Authors: Gwynne Forster
Her left hand moved toward him, and he thought she would reach for his hand or, at least, touch it. But she almost snatched it back, and he realized that what he’d thought was insecurity could well be an uncertainty as to how to relate to him.
“Velma, I find that it never pays to try to figure out a person.”
“You think I’m trying to figure you out?”
“Aren’t you? You wanted to touch my hand, maybe even hold it to show the sympathetic understanding that you felt, but you weren’t certain how I’d react and you withdrew.”
“What would you have done, Russ, if I’d held your hand?”
“How many times tonight did I take your hand? Did I ask permission?”
Her eyes sparkled like a dozen night stars, and her face bloomed into a smile. “Russ, what you’re saying is like dangling money and jewels in front of a thief.”
He glanced at his watch, poured the remainder of the ginger ale into their glasses and took a sip. “Not quite. It means take a chance. Show me who you are, and I’ll reciprocate.”
“But not necessarily in a way that I’d like.”
He drained the glass. “True. But you have one thing going for you. We Harrington men respect women. Now, if we don’t get out of here, that busboy will know you handed him a line.”
“Right.”
When they stood to leave, the busboy appeared with a tray, cleared the table and let a grin take over his face. “Congratulations again, sir. This made my day.”
“You’ve been very kind,” Russ said. He wanted to get out of there before he folded up in another laughing fit. As they walked toward the door, the other diners applauded, and he could feel his lower lip drop when Velma waved and blew kisses to the people.
Deciding to play along, he slipped an arm around Velma’s waist, and while he didn’t succeed in keeping the grin off his face, he was able to resist howling with laugher until they got into the car.
“I never had so much fun in my life,” she said. “My sister wouldn’t dream of doing anything like that.” She shifted her position until she sat with her back partly against the door. “Wasn’t that fun?”
“Probably. I’ve never been tempted to do anything like that. I don’t know which cracked me up more, your arriving at the table with the busboy or blowing kisses at your fans.” He ignited the engine and headed for the highway. “Velma, you’re full of surprises. I had a very different picture of you, and I’m glad you agreed to come with me.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Neither Henry, my brothers, nor Alexis
would believe I’d participate in any harebrained thing like that.”
“Are you ashamed that we did it?”
“Who, me? No, indeed. I don’t know when I’ve had so much fun.”
“I’m glad, Russ. I’d like us to be friends.”
He came within a breath of asking her what kind of friends, and he was glad he corrected himself before the words slipped out. He finessed a response. “Why shouldn’t we be?”
When she didn’t answer his question, he considered it another point in her favor; she wouldn’t gainsay something was important to her. She stifled a yawn.
“Sleepy?” he asked her.
“Terribly. I was so keyed up when I went to bed that I was still awake at four-thirty this morning.”
“I won’t feel badly if you sleep.”
“But I will. If you talk, I’ll stay awake. What was it like being the middle of three boys when you were growing up?”
“Now that’s a topic for a cold night. Growing up and being an adult…it’s all the same. Telford and Drake are closest, because Telford was protective of Drake. So was I, for that matter. That left me to my own devices, and I used it to my advantage. Strange thing is that Drake isn’t spoiled—he’s one hundred percent man.”
“What did you do on your own?” she asked with such sincerity that he knew her questions sprang from a genuine interest in him.
“I read the great philosophers, the leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Shakespeare, Richard Wright, newspapers, the funnies, whatever I got my hands on. And one day, I read about Frank Lloyd Wright. After that, I read everything about him that I could find.”
“So he was your idol and the reason you became an architect?”
“Partly. Telford’s the other reason. He had this dream of vindicating our father, and he talked about it so much that… Well, it fit with my passion for Wright’s work. Drake’s a born engineer. From childhood, he was always interested in how to make things work, and it is he and not Telford or I who fixes things around our home.”
“The three of you work well together. I assume Telford is the project manager.”
