After the Loving

by Gwynne Forster

  “Do you have anything in mind?”

  “You gave me an idea as we drove through Dolphin Street. A couple of blocks from there, we saw a row of abandoned but sturdy houses of similar architecture. I’m going to try to buy those buildings, renovate them and make them into apartments for homeless people. Uncle Fentress left me far more than enough for that.”

  “Russ, that’s a wonderful idea. If I can help, will you let me?”

  “Of course I will. I’m pleased that you want to help. I’ll show you the plans, but first I have to buy the property.”

  After a meal of the crab soup, veal marsala, fluted mushroom, tiny parsleyed potatoes, broccoli raab, green salad and gorgonzola cheese, she didn’t want dessert. However, she didn’t want to cast a pall over their first real date, and a loving one at that, so she ate the pere e cioccolata or pears with chocolate and raspberry sauce.

  “This taxes you a bit,” he said, savoring the dessert, “but you’re a good sport. Besides—” his eyes twinkled with mischief “—you loved it, didn’t you?”

  “I did. It’s really special.” And you’ll pay for it, her conscience nagged.

  “One of my favorites. This stuff kicks serious butt. A smart woman would learn how to make this.”

  She couldn’t help grinning. An opportunity to top Russ came rarely. “This smart woman already knows how to make it.”

  He leaned back in his chair and looked at her, his face the picture of delight. “Touché. Keep it up—you won’t be able to get rid of me.”

  “I’m asking myself why I would want to, but nothing comes to mind right now. Of course, you never can tell.”

  His evident love of a challenge seemed to trigger his entire demeanor, as he sat forward, strummed his long, lean fingers on the white tablecloth, and exposed his teeth in a grin that held less mirth than she would have expected.

  “Think hard.”

  “Say, I was teasing.”

  He sat back, relaxed. “Good you told me. If you’re teasing, at least smile. What I see makes as much of an impression as what I hear. Want to dance after we leave here?”

  She had to remember the advice that Drake, Henry and Alexis gave her about Russ, and his own words: “I’m serious even when I tease.”

  “I love to dance, and I can’t think of a better way to end this wonderful evening.”

  He stood, signed the check, put a bill on the table and took her hand. “Then we’ll dance. Sure you aren’t tired? It’s been a long day for you.”

  “I’d dance unless I was bedridden, and even then, my spirit would dance.”

  “Now we really are soul mates. I haven’t danced much since I left graduate school. As I think back, I realize I’ve done hardly anything other than work.” He grinned. “Hell, I haven’t even chased my share of women.”

  If he could be serious in his teasing, so could she. “Well, honey, you missed your chance.”

  As if enjoying that conversation, he poked his tongue in the left side of his jaw. “Good thing I’m not prone to accepting dares. That was a dare, you know.”

  “Explain these things to me, hon. I’m not used to bantering with men. As a rule, I just talk to them. That was meant to be a simple statement of fact, not a challenge.”

  He held the car door while she seated herself and then fastened her seat belt. “Hmmm. You mean I can’t sow my wild oats? You are a cruel woman.” He got into the car, fastened his own seat belt, and cast her a side glance, grinning as he did so. “I wouldn’t have thought you the type to rob a man of his birthright.”

  “I surprise myself sometimes.” And no matter what she expected, he certainly surprised her.

  He found them a table as soon as they entered the lounge, took their coats to the cloakroom, came back to her and extended his hand. “The music isn’t too bad, although I’d rather hear a saxophone right now than a trumpet,” he said. “If a trumpeter isn’t a boss, I don’t want to hear him.”

  She didn’t know the tune, and it didn’t matter; she fitted her steps to those of the man who held her in his arms, and moved with him.

  “Dreaming?”

  She opened her eyes. “Gee. I didn’t know the music stopped. You’re a terrific dancer. Honey, if you want to sow any wild oats, plant ’em right here.”

