Once in a Lifetime (10 page)

He closed his eyes and gave thanks. “If anything had happened to you, I…I don’t know what I would have done.”

Her beloved fingers stroked the side of his face in a loving caress. “I knew you’d worry. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It made a few things crystal clear to me.”

She brushed his bottom lip with the pad of her thumb, and he recognized it for the possessive gesture that it was.

“Kiss me, Alexis. I need it. I need it badly.” He bent to her welcoming mouth, not caring that Russ and Drake stood at the door. She opened to him, but when he got his tongue into her warm loving mouth, the thunder and fireworks didn’t come. Instead, she loved him so gently, stroking him, easing her fingers through the hair at his nape, gripping his body with hands that generated not fire but sweetness. Adoring him. The hot passion that lived in him for her alone still heated his loins, but a powerful drive to protect and cherish her overrode it. He broke the kiss and stared down at her.

“Do you feel like this about me?” he whispered. “You’re telling me something you never told me before. Is this what I am to you?”

“I am what you see and feel. That’s all I’ll ever be.”

He crushed her to him. “I don’t know what this means; I only hope it’s real.”

Her smile, wobbly and tentative though it seemed, was a shower of joy. He felt like beating his chest with his fists. “I guess we’d better go inside. Tara and Henry are probably out of their minds by now. Russ, Drake and I were just about to
search for you. We…” His head snapped up. Thank God they’d had the decency to give him privacy. He didn’t know what they’d think, and he didn’t care.

“Mummy, Mummy.” Tara’s relief at seeing Alexis told him how distressed the child had been. As they embraced each other, an intense longing possessed him, and he knelt there in the foyer and gathered them into his arms.

“Mummy, Mr. Henry set the table in the breakfast room just like you do. He said you don’t like us to eat in the kitchen.”

He stood and helped Alexis to her feet. “Excuse me a minute. I need to wash up and get ready for supper.” That was as good an excuse as any to get the privacy he needed. So much had happened in the last four hours that he hardly knew himself. He cared for Alexis, and he’d known that almost from the first, but he realized now that it wasn’t a sensation he could get over just by willing it. And Tara. He shook his head in amazement as he ambled up the stairs. How he adored that little girl!

“Want to go for a walk?” he asked Alexis after supper as they left the breakfast room. “It won’t be dusk for another hour.” He just wanted to be with her, to talk, not about anything in particular, but to have some bonding experience other than their passion. She appeared to be torn, and he asked her, “You don’t want to go?”

She grasped his wrist, but only for a second, and withdrew her hand. “I do. I’d just love that, but I’m not sure I should leave Tara right now. My getting here so late shook her up.”

Shook him, too. “Tell me about it. She seemed fine at supper.”

She looked into the distance. Pensive. “Since we’ve been here, she clings to me less and less, and I know it’s because she gets so much love. She’s stopped begging for it and accepts it as her due. She doesn’t even shy away from Russ.”

That was a loaded statement if he’d ever heard one, and when he got to the root of it, he’d know a lot more about Alexis than she’d previously revealed. “Russ doesn’t like having to change his ways. If you knew how seldom he got fully dressed
before you came here, you’d probably sympathize with him. He’s a good man; you’ll learn that when you need him, he’s there.”

“I’m sure he couldn’t be that different from you and Drake. What’s Tara doing in the kitchen with Henry? You’d think they had a secret.”

In spite of all she’d been through, she still generated the serenity that soothed him and gave him a feeling of contentment.

“They made cookies this afternoon, and she’s probably getting some samples for you. I’ll walk you to your room.”

At her door, she thanked him, opened it and stood between him and the room.

“Thank me for what?”

“For everything. For more than I thought I’d ever have.” She stepped closer quickly, clasped his face in both of her hands and kissed him. “Good night.”

“
Alexis!
Woman, for Pete’s sake!”

Her smile communicated sweetness, but the wink that went along with it was pure wickedness. “Can we go for a walk another evening?”

“Sure. You’re clever. You know that? If you waded into me tonight, you’d have to send for a fire engine. Good night, baby.”

