“I can turn up the heat if you’re cold.”
“Thanks, but I won’t be here long enough.”
He shrugged. “Your call. I thought I saw you shiver.”
Outside, the rain began to drum down on the metal, making it impossible to carry on a normal conversation. Annie winced as her headache reacted to the noise.
Raising his voice over the roar, Tucker yelled, “Okay, I’ll go as soon as the rain slacks off.”
“What?” She took off her glasses and pressed the heels of her hand into her eyes, and he was struck all over again by how vulnerable she looked without them.
Yeah, sure she was. Vulnerable like a baby copperhead, which was about twice as lethal as an adult specimen.
“I said—” Instead of repeating himself, he stood, moved around behind her and nudged the controls of the gas heater. She wasn’t wearing her scarf today. With her head lowered, about four inches of bare neck showed between her collar and the wad of damp brown hair knotted at the back of her head. Her skin looked as if it had never seen the sun.
“Headache?” he asked, his voice sounding gruff even to his own ears.
The impression of vulnerability disappeared along with the sliver of bare nape as she raised her head and squared her shoulders. Tucker thought of the way his father used to massage his mother’s shoulders when she had one of her tension headaches. He wondered who massaged away this woman’s pain. Or if anyone did.
And then he wondered why the hell he was wondering.
By the time Annie drove off a few minutes later, the rain had let up. Even so, the going was treacherous. She slithered twice on the mud-slick road, telling herself she’d done all she could do. If Harold’s blood pressure shot sky-high, it was his son’s fault, not hers. She could hardly break into his house and get the stuff herself. Didn’t even know where he lived.
All the same, she was relieved when she slowed down to turn onto Highway 52 to see one of the trucks with the Dennis Construction logo on the door pull away from the construction site. Evidently the man possessed some vestigial sense of responsibility.
Ruffian was the term that came to mind. That had been one of her father’s favorite descriptions. He’d attached it to hardened criminals, aggressive drivers and the kids who trampeled the parsonage flowerbeds. She hadn’t heard anyone use it in years.
“Oh, God, Annie, you’re a walking anachronism,” she muttered.
The school secretary, all of twenty-two years old, would have said—had said, in fact on more than one occasion—“Get a life, Annie.”
Good advice. Annie had done her best, only her best didn’t seem to be good enough.
Three
The marriage was perfectly legal. The bride and groom were both of age and of sound mind, although there was some slight doubt about that last part, at least to Annie’s way of thinking.
Tucker’s, too. He left her in no doubt of his opinion when he showed up to collect Bernie’s spare reading glasses a day or so later.
“About time you got home,” he growled. He’d been waiting when she’d driven up, tired, hungry and burdened with a stack of books, two sacks of groceries and the dry cleaning she’d picked up on the way home.
She shot him a look that said it all. Her headache might be gone, but as usual the last day of the term had been utter chaos. And now, with Bernie’s situation, any hope of getting away for a few days was gone. “If your father thinks he’s landed in a bed of roses, he just might be in for a surprise. Bernie’s not the easiest person to live with.”
“That I can believe.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. Instead, he took the dry cleaning from her, followed her inside and looked around for a place to deposit it. She indicated the coat tree that stood between the glass-paneled door and the entrance into the front parlor, never mind that no one had parlors these days. Her house did. Two of them, front and sun. One had leaky windows, the other a cracked ceiling.
Her toe struck one of Zen’s toys, a pair of small brass balls linked together by a dangling tab, and she kicked it aside, too tired even to pick it up and toss it into his basket. She liked animals, truly she did, but this particular creature took a diabolical delight in irritating her. “All right, what is it this time? Your father forgot his corn plasters?” she asked, resigned to having to wait a few more minutes before she could change into her robe and slippers, brew herself a cup of strawberry tea and zone out, as the schoolkids put it. Whatever it meant, it sounded like just what she needed. Nirvana.
“Your cousin needs her glasses.”
“The last time I saw her she was wearing her glasses.” Annie removed her own and closed her eyes momentarily. It didn’t help. When she opened them again, he was still there.
“I only know what she said.”
“Do you suppose she means her reading glasses? She never wears those in mixed company.” Drugstore magnifying glasses, they were stronger than her purple-framed bifocals. The only time she wore them was when she was studying the TV Guide so she could highlight her weekly selections with Annie’s yellow marker.
“So call her and tell her that. She’s been trying to reach you all day.”
“She knows very well how to reach me. This is the last day of the school term. I was there all day. She could’ve called the office and left word.”
He shrugged. The man had shoulders like a road scraper. “You’re a teacher?”
“Assistant principal.” He knew that. He was just trying to irritate her. Refusing to be irritated, she stood there, books in one arm, two sacks of groceries in the other, while he looked her up and down. Whatever he was thinking, he had better sense than to say anything, but it was painfully clear that his opinion was not particularly flattering.
“Oh, all right. Wait here and I’ll see if I can find them.” She dumped the books on the hall table and stalked off toward the kitchen, where she deposited the two sacks of produce. Apples and collard greens, probably the last of the season. Feeling like a criminal, she’d broken open the bundled leaves in the store and selected only the young, tender ones, telling herself it was no different from selecting unblemished apples, and anyone with a grain of sense did that.
He was right behind her. “Would you mind hurrying? This is my son’s night to call, and it’ll take me an hour at least to run out to the motel.”
Tough turnips, Annie wanted to say, but didn’t. She could think of several things she’d like to say, but didn’t. Instead, she rummaged in all the places a pair of reading glasses might be lurking. Bemie wasn’t known for her orderliness, nor her predictability.
“Would you mind looking in the drawer in the hall table?” It was the last place they’d be, but she needed some breathing room. Men like Tucker Dennis took up more than their fair share of space.
His son? He was married?
Not that it mattered one way or another. All the same, she was somewhat surprised. He hadn’t struck her as a domestic animal when he’d roared up on that monster bike of his, scowling from here to Sunday, with a week’s growth of whiskers meant to impart an I-can’t-be-bothered-to-shave attitude.
Since then, he’d shaved. Come to think of it, his jaw had been only lightly shadowed the day she’d driven out to his construction site to pass on the message about the blood pressure medicine. He might not be a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool ruffian, but he was obviously the next best thing. Or the next worst.
“I don’t suppose...”
Her