"Don't you hi, Dad me," he said, hot on her trail. "Do you have any idea the number of phone calls I've gotten today? And it's only the middle of the afternoon."
"I'm twenty-five years old. I shouldn't have to explain my actions to the whole town or be under their scrutiny twenty-four hours a day."
"That's the price you pay when you live in a small town. You know this, so why would you deliberately do something to cause such a ruckus?"
"I didn't do anything. It was all Dylan's fault. He pushed me into the bathroom. I couldn't stop him."
"What are you talking about? What bathroom?" Jack asked, confused.
"Well, what are you talking about?" Anna asked, wishing she could drop off the planet. Surely someone had called to tell him about the bathroom incident. She kept her fingers crossed about Walgreens.
"I'm talking about fifty people calling me wanting to know if I knew you were back in town. They said you came rolling into town like you didn't have a care in the world. Not that you let me know of your comings and goings. And Mrs. Edgars wanted to know why you felt like you didn't have to obey traffic laws."
"I obeyed all traffic laws, dad. Mrs. Edgars is a hundred and forty years old. She couldn't see a stop sign if it was five feet in front of her."
He nodded his head in partial agreement. Anna noticed the look on his face hadn't changed, but when she examined it closer, she realized it wasn't anger that cause the lines to furrow his brow. It was sadness, and worse, disappointment.
"I'm sorry, Dad. I should have called to let you know when I was getting back into town. I didn't mean to make you worry," she said, pulling him into a hug. "I probably should have given you more detail as to why I was leaving as well, but I didn't think I could explain it at the time without breaking down. I just needed to leave town."
"Was it because of Dylan?" he asked, concerned.
"Yes, but I think I have everything under control now."
"What did he do?" Jack demanded. "I'll take the hide off that boy if he's done anything to hurt you. I told him before he even asked you out to make sure he took care of you."
"What?"
Jack realized his blunder too late. "Umm. . .It's not what it seems Anna. I was just worried about you being cooped up in the house all the time. I wanted you to be happy, to find a man you could settle down with and raise a family."
"You set this all up?" she asked, mortified. "I'll never be able to face him again. He must think I'm the most desperate woman in the world to have my father set up my dates for me."
"It's not like that Anna. Settle down. Dylan asked about you first. It was after he mentioned you that I started to get the idea in my head. Lord knows the both of you are attracted to each other. I watched you circle around it for months before either of you made a move."
Anna closed her eyes in embarrassment. Apparently she hadn't hidden her lustful gazes well enough for her father not to notice. "Why didn't he tell me?" she asked.
"Why would he?" Jack countered. "It's not as big of a deal as you're making it out to be. You like him, he likes you, end of story."
"It's not like it matters anyway," she said. "I hate to disappoint you, but my relationship with Dylan is nothing more than superficial. I never want to get married or have a family."
Anna blanched at the thought that she might be carrying Dylan's child even as she spoke the denial to her father, and the feeling didn't scare her as much as it should have. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she adjusted to the idea, but she squashed the feeling before she could become too comfortable.
"How could you even want that for me after what you went through when mom died?"
"What nonsense. You're telling me you'd give up a lifetime of happiness with a man you loved and the joy of having children because you're afraid. That doesn't sound like the Anna Hollis I know."
"Well it's the only Anna Hollis there is, and I never said I loved him."
"Let me tell you something young lady. That is a foolish notion and hopefully you'll come to your senses soon. I wouldn't trade one moment of the time I got to spend with your mother. Even if I'd known our time together was going to be short I'd have married her anyway and cherished our time as much as I still do. You make your own happiness, Anna, and live the hand life deals you." He casually brushed the tears off his cheek with a shaky hand.
"I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to make you sad. I'm just scared. I don't think I could bear to lose someone I loved that much. I don't think I'm as strong as you are."
"Nonsense. You have Hollis blood in you veins, don't you? Just think about what I said. I know you'll make the right decision when the time comes. Now what's this about a bathroom incident?"
Anna blushed at the thought of what he was bound to find out at any moment. "I think I'll plead the Fifth on this one and let you find out from your next caller. I don't think I can handle any more embarrassing situations today."
"Well that sounds promising. I think I'll go wait next to the phone just in case. Is there anything else you need to tell me about?"
"No," Anna winced at the lie. Somehow parents always knew when their kids were hiding things from them.
Anna gave him a backwards wave and headed upstairs to get ready for an evening with Dylan. Not just a hot night of sex, though hopefully that would be included, but an actual date where they could sit face to face and see if they had anything in common besides a sizzling attraction. Talk about scary. What if they sat in complete silence the entire meal and just stared at each other?
"Well, there's only one way to find out," she said to herself. She pulled a dress out of the closet and ran her bathwater, sprinkling in the scented sea salts Mel had given her for her birthday. The lilac aroma rose fragrantly in a cloud of steam as she stepped into the hot water.
She looked at the little white box in front of her. "Well it's now or never," she said, pulling the test out of the box.
The directions said she had to wait three minutes before accurate results would be displayed, so she laid the test on the counter and hopped in the tub, so she wouldn't be biting her fingernails for the next three minutes.
Anna leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting her muscles relax from the long car ride.
And then the phone rang. . .and rang. . .and rang.
"Dammit. Can't I have five minutes of peace and quiet?" she yelled to no one in particular.
It could only be a select few who were calling. She only gave her number to close friends or family. It would just have to wait, whatever it was.
The mood broken, she bathed quickly and stepped out of the tub. She closed her eyes and picked up the test and then cracked one eye to see what the results were.
"Oh." Relief and a little disappointment coursed through her as she saw the negative sign in the box. It wasn't meant to be.
She wrapped herself in a thick towel, looking frantically at the clock as she began pulling undergarments out of drawers. It was later than she'd thought. Dylan would be there before she knew it.
She did a light makeup job, since it was so warm outside, and highlighted her eyes with a touch of shadow. She dusted her face and shoulders with a shimmery powder and pulled her hair up in a high pony tail on her head to keep the thick mass off the back of her neck. Summer was just around the corner, and with the hot spring days they'd been having, she couldn't imagine what the heat in the summer was going to be like.
The stockings she had laid out on the bed already looked suffocating, so she chose to go without them for the evening. She didn't need them, her legs being one of her best features, long, tanned and smooth. It's not like they would stay on long anyway.
Anna winced as she heard the phone warble from inside her purse once again. "Fine, I'm coming. I'm coming," she said, throwing her hands up in the air and hurrying over to the front entry table in her suite, only wearing her underwear and high heels.
Her heel snagged the carpet runner in the foyer and she went sprawling in a heap on the floor. She barely managed to get her fingers around her purse when she crash landed, and her phone ended up falling on her forehead to add insult to injury.
"Holy cow." She tried to get her breath back and thanked God that no one had been around to see her make a fool of herself. She felt all her extremities to make sure nothing was hurt, other than her pride, and picked up her phone since it continued to play Hungarian Rhapsody in shrill tones.