Hello, It's Me

  “Sell it and buy a new one,” she says with a shrug. “Or an old one. A great old house with character.”

  “All right. Is this place for sale?”

  She laughs. “Sorry. It isn’t. You’ll have to find some other great old house with character.”

  “Are you serious? You wouldn’t sell this house to me for . . . say . . . half a million bucks?”

  Is he offering?

  It doesn’t matter. She isn’t taking.

  “Nope.”

  “A million?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Really.”

  “Really.”

  She figures he isn’t serious, and figures he doesn’t know that she is.

  She isn’t about to explain to Thom Brannock about Andre and memories and this house being her only link to her husband.

  All right, not her only link. There are the kids, of course. And her wedding ring, if he would just give it to her. And the cell phone she keeps hooked up so that she can hear Andre’s voice on his outgoing message . . .

  And imagine that he’s answering calls in person.

  Now that twenty-four hours—and all those vivid dreams—have elapsed since the phantom phone call, Annie is positive she imagined it.

  As soon as Erika gets back from Florida, she’s going to ask her about grief counseling after all. Maybe it will help.

  Or maybe the therapist Erika refers her to will conclude that she’s lost her mind and belongs in an institution.

  “Why would you want this house, anyway?” Annie asks, turning her attention back to Thom.

  He laughs. “Maybe because you just told me that I can’t have it. That’s what I do, you know.”

  “Buy old houses?”

  “No, I acquire corporations.”

  “You’re a corporate raider? You mean, like hostile takeovers?”

  “Only when it’s absolutely necessary.” He shrugs. “What can I say? I happen to like a challenge.”

  Overhead thump.

  Footsteps on the stairs.

  Annie closes her eyes wearily. Her son’s endless energy can be so . . . exhausting. She reluctantly allows herself to drop into the chair, promising herself that she’ll get up in a moment.

  “Hey, I found ’em, Mr. . . . what’s your name?” Milo bounds into the living room again and slides to a sock-footed halt in front of the couch, sneakers in hand.

  “My name is Thom.”

  “Just Thom?”

  “Just Thom.”

  “With an ‘h,’” Annie can’t resist adding, prying open her heavy eyelids to gauge Thom’s reaction.

  He grins at her as Milo says, “But Thom starts with a ‘t,’ not an ‘h.’”

  “Hey, you’re right. Smart kid.”

  Annie returns Thom’s smile through a yawn.

  “Sit down,” he tells her son, patting the couch beside him. “First thing you’re going to do is take the laces and make an ‘x’ . . .”

  Annie yawns again.

  Her eyes are burning.

  If only it were evening. If she were able to crawl into bed now, she suspects she might actually be able to sleep straight through until morning.

  Then again, that rarely happens anymore. In fact, it never does. Sooner or later, a nightmare always wakes her . . . or Trixie’s night terrors do.

  The Widow Harlowe—who before she became the Widow Harlowe was the sort of person who invariably climbed into bed, closed her eyes, and fell promptly into a sound sleep—is convinced that she is doomed to live the remainder of her life without ever again experiencing REM.

  “No, not like that. Do it this way,” Thom Brannock is telling Milo.

  His voice seems oddly far away, Annie notices, just before it fades altogether.

  Chapter 6

  Annie is dreaming.

  Dreaming of classical music and a mouth-watering aroma and Andre’s gentle hand stroking her forehead.

  No.

  It isn’t a dream.

  As her senses awaken, she realizes she really is hearing music, smelling food, feeling somebody’s fingertips . . .

  But not Andre’s.

  Andre is dead, she recalls, with the jarring awareness that strikes her every time she returns to consciousness after a restful reprieve from her own harsh reality.

  Andre is dead.

  Her eyes snap open to take in the scene.

  She isn’t in bed.

  She’s in a recliner in the living room. But it can’t be her living room because the television is off and the stereo is on and it’s playing classical music. This can’t even be her house, because it smells like food—real food, not food from a can or a box or a pouch, not that her tragically bare cupboards can possibly contain even cans, boxes, or pouches.

