Against the Wind

by Gwynne Forster

  Indigo

  An imprint of Genesis Press, Inc.

  Publishing Company

  Genesis Press, Inc.

  P.O. Box 101

  Columbus, MS 39703

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, not known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission of the publisher, Genesis Press, Inc. For information write Genesis Press, Inc., P.O. Box 101, Columbus, MS 39703.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author and all incidents are pure invention.

  Copyright © 1999, 2006, 2010 by Gwendolyn Johnson

  ISBN-13: 978-1-58571-589-3

  ISBN-10: 1-58571-589-1

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition 1999

  Second Edition 2006

  Third Edition 2010

  Visit us at www.genesis-press.com or call at 1-888-Indigo-1-4-0

  Dedication

  To my husband, who for nearly thirty years has always been there for me when I needed him; who supports and encourages me in all that I do; who is my solid rock; and who is my love.

  Chapter One

  Leslie Collins glanced at the rearview mirror of her ten-year-old Taurus and momentarily relaxed her foot on the accelerator. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt as if her blood had begun to flow backwards, curdling, it seemed, by the seconds, and perspiration matted the hair at her temples. If that brown Chevy wasn’t trailing her, why had it stayed two cars behind her on three different highways since she’d left Westminster? She had been careful to cover her tracks, but she had learned that the man had the tentacles of an octopus, a sensory system capable of finding her no matter where she went.

  She accelerated rapidly, putting several more cars between hers and the Taurus, drove without signaling into the parking lot of a huge mall and found security beside an eighteen-wheel Mack truck. From there, she watched the brown Chevy continue down Route 295. She spun her car around and headed in the direction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, feeling as if she were a vagabond looking for a place to camp for the night. Preston, a small town bordering Talbot County, Maryland, seemed as good a place as any, and she took a room in The Talbot women’s residence, a comfortable lodging near the town square. The next morning, she got such information as she could on job opportunities and headed for Saber Estates, just outside of Dexter, about twenty miles from Preston. If she could get the job and keep it for the next six months, she could save enough money to finish her master’s degree. And she’d take any job, even if it meant shelling beans eight hours a day.

  The expanse and obvious wealth of Saber Estates surprised Leslie. She stepped out of her ancient Ford, took a deep breath and looked around. Lush greenery, flowering fruit trees and yellow April flowers bordering a green-shuttered, white Georgian mansion greeted her eyes. Everything about the locale gave her a sense of peace and security. Her future, indeed her life, depended on finding a job in a safe environment, far away from Westminster. She had left her secure position as bank officer in a small, but prosperous, bank in Westminster, Maryland, and gone job hunting once more, but after two months, she was still looking. She’d been told at the women’s residence that the owner of Saber Estates was a tough taskmaster who demanded impeccable behavior from his employees. Just what she needed: employment with safety. Protection. He had an opening, but if he turned her down, she’d have to move on.

  Fifty feet away, Jordan Saber examined his strawberry crates and estimated how many he had to buy. The promise of a bumper crop of berries, the best in several years, buoyed his spirits. If central Maryland was spared its usual early spring hailstorms, he’d turn a good profit. He spied Leslie just as he finished stacking the usable crates, closed the shed and started to the house.

  What’s this?” he said aloud, seeing Leslie, a slim, young African-American woman dressed in stone- washed jeans and a snug-fitting sweater, stretching like a young cat. In late summer, some townspeople came to the Estates asking for unsold or blemished fruits and vegetables as handouts, and he was glad to oblige them when he could. But the whole town knew that he didn’t “hand-out” before mid-July. He was on the verge of discouraging her when she ran up to him and stopped dead in her tracks, as though stunned.

  Leslie clasped one hand over her stomach, because that was where her pounding heart had settled. Nothing that had happened to her in her twenty-eight years had prepared her for Jordan Saber. He loomed over her, his impatience reflected in hypnotic green eyes, but that made no impression on her. She had temporarily forgotten where she was and why she was there. She hadn’t spent much time paying attention to men, and especially not to white ones; if she had, it wouldn’t have helped. This was a man who turned heads.

