Getting Some Of Her Own (26 page)

“You were gone a while. Everything all right?” he asked her, and to her surprise, his voice contained neither mockery nor sarcasm, but genuine concern.

“I'm fine, thanks.” She thought she would force a smile, but when she observed his relief, as if sunshine enveloped him, her smile came from her heart.

“I love barbecued anything,” he said, after savoring a forkful of the barbecued short ribs of beef. “My mother can barbecue a sparerib until it dances. If you want to assure yourself an eternal niche in my heart, learn how to barbecue.”

She itched to ask why she should have a niche in his heart, but restrained herself and didn't ask him. Instead, she said, “I have other attributes.”

With his fork suspended between the plate and his mouth, he said, “You're damned right you have.”

She gave up. “I don't want to josh with you right now, Lucas. I don't know why, but that doesn't suit me right now.”

“I wasn't teasing. Okay? Have you thought of what you'll do with Enid's house?”

She let her eyes tell him how grateful she was for his having opened a subject into which she could enter with pleasure. “The back of the house is a glass window with nothing between it and the ocean except the sandy beach.” She told him of her plans for it. “What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me. It's both decorative and functional.”

“As to the rest,” she went on, “white walls and white floors, light or white wood and all upholstery and fabrics in sea green, pale blue and aquamarine. To break the monotony, the master bedroom will be in yellow and sand. I'll make the sketches after I see what's available in Woodmore and Winston-Salem and e-mail them to her.”

“How long will it take you to sketch the plan?”

“I'll do it one evening at home. While I'm in Winston-Salem, I'll finish shopping for Hamilton Village I. My biggest problem is that older people like velours, velveteens and velvets, but the most comfortable furniture around these days comes in leather. I'm looking for a good mix.”

“And you'll find it. Did it ever occur to you that we'd make a great team?”

She held up her hands, palms out. “Don't expect the truth out of me when you ask such questions, Lucas.”

“So you
have
thought of it. At least I'm not crazy.”

She declined his offer to lengthen the evening with a stop at The Watering Hole, pleading a long and taxing day. “But I enjoyed supper with you.”

He parked in front of her house, a white edifice shrouded in moonlight. “What's that sound I hear?” he asked her.

“Fish jumping in the lake. They do that on nights like this when there's a full moon and no wind.”

“Walk with me to the lake,” he said. “I want to see it in the moonlight.” He took her hand and strolled with her to the water's edge. Standing against an old pine tree and with her back to him, he wrapped her in his arms.

“Today, my life changed forever. Enid told you that my dad gave me Jackson Enterprises to operate as I see fit.” He explained the conditions of his agreement with his father. But that enormous gift meant less to him than his father's sentiments. “But you don't know what it meant to me to hear him say that I'm special to him. You know . . .” He paused and looked into the distance. “I'm beginning to love my dad.”

“I'm so happy for you, Lucas. Does he know?”

“I haven't told him, but at least I've begun calling him dad, and that seems to make him happy. If anybody had told me a year ago that I'd call Calvin Jackson dad and put my arm on his shoulder, I would have called that person a liar.” With his arms draped across her shoulder, he walked with her to her house.

He held out his hand for her key, opened the door and stood in the foyer gazing down at her. “Aren't you going to invite me to have a cup of coffee?”

He stood too close to her. She could almost taste his breath. “You just had coffee.”

“But I didn't have this,” he said, and his mouth was on hers, his arms around her and the heat of his aura began seeping into her. “I need this. I need you!” He broke the kiss. “What was it that you didn't say when you looked at those earrings? I'm not releasing you until you tell me.”

Susan didn't want him to release her. “That you're wonderful, that you're so loveable, that—”

He swallowed her words and pushed his tongue into her mouth. She heard her moans and knew that she would capitulate to him. Right then, she didn't care about anything but the way she felt in his arms. When he trembled, shaking her to the core, she held him tighter, and when she felt him hard and bulging against her, she grabbed his hips, the better to feel him.

“Let me go, sweetheart. If you don't want me inside of you, tell me right now.”

She locked one hand behind his head and the other on his buttocks, sucked his tongue into her mouth and wrapped her left leg around his right one. He lifted her into his arms and raced up the stairs to her bed. An hour later, he separated his body from hers and fell over on his back, exhausted.

“I wish I knew how this will end,” he said. “You can't tell me that you'll be content for us to go our separate ways, that you'll be satisfied if I decided to spend my life with another woman. I sure as hell don't want to see another man within ten feet of you.” Suddenly, as if driven, he bolted off the bed and stood beside it. “You didn't get pregnant. Why did you pick me to go to bed with? You are not the kind of woman who . . . How many men other than me have you been in bed with since the first time you made love with me?”

“None.” She put the corner of the sheet into her mouth to muffle the sounds that she knew would follow the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

“Right. That's what I thought. You're damned near puritanical. I have a right to know why you did that.”

“I t-told y-you, but you don't believe m-me.”

“That's because it . . .” He rested one knee on the bed and leaned across it. “Good Lord. You're crying. I didn't mean to . . . Baby, for goodness sake, don't cry. I wouldn't hurt you for anything.” He wrapped her in his arms, kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, and within minutes he was deep inside of her again, driving her to ecstasy. She cried out, oblivious to her words or what they meant.

 

 

The following Saturday morning at daybreak, Lucas sat in the backseat of his town car pretending to sleep while Willis took his turn driving on their trip to Athens, Georgia. He had ordered the cabinets for his grandmother's kitchen weeks earlier, and he hoped that the chair elevator would be installed before he and Willis left Sunday afternoon. If not, he would make another trip down there to inspect it before he accepted the job as finished. He stretched out on the backseat to the extent possible.

