Читать книгу From This Day Forward - Christie Ridgway - Страница 9

Annie Smith shuffled a half step forward in the long Friday-morning teller-line at her branch of the Strawberry Bay Savings and Loan. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a harried-looking woman in a silk blouse and business suit speed around the corner from the entry doors, then skid to a halt just millimeters before her nose smacked into Annie’s half-turned shoulder.

Annie had been the last in line. Now the harried woman was, and she didn’t look very happy about it.

“Unh,” the woman grunted in annoyance. “I just hate waiting, don’t you?”

Annie quickly murmured a polite noise and spun to face completely forward, unwilling to confess her one guilty secret.

She didn’t mind waiting.

Of course, not if it was a line for the ladies’ room or not if she was on her way somewhere important. But as the owner of a small, but growing catering business, and as a twenty-four-year-old—almost twenty-five—single woman, she was a ship under her own steam and her own schedule.

And the fact was, this ship was pretty content to wait her turn. Annie liked watching the other people in line, dreaming up their occupations and lifestyles, amusing herself with their “Candid Camera”-worthy reactions to the frustrations of using the bank-supplied pens.

Annie tightened her hold on her handful of checks ready for depositing. She’d signed her name and written her account number with her own trusty Bic.

One customer concluded her business, and the line shuffled forward again. Annie shuffled, too, the soles of her discount-store sneakers squeaking against the parquet linoleum. As the satisfied customer strode toward her, Annie noted the silver-dollar-sized hearts dangling from the woman’s ears, and her red blouse, pants and high heels. Against the blouse, two more hearts, pink, nodded and bobbed, attached by little springs to a big pin that screamed Happy Valentine’s Day! in silver glitter.

Wow. And the fourteenth was still a couple of days away.

Bemused, Annie couldn’t help but turn her head as the holiday-happy lady passed her. Which is why she didn’t miss seeing the woman don the final touch to her ensemble—a red fuzzy headband that sported two upstanding and overstuffed furry hearts.

It was also why Annie was the first to notice Ronald Reagan enter the bank.

She blinked. She supposed he could be in Strawberry Bay, this was California after all, but shouldn’t he be accompanied by the Secret Service? And shouldn’t they be the ones carrying the gun?

The gun.

Just as that started sinking in, the man yelled from behind his mask—the fact that he was wearing one was just starting to sink into Annie’s consciousness, too. “Everybody get down!” he shouted. His big, black, scary-looking weapon glinted dully in the light.

Annie discovered she couldn’t move. Some people in the line immediately dropped and others shrieked, but Annie was frozen and her voice was, too. Several around her appeared to be just as paralyzed as she.

Then Ronnie aimed the gun at the ceiling and fired.

Annie hit the floor before the first chunks of acoustic ceiling did.

Her cheek pressed against cold linoleum smelling strongly of pine cleaner, Annie tried to make herself as flat as possible. That’s what people always did on police shows and “Gunsmoke” reruns. She didn’t know exactly why, though, because as the gunman moved her way, she realized that, flat or not, she made an easy target. Her fingernails clawed at the floor, instinctively trying to dig beneath it for cover.

Somewhere close to Annie’s right, from her own spot of parquet, the woman who had been standing behind Annie in line moaned.

The terrified sound sucked the last of the air from Annie’s lungs. The gunman’s shoes came nearer, and when the woman moaned again, Annie kept her eyes on the moving feet and inched her hand in the direction of the sound. The cold, thin fingers of her frightened fellow bank customer clenched hers.

The feet paused.

Annie’s heart stopped. The man stood right over her, the gun in his hand feeling like a hundred-pound weight on her back. Stomach roiling, Annie focused on the toes of those black shoes and waited for her life to pass before her eyes.

It didn’t happen.

Not until the feet moved on, and she heard the gunman shouting commands to the tellers. It was then, in the few minutes it took for them to follow his directions, that Annie’s life replayed in her mind.

Her father’s defection when she was four. The move her mother and she made from a tiny apartment to a cottage on the Chase estate when her mother took the position of housekeeper. Public school, cooking school, her mother’s retirement. The Chases kind offer to rent Annie the cottage and, finally, the day she opened her own catering business.

