ONE NIGHT WITH YOU
Gwynne FORSTER
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Coming Next Month
Acknowledgments
My sincere thanks to my editor, Mavis Allen, who makes it a pleasure to write; to Carole Joy Smith, who has known me longer than most people have and whose friendship and never-ceasing encouragement are among the true treasures of my life; and to my beloved husband, my solid rock every day of our marriage.
Chapter 1
“I’m fed up. I deserve a life, and I’m going to have one,” Kendra Rutherford said aloud minutes after she awoke that cold December morning. So resolute was she that, without waiting to brush her teeth, she wrote a letter to the Chowan County, North Carolina, court clerk.
Dear Sir,
For the last five years, I have gone once monthly to every hamlet in Chowan County to judge the cases awaiting trial. I am tired of it. I am bored with it. I want a change, and if you cannot assign me to a single, permanent jurisdiction, expect my resignation.
Yours sincerely,
Kendra Rutherford, JD, Esq.
She addressed, stamped and sealed an envelope, thinking, I can always return to law practice. Arguing some of these petty disputes is less boring than judging them anyway.
“But being a judge is an esteemed position,” her sister, Claudine, said when they spoke later that day.
“Big deal,” Kendra replied. “It’s been so long since I had a date that I wouldn’t know how to act on one. Nobody invites me to go anywhere. It’s been a year since I was in anybody’s home other than mine, excluding yours and our parents’, of course. In the first place, people who know I’m a judge practically genuflect when they see me, and in the second, I don’t stay any one place long enough to make friends with men or women. Half the time, my family has no idea where I am unless I telephone.”
“Good grief, Kendra, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Papa loves saying, ‘My daughter Kendra, the judge.’ He’ll be unhappy if you quit.”
“He’ll be even more unhappy if I go nuts. Fourteen years after getting my law degree, I don’t have a single thing to show for it. As a judge, I’m at the bottom of the pile. Socially, I’m not even in the pile. There’ll be some changes made. And soon.”
“It isn’t like you to do anything rash, Kendra.”
“That’s the worst thing you could have said to me. Hell, Claudine, I don’t even remember being a teenager. Work hard, study hard, please everybody! That’s been my life since I remember it.”
“Yeah? And it paid off, didn’t it?”
“Depends who’s looking at it. Look, sis, I’d better pack,” Kendra said. “I have to try cases in six towns before I get back home. Last time I was on this circuit, I ran out of stockings and underwear, so I have to concentrate on what I’m doing right now. Talk to you soon.”
Reid Maguire propped his left foot on the bottom rung of a ladder that leaned against Philip Dickerson’s stables and looked eye to eye at the owner of the largest agricultural enterprise in southeastern Maryland.
“It’s time I left Dickerson Estates and got on with my life,” Reid told Philip, the man who had saved his life and, in due course, become closer to him than his own brother. “I’ve saved enough to get started, and I have a job. I’ll be an assistant architect in a noted firm, but after what Brown and Worley and that class-action suit did to my reputation, I’m fortunate to get that.”
“It isn’t going to be easy for you, Reid. You were one of the foremost architects in that part of Maryland, and you had your own firm. You were the one giving the orders. This will be a terrible comedown.”
“I know, Philip. And I’ve reconciled myself to it. But by all logic, I should be dead, and if it hadn’t been for you, I would be. It had to be a blessing that I stopped you on the street in Baltimore that day and asked you for a dollar and a half. I meant to buy a razor with it and finish myself off. One day I was on top financially and professionally, and, thanks to the biggest lie ever propagated in a court, a day later I was flat-broke and even my home and my car were taken from me. Worst of all, with my reputation destroyed, no one would hire me. I slept on the street, and lived off the kindness of strangers.
“If my beautiful wife had sold the jewelry I’d bought her or gotten a job and taken care of us until I could ride out the storm, it would have been different, but no. The lady walked. You didn’t give me the money I asked you for, Philip. Instead, you offered me a job and a second chance. If you ever need me, just call. You will always know where I am.”
“Thanks, friend,” Philip said. “Just stay in close touch. I know you’ll be back on top. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
They embraced each other, and Reid gazed around him at the prosperity that was Dickerson Estates, cultivated land as far as he could see; fruit and nut orchards. He painted in his memory the big white Georgian mansion, stables, barns and the dormitory he had designed that allowed the eleven men who lived and worked on Dickerson Estates to have privacy within the context of communal living—men of different races, languages and religions whose lives Philip Dickerson had turned around when he gave them a second chance.
It had been his home for six years. Years during which he’d come to accept that the woman he’d loved, who’d sworn that she loved him and who bore his name, had divorced him because he could no longer care for her in the manner to which he had made her accustomed. He gripped Philip’s shoulder and, for a moment, stared into the man’s eyes, sky-blue eyes that he’d always seen as gentle and caring.
