Swept Away

Enraged, she phoned Schyler. “What’s the meaning of this? Are you trying to destroy me? Why are you persecuting me?”

His long silence only served to heighten her annoyance. Finally he gave her an answer different from what she would have expected, all things considered.

“Ms. Overton, I am not your attorney, but I will give you some good advice. Please don’t appeal to my good nature. I have one, yes. But I place my responsibilities above my personal feelings.”

Her bottom lip dropped. She held the phone away and stared at the receiver. Talk about chutzpah! “Your personal feelings? Where do they come in?”

He let her have another pause. “You’re old enough to know the answer to that question. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll see you in court next Monday. And be prepared, because I’m duty bound to get a conviction in this case, though I may have come to hate the thought, and I’m warning you that you’re in trouble.”

“Wait a minute. I don’t know the answer to that question, and if you do, I wish you’d let me in on it.”

He expelled a long breath, and she imagined that he closed his eyes and prayed for patience. “I tell myself the truth,” he said, “even if I don’t mention it to anybody but me. You were right there with me when it happened, so you know what I’m talking about. But don’t let that lull you into complacency about this court case.”

So he acknowledged the electricity between them, felt it and would still do what he regarded as the noble thing. If she hadn’t been facing the fight of her life, she’d admire him for it.

“One doesn’t expect protection from one’s avowed executioner. Better look closely at your motives, Mr. Henderson. See you in court.”

She hung up, her nerves rioting through her flesh, making a mockery of her cool manner. The case against CPAA hadn’t been settled, and now AFTC had indicted her. That indictment was a death knell that filled her head with dislike for Schyler Henderson. Yet, his eyes, his smile, his masculine bearing raised havoc with her feminine soul. The moist telltale of desire dampened her pores, and her heart stampeded like horses charging out of a corral. She dropped her head into her hands as her warring emotions pitted her against herself.

The day of decision arrived, but before the judge ruled on the case against CPAA, Schyler presented to the judge his agency’s case against Veronica herself. Once more, she refused to answer questions but, instead, challenged Schyler and AFTC.

“My record is my defense. The whole of Baltimore, Maryland, knows what I’ve contributed to this community. Whose sins are you demanding that I pay for?”

Schyler knew that the effect of the blow she’d landed had to be mirrored in his face, telling her that she’d touched a nerve.

“I’m not being personal, so would you please try to resist it?” he said, deciding against a return thrust.

She countered his every point, fencing as skillfully as Errol Flynn or the great Olympians of the past. And he wanted her to destroy his arguments, prayed that she would, though he did nothing to help her. After she’d been on the stand for about an hour, Schyler conferred with the district attorney, who then asked the judge for a bench consultation, saying he wanted to withdraw the charges, that he could not aptly substantiate them.

Schyler knew without doubt that only once before in his life had he experienced such an overwhelming sense of relief. He’d finally lost a case, but he couldn’t be happier. AFTC would make certain that Natasha Wynn received all the support she needed, but her two weeks of pain on the streets of Baltimore had taught her and all concerned a lesson. Him, too, and maybe he’d needed it. He went out to face the reporters who crowded around him, their bulbs flashing and notepads bobbing in the air as they shouted for his attention. He was the man of the moment.

Over their heads, he saw Veronica walk out undisturbed. A fierce pain gnawed at his belly; her wings had been clipped, and he and AFTC had engineered it. Their intentions had been good, but as his father had told him dozens of times, the highway to hell was paved with good intentions. He watched her for as long as he could see her, her head high and chin up, and fought the urge to wade through that sea of reporters and take her into his arms.

Veronica made her way back to the office, called a staff meeting, gave them the outcome of the trial, packed her briefcase and left. Several blocks from the train station, at the corner of Reisterstown Road and Bock Avenue, she crossed the street to where she knew she’d find Jenny with her shopping cart full of useless things.

“You here early today, Ronnie.” Jenny claimed the gap between her front teeth made it impossible for her to say “Veronica.” “Ain’t a bit like you. You not sick, I hope.”

In spirit, maybe. “I’m all right, Jenny. Thanks. I have a few things to do at home.”

