Swept Away
He looked down at her feet. “At least you’ve got on low-heeled shoes.”
He got out and headed around to her side of the car, but she opened the door before he reached it.
“Why didn’t I know you’d do that?” he asked.
She favored him with her sweetest smile. “Simple. Because you’re not omniscient. That’s supposed to be the Lord’s specialty.”
He stopped, stuck his hands in his pants pockets, emphasizing his broad chest and flat belly, rocked back on his heels and did what could only be described as a slow burn.
“I get angry about twice every couple of years, Veronica, but you’ve nearly shoved me to it twice this day. Try not to give vent to your sharp tongue and remind yourself what it feels like to hurt.” Before she could answer, he took her arm, walked along the narrow beach and paused. “Veronica Overton, the executive, is a far cry from the woman I’m looking at.”
She didn’t mind the comment; in a way, it was accurate. On the nose. “When I was that woman, I hadn’t skied the slopes of the Jungfraujoch, and I hadn’t hiked alone for miles over flower-strewn meadows in the lap of the Swiss Alps. Imagine being the only person for miles and miles around with God’s blue sky, towering white snow-capped mountains and flowers of every color for company. Not a puff of wind, and air as fresh as new life. It was truly a rebirth. So you’re right. I’m different, and I hope I stay that way. I’m not chasing fame or success, and I’m no longer hell-bent on becoming Secretary of Welfare. I don’t even give a snap about any of it. I’m myself. Free. I mean free!”
His stare didn’t make her uncomfortable, because she knew he was seeing her with new vision. “And you were yourself before,” she heard him say under the edge of his breath. He turned toward the water and stopped as though frozen in time. “Look! Would you just look at that?”
She followed his gaze to the long red rays that streaked across the rolling water, fanning out from the huge red globe that moved slowly downward against a navy blue and gray sky. At her gasp, he moved closer to her, and for the first time, the feel of his arm around her waist sent powerful shivers of sensual awareness plowing through her. Helpless to prevent her tremors and realizing that he was well aware of her reaction to his touch, she made herself look at him to brazen it out, as if trembling for him were of no consequence.
But he denied her that avenue of escape. “Months ago, when you were the consummate executive, I as much as told you we’d have to deal with this. Don’t count on its going away by itself and of its own accord. The chemistry between us is strong enough to cause an explosion, and nothing will make me believe you don’t know that.”
“I’m not going there right now, Schyler. That isn’t something that bears discussion.”
“Oh sure. If you talked about it, that would make it a fact,” he said. “Well, discuss it or not, whatever hooks men and women has its claws in us.” He laughed a deep tension releasing growl. “No point in worrying until it gets unruly.”
She stepped out of his encircling warmth and walked along beside him swinging her arms. The sun dipped into the Chesapeake Bay, and she couldn’t help reaching for him, clutching his sleeve.
“Schyler. That was…It was so beautiful. I don’t think I ever saw anything to match it.”
He took her hand and sat on a log that had rested in its spot so long that the elements had bleached it. “I love to sit here and look out at the bay. You should see it in the moonlight when the stars almost blanket the sky. I’ve spent hours thinking and dreaming right in this spot. Did you have a special spot where you fought your fears, dreamed dreams and plotted your future?”
Suddenly, she didn’t want to share that part of his life with him, and she couldn’t tell him about the times when her only toys were the stories she told herself. Not about the things and places she imagined when, as a small girl, she’d sat on the back porch of her parents’ modest home and tried to count the stars. Not when she’d talked to the owl that hooted nearby and cried a child’s pain when the bird didn’t respond. Schyler had lived in luxury by comparison, a luxury that was rightfully hers. She pulled her hand from his and jumped up from his precious log.
“What is it? What’s the matter, Veronica?”
“Nothing. It’s…Nothing. I…have to go. That’s all.”
He stood, and she swung away from him, fearing his touch. As she moved, she felt her right leg come out from under her, but as quickly, he grabbed her, breaking her fall, and a burst of heat skittered through her body when she realized his fingers were splayed across her right breast. Warm. Delicious. Arousing. She wanted him to caress her, to…She needed him to tighten his hold on her and love her. His breathing deepened, and she heard him suck in air. He didn’t move his hand, but he had to know it was there, where he wanted it to be. The thought kicked her pulse into overdrive and heat spiraled through her veins. Desire quickened her body and, as though he willed it, she raised her eyes and gazed into his—heated pools of blatant need, of hot undiluted want.
