She spit out her snuff. “Storm’ll be here in about half an hour, and it’ll be heavy rain even if it don’t last long.”
“I see. Maybe I’d better get started.”
“A flash flood could wash out the road, and you with it. Better stay till it’s over. I got plenty to eat.” She pointed to a garden filled with vegetables. “Chickens and pigs, too. I love to have plenty to eat. Come on in. Place is clean.” She pointed to an outhouse about two hundred feet downhill. “That’s clean, too, if you need it.”
Deciding to take a chance rather than risk possible drowning, Kate followed the old woman into a clean, neat and attractive, if old-fashioned, setting.
The old blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “You worried ’cause you don’t see no clouds, but they’ll be here. My husband been gone over fifty years, and I keep the place just like it was when he was here, God rest his soul.”
“I appreciate your hospitality, ma’am.”
“Lucy. Lucy Monroe Watkins. I introduce myself so seldom, it’s a wonder I don’t forget my name.”
“I’m Kate Middleton.”
Lucy nodded. “I got beef stew, baked corn bread, string beans and tomatoes. If you want, I’ll cook you a potato.”
After refusing the potato, Kate consumed what was probably the tastiest meal she could remember having eaten. “I’ll help you clean up.”
“Not now. I don’t touch things like knives and forks when it’s thundering and lightning.”
She didn’t want to offend the woman, but she couldn’t help frowning. “But it’s not—”
“No, but it will be before we finish. If you have to go to the house out there, you’d better go now.”
Deciding not to trust too much, Kate took her pocketbook with her as she headed outside. By the time she got back to the farmhouse, clouds, ominous in their darkness, covered the sky, which minutes earlier had blazed in brilliant blue. Lightning streaked wildly across the horizon, and she dashed inside. She quaked at the earsplitting sound of roaring thunder, the lion of the universe. What kind of place was that? She’d never heard such thunder.
Her gaze took in the old woman sitting peacefully, her eyes closed. On the table beside her chair lay an old humidor and a box of matches, as if Mr. Watkins had used them only minutes earlier. She imagined that the cigars inside had long since dried and crumbled.
Kate studied the old woman, who dared relax and close her eyes while a stranger sat in her home. “How did you know you were marrying the right man?” Kate asked her.
Lucy opened her eyes and peered at Kate. “Because he loved me. Any fool could see it. She closed her eyes again. “You got a real man, a good one, sure as my name is Lucy Monroe, and he’s exactly the father your son needs. Don’t push him. He’s already practically yours.”
Kate gaped, her mouth wide-open, and couldn’t force a word from her throat. “How did you—”
“I’m gifted. You won’t get out of here till morning, ’cause the road’s flooded and it’s still pouring.”
As the wind howled, the thunder bellowed and lightning sprinted wildly across the sky, the storm increased in fury. The old woman gave Kate a nightgown, washcloth and toothbrush. “I’ll put a lamp in your room. Might as well get some rest, ’cause you sure need it.”
Kate’s eyes widened, and her breathing accelerated. Suppose something happened to Randy, and Luke needed her. She walked the floor, wringing her hands. “I…Suppose my son needs me? Nobody knows where I am.”
Lucy shook her head as though in wonder. “Nothing’s going to happen to neither one of them, but your man will go out of his mind. That’s good for him. Sleep well.”
Kate got ready for bed and crawled in as the wind seemed to shake the house. They’d be worried about her, and no one knew where she was. Still, she was grateful that she hadn’t been caught in that deluge, perhaps drowned in the flooded roads. She didn’t expect to sleep. How could she?
Luke prowled around his house in Biddle. He’d called her every twenty minutes for the past nine hours. Where on earth could she be? Randy stuck close to him, and he knew the child sensed the gravity of his concern.
“Where do you think she is, Captain Luke? She said she was going to a meeting.”
“She probably went to a party or some kind of reception,” he told Randy. “There’s usually something going on every night at these big meetings.” But, heaven help him, he didn’t believe his own words.
