Chapter 14
Derrick experienced a gentle peace for the first time since becoming a widower. He wasn’t one to believe he needed a woman to complete him, yet when he’d met Andrea she unknowingly had become the missing piece in his life. She’d left him, and his world would have shattered completely if it hadn’t been for their daughter.
Now, five years later, he sat across the table from a woman who was physically the opposite of the woman whom he’d married and who had charmed him where he’d opened his heart to possibly fall in love again. There were so many things he had come to like about Leah: her wit, optimism, her low, sultry voice, and her confidence to say exactly what she felt.
Leah was so completely different from any other woman he’d met and known, and that left him slightly off-balance and guarded—something he’d never been before. Sleeping with the divorcée was something both wanted. It was sex with the promise of not asking more from each other. And a few times Derrick suspected he wasn’t the only man in her life.
“Tell me about your wife, Derrick.”
His head popped up, and he stared at Leah, wondering if she’d read his mind. The meal she had prepared was nothing short of perfection. The spicy sage-stuffed, breadcrumb-topped mushrooms, drizzled with garlicky-lemon liquid, were comparable to those he’d eaten at his favorite New York City Italian restaurant. The grilled asparagus dusted with garlic powder and Romano cheese were tender, and Leah had browned the garlic in an ovenproof skillet under the broiler and then cooked it on the stovetop with red pepper flakes, parsley, and chicken broth before adding the al dente spaghetti. She added grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, coated the pasta with the sauce before taking the skillet off the heat and adding virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper and tossing thoroughly. Derrick congratulated her again for concocting an incredibly delicious dish.
“What do you want to know?”
“How did you meet?”
Derrick rested his head against the seat back and closed his eyes. “I met Andrea at a social mixer in a restaurant where a lot of people that worked on or near Wall Street hung out after hours. She was sitting at a table with another woman crying inconsolably. Once she was alone I went over to her to ask if she was okay.”
Leah leaned over the table. “What did she say?”
He opened his eyes. “Her fiancé had broken up with her because he’d met someone else. And that someone else was one of her coworkers.”
“Pig!” Leah spat out.
“I remember Andrea calling him a low dog. I managed to convince her to leave and go for a walk to clear her head. We walked from Trinity Place to Kips Bay, where she shared an apartment with a friend from college.”
“I know nothing about New York City. How far did you have to walk?”
“About three miles.”
“Where did you live?”
“I had a studio apartment in the West Village. That’s almost two miles from Kips Bay. Folks in Manhattan do a lot of walking, so it would take me about forty minutes to walk from my place to hers. She was a native New Yorker, having grown up on Long Island, and had graduated from Pace University with degrees in finance and taxation. She laughed when I told her I’d graduated from the University of Alabama with a double major in accounting and finance, and said it was a good sign that we both had majored in finance. She had a position as a money manager for a Wall Street company, while I worked for an investment firm. I gave her my business card and told her to call me when she was feeling better.”
“How long did it take for her to call you?”
Derrick smiled when he saw excitement light up Leah’s eyes. “Three months. When I finally met her again, she told me she had changed jobs, and she was seeing a psychiatrist who had prescribed medication for her depression. We dated for a year, then decided to get married. Andrea claimed she never learn to cook, so I prepared all the meals. We bought a condo in a high-rise overlooking the Hudson River, but only got to enjoy the water views on the weekends. Most nights we were too exhausted to do anything more than wolf down takeout and go to bed. Although we earned six-figure salaries and generous bonuses, both of us were close to burnout.
“Once Andrea told me she was pregnant, I convinced her to quit her job and stay home. That’s when she talked about moving out of the city to one of the suburbs. We came down here on vacation, and when Andrea discovered a developer was building new beachfront homes she said we should buy one. I jumped at her suggestion because I was tired of the rat race. We sold the condo and all the furnishings before the baby was born and moved in with my mother until our house was finished. Meanwhile Andrea learned to make more than boiled eggs, instant coffee, toast, and heat up microwave meals. I helped Mom at the Café while Andrea managed the restaurant’s finances.
“Deandra was six months old when we finally moved into this house, because Andrea went through a few interior decorators until she found one she liked. I would notice her grimacing every once in a while, and she complained about pulling a muscle in her back. No matter how often I would tell her to see a doctor she’d take a couple of ibuprofens and claim the pain was gone. But the pain would come and go over the years, and then one morning she was in so much discomfort that she couldn’t get out of bed. I took her to the hospital, and after they ran a battery of tests, the result was stage-four pancreatic and bile duct cancer that had metastasized. She refused chemo and begged me not to send her to hospice.”
“Why did she not want treatment that could possibly prolong her life?”
