Against All Odds (Arabesque) (11 page)

Heat pooled in his middle when she idly stroked his left hand.

“Will Wayne be angry with you?”

He realized then that she had a deep concern for his family’s reaction to their being together. He told the truth.

“Wayne is angry, and he will continue to be for some time.”

He watched, fascinated, as the gray of her eyes lessened and the brown grew more striking. Obviously appalled, she exclaimed, “Don’t you care?”

“Every bit as much as you do, I assure you,” he replied, “but I try not to allow the opinions of others to dictate my behavior.”

“Doesn’t
anything
get to you?”

“Sure. You get to me, Melissa. What do you suggest I do about it?”

She glanced anxiously toward Wayne.

“Don’t be provocative. We’re not alone.” No, they weren’t. But if there had been no one around them, it would have made no difference. The communion he needed with her couldn’t be expressed in words. Frustrated and fearing that he’d spoiled the evening for her, he squeezed her hand and suggested that they leave.

“I’m not a masochist, but the longer I sit here with you, the more I’m beginning to feel like one.” Tenderness for her surged within him, and he longed to cherish her for the world to see, to protect her from the berating he knew she’d get at home because of him. Their circumstances chafed him, its reality like bile in his mouth. He wanted to kick something.

When they got back to her parents’ home, he parked and cut the motor. Her hand reached toward the door, and he told her in a voice soft but firm, “Don’t even think it, Melissa. I went in and got you, and I’m taking you back in there.” He took her key, opened the door, stepped inside, and took her into his arms. Her passionate trembling when his fingers streaked down her cheeks and her neck nearly cost him his self-control. He didn’t consider whether he had an audience, didn’t think of that, only that he needed her fire, her woman’s heat, her total surrender.

Blood pounded in his brain as the heady scent of her desire tantalized her nostrils. The slight movements of her hips against him stunned him and then, as though giving in to her feelings and dismissing caution, her action became rhythmic undulations that sent blazing heat to his groin. At his swift, powerful erection, her arms tightened around him, and she sucked his tongue into her mouth and gave herself to him. He nearly buckled from the force of his desire. He demanded, and she gave. Gave until the blood coursed through him like a rising river rushing out of control; gave until he thought he’d lost possession of his big muscular body as it quivered with rampant passion; gave until the salt of her tears brought him back to reality, and he released her. He stood for long minutes looking into her eyes, looking for the woman that he wanted her to be. Looking for himself. At last he forced a smile, ran his hand over her frizzled curls in a gesture of affection, and left her.

The next morning, Sunday, he got out of bed at eight o’clock after having slept barely three hours. Frustrated because she was who she was and at himself because of the dilemma he’d gotten into, he had to settle at least one thing. What was her tie to Nelson? To his relief, it was she who answered his telephone call. He greeted her warmly before asking, “Melissa, did you know Calvin Nelson before you interviewed him for my company?”

He had to admit her genuine surprise at his question. “I met Nelson the day before I brought him to your office. Prior to that he was a name on my computer screen. Why?”

“I needed to know.”

“If you doubt my integrity, say it right out.”

“If I find fault with you, Melissa, I’ll tell you to your face.”

“Watch your step,” she shot back, her voice cool and businesslike. He hung up. He’d annoyed her, and he hadn’t solved one thing.

* * *

Melissa dressed for church in a white seersucker dress and white low-heel sandals. Disconcerted by Adam’s odd question, she told herself that it couldn’t mean anything, that a man couldn’t kiss a woman as he’d kissed her the night before unless he at least respected her. She stopped by the breakfast room for a cup of coffee and found her father seated at the table deep in thought, his place setting undisturbed.

“Good morning, Daddy.”

