Love Me Tonight

by Gwynne Forster

  At the sound of distant thunder, she rushed to the windows and closed them. The ringing phone startled her, because she hadn’t heard that loud, almost onerous sound before.

  “Hello.”

  “Dr. Tatum, a Mr. Philips is on the line. Do you want to speak with him?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” With her heart pounding like the hooves of a runaway horse, she dropped down on the bed and wiped the perspiration that formed on her brow. “Hello, Judson. I’m so glad to hear from you. How are you, and how is your search going?”

  “It’s going better than I could have imagined. I have so much to tell you. I’ve met Sparkman’s nephews, and I look just like them from head to foot.”

  “You’re kidding me. Really? This is wonderful.”

  “There’s more, but it will have to wait. How are things going there?”

  “I’m scheduled to leave here late tomorrow afternoon. All is well.” It wasn’t, of course, but she dare not say so, for she was aware that the operator hadn’t hung up. “I’ll phone you when the plane lands.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be waiting for your call. I won’t keep you longer, because I know you must be busy. Till tomorrow.”

  “Right. Thanks so much for your call.”

  She hung up hoping she’d managed to communicate to him that she was happy he’d called. He’d figure out that the line wasn’t private. The operators considered it their right to listen in on anyone’s call, and she suspected that, on more than one occasion, they’d been privy to sensitive information. Energized by Judson’s call, she dressed for her appointment with the ambassador with more enthusiasm than she’d felt earlier.

  “Maybe getting all this behind me will raise my spirits. Another two days in this place, and I’d be fit for a case of depression. How can these people be so satisfied with this situation?”

  She gave the ambassador a summary of her report and thanked him for his helpfulness. He had been helpful, she reflected later, but he trusted the wrong people.

  When leaving the embassy en route to the airport the next day, she feigned surprise that the man she’d found to be at the root of the problem had been fired. “What a pity!” she said.

  “Yes. He knew a lot about a lot of things,” the driver replied cryptically.

  Chapter 7

  Judson checked the incoming flights from Bogota, looking for Heather’s flight number. He had arrived at the Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport minutes before the plane bringing Heather had landed. She had texted him as she’d said she would, but he didn’t tell her that he was already at the airport. A little more than forty minutes after the plane landed, he saw her walking into the waiting area and looking around.

  “Heather!”

  She stopped. Her gaze landed on him, and the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen brightened her face. He opened his arms, and when she walked into them as if she belonged there, he pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

  “You devil,” she said, gripping him in a fierce hug. “You didn’t tell me you were already here to meet me.”

  He handed her a dozen multicolored calla lilies. “You didn’t think I’d let you struggle to get a taxi after that long flight, did you? Have you had anything to eat?”

  “Some, but I slept through some of the serving.” She smelled the flowers. “When you travel first-class, those guys don’t let you get hungry. Thank you. These are so beautiful, and I love them so much.”

  They walked arm in arm to the garage where he’d parked the car. “I’m anxious to know how things went with you in Bogota,” he said. “Did you have to be the hatchet man?”

  “It amounted to that, although it wasn’t what I’d planned. I’m beginning to think we’ll never wipe out those drug cartels. They’re like an old house that leaks. You plug up one hole, and another spouts even more water. You hire a guy to combat the problem only to discover that he applied for the job in order to make certain that you never find the root of the problem. We’re straight now, but who knows for how long?”

  “I didn’t realize that you dealt with the problem of drugs,” Judson said, concern lacing his voice.

  “I don’t, but one of our attaché’s down there does. I suspected that he wasn’t doing his job. He wasn’t.” She looked brightly into his face. “Now—tell me about you.”

  “There’s so much to tell. Let’s stop by a good take-out shop, get some food and go to your place. I know you’re tired, and I promise not to stay too long.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  He bought leek soup, two veal Marsala dinners, lemon chiffon pie and two bottles of white wine. “Whether you’re hungry or not,” he said when he returned to the car, “I’ve got you covered.”