She should move, get out of his way. She had to…
“I’m not forcing you to stand here,” he said, his voice low. Guttural.
She wanted to move, but he kept looking at her like that, making her belly churn until her body wanted him to…to…“I’ve…I’ve got to—”
He didn’t spare her. “If you don’t want my mouth on you, say so. Right now.”
She stared into his fiery eyes, glittering pools of unbridled desire, and told herself to run while she still owned herself. At her hesitance, he lowered his head, tightened his grip on her body and stroked her breast possessively, as if he owned it.
“Part your lips for me, take me in and get what you want.” She told herself not to open her mouth, but her disobedient tongue danced around its edges and dampened her lips. She heard him suck in his breath in anticipation.
“Schyler. I…I’m—”
His mouth came down on hers, and frissons of heat pelted her feminine center. Her arms went around him and tightened, and his tongue plunged into her mouth with an expertise that shocked her and sent her blood racing like a wildfire out of control. His hands roamed her body, stroking, teasing, possessing, seducing. Making her his own. Beads of perspiration dampened her forehead, her nerve ends curled like lamb’s hair and the strength went out of her knees, but still he kissed her. She felt his lips tremble, but that didn’t stop him. No longer caring about the consequences, she grasped the back of his head and sucked on his tongue, feasting on it, loving him, taking all he offered. She gave no thought to his pagan groan as his hand squeezed, pinched and caressed her breast; she only wanted, needed his loving. He wrapped her tightly to him, taking her will and her energy, and she slumped in his arms.
They held each other, silently, unable to move and unwilling to articulate what they truly felt.
At last she got breath enough and sense enough to speak. “Schyler, this is…we can’t…I mean…Schyler, I don’t know, I—”
“Shhh. I know I took it too far, but I needed the feel of you in my arms. Badly.” He blew out a mass of air. “I didn’t dream it could be like this.”
He took her hand and started walking toward the car. “I hate to drop something that stirs me the way you do, but you’re going to force me to let it go.” He flexed his shoulders in a quick shrug. “And that may be for the best. But hell, it sticks in my craw like cracked glass.”
She didn’t attempt to coat the truth. “You’re right. We have to let it go, because it spells nothing for us but misery.”
He wanted more. “Will you admit, as I do, that under better circumstances, we…we…might have made memorable music together?”
She noticed that when he said it, he grinned as though savoring a delightful thought. And she knew she should be as honest as he, but no other man had exposed her naked need as he’d done, and she felt too vulnerable and finessed her reply.
“You’re attractive in many ways, Schyler. I respond to that.”
He laughed aloud. “I don’t suppose I had a right to expect more. We’d better get back. Dad’s got that chocolate soufflé ready by now.”
She gulped. “Chocolate soufflé? He can make that?”
“Yeah,” he said in a voice tinged with pride. “And does every time he cooks dinner.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
His laughter wrapped around her like a blanket of contentment. “Veronica, I love chocolate. I would eat chocolate soup, chocolate bread, chocolate anything for as long as anybody would give it to me or I could get it for myself. Dad humors me. I expect he’s tired of it. Every dessert cooked in that house has chocolate in it, and a lot of it.”
She couldn’t believe it. “He spoiled you.”
They reached the car, and he opened the door for her. “Yes, he spoiled me. When he met me, I was almost ten years old and couldn’t remember ever having heard the word love directed at me. He knew that.”
There it was again, and it would always be there, looming like a gallows between them. Her joviality was gone.
“Dad’s going to enjoy impressing you with his soufflé.”
His words penetrated her conscious thought only vaguely. Growing up, she hadn’t known chocolate soufflé existed and didn’t get a taste of chocolate unless one of her schoolmates shared a piece of candy with her. Her mother and stepfather hadn’t been able to afford the luxury of chocolate. But the man who’d given her the seed of life had lavished it on a child he didn’t sire, catering to that child’s need and whims. Bitterness simmered within her, rising like bile on her tongue, eating away the rapport she had achieved with Schyler and her father. The hurt came back with the strength of a gale-force storm, beating back the passion that Schyler had dragged from the very bowels of her being.
