A Woman Like Annie. Inglath Cooper
I need for the lawyers on the auction. How about scanning it and e-mailing it to me?”
“Not a problem. They have phone jacks down there?”
“Watch it.”
“Do it before I leave.”
“Check in with you tomorrow.” Jack hit the end button on his phone, dropped it on the passenger seat.
Another car pulled up beside him. A man and woman got out, fortyish, headed for the restaurant holding hands. She dropped her head back and laughed at something the man said, her hair brushing her shoulders. A single glimpse of the two made it clear they were a couple of long standing, their ease with one another nearly tangible. A pang of envy hit Jack in the chest, surprising him with its lingering sting. Ironic considering that a year and a half ago, he’d broken off his engagement to a perfectly nice woman because in the end, he hadn’t been able to go against his own belief that it wouldn’t last.
Jack got out of the car, closed the door with a solid ka-chunk. He crossed the parking lot, fighting with the knot of his tie. What was he doing here, anyway? In addition to the pile of work stacked up on his desk back in D.C., he had about a thousand loose ends to tie up in Macon’s Point before he could leave for London. He’d driven straight down, still in his work clothes. What he wanted was a good hot shower, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. At least the meeting wouldn’t last long. He’d say his piece and be on his way.
Walker’s hadn’t changed much. Looked the same, in fact, except for the fresh coat of paint dolling up the exterior.
Jack pushed open the front door and stepped inside the well-lit foyer where a waitress greeted him with a bright smile that seemed a watt or two above just-friendly. “Welcome to Walker’s.”
“Thanks. Any chance of getting a table in the back?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” she said, holding up a pink-tipped finger. “Let me just go see.”
The place was jam-packed with the dinner crowd. Several heads turned to send him a curious glance. Sudden awkwardness grabbed him by the throat. His name wasn’t going to be a popular one around Macon’s Point. No doubt about it.
He turned his back to the dining room and shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his gray wool pants, his gaze resting on the vehicles in the lot outside. His stomach did a hungry rumble, the smells wafting out from the kitchen tempting and familiar. Homemade yeast rolls. Coffee brewing behind the counter. His mother had brought him here when he was a boy more times than he could count, to pick up his father’s favorite peach pie on the way home from a visit in town or a dozen chocolate chip cookies for the jar on the kitchen counter. And the three of them had come here for lunch on Sundays when Jack had been in from school. The recollection was poignant, painful.
“Got that table for you.”
The waitress was back, beckoning for him to follow her. Her walk had a seismic wave to it, her hips sending the ruffle at the hem of her skirt left to right like the pendulum on a grandfather clock. “I’m Charlotte,” she threw over her shoulder. “You sure do look familiar.”
“One of those faces.” He somehow knew that if she put a name with it, everyone else in the place would soon do the same.
Stopping at the table, Charlotte cocked a hip. “Now there I’d have to disagree. We don’t see too many faces like yours around here. You new in town?”
“Not really. Just back for a quick visit.”
“Hope you decide to make it a longer one,” she said, adding a not-so-subtle wink to the assertion. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Sweet tea.”
“Southern roots.” She gave him a nod of approval. “Back in a gnat’s blink, honey.”
Again, Jack felt the glances being sent his way from the crowded dining room, most less than friendly. He heard his name mentioned once or twice.
“Have you had time to decide?” Charlotte, true to her word, came right back, placed his tea in front of him, righting the lemon wedge teetering on the rim.
“I’m waiting for someone,” he said.
“That figures,” she said, not bothering to hide her disappointment. “The good ones are always waiting. Just let me know when you’re ready.” She sauntered off then with a regretful smile.
Jack reached for a couple packs of sugar and emptied them into the glass. This was a mistake. Why hadn’t he just called Annie McCabe and cancelled this meeting? Even if he hadn’t had his own reasons for wanting to close this chapter of his life once and for all, Corbin Manufacturing was beyond saving. The company hadn’t made a penny since his father died. In fact, it had been losing increasingly large sums of money for the past six years.
Ironic, really, that Jack had built a career around fixing broken businesses. Going into hopeless situations, finding the terminal wound from which a company’s lifeblood was seeping, and figuring out how to suture it up again.
But in this situation, there was no point in trying to determine a cause when he had no intention of fixing it.
Corbin Manufacturing’s demise was inevitable, whether he put it out of its misery by sticking it on the auction block as he fully intended to do, or let it die the slow death it had been dying for years.
CHAPTER TWO
LATE AND FRAZZLED, Annie pulled into the lot at Walker’s and parked her car beside a black Porsche that stood out among the other vehicles like a woman in a ballgown at a barbecue. Five dollars said it was his.
“Mama, are you sure Cyrus is gonna be all right?”
“You heard Doc Angle, Tommy. Cyrus will spend the night at the hospital, and we’ll pick him up in the morning. He’ll be fine.”
“Do I get another cake?” he asked, beeps sounding from the handheld Nintendo game he had talked her into letting him bring. Maybe it would at least keep him occupied while she talked to Mr. Corbin of the black Porsche. Her bias against the car was personal. At one time, J.D. had owned three, red, white and blue. Patriotic, at least.
“Absolutely.” She flipped open the driver’s side vanity mirror and gave herself a critical perusal in the waning light. Her lipstick had somehow worked its way to the corner of one lip. She dug inside her purse for a tissue and rerouted the errant color. She tucked her hair behind her ears and wriggled her skirt around so that the zipper was where it was supposed to be.
She’d managed to get Cyrus to the animal hospital. But her hair was still damp, and the missing button on her blouse had not been replaced, concealed, at least, beneath her jacket.
Far from perfect, but it would have to do. She darted a glance at the dashboard clock. Fifteen minutes late. Not good. This was not good. After all but begging the man’s lawyer for a meeting, this was not the impression she’d intended to make. She slid out of the vehicle and ran around to Tommy’s door where she unbuckled his seat belt.
“Are we meeting Aunt Clarice?” he asked, hopping out of the car, his gaze still laser-focused on the game.
“No, honey. Mama has a business dinner. Normally, you would have stayed at the sitter’s, but we ran out of time because of Cyrus.”
“Oh. What’s a bizness dinner?”
“It’s when people meet in a restaurant and talk about business,” Annie said, taking Tommy’s hand and hurrying toward the front door of Walker’s, her heels refusing to cooperate with the gravel parking lot. Not a brilliant answer, but it seemed to satisfy him. Making a quick vow to do better with the next question her son asked her, Annie attempted to collect her thoughts. She’d intended to be prepared for her meeting with Corbin, to have all her arguments neatly lined up in her head. Facts and figures. Names of people who’d been with the factory thirty years or more. So much for that. She felt as if someone had set up an industrial-size fan inside