  He parked in front of her building. “You take the food, and I’ll bring your luggage.” He took her two big suitcases out of the trunk of his car. “Why do women travel with so much more stuff than we men do?” he said, though he didn’t expect an answer.

  She gave him one. “Because guys will wear the same suit every day. We women don’t do that.”

  “Yeah, but we change everything else every day. Gals compete with each other as to who looks best. Men don’t do that.”

  “Whatever you say.” She handed him her door key. “Thanks for meeting me. You make life wonderful.”

  He stopped in the act of closing the door. “Don’t say such things to me unless you mean them.”

  “I meant that from the bottom of my heart.”

  He closed the door, stepped closer to her and took her into his arms. “And you illumine my life. Don’t ever forget it. I need you the way I need air to breathe.” He brushed her lips with his, and when she opened to him, he slipped into her and let her possess him. Overwhelmed by a sense of belonging to her, a feeling he’d never had until he loved her, he broke the kiss and stared down at her. Was a man foolish to give one person so much power over his well-being?

  “What is it, Judson? What happened?”

  “When we’re together like this, many things flash through my mind, not the least of which is amazement that I have you in my life.”

  She tucked herself into him, tightened her arms around him and seemed to relax. “I’m happy, too.”

  More than anything, he wanted to believe in what they’d found in each other, but he’d had too many disappointments to believe in miracles. Maybe if his search for his parentage panned out… He didn’t let himself finish the thought.

  “I’m going out of my mind waiting for you to tell me what you’ve discovered,” she said, walking him to the living room. “Let’s sit here.”

  He brought her up to date, beginning with his visit to Jack Rawls, managing editor of the Frederick News-Post, and ending with his goodbye kiss to Telford Harrington’s daughter, Tara.

  “That’s the most remarkable story I ever heard,” Heather said. “It’s got to be true. Nobody’s ever heard of a coincidence that great.”

  “That’s what I feel, but because it’s so phenomenal, I need absolute proof. As I said, I’ve got a lot more work to do. The Harrington brothers seem inclined to accept me as their cousin, but they also agreed that we need proof. I’m going with Telford on Friday morning to see Aunt Cissy. I’m at the center of this, and he’s only marginally involved, so perhaps he can come up with a question or an angle that hasn’t occurred to me.”

  “And you’re sure he’s on the up-and-up?”

  “If you meet that man, his family and his brothers and spend an evening with them, you’ll trust him. If I’m wrong on this, I’ll have to reassess my ability to trust my judgment of people.”

  Telford Harrington had no misgivings about Judson. He sat with his brothers in the office of Harrington, Inc., Architects, Engineers and Builders, situated on the top floor of the warehouse they’d built on the Harrington estate. They’d come together that morning to discuss their obligation to Judson in the event that there was incontrovertible proof of his blood relationship to them.

  “Let�
�s look at it this way,” Russ, the least benevolent of the three, began. “There’s no doubt that Judson Philips was sired by a descendant of our grandfather, and that man seems to have been Uncle Fentriss. I don’t believe in such coincidences. You could almost mistake him for Drake. I watched him closely. How could he be so much like us and not be our cousin unless Uncle Fentriss was his father?”

  “I agree with all that,” Drake said, “but for what I’m thinking, we need solid proof. He has letters from Uncle Fentriss to his adoptive mother acknowledging their affair, and circumstantial evidence that she was actually his mother, but that is not proof.”

  “All right,” Telford said. “I’m willing to take a DNA test if Judson asks me to do it, but I’m not sure that will satisfy him.”

  “That goes without saying,” Russ said. “If he gives me proof, he deserves a share of Uncle Fentriss’s estate, and as executor of Uncle Fentriss’s will, I couldn’t in good conscience refuse to do it.”

  “We won’t argue about that,” Drake said. “Right is right.”