“She was tired, Leah. She had been in pain so long that she just wanted it to go away. I hired a live-in private-duty nurse to make certain she was comfortable, and when I’d come home after work the nurse told me Andrea would spend most of the day in the garden shed reading and napping. When she was too weak to walk, she’d sit in a wheelchair on the porch and stare at the ocean. She knew she was dying, and she made me promise not to grieve for her, that I should find someone to love me as much as she had. She lapsed into a coma and passed away a week later.” Derrick closed his eyes for several seconds and exhaled a breath. “The hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life was tell my daughter that her mother was gone and not coming back. I got into it with my in-laws because they wanted Andrea buried in the family plot on Long Island, while Andrea had put it in writing that she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered in the ocean. Her parents, brother, sister, and several cousins came down for the service, and left as soon as it was over.”
“Why couldn’t they understand it was Andrea’s wish, not yours, that she wanted to be cremated?”
Derrick noticed Leah’s eyes had filled with tears. He hadn’t told her about Andrea to make her cry. “I don’t know, babe. You can pick your friends but not your family.”
Reaching for her napkin, Leah touched it to the corners of her eyes. I’m so sorry, Derrick. For you and your daughter.”
He stood, came around the table, and eased Leah up. His arms circled her waist and pulled her close. “Please don’t cry. Andrea cried so much that I cannot remember when she used to smile.”
Leah sniffled as she buried her face against his shoulder. “I can’t imagine waking up every day wondering if this is the day I’m going to lose the person I love.”
“It was hard in the beginning, and I knew I had to stay strong not for myself but for Deandra.”
“You are strong, Derrick.”
“So are you, Leah. A lot of women would have shattered under what you had to go through. I can recall someone telling me very emphatically she was not a victim.”
Leah lifted her chin, smiling. She scrunched up her nose. “I do recall hearing that, too.”
Derrick massaged the nape of her neck. “Are you going in with me tomorrow, or you plan to stay here?”
“I’m going in with you. I have to put up several loads of wash and clean the apartment. And I also want to pick up my car in case I decide to drive into town.” Leah paused. “I just remembered something, Derrick. If I’m going to live on the island then I’ll need a resident sticker.”
“I’ll get a sticker for you. I also don’t want you cleaning this house because I’ve contracted with a maintenance company to come in every other week to clean every room from top to bottom.”
“Okay.”
Derrick smothered a sigh of relief. He thought perhaps Leah would resent him telling her what not to do because of what she’d gone through with her mother-in-law. He dropped a kiss in her hair. “Thank you again for dinner. It was delicious.”
“I’m practicing so when it comes time for you to interview for a sous chef I will be in the running.”
“Are you still sure you want to work with me in the kitchen?” Derrick asked Leah.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“What I don’t want is for our working relationship to clash with our personal life.”
“That’s not going to happen, because I know when to separate the two. Remember, darling,” she drawled, smiling, “I’ve had a lot of practice with compartmentalization.”
“I’ll try not to forget, darling.” Derrick kissed Leah again, this time on the mouth, capturing her breath as her lips parted. He was no novice when it came to women, yet Leah was so very different from the others he’d dated. She did not hesitate when it came to speaking her mind, and he wondered if she’d always been that way or had been forced to do so as a defense mechanism. He ended the kiss, and both were breathing heavily. “Go relax, babe, while I clean the kitchen.”
“It will . . .” Leah’s words trailed off when her cell phone rang. “Excuse me, but I should get that call.
* * *
Leah retrieved the phone and walked into the family room. “Yes, Kayana.”
“Did I disturb you?”
She folded her body down into an armchair. “No. Why?”
“Your voice just sounded different. I’m calling to let you know Cherie quit her job to go back to college in the fall. She said she’s renting the same bungalow where you stayed last summer.”
“When is she coming down?”
“Next week.”
Leah smiled. “It sounds as if we’re getting the book club back together sooner than later.”
“You’ve got that right. She sounds really upbeat.”
“Maybe she’s finally gotten over the man that had her in a funk last summer, because she has a lot to offer a man that’s worthy of her youth, beauty, and intelligence.”
When first sharing a table with Cherie Thompson at the Seaside Café, Leah and the young woman had gotten off on the wrong foot, when Cherie accused Leah of being anorexic because there hadn’t been a lot of food on her plate. She did come back and apologize.
Leah had invited her to join the book club with her and Kayana. She’d used the discussion of Octavia Butler’s Kindred as an excuse to accuse her of having ancestors who owned slaves, and she even held it against her that she lived in the city that had been the capital of the Confederacy. They would occasionally verbally spar with each other, and Leah finally realized her relationship with Cherie would never evolve into one she had with Kayana.
“What about you, Leah?”
