After the Loving (26 page)

Her short pants and the quiver of her thighs around his body told him that her desire was headed toward its apex. He placed her on her bed, leaned over her and ran his hand over her body while he twirled his tongue in her welcoming mouth. When she began to shift and rock, he released her right breast from the tunic’s rounded neckline, pulled her nipple into his mouth and sucked it. Her loud cry sent shivers through his body and he hardened, then stripped himself and Velma, found his home inside of her body and rode with her to a world of their own.

The next two days came and went with Velma floating on air, barely aware of the passage of time, happy in the love she shared with Russ. She no longer considered the possibility that the cloud on which she floated might burst. The whole world was hers.

“Life would be perfect,” she told herself that Saturday morning as she headed for Eagle Park, “if I knew I’d live with him forever, if I had three of his children, and if I wore a size twelve.” She laughed at her daydreaming, contenting herself with the knowledge that she had lost six pounds, and that after their earth-shattering lovemaking the previous Wednesday night, Russ would have to bring up the subject of marriage.

A little animal skittered across the highway, and she swerved to avoid hitting it. “If he doesn’t mention it, I will,” she said aloud. “That’s why I have a mouth.”

Russ had gone home the previous evening, but she had catered a Friday-night reception and couldn’t accompany him. She parked in the circle that constituted the gateway
to Harrington House, and Russ stepped from the front door to meet her.

“I thought you’d never get here. Traffic must have been heavy,” he said, folded her in his arms and held her, kissing and caressing her. She locked him as tightly in her arms as she could. Words didn’t seem to matter.

At last he released her, but continued holding her hands. “One of my former college roommates is here this weekend to talk business with me. I hope he doesn’t get Brighton disease.”

She might have been perplexed if she hadn’t seen the twinkle in his eyes. “Brighton what?”

“According to Telford, that’s a contagious virus that has infected Harrington House. You want to disagree with that?” He smiled as he said it, besotting her, pushing air beneath her feet. She felt as if she were flying.

“I wonder if that virus works equally well on all the occupants.” She turned toward the kitchen when she heard footsteps heavier than Henry’s would be. However, she knew another man approached before she saw him, because Russ’s arm pulled her flush to his side, though he didn’t look toward the intruder, but directly down at her.

“Sam, this is Velma Brighton,” he said, still looking down at her, making certain that the man got the correct definition of their relationship.

“How are you, Miss Brighton?”

Good manners dictated that she at least look at the man, but Russ seemed determined to prevent it. “Hello, Sam,” she said, not bothering to control the grin. “I’d better get on to my room so you two can talk.”

“Nice meeting you.” Sam’s words came out almost as a question. “What was that all about?” he asked Russ as she walked off.

“What did it look like?”

She could hardly control the laughter until she was safely inside her room. Even as she laughed, one thought simmered in her head:
Russ Harrington, your days as a loner are over.

She and Russ spent very little time together. Drake and Telford needed briefing about the status of and plans for the Joshua Harrington Houses in Baltimore, and the brothers discussed progress on Fisherman’s Village in Barbados. She spent Sunday morning with her sister and her niece.

She tried to make herself tell her sister that before the coming week ended, she hoped to see their father and to have a candid, soul-cleansing talk with him.

“You seem a little preoccupied,” Alexis said. “Are you all right? I can see that it’s going well with Russ. He’s a different man. Open. Brimming with laughter and…Velma, Russ is happy.”

“Yes. I love being with him when he’s this way. I realize I’ll do most anything to make him laugh. Seeing him break up gives me the biggest charge.”

“See that he stays that way.”

Tara bounded into the room with Biscuit trailing behind her. “Come hear me play, Aunt Velma. My dad is teaching me a new piece. It’s a waltz, and Chopin wrote it. If I learn that real good, he’s going to teach me some ragtime. What did he call it, Mummy?”

“Something by Scott Joplin. I forgot the name.”

She didn’t envy Alexis her happiness, but as she gazed at her niece—a beautiful, well-mannered, and intelligent child—she wondered when she would hold her own son or daughter. Fearing that she might develop melancholia, she grasped Tara’s hand.

“Let’s go to your room. I want to hear you play.”

