After the Loving

“On Sunday?”

“It’s the only day no one’s down there.”

“Sorry, but this is all I brought along. Don’t try to make me into what I’m not, Russ. I don’t look right in tight-fitting clothes, so I don’t wear them. Case closed.”

“Nonsense. You looked terrific in that dress you wore last night.”

“And you need glasses.”

The daggers from his gaze sent pain piercing through her. “That’s the second time in less than twenty-four hours that you told me I don’t know my own mind. See you.” His shoulder brushed her as he dashed past her up the stairs, and she heard his bedroom door close with a louder than usual or necessary bang.

The remainder of her breakfast forgotten, Velma leaned against the railing for a minute, thinking that if she hadn’t promised to look after Tara and if she didn’t want to investigate property in Baltimore, she’d go home.

“You could have him eating out of your hand. What’s wrong?”

Her head snapped up. “I don’t know, Drake. One minute, he’s wonderful. The next, I’ll say or do something that turns him off.”

He regarded her intently. “And that happened last night as well as a minute ago. Right?”

She nodded.

“Then figure out what it is, and don’t do it. He’s straight, Velma. I told you that.”

“I know he is. It isn’t Russ—it’s me. He sees me differently from the way I see myself, but I’m changing that.”

He patted her shoulder. “See that you do. And make it up to Henry. Nobody ignores Henry’s biscuits unless they want to eat cabbage stew.”

“Thanks, Drake.” She thought for a second. “Why are you…encouraging me? Why are you telling me this?”

“I know my brother. He rarely extends himself to people, and we’ve all known from the time the two of you met that you were special to him. And your being Alexis’s sister has nothing to do with it. If anything, it’s a strike against you. Russ is a strong man. If he makes up his mind that nothing should happen between the two of you, he won’t change it.” He started up the stairs, turned and walked back to her. “I want my brothers to be happy. Whatever works for them, works for me. You understand that?”

“I could use a brother like you,” she said, and he treated her to his celebrated charisma with a wide grin.

“Get busy. I just might be one of these days.”

Alexis didn’t know how fortunate she was to belong to the Harrington family, a part of it, and loved by every person in it. She went up to her room, took her appointments calendar and cellular phone out of her briefcase with the intention of working. She had left the two weeks following her sister’s wedding free of engagements so that she could take care of Tara while her sister and brother-in-law enjoyed their honeymoon. But with an agenda of her own, Tara got up early, dressed herself and, with Henry’s blessings, left around eight-thirty that morning with Grant Roundtree and his father, Adam, to spend the day with them at the Beaver Ridge Roundtree estate twelve miles away.

Velma began work on the menu for the annual gala and awards dinner of the Society of Environmentalists that would be convened at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans the first of February. Planning a gala dinner in the food capital of the United States was no cinch, but she knew she could pull it off. Problem was, she needed a test kitchen and a place to store supplies. And she needed office help. The business had become so big that she could no longer manage it with her computer and cell phone.

Five hours later, she drank her fifth glass of water trying to appease her hunger. “I don’t care,” she told herself. “One day, he’ll say I’m nice-looking and mean it.”

Russ tempered his urge to slam his bedroom door with all his might. He had gone to her to comfort her, to let her know that he cared, but he was damned if he would settle for less than he knew he deserved. He needed a woman who stood up to him as an equal, who believed him if he said that to him she was the Venus de Milo incarnate. He snapped his finger. Her preoccupation with the way she looked began with the wedding—at least that was the first time she had revealed it to him. All right, so Alexis was dazzling in that slim white gown, but hardly one in a thousand women looked like Alexis, no matter what she wore.

Feeling inadequate beside her sister probably wasn’t new, but he suspected that it had just come to a head. And it obviously explained why she didn’t eat her usual breakfast. Maybe… Oh, what the hell! He slipped on his favorite pair of alligator boots, a short mackinaw coat and a pair of wool-lined leather gloves and bumped into Velma as he stepped out of his room.

He grabbed her arm to steady her. “Sorry. Did I shake you up?”

“Not half as much as you did earlier,” she said, her wry tone matched by an open, vulnerable facial expression.

