“Do you have a copy of the contract here?”
Calvin reached over, opened the drawer of the table beside his bed, grimacing as if in pain. “It’s in there.” He pointed to the drawer.
He walked over to his father’s bedside, gazed down at him for a full minute during which their gazes locked. He hadn’t counted on the emotion that welled up in him, and he couldn’t describe the feeling. He did know at that moment that he was not immune to his father, to his evident pain or to what could happen to him. He picked up the paper, went back to his chair and sat down to read the contract.
“Well?” Calvin said when he folded the paper. “What’s the verdict?”
Lucas narrowed his eyes. “Surely, you don’t think my decision is contingent upon the terms of this contract. Far from it. Money has nothing to do with it, though you’re dangling a sizeable amount of it. You’re giving me carte blanche. I answer to no one, and I return the company to you whenever you ask for it, but in not less than one year. Why the guarantee of a year?”
“Because you can’t accomplish anything in less time. If you take the job, what will you do first?”
He was testing him. Lucas knew his smile said that the question pleased him. “Announce the appointment and call a meeting of all unit heads and assistant heads.”
“You’re a smart man. If you have the assistants and deputies there, the chiefs can’t mislead them. What do you say, Lucas? I would be so relieved and content knowing that it’s in your hands.”
He got up, walked over to his father for the second time and looked down at him. “All right. I’m obligating myself to do this because the role is rightfully mine, and not for any other reason.”
Calvin Jackson’s face bloomed into a smile as he extended his hand. “That’s all I need to hear.” When Lucas grasped the proffered hand, he knew that it was more than a handshake. For the first time in his life, he was touching his father, feeling the warmth of his flesh, and he wondered if his father felt the tremors that raced through him.
“This is one of the happiest days of my life,” Calvin said. “Do you have a pen?” He took the pen Lucas handed him, wrote the name of his son in the proper place and handed Lucas the contract. “Sign it, please.” Lucas signed the three copies and handed them to Calvin who also signed them.
“You’re head of Jackson Enterprises, and I can give in to this awful pain and get some morphine or something to ease it.”
“Do you want me to ring for a nurse?” Lucas asked him, stunned that the man showed no sign of discomfort except when he reached over to open the drawer.
“I have a pill here,” he said, “but I couldn’t take it because I didn’t know when you would come, and I didn’t want to be in a stupor when you got here.”
Lucas poured a glass of water and handed it to him, aware that it was the first thing he had ever done for his father. “Take it now.”
Calvin’s eyes widened and a half smile flashed across his face. “You’re not bad at authoritativeness yourself.” He swallowed the pill. “Your office is in the Jackson Building at 18 Tiner Street, about four blocks from here. Your secretary, Miriam Payne, will give you the folder that I prepared for you.”
“Pretty certain, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. My scout told me that you are just like me. Good luck. My regards to Noreen.”
“Thanks for your good wishes, but I’m not going to tell my mother that you mentioned her name.”
“I don’t b . . . blame you.”
The morphine seemed to be doing its job. Lucas eased out of the room. He hadn’t been wrong in thinking that his life was about to change. He covered the four blocks in ten minutes, looked up at the twenty-story Jackson Building and shook his head. With the help of the receptionist, he found Miriam Payne on the nineteenth floor.
“Hello, Mr. Hamilton,” she said before he introduced himself. “Come. I’ll show you to your office.”
“How do you do, Ms. Payne?” he said, after entering an office three times the size of his own. “How did you know who I am?”
“Oh, it was easy,” the matronly woman said. “Mr. Jackson told me that you’re the personification of him, that you look precisely as he did when he was your age. I couldn’t possibly make a mistake. I’m glad you agreed to take over, because he needs that operation, and he’s put it off for at least five years.” She handed him the folder. “I’m here to help you in any way that I can.”
He liked her at once. “Thank you.” He opened the folder and began to read. At two-thirty, hunger pangs alerted him to the passing of time, and he put the folder in his briefcase, looked around at the spacious and elegantly furnished office, walked out and closed the door.
