“It’s going to go fine, you know,” he said, taking a long swallow of water. His Adam’s apple worked, perspiration sliding down his throat.
Margaret felt her body soften, felt her skin prickle with response. “Life is full of surprises.”
He looked at her, and she thought from the look in his eyes that he might realize she wasn’t talking about their sign-on the next day.
“No surprises tomorrow,” he said. “Clockwork. It’s all going to go like clockwork.”
“No,” she said, moving toward him. Her hand touched his when she took the glass. “Unexpected things will happen. We’ll have to make adjustments we hadn’t anticipated. We won’t be sure what to do, how to react. That’s the way of it.”
She drank from his glass and imagined she felt the warmth of his lips on the rim of the crystal.
“But we can handle it,” he said.
“Yes.” She set the glass on the wrought-iron table. “We can handle it.”
“We’re good...together.”
She smiled at him; there was no longer any denying the look in his eyes. “Very good.”
Despite the breeze, the air felt heavy. She lifted her hair off her neck, watched him as he watched the curve of her bare arm in the moonlight. He would be aroused already. She knew that much.
She reached over with her free hand to test her theory. She was right.
“Oh, God,” he groaned.
“Unexpected things will happen,” she murmured.
He slipped an arm around her waist and inched her toward him. “You think this is unexpected?”
Only a breath of humid air stood between them. She felt the heat of him burning through her silk robe from breast to thigh.
“Isn’t it?”
“No. This is inevitable.”
Then he kissed her, a kiss that didn’t ask permission to sweep her up in his heat. His mouth was demanding, his body insistent, his passion feeding hers. She clutched his bare shoulders, dug her nails into his flesh, felt the hard grind of his body against hers. When her knees went weak, he swept her into his arms and carried her into her room, to her bed.
Their bed.
He set her on the bed, her legs adrift off the side of the high four-poster. He lifted her gown to her waist and groaned again. Heat flowed through her with the sound. She felt him undo the tiny pearl button fastening her underpants, felt the silk slip to her knees, her ankles. She heard the metallic rustle of his zipper. His arms hooked beneath her knees and she was lifted to him.
With a barely stifled cry, she took him into her.
He moved against her fiercely. She thrust back, wanting him deep, wanting him fast, wanting him forever and ever and caring not that it might be just for this moment. She felt herself rising and rocking to sensations that her memory had not done justice. She felt him spill into her just as she felt herself gasping and grasping and soaring.
THEY CURLED INTO THE MIDDLE of the feather bed, hot flesh on hot flesh, breaths mingling, arms and legs tangled.
“If it was inevitable,” she whispered, “why did we wait so long?”
“Test of wills,” he said. “You lose.”
She smiled against his chest. “I lose?”
“Mm-hmm. You’re the weaker sex.”
She jabbed him lightly. “I seduced you. Who does that make the weaker sex?”
“You also talk too much,” he said, raising himself on one elbow.
His expression as he gazed down at her almost brought tears to her eyes. It was an unguarded look, a trusting look, a look she’d waited years to see. She was wise enough to let it pass for now and keep the mood light.
“You forget who’s directing the show,” she said.
He chuckled. “Want to stage direct?”
“Yes. Move your hand here.”
He followed directions.
“And do this with your mouth.”
He did.
“Oh. My. You’re...oh...you’re not waiting for directions.”
“I’m a professional. I know what to do.”
Indeed, he did.
THEY MADE LOVE late into the night. They never spoke of love but Margaret knew what she felt in his touch. It was only a matte of time.
But before she could fall asleep, she knew there was one thing that needed to be done before another hour passed between them She had to tell him the truth. The whole truth.
“Paul, I have to tell you something.”
She felt him tense against her.
“Not now, Margie. Not now.”
“I have to, Paul. Please.”
There was a long silence. “Then tell me.”
“It’s André. I know you’ve never believed that he’s your son But he is.” She faltered. After all this time, how to say this’ What if the truth enraged him more than the falsehoods he’d always believed? The words stuck in her throat. “He’s your son Paul. You have to believe that. I can explain—”
He yanked upright in the bed. “This? This is all you’re going to say? After...tonight? You’re going to keep on lying?”
“No, Paul, please. It’s not a lie! If you’ll just listen—”
He was out of the bed now, heading for the open French doors heedless of his nudity.
“Not one more lie,” he said. “I’ll not listen to another single lie from that sweet, poison mouth of yours.”
He stalked away. The way he had before. Margaret sat on the disheveled bed, trembling with anger and despair.
CHAPTER NINE
THE ENORMITY OF HER MISTAKE sank in by lunchtime. WDIX-TV was scheduled to sign on at six that afternoon. And Paul Lyon was gone.
“You mean, you don’t know where he is?” The cameraman’s expression pleaded for her reassurance that he’d misunderstood.
“That’s right, Ray. Right this minute, he’s gone.”
“He must’ve said something to somebody this morning.” That was Rosie. “To his mother at breakfast, maybe?”
Margaret sat in Paul’s chair on the news set. The entire crew—engineers, cameramen and other technicians—stood around like people who hadn’t yet been told where the funeral was being held. “He... No. Nobody saw him.”