“Right. He negotiates contracts, purchases supplies, hires the workers and oversees them. He’s responsible for bringing the project in on time. He’s the boss, but we take a vote on everything important. If there’s disagreement, I always lose.”
He heard himself say it, and knew it was true, but it didn’t much bother him and never had. When he wanted to get his way, he knew how to do it.
Her reaction didn’t surprise him. “You don’t seem resentful. How’s that? I’d be after their heads all the time.”
He slowed down to take a curve on a poorly lighted section of the highway. “Sure I’ve resented it, but only at the moment and only about the issue in question. When I seriously want to have my way, both Telford and Drake yield. We care about each other, Velma, and neither of us is ever knowingly going to hurt the other.”
“All of you have strong, dominant personalities, what we call the alpha males. It’s a wonder you’re so close.”
“Henry’s the best leavening agent three young Turks ever had. Even before our father died, Henry was the adult we looked to, because Papa was rarely at home, always off working himself to death.”
He swallowed and ran the tip of his tongue over his lips,
surprised at his dry mouth. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked this much. We’re practically home, and I haven’t learned very much about you. What I got, though, was special.” He pulled into the circular driveway of Number Ten, John Brown Drive, stopped and cut the motor.
“Here we are, and I didn’t speed.” He wondered at her nonresponse. They entered the foyer, and after locking the door, he hung up their coats. “I’m going into the kitchen to get some juice. Want some?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“Thanks for making these last few hours so pleasant. You and your brothers have been fortunate, Russ. You didn’t have your parents, but you had peace and love. Alexis and I had our parents, but I think I’d be a happier person today if they had separated or put us in foster care.”
He could feel both of his eyebrows shoot up, and his eyes seemed twice their size. “Does Alexis feel this way, too?”
“Alexis is a Quaker. She thinks in terms of a peaceful, serene present and doesn’t worry about the past. Furthermore, I’m older than she is, and I understood better what I heard and saw. But let’s not end this lovely day talking about my parents.”
“Then we won’t.” He took her hand and walked with her into the kitchen. They drank the orange juice, and he remembered that they would ascend the stairs together to go to their separate rooms. From the expression on her face, he knew she had already thought of it, and that her nerves were on edge.
“Come on,” he said, deciding to make light of what was becoming an embarrassing situation. “We can be trusted to walk up those stairs together.”
“Speak for yourself.” When she glanced up at him, heat roared through his body. Blatant vulnerability spread across
her face. He wanted her. He’d wanted her all evening, from the minute she reached the altar. He reached out to gather her into his arms.
“I… Sorry. I shouldn’t have come with you. Good night.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t. Look here, Velma. You’re beautiful, intelligent and you’ve got a wonderful, outrageous sense of humor. Why are you—”
“Thanks for trying to prop up my ego. What happened to all that honesty everybody says you have?”
He stepped back. “Thanks for the reality check. From time to time I need those. Good night.”
He went into the den and dropped himself into the big overstuffed leather chair. In another second, he would have kissed her senseless. He didn’t remember ever enjoying a woman’s company so thoroughly. In the space of two hours, she taught him a lot about himself, and he liked all of it. But he wasn’t going to tie himself to a woman who didn’t know and appreciate her own assets.
V
elma strolled up the stairs as casually as if the pain she felt wasn’t eating a hole in her. He’d opened his arms and taken her into them, but he couldn’t lock her to him the way she wanted him to, needed him to. No matter what he said, he had to notice her size and the way her dress fitted. Alexis’s gown covered a work of art, but hers covered rolls of flesh, and he didn’t need 20/20 vision to see it.
“I’m sick of being miserable,” she said aloud, “and I’m tired of being embarrassed about the way my dresses fit. If I wear them loose, I look as if I’m middle-aged. If I wear them fitted…” She didn’t finish the thought. “I’m going on a diet.”
With that comfort, she made her ablutions and got into bed, but sleep evaded her. She heard every creak, the grandfather clock in the living room and the engine of an automobile in the distance, all the time aware that she waited for the sound of Russ’s footsteps on the stairs.
