Sealed With a Kiss (11 page)

“I can’t speak with my boys?”

“You got it.” She knew that she’d shocked him, but figured that after thinking it over, he’d see the logic. If he didn’t, well, she had a full plate dealing with her thoughts of her own child. Afraid of being exposed on the one hand, and on the other, wishing she had it with her. He’d soon be with his boys.

Rufus expected to find Naomi and the boys in total chaos, but when he arrived, he saw the three of them sitting at the kitchen table, laughing and eating. “What on earth did you give them, laughing gas?” He had worried that his boys would wear Naomi out and that she wouldn’t be able to control them, and he relaxed visibly. He didn’t want to put a damper on their fun, but he was too relieved to be jocular. Leaving the station, he had fought a thrill of anticipation of seeing Naomi with his children. He could barely wait to get back to her. The incredible scene that greeted him gave him hope—something that for years had remained beyond his reach—but he tried to squelch the feeling that rose in him. If he wasn’t careful, he’d do something that he would regret for a very long time.

“Laughing gas? Of course not,” she objected, affecting what he knew was her favorite pose, that of pretended detachment. “These boys know their roots; I gave them southern fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits.”

“This time of night.”

She didn’t get a chance to tell him that they’d fallen asleep and had awakened hungry. Preston intervened, “And we got a surprise. We saw you on television, Daddy, and Noomie said you were talking to the people.”

“Yes,” Sheldon intoned, “and we had a nap after it.”

He forced himself to look at Naomi, though he didn’t want to, didn’t want her to see what he was feeling. How had she persuaded his two little hellions to behave civilly? He saw the softness in her and responded to it. And that vexed him. Where was his resolve of just that morning? He didn’t want to care for her, didn’t even want to like her, but she was likable and he cared; he couldn’t deny it. And he would no longer deny that she would probably be lovable if he was ever foolish enough to drop his guard and let himself do the unthinkable.

“Want a biscuit, Daddy?” Preston inquired, reaching toward his father.

“Yes. Don’t you want to join us? I’ve got some string beans, too, but the boys didn’t want any, so we struck a bargain, and they’re drinking milk instead.” She worried her bottom lip and looked at him expectantly. “But maybe you don’t like soul food.”

Rufus forced a light smile. It was the best he could manage; with every new move, she crawled deeper inside of him. “Sure, I like soul food,” he said, pulling up a chair. Sheldon reminded Naomi that she had also promised them ice-cream.

“All we want,” he added.

Naomi seemed to know when she was being taken. “Sheldon,” she admonished him, “good little boys always tell the truth.”

Rufus’s eyes rounded in astonishment. “They’re dressed identically. How do you know which is which?”

“Same way you do. As you said, their personalities differ.”

He tried to reconcile the soft and gentle woman before him—the one who patiently tended his boys, loving and teasing them—with her other strong, clever, and elusive self. If this was the real Naomi, or if her two selves had their proper places in her life, there was a chance that he could have with her what he’d yearned for but hadn’t wanted to admit. He needed a woman he loved in his life, his home, and his bed, one who loved him and needed him and loved his children. But she had told him repeatedly that she didn’t intend to become involved. Well, he had said the same, but maybe…

Chapter 6

T
he phone rang once. “Hi.” Rufus leaned back against the headboard of his king-sized bed and waited for more of her soothing voice. But she didn’t say more, so he plunged in.

“I didn’t realize you’d be in bed so early. It’s only about eleven o’clock. I didn’t thank you properly for taking care of my boys, and I…well, thank you. They seemed to have enjoyed the experience.”

“Me, too.” She wasn’t forthcoming, and it was unlike what he’d come to expect of her. He marveled at the pure feminine spice of her voice; every time he heard it, he felt as if she was toying with him. Deliberately and carelessly seducing him. He searched for something banal to say, something that would guarantee that their conversation didn’t become too personal.

“What would you have done if it had been Maude Frazier calling you?”

“If I can greet you with ‘hi,’ it’ll do for Maude.” So she was waiting him out; it was a trait of hers that he admired; patience. She didn’t mind silence, and lulls in conversation didn’t make her nervous. Since he called, she seemed to imply, he should do the talking.

“What did you think of my interview? Think it was a good advertisement for the gala?”

She apologized and congratulated him on a very professional performance. “I’m ashamed that I didn’t mention it when you were here. You did yourself proud, Rufus, but I don’t suppose you’re asking me for praise.” Her voice seemed more distant, as if she had moved further from the phone. “I’m told that your mere entrance into a football stadium brought thunderous roars from your fans. You must be sick of adulation.”

He let that pass. She was right; he didn’t give a hoot for praise. Never had. “It hadn’t occurred to me that you would let my boys watch. It’s the first time they’ve seen me on television. I thank you for that.”

She knew that he could have thanked her before leaving her apartment; in fact he had, so she waited for the real reason why he’d called. Probably to interrogate her some more about her refusal to do the television interview, she surmised. Suddenly apprehensive, tendrils of fear began to snake down her back, and she attempted to disconcert him.

