The Edge of Dawn (12 page)

“Probably.”

She met his eyes. The heat of attraction was rising in the room like heat off of the salmon. “Pass me the corn, please.”

He handed her the bowl and she put some on her plate. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't stop thinking about what he'd said. Was he as good in bed as he was in the kitchen? Instinct said yes. She shook herself free of those dangerous thoughts. After adding a wedge of the salmon, putting dressing on her salad, and helping herself to two rolls, Narice was ready to eat. “Can you say the grace?”

Saint raised an eyebrow.

She eyed him back and waited, but when he didn't respond, she said to him, “Never mind.” Bowing her head, she recited a soft, short prayer, then picked up her fork. “Thanks for dinner.”

Saint thought she was going to light into him for not saying the grace, but he hadn't blessed his food in so long, her request caught him off guard. “I take it you're a church-going lady.”

Narice was savoring the perfectly prepared salmon. “I am. This is good.”

“And you had doubts.”

“No, not really. You cooked breakfast for me, remember?”

“I do. Do you cook?”

“No. I don't usually get home until after eight, so I do a lot of microwaving.”

“You need a housekeeper.”

“I need a wife.”

He smiled beneath the shades. “Did you cook for your husband?”

Narice shook her head. “No. He did most of that.”

When she didn't say anything more, Saint studied her for a moment, wondering if he'd said the wrong thing. Since it appeared he had, he went back to his plate.

The meal continued and the silence lengthened. He looked her way a few times, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. “Didn't mean to bring up bad memories.”

She waved her fork, “It's okay. Some marriages work—some fail. Mine, died.”

He studied her.

Her tone was matter-of-fact. “It was mostly my fault—well, all my fault to be truthful.”

She saw his eyebrow rise again. “Hey, this is an equal-opportunity country. Women get to wreck marriages, too.”

Saint didn't know how to handle such candor.

“I was so set on climbing that corporate ladder, I had no time for him—didn't care that the brother had fixed my dinner, or had a hot bath waiting for me at the end of the day. By the time I left the office and got home, the lights were out, the food was cold, and so was the water in the tub. I was a deal-making, balls-whacking bitch. So he left me.”

“When was this?”

“Ten years ago. I married him when I was twenty-two, fresh out of college with a basement-level job on Wall Street, but it was the Street and I was excited.” She smiled wistfully. “Had my MBA by twenty-four, found a White mentor known for liking his women brown, and I started my climb.”

“Your husband didn't support what you were doing?”

“In the beginning yes, but after my hours at the office became longer, and our time together became nonexistent, he wanted out. I didn't blame him. I wouldn't have wanted to be married to me either—not back then. I was raised by my daddy and his friends. I didn't know a lot about dating or men or how a woman was supposed to—what do they call it in the Bible, cleave to your mate. I was chasing the almighty dollar, I didn't have time to be a wife.”

She looked over at him with clear dark eyes. “So, Bran made me pay him one dollar as part of the divorce settlement. He said that's all the marriage was worth to me.” She took a sip of her wine, then set the glass down. “Sadly, he was right. I didn't value it or him the way I should have.”

“How long were you married?”

“Almost three years.”

“Where is he now?”

“Philly. Married to a real nice sister. They have two girls with one on the way. He's happy and I'm glad. Lord knows, he wasn't with me.”

“So, what made you take up teaching?”

“Car accident.”

He looked surprised.

“Three years after my divorce, I was driving home one night in the rain—pouring rain and suddenly there was a dog in my lights, just sitting in the middle of the highway. Daddy said, I should have hit it, but I swerved, spun out, went off the road, and hit a tree. Totaled my Z, and woke up three days later in the hospital. I was so bandaged up and hooked up to so many machines, I looked like Elsa Lanchester in the
Bride of Frankenstein.
”

Saint smiled.

“Broke a lot of bones, tore muscles. I was in the hospital for three and a half months.”

“Wow.”

