Love Me or Leave Me

Love Me or Leave Me
Gwynne Forster

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoy reading Love Me or Leave Me, the story of Drake Harrington, the third and youngest of the three Harrington brothers, and the people who make up this delightful family. Many of you have written to me asking about this series, and I am so pleased that Harlequin is reprinting this and previous Harringtons books. I hope that you like the story of the most handsome, and yet disarming, of the Harrington men, and the woman who captured his heart.

If you enjoyed reading about strong, dependable and loving Telford (Once in a Lifetime), the handsome and fiery Russ (After the Loving) and their cousin—tender, powerful and tenacious Judson Philips-Sparkman (Love Me Tonight)—you will fall for Judson’s best friend, Ambassador Scott Galloway, a man who takes his own sweet time to find romance. You’ll read Scott’s story in A Compromising Affair, which Kimani Arabesque will release later this year.

I enjoy hearing from my readers, so please email me at GwynneF@aol.com or leave a message at my website at www.gwynneforster.com. If you want to write by postal mail, you can reach me at P.O. Box 45, New York, NY 10044, and if you would like a reply, please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope. For more information, please contact my agent, Pattie Steel-Perkins, Steel-Perkins Literary Agency, at myagentspla@aol.com.

Warmest regards,

Gwynne Forster

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to Mrs. Linda Biney,

wife of the Ghanaian diplomat to the United Nations

and member of the distinguished Fanti tribe, who

discussed with me Ghanaian culture and loaned me

video tapes that depicted the slave castles, other

notable landmarks and a re-enactment of the ways

in which people were sold into slavery. My thanks,

also, to all of the Ghanaians in New York and in Ghana

who I have been privileged to know and associate with.

A special thanks to my husband who creates most of

the promotional materials designed to support this book,

and to my loyal readers who urged me to write.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

Drake Harrington loped down the broad and winding stairs of Harrington House, his ancestral home, and made his way to the back garden, his favorite place to sit and think or to swim on early summer mornings. He stopped and glanced around him, the familiarity of all he saw striking him forcibly. He surmised that he’d looked at that same evergreen shrub every day—when he was at home—for as long as he’d known himself. He sat down on the stone bench beside the swimming pool, spread his long legs and rested his elbows on his thighs. He had slept in the same room for thirty-one years, from his days in a bassinet to the king-size sleigh bed he now used. Wasn’t it time for a change?

His long, tapered fingers brushed across his forehead, their tips tangling themselves in the silky wisps of hair that fell near his long-lashed eyes, giving him a devil-may-care look. He liked to measure carefully the effect of a move before he made it, but he wasn’t certain as to the source of his sudden discontent, so he was at a loss as to what to do about it. He loved his brothers and enjoyed their company, and he liked the women they had chosen for their mates, but he recognized a need to make headway in his own life, and that might mean leaving his family. A smile drifted across his features, features that even his brothers conceded were exceptionally handsome. He couldn’t imagine living away from Tara, his stepniece, or Henry, the family cook who—with the help of his oldest brother, Telford—had raised him after the death of his father when he was twelve years old.

As he mused about his life as he saw it and as he wanted it to be, he began to realize that because his older brothers had found happiness with the women of their choice, he was pressuring himself to decide what to do about Pamela Langford. He dated several women casually, including Pamela, but she was the one he cared for, though he hadn’t broadcast that fact, not even to her—and he often sensed in her nearly as much reluctance as he recognized in himself. He had been careful not to mislead her, for although he more than liked her, he was thirty-one years old and a long way from realizing his goal of becoming a nationally recognized and respected architectural engineer, and he was not ready to settle down. When he did, it would be with a woman who—unlike his late mother—he could count on, and he had reservations that a television personality such as Pamela fit that mold. He’d better break it off.

Hunger pangs reminded Drake that he hadn’t eaten breakfast. As he entered the breakfast room, the loving voices of Telford and his wife, Alexis; Tara, their daughter; his older brother, Russ; and Henry welcomed him. He took his plate, went into the kitchen, helped himself to grapefruit juice, grits, scrambled eggs, sausage and buttermilk biscuits, and went back to join his family.

“I said grace for you, Uncle Drake,” Tara said, “and that’s four times, so you’ll have to take me to see Harry Potter.”

He turned to Russ, who had spent the weekend with them at the family home in Eagle Park, Maryland. “We’re looking at a six-year-old con artist, brother. She decides who’s to say grace, and she decides there should be a penalty if that person doesn’t say it. She also metes out the punishment.”

“Yeah,” Russ said. “That’s why I get down here before she does.”

“You notice she never dumps it on the cook?” Henry said, obviously enjoying his health-conscious breakfast of fruit, cereal, whole-wheat toast and coffee.

“That’s ’cause I don’t want to eat cabbage stew,” Tara replied. “I’m ready, Dad,” she said to Telford. “Can I call Grant and tell him to meet us, or are we going to his house to get him?”

Telford drank the last of his coffee, wiped his mouth, kissed his wife and took Tara’s hand. “We’re going to Grant’s house. His dad can take you and Grant fishing. I have some urgent work to do.”

Drake relished every moment he spent with his family, but was a stickler for punctuality, hated to wait on others and rarely caused anyone to wait for him. He excused himself, dashed up the stairs and phoned Pamela. He didn’t believe in procrastinating. He wouldn’t enjoy what he had to do, but he couldn’t see the sense in postponing it and stressing over it.

“Hello.” Her refined, airy voice always jump-started his libido, but that was too bad.

“Hi. This is Drake. Any chance we can meet for dinner this evening? I’ll be working in Frederick today, and I can be at The Watershed at six-thirty. You know where it is—right off Reistertown Road at the Milford exit.”

“Dinner sounds wonderful. See you at six-thirty.”

Pamela finished her third cup of green tea for that morning—she had substituted green tea for the five or more cups of black coffee she used to drink every day, thankful that she’d never taken up smoking. Being the only newswoman at a television station that had eight male reporters—half of whom considered themselves studs—was more pressure than she could enjoy, but she held her own as a newscaster, and her boss’s mail verified that. She didn’t prefer dates so soon after work—especially not with Drake, and not when she couldn’t go home and dress for the occasion.

If Drake Harrington knew how she felt about him, he would probably head for the North Pole, as skittish as he was about committing himself. After a calamitous affair when she was a college sophomore—the boy seduced her not because he cared, but for bragging rights among his buddies—she had sworn never again to get involved with a man who had a pretty face. And Drake wasn’t only as handsome as a man could get—all six feet and four inches of him—he was also very wealthy.

“He came up on my blind side” was how she explained to herself the way Drake mesmerized her when she met him. Fortunately, she’d had the presence of mind not to show it.

“How’s about a hug for the nicest guy at WRLR?”

At the sound of Lawrence Parker’s voice, Pamela spun around in her swivel chair. “Would you please knock before you open my door, and would you try being more professional? Your kid stuff gets on my nerves.”

“Aw, come on, babe. Give a guy a break. I know a real sexy movie, and then we can go to my place and—”

She glared at him. “Lawrence, you’re making me ill. I’m not going out with you, now or ever. Besides, I have a dinner date. Beat it so I can finish the copy for my five-o’clock newscast.”

“What’s he got that I don’t have?” He raised his hands, palms out, and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “All right. All right. Don’t tell me. I know.”

She heard her office door close and hoped he’d left, but she didn’t risk looking up for fear that he might be leaning over her, as he’d done a few times.

Pamela was much like Drake in that she believed in making the best of every opportunity. She decided that before she slept that night, she and Drake would have achieved a level of intimacy they hadn’t previously shared. Oh, he’d kissed her a few times, though he hadn’t put his soul into it, but this time she was going for the jugular. If she had to seduce him she knew how, and she would. She had coasted along in the relationship doing things his way, but beginning tonight, they would be using her road map.

She raced home on her lunch hour and changed into a red sleeveless silk dress that had a flouncy skirt and a matching long-sleeved jacket, and put her pearl jewelry in her pocketbook and her makeup and perfume in her briefcase. Within an hour and fifteen minutes, she was back at the station.

Her news report that evening included an account of one homicide, an attempted rape, Southwest crops ravaged by drought and a local practicing physician who was exposed as an eighth-grade dropout and possessed no formal medical knowledge. She exhaled a deep and happy breath when she got to her last story, which described the return of a missing baby to its parents. At the end, she folded her papers, shoved them into her drawer, locked it, grabbed her briefcase and pocketbook, and started for the elevator.

