He squeezed her arms, “And queen of what you don’t see, though you could, if you’d turn around.”
Needing greater intimacy with him, she leaned back in his arms and let him take her weight, and it didn’t escape her that she’d become more comfortable in their relationship. She didn’t dare turn and feel herself locked in his arms, for she knew she wouldn’t let him release her until she belonged to him. Alone with him, away from the world, the real world, she almost believed they could have a future.
They spoke of impersonal things—her thesis, problems he encountered in his efforts to start breeding thoroughbreds, their college days, Maryland politics, what they feared most, his brother’s untimely death—but nothing of their relationship. She learned that he had a passion for music, and he discovered that, as an undergraduate, she’d been the women’s fencing champion. He docked and together they secured the cruiser, after which two attendants covered it with tarpaulin to preserve it through the winter.
On the pier, he buttoned her storm coat and tied her scarf around her neck. “Let’s get something to eat, I’m hungry.”
She locked arms with him, the first time she could remember doing that. “Can we get into a decent restaurant dressed as we are?”
His shrug expressed his lack of concern for that problem. “A fat tip buys more than the meal, honey. If you want to see perfect genuflection, press a few big bills in the hand of a maître d’.”
They feasted on mussels in wine sauce, Maryland-style crab cakes, hush puppies and asparagus, but Jordan rejected the chef’s special. “I get the best apple tarts in the world at home three or four times a week,” he told the waiter, “and I don’t tempt my taste buds with any others.”
A slow wink sent her heart into a tailspin, and she had a mind to tell him he’d done it deliberately to drag her further into his orbit. “Better have some,” she teased. “You may not get any more any time soon.”
The waiter left to get their raspberry sorbet, and Jordan leaned forward. “What did you mean by that remark? I take my ration of apple tarts seriously.”
She let her finger trace his jaw, and as she did so, her glance caught the two men who sat at a table opposite them, two handsome African-American men clothed in their badges of success.
“Sometimes I get an urge to broaden my expertise and develop another specialty. Fudge-covered brownies, or maybe Napoleons.”
“If it’s working, why change? I’m so used to your apple tarts now, that I think I’d be lost wi—” His gaze followed hers. “Would you be happier if I looked like those guys?”
Stunned at the audacity of the question, she asked him, “Wouldn’t your life be simpler if I didn’t look like them?”
One of the men signed the check, and they rose to leave, but the younger of the two paused briefly but deliberately and let her see his displeasure. She refused to let him know he’d rattled her and tossed her head, shrugged and focused her attention on Jordan.
Jordan left his seat opposite her, slid into the booth beside her and put his right arm around her shoulder, drawing her close to him. “I don’t ever want to have to tell you this again. What matters most to me is not the color of your skin, the texture of your hair, your flawless complexion or even what happens to me when you fix your big brown eyes on me. All of that made me notice you. But what matters to me is what hurts you, what makes you laugh, cry, fight for your rights. What matters to me is your goal and what I can do to help you reach it, what you need and how you need it, what makes you want to dance and shout for joy. Whether you love me and the way you love me. I don’t care about the frills, the fashion, the trappings of success. Been there and done that, and it left me with a hole inside. On my boat this afternoon, we talked for four hours about things…some of which I’ve never discussed with anyone, but talking about them with you seemed so natural, so enjoyable. Can’t you accept that I want you for yourself?”
She leaned back so as to look him fully in the face. “You said a lot just now, Jordan. I remember asking you not to toy with me. What I meant was, try not to lead me further than you’ve already gone. I mean—”
“I know what you mean, and believe me, I haven’t brought you as far as I am. I’m not sure you’re able to handle it yet.”
She let her eyebrows rise slowly. “I can handle any ball you pitch.”
He imitated her gesture. “I wish I thought it.” Visions of her locked in his arms, meeting him thrust for thrust, lodged in his mind. He narrowed his eyes. “Be careful how you boast, sweetheart, because you haven’t seen my fastball.”