  Telford loved his brothers and not the least because he could always count on their sense of decency and their insistence on doing what was right. As they talked, he came to an important conclusion. “I see that we’re in this together and that we’re thinking along the same lines. If we get solid proof that Uncle Fentriss was Judson’s father, I suggest we give Judson something that we inherited from Uncle Fentriss. What do you say?”

  Drake stood, rubbed the back of his neck and walked to the window that overlooked the driveway and the swaying trees that lined it. “Something you said last night is jumping around in my head, Telford, and I can’t place it. But I know it’s important. It’s something you told us about Judson’s background. Let’s see. His adoptive mother had a baby out of wedlock, left it with her own mother and moved to Baltimore.” He repeated it several times. “That wasn’t it, but I’ll get it.”

  “Then we’re agreed that if we get what we regard as proof—”

  Russ interrupted Telford. “By proof, I mean a birth certificate and DNA tests.”

  “Right,” Drake said. “What about you, Telford?”

  “I’d accept less, but I’ll go along with the two of you. Is it agreed that we’ll do all we can to help Judson solve this to his satisfaction?”

  “Right,” Russ and Drake said in unison.

  “I’m anxious to welcome him to our family,” Drake said, “because already I like him a lot. I searched for him on Google—he’s an impressive and seemingly honorable man.”

  “I agree,” Telford said.

  Russ stood, stretched expansively and said, “Me, too. I don’t like the idea of a stranger looking that much like us. I’d rather have him as a confirmed relative.” His brothers laughed at his dry humor, but they knew that Russ had never been more serious.

  As they walked down the stairs, Telford patted Russ on his shoulder. “I suggest that we keep this conversation strictly to ourselves. I don’t even plan to tell Alexis.” Russ and Drake agreed not to divulge their decision to share their uncle’s wealth with Judson in the event that doing so proved inappropriate.

  Judson was not surprised to receive a call from Telford that Thursday afternoon. “How are you, Telford? I was expecting to hear from you, to confirm our meeting with Aunt Cissy.”

  “That’s mainly why I’m calling. My brothers and I are looking forward to getting this all cleared up, and we’re hoping that as a result, we’ll welcome you as a member of our family. What is your aunt Cissy’s address?”

  He gave Telford the address.

  “Thanks. As agreed, I’ll meet you there at noon on Friday.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Judson said and told him goodbye.

  He rescheduled his Friday appointments and called Lon Marshall, the partner second to him, and told him he wouldn’t be in the office on Friday. “If you need me, you may reach me on my cell.”

  “Right.”

  He arrived at Cissy’s house at around eleven-thirty and, as usual, she came down the walkway and met him at her gate. “Something tells me you’re closing in on this, Judson. Am I going to like this man who’s coming here to talk with me?”

  “I’d be truly surprised if you didn’t. He and his brothers impressed me as being honorable. You may have a shock. I look a lot like him.”

  “And well you should if he’s your first cousin.”

  “That remains to be proved, Aunt Cissy.”

  “I’ve been discussing Fentriss Sparkman with some of our relatives because I wanted to refresh my own memory. He was quite a man, and from what everybody remembers, he would have married Beverly if he’d had a chance. But after Beverly got pregnant, she was under her mother’s foot and, with Sparkman in Atlanta, there wasn’t a thing Beverly could do.

  “We can have lunch as soon as Mr. Harrington gets here. He’s built some buildings around here, too. Not as many as Sparkman, but he and his brothers are known around here.” A smile floated over her face. “I bought a beef tenderloin. I want that big shot to know your other relatives got class, too.”

  He hugged her. Cissy Henry had come to her own conclusions about his parentage and obviously had decided that further proof wasn’t necessary. “I wish Mom hadn’t put such a distance between herself and Hagerstown. She must have lived in perpetual fear that dad would discover her duplicity. What an awful way to live!”

  “So you’re convinced, too!”

  “I can add, Aunt Cissy.”

