Lady's Man (2 page)
Authors: Tanya Anne Crosby
“Of course not! But if I’m going to stay in this house I really need to know what I’m dealing with—especially if there are going to be a bunch of screaming kids running around!”
Annie didn’t have a clue why she’d said even that. She loved kids. In fact, she’d probably feel more comfortable if he were married with a zillion of them.
His permagrin widened. “No kids—unless you wanna count me.” He looked at her a little sheepishly. “I’ve been accused of being one now and again. So how ‘bout it? Deal or no deal?”
He shoved his hand closer, insisting on a handshake and Annie had the sudden impression of being on hidden camera in some fluky game show. Frowning, she scoped out the porch. No one jumped out to yell, “Surprise” and no camera lens was trained on her. Evidently, he was quite serious. He held his hand out patiently, waiting.
“No more streaking episodes?”
“Uh, I hardly think it can be considered streaking if you aren’t expecting an audience. But OK, no more nudity,” he agreed. “At least not outside the confines of my room,” he amended. “I can’t promise what you’ll find if you wander in there. For me, that’s a clothing optional zone.”
At the thought of seeing him nude again, Annie shook her head and nodded in a gesture that seemed even to her a little neurotic. “OK, well why would I go in there?” She waved away the remote possibility and reached out to shake his hand, relenting, “We have a deal.”
And that was that.
Without any dramatic game show music, she walked away with the grand prize, snagging herself a free vacation at the “Edge of America” as Folly Beach was otherwise known.
And without another word, Mr. Heywood left her alone to drink her tea like a true Southern Belle—in his rocking chair, on his porch. Disappearing once more into the house, he reappeared on the porch wearing a pair of Jesus sandals and dangling keys in one hand. He picked up her suitcase effortlessly, placing it just inside the door, and said, “You can get to your suite through the stairs inside. It’s unlocked. Or you can go around to the back and go up that way. Make yourself at home.” Then he offered her a wink and left.
Lady peered up at her and whined. “So now what?” Annie asked her.
In answer, Lady stood and pranced impatiently, but Annie wasn’t quite ready to abandon her seat on the porch just yet. It took another moment to fully register what had happened. It was doubtful he was going to find something else suitable on a July Fourth weekend so it seemed she was actually going to get the house and her money back too.
See Annie … sometimes the best things in life do come when you least expect them.
Annie peered at her suitcase. “OK, Gram, one point for you.” Although it was important to note that it was her diligent planning that had put her in the right place at the right time to begin with. “So chalk one up for me too,” she said and cheerfully patted Lady on the head.
And then she grinned. Who said she couldn’t roll with the punches? With a little luck, before this was all over, she’d wind up with that devil-may-care attitude and a resilient new lease on life, too.
If her grandmother was up there somewhere, watching, Annie was sure she was nodding in approval. She gulped down the rest of her tea and said, “Come on, Lady. Let’s go stake our claim before he comes back and changes his mind.”
CHAPTER TWO
Much to Annie’s delight, the house looked exactly as it had in the photos. Throughout the interior, there were billowy white linen drapes and ivory canvas sofas and chairs interspersed with knotted pine furnishings. The kitchen, open to the living room, was done in leaden blues and greens with touches of beige—as were the bathrooms. Clean, sedate and alluring—it couldn’t have been better done if she had designed it herself.
Upstairs, the windows were open to the breeze, letting in a mix of scents—not all of them wonderful. From somewhere, the odor of sulfur—or something like it—wafted in. Two large bedrooms shared an adjoining bathroom and a sizable sitting room with French doors led to a back upper deck.
Annie chose the bedroom nearest to the inside stairs, dumping her suitcase inside the door and then changed her mind and chose the room closest to the sitting room and deck—in case of a fire. Since the door downstairs would be locked, it might be better to be closer to the deck.
Good planning was the starting point to all favorable outcomes. After all, despite her grandmother’s dire warnings about living too rigidly, it was planning that had gotten her where she was in life.
And where is that?
a little voice at the back of her thoughts harassed her. Alone. Great career, but no one to share the fruits of her labors. No kids. No prospects to ever have any. Her best friend was a dog. And the only family she had to speak of was gone—though certainly not forgotten.
“Thanks, Gram,” she muttered.
Obviously, there was no one else in the room. Lady, who had found herself a nice little spot beneath an open window, cocked her head and whined in answer.
Annie was never quite certain what she was responding to or how much she understood, but there was one thing she was one-hundred percent convinced of: Lady was a bright, intuitive dog. “I’m not talking to you,” she reassured, although she wasn’t sure which was more ridiculous: the fact that she was talking to a dog … or that she was arguing with a memory. Clearly, her grandmother’s provident guidance would follow her to the grave.
But that was perfectly OK, she reassured herself, because despite their extreme differences in life philosophies, Annie knew her grandmother had loved her and wanted only the best for her.
Lady abandoned her spot to follow Annie while she investigated the bathroom, then followed close at her heels as she checked drawers, closets and looked under the beds. Although she wasn’t quite ready to unpack yet, it was good to know what she was dealing with. She was trying hard to heed her grandmother’s advice, but she generally just felt better when there was a plan.
Annie, dear … you would plan your own funeral.
Annie eyed her suitcase on the way to the window. “Not today, Gram. Today, it’s all about you.”