  “Well?”

  She wondered if he realized that his looks had disconcerted her and if he was overly concerned with them. Surely women had left him with no doubt as to his attributes.

  “‘Morning, Miss. What can I do for you?”

  Remembering her unemployed status restored her presence of mind. “Good morning. Can you tell—?”

  “What’s the problem, Miss?” They spoke simultaneously. His long legs propelled him at a pace she couldn’t match despite her five-foot-seven-inch height, so she raced ahead of him to get in her question. Whoever he was, he was formidable. The man wasn’t unpleasant, but his obvious disinterest almost caused her to leave.

  “Where can I find Jordan Saber?”

  He stopped walking and gazed down at her. “I am Jordan Saber. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for a job, and I can do—”

  “I’m afraid I don’t need any workers,” he interrupted. For a minute, he thought she’d wilt right there, but she straightened up and looked him squarely in the eye.

  “Mister, I have to find a job. I heard that you needed clerical help. I can keep books, do accounting, computer programming, typing, any office work, but I’ll do anything. I’ve looked everywhere, but everybody tells me they’re laying off people.”

  He walked on, and she grabbed his right arm, surprising him “I fired my bookkeeper for dishonesty, and I haven’t decided to hire another one. The only workers I need are lettuce pickers.”

  “I can do that. Pick lettuce, I mean.” He meant his facial expression to imply that the very idea was ludicrous. His lettuce pickers were hefty men able to carry two to three bushels of lettuce at a time and, anyway, he wouldn’t put a woman in that rough bunch of men.

  She must have realized that he was going to say no again, for she raised her chin high and molded her hands to her slim hips in an obvious effort to communicate to him the extent of her determination. “Mr. Saber, I need a job badly, and I’m not afraid of work.”

  They reached the back porch, and he stopped, stuck his hands in the back pockets of his overalls and gave her a long, penetrating stare. No, he didn’t doubt that she was desperate; he didn’t doubt it one bit. She looked it. But she didn’t beg, and she wasn’t whining. So she had his respect. He opened the screen door and nodded for her to precede him.

  “Come on in. We’ll see.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding as she waited for his answer and hesitated as though uncertain. He stared down at her. Bemused. She was obviously intelligent, but so skittish. “Come on in. We’re wasting time,” he told her. “I’ll see what Julia can do for you.”
>
  “Julia?”

  He could see that he made her ill at ease, so he smiled. But that brought a wide-eyed look of surprise. Damn. He couldn’t be that daunting.

  “Is Julia your wife?”

  He realized then that she would rather not enter the house alone with him and wondered what had made her wary of a normal man “Julia,” he called, “could you please step here for a second?” Softening his tone, he asked her name.

  “I’m Leslie Collins.” He heard the pride and sensed again her determination. She was rather interesting looking with long, thick, unstraightened hair and large, wide brown eyes, her face devoid of make-up. And she cloaked herself in an arresting dignity. He eyed her with approval; self-pride was a trait that he admired. He watched her from the corner of his eye. She’d be better than good looking if she took one-third as much trouble with herself as some of the glamour girls he knew.

  “Julia, this is Leslie Collins. Could you please set a place at the table for her? We’ll talk while we eat breakfast. Where’s Cal? Hasn’t he come in yet? Miss Collins, this is my housekeeper and friend, Julia Baker. Mrs. Baker and her husband live here with me.” Leslie noticed that he asked questions without waiting for the answers.

  Leslie saw in Julia Baker a handsome blonde who looked like anything but a housekeeper, a fiftyish woman with a fine-looking, slim figure and the self-confidence of a modern matron in her own home. And she wasn’t wearing an apron. If she replaced those jeans and sneakers with a cocktail dress and sandals, she could go dancing without doing anything else to herself.

  She extended her hand. “How do you do, Mrs. Baker?” The woman’s firm handshake and cordial demeanor comforted her like a warm fire after a trek through a blizzard.

