Sugarplum Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

looking for me. For years.” Finally there was a prick of tears. “Max, that’s not true.”
    Max squeezed her hands. “It could be true, Annie.”
    â€œNo. You remember how you found me?” She looked into dark blue eyes that softened as he smiled.
    It was a favorite memory. She and Max had met in New York when he was involved in off-Broadway plays and Annie was an aspiring young actress fresh from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. They’d looked at each other across a crowded room and when their eyes met nothing was ever the same for either of them.
    Except Max was rich. Annie was poor.
    Max had lived in big houses all over the world. Annie had grown up in a shabby bungalow in Amarillo.
    Max dabbled. Annie flung herself wholly into any enterprise.
    Max delighted in ambiguities and prized the unexpected. Annie insisted upon order and effort.
    Max took almost nothing seriously. Annie took everything very seriously.
    Max proposed the second time he saw her. Annie left town.
    She did have a reason: her Uncle Ambrose Bailey’s unexpected death. But she left no forwarding address.
    â€œIt didn’t take you any time at all.” Annie pulled her hands free, gestured energetically. “You called SMU, got the name of one of my roommates, phoned her and, presto, you came to the island.”
    â€œI knew you’d gone to SMU,” he said mildly.
    â€œHe could have figured it out. Anybody can find anybody with the Internet. The point is”—now her gray eyes were deep pools of resistance—“he didn’t try. He didn’t really try.”
    Max sprawled back against the soft cushion, folded his arms behind his head. “He came to the store today.” Her husband looked at her gravely.
    She sat up stiffly. “So I should jump up and down and shout with joy?”
    Max gazed up at the ceiling. “You lost your mom.” He was silent for a moment and the office was so quiet she could hear the dull boom of the foghorn out in the harbor, a sad, forlorn, lost sound. His blue eyes swung down to meet her gaze. “You’ve been all alone. Maybe you ought to give him a chance.” Then he said quietly, “My dad was too busy working to have any time for me, too busy making more money when he had so much he could have used stacks of it for firewood. Then he died.”
    Max’s father would never walk into this office.
    Annie folded her arms. “He could have found me if he’d tried.” She was past the shock now, but resentment lodged deep inside, hard as granite. She pushed up from the couch. “I’m okay. But he’s twenty-five years too late, Max.”
    Max rose, too. When he started to speak, she reached up, touched his lips. “And we have plenty to do. With Christmas and everything.”
    Christmas, a time for families. She pushed away the thought. She wasn’t a sucker for sentimentality. Families…She clapped a hand to her head. “Max, listen, I had a phone call. Your mom…”
    Â 
    Laurel walked across the dance floor toward them. Annie couldn’t help observing her mother-in-law more carefully than usual. Annie turned toward her husband, looking from Laurel to her son. What an incredible resemblance: the same golden hair, the same handsome features (or lovely, as sex decreed), the same eyes—No, dammit, Max’s eyes might, on occasion, gleam with eagerness, soften with tenderness, dance with glee, tease with amusement, but they were never spacey.
    As for Laurel, no one, not even Max, could deny that tonight Laurel was at her spaciest. Spacey and lovely, her golden hair curled softly around her patrician face. Laurel lifted a beautifully manicured hand, the coral polish an exact match for lips now curved in a sweet (otherworldly?) smile.
    Annie shot another look at Max, then wished she hadn’t. Now was not the time to be reminded of how much Max looked like his mother.