She had a way of getting to him without trying, by just being herself. Honest and forthright. And it had been that way since he first saw her.

I’m a sucker for this dame, but I’m not caving in just because everybody expects me to. “Look,” he began. “Can’t you hem that thing or pin it up so you won’t trip on it, put on a coat and come with me down to the warehouse?”

She looked up at him as if divining his motive. “All right. Maybe Alexis has a pair of sneakers somewhere. They’ll be a size too big, but I’ll put on a pair of her socks. Twenty minutes?”

He trailed the back of his left hand down her cheek. “Perfect. Meet me at the garage door off the kitchen.”

She headed first to her room, and he hoped she would hem that caftan or, better still, cut it off.

“I’m short enough without these sneakers,” she said when she stepped into the garage.

He shook his right index finger at her. “I don’t want another word of that.” After placing a .22-caliber rifle on the floor of the truck, he helped her in and fastened her seat belt, which he had installed after Tara developed a passion for riding with him in the truck. “You’re damned perfect just the way you are, and don’t dispute me.”

She folded her hands in her lap and lowered her head. “Yes, sir, your honor.”

Laughter felt good, and she had a way of pulling it out of him. Rolling laughter poured from him only when he was with her, as it did then. “That’s more like it,” he said, when he could get his breath.

“Why did you bring the rifle?”

“I prefer not to run into a bear if I’m unarmed.”

“Oh! Could you…uh—”

“I can, and I have. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. When you’re in the jungle, you play by the jungle’s rules.”

At the warehouse, he knew his pride was evident when he showed her through the ultramodern storage facility, built by Harrington, Inc., Architects, Engineers and Builders.

“What are we going to do?” she asked him.

“Check inventory. You’re going to help me?” She nodded. “Telford pays a man to do this, but from time to time one of us double-checks. That way, we control every facet of our business. Inventory is one of our most important assets—we don’t entrust it to anyone.”

He turned on a computer. “You sit at this desk and check the number of unopened boxes in each case against the number on this chart.” He pointed to the screen. “Each case and each box in it has a numerical indicator. Okay?”

“Fine. What’s in them?”

“Screws, clamps, nails, different types of fasteners.” He stacked a dozen cases beside the desk. “I’ll be back later,” he said, and went to the basement to deal with cables and girders. After what he surmised was an hour had elapsed, he looked at his watch and gasped.

“She must think I’m crazy. I’ve been down here two hours.” He left his coat and gloves on a pile of steel rods and raced up the stairs. At the top, he stopped still. She wasn’t pouting or posturing in anger as he had expected, but was bending over a case to inspect its contents.

“I’m sorry, Velma. I’m so used to working here alone, and I got so involved that I…I hope you’re not annoyed with me.”

Still holding a box, she raised up and looked at him. “Why would I be annoyed? We came here to work, didn’t we? By the way, I’d love to meet the genius who posted these records.”

“Why?”

“’Cause every case is missing two or three boxes. I’d think you’d open a case, use all the boxes in it and then open another one.”

He rushed to her. “That’s what we’re supposed to do. Let me see.”

“Hmm. And that is how it looks on this spread sheet,” she said, frowning. “Somebody is dipping in the till. Big-time, too.”

He didn’t like the sound of it. To prevent rip-offs, they built the warehouse on their own property where they could easily oversee it. And now, this. “You mind reading it off to me, beginning with PN3306?”

“Sixty.”

He let out a long breath. “Four missing.”

For the next three hours, as they rechecked, anger flooded him. Someone had discovered an easy way to increase his salary, but not any longer, he vowed.

“Every order, sealed and unsealed, in this place has to be checked. I don’t know how to thank you. You took it seriously, and look what you found. Look, I’m hungry and so are you. Let’s go.”

“Why wouldn’t I take it seriously, Russ? It’s important to you.”

He stared at her before shaking his head as if that would straighten out his mind. “Don’t go there, man,” he cautioned himself. To her, he said, “Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ll get my coat and gloves and be right back.”

When he returned, she had put on her coat—another point in her favor; unlike some women he had known, she didn’t wait for him to do for her what she was capable of doing for herself, though he would happily have held her coat for her.

