Sealed With a Kiss (13 page)

From his slow, deep breaths, she sensed that he was attempting to bring his passion under control. “I don’t care about points.” He shifted his stance and seemed more relaxed. “Neither of us is the winner here, Naomi.” He spoke in a voice so low that she strained to understand.

“I’m sorry, Rufus. Good night.”
Dear God, make him leave. Please don’t let him see me tremble like this.

She would have expected that after such an experience, a man would leave abruptly and in anger, so she watched him warily. But he took her hand and walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, poured them each a glass of orange juice, and gently stroked her back while they sipped in silence. Apparently satisfied that she had settled down, he held her tenderly, then kissed her on her forehead and left.

After half an hour, she managed to move from the spot in which he’d left her and lock her front door. How could he be so caring and loving after she had thoughtlessly led him on? And why did he persist with his sweetness and gentleness when he knew she wasn’t what he needed? If she let herself believe in him, if she weakened and began to hope, she would be courting disaster, wouldn’t she? She wanted to trust him and what he represented, and in spite of her sense of foreboding, she began to hope. She crawled into bed, but instead of sleep, her mind was filled with the memory of his kisses, of the way he had stood with her in her kitchen, calming and stroking her. Protecting her.

“God, don’t let me need him,” she pleaded.

For Rufus, there was no sleep that night. He didn’t bother to go to bed, but sat in a deep lounge chair in the boys’ room and thought about his life and about Naomi. He had never been affected by a woman as he was by her; she responded to him eagerly, wholeheartedly, even joyously, and withheld nothing. He was momentarily amused by the thought that it was always he who put out the fire; she never seemed to think beyond what she was feeling. God, but she was sweet, and he wanted that sweetness for himself alone. When she was in his arms, he felt as if he could slay dragons single-handedly. He didn’t know when he had begun to need her, but he had.

By daybreak, he had decided that he was going to have her no matter the cost; beyond that, he refused even to guess. He stroked his jaw and sipped from the warm can of ginger ale that he’d gotten out of the refrigerator hours earlier. Naomi was a maze of conflicts, but he was beginning to wonder if the inconsistencies he saw in her were deep-seated. He thought not. After he’d let her provoke him with that burnt orange dress, he’d noticed something different about her, but he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Now, it came to him; Naomi had discovered feminine power that night. She didn’t discover how to use it, but she found out that she had it. He shook his head in wonder. At age twenty-nine? And in spite of her strong attraction to him, she was unusually shy of involvement. But hadn’t he told her he didn’t want any emotional attachments? And she wasn’t as he had first thought, a tunnel-vision person who focused on work and nothing else. Oh, she needed her work, all right, just as he needed his, but she found time to work hard for One Last Chance and to help others. He nodded slowly, having found a piece of the puzzle: Naomi
needed
to help others. That kind of woman usually wanted a nest, but Naomi swore that she didn’t. He didn’t believe her.

The following morning, Naomi received another early-morning summons from Judd. As usual, his request was urgent, but this time she sensed in his manner a deep concern. Whatever it was, she’d face it. How many more shocks could Judd give her, she wondered, dressing hurriedly. She filled a bag with the chocolate fudge brownies she’d made the previous morning and was soon on her way. Her grandfather loved chocolate and was always pleased when she made brownies for him. She walked into the sedate Tudor house and found him sitting in his study with a man he introduced as his lawyer. The situation had escalated beyond the old man’s control, she learned; the child through its mother had retained a private investigator. She knew that the adoption papers were sealed by law, but it appeared that nothing prevented the principals from obtaining information by other legal means.

She discovered that the private investigator had begun his search at the few private clinics in the area that also served as halfway houses and found that only one of those currently operating had ever had an African American client and that had taken place only two years earlier. Records of a defunct clinic showed that there had been one in the year in which Naomi’s child was born, and interviews with two former workers had identified Judd, a prominent and highly visible clergyman, as the person who had brought her there. She felt intense pleasure at the fate of the owners of that clinic, who, she learned, had been forced to close when the unusually large number of babies they’d placed in adoption had come to the notice of public officials. The old man seemed to have switched his interest to the right power play. She expressed strong disagreement.

