He worked until after two o’clock in the morning, for he knew that, still heavy with desire and starved for her, he would find it useless to try sleeping. At nine that morning, he walked into Dean Barker’s Queenstown office—Barker’s law firm was located in Elizabeth City—handed the man a folder containing copies of all the information he had relative to his case against Brown and Worley, and took a seat.
“I want you to take the case.”
“Since we spoke, I’ve done some research on this,” Dean said, “and I think you have a better than good chance to win. Since they’re registered here, we can get a trial in Queenstown. I would advise you to make yourself known here, to the extent that you can, build a good reputation. The jury will be chosen from people around here. I’m going to try and bring this to trial before the end of summer.”
“I’m thinking of joining the local theater group. In Baltimore before all this happened, I had an a cappella boys’ choir of about twenty voices, but I don’t have any place here for them to practice.”
“If you join the theater group, I’m sure they’ll give you space for that. I’ll phone Mike Reinar if you’d like. He’s a friend of many years.”
“Thanks, and I’ll phone him later this afternoon.” Dean handed him a contract, which he read twice and signed.
“I’ll call you Monday week,” Dean said, “and let you know where we stand. Thanks for your confidence.”
After shaking hands with Dean Barker, Reid got into the company car and headed for Caution Point. He liked the office at the airport, for he could sit at his desk and look at the space where his building would stand. He worked until three o’clock, packed his briefcase and phoned Mike Reinar.
“I’m Reid Maguire, Mr. Reinar, and I’m interested in joining your theater group.”
“I was expecting to hear from you. I’ve got something I’d like you to try. Would you mind reading for me? Dean told me you want to start a boys’ chorus. We have plenty of space, a piano and an organ. You’re welcome to use our facilities. What time can you be here today?”
“I’m in Caution Point. Say, about five o’clock? That’ll give me time to change out of this business suit.”
“Right. We’re a jeans and Reeboks club. I’ll look forward to meeting you.”
“Tell me something about the story line,” Reid said to Mike Reinar when they met.
Mike dropped himself on the floor and positioned himself lotus-fashion. “It’s about a sixteen-year-old girl and her parents’ problems in raising her. She’s daddy’s little girl, but mama wants to discipline her and ward off the problems she sees down the road. You’re the permissive father.”
Reid leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles. “I can do that.” He read for the part and got it.
“Our next rehearsal will take place Monday week. Come with me. You can practice your boys’ chorus in here. We have an armed guard downstairs, if you ever have a problem. Here’s a master key. It opens the building and any room except a private office. What day will you want to practice?”
“I’ve found Saturday morning at ten to be best. I’ll start rounding up boys. Thanks for your help.” He went home, looked through the phone book until he found the local radio station, got a disc jockey on the phone and told him what he wanted. The following Saturday morning, sixteen boys auditioned, and all but three suited his purpose. Before the hour ended, he had taught the thirteen boys to sing the refrain of “Mariah” in four-part harmony and got a beautiful sound from them. He called the disc jockey, thanked him and asked him to repeat the ad.
A few minutes before noon, he arrived in Caution Point. He hoped to buy a car within a couple of months; in the meantime, he would rent one when he needed it. He drove to Marcus Hickson’s house at the end of Ocean Avenue, parked and got out. He’d bought a box of chocolates for Marcus’s nine-year-old daughter and an assortment of rubber animals for his four-year-old and two-year-old sons.
“Reid, this is my wife,” Marcus said with so much pride that Reid had a moment of jealousy. “Amanda, Reid Maguire is a schoolmate and good friend.”
“I’m so happy to meet you, Reid, and I’m glad you’ll be working with Marcus.” Her left arm went around the girl who walked up to them. “Mr. Maguire, this is our daughter, Amy,” she said, and he noticed that Amy’s arm tightened around her stepmother.
“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Maguire,” she said with a slight curtsey.
“And I’m glad to meet you, Amy,” he said.
“I have two little brothers,” she said. “Do you want to see them?”
“Yes, I do.”
By the end of the day, he decided that life would be complete if he had children like these, and especially if he had a beautiful and intelligent daughter like Amy. He said as much to Amanda.
“Happiness is something that you have to seek, and when you find it your work has just begun. Concentrate on keeping everyone around you happy, and their joy will bring happiness to you.”
“I’m divorced, Amanda.”
“That’s because you were not careful. I know Marcus and I are blessed, because we began in a marriage of convenience, but I did everything I could to make him happy and to give Amy a mother’s love. She’s so dear to me. Don’t look at the outside alone, Reid. The inside is so much more important. Do you have a significant other?”
He got a handful of beans and began helping her string them. “Yes, and I’m…I think I’m falling in love…no.” She stopped stringing beans and looked at him. “I’m beginning to love her, or I do already, but I’m not sure.”
“So the two of you are not intimate.”
“Not yet, but we will be.” He explained why they had agreed to see less of each other for a while.
“That’s tough,” Amanda said, “but she’s a wise woman. If you lose because of her, you will always resent her, and that’s no basis for a marriage or any other kind of relationship.”
“I know she’s right, but it’s driving me up the wall.”