“Well, what do we have here?” she asked of the snow flurries that glided down on them as they stepped out of the warehouse.

He let his gaze roam the sky. “I don’t think we’ll get much snow.” He took out his cellular phone and punched in a number. “Henry, is Tara home?”

“She’s here. Adam brought her home soon as it started snowing. I’m gonna take a nap, so you and Velma can make yourselves a sandwich or something. Drake’s out on that horse of his, and Tara’s playing the piano. See you at supper.”

He drove with care, mindful of the slippery road, and how glad he was when a big brown bear ambled across the truck’s pathway.

“Now, you know why I brought along this rifle. If I got stuck on this road, one of those babies could turn this truck over.” He let a grin circle his mouth when he looked at her. “Bear meat’s good. It is,” he added when she shivered.

He stopped the truck at the front door, got out and went around to help her climb down. “Want my baseball cap?” he asked her, deliberately holding her longer than necessary. “Pile your hair up under it so it won’t get wet.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep it as a souvenir.” He was about to ask, souvenir of what? when he remembered how candid she could be, so he let a smile suffice for a response.

“I’m sorry about the problems at the warehouse, but I had a good time, and I learned a lot. Thanks for taking me along.”

With his fingers tight around her arm, he sprinted with her to the front door, opened it and stepped inside with her. “I’m in your debt. I’m not sure I would have opened a sealed case to check its contents.”

“Some of those that had been tampered with were sealed, and some had been opened. That’s what’s mysterious.”

“But only temporarily.” He shifted his gaze lest he betray himself. “After I wash up, I’m going to the kitchen and see what I can find to eat. Want to meet me there in about ten minutes?”

“Thanks, I sure will. I’m starved.”

“I’m not surprised. See you later.”

She hated to face him again wearing something he disliked, but what could she do about the caftan? She checked her address book, found the cellular phone number that he gave her during her visit the previous Christmas and called him.

“Russ, this is Velma. Can you wait half an hour? I have to do something.”

“All right, but if I starve, be prepared to make amends.”

“What kind of amends?”

“Not to worry. Whatever punishment I mete out will be enjoyable. I guarantee it.”

“Make it an hour. By that time, your tummy should have begun pinching you, and you’ll be eager for vengeance.”

“Watch your words, woman. I’m serious even when I’m joking.”

“Who’s joking?”

She heard him suck in his breath and could barely stifle a laugh. He was a tough man, and he worked hard at hiding his feelings, but she knew when a man wanted her. And he did. The question was whether he’d do anything about it.

“Let’s see how you talk when you’re not hiding behind a telephone wire,” he said.

“Really! And I’d like to see how you act when your ironclad control slips. Lord, please let me be right there when it happens.”

After a telling silence, he said, “Would you say those same words if I was there with you?”

I may regret this, but what the heck! Right now, I’m batting zero. “If you doubt it, honey, step out into the hall.”

His labored sigh reached her through the wire. He was two doors away, and he might as well have been in Baltimore. The silence bored into her like a screw tearing through wood. Had she angered him?

“You still there?” Only air and the sound of her own breathing. She lay the phone on the table, but didn’t hang up on the chance that he still held the receiver. After brushing her hair, she inspected a navy blue cotton caftan, decided that it would have to suffice and sat on the edge of her bed to put darts at the waist and shorten it.

A knock on her door sent her blood racing like a spooked thoroughbred. She grabbed her chest as if to slow down her heartbeat. Knock. Knock. A greater urgency characterized the second knock, sending the unmistakable message that he would knock until she opened it. With unsteady fingers, she threw the garment on the chair, then got up and walked in her stocking feet to the door. Another knock followed by, “Open the door, Velma,” startled her as her hand reached for the knob.

“Hi. I mean, what’s the matter?”

He stared down at her. “You got the nerve to ask me that? If I had been dressed, I’d have been here ten minutes earlier. Now, what was that about seeing me without my control?”

Did she dare? She stepped back, the better to see his eyes. “That’s not what I said.”

“What did you say?”