Meanwhile, Russ and Drake lounged downstairs in the game room with a beer and their cue sticks ready for a game of pool. Russ racked the balls, then put his stick down and looked at Drake.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the level of intimacy he’d witnessed between Telford and Alexis. “What do you say to that?”

“To what?”

“Man, you can be dense when it suits you. You know I’m talking about Telford and Alexis. That’s gone a lot further than I suspected.”

Drake leaned against the wall and rested the cue stick
between his knees. “Based on what I saw out there, I have a feeling it’s gone further than
they
suspected. I’m staying out of that, Russ, and you’d better do the same.”

Drake walked back to the pool table. “Telford hasn’t had much joy in his life; he was looking after us when he should’ve been chasing the sistahs. And he’s still feeling the pain of Mama’s stupidity and Papa’s ruin. Granted, Sparkman screwed Papa, but Papa was too trusting. And every time Telford meets a woman, he backs off because he’s afraid she’ll try to make a fool of him the way Mama did Papa.”

“He always chooses the ones he can do without, and maybe that’s because he hasn’t wanted to get deeply involved with ’em.”

“Yeah. He didn’t choose this one, and…” Drake shook his head as though in wonder. “Did you see… I mean, Russ, that wasn’t heat I was looking at.”

“I know. It was a hell of a lot more, and I hope he knows what’s happening to him.”

Drake aimed the cue stick and pocketed three balls with his first shot. “He knows, and he can handle it. The one thing he’ll never be able to change is how he feels about Tara. Four men here, and she chose him. This is good for him.”

Russ strolled up to the table and aimed. He had yet to be convinced. “We’ll see.”

Alexis put the last touches on the bust of Mary McCleod Bethune and set it on her dresser. With a broom and dustpan, she cleaned up the last of the shavings. Her enthusiasm for her hobby in overdrive, she took the bust, a piece of chamois and a bottle of oil out into the garden and sat on the little stone bench facing the rosebushes. She polished the bust with all the muscle she could apply, softly humming “Bye Bye Blackbird” as she rubbed. She always found the rhythm of that song a perfect accompaniment to the movement of her arm.

“Well, I’ll be. You are really talented.”

She looked around at Russ, shirtless and sweating from digging in the far side of the garden where she hadn’t seen
him. “I didn’t know you were a sculptor. You and Telford have a lot in common.”

She didn’t stop polishing. “You mean because he’s a musician, and I do this?”

“No. Because he makes some fantastic things out of wire. I mean, artistic things. He’s done that since he was a boy.”

She stopped her work, shaded her face from the late-afternoon sun and squinted up at him. “I didn’t know that. Where does he keep his figures?”

“They used to be all over the house, but now I think he keeps them in that cabinet in his room. Ask him to let you see them. They’re very impressive.”

“I will. Thanks.” She was about to allude to his overture of friendliness, but he’d already gone back to his work.

“Something told me that if I came around this way, I might find you. Why you been staying away from me, babe?”

She didn’t like Biff Jackson, and now was the time to make that clear. “I am not staying away from you, as you put it. I am not interested in you and I don’t want anything to do with you. Kindly leave me alone.”

“Aw, quit playing hard to get. You know you want it. Meet me down the road by that bridge in about twenty minutes.”

“I hope you don’t hold your breath.” She rolled the bust up in the oiling cloth and stood to leave.

“You think I can’t get over this fence? Just dare me.”

“
I
dare you. You’ve lost your mind,” Russ growled. “She said she’s not interested and told you to leave her alone. Pester her one more time and look for another job. Half a dozen of the men can make as good a foreman as you, but I doubt Telford would exchange Mrs. Stevenson for one other woman. So who do you think he’d choose? You or her?”

It shamed her that Russ witnessed the exchange, but she was nonetheless grateful for his presence. She murmured “thank you” and fled into the house, careful to enter through the kitchen door rather than the one that led to her bedroom, which she reached as the phone rang.

“Alexis, this is Russ. Don’t make the mistake of keeping
quiet about Biff Jackson. He isn’t going to leave you alone. We’ve known him and his antics with women for years. If he bothers you again, let one of us know, because he’ll stop at nothing. He honestly believes you’re playing hard to get, because he thinks there isn’t a woman anywhere who wouldn’t want him. We can’t protect you if you don’t ask for help. I’m leaving it up to you to tell Telford. At least for now. See you.”

