Passion's Price

by Gwynne Forster

  “We’ll have drinks here, dance if you like and go to the dining room for a seven-thirty meal.”

  “I’m in your capable hands. This space is beautiful, and we can see the Memphis skyline from our table.”

  “This is the bar,” he explained. “What would you like to drink?” She told him white wine, and he ordered a vodka comet for himself. Then, he dropped a coin in the jukebox near their table, and Louis Armstrong began to sing “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South.” He held out his hand, opened his arms, and she was immediately lost in them, as he led them in a slow, sexy two-step.

  “I think we’d better stick to the fast tunes,” he said with a half smile.

  “If we’re smart, we’ll confine our dancing to country music and Cotton-Eyed Joe.”

  “We’ll do all of it. I want to dance with you to George Strait’s song by that title, to Buddy Guy’s “Early in the Morning,” and to Duke Ellington’s “Satin Doll,” country, blues and jazz. I hope you feel rested.” She laughed, because his romantic charm put a zing in her steps and a song in her heart.

  And so the evening went. She’d never been happier or felt more cherished. On the ride home, she snuggled close to him in the taxi, not wanting more than air between them. At his apartment door, he unlocked it, picked her up, carried her across the threshold and once they were inside let her slither down his body. How could her longing for him have increased with the minutes since she stepped into the tub of bubble bath that afternoon?

  She gazed up at him, saw the heat in his eyes and ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. He lifted her to fit him, and when she undulated wildly against him, he picked her up and took her to his bed.

  She lay against him, spoon fashion, her naked breast filling his left hand, and his right hand flush between her thighs. Streaks of sunlight filtered between the blinds, reminding him that she would soon leave him. He leaned over and sucked her right nipple into his mouth, guaranteeing him a warm reception. Soon thereafter, she was thrashing beneath him, clutching and stroking his penis. Rending him to helplessness as only she could do.

  “Darlene. Darlene, I love you,” he cried as he spilled himself into her. He’d given her all that he had, and she held him to her as she’d never done before.

  “I’m yours. Only yours,” she said.

  He looked down at her. “Don’t go back to Frederick. Stay here with me. Marry me, and let’s build a life together.”

  As if he’d poured cold water on her, she sat up and bounded out of the bed. “Stay here? Are you serious, Mike? I can’t stay. It’s never occurred to me.”

  He sat up and tried to fend off the bolt of lightning she’d pitched at him. “Let me get this straight. You know I love you. You say you love me. You make love to me in a way that guarantees I won’t want to be away from you, and it has never occurred to you that I would want you to stay here with me, that I’d want you for my wife?”

  She put on his robe, but she didn’t sit down. “But you know I have responsibilities. I’m a professional, and I have to act like one. It’s out of the question.”

  Mortified, he slid out of bed, showered and dressed. “I assume you’ve packed,” he said to her from the hallway. “I’ll be ready to leave when you are.”

  She’d hurt him, and she was sorry, but when he thought about it seriously, he’d see her side of it. She dressed, finished packing and telephoned Boyd. “I didn’t realize your plane left so early,” Boyd said. She told him what, in essence, had happened. “He’s hurt, but he’s a gentleman, so he’ll take me to the airport.”

  “Hogwash! He’ll take you because he loves you. What airline are you flying on?”

  She told him.

  “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  They drove to the airport in stony silence. Once there, Mike put Darlene’s bag on the scales at the ticket counter and looked at her.

  “I told you about the major disappointment of my life. It was nothing compared to this. Be seeing you.”

  A loud gasp escaped her as he turned and walked away. He’d finished it. But how could he? She wanted to call him, but the words stuck in her throat. Her heart seemed to have dropped to the bottom of her belly. She turned to look for a seat and saw Boyd coming toward her.

  “He’s gone,” she said. “He finished it. I thought he’d be mad for a while, and then we’d be like always.” She licked a tear from her top lip. “Boyd, he means it. He’s through.” The tears wet the front of her dress, and she wiped her eyes with the tail of her sweater.

  “You said you told him that staying with him, marrying him, had never occurred to you. What kind of a fool do you think he is?”

  “I was talking about staying here, not about marrying him.”

