Tick Tock Goes the Baby Clock
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Julianna Morris
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Chapter One
A car pulled into the parking area of the store, and Annie James’s eyes widened as she recognized the driver.
“Max Hunter,” she breathed.
A quiver of awareness went through her body, no matter how hard she tried to stop it. Okay, so it was Max. She still lived next door to his grandmother, so there was nothing remarkable about seeing him, especially now that he’d moved back to California.
“Nothing,” she assured herself. He might be the most attractive man she’d ever known and sent tingles down her spine with his smile, but they were just friends.
Max helped an elegantly clad woman from his BMW, and Annie bit her lip. It was a good thing she’d accepted that Max was Max and that he preferred sophisticated city women, not small-town girls more comfortable in T-shirts than silk blouses. She just wasn’t his type. Problem was, she didn’t seem to be any man’s type.
“Stop that, Barnard.” Annie absently pulled a ledger book away from the large brown rabbit chewing on the corner.
His velvety nose twitched, and he hopped until he could sink his teeth into the paper again.
“Silly thing.”
Annie stroked his soft fur and sighed. The usual Saturday bustle of a farm-supply store revolved around her, and here she was, talking to a rabbit.
She had to get a life.
Preferably a life that included a gold ring, a baby on the way and a honest-to-goodness man in her bed every night. There was just one tiny drawback to that idea—she didn’t have the slightest idea how to carry it out.
It wasn’t a new thought. Having grown up with a widowed father and being firmly planted in all the local boys’ minds as a “nice” girl, she didn’t have much experience with the opposite sex. If she wanted to break out of that mold and get herself a husband, she needed an advisor—someone to get her through the rough spots.
Sort of a romantic guidance counselor.
She looked out the window again, an idea creeping into her mind. Actually, Max was perfect for the job. If anyone could advise her about men and what appealed to them it was Max Hunter. And since he lived in the city, he’d know about the hot spots where single people shopped, and stuff.
Somewhere in the back of Annie’s mind she knew there was a risk to the idea, but she needed to make a change, and Max seemed heaven-sent.
“Problem, boss? You’re kinda distracted.”
Annie looked up at her teenage warehouseman and gave her head a determined shake. “Nope. Did you get Mr. Zankowski taken care of, Darnell?”
“Yup. If he was any happier he might even crack a smile.”
Mr. Zankowski was a notoriously dour safflower farmer. Rumor had it he’d smiled once when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president, but Annie wasn’t sure she believed the story.
“Great wheels.” Darnell was staring out at the parking lot. “Man, I’ll never have wheels like that on minimum wage.”
“You’re a teenager. You aren’t supposed to have wheels like that.” She pulled the ledger away from the rabbit a second time and tossed it in a drawer.
“You’ve been talking to Mom. Do you know she makes me save half my paycheck for college? The half before taxes?”
“It’s because she loves you.” Even as Annie said the words, a pang went through her. If she didn’t do something soon, she might never have her own son or daughter. It was all good and fine to be an honorary aunt to most of the kids in town, but it wasn’t the same.
Darnell headed back toward the warehouse with a last, longing glance through the window. The bell over the door tinkled, and Annie looked up.
“How charming,” a woman drawled. “It’s so rustic.” Her tone wasn’t complimentary.
“You could have stayed in the car,” Max said.
Annie’s spirits lifted. Max really was perfect. He was perfect even when everyone else in high school was struggling with bad hair and worse skin. He had dark-toned skin and jet-black hair—courtesy of his Native American grandfather—a sexy smile and the brooding expression of a loner…unless you looked closely and saw the twinkle in his dark eyes. On top of everything else, he was six foot two, with the physique of an athlete.
In other words, be-still-my-heart gorgeous.
Her heart might still flutter over Max, but it was safer and smarter to ignore those feelings. And, when all was said and done, they’d remained pals while the rest of his girlfriends had gone the way of the Dodo bird. She didn’t want someone that handsome, anyway. Men like Max were too complicated, too interested in a fast-paced glitzy life. Give her someone like the new schoolteacher in town and she’d be happy.
“Hey, Annie.”
She stood and leaned against the timeworn front counter. “Hey, Max. What are you doing here?”
“Er, looking at some property with a client. Miss Blakely has decided to build a summer home out on the delta and wants me to design it.” He rolled his eyes and gave her a private wink. “Then she got thirsty and I remembered you had a soda machine here at the store.”
“Darling, I told you…please call me Buffy.” The woman slid her arm into Max’s with a proprietary look on her face, and a pained expression replaced his smile.
Annie choked.
Buffy Blakely?
Well, she supposed it took all kinds.
“The machine is in the back,” Annie said. “Do you need some quarters?” She punched a button on the ancient cash register and the door shot open. With the ease of long practice she let it bounce against her tummy, preventing it from flying across the room.