Jenny squinted at the sun and sucked in her cheeks. “I been sitting here every day it didn’t rain for the last almost two years, and this the first time you ever had anything to do at home. Well, I ain’t much to offer help, but ifn’ you need any prayers, you just let me know.” She rolled her eyes skyward. “He don’t always answer mine for me, but when I prays for other people, he do.”

Veronica pressed a few bills into Jenny’s hand. “Thanks, friend. I’ll take all the prayers I can get.”

“I sure do thank you, Ronnie. I know I’ll get something to eat every evening, ’cause somebody from Mica’s Restaurant across the way always brings me some fried lake trout and cornbread and collards. What you give me, I uses to buy soap, toothpaste, aspirins and things like that. I could use another blanket this winter.”

“I’ll make sure you get one. If you’d just go see that social worker, we might be able to get you a place to stay.”

She’d given up hope of getting Jenny off the street. What had begun as a solution to the loss of her apartment had become a matter of psychological dysfunction. Jenny no longer seemed to want a home; she had become inured to her hardships and accepted them as her way of life.

“Yes ma’am. I’m goin’ down to the shelter and get cleaned up, and I’m goin’ to see her. Yes ma’am, I sure am.”

Veronica waved her goodbye and struck out for the train station.

At home, Veronica watched Schyler on the local news channel, transfixed by the smooth manner in which he made it seem as though all parties to the litigation had won. Won? She’d had the carpet yanked from under her. She flipped off the television and took out her knitting, hoping to settle her nerves with the rhythmic movements of her fingers, and at the same time, to make some headway on the two dozen mittens and caps that she gave every Christmas to children at the homeless shelter. Schyler’s hazel eyes winked at her and refused to be banished from her mind’s eye. Reluctantly, she answered the telephone, hoping that the caller wasn’t from the media.

“Hello.”

“Veronica, I just saw Schyler Henderson’s press conference,” her stepfather said. “I hope the man will leave you in peace now. He can say what a great agency you’re running, but if he thought so, why did he do this to you? I feel like calling him and giving him a piece of my mind.”

She couldn’t help smiling. Sam Overton never failed to support her. Time and again he’d proved his boundless faith in her, and she loved him without reservation. “He was trying to make amends as best he could. I can’t deny that the case has done some damage, but the agency will survive, because nothing exists that can replace it.”

“All right, but what about all those awards the city and state have given to you and to the agency? They can forget about what you’ve done for that city?” She could imagine him snapping his fingers when he said, “Just like that? It’s sickening.”

“Don’t worry, Papa, I’ll be fine.”

“Then what’re you doing home this time of day? I couldn’t believe it when Enid told me you’d gone home.”

“Best place to clean out my mind. I was in no mood to console the sixty-seven employees who’d be drifting into my office for assurance that they still had jobs. How’s Mama?”

“Pretty good today. She’s asleep right now. Don’t worry, Veronica. As long as you do your best, you can hold your head up. You’re competent. Nobody can take that from you.”

“Thanks, Papa, but right now I don’t have much enthusiasm for service to the public.”

“It’ll come back. Looks like we’ve both met our Hendersons.”

“What do you mean?”

“Long story, child. There was one in my life once, and he won, too. But only for a little while. So chin up.”

“Thanks, Papa. Love you. Give Mama a hug.”

“You know I will. Talk to you later.”

She went back to her knitting, more tranquil now, musing over her stepfather’s comment that he, too, had met his Henderson. But if she knew Sam Overton, he’d said as much on the subject as he ever would. She searched for a solution to foster care but couldn’t think of a workable alternative. Still, something had to be done. Restless, she put her knitting aside, went to the Steinway grand in her living room and began to practice a song that her choral group had chosen for its next performance. But after half an hour she gave it up, went out on her back porch and sat there, looking at the ripening of spring, trying to count her blessings.

Schyler had been home twenty minutes when the phone rang. He lifted the receiver, knowing instinctively that the caller was his father.

“You didn’t call to let me know how the case went,” Richard Henderson said to his son. Not accusing; he didn’t do that. He merely stated the facts.