Like a winding snake of dominoes, she saw her life as static images that fell, one upon another, leading her to this moment in the Strawberry Bay Savings and Loan. Too swiftly she was dumped back in the present, her cheek against the gritty floor that smelled of pine, her toes lumps of ice in her cheesy sneakers and the underwire of her cheap bra jabbing into her side.

If they had to take her to the hospital, she thought dizzily, her underwear would be clean, but it would be frayed.

Whoa. No hospital thoughts, Annie ordered herself. Think macaroni and cheese. Peanut butter and jelly. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Sometimes merely thinking of comfort food brought comfort.

The hand holding hers squeezed, and Annie turned her head to look into the eyes of the woman lying on the floor beside her. She didn’t look harried anymore, not with her pale face and too-wide eyes. She looked afraid.

“I should have had Pop-Tarts instead of Special K this morning.” Annie read the words on the woman’s lips more than heard them, she was whispering that quietly.

Despite her still-churning stomach, Annie’s mouth twitched in amusement. Apparently food had come to the other woman’s mind, too. But more, she knew immediately what the woman meant. Suddenly, life was too precious to spend worrying about the circumference of your thighs.

Annie mouthed back to her. “No more store-brand ice milk for me. I’m gonna go for the good stuff.”

From the front of the bank, another gunshot. More of the ceiling fell. “Hurry up!” the gunman shouted.

Annie glanced at her new friend. The other woman’s pupils were even more dilated. Annie tightened her grip on the icy fingers. “Let’s think about something else,” she whispered. “I’m planning a shopping spree at a fancy lingerie store.”

When the woman didn’t seem to hear her, Annie tried again, thinking of her crummy tennies. “And shoes. I’m going to buy some nice shoes.”

That caught her partner’s interest. Her eyes focused. “Shoes,” she breathed.

Annie squeezed her fingers again. “At full price.”

The woman stared at Annie’s face and held onto her hand like it was a lifeline. “You’re right,” she said. “I have things to do.”

And Annie knew what the other woman meant by that too. Not “things to do” in the sense of a list of chores or errands. But “things to do” in the sense of things to accomplish or experience.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Think about what you have to do.”

The other woman spoke again. “I didn’t kiss my husband goodbye this morning and it’s almost Valentine’s Day.” The anguish on her face twisted Annie’s heart.

She hadn’t kissed anyone goodbye that morning either. Annie didn’t have anyone to kiss goodbye.

When her mother had retired, she’d moved from the cottage they’d shared to an apartment closer to town. Now Annie lived alone and a romantic life was something she realized she’d been waiting patiently for, too.

It seemed a shame—no, more than that—a crime to have been on the earth this long and never loved.

Sirens sounded in the distance. The gunman shouted again. His black shoes moved past Annie once more, this time in such a rush that the hem of his pants fluttered. A loud clank signalled he’d left the bank through the heavy front doors.

Someone started crying. A man muttered, “Thank God, thank God, thank God.” The customers remained glued to the floor though, probably waiting for the police to arrive and tell them it was safe to move.

Annie shut her eyes, feeling her heart lurch as it restarted, feeling her blood begin moving through empty veins. Then emotion bubbled, bringing her even more alive, and whether it was relief or anger, or some potent combination of the two, the feeling made Annie surge to her feet. Her gaze snagged on a nearby hunk of fallen acoustical tile and then moved upward, to a yawning, jagged hole in the ceiling.

That’s a bullet hole, she thought to herself. The man had a real gun that could really and truly have killed her. She might have died wearing discount clothing and dreaming of gourmet ice cream. And with regrets. Regrets that she’d never loved a man. Her stomach roiled again.

Annie extended her hand to help up her new friend, though the others around them remained waiting, still belly-down on the floor. Annie shook her head. She wasn’t going to do any more waiting, not if she could help it. She had things to do and she was no longer going to postpone them.

Life was too darned short.

Griffin Chase, corporate attorney and vice-president of Chase Electronics, squeezed the receiver of the phone, its plastic edges biting hard into his palm. “What? She what?”