One of the engineers said hopefully, “Call the police. That roadster of his won’t be hard to spot.”
“The roadster is still in the garage,” Margaret replied.
Crew members glanced at one another, but their gazes always returned to Margaret. She was their boss, the one they looked to for answers. She had none to give. She knew what was slowly dawning on all of them. Paul had vanished before; apparently he had vanished again. Her plans for WDIX-TV were in ruins. But worse, far worse, she had in all likelihood destroyed the delicate connections being built between André and his father.
Yes, Margaret would create a solution from thin air if need be. But not for the sake of WDIX-TV. For André.
“I’ll find him.” She stood, adopting a confident stance. “You guys keep working. We’re going on the air.”
“But without Paul?”
“With or without Paul. We’ll sign on if I have to read the news myself.”
That drew a nervous laugh from all of them. Margaret gathered her handbag, hat and gloves and headed purposefully out of the studio. She sensed as she left that her determination was giving her crew the drive needed to move forward.
They depended on her not to let them down. They didn’t know she already had.
Patrick was waiting at the curb.
“Find him,” she said. “I don’t care where we have to look. Find him.”
Then she would force him to listen, with Patrick to hold him down, if necessary. Even if he despised her for her actions, she would make him listen. Then she would turn over to him both his son and the station. Because once he knew the truth, she knew he would never walk away from WDIX-TV or André. This day, the eighth anniversary of their nonexistent marriage, would become the official end of everything between Paul and her.
But if it as
sured the future of André, Paul and WDIX-TV, what happened to her mattered not in the least.
WITH THE PRESIDENT’S ENTOURAGE rolling into the city’s business district on a patriotic holiday, the streets were crowded. It should have been a good place for an unhappy man to lose himself.
But Paul couldn’t seem to manage that. The things that made him miserable stuck close wherever he went. He walked mile upon mile through cemeteries and along the waterfront. He finally ventured into the French Quarter, where the streets were still quiet.
Margaret haunted him wherever he went. Without her, his life seemed empty again, as it had these past seven years. But he couldn’t take her lies. He loved her too much to listen to them, and he loved her too much to stay away.
In the morning light, without its music and the mingling aromas of Creole food, the French Quarter was as dreary as Paul’s thoughts. He walked without looking around, hoping his feet would take him someplace where he could find peace. The few people who were out, sweeping up or unlocking their little shops, called greetings to him. It was like one of the small Italian villages he’d been in during the war, where everyone knew everyone else. There were no secrets, no strangers.
“You never were an early riser before,” came a voice from above. “People change, aye?”
He looked up. A woman stood on a balcony, wearing a bright red robe, a fat white cat cradled in her arms. She was familiar.
“Riva? Is that you, Riva?”
“Yes, darlin’.”
“I thought you’d gone back to Bayou Sans Fin.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I stay there. Sometimes I stay here. I’m here all summer. See you twice, no, three times on the street.”
He didn’t have to ask why she hadn’t spoken to him before. She probably figured it wasn’t proper. But she’d spoken to him this morning. He wondered why.
“But today I’m thinking I better speak up. You’re looking like hell this morning. You can’t be looking like hell today. Is your big day, yes?”
“Yeah. My big day.”
The cat jumped out of her arms and walked the tightrope of the balcony railing. Riva leaned on the railing and smiled. “Then why do you look like you been out havin’ a big night?”
“You might say I’ve been contemplating the many mistakes in my life.”
“You? You got mistakes? Come up here, Paul Lyon. I’ll give you coffee and brandy and I’ll tell you about mistakes.”
He might have been tempted, but for Margaret. His heart was full of her this morning. There was room for no one else, not even an old paramour.
“Just coffee, darlin’. And a little story. About André.”
“André?”
“Sure, that’s right. I always believed you ought not know the truth. Mayhap I was wrong.”
Heart thumping, Paul climbed the dark stairs to Riva Reynard’s apartment, beginning to wonder if he really wanted the truth, after all.
The apartment was small and crowded and already steamy on a day that promised to hit a hundred degrees. Riva brushed a kiss on the corner of his mouth; she smelled of dusting powder and all he could think of was Margaret’s scent the night before. They sat on the balcony and he gulped down the coffee despite the heat, because he needed the fortification.
Riva studied him. “You want this truth? For sure?”
Paul wasn’t sure at all. But he nodded.
“That boy, André, why did you go off and leave him and that wife of yours?”
“How do you know so much?”
She made a dismissive sound. “Everybody in this city knows that much. Why did you do that?”
“Then I suppose everybody in this city knows he isn’t my son.”
Her eyes grew wide. “You must be crazy. Delirious. Brain fever. That boy is your boy. Anybody with one squinty eye knows that.”
“When did you see him?”
She closed her eyes and shrugged. She was enjoying the drama. “I see him. One time or two. I see him the day he is born.”
“What?”
Her voice changed. The look in her eyes changed. “I hold him. I ask a blessing on his head. Then I give him to his new mama.”
Paul felt as if the balcony below him had suddenly gone into free fall. He barely croaked out, “What?”