“You don’t have that fixed yet?” Max looked surprised, and she remembered earlier days when she hadn’t caught the drawer in time and they’d spent the next half hour chasing quarters and nickels. Once she’d bumped into him under the desk, and she could have sworn he was about to kiss her, but it turned out she was mistaken.
“No.” Annie wrinkled her nose at the faint disapproval in his eyes. “They say it’s unfixable.” She patted the ornate brass and polished wood of the cash register. She didn’t care about the quirky drawer, she liked the old thing. It had character. Why did everyone want to get rid of lovely old things and replace them with new things that didn’t have any history?
“Max. Must this take so long? It’s so dusty in here,” Buffy said, obviously miffed at being ignored.
“Why don’t you wait in the car?” he suggested, removing his arm from her grasp and handing her the key ring. “I haven’t seen Annie for over a month. I’d like to catch up on local news.”
Buffy pocketed the keys with a tight smile. “Thanks, but I’ll wait.”
“Swell.” Max turned back to Annie. “Grandmother mentioned how terrific you’ve been helping out while she had the flu, and all. I didn’t know she was sick.”
“Oh…” Annie said, flustered. “You’ve been so busy since you moved back from Boston, she didn’t want to bother you. And I was happy to help, you know that.”
That’s Annie, Max thought fondly. A doer. The kind of woman who rolled up her sleeves and wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty. She was just as kind-hearted as the day he’d moved in with his grandmother. Two years younger than him, but she’d always seemed even younger with her sweet face and earnest eyes.
If the rest of Mitchellton was like Annie, then it wouldn’t be so bad. But it was just a forgotten little town on the Sacramento River delta—thirty years behind the rest of the world, moving at its own relentlessly slow pace. Mitchellton never changed; it was less than twenty-five miles from the state capital of Sacramento, but it might as well be a thousand for all it cared.
“Grace says your new architectural firm is doing great,” Annie murmured. “She’s so proud. She said you’ve also won several awards.”
“I’m doing all right.” Max frowned. “I’ve been trying to convince Grandmother to move into Sacramento, but she keeps refusing.”
“She likes Mitchellton.”
“But I’d get her a condo with all the latest amenities. And she’d be so much closer to the best doctors and a first-rate hospital.”
Annie sighed. “This is where Grace’s friends are, Max. You know that.”
“Max, I’m really thirsty,” Buffy said through gritted teeth.
At the moment Max didn’t care if she was on the moon, much less thirsty, but he sighed and pinned a polite smile on his face. Some commissions weren’t worth the time and trouble, and this one was definitely headed in that direction. “Of course. We’ll get something out of the machine.”
He caught Annie covering her mouth with her hand in a blatant attempt not to laugh and gave her a mock glare.
Damn, it was good to see her, especially with someone like Buffy the Architect Slayer in tow. In her quest for the “ideal” summer house Buffy Blakely had gone through four architects. Max suspected the previous four had all been single and in the thirty-something age range. Buffy wasn’t subtle about wanting more from the relationship than a house design—she wanted to get married.
Marriage.
Max shook his head and shuddered.
Marriage was out. His mother and father had nine divorces under their combined belts, and he’d lost track of how many stepsiblings he’d had between them. He supposed you could argue they were optimistic to keep trying, but it wasn’t for him. You didn’t have to get your hand slammed in a car door to know it wouldn’t feel good.
“Max.” Buffy’s tone had reached a higher pitch than he’d ever heard before, and he sighed.
With Buffy following close on his heel, he threaded his way between displays of gardening tools and vegetable seeds. In the back of the store was an ancient soda pop machine. It was the old-fashioned kind where you pulled the bottle out by the neck and the next one rolled into place. Max stopped in front of it and took his wallet from his pocket.
“That’s it?” Buffy stared at the ancient soda dispenser as if “it” were about to attack her.
“Yeah.” He dropped money into the slot. “Do you want cola, or lemon-lime? And I think there’s orange, too.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him stonily, so Max selected a lemon-lime, popped the cap off and handed it to her. He knew she expected designer water or some other trendy drink, but this was Mitchellton, and he doubted they’d ever heard of designer water.
“Annie, do you want one?” he called. “My treat.”
“Sure. Anything is fine.”
Still ignoring Buffy and her frozen face, Max got another lemon-lime and brought it to Annie. She smiled a thank-you and took a long swallow, tipping her head back. Max watched idly, thinking it was a very graceful gesture, simple and uncomplicated.
Like Mitchellton, Annie hadn’t changed much. Her face had the same sweetheart shape, dominated by big blue eyes and framed by reddish brown hair. Her smile was just as contagious as always and made you feel good just looking at it. She was as slim as ever, too, but she usually wore baggy clothing that concealed everything but the taut curve of her breasts.