“What about me, Kayana?”
“Are you enjoying my brother’s company?”
What did her friend expect her to do, lie? If she’d been forthcoming about the intimate details of her marriage, then she owed it to her to be honest about her relationship with Derrick. “Yes, I am,” she whispered, not wanting Derrick to overhear her conversation. “In fact, I’ve decided to move in with him.” She held the phone away from her ear when Kayana let out a high-decibel, piercing shriek.
“Nothing’s wrong, darling. Graeme just came downstairs to find out if I’m all right. Hold on. I’m going outside to talk because my husband has ears like a bat,” Kayana whispered.
“Well, you did scream loud enough to be heard on the mainland.”
“Sorry about that, Leah. Are you whispering because Derrick’s within earshot?”
“Yes. And I don’t want to go upstairs or outside because he’ll know that I’m talking about him,” she continued sotto voce.
“Point taken. Look, girlfriend, I’ve watched you and Derrick dance around each other for weeks, and you don’t know how long I wanted to tell you guys to get on with it. I know you were attracted to my brother last year, and I know he won’t admit it, but he also was checking out my redheaded book club friend.”
Leah wanted to tell Kayana she was right because he had admitted to checking her out. However, there were some things she wanted to stay between her and Derrick. “And you’re right about your brother, Kayana. He is a good guy,” she said instead.
“I’m happy that both of you have been given a second chance at love.”
“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. We’re not at the stage where we can talk about being in love.”
“That’s next, Leah.”
“When did you know you were in love with Graeme?”
A beat passed. “I really can’t pinpoint when; I knew I liked him a lot even before we slept together. We went to the movies on our first date, and that escalated to going to his house to give him cooking lessons. That’s when I realized that I really enjoyed his company. Then he got sick and I played Florence Nightingale, staying over at night to check on him and Barley. It was sometime later after he’d recovered that he asked me to move in with him.”
“Did you?”
“No. It was only after we’d begun sleeping together that I knew I was in love with him. I’d told myself over and over that I never wanted to get married again, but when the heart rules the head there’s nothing you can do but listen to it.”
“Aren’t you glad you listened?”
Kayana laughed. “The day I told Graeme I was willing to marry him I knew I’d changed—and for the better, because I’d let go of the anger where I’d blamed every man for what I’d allowed James to do to me. I bit my tongue and put up with a lot of shit for the sake of my marriage, and what did it get me?”
“A reason to get rid of the snake so you could find someone that loves and respects you.”
“Preach, sister. But it all wasn’t wine and roses once I discovered Graeme wasn’t who he said he was, and I broke up with him. But if it hadn’t been for Derrick, I know I wouldn’t have married him. But that’s something I will tell you about when we see each other again.”
“You’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not. That’s when I had to ask myself if I wanted to lose him or accept what he was offering me. And that is someone I could love and more importantly trust. You must get tired of me saying it, Leah, but you’re good for Derrick and he’s good for you. So, please don’t blow it.”
Leah smiled. “I must be listening to my heart, because when Derrick asked me to move in I knew he was shocked when I said yes. I’m too old to play games, and I’ve been unhappy for so long that it’s time for me to know what love is.”
“I love that song, Lee.”
“Which one are you talking about?”
“ ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ by Foreigner.”
“I like it, too.”
“I’m not going to hold you because now that you’re cohabitating we’ll have to save the girl talk for our meetings.”
“Are we going to wait until the start of the summer season to start our book club or begin when Cherie gets here?”
“I don’t know, Lee. I just finished Love in the Time of Cholera, and I plan to start The Alienist in a couple of days. I didn’t realize that puppy was so long.”
“It is a long read,” Leah agreed, “but I have to admit Cherie suggested a winner. And you, being a therapist, will probably identify with it.”
“I’m glad I didn’t see the miniseries. I’m going to let you go so you can spend some time with your honey.”
“Later, Kayana.”
“Nite-nite.”
Derrick had just closed the door to the dishwasher when Leah returned to the kitchen. “Our book club is reconvening earlier than planned.”
Derrick stood straight and stared at Leah. “What happened?”
“Cherie is coming down next week.”
He smiled. “So the book club is getting back together.”
“Yup.”
“Just let me know when you’re going to have your first meeting so I can vacate the premises.”
Leah moved closer to Derrick and reached for his hand. “You don’t have to leave. We’ll be in the she-shed.”
Derrick stared at Leah from under lowered lids. He still was trying to process her willingness to live with him. He knew he was asking a lot from a woman who’d spent almost three quarters of her life with an abusive husband; a man who’d systematically sought to bend her to his will and failed.