“Does she love you?”
“Yes. She does.”
“You sound as if you’re awed.”
“I am. I no longer see myself as the powerhouse I used to be, and I’m no longer so arrogant that I think a woman like Kendra Rutherford, intelligent, accomplished, well-mannered and beautiful to boot, is no more than what I deserve. I had years to learn how to be humble.”
Marc, the four-year-old boy, ran into the kitchen. “Mummy, where is Daddy? I think he and Todd are hiding from me.”
“Look in the music room. Daddy went there to get something that he wants to show Mr. Maguire.”
The boy ran off, and she said, “Biologically, Amy is Marcus’s child, Marc is mine, and Todd is ours, but those distinctions don’t exist in our hearts. They are our three children.”
They finished stringing the beans. “You’re a remarkable person, Amanda. Marcus is lucky, and he knows it.”
She looked up at him. “We love each other, Reid. Each comes first with the other, and our children come before both of us. That’s what makes it tick.”
“I’m glad we talked, Amanda. You’ve given me added confidence in the route I seem destined to take.”
Chapter 4
Kendra left work that Monday afternoon, rushed home, changed into jeans, a shirt and loafers and drove to the theater group. She rehearsed the first scene with her stage daughter, and checked the lines of her first scene with the man who would play opposite her as the father.
“What? What’s this?” she gasped. “Since when did you…I mean…gosh, this is a surprise.”
“It’s just as big a surprise for me,” Reid said, “but I’m willing to go on with it, if you are.”
“Of course,” she said, frowning. “It’s odd that we both decided to do this. I was keeping myself busy so I wouldn’t think about…” She thought it prudent not to finish that sentence.
“My lawyer thought I should get active in the community, and Mike is an old friend of his. You’r
e not going to show up looking like a boy Saturday morning, are you?”
She stared at him. Perplexed. “Like a boy?”
“I’ll explain that later. Let’s try this scene. I’m Don, and you’re Lissa. Right?” She nodded.
“Why can’t Tonya have the jeans?” Don asked. “They’re just jeans, for heaven’s sake.”
Lissa rose from the chair, walked over to Don and shook her finger at him. “That’s what you said last Saturday when she wanted new ice skates because her friend got new ones. ‘It’s just a pair of skates,’ you said, although she already has three practically brand-new pairs.”
“Look, honey, don’t blow a gasket now. She wants a little BMW for her birthday, and I told her she could have it.”
“Are you crazy? I can’t stop you from giving it to her, but she’ll get the keys to it over my dead body. Take the money and get her a reading coach. She’s sixteen, and can barely read ‘Little Bo Peep.’ All she wants to do is watch TV and talk to boys on the phone that you put in her room. Damn school. She couldn’t care less about it.”
He stood and raised both hands, palms out. “Okay. This is getting too hot. We’ll solve it later. You mad at me?” He leaned down to turn off the lamp on the table beside the chair in which he’d been sitting, and she turned aside at the sight of his tight jeans hugging his perfectly sculptured behind. Her fingers itched to stroke him.
“No. I’m troubled,” she read.
“If you’re not angry, kiss me.” He walked over to her and stroked her back.
Caressing her was not in the directions that accompanied the script. “I don’t—” She hated that her voice trembled.
“Yes, you do,” he said in a low, sultry voice. Startled, she forgot that they were playing a role and backed away from him, and as if he, too, forgot, he pulled her into his arms, bent his head and flicked his tongue across the seam of her lips. She opened to him and took him in, but her soft moan brought them back to reality and to the present.
He stepped away from her, but quickly she closed the space between them, furious and embarrassed, and punched his chest with her fist. “I’ll remember that.”
“Fantastic!” Mike shouted. “We’ve got a hit. The two of you are born actors. How did I get so lucky?”
“Would you believe it?” Reid said to Kendra later as she drove them down Albemarle Heights to her home. “When we kissed, he actually thought we were acting.”
“Of course that’s what he thought. As far as he knew, I’d never seen you until you walked into that theater. What do you suppose an audience would think if you did that to me in their presence?”
He shrugged, but she knew he had deep concern for what happened between them in that scene. “I expect I’d get the reputation for being bold as hell,” he said. “The play is so much like real life that it’s hard to avoid becoming Don.”
“You want to become the character. That’s the whole point of acting. I sure hope the script doesn’t call for you to sock me.”
“Not to worry, sweetheart,” he said as they entered her house. “I’d revise that script in a hurry. Wait here, while I look around.” He ran up the stairs, then down the basement steps, went into the kitchen and the down stairs bathroom. “You’re safe. Give me a kiss.”
“You had a kiss.”
“That was a mere tease. By the way, I’ve started a boys’ a cappella chorus. That’s what I was referring to when I said I hoped you wouldn’t show up there Saturday morning looking like a boy.”
He held out his arms. “Come here, baby. I’ve been so lonely for you. You haven’t even told me that you missed me while you were down in New Bern.”
“I’m not supposed to tell you that. We’re not seeing each other. Don’t you remember?”
He pretended to sulk, and it was all she could do not to run to him. “I got a taste of you, and I…Kendra, don’t you need me?”
