Getting Some Of Her Own (12 page)

She nodded, but didn't speak, and he supposed that she couldn't for fear of breaking down. He strove hard not to take her into his arms and comfort her, for if he did, it would be tantamount to pouring oil on a fire that he was already having trouble extinguishing.

“Do you want to eat somewhere?” he asked in an attempt to put her at ease.

“Thanks, but I think I'll go on home.”

“But you haven't eaten. Follow me to Gourmet Corner. The place is homey and attractive, and the food would enliven the most dour saint.”

She smiled at that. “All right. You're a very persuasive man. I'll follow you.”

He couldn't help laughing at the thought that flickered across his mind. If there ever was a woman who didn't fit that mold, it was Susan Pettiford.
Where are you going, how are you getting there and how long will you stay?
were the words a man could expect from an independent woman such as Susan.

“I'm honored,” he said, aware that she wouldn't understand the full meaning of his words. “Let's go.”

They entered the anteroom of the restaurant, where a waiter served patrons a complimentary glass of wine, just as Cassandra Hairston-Shepherd seated herself in a big chair near the fireplace. She accepted a glass of white wine from the waiter, lifted it to her lips, and at about the same time as her gaze captured Susan, she smiled and waved.

“She lives next door to you. Is she a friend of yours?” he said to Susan.

“Not yet, and I have my doubts as to whether she intends to be.”

At his raised eyebrow, she continued. “And I haven't decided that I want her for a friend. I generally avoid women who are insecure about their husbands.”

“She's smooth-looking. Why should she worry about other women? Does he have a roving eye?”

“Not that I noticed. But something isn't quite right with them.” At that moment, Kix came into the room, walked directly to his wife at what Lucas figured was her usual seat and kissed her cheek. He sat down, but didn't accept wine. They exchanged a few words, and he looked in their direction.

“I think he's going to invite us to join them,” Lucas said. “Do you want to?” She only had time to lift her right shoulder in a quick shrug.

“It's great to see you here, Susan,” Kix said as he came to stand beside her. “It's been a while, Hamilton. I hope you'll come more often. Would you two join my wife and me for dinner?”

He looked at Susan for her reaction, and when she smiled, he said to Kix, “We'd love to.”

“I'm still waiting for those pecans,” Kix said to Susan at the end of the meal. When Susan looked at Cassandra and didn't say a word, Lucas couldn't miss the distaste in Cassandra's stare; it had the force of an electric charge. Kix leaned back in his chair and censored Cassie with a glare. “You didn't tell me that Susan had the pecans ready for me.”

“Honey, I forgot. You know how busy I've been with my efforts to get that deanship.” She looked directly at Lucas. “My company, Cutting Edge Stationers and Engravers, is opening a school of fine arts, and I'm up for the deanship. I don't have any real competition, but you know how it is when one contender is a man and the other is a woman. It's the story of my professional life.”

The woman was sharp. She had skillfully changed the subject from her failure to give her husband a message to her campaign for a promotion. But Kix Shepherd had not been distracted. “When will it be convenient for me to get them, Susan?”

Susan didn't look at Cassandra, and Lucas didn't blame her. “I leave for my shop at eight-thirty weekday mornings, so any morning between eight-fifteen and eight-thirty will be fine. No need to call first; I'll be ready to step out of the door.”

What a woman!
Lucas thought, translating Susan's words to mean: No need to worry about your man where I'm concerned. He could see why a woman who wasn't sure of her man wouldn't want him with Susan. Because Susan was a knockout. But he'd be very surprised if Kix Shepherd was a womanizer. Still, something wasn't right in that marriage.

“How about tomorrow morning?” Kix said. “And I'll leave a pecan pie at your front door Thursday morning.” He looked at Lucas. “I hope you have a chance to taste it, and if she has whipped cream for it, so much the better.”

“Thanks. If she doesn't share it with me, she'll be in trouble. Thanks for a delightful dinner. Next time, it's on me.” He looked at Susan. “Shall we go?”

If he'd ever seen a manufactured smile, Susan wore it. “Of course. Thanks so much,” she said, not looking at either of them until she smiled at Kix. “I'll look forward to that pie. Good night.”

“I figured some things out,” he said to Susan as they stood beside her car. “You gave her a message for Kix, and she didn't deliver it, right?”