  Okay, so it’s her imagination again, carrying her and her growling stomach away.

  “Annie?”

  Andre isn’t saying her name. Andre isn’t standing over her. No, it’s . . .

  Thom Brannock?

  Annie bolts out of the chair. “What are you . . . ?”

  He laughs. “Yup, I’m still here.”

  “You fell asleep, Mommy!”

  Trixie is standing beside Thom, looking gleeful. She’s wearing a bibbed white apron with red rickrack, circa 1940. Her hair is pulled back in a bread bag twist tie and a substance that looks like ketchup is smeared beside her mouth.

  “Mommy, we made dinner for you!”

  Annie shifts her gaze to Milo, whose pillowcase cape is now tucked into the front of his shirt and splashed with crimson stains.

  “What time is it?” she asks, dazed, looking around the room and realizing that the light is different. Different, as in fading quickly.

  “It’s dinnertime! Let’s go eat!” Trixie giggles and dashes toward the kitchen with Milo on her heels.

  “Dinnertime?” Annie echoes incredulously.

  “Actually, it’s almost seven,” Thom says, checking his watch.

  “Oh, cripes. I can’t believe I did this.” She zings an accusatory glare at him, needing to blame . . . somebody. Somebody other than herself. She’s sick of blaming herself for everything. She demands of Thom Brannock, “Why did you let me do this? I can’t just . . . sleep.”

  “Why not? You were tired.”

  “But . . . I have children!”

  “No kidding. That’s probably why you were so tired. They have a lot of energy, don’t they.”

  Somewhere in the midst of her groggy dismay, Annie notes that his pinkish-red shirt is dotted with pinker, redder splatters, that he currently smells more of frying onions than cologne, that his hair is spikier than it was earlier, as though he’s been raking his fingers through it.

  “You’ve been watching my kids?” she asks, shaking her head in a futile effort to clear it. Nothing makes sense.

  “Yup.”

  Thom Brannock looks pleased with himself.

  Well, bully for him.

  Annie has never been more disappointed in herself. What kind of mother just . . . goes to sleep? Entrusts her children to the care of a complete stranger and . . . goes to sleep?

  A lousy mother.

  That’s what kind.

  A lousy, incompetent mother.

  Annie definitely isn’t a survivor. She sucks at survival. The house could have burned down while she was lying here catching a few “z”s. Somebody could have been hurt, or killed.

  Tears spring to her eyes.

  “Annie?” Thom touches her arm.

  She jerks reflexively out of his grasp.

  “Annie, don’t,” he says softly, his hand finding her again and holding her steady this time so that she can’t slip away. “Don’t be upset with yourself. You’re overwhelmed.”

  She opens her mouth to protest, and to her horror, a sob escapes.

  “It’s okay.”

  She stops fighting his grasp.

  No, his . . . embrace?

  Yes.

  Embrace, because, somehow, impossible though it is, he se
ems to be . . . hugging her?

  Yes.

  This total stranger—this billionaire tycoon total stranger—is hugging her.

  Comforting her.

  This, Annie thinks, should not be comforting. This should, in fact, be the most uncomfortable moment of her life.

  She must be delirious, because she seems to have decided that she fits very naturally into Thom’s arms, a place she has absolutely no business being. Ever.

  But he’s right. She is overwhelmed.

  Awash in self-pity, she allows herself to lean against his broad chest, the way she used to do with Andre.

  He even touches her hair the way Andre always did, tenderly weaving his fingers through the tangle of waves.

  She looks up to tell him that she’s sorry, that he can leave now, but the unexpectedly provocative look in his dark blue eyes robs her of speech, of breath.

  He’s going to kiss me, she thinks frantically, and realizes, even more frantically, that she wants him to.

  She can hear his ragged breathing, feel it stirring the wisps of hair that have fallen around her face. Something flutters to life in the pit of her stomach, sending gossamer quivers along dormant pathways into places that long ago ceased to exist for her.

