Chapter Eight
“Hi, Daddy,” Lacette said in response to her father’s call. “You won’t believe the proposition Kellie put to me this morning. I’m still in shock. It wasn’t so much what she wanted as the way in which she justified it.”
“As long as you said no. That’s what matters. She mentioned it to me, and I told her she was up to no good. Don’t let her into your business in any capacity. She has a job, and if she’d take that one seriously, she’d get ahead. Anybody who can’t get promoted working for a government agency isn’t trying.”
It relieved her beyond words to know she had her father’s support, for she would never hire her sister in any capacity. “When are you coming to see my house? It’s a mess right now, but the part I’ve straightened up is attractive.”
“I’m sure it is. How about sometime this weekend? I can see your house and your office space, too.”
“Come over Saturday morning, and I’ll fix you some breakfast.”
“Thanks. I’ll be over about nine. I can’t wait much longer than that for my breakfast.”
She hung up and telephoned Lourdes, the Ladino woman who worked at the Belle Époque across from her booth and with whom she had developed good relations.
“Lourdes,” she said when the woman answered the phone. “I hope to open my business a week from Monday, and I’m looking for a combination secretary/receptionist. If you’re interested or if you know a good person who is, please let me know.”
“I don’t have a contract or any fringe benefits, because I’m substituting for a woman who went on maternity leave and hasn’t come back to work yet. I don’t think she’s coming back, and the management is taking advantage of me. What’re you offering?”
“Thirty-five thousand, health insurance, two weeks annual leave and three weeks of sick leave with a doctor’s certificate.”
“When do I start?”
“Monday after next, same day as I start. Thank you, Lourdes. It’s a load off my mind.”
She called Lawrence Bradley, gave him the terms and asked him to draw up a contract for Lourdes. “Make it for two years,” she said, with provisions for renewable if we’re both satisfied.
“I’d start with one year. When is Reverend Graham planning to move into his house?”
“He hasn’t said.”
“Oh, well. I suppose that will take care of itself. You ready for opening day?”
“I’ve furnished it, and I’ve taken out ads in all of the local papers. I’m due for an appearance on the Liseann TV show Thursday. It’s pulling together.”
“You’ll be fine. I’ll get to work on this contract at once.”
She hung up, and the phone rang immediately. “This is Douglas Rawlins. Need any help over there this evening?”
She wasn’t sure whether he was asking for a date or staying on the safe side. “Not that I can think of.” She could be as cagy as the next person. “What did you have in mind?”
“Dinner someplace. I’ll be working till around seven o’clock. The owners of that mansion on College Avenue near Frost want me to prune their fruit trees. I want to get started after I leave the hotel. And your father engaged me to landscape the property surrounding his house. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“No indeed. I’m learning about it as we speak.”
“That makes me feel a lot better about the job. Believe me.”
They talked for a few minutes about inconsequential matters and agreed that he would be at her home that evening at seven.
While Lacette’s life seemed increasingly richer and more fulfilling, Kellie continued to flounder. She hadn’t been desperate to work with Lacette, certainly not as an underling, for she considered herself superior to her sister in every way. Still, she had asked, and the rejection hurt as badly as if she’d counted on a position with Lacette’s firm. But not getting the promotion at her job and having to work under Mabel devastated her. She looked for a way to prove herself and her worth, but found none. Desperate, she telephoned Lawrence Bradley.
“I called to apologize, Lawrence. I was way out of line in asking you to do something unethical. I can’t believe I suggested that you get that brooch for me. As far as I know, Lacette still hasn’t received it, but I’m resigned. It’s hers and she can have it.”
“What a surprise, Kellie! There’s no need for an apology, because I wasn’t offended. I must say it served to get my head screwed back on properly. About the brooch. I understand you violated the court order and broke into the house trying to find it. The police asked if I wanted to prosecute you, and I said only if you do it again. Nice talking with you.”
The bastard! She hated him. He hadn’t given her a chance to make her pitch. All right. He wasn’t the only man in Frederick. He might have it on Hal in looks, money, and finesse, but in the bed—where it counted—he was a nincompoop compared to Hal. One day, she’d laugh in his face.
She didn’t go to her father’s house after work that day, because Hal had begun to flex his muscles with her, and she wanted him to be grateful for what she gave him. That was becoming more difficult, she knew, because she had developed an itch that he was an expert at calming, and no other man had ever done that. If he knew it, he would be unmanageable, and she meant to use him only until she found a man who suited her socially as well as physically.