Odd that she’d never gotten married. Mitchellton was a marrying kind of place, and in her way Annie was quite pretty. And, if her bust was any indication, she had a figure that would make most men ecstatic in bed.
“Is something wrong, Max?” Annie’s puzzled voice sent a jolt through him and he swallowed uncomfortably.
Where had that come from?
He was definitely being affected by the hot sunshine outside and the annoying presence of Buffy Blakely. Friends did not have licentious thoughts about another friend, especially when the friend was someone like Annie. She was like a kid sister, for Pete’s sake.
“I was just thinking,” Max said lamely. As long as she didn’t ask what he’d been thinking about, he was okay. He certainly didn’t want to embarrass her. Annie would probably turn beet-red if she thought anyone was looking at her chest.
“Oh, right. You know, there’s something I’ve been thinking about, too, and…uh, I thought you’d be a good person to…discuss it with,” she stuttered.
Max looked at her and wondered what could possibly make Annie so tongue-tied. He was about to ask, when a look of horror crossed her face.
“No, Tigger. Stop. Come here,” she cried.
Max followed the direction of Annie’s dismayed gaze and saw a large tiger-striped cat walking toward Buffy. He didn’t understand at first, then he saw something was hanging from the feline’s mouth.
With a pleased “marooow,” Tigger dropped his gift right on Buffy’s sandal-clad foot.
Time seemed frozen for a second, with three humans and a cat staring at a dazed mouse reclining on fine Italian leather.
All at once Buffy screamed and kicked out in a move that would have made the coach of the Green Bay Packers proud. The mouse flew across the room and landed on a padded dog bed. It blinked a couple of times, looked around cautiously and made a beeline for a hole in the wall. Tigger followed in hot pursuit.
“Well…that was exciting,” Max murmured.
“Exciting?” Buffy glared. “I’ll probably get some horrible disease from that disgusting little rodent.”
If the truth be told, Max was more worried about the mouse. It couldn’t be healthy coming into such close contact with Buffy. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
“What do you know about it? Don’t just stand there, get a doctor. Get some disinfectant.”
One of Max’s eyebrows shot upward. She sounded like Lucy in a Charlie Brown cartoon, screaming about dog cooties, and it was getting harder and harder to keep from laughing.
He cast a glance at Annie, who stood with one hand covering her mouth and her eyes opened impossibly wide. She was plainly sharing his trouble in keeping a straight face. “I think I have some iodine,” she said.
That did it. Max couldn’t have kept from laughing any more than he could have stopped breathing.
“You…you monster. I’m suing. I’m suing this revolting store and this entire pathetic town,” Buffy screeched, her carefully modulated voice turning into a cracked soprano. “And you, Mr. Maxwell Hunter, can go to hell.”
Turning on her well-shod heel, she stalked out of the store, down the steps and climbed into the driver’s seat of his BMW. The motor roared into life, and she peeled out of the parking lot, leaving a strip of rubber on the asphalt.
Tarnation. Max winced. That car was his baby. The first real indulgence of his success, and Buffy was treating it like a vehicle in a stock-car rally.
“Do you think she’s actually going to sue?” Annie asked. She bit her lip worriedly.
“Naw.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. She hates looking ridiculous.”
“I don’t know, she seemed really angry. Maybe she won’t care how it looks.”
Max leaned forward and tugged a lock of Annie’s hair. “You’re forgetting one little thing—Buffy just stole my BMW. An alleged mouse attack doesn’t stack up to grand theft auto.”
For a man whose car had just been taken and who’d probably lost a big design commission, Annie didn’t think Max seemed too upset. Still, maybe now wasn’t the best time to spring her little scheme on him. She’d take him home and feed him a meal. Then she’d drive him back to Sacramento and they could make plans on the way.
If he agreed.
On the other hand, she might just wimp out and never say anything at all.
No.
Annie set her jaw stubbornly. She’d spent her entire thirty-two years in a romantic black hole. If she didn’t do something about it now, her life would never change. The thought sent a quaking sensation through her stomach. It wasn’t that things were so bad, they were just…nothing. And now she had a deadline from the doctor to worry about.
“Do you want to make out a report to the sheriff?” she asked, picking up the receiver to the phone. “I don’t suppose you want to see Buffy on the most-wanted list, but you could get it on the record.”
Max grinned. “Why not? I’ll give them an unofficial report on the unlikely chance Buffy decides to make trouble.”
Annie dialed the number and handed the receiver to him. Their tiny little county boasted a sheriff and a part-time deputy—crime wasn’t exactly a problem around Mitchellton. The delta islands were a lost corner of the world; folks tended to forget they even existed.
She listened while Max said hello to the deputy and explained the circumstances of his missing car, saying he wanted the authorities to know what had happened “just in case.”
Newell didn’t ask for details about the “just in case” part of Max’s statement, which was exactly what Annie could have predicted. Unlike his newly elected and dedicated boss, Newell wasn’t the most ambitious deputy in the world. He was happy to go along with anything that meant he could remain in the office with his feet on the desk.