They nearly bumped into Russ as he stepped out of his
room. “I thought you and Sam were talking business,” she said to him. “And you were in your room asleep.”

“Mr. Sam is in Mr. Henry’s room,” Tara explained.

“Right. Sam’s asleep. We talked most of the night. What time are you leaving?”

“Around four, I guess.”

“If Telford and Drake get back here within the next half hour, I’ll trail you. We have to talk with Allen before I leave.”

“She has to listen to me play, Uncle Russ. She promised.”

“And she will.” He pulled Tara’s braid. “What will you play for her?

“‘Barcarole’ by Offen… What’s his name, Mummy?”

“Jacques Offenbach.”

She looked at Russ, perplexed. “That’s his name, Uncle Russ.”

After Tara played the piece several times, Alexis joined them. “Henry has sandwiches, fruit, sodas and coffee in the breakfast room. Serve yourself.”

“Can I have ice cream, Mummy?” She paused for a second. “No, thanks. I’ll ask Mr. Henry.” With that, she headed for the kitchen.

The two sisters walked down the stairs arm in arm, and as they reached the bottom, Drake and Telford entered the foyer. “Well, well,” Drake said to Velma. “I wondered whether I’d get to see you.” He favored them with a sample of his famous charm, his grin infectious and his long-lashed brown eyes sparkling. “I see you’ve been making progress.”

Both of her eyebrows went up. “You know something that I don’t?”

“No, indeed. You know this, and you know it well. Keep it up—you’ve made a brand-new man of him.”

She wished she thought it. For Drake’s ears, she decided that diffidence was better. “As long as he’s happy.”

That brought a laugh from Drake who, she had learned, was close to being the most discerning person she’d ever known. “I’m not buying that, and neither would he. If it were true, he wouldn’t even know where you live.”

“Guilty as charged,” she said. “Let’s eat.”

In the kitchen, she selected a pastrami sandwich and a Mitsu apple and took her plate to the breakfast room, where she joined Henry, Alexis and Tara. She ate most of the sandwich and went back to the kitchen for a glass of lemonade.

“I hope this warehouse is located near Reese Street,” she heard Russ say, and at the mention of the word
warehouse,
her antenna shot up. “I’m renovating some houses there, and your project would help raise the level of the area.” She stopped in her tracks, every nerve in her body on edge.

“Sorry I can’t accommodate you, man. It’s about ten blocks down on Bricker, between Just and Hornet.” She groped for the doorjamb and let it take her weight. Her warehouse. Sam Jenkins was bidding for her warehouse.

“I’ll stop by there tomorrow sometime,” Russ said, “and have a look at it. I’d like to get an idea of what you’d need in the way of renovation and redesign. Warehouses can be tricky. They’re not always what they look like.”

Her knees shook and perspiration poured from her, but she managed to get down the hall to her room, though she would never know how she did it. She had to calm herself and tell Russ that she had a bid in for that warehouse, that her real-estate agent had canvassed Baltimore and that warehouse was the only one that suited both her needs and her bankbook. He had to tell his friend to back off.

“Where’s Velma?” Russ asked nobody in particular as he sat down to eat his lunch. “I thought she was in here.”

“I thought she was in the kitchen,” Alexis said. “She went to get a glass of lemonade.”

She hadn’t come into the kitchen or he’d have seen her. “Excuse me.” He left the table and headed for her room. “I thought you were eating lunch,” he said when she opened the door. “What’s wrong?” He didn’t like her demeanor, slumped in the chair like a defeated person.

“Eat your lunch,” she said. “We can talk about this later.”

So there
was
a problem. He sat down on the chaise lounge, facing her. “We’ll talk about it now. What is it?”

He didn’t know whether she realized that she was wringing her hands, but she had to hear the unsteadiness in her voice. He braced himself for the unpleasant. And she delivered it.

“That warehouse Sam’s bidding on is the one I’m trying to get.”

He jumped up from the chaise lounge and stood over her, wanting to be certain that he heard her correctly.
“What did you say?”