He’d left some papers at the family home this morning, forcing him to rush away from his office at Chase Electronics to retrieve them. With his parents and the housekeeping staff on vacation, he’d naturally picked up the ringing phone, only to find himself in a strange conversation with a detective from the Strawberry Bay Police Department.

Now the man patiently went through the facts all over again. Earlier that morning, an armed gunman had robbed the Savings and Loan branch at Kettering and Pine. The customers in the bank at the time—witnesses—were in transport to the police department to give their statements. And Annie Smith, little Annie Smith, the daughter of their former housekeeper, was one of those witnesses.

“She gave the officer in charge this number,” Detective Morton said. “We’re calling families to come in. It might reassure the witnesses to see a friendly face after their ordeal.”

Ordeal. Griffin squeezed the phone again, remembering shy, quiet little Annie Smith. He wasn’t even quite sure he knew how old she was now.

“I’ve been working out of the country for two years and just returned to town earlier this week,” Griffin said, still trying to take it all in. “Did you say a robbery like this one has happened before?” Good God. Just a few months before, Strawberry Bay had been rattled by earthquakes. Now this.

The other man’s voice turned professionally cautious. “I can’t say for sure that it’s the same robber, but the M.O. is the same. Anyway, sir—”

“I’ll be there shortly.” Griffin was already digging for his car keys.

“Or, since you’re not related to her, Mr. Chase, I can have her call you if she truly needs assistance,” the detective suggested.

That image of a slight, big-eyed Annie sprang into his head once more. “I’ll be there shortly,” he said again. Then he tossed the phone back onto its receiver, dashed down the stairs and headed for his car.

When a paddy wagon pulled up to the sprawling, one-story police complex, Griffin was already inside the building, propped against the lobby wall and staring through its smoked-glass windows. As an officer opened the back doors of the vehicle, Griffin pushed away from the wall and strolled toward the lobby entrance, his hands shoved in his pockets.

His eyes narrowed as people slowly descended from the vehicle. Would he recognize her? She had to be twenty-something now, because he remembered his mother saying she’d gone to cooking school and was running a catering business from the housekeeper’s cottage on the estate.

But he hadn’t caught a glimpse of her since returning a few days ago. Even though he was back home, the cooperative deals he’d brokered between Chase Electronics and several Pacific Rim countries during the past two years continued to consume his time and attention.

A young woman with wavy, blondish-brown hair and big brown eyes jumped from the paddy wagon. He glimpsed a small, triangular-shaped face and his belly clenched. Even as she turned to help someone else out, he was certain.

Annie. He recognized her—no, it was more than that. He knew her.

Without thinking, Griffin found himself pushing through the glass doors and hurrying down the cement steps. An officer held out a hand. “You’ll have to stay away from the witnesses, sir.”

Griffin didn’t take his gaze off Annie. Yes, it had to be Annie. She wore slim-fitting black pants topped with a hip-length blouse that buttoned down the side and was printed with brightly colored kitchen utensils. As she peered into the paddy wagon, she gave herself a hug as if she was cold.

“I’m her attorney,” he said shortly, nodding in her direction.

At the sound of his words, she stilled. “Griffin?” She turned, and her silky brows rose over her pretty brown eyes.

He was surprised she had recognized his voice. Hers was throaty and soft, a woman’s voice. He didn’t associate it with the bashful little girl, clinging to her mother’s hand, who had arrived at the estate all those years ago.

He saw her swallow and color rushed up her cheeks. “Wh-what are you doing here?” She swallowed again. “I don’t need an attorney.”

He moved forward and touched her shoulder. Though it strangely reassured him that beneath the starchy fabric of her blouse she felt solid and warm, he’d never noticed how delicate a woman’s shoulder could be. Little Annie Smith’s shoulder. “You gave the police the house number. They called.”

“Oh.” Her face flushed deeper. “I guess I said it automatically. My mother…”

“Worked there for eighteen years. It would be natural in a time of stress to rattle it off.”

Lord. Little Annie Smith had actually been a witness to an armed bank robbery. Griffin’s belly clenched again. He thought maybe she swayed a bit, so he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

There. That probably made her feel better. Her blondish hair tickled his chin. “Let’s get you inside.”