When Max was finished, Annie took the phone and glanced at him from under her lashes. “I’ll close the store and take you over to Grace’s house,” she murmured. “And I’ll even fix dinner to make up for the trouble.”
“Buffy is the one who made trouble,” he said. “And don’t close early for me. I’d appreciate the ride, but you shouldn’t lose business because you’re doing me a favor.”
“That’s all right. I don’t get very many customers on Saturday afternoon.” Annie walked to the door of the warehouse adjoining the store, where Darnell was stacking fifty-pound sacks of fertilizer along one wall. “I’m closing early,” she called. “You can go, too.”
Darnell’s face brightened. “I’ve got a date tonight. Do I still get paid for the same time?”
“Yes.”
The teenager let out a happy whoop, and in the space of sixty seconds he had the loading dock closed and was on his bike, pedaling furiously down the road.
“I used to get that excited about date night,” Max said as Annie emptied the cash register and counted the money. “Remember what it was like?” he asked, a rueful smile on his mouth.
Annie pressed her lips together. Sooner or later she would have to discuss her lack of romantic experience with Max, but she would rather it was later than sooner. Besides, he knew she’d never dated during high school. She’d watched him go out with one girl after another, but Friday and Saturday nights had always meant something different for her.
“It was great,” Max continued, seeming not to notice she hadn’t answered his question. “Nothing to worry about except school exams and an excess of hormones. Those were the days.”
“Not…really.”
Max winced, hearing the strain in Annie’s voice. He guessed happy times were scarce in Annie’s memories—her father had gotten sick during that period, and she’d taken care of him for several agonizing years before his death.
“Sorry, Annie. I forgot. You didn’t have that much fun in high school, did you?”
Her shoulders lifted in a barely perceptible shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. I guess most of us would rather forget what childhood was really like,” he said soberly. “Mentally skip the bad parts.”
“You always said things got better…after you came to live with Grace.”
“That’s for sure. A little dull, but much better than before.” Max rubbed his jaw. In the end he’d almost turned into a normal kid, thanks to Grace Hunter. She’d been a calm, safe anchor in the middle of his parents’ volatile, ever-changing relationships.
“If you can’t provide a decent home for my grandson, I’m taking him to live with me,” Grace had declared when he was eleven years old. They hadn’t argued for long. He’d reached an age where he was a royal pain, full of resentment and a know-it-all-attitude. It was probably a relief when Grace hauled him off to Mitchellton.
Annie wrote some figures in a ledger book, then put the money she’d counted into a cloth bag and stuffed it into a hidden safe. Max frowned.
“Should you do that?” he asked. “Just leave it here? We can go by the night deposit at the credit union.”
She shook her head. “We didn’t have many cash sales today—never do on Saturdays. It’ll be fine over the weekend.”
He didn’t like it, though he knew she must have been doing the same thing for years. Things were different in the city. You had to be a lot more careful.
But still…
“Besides, I have to be back here by seven on Monday, and I’ll need cash for the day,” Annie said. She wrote Closed Early on a piece of paper and taped it on the window. “There’s a load of hay being delivered.”
Max swallowed another protest. Annie was such a small thing, she barely came to his chin. She might be strong for her size, but that didn’t mean she could handle bales of hay or other heavy lifting. A farm supply store wasn’t the kind of place you expected a woman to operate, but she’d taken over after her father’s death and kept the business going.
He looked around the store, seeing the racks of seeds, pet food and supplies, garden implements and a myriad of other items. Except for the pet supplies, it wasn’t much different from twenty years ago. For that matter, the business probably hadn’t changed in the past fifty years.
“There now, Barnard. We’re going home,” Annie said, reaching down and picking up a large brown rabbit from the desk. She tucked the creature under an arm and fished a small set of keys from her jeans pocket. “Ready?” she asked.
Max looked from the twitching nose of the rabbit to Annie’s sweet face. Only Annie James would bring a pet rabbit to work with her.
“What about Tigger?”
“Tigger lives here in the store. He’s responsible for keeping rats and mice from invading the warehouse.”
Max grinned. “Yeah. And he doesn’t do a bad job running off annoying customers, either.”
Annie looked guiltily embarrassed, and he had a sudden urge to give her a hug. She worried too much about things. But then, she’d had to grow up quickly when her father got sick, so he supposed it was understandable.
“It’s okay, kiddo,” he assured softly. “Buffy was a major pain in the behind. I owe Tigger a treat for getting rid of her.”
She smiled. “Get him some catnip. It makes him goofy.”
Max grimaced as he followed her out the door. He was the goofy one, thinking about hugging Annie, because he had the sneaking suspicion that his desire to hug her had less to do with comfort than it did with wondering how she’d feel in his arms.