“I thought you’d be dropping by today,” the voice on the other end of the wire said when she answered the telephone. “What’s with you? Don’t tell me you sneaked in here again and found what you been looking for.”
She swallowed the liquid that accumulated in her mouth, sat down in the chair beside the telephone table and crossed her legs. “Where’re you? I told you not to call here so much. Suppose my mother had answered the phone.”
“I’m at your daddy’s house. I’m finishing up today and tomorrow, so if you still want to look around, you’d better hightail it over here right now. My boss will be here tomorrow checking out the place. You can’t come tomorrow.”
“I’d planned to—”
“I don’t care what you planned. Uh . . . look, babe. Remember I promised you something special the other night, but I couldn’t do that in the front seat of the van. Come on over here.” His tone became pleading. “I’ll make it real good for you.”
“I need to check out the dining room and the kitchen.”
“Okay. You can do anything you want to. Just come on over here.”
Thinking that she had him where she wanted him, needy and at her mercy, she said, “Okay, but I’m going to look around first this time.”
“Sure, babe. I’ll do anything you want.”
He opened the front door before she touched the bell. “Come on in here,” he said, picked her up and raced up the stairs.
“You said I could look around first,” she said, punching him in the chest with her fist.
“That was before I saw you.” He set her on her feet, yanked her sweater over her head and began his assault on her senses. Within minutes, her moans banished the silence that had been their environment and, once more, she was his willing victim. He stripped off her clothing, laid her down and pulled her hips to the edge of the foot of the bed, where he steeled himself on his knees, braced her open thighs against his shoulders, parted her folds and devoured her with his tongue and lips. She tried not to think of old man Moody and how he did the same thing to her when she was fourteen but never brought her to climax. But as Hal invaded her thoughts and her senses as he did her body, she thought of every man she’d ever twisted beneath and cursed them all for not having given her the feeling of completion that Hal gave her. For if any of them had, he would not at that moment be drawing her into his prison the way a spider traps a fly.
He pressed his tongue into her, and she thought she would die from the pleasure of it.
“Finish it,” she screamed. “I’m dying. Oh, Lord, if I could just burst wide open.”
He ignored her pleas as she bucked and writhed, only increased the rhythm and force of his twirling and sucking. When at last she could explode with relief, he climbed atop her body, filled her and spent himself. Then he looked down at her.
“You gonna be giving me a lot of trouble after this? Are you?” he asked her.
She wanted to ask him how he got the temerity, but not a sound came from her open mouth. “I want to go downstairs and look around,” she said after a few minutes.
“Sure. Help yourself. You got twenty minutes, then we’re leaving.”
“Suppose I decide to stay.”
“When I say we’re leaving,” he sneered, “we’re leaving. And I don’t just mean now.”
She dressed and walked down the stairs, mentally measuring every movement of her feet until she reached the bottom. It hurt. She couldn’t remember when anything had hurt so badly. And the worst of it was that if he hadn’t phoned her, she would have gone there anyway—though she’d sworn she wouldn’t—as much to feel him pounding into her as to look for the brooch. The pain of it streaked through every muscle, sinew, joint, and bone of her body. However, undaunted, she wiped her tear-stained face with the bottom of her sweater, opened the bottom drawer of the hutch and began searching. That brooch was somewhere in the house, and she meant to find it no matter what it cost her. In less than fifteen minutes, she heard his brogan-shod feet lumbering down the stairs. She didn’t bother to remind him that he promised her twenty minutes, but merely closed the door of the cabinet she’d been searching and walked to where he stood in the foyer. Waiting.
“Now you’re showing some sense,” he said, opened the door and walked out, leaving her to close it. She also noticed that he didn’t open the passenger door of the van for her as he usually did, but left her to the task. She got in and slammed the door with all the strength she could muster.
He glanced at her as he pulled away from the curb. “Seems like you got some money you don’t need. Break my door, and you’ll pay for it . . . after I whack your ass till you can’t sit on it, that is.”
After I get that brooch, he won’t know what country I’m in. He’s not going to bully me and talk to me as if I’m as low class as he is.
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”
“I have no intention of getting into an argument with you. You want a fight, and I don’t fight with people.”
“Listen to Miss High and Mighty. Just make sure you don’t break my door.” He drove up to the church and was about to park, but drove off when he saw two women standing there talking. “I’ll have to let you out a block away.” He stopped, and she opened the door and got out without speaking. “So long, lover,” he called to her as he drove off.