“You’re a traitor,” he began with obviously controlled fury. “You know Jacob Hayes stole your birthright and that every one of his descendants has laughed in our faces, flaunting their millions at us. And you have the nerve to go consorting with Adam Roundtree, parading yourself with him right in front of me. You’ve got no shame and no family pride. I ask you to come home and look after your mother, and what do you do. You open an office in a Roundtree building and walk out of my house with Adam Roundtree holding your hand. You’re—”

Melissa couldn’t listen any longer. She left the room without having gotten the coffee and started up the stairs. For the first time, she wondered about her father’s unnatural hatred for the Hayes people. He isn’t a Morris, she reflected; he only married one. “I’m tired of this.”

* * *

Banks knocked on Melissa’s office door the next morning and walked in with two cups of coffee and a box of powdered sugar doughnuts. Except for her beloved Snickers, Melissa confined her junk food intake to late night snacks, but that morning she ate two of the doughnuts, arousing her friend’s curiosity.

“Most mornings, I can’t get you to eat half of one of these things. What’s got into you?”

“How does tall, dark, and handsome sound?” Melissa asked, in an attempt at jocularity as she idly braided the curly hair that hung over her right ear.

Banks gulped her coffee. “You’re sweet on Adam? Good Lord! Why don’t you just drop the bomb and start World War Three?”

Melissa shook her head, conceding her dilemma. “My father is outraged because I went out with Adam Saturday night, says I’ve disgraced the family, and that Adam’s motive in seeing me is suspect. I enjoy being with Adam, and I’m sick of this ridiculous feud, but I can’t let my family down, Banks. I can’t betray my folks.”

Banks removed the cigarette from the corner of her mouth, and when she didn’t see an ashtray, put it out against the sole of her shoe. That done, she settled into the room’s most comfortable chair and looked at Melissa. “I don’t know how meddlesome you allow your friends to be, but you might as well learn right now that I speak my mind. So if you don’t want to hear it, push the rest of my doughnuts over here and tell me to leave.”

Melissa returned her friend’s steady gaze. “If you’ve got the guts to say it, I can take it.”

“Well,” Banks began after a long pause, “have you ever wondered whether Moses Morris, your grandfather, just stood silently and naively by while Jacob Hayes took him to the cleaners? Do you think a man smart enough to swing a loan for a high-risk venture with no capital behind him was stupid enough to let another man soak him? Think, Melissa. That was nearly three-quarters of a century ago, when most of the black people in this country didn’t have a reason to go to a bank.”

She lit another cigarette, puffed it, and sent a perfect smoke ring drifting its way to extinction. “And what about the court ruling, Melissa? Don’t you think that has any validity? From what I read of it, the jury consisted of ordinary people living in the county here, and none of them stood to gain anything. You can read the trial record in the library on Market Street, or you can read the newspaper reports preserved in some of those glass cases in City Hall.” She laughed, though it was more of a snort. “Or you can take the town tour that old lady Aldridge sells the tourist; she never fails to mention it. The Hayes-Morris feud is almost as famous around here as the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys.” She glanced at Melissa to gauge her reaction. “I like it,” she joked, not bothering to veil the mockery. “I like the fuss the townspeople make over it. It legitimates us black folk as social beings.”

“Anybody would think you invented sarcasm,” Melissa said, her tone conveying admiration.

Banks feigned modesty. “Aw, shucks, you know I didn’t invent it, honey. I just know how to make good use of it.”

She extinguished her half smoked cigarette in the manner previously adopted. “You know, Melissa,” she continued when she saw that Melissa didn’t object to her candid words, “all this sounds like jealousy to me, like your grandfather wanted to kick himself for his own rash behavior. Even
I
know you don’t bring in gas or oil overnight. If he took his money out of that speculative venture before the find, he didn’t have a claim. And, honey, if you let this ridiculous grudge keep you from a man that just about every woman within driving distance would like to have, you’re doing yourself a disservice. And you’re crazy. Plain looney.” She crossed her leg and swung it. “Her highness, Mary Roundtree, is going to see red. Ha. Serve her right. She always was too highfalutin for me.” She sighed and got up...a bit dramatically, Melissa decided. “I’m going back to work, Melissa. You can tell me what you think about this at lunch.”

