Читать книгу Last Chance at Love - Gwynne Forster - Страница 7

Chapter 1

“I want you to bring me a day in the life of Jacob Covington. He’s hot copy and I want your story to sizzle.” It was an order, and Allison Wakefield knew that Bill Jenkins, editor of The Journal and her boss, meant what he said. The Journal was known for its titillating accounts of the lives of celebrities.

“You said you wanted a story on a typical day in his life. Are you telling me to dig into the man’s privacy, to snoop? I’m a reporter, Bill, not a private eye, and I’m not interested in digging up anybody’s skeletons.” She’d heard that careers were destroyed hourly in Washington, D.C., and after her own experience, she didn’t doubt it. She brushed her long brown fingers back and forth beneath her chin and straightened her shoulders.

“I can’t stoop to that, Bill. I won’t.”

He lifted his shoulders in what appeared to be a careless shrug. “You said you didn’t want any more assignments on the wives of visiting dignitaries; you wanted hard news. Well, this is your chance. You’re after a story, and whatever you find had better go in it.” He paused, allowing a grin to slide over his face. “But if you’re chicken...” He let the thought dangle, but she understood what he didn’t say.

“Refusing to muckrake is not the same as being cowardly.” She knew she should hold her tongue, because she didn’t want to leave The Journal until she had another job.

Oblivious to the implied insult, his gaze swept over her. “A reporter has to be tough, Allison. So get used to it. If you don’t, the job’s not for you. Bring me the story.”

Allison turned away from her editor without thanking him for the chance of a lifetime. She collected her briefcase and pocketbook from her office several doors away and walked out of the building. Pausing in front of the eight-story structure at Fourteenth and H Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C., she breathed deeply of the warm, late June air. She hadn’t regained her status as a top reporter, but she still had her soul. Maybe she should have shown some gratitude, but why thank him for the double-edged gift when she knew it could be her undoing?

Jacob Covington had an impeccable reputation, or at least that was the opinion of other reporters who had interviewed him since he’d become a bestselling author. Cut him to pieces? She knew her uneasiness was well founded; Bill Jenkins kept The Journal afloat with scandal, searing his subjects, and if she let him, he’d treat this story no differently; he wanted the dirt. Muckraking was what he expected, and she’d need all of her wits to circumvent him. Top-of-the-line editors didn’t hire reporters who built their reputations on sleazy copy, and she wanted another chance at working for one of the best newspapers. But she couldn’t do that until she erased that blot from her record. She meant to show her detractors that she could reestablish herself as a journalist, and she wouldn’t trash Jacob Covington’s reputation to do it.

* * *

Warren Jacob “Jake” Covington paused in front of his town house near the Ellington School of the Arts in Georgetown and took a deep breath of warm, dry, early morning air, appreciating the unusually low humidity for the nation’s capital. Returning from the steaming tropics, the type of climate he least liked, he walked into his house and dropped his luggage at the closet door in his bedroom. After hanging up his jacket and kicking off his shoes, he stretched out on his bed and gloried in the feel of his own hard mattress under his back.

He had just completed his first trip for the department in four years, and the experience increased his appreciation for his current job as the department’s chief policy analyst. He wondered how he ever thought of his former job as an undercover agent as exciting and fascinating. He wanted no more of it.

An hour later, at the beginning of the working day, he reached for the phone on his night table and dialed his chief. “I got home an hour ago,” he said. As a policy, he didn’t identify himself over the phone. “We can’t expect success with the present strategy. I’ll have to come up with a better plan. I’ve got some ideas.”

“All right. Glad you’re back,” the chief said. “Get some rest and check in with me tomorrow morning.”

Jake stretched out again and grasped at sleep, only to have it elude him. As always, hours passed while he tried to climb down from the emotional high that consumed him when he was on a department mission. Long before he changed assignments, he had begun to tire of the ever-present danger and to want a home and family, something that he couldn’t contemplate as long as he held that post.

“We don’t have anyone else who can do this as well as you can and get back here safely,” his chief had said, trying as usual to inveigle him back into his former job. Well, if he got caught or died, they’d find someone else; he wasn’t indispensable. He had paid his dues, and he was out, a fact of which he intended to remind the chief as soon as he saw him.

* * *

Allison had never feared an assignment; indeed, the prospect of digging into a topic or an individual and finding something new and interesting always excited her. But she hadn’t worked for a newspaper that touted the sensational or for a boss who reveled in it.

