After the Loving (11 page)

“Mummy, look what Mr. Russ brought me. Come look.” Along with Telford, Alexis and Henry, she hurried to see the source of Tara’s excitement, a twenty-four inch replica of a grand piano to which was attached a bench and a little black girl with long pigtails. Russ plugged in the electric
cord, turned the switch and the little girl began to play “Songs My Mother Taught Me.”

“I know that. I play that song, Mr. Russ.” She hugged his knees, slapped her hands together and giggled with delight.

“It was in the window of a toy shop,” Russ said. “It looked just like Tara. I couldn’t leave it there.” He hunkered beside her and hugged her. “I’m glad you like it.”

“I love it. I’m going to name her Cookie because Mr. Henry teaches me how to make cookies.”

“Russ, this is so lovely, and she truly likes it.” Alexis blinked back a tear. “The love that my child receives in this house… I…I didn’t know I could be so happy.”

Russ straightened up and walked over to Velma. “May I speak with you privately for a minute?”

She walked with him into the living room. “What is it?”

“Want to ride into Baltimore with me tomorrow? You’ll learn a lot if you’re with me while I inspect the building and fixtures, and you can go with me to look at that apartment. Want to?”

She didn’t hesitate. “I’d love that. And Russ, that was such a sweet thing you did, buying that toy for Tara. It’s the perfect toy for her, but wasn’t it pricey?”

“I didn’t mind that. She’s special to me.”

“You will be a wonderful father,” she said, and could have bitten her tongue. Never give a man the idea that you’re anxious to settle down with him unless you want to get rid of him, her twice-married, thirty-year-old friend, Lydia, preached. And she could see the merit of that advice.

However, Russ apparently didn’t attach any significance to the remark. “Thanks. I’m looking forward to cherishing my children and guiding them to be men and women I can
be proud of and who will be proud of what they’ve made of themselves.”

“If they are like you, you can’t ask for more.”

He looked at her for a long time, until she felt as if he was dissecting and analyzing her. When his eyelids fluttered and his eyes took on that dreamy look that never failed to heat her blood, she swallowed hard and tried to break the force that his gaze exerted, sapping her will, making her pliable and hungry for him.

His left hand circled her upper right arm, and she could feel that pull to him, that anticipation of the thrill that always shot through her when he folded her into his arms. As if he knew he had sparked that cord of lightning that shot through her, his eyes darkened with the turbulence of a howling storm, and he sucked in his breath.

Did he pull her to him, or did her body move automatically toward the music that made her soul dance? She only knew that he touched her, and that her lips immediately parted themselves for the entry of his sweet, loving tongue. And then, he was inside of her, dipping, tasting, twirling, mining the gold he found in every crevice of her mouth.

His grip on her tightened, the scent of his male heat attacked her olfactory senses, and every nerve in her body clamored for the friction that would soothe and sate them. Her breathing shortened, and when her nipples began to ache and pain her, she grabbed his left hand and placed it on her right breast.

“Russ. Oh, my Lord,” she moaned as he squeezed and pinched the beaded areola. “Honey, please.”

He had to know that he had taken it as far as it could go, for he put both arms around her and then gently stroked her back.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered, “we’re going to have to do something about this.”

She rested her head on his chest. “But you don’t want anything to happen between us. You don’t want a relationship with me, but every time we get together like this, you pull me in deeper.”

He kissed her eyes, brushed his lips across her cheek, and pressed his lips to hers. “Shhh,” he whispered. “I know, and I’m not foolish. This isn’t a simple thing that either of us can wish away. It explodes when we don’t expect it. I look at you and… Hell, I don’t know. You want a cooling-off period, see how it works?”

No. She didn’t want any such thing, but he would never know it. “That may be a good idea. You don’t put your hands on me, and I won’t put mine on you.”

When he laughed, she imagined the satisfaction she’d get from giving him a good sock. “Let me in on what’s so funny.”

His grin widened. “We are. I give it till the next time we’re alone.”

She stepped back and looked at him. Damned if she liked having her nerves fried every time he touched her and then left to blister. Even plants needed a good rain after a good sun scorching. “What about that famous self-control of yours?” she asked, being careful to keep her tone warm and even.

The lights in his eyes danced a mischievous twinkle, and she realized there wasn’t much chance of getting him into a serious mood.

