Anna Meets Her Match Read Free Page A

Dennis will think I’m goofing off.”
    Hypatia stood, a study in dignity and grace. She smiled warmly at Anna Miranda. Reeves stepped away, taking up a spot in front of the plastered fireplace on the far wall where even now a modern gas jet sponsored a cheery, warming flame.
    “I’ll see you out,” Hypatia said to Anna, and they moved toward the foyer. “Thank you for coming by. The college press is just too busy to accommodate us this year.”
    “Well, their loss is our gain,” Anna replied cheerfully. “I should have some estimates for you soon. Say, have you thought about creating a logo design for the fund-raiser? I could come up with something unique for it.”
    “What a lovely idea,” Hypatia said, nodding as they strolled side by side toward the front door. “I’ll discuss that with my sisters.”
    “Great.”
    Anna picked up her coat from the long, narrow, marble-topped table occupying one wall of the opulent foyer and shrugged into it. She glanced back toward the parlor and caught sight of Reeves. Frowning thoughtfully, he seemed very alone in that moment. Instantly Anna regretted that crack about women abandoning him.
    As usual, she’d spoken without thinking, purely from pique because he’d so effectively ignored her to that point. It was as if they were teenagers again, so when he’d made that remark about the nanny walking out, Anna had put that together with what she’d heard about his ex simply hopping onto the back of a motorcycle and splitting town with her boyfriend. Now Anna wished she hadn’t thrown that up to him. Now that the harm was done.
     

    Reeves leaned a shoulder against the mantle, watching as Hypatia waved farewell to Anna Miranda. He didn’t like what was happening here, didn’t trust Anna Miranda to give this matter the attention and importance that it deserved. Infact, he wouldn’t put it past her to turn this into some huge joke at his aunts’ expense. He still smarted inwardly from that opening salvo, but while she could make cracks about him all she wanted, he would not put up with her wielding her malicious sense of humor against his beloved aunties. He decided to stop in at the print shop and have a private chat with her.
    “Lovely. Just lovely,” Odelia said from the settee, snagging his attention. “What color is it, do you think?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Antique gold. Yes, that’s it. Antique gold.” She made a swirling motion around her plump face with the lace hanky. “I wish I could wear mine that short.”
    Reeves felt at a loss, but then he often did with Auntie Od. Adding Anna Miranda to the mix hadn’t helped. He walked toward the settee. “What about antique gold?”
    The hanky swirled again. “Anna Miranda’s hair. Wouldn’t you say that perfectly describes the color of Anna Miranda’s hair?”
    Antique gold. Yes, he supposed that did describe the color of Anna Miranda’s short, lustrous hair. It used to be lighter, he recalled, the brassy color of newly minted gold. She’d worn it cropped at chin length as a girl. Now it seemed darker, richer, as if burnished with age, and the style seemed at once wistful and sophisticated.
    Unfortunately, while she’d changed on the outside—in some rather interesting ways, he admitted—she appeared not to have done so on the inside. She seemed to be the same cheeky brat who had tried to make his life one long joke. Reeves’s thoughtful gaze went back to the foyer door, through which Hypatia returned just that instant.
    “She’s so very lovely,” Odelia prattled on, “and such a sweet girl, too, no matter what Tansy says.”
    “Tansy would do better to say less all around, I think,” Hypatia remarked, “but then we are not to judge.” Shelowered herself into her chair once more and smiled up at Reeves. “Honeybees,” she said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
    He shrugged. “According to the bee handler, we humans and the true killer bees coming up from the south are