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Cold marbles danced around in her belly, and moisture beaded on her forehead. “Are you telling me he’s bringing a woman friend home with him this evening?”
She’d learned that Henry never answered a question directly if he could do it some other way. He raised an eyebrow. “Like I said, come in here looking good. Course, you’d make her look bad if you showed up in dungarees. And fix the supper table real nice.”
Although she appreciated his gesture of friendship, she was too annoyed to show it. “What makes you think I care who Telford Harrington brings here?”
“’Cause you do. But don’t worry none. She won’t spend the night. Never has. He ain’t that crazy.”
That conversation weighed on her as she did the morning chores. Put on that caftan? No way. She intended to wear her red silk sleeveless jumpsuit. He’d get an eyeful whether she was sitting down or walking away from him. She set the table with the best Harrington appointments, added candles and a bouquet of red, white and yellow roses and surveyed the result with satisfaction.
She dressed Tara in a jumpsuit that matched her own, combed the child’s hair out and sprayed it with a lilac scent. Then she showered, put on the red suit, fastened gold hoops to her ears, let down her hair below her shoulders and dabbed Obsession perfume where it counted. She didn’t believe in going to war unless you meant to win.
For whatever reason he’d brought a woman home with him, he remembered that they ate at seven. It wasn’t she, but Henry, who usually opened the door for the brothers, but when the bell rang at a quarter of seven, she beat him to it. Telford gaped at her, speechless and obviously dumbfounded until Tara ran between them and hugged his legs.
“Mr. Telford, I got your telephone call today.” Tara held her arms up for a hug, but he didn’t see the child. His gaze was glued to Alexis.
“Can I have a hug?” That got his attention, and he reached down, lifted her and stroked her back. “Do you like how I look?”
“You’re beautiful, and I like it.” She kissed his cheek and he set her on the floor.
“What a touching little scene.”
His head snapped around. “Oh. Sorry. Ms. Moore, this is Mrs. Alexis Stevenson, our homemaker.”
Alexis sized her up and smiled. The woman wouldn’t resist being catty. She extended her hand. “How do you do, Ms. Moore. This is my daughter, Tara.”
“Hi, Miss Moore.” Tara’s greeting lacked enthusiasm.
“Sure you’re a housekeeper?”
Alexis let a smile drift over her face. “If you want to know how competent I am, I guess you’ll have to ask Telford.” With that double entendre, she led them to the living room, aware that she’d made Evangeline Moore blanch. Whether from annoyance or embarrassment, she didn’t know or care. “Would you like something to drink, Ms. Moore? Lemonade or iced tea?” She figured that, as homemaker, she was also hostess. And since she was certain that her tactics didn’t please Telford, she didn’t bother to look at him.
“I’d like a dry martini,” Evangeline said, “and shake it well.”
Alexis sat down, crossed her left leg over her right knee and swung her left foot. “That’s Telford’s domain. I have no idea how to mix a martini.”
She had to stifle the giggles that threatened to spill out of her when she finally looked at Telford and saw his murderous glare. She wanted to dance for joy. He’d get her for it later, but she didn’t care. He started to the refrigerator, and Tara ran to him.
“Mr. Telford, is Miss Moore your mummy?”
“What?” Evangeline jumped from the chair and pointed her finger at Alexis. “Did you tell her to say that?”
“I didn’t, and I apologize for her innocent mistake.”
Telford knelt beside Tara. “No, she isn’t, Tara. She’s my friend and our dinner guest.”
“Is she going to stay with us?”
“No. She’s just here for dinner.”
“Oh.” She ran over to Evangeline. “I’m glad Mr. Telford has a friend.”
He looked at Evangeline, waiting for her response, and when she didn’t say anything, he walked over to Alexis. “Could we have dinner now?”
“What about the martini?”
“I don’t have any vermouth.”
She promised herself she’d check the bar first thing in the morning. Standing, she took Tara’s hand. “Come along, darling.”
He nearly laughed when Evangeline walked into the dining room and gasped. As though it were all especially for her, she headed for the place opposite his own as head of the table and found Alexis seating herself there.
“That’s Mummy’s seat. You can sit here beside me.” Tara patted the chair next to hers.
“I’ll sit over here.”
