In her mind’s eye, she could see him frowning and pulling on his left ear as he did in a moment of frustration. “What can I tell you, baby girl? That’s a tough one. Have you spoken with Mama about this?”
“Not yet. She’s wrapped up in the children of Africa. I’ll tell her when it’s a fait accompli. I don’t feel like agonizing with her. She said she was coming home for Christmas, but she changed her mind.”
“I know. We want her to come here as soon as it warms up. She can’t escape reality forever. Mama has to face the fact that Daddy is dead. I know it’s hard for her, and we want to help her, but . . . you know how she is.”
They spoke at length, but after she hung up, it bore heavily on her that he hadn’t told her to go on and follow her heart, that he would welcome her adopted child into the family.
What would be the point in discussing her plan with Betty Lou Pettiford? Her mother had enough of a burden in trying to adapt to widowhood, something she hadn’t managed in almost five years. She closed her ledger just as the phone rang.
“Hi, Susan. This is Cassie. Would you like to come over for a cup of coffee? I bought some scones on the way home, and they’re very good.”
“Give me fifteen minutes.” She didn’t want Cassie to lean on her, because she thought it unhealthy. To her mind, Cassie’s problems didn’t even merit discussion. She went into the basement, filled a small bag with pecans and struck out for her neighbor’s house. I’m fortunate in having a friendly neighbor, even if she does get on my nerves a little sometimes. I hope she doesn’t want to gripe about her husband’s insistence on being a father. Poor thing doesn’t know how lucky she is.
Cassie opened the door before Susan knocked. “Hi. Come on in. I want to show you this ad I did for a guitar maker in Bristol.” Her face glowed with the rapture of success. “It’s my first out-of-state job.” Cassie grasped her hand and pulled her into the dining room where the design leaned against a vase on the table. “Well, what do you think? Kix never sees any faults with my work. I want your honest opinion.”
Susan studied the ad. As a graphics designer, Cassie knew her business. That much was clear. “Would it make me want to buy that guitar? I don’t know, but it would definitely encourage me to learn to play one.”
Cassie’s grin blanketed her face. “That’s exactly what I want. They’re opening a school for beginners in the hope of boosting local sales. Oh, I’m so happy, I could dance.” She went into the kitchen and returned with coffee and scones. “I had to show it to someone, Susan, and I don’t think Kix is interested in my work anymore.” She held up her hands as if in defense. “Don’t say it. I know it’s my fault.”
As usual, Cassie’s conversation returned to her unstable marriage. But this time, Susan did not plan to indulge her. “If you persist on reneging on your promise to have children, you’ll have to accept that there are many women who will willingly give him three or four children.”
Cassie lowered her gaze. “I know that, and I know he’s a man any woman would be fortunate to have.”
“Then don’t gripe to me, Cassie. You’ve got him, and he loves you. I’d be happy for you if you could make yourself do what you know is right. I’m going to tell you something that I’ve not told anyone other than my mother and my brother. In January, after years of pain and discomfort, I had a hysterectomy.” She ignored the expression of horror on Cassie’s face. “You cannot imagine what I would give to be able to have a child. I don’t sympathize with you, Cassie. I can’t.”
Tears pooled in her eyes when Cassie rushed to her, eased her arms around her and tried to comfort her. She hadn’t allowed herself to cry about the operation, possibly because she hadn’t shared the experience with anyone face to face. But Cassie’s compassion moved her deeply and, within minutes, tears sprang from the eyes of both.
“I could kick myself,” Cassie said after a few minutes. “Mama always said that I don’t think about anybody but myself. I ache for you.”
Susan wiped her face with the back of her hand, her one thought being that, at last, they would be genuine friends. “It hurts, but I’m getting used to it.”
“Does Lucas Hamilton know about this?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No, and I don’t want him or anybody else to know.”
“Well, he sure won’t learn it from me. I won’t even breathe it in my prayers. Guess who I saw trying to catch up with Jessica Burton this afternoon? Jay Weeks. She heard him call her, because she was closer to him than I was, but that dame tossed her head, quickened her steps and gave him the wind from her back.”
