Blue Willow

by Deborah Smith

  A few minutes later a large man in a crisp suit walked through the double doors. The suit was black. He was black. She thought of Othello, and was almost unnerved. He glided toward her with elegant grace, his regal face composed politely. Fronds of gray hair highlighted his temples. He was the most distinguished-looking and forbidding person she’d ever seen. She stood, determined to face whatever harassment anyone offered, even his. He halted in front of her and introduced himself. He gave a slight nod—a hint of a bow. “Ms. MacKenzie, I grant you points for persistence and ingenuity.”

  “All right, so I got on a bus and came to New York. If that effort’s so impressive, then please get me in to see Mr. Colebrook. I don’t believe he knows I’ve been trying to reach him. He couldn’t know. He wouldn’t ignore me if he did.”

  “I can’t speak for Mr. Colebrook. If you’ll tell me why you want to see him, I’ll pass the information along. Perhaps he doesn’t realize your message is urgent.”

  Her shoulders sagged. She hadn’t come all this way to be stopped by pride now. He gestured toward the couch. They sat, she facing him, frowning over her shoulder at the pair at the desk, who were pretending to be busy. She turned her back to them and spoke to Mr. Tamberlaine in a hushed voice, trying to compress nearly 140 years of MacKenzie and Colebrook history into a concise story, telling him that she and Artemas had written to each other since she was six years old, that he’d always promised to help her if she needed him, and why she needed that help now.

  About halfway through her speech his patient expression had begun to stiffen. By the time she finished, it had become an unreadable mask. “So you’ve come to ask for money,” he said.

  “I came to ask for a loan. But even if Artemas—if Mr. Colebrook—can’t give me one, I’d like to see him.” Her throat tightened, and tears stung her eyes. She willed them back. “He’s the only one who understands. I can ask him for advice.”

  “Frankly, I find your story dubious. You say he hasn’t seen you since you were a child. Yet you expect him to solve your problems for you.”

  Lily gritted her teeth. “I expect him to be my friend, because he always has been.”

  “The letters you mentioned—do you have any of them with you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any proof that your story is true?”

  “No.”

  “Then I suggest you come back when you have some.”

  “I don’t have the money to go home and come back. Or to stay in New York a couple of days while I wait for my aunt to send the letters.”

  “I’m sorry then.” He stood. “Go home, photocopy one of the letters Mr. Colebrook allegedly wrote to you, and mail it to me with a letter explaining your request for money. I’ll make certain he receives it.”

  Lily clenched her hands in her lap and stared up at him. “All right. Thank you.”

  “Would you like to have the receptionist call a cab for you?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  He said good-bye and left the lobby the way he’d arrived. She stood by the front doors, watching for the taxi. When it came, she got into the backseat and sat silently, lost in thought. The driver glanced back at her. “Where ya going?”

  “Take me to the nearest hardware store.”

  He shot her a puzzled frown but put the car in gear. As they moved up the street, Lily stared fixedly out the window.

  • • •

  “Hello again,” she said calmly the next morning, when Tamberlaine ran into the lobby after the receptionist’s frantic phone call. He halted, staring at her. Lily tilted her head back and held his stunned gaze without blinking. The guard and the receptionist stood nearby, their faces angry and shocked.

  Seated, cross-legged, on the carpeted floor by the building’s front doors, Lily set aside the coat she held in her lap, then latched one hand in the chain that was padlocked around her waist and shifted a little so Mr. Tamberlaine could see that the other end of the chain was looped and padlocked through one of the doors’ metal handles.

  “She walked in, said, ‘Good morning,’ and did it before I knew what was happening,” the receptionist moaned.

  The composed and unflappable-looking Tamberlaine scowled at her so fiercely that she thought he might explode. She wound a clumsy hand around the tote bag beside her and pulled it to her chest, like a shield. “I want to see Artemas.”

  “Go outside and don’t let employees or visitors try to enter the building through these doors,” Tamberlaine told the guard. “Send them around back. And don’t say why.”