Tara was too innocent and sweet to realize it, but she was needling Evangeline more than Alexis was. He knew Evangeline wouldn’t show patience for one of Tara’s long graces, so he took the matter in hand.
“Let’s say grace.” He did, and when he glanced from one woman to the other, he saw pride and affection in one and furor in the other.
As if to make certain that he had a heart attack, Henry walked into the dining room and put a bowl in front of him and one in front of Alexis.
“Be right back with the rest.”
“Hello, Henry,” Evangeline called after him.
“Fine,” he called over his shoulder. Seconds later he returned with two more bowls, which he placed before Tara and Evangeline, in that order, then set a soup tureen in the middle of the table.
Telford ground his teeth. One of these days he was going to have to fire Henry. “I don’t believe this.”
Alexis lifted the lid from the tureen and stared at the contents. “Henry,” she called.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, arousing her suspicion, since he never addressed her that way.
“I thought we were having lamb chops for dinner and a full, five-course meal.”
“Didn’t feel like it. Besides, cabbage stew’s healthy.”
Telford thought about it for a few seconds. Tara didn’t need to see adults act ugly, so he served himself a big helping of cabbage, potatoes and smoked pig jowl.
“May I have your plate, Evangeline?”
She pushed it to him and he was certain that she deliberately shoved her soupspoon to the floor. “Get me another soupspoon, Alexis.”
He held his breath, but after Alexis’s eyes widened with momentary shock, a smile drifted over her face, and he exhaled.
“If you ask Henry, I’m sure he’ll bring you one. You always have to ask him nicely, though.”
Henry came in with a pitcher of lemonade, and he was glad for the opportunity to lighten the atmosphere. “Henry, would you bring Evangeline a soupspoon, please.”
“What happened to the one I gave her?”
“She threw it on the floor, Mr. Henry.”
“Tara, please don’t interrupt when adults are speaking.”
“But she did, Mummy.”
That settled it. Telford got up and went to the kitchen to get a soupspoon. Silver or not didn’t matter. Besides, he had no idea where Alexis kept that silver. He put the spoon beside Evangeline’s plate and looked at her, hoping she got his message. Let’s have some peace at this table.
At least Henry made dessert. Telford thanked him for the apple pie.
“Tara likes it, and she wants me to put black-cherry ice cream on it” was Henry’s reply.
“Would you like espresso or regular coffee, Evangeline?” Alexis asked her.
Evangeline looked at Telford. “Whatever you’re having, dear.”
“He’s having regular coffee.”
He couldn’t say she was deliberately aggravating Evangeline, but the women were so dissimilar that the difference itself had to irritate Evangeline. Why hadn’t he realized that Alexis was an upper-class woman? She had some talking to do.
Chapter 4
Serving coffee in the den wouldn’t make Evangeline happy, because it meant sharing Telford with Tara and Alexis for what remained of the evening, but Alexis didn’t intend to ease the situation for him. They had agreed to keep their distance from each other, but he could at least have told her he’d have a woman guest for dinner if only because it was she who set the dinner table. With all the innocence that was natural to Tara, the child engaged Evangeline in conversation, or tried to, frustrating Tara and annoying Evangeline.
When Telford finally stood and Evangeline Moore sighed in resignation, the evening shot, Alexis walked over to her and extended her hand.
“It was nice meeting you, Ms. Moore. I hope you’ll visit us again.”
“Bye, Mr. Telford,” Tara said, raising her arms for a good-bye kiss and, at the same time, saving Evangeline a courteous reply to Alexis. “You coming back?”
“I’ll be back before long.” He smiled lovingly at Tara, but the look he gave Alexis had the explosive power of a ball of TNT headed for a target. She wasn’t afraid of the retribution his eyes promised; what he incited in her was as far from fear as east from west. She knew that her own face bore a glow of triumph, and she felt like a victor, because she’d taught him that he had to reckon with her. Tara walked them to the door holding Telford’s hand, but Alexis went into the kitchen to speak with Henry.
“Why did you serve that cabbage stew? I set a table fit for the president, and you serve cabbage.”
Henry’s head went back. Then he laughed until he doubled up and finally lost his breath. She had to pound his back. “Crazy, huh? Funniest thing I ever done. Miss Etta’s handkerchief linen and her best crystal and porcelain and things… Cabbage. Prissy as she was, I bet the poor woman turned over in her grave.”