“I hope I’m not required to use more self-control than I applied a minute ago.” His gaze drifted to her breast, still beaded and tingling with hunger for the feel of his warm mouth. “I guess I’d manage if I had to, but I sure as hell wouldn’t be happy about it.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I told you. I don’t say things that I don’t mean.”

“Then where does that leave me?” she asked him.

“We’re in this together, babe. If you fall, I’ll catch you, and I hope you would do the same for me.” When she raised an eyebrow, he added, “I wouldn’t mind having some help with this control business. You make the prospect of losing it seem like what Sir Edmund Hillary must have felt when he got to the top of Mount Everest.”

She didn’t know why, but something in her—maybe it was the devil—told her to test it. When her tongue pressed the right side of her cheek, she was duly warned, that having been a signal of recklessness for as long as she could remember. Her gaze swept upward from his feet to the hair on his head in a sexy come-on, but when her gaze settled on his face, she knew she had made the wrong move. His face bore as stern an expression as she had ever seen on it.

“I’m sorry, Russ. It’s a wicked streak that I have yet to conquer.”

“Don’t conquer it. Just learn when and when not to let it have sway.”

Her hand caressed his wrist, and oh, how she loved touching him. “Am I forgiven?”

“Nothing to forgive. You have to learn what works with me and what doesn’t, just as I have to get to know you.”

“I’m as transparent as glass,” she said.

“You couldn’t be serious.”

“I was. Say, where did they go? I thought they’d join us in the den after a while.”

He took her hand and walked with her to the den. “None of them would have gone in here as long as we were outside there together. They’re in their rooms for the night.” He winked at her. “So behave yourself. Want a glass of wine?”

“I’d love it.”

He poured each of them a glass of wine, placed it on the
table beside his favorite chair. “Sit here?” She did, and he sat on the footstool beside the chair. “What time do you want to leave for Baltimore tomorrow?” he asked her.

“Around nine.”

“Then meet you for breakfast at eight.”

“Oh, I don’t need that much time. Ten minutes is enough for me.”

A frown clouded his face. “It isn’t enough. You need more sustenance than you can get from half a grapefruit and a cup of black coffee. I hate this whole thing.” He drained his glass. “I’d better turn in. What about you?”

“Right,” she said, filling her voice with false gaiety. Whenever the subject of her size or her diet arose, he shifted from sweet to indifferent with the speed of a thoroughbred smelling the finish line.

She leaned over, kissed his forehead and jumped up from the chair. “See you in the morning.”

“You bet,” he said in a listless tone that suggested he might have been miles away.

Maybe he was missing something important. She looked good to him, and when Dolphe behaved like an adolescent over her in that fitted dress, that should have told her something. He fluffed up the pillow on the sofa, stopped in the act of putting the footstool where Alexis kept it, and put his knotted fists on his hips. “What the devil is coming over me? I don’t give a hoot whether these pillows are straight, and I don’t care where this stool sits.” Disgusted with himself and his absentminded acquiescence to rules for which he had no use, he showed his contempt for
la politesse
by getting a bottle of beer, uncapping it and taking a swig from the bottle as he headed up the stairs.

Just before he reached Telford’s bedroom, the door opened and Telford stepped out into the hall. “I just wanted
to thank you for telling Alexis that you’re not moving your things. I’d understand if you did that, but she was more upset at your leaving than I thought.” He dug his toe in the carpet. “She appreciates that you need your own life, but she wants you where she can keep an eye on you…uh, look after you. Don’t laugh now. I’m discovering that she is a nurturer.”

“Hell, man. You always knew that. I did. Tell her she’ll see so much of me that she’ll forget I don’t live here. Eventually, I hope to build a house up the hill. That way, I’ll still be here. And I’ll situate it so that there’s still plenty of private space if Drake decides he wants to do the same.”

“Good. She’ll be happy to hear it.” He ran his hands over the curls at the back of his head. “Russ, can you tell me what the problem is with Velma? Can I help in any way?”

He’d never shared intimacies with Telford or Drake as he suspected they had with each other, and doing it then made him uncomfortable. Yet he realized that their behavior no doubt seemed odd to onlookers.

“I’m having a hard time accepting her shaky self-confidence. She has decided she doesn’t like the way she looks, and she doesn’t believe she’s attractive. With a lot of help from Henry, I suspect, I finally got her to stop wearing those mammy caftans and put on some normal clothes.” He shrugged because he had a sense of defeat. “She looks great in them,” he went on, “but she doesn’t believe it. I like her the way she is. Maybe I’m unfair, but I find vanity about looks tiresome and shallow. Every time something good happens between us, you can bet the topic of diet or size will crop up and dampen the mood. Much as I like her, I know I’m going to get fed up with it.”