“I didn’t have anything to rejoice about. I lost, but I’m not sorry.”

He could imagine that his father, knowing how he hated to lose even the most trite argument, raised his antennae.

“Why not?”

“Instead of answering my question, she asked me if I wasn’t demanding that she pay for someone else’s sins. Dad, that thing cut me to the quick. Maybe I was. I…I just don’t know.”

“Don’t punish yourself for nothing, Son. You said the case had merit. You questioning your judgment?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. The case against the agency made more sense than the one against her.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “For the life of me, I don’t know why I went after her like that…like a lion after a gazelle. She…she’s…”

“I see. You liked her. You more than liked her, you bent over backward not to let your feelings get in the way, and you think you overdid it. Right?”

Arrow-straight as always, Richard couldn’t have put it plainer. Schyler rubbed his square chin and released a breath of frustration. “Something like that but, well, that’s history now. Our paths won’t cross again unless we meet at a conference, a fund-raiser or a civic meeting.”

He rubbed his chin, reflecting on what could have been. Too bad. Rotten, lousy timing. This woman had gotten to him in ways that he couldn’t have imagined. And right then, he didn’t want to examine his feelings, a mélange of almost everything a man could feel for a woman. Almost. Something remained that he’d never given to any woman. But if he got to know her…

“Would it help to call her and tell her you’re sorry, or maybe that you’re glad things worked out as they did?”

He didn’t believe in putting Band-Aids on life-threatening wounds. He’d take his medicine. “I don’t think that’ll help, but you’re right. I ought to do something to restore her status in the public’s eyes. I’ll call a news conference. That’s how it got started.”

His father’s low growl of a laugh had always comforted him in an odd way. “You going to eat crow?” Richard asked when he finally stopped laughing.

Schyler didn’t catch anything amusing. “Don’t like the stuff. No way. I’ll fix it, though.”

Veronica flicked on the television in her office, leaned against her desk and watched Schyler tell the press that his complaints against CPAA and Veronica were not substantiated and reminded them that the case had been thrown out of court. When hours passed and not a single reporter had telephoned to get her reaction to the press conference Schyler had called to exonerate her, she knew the damage to her and the agency exceeded what she’d imagined. She was no longer good news copy, and she said as much to her deputy.

Enid tried without success to camouflage her disheartened mood. “When a man drops an egg, he thinks his only problem is cleaning up the mess. Does he stop to deal with the fact that there is no longer an egg?”

It surprised her that she didn’t want to hear him vilified. “Don’t you think he tried to repair the damage?”

Enid sucked air through her teeth hard and long. “Not in my opinion. He should have come right out and said he made a mistake in bringing the charges, that he was wrong and next time he’d see to it that his assistants did a better job of getting the facts.”

Visions of his eyes glistening with heat for her flashed through Veronica’s mind, and she remembered his words: “You were right there with me.” He’d wanted her and hadn’t tried to hide it, and he had known that she reciprocated what he felt.

Veronica leaned back in her chair, folded her hands behind her head, crossed her knees and pondered Enid’s attack on Schyler. She thought for a few minutes before answering. “You’re forgetting that the girl was missing, he didn’t know where she was and, when she surfaced on a charge of stealing food she was a shell of her former self. His crime was in caring too much.”

Enid rolled her eyes skyward, crossed and uncrossed her ankles. “If you say so. I don’t know what we’re going to do, though. Fund-raising’s going to be a problem.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something. Right now, I need a change of scenery.”

Chapter 2

At home later that day, she walked around her elegant town house. She picked up a paperweight and stared at it. For the past five years she’d done nothing but work. CPAA had been her whole world. She thought of what she’d done with her life and what she hadn’t done. As a child, she’d had such promise, gifted in music and art. But she’d chosen the safe way, a career that would enable her to make a good living and help her parents. She’d done that. Renovated their home, refurnished it and eased their lives. But her dreams were still that, dreams. She’d never swum in the Pacific; stood before the Taj Mahal; skied on a mountain top; gazed at the Mona Lisa; flirted with a handsome Egyptian; and she’d never sung Billie Holiday songs in a jazz club.