Griffin had known Annie Smith since she was four years old and he was eleven. She’d come to live on his parents’ estate when her mother became the family housekeeper. Though he’d never paid much attention to her, he remembered her following him around a time or two. She’d been much younger, and a girl, so he’d mostly ignored her.

But now a breath of a light, sweet scent and the sensation of her warm body against his arm and his side made it quite clear that Annie Smith wasn’t a little girl anymore. Griffin frowned. He shouldn’t be noticing something like that about Annie. She wasn’t his type.

After two years out of the country, two years of virtually non-stop traveling and dealmaking to position the family company for even greater success in the next decade, he was glad to be home in California. There was still more work to be done—as always, he looked forward to it—but he planned to carve out a little time to play or he was going to be a very dull boy, indeed.

He’d already made a few get-reacquainted phone calls to the kind of women he did well with. Sophisticated women who knew what Griffin’s commitment to the company meant he could offer—occasional opportunities for conversation, companionship and sex when the attraction warranted it. Sophisticated women who knew what he didn’t offer—marriage.

So he had no business seeing Annie Smith—whose big, trusting Bambi eyes and soft mouth told him exactly what kind of hearth-and-husband woman she was—as a…well, woman. He inhaled another breath of that subtle, sweet scent of hers and almost groaned. It was vanilla. She smelled of sugar and vanilla. No wonder she made his mouth water.

But she’s the hearth-and-husband type, he reminded himself. Don’t forget that. For a man who worked intensely and had sex casually, it was better to think of her as that quiet, bashful kid.

They were steered toward the desk of the police officer who had phoned him. A woman in a no-nonsense business suit lingered nearby and introduced herself as Agent Blain of the FBI. But she gestured toward the man seated behind the desk. “The officer will be asking the questions, Ms. Smith. You tell Detective Morton everything you remember and then we’ll get you out of here.”

Annie seemed to remember her morning in clear detail. She’d catered the mayor’s monthly staff breakfast, then headed for the Savings and Loan.

Griffin studied her face while she talked. If he’d been asked to describe her from memory, he would have said “average.” Average height, average build, average blondish-brown hair of average length. A sweet-looking kid. She used to wear her hair in two pigtails tied with pink yarn.

He remembered the pink yarn and pigtails.

She didn’t wear her hair like that anymore, though. Now the wavy, chin-length stuff was tucked behind her ears.

And Annie had cheekbones. High cheekbones that angled to a small chin that matched her small pert nose. Her mouth was small, too, but full and soft-looking and it was the color of that pink yarn he suddenly remembered so very well.

Griffin shifted restlessly against the vinyl seat of his chair. He shouldn’t be looking at Annie’s mouth. Most certainly not at a time like this.

To punctuate the thought, he suddenly picked up on her first hesitation in answering the questions about the robbery. Griffin straightened and paid more attention as the detective repeated himself. “Was there anything about the man you recognized, Annie?”

Her brow furrowed and her soft, pink mouth turned down. “I don’t…think so.” She frowned deeper. “Something…” Then she shook her head and her voice was more decisive. “No. I didn’t recognize him. At first it was just that mask, and then I only saw his shoes. That’s all I could see, really.”

“Could you describe the shoes?” the detective asked.

“Black men’s shoes that laced.” She looked around the room, stuffed with desks and chairs and other officers interviewing other witnesses. “Like those.” Her forefinger indicated a pair on a man one desk away, and then pointed again. “And those…and those.”

She peered down at Griffin’s cordovan loafers, then shrugged and looked back at the detective. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right, Annie. You did great.” With a smile, Detective Morton reached across the desk and patted her hand.

Griffin frowned. Damn. The detective’s smile was gleaming brighter than the shine of the fluorescent light off his bald spot.

Then Annie smiled back, and a dimple showed up, just at the left corner of her mouth. He’d never known Annie had a dimple. Or never noticed.

Frowning again, he leaned over and grabbed her wrist to tug her hand away from the detective’s. Then Griffin stood, pulling her up with him. “Can we go now?” he said abruptly.