So Jay was trying to steal, was he? That’s what she’d suspected when she found him at the Burton home a few days earlier. “I’m redecorating her whole house, and I suspect Jay is trying to get a piece of the business, but I have a contract with her, and I expect her to honor it.”
Cassie refreshed her coffee cup and sat down. “Not to worry. Jessica Burton is a lady from the old school. She can see straight through Jay.”
Susan thought for a minute. Cassie had lived in Woodmore all of her life. Perhaps she’d have some insight into the enigma that Jay Weeks represented. “Jay stopped by my shop Saturday afternoon and hit on me. Real hard. I thought—”
Cassie’s eyebrows went up sharply. “First indication I’ve had that he goes both ways. Jay’s gay. He had a lengthy liaison with a guard at Gourmet Corner, but he carries himself so well that nobody thinks about his sexual preferences. He decorated that lovely reception room at Kix’s restaurant, you know, the one where you wait for your table.”
“That’s elegant. Somehow, I never doubted his competence. If he’s going to be competitive, though, I wish he’d come out in the open with it.”
Susan rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “You’re joking. It’s Jay’s nature to be foxy. He’s crooked, too. I’ll bet he doesn’t even go straight home.”
That comment brought a giggle from Susan. “Now, that’s what I call crooked.”
As Susan rose to leave, she realized that she felt lighter, less heavily burdened, though she hadn’t solved a problem. Maybe knowing you had a friend helped. But as she waved good-bye to Cassie, she noticed that a worrisome expression had replaced the woman’s smile, that her bravura of minutes earlier had slipped away. Indeed, Susan hadn’t reached her house before Cassie collapsed in a living room chair.
Cassie buried her face in the soft leather of the overstuffed chair. Was it too much to ask that she have the life she wanted, a career and the man she loved? Kix could have any woman he wanted, and the damning thing was that the older he got, the better-looking, more masculine, more distinguished-looking he became. It wasn’t fair. The older a woman got, the older she looked, and if a woman had children, her breasts sagged, her belly bulged, and her hips began to look like oversized biscuits. Visions of herself with bumpy cellulite thighs and legs puffed up with varicose veins brought tears to her eyes.
“It’s not right. I won’t do it. I won’t. Underneath, he’s like other men, and they all want their women to look great.” Her gaze landed on the ad for the guitar. “I’m good at what I do. It’s good enough for me, and if it isn’t good enough for Kix, I’m sorry.” She didn’t believe her own words, and tremors shot through her as she faced the truth.
He’s my whole life. I loved him when we married, but after I learned how he could make me feel, I fell in love with him. God forgive me for what I did with Judd, but if I hadn’t done it, I probably never would have discovered the man Kix is and what he means to me. I just don’t know what I’ll do.
Susan walked into Wade School that Tuesday afternoon with her heart aglow, overjoyed that, in a few minutes, she would see Rudy and hold the little girl in her arms. Her feet seemed to sail down the hall to her classroom. Abruptly she stopped, and her heartbeat accelerated. Nathan waited beside her classroom door. Alone. She ran to him.
“Nathan, honey, where is Rudy?”
He gazed up at her with sad eyes. “I don’t know, ma
’am. My grandmother and I waited for her on the corner from school where we always wait for her, but she didn’t come. So, my grandmother went inside and asked somebody about her, and they said Rudy didn’t come to school today.”
Susan draped an arm around him, opened the door and let her feet take her into the classroom, but neither her mind nor her heart was in that place. She endured the long hour, helping the children as best she could and, at its end, she took Nathan by the hand and walked with him to Ann Price’s car.
“If you learn anything about Rudy, Mrs. Price, please let me know.” She handed the woman a business card. “Here’s my number. Rudy must be sick, because she wouldn’t willingly miss tutoring.”