Roaming around her small town house in Alexandria, she considered giving her boss an ultimatum: take her off that assignment or accept her resignation. But until Bill Jenkins hired her a month earlier, she hadn’t worked in eighteen months, had lived off her now-depleted savings.

I’ll write the story, but I won’t scandalize the man, and I won’t cover up for him, either. That’s a lesson I don’t have to learn again.

The muffled sound of the telephone interrupted her musings. “Hello? Auntie! How are you?”

“Lazy. I just caught a huge striped bass, and that set me to thinking about you. Fishing’s real good right now. You ought to come up here for a few days. It ought to be nice this weekend.”

Allison thought for a second. “You know...that’s not a bad idea. I’ll be starting a new assignment in a few days, and it wouldn’t hurt to rest up. I’ll fly to Reed City, pick up a rental car, and get to Idlewild around eight Friday evening.”

At exactly seven-thirty in the evening, Allison’s rented Toyota stopped in front of her aunt’s house, a yellow frame structure built in the 1920s, but renovated and well preserved. Frances Upshaw, tall and regal at eighty, rushed off the front porch to greet her niece who, along with Allison’s brother, Sydney, constituted the total of the family members that she cared about. She made it a point to tell her friends that the other members of her family were “too supercilious” for her taste.

“We’ve got another hour before dark,” she told Allison. “You’re just in time for us to get our supper. Mr. Hawks passed here a few minutes ago with a good dozen catfish and pike. They must be jumping.”

“Okay,” Allison said, hugging her aunt. “Let me put on some sneakers. I have to wear leather soles when I drive.”

She followed her aunt to the northern end of Little Idlewild Lake, baited her hook, and cast as far as she could.

“I’m getting rusty at this, Auntie.”

“No such thing. Child, I’ve been rusty for years, but not when I’m fishing.” Her laugh emphasized the insinuation. “When are you and Sydney going to settle down?”

Here it comes, she thought. “We’re settled, Auntie.”

“You know what I mean. Find yourself a— Oops! Will you look at what I got?” She reeled in a pike of about four pounds, the gleam of her white teeth expressing her pleasure as she put the fish in her basket. In less than half an hour, they had three fish each, enough for the weekend.

Around seven the next morning, Allison got her copy of Flying High, a folding chair, a big straw hat and dark glasses, and headed for the beach. As she sat facing Idlewild Lake and enjoying the crisp morning breeze, she thrilled at the thought that she could be sitting in the same spot where Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, or W.E.B. Du Bois once reclined. In its heyday, Idlewild, known as Black Eden, was famous as a black resort area, the first in the Midwest, attracting the most prominent black entertainers and scores of black intellectuals seeking a place to unwind.

Allison had often wondered how such a charming place with its winding roads, virgin forests, and beautiful lakes could have fallen into decline. She’d heard that integration made it redundant. She dug her bare toes into the powdered sand, leaned back, and opened her book. She liked being there alone when the birds chirped in the trees, a few people sailed on the lake, and a kind of peace flowed around her.

At the sound of a bird singing, she twisted around in the hope of getting a glimpse of it and gasped. Who was that giant of a man with a mouthwatering body rising from the lake like an amphibious Adonis, clad in only the tiniest of swimsuits? As he neared her, she lowered her glasses for a better look and could see the droplets of lake water on his flesh. Long, beautiful legs, tapered waist. Openly, she ogled the man, happy to acknowledge that example of God’s perfect handiwork. He didn’t glance her way, and she had never been happier to be ignored.

She returned her attention to her book, but the hero of Flying High took on the image of the handsome stranger, teasing and mocking her on every page. She closed the book and wondered about the identity of that spiritlike Adonis. Too bad, she would probably never see him again. Besides, he was probably married.

“Aunt Frances,” she said, “I saw a really tall man, maybe six feet five or six, on the beach. He had a tan complexion and black silky hair. I’d say he’s African-American with some Native American ancestors, and a knockout.”

“Well, well, hit you where you felt it, did he? Sorry, but he doesn’t live here in Idlewild. Must be a tourist. Why don’t you stay for the week? You might see him again.”

“Believe me, I’m tempted, but if I do that I’ll probably lose my job, and you know how long I’ve been trying to get one. I have to leave here Sunday noon.”