“Exactly. And she didn't forget it, either. I don't know what her problem is, but she needn't worry about me. I don't want her man or anybody else's.”

“You rammed that at her so hard that I almost felt sorry for her. I'm coming over for some pecan pie. I love that stuff.”

“If it's up to the standard of that dinner we had tonight, it will be worth the calories,” Susan said.

Lucas cocked his head to the side and looked down at her. Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight, the vapor of her breath curled skyward as she talked, and the tip of her tongue moistened the center of her upper lip. He imagined that even in the crisp winter night, her lips would be warm and her body a furnace that could heat him to boiling point. Damn his treacherous thoughts!

He winked at her. “If you know it's not good for you, it's rarely worth the consequence. This time, I'll trail
you
.”

 

 

“They make a nice couple,” Cassie said to Kix after Lucas and Susan left. “At least he's a man, which is more than I would say of Jay Weeks.”

Kix looked at her as if he were scrutinizing her for evidence of a deadly disease, a certain sign of his displeasure. “I had no idea that you were so familiar with Weeks that he confided in you his sexual preferences,” he said.

“Well, anybody can see it, and in addition, he's a decorator.”

“Yeah. Pure gospel. Jerry Mulligan was a great jazz saxophonist. Did that make him black? He was as blond as they get. Let's stick to the truth. I knew you weren't anxious for me to go to Susan's house for those pecans, and that is precisely why I asked her to let you know when they were ready. I'm sure you know you lost some points with her, though I suppose you don't care. But you lost some with me, too, and turning the sex on tonight is not going to fix it.

“I've never given you reason to distrust me.” She winced at that reminder of her infidelity, a one-time act that he suspected she would give anything to erase. “And those pecans—wonderfully plump and fresh— are for my restaurant,” he went on, “yet you don't care if I don't get them.”

“I know it's hard for you to forgive what I did, but—”

“I forgave you ages ago, so let's not harp on that. We're talking about your failure to give me a message.”

“Well, you'll have your pecans tomorrow morning. What do you think of Lucas Hamilton?” she asked her husband, expecting confirmation of her conclusion that she had misjudged Susan Pettiford. The woman wasn't on the make; indeed, with a man like Lucas Hamilton hot for her—as he apparently was—what other man did she need?

Kix flexed his right shoulder and beckoned a waiter. “Hamilton's a solid citizen. Why do you ask?”

“No special reason, except that he seemed more interested in her than she was in him.”

“Really? I didn't pay that much attention to him. Shall we go?”

“Sure.”
He'll make the first move tonight,
Cassandra thought.
He accused me of using sex to smooth out our differences. Well, not tonight. I won't, no matter how much he wants it. He doesn't hold the trump card; I do.

“Has a decision been made about the head of that fine arts institute or whatever it's called?”

“Not yet. They're still interviewing. I'll—”

He held up both hands, palms out. “Just checking.”

“You know I'd tell you,” she said.

“Hmmm. And if you don't,
The Woodmore Times
will.”

“Oh, Kix,” she said, needing to have again the sweet and loving man who catered to her every whim and to whom she had once felt superior. But she made one mistake with a man who wore brogans, and had at least a hundred keys dangling from the pocket of his jeans and had never had a manicure, an arrogant electrician. She wished it hadn't happened, but she couldn't say she was
Godly
sorry, because the man introduced her to her raw, sexual potential, and from then on, Kix never had to beg her. She
was
Godly sorry that, until then, she'd been a prude and hadn't allowed her husband to teach her all that lovemaking could be for the two of them.

Lord, I've been a fool!
She reached over and patted her husband's hand, and he glanced at her, but didn't reciprocate.

Her moment of contrition forgotten, concern for self reasserted itself.
Nothing will placate this man but to see my belly sticking a yard out in front of me.

 

 

Cassie was not the only one with concerns about what Lucas meant to Susan; the more he saw of Susan, the more anxious Lucas became to learn if their pairing could be duplicated. Indeed, getting a satisfactory explanation as to why she orchestrated that evening was becoming a priority for him. She parked in front of her house, and he stopped directly behind her, got out of his car and walked with her to her front door.

“You don't want anything else to happen between us, and at first I didn't either. Now, I'm not so sure. You built a fire in me, and I suspect you're the one who'll have to put it out.” Her face distorted itself into a deep frown. “You seem horrified at the thought? Why?” He put his hands on her shoulders and eased her body closer to his. “I'm the same man you made wild love to. What's so different now?”