She smiled at him in a deliberately patronizing way. “Take your own advice, mister. Your fast ball can let you down.” She watched the messages that darted across his face and wondered if he thought she’d stepped out of line. He gazed at her for a while before a grin curled around his bottom lip. As though against his will, he began to laugh. When he finally brought his laughter under control, he put his right index finger against her lips and told her, “If you had any notion of getting away from me, forget it. That last crack you made was as good as an invitation, and I promise you I’ll leave you with no doubts as to the reliability of my pitching strengths.”
His words found their target, and her mind’s eye teased her with pictures of him banishing her fears and misgivings and driving away her demons with his masterful possession of her body. He must have read her thoughts, for he squeezed her to him and dared to let her see in his fiery gaze his carnal craving for her.
“I’m in your heart, and I think I’m getting into your head. If you’ll quit imagining problems, I’ll create a magical world for you. For us. Trust me, and I’ll strip away every layer of your emotional baggage, rid you of it. It’s cluttering up your life. It’s like a lot of old, worn-out clothes littering your closet and turning it into a refuse bin. Give me a chance?”
“I already promised, didn’t I?”
He shook his head, as though bemused. “Yes, you did. And I’m telling you what you need to do in order to keep that promise.”
She’d always kept her own counsel, never tried to run another person’s mile, and she wouldn’t start that now. “It’s all clear to you. This is your world, and even if you saw some roadblocks, you know you’d easily hurdle them, because that’s been your life. Mine has taken a different course. So slow down until I catch up with you. Okay?”
His half-closed eyes and sheepish grin sent darts of excitement rollicking through her, but she didn’t backtrack. “Okay?” she repeated. He nodded. “Some people spend a lifetime searching for that person, that one individual who completes them and to whom they can entrust their life. Deny it all you please, but you and I have it within our grasp. I know it, and you know it, too.” He poked his right jaw with his tongue, gazed up at the chandeliers that blinked from the ceiling and finally looked into her eyes. “I’ll be as patient as I can, but don’t expect perfection.”
Chapter Nine
The following Sunday morning, Cal took Julia and Clifford to Jordan’s cabin on the Chesapeake Bay for what Cal considered the last fishing weekend of the year. Jordan waved them off, saddled Casey Jones and headed to the far reaches of his property to inspect fences. He tethered the stallion and jumped across a wide ditch as he always did to avoid a long trip around the fallow area. But when he attempted to avoid stepping into a deep hole on the banks of the ditch, he missed his footing and landed on a roll of barbed wire that lay partially hidden in the trench, and which shouldn’t have been there.
He groaned as his 205-pound weight pressed the sharp wires through his leather jacket. When he extricated himself, pain plowed through his shoulders. He whistled for Casey Jones, mounted the horse with difficulty and headed home.
* * *
The footsteps that plodded slowly up the stairs didn’t sound as if they belonged to anyone who lived there. Cold sweat poured from Leslie. Quickly she told Berle goodbye, slammed down the telephone receiver, raced to the hall and let herself breathe. But her relief
was shortlived when she took in Jordan’s demeanor.
“Jordan, it’s you. What happened? What’s the matter?” He seemed to drag the words out of himself as he told her. “I’ve got to give myself a tetanus shot.”
“Where will you get it?”
“We keep a supply. In an operation like the Estates, we have to.”
She followed him into his room and to her surprise, he let her help him out of his jacket and shirt. She thought her heart would stop beating when she saw the punctures on his shoulders.
“Cal keeps some ointment in that cabinet on the back porch. Would you get it, please?”
She didn’t want to see him give himself that needle and was glad for a reason to get out of his room. When she returned with the salve, he lay across the bed on his side, breathing hard.
“Turn over.”
He let her know that he planned to be uncooperative. “What for?”
“I want to take care of those wounds, so please—”
“I already did that. I gave myself that lousy shot. Just put that stuff over there.” He inclined his head toward his night table.