“I didn’t create this situation,” she informed the two of them acidly, “and I’m not going to let it destroy me. If I have to pay a penalty, I’ll pay it. There are such things as decency and duty, Grandpa. At least, that’s what you’ve been preaching to me, and to anybody else who would listen, all these years.”

She watched dispassionately as he huffed and shifted in his chair, indicating that he was losing patience with her. He peered at her over his glasses. “I appreciate what you’re saying, but if you do something hasty, gal, you’ll regret it as long as you live.”

Her best bet was to switch tactics, she figured. Judd had his own system of logic. “Now, Grandpa, don’t get your dander up,” she chided the old man, “there may be a legitimate reason why they’re looking for me after all this time. Can’t you see that? And it isn’t the standing of the name Logan in the community that’s important here”—a reference to his argument when he’d bullied her into going to that clinic fourteen years earlier—“there may be a child’s well-being at stake, and that child is my flesh and blood.” She paused. “Your flesh and blood, too, Grandpa. Didn’t you stop to think of that?” She grabbed her bag and left hurriedly, unwilling to let her grandfather see her break down.

Naomi turned the key in the ignition and backed slowly out of the driveway. Nervous and scared, she contemplated her next move. She couldn’t remember ever before having had the feeling that she was all alone, on her own, as she was now. Judd Logan had made up his mind, and he had never learned how to reverse himself. It was one thing to defy him when her actions concerned only her, but this was a bigger issue, one that involved a number of people, probably far more than she knew. The bright sunshine reflecting off clean, new snow was blinding, and she lowered the visor. Behind it, she glimpsed the magazine picture of Mary McLeod Bethune that she kept there. Its framed twin hung in her studio. She had clipped the pictures while at the clinic awaiting the birth of her child, and whenever she needed inspiration, she looked at one of them.

She thought of the hurdles over which her idol had climbed. Mary Bethune was an African American, a child of slaves, an educator who had worked throughout the first half of the century to improve education standards among her people in the South. That such a woman had in 1904 founded a college that still flourished after ninety years had inspired her to help create One Last Chance. She had cofounded it to help young girls who were experiencing what she had faced. An unmarried pregnant girl would be advised sympathetically of her options and of the short- and long-term consequences of her decision. And she would receive the nurturing and support that she needed.

She glanced briefly at the picture. “I’m not facing the odds that you did, Mary, old girl,” she said aloud. She took a shortcut toward Rock Creek Parkway, oblivious to the scenic beauty created by the unusual late-autumn snow. A bullhorn called out her license plate number got her attention, and she pulled over. She accepted the ticket for speeding and drove into a filling station to try and steady her nerves. What else could happen in one morning?

She noticed a telephone booth, and without even considering what she did, she dug in her purse, found a quarter, and dialed.

“Meade.” His voice thrilled her, comforted her; he wasn’t in that filling station with her, but he was there, and that was something. She opened her mouth but couldn’t make a sound.

“Naomi?” His voice held impatience. “What is it? Why are you calling?”

“Rufus. I…I don’t know why I called. I saw this telephone booth and I…I just called you. It’s been such an awful morning. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“You aren’t bothering me.” She hadn’t even wondered how he’d known that it was she who’d called. Her one thought was that he was there and she needed his strength. The tremors in her voice had been uncontrollable, and he had heard them, she realized, heard and known that she had reached out to him in distress.

“Where are you?”

She told him.

He was silent for a while. “Why not go home and get into something warm and casual, and the boys and I will pick you up in about an hour. I promised to take them sledding in the park, and it’s best when the snow’s still fresh. Would you like that?”

“Yes. Yes. I’d love that. It would be wonderful. See you later.” He didn’t hang up, so she waited.