“Rufus, what happened to the boys’ mother?” She hadn’t realized that the question was on her mind, and his long silence told her that he didn’t welcome it.

His succinct reply confirmed it. “She didn’t care for marriage, motherhood, or domesticity in any form, so she left.”

“Did you love her?” She tried to sound as if his answer was unimportant.

“I married Etta Mae because I’d made her pregnant. She wanted glamour, so she got a man whom she thought would give it to her quickly. She got pregnant by pretending that she was taking the pill, though as she later told me, she had never taken a birth control Pill in her life. But she knew I would marry her if she carried my child. I was sick of the spotlight, and I wanted a home. I committed myself to the marriage and to her.” His deep sigh was the only evidence he gave of the pain his explanation must have caused him. “We might have made a go of it,” he continued, “but her priority was to be more famous and more sought after than Iman or Naomi Campbell. Nothing was going to prevent her being the top African American model in the country, even the top model. Etta Mae is driven. Driven to escape everything that plagued her as a child. Her mother brought her here from Alabama when she was ten. She told me she suffered verbal abuse and ridicule from her schoolmates, because she was poor and different, and that she’d sworn she’d best them all. I suspect she has. Did I love her? No. Etta Mae isn’t lovable, Naomi, but she gave me my sons.”

His words weren’t comforting. The more she learned of his life, the more certain she was that he would never accept her. His attitudes about wives and mothers were deep-seated, a reaction to unmet needs, to what he had been deprived of and what he had seen his sons denied. She doubted whether she would be able to combat that successfully even if she didn’t have the load she carried.

“I’m sorry, Rufus. It was none of my business.” She wished she hadn’t asked. The less she knew about him, the less the likelihood of her becoming more deeply involved.

Surely she doesn’t think I called her to talk about myself, he thought peevishly. “Naomi, I need to know something.” She wouldn’t welcome his questions, but he didn’t intend to let that stop him. He craved her and he knew it was foolish. His head told him that she wasn’t for him, but the rest of him didn’t agree with his mind. He wanted her and that meant he had to understand her, if he could. Getting a grasp of who she really was and what motivated her would either cure him or sink him, and he didn’t believe she could pull him under.

“Have you ever appeared on television?” She acknowledged that she had. “Then what frightened you off tonight? You’re a competent, self-possessed woman; I can’t imagine your being shy about speaking in public. This has me perplexed.”

“I already told you. I wouldn’t have been comfortable with it. If I hadn’t thought you’d be tired, I’d have called to tell you that I redesigned the program for the gala and that as soon as we can get full sponsor approval, I’ll…”

So
that
was her game. Did she think she could spin him around like a top? “I didn’t call to talk about that, and I don’t intend to. If the reason you backed off tonight is none of my business, save us some time and just say so.”

“It isn’t. Any of your business, I mean.”

He knew that his sharp tone had hurt, but she deserved it. As sensitive as she was, she must have realized that he needed more from her than she gave and that what he needed was deep and personal. Well, hell! What should he expect from a woman raised by a grandparent more than three times her age, and a Baptist minister, to boot? If she didn’t know when a warm, feminine response to a man was the only acceptable one and the only one that could bring him to heel, it probably wasn’t her fault. He asked himself why he was quizzing her and why he was trying to understand her when he was going to force himself not to give another hoot about her.

“Thanks for keeping my boys, Naomi. Good night.” He said it as smoothly as he could, without preamble and with exaggerated politeness, and hung up. If she wanted a completely impersonal relationship with him, he wasn’t about to care, he told himself.

But he was dissatisfied and dialed back immediately. She meant something to him, even if he didn’t want her to. “Naomi, it’s my business to observe and to be sensitive to what is not ordinary in people and in situations. A journalist finds a newsworthy story not in the commonplace, but in the exceptional, in what is unique. I’m good at that, Naomi, and in my book, you just do not add up.” He expected a snide remark or a red herring, but he got neither.

“I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you, Rufus, but I’m getting along as best I can right now. If you want to be a friend, you’ll just have to try to accept me as I am. I can’t make myself over for everybody I meet.”

“Look, I don’t know exactly why, but I need to understand you, and I’m trying. There’s something going on here.” His treacherous mind suddenly pictured her in her burnt orange dress, and he could smell her, taste her, feel her against him, warm and wildly aroused. She was more woman that he’d ever held, and he was man enough to want what he knew was there. But he wasn’t fool enough to walk into a hornet’s nest.

“Naomi, how do I fit into your life? Don’t answer now; think about it carefully, because I intend to ask you again.”

“All right, I’ll think about it,” she promised. “And if it seems that we’re at cross purposes, we’ll just have to wave each other goodbye.”

She hung up the phone, went to her closet, and took out the dusty rose evening gown that she was to wear as Marva’s maid of honor. She hooked the hanger over the door. She wondered if the two of them would remain friends after Marva married. She took a quick shower and crawled into bed. Marva was getting her man; for the first time, not having one of her own gave Naomi a sense of rootlessness.