“Where’re you rushing off to, babe? It’s early yet. What about a drink next door at Mitch’s Place?” The elevator arrived, saving her the necessity of answering Lawrence.

She stopped at the service station about a mile before the Milford exit, bought gas and got an oil change. She liked that station because the attendants still serviced cars, and she didn’t care to pump gas or measure the air in her tires while wearing her best cocktail suit. The attendant came back into the station, made out her bill and handed it to her.

“She’ll run like new, Miss Langford. In the future, don’t let your oil get so dirty. It’s not good for your car. I checked your tires. You’re good to go.”

She paid the bill and added a tip. “Thanks. I’ll bring it in for a thorough checkup one day next week.” She looked at her watch. Five after six. She had plenty of time and didn’t have to speed, for which she had reason to be grateful five minutes later when her car swerved dangerously as she was crossing an old bridge that had only wooden railings. She eased the car to the elbow of the little two-lane highway, stopped and got out. With the sun still high, she had no difficulty finding the problem. Both of her front tires were flat.

Hadn’t that service-station attendant just told her that he’d checked her tires and they were fine? She searched her pocketbook for her cell phone, but couldn’t find it. She dumped everything in her purse and in her briefcase on the front passenger’s seat. Then she remembered having taken the phone out and placed it on her desk to charge it.

“Now what?” she said aloud. She opened the trunk of her car, got the sneakers she kept there for the times she played tennis, locked her car and started walking. Several cars slowed down and two drivers stopped to offer her a ride, but she wouldn’t risk it. She walked the two miles back to the service station, all the time wishing she wasn’t wearing that brilliant-red outfit.

“You told me my tires were fine,” she said to the attendant, “but as soon as I turned into the ramp going to Milford Road, both of my front tires blew.”

He stared at her. “That’s impossible, Miss Langford. Those are new tires in perfect condition. Did you drive over glass, or maybe some pieces of metal?”

She shook her head. “Neither one, and this is messing up what may be the most important day of my life.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m truly sorry. I’ll call a patrolman and alert him to the location of your car. Then I guess you need a tow truck, ’cause you only have one spare, and there’s nobody on duty tonight but me, so I can’t leave here.”

She waited for what seemed like hours until she could get in her car and drive on to the restaurant. She prayed that Drake would still be there, but she wouldn’t blame him if he left. She rushed into the restaurant so eager to know if she would see Drake that she walked past the maître d’.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” he said with his nose just a little higher than she imagined it usually was.

“A gentleman was waiting here for me. I suppose he left.”

The man gave her a dismissive look. “He did, indeed, and I can imagine that he was greatly embarrassed to wait an hour and a half with an untouched glass of wine in front of him.”

She spun around and went to the pay phone near the women’s room. “Oh, my Lord. I could have called him when I was in the service station, but all I thought about was that I didn’t have my cell phone.” When he didn’t answer his cell phone, she called Harrington House.

“He ain’t here.” It was Henry, the cook, who answered. “He said he was having dinner out. Who should I tell him called?”

“His… Tell him that Pamela called. Thank you.” She hung up and began the long drive home. No one had to tell her that wherever Drake was, he was furious, for he hated to wait for anyone and didn’t make anyone wait for him. She trudged into her house, locked the door and checked her answering service. He had not called. A ham sandwich and a glass of milk sufficed for dinner, which she ate pacing her kitchen floor. What had caused those tires to blow out?

She phoned the station attendant. “Did you check those old tires to find out what caused them to blow?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did. Somebody slashed them.”

“What? When could anybody have done that?”

“Beats me. The slashes were so long and so deep that you couldn’t have driven out here from East Baltimore on those tires. It— Say, a big yellow Caddy drove in here right behind you. It was here while you were inside the station paying the bill, and it took off without getting anything. I wonder… Well, anything can happen these days.”

She thanked him, finished her sandwich and went to bed. She’d left a message telling Drake that she called. Now it was up to him.

Drake let himself into Russ’s apartment, dropped his suitcase on the floor and went to the kitchen to find something to eat. He knew that Russ wouldn’t be home until much later, and he hoped that by that time, he would have rid himself of his anger and frustration. He wouldn’t have expected Pamela to leave him sitting in a restaurant without phoning him to say she couldn’t make it. It was out of character. Bowing to his protective instincts, he phoned a policeman, a long-standing friend, to know whether an accident had been reported on Reisterstown Road or Milford after five o’clock that afternoon. There hadn’t been. He wanted to telephone her, but she had his cell-phone number and hadn’t used it. He took the phone from his briefcase, saw that he’d forgotten to turn it on and checked the voice mail for messages. There were none. His emotions warred with each other, anger battling frustration, hurt struggling with anger.

He defrosted some frozen shrimp, sliced some stale bread and toasted it, found some mayonnaise and bottled lemonade, and ingested it. However, the ache inside of him didn’t respond to food. Russ got home around ten-thirty and found Drake sitting in the living room in the dark with his shoes off and his feet on the coffee table.

“What’s going on?” Russ asked.

“Sorting out my thoughts.”

“Yeah? Can’t you sort ’em out with the lights on?”

“Very funny. Will you have time to drive me to the airport tomorrow morning? If not, I can call a cab.”

“Of course I’ll take you. Leave your flight schedule, and I’ll meet you when you come back. Say, man, what happened to you tonight? You’re in the dumps. Wouldn’t be that you’re strung out because you’ll soon be the only single man you know, would it?”

“You’re the one to talk. You practically barricaded yourself against the idea of marriage, when all of us knew you loved that woman so much that you didn’t have a hope in hell of staying single.”

“Let that be a lesson to you. When it grabs you, don’t waste energy trying to resist. Who’s Sackefyio marrying?”

“Ladd? He’s marrying Doris Adenola. He went with Hannah Lamont the whole time he was at Howard, and a couple of days before graduation, he told her he had to marry someone of his tribe. Hannah was so far down, I thought she’d commit suicide. A lot of African guys do that. When it comes to marriage, they do as their elders tell them. Hannah was a good-looking gal. I can’t wait to see what Miss Adenola looks like.”

“It must work for them, but it certainly wouldn’t work for me,” Russ said.

“Me neither. When are you going back to Barbados? Splitting myself between there, Frederick and Baltimore is tiring. I think we ought to consider getting another engineer.”

Russ sat down in his favorite chair—a big, overstuffed leather one—stretched out his long legs and relaxed his feet on the footrest that matched the chair. “Hiring an engineer would relieve you, but Telford wants this to remain a family business. It would help if we chose jobs more carefully. When do you expect to finish in Barbados?”

“A couple of months more, if all goes well.”

Russ sat forward. “What could go wrong? We’ve got a great gang of workers. Drake, it isn’t like you to be negative. If you can’t talk to me about whatever it is, talk to Telford, or Henry, or Alexis.”

“Thanks. I’m all right. It’s just… You know I never go into anything without nursing the idea before—”

“Yeah, I know, but you’re nursing it to death. Is it Pamela? I sure as hell hope you’re not considering anything serious with Louise.”

His head shot up. “That butterbrain? What do you take me for? I dated her twice as a favor to her brother. He had some fish to fry and wanted his sister out of the way.”

“You sure must think a lot of her brother. The angel Gabriel couldn’t have gotten me to go out with that dame a second time.”

“Tell me about it. I think I’ll turn in, Russ. I have to catch a nine-o’clock flight, and that means leaving here at six-thirty. Sure you want to take me to the airport?”

“No problem. You make the coffee.”

Drake hung up his tuxedo, took a shower and crawled into bed. He didn’t remember ever having thrashed in the bedcovers trying to sleep. But he couldn’t get Pamela out of his thoughts. He reached over to his night table and turned on the light. Twice he dialed most of her number and hung up before completing the call. After an hour of turning and twisting, he sat up. Why should he care that she hadn’t kept their dinner date? Hadn’t he planned to tell her it was best they not see each other? He slapped his palms on his knees and let out an expletive. Did he want to stop seeing her, or didn’t he?

At the airport the next morning, he checked in, passed security, bought a sandwich for later and went to the seating area at the departure gate. How would you feel if she left the country without saying a word to you? his conscience demanded. At five minutes before boarding time, he capitulated to his conscience and his feelings and telephoned her, and a hole opened up inside of him when she didn’t answer at home, at her office or on her cell phone. He took his seat in first class, thanked God that his seatmate was a woman with good hygiene habits, fastened his seat belt and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to talk with anybody except Pamela Langford. Please, God, I hope she’s not in any trouble. When did I get to the place where I don’t know my own mind?

