Sealed With a Kiss

by Gwynne Forster

  She grabbed the straw he’d given her. “He’s a genius at it.” More evasion, he knew, but he hadn’t expected anything different. Not yet. Just give me time, he promised himself, and I’ll get behind all of it. Didn’t she remember that he was a journalist, a good one, and that collecting facts was his business? All he needed were a few sharp clues, and she had already unwittingly given him several. He’d get it; she could be sure of that.

  Rock Creek Park was deserted. It was eerily beautiful, Naomi thought, gazing into the distance. The unusually early snow had preceded a blast of cold that left icicles hanging from branches, and snow-crusted evergreens and pines lent color to the white forest. They gamboled in the snow, pulling the sleds as the boys giggled and screamed with pleasure, throwing snowballs and building snow figures. She watched Rufus’s handsome face crease in a slow grin when he noticed one of hers.

  “Pretty clever,” he told her in a voice laced with humor. “I’m not sure I’ve seen a snow girl before. How’d you get that skirt on her?”

  She rubbed her nose and fought the sniffles. “With my nail file. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Try it sometime.”

  He sauntered over to her and rubbed snow on her forehead. “You can’t stand peace, can you? It just kills you to be surrounded with so much contentment, doesn’t it?” The warm, alluring eyes that could so easily seduce her sparkled with mischief. “I’m glad you’re the only female chauvinist I know. Personally, I mean. And sometimes I wonder how the devil I let that happen.” He got out of the way quickly as if anticipating the snowball that he knew would be heading his way. She hadn’t enjoyed a genuine snow fight in years; the boys loved it, too, she noticed.

  Rufus turned to his boys. “Why aren’t you defending me? You always take sides with me against your aunt Jewel.”

  “We have to help Noomie,” Preston answered, as Sheldon nodded in agreement.

  Rufus regarding his offending offspring, puzzled by their deep affection for Naomi, as he began to pack them into his car with the intention of driving Naomi home. But Preston had other ideas.

  “Noomie, we have a snowman in our back garden; you wanna see it?”

  “Yes,” Sheldon urged, “and our daddy says we’re having chili for lunch. Aunt Jewel made it. You want some?” Rufus restrained his inclination to squelch the idea. Having Naomi for a houseguest was not in his plans; the entire afternoon had been too cozy, and he didn’t want her to misinterpret it. As it was, the course of their mutual attraction, or whatever you’d call it that was happening between them, seemed to be self-propelled.

  “Our daddy can’t cook chili,” Preston added. Rufus had the impression that she didn’t want to look at him for approval, but that she couldn’t help it. She wanted to go, and she wanted him to invite her; that was obvious. But why? She’s more mixed up about this than I am, he thought. I know what I want; I just don’t know for how long.

  “You’re welcome to come,” he said, almost reluctantly, silently weighing the consequences. “There’s more than enough.” Ashamed of the lack of enthusiasm in his voice, he smiled and looped an arm around her shoulder. “We’d love your company, Naomi.”

  “All right, if you’re sure.” She looked at him steadily, and he had the feeling she was trying to see beyond his words.

  “I’m sure. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have said a word.” And he was sure. It might not be the right thing, but he wanted it. Her uncertainty showed in the way she worried her bottom lip and in her forced, shaky smile. He hated that he’d made her insecure and squeezed her to him a little. He glanced down at the two identical pairs of eyes that were watching them intently and winked, reassuring his boys.

  “Could we drop by my place first? If I drive, you and the boys won’t have to bring me home.”

  He nodded, understanding that she wanted the freedom to leave at will if she found herself uncomfortable. “All right. Then you can follow us home.”

  He waited until she’d started her engine before heading toward the highway. He didn’t feel as though he was merely driving home with a guest, but rather that he had opened a door and entered a place from which there was no exit.