  The guard bolted past her, swinging the other door open and disappearing outside. The blast of chilled air felt icy on Lily’s flushed face. But she never took her gaze from the tall, dignified Tamberlaine. He turned toward the receptionist, whose hands seemed perpetually lodged at her throat in astonishment. “Call a locksmith.”

  She ran to her desk and snatched a phone book from a drawer. Tamberlaine pivoted to glare down at Lily again. Her stomach twisted. This wasn’t going as she’d hoped. She’d thought once they saw her determination, they’d call Artemas. Instead, it looked as if they’d keep him and everyone else from knowing she was here again, and get rid of her immediately.

  But she said evenly, “I spent the night moving from one diner to another and buying sandwiches so nobody’d chase me off. I was pestered by men who asked how much I charged—you know what I mean—and somebody even tried to sell me cocaine. After all that, nothing you can say or do can shake me.”

  “Oh?” Tamberlaine pulled a chair in front of her, sat down, and casually crossed one leg over the other. “If you don’t get on a bus today and return to Georgia, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

  The threat hit her like a slap. “Arrested?”

  “Think about that—being taken to a police station, fingerprinted, questioned, searched, locked in a cell with strangers. Think about being humiliated in court and having to pay a fine. Can you afford to pay a fine?”

  Hope was falling away, leaving her exhausted and uncertain. As he studied her face, he frowned. “I don’t want to do that to you, but I assure you, I will. I can’t have you wasting Mr. Colebrook’s time.”

  “I wouldn’t be wasting it.”

  “Oh? What if I told you he’s received your message and asked me to handle it? That he doesn’t want to see you?”

  Yesterday she would have rejected that idea. Today, seeing that her persistence meant nothing to the people Artemas trusted, that he had put a shield around himself that excluded her, made her wonder if she’d been a fool. “Did he say why he doesn’t want anything to do with me?” she asked finally.

  Tamberlaine pursed his lips and scrutinized her shrewdly “You said you’d already written to him about your dilemma, and he didn’t answer you. Why would he want to see you now?”

  “I thought my letters got lost. Or that he was out of town and hadn’t read them yet.”

  The slow, negative shaking of Mr. Tamberlaine’s regal head sent aftershocks through her. Lily trembled with anger and a sense of betrayal. “He promised.” The words made a desperate hiss between her teeth. “He promised he’d help if I ever needed him.”

  A flicker of dismay showed in Tamberlaine’s eyes. “Did he write that in a letter recently?”

  “Not in so many words, but—”

  “No written agreement, you’re saying? No discussion of personal commitment, no promise to give you money for any reason?”

  She choked. This man thought she was some kind of con artist. “No, it wasn’t like that. We just always encouraged each other, like friends—”

  “This was a very odd correspondence you had. I can’t picture Mr. Colebrook writing to a child that way.”

  “He was just a kid himself when it started!”

  Tamberlaine shifted forward, piercing her with an assessing look. “When what started? Exactly what are you alleging?”

  “Nothing.” She felt sick. “You think I’m saying this is about sex? What do
you think he was—a pervert?”

  “Hardly. I just wanted to be clear on your allegations.”

  “I don’t have allegations! I have—I had—trust in him. I always thought, I knew—” She was fumbling, coming apart. She took a deep breath and crashed to a stop. “I was wrong.”

  “Yes, obviously Perhaps you don’t fully realize that Mr. Colebrook is a grown man, a very important man, and not the sentimental boy you claimed to have known. To be frank, he’s also very deeply involved with a young woman here in New York, who’s likely to become his wife.”

  Lily stared at him in silent despair. Was that why Artemas had stopped writing to her? He didn’t want some woman to know he had a female friend?

  “Go home,” Mr. Tamberlaine said, not unkindly. “If Mr. Colebrook wants to get in touch with you again, I’m sure he will.”

  She pulled a key from the pocket of her coat and opened the padlock at the chain around her waist. Unwinding it, she rose wearily to her feet. “I’ll go.”