She didn’t know how she managed to walk those two blocks. Luckily, her mother wasn’t at home. She climbed the stairs, showered and went to bed wishing that she had never seen him.
The following Saturday morning, Nan drove to the farmers’ market on North Market street to buy her weekly produce and to select fresh fruit for the preserves she made. “What you doing here?” she asked a man who was a member of her church. “I thought you were working on Marshall’s house.”
“I finished that. You know there ain’t much work installing windows these days. Nobody’s building, so I work at whatever I can get. Have to make a living, you know.” She picked up a peach and smelled it.
“Them peaches is a waste of money. Not a bit of taste, but some fine raspberries just come in here from Chile. Say, what’s you niece’s reason for wanting to get into her daddy’s house, and how come she can’t just ask Reverend Graham for the key?”
Her antenna shot up, and she rested the basket of fruit she had selected on the ground. “Which one of my nieces you talking about?” she asked, though she had no doubt that he referred to Kellie.
“She introduced herself as Kellie Graham, and what’s more, she wanted to get in the house so badly that she gave me a good look at her merchandise. What’s in there that’s so valuable?”
“Beats me, unless she’s after her grandmother’s good china, but that belongs to her father. I tell you, young people these days make me glad I don’t have any children.”
He spat tobacco juice, careful to point it away from Nan and the produce. “That one was going to try to seduce me and to pay up if I let her in that house.”
Nan stared at him. “You go ’way from here, Jocko.”
He held up his right hand. “As the Lord is my witness.” She walked on, barely noticing her surroundings or the fruit she came to purchase. “Well, if that don’t beat all!”
The question stayed with her, and then she saw Kellie get out of Hal Fayson’s pickup truck one night, a truck easily recognizable because he’d painted a wildcat with its mouth open and a red tongue hanging out of it on the side of the truck. She went home and telephoned Kellie.
“It ain’t my business maybe, Kellie, but I want to know what you doing in a pickup truck with Hal Fayson. I know men is scarce in Frederick, but they ain’t that scarce. I’m surprised at you.”
“Oh, goodness, Auntie, you made an awful mistake. It wasn’t me, and I can’t believe Lace would hang around that fellow.”
“So you do know him!”
“Only what you just said about him.”
“That was you I saw, Kellie. Some people might mix up the two of you, but not me. I may be five feet tall, but I ain’t no fool. What there is of me is very intelligent. You better watch yourself. If that man makes you pregnant, would you marry him? Would you?” Disgusted with Kellie for lying and then suggesting that it could have been Lacette, Nan hung up and called her brother.
“Marshall, would you believe I saw Kellie getting out of Hal Fayson’s pickup truck right in front of Mount Airy-Hill. I tell you, I couldn’t believe my eyes. What she doing in that ruffian’s truck?”
“He’s doing the repairs on the house Mama Carrie gave . . . Wait a minute. I can’t believe she’d stoop to that.”
“To what?”
“She’s using him to get into the house, so she can look for the brooch Mama Carrie left Lacette. I can’t believe she’d go this far, and after I already punished her for breaking into the house to look for it.”
“She what?” Nan sat down in the chair at her kitchen table and leaned back. “You believe it. She tried seducing Jocko when he was hanging your windows, but he told me he wouldn’t hold still for it. That girl had better pray. I declare. If that ain’t something!”
That evening, Friday, Marshall telephoned Lacette a few minutes after six. After speaking with her for a short time, he said, “I’d like you to meet me at the parsonage tomorrow morning at nine. I want all of us to have a discussion, and it’s very important. Can you make it? I’ll tell you what it’s about when we’re all together.” She agreed, as he’d known she would. He didn’t like what was happening to Kellie, and he had to do what he could to avert her headlong plunge into disaster.
He parked in front of the parsonage at ten minutes before nine and waited for her. She arrived promptly, got out of her car and rushed to greet him.
“My, but I’ve never seen you looking so radiant. Things are looking good, I gather.”
“Yes. Tomorrow’s the big day. Oh, Daddy, I hope I get just one inquiry, if not a customer.”
He patted her shoulder and started toward the house. “You’ll do just fine.”
She rang the bell and, they waited for what seemed like ages, but according to his watch, only ten minutes had elapsed. “If they don’t answer soon, I’ll telephone,” he said. Then he put his finger on the bell, pushed and held it. Finally, the door opened, and Cynthia stared at them.
“Hi. You come visiting awfully early,” she said. “This is my morning to sleep late.” Cynthia didn’t embrace Lacette, and it appeared to him that Lacette didn’t expect it.