* * *

An afternoon several days later, Melissa put the keys to her new house in the pocket of her slacks and began the ten-block walk to her parents’ home. She hoped the workers would complete the renovations within a couple of weeks, because she needed her own place, and soon. Her father had stopped speaking to her, and her mother stayed in her room reading the world’s great books, the purpose of which Melissa sensed was to legitimate her refusals of Rafer’s company, if indeed, it was she who did the refusing.

* * *

Her mother welcomed her visits, but rarely went to Melissa’s room. Melissa had begun to suspect that Emily Grant would do most anything to avoid her husband’s anger. Did that account for the times when she’d find chocolate under her pillow, a pink rose in her bathroom, or a book of verse on her night table? But never a word of it from her mother. Or when, as a child, she’d find a new doll or other toy in her drawer or closet. She had attributed that to her love of surprises and had thought that her mother knew that and catered to it.

She couldn’t help pondering Banks’s caution of her loyalty to her parents, especially her father, an allegiance that her friend believed to be misplaced. Why shouldn’t she enjoy Adam’s company? He hadn’t hurt her in any way, and even with her limited knowledge of men, she knew he was honorable. Proud and at times arrogant, perhaps, but honest. Yet she hadn’t been able to forget how he’d queried her about Calvin Nelson nor the questions he’d asked: how well and how long she’d known the man. She disliked the subtle implication that she might have recommended a personal friend after taking a retainer for an executive search. The more she thought of it, the closer she came to getting mad.

She walked into the house, went to the telephone, and called him. “Why did you ask me the other day how long I’d known Calvin Nelson before I brought him to you? I’ve been thinking about that, and I do not like the insinuation.”

“I told you not to worry, that I was covering all bases.”

“What kind of an answer is that?” The lilting cadence of his voice always thrilled her, but waves of joy washed over her at the sound of his deep, vibrant laugh, a wondrous sound that he so rarely let her hear. He must have heard the warmth in her voice, must have detected how well his brief answer had charmed her.

“I want to see you tonight.”

She wouldn’t let him bend her to his will. “I don’t think so. What did Wayne have to say about our being together last weekend?”

“Don’t let that concern you,” he replied with evident lack of concern. “He means well. They all do—Rafer included—in their way. What time should I call for you?”

The man wasn’t accustomed to hearing the word no, and as Jason Court had warned her, he didn’t like it when he heard it. Well, he should know by now that she was as independent as he. “Not tonight, Adam,” she insisted. “A war broke out in our house after you left here the other night.”

“You mean I’m not worth your defense of me?”

She heard his laughter and figured it was time he got some of his own. “You’ve got the courage to come to my house and create a storm. Well, suppose I come by for you at, say, seven o’clock tonight. Be ready.” She hung up. And you can be sure, she murmured to herself, that I’ll ring your bell at a quarter to seven.

She grabbed the phone before its second ring. “What’s the matter? Chicken?” she asked. But Adam was not the caller.

“Melissa, this is Timothy Coston, your cousin Timmy.”

She sat down, glad that she hadn’t said more and that she hadn’t called Adam’s name.

“How are you, Timmy? I’m surprised to hear from you.”

“Yeah. I guess you are. I hear you have an employment agency. That’s what your dad said, and I’m looking for a job.” Some more of her father’s shenanigans.

“I locate executives for corporations, Timmy. I don’t run an employment exchange, but if I happen upon an opening, I’ll keep you in mind. I’m in the Hayes Building. Send me your CV.” She terminated the conversation as quickly as she could. She would not hire her cousin no matter what her father said or did. She’d lose control of her business, and her father would have been the instigator.

Chapter 5

M
elissa’s breath stuck in her throat as she waited at the front door of the Roundtree house. She had never before stepped on the property, hadn’t even had a clear view of the house, though, like most of the area’s residents, she’d heard about its sumptuousness. She’d been taught from early childhood that the place was off limits. To her relief, no wild, vicious dogs barked furiously and snarled at her feet, which, as a child, she’d imagined was the reason for her father’s stern edict that she, Schyler, and their cousin Timothy avoid the place. She listened for footsteps, heard none, and pressed the bell again. The doorknob turned, and she released her breath at last, only to suck it in sharply when the door opened and Mary Roundtree faced her. Lord, she hadn’t counted on this.