“I want a meeting of all unit chiefs, deputies and assistants,” he told Miriam Payne, “here in my office at nine o’clock Monday morning. Can you manage that?”
Her smile was like a brilliant light, and he couldn’t help wondering why she was so pleased. “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. They think they can do things their own way now that Mr. Jackson is going to be laid up for a while, but I am going to be happy to tell them that they shouldn’t even think it.”
He felt the smile forming on his face as he looked down at her. “You don’t know how right you are. Here are my cell numbers and the number at my office in Woodmore. I’ll be in touch.”
“Mr. Hamilton, are you tutoring today?”
He raised his head abruptly, jerking himself out of his reminiscence. What a day it had been. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes,” he said to the man who tutored in romance languages. A glance at his watch told him that he was seven minutes late for his class, a waste of the allotted time that hardly ever proved adequate, considering the help the children needed. Most of his pupils wanted help with math problems, but when he questioned them, he learned that even more needed coaching in chemistry, but they didn’t consider it an important subject. All of them regarded math as their nemesis. With so many thoughts and problems whirling around in his mind, tutoring that day proved difficult, and when it was over, he breathed deeply, recalling that on many days, he thought the time passed too swiftly.
He hurried down to Susan’s classroom hoping to waylay her and to say good night to Rudy and Nathan both of whom he’d barely acknowledged when he entered the school earlier that afternoon. He arrived as Susan and the two children were leaving the classroom, the last ones out as usual. As soon as Susan saw him, he sensed her fear.
“Hi,” Susan said, though she knew he had to guess the word from the way in which her lips moved. Her fear that he would recommend her dismissal was such that she could barely open her mouth.
Nathan’s exuberant greeting saved him a response. “Mr. Hamilton, look at my new sweater.” He opened his coat. “It’s brand new, and Miss Pettiford gave it to me today.”
“It’s beautiful,” he told the boy, for he didn’t want to dampen the child’s enthusiasm.
“Hi, Mr. Hamilton. I finished reading my favorite story,” Rudy told him, reaching up for his hand and smiling happily.
He hunkered between her and Nathan. “What’s the name of your favorite story?”
“Puss ’N Boots, and I read it three times last night when I was supposed to be in bed,” she told him.
“I’m glad you read it three times, but remember to obey your foster parents,” he said and turned to Nathan. “Do you have a favorite story?”
“Yes, but I’m writing a story. My story’s gonna be about Miss Pettiford. Everybody should have a teacher like Miss Pettiford. I love Miss Pettiford.”
“I love her, too,” Rudy said.
Unknowingly, the children had provided a defense for her, telling him that they needed her. But she didn’t hope that their needing her would placate Lucas; he would consider what she’d done against the rules. But she loved Rudy, and the child needed love and attention. Even if he had her dismissed, she would find a way to fill that gap in Rudy’s life.
“We’d better get out of here before your
grandmother thinks you’re not coming,” Lucas said to the boy, and he took Nathan’s hand and walked ahead of her and Rudy. Ann Price waited for them in her old Ford Taurus. Each child hugged first Susan and then Lucas and jumped into the backseat. She felt bereft when the car drove away, for she knew she had to face a tongue lashing.
“I suppose you drove,” Lucas said.
“I did.”
“We have to talk. Is it your house or mine? Either place, I’ll order us some food. What do you say?”
She thought for a moment, and it occurred to her that she didn’t trust herself alone with Lucas in her house, but what would he think if she said she preferred going home with him? “Let’s get a pizza at Moe’s, and go to my place. You’re getting off cheap.”
His scowl suggested perplexity. “What do you mean?”
“I bought coffee last time, and this is your turn.”
“Oh, yeah? A pizza costs more than coffee.”
“I was hoping that when your turn came, you’d have to shell out for something fancier.”
“You only have to say the word.”