“I don’t think so,” she said, almost absentmindedly. “I’d better be going. Be seeing you.” She wanted to run, but controlled the urge and walked as rapidly as she could, leaving him standing there. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
Chapter 4
With his feet glued in their tracks, Schyler watched Veronica go. He could call her or with his longer legs he could catch her. He did neither. What good would it do? He just stood there. One minute she’d been locked to him body and soul, fire and spirit, giving him all the sweetness a man could want—her heat and passion and the promise of her body. No point in thinking about the pain that seared through him as she practically galloped out of sight. He’d had pain before, and he’d feel it again. That didn’t bother him; he knew he could handle it. But when had a woman stood toe-to-toe with him, taking his passion and demanding that he take hers and give her more of himself in even greater measure? He wanted the ultimate experience with her. Even as he stood there in the dying daylight, everything in him down to the recesses of his loins wanted him to go after her and have her for his own. But he doubted he’d ever release himself within her. And maybe it was for the best; if he went that route, she’d own him, and from where he stood, he couldn’t see a future for them.
He glared at the stars that mocked him with their hollow, twinkling promises. The water lapped loudly at the cove nearby, reminding him of his loneliness. He’d been hearing that same noise for twenty-six years, and for generations to come, his descendants—if he had any—would know its steady, sometimes soothing, sometimes disquieting rhythm. He’d wanted her to share it with him. He flexed his right shoulder in a quick shrug. A relationship with her was hopeless, had been from the minute he’d first looked into her wide, long-lashed eyes.
He knew now that the prospect of their being more than adversaries—in court or out—had just plummeted to nil. He had only to mention his father’s name and her passion for him disappeared like smoke in a windstorm. And what could he do about it? He loved his father. He picked up a stone, sent it skipping across the water and headed back to his car. So what? He’d known plenty of disappointments. He shook his head as he unlocked the car. He wouldn’t lie to himself. This one was a Goliath. She was in him, and he knew she’d stay there. But what the hell! It wouldn’t kill him.
“Where’s Veronica?” Richard asked him when he walked into the house.
He never lied to his father, and he wouldn’t do it then. “I’m sorry, Dad. She decided not to come back.”
Richard stared at him, obviously speechless. “Did you have an argument?”
He heard the dread in his father’s voice and knew that he anticipated the truth. “No, we didn’t.”
“Then what happened?”
He had to tell him sometime, to let his father know the circumstances under which he’d first met Veronica, and he’d better do it right then. He sat in the brown leather recliner, leaned back and closed his eyes.
“Dad, I didn’t meet Veronica for the first time this afternoon. I—”
Richard dropped into the nearest chair and leaned forward. “You knew her? And you never told me?”
“I knew her, yes, But I didn’t know she was your daughter until I opened the front door for her this afternoon.”
He described his acquaintance with Veronica, told his father about Veronica’s extended leave from her high-profile job and of the part he’d played in it.
The right hand Richard raised when Schyler began to talk stayed where it was. Frozenlike. He parted his lips as if to speak but didn’t make a sound, merely shook his head as though denying the possibility of what Schyler’s words implied. Schyler wondered about his father’s thoughts while the man he loved so dearly stared at him for long minutes. Without warning, he slumped in the chair.
Schyler lunged out of the recliner and rushed to his father. “You all right?”
“No, I’m not.” The words struggled up from Richard’s throat as if they’d had to pull themselves out of him. He sat up straight. “Did you…did you tell…is that all of it?”
He went back to the recliner and sat there. “I’m not sure you want to hear all of this, but if I tell you everything now, you’ll know where you stand with her.”
“Go ahead. I can take it.”
Schyler ran the tips of his fingers back and forth against his chin. Pensive. He didn’t like revealing his most private feelings to another man, not even if that man was his father. But his father deserved any truth that might comfort him.
“I fell for her hook, line and sinker the minute I laid eyes on her, and nothing that’s happened since has abated it one iota.”