The next morning she awoke early, showered, dressed in a green paisley caftan and went downstairs.
“I thought you’d sleep half a day,” Henry said when she walked into the kitchen. “What you want for breakfast?”
“Whatever. Thanks. Where’s Tara?”
“Over at Grant Roundtree’s house. They’re inseparable.”
Velma picked up a grape and put it in her mouth. She didn’t want to ask Henry, but she knew he’d force her to do it, so she said, “Am I the first one down?”
Henry put a pan of biscuits in the oven, dusted his flour-filled hands on his apron and looked hard at her. “Since you asked, Russ ain’t ever the first one to come downstairs.” He ran his fingers through the few strands of hair remaining on his head and glared at her. “Today’s Sunday. If you’re not going to church, you don’t come down all dressed up. Go put on some jeans and a sweater.”
She sat down in one of the Moroccan chairs at the little kitchen table. “Henry, please don’t get on my case. I don’t own any jeans, because they don’t look right on me.”
“They will so. Whatever you’re trying to hide in that dress is all in your head. I saw you and Russ last night. He liked what he saw, but he ain’t gonna like that thing you got on.”
“Too bad. I don’t have anything else to put on. I’ll set the table.”
She’d hardly begun before she heard Drake’s voice. “Who’s here other than you and me, Henry?”
“Russ and Velma. Tara’s visiting her boyfriend.”
“This early? Weren’t they something to see yesterday? Great-looking kids. That was the best-looking wedding party I’ve seen. Did you see Velma in that dress? I could hardly believe my eyes. She ought to wear more dresses of that type.”
Velma stopped setting the table and leaned against the wall. Hadn’t Russ said the same thing about her dress? Maybe… She shook herself out of it. No more debates and personal recriminations, she was going to take hold of her life and
run it;
she’d had enough of taking what came. She pasted a smile on her face and returned to the kitchen.
“All finished, Henry. Hi, Drake. Do you realize my sister did not tell me where she was going?”
“Hi. You’re assuming she knew. She was told only to prepare for a warm climate,” Drake said.
“I’ll bet you know how to reach Telford in an emergency.”
“I don’t, but Russ does. Give him a secret and it’s safer than if you stored it in Fort Knox. Where is he?”
The quick rise and fall of her right shoulder gave him the answer, but not wanting to seem disinterested, she said, “I don’t know. When I went upstairs last night, he was headed for the den.” Drake’s whistle was barely audible, but she heard it and understood its meaning.
“I say let’s eat. Old sourpuss has been known to sleep till three o’clock.”
She turned to face him. “Oh, Drake. Is it nice to call him that awful name? Wouldn’t you think it makes him feel badly?”
Drake gazed hard at her. “I never thought of it that way—it’s always been a joke. I’m sorry.”
“’Morning. Is Henry on strike or something? Where’s the food?” Russ walked over to her. “I hope you slept well. Thanks for taking my part, but it gives Drake so much pleasure to call me old sourpuss that I wouldn’t deprive him of it.”
“How long were you standing there?”
“I walked in when Drake said, ‘Let’s eat.’” His gaze seemed to penetrate her. “I place a high value on loyalty.”
“Serve yourselves at the stove, and let’s eat in the breakfast room,” Henry said. “If we break one of Alexis’s rules, she’ll know it even if she’s not here.”
Velma began piling biscuits, sausage and grits on her plate as she usually did, and stopped. She kept the grits, put half a pat of butter on it instead of the usual three pats and got a bowl of mixed fruits from the kitchen counter.
“You not eating my biscuits?” Henry asked.
“I will, if I’m still hungry after I finish this.”
Russ eyed her with a frown on his face. “You feel okay?”
She assured him that she did, but she ate as slowly as she could hoping she wouldn’t be hungry when she finished. She concentrated on eating, dreading the moment when she would swallow that last spoonful of grits. “I may be hungry,” she told herself, “but I’ll be happy.”