  “Starting when? I like to think I’m sowing on fertile ground.”

  “You’ve been cultivating and fertilizing for months now, but I always heard that spring is planting time, and this is just late winter.”

  “Ever heard of winter wheat? You’re getting sassy.”

  A baritone saxophone began to growl the opening notes of “Lover Man” he opened his arms and she stepped into them. Slow and sensuous, the jazz man played and Russ danced the man’s tune and mood. He held her so close to him that her breasts began their telltale ache against his chest, and when arousal snaked toward her loins, she missed a step.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, not trusting her voice.

  “Give in to it, sweetheart. Let yourself go.”

  “I can’t with you holding me like this in front of all these people.”

  “They’re living their own lives,” he said, but he danced a little farther away. “Are you all right?”

  She squinted up at him. “After what you just did to me, don’t you dare ask.”

  She had thought he would smile, but his solemn face told her that he understood how she felt and that his experience had been similar.

  “This is nothing to play with, Velma. I have to accept that, and so do you.” At that moment, the band struck up a Latin number, and his face brightened into a broad smile, exposing his perfect white teeth. “Let’s go for it, sweetheart.”

  She was sure her bottom lip dropped when he moved to the Latin beat, his hips swaying and twisting with the rhythm of his dancing feet.

  Get with it, girl, she told herself and swung with him into her favorite dance. The music played until she was breathless and wondering if the band leader had a grudge against her. She looked around and saw that the other dancers had moved aside to give Russ and her space and that the band was playing only for them.

  She moved close to Russ. “Tell the band leader to cut it off, please.”

  “Had enough?” he asked, looking and dancing as fresh as when they arrived.

  “No, but my feet are asking for relief.”

  At his signal, the band leader ended the music, and the other patrons treated them to a long and loud applause. His eyes widened at that. “You mean we were the only ones dancing?” He walked with her back to their table.

  “Looks like it. When these men saw that they couldn’t keep up with you, they gave you the floor. What would Drake say if he’d seen us?”

  He scratched the back of his neck in a way that suggested perplexity. “Drake? He’d probably faint.”

  “Are you going to tell me sometime why you aren’t what your family perceives you to be? You three brothers are so close, yet they don’t really know you.”

  His quick shrug didn’t fool her; she knew him well enough then to understand that her words gave him pause.

  “They know the person I’ve always been. I suppose you’re seeing the man who is reacting to you and who is relishing these changes he sees in himself. Until that night in that roadside restaurant when you pretended to be a bride, I never imagined that laughter—I mean a good belly roll—could make a person feel so good.

  “As I think of it, there was never that much laughter in our home. Alexis, and especially Tara, changed our lives. They brought joy into that house.” He beckoned the waiter.

  “It’s almost midnight. You need to rest,” he said to Velma.

  She couldn’t argue with that statement. She’d left her hotel at seven that morning, and exhaustion had finally begun to set in. On the drive home, she struggled to keep her eyes open until he said, “Lay your head against my shoulder and sleep if you want to.”

  He parked in her driveway, walked with her to her door, unlocked it and handed her
the key. “Mind if I come in for a minute?”

  She didn’t mind and said as much. “I enjoyed the evening,” she said. “Sorry I pooped out at the end.” She turned to go into her living room, but he detained her with an arm across her shoulder.

  “I’ve waited days for this.” He drew her into his arms and looked down into her face, vulnerable and raw as she had never seen him. At that moment, she would have given him whatever he asked, for he was deep in her heart. She lifted her arms to him for the kiss that would blot out her senses, but he didn’t ask for passion.

  His lips moved over hers so gently and so sweetly that her heart constricted with the love she felt for him. “Russ,” she whispered. “What kind of message are you sending me? You are uncertain where you want this to lead, if anywhere at all, yet you’re tying me in knots.”

  “I was uncertain, and I fought it, but I know I need you in my life.”