  “Not alone, you won’t. I’m going to make certain you don’t come back.” She watched in humiliation as he opened the door and called to the guard. He looked back at her sternly. “I’m sending him with you to the bus station. He’ll make certain you leave.”

  “No. Hell no.”

  “You don’t have any choice. Either do this my way, or I’ll call the police.”

  When she saw that she had no choice, she straightened proudly, chewing the inside of her mouth and saying nothing. The guard brought a car from the parking lot. Tamberlaine grasped her by one arm and gently but firmly pushed her ahead of him out the front doors. Shame flooded her, but she decided that jerking her arm away from him would only make matters worse.

  He guided her into the cars front seat, while the guard held the door. “I’m sorry you were so misguided,” Tamberlaine said. “If it means anything to you, I admire your courage.”

  She settled fierce, shaken eyes on him. “Nothing means anything to me right now. I’ve lost it all.”

  A long, late-model sedan pulled up along the curb behind the guard’s car. Lily twisted to stare at it, ignited by one last inkling of hope. Two women about her age and a young man got out, gazing curiously at Tamberlaine. They were tall, handsome people, one of the women blond and sturdy, the other dark and slender, the young man too thin but kind-looking, with sandy-brown hair falling over his forehead. They were well dressed and moved with confidence.

  Tamberlaine shook his head at them and waved them inside. They went past, casting curious looks at each other and at Lily. She sank back in the seat. “Good-bye,” Mr. Tamberlaine said to her. “And good luck.”

  He watched the car pull away, exhaled with relief, then walked into the building. Michael, Cass, and Julia were waiting in the lobby. “What was that about?” Cass asked. “Who was she?”

  “Someone of no consequence. Don’t mention it to your brother. He doesn’t need the distraction. Not a word. All right?”

  “All right, Tammy,” Julia said. “Whatever you say.”

  Michael asked, “Has he come down yet?”

  “No, he’s still in his apartment. Making arrangements to bring Elizabeth home from the hospital. We’ve all got to work together now. Come along.”

  As they went through the doors to the offices and the private stairs that led up to Artemas’s rooms, Tamberlaine glanced back toward the lobby and the empty street beyond the entrance. He hoped he’d saved Artemas some unwanted trouble. But Lily MacKenzie stuck in his mind. Yes, he had to give her points for trying. Whatever she’d really wanted, he’d never met anyone quite so willing to suffer for it.

  Ten

  James woke slowly, enjoying the rare sense of contentment, but then suddenly aware that he was alone in bed. Muted sounds came from the kitchen—the oven door opening and shutting, water running in the sink. He raised his head from the pillow and listened, satisfied, relaxing. He’d never cared whether a woman stayed with him afterward, but now he did.

  His bare back was cold without Alise’s lithe, snuggling body molded to it. He enjoyed recalling the warmth of her breasts and belly against him, and didn’t pull the jumbled sheet and blanket upward. The sheets, the pillow, the whole bed, smelled of sex. Usually he found the scent more annoying than exciting—a stranger’s imprint on his territory—but this time he reveled in it. The faint scent of Alise’s perfume mingled with the musk. Feeling foolish but indulgent, he reached behind him, brought her pillow to his face, and sighed.

  This was a side of his personality he’d never exposed to anyone else, and barely to Alise. Smiling, he looked across the bedroom at stacks of military histories and books on medieval pageantry along the empty walls. Her white lace panties were draped on one mound of books, her bra on another. Just looking at them made him hard.

  He tossed the pillow and sheets aside and left the room, padding, naked and aroused, through a living room dominated by a high ceiling with ornate molding at the top. The room contained little besides a heavy couch, a desk, and various computers in one corner, and a massive, baroque sideboard where he’d set a television and stereo components. A mixture of rain and snow drizzled on tall windows with no curtains. It was a wonderful afternoon for staying inside and in bed.

  James slipped into a spartan kitchen with white-tiled floors and steel appliances. She stood at a counter with her back to him, the twin curves of her small buttocks peeping from under the waistband of the white sports shirt he’d slung off hours ago, her dark hair tangled along the collar.

