Just the Man She Needs (6 page)

It didn’t make sense to feel as she did about a stranger, a man of whom she knew almost nothing other than his ability to fire her up with his touch. She risked looking him in the eye and shuddered at the softness she saw there. “Let’s start slowly, Ashton. I’m thirty-eight, and I’m feeling the way I should have felt when I was twenty.”

His hand tightened on hers. “You’ve never been in love?”

“I thought I was, and maybe at that age and that time it was real, but I don’t think so now, because it never took control of me the way…” She stopped talking. She wasn’t so besotted that she’d confess it to him. Some things were best left unsaid. His arm eased around her shoulder, and he didn’t have to tell her that he understood all that she hadn’t said.

“What we feel in our youth is fresh and new,” he said, “but I have a feeling that it’s nothing compared to a mature relationship. My love for my son is so all-encompassing that I can’t conceive of life without him. Just being with him gives me so much joy.”

This man loves deeply, and I want him to love me like that. If only I can make myself believe that it’s possible. If I can forget that Herman Lamont ever lived.

“Is Teddy enough for you?” she heard herself ask Ashton. “I mean, do you want any more children? Can you…is there room for…for more?”

“I’d love to have the experience of planning a family with my wife…with the woman I love. As of now, I have no idea what that’s like. I told you how I happen to have Teddy. Maybe that’s why he’s so precious to me. But I don’t want to raise him as an only child.”

“He may not want to share you with siblings.”

“I would teach him to love them. I am not worried about that. I’ve prepared myself to be a single father. I can’t be a mother to Teddy. Eartha falls apart if it thunders loudly, but with her at least he has the benefit of a feminine presence. Every child needs that. Do you want a family?”

He’d touched a sore spot. She could get pregnant at any time, or at least she hoped so, but she needed a husband first, and so far, the only one who she had considered a good prospect had also been a good liar, a polygamist working on wife number three. Fortunately for her, he’d slipped up and made a casual reference to “my wife.” It was an occasion in which her reporter’s nose had served her well. She’d checked on Herman, and as a result, he currently resided in jail.

“Yes, I want a family, and I’ve decided that if I don’t have a child by the time I’m forty, I’m going to adopt two children, preferably two who are siblings.”

He signaled for the waitress who arrived immediately and stood as close to him as the chair would permit. The woman took their order of cheese cake and cappuccino, smiled at Ashton and left.

“I thought for a minute that she planned to take the order while sitting in your lap,” Felicia told him.

“I noticed that your bottom lip dropped. I started to tell her that my wife was an Olympic boxer, but since I don’t know what kind of sense of humor you have, I restrained myself.”

“That tells me about
your
sense of humor, though,” she said. The woman returned with their order and while putting the food on the table did her best to give Ashton an eyeful of her ample bosom.

Felicia leaned back in her chair and smiled. “Miss,” she said, getting the waitress’s attention, “your bosom won’t impress my husband. As you can see, what he’s got at home is more than ample.” The woman’s face reddened, Ashton’s eyes increased to twice their size, and Felicia examined her nails before buffing them on her sleeve.

“Well,” Felicia said to Ashton, “from what you said earlier, I figured you’ve got a sense of humor, and I don’t care what that brazen chick thinks.”

The grin started around his lips, then his eyes sparkled, and suddenly his entire face lit up, his head went back and laughter poured out of him. She stared at him, poleaxed. If only she could hold him and love him until she was drunk on him. She realized that he had stopped laughing, and when the silence brought her back to the moment, the expression on his face told her that he had read her thoughts and that he wanted what she wanted. He dropped a bill on the table, stood, held out his hand and said, “Let’s go. If I walk up those stairs with you, we’ll be here all night.”

As they walked to his rented car, she said, “I didn’t know that was an inn.”

“It boasts that Thomas Jefferson once slept there. Of course, it’s been renovated and modernized since then. We’ll have to come back when we have more time. There’s so much more to see in this area.”

At the airport, they got through security and arrived at the gate a few minutes before time to board the shuttle. He didn’t ask where she’d like to sit, but took the seat next to the window as he’d done previously.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked her. She nodded, and with her hand clasped in his, he leaned back, closed his eyes and remained that way until the plane landed in New York.

“Have you been asleep?” she asked him as they made their way through the terminal.

“Not a wink. I’ve learned that silence can speak louder than words.”

“Yes,” she said. “So have I, and the last fifty minutes added credence to that idea.”

He didn’t ask what she meant, but winked and smiled. He gave the taxi driver her address, took her hand and, as far as she could tell, was as comfortable as if he’d known her for years. She wished she could say the same. She didn’t think she had ever been so emotionally out of sorts. Not that she was confused; she wasn’t. She just wished she knew where she was headed.