Detective Morton rose to his feet, too, his gaze still on Annie. Griffin felt another spurt of annoyance. The other man was obviously sucking in his gut. It had to be unethical for a cop to hit on a witness, but despite that, it was more than professional interest written all over the detective’s face.

“One last thing, Annie,” Morton said.

Her eyebrows rose. “Yes?”

“I could put you in touch with a victim’s support group,” he said. “You might want to talk with other people about your experience. People trained to help you, and people who have gone through something similar.”

Instead of answering the detective, Annie jerked her head toward Griffin.

“Sorry,” he said hastily, suddenly aware he’d painfully tightened his grip on her wrist. Gritting his teeth, he forced his fingers to relax.

“Thank you,” Annie said to the detective, flashing that dimple at him again. “But I’m going to be just fine. I am fine.”

Now Griffin could breathe. Just for a second there, with the notion of Annie being a victim, he’d felt…a tad concerned.

But she’d said it herself. She was fine.

Which was why he didn’t feel the need to talk much as they left the station beyond, “I’ll give you a ride to your car.” When they reached his Mercedes, however, he did open the passenger door and politely help her into the leather bucket seat.

Before he could shut the door, though, she touched his arm. “Would you mind putting the top down?”

He cocked an eyebrow. While February in coastal California was mild—the temperature was probably near seventy today—women usually liked the convertible’s top up and the air-conditioning on, if necessary. The hair issue, he always figured.

But apparently Annie was different. “I want to feel the wind on my face,” she said.

With a shrug, he complied with her request, and in a couple of minutes they were turning out of the police-station parking lot. The sun on their faces and the wind in their hair, they started down a fairly busy two-lane road.

Griffin sucked in a huge breath of fresh air and relaxed. Hell, but the sun felt good. With only one hand on the wheel, he rubbed his neck, trying to ease the tension slowly unknotting.

He slid a glance at Annie. Her head was against the back of the seat, her eyes were closed, and that pink mouth wore a little smile.

She’d said she was fine. She looked fine.

His muscles loosened even more. Now that she was safely in his car, he didn’t mind admitting that he’d been somewhat bothered by the idea of little Annie Smith being the witness to a bank robbery. Then once he’d seen her again, seen how she’d grown up into a young woman who was still quiet and composed but also so pretty and so delicate, well, he’d downright hated the idea of Annie being shaken up.

“Hey, I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

“Oh, I am.”

Griffin glanced over at her again. She had her eyes open now, and her cheeks were pink, from either the sun or the wind or both. In each of her hands she held one of the small white sneakers she’d been wearing.

Funny.

It wasn’t so funny when she cocked back her arms and tossed them over the side of the car.

At first, Griffin’s lips couldn’t move, but his gaze darted to the rearview mirror to see the shoes tumbling along the side of the road behind them. Then his wits returned, and he shifted his foot to the brake pedal, abruptly slowing the car. “Annie—”

The vehicle behind them honked at their sudden change in speed, then pulled around to pass. “Annie—”

The vehicle behind that one honked, too, and the driver flipped Griffin an angry gesture as he passed them as well. With the shoes now several hundred feet behind and the traffic starting to pile up, Griffin gritted his teeth and moved his foot back to the accelerator. “Damn it, Annie,” he said. “You threw your shoes out of the car.”

“So sue me,” she answered.

Griffin stared. Maybe the bank robber had kidnapped his nice, quiet Annie Smith—so composed and so delicate, he’d just thought—and put this suddenly flip woman in her stead. “That’s littering,” he felt compelled to point out. “It’s illegal.”

“I think Detective Morton would let me off, don’t you?”

Griffin’s eyebrows rose. That was all he had time for, because then Annie grabbed his arm and pointed toward the gourmet-ice-cream shop up ahead. “Stop there.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I told you, I’m fine.” She squeezed his arm again. “But I want ice cream. Please. I want ice cream now.”

There was no denying that the opposite sex had interested Griffin all his life. He’d first kissed a girl at eleven, he’d first dated at thirteen and women had only become more fascinating from there. Twenty years had passed since that novice kiss, and he’d been paying attention through every one of them. He knew not to mess around when a woman spoke in that decisive tone of voice.