  Chapter 7

  A strange, almost otherworldly sensation came over her as she parked and looked at Rufus’s home—a large, sand- colored modern brick house nestled in wooded surroundings. She had never been there, never seen it, but it was familiar, welcoming. It seemed to beckon her. She had to quell an unsettling desire to run to it, to be enveloped in its shelter. She started toward it, trying without success to focus on the pristine white snow that banked the long, curving walkway like a painter’s border for a fairyland scene. Her heart began to beat rapidly, to gallop like a runaway horse. She walked faster, and when she reached the front door, he opened it and smiled. The boys rushed to greet her as if they had been separated from her for days rather than minutes. She fought the urge to weep; this wasn’t her family, her home, and it never would be.

  Naomi walked through a large foyer to the living room, observing its high ceiling, large windows, and massive stone fireplace. She admired the Persian carpets scattered about the floor and found it oddly comforting that there was nothing chrome to be seen. It was a room for daily living that proclaimed its owner’s simplicity and self-confidence. She was tempted to ask him why his sofa wasn’t bordered by matching end tables and lamps, until she realized that the room was intentionally unique. Groupings of a small table and two or three chairs were scattered about the large room; a leather recliner beside which stood a small writing table faced a picture window and garden. And there didn’t seem to be a bar. A curved staircase led to the second floor, and African sculptures and tapestries decorated its adjoining wall.

  Rufus made a fire in the great stone fireplace. “Entertain Naomi for me,” he told Preston and Sheldon. He held the kindling in front of him, disbelieving, as he watched them walk on either side of her, each holding her hand as they led her through the house and down to their own little padded world in the basement. He found them there later, head to head. She had her arms around the boys, who were trying with minimum success to explain their video game to her. He watched them unnoticed as an unfamiliar constriction settled in his chest and knew it wasn’t caused by a physical ailment, but by what she made him feel. He shrugged off his alarm at the sight of her cuddling his sons and their eager response to it and thought of quicksand.

  Back off, buddy, he admonished himself; you’re not planning anything permanent here. But she looked up then, vulnerable, with eyes wide and suspiciously shiny, and he stopped himself just before he gathered the three of them into his arms. His grin was meant to be deceptive; she had almost caught him in a raw moment.

  “Ready? For lunch?” Both boys jumped out of Naomi’s arms and ran to him for the cleaning ritual. To her astonishment, he told them a little tale about each body part that he washed while they bounced and giggled with pleasure. Still sitting on the floor, she wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees and spoke as though perplexed.

  “You’re not really a chauvinist, are you? How could you be, when you get so much enjoyment out of giving your boys the kind of care and affection that children usually get from their mothers?” She seemed embarrassed at having voiced her thoughts. He had suspected that some of her brashness was a cover for shyness, and now he was certain of it.

  “I’d better be a chauvinist,” he joked, “otherwise, you’ll lose interest in me. If you discovered I was an egalitarian, you couldn’t fight with me; you’d lose the inspiration for your sharpest wit and sarcasm; you wouldn’t resent me any longer; and you wouldn’t have a need to change me. So don’t get any fancy notions about me; I’m the biggest chauvinist you’re ever going to meet.”

  He put a boy in each arm and nodded to her. “Come on, woman, the food is getting cold.” After paying proper homage to the chili, Naomi brought out the ba
g of brownies that she had forgotten to give her grandfather and further cemented the bond between herself and her three hosts.

  Warmth suffused Rufus as he furtively watched the interplay between Naomi and his sons. He reclined in his big chair in the living room while they huddled on the floor before the fire. Each time she indicated that she should leave, one of his boys found an excuse to detain her, and she readily acquiesced.

  Finally, she told him, “If I don’t leave here, you’ll be serving me dinner.” Without making it obvious, he had been weighing and judging her every act, gesture, and word all afternoon and had found her more puzzling than ever.

  “Do you want to go?”

  “No,” she answered, “but I’m going before I abuse your hospitality.”

