Dealing with Annie Read online

  Her heart started to pound but she ignored it. “I suppose I should stop four-wheeling over the curb to my—”

  “Annie.” When he lifted his head, his eyes were clear and startlingly serious. “You didn’t wear out your tires. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “So how—”

  “They were slashed.” It took him a long painful moment to rise again, and when he did, he reached for her hand.

  “You’re shaking,” she said inanely.

  “No, that’s you.” He ran his hand up her arm in a gesture meant to soothe, even though he was a virtual stranger. Shockingly enough, it did soothe.

  “How long were you in the store?”

  “Only a few minutes…”

  He looked around the parking lot, squinting through the rain, tense and battle-ready.

  “You don’t think—”

  “I think it just happened.” His light eyes continued to scan the lot around them. “You have your cell phone on you?”

  She swiped the rain from her eyes again. “Yes, but I told you, I haven’t received any more calls.”

  “You’re making one this time. Call the police.”

  * * *

  THE WHOLE EPISODE WAS AN exercise in futility. The police came. So did just about the entire population of Cooper’s Corner. People were questioned. No answers were found.

  Annie’s car was towed to the service station for tires.

  No less than seven people, including Phyllis from the grocery, offered Annie a ride home, but Thomas and Ian did that, the three of them crammed into the front seat of the pickup.

  Thomas turned out to be just about Ian’s polar opposite. Not as tall as Ian, he had sun-kissed brown hair, darker eyes, and a far more readily available smile. All the way back, he chatted in the face of Ian’s brooding silence, telling her of their rambunctious childhood in New York City.

  “The city—” Annie glanced over at Ian “—explains the intensity.”

  Thomas laughed. “You’ve noticed.”

  “I’ve noticed,” she said dryly, and Ian just rolled his eyes.

  “Did he tell you how I made him come to Cooper’s Corner?” Thomas asked. “He thinks we’re on a different planet out here.”

  “Thomas,” Ian said, just his name, in a low, quiet voice of warning.

  Thomas ignored him. “He was always like this,” he said to Annie. “Quiet. Demanding. Rude.”

  Annie had a hard time picturing Ian as a child at all, but Thomas had an easy wit and, despite the emotions of the day, had her laughing by the time they pulled up her driveway.

  Ian got out, held the door open. She got out, too, and looked around, startled to find everything so…normal.

  It had stopped raining, and the late afternoon sun poked its way through the dwindling, waning clouds. It still hovered just above freezing, however, and she was cold and still damp.

  But she took the extra moment to notice the beauty. The hills gleamed, the trees dripped. And the scent…everything always smelled so good after a rain. She inhaled deeply, still unsettled, but slowly starting to calm down. Then she leaned into the truck and smiled at Thomas. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “Call me when your car is fixed, I’ll drive you over there to get it.”

  Nodding, she backed up to let Ian back in the truck, but he didn’t move.

  “I’m okay,” she said softly, but he shook his head.

  “I want to check out your place for you,” he said.

  “You heard State Trooper Hunter. He said it was just a random act of violence.”

  “Because you didn’t tell him about your crank call.”

  “That wasn’t really a crank call, it was—”

  “Annie.”

  “Ian, you’re cold and wet, too, and—”

  “I’ll see you at home,” Ian said to Thomas through the open door.

  “Call me for a ride,” Thomas said back.

  “Fine.”

  The two brothers stared at each other for a long beat before Thomas nodded and Ian shut the door. The truck disappeared down the wet driveway.

  Annie watched it go, wondering at the long look they’d exchanged, but then a cold, harsh wind hit her and she shivered.

  Ian lightly put a hand low on her spine, nudging her forward. “Inside.”

  They walked up the front steps in silence, Annie slowing her normal running pace to match his. At the door he stopped her. “Me first this time.”

  She watched as he very carefully opened the door, studying the living room with intense, searching eyes. He was acting like…like a cop.

  “What was it you said you do?” she asked his sleek, smooth back.

  “I feed my brother’s baby goats.”

  “Ian.”

  “Oh, and find errant cell phones.”

  “I’m serious,” she said, and he turned to look at her, a whole host of things in his eyes, mostly his reluctance to talk about himself.

  “Look,” he finally said. “For now I’m just a farmer’s brother.”

  “For now?”

  “For now. For at least another three and a half weeks.” He peered behind the couch, in the coat closet. “And I’ve got too much damn time on my hands while I’m here. Ask Thomas, he’ll be happy to tell you all about it.”

  Then she was staring at his back again as he moved into the hall. “I meant what did you do before you came here, before your visit?” she clarified, though she knew darn well he’d purposely misunderstood her. “In the city.”

  “Lots of things.” In the kitchen now, his eyes scanned carefully, thoroughly, though whether or not he even noticed her wood table and chairs, hanging copper pots, the throw rugs she’d tossed down to warm the room through the chilly winters, or the potted plants she’d placed everywhere to keep the place cheery, she had no idea.

  The room sparkled from the scrubbing she’d given all the old-fashioned appliances and black-and-white-checkered tile flooring just that morning. “Ian—”

  “Shh.” He headed toward the bathroom.

  She let out a startled laugh. “You didn’t just shush me.”

  He opened the bathroom door, sneezed at her fresh potpourri. “Shh,” he repeated.

  She grated her teeth, remembering now why he was so annoying. “I want to know who you really are.” She blocked his way out of the bathroom, crossed her arms and pretended she was as tall and imposing as he. “Talk to me.”

  He took in what she knew to be a determined-as-hell expression, and let out a long breath. “I’m just trying to make sure your house is safe,” he said.

  “So you Tarzan, me Jane? I don’t think so. I can take care of myself, Ian.”

  “Is your aunt here?”

  She sighed. “It’s four o’clock.”

  “Which means?”

  “She’s upstairs napping. If you stay more than fifteen minutes, she’ll be up and forcing tea and cookies on you.”

  “Really?” Undisturbed by the Tarzan comment, he looked interested. “What kind of cookies?”

  She made a sound of frustration and started up the stairs to check on her aunt herself, not really surprised when Ian put a hand to her arm and insisted on going first. She wasn’t above watching him limp up the stairs, given that her eyes were level with a very nice set of buns.

  In the upstairs hallway, she pointed to Aunt Gerdie’s closed door. He nodded that she could go check, and at his permission, she rolled her eyes. She peeked in, saw her aunt still on her bed, sighed a breath of relief she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and shut the door.

  Together they went back down the stairs, once again standing in the hallway between the living room and kitchen.

  She was still damp and tired. Delayed stress, she supposed, but she was definitely feeling it. Tossing back her hair, she leveled a glance at the man who had the nerve to look extremely good all damp and tired. “There’s no one here who’s not supposed to be, Ian. You can drop the protective stance now.”

  He lean