Getting Some Of Her Own (20 page)

“Give me that,” he said when her shaking fingers couldn't insert the key into the keyhole. “I'll get on it tomorrow morning.” He opened the door, took her hand and walked with her into the house.

“Will you, please? That's a strange house she lives in. I went to get her Saturday hoping to meet her foster mother, but Rudy answered the door, and when I brought her home, a small child opened the door. I wouldn't allow a child that young to open the front door.”

“All right, I'll get on it,” he said, “but you worry too much.”

“You'd worry about her, too, if . . . if you loved her as much as I do.” She turned her back to him. “If anything happens to that child, I'll—”

His arms went around her, and the tears spilled from her eyes. “Don't worry. You're jumping to conclusions.” His hand stroked her back. “She's fine, and by this time tomorrow, we'll have proof of it. Sweetheart, please don't cry.”

“She doesn't have a real mother to look after her, just somebody who gets paid to do it.”

His arms tightened around her. “You don't mean that. Many foster mothers love their charges as much as if they gave birth to them. Let's not hang the woman before we have proof that she's committed a crime.”

She only knew that, until she gave Rudy a new coat, the child wore a threadbare one on one of the coldest days of the year in spite of the generous clothing allotment provided by the State. “You don't understand how I feel. You can't.”

“Why can't I? I care for that little girl and for Nathan, too, and I am not a callous and unfeeling man.”

His heat warmed her, and she felt her body begin to relax against him. “You don't know what that little girl means to me,” she told him with her face buried in the comfort of his chest.

“I'm beginning to understand, and I'll do what I can to help.”

Grateful for his considerateness, she kissed his cheek, not thinking that she might set off the desire that always simmered between them, a serpent waiting to strike. Immediately, she knew she'd done the wrong thing. He stared down into her face, lowered his head and slipped his tongue between her waiting, parted lips. They tightened their arms around each other, and he pressed her back to the wall, giving her more and more of him, until her arms dropped to her sides, her panting could have been heard across the room, and her breasts heaved against his chest.

Slumping in surrender, she whispered, “You can take me to my bed if you want to, and I'll let you, but it wouldn't work for us tonight. I'm too miserable.”

He startled her with a gentle hug, stroking her back as he did so, almost as one soothes a baby. The gesture bore no sign of passion, but communicated to her a deep caring. And it frightened her, for it brought home forcibly to her that they were both deeply entrapped in the web she'd spun.

“Keep your cell phone on,” he said, “and as soon as I know something, I'll call you. Don't worry, and try to sleep.” His kiss on her mouth stirred in her far more than she wanted to acknowledge.

 

 

Lucas couldn't help being uneasy as he held Susan, feeling more for her than was healthy and wary of asking her the question that burned in his mind like kindling soaked with kerosene. She was vulnerable right then, and he might hurt her, but he had to say it. He drew a deep breath. “It's strange to me that you haven't married and had children. You're beautiful, desirable, and you love children. Why is this?”

She seemed to fold up before his eyes, to wilt like a water-starved flower so visibly that her pain seeped into him. Hardly able to bear the suffering that he saw in her, he folded her close. Susan Pettiford had a hook in him, one that he expected to carry for a long time. As soon as he could extricate himself without giving her cause for concern, he left.

“Don't worry about this anymore. I'll call you as soon as I know something,” he said, and ambled down the cobbled walk, shaking his head at the feeling he identified in himself.

On that Friday morning, he would ordinarily have met with Willis and his team of builders at Hamilton Village, but he'd promised Susan that he would find out about Rudy, and he would. He telephoned Willis.

“I have to take care of some personal business this morning, so I have to cancel our meeting.”

“Too bad, buddy,” Willis said. “I need to go over a few things with you. Call me when you're free. Nothing's wrong with your old man, I hope.”

“No. He's doing fine.”

He dressed in a business suit, drove to Rose Hill School and found Nathan's teacher. The two of them questioned the boy as to Rudy's whereabouts. “I don't know where she is, Mr. Hamilton. One time, she told me she was going to run away, but that was a long time ago.”

That revelation disturbed Lucas, and after speaking with Rudy's teacher, the principal and the social worker, he left the school and went to the Department of Child Welfare, which had responsibility for children in foster care. Finally, around three o'clock, he had the answer and telephoned Susan.

“Hello, Susan. Rudy is right now in Ann Price's home under the protection of the Department of Child Welfare.”

“Thank God.” She seemed to breathe the words. “What happened?”

“Seems the foster mother went to Alabama to see her sick mother and left her seventeen-year-old daughter in charge of the house. When Rudy wouldn't let one of the children wear her red coat and fought the child to prevent it, the older girl banished Rudy to a closet and kept her there since Tuesday morning. She gave her nothing to eat, not even water or milk, except peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches, which she knew Rudy hates.

“Rudy refused to eat them. When I got there and I saw her, she was thin and hungry, and she ran to me crying. The agency is looking for a more permanent home for her, because Mrs. Price already has four in her care.”

“I want her,” Susan blurted out. “I want to adopt her, and I'm going to try to get custody of her. I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you've done.”

She wouldn't have stunned him more if she had hit him upside the head with a baseball bat. “Don't thank me, Susan. I did it as much for myself as for you. The suggestion that she stay with Mrs. Price came from Nathan, and I supported the idea, but I don't think she'll be there long. You may imagine how happy that little girl is right now. I'll be in touch.”