She would have thanked him if he’d given her the chance, but he hung up before she could utter a word. She wrapped the bust in a towel, rolled it in a sheet of plastic and put it in her closet.

“Now who can that be?” she asked aloud as the phone rang again. “Hello.”

“Tara and I are going for ice cream. How about I drive by the house and get you first, huh?”

She grabbed her chest as if that would steady her. Every time she heard his voice unexpectedly and his deep, resonant vibrato flowed over her, her heart seemed to take wings.

“Okay, I’d love that, but I won’t have to eat black-cherry ice cream, will I?”

His laughter was a cloud of comfort, wrapping around her. “Of course not. You can have whatever you like. Now and any other time. Be there in fifteen minutes.”

Dressed in a pink sleeveless T-shirt and a broomstick skirt that had a pink-and-navy paisley print, Alexis combed her hair down and fastened big silver hoops to her ears. As the big Buick Le Sabre rolled to a stop, she stepped out of the door. Telford got out, walked around the car to meet her and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, surprising her. She got in, reached back and hugged Tara.

“You smell good,” Tara said, giggling happily. “My mummy’s pretty, Mr. Telford.”

“She sure is that. Believe me.”

He bought cups of ice cream, peach for himself, black cherry for Tara and butter pecan for Alexis.

“Where we going, Mr. Telford?” Tara asked him when they left the store.

“Down to the river.”

“But my ice cream will melt, and I want to save some for Biscuit.”

“No, it won’t. We’ll be there in ten minutes, and you shouldn’t give Biscuit sweets. He loves you, so he’ll eat anything you give him, but sweets can make him sick.”

They sat on a bench by the river and ate ice cream.

“All we need is some music. Next time we come here, let’s bring a radio,” Alexis said.

“Does that mean you want to come back here with me?”

“It’s peaceful here, and I’m…I’m enjoying your company.”

She couldn’t imagine the humor in that remark, but he obviously did, for he laughed aloud. “If you’d said you weren’t enjoying my company, I’d be in trouble. Big trouble.”

She couldn’t respond to that comment, because she tried to be honest with him. It wasn’t a topic for jokes, and the truth would probably knock him off balance. She changed the subject.

“I’m curious. You told me you’re a builder, but what exactly is it that you do?”

“I’m a building contractor. I figure out how much it will cost to build the building Russ designs and bid for a contract. After we get the contract, I’m responsible for purchasing materials, hiring the workers and overseeing the job. As the architectural engineer, it’s Drake’s job to lay out the structure of Russ’s plans and to make certain that every detail is implemented. Drake’s the troubleshooter, and he’s a good one.”

“Too bad your parents aren’t here to see how the three of you work together. They’d be so proud of you.”

“I know our dad would. Our mother? Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I have a sense that, in your childhood, your family might have been similar to mine.”

He rested his elbows on his knees and looked across the river. “Your parents…they weren’t happy?”

“Not from the time I could understand human relations. They finally destroyed each other.”

He didn’t look at her, but his hand went out to her and rested on her thigh. “I’m sorry. I thought we were the only kids whose parents didn’t know what they were doing when they got married.” He glanced over at Tara, who had stopped eating and watched him.

“Yeah. Well…we can come back here one Saturday morning early and see if we can’t catch some fish.”

“You gonna bring
me,
Mr. Telford?”

She giggled when he tweaked her nose. “If your mother says it’s all right.”

Tara wanted all of Telford’s time, and this was understandable, because he lavished her with affection. But he needed freedom to love her at will without feeling obligated.

“Darling, when he has time, he’ll invite you to go with him, but you must give him the freedom to choose whether to be with you or someone else.”

That possibility apparently didn’t faze Tara. “Mr. Telford loves me.”

Stunned, the words flew out of Alexis’s mouth before she considered their implication. “How do you know that?”

Telford’s head snapped around, and he stared hard at her as if he didn’t believe what he’d heard and didn’t approve of it. But Tara was unperturbed.

“When I hug him, he always hugs me back, just like you do. And he always smiles at me and holds my hand. He takes me to church school, and he’s teaching me how to play the piano. He loves me a lot.”