It didn’t surprise her that he paid the taxi driver, got out of the cab and walked with her into the apartment building in which she lived. And she told herself to calm down when he got on the elevator and continued to her apartment with her. She fumbled around in her bag for her door key, embarrassed that it took her so long to find it. When she located the key, her fingers trembled so much that she could not insert it into the key hold. He covered her hand with his own and steadied it while she turned the key. She looked up at him, but couldn’t read his facial expression.

“I want to come in with you.” His voice reminded her of a sensuous saxophone enticing dancers to move to its rhythm.

She opened the door, walked in and turned to him. “I didn’t want you to kiss me in the hallway.”

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asked her.

“Yes. If you want to.”

“If I want to? On that plane and in that taxi, you saw an example of self-control. I wanted you in my arms so badly. Hell, it’s damned near unreal, how I felt and what I’m feeling.” His hands seemed bigger as they clasped her to his body and he began stroking her back. She longed to feel the man’s power, but she didn’t dare provoke it. Still, she could hardly bear the tension as he stared down at her, his eyes hot with desire and his bottom lip quivering. She couldn’t stand the wait.

“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Stop doing this to me. “Kiss—”

He swallowed the rest of her words. With her hand at the back of his head increasing the pressure of his kiss, she let him know how much she needed his embrace. Then, realizing that he might not stop if she didn’t call a halt, she broke the kiss, kissed his cheek and stepped back.

“I think we should leave some for another time. Don’t you?” she said in an attempt to bring levity to a situation fraught with tension. “When we’re together tomorrow, let’s try to keep the heavy stuff in abeyance, Ashton. I wouldn’t be comfortable with a deeper level of intimacy at this point in our relationship. Can you handle that?”

“I can handle it, and I agree with you. Between now and tomorrow, think of a way for us to avoid it.”

“I’ll do my best.” She tweaked his nose. “Suppose you spend a little time on that, too.”

She liked his grin, although she wasn’t quite sure what it meant. “Go now. Teddy is waiting for you to read to him.”

“Right. That isn’t a thing I’m in a habit of forgetting.” The heat of his lips singed her mouth. “I’ll be here for you tomorrow evening at seven. Good night.”

O
ne block from Felicia’s apartment, Ashton hailed a taxi, gave the driver his address and sank into the back seat. In the forty years of his life, he wouldn’t have dreamed of living such a day. He released a long, deep breath. All he’d wanted from Felicia Parker was the promise that she wouldn’t publish in her column an account of his evening as her paid escort. He had that promise now, but that wasn’t all he got in the course of his day with her. Somehow or other, one or both of them had fanned the flames of their initial attraction to the point of combustion. Knowing himself, he accepted that unless she sent him some negative and unattractive signal—and he doubted that possibility—she couldn’t count on his walking away from the prospect of the loving he suspected she would give him.

Life without a warm, loving woman hadn’t been in his plans for himself, but neither had single parenthood, and unless he found a woman who loved Teddy as much as he did, he didn’t plan to change his marital status or even to involve himself deeply in an affair. He rubbed his forehead. “That woman gets to me. In that smokehouse this afternoon, I’d have tasted her if it had meant getting a blow from a sledgehammer.” He wouldn’t let himself think what could have happened in her apartment a few minutes earlier if she hadn’t called a halt to it.

“She’s right,” he said to himself. “I’d better work on slowing this thing down, too. Something tells me that if I ever make love with her feeling as I do now, she’ll own me. No woman has been able to claim that.”

He paid the driver and had his door key in his hand when he stepped out of the taxi. As soon as he put the key in the door, he heard Teddy scream, “Daddy. Daddy.” He stepped inside his house, opened his arms and Teddy bounded into them.

“What did you do in Zandria today, Daddy? Did you see Uncle Damon? Miss Eartha said you went to see Uncle Damon.”

“Alexandria. Yes, I saw Uncle Damon, and he sent you a big hug.”

“Did you see Uncle Cade and Granddaddy, too?”

“I’ll tell you all about my trip, but first let me wash my face and hands.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long, Daddy. We have to read my book tonight.”

After changing his clothes, he carried Teddy to his room and sat in the overstuffed chair he’d put there for the purpose of reading to his son while the child sat in his lap. With chamber music playing softly, he began the most precious time of his day.

Teddy loved the stories of
Pinocchio, Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss ’n Boots
and, especially
Isra the Butterfly,
but he seemed to enjoy anything that his father read to him. Ashton recalled writing Young-Robinson a note thanking her for his son’s delight in her story of the little butterfly.

