Strawman's Hammock Read Online Free PDF

or chance that outsiders found charming. The students, at first, simply performed during breaks from work, when the tables were bussed and the customers tended. Sometimes Laura Anne would join in. Only in recent months had something like scheduled performances taken its place on the menu beside mullet and red fish and the catch of the day. The musicians on these occasions did not wear aprons.
    Ramona’s was by now a resting place for professional instrumentalists. Concert pianists, lured by a helping of snapper and hush puppies, would consent after eating to provide an apertif of Rachmaninoff or Debussy. The restaurant once solely known for its excellent cuisine and service began to be lauded as a watering hole for a whole variety of performers, who passed the word, “If you’re ever in Florida…”
    Customers came from miles around to sample the food and to enjoy concertos beside the water. But they came back because of Laura Anne herself, to see the tall, athletic figure, the raven hair caught in its copper comb, the golden skin of a remarkable woman who served swamp cabbage and Mozart with equal alacrity.
    She was—a smile eased Barrett Raines’s tired and preoccupied face—the most beautiful and accomplished wife a man could ever hope to have.
    Bear was waiting just inside the restaurant’s front entrance, a foyer linked to a door salvaged on one of Ramona’s saltwater adventures. WAIT TO BE SEATED —that directive was embossed on a laminated sign wired with Twist-Ems to a copper chain and anchored into a pulpit. Barrett waited patiently. He did not exempt himself from Laura Anne’s discipline. One of the employees was having fun at the piano. Show tunes. Bear thought he recognized something from Chorus Line. In a little less than ten minutes he faced a hostess over the pulpit.
    A young woman. Newcomer.
    â€œBe one this evening, sir?”
    â€œI’m hoping two.” What Barrett intended as a humorous rejoinder came out sharp.
    The hostess winced.
    â€œWould that be a table, sir? Or would you prefer to wait at the bar?”
    â€œSorry. Bar’ll be fine. Can you get Laura Anne a message for me?”
    â€œMs. Raines is in the kitchen, sir. It might be a while.”
    â€œNo hurry. Just tell her Bear’s here.”
    â€œâ€˜Bear,’ sir?” She seemed alarmed now.
    â€œIt’s all right,” Barrett reassured the new employee with a smile. “She knows me.”
    *   *   *
    A few minutes later Laura Anne Raines joined her husband sans apron at a table near the bar.
    â€œWord has it you’re a little uptight.”
    â€œSorry. Didn’t sleep well.”
    â€œAh. The wearies?”
    He nodded.
    â€œBaby. You never liked camping.”
    She kissed him lightly. The spices she used to conjure her kitchen wonders lingered on her skin, in her hair. The smell.
    â€œMmmm. Makes a man hungry.”
    â€œTry the snapper.”
    â€œWasn’t thinking on food.”
    â€œYou bad boy.” She nudged her bare foot against the instep of his shoe.
    â€œWhen you getting home?” he asked.
    â€œOh, Bear, it won’t be ’til late.”
    â€œThelma with the boys?”
    â€œMmmhmm.”
    Thelma was related to Laura Anne. An aunt by marriage, childless. She had become indispensable. Laura Anne had tried, at first, when Bear was assigned in Tallahassee, to go it alone, juggling the twins and the restaurant by herself. School days she generally tried to take a break from three to five, to pick up the boys, get Ben and Tyndall settled with homework and good habits. But a restaurant, as anyone who’s run one knows, is damn near a day-long job. Laura Anne had to rush every morning to get her ten-year-olds off to school and still make it to “the store” in time to prepare lunch. A dash from work to pick up the boys at three, then back again by four to deal with everything from cranky