  “Don’t judge her too harshly, son. She must have paid heavily for it. Imagine your own child thinks somebody else is his mother. Come on in here while I put this roast in the oven. You can’t keep a beef tenderloin roasting more than forty minutes at best.” She tried to open a cabinet door. “This thing gon’ drive me crazy. Half the time I feel like yanking it off its hinges.”

  He examined the door, opened it and sat down. “I’ll fix it before I leave. Is there a hardware store around here?”

  “Yes. ’Bout three blocks over.” The doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it, Aunt Cissy. You take care of that filet mignon roast. I can taste it already.”

  At the door, he greeted Telford.

  “Hi. You’re right on time. I hope you didn’t stop to eat. Aunt Cissy is preparing to show off her culinary talent, and believe me, she has some talent to display.”

  Cissy came into the hallway wiping her hands on her apron. “Come on in, Mr. Harrington. Welcome. Judson has spoken so highly of you and your brothers that…My goodness! The resemblance sure is strong.”

  “Aunt Cissy, this is Telford Harrington. Telford, my aunt, Cissy Henry. I realize that this was probably unnecessary, but it isn’t easy to ignore one’s training.”

  Telford extended his hand. “Thank you for receiving me, Mrs. Henry. This is as important to me as it is to Judson. If a man looks this much like you, you want to know why.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I sure would try to get to the bottom of it. Come on back here. Lunch’ll be done in a bit. We can sit out there on the back porch. The living room is too far from the kitchen, and I have to check the oven and things.”

  She opened the refrigerator, got a pitcher of lemonade and handed it to Judson. “Take that and some glasses outside, please, Judson. I bought some beer, in case you and Mr. Harrington would rather have that. I don’t have a taste for beer.”

  “Thanks,” Telford said, “but I’ll take the lemonade. I don’t drink when I have to drive.”

  “Well, it won’t spoil. We gon’ eat first and talk business later. I don’t like for things to get in the way of my meals. I only eat at mealtime, and I do love to enjoy my food. I never get indigestion, ’cause I don’t mix eating with anything else.”

  “That’s a good policy,” Telford said. “How long have you lived here, Mrs. Henry?”

  “I want you to call me Aunt Cissy. My husband built this house and brought me here the day we married. That was sixty-three years ago. It’s bee
n renovated and modernized, and now I guess it needs work again.”

  “Looks pretty sound to me,” Telford said, “and it’s situated on a choice piece of property.”

  “I know. Several of these real estate people been after me to sell it, but I’ll never do it.”

  “I doubt they would offer you a third of what it’s worth.”

  She got up and went into the kitchen. A few minutes later she called to them. “Judson, show Telford where he can wash his hands, if he wants to.”

  Telford laughed. “I want to.”

  A half hour later, they finished a meal of beef tenderloin, lemon-roasted potatoes, string beans, stuffed squash, baked corn bread and a dessert of caramel cake and vanilla ice cream. “I’m too full to talk sensibly,” Telford joked when they moved back to the porch.

  “What y’all need is some coffee,” Cissy said. “I’m by myself most all the time, and when I have somebody to cook for, it makes my day.” She poured the coffee and sat down.

  “Well, Telford. It’s quite a story. Judson has told you much of it. I just learned from my husband’s cousin that Fentriss Sparkman came back here many times asking for Beverly.” Judson noticed that Telford reacted as if something had stunned him, though he quickly covered it up.

  “He said the last time Sparkman came here asking if anyone knew her whereabouts must’ve been a little over three years ago. Seems like he never gave up on her. Was he married when he died?”

  Telford shook his head. “We’ve searched his tax records, his insurance records and the registrar of deeds in Frederick, and it seems that he never married.”

  “When he was here back then, he lived as a single man.”

  “Do you know where he lived, Aunt Cissy?” Telford asked her.

  “He had an apartment in that house on the corner, the one with the brick front.”

  “I know that one.”

  “My husband’s cousin said Beverly once disappeared for over a week after Mr. Sparkman went to Atlanta.”