  His mouth is inches from hers.

  He really is going to kiss her.

  This is all wrong, and this is so right, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s wrong or right because Annie wants it to happen. More than that, it’s meant to happen.

  Everything happens for a reason, Annie.

  Deep inside her, restraint takes flight, leaving in its wake only urgent, aching need.

  She closes her eyes and Thom’s lips brush hers lightly; too lightly, pulling back all too soon.

  Frustrated, she opens her eyes and sees his tentative gaze. Touched by his cautious uncertainty, Annie allows the last of her own to fall away like a thick woolen coat on the first warm day of spring.

  “It’s okay,” she whispers and tiptoes up to meet him this time, welcoming the exquisite pressure of his mouth against hers.

  He kisses her hungrily, or perhaps she kisses him hungrily; she can no longer discern where her own desire gives way to his. Boundaries have been crossed and inhibitions shed; there is nothing but here, and him, and . . .

  And then something clatters in the kitchen, severing the ethereal bond in a shattering instant.

  With a gasp Annie springs away, clasping her mouth as though she’s been branded there.

  “Mommy! Milo dropped the pot lid and made a mess!” Trixie calls.

  “Don’t touch the stove!” Annie hurries toward the back of the house, half afraid that Thom won’t follow her, and half afraid that he will.

  In the kitchen, she finds Milo picking up the lid and Trixie setting the table. Kettles simmer away on the stove, emitting fragrant tendrils of steam.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, dazed at the sight and scent of it all.

  “We made pasta!” Milo informs her, climbing on a chair and stirring.

  “With what?” She plucks him off the chair, pulls it away from the stove, and removes the saucy wooden spoon from his saucier hand. “That’s dangerous. You could fall or get burned, Milo.”

  “I was being careful,” he says, and adds, “We made it with tomatoes and onions and noodles.”

  “And chicken,” Trixie reminds her brother, as Annie peers into one bubbling pot, and then another.

  “Where did you get all this stuff?”

  “We didn’t. Thom did,” Milo tells Annie.

  “He left you alone to go shopping?” asks Annie, who left them alone to go to sleep and is consequently feeling guiltier by the minute.

  “No, I had the stuff delivered,” Thom’s voice says in the doorway behind her.

  She turns to see him watching her.

  “You had tomatoes and onions delivered?”

  “And pasta and chicken.”

  That must have cost a fortune, she thinks, even as she reminds herself that he has one.

  “Thank you,” she says aloud. “You didn’t have to—”

  “I know. I wanted to, Annie. I don’t do anything unless I want to.”

  Judging by the look in his eye, he’s talking about more than arranging grocery delivery.

  But something inside of her refuses to accept anything he’s offering.

  “Let me repay you,” she says, going for the Prada bag—courtesy of Merlin—that she keeps on a hook by the door. Ironically, all that’s in it is her old nylon wallet, and all that’s in that is the cash she earned waiting on Thom and his fancy friends last night.

  Of course, the money is already ear-marked for other expenses. But she’ll come up with more somehow. She’ll borrow it from Merlin, or she’ll work that luncheon he mentioned later this week.

  Suddenly, it seems very important that she not allow Thom Brannock to do her any favors.

  “Stop,” he says, crossing the kitchen and putting his hand on her purse before she can open it. “I don’t want your money. The only way you can repay me is to let me stay for dinner.”

  “But—”

  “Come on,” he cajoles, a twinkle lighting his blue gaze. “After all this hard work, the least you can do is let me sample my own cooking.”

  “All right,” she agrees helplessly, and glances at her beaming children.

  “Can you come for dinner again tomorrow night, too?” Milo asks Thom, who shrugs and looks uncomfortable.

  He begins, “I don’t think—”

  Annie cuts him off with a brisk, “No, Milo, he can’t.”

  To Thom, she says in a low voice, “Never say ‘I don’t think’ to a kid. All kids know that where there’s an ‘I don’t think,’ there’s a way.”