She wouldn’t have thought she could move that fast, but in less than a second she was in his arms, and his hands were stroking and caressing her. “Kiss me. Love me. I need you,” she whispered.
She parted her lips for his kiss, and he grabbed her hips and lifted her to fit him. She felt him then, with his tongue dancing in and out of her mouth and his penis at the apex of her thighs. Jolts of electricity whistled through her body, and she sucked vigorously on his tongue trying to get more of him as he sent the fire of desire spiraling from her head to her toes. She needed all of him.
“Honey, kiss me. Kiss me,” she begged. “Oh, Reid.”
“Baby, I am kissing you.”
She grabbed his right hand and put it on her breast, and it was all the invitation he needed. His hand went into her blouse and freed her right breast. He bent his head and sucked her nipple into his warm moist mouth. She let out a keening cry as he began to suckle her, tugging on her nipple, feasting as if he were hungry for it. Reckless now, she clutched his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his hips. She had her back to the wall, and he leaned into her. His erection bulged against her, and he stopped, but she pressed his hips.
“Easy, baby. You don’t want our first time to happen right here.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said when she could collect her thoughts. “It can’t happen right now, anyway. Nature must be orchestrating this relationship.”
He picked her up, carried her into the living room and sat in an oversized chair with her in his lap. “No apology or explanation is necessary. You and I are in this together, and we start the fires together. I realize it happened in the heat of passion, but you told me to love you. Do you want me to love you? Your answer is important to me.”
With her head in the niche between his neck and his shoulder, she put an arm around his shoulder and the other one across his chest. It never paid to lie. “Yes.”
“I already love you,” he said. “I’ve never been more certain of anything, and I want you to love me. If you’ll let me, I’ll teach you to love me.”
She raised her head and kissed his lips. “You won’t have much work to do.”
“Will you go with me to Caution Point Saturday after rehearsal? I want you to meet my friends there.”
“Yes, I’d love to meet your friends. Does Marcus like your design for his building?”
“He’s already approved it, and I’m working on the plans. I’ll rent a car, because I don’t want to drive yours. Scratch that. We are not going to drive your car to Caution Point.”
Suddenly, she laughed. She couldn’t help it. Didn’t he know that practically everything he said sounded like a command, that he didn’t need to be extra-forceful? She raised her hand in a mock salute. “Yes, sir. I got the message, and I’ll be ready when you get here Saturday. What will you have on?”
“Since I’m taking you there for the first time, I’ll wear a business suit. I’d better leave while the temperature in here is still at a moderate level. I’ll call you.”
“Okay. By the way, did you hire Barker?”
“I did, and he’s already busy.” He stood, set her on her feet and walked with her to the door. “Sleep well.” He left.
There is a man who knows his limit, she thought, and wondered what Saturday would be like. With his friends, would he be the Reid she knew or the one he used to be?
Reid locked the front door of his apartment and leaned against it. Exhausted. Maybe he’d better start going to church. His feelings for Kendra were beginning to get the better of him, to control him. During that rehearsal, he’d bent over to turn off the light, and when he looked up, the expression on her face nearly caused him to have an erection. He’d never seen such blatant lust on a woman’s face. When she spoke, her voice trembled, and he knew she wasn’t acting. He’d wanted her at a gut-searing level. He took a deep breath. He’d better wear a jockstrap when he was acting with her in that play, because there was no telling what kind of scene they’d create. He only hoped they’d stay close to reality and not do anything that would reflect adversely on her as a j
udge.
He telephoned her. “I have an idea,” he said when she answered. “Maybe we can see each other outside the Queenstown area. We can meet some place on Saturday afternoon and come back Sunday night. Kendra, I just can’t go on not seeing you.”
“We’ll be together with your friends in Caution Point Saturday afternoon, and we’ll see each other at rehearsals Thursday nights. Let’s not move beyond that, Reid. I am not going to allow myself to forget what’s at stake.”
“I’m not forgetting that.”
“No? If you lose that case and can trace the reason to me, that will be the end of our relationship. Even if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t risk causing you to lose something that is so important to you. So let’s try to be patient.”
“All right, baby, but I’m so damn frustrated. Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“What? What did you say?”
“Reid, honey, this is not the time for this discussion, with me here and you there, and you’re not coming back over here tonight.”
He stared at the telephone. “No, I don’t think I should. See you Saturday morning.”
If he went across Albemarle Heights, unless she called the police, he wouldn’t leave there until he buried himself deep inside her.
On Saturday morning, he drove the rental car to the theater group quarters and parked. Once he would have rented a big and impressive Lincoln or Cadillac, but he no longer felt the need for such trappings. “I don’t worry about what people think,” he said to himself, “and that is a relief.”
Kendra stepped out of her door and raced down the walk before he could get out of the car. He walked around it, opened the door for her, hooked her belt and closed the passenger door. When he’d seated himself, and moved away from the curb, he said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I trust you, and I trust me, but I don’t trust us together.” She took a thermos from a bag, opened it and poured coffee in the top. “Here. Drink this. If I didn’t trust you, would I bring you coffee?”
One Night With You Page 7