“But why? Henry, I wanted us to have a nice dinner.”
“Humph. You didn’t want no such thing. You wanted to show off. Telford knows what I always serve when he done something I don’t like. And bringing that woman here… He shoulda knowed he was gonna have to eat cabbage stew.” Henry rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I bet that ain’t the only punishment he’s gonna get.”
“You’re getting very fanciful, Henry.”
“If you want to call it that. I wasn’t born this morning.”
“Why don’t you like Evangeline Moore?”
He turned out the light over the kitchen sink and leaned against the counter. “I lived a long time, and I know people when I see ’em. He ain’t serious about her, and that’s because he knows she ain’t for him.”
“Why are you so sure of that?”
“’Tain’t difficult. She gets low grades in the manners department, and Tel can’t stand rotten manners. She ain’t bad, mind you, but these boys here…they come up practically by themselves, except for what raising I done and Telford when he got older… They been through a lot and worked hard.”
His countenance darkened with concern, and she could see that Telford and his brothers meant a lot to Henry and that he took pride in them.
“She ain’t got no appreciation for what they been through and what they’ve done with their lives, either,” he went on, “and she don’t care. She just wants a Harrington. Now you. You ain’t asking nothing from no man. My kind of woman, willing and able to make it on your own.”
“Thanks. That doesn’t explain why you don’t like her.”
“She just ain’t for him. I could stand her, maybe, if she wasn’t so supercilious, always pretending to be something she ain’t. She can’t fool me.”
And what about Alexis? Wasn’t she an imposter, an upper-middle-class educator posing as a housekeeper?
Her lower lip dropped. Henry was one surprise after another. “If she wasn’t so what?”
“Super…oh, you mean that? Well, I want you to know I finished high school, even if that was a couple a hundred years ago.”
She paused, wondering how he’d react to her next question. “Did you ever marry?”
He threw his hands up and looked at the ceiling. “I sure did, which is why I understand the Evangelines of this world. First time was plain stupid, but the second…well, the Lord decided he needed her more than I did.” He turned his back, but not before she glimpsed his lips trembling and his eyes blinking rapidly.
She patted the bones that protruded beneath his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’d better get to my room and see what Tara’s doing. Good night.” She didn’t wait for his reply, but rushed from the kitchen to allow him privacy. When she found Tara asleep in her bed, loneliness washed over her. She wasn’t jealous, and she didn’t want an affair with Telford, but seeing him with that woman wasn’t her idea of fun. She walked over to the window and stared at the garden, idyllic in its shroud of moonlight and its blanket of shrubs and flowers, the perfect setting for lovers. She yanked the blinds down and closed them. She might be alone, but at least she no longer had to suffer the indignity of a philandering, lying husband. Anything was better than that, she told herself as convincingly as she could.
What was that? This time the knock sounded louder and lasted longer. “Good Lord. Telford.” It hadn’t occurred to her that he’d be back in less than half an hour. “I’ll bet he’s mad as the devil.”
Anger barely described what he felt. Indeed, outrage more closely approximated his mood. She opened the door, and he looked at her standing there, a siren with the face of an innocent. If he hadn’t been so furious, he would have laughed. He’d never seen her so beautiful as she was that evening. Or sexier, with that décolletage proclaiming the richness of her treasure and her tight-fitting getup emphasizing her nicely rounded bottom. If Henry had cooked the lamb chops instead of the cabbage stew, he doubted he’d have tasted the difference.
A smile crawled warily over her face. “Hi. You wanted me for something?”
“Do I want… You knew I’d come after you, and don’t pretend you didn’t.” Her shrug didn’t fool him. She was strung tight as a bow.
“Did I do something to displease you? If so, I’m—”
He stepped into the room and stopped inches from her. “Of course not. You were the perfect hostess. I couldn’t have asked for a more charming woman to grace my home and entertain my guest, but—”
She interrupted him. “Isn’t that what a homemaker’s supposed to do?”
He stared at the rise and fall of her bosom, and when he let his gaze drift to her eyes, he didn’t doubt that she knew where he’d been looking and that his attention to her breasts excited her. She wet her lips, obviously without knowing she did it, and her breathing accelerated. She knows I’m here.
