Fools Rush In Read online

  “You’re an enigma,” he said, turning her hand palm down in his. “I get so many conflicting signals from you that I wonder sometimes if I’m losing it.”

  Suddenly alert, she corrected her posture and sat forward. “I’m not aware that I’m doing that, so I hope you won’t hold it against me.”

  “I guess you aren’t.” He snapped his fingers. “I just remembered my promise that we wouldn’t talk about anything unpleasant, and if we get off into what is or isn’t going on between you and me, we’ll kill the evening.”

  The waiter brought their food, and he savored the quenelles that lay in a puddle of lobster sauce. “I love this dish, and it’s one of the few things I can’t get Mattie to try.”

  She made a note of that and told herself she’d stay home one Sunday night and surprise him. “My leek soup is good, too.” She wanted to ask if they could go to one of the nearby clubs and listen to jazz, but decided she’d better let him take the lead.”

  As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “Want to hear some jazz? Not many of the greats around any longer, but Milt Hinton’s over at Café Lautrec a few blocks away. What do you say?”

  She realized that he’d planned an evening for them and let her delight in his thoughtfulness reflect on her face.

  He looked around as though searching the room. “What is it? What brought on that smile?”

  Watch it, girl, she warned herself. He’s like a hawk. “I guess I’m…happy.” There. He’d at least asked a question that she could answer truthfully.

  “Aren’t you usually happy?”

  She reached across the table and took his hand. “Duncan, let’s enjoy this evening together. No personal questions. All right?”

  His gaze bore into her, burning her. Then as quickly, he smiled, befuddling her senses. “As the lady wishes.” The smile vanished, and she knew she’d added one more thing to his lists of doubts and uncertainties. Too bad; she wouldn’t let it spoil her evening.

  She had thought that he planned for them to sit at a table and listen to the music, but he confided that he hadn’t danced in over a year, that he loved to dance. “I feel like dancing. What about you?”

  She did, she realized. Kenneth hadn’t taken her dancing in well over a year before his death. She pushed thoughts of him out of her mind, raised her arms to Duncan, and gave in to the rhythm. When she danced a respectable distance from his body, he pulled her as close as the air between them would allow.

  “You want people to think I’ve got a contagious disease?” He asked, sparkles flashing in his eyes and the dimple in his right cheek displaying its ability to mesmerize her. “Or are you telling some other guy in here that you’re available?”

  She stepped on his toe. “Hmmm. Is that the way it’s done? If I was dissatisfied with my date, I’d ask him to take me home.” She looked around, giving the impression that she was checking the supply of men in the room. “Nothing here worth the gamble, so I might as well enjoy myself with you,” she teased.

  His white teeth sparkled against his smooth brown skin, and when he winked his left eye at her, she didn’t have to be told that he planned some mischief. His body moved into hers and swirled around as the alto saxophone moaned and cried, harnessing the blues for posterity. His steps caught the slow, suggestive rhythm and, with his hand at her waist, he brought her body in line. Teasing. Tempting. Filling her whole being with the heat of desire and her head with wanton thoughts.

  “Quit fighting it, Justine. Let yourself go. Give into it. Let’s show these so-called dancers how it’s done.”

  Suddenly, the deep voice that could send shivers of delight across her nerve ends changed into a high tenor from her past. “Stop fighting me. It’s your fault that you can’t come. Let yourself go, dammit. I’m doing my part, for heaven’s sake. I said stop fighting me.” She grabbed his shoulders, let her head loll on his chest, and fought without success to control the tremor that shot through her.

  “Justine! Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  She steadied herself, and his strong arms folded her to him and held her there on the crowded dance floor. “You all right now?”

  “I…Yes, I’m all right.”

  “Come. I’ll take you home. If you were all right, that wouldn’t have happened.”