“I give him to your Margaret. So he won’t be a rich man’s bastard. Then you run off. Paul Lyon, what kind of fool man are you?”
Paul dropped his cup. He heard it shatter, as if from a great distance, felt the hot coffee splatter against his pants leg. But none of that really sank in. The only thing he could take in was the harsh truth Margaret had tried repeatedly to share with him.
André was his son. His flesh and blood. A son he had rejected for seven long years.
“I GIVE UP.” Margaret slumped against the leather upholstery. “Take me home, Patrick.”
She sensed his hesitation. What about the broadcast? That was what he wanted to say. That was what anyone would ask who knew what her passion had been for well over a year. Right now Margaret didn’t have an answer. She only knew that she had to see her son. Had to hold him in her arms and pray for some way to make her awful, unforgivable mistakes up to him. Then she would be able to carry on. WDIX-TV would go on the air.
They had looked everywhere for Paul. At his haunts on the bayou, pounding on the doors at the homes of old buddies. Then they’d returned to the French Quarter, where she’d had high hopes of finding him. After all, it would be hard to lose a man in such a small neighborhood. But they’d had no luck there, either. Finally she’d abandoned all sense of decorum to visit a couple of the classier houses of ill repute frequented by the city’s power brokers. Margaret didn’t care how she humiliated herself this day. All that mattered was finding her son’s father.
Aching and anguished, she dragged herself upstairs to André’s room. When she opened the door, a cry escaped her lips.
André sat on the window seat overlooking the garden, tucked against Paul’s side. Margaret had imagined such a scene so often she felt certain she must be imagining it now.
“Mama!” André sprang up and flung himself at her. “Guess what, Mama! You’ll never guess!”
But she did guess—from the look in Paul’s eyes as he gazed at the little boy who clutched her waist. Paul knew. He believed.
Tears sprang to her eyes, because she could also see that he was as filled with awe and joy as she had always hoped he would be, if only he could be made to believe.
“Mama, Mr. Paul is my real papa. Did you know, Mama? He said he didn’t know it until today. Will we be a real family now? Will we?”
Tears trembled on her eyelashes. She couldn’t speak, knew she couldn’t trust her voice without dissolving into the sobs she had refused to release for so many years.
“We will.” Paul stood and walked to them. “Won’t we?”
Margaret swallowed hard. “But...I’m not...not his real—”
Paul pressed a finger to her lips. “Yes, you are. A real mother would want him to have his father’s name. No matter what. A real mother would never give up hope.”
Tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I thought it was the best thing. I never dreamed...”
“That I’d be such a stubborn fool. Margie, I’m sorry. I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life for doubting you. But he is yours. And he is mine. That’s all anybody ever needs to know.”
She fell against his chest, their son laughing between them as she began to cry. “Oh, Paul, I love you so.”
“And I love you. More than ever. I’ll show you, every day, for the rest of our lives.”
Two HOURS LATER, Margaret looked across the brightly lit, stultifyingly hot studio at the man who was now truly her husband and gave the signal.
Paul smiled, looked at her, instead of the camera. “Good afternoon, New Orleans. This is Paul Lyon with WDK-TV. Welcome to the future.”
Margaret hadn’t expected to cry again for a very long time. But as she looked around her at the crew
who had helped give birth to this new baby of hers, she realized hers weren’t the only eyes in the room that were wet with tears.
SILVER ANNIVERSARY
ROZ Denny Fox
CHAPTER ONE
New Orleans January 1974
ANDRÉ LYON STRETCHED out the full length of the noiseless glider, crossing his ankles on the top rail of the hand-hewn fence that wrapped his rented raised bungalow. A fancy name, he thought, for a swamp shack. Still sleepy, he absorbed the sights and scents of a breaking day in Bayou Sans Fin. Graying, pungent moss draped tinsellike from a huge cypress, shaded his porch and edged out the smell of stagnant water. Beyond, in the wooded thicket, an owl hooted suddenly, startling a great heron, which flapped its wings and rose, dodging branches to hold on to a prize breakfast fish.
André yawned into a curl of steam drifting from his mug of chicory-laced coffee. Not a morning person, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen a sunrise. Well, yes, there was one he did remember. A day three years ago when the freighter he’d called home for far too long had steamed into New Orleans, ending forever his global wanderings with the merchant marine.
Daybreak in the bayou. Early morning was a time of movement, of activity, of foraging for food; most swamp inhabitants went to ground during the muggy part of the day. André, however, was used to rising at noon. If his young neighbor hadn’t banged on his door, fleeing from one of her mother’s endless lovers, he’d still be snoring in his hammock.
But it was just as well, because right after that his mother had phoned. Her call had been abrupt. She’d simply said she was on her way over. That rattled André. No member of the influential Lyon family had ever set foot in his humble abode.
Thank goodness for the kid’s visit. He often paid Rachel Fontaine to straighten up his place and vacuum. Her mama, it seemed, spent all their money on booze. This latest incident alarmed him. If her mother’s overnight visitors were now turning their attentions to this child, something had to be done. Rach had been a skinny ten when André had returned to the city of his birth. Today, after the frightened girl came to him for protection, he realized how much she’d grown.
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