Against All Odds (Arabesque) (17 page)

“Easily. I didn’t know anything about it, and since I was probably the reason for it, I’m not surprised that I wasn’t invited. As for Mother, none of them would expect her to go. Who was there?” Melissa marveled that her friend’s brow furrowed as though she was in deep thought, trying to recall what Melissa knew she had carefully memorized.

“Let’s see, now,” Banks drawled. “Your mother’s sister Mable, your father, his brother Faison and sister Louise, her husband and her son Timmy. Uh...oh, yes, and Louise’s sister-in-law.” As if she’d just had successful acupuncture for excruciating pain, Banks beamed at her and declared, “I think that’s all.”

Amusement buoyed Melissa as she entered the elevator. Too bad her mother hadn’t known about the clandestine little meeting. She might have gone just to spite them, and Banks could have enjoyed relating it even more.

Banks got off at the third floor. “Sure you don’t want some of my hot doughnuts?” she called over her shoulder.

“I want some, but I’m not going to eat any,” Melissa replied, her tone laced with regret as she continued to her office on the fourth floor. The elevator door closed, and her lips pursed in disapproval. Though she liked Banks, she disliked gossip. For the local African American citizenry, the Watering Hole and the church were the vats in which gossip fermented. You could hear all about the righteous folk in church circles, but at the Hole you could get the goods on everybody, the devout included. That was one of the things she’d been happy to miss in New York. Your neighbors couldn’t discuss your affairs, because they didn’t know anything about you, and few cared enough to speculate.

She checked her email, called her part-time secretary in Baltimore, and got the same message from each source: a Texan named Cooper needed a ranch manager. For persistence, the man rivaled Adam, she thought, not a little irritated. If she didn’t answer, he should know that she wasn’t interested. All she knew about a ranch, she’d learned from Clint Eastwood movies and romance novels. She put a cassette in her tape recorder, but before she could begin dictating a letter refusing the job, her phone rang.

“MTG. Melissa Grant speaking.”

“I’m surprised you’re in this morning. It’s been snowing for fifteen minutes, and the streets are already white. It might be a good idea to leave.” Her gaze followed the twirling pencil in her left hand. He’d spin me around like that if I let him, she mused. She tossed the pencil across the desk.

“Adam, do you think James Earl Jones ever identifies himself when he makes a phone call?” His chuckle warned her that her barb had missed the mark.

“He shouldn’t have to. I doubt there’re many people who wouldn’t recognize that voice, and you can bet his significant other wouldn’t be among the few who didn’t. If a man has an intimate relationship with a woman, she ought to recognize everything about him.”

“Humph. If the male ego needed physical space, men would be scarce as dog feathers. What size hat do you wear, Adam?” She leaned forward, placed her elbows on her desk, her palms beneath her chin and waited.

“I’ve never worn a hat. And no matter what you say about my ego, you recognized my voice.”

“Yeah, but that’s a defense mechanism,” she teased, eyeing the window and the swirling snow.

“Against what?” he demanded, his testiness sizzling through the wire.

“Against being mistaken for a significant other,” she replied, getting up to lock her door because she knew what would happen if she didn’t. But to her chagrin, the cord’s length didn’t allow that precaution.

“What man would be so pea-brained as to hang such a nondescript title on you? You come under the heading of woman, babe.” When he got casual and flirtatious like ordinary mortal men, she told herself with some amusement, she’d better watch her nervous system.

“Still there?”

“Haven’t moved a fraction of an inch.”

“I suggest you go home before you have trouble maneuvering your car through that snow.”

“I didn’t drive this morning,” she said and would have liked to bite her tongue.

“Then you ought to consider putting on your boots and hiking it home. This stuff’s getting bad.”

She straightened up and weighed the folly of staying there for the sake of annoying him against getting home in reasonable comfort. She hung up and looked around for her bag of Snickers. If she ignored his advice, she could wind up bedeviling herself rather than Adam. Her door swung ajar, and she gazed up into a pair of fierce brown eyes, not a bit surprised that he was making sure she left the building before the weather worsened.

“Just as I thought. Settling in for the day, were you? I’m asking everyone to leave within the next thirty minutes. The storm is getting heavier by the second, and I’m going to turn off the heat to make certain everybody gets out of here. You’d get yourself snowbound just to vex me.”

“Tut-tut! Really, Adam. You could do something about your tendency to be overbearing. Just a wee bit of improvement there would do wonders for your personality.”