She looked at him with an expression of defeat in her eyes. “I said—”

He sat down. “Never mind. I heard you. This puts me between a rock and a hard place, Velma. If it wasn’t for Sam Jenkins, I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be an architect and there would be no Harrington, Inc., Architects, Engineers and Builders. One of our classmates stole my graduating term paper the night before the deadline for handing it in. If my professor hadn’t received that paper on time, I wouldn’t have graduated. The student who stole it was at the bottom of the class, and with that paper, I would graduate at the top.
The guy was in a bar on Georgia Avenue around midnight that night, bragging that he knew he was going to pass. The more he drank the more he bragged. Sam was in the bar, and he knew someone had stolen my paper. He got his uncle, a judge, out of bed and asked him to issue a search warrant for the guy’s room. The campus police went in at six the next morning and found the term paper on the poor fool’s desk. I told Sam that if he ever needed me, I’d be there for him. I thought he was joking when he said, ‘I’d like you to design the first building I own,’ but I shook hands on it.”

“Where does that leave me?”

“I’ll help you find another one.”

“My real-estate agent knows Baltimore better than you or I, and this is all he could find that I can afford. If I don’t get that building—”

“Don’t say it. We’ll find something for you. I gave Sam my word, and I have to honor it. Who knows, maybe he won’t win the bid, and you will.”

“But your design will practically guarantee that he wins it, because you will do your best.”

“Let’s not worry about it right now. Come on back and eat your lunch.”

“Just…give me a few minutes. You go on.”

He leaned over her and kissed her mouth. “All right.”

Velma sat as he’d left her, contemplating the latest turn of fate in her life. The more she thought about it, the more deeply and sharply the pain sliced through her. He wouldn’t renege on his word to his friend, but didn’t he owe her—his lover, the woman he said he loved—as much as he owed Sam?

“Damned if I’m putting up with this,” she said, grabbed her overnight bag, threw her things in it, wrote a note to Alexis and, although she felt like a sneak doing it, she slipped out of Harrington House, got into her car and headed
home. The next move was his, and if he didn’t make the right one, he could forget she existed.

At home, she checked her answering machine and called her sister. “I’m fine, hon. I just decided the best place for me was home. I’ll call Tara tomorrow and explain. If you need to know any more, ask Russ. I’m turning off my phone.”

“I don’t like the sound of this.”

“Neither do I. I’ll talk with you when I feel more like it.” She hung up, turned off the telephone, ate a ham sandwich, drank a cup of herbal tea and went to bed.

The next morning, Monday, at eight-thirty, she telephoned her lawyer and told him that Sam Jenkins had bid on the warehouse.

“We’ll work with that. I’ll get as much information as I can about him and what he plans to do with the property. Leave it to me.” What choice did she have?

“I want the information on my father. You said you sent me a letter, but I haven’t received it.”

“I sent it certified mail, so it’ll come back to me if it isn’t delivered. Here’s the deal on your father.”

She wrote down the information and then read it back to him. “I’m leaving here tomorrow morning on the first plane I can get.”

“I don’t give personal advice, Ms. Brighton, but I’ve lived a few years, and I think you should be careful. Try not to give him too big a shock. No telling what shape his heart is in.”

She thanked him, hung up and began searching the internet for flight information and hotel reservations. The next morning found her on Air Canada en route to Montreal.

She didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t the tall but gaunt man with thinning white hair peering at her over a pair of rimless glasses.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“I know you’re not expecting me, Father,” she said in hopes of easing the shock, “I’m—”

“Oh, my God!
Mildred,
” he said, staring at her.

She wondered whether he was ill. Mildred was her mother’s name. She inhaled a deep breath. “Papa, this is your older daughter, Velma. May I come in?”

He flicked on the light and stepped back into the apartment. “For a minute, I thought…” He shook his head as if denying something. “She’s never far from my mind. Always, she’s with me. Yes. Yes. Come on in.”

He waited until she walked into the house, then stepped behind her and closed the door. “I…I can’t imagine… This takes some getting used to. Have a seat. I’ll make some coffee.”

She didn’t want any coffee, but she knew he had to stall, to pull himself together. While waiting for him to bring the coffee, she looked around at what she could see of the house. The foyer was neat and the living room comfortable, though without a particular personality. Functional. The years had not been kind to him. He no longer stood ramrod straight, nor was he robust with a thick chest, and his deeply lined face was that of a man seventy-five rather than sixty-one years of age.