“Please . . . I—”

“Don't tell me that a gentleman wouldn't mention it. Hell! Any man would. I told you once that this dance is not over. Well, I'm telling you now that it has just begun. And if I have to play dirty pool, I damned well know how.” Her lips quivered, he didn't know whether from anger or passion, and he didn't let his mind linger on it, but bent to them and let her feel the force of his own passion.

“I'll see you Thursday, if not sooner.”

He waited until she was inside her house and he heard the lock turn. Then, he walked down to the lake, desolate and haunting in the moonlight.
She gets to me, but is that because she's a challenge? Or is it because she's . . .
He looked for the word and decided that mysterious most aptly described her. “Naaa!” He picked up a stone, tossed it into the lake, went back to his car and drove home.

The blinking red light on his answering machine was the first thing he saw when he walked into his bedroom. He sat on the chair beside his night table and picked up the receiver. “This is Attorney Arnold Baumann. My client, Calvin Jackson, asked me to be in touch with you. Would you please call my office at this number?” By the time he heard that last sentence, Lucas was standing up. He replayed the message to be sure he'd heard correctly, wrote down the phone number and prepared to spend a sleepless night as hundreds of questions filled his thoughts, the most distressing of which was whether his father had died.

Daybreak finally came, and Lucas dragged himself out of the disheveled bed, an unfriendly parking place in which he had struggled for sleep throughout the night, but to no avail. He fumbled his way to the bathroom, showered and then opened his eyes fully. He had two long hours in which to wonder whether he'd waited too long, and would never meet his father face to face, never question him as to why he didn't overrule Noreen Hamilton, and never tell him how a boy felt growing up without the care and guidance of a father.

“Hell, I'm not going to get maudlin here,” he said aloud. Growing up with only his mother had been heaven compared to what Rudy was experiencing without either parent. He shook his head as he tried to imagine living as a child with complete strangers whose interest in you was limited to the income earned for taking care of you. At least, he had not suffered that. He had an urge to telephone Susan, but for what reason and what would he say to her? Anyhow, why should he dump his anxiety on another person?

Two hours and five cups of coffee later, he went to his den, sat in his Barcelona chair, the only thing he owned that his favorite architect, Mies van der Rohe, designed. He bought the chair with money from the first building that he designed, and sitting in it always brought to the fore his pride in what he had managed to achieve. He dialed Arnold Baumann's telephone number.

“Good morning, Mr. Baumann. This is Lucas Hamilton returning your call. What may I do for you?”

“Thanks for getting back to me so soon. I'm Calvin Jackson's attorney. He asked me to call you.”

A streak of annoyance shot through Lucas, and he made no attempt to hide it. “I understood that much from the message you left me.”

“He said he hoped I'd be able to persuade you to come to see him.”

“Really? I don't suppose it occurred to him that had he made the call himself, he'd stand a better chance of speaking with me.”

“He's ill, Mr. Hamilton, and he wants you to go to the hospital to see him. Today, if you can make it.”

Lucas sat forward, every nerve in his body tingling with anticipation. “What's wrong with him, and how serious is it?”

“I'd better let him tell you. He's at General Hospital, suite A-6. May I tell him to expect you?”

Lucas was standing now, his left fist balled and eyes narrowed, grinding his teeth. “What do you know about Calvin Jackson's relationship to me, Mr. Baumann? Why the hell should I go running to him the first time since the day I was born that he makes an effort to get in touch with me? All he's ever done for me was shove me into my mother's womb. Period. In all of my thirty-five years, he's never said one damned word to me, although he's always known where I was. I'll visit him when I damned well please. If at all.”

“He said this would probably be your reaction. He knows everything about you, all you've done and what you're doing now, and he has always known. He asked me to tell you that he had never excused himself and never forgiven himself, and that he wants to hear whatever you have to say to him.”

“
You don't say
,” Lucas sneered. “Well, I hope he doesn't have a heart condition. I'll think about it.”

“I do hope you will visit him soon. If you don't, you may regret it.”

Lucas hung up and dropped himself into the chair. All his adult life, Lucas swore he'd meet his father on his own terms; but now he had to meet the son-of-a-bitch on
his
terms. But he wouldn't make it easy for him. After a few minutes, Lucas composed himself, went to the kitchen, drank another cup of coffee and phoned Willis.