Telford’s arm draped across his shoulder, as it had so many times over the years when big brother let him know he was there if needed. “I’m surprised. When did you notice this?”

“That night after your wedding. She wants to be slim and willowy like Alexis.”

“But you’ve never shown an interest in tall, slim women.”

“There’ve been a couple, but nothing significant and the attraction wasn’t strong. Anyway, I told her Alexis was your type, not mine, but she’s fixated on that all-American ideal, and I’m tired of it.”

“Take it slow there, brother. She wants you, so she’ll find herself.”

“If she doesn’t, I’m out of here.”

“M
y first impression of this house is that it’s a reasonably good buy for the money,” Russ told Velma as they walked through the building. “I also like the layout. You check out the kitchen to see whether it contains everything you need in the place that’s most convenient, go through the storage, clothes and linen closets and be sure to check the amount of storage space in the basement. I’ll do the same later, but it’s important that you’re satisfied. Did you bring any notepaper?” She showed him the lined, yellow tablet. “Okay, I’m starting with the roof. See you later.”

After deciding that the builder should put screens over the drainpipes to prevent tree leaves from clogging them, he okayed the roof and exterior of the house. His biggest job would be the plumbing, so he worked at that next.

“It’s already one o’clock,” she told him. “I’d better get us something to eat. What would you like?”

He looked down on her from his perch on the rung of a
ladder. “Some Maryland crab cakes, homemade biscuits, apple pie and coffee. Lots of coffee.” He stepped down from the ladder, opened his wallet and handed her two twenty-dollar bills.

“What’s all this for?”

“I want four crab cakes, and if you get them at Frannie’s over near the Armory, that alone will be twenty bucks. What’re you having? Lettuce?”

“I’ll be back as soon as possible, and you watch your mouth. This is going to be a lovely, productive day, and we’re not going to provoke each other.”

“If you get yourself a couple of crab cakes, we won’t.”

“Oh, pooh,” she said. “See you later.”

Shortly after four o’clock, he washed his face and hands, filled out his report to the real-estate agent, signed it and gave her a copy for herself. “A couple of things have to be corrected, but they are not major, and the builder will take care of it. It’s a good house. Solid. I like it.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

“And you shouldn’t. It’s the least I’d do for you. Let’s go. I want to show you the apartment I’m considering.”

They had spent the day working together, laughing and teasing, and although he’d done strenuous work, he’d hardly been aware of the energy he expended. “She’s good for me in so many ways,” he said to himself as they drove along Swan Drive to skirt the park. Something other than having a model of womanhood for a sister gnawed at her sense of self. He needed to find out what it was, and he promised himself that he would.

“I love this neighborhood,” Velma said when he parked in front of an old, but elegant, apartment building.

“Me, too. It isn’t nicer than your area, just older and different. This won’t take long.

“It’s more than I need,” he said of the thirty-foot step-down living room and two large bedrooms.

“I like the dining area and balustrade on the level with the entrance and foyer,” she said.

“Yeah. It is nice, but what am I going to do with a dining room, or that big kitchen? I’m planning to use that second bedroom for an office. There’s a gourmet take-out and delivery shop less than two blocks away. That’ll take care of my eating needs.”

“You’ll miss that great food Henry and Alexis serve up every evening.”

“You promised to cook me a gourmet treat if I made it convenient. Remember?”

She looked around the unfurnished apartment and then at him, and it occurred to him that she was a natural flirt. “Yes. I remember.”

His first thought was that he’d never made love to a woman on a bare floor, and that he wouldn’t like to test that with Velma. “Let’s not go to meltdown,” he said, certain that the remark would send her back up. “Wait till I get the place furnished.”

She stared at him for a long time, her expression unreadable. And then she laughed. At first, it sounded like bubbles forcing themselves out of a bottle, but the more she laughed the more gaiety poured out of her until he was caught up in it and laughed with her.

When they at last controlled the mirth, he put his hand on her shoulders. “Sometimes, like right now, you’re so precious and I think you’re the one woman in this world for me. Let me inside of your feelings and thinking. Let me understand you, because I don’t, and I want to. Let me love you, Velma.”