  “Think, Russ. You’re not satisfied with me. You—”

  “You have problems, but they are no longer an issue with me. I will help you deal with them, because I am not going to let you scuttle the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

  “But Russ—”

  “I asked you to trust me, to believe in me and to let me love you. Now, I’m asking you to let me help you move the barrier between us. I think you’re beautiful as you are. Don’t let frivolous notions rob you of your self-confidence, your charm. If there’s something important that I don’t know, tell me what it is, and I’ll do anything I can to help you deal with it. I’m in deep with you, Velma. Are you listening to me?”

  She could barely whisper the words. “I trust you, and I’m…I’m so happy when I’m with you. You’re in here—” She pointed to her heart. “Right here.”

  His hands moved along her back in lingering strokes. “Will you let me know who you are, what hurts you, makes you cry, makes you do devilish things, angers you? I need to know you.”

  “I’ll try. From childhood, I bottled everything up inside of me. It won’t be easy.”

  “I know that, and I promise patience.” His left hand caressed the side of her face. “I hadn’t planned to stay this long, and I’d better leave so you can get to bed.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s a new twist.”

  “What do you mean by that?” he growled.

  She couldn’t help laughing, and she let herself enjoy it. “I don’t have the energy to battle wits with you. But when you hand me an opening like that, well…just think of what came to my mind that I didn’t say.”

  “I can imagine.” He drew her into his arms again. “Kiss me, sweetheart.”

  He flicked his tongue across the seam of her closed lips, and when she parted them he slipped inside darting and tasting the nectar he found there. A rush of blood zoomed straight to her loins, and her long-denied libido betrayed her, hardening her nipples and causing a warm throbbing in her love canal. Unconsciously, to increase the pleasure, she tightened her buttocks as if she were doing isometrics, and he stepped back from her. Knowing, and sympathetic.

  “We have to do something about this, but not until you’ve settled a few things within yourself.”

  “I know.”

  He kissed her quickly and left. She stood there for a while going over the evening, remembering all he said, and marveling that he had shared with her information about his inheritance and the financial implications. Tomorrow, she would dance for joy, but right then she was almost too tired to crawl into bed. She looked toward heaven. Maybe God would smile on her after all.

  The next morning, she dragged herself out of bed and into the kitchen for a fortifying cup of coffee. She had promised Lydia that when she came back from New Orleans, she would see the endocrinologist. But how she dreaded it. Maybe she’d just stay as she was; Russ liked her that way.

  “No. I have to like myself,” she said aloud, went for the mobile phone and dialed the doctor’s office.

  Several days and as many tests later, she left the doctor’s office with a prescription for a synthroid pill and the information that she had a hypothyroid condition. She didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. “Take one a day,” the doctor had told her, “and you have to take a TSH test periodically so I’ll know you’re getting the right dosage.”

  “Will I lose weight?” she’d asked him.

  His “If you want to” had not filled her with joy. “It’s not enough to eat less. Get out more, do things like hiking, riding, swimming,” he added. She told him she didn’t know how to swim. “Get a young, muscular guy to teach you,” he’d said. “I want to see you again in two weeks.”

  Now, I guess it’s up to me. At least it isn’t my fault, and I’m doing something about it.

  Russ tightened his coat collar as he ran the few steps from Velma’s house to his car. He ignited the engine and waited for it to warm up. March couldn’t come too soon. After a few minutes, he eased the Mercedes from the curb and headed to his apartment. The past ten hours had changed him irrevocably. When she walked through that gate at the airport and smiled when she saw him, it was as if he’d seen the sunshine after years of darkness. But sitting in the car, looking at her while she caressed his face with such gentleness, such sweetness and tenderness, confessing that she missed him whenever she was away from him, he’d fallen in love with her.

  He knew it wouldn’t be easy for them, because he had no intention of letting her sell herself short. To his mind, she was the equal of any woman and superior to most.

  “I’m not letting her go,” he said aloud. “Never.”