He knew without being told that Susan would be at Ann Price's house as soon as her car would take her there, and he was not going to interfere. Fate seemed to have taken a hand in the matter. According to his watch, workers at Hamilton Village would quit work in half an hour, so he saw no point in going there.

He phoned Willis. “It's too late for a conference. Where can I meet you?”

“How about The Watering Hole? It doesn't get noisy until after nine.” Half an hour later, he waited for his friend and business associate in a far corner of Woodmore's most famous gathering place. Willis joined him almost at once.

“Sorry, but I forgot to ask how's your old man,” Willis said almost as soon as he sat down.

“You didn't forget, Willis. You asked me this morning. You know, I'm beginning to think we ought to put some upscale green and black tiles—I mean heavy duty ones—in the lobbies of those buildings. I want them to have an atmosphere of elegance.”

“Yeah, man,” Willis said, “and think of the behinds of those senior citizens kissing that tiled floor regularly.”

“Point taken. Then, it's parquet floors and Royal Bokhara carpets. I'm sick of that combination,” Lucas said.

“But it's damned classy, if you ask me. Uh, say, Aunt Noreen's pretty pissed at you.”

Lucas supposed that his frown would give Willis his answer to that. “She told you that?” He shrugged. “I don't have to ask why, but I'm enjoying my work with Jackson Enterprises, and I'm not going to stop it to please her.”

Willis propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I think she can handle that. The problem seems to be that you see him regularly and won't tell her anything about him. You don't even mention his name to her.”

Lucas banged his fist on the table. “He's married, dammit, and if he let her down before, she shouldn't be in such a hell-fired hurry to get back with him.”

Willis stared at him. “Don't be so hard on her, man. At least she can't get pregnant.”

Lucas jumped up and gazed down at his closest friend. “You must be rowing with one oar. We're talking about my mother. She's old enough to know right from wrong, and so are you.”

Willis didn't flinch. “But, man, after thirty-six years of misery, she deserves to grab whatever happiness she can get.”

His hands gripped his hips, and if the small-town gossips sitting at the next table had suddenly taken an interest in his business, he didn't much care. “Willis Luther Carter, you are about to torpedo twenty-eight years of friendship. I know you love Mama, but love doesn't mean you have to be stupid. I am not going to be their go-between, and neither are you.”

“But, Lucas—”

“If Calvin Jackson ever finds himself a single man, they're on their own. But he can't have his cake and eat it too a second time around, at least not with my help. If he wants her, let him get a divorce. My last word on this subject.”

“Sorry, man. She never said she wanted to get together with him. She . . . uh . . . needs to know how he's doing.”

He felt for her. He always had, but he had to stick with the principles that she had instilled in him. “Don't encourage her, Willis. Let it lie.”

 

 

As Lucas anticipated, Susan drove immediately to Ann Price's home. “I'm so happy that you have Rudy,” she told Ann. “Do you mind if I see her for a few minutes?”

“Come right on in, Ms. Pettiford. Rudy's upstairs with Nathan and Dolly, my youngest granddaughter. That child was so happy when she saw me. I wish I could keep her, but I can't.”

“I hope I can adopt her,” Susan said, causing Ann Price's eyebrows to arch, “but it may not be easy.”

“If you decide to do it, I'll speak for you. Rudy loves you, and you love her, and if you two get together, you'll both be blessed.”

As the days passed, Nathan and Rudy became a fixture in Susan's life. Not only was Child Welfare slothful about finding a permanent home for Rudy, since the child appeared happier and content where she was. But Ann Price encouraged Rudy's fondness for Susan. Consequently, she allowed Susan to take Rudy and Nathan on excursions and picnic outings or to her home every Saturday and Sunday.

“I know I'm playing with fire,” Susan told Cassie one April morning as she raked cut grass from around her lavender bushes. “But that little girl is so dear to me. I want to adopt her, and I think I have a chance, but—”

“File the papers. She's a darling child, and she and that little boy seem devoted to you.” She looked away, as if her next words wouldn't be pleasant. “Those two seem inseparable. What's she going to do if you adopt her and take her away from him?”

“I've thought about that. I think they'd be happy as long as they could see each other often. I'd take him too, but I know Mrs. Price would never agree to that.”

“Probably not, from what I've seen of her.”

“Cassie, I've been thinking of sending photographs of my work at Mrs. Burton's house to a national magazine. She's given permission, and if the magazine accepts the story, I'll be able to call my shots. But I need a top flight photographer and a layout artist. Would you do the layout?”

“Would I . . . Nothing would please me more. That's right up my street. I'll get you one of our photographers. He's the best. When do you want us to start?”

Three weeks later, Susan sat in her shop gazing at the photographer's glossy pages and Cassie's layout complete with artistic captions and notes. “Well, it's the best I've ever done, and I'm going with it.” She packaged it along with a cover letter and mailed it. Later that day, she telephoned her mother and told her what she'd done.

“I'll be a wreck until I hear from that editor,” she told her mother.

“Don't be. If you're sufficiently satisfied with something you've done to willingly expose it to professional criticism, consider yourself a success no matter what anybody else says. When can you take a vacation and come to see me for a week or so?”

“Later on in the summer, maybe, but right now, my business is moving nicely and, until I can afford an assistant, I don't want to go away.”

“That makes sense. Now tell me, have you met any nice men in Woodmore? You're too young to miss the best that life can offer you.”