“It was rough. Daddy came to take care of me for a
while, but I eventually hired a nurse. Once I could move around in a wheelchair, she would wheel me out onto my deck or onto the front porch so I could get some air and sun. I found out I had neighbors,” she said with sparkling eyes. “And that the school bus came to pick up the kids at eight-fifteen every morning. I saw cardinals and robins and felt peace inside myself for the first time in a long time.”

Narice paused as the memories of those times came back. “Anyway to make a longer story shorter, I wasn't the same person after the accident. It's that old cliché, but it's the truth. My father said it was God's doing.” She shrugged. “He may have been right, but I did change. My drive was gone. I didn't have the fire in my belly anymore, I didn't care about cutting the big deal, so I quit the firm.”

“That took a lot of guts.”

“I never thought about it like that.” And she hadn't. Maybe had she not been financially secure, walking away might have been harder, but at the time, the decision hadn't cost her any sleep at all. “After that, one of my sorors invited me to volunteer at her school a couple of days a week. I took her up on the offer, and I loved it. Loved the children, their smiles, their honesty. Loved it so much I went back to school, got an education degree, and started my own place.”

“Do you regret the first life?”

“Heck, no. Well, I do regret that Brandon got hurt by it, but I'm as rich as a goddess. As the old ladies used
to say, I have my own purse, and I don't have to ask anybody if I can spend it.”

He grinned.

She told him frankly, “You smile, but I tell some brothers that, and they take off running.”

“I'd think a brother would have to be pretty strong to take you on.”

“I suppose. Haven't been many takers lately, and that's okay, too. I have a good life. A man would just be the whipped cream.”

Saint realized she was not the china doll he'd thought her to be; she was a strong, determined woman who accepted responsibility for her actions and the decisions she'd made in her life. That she would share this part of her life's story with him, humbled him in a way. “I can't believe there isn't a man in your life.”

“Hey, I'm thirty-seven years old. Brothers my age want skinny little video girls. Real women like me and my sorors scare them to death.” She paused for a minute. “I take that back. Some of the ladies I know are married to princes. The rest of us have learned to live without whipped cream.”

“I'll make you whipped cream anytime you like.”

The words sent a hot streak through Narice that made her nipples tighten and reminded her just how long it had been. She tried to play it off. “Would you?”

Saint wanted to reach out and slide a finger over the curve of her lips; wanted to hear her moan like she did
after tasting the fried corn. “Gran has a secret recipe that will melt in your mouth.”

“Never had a man offer to make me whipped cream before.”

“Never met a man like me before.”

That was certainly the truth, she thought to herself. From the slim bones in his fingers to those dangerous-looking shaded eyes, he was the most tempting male she'd ever met. He seemed to have tapped into and opened up places in her feminine self she'd shut away long ago. “You don't have a hard time pulling women, do you?”

He met her bold question with a bold reply. “Be lying if I said I did, but I'm choosy. I stopped bed-hopping a long time ago, but,” and his voice slowed, “I do enjoy beautiful, intriguing women, and you are both.”

Narice felt his voice shimmer through her, felt his shaded eyes touch her like a hand. “I bet most women fall into your bed just like that, don't they?”

He threw back his head and laughed.

“I'm just asking, because I'm not going to do that.”

He ran his eyes over the gorgeous mouth, her graceful neck, and the curve of her jaw. Imagining how his lips would feel murmuring over each, increased his desire. “No?”

“No.”

“Never say never.” His voice was as low as the silence in the room.

“I'm not saying never. I'm saying I'm not easy.”

“No woman worth having ever is.”

Narice was flowing in places that hadn't flowed so sweetly in years. “You're very good at this.”

“You don't know the half of it, angel.”

She drew in a calming breath. “I think I'm going to finish eating then get out the quilt and the book.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The heat of his maleness wafted across the counter and Narice wondered where she might buy a fan. Being able to cool herself down was going to be a necessity. “How about I help you clean up first?”