“Where’s Kellie?” he asked her.
“In her room asleep, I guess.”
He looked at Lacette. “Would you please awaken Kellie and ask her to come down.” To Cynthia, he said. “I want to talk with the three of you this morning, and that’s why I brought Lacette with me.”
Her shrug suggested that whatever he had to say would hold little interest for her. “In that case, I guess I’ll make a pot of coffee. Kellie can’t function until she gets her morning coffee.”
He figured that was as good an excuse as any to avoid being alone with him while Lacette went for her sister. He followed her into the kitchen. “I hear you’re substitute teaching and that you’ll be teaching full time next year. That’s a good move.”
“I had to do something since I’m no longer a wife.”
“I didn’t realize until now that leaving a career in order to take care of one’s children was quid pro quo, and especially not since you didn’t return to work even after they were in their thirties.”
She didn’t reply, and he didn’t expect her to. Deciding not to crowd her, he walked back into the dining room and leaned against the antique cupboard that was probably priceless but which he had always detested. He straightened up to his full six foot-four-inch height when her heard his daughters coming down the stairs.
“Hi, Daddy,” Kellie said, embraced him and hurried to the kitchen where he heard her ask her mother if she knew what he wanted to talk with them about.
“Haven’t a clue,” Cynthia replied. She brought coffee, brioche, butter, and raspberry jam and placed the tray on the table. “Help yourselves. We might as well sit and talk right here.”
He said the grace and poured himself a cup of coffee. If there was one thing he did not miss, it was the weak coffee that Cynthia made. Taking a sheet of paper from his inside coat pocket, he handed it to Kellie. “I want you to read every word on that piece of paper. Aloud.”
She looked at the paper, saw that it was a copy of her grandmother’s will and put it on the table.
“Are you refusing to do as I asked?” he said. When she didn’t answer, he took the paper from her, read it aloud, folded it and put it back in his pocket. “Now, I’ll tell you why I wanted this meeting. A few weeks ago, Kellie broke a back-porch window in my house, entered through the kitchen window, and left the upstairs in complete shambles after she searched for Lacette’s brooch.” He ignored the gasps coming from Cynthia and Lacette. “I punished her by forcing her to put the place in perfect order while I watched, and to pay for the replacement of the window. I told her that if she went in there again looking for that brooch, I would see that she spent some time behind bars.”
“Please sit down,” he said to Cynthia. “She didn’t believe me. She hasn’t broken in again, because it hasn’t been necessary. Instead, she has developed a liaison with Hal Fayson, who has been renovating the house, and he allows her to enter.”
“Hal Fayson?” Cynthia shrieked. “My God!”
Ignoring her outburst, Marshall continued speaking. “With his reputation, I don’t have to tell you how she paid him to risk his job by letting her in that house when his boss told him that no one is to enter it except me.”
He looked at Kellie. “As of today, your lover is looking for a job.”
She shrank visibly, but he went on, mercilessly punishing her for the anger and humiliation that he felt because of her behavior. “When her lover wasn’t working at the house, she tried whoever was there, including Jocko, though she knew he was a member of my church. Before Jocko, she tried to use Lawrence Bradley. He didn’t say so, but what he did say and the way in which he said it, left no doubt in my mind.”
He looked directly at Kellie. “I am ashamed that you are my daughter.”
He’d always known that Kellie’s temper and her passion for revenge would one day be directed at him, and when he saw her literally swelling with anger he steeled himself against whatever hurt she might inflict on him.
Kellie jumped up from her chair and pounded the table with her fist. “You’re ashamed of me now for wanting sex and for using it to get what I want. Well, why didn’t you pay attention when it started? Huh? No, you buried your head in your Bible and your theology books and paid no attention to what was going on right in front of your eyes. It was your home and your family, so naturally it was all perfect. You didn’t notice that when I was fourteen, every time old man Moody came to our house, I’d change into a tight sweater or T-shirt and tease him right in front of you. Where do you think he went after he left your office? Down in the basement with me to yank my sweater or T-shirt off and—”
“I don’t want to hear any more,” he rasped, and closed his eyes. “Moody was the closest friend I ever had. He was like a brother to me. I trusted him with my checkbook and my bankbook. He knew practically everything about me, and he knew how I cherished my daughters. Lord!” In his anguish, the word ripped out of him. “The man was my spiritual advisor. We prayed together, just the two of us, and he betrayed me.”