Pamela was no less disturbed than Drake about the course of their relationship. Surely Henry gave Drake her message, but Drake hadn’t paid her the courtesy of an answer. She dragged herself out of bed, went through the motions of her morning ablutions, made a pot of coffee and decided she had no appetite for breakfast. After moseying around her apartment for nearly an hour, she threw up her hands in disgust. She couldn’t call Henry and ask him whether he gave Drake her message.

“Guess I’m the one eating dirt this time,” she said to herself, put on a yellow linen suit with a white-bordered yellow tank, got into her car and headed for work. “The sun will revolve around the earth before I cry over a man,” she said to herself, sniffing to hold it back. “Not even if the man is Drake Harrington, I won’t.”

At the station, she breezed past the newsroom, went into her office and closed the door, wishing, not for the first time, that their offices had locks. If Lawrence Parker walked into her office, she wouldn’t be responsible for the words that passed through her lips. As if he had extrasensory perception, he knocked once and walked in.

“How’s my little yellow bird today?”

She turned and faced him. “Lawrence, do you know the definition of the word nuisance? If not, look in a mirror. I am not interested in your company. I’ve got a man in my life, and I don’t need another one.”

“Be careful, babe,” he said in what amounted to a snarl. “I may get a promotion, and then you’ll wish you’d been nice to me.”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Your getting a promotion in this place is the least of my worries. Please close the door when you leave.” She turned her back to him and began going through her in basket. After some time, she heard the door close. She figured that he’d find a way to get revenge, because he was a man whose ego needed constant stroking, and she’d just knocked him down a peg.

“I didn’t have breakfast, so I’m taking an early lunch,” she said to Rhoda, her assistant. “Want to join me?”

“Sure thing, Pamela, as long as you don’t want fast food.”

Fast food wouldn’t nurse her wounds. “Not a chance. I want some good catfish.”

They walked to Frank’s, an eatery frequented by politicians, as well as newspaper, radio and television people, but she went there for the soul food.

“I’m having fried catfish,” Pamela told the waitress.

“With or without?”

“Definitely with. I haven’t had anything to eat today,” she said, savoring the thought of catfish with corn bread and stewed collards.

“I’ll have the same,” Rhoda said, “but hold those hot peppers.”

“Not to worry. We only give you those if you ask for ’em.”

“What’s Lawrence up to these days, Pam? If I turn my back, he’s in your office. Is there… I mean…do you want to see him?”

“Me? Want to see Lawrence? That man affects me exactly the way a swarm of mosquitoes would, and he’s got the hide of a rhinoceros.”

“I wouldn’t like to be the object of his affection. He’s too devious. I’d better tell you he’s boasting that you and he are an item.”

She nearly spilled her ice water. “In his dreams. Put a note on every bulletin board in this building to the effect that Lawrence Parker is lying, that he’s never been anywhere with me outside of the building and that I want him to stay out of my office.”

Rhoda struggled without success to keep the grin off her round brown face. “That will give me more pleasure than this catfish. And girl, I do love me some catfish.”

“Sure would quicken my steps, but I guess we’d better not do that. I’ll find another way to make him grow up.”

She had treated the matter lightly, but the man worried her. A normal man over thirty-five years of age—she was certain of that much—didn’t behave as Lawrence Parker did.

“I sure hope I’m around when you blow him over. Say, how was your date Friday night?”

“My date? Oh, you mean… Disaster, girl. I had not one flat tire, but two, and by the time I got to the restaurant, almost two hours late, he’d left.”

“You didn’t call him? I mean, doesn’t he have a cell phone?”

“He does, but mine was at the station on my desk.” She stopped eating, lost in thoughts of what might have been.

Rhoda rested her knife and fork and leaned back in the chair. “But you patched it up later, right?”

Pamela lifted her right shoulder in a quick shrug. “I phoned his house and left a message. But if he got it, he didn’t return my call.”

“I see. You sound crestfallen. What’s this guy like?”

“A tan-colored Adonis. Mesmerizing good looks. A grin that will make you cross your knees, and sweet as sugar. He’s too good to be true.”

“If what you say is right, he sure is. I’d be scared as hell of him.”

Pamela ate the remainder of the catfish and pushed her plate aside. “He knows he’s great-looking, but when women fawn over him, it gets on his nerves.”

“You’re kidding. You mean, he’s not a stud?”

“Good Lord, no. If he was, I wouldn’t have gone out the door to meet him.”

Rhoda looked into the distance, her expression suggesting a sense of wonder. “I wish you luck, but I’d stay away from that brother.”

It was much too late for that advice, but she didn’t tell Rhoda that. Lecturing herself about Drake Harrington had gotten her nowhere. She knew him well enough to be certain that he was far more than what he looked like—six feet and four inches of male perfection—that he was a serious-minded, hardworking and caring person who loved his family and was generous with his friends.

“I’m no slouch,” she said to herself, “but what makes me think Drake Harrington is going to settle for me when he can have just about any woman he wants?”

“I don’t give advice,” Rhoda said, “and especially not to you, since you’ve done far more with your life than I have with mine. Still—”

“Out with it,” Pamela said. “Who knows? It might be just what I need to hear.”

Rhoda savored the last morsel of catfish, placed her knife and fork across her clean plate, and leaned back in her chair. “I was going to retract what I said a minute ago. If he’s all that nice, and he’s interested, go for it and enjoy it for as long as it lasts, but don’t fall too deeply in love.”

Pamela leaned forward as if to be certain Rhoda heard her. “I’d like to see the woman who could bask in that man’s attention and, when his interest cooled, walk away unscathed as if she’d merely said ‘hi’ to him.”

Rhoda’s eyebrows shot up. “That bad, huh?”

They barely spoke as they walked down Linden Avenue to Monument Street, each in her own mental realm. “I’ll tell you one thing,” Rhoda said as they entered the building that housed the TV station, “I’d watch my back. Half the women you know will be trying to get close to you, hoping to catch his eye.”

“Not me. My dad says that if a man wants to go, buy him a ticket. The sooner he’s gone, the better, because eventually, he will leave. You won’t catch me clinging to anyone, male or female. My friends have the freedom to do as they please.” She waved at the desk officer, who checked entrance badges.

“You two are looking great there,” he said. “Nothing like a couple of fine-looking sisters to brighten a man’s day.” They smiled and kept walking. Ben enjoyed complimenting them.

Back in her office, Pamela checked her desk phone and her cell phone, saw that she didn’t have any messages, pulled off her jacket and went to work. Twice that morning, she’d changed her lead story for the local evening news, and now this. A woman was shopping in the supermarket, turned her back to select a head of lettuce, and when she looked around her three-year-old daughter had disappeared and had not been seen since. She got busy trying to piece together the bits of information floating in and, once more, rearranged the order of her news item. By five o’clock, she had what she considered a first-class report, but Lawrence cracked the door and handed her a sheet of paper.

“Sorry, pal. Your producer gave me this a little while ago, but I swear I forgot it. No hard feelings?” She didn’t answer him. His smile, brilliant and false, nearly sickened her. He had deliberately withheld one of the most important items of the day: Station WRLR had just joined the NBC family of stations. She pushed the button on her intercom and got the producer.

“Jack, when did you tell Lawrence to give me this merger notice?”

“Around eleven this morning. Why?”

“Because he gave it to me less than a minute before I paged you, and he knows I’m going on the air in ten minutes.”

“Okay. Read it straight. I’ll take care of Parker.”

On her way home, she stopped at a garden center and bought a rubber garden snake. The next morning, she got to work early and glued the serpent to Lawrence’s door. Even if he took it off, the perfect outline of a snake would be there until the door was painted. She dusted her hand as if she were getting rid of something unwanted, went to her office and left it to Lawrence to discover the identity of the donor. She understood now that Lawrence would be even more of a problem as she continued to reject him.

“I’ve fought worse battles,” she said aloud. She gathered her notebook and headed for the station’s library, wondering why Drake didn’t call her.

As the big British Airways plane neared Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana, Drake began to wonder what he would find. He disliked such tropical pests as mosquitoes, flies, sandflies and especially snakes. And he didn’t know whether he was going to a thatched roof in a rural area or a skyscraper in Accra. He knew that Ladd belonged to the Fanti tribe—historically the elite of Ghana, not that it mattered what status his friend had—and that meant he’d be somewhere near the coast. The plane landed, and in his befuddled state of mind, he thought that his trip would have been more enjoyable if Pamela had been with him. Try as he may, he could not remember why he wanted to end their relationship. He hadn’t ventured too far with her, not even when he kissed her. More than once, she’d indicated a desire for a little more passion. He dragged his fingers through his hair. He’d known other girls, so why was he focusing on Pamela?