“Sorry, buddy, but I can't meet with you and the engineer this afternoon. I have to go to Danville.”

“No problem, Lucas. We've finished the wiring and plumbing, and today we'll be working on the windows and flooring. If I don't have to deal with the next unit for a couple of days, I won't mind a bit. We can step up the advertising for this unit.”

“You're that far?”

“Yeah. We can put the floor plans on the Internet.”

“Right on, Willis. You don't know how good that makes me feel.”

“I don't? You didn't expect us to blow it, did you? Anything you know that I don't? That I ought to know, that is?”

“That depends. Let's meet for dinner. You're paying. I always pay, but you're making money now, so you pay, and I want to go to a first class restaurant.”

“If I'm paying, we go to the joint of my choice. See you at your place around seven.”

He hung up, went to his office above his garage and switched on the lights. The low-hanging dark clouds and the dreariness of the morning robbed him of the eagerness with which he always approached his work. He put on a CD hoping that Mozart's joyous music might lift his mood, but it gave him no relief. He didn't want to talk with his mother, because she would immediately advise him to do or say something that reflected her thoughts and feelings rather than his. He reached up, yanked his old mackinaw jacket from a hanger, put it on and headed across the street to Pine Tree Park.

The place offered for him a comforting isolation from the people, problems and concerns that weighed upon his mind and soul, and it was his love for that park that had prompted him to build his house facing it. He found peanuts in the pockets of his jacket, threw out a couple near the base of a pine tree and almost immediately two squirrels found them and came to him for more. He couldn't hear his footsteps as he walked, for the earth's heavy blanket of leaves cushioned the sound. He ambled along until he reached a man-made stream whose source was the Salem River and which, after a few loops in the park, ended in the river. He sat for a while on the trunk of a fallen tree, letting the cold air seep through his jacket and into his body.

I've never felt as if I were a victim, and I am not going to sink into that now. My mother wasn't a victim either; she had an affair with another woman's husband. My father was the age I am now, and he had a wife who he was living with and deceiving. So I don't see how the hell he could be a victim, no matter how vindictive my mother was.
He shook his head as if in wonder.

He got up, hunched over against the wind and made his way back home. Never one to procrastinate for long, he shaved, polished his black shoes, and dressed in a gray pinstripe suit, light-gray shirt and red and gray paisley tie, got into his town car and headed for Danville, Virginia
.
What would he say to the man? After all these years of dreaming of a confrontation, of clever sayings and examples of a curt one-upmanship, his mind was blank. As he mused over his absence of pertinent ideas, it occurred to him that he was responding to the situation as a mature man, rather than as a wounded child who, in his subconscious, he may have regarded himself.

“I'll take it as it comes,” he said to himself. “At least he's still alive.” But he would have preferred to meet the man when he was on his feet, and they stood toe to toe, measuring each other.

 

 

Susan opened the stationery that Cassie designed for her and gaped at the exquisite letterhead: tiny bolts of fabric lying across an elegant brown sofa beneath the name and address of Susan's company. A beige border with gold flecks enlivened the sand-colored paper. She telephoned Cassie.

“Mrs. Hairston-Shepherd speaking.”

Each time she heard Cassie say that, Susan had trouble resisting a rude response. “Hi, Cassie. This is Susan. I've just opened the stationery, and I'm practically speechless. This is the most gorgeous . . . it's fantastic. I love it.”

“I'm glad you're pleased. I figured you wanted something that was both feminine and very professional.”

“I did, and that's what you sent me. I couldn't be more delighted.”

“Thanks for letting me know, Susan. I'm always happy when my work pleases. Your shop isn't too far from Cutting Edge Stationers and Engravers. Would you like to meet for lunch. I usually bring a sandwich, since there's nobody here that I like to socialize with.”

This woman was a chameleon if one ever existed. A doll today and a witch tomorrow. “Great. Let's meet at Sam's Gourmet Burger Castle, unless you know a better place. How about one o'clock?”

“Fine with me,” Cassie said. “See you there.”

“It's ten o'clock in the morning, so I know I'm not dreaming. Why would Cassie want to eat lunch with me? She doesn't even like me,” she said to herself after she hung up.

“Oh!” She whirled around.