He got Randy to bed and poured himself a beer. Why didn’t she phone? If he got his hands on her he’d…
No, he wouldn’t. He’d love her until they lost themselves in each other. He shouldn’t have let her go.
He walked out onto the porch and looked into the black night. “I love that woman more than I love my life,” he said. “Where in heaven’s name is she?”
Chapter 10
“The road is all closed,” Lucy told Kate Sunday morning, “so you going to have to wait till the water goes down and they clear the roads of tree limbs and things. Might as well make yourself comfortable.”
“But they’ll think I’m in some kind of trouble, and my son—”
“He’s in good hands. Do you know how to knit?”
Knit? Was she serious? “I never learned.”
“Too bad. It’s very soothing. When you and that man have a misunderstanding, instead of quarreling with him or maybe just folding up, you just rock and knit, knit and rock, and you don’t have to say a word. It cuts through ’em like a knife. They can’t stand not being answered. ’Fore you know it, they’re begging you to forgive ’em. Works every time.”
“Are we going to have misunderstandings?”
“Sure as your name is Kate.”
Kate took a long look at the old woman. “How long has Mr. Watkins been gone?”
Moisture floated in the ancient blue eyes, but not a tear fell. “Twenty years come Friday. Just like yesterday. You finally accept it, but you never get used to it.”
Did she dare? “Uh…How old were you when you married?”
“Nineteen. I’m ninety-three, child.”
“And slinging that ax as if you were twenty? I couldn’t do that, and I’m only thirty-eight.”
“I’m blessed. I can lift anything.”
She must be losing it, because this was getting more eerie by the second. “Mrs. Watkins—”
“Call me Lucy. Nobody never called me anything else.”
“Uh…Lucy, why did I miss my turn on Route 50? I couldn’t find this road on my map.”
“Who knows why things happen the way they do? Route 50 floods every time we get a storm like the one we had yesterday, and far as you were from Cambridge, you’d have been lost.”
“I don’t remember telling you where I was headed.” And come to think of it, she didn’t remember turning off Route 50.
“I know. I told you, I’m gifted. Take my advice and never pick a blessing to pieces. We can go now. Bring that handsome man to see me, but don’t wait too long. I won’t last forever.”
The best meal she’d ever tasted. What in the name of kings was this all about?
She got back to Baltimore too late to make checkout time at the hotel and had to pay for an extra night. And if that weren’t enough, she missed her flight back to Portsmouth. Her calls to Luke in Biddle got no response, and she figured he and Randy were on their way to meet the flight she’d missed. She got a flight leaving immediately for Norfolk and phoned them again when the plane landed, but got no answer. No one had to tell her that Luke and Randy were upset at not seeing her get off that plane. Finally, she called Officer Jenkins at home and got Luke’s cell-phone number. He answered on the first ring.
“Kate! Where on earth are you? Are you all right?”
She gave him a brief summary of her bewildering experience. “I’ll rent a car here at the airport, so I should be home in an hour.”
“Oh, no. We’re coming to get you. Stay right there.”
“But—”
“Listen, Kate, you said you’d call Saturday evening around six. In the twenty-eight hours since then, I have paid for every single sin I ever committed. Can you imagine all the possibilities—every one of them negative—that went through my mind? I want you to stay in that airport lounge till we get there. Please do as I ask.”
“All right, I’ll wait.”
Luke tightened Randy’s safety belt and turned the Buick toward Route 135 leading to Norfolk. He hoped he’d never have another night and day like the ones he’d just gone through. In his mind’s eye, he’d seen her kidnapped, murdered. He’d believed that she had fallen into the hands of whoever had been pestering her, that once more he’d been unable to save a beloved when she needed him. Shudders raced through him. She was safe, and he intended to keep her that way. He glanced at his speedometer and slowed down.
“Where was she all this time, Captain Luke?”
He explained as best he could without telling the boy all. “She’d have called, but she couldn’t get to a phone.”
“I thought they had phones everywhere. I sure will be glad to see her.”
Luke blew out a long deep breath. “You and me both.”