  “You want him to move to Frederick, where he won’t have a job? Think it over.” He handed her an envelope. “Don’t open it until you get home, and guard it very, very carefully. Call me when you get home.” He kissed her cheek and left. She put the envelope in her pocketbook. She felt dead on the inside.

  How could he have been so blind? She’d worked him over Friday and Saturday nights to make him putty in her hands. Did she think he’d follow her to Frederick like a puppy, live in her big house and let her take care of him? His head felt as if it would split. He got home, made a pot of coffee and sat down to drink it. The phone rang. He hadn’t planned to answer it, but he saw Boyd’s ID and lifted the receiver.

  “Hello, Boyd. What’s up?”

  “I need to see you right now, Mike.”

  “Be there in ten minutes.”

  When he got to Boyd’s home, he didn’t stop at the living room but went directly to the kitchen, made a pot of coffee and took the pot along with milk and two mugs to the living room. He sat down facing Boyd’s favorite chair.

  “What’s got you so riled up, man?”

  “Darlene called me, and I went to see her off. She gave me her side of what happened. I can’t—”

  “Hold it, Boyd. That woman took me into her body and turned me inside out, reduced me to putty, and minutes later, I have the temerity to ask her to stay with me and to marry me. What does she do? She bounds out of the bed and tells me it has never occurred to her. Don’t tell me about Darlene. Damn her. I’m human, and I hurt like hell!”

  “Then why was she crying all over me? She wants to marry you. She just didn’t want to remain here this weekend.”

  “That’s not the way it sounded to me. She had time to clarify it, and she didn’t.”

  “After I spilled my guts to the two of you yesterday morning, you’re both still acting like blockheads. I saw it coming. She’s crazy about you, so use some of your famous charm, for goodness’ sake. Don’t let that woman out of your life.” He handed Mike an envelope. “Whatever you do, don’t misplace this. It’s very important. Open it when you get home.”

  “Thanks. I’d better go. This thing is hard to digest.”

  “You have what it takes to turn this around, and I’m confident that you will,” Boyd said to Mike as he turned to leave the room.

  Darlene walked into her house, pasted a smile on her face and went to the kitchen to find Maggie. A note attached to the refrigerator told her that Maggie was at a friend’s home and supper was on the stove. Greatly relieved at not having to lie about her weekend, she went to her room, began unpacking and saw the envelope that Boyd had given her. She sat on the bed beside a pile of clothing and opened it.

  “What? Was he playing games?” He’d said it was important, so she scrutinized it. A puzzle, but she didn’t have the right pieces with which to solve it. At the bottom of what appeared to be an architect’s draft of a building, she read: “Solve this, and you will receive rewards, both tangible and intangible, beyond your wildest dreams.”

  She pondered it for over an hour. “The rest of this puzzle has been deliberately misplaced. Never mind—nothing beats me. I intend to solve this riddle.”

  She spent most of the night looking for a key to the puzzle, but couldn’t
find one. When she reached her office the next morning, she walked in, closed the door, sat down and telephoned Mike.

  “Hi. This is Darlene. I hope you’re feeling better than me. Did Boyd give you an envelope containing some kind of architectural drawing?”

  “Yes, he did, but I don’t have the right pieces. You got one, too?”

  So Boyd had a plan for them. Thank God, she thought, because she certainly didn’t know how to solve their dilemma. “Yes,” she said out loud. “I spent the night puzzling over this thing. It can’t be solved with what I have here.”

  “I’ve just come to the same conclusion. Uh…”

  “What is it?” she asked, not bothering to hide her anxiety.

  “Can you… I mean, would you come down here next weekend?”

  “Earlier than that, if you ask me.”

  “How earlier? Tuesday, maybe?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll send you an electronic ticket, and I’ll meet you at the baggage carousel. Uh…where will you stay?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “All right. We’ll see each other Tuesday.”

  She hung up and telephoned Sam. “I’ll be away Tuesday and for the rest of the week,” she told him. She was junior, but she was still a partner, not the hired help.

  “Be sure and leave your number in case we need to reach you.”

  Fear gripped her when she saw Mike standing at a post beside the carousel. This was D-day. Would he forgive her? He didn’t smile when he saw her. Each bridged the distance between them slowly. She dropped her carry-on bag and held out both of her hands to him. He took them and stepped close to her.