“Good evening, Mrs. Roundtree. I’m Melissa Grant.” The woman’s manners matched her regal bearing. “Hello, Melissa.” Though her voice was pleasant, it lacked warmth, Melissa noted.

“Won’t you come in? I assume from what I’ve heard that you wish to see my son, Adam.” What had she expected, Melissa asked herself—small towns and secrets were incompatible.

“Thank you. Would you please tell him I’m here?” She reflected on their behavior toward each other, so pleasant and so civilized. A stranger would have gained the impression that they had always been on friendly terms, but those were the first words they had ever exchanged. She stood straighter with her shoulders squared, faintly amused at the barely leashed anger she saw in Adam’s mother’s eyes. Parental possessiveness wasn’t limited to her father. Mary Roundtree turned to leave, and Melissa heard Adam’s footsteps as he loped down the stairs. She looked up with a start. Would she ever get used to his arresting, masculine good looks? She stared into the depth of his gaze until the sound of his mother’s throat clearing restored her presence of mind.

As she stood there admiring him, she wished she could enjoy their relationship without reservation. There was so much about him that she liked. Cherished. If he had spoken, if he had said one word, she would have quickly gotten herself in hand, but he didn’t speak, merely ambled toward her without taking his gaze from hers. She backed up a step and tried to shake the tension, but it flooded the room like a powerful, invisible chemical and settled over her. Again Adam’s mother cleared her throat, and he turned to her.

“Mother, this is Melissa Grant. Melissa, my mother.” Mary Roundtree nodded, told Melissa good night, and left them. Melissa watched her walk away and couldn’t help thinking that the woman could give her father lessons in manners.

She relaxed within the arm that he slid around her waist, nestling her to him as he opened the door for them to leave. She wanted to turn around, to know whether Adam’s mother watched them, but he didn’t give her the chance.

“How’d you get here?” he asked her, looking about for a car.

“Towne car service. I’d have been in a pickle if you had forgotten and gone off.”

* * *

He walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and turned to her. “So you got even. Why is it that I’m not surprised? Don’t be too proud of yourself, though. The last time anybody in my house reprimanded me was the day I finished high school. And I only got it then, because I’d brought a girl home the evening before when my parents were out. That was the number one no no around here, but I never gave them the satisfaction of knowing that we only sat in the kitchen and drank root beer.” He started the ignition. “Let’s go.”

She slid comfortably down in the bucket set. “I figured if you’d made my father mad with me, you wouldn’t mind a little turbulence in your own household. You call that getting even? Tut-tut.”

He looked down at her and grinned. She could give as good as she got. Soft, but strong. Clever. He liked that.

She stole a peek at the man as he glanced over his left shoulder, swung into Route 70, and revved the engine. Her heart lurched at the sight of him sitting behind the wheel of that powerful car, strength emanating from him. She looked away from him at the passing scene. With her glasses in place, her eyes skimmed the late summer cornfields as he sped past them, and she wondered whether a woman awaited the lone man who trudged through a field toward an old farmhouse. She longed for the day when she’d have a man of her own, one who loved her so much he couldn’t stay away from her, one who would never be content with her sleeping in any room but his. One different from her father. A man who wouldn’t be too proud to love a woman with every atom of his being.

* * *

“You’re unusually quiet. Maybe you’re not pleased with yourself, with your little devilment?”

She marveled that he wasn’t annoyed by what she’d done. Or was he showing her that she couldn’t dent his unflappable cool, that she wasn’t of such importance that her little misdeed would make him mad?

“Do you think your mother’s angry?” she asked.

“You betcha. Mad as hell.” He took his attention from the highway long enough for a quick glance at her.

“And you don’t mind that she’s mad?”