Frances rinsed her cup and saucer and rubbed her sides to dry her hands. “I’ll keep an eye out for him, and you know I’ll walk right up to him and ask him about himself. When you get to be my age, you can get away with anything.”

* * *

On Monday morning, Allison telephoned Jacob Covington. The deep baritone voice invited her to leave a message but, struck by the beauty of his voice, she merely stared at the receiver. Recovering quickly, she said, “Mr. Covington, this is Allison Wakefield of The Journal. My editor says you’ve agreed to give us a story. Please call me at your convenience.” She gave her phone number, hung up, and pondered her next move. Later, checking The Journal’s calendar of events for a potential story, as she regularly did, she noted Covington’s scheduled lecture that night at Howard University’s Andrew Rankin Chapel. She’d be there.

* * *

Allison took an aisle seat on the first row and nearly sprang out of it when Jacob Covington strode to the rostrum. Her awareness of him as a man surprised and disconcerted her, as her gaze caught the big giant of a man, who looked directly at her with long-lashed hazel eyes. With so little space separating them, he had to see that a glance at him had left her disoriented, so that she responded to him as surely as flowers rise to greet the sun. At the end of his lecture, she hardly recalled the gist of his talk, so intent had she been on concealing her feminine reaction. She stood in line for an opportunity to speak with him and stared in disbelief when he looked beyond those closest to him in the line and let his gaze linger on her. Common sense told her that she should tell Bill Jenkins to give the assignment to another reporter.

“Hello.” The deep, sonorous voice curled around her, and the hazel eyes that punctuated the elegance of his rich, brown face seemed to look into her soul. Without thinking, she extended her hand. And he took it. Nobody had to tell her that, at that moment, she dealt with fate.

“Hello, Mr. Covington.” She managed to keep her tone cool. “I enjoyed your talk, but I have a business reason for wanting to meet you.”

His left eyebrow arched. Then he winked, bewitching her. “What kind of business?”

She handed him her card. “I’m the reporter Mr. Jenkins assigned for The Journal’s story on you.”

He looked at the card, then at her. “Your name’s not familiar.”

“I hope you don’t have a case of gender insensitivity.”

That wink, again. “Hardly. My concern is for competence and experience.”

With so much at stake, she couldn’t afford to show vexation. “And you can look at a reporter and know whether she’s competent?”

“There are still a lot of people behind you. If you’ll step aside, we can settle this later.” Settle it? How? This was her chance, and if he had thoughts of refusing her interviews, he could forget it. Right then, she had the upper hand, because he didn’t need bad press just as he was about to begin a national book tour.

“Suppose we walk out together,” he suggested when the last of his audience had left. “I agreed to be interviewed reluctantly, because my publisher thinks a story in The Journal will widen my readership, but I have to tell you I have misgivings. What kind of story are you planning?”

She noticed that he shortened his steps to accommodate her and wondered at his height. “A day in the life of Jacob Covington. What do you say?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “A working day in the life of Jacob Covington is what you’ll get. My private life is my business, so if you’ve got plans to start on the day of my birth, and not miss a second of my existence until the day before the story goes to press, forget about it.”

As they reached the door, she stopped walking and looked up at him. “I can write the story without a word from you, or I can do the decent, professional thing and interview you. I’m giving my boss a story one way or the other.”

His hazel eyes took on a glaze, and his stare might well have been a laser, slicing through her. “Has some of Bill Jenkins rubbed off on you? A story at any cost? Damn the individual; the public has a right to know?”

She told herself to remember the stakes. “Let’s start over, Mr. Covington. This assignment is important to me, and I’m sure you know that. Give me your ground rules, and I’ll try to follow them.”

He breathed deeply, as though resigned. “All right, Ms. Wakefield, nine to five, Monday through Friday, and whenever I’m lecturing, signing books, or being interviewed on radio or TV. At all other times I’m a private citizen. Okay?”

“Fair enough. Are you married?” He seemed taken aback at the abruptness of the question, and she could have kicked herself for having asked it in that fashion.

He winked again, and her heartbeat accelerated. “No. Was that question for the interview or personal use?”

She wished he wouldn’t look at her so intently, because she couldn’t use the pleasant weather to explain the moisture that matted her forehead. Self-consciously, she lowered her eyelids, annoyed at her warm feminine response to him.

He’s just a man, Allison, she admonished herself, and recovered her equilibrium. “I know you’re thirty-five—the next logical question is marital status.”