He disembarked, walked into the terminal and saw Ladd waiting, his face shining with a brilliant smile.

“Welcome. Man, am I glad to see you! I need a calming influence. Never get married. Women think the purpose of marriage is to spend money and reinvent the world in the process. Man, I’m worn out just watching them.”

Had he forgotten Ladd’s ability to talk nonstop for hours? He could almost feel the man’s happiness. “Don’t watch them,” Drake said. “Besides, I didn’t know Ghanaian women did that. I thought that was peculiarly American.”

“Oh, no. Something tells me it’s worldwide. How was your flight?” He motioned to the man standing beside him to take Drake’s bags.

“Smooth as silk. I slept most of the way between London and Accra.” They stepped out into the heat. “Whew! I’d better remove my coat. Say, I’m anxious to meet your bride.”

“She’s nice, man. Really nice.”

“Way to go, buddy.” A question had plagued him ever since he got the invitation and the note saying Ladd wanted him to be his best man. Well, he was paying his own fare, so he could ask if he wanted to know. “What kind of service are you having? Are there a lot of things I have to learn?”

Ladd stared at him. “What kind of— Oh, we’re Protestants. Everything will be familiar. All you have to do is stand there and keep me from passing out. How long can you stay?”

“Keep you from passing out?” Laughter rippled out of him, partly at the idea of Ladd fainting, but mainly because he knew what was expected of him. “Sorry. I didn’t think I’d need smelling salts. I’m leaving day after tomorrow. We’ve got buildings going up in two different states and in Barbados, and I’m strapped for time.”

“Too bad you won’t get to see much of the country. I told our interior minister that you might give him some ideas about the new shopping mall he wants built. Think you can spend about an hour with him?”

“No problem. Remember that I’m an architectural engineer, not an architect.”

“Yeah. I told him that. He wants to meet you. I had white trousers, an agbada, a dashiki and a kufi made for you. I’m sure they’ll fit, except maybe the kufi, but you’d better try them on.”

Drake paused momentarily when he remembered that a few steps away stood an air-conditioned car in which he would get relief from what seemed like taking a sauna while wearing a woolen sweater and an overcoat.

“I know the agbada is a long gown and the dashiki is a shirt, but what the devil is a kufi?”

“It’s a matching…you know…cap. We’re having a modern Christian wedding, but to satisfy my grandfather, you and I are wearing traditional dress.”

“What about the bride?”

He shrugged. “I’m not supposed to know, but she told me it’s a white dress.”

The following afternoon, around three o’clock, Drake dressed in the traditional clothing worn by a groom and his party and looked at himself in the mirror. “Hmm.” Adjusting the kufi, he wondered if any of his ancestors had worn one, shrugged and rang for the car that would take him to Ladd’s home. As he stepped out of the M Plaza Hotel—palatial by any measure—and into the Ghanaian heat, he wished he’d been going for a swim, but the air-conditioning in the Mercedes limousine immediately arrested his wayward thoughts. Ladd was ready when he arrived, and Drake had only a few minutes in which to observe his friend’s elegant living style.

At five o’clock, still struggling with the effects of jet lag, Drake stood with Ladd Sackefyio and his bride—who was dressed in a white, short-sleeved wedding gown decorated with white embroidery that was inset with brilliant crystals, and wearing a matching white crown—took their vows before an Anglican minister at the foot of the altar. Deeply touched by the simplicity of the ceremony and the smiles that never moved from the couple’s faces, he wondered if Russ had been right, that he’d begun to feel the loneliness of bachelorhood. He shrugged it off and went through the rituals of his duties at the reception, which included a toast and standing with the couple in case it seemed that they would topple the five-tier cake while trying to cut it.

Now, what am I supposed to do with this dame? he thought as he looked at the bridesmaid who made it clear to him and everyone at the reception that she wanted more from him than a smile. He had to be gracious. But he’d have preferred to paddle her for her lack of discretion. To worsen matters, she was an American, and the locals probably thought her behavior de rigueur for African-American women.

“Look,” he said to her when her cloying behavior annoyed him to the point of exasperation. “Cut me some slack here. I’d like to get to know some of the Ghanaian people.”

When she put her hands on her hips in a feigned pout, he walked away and a Ghanaian man immediately detained him. “I’m John Euwusi. We want to build a modern shopping mall here, and Ladd tells me you’re the man to talk to.”

Drake extended his hand. “He told me about you. I have to leave tomorrow afternoon, but we could speak in the morning, if you like.”

“Good. I’ll send my driver for you.”

At the end of their conversation the following morning, Drake agreed to discuss the matter with his brothers, for he didn’t work alone, but as a part of the Harrington, Inc. team. He hoped they could make a deal, because he wanted to get back to Ghana and see the country, including the old forts and castles associated with the slave trade.

As the Boeing 737 roared away from Kotoka International Airport, Drake glanced at the aisle seat across from his and nearly spilled the rum punch on his trousers. There sat Selicia Dennis, the bridesmaid who had attempted to hook her long pink-and-green talons into him. He liked assertive women, but the kind of aggression she displayed irritated him. He decided to behave as if he didn’t know she was there. And she wasn’t there by accident, he knew. In that circle, getting information about his departure and seat number was a simple matter. With the right influence, you got whatever you wanted.

He decided to focus on his seatmate, a man who bore the trappings of a gentleman, and introduced himself. “I’m Drake Harrington. Are you traveling all the way to the States?”

The man extended his hand. “Straight from London to San Antonio. I’m Magnus Cooper.”

They spoke at length, and Drake learned that the man was a Texas rancher, as well as a builder.

“How’s that?” he asked, when Magnus told him that he’d be in Baltimore at an undecided date to tape a program for his cousin’s TV news show. “People don’t seem to know that ranchers come in colors,” he added. “In Texas, you’ll find a number of hyphenated American ranchers—Spanish, Italian, black, Scottish, you name it.”

Drake mulled that over for a second before laughter rippled out of him. “I’m in Baltimore frequently. Who’s your cousin?”

“Pamela Langford. Her mother and my father are sister and brother. You know her?”

“I sure do.” He let it go at that and didn’t budge, not even when both of Magnus’s eyebrows went up and stayed there.

They spoke amiably until the plane landed at London’s Heathrow Airport. They exchanged contact information and agreed to talk soon. Drake was transferring to Delta and headed for his flight’s gate, but to his chagrin, when he arrived, Selicia Dennis stood to greet him. Having no acceptable choice, he took a seat and wished for something to read other than the International Herald Tribune that he carried in his briefcase.

“I live in Washington, D.C.,” she began. “How far are you from there?”

He told her he didn’t know, and she asked what state he lived in.

He folded the paper, put it back in his briefcase and faced her. “Miss Dennis, I don’t see the point in this. I don’t want to be rude, but you and I have absolutely no basis for a friendship of any kind, so let’s stop with the small talk. It’s a waste of breath.” He folded his arms, closed his eyes and managed to give the impression of someone asleep. He heard the call of a flight to Washington, and immediately she gathered her things and left. He walked a few paces down the corridor, bought a bag of fish-and-chips and a bottle of lemonade, went back to his seat and relaxed. Beautiful, sure of it and shallow. The kind of woman he avoided.

Maybe he didn’t sufficiently appreciate Pamela. Not once had he been bored in her company. He could talk with her for hours and not know how much time had passed. If she would only accept his need to grow a little more. If she’d wait until he reached his goals… He stared at the bag of soggy chips for a second before throwing them into the refuse bin. And what if she wouldn’t wait, but found another guy? A woman who looked like her could have just about any man she wanted, and with her charm, gentle manners and…well, intelligence and competence, she was choice. And sexy. He’d never known another woman who got next to him as she did.

He ran his fingers through his silky hair. So where the hell was she when she was supposed to be having dinner with me?

“Flight 803 to Baltimore now boarding first-class passengers and passengers with small children or who need assistance.” He heard the announcement, got up, went through security a third time and took his seat in the first-class section. He had six hours to think about what he wanted for himself and Pamela…provided she wanted anything from him at all.

Six hours and twelve minutes later, he walked into the Baltimore/Washington International Airport terminal, looked around and saw Russ walking toward him. As usual, after any of the brothers returned from a trip, they embraced each other. “That sun must really be something,” Russ said. “You were there less than three days, and you look as if you stuck your face in an inkwell. I saw Pamela in the market this morning.”