He had to struggle not to laugh. He’d seen Melissa in many moods and with a number of facial expressions, but he couldn’t recall her having previously shrouded herself in innocence. Her serene countenance and angelic eyes proclaimed her blameless, and she even lowered her gaze, he noted, and folded her hands in her lap to enhance the effect.

He grinned down at her. “You’re a dirty fighter, but you’re one hell of a woman. Come on, let’s get out of here.” He took her coat from the coat tree and walked over to her with it. She pushed her chair back from the desk and glared at him. Then she reached in her desk drawer, pulled out a brown paper wrapper, and handed it to him.

“Have a Snickers while you find your way down off of your high horse.” Her smile dared him as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her knees, displaying her endless legs to the greatest advantage. He swallowed the saliva accumulating in his mouth, glanced back at the open door, and rubbed his dampening palms against his pant legs.

“One of these days you’re going to find out who you’re playing with.”

“Anytime, Mr. Roundtree.”

He couldn’t believe the transformation in her. Her smile had become sultry and her teasing blatant. He had to control the inclination to whistle. He’d regarded her as laid-back and cool, touchable but unavailable. Maybe he’d been right, but he was certain now that her dress-for-success suits and Brooks Brothers ties disguised a wild siren. He threw the coat to her.

“Melissa, this storm is intensifying. You may be satisfied with candy for supper, but I’m not, and I’m not going to leave you alone here in an unheated building. So come on.” She looked toward the window, then back at him, and he could see her judging the weather and knew the minute she decided to cooperate. She stood, began to put on her coat, and he reached out to help her, but she brushed past him, pulling his nose as she did so.

One spark. Her touch was as tinder to dry grass. His left arm imprisoned her shoulder and his right encircled her waist as he brought her into the heat of his body. He stared into her eyes, eyes that asked him for all that he could give a woman, and every nerve screamed for the release of himself within her. He had to summon every vestige of willpower that he possessed to resist opening himself fully to her, revealing every nuance of himself, for he knew that if they started loving each other, neither one of them would call a halt to it until they had sated themselves. He tried without success to focus his attention on the rattling of a partially open window somewhere down the hall. Having given in to his feelings, he stood with his back to her desk holding her, soaking up her warmth. Warmth he hadn’t realized he needed so badly. Finally the tapping of a woman’s stiletto heels in the corridor brought him back to himself, and he released her.

“Melissa, we have to do something about this and soon. If we continue to see each other, I don’t give us much chance of avoiding it. You know, we’re mature adults, and we’re supposed to know what we want and don’t want. You’re as familiar as I am with the circumstances past and present that are against any lasting relationship between us, but logic isn’t what we’re dealing with here. We want to make love with each other,
and we will.
We both know that.”

She locked her office door and walked along with him. Uncommunicative. “Let me guess,” he said, frowning. “You’re wondering whether Loraine saw us when she passed the door.” Her eyes widened and she sucked in her lip. “Yes, Loraine. Nobody else in Frederick wears four-inch heels. By tomorrow night, half of the town will have heard her own version of it and the other half will have gotten it secondhand. I hope you’ve got better things to worry about.”

When they reached his car, he brushed the grainy snow from the door and scraped the windshield. She remarked that Frederick didn’t have any underground garages and few indoor ones, and that not having them was an inconvenience in bad weather.

“It’s just as well,” he replied, laughter taking the punch out of his words. “I’d hate for our first time to be in the backseat of a car.”

“You’re awfully sure of yourself,” she grumbled. “For the last twenty minutes, you’ve been acting as if you’re the one who decides this. But let me tell you: contrary to what that song says,
everything depends on me.
”

Adam glanced at her as the Jaguar’s skidding wheels fought his efforts to get them home. “You’re grumbling, but I see you’re not disagreeing with me.” He got out, opened the trunk, took out the two army blankets that he kept for emergencies, and threw them under the spinning wheels.

“I’ve used sawdust and dry leaves, but I never heard of anybody using blankets. Where’d you get that idea?”

Adam breathed deeply and adjusted himself as the car crawled away from its temporary prison. He got out and put the wet blankets back in the trunk. It didn’t surprise him that she’d chosen not to respond to his challenge, because he had learned that she wouldn’t let him push her into a corner. He looked over his shoulder as the car chugged into the main street and the snow pelted its windshield. “You will learn, Melissa, that I’m innovative. If it doesn’t work one way, I go at it another way, and I usually manage to do what I set out to do and finish what I start.”

He noticed that she adjusted her skirt, folded and unfolded her hands, and shifted away from him toward the passenger’s door. Let her squirm. The sooner she realized that they were destined to be together, even if temporarily, no matter what their families said or did and no matter what happened at Leather and Hides, the sooner he’d get on with his life. He stopped in front of her house.