  Before she realized it, he was behind her with his hands under the shirt. She yelped softly, twisted inside his embrace on her hips, and looked up at him with gleaming, troubled eyes. “I was trying to fix us something to eat from the empty cave of your refrigerator.”

  He glanced over her shoulder at the bologna, bread, and mayonnaise sitting on the counter. “Not much luck there, I’m afraid. I’m not very domestic.” His eyes returned to hers. She searched his expression anxiously. “I know. I guess I’m not either.” Her gaze dropped slowly down his hairy chest, and she inhaled with amazement at the jutting penis that prodded her inner thighs.

  James shoved her sandwich supplies aside, lifted her to the countertop so that her legs were spread on either side of him, and pressed himself between them, nudging the silky hair at the center. Her eyes flickered with appreciation. His blunt sexuality didn’t threaten her, he’d realized, any more than his brusque, antagonistic nature did. She caressed his face, dissolved the urgent lust in him a little, and quieted him with that simple touch. Her effect continued to astonish him.

  “Would you pose for me sometime?” she asked. “Let me sculpt a torso of you?”

  “Like this? I don’t know if I want this captured for posterity.”

  “I do. I promise not to show it to my professors. Most of them are gay. They’d be envious.” She gave him an impish look. “On the other hand, I might finally get some decent grades and feel as if I have some talent.”

  James kissed her forehead. Alise loved art but admitted she lacked the aptitude to be more than a hack. She dabbled in jewelry, making funny little ceramic pins to give away to friends. “I think you have talent,” he said gallantly.

  She draped her arms around his neck and gazed at him with pensive regard. “No, after I graduate I’ll take my puny little inheritance from my great-aunt and probably use it to open a gallery where real artists can display their work. I should copy Cassandra and treat art like a business asset.”

  “Cass sees getting a master’s in art as a way to learn enough about design to be of use to Colebrook China. She and Michael and Elizabeth and Julia will all have their places in the company, eventually. Cass knows that. She’s driven by it. Don’t judge yourself by her.”

  “I’d like to be useful too.” When he smiled slyly and pulled her pelvis against his, sliding his erection up her belly, Alise laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. “Okay, so I’m useful in one way.”

  James’s teasin
g mood faded. He felt awkward, unaccustomed to tenderness, as wary as he was drawn to it. “You think I coaxed you to come here today because I needed someone—anyone—to fill up a rainy weekend afternoon?”

  “You didn’t coax me. I wrapped my ankles around your foot in the restaurant, and you couldn’t leave without promising to take me with you. I wanted you to know that I’m not a child anymore.”

  “I don’t remember it quite that way. I remember sitting at the table and sticking myself in the mouth with my fork because I was too intent on seducing you.”

  “I thought you were distracted by the woman at the next table. She kept pursing her lips at you. I noticed.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him with wistful devotion and hope. “There’s been a boy at school. I slept with him because he reminded me of you. Because you were too much older to be bothered with me. I couldn’t have you, so I took him.” She hesitated, her face flushing at the admission. “Does that annoy you?”

  James stared down at her with unfurling adoration but also possessiveness. “Only if you’re disappointed now.”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head. Her eyes were somber and painfully intense. “I wish today could go on forever.” When he didn’t answer, she scrutinized his frowning expression and added, “I shouldn’t have said that. I promised myself I wouldn’t make you feel like a shark with a sucker fish attached to your fin.”

  “You think I’m a shark?”

  Her olive complexion blossomed into full redness. “I love sharks. I only meant that you’re a loner, and you don’t want me the way I want—oh dammit.” She clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes, then finally looked him straight in the face and said, “I should have known I’d say too much, or the wrong thing. I had to bite my lip when we were in bed together to keep from crying and saying that I love you.” Her dignity crumpled, and tears came to her eyes. “But I’ve always loved you. And I think you’ve always known it. You don’t have to say anything, or apologize.”