  Preston and Sheldon demanded and got their share of goodbye kisses, using more delaying tactics in the process. Rufus watched with a sense of wonder. What was it about her? His children had always been retiring with everyone except Jewel and her family.

  “Since you’re being so generous with your kisses, maybe I can have one, too?” He couldn’t help it; it was foolish, but he felt excluded from something important, something good.

  She told him with what was obviously mock sincerity, “the boys made me a snow girl out back, turned cartwheels for me, and climbed into my lap while I sang them some songs. If you do that or better, you’ll get some kisses, too.”

  A tiny frown creased his brow, and he shoved his itchy fingers deep into the pockets of his slacks. “You want a demonstration of some of my…er, abilities? Is that what you’re asking me for? That’s hardly fair, Naomi. I could be hauled into court by corrupting the morals of minors. You could, too, for that matter,” he deadpanned.

  “Your mind’s always in the same rut,” she informed him, as she reached up to kiss him. He didn’t let her off until he’d exacted a small price, grabbing her shoulder and letting her feel the force of his tongue for a split second. She reeled slightly, to his immense satisfaction.

  “I owe you one for that, Meade,” she said, digging into her shoulder bag for her car keys.

  Rufus put his hands back in his pockets, where they’d be safely out of trouble. “I’m looking forward to collecting,” he retorted smoothly. “I’d tail you home, but I don’t want to take the boys out again.” They stood in the foyer, exchanging light banter, the boys clinging to her hands; then she hugged them goodbye again. He wished she wasn’t leaving him, then wished he could retrieve the thought. He shrugged. The hell with it; he felt good. He walked her to her car, kissed her quickly, and opened the door for her. It was the first time that their kiss hadn’t been the product of fire-hot desire, the first time that they both had felt the need to join in ways that transcended the physical.

  “I enjoyed this time with you,” he told her, and meant it. He wasn’t in the habit of lying to himself; she had touched him. How he’d deal with it was going to be a problem.

  Naomi let herself into her condominium, walked slowly down the hallway to the kitchen, and put on a kettle of water. Deep in thought, she stood there until the water boiled, made tea, and sat down to drink it. She didn’t pretend that she wasn’t emotionally shaken; getting to know the little boys and observing the loving relationship between them and their father had unsettled and disturbed her. She knew she could love those boys with all her heart, and she knew just as certainly that they could love her. What kind of mother would she have been, she wondered. And what kind of mother did her own child have? Her eyes burned with tears that she didn’t dare shed for what she had lost. Crying was useless. She had let her grandfather run her life when she’d been helpless to oppose him, but she wasn’t helpless now. She understood that her grandfather would have felt humiliated if her pregnancy had been public knowledge. After all, he had preached sexual responsibility to his parishioners. And though he hadn’t told her to give the baby up for adoption, he hadn’t told her not to do it, and he had certainly facilitated it.

  She stood by the telephone and glanced at her watch. Four o’clock. Her mind made up, she would face whatever came with her head up. She picked up the phone, dialed, and set fate into motion. Judd’s lawyer answered on the first ring.

  “You’d better think this thing through before you make any contact, but it’s up to you. What are you planning?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that I can’t bear to go on like this.”

  “I’m Reverend Logan’s lawyer,” he reminded her, “and if you’re planning to do something against his wishes, I couldn’t advise you. It would be unethical.”

  “I’m not asking for advice. What I want is accurate information. Can you at least give me that? Have you met the family? Is the child a boy or a girl? Are they in some kind of difficulty?” She knew she sounded desperate.

  “The child is a boy. He’s healthy, intelligent, and not a problem in any sense, as far as I know. I can’t tell you more.”

  When she could get her breath, she tried to thank him. “When will you confer with the family again?”

  “I have an appointment at their home Monday morning at ten-thirty. You may call me around noon if you have any questions.”

  She had a son. But he wasn’t really hers, she reminded herself. Monday morning. It was Saturday, so she’d better get busy.