Across the street, a single row of houses stood between her and the ocean. It was late afternoon and sunburned folks were already beginning to drag their chairs and coolers off the sand, hauling them toward parked cars on the street, although it wasn’t very crowded here at the edge of the edge of America. East Ashley officially ended about one hundred feet northeast of the house, giving way to a poorly maintained roadway that continued on to the beach. Annie could see the dunes at the end of the cracked and sprouting roadway, but not the shoreline.
She watched two children hurry behind their parents, hopping along the hot sand and tried to imagine her grandmother as a carefree child on the beach, but couldn’t quite reconcile that image with the grown-up woman who had given up so much of her life to care for her only grandchild … especially when her own son refused to do his part.
“Do as I say,” her grandmother would insist. “Not as I do.”
Annie sucked in a breath and walked away, setting the curtain free to dance in the breeze. She couldn’t wait to feel actual sand between her toes—not the sort you bought from Home Depot in bags for some kid’s designer sandbox, but honest-to-goodness beach sand, warmed by the sun and bleached by the sea.
With Lady still at her heels, she made her way to the back deck to survey the vista. Off to the right, beyond the saltwater marshes, she spotted a Lighthouse. Although she couldn’t actually see the channel it guarded, or the salt marsh itself, she knew it was there. She didn’t need Lady’s keen sense of smell to scent water all around her. They were literally surrounded by it, from the Atlantic to the Folly River. On Google maps, Folly Beach appeared nothing more than a spit of sand attached by filaments of earth and it was easy to see why it was hailed as the Edge of America—both geographically and culturally. Crossing the bridge into Folly, you immediately shaved off fifty years of progress. Center Street, the single commercial strip in town, consisted of one and two story buildings that reminded Annie of postcards from 1950s America.
Her grandmother had truly loved this place and up until the day she died, she’d had stories to tell of her childhood on Folly. It was high time Annie saw it all for herself … before all Gram’s stories faded away—like the river apparently had.
Nipping at the inside of her lip, Annie contemplating the waterway that didn’t appear to be.
According to the map, she knew the Folly River was supposed to be right there but at the back end of the yard, alongside a weathered dock, a small boat sat anchored, nearly grounded by the low tide.
She couldn’t imagine throwing her grandmother into that trickle of water and just letting her float there in the muck.
That was a potential problem.
Considering the necessity of a Plan B, she made her way back inside, took off her shoes and placed them side by side at the foot of her bed. Uncertain whether to unpack before Mr. Heywood returned, she grabbed one of the books she’d brought and settled into one of the deep, comfy chairs on the landing to wait.
Lady sat dutifully at her feet and Annie opened her book with a contented sigh and began to read while she massaged Lady’s back with her bare toes.
She was thirty-two pages into her book with her dog stretched out at her feet when Mr. Heywood returned. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard the knock below but the sound didn’t register until he was already climbing the stairs.
Damn. She’d forgotten to lock the door.
“Hello?”
A dirty blond head emerged above the landing.
The weight of Annie’s feet prevented Lady from rising to greet him, but her golden head shot up.
James Heywood’s brows rose as he eyed Lady and belatedly, Annie realized it probably appeared she was using her dog as a footstool—and so she was—sort of. Embarrassed, she slid her feet off Lady’s back and Lady jumped up to greet him, tail wagging furiously.
“She doesn’t usually take to strangers so well,” Annie said, eyeing her dog with a bit of annoyance. She slumped down further into her chair and mentally sent out roots. If she had anything at all to say about any of this, she wasn’t budging from this chair or from this house.
He winked at her, a playful gesture that seemed to come far too easily to him. “Technically, we’re no longer strangers,” he pointed out. “It’s not just any dog who gets to see me in the buff.”
Annie’s face warmed.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice the blush that crept into her cheeks. He stopped where he stood on the stairs and took handfuls of the skin around Lady’s muzzle, massaging it thoroughly—as though he somehow knew it was her favorite way to be petted. “Pretty girl,” he cooed, shifting his gaze to Annie, lingering a long, awkward instant before returning his attention to her dog.
It was a perfectly harmless glance, but his gentle smile and something about the way he was stroking Lady’s fur made Annie’s face burn a little hotter.
She watched the muscles in his forearm flex while he stroked her dog and unwelcome images materialized in her head.
“What’s her name?”
“Jesus!”
His head shot up. “Jesus?”
Annie swiped her palm on her thigh. “Uh, no, Lady.”
He smiled knowingly and returned his attention to her dog.
Little doggie ho.
He spent an inordinately long time paying attention to her traitor dog, rustling her hair, massaging her, petting her, cooing to her and somehow it only served to annoy Annie all the more. Finally, he peered up at her and said, “Amazing animal. I’ve always wanted a Lab. You can see real intelligence in those big brown eyes.”
Lady wagged her tail, shamelessly loving the attention and not quite ready to be dismissed. He came all the way up the stairs, but his hand remained on the top of Lady’s head, fingers caressing and for just an instant Annie experienced a ridiculous pang of envy.
When was the last time a man had touched her so gently? Geez, her dog was getting more action than she was!
“Here you go… ” He reached out and handed her a cashier’s check. “As promised.”
Annie sat up and took the check, inspecting it. “Seriously?”
“We had a deal, right?”
“Well, yeah, but that was fast!”
“I worked it for you,” he said, winking again and before Annie could ask him if he had an affectation with his eye, he turned to leave, heading back downstairs. “You’re making out like a bandit,” he announced as he descended. “So don’t waste the entire week holed up in your room just to avoid me.” And the last thing he said before closing the door was, “Lady’s not the only one who needs a little sunshine!”