“Ain’t nobody talking this morning?” Henry asked.
“I’m eating,” Drake said. “You knocked yourself out with these biscuits, Henry. I imagine Telford would put away half a dozen of ’em.”
That was the old man’s joy in life, Velma realized, when he smiled and passed the plate of biscuits to Russ. “You ain’t eating much, either. Alexis found some special flour, and it’s right good, if I do say so myself.”
When she glanced at Russ, her heart skittered in her chest. The expression on his face, open and—there was no other word for it—adoring as he gazed at her, shook her to the core. She tried to shift her glance, but his eyes, dark and slumberous, trapped her. From their silence, she realized that Henry and Drake watched them and, with effort, she lowered her gaze. But he had stirred her as thoroughly as a spinning bottle mixes what it contains.
She sought safety in the bowl of fruit before her, but the spoonful she intended for her mouth dropped onto her lap.
“Ex…cuse me, please.” She pushed back her chair and, forcing herself to walk rather than run as she wanted to do, headed for the stairs. Nobody was going to affect her that way with just a look, robbing her of her aplomb, of the control of her emotions. Nobody, she vowed. Her foot had barely touched the bottom stair when she felt his hand on her arm. She whirled around and into his arms.
“Russ. Please.” The feel of his hands through the silk of her caftan, of her breast beaded and aching against his hard chest caused her breathing to quicken.
He stared down at her. “Why didn’t you eat a decent breakfast?”
“That’s not why you’re here,” she said, refusing to allow him the upper hand and hating her shortened breath and the rapid rise and fall of her bosom.
“You’re right. It’s not. I’m here for the same reason that you bolted from the table.”
“I spilled food on my dress, and—”
“And we both know why. Did you wear it because I said I didn’t like it?”
“Of course not. I didn’t bring any other kind of clothes.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed furiously, his eyes—dark and long lashed—seemed to drag her into him, filling her head with dangerous ideas. If only he would ask no questions, but simply take her to his bed and love her until she couldn’t move!
As if he read her thoughts, pure sexual hunger blazed in the stormy orbs that his eyes had become. He held her closer.
“No matter what I want and how badly I want it, I keep my counsel.”
Anger diluted the desire that raged in her. “Sure. You want me on the terms that you decide. If you would kindly
communicate those terms to me, I’d tell you where you stand.”
“I know where I stand, and so do you.” As he continued to gaze at her, she could see a change in his demeanor, a softening in him. “Can’t you find some pants and a sweater? I thought we might go down to the warehouse. I need to check supplies.”
“On Sunday?”
“It’s the only day no one’s down there.”
“Sorry, but this is all I brought along. Don’t try to make me into what I’m not, Russ. I don’t look right in tight-fitting clothes, so I don’t wear them. Case closed.”
“Nonsense. You looked terrific in that dress you wore last night.”
“And you need glasses.”
The daggers from his gaze sent pain piercing through her. “That’s the second time in less than twenty-four hours that you told me I don’t know my own mind. See you.” His shoulder brushed her as he dashed past her up the stairs, and she heard his bedroom door close with a louder than usual or necessary bang.
The remainder of her breakfast forgotten, Velma leaned against the railing for a minute, thinking that if she hadn’t promised to look after Tara and if she didn’t want to investigate property in Baltimore, she’d go home.
“You could have him eating out of your hand. What’s wrong?”
Her head snapped up. “I don’t know, Drake. One minute, he’s wonderful. The next, I’ll say or do something that turns him off.”
He regarded her intently. “And that happened last night as well as a minute ago. Right?”
She nodded.
“Then figure out what it is, and don’t do it. He’s straight, Velma. I told you that.”
“I know he is. It isn’t Russ—it’s me. He sees me differently from the way I see myself, but I’m changing that.”
He patted her shoulder. “See that you do. And make it up to Henry. Nobody ignores Henry’s biscuits unless they want to eat cabbage stew.”
“Thanks, Drake.” She thought for a second. “Why are you…encouraging me? Why are you telling me this?”