  She had to gather her wits. Would she forever be Kenneth Montgomery’s victim? Even from the grave, he could destroy her contentment, disrupt her life, undermine her sense of self. Never again. He had bedeviled her for the last time. She squared her shoulders. “I’m fine now, Duncan, and I don’t want to go home. I don’t know when I’ve had such a wonderful evening, and I’m not ready for it to end.”

  He eyed her carefully, as would a surgeon scrutinizing an x-ray. “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “I’m sorry if I distressed you. It passed, and I’m fine now.”

  “Was it the way you felt? A dizzy spell?”

  She owed him an explanation, so she said as much as she could “No. Just an ugly memory.”

  He shook his head, and his facial expression was that of a saddened man. “I see. And it’s cropped up before since we’ve known each other, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Please, don’t ask more.”

  As though to protect her, he folded her in his arms and drew her close. “All right. We’ll leave it. For now.”

  And she didn’t doubt that, when he got ready, he’d demand some answers.

  He had no choice but to take her word for it, so he led her back to the table and waited for a slower number. “It surprised me to learn that you like jazz,” he said, hoping for a topic that would help salvage the evening. “At home, you listen to classical music, especially brother Mozart. How’s that?”

  He must have chosen the right words, because he could almost see the tension flow out of her body. “All my jazz is on long playing records, and I’m not going to buy the same thing on CDs. I don’t have a record player, and finding one these days is like collecting hens’ teeth. I wish I could play my records.”

  “Who’s your favorite?”

  Her smile lit up the dark room and made everything around them beautiful, but if he told her that, she’d probably turn around to see who he was talking about. “I love so many of the classical jazz musicians.” Sadness momentarily streaked across her visage. Then, as if brightened by a memory, the sun shone once more from her face. “I could dance all night to Fats Waller’s ‘Ain’t Misbehavin” and Jimmy Lunceford’s ‘Uptown Blues.’ Problem is, all the great ones are gone.”

  He didn’t want to change the subject, but he didn’t want her reminiscing, either. Something in her past had nearly wrecked her, and he’d better forestall any reference to it or risk a recurrence of that throwback she’d had moments earlier. “Think you can risk a dance with me?”

  Ah, things were back to normal. Her glare let him know that the Justine who never ducked a challenge was once more with him. “What is there about you that would make dancing with you risky?” She pushed back her chair as she said it.

  He grinned, and then he laughed; his gaiety was as much a catharsis as jubilance. “If you didn’t find out earlier, I’ll be glad to show you.”

  On the floor, she moved with him, accepting every challenge and laughing at him. She stepped back so he could see her toss her head, wink, rotate her hips, and beckon him toward her with her right index finger, and he thanked God for the crowded room.

  He pulled her to him and growled, “Keep that up and what you’ll get will be more than a surprise. It’s almost midnight, Cinderella. I’m taking you home.” The smile left her face. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I know what that’s all about, and I’m not having it.”

  She shrugged. “But it was a perfect analogy. I’m Cinderella tonight, and tomorrow, I’ll be Tonya’s nanny again.”

  He helped her into her coat, paid the bill, and ushered her out into Eighteenth Street’s brisk chill. They barely spoke on the drive home. He drove into the garage, walked around to her side of the ca
r, and opened the door while she was trying to release the seat belt. When he took her hand to help her out, she stumbled into him, but he knew that her clumsiness was due to nerves.

  “Like a drink?” he asked her, when they entered the foyer.

  “Uh…No. No thanks. I’m turning in. Thanks for the evening. It was wonderful.”

  “We…Why don’t you sit with me for a few minutes. I think I’ll have a cognac. Let me help you with your coat.”

  Between her exquisite perfume that shouted her womanhood and the tension radiating from her body, he figured he stood little chance of telling her good night without incident. She turned toward him with a smile that she’d obviously plastered on her face and that told him he had read her correctly. Her nerves were as tangled as his own.

  “Thanks. Good night,” she whispered and started around him.