He braked to a stop in front of the small shop with a wide front window that proclaimed in gilded letters Strawberry Bay’s Supreme Ice Cream. Annie hopped out in her stocking feet. “Do you want something?” she asked.

He shook his head, baffled.

Her dimple winked at him as she unfastened a couple of buttons at her neck, and then she crossed her arms in front of her to grasp the hem of her long blouse. With a quick movement, she whipped the garment over her head and tossed it down on her seat, revealing the black V-neck T-shirt she wore beneath it. Then she twirled on her white socks and dashed into the shop.

All the speedy movement left Griffin’s head spinning.

It couldn’t be that Annie’s neat little body made him dizzy. Certainly he’d noticed that women had breasts before. Lots of them had trim waists and hips. Still, it was disconcerting to find that sometime when he was away, or maybe before that, when he wasn’t looking, Annie had developed the kind of pert, up-thrusting breasts and gently curving hips that were hard to look away from.

He ran a hand through his hair and forced his gaze off the door of the shop. What did it matter what Annie looked like? Annie was Annie. Annie the housekeeper’s daughter. Little girl Annie.

Annie all grown-up.

He pushed that thought away, and it wasn’t really so hard to think of her as a kid again when she was suddenly back in her seat, an enormous cone in her hand. “Double double chocolate fudge,” she said, with all the relish of a child for a special treat.

When her tongue snaked out of her womanly mouth for a taste though, he hastily looked away and started the car. “No time for breakfast this morning?” he asked lightly.

She swallowed. “I wanted ice cream.”

“Fine.” Then he hesitated. She’d used that word too, she’d said she was “fine,” but something about the shoes and the sudden urge for sweets made him just the slightest bit edgy again. “Are you sure you’re all right, Annie?”

“Mm.”

He pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the road. Her mumble sounded positive, but it didn’t do much for his edgy mood. He wanted to be assured that her experience this morning hadn’t affected her. Because, strangely enough, he had a terrible premonition that that might affect him.

Griffin cleared his throat. “Sure?”

“Mm.” She made that same sound again.

He glanced over, and instantly figured out why she wasn’t giving him a straight answer. She was already pretty well occupied juggling that cone with one hand while the other snaked up the front of her T-shirt. When that hand quickly reappeared, she transferred the cone to it and then the now-free hand disappeared, worming its way into her short sleeve and then…down.

Griffin hoped like hell that the road remained clear before him, because he couldn’t have looked away to save his life. He’d heard about this—among men it was almost a locker-room joke—but as he himself had never been witness to it before, he’d always considered it an urban—er, gender?—legend.

But now he knew it to be true. Because, after Annie took an emergency lick of her melting cone and after she executed one or two little shimmies, out the sleeve of her T-shirt came her hand, and in her hand was…her bra.

Which, of course, she immediately tossed over the side of the Mercedes.

As he watched in the rearview mirror the piece of white cotton depart, fluttering in the breeze, Griffin tried not to believe that his peace of mind wasn’t getting away that easily, too.

Despite the warm sun, he felt the distinct beginnings of a chill. “Uh—” He had to clear his throat to get her name out. “Annie?”

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Is something the matter?”

She was stealing his lines. Worse, she was stealing his sense of well-being. “I’m just wondering about the, uh, this sudden need to divest yourself of, uh…”

She laughed, a delicious, free little giggle that would have reassured him if he’d ever imagined that quiet Annie-Smith-the-housekeeper’s-daughter could make such a sound. “Oh, Griffin,” she said.

She patted his arm encouragingly. He caught sight of that unexpected little dimple again. He refused to let his gaze fall any lower than her mouth.

“I’m just tired of waiting,” she said.

Waiting for what? That chill grew stronger, cold prickles gathering force at the nape of his neck.

Her honey-colored hair swirling around her cheeks, she threw her free arm in the air, wiggling her fingers in the wind. “From now on, my life is never going to be the same!”

With the power of a waterfall, the cold prickles poured down Griffin’s back. Though he’d never before considered himself a superstitious man, he suddenly had the terrible feeling that his life would never be the same either.