“You didn’t want Evangeline in this house, and you didn’t want her here with me. Oh, you weren’t rude; in fact you were sweet as sugar. I wanted to get my hands on you—”
“If you had, what would you have done with your girlfriend looking on?”
“I’d have—”
“She’s not looking on now.”
Of their own will, his left hand went to her sweet little bottom and his right one to her shoulder, and in a second he had her in his arms and his tongue deep in her mouth. Shudders plowed through him, and his blood pounded in his ears as she locked him to her. The hardened tips of her breasts rubbed against his chest, and when he heaved her higher to take one into his mouth and suckle her, she straddled him and rocked against him. Heat enveloped him like tongues of fire from a roaring furnace, as she pressed against the weight that hung hard and heavy between his legs. Her hips undulated in a pulsing rhythm. Wild and reckless.
Her whimpers heightened his need to have her thrashing beneath him with his name spilling from her lips, and when she pressed her crossed ankles against the small of his back, he nearly exploded.
“Alexis. Baby, I’m reaching my limit. Do you want us to—”
Her moans quickened, and her hands caressed his hair as she held his head to her breast.
“Tell me what you want.” She held on tighter, and he knew he had to loosen her hold on him and look into her eyes. This was not a time for a gargantuan error on his part. He took several steps away from the door, tripped and fell backward with her across her bed.
He rolled away from her. “Do you want me to leave or stay?”
She ran her fingers across her forehead, as if clearing away a patch of haze. “Both,” she said, sitting up. “I don’t understand how it is that when you put your hands on me, I stop thinking.” She frowned. “What were we talking about?”
He sat forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “You could drive me insane. You know that? One minute you’re setting a torch to me and the next you’re as cool as spring rain.” He’d leave, but he couldn’t stand right then. “Did you think I wouldn’t ever bring a woman guest here?”
“The other time when you kissed me, you went at me as if women were about to be banned. We backed off from that and said we weren’t going that way. But still, you should have told me ahead of time that you were bringing her here.”
“Come off it, Alexis. Henry told you. You want me to believe you dressed like this to have dinner with Tara, Henry and me?”
She had the nerve to grin. “I can do better than this. What’s wrong with looking nice at dinner? Did she like me?”
He threw up his hands. “Did she like you? Of course. Why shouldn’t she? She’s crazy about you.”
She looked at her fingernails, then polished them on the silk that covered her thigh. “Hmmm. Then it’s you she doesn’t like. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten back here so soon.”
“If I thought you meant that, I’d teach you a few things.” He got up and walked to the door. “I wouldn’t advise you to try that again.”
“What? You mean I shouldn’t kiss you if you kiss first? What do you expect from me? I’m human, and you’re…” She licked her lips. “You’re indescribable.”
“I don’t know what I expected to solve by coming here. You’re unreasonable.”
She gazed at him through slightly lowered lashes and served notice that she could give as good as she got. “You expected exactly what you got.”
He wanted to kiss her until she opened to him, surrendered and flowered in his arms, and he wanted to shake her. He did neither. “See you in the morning.”
“Sure thing,” she said with an airiness he knew she didn’t feel. “Good night.”
He closed the door softly and headed for the den. One of these times when we come together like that, I’m going to let her call a halt. If she doesn’t…
If that evening had been a bust, and it had, it was his fault. Evangeline Moore was not and never had been special to him; indeed, he could count three perfunctory kisses as the extent of their intimacy. It was the minimum a man could do when he took a fawning woman home after a reasonably decent dinner. Hell, he didn’t even know where her bedroom was and, unless she was confined to bed with a prolonged and serious illness, he didn’t expect to find out. He’d been so intent on covering his flank, on proving to both himself and Alexis that they didn’t have any ties and were free to do as they pleased and with whomever they liked, that he overlooked one simple thing: when a man and a woman fired each other up and came as close to all-out lovemaking as they had, they had solid ties whether they liked it or not. Besides, he hadn’t cleared that agenda with Alexis. She was right when she said he should have told her. He didn’t want to think of his reaction if she’d had a man in her room when he knocked on her door.