“She sure wouldn’t,” Ann Price said, her voice laced with concern. “That child can’t wait till she gets here. Poor little thing is ready to jump out of this car before I can stop it. And my Nathan’s in the dumps, too. I sure hope she comes on Thursday.”
However, on Thursday, Susan’s fears materialized, for Rudy did not come to the tutoring class, and Nathan reported that she had not been at school all week. Devastated, Susan waited beside Lucas’s town car after saying good night to Nathan and his grandmother. But when she saw Lucas strolling down the steps, she ducked around the car, hurried to her own and drove home. Come here, go there was not her style. He said that she used him, and she did. He couldn’t do anything about Rudy that she couldn’t do, and in the morning, she would urge the principal of Rudy’s school to find out why the child was not in school.
At home, she drove into the garage, got out of the car and walked around to her front door. “Oh!” she said just short of a scream, at the sight of a lone male figure standing beside her front door. “Hello, Susan.”
She relaxed at the sound of the familiar voice, but didn’t hide her irritation at having been frightened when she asked him, “What are you doing here?”
Lucas strolled down the stone path to meet her. “Waiting for you. You wanted to see me, but you either got cold feet or decided not to risk an encounter with me, and since I’m curious as to which it is, I decided to find out. Is that a good enough explanation?”
She didn’t feel like matching wits with him. “Rudy hasn’t been to tutoring this week, and she hasn’t been to school, either.” Her voice broke, and he moved closer to her, almost automatically as if it were his duty and his right. But he wasn’t going to tell her ever again that she used him for her own ends, so she squared her shoulders and stepped back.
“Are you telling me you haven’t seen her since last week?”
She nodded. “I saw her Saturday when I took her and Nathan to the museum in Old Salem.”
“You did what? Now you wait a minute. You know that’s against the board’s rules and probably against the law, too.”
“I had written permission from Nathan’s grandmother and Rudy’s foster mother. I took them to the museum, to a restaurant and back home. I didn’t even take them to my house.”
He pushed back the front of his leather jacket, shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and kicked at the stones beneath his feet. “Now what the hell do you expect me to do with that information? You want me to report you when I know what that will do to you? Are you putting me to some kind of test?”
“Suppose she’s sick,” she asked him as if she were oblivious to his words. “Lucas, that child does not have an easy life. There’s no telling why she’s not at school or what could be wrong with her.” She whirled away from him and made her way to her front door.
“Give me that,” he said when her shaking fingers couldn’t insert the key into the keyhole. “I’ll get on it tomorrow morning.” He opened the door, took her hand and walked with her into the house.
“Will you, please? That’s a strange house she lives in. I went to get her Saturday hoping to meet her foster mother, but Rudy answered the door, and when I brought her home, a small child opened the door. I wouldn’t allow a child that young to open the front door.”
“All right, I’ll get on it,” he said, “but you worry too much.”
“You’d worry about her, too, if . . . if you loved her as much as I do.” She turned her back to him. “If anything happens to that child, I’ll—”
His arms went around her, and the tears spilled from her eyes. “Don’t worry. You’re jumping to conclusions.” His hand stroked her back. “She’s fine, and by this time tomorrow, we’ll have proof of it. Sweetheart, please don’t cry.”
“She doesn’t have a real mother to look after her, just somebody who gets paid to do it.”
His arms tightened around her. “You don’t mean that. Many foster mothers love their charges as much as if they gave birth to them. Let’s not hang the woman before we have proof that she’s committed a crime.”
She only knew that, until she gave Rudy a new coat, the child wore a threadbare one on one of the coldest days of the year in spite of the generous clothing allotment provided by the State. “You don’t understand how I feel. You can’t.”
“Why can’t I? I care for that little girl and for Nathan, too, and I am not a callous and unfeeling man.”
His heat warmed her, and she felt her body begin to relax against him. “You don’t know what that little girl means to me,” she told him with her face buried in the comfort of his chest.
“I’m beginning to understand, and I’ll do what I can to help.”