She looked at his long broad back, smooth but for the punctures, his trim hips advertised to perfection in his tight jeans, and was grateful that she’d never learned how to whistle. “These places on your back have to heal,” she told him. “So come on. Lean over further.”
“That stuff stings.”
“Will you lean over?” she asked in the tone of one exasperated.
He gazed at her. “You don’t like my face?”
“Fishing for compliments?” she asked, teasing him. “With your mug, you should be glad to turn over.”
She had intended her joke to distract him from the pain and to ease the rising tension, but he wasn’t amused. It hadn’t occurred to her that he could be uncertain about his looks.
She blurted out, “Don’t you know what you look like, for Pete’s sake? It’s a wonder half the women in Washington County aren’t camped out there at the gate.” Horrified at her careless comment, she pushed his shoulder.
“Lean over, Jordan. If I don’t tend these cuts, they may become infected. If it stings, it’ll only last a minute.”
Mom Haynes always said men couldn’t stand pain and that if they’d been responsible for bearing the babies, there wouldn’t have been two infants born after Eve died. She attempted to push him over, but he must have anticipated her move, for he fell over on his back, reached up and pulled her to him. She struggled to keep her balance, but lost it and landed in his arms, her legs entwined with his like freshly plaited hair and her breasts pressing his chest. A mistake! She gasped at the fire, the undisguised hunger and need shimmering in his hypnotic green eyes, and in the space of one second, she knew her answering passion leaped into her own eyes, telegraphing to him her desire.
She supposed he thought he’d made a mistake when he didn’t disguise what he felt, because he pasted a cool, impersonal expression on his face. “I didn’t know you like the way I look. You’ve never told me how you feel about me.”
She didn’t want that or any other small talk. She wanted his lips on hers, his velvet tongue in her mouth. With shocking clarity, she knew that she wanted from him what she had never before wanted from any man. Surprising him with her strength, she loosened her left wrist from his grip, held his head and poured all she felt into her lips as she kissed him. Wantonly. She knew her uncharacteristic aggressiveness startled him, but she didn’t care. Not about that or anything but what she felt.
An unfamiliar peace—like the sensation of a gentle spring breeze—stole over her when he broke the kiss and gently cradled her head to his shoulder. She raised her head, and when she gazed into his eyes, she recognized the expression of triumph on his face. In any language, it translated into sweetheart, your days are numbered.
But he didn’t voice it. What he said was, “Get up, woman, and do whatever it was that you were going to do to my back.”
He turned over with care, his discomfort obvious, and she soothed the salve over his raw cuts, hurting for him as she did so.
She patted his hand. “I’ll be in my room. Yell if you need anything.
“You could read me something. I don’t feel like staying up here by myself.”
She walked over to him. “You must have been a grand rascal when you were Clifford’s age.”
“I’m still a grand rascal.”
Yes, she acknowledged, he was. And he had it all. Everything. She wanted to stay with him, but she didn’t. She knew him well enough to appreciate that, strong though he was, his pain could lessen his self-control and they’d both be victims.
“’Scuse me,” she said, and rushed across the hall to her room to answer the telephone. “Hello. Hello. Hello!” Silence. Berle wouldn’t play that kind of trick on her. Who on earth…? Oh, Lord. He’d gotten her phone number. She slammed down the receiver and sat down, defeated. Damn him. Damn Faron Walker. He’d turned her life around. Every time she got her footing, he pulled the rug from under her as it were, and she had to pull up stakes and start all over again. But not this time. This time he wouldn’t win. She refused to be his victim.
* * *
Thanksgiving in the Saber household was a day that none present would ever forget. Jordan observed the rapture, the pure exhilaration that glowed in Leslie and Clifford throughout the day, and his ability to fill the lives of those he loved with pleasure awed and humbled him. Never had he been more aware of his good fortune in having had Julia’s love and nurturing when he was a boy. Leslie and Clifford hadn’t been as lucky as he, though Leslie had at least known love. Their excitement and childish merriment over the feast thrilled him. Julia and Cal hovered over them, caught up in the joy of sharing love and in the thrill of making the occasion a special one for all of them.