He sat in the darkened den with his feet on the coffee table and his hands locked behind his head. If he got Alexis out of his system, what would he do about Tara?
The next morning, Alexis opened the liquor cabinet, her heart in her throat. She needn’t have worried. Her whole being awakened, rejuvenated like new life in early spring, when her gaze took in the six bottles of dry white vermouth on the bottom shelf facing the door where Telford couldn’t have missed them. He had deliberately refused to give Evangeline the martini she asked for. When the woman mistreated Tara with her rudeness, she lost points with Telford, and he took steps immediately to shorten his time in her company.
Several afternoons later, Alexis walked with Tara along the road leading to what would soon become the new Harrington warehouse. They paused at the quaint bridge—logs grayed from the wind and rain and flat from having borne the weight of humans and animals for a century or longer—that straddled the small brook marking what was the end of Harrington land until the brothers bought the adjacent acreage for the warehouse. Tara picked up a few pebbles and tossed them into the moving stream. Lilies of different colors had sprouted up in the patches of briarberries and blueberries that grew on either side, and she wondered about lizards and snakes. A color picture of either one could give her nightmares.
Holding Tara’s hand securely, she walked on. With so much free time on her hands and none of the social obligations she’d had as Jack’s wife, she longed to take up once more the hobby she loved. She planned to begin by sculpting wood and hoped to find some hardwood on the premises. She stopped short when Tara said, “I’m going to ask that man over there if he has any little children for me to play with.”
“Honey, you can’t just…”
But Tara dropped her hand and ran to a tall man who was speaking with a much shorter one and told him what she wanted.
Obviously impressed, the man introduced himself to Alexis. “I’m Allen, and I work for the Harringtons. You have a charming little girl. It’s too bad they’re so fragile.” His eyes mirrored a sadness, and she knew at once that his hurt was deep-seated and raw. “I’m afraid I don’t have any little girls, and my boys are teenagers.”
She didn’t know why, but her heart ached for the man. “I’m so sorry we bothered you. Tara thinks the world is filled with people who love her, and she doesn’t hesitate to ask them for proof of it. She doesn’t meet many strangers.”
He looked past her into the distance. “Wouldn’t it be great if we were all like Tara?”
“Can’t I play with teenagers, Mummy?”
“No, dear,” she said, and explained why. She thanked the man and walked on. They’d walked almost to the construction site when she realized where they were.
“Let’s go back, Tara. Come on.”
Too late. A red Buick station wagon that bore the imprint of a lion’s head encircled by the words HARRINGTON, INC. ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS stopped beside them. She knew its driver before she saw him and could have kicked herself for going there.
“Howdy, ma’am. I was wondering when you’d find your way back.” He reached over and opened the front passenger door. “Hop in.”
She squashed the urge to smash his ego. “Sorry. We aren’t going your way.”
He smiled in a way she supposed some people considered captivating—so sure of himself—but he only made her flesh crawl. “You don’t know which way I’m going, babe.”
She took Tara’s hand and prepared to walk on. “No matter where you’re going, it’s opposite from where I’m headed. Come on, Tara.”
When it came to walking and looking backward, Tara was an expert. She stopped and turned Tara to face her. “I need your cooperation. So come on.”
“I’m cop-ter-ating, Mummy, but I don’t like the man.”
That squared it; if Tara didn’t like a man, he bore watching. Later, she mentioned it to Henry.
“You mean Biff? That fellow goes through women like water through a sieve. Tara got sense. As a foreman, he’s first-class, but as a man, he ain’t worth poop.”
“I’ll be happy never to see him again.”
“I hope your happiness don’t depend on that. He’s like a weed. Always shows up where you don’t want to see it.”
Tara barged in, ending that conversation. “Mr. Henry, do you have any little children for me to play with?”
“Nope, not a one. Sorry to say.”
Tara needed playmates. “Maybe I’d better get her into summer camp, or…” She couldn’t think of an alternative.
He sorted the potatoes according to size, selected five and began scrubbing them. “Ain’t no summer camp around here. This ain’t Philadelphia, you know.”
She dragged a stool over to the counter and began stringing beans. “There aren’t any children around here. What do you suggest I do?”
“The church school is open all summer. Telford teaches music over there a couple of mornings a week. Maybe he can tell you something.”