She might have made a difference in the lives of a few people, but in the world? Not at all. And what could she show for her thirty-two years? A busted career. And the misfortune to have met, in a battle that had ruined her, the one man who had made her fantasize about love in his arms. A picture of herself in her high school cap and gown mocked her from the top of her piano. Oh, what hope and what naiveté. She’d had the world on a string then. But a decade and a half later, she still didn’t have the nest, children and love that she craved, and she’d lived a life of adventure only in her dreams.

Her thoughts went back to her childhood, filled with love and her parents’ caring. But it had encompassed only a few short years. Study and work were about all she had ever known: work for food and clothing; study for the scholarships that would take her to the next level. And when she finally reached the top, staying there had consumed all of her time and energy. She had never known a man’s love, never enjoyed a carefree vacation, never spent hours chatting with friends. She hadn’t lived, only worked and struggled. And what had it brought her? She wanted to taste life, to do the things about which she had always fantasized, and to shed her affected aura of ultraconservatism.

The next morning she called Enid to her office as soon as she got there. “Sit down and brace yourself. I’m taking leave from the agency. Then I’ll decide whether to remain.”

Enid’s mouth opened wide in a wordless exclamation of horror, and Veronica could see that she’d shocked the woman.

“You’re not serious! Veronica, don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for. Wait a few months until all this settles. I know you’ve—”

“I’ve spent the night thinking about it, and I need to get away from here, at least for a while.”

Enid leaned forward, her suddenly sallow complexion a testament to her sorrow. “Is it Henderson? I know he’s sorry, and I know he cares about what happened and about you, or he wouldn’t have called that press conference and tried to make amends.”

Veronica’s heart fluttered wildly. Then, something sprang to life within her, like a jonquil popping through the earth in spring or a song leaping to life in her mind, but she controlled her response to it. “That was gracious of him. Maybe he cares, and maybe guilt drove him to do it. I don’t know, and if I change my plan of action because of him, then what? I wish him well, but today is my last day in this office. I have three months of leave stored up, and I’m taking it. If I decide not to continue working here, I’ll give notice.” She called a staff meeting, locked her desk and left.

On her way home, she stopped by Jenny’s corner and handed the woman an envelope of bills.

Jenny peered into the large brown envelope, closed it and looked at Veronica. “You hit the lottery, Ronnie, or is this the last time I ever gon’ see you?”

A tinge of guilt struggled with the wave of sadness that overtook her. She hadn’t thought of Jenny as a dependent but as someone she helped, a friend, even. Now she understood that the woman depended on her. She looked at Jenny’s shopping cart of things that only she valued and fought back tears. She couldn’t even invite her to a nearby restaurant for a cup of coffee because she wouldn’t be allowed in with her “things.”

Resigned, she forced a smile. “I’m taking a three-month leave, Jenny. If I get back before that, I’ll drop by to see you. That little change in that envelope ought to keep you until I get back. I’d…I’d better run for my train.”

Jenny put the envelope in her coat pocket and secured the pocket with two safety pins. “You know I thank you. You know it. I…I hope you finds what you lookin’ for, Ronnie. Somethin’s wrong sure as my name’s Jenny, but you needn’t worry none. Anybody with a heart big as yours is always gonna be blessed. I ain’t even gonna worry ’bout you. Go on now, and get your train.”

Veronica hesitated, saw the tears in Jenny’s eyes, turned and rushed across the street. Jenny wouldn’t want to be seen crying.

She spent the next day storing her valuables and securing her house. Then she packed her bags, put them in the foyer, stuffed a few things in a small suitcase and left for her parents’ home in Pickett, North Carolina.

As she’d expected, her stepfather was not pleased about her plans. “How can you just walk away from what you devoted your entire adult life to? It bothers me seeing you this way, like you don’t care what happens. Stay here with us for a while and get yourself together.”

“I’m taking some leave I’ve got coming to me, Papa. When that’s up, I’ll have to make a final decision about the job.”

“That’s better, but don’t walk away from it like you could get another one just because you asked for it.”