“He couldn’t have done it if you’d paid attention to what went on around you,” she said. “We’d disappear for half an hour. You didn’t see him and you didn’t see me, but you never considered that he might be down in the basement with me on his knees enjoying himself, did you?”
Smack! Smack! His eyes flew open to see Cynthia’s hand headed back to the side of Kellie’s face. “Don’t you stand in my presence and tell me you’ve been a slut since you were fourteen. Don’t you dare.”
“Don’t you dare,” Kellie replied. “I came by it honestly.” She turned and walked out of the dining room.
“I wish Gramma hadn’t left me that brooch,” Lacette said. “It’s caused a complete breakdown in my relations with my sister.”
He held up his hand as if by doing so he could halt the emergence of a false idea and wipe out the ugliness. “No such thing. Kellie’s behavior caused it.” He spoke halfheartedly, remembering Kellie’s words to her mother and wondering what she knew, for he’d swear that Cynthia had not given their daughters the reason for their parents’ separation. He got up, walked up the stairs and knocked on Kellie’s room door.
“Yes?”
“This is your father. If you steal that brooch, you’re going to jail, and I’ll deed my house over to Lacette as I promised you. Those are my last words on the subject. I’m sorry it’s come to this, but you leave me no choice.” He started toward the stairs, turned and went back, “If you value anything about yourself, you will stay away from Hal Fayson. As it is, you’re going to rue the day you ever saw him.”
He plodded down the stairs, remembering the many times he’d tripped up and down those steps, contented with his life, proud of his daughters and in love with his wife, a wife who he’d thought perfect for him in every way. How had his life changed so drastically in so short a time?
He walked into the dining room where his wife and daughter sat in silence neither touching nor looking at each other. “I’m ready to leave, Lacette. Of course, you may stay if you like. I’ve got some phone calls to make.”
Cynthia’s head jerked up. “You’re not going after Moody, I hope, and please don’t have her put in jail. You could cause a terrible scandal that Kellie might never live down.”
The long and deep breath that he expelled was as much from defeat as from exasperation. He rested his knuckles on his hips. “If you hadn’t shielded her, interfered when I attempted to punish her and made excuses for her all these years, she might be a different person today. It’s my fault, too, because I should have stood my ground and taken her in hand. You can’t possibly know how sorry I am that I didn’t. I’ll probably knock the breath out of Moody if I ever see him again, but the statute of limitations is the only reason why I won’t have him prosecuted for carnal knowledge of a minor.”
Lacette looked as distraught as if she’d just witnessed an unbearable human tragedy. “I’ll be back in a minute, Daddy. Wait for me.” She headed up the stairs.
He looked at his wife, her face as devoid of expression as it was of the heavy makeup she had begun wearing. “You see,” he said, his voice low and wan, “This is what the pattern of their relationship has always been. Kellie offends, and Lacette forgives, but Kellie is vengeful and never forgives a transgression. When it catches up with her, all of us are going to cry. It’s a pity. Tell Lacette I’m waiting for her in the car.”
He managed to get into the car and sit down. His best friend and his teenaged daughter, a daughter headed for self-destruction. “Lord, forgive me, but he deserves one good blow from me, and if I can find him, he’ll get it.”
Lacette opened the car door, and he forced himself to sit up straight, ignite the engine and drive off.
“Were you aware of any of this, Lacette? I confess that I’m in shock.”
“I’m as surprised as you are. She’s very upset, you know.”
“She deserves to be more than upset. Her actions this morning were abominable. No one is responsible for her sluttish behavior except Kellie. Not her mother, me, or even Moody, because she knew that what she was doing was wrong. We taught both of you in our words and in the way we behaved.” He swerved to miss a supermarket delivery truck. “Only God knows how this is going to play out. Do everything you can to get her away from Fayson.”
“What’s wrong with him, Daddy?”
“What’s right with him? He’s unkempt, ill-mannered, and uncouth, and he’s fathered at least two illegitimate children. In addition to that, he hangs out in the worst bars in Frederick.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, as if, to her mind, no one man could have so many shortcomings.
“His father is a faithful member of Mount Airy-Hill, and he puts his son’s name on the prayer list just about every Sunday. Besides, he brought Hal to my office and asked me to pray with him. He’s an only child, belligerent and sullen, but I can say this for him; he’s a first-class worker.”
“That doesn’t sound good. How’d she get involved with him?”