Drake stopped walking, a habit that annoyed Russ, but so what. “Did you speak with her?”

“Yeah. She asked me about Velma, but that’s all. She was as beautiful as ever, but downcast. I didn’t see any of that easy charm that I associate with her.”

He tried to hide his response to that kick in his gut, but he wasn’t sure he managed it, for Russ asked in his usually candid manner, “Something gone wrong with you two?”

“Let’s just say we’re not in touch right now.”

“Her choice or yours?”

“I’m not sure.”

Russ raised an eyebrow. “If it was her choice, she made it because you weren’t behaving the way she wanted you to. She was not a happy woman this morning.”

His heartbeat accelerated, and he had to breathe through his mouth. He didn’t want her to be unhappy; at least, he didn’t think so. But for what other reason was he experiencing such relief, almost a sense of glee? He threw his bag into the trunk of Russ’s Mercedes and got into the car beside his brother.

“When did you realize you loved Velma enough to marry her?”

Russ was in the process of starting the car and suddenly stripped the gears. “What? Oh. A long time before I admitted it to anybody, including Velma. Something happens, and suddenly you know. You just know it’s right.” He moved the car into the traffic. “Is that what you’re going through?”

“I don’t know. I was planning to tell her we shouldn’t see each other for a while, but while I was in Accra, I couldn’t for the life of me remember why I felt that way.”

Laughter rumbled in Russ’s throat. “Seems to me I’ve heard that song before. Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for. Women hurt easily.”

“Yeah, and they’re not the only ones.”

Chapter 2

Pamela finished whipping a hem in her evening dress, slipped it on and examined herself in the mirror that covered the inside of a closet door. Burnt orange was her best color, and she wore it often. “I look great,” she said, and pulled air through her front teeth. “But what for? I don’t give a hoot about anybody who’s going to be at that reception.” Given the choice, she would have stayed at home. However, she didn’t have that option where a reception given by her boss was concerned, so she put on her mink coat, got the black satin evening bag that matched her shoes and went down to the apartment-building lobby.

“Could you call a taxi for me, please, Mike?”

“My pleasure, Miss Langford. I hope you’re meeting a fine young man. In my day, a lady such as yourself wouldn’t be alone for long.” He switched on the call light. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Miss Langford, I was hoping to see more of that gentleman—Harrington is his name, I believe he said. I’ve lived a long time, and I know a man when I see one. He’s just what I’d want for my daughter if I had been fortunate enough to have one.”

The taxi arrived, and she thanked Mike, her favorite among the doormen who worked at her building. The short, fifteen-minute ride took her to the Sheraton and as she paid the driver, he turned, looked at her and said, “Some guy sure is lucky.”

“If you only knew,” she said as she stepped out, careful not to get her shoe heel caught in the hem of her dress.

“What? What did you say?”

She walked on without answering, and to her disgust, Lawrence met her at the door of the reception room. She knew at once that he’d waited there to give the impression that she was his date. Without a word, she swung around and went to the other entrance, which meant she would skip the receiving line, but she didn’t care. Immediately, she spotted Jack Hanson, her boss, and his wife and walked over to where they stood. Within less than a minute, Lawrence was at her side.

Seething, she knocked his hand away from her elbow. “Lawrence, I skipped the receiving line in order to avoid you, and I would appreciate it if you would stay away from me. If you don’t, I’ll make a scene.”

“Lovers’ spat,” he said to the couple.

“How dare you! You have never had your hands on me, and you know it. Furthermore, you never will. Not even if you were the only man on this earth.” She looked at her boss. “I’m sorry if this has spoiled your evening, but it’s what I have to tolerate in the office every day. Please excuse me.” She went to speak to her host, left the reception and went home.

As she entered her apartment, the telephone rang. “Hello.”

“Hi, this is Rhoda. I saw you leaving the reception as I was arriving. Are you all right?”

“My health is fine, but Lawrence tried to give the impression that we’re an item—even told Hanson and his wife that we were having a lovers’ spat. I’ve been in a rage ever since.”

“The pig! You didn’t let him get away with it, did you?”

“Of course not, but I was too mad to be sociable, so I left. You have a good time.”

“Thanks. So far, I’m bored to death.”

She undressed, crawled into bed and attempted to banish the images that frolicked around in her head. Images of her with Drake on a small, fast boat in the Monocacy River near Frederick, the way he loved the speed, his face alive with childlike joy. Images of Drake with her on the previous Christmas morning in Eagle Park as they stood just outside the front door of Harrington House looking at six feet of pristine snow. He had squeezed her hand, kissed the tip of her nose and told her how much he loved snow.

“Surely the Lord wouldn’t dangle that man in front of me just to tease me,” she said aloud. When sleep finally came, she had been exhausted for a long time.

The following evening, Wednesday, the day after his return from Ghana, Drake met Lawrence—a former school-mate—at an alumni meeting in Baltimore. As usual, Drake greeted him cordially.

“How’s it going, man?” Drake asked.

“Couldn’t be better. I’m seeing Pamela Langford these days. Man, she stood up a dinner date in order to see a movie with me. We’re getting pretty tight.”

He hoped the sharp pain in his chest didn’t signal the onset of a heart attack. However, he put a half smile of casual interest on his face and said, “Really. When was that?”

“Last Friday night. We’re together, man.”

He let the smile freeze on his face, patted Lawrence on the back and said, “Way to go, man.”

He had no reason to disbelieve him. After all, she hadn’t bothered to tell him that she couldn’t make their date or to use her cell phone to let him know she had a last-minute emergency. He shook his head from side to side, acknowledging that it strained his credulity to believe she would callously leave him sitting in a restaurant waiting for her for almost two hours. It was unlike her. He left the meeting, went to Russ’s apartment—where he would spend the night—and turned on the local evening news.

“Good evening. I’m Pamela Langford, and this is WRLR Evening News.”

That bottom lip of hers always tantalized him, and on that night, it seemed more luscious than ever. He caught himself as his tongue rimmed his lips, and he slid farther down in the big, overstuffed chair in Russ’s living room. Lord, but this woman is beautiful. He wondered if she’d be stupid enough to develop an affair with a coworker, and when Russ came home, he told him what Lawrence said.

“I guess I don’t know her,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought she’d do a thing like that.”

Russ dropped himself on the sofa. “Maybe she didn’t. Why would he tell you that? Sounds suspicious to me, and if you weren’t annoyed with her, you’d find that story suspect. Anyhow, every suspect deserves a hearing before he’s sentenced. You ought to ask her what happened that evening. As unhappy as she was when I saw her, I wouldn’t think she’d just begun a relationship with a man. That would make a person sparkle, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah. I should think it would. If I find out that Lawrence lied about Pamela, I’ll— Oh, hell! I’ll call her.”

Pamela packed her briefcase, knowing that she wasn’t in a mood to work after she got home, but what else was there to do? With her three-quarter-length leather coat on her arm, she headed for the elevator, and as she reached it, saw Lawrence approaching her.

“Lawrence, if you say one word to me or touch me, I will get an order of restraint against you for harassment. What you did last night was unconscionable. No decent man would have done what you did. Now, please move aside.”

“Look, I was just—”

“You are harassing me.”

She stepped into the elevator, pushed the button and prayed that he wouldn’t trail her to the basement garage where she’d left her car. Relieved that he didn’t follow her, she put on an Aretha Franklin CD and sang along with the diva as she drove, her spirits livelier than at any time since she’d missed her date with Drake.

At home, she warmed up the remainder of the previous evening’s lasagna, made a salad and sat down to eat her supper. The telephone rang as she chewed the last morsel of it, and she debated whether to answer it, thinking that Lawrence might call her at home. However, the identity of the caller aroused her curiosity and she answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Pamela. This is Drake.”

At the sound of his deep, mellifluous voice, her left hand slammed against her chest as if to decelerate the beating of her heart, and she let the wall take her weight.

“Hello, Drake,” she said, as coolly as if her head wasn’t spinning and her heart was beating normally. It was his call, and she wasn’t going to make small talk. She waited for him to tell her why he’d called.

“I’m not satisfied with the way things are right now,” he said. “I’m in Baltimore, and I’d like us to have lunch tomorrow, if you can make the time. I’m going home to Eagle Park later in the afternoon.”

Hmm. Cut-and-dried, as usual. She didn’t believe in being coy, and besides, she wanted to know why he hadn’t returned her calls to his home and to his cellular phone.

