Anna Marie Sorenson's Secret Affair (19 page)

kitten all over the house, and the children after the pets, all four knocking over in their paths tables, chairs, vases, statues, curtains, etc. Cameron was finally able to corner the dog into a closet. He promptly called the Human Society to take it

away, and there was the end of the Pit Bull, I’m afraid.

Tessa demanded that she be able to sue her father for breach of contract,

for willful theft of personal property, and for wrongful imprisonment of an

innocent pet. Cameron instantly dispelled her dreams of another day in family

court by giving her a swift swat on her behind and ordering her to her room.

Three days later, Tessa was allowed to bring home a hamster as compensation for

the loss of her beloved Pit Bull.

I guess that is all I have to say. I now realize how long this letter is. I

didn’t mean to run on for as long as I did. I do apologize for making this letter

longer than it needed to be.

I hope you are well and enjoy whatever it is that you are doing.

Sincerely,

Anna Marie Sorenson

P.S. I do want to thank you for feeding my cat before you left that

morning. Not everyone is thoughtful that way.

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The packet with the missing military tags and the letter reached Dallas in Germany nearly four months later after weeks and weeks of the military going through channel after channel to locate the military base of one of its most secretive operatives.

Dallas had just come down from the Ural Mountains where he had been trying to detect shipments of plutonium to Iran from Russia. After weeks of tracking the snowy mountains, unable to bathe, camping in near zero degree weather with tribes who were allies with the United States, and dodging warlords who were not, Dallas and his men took a week at the base to catch up on their sleep and get their fill of food that was far removed from the tasteless, freeze-dried military rations, fried bugs, or dried tough camel meat.

Once he was fully rested, clean, and his belly full, Dallas laid back on his narrow bed in the cabin that he shared with his second-in-command. He went through the mail that had been traveling around the world for several weeks and had finally caught up with him. There was one card from his parents, a letter of inquiry from his accountant regarding some bills, and a few notes from his college and military friends. The last packet that he opened was from Anna Marie.

When he saw her name written in neat print, he held the packet for a moment. Then he opened it and found the tags that had been missing. When he pulled out the letter, his eyebrows rose when he saw the number of sheets. He began to read it.

His roommate, who was idly strumming a guitar, looked over and saw the look of intense concentration on the other man’s face. “A love letter?”

Dallas finished the letter and carefully folded it. “No, not at all.” He did not say more than that, but laid back on the bed, his hands beneath his head as he stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

His roommate shrugged his shoulders, apparently used to Dallas’s unsociability, and

went back to strumming his guitar.

On a bright sunny early afternoon, Anna Marie was having a rather trying lunch with her sister at Pepper’s restaurant. They were sitting out on the patio under an umbrella, the sun’s heat easy and lazy with a slight coastal breeze wafting through. Anna Marie’s Gorgonzola potato gratin and sautéed mushrooms were fantastic. The waiters were fast, efficient, and discreet, smoothly anticipating the needs of their customers. And the sleek, modern décor was arresting but also pleasing with a mixture of metal and nouveau art.

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Anna Marie just wished that Pepper would shut up for five seconds so that she could

enjoy her food.

But, like all get-togethers with her sister, however well she fed Anna Marie, Pepper always wanted her pound of flesh. After she had gone through the usual ritual of taking Anna Marie apart about her sad state of single hood, lack of children, her less than exciting overall appearance, she went on to complain about her kids, television staff who proved to be more and more incompetent everyday and had no appreciation of the culinary arts, her under cooks in the kitchen who all thought they were the next Emeril, and the general state of her finances, which, as far as Anna Marie could tell, was quite healthy with her successful restaurants and all the royalties from her television show and books.

Pepper gave a great big sigh as she toyed with her spinach, blue cheese, and bacon salad.

“I just wish you could be me just once, Anna. Then you’d know what it’s like to have all this stress and having to deal with people who are always demanding things but don’t really have the expertise or the taste to know what it is they’re demanding.”