“She wanted to search the house for your brooch, and got him to let her go in there and do whatever she wanted to do while he was supposed to be working. You may imagine how she paid him. Women don’t seem to realize that seducing a guy in order to use him is one of the easiest ways to get hooked on a good-for-nothing man. Sex can be like cocaine. Well, we have to pray for her.” He drove up to Lacette’s house and parked. “I’d come in, but I’m not in the mood to enjoy anything, not even your success.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll try to make up for it.”
She patted his shoulder. “I know how you feel. This is . . . I never thought she’d mix herself up in anything like this. She’s always seemed so . . . well so clever.”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling air through his front teeth. “maybe too clever. I’ll be in touch.”
Lacette didn’t like the way in which Kellie spoke to their parents, but neither did she want her sister isolated from the family. She passed the telephone that rested on a table in her foyer and had to use all the willpower she could muster to prevent herself from telephoning her sister. Kellie was being drawn deeper into the net she’d created for herself, a snare that would seal her fate as Hal Fayson’s victim. Yet, she couldn’t give Kellie the impression that she countenanced her behavior, for she didn’t. She had, in fact, been appalled.
“I’d give her the brooch, but if Daddy ever saw her with it, he’d deed the house to me, and that would upset her more than not getting the brooch,” she said to herself. “Oh, what the heck! I can’t be a mother to my sister.”
She made a turkey sandwich for her lunch, put it, an apple and a thermos of coffee in a bag, got into her car, and drove to her office. She found a note in an envelope taped to her door. Before she opened the door, she read the short message: I thought you said you’d be in your office today. Call me when you get in. Yours, Douglas.
She went inside, dropped her belongings on the desk and telephoned him. “Hi, Douglas. This is Lacette.”
“Hi, there. You think I wouldn’t recognize your voice among a thousand? You wound me.”
She gulped. “Wait a minute, mister. You’re speaking out of character.”
“Not out of character a’tall; getting bolder perhaps, but definitely being myself. I’d like to have dinner with you this evening, but I started work on your father’s grounds, and they’ve apparently been neglected for years. Crabgrass, dandelions and every other kind of weed you don’t want in a lawn. Besides, most of the shrubs have to be replaced, and the trees have never been pruned. I’m speaking never. He said it’s important that I get it done within a month, and since I’m only working on it after I leave the hotel, I’ll need a month.”
“Since you’re being bold, I’ll exercise my right to do the same. Does this mean, I won’t see you for a month?”
“There’s lunch hour and, of course, Sunday. Your dad said I can’t do the work on Sunday ’cause it’s the Sabbath.”
“I know. He’s a stickler for that.”
“What do you say I bring some lunch over today and we eat it in your office?”
She was about to tell him that she brought her lunch, when she remembered that if she didn’t see him at lunchtime, she wouldn’t see him at all that day.
“That will be wonderful. Douglas, I’m always surprised at your thoughtfulness.”
“Keep that up, and I’ll be over there in a couple of minutes.” In her mind’s eye she could see the wicked glint in his eyes—eyes that she adored—and the smile that hovered around his mouth. For a minute, she was tempted to taunt him into breaking his rule about mixing work and social life.
“I’m keeping notes,” she said instead, “and when I do see you, you’re going to account for all these smart sayings.”
“Won’t hurt me none. See you at twelve-thirty.”
She had expected sandwiches, but he brought hot lunches from the Belle Époque dining room, a crabmeat soufflé with sautéed red peppers and a salad for her, and barbecued shrimp with rice and a salad for himself.
“You even brought utensils,” she said, “real ones.”
He bowed from the waist. “I aim to please, ma’am. When I told the cook that I wanted to impress a woman, he said, ‘leave it to me,’ and he didn’t let me down.”
She laid her head to one side and regarded him closely. “Any reason why I can’t make friends with this chef?”
“Every reason, and I don’t have to list them.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not joking, are you?”
“No, I definitely wasn’t joking.” His fingers rubbed his chin as if he was bemused.
“Your father told me that in no circumstances am I to allow your sister to enter that house, and he said it so forcefully, shaking his finger at me, that I was stunned. Is there something I ought to know?”
As much as she liked him, she wasn’t going to expose Kellie in order to put him at ease. “I told you about the brooch, didn’t I? Well, she’s gone to considerable extremes to find it, so he was putting you on your guard.”
“Warning me was more like it, but he needn’t worry; a little of your sister goes a long way with me. I’m sorry,” he said when she winced. He took her hand in his. “I wouldn’t hurt you for anything.”
She gazed steadily at him. “You’re by no means a glib man, so I believe you mean that.”