“All right. Can we lunch at about twelve-thirty, and would you come by my office for me?”

“Uh… Sure. Be glad to. I’ll see you at twelve-thirty.” She wondered at his seeming hesitation.

“I’ll be ready. My office is on the ninth floor. See you then.”

Again, he seemed to hesitate. “Right. Till tomorrow.”

For a while, she stared at the receiver that she still gripped tightly. Then, like a robot performing a programmed task, she hung up in slow motion. If she had ever had a more unsatisfying conversation with a man, she didn’t remember it. Oh, well. By this time tomorrow, I will know where I stand with Drake Harrington.

She dressed carefully that morning, choosing a burnt-orange woolen suit with a beige blouse and brown accessories. She rarely wore makeup at work, but she did so that morning, settling for lipstick the color of her suit, and though she longed to wear her hair down, she put it into the French twist that she wore at work and on the air. Along with her makeup-repair bag, she put a vial of Poem, her daytime perfume, in her briefcase, said a prayer for the day and headed for work.

She tried to prepare herself for the moment when she would see him. He’s not the be-all and end-all, and if he fades out of my life, someone else will move in, she told herself. However, when her secretary announced him and she heard his light tap on her door, she swung around, hitting her knee on the edge of her desk and sending pain shooting through it.

“Come in,” she managed to say.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

They stared at each other until he laughed—whether from nervousness or embarrassment, she couldn’t tell. He had always been most handsome when he laughed, and she sat there, mesmerized and as still as a catatonic.

“We’re behaving like strangers,” he said, walked over to her, bent down and brushed his lips across hers. Her lips parted involuntarily, and he straightened up and stared down at her, his face devoid of expression.

“I guess we’d better go,” he said at last. “Where’s your coat?”

“I’ll get it. Are we driving or walking?”

“I thought we’d walk to Lou’s Ristorante. The weather’s reasonably mild. Okay with you?”

“Fine. I like Lou’s.”

Her door swung open. “Don’t get uptight. This is about… Oh!”

“What is it, Lawrence?”

“Uh…nothing. I can…er…come back later.”

“Excuse me, man,” Drake said. “I don’t want to interfere with your romance. I can come back later.”

She whirled around and glared at Drake. “You don’t want to what? Where the devil did you get that idea? There’s not a damned thing between this man and me, and if he doesn’t stop harassing me and lying about me, I am going to have him arrested.”

Lawrence backed toward the door. “I’ll…uh, see you later.”

“Not so fast, buddy,” Drake said in a tone that would have halted the toughest street habitué. “Did you lie to me? You told me that you have a relationship going with Pamela, and that she stood up her dinner date in order to go to a movie with you. How did you know she was meeting me for dinner?”

Her lower lip dropped, but she quickly restored her aplomb. “Give me one reason, Lawrence, why I shouldn’t indict you for lying about me. This isn’t the only time you’ve done it.”

“Look,” he said, hands up and palms out, “you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“No,” Drake said, his facial expression stern and harsh, “but you can blame him for not having any integrity.” He turned to Pamela. “We’d better be going. If you have any more difficulties with this fellow, report him to the police. After you,” he said to Lawrence, effectively ordering him out of the office.

“When did Lawrence tell you that?” she asked Drake after they seated themselves in the restaurant and gave the waiter their orders.

“When I saw him last evening at an alumni meeting. Both of us attended graduate school at the University of Maryland. He worked on the campus paper. How did he know you were having dinner with me?”

“He asked me for a date, as he frequently does though I’ve yet to say yes, and I said I had a dinner engagement. I suppose he’s seen us together and assumed I was meeting you.”

He leaned back. “Right. What happened to you, and why didn’t you call me?”

“I stopped at that filling station just before you turn into Milford, got an oil change, my front and rearview windows washed, and my tires checked. A few minutes after I turned off the highway, both of my front tires blew out. Fortunately, I was on that ramp, so I wasn’t driving fast. I walked the two miles back to the station, and—”

“Why didn’t you use your cell phone and call me? I would have gone there and helped you.”

Her right shoulder flexed in an automatic shrug. “I forgot it and left it on the desk in my office. When I got to the restaurant, you’d left, and the maître d’ implied that I had bad manners for having stood you up. I called your home from a pay phone in the restaurant, but you weren’t there. Henry took the message.”

“I haven’t been home since then, so he hasn’t seen me.”

When both of her eyebrows shot up, he explained. “I stayed in Baltimore that night with Russ and left for Ghana the next morning. I got back Tuesday night. Incidentally, did you ask the station attendant to check your tires to see what happened?”

She nodded. “He said someone slashed them, probably while he and I were inside the station straightening out my bill. He said a yellow Cadillac drove up, but when he went back outside, it had left, and the driver didn’t make a purchase.”

His fingers moved back and forth across his chin in the manner of one deep in thought. “Sooner or later, you’ll know who did it. A yellow Caddy is hard to hide.”

She fidgeted beneath his direct gaze, uncomfortable because of her reaction to him, but also because she couldn’t fathom his demeanor.

“What is it, Drake?”

“You’re so beautiful. I watched you on television last night and, well…all that polish and intelligence in such a beautiful package.”

She could say the same about him, but she didn’t because she knew he wouldn’t like it. He had made it clear on a number of occasions and in several situations that he wanted to be accepted for himself. “I can’t take credit for the way I look. That’s a genetic accident,” he once told a matronly hostess, “but I gladly take responsibility for the man I am.”

“Last night, you said you weren’t satisfied with the way things are. I want you to clarify that.”

“We were estranged, out of touch.” He leaned forward, reached across the table and took her hand, sending shivers of apprehension through her system. “Last Friday night, I had planned to ask you to allow us to step back from where we seemed to be headed.” She lowered her gaze so that he wouldn’t be able to discern her feelings. “I dream of becoming nationally recognized in my profession, and I’m so far from that goal. Oh, I know Harrington, Inc. is well thought of in this part of the country, but I want more than that. I want to take chances, do original work, set the pace the way the engineers who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright did, and I can’t do that unless I’m traveling alone. When I was away from here, in Ghana, I couldn’t remember why I wanted some breathing space between us. I’m not even sure now if that’s what I want.

“When I was watching you on TV last night, it certainly wasn’t what I wanted, and it isn’t what I want right now. But I’m thirty-one years old, and I’m not ready to settle down.”

“I don’t remember having asked you to settle down with me.”

“This is true, but I’ve thought about it. A lot, in fact. I don’t mislead women, and I don’t play relationship games with them.”

“Is there another woman you’d like to get to know or that you prefer?”

“Of course not. If there was, I would have told you. I am also not having this conversation with any other woman.”

She looked at him, wondering if he knew he’d just told her that of all the women he knew and associated with, she was the one to whom he was closest. He may want breathing space, but she didn’t. Still, a relationship with a man who didn’t want to settle down was not in her best interest. “Drake, I’m thirty years old, and if I’m ever going to have any children I have to get started soon. Thirty is already old to have a first child.”

“I’m aware of that, and it may account for my need to be direct with you.” His fingers plowed through his hair. “But I’m not saying I’ll be happy to break this off. I definitely won’t, but I have to be straight with you.”

She patted his hand and forced a smile. “Come on. I have to get back to work. If I need an escort that will knock ’em dead, I’ll phone you.”

With cobralike swiftness, he grabbed her left wrist. “That wasn’t called for. I don’t squire women around. If you needed to strike out at me, that was as good a way as any.” He stood and walked around to her side of the table to move her chair. She took her time getting up because he was standing there and she’d be inches from him. As she expected, he didn’t move when she stood, but stared down into her face, his own ablaze with passion. Lost in the moment, she rimmed her lips with her tongue, knowing that she’d fastened her gaze on his mouth, on that firm masculine mouth that with the barest touch could singe her with desire. She closed her eyes, but quickly opened them when his fingers encircled her arm.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

They walked back to the TV station without speaking, each deep in thought. Half a block from the building, his hand captured hers and squeezed her fingers.

“A man doesn’t ask if he can have his cake and eat it, too. He makes a choice, and I thought I’d done that.” At the entrance to the building, he leaned forward, kissed her briefly on the mouth and gazed down at her for a full minute before saying, “I’ll be in touch.”

She tripped to the elevator with a spring in her steps. Oh, she wanted to fly through the air like a prima ballerina, free and unfettered. He could say what he liked and tell himself all the tales he wanted to, but he wasn’t ready to break off their relationship, and she wasn’t going to do anything that would encourage him to. She meant a lot more to him than he was willing to admit. But he’d better hurry up. I want him, but not badly enough to sacrifice motherhood.

