Fools Rush In Page 12

  “Thanks, but it couldn’t have been more boring. I like to write about people.”

  “Glad to hear it. I’m thinking of a contrast in the lifestyles of African American youth. I don’t care what age group. How about it?”

  Duncan didn’t try to hold back the grin that spread over his face. “Bread and butter. I’ll get right on it.”

  “By the way, how’s your sister?” Wayne asked him.

  “My sis…Leah? I don’t know. You live in the same town as her. Why?”

  “Whenever I call, I get a busy signal.”

  “What time do you call?”

  “Between the hours of five and eleven. Continuously.” The last word had the sound of a vile oath.

  Duncan threw back his head and let himself enjoy a belly laugh. “Women! Call her at work. She’s punishing you for giving her a cold shoulder.” He gave Wayne his sister’s office phone number.

  “Wicked devil. And all that talk about wanting to meet me.”

  “She probably regrets having told you that. You guys get your act together.”

  Wayne lifted his left eyebrow. “Yeah. Wait’ll I get my hands on that woman. Just wait.”

  Duncan made a ceremony of clearing his throat. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to, man.”

  “Not to worry, buddy, I’m a nineties man; she’s more precious than a good rain after a long hot drought.”

  Duncan stared at him. “Are you being poetic?”

  Wayne set his gaze on his desk. “Naah, man. She gets to me. See ya.”

  Duncan didn’t succeed in avoiding Dee Dee, who kept her office door open to feed her curiosity. “How’s it going, Duncan? You get engaged, yet?”

  He flashed her the best grin he could muster and paused for as long as it took to say, “I’m a lost cause, Dee. See ya later.” Dee Dee was his thrice-married colleague in whom he had no interest. She was a good gal, and he didn’t want to hurt her, but he’d give a lot if he could figure out a way to tell her he wasn’t attracted to her Creole beauty and that he wished she’d stop hitting on him.

  When he stepped out into the dreary November afternoon, the excitement of beginning a new investigation sent his blood racing. He pulled his black knit cap out of his pocket and put it on, tightened the red and purple woolen scarf that Mattie had given him for Christmas—knitted by her sister’s own hands, she’d said—and headed for CafeAhNay. He couldn’t afford to look like a prosperous journalist if he wanted the CafeAhNay regulars and employees to consider him one of them. So whenever he went there on cold days, he wore his black cap, black leather jacket, long woolen scarf, jeans, and sneakers. And once there, he took his usual seat in a corner near the door and started whittling.

  From the corner of his eye, he watched Lottie sashay from the bar to his table. “Hi ya doin’ today? You havin’ anything or just whittlin’?”

  “Hi. I’ll take a root beer and some fries.”

  “French or chitterlins?”

  He grimaced. “Lottie, I don’t eat the inside of anything.”

  “Okay. I always ask.”

  “Anything going on?”

  When she looked from side to side before answering, he knew she had something. “Chuckie got a free ride last night.”

  He kept his gaze on his whittling. “What for?”

  She lowered her voice. “Got caught in a sting selling stuff to kids over on Dolphin Street ’round Templeton. He had it coming. People been complaining about that mess for years. I hope this is the end of it.”

  He noticed two strangers staring their way, smiled, and raised his voice, “Sorry to hear it, babe. If I can do anything to help out, just punch my bell.”

  To her credit, she kept a blank expression on her face and didn’t look around, only nodded. He drank the root beer, ate a few of the French fries, paid his bill, and left to find his contacts at Wilma’s Blue Moon on Dolphin Street. The taxi shot along Dolphin well above the speed limit and, more than once, he had to ask the driver to slow down, lest he hit one of the children playing in the streets. He hated that section of the city. Every third house was boarded up, and broken windows told sad stories of some that were occupied. He stared at the endless pieces of broken furniture that littered the streets and wondered how the city could justify not collecting the garbage for people who paid taxes. When the taxi stopped to let him out, he released a breath of relief, but quickly covered his nose and mouth to defend his nostrils against the assaulting fumes of week-old refuse. He walked a block and a half to Wilma’s, because he didn’t know that taxi driver and didn’t trust his health to fortune. For all he knew, the man was on the take from one of his enemies. As usual, he left Wilma with hot names, addresses and some crucial details. He flicked off his recorder and looked at his watch. Just time enough to make the Metroliner to Washington.