He put his official plate on the dashboard where it could be seen, parked in front of the airport, unbuckled Randy and went inside.
“I don’t see her, Captain Luke.”
But Luke did see her, and had to stop himself as he grasped Randy’s hand with the intention of running to her. “She’s over there.” Randy dropped his hand and ran, and he chucked his reserve and raced to her.
With Randy’s arms locked around his mother, he couldn’t hold her, couldn’t appease the hunger that pummeled his body. He stared down at them loving each other. Then, unable to bear the separation any longer, he lifted the boy, set him aside and wrapped her in his arms.
“I almost went crazy. Crazy, do you hear me? I’d have died if anything had happened to you.” Her arms held him tight, and he felt Randy’s hand gentle on his waist.
“I know, and I’m sorry. It’s what worried me most, because I knew Randy would be happy with you.”
He wanted to taste her, to love her, but this wasn’t the place, and Randy’s trusting hand patted his back. “Think of a time and place where we can be alone,” he whispered. “I am starved for you.”
Her soft lips pressed against his cheek, and he searched her eyes for the meaning of what she’d done. If he could have squeezed her any closer, he would have. He didn’t know if she loved him, but what he saw in her eyes tempted him to believe that she did. Randy pulled on his belt, and he looked down at the boy.
“What is it, son?”
“I thought you were going to kiss her. Amy says her daddy is always kissing her mother.”
He stared at Randy, then looked at Kate, whose amused expression set off a reckless feeling in him. “Don’t worry, I’m going to do just that.”
Immediately, she raised on tiptoe and parted her lips as her arms tightened about him.
“Baby, don’t pull me under. I need more than a Band-Aid. It’s you I need. All of you!”
“Shh. Just kiss me.”
Her soft, sweet mouth opened for him and, as if it were gasoline, ignited a fire in his loins. He could make himself wait no longer, and at last his lips touched hers, rocking him to near ecstasy. He plunged his tongue into her mouth, then withdrew, for he was at once threatened with arousal. He put an arm around her and took Randy’s hand.
“We’d better be going.”
“Gee,” Randy said, “a real kiss, just like Amy said.”
“I do not want to hear that you reported this to my niece, Randy. Surely, you can keep a man’s secret.”
“Uh…yes, sir,” Randy said, but his protruding bottom lip told what he really thought about that secret.
“Come on, now,” Luke said, his heart now lighter and his sense of humor once more at work. “Be a sport, Randy.”
“Yeah. All right, since I had such a good time with you while Mom was at that conference.”
“I know you hate lectures, Randy, but you need them. For instance, loyalty is important in relationships with people.”
“Gee whiz, Captain Luke, you already gave me a lot of lectures. I don’t know if I can remember it all.”
He got them in the car, reached in the backseat and checked Randy’s seat belt. “You’re doing fine, son. I’m proud of you.”
He heard a mild gasp. “You are? Gee!”
At Kate’s apartment door, he waited until they were inside, heard her bolt the lock, turned and headed home. He wasn’t getting into Kate’s bed with Randy in the apartment. But he hurt. He could define what he felt no other way. Something gnawed and chewed at his insides, and he knew it wouldn’t stop until her body fulfilled its promise to him. He drove into his garage, parked and went into his house—an empty manor that begged for a woman’s warmth and the patter of children’s feet. He shook his head in puzzlement. Maybe playing father over the weekend had set him off. He showered, dried off with a beach towel and slipped his unclad body between his brown-and-beige tiger’s-paw sheets. In his dreams, she nestled beside him.
“How was the trip?” Jessye asked Kate the next morning shortly after she’d opened the store. “I know I’m not due here on Mondays, but I left some tickets on your desk. Business sure was jumping on Saturday. Wait’ll you see the receipts.”
She’d seen the tickets and figured Jessye had left them there as some kind of a statement. “Really?” she asked Jessye. “That’s music to my ears. Who’s going with you to Repertory Theater?”
Jessye put on an air of disgust, shrugging her shoulders and rolling her eyes skyward. “Wouldn’t you know, Axel. He’s like the poor—everywhere you turn, there he is.”