“I'm okay. Nothing to do but put leftovers in the fridge and the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. You go and get started on the quilt.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded and said gently, “Positive.”

Book and quilt in hand, Narice went to the couch and took a seat in front of the now roaring fire. She was conscious of him working in the kitchen behind her, though, and of his offer to make her whipped cream. Fanning herself with her hand, she settled in.

Aided by the clues in her book, Narice could now identify four of the seven squares on her father's sampler quilt. The Monkey Wrench, the Wagon Wheel, the Flying Geese, and the Drunkard's Path. Of the remaining three, one had a pattern that appeared to be a cross. The pattern next to it had symbols that looked a little like leaves, and the last one, the one that seemed to be a square within a square had a small yellow Star of
David in its center. She still hadn't found any references to why there was a penny attached to each of the quilt's corners, or what purpose they served, though.

Saint finished the cleanup and came and sat in an armchair close to the couch. “Find anything new?”

“Yes, this cross is, I think, the Cross Roads symbol. The cross road was a specific city.”

“Which one?”

“Cleveland.”

“Cleveland?” he echoed with surprise.

“Yes. It was a major fan-out point for fugitives heading to Canada. Cleveland's code name on the Underground Railroad was Cross Road. Detroit was Midnight. Sandusky, Ohio, was Sunrise. This is really interesting.”

Saint thought so, too, but the woman reading to him was even more so. “So does that mean we need to go to Cleveland?”

Narice didn't know, but she read on looking for references to the Cross Roads pattern and the last two undeciphered squares. The leaf pattern turned out not to be leaves at all, but a symbol known as the Bear Paw. “The Bear Paws are supposed to represent bear tracks, and told the runaways to follow the tracks of bears through or around mountains.”

“There aren't any mountains in Cleveland.”

She chuckled. “No, there aren't, but you do have to go through the mountains to get to Georgia where my father was born.”

“So what do we do about Cleveland?”

She shrugged. “You got me.”

The last unknown symbol, the square within a square stood for a pattern called the Log Cabin, which the book explained could represent the place where the runaways could build a shelter for the winter, “Or,” Narice said looking up from the page to Saint, “it also signified a safe house.”

“Interesting. I'm assuming that eight-point-star in the center of the cabin means something, too.”

“It says here that during the abolitionist days, the inner block would sometimes be made out of differing colors to signify different things. Isn't the eight-point-star the Star of David?”

“Yes.”

“Why would daddy use it? I wonder if this was his way of putting X marks the spot like on a treasure map?”

“Maybe the star does represent the Eye. King Solomon was David's son.”

“Sheba gave the Eye to Solomon. Maybe he's trying to tell us the diamond is buried in a log cabin, or in a safe house in Georgia?”

Saint had no idea.

Narice said finally, “Okay, I'm making an executive decision. I say we head to Grey Swan, Georgia, and see what we find. Daddy's sister Camille is still living there far as I know. Maybe she can help.”

“Did she come to the funeral?”

“No. I didn't know how to contact her. Maybe it'll be in the phone book I found with the stuff daddy left with Uncle Willie.”

“Did you bring it along?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

The rest of the items like her parents' wedding picture she'd left with Willie for safekeeping. She'd taken nothing but the address book and the quilt.

“Were your father and his sister, close?”

Narice shrugged again. “There was something mentioned years ago about a falling out, but I've no idea what it was over. Like I said earlier, I've only been there once.”

“Well, with all the software Lily is packing, we ought to be able to find Grey Swan with no problem. I hope.”

“Me too.”

He went over to his coat and pulled out his handheld. After punching in a few codes, the map feature appeared on the screen. He typed in the words
Grey Swan GA.
He got nothing. “Hmm,” he muttered.

“What's wrong?”

“Grey Swan isn't in the map software.”

“I know it exists, or at least, it used to. Can you pull up the Okefenokee?”