  He walked into his bedroom and found Justine’s note on his pillow. “I noticed that you do a lot of sculpting.” He wondered how and where she’d noticed it and kept reading. “Would you please make some learning tools for Tonya. I’m not satisfied with what I can find for children her age. Thanks, Justine.”

  He read it again, looked at some sketches she’d provided, propped his hip against the wall, and urged his subconscious into action. That note was telling something that wasn’t written there, an important message, and he couldn’t get a handle on it. His mind told him she couldn’t be as simple a person as she’d represented herself to be. He couldn’t believe that she was a part of a research experiment aimed at seeing what you could do with children if you started training them early; she loved Tonya too much to use her. Yet, fragments of information and inconsistencies, including that sophisticated note from a nanny, fueled his misgivings. He’s seen nothing about her that he couldn’t admire, but he hoped his feelings hadn’t begun to befuddle his brain.

  His adrenaline kicked up when he knocked on her bedroom door, anxious for the sight of her. The surprise mirrored on her face was worth a laugh. Other than Mattie or himself, who else would be knocking on her bedroom door?

  “Hi. Mind explaining this?” he asked in reference to her note.

  His misgivings must have shown on his face, because she reacted as one taking up arms, before telling him that she would use the sculpted figures to help Tonya learn counting and reading. He looked first at the note, then at Justine, whirled around, and went to Tonya’s room.

  Shock reverberated through him when Tonya saw him, laughed, and bounced up and down. “Tree, Daddy, tree,” she said, holding up three fingers. “Tree.”

  He walked over to her, picked her up, hugged her, and carried her back to Justine’s room. “You’re right again. But I don’t want an exceptional child, Justine. I want her to be happy.”

  She took Tonya from him, and he couldn’t imagine why she avoided his gaze. “You’re exceptional. Has that caused you any problems?”

  She had a quiet way of telling him off, and he’d do something about that if she wasn’t usually right. “I hope we’re not going to disagree about how Tonya should be raised, Justine. I have to depend on you for most of that, since I’m not with her as much as you are. So far, there hasn’t been a problem, but I’ve always heard that parents are most likely to fight about money and how to raise their children. Let’s not…”

  Now, what the devil had he said to make her face lose its color? “Look, I’m not criticizing you, Justine. You’re doing a wonderful job, far better than I could do or that I even dreamed you would do. Let’s…let’s leave things as they are.”

  But she wasn’t pacified. Her face actually sagged as though its skin had lost elasticity, and her eyes blinked rapidly. “Justine, for heaven’s sake.”

  She turned her back to him, and he walked around to face her, hoping he wouldn’t see tears in her eyes. Water gushed from them, though she didn’t utter a sound.

  “My God! What did I say? What have I done to you? Justine!”

  He tried to take Tonya from her, but she held onto the child, and he enclosed th
em both in his arms, close to his chest. He could feel her tremors and her struggle not to sob, and when she relaxed, he took the child from her, put her in her crib and hurried back to Justine, before she could close her door. His arms enfolded her and held her to him in a lover’s caress, and he wiped her tears with his handkerchief.

  “For whatever I said or did, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’d as soon hurt myself as you.”

  “I don’t…don’t think we should be here like this, Duncan.”

  Her several quick, short breaths confirmed for him her struggle not to succumb to her tears. He tightened his hold on her and raised her chin. “You may be right, but I need to hold you. Can’t you put your arms around me?”