“He’s not such a bad fellow.”
Jessye propped her left hand on her hip. “No? I don’t see you wasting a lot of time with him.”
“That’s because it’s you he wants. Oh, he tomcats after me, because he’s got some kind of agenda where Luke is concerned. But, girl, you’re the one he wants, and you know it.”
Jessye let out a bitter laugh. “Reminds me of Jean Paul Sartre’s play, No Exit. Locked in a room for all eternity were a lesbian, a nymphomaniac and an impotent man. A wanted B, who wanted C, who was incapable. And that was their eternal hell. Thank God, this isn’t eternity. Were you with Luke?”
She didn’t want to tell her cousin that she wanted Luke for herself, and that as long as Luke wanted her she’d put stones in the path of any woman who went after him. Fight over him? Never! But she’d make it tough for the competition.
“Luke was in Biddle. I was in Maryland.”
Jessye maneuvered herself to a place where she could look Kate in the eye. “Where was Randy?”
If you can’t find out one way, try another. Anybody as devious as Jessye would be clever at that. She walked to the cash register, waited on a customer, went back to Jessye and looked the woman in the eye.
“Luke Hickson kept Randy for me while I was away. Why?”
She didn’t doubt that Jessye’s seemingly careless shrug belied her real feelings, as did her words. “Just checking.”
“I didn’t think it fair to encumber you with taking care of Randy and possibly blocking your chances of a date with Axel or one of your other men friends.”
“You always were so thoughtful.”
Kate saw no room for gloating. Caring for someone who didn’t reciprocate your feelings could be devastating. She’d been there.
“I’d better get to work on those accounts while traffic in here’s slow,” Kate said.
“You need an accountant.”
The door opened and Axel strode in. Kate ducked behind a bookshelf to give the man an opportunity to be honest.
“You’re not working again today,” Axel said to Jessye, his voice gentle and solicitous. “Not after the workout you had in this place Saturday.”
“I stopped by for the tickets. I’d left them on the desk in there.�
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“Good.” His arm went around her shoulder. “Let me take you to lunch.”
“Axel, honey, I was going shopping.”
“Shop this afternoon, sweetheart. I need to be with you, if only to watch you eat.”
“I wasn’t planning to…Oh, all right. Axel, honey, I do declare, sometimes you’re like a bad penny. Now, I’m going to gain weight.”
“You’re perfect, baby, and you’ll always be perfect to me, no matter how much you eat. Honey, I’m crazy about you.”
“Oh, you go ’way from here. You’re just saying that to make me fall into your big, strong clutches. Remember Little Red Riding Hood.” She laughed seductively.
“Aw, Jessye, you’re not calling me a wolf?”
“Now, Axel, honey, you know you have just a wee bit of wolf in you. Hmm.” She giggled. “All of you big, handsome men are wolves in disguise.”
His laughter was that of a satisfied man who’d just had his ego oiled. Kate breathed a deep sigh of relief when the door buzzer announced their departure. What a woman! If Jessye knew a man wanted her, she couldn’t resist exploiting him. And if one to whom she was attracted ignored her, she marshalled every one of her feminine wiles in her campaign to hook him. Once she succeeded, she drank from other springs. But Kate suspected that Jessye had actually fallen for Luke, and it was time for her to pay the piper. Too bad. The phone rang, and she raced to answer it.
“This is Luke, how are you?”
Every time she heard his voice, her whole being jumped for joy. She told herself to cool off. “I’m okay,” she said in as casual a tone as she could muster. “What about you?”
“Fine. I told Jenkins I’d bring Randy to the store this afternoon, so I’ll see you later on. Any idea when and where we can spend some time together? I know I said we should back off till this case is solved, but my head can’t get any fuller of you than it is now, and you can’t occupy my thoughts anymore. Are you willing to…to find out what we have going for us, Kate?”
Anticipation kicked her heart into runaway sensations; he’d just declared his readiness for the next step. But her mind shut down, and she couldn’t think, much less speak.
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