Annie's Neighborhood (Harlequin Heartwarming) (23 page)

Nodding, Davena agreed. “I heard from Margie Dumas, the night dispatcher, that the chief and Koot Talmage were called as expert witnesses for a couple of the gang members’ trials. Oh, she said it’s all hush-hush, ’cause those dudes got off before. This time they’re going down. Nina said the moms who were losing their kids to the Stingers say the big leaders are pulling out altogether. The cops will get the credit, but we know it’s all due to you, Annie.”

Annie shrugged off the compliment. “So, you think the gang’s really over?” She felt almost giddy with relief. “Sky and his force do deserve credit, Davena. Koot could’ve retired, and Sky could’ve gone to another job, leaving our neighborhood to the Stingers. They didn’t.”

“You’re too modest,” Davena said. “Deshawn told me how you stuck up for him when the chief would have charged him with a crime. Just the prospect of the teen center freed Chantal and her friends. I know you had a sign made to name it the Ida Vance Teen Center, but all the kids refer to it as Annie’s Place. And they call Briar Run Annie’s Neighborhood. We all do,” she added.

“If your grandmother’s looking down, she’d second that,” Peggy said.

Annie held up a hand. “It’s my neighborhood. I have a long way to go before it’ll meet
my
approval. Once the factory reopens I’ll lose my paint crew, so we need to paint faster. And tomorrow, whether or not Sky puts in an appearance, we’ll start painting his house.”

Chapter Fourteen

T
HEY
WERE
ALMOST
set up to begin painting when Sky drove in, again with Zack. Sky carried a pink potted rose in full bloom. He walked straight up and presented it to Annie. “Zack helped me pick it out. It’s called Bella Rosa, beautiful rose. That’s how Zack and I see you, Annie.” Leaning over the plant, he kissed her. “Sorry I’ve been AWOL, but I have news. The guys who shot out your window and one who slashed your tires are heading off to Kentucky State Penitentiary. And for all intents and purposes, the Stingers have folded.”

“So I heard through the gossip mill. Is this rose for my house or yours?” Annie asked.

“Mine’s still listed to sell. My Realtor has had some interest in it, I’m told. From an Argentine cowhide broker Aaron’s apparently working with.”

Annie gave a start. “So, you’re still moving to a safer town?”

Sky looked confused. “This town
is
safe now. And, uh, don’t we have a...sort of understanding? I bought the rosebush for the park. For a garden like the one you said your grandmother tended.”

“Oh, Sky, you make it hard to be mad at you.” Annie inhaled the sweet scent, and everyone standing around relaxed. “Thanks. And, Zack, this is a wonderful gift.”

“We love you, Annie,” Zack piped up. “I brung my cover-up. Can I paint now?”

Annie smiled. “Would you like to paint the siding gold, or paint the porch railing blue?” she asked the boy.

“What’s siding?”

“Those are the long boards on the house itself,” Sky said as he helped Zack on with his painter’s apron. “We’ll do siding,” he told Annie.

She set the rosebush in some shade, and returned to hear Zack say, “I wanna go up a ladder to paint like Annie.”

In unison Annie and Sky said, “No!” Sky added, “Ladders are for adults only.”

Leaving Sky to deal with his pouting child, Annie poured gold paint into a smaller cardboard carton, then set the main bucket beside it. She broke out new brushes and rollers and gave them to Sky. “Zack, you and your dad can paint next to each other, here at the front of the house. You do the low boards while your dad paints the higher ones, okay? It’ll be a huge help. When you use up all the paint in your bucket, your dad will give you more from his.”

“Okay.” Zachary took one brush from his dad. “Where are you going to paint, Annie?”

She hesitated. “Around the portholes.”

Zack and Sky both glanced up to the top of the house. Sky frowned, so Annie scuttled away and clipped her half-full can to a ring on her belt.

Davena’s friend Tanya Hall had rap blaring from an iPod as usual, giving the paint party a festive air. Annie climbed down once and moved her ladder to the right of a slightly shorter one on which Charlie Fitzgerald stood painting the midsection of the house. She noted that everyone was making good progress. A while later, Roger McBride announced that it was time for lunch. He loved to eat and always kept them on track for the noon meal.

“I don’t have much to finish up here, Roger,” Annie called. “I’ll go for burgers when I’m done. Call an order in to Loretta, will you?”

“Sure, but I’ll go pick it up.”

Annie shot him a thumbs-up. “I’ll pay you later.”

Roger left. Soon after that, Sky stood below Annie, squinting up at her. “There’s a multiple car crash at the intersection of Mary Rose and Lavender,” he shouted. “I’m closer than Teddy, who’d have to come from home. Koot needs help. Is it okay if Zack stays here and paints?”

Annie caught only some of what Sky said, but recognized the urgency in his voice. She nodded.