He picked up a paper napkin, wiped his mouth, leaned over and kissed her. “And I also meant that.”
She watched him savor his lunch. Why does the word “lusty” come to mind as I’m watching him, she asked herself, and on an impulse, she said, “You like gourmet food, fine wine and liquors, music, paintings and the great outdoors.”
He stared at her, seemingly shaken. “Are you psychic?”
“Not that I know of,” she said, omitting her occasional premonitions.
“Hey. What is it? What’s the matter?” he asked her.
“Uh . . . nothing. I just remembered something that I forgot to tell my father.” What she had forgotten was the premonition she had when she awakened that morning.
Visibly relieved, he continued eating. “I’m going to learn to cook this if I have to go to cooking school,” he said of the barbecued shrimp. “I love this stuff.”
“While you’re at it, learn how to cook crabmeat soufflé. I don’t know when I’ve eaten anything so tasty. I brought a thermos of coffee from home. Want some?”
“Now, who’s thoughtful. Yes, indeed.”
As they sipped coffee, neither spoke. She knew his gaze was on her, but she focused on the grain of the wood that constituted her desktop.
“Look at me, Lacette.”
She tried without success to force herself to look at him, but couldn’t. She heard him get up, and felt the heat of his nearness as he moved to where she sat. Not a muscle in her body moved; even her heart seemed to have stopped beating.
He stood beside her chair. “If you won’t look at me, I’ll lift you up from this chair.”
She didn’t doubt that he would, but she couldn’t make herself comply. Why doesn’t he get on with it? She closed her eyes and waited. Waited while the aroma of agitated man tantalized and teased her. Waited while her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Then his hand clasped her shoulder, and still she waited. Waited until his other hand slipped beneath her knees, lifted her to her feet and locked her to his body. Bold, brazen and all man. He gripped her to him, held the back of her head and plundered her mouth so deftly that she could only cling to him as tremors raced through her and she felt contractions in her womb.
She braced her hands against his chest in the hopes of gaining strength, and immediately, he loosened his hold on her and broke the kiss. “Are you . . . annoyed?”
Her eyes widened, and both eyebrows shot up, “Annoyed? You’re not serious.”
The words had hardly passed through her lips when he put both arms around her and urged her back into his embrace. “I’m glad. I’ve wanted that for so long. If you don’t have plans for Sunday, could we spend the day together?”
“I’d like that.”
“Then I’ll be at your place around ten. All right?”
“That’ll be fine. Thanks for lunch.”
“It was my pleasure. We’ll talk before Sunday.” He looked at his watch. “I have to get to work in seven minutes, and am I glad you’re working across the street from the hotel!” He kissed her cheek, collected the utensils and left.
The man had moved in like a bulldozer poised to demolish a building. Bold, confident, and far from the reticent man she’d thought he was. Having been thrust up from the hell of her sister’s predicament to the reassuring heaven she found in him had to be the explanation for her unsteadiness. Shaken, she sat down and breathed slowly and deeply.
Hold on, girl, till you know more about him. He just gave you a surprise, and he may have more in store for you, some of which you may not like.
She drafted press releases and newspaper ads and prepared them for mailing, but at the end of the day, she didn’t feel as if she had accomplished anything. Before leaving her office, she telephoned her mother.
“Hi, Mama. Have things quieted down over there? What’s Kellie doing?”
“After you and Marshall left, we had a big row. With my problems, I may not be my old self right now, but she is not going to disrespect me the way she did this morning. No telling how Marshall is feeling; he always behaved as if he thought you girls were perfect.”
Now you want to lump me with Kellie, as if I’ve been doing the same thing she’s been doing. Of all the ways you’ve devised to excuse her, this is the most objectionable. I won’t stand for it.
“Mama, I haven’t given you and Daddy any reasons to be disappointed in me, so keep this focused on Kellie. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She left in a huff about half an hour ago. I asked her when she’d be home, and she said, ‘Maybe never.’”
“Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry.”
“If your father hadn’t left home—”
She interrupted, something she wasn’t normally prone to do, but that line of thinking was intolerable. “You’re saying that your separation was Daddy’s fault, that he did something unseemly that caused the break? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I’m not telling you anything about that; I’m just saying that if he was here, none of this would have happened.”
“Mama, we were all together when Kellie was fourteen. She’s thirty-three now and presumably of sound mind, so she alone is responsible for what she does. You’ve got to stop shielding her, Mama, just like I’ve stopped letting her have her way whenever she pouts and stamps her foot or butters me up. And when I decided to quit catering to her, I stopped resenting her.”
