Against All Odds (Arabesque) (23 page)

“Let me do that, you must have more important things to do.”

He turned toward the familiar voice and greeted Emily. “Thanks, but this will only take a minute. Do you still enjoy it here?”

“Oh, yes. I’m happier than I thought I could be. These women and girls are so grateful for the little care we give them that I’m humbled.”

“Hasn’t Rafer discovered this, or have you told him?” His left hand remained suspended above the cart, holding an old cookbook, while he awaited her answer. In the past few days, the sabotage at Leather and Hides had stepped up, though the incidents weren’t major disasters, but small yet destructive acts. He had begun to look everywhere for clues and to suspect a widening circle of people.

“If he knew, he’d have said something.” Emily’s voice halted his musing. “Rafer isn’t one to keep his peace about a thing that displeases him.” Adam released a deep breath. How could a man not know what his wife did for four hours every day of the working week?

As if she’d sensed his unspoken question, she said, “We live separate lives, Adam. At least
now
I’m living a life.” He told her that her health seemed improved, and she replied, “It’s my mind that’s finally working. Never let anybody force you into leading a double life.” At his raised eyebrow, she added with a laugh, “Just listen to me. Nobody
could
force you to do that or anything else. All these years I’ve accepted public adoration and private scorn from Rafer—but like that old song ‘New Day In The Mornin’,’ that’s all behind me. I’m not living like that anymore.”

Adam’s hand grazed her shoulder in a tentative gesture. “Be careful. Don’t provoke him unnecessarily.” He finished shelving the books and glanced at the wall clock. Twenty-five minutes before he had to be at his office in the Jacob Hayes Building. He phoned a take-out shop to have a hamburger and coffee delivered there, told Emily goodbye, and strode briskly down Court Street, deep in thought. Rafer had accused him of shooting his nephew but had taken no legal action. Authorities hadn’t even questioned him about it. Emily had been a volunteer at his charity for over two weeks, and Rafer didn’t know it or pretended that he didn’t. Meanwhile someone had found a nearly indecipherable way to destroy the very foundation of Leather and Hides. And that someone knew his moves and had the run of the factory. Melissa knew his moves, and Calvin Nelson had the run of the factory, but somehow they didn’t fit, and the possibility of their disloyalty grew increasingly more remote.

He fingered the symbol of man’s surrender to woman that he kept in his pocket. Almost every time he touched it, he laughed. Only a very secure woman with a riotous sense of humor would send a man a silver apple out of which a generous bite had been taken. Lord! He hoped she was innocent. He’d hate to give her up—at least not before it suited him.

Adam sipped his coffee, gripped his private phone, and listened to his brother.

“You remember that I ran a piece in the paper about industrial sabotage in general and hinted at our problems at Leather and Hides. Yesterday I got a call. The guy said that if Leather and Hides went down the drain, the Roundtrees deserved it, and that it was too bad Jacob Hayes wasn’t alive to see it. I’m having difficulty believing that Cal is involved in this.”

“So am I. Anything else?”

“What about Melissa, Adam? Are you holding back because you’re passing time with her?”

Adam swung out of his chair and paced as far as the telephone cord would let him. “Wayne, don’t make me tell you this again. Melissa Grant isn’t time I’m killing.”

He heard his brother snort. “Well, at least you recognize it. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to enlist her help with this?”

“Leave it to me, Wayne.”

“Alright. Alright. I haven’t mentioned to anyone that you hired a private investigator.”

“And don’t. I’ll keep you posted.” He hung up, called Melissa, and invited her to dinner.

* * *

Bill Henry’s visit around six o’clock surprised him. His uncle used that time to prepare his healthful meals, which he ate without fail at six thirty. “Noticed Wayne’s short piece in
The Maryland Journal.
I see you still got problems at the plant. What do you make of it?”

“Inside job, but I think it’s someone in cahoots with the Grants. Problem is who and why.”

“Did it start before or after your began this thing with Melissa?”

“You’re saying I started something with Melissa?”

“Yeah. And you’re knee deep in it. Son, I hope you’re not following in my footsteps. But then I don’t suppose you will. I doubt that even the Grants and your mother could bring you to your knees, and they’re masters at it.”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck, remembering that Melissa had twice suggested he speak to B-H about their families’ feud. He stared at his uncle.