“I’ve already promised Graeme that I would hang out with him. I’m going to take the gas grill out of the mudroom and set it up in the back. I’ll have to go into town and pick up a few tanks of propane. So if y’all want to grill just let me know if you want steak, burgers, or links.”
Leah’s arms went around his waist as she pressed her chest to his. “What am I going to do with you?” she whispered.
“Keep me, babe.”
She buried her face between his chin and shoulder and breathed a kiss under his ear. “You don’t have to worry about that, because I’m in this for the duration.”
Derrick’s right hand slid down Leah’s back and cradled her hip. He’d wanted her for so long that he could not remember when he didn’t. Whenever they were in the kitchen together it was all he could do to keep his hands off her. And knowing she was married and hadn’t yet filed for divorce—for him that made her taboo. Kayana had told him about some of her clients in abusive marriages who talked about leaving their husbands, and some would. But then they returned, and the cycle of abuse would continue. Unfortunately their decision sometimes resulted in their deaths.
However, he knew it would be different with Leah because of her husband’s status. As a judge for the Commonwealth of Virginia, his wife suing him for divorce after thirty years of marriage was certain to start tongues wagging and reporters scrambling over one another for interviews. And now that Leah had put the divorce train on the track and started it up, there would be no stopping it.
Derrick hadn’t planned to ask her to live with him, but coming home and finding her in the kitchen preparing dinner conjured up memories of what he’d shared with Andrea. He knew it was unfair to compare Leah to his late wife because they were two different women. But the scene of domesticity was so powerful that it was something he wanted to relive every day over and over.
He’d asked and was totally shocked when Leah agreed to move in with him. However, he’d given her an out. He would not place any demands on her, and she had the option of staying or leaving at any time.
Derrick did not think he could love another woman after Andrea, but Leah had proven him wrong. When seeing her battered and bruised, his first instinct was to protect her. It was his father’s insecurities that his wife earned more money, therefore becoming the family’s proverbial breadwinner, that made him find something with which to argue with her, but it was Kenneth Johnson’s advice to him that Derrick never forgot: Never raise your hand to a woman.
This is not to say his marriage was conflict- or drama-free. He and Andrea were able to resolve their disagreements without shouting and screaming at each other. However, there had been one incident. The house was built and ready for them to move in, but Andrea did not want to occupy a home without it being completely furnished. Derrick had tried to make her understand they’d imposed far too long on his mother’s generosity living with her until they could occupy their new home, and she did not need the cries of a colicky baby interrupting her sleep. His wife stubbornly refused, and it was the first and only time Derrick raised his voice, stunning not only Andrea but also himself. He apologized immediately for losing his temper, but the outburst caused a schism in his marriage that had remained until it ended with Andrea’s passing, because he’d revealed early on when they were dating about his parents’ ongoing disagreements and promised her he would never raise his voice to her. It had been a promise he’d been able to keep until that time.
“I noticed you didn’t put a nightgown or a pair of pajamas in my overnight bag,” Leah said softly.
Leah’s low, dulcet voice with a drawl that identified her as growing up in the South caressed his ear. He smiled. “It never crossed my mind.”
“First you want me go to commando, and now you expect me to romp around naked as a jaybird.”
Derrick kissed her ear. “I’m certain that’s a sight I will truly enjoy.”
“You won’t think so when you see my stretch marks and the scar from my Caesarean.”
“A woman’s stretch marks are a medal of honor equivalent of a soldier being awarded the Purple Heart. She has to go through a living hell to bring a child into the world. And, in your case, it was two at the same time.”
“My babies were eating good inside me, because both weighed over seven pounds at birth, and after more than sixteen hours in labor my doctor realized I wasn’t going to deliver them vaginally.”
“Seven pounds isn’t a small baby.”
“They still aren’t small. Aron and Caleb are six-three and weigh close to two-thirty.”
Derrick whistled. “That’s definitely not small.”
“That’s the reason I pleaded with them not to jack up their father. They’re like you and work out every day. Caleb kick-boxes and Aron has a black belt in tae kwon do.”
“Damn! I’m sure they can wreck a joint in less than two minutes.”
“You’re right about that. One time when I met them in New York and saw them coming down the street I noticed folks staring at them, not because they were identical, but they looked like football linebackers.”
Based on their physical conditioning and self-defense proficiencies, Derrick knew Leah had a valid reason to ask her sons not to retaliate against their father. “I think I can remedy your nightgown dilemma by giving you a few of my T-shirts.”
“Thank you, darling.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome, darling.”
“What time do you plan to leave the house tomorrow morning?”
“Six.”
“If that’s the case, then I’m going upstairs to shower and turn in. You can leave the T-shirt on the bed.”
Derrick wanted to ask which bed, his or the one in the guest room. “I’ll be up a little later.”