Anna Marie made an effort to give a murmur of sympathy around a mouthful of

mushrooms that were dripping with melted garlic butter.

Pepper frowned when her sister scooped up a forkful of Gorgonzola gratin. “You’re

going to get fat if you keep eating such rich food. You know you’re not getting any younger and the older you get the slower is your metabolism.”

“Thank you, Pepper, for pointing that out,” Anna Marie said placidly and popped the

potatoes in her mouth and let the rich cheese melt in her mouth. Her sister was one royal pain in the ass most of the times, but she sure knew how to cook.

Pepper gave another heavy sigh. “And now Serena’s all depressed.”

“Who?”

“Serena. Remember? My editor who was at the house the last time Dallas was over.”

Anna Marie kept her eyes on her plate. “Oh, yes, that’s right. What is she unhappy

about?”

“She’s unhappy for the same reason that you’re unhappy, because she’s still single, and there’s no man in her life, and she’s already twenty-eight. If she wants to have kids, she knows that she has to be married and starting on them before she’s thirty.”

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Although she knew it was useless, because she had said it many times to her sister before, and it always fell on deaf ears, Anna Marie pointed out nevertheless, “I’m not unhappy about being single, Pepper.”

Pepper waived her hand dismissively. “Of course you are. What woman your age

wouldn’t be if she had no prospects of settling down with a nice man?”

“I’m not unhappy. I’m quite satisfied with my life as it is.”

Her sister looked at her as if she suddenly found her to be an alien. Then she waived her hand dismissively. “Than you’re stupid if you’re content with your life. Serena is right to be sad about having no man in her life. And frightened that one won’t come before her ovaries dry up.

Yours probably already has, being thirty. You should go see an OBGYN and check that out, Anna.”

“I’ll get on it right away,” her sister murmured.

“You know, Serena was quite taken with Dallas that night.”

Anna Marie concentrated on finishing her mushrooms. “Oh. Was she?”

“Yes, she was. Quite taken. After all, what woman wouldn’t be with a guy like that, so tall, and so deadly attractive in his deadpan way of his? And him being a Navy SEAL and trotting all over the world on secrete missions would get any woman’s juices going. And I bet he was taken, too, with Serena. What man wouldn’t be with a beautiful, successful woman like that?

It was just too bad that he had to go off to some godforsaken country on some stupid mission the next morning. She said he never called her. You did give him her phone number, right?” Anna Marie jumped a little and tried to wipe the guilt from her face. It was an effort for her to lie cleanly and smoothly. “Yes, I did.” It wasn’t really a lie, though, because she had tried to give Dallas Serena’s number. He just hadn’t taken the piece of paper.

“Because Serena is sure that you didn’t give it to him. Otherwise he would have called her by now.”

“Well, he did have to go on a mission right away. He probably is still tied up with it, or has gone off on another one,” Anna Marie pointed out reasonably.

“That’s what I told Serena. But she’s still devastated that he didn’t call her. I can see why she would be. It just doesn’t make sense that any single man who is heterosexual wouldn’t want to call up a woman like Serena. –Are you sure you gave Dal her phone number?”

Anna Marie smiled and tried to look sincere as she gave an emphatic nod.

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When Anna Marie went back to work, all the rich food, her sister’s perpetual critique of her life, the guilt of being the inadvertent cause of Pepper’s friend’s misery, and being under the warm sun for an hour started to catch up to her and nausea started to set in.

Back at the library, the banging from the carpenters beginning the new addition was

adding a dull headache to her overall discomfort.

When she walked into the library, she saw Beatrice standing at the edge of the lobby watching the construction, her arms folded across her chest. The other woman noted the greenish tinge to Anna Marie’s face.

“You look like hell,” Bea said baldly. “I guess lunch with your sister went as usual, food was good but then the conversation makes you throw up afterwards.”

Anna Marie held her stomach. “Please, don’t say throw up, or else I will. I’ll be in my office.”