“You want to explain that?”

“I thought you knew.” He related to Adam the tale of his ill-fated engagement to Melissa’s mother.

Horrified, Adam braced his hands at his hips and whistled. “That explains plenty.” Emily’s behavior toward him. Rafer’s hatred of him and his family. B-H himself, his bachelorhood and reclusive behavior. He walked with his uncle to the family room, opened the bar and poured a ginger ale for B-H and a shot of bourbon for himself.

Adam looked at the man who had played such an important role in his youthful development and for whom he cared deeply though he hadn’t wanted to imitate him. Less so now.

“Emily volunteers at The Refuge four hours a day, Monday through Friday, and when Rafer finds out—”

B-H interrupted him, his face hard with incredulity. “Don’t tempt me, Adam. She’s still wearing Rafer Grant’s ring on the third finger of her left hand.”

Adam set his drink aside, gazed at his uncle, and then shook his head. His words bore a soft, funereal quality. “After all these years? Three decades?”

He went back to his room to sort out his thoughts. He ought to call Melissa and cancel their date, but he couldn’t disappoint her. And he admitted that he needed to see her. His mother’s footsteps in the hallway forced him into action, and he quickly left his room, greeting her in passing before loping down the stairs. He knew she’d read Wayne’s article and had primed herself to speak to him about Melissa and her family. He barely heard the rain pummeling the roof of his car as he steered it against the windy gusts. Bill Henry still loved Emily Morris after thirty years. Could what he felt for Melissa become so powerful? And would it do to him what loving a woman had done to his uncle? Would it drive him into himself?

* * *

Melissa finished dressing in a black velvet pants suit just as the doorbell announced Adam’s arrival. Breathless with anticipation, she swung open the door, but her smile quickly disappeared and her face lost some of its glow.

“Hi.”

She didn’t know how to respond to this no-nonsense, harsh, and businesslike Adam, the one she hadn’t seen since before they’d first made love. Scanning his face, she greeted him with a careful smile, the kind she’d give a client.

“Hello, Adam. Won’t you come in.”

Adam followed her into the living room, declined her offer of a seat, and ambled with deliberateness from one end of the room to the other, his overcoat open and his hands stuffed in his pants pocket. She sat in a comfortable chair, perplexed at his pacing, but certain that it allowed him either to rein in his temper or to deal with his feelings for her.

She opened her mouth, aghast, when he stopped before her and asked in a voice devoid of emotion, “Why did you make love with me that first time? A twenty-eight-year-old virgin doesn’t do that without solid reason. Why?” Stunned at the bluntness with which he’d asked that intimate question, and for the second time, too, and annoyed with herself for having spent the afternoon longing and waiting to see him, she replied in like manner.

“You’re Wall Street’s boy wonder. If you can’t figure it out yourself, my explanation wouldn’t mean anything to you, either.”

He pulled her up from the chair and into his arms. “You tell me. I want to hear it from your lips.”

She couldn’t bear having his arms around her in that impersonal way—she wanted more of his warmth, the gentle caring of which she knew him capable, but she was damned if she’d show it.

“Tell me,” he urged, his tone dispassionate.

“If you just came here to get your ego stroked, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Mine’s been out of sorts since the last time I saw you. So nothing doing.”

“What do you mean?” She knew he’d remember that when they’d last been together, they’d spend the night at his lodge, she on the sofa and he on the floor nearby. He’d reached up and held her left hand in his right one until they’d fallen asleep. She’d wanted to sleep in his arms, but he’d said they needed to wait until he resolved some undisclosed problems before becoming more deeply involved, that they already risked more that he thought wise.

“I think you know the answer, and I also think we shouldn’t see each other anymore until all of the problems you mentioned are cleared up. If ever they are.” She had to look away from the lights twinkling in his eyes, challenging her to give in to him, to tell him what he demanded to know. “I want you to leave, Adam.”

“This is another first. You’re the first—and only—woman to give me her feminine truth and the first woman or man with the nerve, or perhaps I should say the chutzpa, to invite me to leave anyplace whatever.” She twisted out of his arms and turned toward the foyer as though expecting him to follow, but his hand heavy on her shoulder detained her.