Before she could sit down and begin work, Rhoda knocked and walked into her office. “I know you’re busy, but I’m not leaving here till you tell me who that hunk was who kissed you right in front of the door here. Talk about moving from the ridiculous to the sublime. Whew!”

Rhoda’s raving over Drake annoyed her, and she wasn’t sure why. She liked Rhoda and found her work more than satisfactory, but the remark and the question were out of place. Better not leave any doubt in the woman’s mind. She leaned back in the swivel desk chair and looked Rhoda in the eye. “Since you’re aware that he kissed me on the mouth, you don’t need to know who he is.”

“Whoa. Like that, is it? Well ’scuse me. Girl, you know how to pick ’em.”

“If I recall correctly,” she said, intent on imprinting in the woman’s mind the fact that Drake sought her and not vice versa, “I was working a building industry conference at the convention center on Camden Street, and he walked up to me, introduced himself and asked if I’d have lunch with him. Looks like he picked me, doesn’t it.”

“Oops! Touchy subject. I’d better get back to work. See you later.”

Pamela got busy writing her evening report. She had fought hard and long for the privilege of writing her own copy, and she spared no effort to make it complete, informative and interesting. The messenger knocked, walked in and handed her a press release entitled “Breaking News.” She thanked him, looked it over and wrote a quick summary that she would read at the beginning of her report, provided she didn’t get any more breaking-news releases.

“May I see you a minute, Langford?”

“Be right there,” she said to Raynor, her managing editor, and made a note of what she’d been thinking when the intercom barked at her. She headed down the hall to what she assumed was a conference call. Instead, she learned that Lawrence Parker had been transferred to the seven-to-nine morning news show.

“There’ll be no reason for him to contact you in the line of work. I apologize for his crude behavior, and I hope he’s learned a lesson.”

She thanked the man, but didn’t expect that Lawrence Parker had undergone a metamorphosis; he was lacking in too many important respects. By five o’clock, she had her report in order.

“No calls, please,” she said to her secretary. “I’m testing my copy, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

“All right, Ms. Langford. I’ll take your messages.”

After her newscast, she headed for her office and looked through her messages. Well, what can I expect? she thought, crestfallen when she didn’t find one from Drake. She packed the briefcase, made a note as to what she had to do when she arrived at work Monday morning and headed home. Her cell phone rang as she drove out of the garage. She turned the corner, stopped and answered it. She didn’t talk on the phone while driving.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Pamela, this is Drake. Feel like a movie tomorrow evening? Or if not that, dinner?”

Oh, my Lord, she said to herself. Am I going to fold up every time I hear his voice unexpectedly?

“I’d love dinner, but I haven’t seen a movie in ages. What do you want to see?”

“You may think this is foolish, but there’s an old movie that I’m nuts about, ’cause it’s funny. It’s The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. It was made during the Cold War, and it’s hilarious. We could have dinner and make the nine-o’clock show. Interested?”

“Yes, indeed. Where’s the movie?”

“In Baltimore. I’ll pick you up around five-thirty. All right?”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“So will I. Bye.”

She hung up, put the car in Drive and went home. For a man who needed breathing space, he seemed bent on suffocating himself.

Pamela couldn’t have been further from the truth. Drake accorded himself the right to be certain of his moves, and if that meant exposing himself to his mounting passion, so be it. If he could have his dreams and her as well, he wanted to know it. But if he had to choose, not only did he need to know that, but he also had to be certain of his choice.

“How about a game of darts?” his brother Telford asked, joining him in the den. “I could use some activity that will take my mind off those Florence Griffith Joyner Houses.”

“Yeah. One of these days, we ought to work at getting a mobile crew. As long as we have to hire construction crews in whatever city or country we’re building in, we’ll have problems. Speaking of problems, how’d you like to take on a real one?”

He knew Telford, the builder for Harrington, Inc., loved a challenge, but he wasn’t certain that even Telford could overcome the problems he envisaged in building a shopping mall in Accra. He told his brother about the project he discussed while in Accra attending his friend’s wedding.

“But if you think Barbados posed a problem, you ought to see what you’d be up against in Ghana. The weather saps all of your energy. I don’t see how a man can work day after day in that heat and humidity.”

“What about a split shift…early mornings and late evenings?” Telford asked him.

“Yeah. Right. Just in time for sandflies and mosquitoes. Besides, you have the heat till the sun goes down, and then it’s immediately dark.”

“Let’s see what Russ has to say about it. He might enjoy designing a shopping mall for a tropical country.”

Drake heaved himself from the comfort of the deep, overstuffed leather chair and allowed himself a restorative yawn. “Maybe, but I’m not sure I’d enjoy engineering it. See you later.”

“Wait a minute,” Telford said, rising to face his youngest brother. “Russ said something had gone awry with you and Pamela. This probably won’t impress you one bit, but I like her a lot—all of us do. Not even Henry has anything negative to say about her.”

“’Course not. She sang his favorite song to him. Look, brother, I’m feeling my way, here. She wants a family and she’s already thirty. I’m thirty-one, and I haven’t proved anything to myself. I’m not sure I’d be happy giving her up, but what about my goals?”

“You’ll reach those. No doubt about it in my mind. But if you get to the top, and you’re there all alone, who will you enjoy it with? Who will you share it with? Alexander the Great conquered the world and wept because there was nothing left to conquer.”

“Point taken. But you waited until you were thirty-six, and Russ is getting married at thirty-four. What does anybody want from me? I’m behaving in true Harrington fashion.” Laughter bubbled up in his throat. “It may not be up to me. Every man can see what I can see.”

Telford’s right eyebrow shot up. “If you thought she’d drop you, you wouldn’t be so sanguine about it.”

“Well, I’m not that sure of her either, which is why I’m seeing her tomorrow night.”

“Yeah? Way to go. See you later. Say, what about the darts?” Telford called after him.

“Give me a few minutes. I’ll meet you in the game room.”

Telford and Russ had found women who were perfect for them and who loved them. Would he be as fortunate? He met Alexis, his sister-in-law, on the stairs, and her hand on his arm detained him.

“What’s the matter? You seem perplexed. What can I do to help?”

“I don’t know if you can. I don’t like being caught up in the tide and being swept along as if I have no control over my life.”

Her smile, at once motherly and wistful, reassured him, as it always did. “You only have to do what you want to do. Other people’s dreams for you are their dreams and plans, not yours. You can love the adviser and still ignore the advice. Get the message?”

“You bet I do. Will Russ be here for dinner?”

“No. He and Velma are coming in tomorrow afternoon.”

“Too bad. I wanted the three of us to discuss that Ghana project. Maybe we can do that Sunday morning.”

“Good idea. Bring Pamela with you.”

He continued up the stairs. “I can ask her.”

“Eoow! Uncle Drake!” Tara ran to him with open arms. “I missed you, and when my dad said you’d be back today, I was so happy.”

He picked her up and swung her around while she giggled in delight. “How’s my best girl?”

“I have a lot to tell you. My dad said it’s time for me to get another music teacher, and Mr. Henry wants to buy me a grand piano. The trouble is we would have to put it in the living room, and I would get on everybody’s nerves practicing.”

“We could put it downstairs in the game room.”

“I dunno. Maybe you can tell my mommy you want to play darts in the game room, you and Uncle Russ, and she won’t put it there.”

“Well, sometimes it’s damp downstairs, and I imagine that’s bad for a piano.”

She clapped her hands. “Really? Think up some more bad things about downstairs. I want to put the piano in my room.”

He put her down. A six-year-old con artist, and as frank about it as a fashion model on a runway.

He went to his room, closed the door and walked over to the window. “I’ve been looking at this scene for all of my life. Maybe if I did as Russ did, if I left and went on my own, I’d see my life more clearly. I don’t think I’m reaching too high by wanting career recognition, but when I get it, I want to share it with someone extra special.” He thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and slouched against the window frame. As he watched, birds flittered among the several feeders Alexis kept laden with bird food, took their fill and then flew away.

He planned to learn to fly, and he didn’t like keeping secrets from his family. But he knew that, out of concern for his safety, they would discourage him, so he decided to tell them when it was a fait accompli. He stretched out on the bed and let his mind travel over his life since Alexis and Tara entered it, recalling the many ways in which the little girl brightened his life, and accepting that having Alexis among them enriched their lives. He got up, put on a pair of sneakers and went down to the game room where Telford and Tara awaited him.

