Mayor of Macon's Point - By Inglath Cooper Page 0,69
he wanted to share all this. And that was Annie.
* * *
J.D. PACED THE WIDTH of Annie’s living-room floor like a cat someone had forgotten to let out for its daily prowl.
He glanced at his watch. Where was that boy? “Tommy,” he called up the stairs. “Hurry up, now, or I might have to find somebody else to throw ball with today.”
“Coming, Dad,” he yelled back, panic in his voice, his footsteps thumping faster on the wood floor of his bedroom.
A car pulled up outside and shut off its engine.
J.D. went back to the window. Annie, probably.
But the vehicle outside was a black Porsche. A man got out. Well, well.
J.D. slicked a hand across his hair, shot a glance in the foyer mirror, then went to open the door.
Jack Corbin looked surprised, to say the least. He caught it fast, though, and said, “Annie home?”
“Not right at the moment,” J.D. said, assessing the other man without moving his gaze below his face.
“Been a few years,” Corbin said, sticking out his hand.
J.D. reluctantly stuck out his own. “Yeah. Annie went over to Clarice’s. Should be back in a little while. Hear she’s been trying to talk you out of closing your factory.”
“We’ve been working on a couple things together.”
“Well, no doubt, in this instance, she’s been a more effective mayor than I would have been.”
Corbin let that stand a moment and then, “In many, I’m sure.”
“Since you and Annie have become friends, maybe you’d like to hear the good news. We’re going to try to work things out. Figured out Annie’s too good a woman to let go. And she’s decided not to put Tommy in the middle of a messy custody battle.”
If J.D. hadn’t been looking for it, he might have missed the flare of emotion in Corbin’s eyes. Small as the victory was, he enjoyed it. J.D. loved all wins, big and small.
Tommy thumped down the stairs. He stopped in the doorway beside J.D. and said, “Hi, Jack!”
“Hey, Tommy. Gonna play some ball with your dad today?”
Tommy nodded. “Wanna go with us?”
“Can’t today, but thanks. Next time?”
Tommy nodded. J.D. put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and pulled him in closer. “He’s his father’s boy.”
Corbin held his gaze for a long moment, then said, “Have fun, Tommy.” He got back in the Porsche and drove off.
J.D. looked down at Tommy. “He been around much?”
“He and Mama have been talking about bizness. He gave me a Hank Aaron card.”
“That right?”
“Wanna see it?” Tommy pulled back and looked up at him, eagerness in his face.
“Nah. What do you need with a stupid old card when you’ve got the real thing?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AFTER SHE LEFT CLARICE’S, Annie went to the office for a few hours, surely the most unproductive she’d ever spent there. The Lord’s Acre Sale was set to take place tomorrow in the high-school parking lot. In addition to sitting in the dunking booth, Annie had been asked to give a speech. She’d started seven different versions, each now residing in a wadded-up ball at the bottom of her trash can.
For the life of her, she couldn’t concentrate.
Her emotions were like a seesaw with a bad spring, sending her zooming high and then plopping her down on the other side hard enough to loosen teeth.
The seesaw was Jack.
This was no time to be thinking about Jack.
So, of course, she could not stop thinking about Jack.
Her ex-husband had shown up on her doorstep out of the blue, intent on sending another wrecking ball through the center of her life. And every time she thought about Jack—just his name—she felt positively giddy inside.
Somehow, she had to make J.D. see that he did not want his old life back.
* * *
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, she was in the kitchen making a pot of soup, beef barley, which she happened to remember J.D. hated—salt made him bloat, and barley, what was that, anyway, some kind of earth-mother food?—when he and Tommy returned from the park.
The front door opened, and through it rolled the sound of Tommy’s happy laughter. “Can you believe how far that ball went, Daddy?”
“You are gonna be something one day, son. No doubt about it,” J.D. said.
Annie bit back the urge to run out and tell Tommy he already was something wonderful, that they didn’t need to wait around for that to happen. Stick to the plan, Annie. She gave the pot of soup another shower of salt and threw in an extra handful of barley.
Cyrus got up from his spot