“You don’t think I’m leaving here before you answer my question, do you?”

Her nose lifted upward. “What was your question?”

He grasped her shoulders, drew her to him, and looked into her eyes. “If you won’t say it, I’ll tell you, and I dare you to deny it. You gave yourself to me because I’m the only man you’ve ever wanted. Ever loved. Deny it, and you lie. Unless of course you want me to believe you used yourself as a decoy while your relatives trashed my leather factory.”

She gasped, appalled. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing!”

“I didn’t. I gave you the choice.”

“I don’t care what you believe,” she bluffed.

He pulled her closer. “Oh, but you do. You care, alright.” She thought his demeanor softened. He’d never before made a deliberate effort to seduce her. When they’d made love, he had led her, but only where she indicated she wanted to go. She knew he meant to push her over the edge, but she didn’t intend to accommodate him.

“Which is it?” he murmured. “Tell me.”

Loving him as she did, she cared what he thought of her and how he felt about her, so she threw caution aside though she knew she’d regret it. “You know I didn’t throw myself at you. How could you think I’d make love with you because of some feud?” His heated gaze toyed with her.

“Adam, what do you want? Please!”

“If what you say is true, you did it because you love me. Which is it? Tell me,” he persisted, never taking his eyes from hers, his breath harsh and uneven.

“Yes. Yes, I love you. Yes. Yes.” He wrapped her to him, kissed her tears and hugged her until she hurt. Her whimpers must have alerted him to his use of strength, because he loosened his hold and soothed her with gentle strokes over her back and down her arms.

He wanted to tell her that he felt as if her words would cause his heart to burst, but he couldn’t bring himself to divulge the two episodes in his life that she might not forgive, and worse still, there remained the slim chance that he’d have to prosecute her.

“Alright.” He walked them over the couch, sat down, and patted his lap, inviting her to sit there. “My questions may make you angry, but I have to ask them.” He hugged her to him and blurted, “Tell me what you know about Timothy’s gunshot wounds.” He’d expected her to attempt to get up, and he restrained her, nibbling on her ear to soften the gesture.

“You’re wasting your time and mine,” she threw at him, bitterness lacing her voice. “I haven’t seen Timmy since that happened. We’re not friends, Adam. He thought I could find a cushy job for him, though I suspect that was Daddy’s idea. I referred him to a bus company in Hagerstown, but he hasn’t reported back to me on it. Anything else?”

“Bear with me in this, please.”

“Why should I? You got the confession from me that you wanted, and of course it didn’t occur to you that I also need reassurance about your feelings for me. I want you to leave.” He put his arms around her and held her close, needing her with every atom of his being, needing to make love with her, to make certain that she belonged to him. But he’d lost the moment. Her pride wouldn’t let her allow him that intimacy, and he didn’t want to see her without her elegant sense of self.

“Are you going?” she asked, though her voice didn’t convince him of her sincerity.

He caressed her arms, inhaled her woman’s scent, and let his gaze roam over the warm, feminine body that reclined in his arms. Shudders plowed through him, and in a voice hoarse with desire, he said, “I care. Dammit, you know I care. Why do you think I don’t stay away from you? It isn’t because I’m a masochist, though I’m beginning to wonder about that.” He felt her relax against him, and sensed a giving of her trust.

“Melissa, I asked you about Timmy, because you know your father accused me of wounding him. But did you know that I haven’t been officially charged with it, and I can’t find out whether anyone has been formally accused? Did it actually happen?”

She nodded. “Mama says it did.” He had to ask her about Leather and Hides, but considering how she reacted to the question about Timothy, he didn’t care to risk it.

“Adam, tell me what’s going on at Leather and Hides.” His astonishment must have been mirrored in his face, because she explained that B-H had mentioned it to her. “Hadn’t you planned to tell me about it?”

He stood but resisted the urge to pace. “I tried several times, but I couldn’t represent it to you as it really is, because I didn’t want to hurt you.” He saw her back stiffen, and it occurred to him that he ought to be grateful for Melissa’s even temper.

“What’s it got to do with hurting me? I don’t have anything to do with it.”