In her office, she managed to waive off her nausea enough to concentrate on paperwork.

The phone on her desk rang. At first she thought to let the call go to her voicemail, thinking that the caller was more than likely one of the many people she didn’t want to talk to, two most being Councilman Broders wanting an update on the addition or her sister wanting to give her one last criticism that she had missed during lunch. Then she decided it was better to face the music now than later and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Hello, kitten?” a male voice growled low and seductive in her ear.

Anna Marie lifted her eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“That’s what turns me on about you, sweetheart, you’re so prim and polite, that a man can’t help but tumble you. But, then, once he gets you into bed, all that primness and courtesy is replaced by a woman who’s been hiding quite a honey pot.” There was a smile in his voice.

“I’m sorry, but may I ask who this is…” She held her breath for a few seconds. “Dal? Is that you?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s me.”

Complete shock made her speechless for a long moment. “But…where are you? How are

you?”

“I’m in Angola, at the moment.”

“Oh, is it nice there?”

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There was a dry chuckle from the other end. “In parts. Listen, kitten, I called to let you know I’m coming into town for the weekend, and I want you to meet me.”

Because the guilt from her lunch with Pepper was still fresh in her mind, the first thing that popped into it was Serena’s phone number that she had failed to give to Dallas. “Oh, then you can give Serena a call.”

“Who?”

“Uh, no one,” Anna Marie said quickly, cursing herself. “I’m glad you called.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Anna, baby, you’re not getting tired of me already that you’re trying to pawn me off on another woman, are you? Especially to a redheaded boa constrictor?”

She giggled, realizing that the description was so apt. “No, I promise I’m not. So, you do remember her?”

“A man doesn’t forget the person who’s trying to put a noose over his head.”

“I was supposed to give you her phone number.”

“If I had taken it I would have posted it in the men’s bathroom in Fort Worth. Anyway, come and meet me tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“At the Alameda Naval Base. I should arrive there by late afternoon.”

Anna Marie hesitated, not knowing if this was right, but couldn’t fathom any reason why it shouldn’t be. “Alright. I’ll get off work early and drive down there.”

“I’ll see you then, baby.”

Shocked, overly excited, thoroughly confused, she held the now dead phone in her hand for the longest time, staring with stunned eyes into space. She was still in a stupor when Bea opened the door.

“What, you were just told that you just won the super lotto?” Bea said.

Anna Marie jerked herself to the present and set down the phone. “No. Better. That was Dallas, and he wants me to meet him tomorrow in Alameda.”

“Who?” Bea’s face cleared. “Oh, your sailor man? So he’s back in town again?”

Anna Marie wondered around her small office in a daze, trying to put herself together so that she could prepare for tomorrow. “I’m not quite sure what to do.”

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Bea raised her eyebrows. “Really? From what you’ve told me so far, you know quite well what to do with a man like him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be coming back for more.”

Anna Marie gave her a frazzled look. “I mean I need to do something about the way I

look.”

The other woman looked down at the other woman’s black slacks and white dress shirt.

“You do look proper, but then, your sailor man seems to go for that business type, no nonsense look.”

“But I want to knock his eyes out. At least try to look pretty.”

“Anna Marie, there is nothing wrong with your looks. You’re a pretty girl enough as it is.

Certainly he seems to think so. So, what do you have to worry about?”

“I just want to look special for him tomorrow night.”

Bea looked at her with some consideration. “Alright. I have a niece who part owns a hair salon downtown.”

“Good. Can you make an appointment for me?”

“Sure. You and I will take off after lunch. It’ll be good to get out of this place for half a day with all that racket.”

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Chapter 10

The next afternoon, Bea got her into her niece’s salon, and she and the niece kept her there for close to two hours, during which Anna Marie was washed, plucked, padded, rubbed, painted, teased, and all other manner of torture that is common in a beauty parlor. Through it all, the two women refused to let her look in the mirror to see the progression of her journey to true beauty.