“I’ll come around and get you. There’s no point in both of us getting our feet soaked.”

“Would you like some coffee?” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, and he wondered whether she was eager to be alone with him or afraid of it. Who knew what she was thinking and feeling when she squinted like that. He shook his head. She’d be surprised how often and how thoroughly she perplexed him.

“I’ll wait here while you check the faucets, the lights, and your radiators. A couple of inches of snow can put this town out of commission, and we’ve got four or five inches.” He slapped her playfully on the bottom. “Hurry up. I’ve got to get going.”

She spun around, her eyes like daggers. “My reaction to that is about the same as yours to getting your nose pinched. So keep your hands to yourself!” He didn’t care if his laughter irked her as she stood with her hands on her hips glaring at him.

“You’re trying to pick a fight—but sweetheart, when we tangle, I’d prefer it to be under different circumstances. Believe me. Now go check your house, because if I do it, that Jaguar may be sitting right out there tomorrow morning.” She went, and he figured she could hear his sigh of relief as she walked down the hall. He watched her and wondered what, other than a fire, could make her rush or lose her cool facade. A casual acquaintance might think her aloof and frigid, but he knew better. She was like a fine, rare diamond: cold on the outside and fire on the inside. And he wanted to explore every facet of her.

Chapter 8

M
elissa awoke early that morning feeling as a tigress must while prowling and pacing alongside a barbed-wire fence too high to scale. She wanted Adam, and what she felt for him went deep—deep enough to shatter her if he walked away. But he promised her nothing, and if she made love with him, he’d leave his mark on her forever. She didn’t want to be like her mother, married to one man and loving another, losing her sense of self because of guilt. But she wanted a family of her own, though honesty forced her to admit that she wanted it with Adam Roundtree. He had all but promised her that they would make love. And soon. Face it, she told herself, you know you’re not going to stop him, and he knows it, too. She stepped into the warm shower, but chills coursed through her at the thought of her father’s certain reaction when he discovered how far she had gone with Adam.

The municipal workers cleared the snow from her street around noon, and Melissa dressed warmly, put on an old pair of boots, and set out for her parents’ home. She leaned into the rising wind and tried to walk faster. Few people greeted her along the way. A five-inch snowfall was rare in Frederick, and everything was closed except the post office. It would be too much to hope that her father would be at his office and she’d find her mother alone, but she felt the need to see her even if it meant a confrontation with her father. Did young girls unburden themselves to their mothers? She didn’t know, but she figured women her age didn’t do it. It didn’t matter. Her new relationship with her mother was precious to her, and she wanted to spend every moment with her that she could.

* * *

Emily opened the door and held out her arms. Melissa hadn’t felt an urge to cry, but her tears came. She hadn’t been cold, but when she stepped into the warmth of her mother’s love, her sense of drifting in an unfriendly, frosty environment dissipated. Until she found herself dabbing at her tears with the back of her hand, she hadn’t been aware that she shed them. She stepped back and looked into her mother’s warm eyes, so like her own.

“I don’t remember the last time I cried.” Her mother’s gentle hands stroked her back, and she soaked in the healing that they generated.

“That’s what mothers are for. You can be yourself with me. This just makes me even more remorseful for not always having been here for you when you needed me.”

Melissa shushed her. “I have you now, and that’s what matters. Where’s Daddy?” Her breath hung in her throat as she awaited the answer. She had no desire to grapple with her father’s blind hatred of Adam and his family.

Her mother’s words comforted her. “Rafer went to his office same as always. I’ll make us some tea, and we can talk.”

When Emily led them up to her room, carrying a tray of tea and sandwiches, Melissa realized that her mother had a sense of well-being only in her own room—that within her home, she could relax only in her bedroom.

“Now tell me about those tears,” Emily soothed. “Have you fought with Adam?”

“No, but I’m not sure I can talk about him. I’ve got to work out my feelings about him and about us.” The look of understanding that met her gaze caused her to wonder how her mother had come to terms with the destruction of her plans for a life with Bill Henry. But she didn’t ask her. Instead, she told her of her meeting with the man.

“I gave Bill Henry a ride during that downpour we had early last week. He asked about you, and I thought he was pretty upset when I told him that you had been ill. Quick as a flash, he changed all over. I thought at first that he intended to pounce on me. Said he was very sorry to hear about it.” She paused. “He sure was concerned, Mama.” Her mother’s teacup clattered in its saucer, staining the green broadloom carpet with amber liquid.