  At ten-thirty Monday morning, Naomi parked on a side street off Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland, a Washington suburb. She was unrecognizable in a reddish-brown wig of long straight hair and bangs, and contact lenses that changed her irises from dark brown to gray. The car she drove was a rented dark blue Mustang. She had followed the lawyer, as she supposed he’d figured she would, but she’d kept well behind him in case he hadn’t counted on her little maneuver. She sat there in the cold until noon, long after the lawyer had left, unable to leave the scene. How many times had she passed that modest red brick ranch-style house on her way to visit Marva, five blocks away? She wrote down the address, turned the key in the ignition, then turned it off. Impulsively, she got out of the car and walked the half block to the house. She didn’t see anyone. The boy should have been in school, so she didn’t expect to see him.

  I just can’t ring the bell and introduce myself, she thought, but I can’t leave here not knowing anything more. Then she saw the name plate on the lawn: Hopkins. It was something. She hurried back to her rented car and quickly drove away. She couldn’t have said why, but she felt more at peace than at any time since she’d learned that her child’s family was searching for her and that she could see him; she had a link to him.

  Later that afternoon, the telephone rang just as Naomi was about to leave her workshop. “Logan Logos and Labels. May I help you?” It was her automatic phone greeting when she was in the shop.

  “You could be more enthusiastic about it,” came the bubbly response.

  “Marva! Girl, have I ever missed you! How was the honeymoon?”

  “What do you mean, how was it?” Marva drawled. “It’s just started. Honey, you’d better get busy. What this man does to me! Well, I just never even dreamed that anybody could remain just barely conscious all the time and be deliriously happy about it. Love somebody, Naomi; I swear it’ll make you a better person. How’s Cat?”

  “Who? Oh, you mean Rufus. All right, the last time I saw him, which, before you ask, was Saturday. Please don’t pressure me about him, Marva. He’s nice and I like him, I guess, but we’re really oil and water.”

  “Are you going to the gala with him?” Naomi didn’t want to think about the gala and the television cameras that would be all over the place. Whatever happened in regard to her future relationship with her child, she wanted to be the one who maneuvered it. An accidental meeting could be painful.

  “I’m going alone, and I’m going to sit at the sponsors’ table.” She said it almost belligerently.

  “Why don’t you come along wit
h Elijah and me? Lije has a really nice friend who could join us, and he’s tall, too.”

  “Marva, please. I don’t want to have blind dates with any more of Lije’s friends. I hate blind dates, and if I wanted a man to take me, finding one wouldn’t be difficult. I’m going alone.”

  “Jet magazine will just love that.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going to run my life according to what people might think.” She almost laughed. That was exactly what she’d been doing for Judd’s sake.

  Marva tried again. “Well, at least wear something really sexy, and be sure it’s either dusty rose or burnt orange. Stay out of black. You and I are going to have a talk about your social attitude, honey, and I’m going to make you spill all. I know you think I’m frivolous, but my degree in psychology didn’t leave me totally stupid about human behavior. If you’re smart, you’ll call Cat and ask him to go with you to the gala. Oil and water! Humph! It’s probably more like flint and steel. See you at the gala.”

  A glance at her watch reminded Naomi that Linda was developing a habit of arriving late for her tutoring. She hoped the girl would be more responsive than she’d been at her two previous classes. Naomi had the feeling that Linda wanted her to lose patience, to stop the sessions. The girl arrived breathless and flushed, but not apologetic. She handed Naomi a tablet of her drawings.

  “What do you think of these?”

  Naomi flipped the pages slowly, astonished at the talent displayed there. “I think you have great potential. Do you mind if I keep these?

  Linda’s pleasure at the request was obvious in her broad smile and diffident manner. “I did them for you.”

  Naomi thanked her and decided to have copies made and to circulate them among several universities in the hope of getting a scholarship for her young charge.