In other words, don’t say it if you don’t mean it. “I’ll settle for pizza tonight.”
At Moe’s, he ordered an everything pizza to go. As she drove home, she wondered at his calm and agreeable manner, as if she hadn’t broken the rules, hadn’t annoyed him.
He followed her to the kitchen, put the pizza in the oven and set the oven to low. “This is a truly elegant kitchen, if I do say so,” he commented.
“And so easy to work in. Would you prefer red or white wine or beer?”
“I prefer beer with pizza, but I’ll take red wine, if it’s convenient. Beer makes me sleepy. Let’s sit over there.” He pointed to the table in a corner by a window. “No point in us taking this to the dining room.”
She cut the warm pizza, poured white wine for herself and red for him and sat opposite him at the small table. They had nearly finished eating when she couldn’t take the suspense any longer.
“What do you want to say to me, Lucas? I know you don’t like what I did today, but the children are so dear to me, and Rudy needs attention and some sign of love so badly.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I’m asking you for the second time, what will you do when she’s taken away from you? I know it will hurt her, but she will recover before you will. Can’t you see that the rules serve a good purpose? I am not going to report you, because I know that if I do, you will find a way to maintain a relationship with Rudy, and you may do more damage.”
“Damage? How can you say that? I love her, and I would never do anything to hurt that child.” She fought back the tears. “That was a cruel thing for you to say.”
“I meant damage to you. I know she’s lovable; she gets to me, too. Both of them do. Have you considered the possibility that Rudy’s foster parents might make an issue of the gifts you give Rudy?”
“Yes, I’ve thought of that, although they don’t seem to care that much. But if they do, I’ll ask what they do with the money the State gives them for her clothing. I kept her old coat. It’s in the trunk of my car.”
“I see.”
“According to Rudy, her foster mother hasn’t asked where she got the coat, and she hasn’t told her.”
“That’s not a healthy environment for a child, but at least she let her keep the coat. I have something else to discuss with you. I need to talk about it, and I don’t want to discuss it with my mother or Willis. At least, not yet.”
Chapter Seven
Susan wouldn’t say that Lucas looked worried; what she saw went deeper than concern, and she didn’t think the matter centered on her. She perceived of Lucas as a man sure of himself and of his ground. But bemusement? That seemed out of character for him. He had told her about his background, and she listened with interest, but she hadn’t questioned him about his personal life; indeed, she didn’t think she had that right.
When it seemed that he couldn’t bring himself to broach the subject pressing on him, she asked, “Is something bothering you, and can I help?”
He rubbed the back of his neck in a familiar gesture that she had yet to decipher. “This morning, I spent almost two hours with my father.” When he said the words, the air seemed to belch out of him.
“What! How did that happen?” Of all the possibilities that crossed her mind, she would have least expected that.
She listened as he related the unlikely story, obviously still astonished and awed by the experience. “You can’t imagine what it was like to talk with him, touch him, hear his voice unaltered by electronics, and most stunning of all, to see myself in him.”
She wanted the answer to one question, for she knew that his response to it would tell her who Lucas Hamilton really was. “Did you feel any empathy for him? Any at all?”
He adjusted his position in the chair, the seat of which was too short for his long body, eased his right trouser leg and crossed his knee. “I couldn’t help it. When he extended his hand to me for a handshake, I knew he was asking more than to seal an agreement, that he wanted even a small measure of forgiveness. I did hesitate for a brief moment, but I . . . somehow, I felt for him.”
Although his answer surprised her, it also pleased her. “It amazes me that you weren’t harsh with him.”
“I was . . . at some points, but I wasn’t rude. Even lying in a hospital bed, covered in those thin white sheets, he had an authoritative manner.” Lucas locked his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Calvin Jackson is not a man who begs or crawls any more than I am. At first, we didn’t fence with each other, and I think each of us recognized the futility of that. He spoke his mind, and I did the same. Susan, it’s damned eerie how much like him I am, not only physically and in gestures, but in attitude.”