  “Duncan, we’ll be sorry for this. I know it. I don’t want you to mean so mu—”

  He turned her to face him, and maybe he’d have heeded her words if her eyes hadn’t held a desperate appeal when she looked up at him. Something in the vicinity of his heart grabbed at him and squeezed until he had to have her healing softness, that tenderness, sweetness that she showered on his daughter. That woman’s loving that he’d never known.

  “Can’t you…hold me?”

  He could see her fight it, and he could see her losing her battle as her arms crept toward his shoulders. Impatient for her caress, he brought her closer until he could feel the tips of her breasts through his shirt, shocking him as that evidence of her desire fueled his heat.

  “Justine!”

  “Duncan, I…Oh, Lord!”

  Her lips moved beneath his, eager, warm, and giving, and the pressure of her hand at the back of his head begged for more. Her fingers moved at his nape, and she opened her mouth for a test of his manliness. He couldn’t deny her. He didn’t want to and, with all the restraint he could muster, let her have what she wanted. Fire raged in him. Didn’t she know anything about moderation? He jerked away from her, but too late to ward off a full arousal. He stepped away and sat on the edge of her chaise lounge.

  “You can’t tell me we shouldn’t be here like this and, a minute later, kiss me as though you could eat me alive? What am I supposed to believe?”

  It didn’t surprise him that she glared, but when she balled up her fists, he figured she’d show him something of herself that he hadn’t seen. Her calm demeanor fooled him. “And what were you busy doing, Mister? All that proved was that I’m human.”

  “Human?” She’d probably get madder, but he couldn’t help laughing. “Human, huh? You mean to tell me you think that’s normal?” She continued to glare at him, so he got up and walked over to her. “Man proposes and God disposes, Justine, so unless you and I have had a change of plans, we’d better give each other plenty of space.”

  “I didn’t start that.”

  He took her right hand, turned it over, and looked at it. Soft, beautiful fingers. “I didn’t start it either, Justine. And that’s our problem. We’re not engineering this thing. See you later.”

  She closed the door behind him, slumped against it, and let it take her weight. One day, she’d have to face the consequences of her hasty decision to move into Duncan Banks’s home as a nanny to her own child. She ought to get out without damaging herself further, but she’d rather die than leave Tonya. And Duncan. He sent her will to the winds with his gentleness and the way he made her feel when he had her in his arms kissing her. How did he expect her to stop when, in all of her adult life, she had longed to feel with a man what she felt every time he touched her?

  Icy tremors shook her body and she cringed remembering his innocent comment about parents fighting over the best way to raise their children. Parents! She had hurt all the way to the bowels of her being. If he had impaled her with a knife and turned it, she doubted the pain would have been as great. For that was precisely the situation: a mother and a father disagreeing about raising their child. She heard the front door close, looked out, and saw Duncan jogging down Primrose Street. She imagined that he was as unsettled as she. For however long Tonya needed a nanny—Lord, she didn’t want to think that far ahead—she wanted that responsibility. After that, well…she did know that if she didn’t eliminate the currents that zigzagged between Duncan and herself, or at least diffuse them, she’d have to leave, and soon. Nothing of merit could develop between them, because you couldn’t build anything worthwhile on deception. Nothing.

  The telephone ring interrupted her musings. “Hello.”

  She listened to the eager female voice and shivered as the reality of its message brought forcibly to her the hopelessness of her situation. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Madam, but the position was filled some time ago,” she said.

  Another woman wanting to marry Duncan Banks and take care of Justine Taylor Montgomery’s daughter. She’d lost count of them. A white lie was as unforgivable as any other, but what choice did she have?

  Desperate for a resolution, she called her godfather and explained the bind into which she’d gotten herself. “I don’t know what to do, Uncle Hugh. If I tell him the truth, he’ll fire me, and I won’t be able to see Tonya.”

  She could imagine that he chomped on his cigar while he thought about it. “That’s just half of your problem, Justine, because it looks to me like you two ought to be together. From what you said, though, he’s a man who won’t hold still for double-dealing. Don’t encourage any involvement, and cut him off if he heads that way. If you don’t you’ll end up doing a lot of crying. What does your father say?”