“Of course I mind.” She detected impatience and something like sympathetic understanding in his voice. “What do you take me to be? That woman is my mother, and I care about how she feels. But I’m a man, and that’s my home, so I don’t seek anybody’s permission and don’t expect anybody’s condemnation about what I do there.” He reached over and patted her hand.

“What would you do if I abducted you, took you to my lair and kept you there for a couple of weeks?”

She saw that he’d ended that topic. She turned toward him, and her eyes dared him to do it.

“Well?” he prodded.

“Grin and bear it,” she joshed. His warm, throaty laugh that seemed to come from deep inside him sent frissons of heat racing through her. If he knew how much ground he could cover with just a laugh, she reckoned, the man would be unbearable.

* * *

Darkness encroached as he turned off the highway and into the only asphalt side road that she’d seen since leaving Beaver Ridge.

“We’ve passed plenty of them,” he told her when she commented. “Don’t tell me I’ve cast a spell on you, closing your mind to all but me.” He laughed, and she imagined that her face mirrored her startled reaction. He did it often now, and she thought back to the day shortly after they met and the first time she’d heard his laughter. He’d been stunned at himself. Now he seemed to enjoy it, as though it released something that had been dammed up inside him. He stopped the car, got out, took her hand, and began walking up a gravel path. Melissa looked up at him, perplexed. Where were they going in the darkening woods? A strain of happiness wove through his laughter and swirled magically around her, exhilarating her like a warm twilight breeze frolicking in her soul. She gave herself over to the moment and let his joyous mood infect her.

They paused at an old mill lodged a few feet above the dawdling waters of a once busy brook, and his arm slipped around her shoulder while the moon let them see their reflection in the clear stream below. Melissa wanted to lean against him, but she didn’t. If he had squeezed or patted her the tiniest bit, she would have moved toward him, but his large warm hand on her bare arm evidently didn’t communicate to him the feeling it gave her. She moved away. Men were not meant to be understood.

“What’s over there?” she asked, pointing to a footpath that led into dense woods.

“Not much of interest this late in the year, but in the spring you see a lot of trails littered with wildflowers and small streams alongside them. It’s idyllic—a man’s best ally if he’s got a woman he wants to sweet-talk.”

“I can’t imagine you’d need help.”

“Of course not.” And you’re proof of that, his eyes mocked. In spite of the lectures she gave herself, she knew she was becoming increasingly susceptible to Adam, but she told herself that she wasn’t going to sell out her family by having an affair with him. And he was going to stop kissing her, too. Then his strong but gentle fingers reached for and squeezed hers, and she slipped a little farther into his universe, his world of riveting tension and longing.

* * *

Hours later, as he parked in front of her parents’ home, she reflected on their evening together. Not once had he alluded to anything personal between them. Not one sexual innuendo. Not a single pass. And yet his twinkling eyes had held such fire and his smiles had triggered such excitement in her as to make her wonder whether he had special powers. He had made no effort to seduce her—but captivate her, he did. She told herself that she wouldn’t kiss him good night, that he didn’t deserve it. She had learned that he loved to read, liked football, tennis, horses, Mozart, Eric Clapton, and Duke Ellington, and disliked atonal music, baseball, washing dishes, and strong, gusty winds. Yet he hadn’t even hinted at what he felt about her. Well, if he was satisfied with an evening of impersonal togetherness, so was she. And she’d show him.

“Adam, you haven’t told me what you think of your new office manager. How’s he doing?”

He took his hand off of the doorknob, turned, and looked at her in a way that suggested her question was not in order. “He’s efficient and competent, but I think Jason’s getting tired of him.”

“Why?” So, she surmised, a problem did exist, but she wouldn’t have known about it if she hadn’t asked.

“The man doesn’t accept supervision well, especially from someone he considers beneath him.”

“He thinks Jason is beneath him?”

“Yeah. Lester’s a snob, Melissa. To him, anybody who didn’t go to Yale is illiterate. Jason was graduated from Morehouse and got his master’s degree at Georgetown. I’m sure the reason they haven’t clashed is because Jason is boss when I’m not in the office, and he just calls rank on the man. Anybody who pushes Jason too hard usually regrets it. I think Lester knows that, and he likes having a good income.”

