Chapter Eleven

They went to the Island Palm Grill a few doors down and across the street from Second Chance Books. Eating here was akin to placing an ad in the local paper. Tony didn’t mind and it was about as close to eating in her apartment as they could get. He needed to make love to her tonight before he lost his mind.

“Did you start reading Emma?”

“I had a hard time falling asleep last night so I picked it up.”

“Why’d you have a hard time falling asleep?” She blinked her eyes several times in mock innocence.

“I left something unfinished.” He whispered then watched with great satisfaction the slow rise and fall of her breasts when her breathing turned erratic.

“That can be frustrating. So did you get through much of the book?”

“No, but it served its purpose. I fell asleep in four pages.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t try to read Emma so late at night.” Annie cocked her head to the side, studied him. “Will this be your first Jane Austen novel?”

“Do I strike you as the kind of man who willingly reads Jane Austen?”

Annie threw her head back and laughed. For the first time he noticed the faintest trace of a dimple in her left cheek. Making her smile so fully satisfied him in ways he’d yet to understand. She was different now from when she’d arrived in town years ago, her grief fresh at the time. Do you ever stop grieving the loss of a parent, or just learn to live with their absence? Her close friendship with Tom Bailey made sense to him now. As a widower with his only son living in Boston, Tom needed a substitute child to fret over, and Annie a surrogate parent.

“Hey, have you heard from Mr. Bailey?” She sipped on a glass of wine while he nursed a cold beer from the tap.

“No!” She tapped the table and frowned. “He called but I missed him. He sounded great in the message.”

“I still want to know what you set him up for in Ireland?”

“I should be offended by that accusation, but seeing as it’s pretty close to the mark…Tom went to reconnect with some family in Ireland.”

“I’m sure you can be more specific, and it’s not as simple as you’re making it sound.”

“Tom and his cousin Matt had a massive falling out a million years ago over a woman.”

“Which one married her?”

“Matt and Maureen were betrothed. Tom was visiting with his family for the summer. Matt was very involved in, I guess you’d call it, the civil unrest of the time in Ireland. When Matt went missing for over a month, Tom and Maureen fell in love. They kept it a secret, but when Matt returned, he figured it out. There was a big fight that caused a rift between the families. Tom hasn’t been back since.”

“So what changed? Why did he go back now? From what I know of the Irish, they’re pretty stubborn.”

“Are you talking about me?”

“Could be, Ms. O’Malley.”

Annie pursed her lips and pushed her hair over her shoulder. An image of when she first came to town crystalized in his mind. “You had short hair when you moved here!”

“I’d just had it cut. Chopped it all off, in fact. I needed something fresh.” She studied the red wine in her glass, her mind now far away from him and Tom Bailey.

“Because of your parents?”

Annie’s head whipped up, her gaze locked on his. Her expression, a flash of anger mixed with fear confused him. She took a long sip of wine and glanced around the room, her lips pursed.

“So, going back to Tom, he’d like to reconnect with his family in Ireland and Maureen especially. She had a hard life. He never stopped thinking about her even after he came back to the US, fell in love, and lived a happy life. Maureen paid for their mistake the duration of her marriage. Tom considered himself responsible.”

Tony felt her lack of response at the mention of her parents like a slap. “You know, Annie, you have a habit of ignoring direct questions. If I did that, you’d be relentless until you got an answer,” he said, his voice low.

“Fine, yes, I cut my hair after my parents died!”

“Was that so hard?” He asked perplexed.

“Don’t push me Tony,” she said in an impenetrable tone.

“Don’t push you? I want to know you. Isn’t that what this is about?” He gestured between them and the restaurant in general.

“I am an open book. Everything you need to know about me, I put it all out there.”

“No, I am an open book. There is not one thing about me you can’t find out either through conversation with my family or town gossip. How is that fair? If you really wanted to, you could talk to enough people and find out everything from my first kiss with Sally Carmichael during recess in the fourth grade to when I won the Bass Fishing Tournament last year. You’re pretty out there, Annie, but you pick and choose what you put out there. Your actual history is a closed book. Why is it so wrong to ask questions?”

“You can ask any question you’d like as long as you understand I can’t talk about my parents. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I just can’t.” She stammered, and her hands shook.

“Why? Because you don’t know what happened to them?” He raked a hand through his hair, frustrated he’d upset her.

“Of course I know! I just don’t want to talk about it!” She pushed her chair back and took off in the direction of the restrooms in the back of the restaurant. Tony dropped his head in his hand then drained his beer. It could have been worse. She could have run right out on him making their dinner even larger town news.

“You seem to really have a way with the ladies.”

Tony looked up to find Eddie Greene grinning beside him.

“Mr. Greene!” He stood and shook the older man’s hand.

“She’s got a bit of the Irish fire in her, that one.” Mr. Greene motioned to the back of the restaurant.

“Yeah, I’m discovering, and a stubborn streak, to boot.”

“Have you had any luck with your mystery couple? After the fact, I realized it never could have been Anna Kennedy. I couldn’t imagine that woman ever feeling strongly enough to write a letter.”

“Whether that’s true or not, Mrs. Kennedy isn’t who we’re looking for.”