Teddy got down to say his prayers but, as usual, he knelt at his father’s knee rather than at the edge of his bed. He repeated the prayer correctly and added, “I was very good today, Lord.” He got up and leaned against Ashton. “When is Sunday, Daddy? You promised me to play the piano Sunday.”

He put Teddy in bed and covered him. “Sunday is five days away. If I get home early enough and have time, I’ll play for you before Sunday.”

“Okay,” Teddy said, “but I can count on Sunday. Right?”

“Right. You can count on Sunday. Do you have anything to tell me?”

“No, sir. I didn’t do anything bad today. I was good, Daddy. I tried hard. Real hard, and Miss Eartha gave me ice cream for supper.”

“Hmm. Did you tell her you’d be good if she gave you ice cream?”

“No, sir. Honest.”

“Did she tell you she’d give you ice cream if you behaved?”

“No, sir. She told me we couldn’t bribe anymore, and I would just have to be good. So I tried. But, Daddy, why is it bad to jump down the stairs?”

“Because you can hurt yourself, break your arm or your leg, even your neck, and maybe never be able to walk again.”

Teddy’s eyes rounded. “Gee. I won’t do that again.”

“Of course you won’t, because I told you not to. Now, close your eyes, count to twenty and go to sleep. Good night, son.”

“Good night, Daddy. Daddy, do I look just like you? Miss Eartha said I look so much like you she thinks you spit me out. What does that mean, Daddy?”

“It means you look like me, and you’re supposed to look like me, because I’m your father.”

“Okay, Daddy. I’ll tell Miss Eartha that. Good night.”

He turned out the light, closed the door and ran down the stairs to get his supper. He didn’t require much care, and he especially didn’t want Eartha to pamper him. He went directly to the kitchen where he expected to see covered pots on the stove or a covered plate in the warmer, since it was after eight and an hour past their dinnertime.

“You’re still in here?” he asked Eartha. “You know you don’t have to wait up just to serve my supper.”

“I cooked a real good supper tonight. Even Teddy asked for seconds. I wanted you to taste it just like I fixed it, so you go on in there and sit down.”

She brought in a bowl of mushroom soup, placed it in front of him, sat down and said the grace. He had a feeling that she didn’t trust his relationship with the Lord, because she insisted on saying grace herself. “Mr. Ash—” she never used his name properly “—Teddy’s teacher says he’s bored in class. She doesn’t have time to teach him like he wants to be taught.”

Now what? He finished the soup and looked at the woman who made his life easier with the loving care she gave his son. “Is he having a problem?”

“She said he learns fast and gets restless while she tries to teach the other children what he’s learned. She said you need to put him in a different kind of school, and she gave me two suggestions. He’s too young for first grade and too advanced for kindergarten.”

“Thanks, I’ll look into it tomorrow. What else am I eating?”

She put a feast in front of him and sat down to watch as he enjoyed filet mignon with red wine sauce, lemon-roasted tiny potatoes, green asparagus, breaded cauliflower with sour cream and a mesclun salad.

“I can’t eat dessert, Eartha. This was wonderful.” Just what he needed to remind him that bachelor life wasn’t so bad.

“I know you’re not going to pass up my sour-lime pie, don’t matter how full you are. Teddy sure loves this pie.”

He ate the pie, partly because it was his favorite dessert and partly because she stood over him waiting to see happiness on his face. “Thanks for a great meal, Eartha. I won’t be home for dinner tomorrow night,” he told her, “so you can treat Teddy to his beloved hamburger.”

“Yes, sir. He’ll love that.”

A minute earlier, basking in Eartha’s caring, his thoughts had dwelled on the virtues of bachelorhood. But as he walked up the stairs to his room, his steps slowed and he became suddenly pensive. After such a meal as that one, a man should relax with a fine cognac, music and a beautiful woman. With that thought, a sense of loneliness pervaded him. He went into his room, kicked off his shoes, lifted the telephone receiver and immediately put it back in its cradle. He got up, walked over to the window and looked out at his garden, still bleak at the end of an usually cold March. He had to do something about Dream, and he ought to increase his shares of the Skate newspaper chain, because the value would shoot up when he bought that company. Why couldn’t he put his mind to work on his business interests? When had he ever spent an evening at home doing nothing? After Teddy went to bed, he usually worked. But on this night, he couldn’t summon the will. He went back to the phone and dialed his grandfather’s number.

“This is Jake Underwood. What can I do for you?”

“How are you, Granddad? This is Ashton. Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. When you coming down here? Damon’s studying for his finals, Cade’s solving the world’s problems somewhere, and I need to do something about this riding school.”

“What do you mean?”

“Either we expand it or close it. I have about two dozen requests that I can’t fill right now, because I need at least three more grooms and three mares. We have enough stallions. You know that most of our students are women and girls.”