She looked into her stepfather’s sad eyes and knew that for the first time in her life she was going to ignore his advice, to disobey him, and she hurt—not for herself, but for the man who had sacrificed so much for her. But she drew a measure of contentment from her mother’s words, telling her that she should always be true to herself.

“Your papa means well, and he’s even right. But if you feel you have to find what’s missing in your life, honey, do it now. Right now when you’re free, when it won’t affect anyone but you. Don’t compromise on important things.” Veronica noticed that she released a long, labored breath. “And always be sure of what you feel.” She patted Veronica’s hand. “I’ll be so glad when spring comes.”

After supper, Veronica sat alone on the back porch. As a child, she’d spent many lonely hours on the porch of their old house, knowing the world around her and dreaming of the universe that she had yet to discover. She’d known the approaching automobiles by the sound of their motors and the screech of their tires, knew the neighbor who chopped wood by the rhythmic noise of his ax, recognized every dog by its bark. She had loved the old porch and had given every splintered slab of wood its own name and its own story, had imagined them as ships that took her to special places. An only child, she’d spent most of her childhood alone while her parents worked at whatever jobs they could find. She glanced around at the lovely porch furniture, the yellow brick walls, and the yellow curtains that blew out of the kitchen windows. For the last four years, she had enabled her parents to live comfortably, and she would see that they always did, but she had to follow her dream. An early spring breeze whistled around her, and she tugged her woolen sweater closer, gazed up at the sky illumined with millions of stars and thought about Schyler. If only…A shudder passed through her. Too late for that.

The next morning she kissed her parents goodbye. “I’ll be in Europe for a while, Papa. Write me in care of American Express.”

She went back to Owings Mills, got the bags she’d left in her foyer and took a Swissair flight to Switzerland.

“I’m going to do everything I always wanted to do and see the things I’ve longed to see,” she promised herself as her Swiss guide helped her strap on her ski boots.

“You’ve only had two lessons, and you’ve done pretty well, miss, but you’re not skilled enough to go chasing down these mountains by yourself,” Tomass, her German-Swiss guide cautioned her.

Emboldened by her early success and invigorated by the calm, crisp mountain air, she felt as if she could soar over the snow-covered peaks that surrounded her.

“I’ll be careful, Tomass. Promise.”

He finished lacing her boots and towered over her, reminding her of Schyler. “If you respect these mountains, they’ll respect you. Some champion skiers have gotten careless or cocky and breathed their last breath right here.”

They compromised. She bought another hour of his time, and they skied together, her cares falling away like discarded clothing as they flew with the wind at her back.

“We’d better call it quits,” he said, two hours later. “Be sure to get a hot tub, because every bone you’ve got will be screaming.” At the chalet she thanked him, returned the rented skis and set out for a hike across the lush, green valley.

Beauty as far as she could see. She hadn’t known that the Alps, the grand mountain range of Europe that stretched from Italy through France and Switzerland to Austria, was of such imposing grandeur, so spectacular a feast for the eyes. She walked briskly, marveling at herself and the world around her, hardly able to believe she’d just skied on the Jungfraujoch, that rugged prize of the Swiss Alps that stood 11,333 feet at its peak and where skiers had challenged nature for over 850 years. At its foot nestled Grindelwald, arguably one of the most scenic places on earth. She gaped, spellbound, when her eyes first beheld it. Then she turned away from the awe-inspiring scene of snow-covered mountain, green valley and alpine roses that perfumed the air, wanting to banish the desire to have Schyler Henderson hold her hand as she stood there. She took a deep breath and quickened her strides through the meadow, enjoying a feeling of spiritual renewal.

Bewitched by the scenery, she lost track of time and place. Against the majestic white peaks, wildflowers of every color littered the fields, putting to shame the Ricola television advertisements.

“Guten Tag, Fraulein. Where you headed?”

She hadn’t seen the man as she strolled along deep in thought. “Hello. Where’m I going? Well…nowhere special. I’m just walking.”

The tall, blue-eyed blond gazed at her with frank appreciation of what he saw. “It gets dark early in these mountains. Where you staying? There’s no lodging anywhere near here.”