“You know, I meant it when I said the letters piqued my interest. Looking back on the whole lot of us from so long ago, two things come to mind. The first is I did a huge injustice to Susan and I’d like to fix that.”

“Mr. Greene, you’re a married man.”

“And happily so son, no, nothing like that. It’s just I have more than I’ll ever need. So, I’d like to do what I can to improve Susan’s situation.”

“What will your wife think?”

“She will think I’m a compassionate person, I hope. That’s providing I ever tell her.” He smiled and winked. “Over fifty years of marriage has taught me we don’t always have to share everything.” He slapped Tony on the back. “Also, I think you might want to look closer to home.”

“In my family?”

“Could be, like I said, the Irish and the Italians were like oil and water back then. Here comes your lass now, son. I’ll be interested to know how the two of you mix in the end.”

“Mr. Greene!” Annie smiled and shook his hand. “It’s nice to see you. I wanted to apologize about the other day. I was rude.”

“I should have looked out a bit more for Susan. I was just telling your young man here I plan to fix that.”

“Oh, well, that’s nice.” Annie smiled broadly.

“I’m not going to interrupt your evening any further. Goodnight.”

Tony watched Annie’s expression of complete elation while Mr. Greene walked away. “Do you see that? We made a difference already and we haven’t even found our couple.”

Their meals arrived, and they ate in silence. Tony wanted to apologize for upsetting her, but realized she preferred to pretend it never happened.

“What’s he going to do for Susan?”

“I got the impression he’s going to help her a bit financially.”

“That’s wonderful. Isn’t it? See, we did that. If we never opened that book, and read those letters, then that never would have happened.”

“True.”

“So, about our letters, can we ask your grandparents? It’s their era.”

Tony had braced himself for this ever since she mentioned it back in the bookstore. It was a road he did not want to go down. In fact, as strongly as she did not want to talk about her parents, he did not want to ask his grandparents about these letters. Since her first mention of it, something niggled in the back of his mind, a possible match to the story in his family history. It nagged at him, confirming the past was better left dead and buried. They were all happy today, so what did it matter if they had loved and lost over fifty years ago?

“They’re all out of town at the moment.”

“Can you could call them and ask?”

“No.”

“Tony!”

“What? Annie, we’ve taken these letters as far as they can go. Can’t we just be happy Susan Shaunessy’s life is going to improve and move on?”

“No! We need to see this through.”

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

“Tony, nothing has changed. The letters came to us for a reason. We are meant to find this couple.”

“How is it you’re so determined to uncover the past for people you’ve never met, but any time I mention your parents you run to the bathroom?”

Annie’s gaze locked on his and they froze. He waited, hoping she’d relent. Instead she very carefully set down her knife and fork. “And you think I’m stubborn.” She rose, lips pursed, dropped her napkin on her chair. “Thank you for dinner. We probably should have just gone back to my place.”

Her words sliced through him. For the first time he wanted more with a woman than casual sex, and now he blew it. “You don’t mean that.”

She cocked her head to the side and shook it then walked out.

He threw more money than necessary to cover the bill and a generous tip down on the table and followed her out. She was already climbing the exterior steps leading to her apartment by the time he reached the street.

“Annie!” he called then ran across the street. His chest that had grown tight when she left the restaurant eased when she stopped by her apartment door. He expected her to ignore him and disappear quickly inside. “Annie, I’m sorry,” he said when he caught up to her.

“Sorry for what? Sorry you chose to take me out to dinner? Sorry you acted perfectly normal, and nice, and wonderful while I confirmed I’m complete lunatic mess?”

“Well, if you put it that way—” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

“I’m serious, Tony.”

“So am I. I’m serious about where this could go.” He motioned between them.

His words stilled her, and he reached out for her hands. “If you want me to back off about your parents, I will, okay? No more questions about them for now. But eventually, you’re going to have to talk about it. Not because I’m nosy, and not because I’m going to judge you, but because I care and I want to know you.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. This didn’t turn out the way we planned. I’d like you to come up, but I’m afraid if you do, it might not be for the right reasons now.”

“I still want you for the same reasons I did back in the shop, and last night in your apartment, and if I’m being honest about six other times before. That hasn’t changed. But I understand, so I’ll just kiss you goodnight.”

He framed her face with his big hands and kissed her, needing to back up his words with actions. Wanting things to go somewhere real with Annie put him on unfamiliar ground. The kiss, sweet and passionate, just like her, touched him in a place dangerously close to the heart he’d kept guarded for so long. She kissed the way she attacked most things in life, with enthusiasm and purpose. He could not wait for the time when she unleashed all that energy and enthusiasm on him in bed. He ended the kiss chastely and rested his cheek against hers. When they made love for the first time, he wanted her to know he wasn’t consoling her. When they came together, he wanted it to be about them alone.

“My mother is expecting you tomorrow at one.” He whispered the reminder.

She looked up at him with big, sad solemn eyes. Removing that sadness, or at least understanding it, would have to wait for another day.

“I’m looking forward to it. Will you have trouble sleeping tonight?”

“You know I will. I might have to catch up on my reading.”

“Good night, Mr. Knightly.”

“Good night, Emma.”