  “I’m glad to meet you, Leslie. Please call me Julia.” She pointed to a short hallway. “There’s a bathroom just around there, if you’d like to wash your hands.”

  Leslie had already eaten breakfast, but she suspected that this man would talk with her while he ate his breakfast and not a minute after he’d finished it. She quickly washed her face and hands and joined Jordan, who had seated himself at the table. Then she watched in amazement as Julia stood facing him and began to say grace just as Jordan was about to put a hot muffin into his mouth. He left his hand, muffin and all, poised at his lips while Julia spoke the few words. When she finished, he popped the muffin into his mouth.

  Julia looked at Leslie with an amused twinkle. “Without us women, men wouldn’t be anywhere near civilized.”

  Jordan ignored her, and Leslie sensed then that, formidable though he seemed, Jordan Saber might be human. Still, she wasn’t planning to test the theory. She already knew that a man who behaved decently could have a very dark side.

  “Come sit down, Julia. Miss Collins is looking for a job. She’d prefer office work, but she says she’ll take any kind of job, and it occurs to me that you’ve been needing some help.” He turned to Leslie. “I don’t need a clerk. I’ve learned that it’s best to manage my own affairs, and unless they get to be too much, I’ll keep my own books. Another thing. I am not going to hire you to work in a field with twenty men. The work’s too hard, and the hands can’t be expected to change their manners just because you’re out there.”

  Leslie braced herself and prepared to reason with him. “I wouldn’t expect them to. They can do what they like; I just want the chance to earn a living.”

  He scowled at her. “Where’d you come from? Don’t you know what laborers are like when there’re no women around? That’s my decision and it’s final. Julia’s been needing someone to help her prepare meals for the hands—the men who work for me. They live in a workers’ dorm that I built out beyond the barns, but that’s not your business. I don’t want to think about the reaction of those men if you go in that dorm, so my advice to you is stay away from there. You need to be here by six-thirty. You get Saturday afternoons and Sundays off. If you work overtime, you get paid time-and-a-half for it. I’ll pay you the same thing I pay the men.” When she raised her eyebrows, he snapped, “Don’t worry, you’ll earn every penny of it—$315 a week and meals to start. When most of the hands came here, they were down on their luck—homeless, socially and financially bankrupt. I’ve insisted that they save, and they’re proud of what they’ve accumulated. Do you have a bank account? If you don’t, then please open one. One-half of your salary goes into your bank account every week and I keep the bankbook. You can check your balance every payday.” She gasped and opened her mouth to protest, but he didn’t pause.

  “I advise you not to go to Pepper’s Tavern at any time. It’s not a place for people with self-respect.”

  Leslie clenched her fists, trying to control her anger. When she spoke, it was with dripping sarcasm. “Anything else, sir?”

  Jordan ignored the taunt. “Yeah. Outside of this house, no alcohol is allowed on the Estates, except two beers or a half bottle of wine per person with supper on Saturdays, and I furnish that. I can’t abide drunks. Those are the same terms the men get. Take it or leave it.” Before she could say a word, he was out the door and headed for the fields.

  “Just a minute, you!” she yelled after him. Furious, she placed her hands on her hips and stared at an inscrutable Julia.

  “Don’t take it so hard, honey,” Julia told her coolly, “that lion can be a lamb, believe me.”

  “If you say so,” she fumed, still boiling with the impulse to tell him what he could do with his job. But she knew she had to hold her tongue; she couldn’t afford to lose the job, and he offered her the security she needed at the time. But he irritated her.

  “He can’t keep my bankbook with half of my salary in it,” she seethed.

  “I’m sure you expected to make a lot less than that. Right? Jordan is an honest man. If you’ve got him for a friend, you can consider yourself fortunate indeed. Come on. I’ll show you the house.”