  “He still won’t take my calls.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet. He’s got self-righteousness down to an art. I expect he’ll need you before you need him.”

  She periodically forgot that Hugh had never liked her father and had thought that her mother married beneath her. “I don’t seem able to handle it that way, Uncle Hugh.”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re just like your mother. Sweet and loving. You couldn’t walk on her though, no more than anybody can do that to you. Be careful, child. I think you’re dealing with your life. A man like that one won’t forgive easily.”

  He hadn’t told her anything she didn’t know, but at least she had been able to talk about it with someone. Unable to work, she examined one of her emergency columns. Of the three letters, one was from a woman who longed for marriage, but whose youth was behind her. Another writer wanted to know if she should confess her infidelity to her husband, and the third wanted help with her troublesome teenage daughter. She considered it one of her better columns.

  Thinking it a good time to stroll in the back garden while Tonya slept, she started out of her room and met Duncan on the stairs. One look told her that his run had done little to cool his passion. She smiled and swept past him. The tension between them had to be diffused and, if Warren Stokes called her again, she wouldn’t turn him away so readily. She stepped out onto the deck, looked up at the darkening sky, and remembered the night she’d brought Tonya home late to her desperately anxious father, the night she’d first felt his arms strong and sweet around her. She went back to her room and telephoned Warren.

  Chapter 6

  Duncan rushed out of his office to answer the door bell and nearly knocked Justine off her feet. “Going out?” he asked, as he helped her recover her equilibrium. “Seems like we’ve collided in this spot once before. I don’t mind bumping into you, but you always get the worst of it.”

  Why did she seem put out? “I know I’m heavy, but you’ve got a few pounds on me and a lot of muscle.”

  He didn’t move when she attempted to pass him. “Want to get by? Just ask nicely. No red-blooded man could say no to such a lovely woman.”

  She still didn’t smile. “You’re too generous. See you later.”

  He didn’t know why the devil got into him when it occurred to him that she might have a date. Feeling irritated, he plastered a grin on his face and touched her elbow. “I’ll see you out.”

  “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary.”

  He went with his grin again. “I know, but I was rai
sed to be a gentleman.”

  Giving her no way out of it, he walked down the stairs with her, certain now that the caller was a man. To his amazement, he yanked the door open, and something akin to furor furled within him when he saw the man standing there. A stud, if he’d ever seen one. He told himself to cool off; it wasn’t his business.

  “Looking for somebody?” It was not a gracious greeting, but then, he didn’t feel gracious.

  “Is Miss Taylor here?”

  In his heightened ire, he’d almost forgotten that Justine stood behind him. He moved aside, but he didn’t look at her, because he’d rather not see the fire he knew would be aimed at him. “Yes. She’s right here. Come in.”

  He couldn’t help cringing when Justine brushed around him and held out her hand to the man. “Hello, Warren. I’m glad to see you. I’ll be ready as soon as I get my coat. Warren, this is Duncan.”

  He took Warren’s extended hand for the most limp handshake he’d ever participated in. “Hi. Come on in. Like a drink while she’s getting ready?”

  He grinned when Warren looked him up and down; he knew when a man sized him up as competition, and he also knew when he made the fellow uncomfortable. Feeling like getting some of his own, he took Warren’s elbow and ushered him into the living room. “I’ve got a thirty-year-old Chivas Regal here somewhere, or would you like something else?”

  Just as he’d expected, Warren seated himself and got comfortable. “Chivas would be fine. Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “Probably. Ice? Soda? How do you like it?”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Warren sit forward and look around the room, obviously appraising the quality of what he saw. “Why do you say probably? Do you know me?”

  Duncan told himself to let up. He had assured Justine that she could entertain her friends as if she were in her own home, and he had no right to embarrass her. But he couldn’t help it if the thought of her going out with that guy irritated him. He got his drink—club soda with a slice of lemon—and sat opposite the man. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said and raised his glass in a silent toast.