“Are you all right? Can you drive home?” Naomi assured him that she could. She felt better for having spoken with him, even as her common sense cautioned her that she was courting heartache. Of all the men she’d met, this was the one man who was least forgiving by nature and who would not accept the explanation that she would someday have to give him if she didn’t stop now. And what about him? For the first time, she considered how he might be affected if he grew to care for her, learned her secrets, and felt betrayed. I care too much, she admitted.

Rufus watched his children’s faces light up when Naomi opened the door. Their joy at seeing her and her pleasure at their excited greetings touched him, and he knew he had done the right thing in inviting her to join them.

“Where’s your sled?” Preston asked her, in a mild reprimand.

“You can ride mine, Noomie,” Sheldon declared protectively, chiding his brother.

“She can ride mine, too,” Preston was quick to add. She hugged them and got hugs in return.

When she finally looked up at Rufus, he fought to remove all but a tolerant expression from his face.

“Hi. Thanks for inviting me to go along. The children are so nice to be with.”

His raised eyebrow was his response. He disliked small talk, considering it too strong a challenge to one’s honesty. “I’m glad to see you with a bloom on your face. What happened?” He had promised himself to keep things between them impersonal, but when she’d called needing him, he hadn’t remembered it. His only thought had been to shelter her.

“I called you just after I got a ticket for speeding at eighty miles an hour on the Shirley Highway and the Washington Boulevard.” She had told him the truth, he conceded, but he wasn’t fool enough to believe she had given him the whole story.

“I don’t have to ask where you’d been. Does your grandfather upset you like that very often?” Getting a traffic ticket wasn’t what had upset her, what he wanted to know was why she’d been so distressed that she hadn’t known how fast she was driving.

She grabbed the straw he’d given her. “He’s a genius at it.” More evasion, he knew, but he hadn’t expected anything different. Not yet. Just give me time, he promised himself, and I’ll get behind all of it. Didn’t she remember that he was a journalist, a good one, and that collecting facts was his business? All he needed were a few sharp clues, and she had already unwittingly given him several. He’d get it; she could be sure of that.

Rock Creek Park was deserted. It was eerily beautiful, Naomi thought, gazing into the distance. The unusually early snow had preceded a blast of cold that left icicles hanging from branches, and snow-crusted evergreens and pines lent color to the white forest. They gamboled in the snow, pulling the sleds as the boys giggled and screamed with pleasure, throwing snowballs and building snow figures. She watched Rufus’s handsome face crease in a slow grin when he noticed one of hers.

“Pretty clever,” he told her in a voice laced with humor. “I’m not sure I’ve seen a snow girl before. How’d you get that skirt on her?”

She rubbed her nose and fought the sniffles. “With my nail file. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Try it sometime.”

He sauntered over to her and rubbed snow on her forehead. “You can’t stand peace, can you? It just kills you to be surrounded with so much contentment, doesn’t it?” The warm, alluring eyes that could so easily seduce her sparkled with mischief. “I’m glad you’re the only female chauvinist I know. Personally, I mean. And sometimes I wonder how the devil I let that happen.” He got out of the way quickly as if anticipating the snowball that he knew would be heading his way. She hadn’t enjoyed a genuine snow fight in years; the boys loved it, too, she noticed.

Rufus turned to his boys. “Why aren’t you defending
me?
You always take sides with me against your aunt Jewel.”

“We have to help Noomie,” Preston answered, as Sheldon nodded in agreement.

Rufus regarding his offending offspring, puzzled by their deep affection for Naomi, as he began to pack them into his car with the intention of driving Naomi home. But Preston had other ideas.

“Noomie, we have a snowman in our back garden; you wanna see it?”

“Yes,” Sheldon urged, “and our daddy says we’re having chili for lunch. Aunt Jewel made it. You want some?” Rufus restrained his inclination to squelch the idea. Having Naomi for a houseguest was not in his plans; the entire afternoon had been too cozy, and he didn’t want her to misinterpret it. As it was, the course of their mutual attraction, or whatever you’d call it that was happening between them, seemed to be self-propelled.