Watching Sky tear out in the cruiser, she hollered down to Rita Gonzales. “Rita, Sky’s son is painting on the other side of the porch. I’ll be done here in a jiffy. Keep an eye on him, will you?”

Rita, moving her body to the music, smiled and waved to Annie. The sun had shifted, and Annie saw two spots needing a second coat. She stretched as far as she could to touch up the areas. Feeling her ladder slip, she decided that what she’d done would suffice. As she stepped down a rung, her bucket caught and pulled her off balance. The ladder slid again. Standing completely still, she hailed the man below her on a shorter ladder. “Charlie, my bucket’s caught on my ladder. If I unclip it, can I pass it to you before I climb down?”

Not getting an answer, she twisted around to find him. Her blood chilled. Charlie had abandoned his ladder. Zack was climbing up, trying to hold on to his brush and the small cardboard bucket.

“Zack, honey, don’t climb any higher.” Annie strove to sound calm when she wasn’t. “Stay right there. I’ll come and meet you and we’ll climb down together.”

“I want to paint where Charlie stopped,” Zack said, and he crawled up two more rungs. Then he glanced down and must have seen how high off the ground he was. He started to cry.

She yanked on her stuck bucket, yelling now. “Someone! Anyone, please come help Zack.” No response. Had they all gone to meet Roger, who’d returned with lunch? No one came. Giving her bucket a sharp wrench to free it, Annie felt her ladder give way, too. She crashed into Zack’s and both of them and their ladders plummeted to the ground.

Annie couldn’t stop her scream as she hurtled downward. Amid raining gold paint, she felt her leg slam against one of the cement porch steps. Her ankle took the brunt of the blow. Untangling herself from the ladder, needing to reach Zack, who lay there motionless, she saw others finally running toward them. “Call Sky,” she panted. “Don’t move Zack. Call an ambulance, or paramedics.” Forgetting her injury, she scrambled toward Zack. Excruciating pain shot up her leg and the scene around her turned gray, then black.

When she came to, a paramedic she vaguely recalled from the night Sadie was shot was taking her pulse. “Zack,” she said feebly. “How is Zack?”

Sky whirled around, his face dark with fury. “He probably has a concussion, or maybe a skull fracture,” he shouted. “What were you thinking, Annie, letting him climb that ladder? I trusted you. I trusted you with my son. And you...and you...” He didn’t finish his sentence, because a medic said that if he didn’t hop aboard the aid car they’d go to the hospital without him.

The man working on Annie moved her foot a fraction, and her view of people hovering around got lost in a fog of pain. She had no idea how much time had passed when she surfaced again. Her sight remained fuzzy, but she was cognizant enough by then to realize she was in an aid car. A man spoke into her ear. “The E.R. doc said I could administer something for the pain, Ms. Emerson, but I need to know if you’re allergic to anything.”

Annie licked her lips. “Is Zachary all right?”

“It’s you I’m worried about. You’re gritting your teeth. I can alleviate your pain.”

“I don’t want anything. Is my ankle broken?”

“They’ll x-ray it at the hospital,” he said.

“It was a stupid, senseless accident.”

“Most are,” he murmured, taking her pulse again. “Let’s look in your eyes. Did you hit your head?”

“No, only my leg.”

The driver had pulled under the hospital portico and someone flung open the back doors. The paramedics couldn’t help jarring her as they slid the gurney out and that had her fading again. She kept trying to find out about Zack, but the doctor prodded and poked her ankle and ordered her sent to X-ray. It was when the transporters left her alone in a hallway outside the X-ray room that she had another encounter she could have done without.

Sky’s ex-wife burst out of a door marked Stairway. Spotting Annie, she shrieked, “You!” Annie was sure she said it with all the drama possible. “You ruined our vacation by letting my son fall off a ladder! It’s your fault! You should have never let him climb it.”

“How is Zack?” Annie’s mouth felt dry and her tongue thick.

“You should ask! At least now Sky sees how irresponsible you are. He’ll never let you near our son again.” The blonde looked around. “There are no coffee machines here. I obviously exited on the wrong floor.” She yanked open the same door and let it bang shut behind her. Even Annie’s pain couldn’t carry her away from self-recrimination. The accident
was
her fault. And it was her own fault that she’d lost something so right and good. Slowly, over time, love for Sky and Zack had sneaked into her heart. They were the family she wanted, but now could never have. Gran Ida used to say all things happened for a reason. It was true, or else why had Sky’s ex stepped out on the wrong floor? Life all came down to fate.

When a tech came to wheel her into X-ray, Annie knew what she had to do.

* * *

H
ER
ANKLE
WASN
’
T
broken, it turned out, but she had torn ligaments. “I’m going to truss you up almost as if it was a break,” the doctor said. “It’s a serious injury, Ms. Emerson. Don’t bear weight on it for at least two weeks. If you don’t have crutches, get a pair. No driving. I want you on pain meds.”