  Leslie had already noticed the wide center hall that connected the front vestibule and the kitchen. Carpeted with a brown patterned Persian rug and decorated with landscape paintings and family portraits, it suggested a casualness that belied the facts. Like the living and dining rooms, with their large wood-burning, marble fireplaces, matching Royal Bokhara carpets, rich butter-soft leather seating and silver appointments, the hallway bespoke good taste and the funds to support it.

  “You can see he’s not a compulsive buyer,” Julia said. “He decides he needs something and then goes looking for it. If he doesn’t find it, he doesn’t buy. I’d say that’s the key to his personality.”

  At Leslie’s raised eyebrow, she added, “Oh, he’s a complicated one, all right. This is Jordan’s office,” she explained of the room next to the dining room. “It used to be the breakfast room, but we never used it. We call it the den.”

  She crossed the hall and pointed to a door at the edge of the vestibule. “That’s my and Cal’s apartment. We have a living room, bedroom and bath. Jordan sleeps upstairs, and there’re two more bedrooms and baths up there. When I get time, I’ll show you the laundry rooms, recreation room and bath downstairs.”

  “This is a big house. Who cleans it?”

  “We have someone come in and clean once a week. I take care of Jordan’s bedroom and bath, but you and I can collaborate on that. Now let’s divide the chores. We have dinner at noon. All the dinner meal, including the food for the hands, is prepared here. Jack—he’s the housemaster at the men’s quarters—comes at noon for the men’s dinner and brings the pots back clean. Jack roasts a ham or a turkey or fries chicken for their supper. What can you cook?”

  “Most things. I’m a pretty good cook.” It wasn’t Julia’s business that, in exchange for room and board, she’d cooked for the family in whose home she stayed while an undergraduate at the University of Maryland. She added, “I prefer to bake.” Julia smiled as though to say, so far, so good. “Where do you live?”

  “About forty-five minutes or an hour from here,” Leslie answered, intentionally vague; the less J
ulia knew about her, the better. But she would learn that not even Jordan could get around Julia.

  “Dexter isn’t more than thirty minutes walking,” Julia said of the nearest town.

  “I don’t live in Dexter.” She said it grudgingly.

  Julia put the scouring pad down and waited, but Leslie said nothing. “Planning to say where you do live, honey?” Her tone was cool and decidedly unfriendly.

  “Preston. At the women’s residence.”

  Julia dropped her jaw. “How on earth will you get here by six-thirty? Jordan won’t tolerate tardiness. I don’t mean to pry, Leslie, but we do need to know who to contact in an emergency.”

  “I’ll be here. Just call Mable Haynes on Bush Street in Westminster, if anything should happen to me.” Julia scrutinized her, and from the length of her potent silence, Leslie couldn’t help wondering whether the angel of minutes earlier had started to sprout horns.

  “We’d better get busy. Here’re the day’s baking requirements. Can you handle them?”

  “Sure. Anything else? I intend to earn my salary.”

  She wanted to bite her tongue at the slip. Julia’s stare was a reminder that household help got wages, not salary. She’d have to watch herself.

  * * *

  “You’ve done well this morning, Leslie,” Julia told her just before noon. “Jordan will be pleased.”

  Julia took a compact from the right pocket of her jeans and ran a powder puff across her nose. “It’s a woman’s duty to look good all the time,” she explained. “Easy as pie, too, in an air-conditioned house.” She brushed her left eyebrow back into shape. “My Cal loves to look at me.”

  Leslie thought it best not to say any of the half-dozen things that came to mind, but she wondered whether she wanted anything or anybody that she had to work so hard to keep. Feeling that she might have found the niche she needed, Leslie stepped outside to enjoy the warm sunshine and familiarize herself with her surroundings. To her surprise and delight, an African-American man approached with a basket of eggs. She had wondered if she’d see any brothers at the Estates and smiled her greeting at the pleasure of it. But the man merely touched the brim of his hat with his right index finger, nodded with a slight smile and walked on past her. Well, well. The strong, silent type. Maybe. She picked a few jonquils for the table and went back into the house.