“You shouldn’t have responsibility for this, Granddad, but with Damon busy till June or whenever he passes the bar, I don’t see an alternative.”

“I didn’t suggest that it’s too much for me, and it isn’t. I’m saying we need to make a business decision.” Ashton didn’t like the idea of his eighty-three-year-old grandfather holding down a full-time job, but Jacob—or Jake as he was known—Underwood had always worked and claimed he was happiest when his mind and hands were fully engaged.

“All right. Teddy and I will be down this weekend, and maybe Damon can get away for one day. I’ll speak with him. Cade probably won’t be home for another week.”

“We know where Cade stands. He always thinks big, so he’s going to say we should expand, but we need to study it.”

After hanging up, Ashton reviewed his accountant’s report on Dream’s finances, decided how much additional stock he would purchase, closed his computer and flipped on the television. He didn’t want to watch television. He wanted Felicia. After pacing from one end of his room to the other, staring out of the window and retracing his steps, he went to the telephone and his fingers did the work for him.

“Hello?”

He sat down on the edge of his bed and let peace flow over him. “This is Ashton. I did not intend to call you tonight, but since you won’t leave my mind, I had no choice.”

“Hi, Ashton. If that’s true, I’ve merely been repaying you.”

“Are you suggesting that you’ve been thinking about me?”

“No, I am not suggesting that, Ashton. I am stating it as a fact. Was Teddy awake when you got home?”

“You bet. He wouldn’t have considered going near the bed. He and I have a pact. He keeps his promises and I keep mine. And his memory is infallible.” He didn’t care what they said to each other as long as he could talk with her. “Teddy is currently counting the days until Sunday.”

“What happens Sunday?”

“I’ve promised to play the piano for him, and that means playing it until he gets tired or sleepy.”

“Do you play well?”

“I chose between an M.B.A. and a graduate degree in music. I went for the M.B.A., because I love to eat, but I’m a pretty good musician. I just promised my granddad that Teddy and I would see him this weekend, and I don’t know whether that piano at home is tuned properly, but it will have to suffice. A promise is a promise.”

“Where’s home?”

“My granddad lives in Rose Hill, Maryland, and that’s still home for my brothers and me.”

“Did you call to cancel our dinner date for tomorrow, Ashton?”

“Is that a polite way of asking me why I called you? I don’t mind telling you that I’m still dealing with what went on between you and me today. I called you because I needed contact with you, because any contact was better than none. Does that answer your question?” The sound he heard could only have been that of Felicia sucking in her breath. He believed in honesty; she asked for it and he gave it to her. But he didn’t expect her to back down easily.

“Are you still going to be circumspect when we meet tomorrow?”

He couldn’t help laughing. “When we meet, yes. But if you have the effect on me that you’ve had the other times I’ve been in your company, I can’t promise about the remainder of the evening.”

“Hmm. In that case I’d better wear my Oxford-gray suit and brown turtleneck sweater, which I think of as my man-tamer.”

“Your what?”

“You heard me correctly. Did you grow up where your grandfather lives?”

“Yes, it’s a tiny hamlet in what we call horse country. My brothers and I still consider that our home, although Damon and I also have residences elsewhere. It’s a beautiful region with bridal paths through wooded areas and along the brooks and little rivers. You can isolate yourself from the world. It’s so peaceful. But it’s a big responsibility for my eighty-three-year-old grandfather, although he has a manager and expert grooms and riding instructors.”

In his mind’s eye, he saw her in a dark gray suit and brown high-neck sweater and cringed. “Felicia, if I promise to be circumspect, as you put it, all evening, will you wear something red tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Red makes me, uh, want to be kissed. You know…frisky. Do you think you can handle that?”

“Listen, woman, you don’t live that far from me, and I’m still dressed.”

“Tish. Tish. You should be getting ready for bed. You’re setting a bad example for Teddy.”

He stretched out on his back. “Teddy is four. I’m forty, and that is one hell of a difference. Try not to get too frisky tomorrow, not that I wouldn’t enjoy seeing the sophisticated Ms. Parker shake it up. You’re as refreshing as a crisp spring breeze. See you tomorrow evening at seven.”

“Good night, Ashton. Sweet dreams.”

He hung up, wondering what would come next. He’d always thought he was up to any task, but he hadn’t met a woman like Felicia Parker. Sharp, intelligent and quick-witted. Fine. That didn’t impress him too much; he was used to that. But she had that other side of her, the warm, soft sweetness, the sexy femininity that was like hot quicksand. He blew a sharp whistle. He’d be a fool if he didn’t find out what she was really like. If he got sucked in, he’d probably enjoy himself.