Grateful for his considerateness, she kissed his cheek, not thinking that she might set off the desire that always simmered between them, a serpent waiting to strike. Immediately, she knew she’d done the wrong thing. He stared down into her face, lowered his head and slipped his tongue between her waiting, parted lips. They tightened their arms around each other, and he pressed her back to the wall, giving her more and more of him, until her arms dropped to her sides, her panting could have been heard across the room, and her breasts heaved against his chest.
Slumping in surrender, she whispered, “You can take me to my bed if you want to, and I’ll let you, but it wouldn’t work for us tonight. I’m too miserable.”
He startled her with a gentle hug, stroking her back as he did so, almost as one soothes a baby. The gesture bore no sign of passion, but communicated to her a deep caring. And it frightened her, for it brought home forcibly to her that they were both deeply entrapped in the web she’d spun.
“Keep your cell phone on,” he said, “and as soon as I know something, I’ll call you. Don’t worry, and try to sleep.” His kiss on her mouth stirred in her far more than she wanted to acknowledge.
Lucas couldn’t help being uneasy as he held Susan, feeling more for her than was healthy and wary of asking her the question that burned in his mind like kindling soaked with kerosene. She was vulnerable right then, and he might hurt her, but he had to say it. He drew a deep breath. “It’s strange to me that you haven’t married and had children. You’re beautiful, desirable, and you love children. Why is this?”
She seemed to fold up before his eyes, to wilt like a water-starved flower so visibly that her pain seeped into him. Hardly able to bear the suffering that he saw in her, he folded her close. Susan Pettiford had a hook in him, one that he expected to carry for a long time. As soon as he could extricate himself without giving her cause for concern, he left.
“Don’t worry about this anymore. I’ll call you as soon as I know something,” he said, and ambled down the cobbled walk, shaking his head at the feeling he identified in himself.
On that Friday morning, he would ordinarily have met with Willis and his team of builders at Hamilton Village, but he’d promised Susan that he would find out about Rudy, and he would. He telephoned Willis.
“I have to take care of some personal business this morning, so I have to cancel our meeting.”
“Too bad, buddy,” Willis said. “I need to go over a few things with you. Call me when you’re free. Nothing’s wrong with your old man, I hope.”
“No. He’s doing fine.”
He d
ressed in a business suit, drove to Rose Hill School and found Nathan’s teacher. The two of them questioned the boy as to Rudy’s whereabouts. “I don’t know where she is, Mr. Hamilton. One time, she told me she was going to run away, but that was a long time ago.”
That revelation disturbed Lucas, and after speaking with Rudy’s teacher, the principal and the social worker, he left the school and went to the Department of Child Welfare, which had responsibility for children in foster care. Finally, around three o’clock, he had the answer and telephoned Susan.
“Hello, Susan. Rudy is right now in Ann Price’s home under the protection of the Department of Child Welfare.”
“Thank God.” She seemed to breathe the words. “What happened?”
“Seems the foster mother went to Alabama to see her sick mother and left her seventeen-year-old daughter in charge of the house. When Rudy wouldn’t let one of the children wear her red coat and fought the child to prevent it, the older girl banished Rudy to a closet and kept her there since Tuesday morning. She gave her nothing to eat, not even water or milk, except peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches, which she knew Rudy hates.
“Rudy refused to eat them. When I got there and I saw her, she was thin and hungry, and she ran to me crying. The agency is looking for a more permanent home for her, because Mrs. Price already has four in her care.”
“I want her,” Susan blurted out. “I want to adopt her, and I’m going to try to get custody of her. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’ve done.”
She wouldn’t have stunned him more if she had hit him upside the head with a baseball bat. “Don’t thank me, Susan. I did it as much for myself as for you. The suggestion that she stay with Mrs. Price came from Nathan, and I supported the idea, but I don’t think she’ll be there long. You may imagine how happy that little girl is right now. I’ll be in touch.”
Getting Some Of Her Own Page 18