“Please, before I go, will someone tell me how Zack Cordova is? A ladder I was on slipped and I caused him to fall several feet to the ground.”

The doctor murmured a few noncommittal words as he breezed out of the room, but a nurse took pity on Annie. “I shouldn’t share information about one patient with another, but you’ve been asking about him since you came in. Kids are resilient. He didn’t break anything. He has a bruise on his head and a slight concussion. No skull fracture. I know you asked about that.”

Annie felt only slightly relieved. Zack shouldn’t have been on that ladder. And here she faced another dilemma. She wasn’t sure how she’d get home. She could take a cab or call someone.... Weighing her options, she phoned Sadie Talmage. “Sadie...it’s Annie. You heard about the accident at Sky’s house? I’m in the E.R. I have a huge favor to ask. I need crutches and a ride home. You can say no if helping me will cause a rift between Koot and Sky.”

“Why would it?”

“Sky is furious with me and he has every right. I failed to watch out for Zack.”

“Don’t you be fretting, Annie. Even carefully watched kids get hurt. With three of my own who all played sports, we have adjustable crutches. I’m at the teen center, but I’ll have my daughter bring a set to the hospital. You hang tough, I’ll be there ASAP.”

And she was, or so it seemed to Annie, who’d been given a shot that made her drift in and out of sleep.

“Well, you don’t look like you’ll be swinging from ladders any time soon,” Sadie said cheerfully after she’d adjusted the crutches and had Annie test them.

“No, and maybe never again. Oh, Sadie, I ruined everything with Sky.”

“He’ll get over it. He hasn’t had Zack often enough to know that curious boys can find trouble even if you’re standing right next to them.”

As they exited the hospital, Annie was glad Sadie had left her car in the patient loading zone. Using crutches wasn’t easy.

Sadie helped Annie in, then pulled onto the street. “You’re going to have to direct all of your projects from home for a while. One of the men can haul the paint and supplies. You’ve done enough business at the hardware store in Louisville that they should allow you a revolving account.”

“If Sky and his ex don’t sue me over this and wipe out Gran’s fund, I’m going to hire Peggy Gilroy to oversee the painting. Aaron is heading up the factory co-op. You’re handling the teen center, so everything’s under control. I’m...going back to California, Sadie.”

“What?” Sadie nearly ran off the road.

Annie nodded tiredly. “Sky accused me of not being trustworthy when he counted on me to watch Zack. It’s true. I pressured myself to do more, faster. I hurt people I love. Your injury, Zack’s, mine―it all proves that I’m a social worker, not a miracle worker. I let my plans get out of hand.”

“No, you didn’t. Like I said, Sky will get over it. He knows Briar Run is coming back to life because of you. And the Stingers left because of you.”

“Sky’s son is the most important thing in the world to him, which is as it should be. Through my negligence he could have lost Zack. Nothing is worth that.”

“Sky bears some of the blame. Koot could have waited for Teddy.”

Annie wasn’t listening. Her mind was made up.

* * *

A
LITTLE
OVER
a week after the incident, Sky called Koot into his office as soon as his lieutenant walked in. “Trouble?” Koot asked.

“What? Oh, no. Can you cover my shift tomorrow? Zack’s been at their vacation cabin all week. He’s scheduled for another X-ray tomorrow. Corrine’s in a bind and can’t bring him to town. Archibald took a horse to Sarasota to race, and Corrine forgot that his daughters promised their friends a sleepover at the cabin. She asked if I could pick Zack up tonight and take him for his X-ray tomorrow. She’ll meet me at the farm in the evening when she brings the girls back. I so seldom get Zack overnight I jumped at the chance. Uh...things are going better with Corrine.”

“I’ll cover for you if you don’t tell Sadie. She and half the town are mad at you for the way you’re treating Annie.”

“Annie let me down. Zack paid the price for her obsession with all of her renovations,” Sky said stubbornly.

“It was an accident, bro. Annie was hurt, too. Should Charlie have laid his ladder down when he stopped painting? Yeah. Should Rita have quit bebopping to Jay-Z and listened to Annie, who asked her to watch Zack for a minute? Double yeah. But it’s not Annie’s fault her paint bucket got caught, or her ladder fell against the one you both told Zack not to climb.”

“I don’t need lectures from you,
bro
. Annie’s injury hasn’t slowed her down. She’s still going on with all her pet projects. So, can you cover for me or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll cover. Sadie and I thought you two were falling in love. We thought you’d both met your soul mates.”

“I thought so, too,” Sky said, glancing away. “Annie didn’t care enough about us.”

That ended the men’s conversation, but Sky worried about a rift developing between him and Koot, and between him and Annie’s supporters. With a sale now pending on his house, he wondered again about leaving Briar Run. It was a shock to realize he didn’t want to go. But did anyone want him to stay? Everyone had sided with Annie—and darn it all, no one else knew how much he missed her.