Hours later, Naomi got out of bed, unable to sleep. She was less certain that she could remain unscathed by what was beginning to develop into a heady, deeply moving entanglement with Rufus. Even their “good night” had been too tender for a man and woman who professed to be casual friends. “I’ve written my last letter of protest,” she declared aloud in frustration. “Not to any public official, entertainer, community leader nor—God forbid—panelist, will I ever again write one single letter of the alphabet.” She told herself that she would not allow him to get next to her, then cursed her inability to kill the feeling for him that was steadily growing stronger within her. She thought about how it had hurt her to hold his wonderful, lovable little boys, to take care of them, and to be solely responsible for their well being, remembering all the while that loving and frolicking with her own child had been cruelly denied her. What could she do? What
should
she do? She had made a life for herself, had achieved stature in the community and enjoyed the respect of friends and business associates. But she wanted to know her child. She wrapped her arms around her middle and paced her kitchen floor.

She noticed the daylight and opened the blinds. The breaking day on a clear morning was usually guaranteed to raise her spirits, but on that particular morning, it failed to lift her mood. She had swum in darker waters, faced equally stymieing dilemmas, but none had involved a man who’d affected her as Rufus did. She put the coffee mug to her lips and held it there, images of him flitting through her mind. She had to deal with it. “I’m doomed,” she declared when he didn’t answer her ten o’clock phone call. She had intended to tell him it was best that they go their separate ways. Now, she’d have to work up the courage. Again.

Morose and having difficulty shedding it, Naomi stepped into the limousine that would carry her to Marva’s wedding. The crowd waiting outside All Souls Church created an aura of excitement, but she barely managed to smile as she walked into the sanctuary. The service began, and she started slowly up the aisle. She wasn’t jealous of her friend, but she had to acknowledge her longing for marriage and her own family. The bright camera lights annoyed her, but she tried to force a smile as she felt a dampness on her cheek. After the ceremony, she had to smile through the reception and escaped at the first opportunity.

Rufus saw Naomi nearly every day during the next three weeks, but always in connection with their responsibilities for the Urban Alliance gala. He deliberately engineered their meetings. He got the sense that she’d prefer to have him out of her thoughts, her life, maybe even out of her dreams, and he suspected that he’d broken through barriers that she had carefully erected, something her other suitors probably hadn’t managed.

As they left OLC together by chance one evening, he decided to corner her. “You promised to let me know what you want from me, but you can’t seem to decide. I find that odd for a woman with your talent for self-expression. Care to enlighten me?” When she didn’t reply, he spoke in as cold a voice as he could muster. “Then maybe you won’t mind explaining this. Did you know that your friend’s wedding would draw the television cameras?”

“No, I didn’t. I learned that the wedding was being televised when the lights shone in my face as I walked up the aisle.” Her voice seemed strained. Why would such an impersonal question make her uneasy? He knew she would think him merciless if he probed further, but she intrigued him. Maybe if he stripped her of her superficial armor, he thought ruthlessly, she would no longer interest him.

“It was reported on the evening news. You outshone the bride, Naomi.” He stopped walking. “Tell me. Didn’t you know the bride always throws her bouquet to her maid of honor? And are you aware that all of Washington was watching when your friend threw the flowers straight to you, almost hitting you in the face, and you ducked? In fact, if you hadn’t ducked, they’d have landed in your eyes. Why did you do that? I’ve hardly been able to think of anything else since I saw it. What were you thinking about to do such a thing?”

She walked on, speaking to him over her shoulder. “Weddings are emotionally charged occasions; everyone involved is uptight. Be a hero and switch to another topic.”

He detained her with a hand on her arm. “Do you think so little of me, Naomi, that you refuse to do me the courtesy of being honest? Something else that I observed from that short clip were your tears when you were walking to the altar ahead of the bride. Why were you crying?”

“Rufus. Please! Why do you think you’re entitled to see my bare soul?” She began to walk away from him. “Can’t you drop it?”

He stood with legs wide apart and his right hand in his pocket, while his left thumb pressed beneath his jaw and his index finger tapped his left cheek. “No, Naomi. I can’t. I can’t. I remember telling you that you don’t add up.” Her steps faltered then, and he grasped her elbow in support, secretly reveling in the feel of her, in being close to her after so many days. He went on.

“You’re wicked, fun, and witty, but I’m beginning to realize that you’re unhappy. Oh, you cover it nicely, but I notice everything about you. You’re a puzzle, and for me, puzzles are meant to be solved.” She was far more to him than a puzzle, but he knew her well enough now to pretend otherwise.

“Puzzles entice you until you’ve solved them,” she countered, “and then you probably lose interest. I’m not a puzzle, Rufus, so please don’t give me your undivided attention.” He was like a bloodhound, on the scent of something and unwilling to back away without his prize. Of late, he’d been delving too deeply and getting just a little too close. How could she tell him that her tears as she walked up that aisle were for what she longed for but could never have—a mutual love, a home, and children? She had to be more careful.