  He wouldn’t have touched her, if her soft breast hadn’t caressed his arm, reminding him of what he needed and didn’t have. He couldn’t say how she got into his arms, but she was in them, squeezing him to her and moaning while his tongue circled her lips begging to get in. She opened to him. Took him. Welcomed him. Stop it, man, he warned himself, but she fought for his tongue until he capitulated and let her feast. Knowing what would come next, he sought to set her away from him, but she clung. Loving him. Cherishing him. His breath came fast and hard and, in spite of his efforts at control, he rose against her. Stunned by his wild response, he lifted her to fit him, and she held him, kissing and caressing him.

  “Justine, for God’s sake, I’m human,” he whispered, unable to find his full voice.

  When she didn’t seem to hear him, he lowered her to her feet, hugged her close, and spoke near her ear. “Honey, you either get up those stairs right this second, or I break my promise to you.”

  “Duncan, I need you.”

  “And I need you. But if I do this, I will not like myself tomorrow and maybe not you either; you have to help me.”

  “I could love you. Oh, Duncan, I could love you.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said under his breath. He watched her as she fled up the stairs with the speed of a five-year-old, then went to the bar in his living room and almost repeated what he’d done the day Marie walked out. He was on the third cognac, when he remembered Tonya, capped the bottle, and headed for his room. Some night! He needed to have a good long talk with himself, and he had a lot of questions for Justine.

  He led the babysitter to the waiting taxi, went back in the house, looked up the stairs, and began what he figured would be the longest and most difficult climb of his life.

  Chapter 8

  After the night she’d had, she wondered whether she’d suffer more if she left and tried to forget about Tonya. Memories of Kenneth’s harshness—things she’d never taken exception to until she knew Duncan—had tortured her until daybreak. And her certainty that she would find in Duncan all she’d missed and all she could ever want had tormented her until she’d come close to walking across the hall and knocking on his bedroom door.

  A look at her watch told her that it was early for a call to her godfather, seven-thirty, but she had to talk with someone.

  “I’ve fallen in love with him, Uncle Hugh. I still haven’t told him anything about myself, and I know he doesn’t want to be involved, but we can’t seem to…to keep our hands off each other.”

  She could imagine that last remark had brought him fully awake, for he was, if anything, a moralist. “Now just wait here, Justine. I told you not to take him up on it if he made a move on you. That’s the worst thing you could—”

  “Nothing like that has happened, Uncle Hugh, but I’m grown, and I know it’s not far off. If I compromise myself, I can forget about Tonya.”

  “You didn’t even tell him about that column?”

  “My contract forbids my telling anyone. I had to tell you, because I’ll go crazy keeping all this to myself.”

  “You know I wouldn’t breathe it in my prayers, girl. How’s Tonya? Do you get along?”

  “She adores me. And that’s another problem; she looks more like me every day. The housekeeper already mentioned it, and Duncan is bound to notice it soon. How many people do you see with these grayish-brown eyes?”

  His long whistle irritated her ear. “I’ll do all I can, but that won’t be much. You just hope the guy falls so hard for you that he’ll forgive you just about anything.”

  She paced as far as the cord would reach, then retraced her steps. “That’s one more problem, Uncle Hugh. He loved his wife, and she stabbed him, so to speak, and turned the knife. He’s not going that way again.”

  “Don’t be too sure. Nature likes to take these things out of our hands.”

  If only time proved him right. If. That word had been her constant companion since she was five years old. She thanked him and hung up.

  Duncan sat at his desk that morning, trying without success to outline his story on America’s youth, his concentration shot. “Stop kidding yourself, man, and get out of here,” he said, his patience with himself dwindling. He called Wayne.

  “I need a couple of days to myself. I want to work out my plans for that series on juveniles and check out a few other things, so I’ll be at my place in Curtis Bay on the Chesapeake. You have the number.”

  “Doing any fishing?”

  “Depends on the weather. I’m taking along my gear.”

  “Get it straightened out, man. And give Justine my regards.”