Without another word, he walked away. As he headed down the lane to the big iron gate that bore the letters DE, Max, Philip’s foreman, drove past him and stopped.
“Hop in, Reid. Where you headed?”
“The bus station. Trains and planes don’t go to Queenstown, North Carolina, where I have a job.”
“Never heard of it. What part of the state?” Max asked as he drove through the gate.
“It’s over on the Albemarle Sound toward the border with Virginia.”
“It won’t be the same here without you, man. We’ll all miss you. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks, Max.”
Two hours later, Reid sat on an interstate bus headed for the next chapter in his life.
Kendra drove through the sleet and slush to get to the post office. No matter how many times she asked the court clerk to send her mail to her home address, the man sent it to the post office box that she used only to prevent certain people from knowing where she lived. To her delight, she found the clerk’s letter and opened it before she closed and locked her box. “Dear Judge Rutherford,” he wrote.
I am happy to inform you that as of January eleventh, you will preside at criminal court in Queenstown. If I may be of any further assistance, please let me know.
Ethan Sparks, County Clerk
Hmmm. So she had only to ask. It was a lesson she did not plan to forget. Inasmuch as she’d had few reasons to spend her salary, apart from rent and a few personal items, she decided to buy a house. She packed her belongings, had them stored, drove to Queenstown and rented a room in a bed and breakfast, then began her search for a house. After a week, she settled on a town house in Albemarle Gates, a new, elegant Queenstown community on a hill overlooking the Sound and within walking distance of Courthouse Square where she would work. The back of the house afforded an un-obstructed view of the So
und. Delighted with her choice, she signed and received the deed, had her furniture and other belongings moved to her new home and settled in at Number 37A Albemarle Heights, Albemarle Gates.
The second morning Kendra was in her new home, exhausted from moving and arranging furniture, the sound of drums, at least one bugle and a trumpet brought her to her second-floor window facing the street. She dropped the pillows she had been changing on the bed and raced down to the front door to see what she thought was some kind of ceremonial parade. Native Americans, some in full tribal regalia, danced along in traditional tribal steps, and as many African-Americans, including the bugler and the trumpeter, danced with them. When they stopped in front of Albemarle Gates, she was delighted, but when a neighbor standing nearby groaned, “Oh, Lord. Here they are again,” she got a feeling of apprehension.
“What’s the problem?” she asked the young woman.
The woman rolled her eyes and threw up her hands as if in exasperation. “Honey, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh, but I do.”
“They’re picketing the builders, Brown and Worley, because they built this community on top of sacred Indian burial grounds, and in this town, whatever riles the Indians upsets the blacks and vice versa. They stick together, and they get things done, but not this time. Nobody is going to tear down Albemarle Gates. Besides, I hear Brown and Worley are fixing to build another one of these communities over near the park. Where you been you don’t know about this?”
“I’ve been in Queenstown exactly ten days.” She turned to introduce herself, but the woman had left. Hmmm. Nice to meet you.
She went back into the house and sat down to con template what she’d just learned. How would the controversy affect her in her role as judge? Obviously, many local people would think that, by living there, she had taken sides with Brown and Worley. She didn’t like it, but she’d signed the deed and taken the mortgage, and she didn’t see a way out.
In the supermarket the next day, Kendra received a sample of small-town hospitality when she put her groceries on the check-out counter. “How are you today?” she asked the clerk. “Pretty cold out, isn’t it?”
“Push your stuff forward. The belt’s not working.”
She scrutinized the woman, making certain that she was a sister. “Do you live here in Queenstown?” Kendra asked her.
The woman stopped work and gazed at her. “I live here. My mother and father live here, and so did my grandparents and great-grandparents. Anything else you need to know?”
Taken aback and angered at the woman’s insulting tone, Kendra said, “Pardon me. I didn’t expect a nasty response to my graciousness. I don’t care where you live.” She paid for the groceries and drove home. In front of her house, she took the bags of groceries out of the trunk of her car, closed the lid and lost her footing, slipping on the ice. Her packages fell to the ice, spilling the contents, and she struggled unsuccessfully to get enough traction to heave herself to her feet. Not certain whether to laugh or cry at the spectacle she suspected she was, she relaxed and lay there.
To her amazement and eternal thanks, two large hands gripped her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. A smile began to spread over her face as she looked up at her rescuer, but it ended around her lips, as she practically froze. She had never seen such eyes, mesmerizing grayish-brown eyes that seemed ready to sleep beneath their long curly lashes. Eyes that didn’t seem compatible with the man’s strong masculine presence. She stared at him. Poleaxed. Stupefied and unable to pull herself out of it.
“Are you all right now?” he asked her, his voice deep and lilting.
She thought she nodded. He bent down to pick up an orange and was suddenly chasing oranges and lemons across the ice, music pouring out of him as he did so, in what she figured was a laugh. As he managed to retrieve the fruit, he stashed it in the pockets of his thick leather jacket. He seemed to be having the time of his life as he chased and recovered the fruit. He got a head of cabbage, looked at it, shrugged and handed it to her. She put it in the grocery bag. He played the game until the grocery bags were almost full. Then he took the fruit from his pockets and put it in the bags.