“How do you feel about that? Being like him, I mean.” His right shoulder flexed in a shrug, but she didn’t believe the implication that it didn’t matter or that he didn’t care.
“How should I feel? The man’s public behavior has been exemplary, and he has a record of honest achievement that any man would be proud of. He fell in love with my mother, didn’t exercise self-control and wronged her and his wife; but that’s not my business. If he’d behaved differently, I wouldn’t be here.”
That he had mixed feelings about it did not surprise her, nor did his obvious admiration for his father. “And he turned his enterprise over to you, giving you total control?”
Lucas nodded. “Right, and he said he hadn’t the slightest reservation about doing it.”
Of course not. The man saw himself in Lucas. “Knowing you, neither would I,” she said. “Have you told your mother?”
From his facial expression, she could see that he regarded that as a chore. “Not yet. I’m not ready to deal with her attitude. He asked me to give her his regards, and I told him I wouldn’t do it. And I won’t.”
Susan felt her lower lip sag. “Why not?”
“Because she still loves him, although she hasn’t seen him in person since before I was born.”
“Good Lord! Do you think he—”
He interrupted her. “I don’t know, I don’t want to know, and I don’t intend to facilitate any contact between them. He was married then and he’s married now. Besides, it’s over. Period.”
She had never thought of herself as being overly sentimental, but she hurt for the woman who had loved futilely for over thirty-five years. But... “Can’t say I blame you; she must have suffered.”
“Of course she did. I’d better be going. I have a mountain of material to read, and I want to be on top of it for my meeting Monday morning.”
“And you will be,” she said. “Thanks for sharing this with me; this must have been one of the most exciting days of your life. I’m happy for you.”
He leaned toward her, his grayish-brown eyes gazing intently into hers. Beautiful eyes that she would lose herself in if she wasn’t careful. “I needed to share it, Susan, and I realized that
you were the only person I wanted to discuss it with.” His gaze softened and seemed to bore into her. “What am I to you, Susan?”
He had a way of coming up on her blind side and stunning her with the unexpected. “You are my guest,” she said, finessing the question, but forcing a grin to suggest that she was teasing him.
But he apparently did not find her jest amusing, for his soft gaze abruptly became a glare. “Don’t give me that crap. Who and what am I to you other than the man you inveigled into your bed with the smoothest, most artful seduction I have ever witnessed. Do you dare to answer?”
Her heartbeat accelerated, and she had a feeling that, if he touched her, she would incinerate. “I . . . you said you had work to do, so maybe you’d better leave now.”
“You’re asking me to go?”
“I think it’s best.”
“You’re scared to be alone with me now, but you once had the nerve to invite me, a stranger you’d seen once, to your home, serve me an exquisite meal in an atmosphere guaranteed to stimulate a man’s sex drive and then take me to your bed and into your body. I want to know why you did it, because I’m aware now that it was way out of character.”
“Please, Lucas. That’s over and done with. I don’t want to rehash it.”
He sprang up from the chair. “You don’t want to . . . Woman, you used me. Tell me you didn’t. And whatever you were after, you damned well got it. Well, let me tell you what I’m after. I intend to find out if what happened to you and me in that bed was a fluke, if—”
She didn’t want to remember. “Please. I want you to leave.”
He loomed over her, a human magnet that she didn’t dare touch. “You’re enjoying another first, as the only woman ever to order me out of her home.” He headed for the door.
“Lucas!” She went after him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How did you mean it? You can’t give a man what you gave me and expect him not to want more. I want more, and I need more. Right now, I need you.” His voice lost its harshness. “When I awakened this morning, I wanted to call you, to tell you how I felt about the prospect of meeting my father for the first time. I was scared, anxious and eager, wound up tight as a ball of twine. All of that. I didn’t want to dump on you; I needed to hear your soothing voice. I’ve needed you all day.”
Getting Some Of Her Own Page 13