“I know my brother. He rarely extends himself to people, and we’ve all known from the time the two of you met that you were special to him. And your being Alexis’s sister has nothing to do with it. If anything, it’s a strike against you. Russ is a strong man. If he makes up his mind that nothing should happen between the two of you, he won’t change it.” He started up the stairs, turned and walked back to her. “I want my brothers to be happy. Whatever works for them, works for me. You understand that?”
“I could use a brother like you,” she said, and he treated her to his celebrated charisma with a wide grin.
“Get busy. I just might be one of these days.”
Alexis didn’t know how fortunate she was to belong to the Harrington family, a part of it, and loved by every person in it. She went up to her room, took her appointments calendar and cellular phone out of her briefcase with the intention of working. She had left the two weeks following her sister’s wedding free of engagements so that she could take care of Tara while her sister and brother-in-law enjoyed their honeymoon. But with an agenda of her own, Tara got up early, dressed herself and, with Henry’s blessings, left around eight-thirty that morning with Grant Roundtree and his father, Adam, to spend the day with them at the Beaver Ridge Roundtree estate twelve miles away.
Velma began work on the menu for the annual gala and awards dinner of the Society of Environmentalists that would be convened at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans the first of February. Planning a gala dinner in the food capital of the United States was no cinch, but she knew she could pull it off. Problem was, she needed a test kitchen and a place to store supplies. And she needed office help. The business had become so big that she could no longer manage it with her computer and cell phone.
Five hours later, she drank her fifth glass of water trying to appease her hunger. “I don’t care,” she told herself. “One day, he’ll say I’m nice-looking and mean it.”
Russ tempered his urge to slam his bedroom door with all his might. He had gone to her to comfort her, to let her know that he cared, but he was damned if he would settle for less than he knew he deserved. He needed a woman who stood up to him as an equal, who believed him if he said that to him she was the Venus de Milo incarnate. He snapped his finger. Her preoccupation with the way she looked began with the wedding—at least that was the first time she had revealed it to him. All right, so Alexis was dazzling in that slim white gown, but hardly one in a thousand women looked like Alexis, no matter what she wore.
Feeling inadequate beside her sister probably wasn’t new, but he suspected that it had just come to a head. And it obviously explained why she didn’t eat her usual breakfast. Maybe… Oh, what the hell! He slipped on his favorite pair of alligator boots, a short mackinaw coat and a pair of wool-lined leather gloves and bumped into Velma as he stepped out of his room.
He grabbed her arm to steady her. “Sorry. Did I shake you up?”
“Not half as much as you did earlier,” she said, her wry tone matched by an open, vulnerable facial expression.
She had a way of getting to him without trying, by just being herself. Honest and forthright. And it had been that way since he first saw her.
I’m a sucker for this dame, but I’m not caving in just because everybody expects me to.
“Look,” he began. “Can’t you hem that thing or pin it up so you won’t trip on it, put on a coat and come with me down to the warehouse?”
She looked up at him as if divining his motive. “All right. Maybe Alexis has a pair of sneakers somewhere. They’ll be a size too big, but I’ll put on a pair of her socks. Twenty minutes?”
He trailed the back of his left hand down her cheek. “Perfect. Meet me at the garage door off the kitchen.”
She headed first to her room, and he hoped she would hem that caftan or, better still, cut it off.
“I’m short enough without these sneakers,” she said when she stepped into the garage.
He shook his right index finger at her. “I don’t want another word of that.” After placing a .22-caliber rifle on the floor of the truck, he helped her in and fastened her seat belt, which he had installed after Tara developed a passion for riding with him in the truck. “You’re damned perfect just the way you are, and don’t dispute me.”
She folded her hands in her lap and lowered her head. “Yes, sir, your honor.”
Laughter felt good, and she had a way of pulling it out of him. Rolling laughter poured from him only when he was with her, as it did then. “That’s more like it,” he said, when he could get his breath.