  He thought he heard a snicker, and he wasn’t in the mood for Wayne’s antics. “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t get your back up. Just wishing you the best.”

  He hung up and began packing his books, notes, laptop computer, tackle, and a few clothes. “I’ll be away for a few days,” he told Justine at breakfast, “but I’ll call you. Remember if you ever have any problems, phone my attorney.” He handed her the lawyer’s card. “But if you need me, I’ll have my cell phone with me. Just call.”

  At breakfast, they toyed with their food, and he wanted to close his eyes to avoid seeing the pain in hers. Her night hadn’t been any better than his, but he could at least change the scene. He had to be honest with her, so he reached across the table and touched her hand. “Justine, I need to get away and do some thinking and, while I’m gone, you do the same. Tonya loves both of us, but if we don’t get this thing straightened out, all three of us will lose something important. I’ll see you next week.”

  Calm and self-possessed, as though she hadn’t a care and giving the lie to the misery written on her face, she smiled and asked him, “Are you going far?”

  “I have a place in Curtis Bay, Maryland, about forty-five miles from here. I though I’d go there for a while.”

  “Have a good time,” she whispered, and he had to steel himself against the urge to hold her. But he couldn’t make it better, so he winked at her, sped upstairs to kiss Tonya goodbye, and headed for Curtis Bay.

  Hours later, shielded from the rough ocean weather by his old leather jacket, he strolled along the narrow beach of the Chesapeake where the crabbers’ buckets bobbled in the water, sand swirled around him, and the wind bruised his face. He wondered why he’d bothered. He’d thought he left her on Primrose Street, but she was on the beach with him. He walked around the cove, rubbing his numb fingers, picked up a few pieces of driftwood, and trekked back to the lodge. He made a fire in the fireplace, put some hot dogs on the end of a stick, and cooked his dinner. He’d gotten his life in order, or so he’d thought, but lately a feeling of being uprooted and displaced wouldn’t leave him. Justine. Always Justine. If he believed in reincarnation, he’d swear he’d known her in another life. Why did she seem so familiar?

  He told himself he’d get down to work if he knew how Tonya was, so he called home. “Let me speak with Justine,” he told Mattie when she answered.

  “They’s in the basement with that piano, Mr.B. I tell you, that child loves that piano.”

  “Have you heard Just
ine play yet?”

  “Now that is something for the ears. She plays in the mornings, but Tonya kicked up such a fuss after you left that she took her down there and played for her. I’ll call her.”

  What was wrong with him? His heart seemed to have stopped pumping. Her voice came to him warm and sweet. “Hello, Duncan. Where are you?”

  “At the lodge. How’s it going there?”

  When she hesitated, he knew she questioned his reason for calling. But he had to talk with her and, if it meant making small talk, he’d do it.

  “Be sure to call me if you need me,” he said after a few inconsequential words, and hung up. He paced the room for a few minutes. “She’ll just have to go,” he told himself, then laughed at the thought, opened his computer, and began to outline his research.

  In the days that followed, he couldn’t shake his feeling of rootlessness, of being adrift. He called home daily, usually twice, but his talks with Justine only whetted his appetite for more of her. Four days before his scheduled return, he called three times, hung up, said the hell with it and headed for home. Half way there, he passed a radio and electronics store and stopped.

  “We do have one record player,” the clerk told him, “but it’s expensive. They’re hard to find.”

  He fished in his pocket for his gold credit card. “If it plays LP’s, wrap it up.”

  He didn’t think he’d ever forget the expression on her face when she opened the package, and he marveled that such a small thing could bring so much joy. A sweetness radiated from her, and when she looked at him, her face flowed as though reflecting a light from the heavens. She walked as on wings while the house rocked with Jimmy Lunceford’s “Uptown Blues.” Even Tonya slapped her little hands to the beat. He’d never been more convinced that little gestures sometimes produced the most profound joy.