“Until I told you about us, I hadn’t mentioned Bill Henry’s name to anyone in thirty years, and I haven’t seen him in nearly as long. How does he look?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Very distinguished, I imagine. When I saw Adam, I saw Bill Henry as he must have been at Adam’s age. Does he still live at the old Hayes mansion?”

Melissa told her about Bill Henry’s lifestyle and his little clapboard house. “I thought you knew.”

Emily leaned forward in the brightly upholstered wing chair. “Who would tell me? Everybody in our families knows the story, and half the town, too.” She sat up straight, looked Melissa in the eye, and spoke in a hoarse, teary voice. “I tell you again, honey. If you want Adam, don’t let anybody stop you. Imagine what it’s like to live twenty miles from the only man you ever loved, want him every day of your life, know that he wants you, and not be able to have him. Be strong, and don’t let them ruin your life.”

Melissa sipped her tea, buying time, trying to find a way to tell her mother what bothered her. She chose another, less personal, issue and silently scolded herself for doing it. “Mama, I don’t want to be the one to tear this family apart.” Her mother’s hand rose and fell disparagingly, as though slapping at the air.

“You can’t destroy what doesn’t exist. After Schyler was born, your father moved out of this room, and I didn’t blame him. The bathroom between us isn’t for intimacy, but for show. He had his son, and he finished the marriage. I did everything I could to keep us together, but it was never enough. There hasn’t been any intimacy between us for over twenty-five years. We coexist, nothing more.”

Melissa knew that her face must have mirrored her sense of horror. “How could you live like that, without love or affection for so many years? How could Daddy do such a thing?”

Emily slipped off her shoes, and her right foot found its customary place beneath her left thigh. “At least he was honest. Don’t judge him too severely, Melissa. He’s always had to walk in the footsteps and the reflections of other men. His tragedy is that it’s always been high noon for him, and he never created a shadow of his own. That can make a man lose perspective, make him desperate.”

* * *

Trudging back home in the howling wind, Melissa reflected that she hadn’t told her mother the real reason for her visit. She loved Adam and wanted to tell her mother. Wanted to tell her that she needed to be with him in the most intimate way. Wanted to tell her mother that she needed advice. She walked through her door as her answering machine was recording Adam’s voice and ran to the phone, but was too late. She telephoned him and advised him of his bad timing.

“What did you want?”

“I wanted to know if you were all right.”

“I had expected you to say you couldn’t live another second without hearing my voice.” The minute she’d said it, she wanted to retract the careless statement. But he laughed.

“A modified version of that would be accurate. I’m going to New York this evening, and I wanted you to know. I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

“Anything wrong?” She had to cover her disappointment that she wouldn’t see him perhaps for several days.

“Just loose ends. Stay out of mischief.” He hung up before she could retaliate, and she called him back.

“Yes, Melissa. I didn’t move, because I knew you’d need the last word. What is it?”

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall,” she quipped, quoting Shakespeare. “Have a good trip, Adam.” His deep laughter still warmed her long after she’d hung up.

* * *

Sunday afternoon, three days later, Adam pushed his right index finger through the handle of his garment bag, dragged it from the carousel, threw it over his right shoulder, and strode out of the airport. He had ordered a limousine before leaving New York, because three days of sparring with employees and competitors had drained him. He’d worked night and day with little sleep and knew better than to drive. He ignored the half dozen newspapers that had been placed there for him, opened the bar, poured himself two fingers of bourbon over ice, and sat back to review the past three days. Melissa had been right—the corporate raiders wanted his best employees, and he didn’t doubt that as soon as they weakened his staff, they’d go for his jugular. He had gotten things under control, but the sooner he found the culprit at Leather and Hides and got back to his own business, the better.

He leaned forward to replace the glass in the bar, and an envelope slipped out of his coat pocket. He opened it and read what he’d written. A puny declaration compared to what he felt and what he needed from her. But he couldn’t ask for what he needed, and if she offered it, he couldn’t accept it. His family’s views about him and Melissa didn’t matter, but the insidious annihilation of Leather and Hides did matter—and until he solved that mystery, he couldn’t allow himself to become too deeply involved with her. He leaned back in the downy softness of the exquisite leather seat, leather tanned as only Hayes/Roundtree Enterprises, Inc., could, and his thoughts drifted to his growing dissatisfaction with his life. He loved his family and his work, but he needed a woman whom he loved and who loved him, and he wanted children. In his mind’s eye he saw Melissa in his home with his baby at her breast. “Damn! I must be losing it.” He reached for the handle on the door of the bar, decided against a drink, and turned on the radio. But he didn’t need to hear George Strait sing “You Can’t Make a Heart Love Somebody,” so he flipped it off and asked himself why he was so restless. He had the driver go into Frederick and wait while he pushed the envelope into Melissa’s mailbox. His heart pounded as he held his hand suspended next to her doorbell, but he resisted, got back in the car, and went home to Beaver Ridge.