“Dad, Uncle Drake said it’s damp down here and that’s not good for a piano.”

Telford hunkered in front of the child. “Getting your troops together, eh? Well, your mother and I have decided that it’s going into the den, and Henry said that’s fine. I want you to stop trying to snow people to get your way. Use your charm sparingly.”

Tara looked up at Drake. “Do you know what that means, Uncle Drake?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. Just be yourself.”

Having gotten assurance that the piano would not be in the basement, Tara raced up the stairs to tell Henry. Telford looked at Drake with a narrowed right eye. “The chance that she’ll have your personality is nearly one hundred percent. Let’s hope she’s lucky enough to have your common sense to go along with her alluring ways.”

He could feel the grin forming around his lips and spreading all over his face. “Thanks for the compliment. It may surprise you to know that it came at a good time.”

Telford selected a dart, aimed it and missed the bull’s-eye. “Why did you need your ego massaged?”

“I didn’t, but you wouldn’t tell me I have common sense if you didn’t mean it, and I’m questioning that these days.”

Telford walked over to the long brown leather sofa, sat down and patted the place beside him. “Pamela?”

“Right.”

“You don’t have to make up your mind about anything today, do you? It isn’t as if she’s pregnant.”

Drake’s eyes widened. “Heavens, no. We’ve never been intimate. I’ve avoided that, because I know she thinks a lot of me. And since I don’t know where I’m headed with her, I try not to do anything that she’d be sorry for.”

A half laugh that sounded like a hiccup eased out of Telford’s throat. “She may be sorry if you break up and nothing’s happened. Better to love and lose than never to love at all, or something like that.”

“She’s a very special person, Telford, and—”

Telford interrupted him. “And she’s beautiful, soft, intelligent and fun. Need I say more?”

Drake sat forward, rested his elbows on his thighs and supported his chin with both hands. “When did you know you loved Alexis so much that you wanted to marry her?”

“I knew I wanted her the minute I saw her. In fact, I think I fell for her on sight, and I knew it was mutual. At first, I fought it, but every day that hook sank deeper. The first time I had her in my arms, I knew I’d never get her out of my system. She’s the one who slowed the relationship. Not me. When we were in Cape May, she, Tara and I had adjoining rooms, and we did everything as a family. It was the happiest time of my life up to then. I knew then that I would marry her if she’d let me. Tara wanted us to continue to live that way here at Harrington House, but of course it wasn’t possible until we married.”

“I knew the two of you hit it off immediately and that she was right for you. How do you feel about impending fatherhood?”

“I’m already a father, and I have been ever since I met Tara. Alexis wants a boy, and I hope we get what she wants, but I don’t care as long as we have another healthy, happy child. If you’re lucky enough and smart enough to choose the right woman, you’ll be a changed man and happier for it.”

Drake patted Telford on the shoulder and got up. “I think I’ll go see what Henry’s doing.”

“Henry and Tara were supposed to go to Frederick to look at grand pianos. Alexis is cooking dinner.”

“How’s Tara’s piano playing?”

“Fantastic. That’s why I’m sending her to a professional teacher.”

“See you later.” He dashed up the stairs, didn’t see Henry in the kitchen and went on up to his room. If only he could be as sure as his brothers. He dialed Kendra’s number and hung up before the second ring. That wasn’t the way to go. She wasn’t for him, and he shouldn’t mislead her. He opened his briefcase and gazed unseeing at Russ’s drawings for extensions to the Florence Griffith Joyner Houses. What kind of evening did he want with Pamela? At times, thinking about her softness aggravated his libido until it made him uncomfortable. At other times, he could see her and think of her dispassionately.

“No point in stewing over it,” he said to himself. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

Pamela, too, had concerns about the course of their relationship. Now that she knew he cared but was uncertain as to what he wanted for them, she meant to teach him to love her. If that didn’t work and soon, she meant to invite him to take a walk. She put on a red woolen suit and silver hoop earrings, let her hair hang on her shoulders, added Calèche perfume and black accessories, and looked at her watch. He’d be there in five minutes. Almost immediately the doorman buzzed her.

“Good evening, Miss Langford. Mr. Harrington to see you.”

“Thanks, Mike. Ask him to come up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He sang the words, because he liked Drake and encouraged her to be with him.

She walked around the living room rubbing her hands together, fingering the art objects that she had collected in her travels, lecturing herself that she shouldn’t seem eager. And then the doorbell rang and she sprang toward it, calmed herself and walked the remainder of the way.

“Hi,” he said, handed her a bouquet of tea roses and grinned. “You look better every time I see you.”

“Stop fibbing and come in while I put these in water. They’re beautiful. Thank you.” She went to the kitchen, got a vase, put water in it and arranged the flowers, taking her time in order to retrieve her aplomb. She brought them back, said, “I’m putting these on my night table,” and brushed past him on her way to her bedroom, the fabric of her suit gently caressing his.

“I’m ready,” she said when she came back to the living room.

“I’m not.”

Before the words registered, she was in his arms and his mouth was on her. His lips parted over hers; she inhaled his breath and the tip of his warm tongue probed for entrance into her mouth. Stunned by the swiftness of it, she hadn’t time to summon control and submitted to the passion that swirled within her. She sucked his tongue into her mouth, and he demanded that she take more. Her nipples hardened and she heard her moans as he gripped her hips to his body with one hand and, with the other, tightened around her shoulder until she could almost count his heartbeats. His hand roamed over her back as if he sought the answer to what touched her, to what would make her his alone. Her hand went to his nape, caressing, asking for more, and he gave it, darting here and there to every crevice in her mouth, squeezing her to him until she had a raw, aching need to have all of him.

Shamelessly she rubbed the painful nipple, and he moved her hand, pinched and caressed it until she cried out, “Drake, I can’t stand this.”

He stopped the torture at once, and with both arms around her he enveloped her in a gentle embrace. “I don’t suppose you intended for it to go that far. I know I didn’t, but I’m pretty sure I’ll do it again, unless you make it impossible.”

When she didn’t respond, he tipped up her chin and gazed into her eyes. Knowing what he saw, she quickly closed them. The feel of his lips on her forehead, her cheeks and the tip of her nose told her that he cherished her. At least for now, he does, she thought.

“I think it would be a good thing if we headed for the restaurant.”

The expression on his face and the tone of his voice made it clear that if they didn’t leave, they might be there till morning. “I’ll get my coat.”

“You know,” he said near the end of their dinner, “I like the fact that you’re comfortable enough with me that you don’t feel a need to chat. Self-possession is a good trait.”

She nearly laughed. “Drake, I’m not one bit comfortable with you right now. I am overwhelmed by what you did to me in my apartment. It’s the first time in my life that a man destroyed my will. I am self-possessed most of the time, or so people tell me, but not right now. I’m quiet because if I talk, I’ll probably say something I’ll regret…like what I just said.”

His stare seemed to penetrate her. Then, he laughed. “If I was sitting beside you, I’d hug you. I wondered if I was out of line back there. You’re not alone, Pamela. I also got a surprise. A big one. As long as you’re not sorry—”

“I’m not.”

“Neither am I.”

He held her hand as they walked to his Jaguar, which he’d parked three blocks from the restaurant. “I’ll be terribly disappointed if you don’t like this movie,” he said.

“Not to worry. I need a good laugh.”

“I’m going to assume that that remark had no negative implications.”

“I don’t believe in indirect insults. A stab ought to be clean and lethal.”

He opened the passenger door for her, fastened her seat belt and closed the door. “Something tells me I’d better get a breastplate,” he said after settling into the car and closing the door.

“Why? I wouldn’t harm a strand of your hair. Besides, do I look like I’d hurt a flea?”

He turned fully to face her. “If my hair is so safe with you, move over here and let me get my arms around you.”

She did as he’d asked and was rewarded with a tenderness that was new to her, with him or with anyone. “I could get used to this with you,” he whispered, “but I’d better move slowly, because I don’t know what the end will be.”

She didn’t release him, because she didn’t want to, because she needed to prolong and savor that moment when she first knew she loved him. She reached up, ran her hands over his hair and then let her fingers trail down the side of his face and her thumb caress his bottom lip. It was an intimate gesture, she knew, but she felt like being honest with him. And it was the one way she could tell him he was precious to her without saying the words.

As if he understood the meaning of her gesture, he whispered, “Yeah. Me, too,” turned the key in the ignition, put the car in Drive and headed for the movie.

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