“Do you want to?” she whispered. “Do you really want to? From my early childhood, I’ve smiled through so much
hurt. I…” She looked away. “I’m sorry. I never drop my problems on other people, not even my sister, who has always been the person closest to me.”

He put his arms around her. “Closer than your parents?”

“We were closest to each other because of them. I think I told you this. Alexis says they loved us, but they didn’t. I protected her, acted like a buffer between her and them, but there was no cushion between them and me.”

He glanced around the open room. Here was the opportunity to get behind the person she so carefully hid, but without one chair or a means of relaxing and making her comfortable, he knew it wasn’t the time for it.

“Will you tell me about it? Not now, but at a convenient time and place?”

“If I can.”

“I’ll remind you, and I’ll help you. You care for me—that is not in question. But how can you care for a man if you don’t trust him? If I tell you you’re beautiful and that I like you just as you are, you won’t believe me.”

“I want to, Russ, but I’m so accustomed to…to seeing everything that’s wrong with me that—”

“All right. I don’t want us to get into that. Let’s go home.” As he drove, he realized that his attitude toward a relationship with her was changing, and he made up his mind to help her see herself as she appeared to him.

“I’m going to love my new home, especially since I’ll be closer to Alexis and Tara.”

“Is that all, woman? Have you forgotten that you’ll be only eleven little blocks from me? I’m crushed.”

“You poor baby,” she said. “I will definitely make amends.”

“Oh, you will.” When her eyebrows shot up, he said, “I’ve already told you that my punishments are enjoyable. Just
one mild one, and you’ll be clamoring for more. Knocking down my door.”

“Are we talking about something that can be discussed in the presence of a ten-year-old?”

“Not in the presence of
my
ten-year-old, if I had one. Why?”

“Just checking on the location of your mind.”

“You make me laugh without trying, and it’s a great feeling, laughter. I can’t believe I lived thirty-four years without realizing what a catharsis it is.”

She patted the hand that rested on the steering wheel. “Every time I see you laugh, I feel so good. The transformation that takes place in you is like the metamorphosis of a deity. Total and wonderful.”

“It’s as strange to me as it is to you.”

“I’m planning a gala in New Orleans next week, so I’ll be leaving this weekend. I’m looking forward to it. I could use a respite from this cold weather.”

“Do you have everything in place?”

“Everything. Trust me, it wasn’t easy, but I’m satisfied that my clients will be pleased.”

“How do you manage that business, catering parties and social affairs all over the country, with only a laptop and a cell phone?”

“That’s all I need. I use local services and suppliers.”

“I’ll be working in Philadelphia while you’re away, and I suspect, for a while after you return. But you have my cell phone number,” he said.

They discussed everything but themselves and skirted issues guaranteed to push them apart. “I’m kissing you right here,” he said, and drove into the garage.

She slid closer to him and wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Hold the dynamite, honey,” she said with a grin,
“I’m running on empty. I may not punish, but I do collect what’s coming to me.”

“Music to my ears, because I always pay my bills. In your case, I’d pay with relish.”

Her arms went around him, and she brushed his mouth with her lips closed. To his astonishment, her lips trailed over his eyes, cheeks, the side of his neck and only briefly lingered on his mouth. All the while, her fingers moved lightly over the back of his head, his nape and the side of his face. He moved away and stared at her.

“What are you telling me?” It wasn’t the earth-shaking explosion she usually generated in him, but a kiss of love and tenderness. A kiss without passion.

“I… I just… It’s the way I feel,” she said in barely audible tones. He had to get out of that car before he did something foolish like telling her he loved her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her until he heard the door to the kitchen open.

“That you, Tel?”

“Russ,” he answered Henry. “I’ll be inside in a minute.”

He brushed her lips with his own. “I’ll get back to this,” he said to Velma. “It may be a week or even two, but I’ll finish this. You understand?”

Her smile warmed him. “Yes.”

He got out of the car, opened the passenger door and guided her into the kitchen, avoiding the concrete steps over which he had stumbled many times.

“What you sitting out there for?” Henry asked him. “Ain’t a soul in this house but me. It’s time some of you came home. I had Bennie hanging around my neck all day, and she ain’t done ten minutes of work. Place looks like it did when she walked in here this morning. Only way I could
get rid of her was to go over to my place and lock the door, so you ain’t getting a big supper tonight.”

“Long as it’s not cabbage stew. Tell Bennie you’re not interested in her.”