* * *

“Anything happen here while I was gone?” he asked his mother when she greeted him at the door.

Mary Roundtree bussed her elder son on the cheek. “Not a thing. Looks to me like those dreadful crooks do their devilment at Leather and Hides either when you’re out somewhere with Melissa Grant or when you’re over at The Refuge. Never when you’re home. I guess they didn’t know you were out of town.” He kissed her quickly, grabbed his garment bag, and headed for the stairs.

“Sooner or later they’ll show their hands and trip themselves up,” he threw over his shoulder. He would not be drawn into a discussion of Melissa, and if his mother insisted on it, she’d learn exactly what he felt. He hung up the garment bag, his overcoat and jacket, pulled a chair up to the desk that faced the window, and dialed her number. When she didn’t answer and had forgotten to turn on her answering machine, he hung up and stared at the wintry scene through his window, stunned at the intensity of his disappointment. He was full of her, day and night, and he had to do something about it. He changed clothes, got his sports bag, took the Jaguar, and set out for the sports center in Frederick.

* * *

Melissa put on her swimsuit under her fatigues, added a winter coat, and went to the sports center. She checked her mailbox as she left the house and opened the unaddressed envelope that she found there. A red, silver-tipped feather fell to the floor. She picked it up, looked into the envelope, and found a card on which was printed, “When I saw this, I thought of you. It’s unique, elegant, and it’s soft—just as you are—A.” Excitement enveloped her. Had he put it there before he left? Or had he stopped by after his return? She had to fight the temptation to telephone him, and she walked less briskly than normal, skipped occasionally, and spun around a time or two.

“Adam.” She wanted to scream his name. “Oh, Adam.”

* * *

Melissa patted the water from her glistening body, threw the beach towel across a lounge chair, and prepared to relax after her vigorous swim. But she sat up abruptly when her eyes caught sight of a flawless male figure, his slim brown hips accented by a yellow bikini, as he stepped up to the diving board and arched his body into a breathtaking dive. Who was he and how could she feel an attraction for a man when she’d seen only his near naked form? Her breath hissed from her lungs as she watched his rhythmic strokes take him to the opposite end of the pool. He reached it, flipped into a turn, and she stood up, feeling his raw masculinity from her brain to her toes. She continued to gape at him as he swam toward her with his head down, impatient to see his face. He surfaced right at her feet and climbed out.

“Adam!”

“Melissa! I didn’t know I’d find you here.” He must have seen the fire in her, must have sensed her need of him, because his gaze reciprocated what she felt. Want. Hunger. Reluctance. Pain. She saw it all reflected in his eyes, eyes that also bore a sadness she hadn’t seen in him. She knew she’d give him whatever he wanted, but could she handle the certain repercussions? She panicked and dove into the water. Within seconds she heard his splash and felt his strong arms about her.

“Get dressed, get your things, and come with me. We’ve got to settle this.” Her breasts tingled, and a shudder shot through her as his strong fingers grasped her bare flesh.

“Come with me,” he said, in a voice that soothed and cajoled.

She couldn’t calm her runaway heartbeat. “No,” she told him, reaching for control though she knew he held the cards.

“Yes. Come with me now. We aren’t children playing games, Melissa. It’s time for us. It has been for weeks, and you know it.”

Melissa summoned her customary cool demeanor and told him in a calm, steady voice, “If I go, it will be because I want to, not because you shoved or wheedled me into it.”

Adam stroked her arms and back. “If I have to shove you into it, as you put it, I don’t want you to go. It has to be mutual, Melissa. But we can’t continue this way.” As if he didn’t care who came in and saw them, he fastened his mouth to hers without warning. Shivers betrayed her tingling body as his lips took her nectar, his strong fingers roamed over her naked flesh, and she opened her mouth for the sweet torture of his hot tongue. Her senses whirled, and her feminine center pulsated wildly when he slipped his hand into the scant bra of her bathing suit and brought her full breast naked against his hard chest. Her moans filled his mouth, and she felt herself sag against him.

“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Your house. Baltimore. A hotel. I don’t care, as long as you and I are the only ones there.”

* * *