  “Gotcha,” he says with a wink—a disappointed wink, she can’t help thinking. Almost as if he was hoping to be invited back for dinner again tomorrow night. Which, of course, is utterly ridiculous . . . no matter what just happened between them in the living room.

  “Guess what, Mommy? I made place cards,” Trixie announces. “And I used a purple crayon because Thom’s favorite color is purple. And we made Pasta à la Trixie!”

  “And Chicken Milo,” her son puts in. “Thom knew the recipes. He didn’t even need a cookbook. And I never even heard of Chicken Milo until now.”

  “Neither did I.” Annie laughs.

  “I’m not sure it’s any good,” Thom tells her in a whisper as the kids finish setting the table. “I’ve never cooked before.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “No, but I used to watch our housekeeper do it when I was a kid. I always wanted to try it. How hard can it be?”

  Annie shakes her head, speechless.

  It’s all so surreal. Why is this man living out his domestic fantasies in her kitchen?

  Never mind that. Why is he kissing her in her living room?

  The next thing you know, he’ll be moving up the stairs to the—

  No.

  Her bedroom is off-limits.

  And so, for that matter, is her consideration of the skills Thom might be tempted to put to use there.

  The meal is over, the dishes are done, the kitchen spotless once again.

  All right, it was far from spotless when Thom saw it in the first place. But now it really is clean, thanks to the hour he and Annie spent in here chatting and tidying while the children watched television in the next room.

  The conversation flowed as easily between the two of them as it did among all four during the meal.

  It’s almost, Thom can’t help thinking, as though he’s stepped onto a movie set, expertly playing the role of a suburban dad. He can practically see himself settling into an easy chair in front of the television with his feet up, dozing off to sleep.

  The strange thing is that he longs to do just that.

  Ever since he saw that family crossing the street in front of his car earlier . . .

  No, it goes back even further than that.

  He?
??s been off-kilter ever since he woke up this morning. It all started with those cookies. One indulgence led to another, and another, and the next thing he knew, he was setting aside his productive plans for the day in order to play nursemaid and personal chef to a widow and her fatherless children.

  And kissing her. Don’t forget that, Thom.

  Yes, kissing Annie was the mother of all indulgences. Her lips were sweeter than iced sugar cookies, and he wouldn’t have stopped at just one if the children hadn’t interrupted when they did.

  Thank goodness they did.

  It’s time he nipped this homey little fantasy in the bud.

  “I have to get home, Annie,” he says reluctantly, looking around with wistful satisfaction at the sparkling sink, counters and appliances. He’s a novice, but he must admit, there’s something to be said for good, old-fashioned cleaning.

  Just as there’s something to be said for a good, old-fashioned kitchen without all the bells and whistles that come with his. Sure, there are scratches in the porcelain sink and worn spots on the floor in front of it, fraying dish towels and yellowed recipes spilling out of a file box.

  But this place is as real and down-to-earth as its mistress; its battle scars as undisguised as the crinkly lines around her eyes when she smiles.

  Annie’s home is lived in; Thom’s home is not.

  Home, however, is where Thom belongs, and Annie isn’t protesting.

  He wishes she would.

  Not that he’d stay if she asked him.

  Still . . . why doesn’t she ask him?

  Maybe things would be different if the meal he’d prepared for her had actually tasted good, he thinks ruefully. Unfortunately, cooking isn’t as easy as it looks, and food doesn’t always taste as good as it smells.

  But Annie didn’t complain about the flavorless pasta or rubbery chicken, and neither did the children. He got the impression that they either have impeccable manners or were having such a good time chatting that they failed to notice his lack of culinary talent.

  “I’m sorry,” she says now, tucking strands of hair behind her ears, only to have them spring loose again the moment she moves her head. “You probably never counted on staying here more than five minutes.”

  If that long, he thinks, feeling the weight of her wedding ring in his pocket.

  He removes it, holds it out to her. “I guess I should give you this, since it’s the reason I came.”