed her through the crowd of people. They stopped a few yards short of the boys’ circle.

“Point taken,” he said.

“Hope I didn’t use too big a stick.”

“Big enough.”

Annie looked down, feeling more like a bully than she cared to. “For a lot of people, losing their job here will mean having to change their lives, Jack. Moving to another place.”

Silence stretched out between them, more contemplative than awkward. Annie sensed he was considering her words, weighing them against his own conscience. And suddenly she felt hopeful again.

“Got a good arm on him,” Jack said finally, nodding toward Tommy who had just thrown the ball to one of the other boys.

Annie folded her arms across her chest, hoping she didn’t sound like a mother hen when she said, “I almost wish he’d show no talent whatsoever for the sport.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s an awfully hard way to make a living.”

“Aren’t too many roads that make it easy.”

“He’s just so determined to be as good as his dad. But what if he’s not? I don’t want him to spend his life feeling like he didn’t measure up.” Annie pressed her lips together. She hardly knew this man. Why had she just told him that?

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