She folded her arms across her chest to hide her shaking fingers. “I said I’d like to see how you act when your ironclad control slips. Looks to me like it’s firmly in place.” She looked at her watch, realizing that she enjoyed needling him, that the more she did it, the more secure she felt.

His eyes darkened, but that didn’t unnerve her; no matter what color they happened to be, they lured her to him the way a magnet attracts nails. “Don’t you think I’d better finish what I was doing so we can eat? You threatened to punish me if I made you starve. Remember?”

He leaned against the doorjamb, casual-like, but exuding an energy she hadn’t known he possessed—a sexual energy that encircled and entrapped her, kindling a fire at the edges of her nerves. In his yellow shirt, short-sleeved and open-collared, and with his arms folded across his chest, the sight of his hard biceps and prominent pectorals made her mouth water. She hadn’t seen him that way before: a big jungle cat—hot, powerful and ready to pounce.

Why didn’t he say something? It was as if he was waiting for her to burn all of her bridges. When she lowered her gaze, it fell on his flat belly and meandered downward to the flap of his tight jeans. Barely half aware of her movements and gestures, her gaze traveled back to his face. Quickly, she shifted her glance, only to see him ball his fists, loosen them and ball them again. She felt his heat then, and tremors streaked through her as the rough male in him jumped out at her, heating her blood and driving it straight to her loins.

Mesmerized, she couldn’t tear her gaze from his face, and as he seemed to drag her into him, she rubbed her hands up and down her sides. Frustrated. Up and down. Up and down. His stance widened and, nearly out of her mind with the sweet and terrible hunger that gripped her, she threw back her head and rimmed her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Why don’t you—”

He stepped into the room, reached out, brought her to his body and lifted her to fit him, securing one hand on her buttocks and the other on the back of her head.

“Russ!”

He kicked the door closed with the back of his foot. “Open your mouth. My God, I want you!” With a harsh, terrible groan, his mouth came down on hers. Then she had him inside of her at last, knew his taste, knew the hard thrust of his tongue as he plunged in and out of her, simulating the act of loving. More. She had to have more of him. All of him. With her nipples beaded and hard, she moved against his chest, and when she sucked his tongue deeper into her mouth, he let the wall take his weight and his hand tightened on her hips.

Her blood raced. Her mind shut down and she rubbed her left nipple. The hand that had held her head caressed her breast, and teased her nipple, drowning her in a pool of sensuality, and her hips began to undulate against him, leaving no doubt as to what she needed from him. Suddenly, he attempted to push her away, but she wouldn’t be denied. She had him at last and didn’t want to let go. Her weaving body invited his entrance, and he rose against her, hard and strong. Weakened by the force of her own libido, she slumped against him in what they both recognized as surrender.

Cradling her in his arms, he sank into the lounge chair beside the window. “I can’t talk about this right now,” he said. “Just…I’d like us to stay here like this for a few minutes.” She sat on his lap with her head against his shoulder and his arms tight around her, and couldn’t have said a word if he had asked her to. She didn’t know how long they remained in that position. Her only thought was that she never wanted to leave him. But she understood the decision was and never would be hers alone, for she had known from the start that Russ charted his own course.

After a long while, he said, “It’s been about an hour, and I feel as if something’s eating away the lining of my stomach.”

She hoped that didn’t signal his intention to pretend he’d never kissed her out of her mind.

“And you promised some sweet revenge. If it’s anything like what you just meted out, I can’t wait.”

He set her on her feet and got up. Rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand, he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Still like to challenge me, huh? Don’t do that, sweetheart. I never accept a challenge unless I am sure I can win, and I won’t play games with you.”

“That isn’t a challenge,” she said, a little miffed. “Aren’t you used to women telling you the truth?”

“Let’s say I’m not used to expecting it. What were you doing that was supposed to take an hour?”

She pointed to the blue caftan that lay across the back of the desk chair. “Hem that and fit it with darts front and back.”

A frown clouded his face before slowly dissolving into a grin. “You’re kidding. Because of what I said?”

“I figured if seeing me in these graceful, flowing caftans gave you something akin to gallbladder, I’d better find something else to wear.”