He imagined his father’s whistle could be heard half a block away. “And you went ahead with that case against her?”
“Worse. I brought the second suit two weeks later.” He leaned back, locked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “She’s a fighter. Man, does that woman have a set of guts. She’s not afraid of anybody or anything. If those daggers she pitched at me while she was on that witness stand had been real, I’d be pushing up daisies this minute.”
He could sense the tension easing out of his father when Richard laughed and admiration for his daughter flashed in his eyes.
“Gave you what for, did she?”
“You could say that.”
Richard made a pyramid of his hands, bracing his index fingers against his chin. “The two of you were managing to be pleasant up to the time you left here, though I suppose that was for my sake. What happened out there on that beach?”
Schyler let out a long, heavy breath, sat forward and dropped his head in his hands. After a minute, he sat up and looked at his father. “Up to then, I’d never touched her. Out there, I did, and what we felt hit both of us like a volcanic eruption. Then…well, I got to talking about you, and…” He threw up his hands. “It’s over before it started. At least as far as I’m concerned, that’s the beginning and the end of it. It never stood a chance anyway.”
Richard shook his head as if in wonder at the incredulity, the seeming otherworldliness of events that had governed his relationship with his daughter almost since her birth. He looked at the son who had filled his empty life and given him a reason for living. A reason to set goals and to work hard to achieve them. He had to find a way to communicate to Schyler the folly of giving up, of fooling yourself into believing you could do without anyone who could do without you, but he had to tread softly. Schyler was, after all, a grown man and proud of his independence.
“I see you’ve resigned yourself to living without her,” he said, measuring his words as carefully as he could. “I did that once, and I’ve regretted it every day since. Not anymore. My daughter and I will come to terms. Good terms. I don’t doubt it for a second. You think you’re young, strong and invincible, that you’re bigger than anything that can happen to you. But you wait until this thing starts eating away at your guts, slicing through your innards like acid, dulling your senses. Wait till every woman you look at—white, black, Asian or brown—looks just like her. You haven’t been miserable, Son. You haven’t hurt so badly you wanted to die. Just pray to God it all gets straightened out.” He grasped mentally at the breath that seemed to have escaped his lungs. “Do you know where she lives?”
His flesh crawled. He’d never known how his father had suffered. He’d grown up wanting to be like him, to do everything his father did. He’d even chosen his father’s profession of engineering. But he didn’t want for himself what his father had just described. Yet, he didn’t see how it could be avoided.
“I can easily find out where she lives,” he said. “Tell me, do you know why she resents you?”
Richard massaged his forehead with the fingers of his left hand. “I can only guess that Esther concocted some trumped-up explanation for why we weren’t together. And whatever she said didn’t make me look good but covered up for her.”
Schyler restrained the whistle pushing at his lips. “It must have been a pretty strong indictment.”
“It had to be to cover up for…Maybe some day when it doesn’t hurt any longer, I’ll tell you all of it. But I can’t stand to rehash it now.”
“You mean…After so many years, you—”
Richard interrupted him. “Yes, it hurts. If I can bring Veronica into my life, that will help, but nothing will ever erase the…” He slapped both his knees with his palms. “The soufflé is first-class tonight. How about some?”
How could his father possibly smile after the gut-wrenching tale he’d just told? “You bet,” Schyler said, trying to keep his voice light. “Don’t you get tired of chocolate?”
Richard’s grin eased over his face and settled in his eyes, eyes that now reminded Schyler of Veronica. “Me? Haven’t you figured it out? You’ve forced so much of it on me that I’ve gotten where I have to have my daily chocolate fix.”
They laughed, stood and walked arm in arm to the kitchen. Each faced a battle: Richard intended to win his. If he didn’t, Schyler and Veronica wouldn’t stand a chance. But Schyler had resigned himself to what he considered the hopelessness of a meaningful relationship with Veronica, and moved his mind on to other things.