“He didn’t behave that way with me, but then he was looking for a job. I’m surprised at his snobbishness, though, because several of the references I checked suggested that until Lester was in his late teens, a lot of that Mississippi mud found its way between his toes.”

Adam cut short a laugh. “So you do check references?”

Melissa whirled on him. “What do you mean by that question? I run an honest, efficient operation. I’ve placed executives in some of the most successful businesses in this country, and I want to know how you get the temerity to suggest that I don’t have integrity.” She jumped out of the car, and he caught her just as she reached the front steps of the house.

“Don’t get so riled.” He paused as though weighing his next words. “Riled isn’t the word—I’ve noticed that little if anything upsets you, or if it does, you don’t show it. Where business is concerned, I don’t insinuate anything, Melissa. If something needs saying, I say it. You can be sure that if I have a complaint against an executive hired through MTG, I’ll tell you.”

She handed him her key, and he opened her front door and walked in with her. Rafer stood in the middle of the foyer, facing them, his face mottled with rage.

“Now that you’ve discovered this house, you can’t seem to stay out of it,” he told Adam. His derisive tone and dismissive glance at Melissa was evidently calculated to annoy Adam. Melissa stepped toward him. “Daddy, if you want to bait Adam, please do it outside so he’ll have as good a chance as you at winning a case of assault and battery.” She heard them snort, but she wouldn’t let that prevent her from having her say. It was overdue. “I am twenty-eight and self-employed, and I’ve established my business without help from anyone. I’m not used to your concern for my well-being after all these years of disregarding me, and I wish you’d stop it.” She turned and kissed Adam, well aware that she surprised him when she pressed her lips to his in a lingering caress. “Good night, Adam. I had a lovely evening. Good night, Daddy.”

Shivers streaked down her back as she walked up the stairs to her room, aware that they both stood as she’d left them, staring in her wake. Why had she kissed Adam when she had told herself that she wouldn’t, not even if he tried to seduce her into it? She closed her bedroom door and turned the key. This was merely the beginning. Her father’s pride was his most damning trait, and she had just embarrassed him, exposed him in front of Adam Roundtree. She’d pay. Oh, she’d pay plenty. She reflected on her brother’s comment that their father wasn’t a bad person, only a pathetically insecure man, and that he’d give anything to know what accounted for it.

* * *

Adam got into his car and drove off. He neared the house hoping his family had turned in for the night. He needed to be alone, to think over the evening’s events, beginning with his turmoil before he’d brought Melissa home. He had promised himself that never again would he let a woman scramble his brain and hijack his hormones. But another woman had gotten inside of him, one who could be his family’s enemy, who could have engineered the sabotage of his family’s business, who could be the greatest actress since Waters or Barrymore. He’d strung her along all evening, touching but not caressing, drawing her to him while making sure that she didn’t get close, and talking about any and every thing except the two of them. It had been hard work.

Adam shook off the autumn chill as he entered the wide foyer of his home and continued upstairs to his room for the privacy he needed. But as soon as he closed his door, his mother knocked and, like her elder son, she didn’t skirt the issue.

“Adam, why are you pursuing a relationship with Melissa Grant? Is it because you like her, or because you’re suspicious of her? Do you mind telling me?” He knew that she found prying into his personal life distasteful and was certain that that accounted for her uncharacteristic diffidence. She wanted his answer to be that he was suspicious, but he wouldn’t lie.

“I see her because I like her, Mother.” He noticed that she tensed.

“But what about the problem at Leather and Hides?”

“I don’t have any proof that she’s in on it, and I’d give her the benefit of the doubt until I was certain even if I had never met her.” He locked his hazel-rimmed, brown-eyed gaze on his mother’s identical one. “That’s the way I was raised.” Her affectionate smile assured him that she understood and accepted the reprimand. He told her briefly of their confrontations with Melissa’s father.