He couldn't get Susan off his mind. His hearing was perfect, and he understood the English language. Still ringing in his ears was the sound of her moaning, “I love you. I love you. Oh, Lord, I love you!” at the moment when she pulsed around him, squeezing and thrilling him until he thought he would go out of his mind. He couldn't be wrong about that. If she loved him, why did she protest so adamantly that there could be nothing between them, that they were not and could not be lovers? According to Mark, his friend and Susan's lawyer, she was not and never had been married. So what was her problem? Whatever it was, it definitely was not simple, and his mind told him he ought to connect it to something else, but he couldn't figure out what. He'd get it, though.

“We're almost in Athens, Lucas. Let's stop for some coffee or something. I don't want to walk into that lady's house and ask her what she's got to eat.”

“Don't eat too much, though. We're going to my grandmother, and food comes with the title.”

When Willis parked in front of Alma Jackson's house, she stood on her porch, her face enveloped in smiles. “I'm so glad to see you, Son,” she said to Lucas with her arms open to welcome him.

He hugged and kissed her, then moved aside and said, “Nana, this is my best friend from my freshman college days, Willis Carter. Willis is my brother in all ways except blood. He's a builder, and we work together.”

He watched, delighted, as Alma Jackson opened her arms to Willis and hugged him. “You're welcome, Willis. I've got a big house and a big heart. You come see me any time you feel like a little change.”

“I sure will, Gramma. I hope you don't mind my calling you that.”

“Oh, that's wonderful. I like it. I haven't heard it enough in my life. You all come on in. It's not quite time for dinner, but I'll give you some waffles and sage sausage. How about some nice fresh strawberries, just picked this morning?”

Lucas looked at Willis. “I told you so. That will suit me perfectly, Nana. Can I help you? We didn't come down here for you to wait on us.”

She patted his back. “Sausage is cooked, and I'll just warm it up. We'll cook the waffles at the table.”

He set the table, put the waffle iron on it, and sat down. While they ate, she told him that the cabinets were in the basement, and that the chair elevator had been installed the day before, but as he'd cautioned, she didn't use it. “I'm waiting for you to inspect it. Have you seen Calvin since he had that family conference?”

“Yes, ma'am. I've gotten into the habit of visiting with him every Monday after I have my staff conferences. He's well now, but . . . well, it's a nice habit.”

She looked at Lucas. “I suppose you can keep a secret.”

Lucas raised his hand. “I can, but if you don't want my mother to know it, don't say it in front of Willis. They're very close, and when it comes to her, he doesn't always use his best judgment.”

She looked at Willis. “Well, isn't that sweet. She's got two sons for the price of one.”

Willis savored the waffles as if he hadn't eaten for a long while. “I'll make a good grandson, too.”

A smile brightened Alma's face. “I've already adopted you, Willis,”

 

 

By the time Lucas and Willis were ready to leave late Sunday afternoon, the new cabinets gleamed in Alma's kitchen, they had transferred the contents of the old cabinets to the new ones, and Lucas had satisfied himself that his grandmother could ride up and down the stairs in safety.

“I'll see you as soon as I can, Nana. If you need anything or have any problems, let me know. I'll be extremely unhappy if you don't.”

She thanked him. “But I want to see you whenever you can make it, even if I don't have any problems.” She hugged Willis. “You can't be stressed down here with me, Willis, so if you need rest, remember that I'm good at pampering.”

Willis kissed her. “You're precious, Gramma. I'll be back here with or without Lucas. Here are my phone numbers. Call me if you need me, or if it's storming and you're scared of lightning.”

Alma laughed. “Somebody's been tattling on me. With summer coming up, you may be sorry you said that.” She put an arm around Lucas. “I've never met your mother. She raised a fine son, and I want to meet her.”

He hadn't counted on that. “I told her she'd love you, Nana.”

“And I'll love
her
, too.”

As they headed back to Woodmore, Lucas said to Willis, “I can't accept that all these years, I didn't know this wonderful woman, and all she wants is to have me around so she can pamper me and love me.”

“Don't blame Aunt Noreen, Lucas. If I'd been in her place, I'd have probably done worse than she did. At least she didn't fill your head with a lot of unpleasant things about your dad, and that's more than I can say.”

Lucas switched off the cruise control and glanced over at his friend. “I've known you for seventeen years, and you never even hinted at that before.”

“Because I was ashamed. Anyhow, after you got together with your dad, I called mine and talked with him, and I'm going out to Colorado to see him. Would you believe he sent me a first-class air ticket? Like I can't afford to go anyplace I want to. My mother's sorry now, and it's pretty late, but I'm . . . he seemed so nice, man. It's a pity she laid all that crap on him.”

“They had issues, so don't get into that,” Lucas told him. “Deal with your dad, and keep your mother out of it as much as you can.”

“Yeah. She's finally got somebody else, and I'm happy for her. Would you believe she's a completely different woman?”

“Sure, I believe it.”

“What did Gramma tell you that was such a secret?”

He couldn't help laughing. “That's the point, Willis. She told me not to tell anyone.” He didn't plan to tell his mother, either. His father had confided to Nana that he intended to will one-quarter of all he owned to Noreen Hamilton, one quarter to her, one-quarter to Lucas and one quarter to be shared by his wife and daughters, explaining that his daughters already had substantial trust funds. He didn't need the inheritance, but his mother needed the confirmation that Calvin Jackson loved her above all women.

 

 

Susan leaned against the edge of Enid's kitchen counter drinking ginger ale and talking to Fred, her helper. “I'm glad we got through this today, Fred. We have a lot to do at Hamilton Village, and we haven't even started.”

“I know. This was a cinch because we had the place to ourselves, and it looks fantastic, not one bit like the old-fashioned place I walked into this morning. I wouldn't mind living here myself, but my wife is skittish about the water.”