Dealing with Annie Read online

  “Because the air is crackling?”

  “No.” But she had to laugh. “Because you’ve been demanding a lot of answers about me and my life, without giving me anything back.”

  He looked at her, then away. “Yeah.”

  The only reason she put up with any of it, besides the odd and inexplicable attraction between them, was that he clearly was a cop or an investigator or some such thing, and invoked a sense of trust in her that she didn’t wholly understand.

  “Would you believe I’m just a concerned citizen?” he finally asked.

  “No. Go away. I need to think.” She practically shoved him over the threshold.

  “My dear,” Aunt Gerdie whispered. “That man is quite magnificent.”

  Annie thought of how she’d nearly come undone from a touch of his finger, and had to fan cool air near her burning face. “I think you’re right.”

  Aunt Gerdie smiled. “Of course I’m right. I’m always right.”

  * * *

  WHEN THE PHONE RANG at seven o’clock that night, Annie braced herself. It’d been an interesting day, a tough day, and she wasn’t ready to handle anything else. “Hello?”

  “Hey. It’s Jenny. I’m still at the office.”

  Oh, boy, definitely not good. Jenny worked late often, but refused to deal with the phone after hours. That she was on it now couldn’t be good. “Do I need to sit down?”

  “Up to you.” Her partner sighed. “You made the tabloids again.”

  “Me, or Annie’s Garden?”

  “Both.” Jenny’s voice was unusually solemn.

  “Well, just give it to me.”

  “Okay, here it is. ‘Annie Hughes, queen of all organic things powder and gloss, confesses she wouldn’t be caught dead using her own products.’

  Annie backed to the couch in her living room and sank down on it. Outside was a beautiful New England night. The high moon set an unearthly glow to the wide, open rolling hills. “What else?”

  “Just that an unnamed competitor says that she’s not surprised at your antics.”

  “What?”

  “It says ‘Annie’s Garden’s products are greasy, ineffective and’—I quote here—‘stinky.”’

  Annie felt a headache coming on.

  “It also goes on to suggest that you don’t really know what you’re doing, that you regularly contact another company’s scientists for their secrets.”

  “Stella.”

  “Probably,” Jenny agreed. “She’s rather fond of dirty campaigning.”

  “She must be behind the scare tactics here, as well.”

  “What scare tactics?”

  The last thing Annie needed was Jenny panicking over her problems here. “Nothing.”

  “Annie? What scare tactics?”

  “It’s nothing.” Liar, liar. “And anyway, Stella’s company is ten times the size of ours. Why does she care what we’re up to? They’ve been established for nearly seventy years.” Annie shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Nothing about Stella makes sense. Annie…”

  She braced herself for more questions she didn’t want to answer.

  “We’re actually in a great position at the moment. Strong and stable… But we both know we can’t compete with Stella where we’re at. We’re too big to be small, too small to be big. I think it’s time to make some changes.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as…I don’t know…maybe retire?”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, we could sell our shares. Go sit on a beach for the rest of our lives.”

  “I don’t want to sit on a beach.” It was so crazy, Annie laughed.

  Jenny didn’t.

  “Okay, what’s really up?”

  “It’s nothing. I was pretty sure you weren’t interested in selling, just thought I’d check. Maybe we could just cut costs, and then take the difference in big bonuses. Say buy more inventory when the price is down, warehouse it for when we need it, stuff like that.”

  “You know we can’t do that with natural products,” Annie protested. “They go bad.”

  “I’m not talking about natural products.”

  “Jenny, we can do this our way. We don’t have

  to give in like our competitors and use synthetic products.”

  “It’s not about giving in. I’m talking about money.”

  “But we have enough money.” Jenny was silent.

  “Jenny?”

  “Right. Look, just think about it, okay? I have a supplier lined up, and we could save incredible amounts by simply making some basic ingredient changes.”

  “Jenny, you’re scaring me. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Because if you’re not—”

  “You know what? Do me a favor, and forget we had this conversation. It’s just me being me. Eeyore. ’Kay?”

  “’Kay.”

  But long after they hung up, Annie couldn’t shake it off. Something was up with Jenny…she just didn’t know what it could be.

  * * *

  JENNY COULDN’T SHAKE THE conversation off, either. She hung up the phone and for a long moment just stared at it, her heart heavy.

  She hadn’t confessed anything—not that she needed to sell her shares, and not the bigger, badder secret.

  God, she hated herself for that.

  Cigar smoke drifted past her nose, making her cough. “I’ve told you,” she said. “This is a nonsmoking building.”

  “Oops.” The cigar was extinguished. “You did good, by the way.”

  Jenny waved her hand through the air, trying to clear it so she could breathe. Or maybe it was what she’d done to Annie that made it so she couldn’t breathe.

  “When is she coming into town?”

  Jenny closed her eyes. “She didn’t say.”

  “I can hear you worrying from here. Stop it.”

  How, when her heart just plain hurt? “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll stop it.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE NEXT MORNING, Thomas leaned against the cabinet, sipping from a steaming mug of coffee, watching Ian limp back and forth across the kitchen floor. “Are you going to pace around all morning?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, I’ve got better uses for that energy. I could use some help outside.”

  Ian shot him a long look. “It’s not even six o’clock in the morning.”

  “We start early around here.”

  “That’s criminal.”

  “If it’s so criminal, why are you up?”

  “Because you have a rooster out there that I’m going to hand his own neck to.” Ian poured himself a scalding mug of black coffee and rubbed his leg. “How in the world do you stand his going off like that at four in the morning?”

  “He’s my alarm clock.”

  “He’s going to be your dinner.”

  Thomas laughed and topped off his mug. “Are you going to stay off your leg today?”

  “No.”

  “Then you might as well come with me.”

  “Yeah. What the hell.”

  Ian spent the next few hours marveling over his brother’s existence. They fed animals, checked in a few fields for some errant cattle, fixed a downed fence, and helped a lost calf find its mother.

  Or rather Thomas fed animals, checked in a few fields for errant cattle and fixed a downed fence, while Ian mostly watched from his perch on the tractor.

  Being injured had its benefits. “There’s an awful lot of open space out here,” he noted.

  Thomas shook his head. “What is it with you and open space?”

  “I don’t know. It’s…quiet, I guess. Too quiet.”

  “Quiet is a good thing. Hey, you know what would be funny? If by the time you go back to New York, you’re so used to the quiet, you can’t handle the noise. You’ll be running back here to stay.”

  “Yeah, that’d be ever so funny.”

  Despite all the rain, snow still lay in