Mayor of Macon's Point - By Inglath Cooper Page 0,29

Annie.

She refluffed her pillow, flopped over on her side. Suddenly, she felt lonely. She didn’t miss J.D. Any feelings of that sort had climbed into the backseat of his convertible and ridden right on out of town with him.

But she did miss companionship. In the general sense of the word.

So why was she thinking about this now?

Here in the dark it was hard to deny the reason. She could deny it to Clarice all day long, but with the lights out, truth had a way of glowing so it was difficult to miss.

She flopped over again and gave her pillow another punch. Well, what red-blooded woman wouldn’t get a little stirred up when a man like Jack walked into the room?

His appeal didn’t need a lot of interpretation. But it had been a very long time since a man had affected Annie that way, good-looking or not. So maybe she should be glad of it. Happy to discover J.D. hadn’t managed to deaden every nerve ending with his rejection of her and their family.

For a long time, that was exactly what she’d thought he had done. For months after he’d left Macon’s Point, Annie had walked around feeling as if she’d been pumped full of Novocain. She could pinch herself and feel nothing.

Maybe part of it had been the realization that J.D. had turned into someone completely different from the man she’d married. Born with the kind of good looks and talent that seem like an unfair combination for one person to receive, he’d always had more than his share of confidence. And when he’d turned his attention on eighteen-year-old greener-than-grass Annie, she’d been powerless to resist.

But when he’d started playing professional ball, he’d begun to change, seeing Annie as a roadblock to the extras that came with success. Women. Parties. She was the ball and chain tied to his ankle.

J.D.’s career-ending shoulder injury had come at a time when she’d been ready to leave him. She had thought their move to Macon’s Point and the change in lifestyle would save their marriage.

She’d been wrong.

She’d wallowed in the pain of that until one day she’d finally realized that she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life trying to turn J.D. into something he wasn’t. And so, with a new resolution—yes, I do want to have a life again—she had told herself that more than likely someone would come along, a man who might make her pulse leap, fill her stomach with butterflies. Only this time, she would be leading the charge with sharply honed common sense and a fine-tuned checklist of husband/father character traits.

And so the numbness had finally faded into feeling again.

The next time she let someone into her life, she’d make sure they were on the same page about what they each considered important. For Annie, that was roots, belonging, being needed.

Clearly, Jack’s life was anything but rooted. So even if Clarice hadn’t set her sights on him, Jack wasn’t the kind of man Annie would be looking for when she started looking.

And if Clarice wanted him, that was fine by her. She wanted her sister to be happy. Goodness knew she’d spent the better part of the past year helping Annie put her life back together.

Mistaken impression or not, Annie would make sure Clarice didn’t see her as being in the way. If Clarice thought Jack might be the one, then that was exactly what Annie wanted for her.

They were sisters, after all, and sisters always put each other first.

CHAPTER SEVEN

NINE MILES AWAY, Clarice hung up the phone, slid the slipping strap of her camisole back onto her shoulder and yanked the comforter all the way up to her neck. One day she was going to buy pajamas. The flannel kind like Annie wore when it was cold. One day.

She was tired of being alone. Really tired.

She picked up the remote from the nightstand by the bed, zapped on the TV. Home Shopping Network. Another onion slicer for sale. This one was the best ever made, though. Sliced in seconds. No mess, no fuss.

She flipped forward. MTV. What was he wearing?

Old reruns of Magnum P.I. Now, there was a man. That Tom Selleck... She put down the remote, smiled while Higgins gave the contrite-looking detective yet another lecture.

Clarice rolled over onto her side, scuffled with her 310-count cotton sheets again. A commercial wiped Magnum from the screen, the announcer’s voice blaring into the room as if intent on getting his message across before the viewer