As Veronica walked, her steps slowed and her energy seemed to dissipate. She leaned against a lamppost and tried to collect her wits. What had made her do it? Run from him like that? The hold Schyler had on her and the way he’d demonstrated it…No. She had to be honest with herself. That wasn’t the reason. She’d met a man different from the one her mother had told her about. A man set in a very different mold. And she could have liked him. A lot, too. But for thirty years he’d been a monster, someone she detested, and she couldn’t shove that aside or wash it away just because he cooked the best rice she’d ever tasted. She knew she’d wounded him when she didn’t go back for his prized soufflé, and she’d hurt Schyler, too. Her spirit crumpled when she realized that she envied Schyler her father’s love, his pampering and the status a successful father gave his children. She didn’t like admitting it, because she’d always considered jealousy beneath her, believed it robbed a person of common sense and dignity. She pulled herself away from the post and walked on. Richard Henderson didn’t add up. He was an enigma that she knew she’d never figure out without being around Schyler, and she couldn’t risk that danger. She had no intention of letting herself become involved with Schyler.
She got in her car and realized she hadn’t locked it. There was something to be said for a village the size of Tilghman, she mused, but she’d be leaving it come morning. Maybe for good.
Several days later she found herself in Baltimore, back in her old territory lunching with Enid.
“So tell me about this fling you had over in Europe. Meet any hunks?”
Veronica let her gaze roam around Wilma’s Blue Moon Restaurant, reflecting on the hours she’d spent at that same table discussing CPAA’s business with Enid and others of her staff and marveled that she didn’t miss it.
She decided to tease Enid. “I didn’t see anything but hunks. If you’re looking for one who’s different, go over and take your pick. Of course, you might have to take their ideas about women right along with them. I had a fling, but it was an affair with freedom, you might say. Me and Mother Nature all alone. It was incredible.”
Enid cocked her head to one side. “Then why’d you come back so soon? If I’d been in your shoes, girl, the people in this town wouldn’t know where I made my last tracks. They don’t deserve you.”
Months ago such a compliment would have pleased her, but now she shrugged it off. “That’s behind me, Enid.” She told her friend about her mother but nothing more.
“Seen Mr. Henderson since you’ve been back?”
Had she ever! “I knew you’d ask that. Anything new with him?” She hoped Enid wouldn’t catch her evasion. “Who’s he after now?”
Enid’s dreamy-eyed expression brought a sheen of perspiration to Veronica’s forearms. Was what she felt for Schyler merely the usual reaction of the average woman? His regular due?
“Girl, I wish he was after me,” she heard Enid say.
She didn’t want to watch Enid drool over Schyler Henderson. She sipped the last of her coffee, gave Enid and Wilma the tiny porcelain Swiss yodelers she’d bought for them in Interlaken and bade her friend goodbye.
“Let me know where you’ll be, honey,” Enid said.
Veronica wrote her name, address and phone number on a piece of paper. “In case it’s been erased from your computer, here it is, but be careful who gets hold of it.” She started off, turned back and hugged her friend. “See you.”
Enid ducked her head, but Veronica had seen her tears. “Don’t worry about me, Enid. I’ll be all right. But there’s so much I haven’t done, seen and felt, things that I’ve dreamed of since childhood. Now may be my only chance to live fully. To the hilt. And I’m not letting it slip by. I’ll stay in touch.”
Enid nodded and walked away.
Veronica stopped in Kmart, bought a jumbo-size umbrella with a long handle and headed for the train to Owings Mills. When she reached the train station, she crossed Reisterstown Road and turned the corner.
“Ronnie! Ronnie! I knowed you’d come back. I just knowed it. I missed you a whole lot, Ronnie. People don’t talk to me when they past here. I ’preciate every single penny people gives me. Lord knows I do. But you don’t throw money at me like you was ’fraid to touch me, Ronnie. You comes to me and hands it to me and talks with me. While you was gone, weeks went by and nobody said a word to me lessen I went to buy something. And then they didn’t say nothin’ if they could help it.”
The woman’s anguish drifted through her like a throbbing ache, for she had never before heard Jenny complain or even show dissatisfaction with her predicament. Yet, she couldn’t get Jenny to motivate herself enough to receive real assistance.
“You don’t belong out here,” she told her. “I told you I’d help you get a place if you’ll only fill out that form I gave you.”
“I’m gon’ do that, Ronnie. Honest. I just dreads them slammin’ them doors in my face.”