“All this is easy for you to say; you’re not her mother.”
“You never had any trouble saying no to me and letting me know when I’d done something wrong. Maybe that accounts for the difference between Kellie and me.”
Cynthia’s voice took on a hard veneer and an unusual stridency. “You’ve developed a sharp tongue, too. I’d like to know where you’re getting your newfound nerve.”
“I called to see how you are, Mama. I’ll be home if you need me. Love ya. Bye.” After she hung up, she wondered why she’d told her mother that she loved her. She did, but words of endearment rarely passed between them. What kind of a family have we been all these years? She packed her briefcase, looked around, and her glance fell on the piece of walnut wood she’d purchased the previous week. “I may as well take it home,” she said to herself. “The chances of my doing any paperwork tonight are about nil, because I know I won’t be able to concentrate on it, but I can always carve my birds.”
Far from chastened and unmindful of the way in which her behavior, especially her outburst that morning, had depressed the members of her family, Kellie set out for her father’s house that Saturday around five o’clock, intending to see for herself if Hal had been relieved of his job. When she remembered that Thursday was to have been his last day to work at her father’s house, she was less than a block from it. But rather than turn back, she continued toward the house, hoping to find some other way of entering it.
She walked around the north side of the building—hidden from view by the intertwined limbs of a grape arbor—the sound of her steps upon the dry leaves and sticks the only noise she heard. She peeped through the dining room window, saw nothing and kept going—more stealthily now—toward the back of the house.
“What, may I ask, are you doing here?”
“Oh!” She backed toward the house, slamming her shoulders against it, and winced in pain.
“I said what are you doing here?”
She recovered with the speed of one used to being devious and getting away with it. “I could ask you the same thing. This house belongs to my father. Don’t tell me he hired you to cut the grass, because that excuse won’t fly. There’s hardly any grass this time of year.” She ignored his hard and unfriendly stare. “Would you give me the key, please? I need to get some things out of the dining room. Now. I’m in a hurry.”
He folded his arms and continued to stare at her. “If you want the key, get it from your father. And I’m not here to cut grass. I’m landscaping the property.”
She walked close enough to him to see that his irises were a copper brown against a dark brown, almost black background. Lord, he’s good-looking, she thought and abruptly changed tactics.
“You must be tired from this back-breaking work. Let’s . . . go inside and . . . you can . . . uh . . . rest a little.”
She watched, horrified, as Douglas Rawlins threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Do men fall for that drivel? I’ve had women toss me all kinds of lines, but yours is as infantile as I’ve heard.”
She stepped closer, unbuttoning her sweater and wiping her forehead to suggest that his heat had gotten to her. “Don’t be so mean.” She rubbed her right hand across her left breast, avoiding eye contact as she did so. “Come on, and let’s go inside.” She reached for his hand, and he stepped back.
“Your father warned me that you’d try something like this. I ought to let you go inside, so he’ll make you spend a few nights in jail, but I wouldn’t like to be the one who contributed to the further sullying of the inmates’ already tarnished lives.”
“How dare you? You know nothing about me”
“I know enough to be certain that I don’t want anything to do with you, and I felt that way the first time I saw you.”
“I suppose you’re making it with Lacette.” She couldn’t fathom his furrowed brow and bemused expression. What did he have to be confused about?
“How did the two of you come from the same parents? If you weren’t twins, I wouldn’t believe it. I’ll be working here evenings after five. If you come here again while I’m here, I’m going to call your father on my cell phone and tell him you’re here, and that you asked for the door key and as much as offered yourself as the lure.”
“He wouldn’t believe you.”
“He’ll believe me, because he hinted that you’re capable of it. If I had to buy sex, I’d expect to pay more for it. Find a guy who’s needy.” She gasped as he walked away and left her standing there.
She had to get into that house, and she would. She wouldn’t allow anybody or anything to get in her way. But with Hal no longer working there, she had limited options. She left and began plotting her course. At ten forty-five that night, she called the fire department and reported that she was locked out. Firemen arrived, but when she was unable to present a picture ID with that address on it, they refused to help her get inside. She went home and wrote three letters to herself, using different return addresses, and mailed them on her way to work Monday morning. “That ought to do it,” she said to herself, planning to watch the mailbox that was affixed to the wall near the front door.
She consoled herself with the reminder that she was a determined person. “I’ll get in there no matter what it takes.” However, Kellie couldn’t know what fate had in store for her.