“Sorry if I alarmed you,” Jay Weeks said. “You ought to put a bell or something on your door, so you'll know when someone enters or leaves.”

“I have one on it,” she said, her voice humorless and unfriendly. “What may I do for you, Jay?”

“You could sound a little friendlier. I need half a yard of black naugahyde. I'll give it back to you Monday. I'm going to Baltimore Sunday to shop for supplies.” She cut a piece and gave it to him. He raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm. I see you're using top of the line material.”

“What would you expect me to use?” she asked him, cross and not bothering to hide it. “I charge top prices, so I use the best materials.”

“Done any jobs yet?” he asked, and she didn't miss his attempt to sound casual.

She forced a grin. “Jay, my daddy always said, ‘Never let your right hand know what the left one is doing.' I've learned that, in most things, he knew his onions.”

“Yeah. How about lunch?”

“Thanks, but I have a date.”

“With Hamilton?”

“No,” she said, deciding that the identity of her luncheon companion was none of his business.

He waited for a long minute, realized that she wouldn't say more and nodded. “See you soon.”

If he's not careful, I'll learn to dislike him,
Susan thought as she put the roll of black naugahyde back on its shelf and went about drawing an arrangement for a teenage female's bedroom-
cum-
sanctuary. She worked better for a client when she liked the person, and she did not care for that girl, so catering to her taste was proving a struggle. Much to her relief, a woman entered who wanted her entire house redecorated.

“My husband and I divorced,” the woman explained, “because of something he did. That was two years ago. We've made up and we're remarrying in about a month. I want the whole house redone, so nothing in it will remind me of that other time when I was miserable. We're starting fresh, house and all.”

Susan wanted to ask the woman why she didn't sell the old house and buy another one, but she had learned never to pry.

She folded the file on which she had been working, walked over to the velvet sofa and sat beside the woman. “I always begin with the question, what are your favorite colors in woods, fabric, and porcelain.”

“Good, because I think that way,” the woman replied. “You and I will get along beautifully.”

Susan completed a satisfying meeting with the woman, signed a contract, and arrived at Sam's Gourmet Burger Castle with several minutes to spare. However, to her delight, Cassie waited at a corner table.
Hmmm, so she wants to talk privately. I wonder about what.

They had barely begun to eat their gourmet hamburgers when Cassie blurted out, “How is it being single? I mean, is it . . . do you get invitations to places? You know . . . do you get left out of things like receptions and fundraisers, and do people invite you to their homes?”

What on earth brought that about? She decided to respond as if the questions did not seem strange coming from a married woman. “I expect people will be more charitable here than in New York, though being single in New York posed no problems for me. If you're well known and have connections—as you have, for example—it shouldn't pose a problem anywhere. I haven't done much socializing here, but I'm just realizing that I haven't seen too many single women alone in the evening.” There! She could take either end of the stick. “Why? Do you have a sister or a friend who's unmarried?”

“I, uh, just wondered what it's like. I've been married a good while, out of circulation, you might say, and . . .” She leaned her fork and knife against the edge of her plate. “If I don't agree to get pregnant, Kix is going to leave me.”

“
What?
Is there a reason why you can't conceive?”

Cassie picked up her fork and toyed with her salad, before putting a fork full of it into her mouth and chewing it slowly. Finally, as if it pained her to do so, she lowered her head and said, “Nothing that I know of. The problem is that I don't want to be pregnant. I hate the thought of it.” Susan's fork fell to her plate, and she stared at Cassie, wide-eyed. “Don't tell me you think a woman has to have children in order to legitimate herself and to justify her existence,” Cassie said with a grimace.

“I certainly do not.”
Better tread carefully here, girl.
“But it seems to me that if you love your husband, you'd want to have some children. Don't you feel . . . uh . . . secure enough to . . . to take a chance on it? He seems like a sturdy man.”

“He is, and I do love him. It's just that . . . I don't know.”

“Won't he agree to your continuing your career if you have a child?”

“He probably would, but I . . . I can't even contemplate it.”

Susan folded her arms, leaned back in her chair and looked at Cassie. “I'd give anything if I had your problem.”

“Well don't bother to feel superior. If you marry Lucas Hamilton, you'll be in the same boat. He's the same type as Kix—a dependable, hardworking, and successful family man. That type has to have children.”