A Woman Like Annie. Inglath Cooper
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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.