  The next morning, he telephoned her, and could hardly believe the extent of his disappointment when he heard her recorded answer. He left a message saying he was leaving for Eagle Park the next day for a conference with his brothers and would probably be there through the weekend.

  “I was taking a walk,” she told him when she returned his call. “I have a lot to tell you, so maybe we can steal a few minutes this weekend. I want to talk with Alexis, too.”

  “Is what you have to tell me good or bad?”

  “It has potential for good. You said you’d teach me how to swim. When can we start?”

  “In the dead of winter? Our pool isn’t enclosed.”

  “Then, let’s join a sports club here in Baltimore. Want to?”

  He had promised to help her work through her problems, and if it meant joining a sports club, he would do that. “All right, I’ll find a good one. When will you get to Eagle Park?”

  “Sometime before dark on Friday. I have appointments here Friday morning, so I can’t leave before three. Find out if Henry wants anything and let me know, will you?”

  “I will. Drive carefully, sweetheart.”

  “You, too, love.”

  Before Russ cut the motor in front of Harrington House, Telford stepped out of the front door to welcome him. “It’s good to see you,” he said to Russ as they embraced. “Drake went into town, but he should be back in an hour.”

  “When’s he going back to Barbados?”

  “As soon as he takes care of his affairs. You’ve probably learned that it’s one thing to inherit a lot of money, and another to put it in the right places.”

  “That’s one of the things I want to discuss with you and Drake. I’ll wait till he gets back. Where’s everybody else?”

  “Tara’s in school, Alexis is grocery shopping and Henry’s wherever Henry is this time of day.”

  The comment about Henry struck him as funny, and he laughed. Telford stared at him. “What’s come over you, Russ? Don’t misunderstand me. Whatever it is, I like it. We all do. But seeing you break into a laugh is so damned strange. You should see how your face and your eyes light up when you laugh.”

  He lifted his right shoulder in a quick shrug. “Nothing and nobody stays the same. Not even you.”

  “Damn straight. I’m changing before my own eyes.”

  Velma would laugh at that, Russ thought, and she’d have something witty to say
about it. “You’re happy, Telford, and you can’t imagine how glad I am for you. Alexis is as different from Mama as sugar is from salt.”

  “I didn’t realize that still bothered you. Knowing what Alexis sacrificed for Tara, and seeing how she loves and cares for her child helped me get over Mama and her selfishness.”

  “Uncle Fentress told me why she behaved as she did. That didn’t excuse her, but it helped me to understand her. It doesn’t cut as badly.”

  They walked toward the kitchen, looked in and didn’t see Henry and went down to the basement recreation room. “I’d like to know what he said, but it hardly matters. I’ve put it behind me. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to love Alexis. Tell you what… Let’s throw a few darts,” Telford said. “It’s been ages since I beat you at this.”

  Drake found them there. “How’s it going, brother?” he asked Russ, his arms open in their usual greeting.

  “Haven’t got a thing to complain about. Life’s good.”

  Drake stepped back and looked at Russ. “Same old sourpuss. You’re looking fit, man.”

  “Don’t be so sure about the sourpuss,” Telford said.

  After they discussed their projects, and each reported on his aspect of the work, Russ sat against the arm of the leather sofa and crossed his knees. “I’ve decided to take a part of the money Uncle Fentress left me and restore a row of boarded-up, vacant houses in Baltimore. Of course, I’ll have to purchase them. They’re on the edge of a slum neighborhood, but if I do what I’m planning, the area is bound to undergo some gentrification. I’ll make the housing available to homeless families, so I’m not after financial returns. They’ll be known as the Joshua Harrington Victory Homes. The owner abandoned the property, so it belongs to the city. I put in a bid this morning, and I got the impression they’re eager to unload it. Since I’m developing it for homeless families, the cost will depend on the plans I submit.”

  “I take it you’ll be the architect,” Drake said.