“Where do you live?” he asked her. “I’d better carry this for you, because I’m not sure I’m up to sliding around to pick this stuff up again.”
“I don’t know how to thank you. I’d probably still be trying to get up.”
“It was my pleasure. Best exercise I’ve had in a while.”
She opened her front door, and he put the bags on the floor in the foyer beside the door. “I’m Kendra Rutherford, and I just moved here.”
“I’m Reid Maguire, and I live in that apartment building across the street from here. Nice to meet you.” He turned and left, and she realized that he had shown absolutely no interest in developing a friendship with her. What a letdown!
Reid Maguire didn’t talk much, and he never spoke if silence would suffice. He didn’t know Kendra Rutherford, and his reaction to her was none of her business. If he’d learned anything, it was the virtue of feeding a good-looking, sexy woman with a long-handled spoon, as it were, so as to keep as much distance as possible between him and her. Kendra Rutherford might not be an aggressive man-eater, but her reaction to him was the same as his to her, and that spelled trouble.
There might not be another woman on earth like Myrna, his ex-wife, but he didn’t intend to start testing that theory. He’d had it with women, and he didn’t want one cluttering up his life pretending that she loved him, when she only loved what he could give her. At the moment when he had needed his wife most, she had walked out on him.
Tomorrow, he would begin work as an assistant with the architectural firm Marks and Connerly, Architects, Ltd. He didn’t intend to spread information about his former status. If his new colleagues guessed or knew who he was, so be it; if not, he didn’t care. He was back in his chosen field, and he meant to make the most of it.
But he was not to have the benefit of anonymity. “I’ve been doing some research on you, Reid,” Jack Connerly, the senior partner, told him when they met, “and I think we hit the jackpot when we hired you. We’ve contracted to design an airport terminal in Caution Point, about thirty miles from here. Would you like the job?”
“I’m stunned. How many enemies in the firm will this get me?”
“Who knows? Do you want it?”
“Absolutely. I’d like to see the site, but I don’t have a car.”
“You can take a company car. Make a list of what you need to work with and give it to the supply clerk. Your expenses are covered up to three fifty per day, excluding transportation, and you can’t put alcohol on your tab.”
“Thanks. I’ll give you two or three sketches.”
“Great. It’s good to have you with us. Your office is two doors down on the right.”
Reid walked down to the end of the hall and back. There were sixteen offices, eight on each side of the corridor, and only one office separated his from that of the senior partner. So far, so good. They weren’t paying him what he was worth, but when he finished the design of that airport terminal, they would.
In the drugstore about three blocks from his apartment, where he stopped in the hope of finding a felt-tipped pen, he bumped into Kendra, almost knocking her down.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m not usually this clumsy.”
“It was my fault. I hope I didn’t hurt you.” He allowed himself a smile, and headed for the aisle in which he’d previously found unlined tablets large enough for drawing, though he would have preferred bigger ones. Seeing no pens of any kind, he walked around until he’d satisfied himself that he wouldn’t find them in that store, and that he’d have to wait till the supply clerk at Marks and Connerly filled his order. As he started for the door, he noticed Kendra struggling with a large container of liquid soap and a few other items. After counseling himself to pretend he didn’t see her, because he didn’t want any involvement with her, he walked over to her.
“It is. Thank you.”
He lifted the container of liquid soap. “Did you think you could carry this?”
“I was hoping that I could.”
“Uh-huh. Come on.”
Kendra’s eyebrows shot up. The man’s attitude was as masculine as his looks and aura. His “come on” was nothing short of a command. She walked with him to the car, not in obedience but in gratitude for not having to carry that heavy load.
“You’re very kind to me, Mr. Maguire.”
“It’s the way I was raised. I’ll ride home with you.”
He made no effort to be ingratiating, she saw, and she appreciated that. It had begun to dawn on her that Reid Maguire knew who he was and didn’t have a need to curry favor or to shine up to anyone. Well, neither did she.
She parked in front of her house, opened the trunk of her car and, unwilling to wait for him to do it, walked around to remove her purchases. When she got to the trunk, Reid Maguire stood beside it with both hands on his hips. She glanced up at him and felt as if she would shrink beneath the assault of his withering stare.
“If you’ll go ahead and open your door, Ms. Ruther ford, I’ll bring these things in for you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Maguire.” She did as he suggested, feeling as if she’d had a parental tongue lashing. She was not used to his kind of man. Besides, she didn’t expect men to do things for her just because she was a woman.
“Where do you keep this?” he asked, referring to the big container of liquid soap.
“In the laundry room, but that’s down in the basement.”
“Ms. Rutherford—”
She held up her hands, palms out. “All right. All right. On that shelf to your left, please.”
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