Henry propped his fists on the bones that serves as his hips.
“Tell her? I ain’t done nothing but showed her for the last ten years. The woman’s got the hide of an elephant.”

Russ didn’t laugh for he knew that, in his present mood, Henry would use any excuse to cook cabbage stew. “If you’d like me to speak with her, just tell me.”

“Suppose I asked you to shoot her?”

He worked hard at controlling the laughter that threatened to burst out of him. “Henry, there aren’t many things you can ask of me that I’d hesitate to do, but… Look. Don’t cook her breakfast or lunch, and maybe she’ll catch on. She might also do some work.”

“She butters me up about how good me cooking is. Next time she sits down there and
orders
pancakes like she was in a restaurant, I’m going to spill a bottle of Angostura bitters in the batter. That ought to fix her.”

The laughing began with Velma, who leaned against him and let it roll out of her. Watching her was more than enough to provoke his own outpouring of mirth.

“Ain’t a bit funny,” Henry said, but immediately gave the lie to his remark and joined them, laughing and holding his side as he did so.

“What’s going on in here?”

He spun around toward the door, glimpsing the tears on Velma’s face as he did so. “Hi,” he said to Telford and Alexis, glanced at Henry and resumed the laughing orgy.

Henry recovered first. “Ain’t nothing wrong with us, Tel. Just the thought of Russ shooting Bennie on my behalf. And in case you want to know why, she trailed me everywhere I went today, ain’t done a bit of work, just gazing up at me
like a moonstruck heifer. Never saw the beat of it. And if you find it funny, look for cabbage soup tonight.”

“I never expected to see a scene like that one, you and Russ laughing uncontrollably,” Telford said. “I’m all for joy, but by damn, this is almost frightening. First Russ and now Henry.” He put an arm around his wife and left the kitchen with her.

“If the rest of you didn’t have to eat it, I’d give him cabbage stew anyway,” Henry grumbled.

“Where’s Tara?” Russ asked him.

“Spending the night with Grant. Adam Roundtree’s taking them to some kind of reading competition for five-year-olds. Grant will be six in a couple of weeks, so this is his only chance.”

“I’ll help you cook dinner, Henry,” Velma said. “You fix some potatoes and vegetables, and I’ll fry some catfish.”

“Where’re you going to get catfish?” he asked her.

“In the cool box in Russ’s car.” She looked at Russ. “I got it when I went to get our lunch.”

“Now that’s food,” Henry said. “Ain’t had no catfish since Alexis elevated the menus.”

After dinner that night, Velma excused herself, went to her room and tallied her financial obligations.
I can buy my house and the warehouse, too. In a year from now, people will know about Brighton Food and Entertainment Services.
She hugged herself, rolled over on the bed and laughed. She could do it.

However, her joy was short-lived, as her mind wandered back to Russ and the questions he would have about her parents and how they affected her. She didn’t want to open those old wounds, to remember her loneliness, the hours of dread and fear, and that last night… She slapped her hands on the sides of her head to blot out the memory of it.

Two weeks later, she moved into her new town house at Eighty Eutaw Drive, a short walk from Druid Lake. “Where are you?” she asked Russ after answering her cellular phone around noon of the day she moved in.

“I’m in my apartment.”

“What you doing there this time of day on a Tuesday?”

“Looks like the flu. I got drenched yesterday morning at our project in Philadelphia, and I already had a cold.”

“Do you have a fever?”

“Looks that way. I can’t seem to get warm enough.”

“I’ll be over shortly. Do you have any bed linen, any glasses? What’s there?”

“Living room furniture, my bed, my desk and chair, and kitchen basics. You shouldn’t come over, because this is probably contagious.”

“I’ll wear a mouth and nose guard, and I won’t kiss you.”

“You will so.”

“I’ll be over there in an hour, so don’t go to sleep. You’ll have to open the door.”

In one week, she had to leave for New Orleans. “I can’t go off and leave him here if he’s sick,” she told herself. She shopped for groceries and arrived at his apartment with two bags that she could barely carry.

“What’s all this?” he asked when he opened the door.

“Food. What have you eaten today?”

“Nothing much. I’m not hungry. I think I’ll lie down.”

She put her hand on his hot forehead and agreed with him. “I’ll bring you some soup and a couple of aspirin in a minute.”

Gratified that he ate all of the chicken soup and noodles, she debated whether she should call Telford and tell him. “Don’t you think I should let him know you’re not well?”