  “Did you say you’d never thought of marrying me?”

  “No. No, I didn’t. I said I hadn’t thought of remaining in Memphis, of my living in Memphis, but I hadn’t had to think seriously about it. I’m so deeply in love with you, Mike, that I’ve hardly been able to eat since I left here.”

  He got her luggage, took her hand and went to his car. He drove into town. “I want you to stay with me. Will you?”

  She agreed that she would.

  “I know we’re not quite back to where we were, but I also know we can make it,” he said.

  At home, he phoned a restaurant, ordered food and they settled on the dining-room floor with the puzzle. As darkness encroached, Darlene put the last piece in place, and they gazed at their handiwork.

  “Do you know what it is?” she asked him.

  “I think it’s his house. Yeah! Let’s go.” Securing the eight-by-twelve inch puzzle on a silver tray, he put it on the floor in the back of his car, so as not to disturb the tiny pieces.

  “He’ll be surprised to see me,” Darlene said.

  “If he’s playing a joke. Do you still love me?” Mike asked.

  “Lord, yes. If I hadn’t known it before, what I went through Sunday and Monday night would have soldered it to my brain.”

  “I can’t tell you how I felt when I received your call yesterday morning. It was like coming back from the dead. Darlene, don’t treat this thing lightly. If you hadn’t called me, it would have been over. And, yes, it would’ve hurt, but I’ve been hurt before.”

  “Believe me, you don’t have to tell me. I didn’t hurt worse than that when I lost both of my parents at the same time.”

  He parked in front of Boyd’s house. Her finger traced his thigh, and he looked at her, first sideways and then fully in the face. She saw his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously and opened her arms to him. His resistance lasted for a second, and she was holding him, loving him and sobbing in his arms.

  “G…give me a minute to set… straighten up,” she whispered. He dried her tears with his handkerchief.

  Boyd opened the door before they rang the bell. “I saw you when you parked, but I didn’t know Darlene was with you. Come in. Did you solve it?”

  “It’s a sketch for the design of this house?” Darlene said. “It was terribly complicated, and there was nothing to go by. Who made this puzzle?”

  “I did. I could have made it more difficult, but I wanted you to solve it. I own a company of sixty-one employees that makes puzzles and many kinds of crafts. I’ve retired from actively working there, but I’m still CEO, and I love puzzles of any kind.” He observed them closely. “I see you’ve made up. Wonderful. You don’t know how happy I am.

  “Sit over here. As you know, I have no children, and no relatives who care about me. Upon my death, my will will state that the two of you inherit this house and all of my property, including my company, Farmer Enterprises. However, to help you avoid such foolishness as Darlene exhibited Sunday morning, there will be a provision stating that the property cannot be sold or divided until ten years after you receive it. If you take good care of it, your children and grandchildren should have a comfortable life.”

  Later, as they sat in Mike’s living room holding each other, he got up suddenly. “Excuse me for a minute.” When he came back to her, he knelt before her. “I love you, and I will for as long as I breathe. Will you marry me? I’ll be faithful to you, and I’ll take the best care that I can of you and our children.”

  Happiness suffused her as she looked down at him, and love seemed to flood her being. “I’ll be proud to be your wife. I love you, and I want the whole world to know that you love me.”

  He slipped the diamond ring on her finger, and she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth. “You may put my belongings in my room,” she said, “but do I have to sleep there?”

  “Definitely not.” He carried her to his bed and loved her until they were both spent.

  Later, they sat up in bed drinking wine and eating cheese and crackers.

  “Do couples ever get tired of…uh, making love?”

  “Damned if I know. You bet I won’t.”

  “Me, neither,” she said. Then she put the glasses on the night table, slid down beneath the covers and caressed him until he groaned with pleasure. “Just a little reminder that I can give as good as I get,” she said as he wrapped her in his arms.

  On January third of the following year, one month after her marriage to Lieutenant Detective Michael Raines, attorney Darlene Cunningham-Raines opened her law practice in Memphis, Tennessee. As her first client, Boyd Farmer engaged her to represent Farmer Enterprises in a copyright case.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-8816-8

  PASSION’S PRICE

  Copyright © 2011 by Gwendolyn Johnson-Acsadi

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