The frown returned. “Gallbladder? I didn’t—” She stared at him as a grin circled his lips, spread over his face and lighted his eyes seconds before laughter poured out of him. “Ah, Velma. Baby, you’re precious.” He gathered her to him, looked down into her face and grinned. “I’m too hungry to start that again. Come on. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

She slipped her feet into her high-heeled shoes and, with her hand in his, tripped down the stairs. At the bottom, she stopped. “Russ, how long has it been since you heard that piano?”

“I don’t know. What I’ve been concentrating on had nothing to do with music. Let’s walk down there and see what she’s up to.”

Just before alarm set in, she saw the note on the piano: “Dear Aunt Velma, I’m over at Mr. Henry’s house with Biscuit.”

She handed the note to Russ. “Would you believe a five-year-old can write this well?”

“With five teachers in the house, why shouldn’t she? Besides, she’s smart. I hope she put on some boots before she went down to Henry’s place.”

“Is she allowed to go there?”

“I think that’s the only place she’s allowed to go without getting permission. To the kitchen with you, woman.”

Their laughter echoed through Harrington House as they raced down the hall, free of pent-up tension and inhibitions, open to each other. He found the makings of sandwiches on a platter in the refrigerator. “Like your bread toasted?” he asked her.

“Yes. Thanks.”

He made turkey sandwiches, ham sandwiches and tuna-salad sandwiches, stacked them on a platter, cut some sour pickles, added jars of mustard and horseradish and headed for the breakfast room. “You put out some plates while I get us a couple of bottles of beer. Okay?”

She found place mats and set the table. If anyone had told her that she would be sharing these idyllic moments with Russ, seeing the loving and tender side of him, she might have accused them of idiocy. Yet, although she believed that the wit, tenderness and gentleness he’d showed her defined him as truthfully as did the tough, stoic and solitary side of him, he had not yet acknowledged their passionate exchange, and she wondered if he ever would.

“I’m not going to question it,” Russ said to himself, as he searched in the bottom of the beer and soft-drink chest for two bottles of Czech Pilsner beer, his favorite. “I’d been dying to do that since I met her.” He reached into his back trouser pocket for a handkerchief and wiped perspiration from his forehead. “Whew! She hit me like a speeding train. I may regret it later, but right now, I’m not sorry.”

He walked back into the breakfast room in time to see her nearly trip on the edge of the Turkish carpet his mother fancied and which Alexis brought up from the basement to brighten the room. He rushed to support her.

“Why do you wear those things?” he asked of her spike-heeled shoes. “It’s a wonder you don’t fall and kill yourself.”

“The world loves tall, slim people,” she told him. “I’m not slim, but the shoes make me look taller.”

He bit into a ham sandwich and chewed the bite carefully before helping it down with several swallows of beer. “They don’t make you taller. Some women put their hair up on top of their head thinking that adds height. Neither makes a speck of difference, so why not be comfortable and—” he told himself to say it even if she got mad “—why not accept yourself? If you don’t love yourself, it’s damned near impossible for anybody else to love you.”

She removed the top slice of bread from the turkey breast sandwich and scraped the mayonnaise off the remaining slice. When she didn’t look at him, he knew he had touched a sensitive spot. “Don’t smooth it over,” he cautioned himself. “This is an issue between us, and if she doesn’t solve it, we’re not going anywhere.”

“You want me to believe that a man like you who can have any woman that appeals to him is so different from all the rest—that these tall, willowy women like Alexis aren’t your ideal, the kind you want? You honestly expect me to believe that?”

He put the sandwich aside, leaned back in his chair and looked hard at her. “Whether or not you believe that is immaterial to me. They’re your words, not mine.” He pointed to her plate. “You ate hardly any breakfast, so you’re half-starved, and look at what you’re doing to that sandwich.”

“I don’t like not being able to wear pretty clothes, so I’m going to lose weight.”

He felt for her and deeply so, but he knew it was unwise to express it. “To me, at least, you’re a beautiful, charming and witty woman,” he said, “but if you want to change yourself into someone I won’t recognize, well…it’s your body and your life. I wish you luck.”