He tried to make it a memorable day for all of his workers as well, setting makeshift tables in his living and dining rooms so that they, too, could have a home-style thanksgiving. Jack had prepared two twenty pound turkeys, while Leslie and Julia cooked the remainder of the meal. One of the hands roasted fresh chestnuts, Rocket brought an armful of fresh holly, and Sanchez candied a bucket of Red Delicious apples. Zeke brought along his guitar, and his memorable jazz renditions raised questions in the mind of every person present, for none could doubt that he had known fame, if not fortune. At Clifford’s urging, Jordan played “Bring in the Clowns” on his guitar, and then joined Zeke in a stunning jazz interpretation of “Lover Come Back to Me.”
Clifford startled them all when he said, “If I get to be president, we’ll have Thanksgiving every day. It’s awesome.”
Gradually, the men left, expressing their thanks, though they knew none was needed. When the last had departed, Jordan went into the living room and took a seat in the overstuffed leather chair beside the crackling fire. He should have felt good, but contentment eluded him, and he knew why. He needed to be able to put his arms around Leslie, take her up to his room, his bed, and claim her for his own with the full knowledge of anybody who cared to know it, and he needed the legal right to do it. That and that alone would complete his day. He was hanging out there, way out, and he might be out there by himself. Leslie’s goal came first with her. He knew it. And she was right then stirring around in his kitchen as contented as a cat with her first kittens. If she’d been agitated because the two of them hadn’t so much as touched fingers all day, she’d given no evidence of it. She seemed to be sexually unaware of him unless he touched her. He allowed himself a satisfied male grin. But when he touched her, she practically exploded. No doubt of that. But their day was coming, and soon. Clifford barged into the room, and he put his arm around his nephew’s shoulder when the boy leaned against his knee.
Jordan eased back in the big overstuffed chair, just as the telephone ring shattered the peaceful silence. He reached for it, disgruntled at the interruption.
“Saber.” Getting no response, his antenna went up, and he sat forward, immediately
alert.
“What do you want?” He spoke roughly and impatiently.
“Mr. Saber, Turner Baker told me to get in touch with you. I’d like to talk with you, today, if possible.”
“What about?” A heavy curtain of wariness settled over him. Still, he reasoned, it wasn’t like Turner to let him walk into a trap. They weren’t bosom buddies, but they got along and they respected each other. And Turner was honorable. He waited.
“Leslie Collins, Mr. Saber. It’s about her.”
His heart took off in a wild beat, pounding with the rhythm of a back bush African drummer. “Do you know where I live?” He already knew the answer.
“Yes. It’ll take me about thirty minutes to get there.”
“I’ll be here.”
Then he remembered to ask the man’s name, but he heard a dial tone. “Damn!”
He found Cal, spoke briefly to him, sent Clifford to keep Leslie occupied and tried to prepare himself for the long-awaited confrontation. If he only knew what he was preparing for! He went into the den, closed the door and checked the top right-hand drawer of his desk for the revolver that was always there. He left the drawer unlocked and sat down. He needed to concentrate. Something didn’t tally, and he had thirty minutes in which to figure it out. Still at a loss after ten minutes, and realizing that the answer was just barely beyond his grasp, he flipped on the radio, hoping to distract himself momentarily. One of the country singers wailed about his longing to see a girl’s face and to hear her voice.
Jordan stood, almost knocking over his chair as he did so. That voice! It wasn’t the voice of the man he’d confronted at his garage. He had never heard that voice before. A refined voice, one that belonged to a genteel man. So there were indeed two of them. Now, what? Well, he’d know at least part of it shortly.
* * *
Jordan opened the front door to find an ordinarily dressed, ordinary-looking African-American man about sixty years old. Not affluent. Not shabby. Just ordinary.
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