He inclined his head slightly and quirked his brow, verifying her suspicion that he didn’t believe her, but she appreciated that he softened his voice and manner as if to put her at ease. “This isn’t a convenient time for your interview. I’m about to leave on the first leg of my national tour.”

“Why can’t I travel with you?”

“You couldn’t be serious, Ms. Wakefield. I don’t want the press chronicling my every breath.”

In her exasperation, she permitted herself a withering stare, but realizing that she might provoke him, she immediately changed her demeanor. “Mr. Covington, I am not asking to spend every minute with you, only for the chance to carry out my assignment as best I can.”

After seeming to weigh the pros and cons, he said, with obvious reluctance, “All right, if you can manage to stay out of the way.”

Boldly, she met his eyes straight on and tried to ignore the bouncing of her heart in her chest. “Would you please try to be less patronizing. I can’t observe you if I have to stay out of sight. I’m a professional, and I know how to do my job. It wouldn’t hurt you to remember that.”

He ran his fingers through the thick, silky black hair that belied his African heritage and told of his Seneca ancestors—traits that had once enhanced his value as an undercover agent; one couldn’t be certain of his racial identity.

“All right,” he said and grimaced, “but if it doesn’t work, we’ll have to drop it. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to leave.” At the bottom of the hill, he asked, “Are you driving, or should I help you get a cab? They seldom cruise on this part of Georgia Avenue at night.”

“I’m driving.”

“Then you can give me a lift?”

* * *

She stopped the car in front of his town house in an upscale section of Georgetown and turned toward him. “This is a lovely neighborhood,” she said, reluctant to voice the words that rested uneasily in her thoughts. He nodded and reached for the door handle. “Mind if I ask...” He stiffened, and she decided not to coat it. “You have a habit...I mean... Why do you wink at me?”

“What? Oh! I didn’t realize I’d done that. It isn’t something I control; it’s involuntary. I... It does whatever it pleases. Thanks for the lift. Good night.” Puzzled at his sudden diffidence, the man filled her with wonder as she drove across the Williams Bridge and took the Shirley Memorial Highway to Alexandria and her small, two-story frame house near Bren Mar Park.

* * *

Jake thought he’d been around so many indescribably beautiful women that one long-legged black woman with big eyes the color of pinecones and the shape of almonds and a come-to-me expression couldn’t knock him off balance. But like a freight train charging through the night, Allison Wakefield had done exactly that. For what other reason would he have given her permission to follow him around and record his every gesture? And why else would the damned wink have returned? That alone was positive proof that she’d gotten to him. The wink hadn’t bothered him since he overcame a short, feverish attachment to Henrietta Beech. He distrusted reporters and for good reason; the eagerness of one to expose his former State Department activities had nearly cost him his life. Covering up the incident and guaranteeing his protection for some months afterward had cost the government a bundle. And The Journal! Did he dare risk it? He secured the front door and leaned against it for a full twenty minutes, musing on the evening’s surprises. Suddenly, he strode into his office and lifted the phone receiver. He stopped. Why did he want to telephone Allison Wakefield? Nonplussed, he pressed the fingers of his left hand first to his right cheek, then to his temples, and closed his eyes. What the devil was going on?

Annoyed with himself for letting Allison get to him, Jake paced around in his bedroom, stopped, and swore; he needed a haircut. Nobody and nothing could have persuaded him to get one in that bastion of intrigue he’d just left, with a terrorist lurking in every other house, every store, and around any corner. In that environment, he wouldn’t be fool enough to sit in a barber’s chair and expose his throat to a razor. The ring of the phone jarred him. Wondering who would call him at half past eleven at night, he answered it.

“Covington.”

“Come in early tomorrow. I’ve got something for you. Can you make it in by eight o’clock?”

Jake held the receiver at arm’s length and glared at it. “You couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning to tell me? Did you forget I’m on a year’s leave of absence, chief, and that I just got back from a mission this morning?”

“No, I didn’t forget. I need your savvy. I want you to check these plans because if anything goes wrong on this job, Congress will have my head.”

“Eight o’clock,” Jake said and hung up. Right then, he hardly cared whose head came off. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in ten days, and who knew when he’d get another one if he had to worry about keeping Allison Wakefield out of his business?

* * *

Three days later, his job for the chief completed, he prepared for his first book-signing tour.

Rested, after a sound night’s sleep, Jake pulled himself out of bed, got a cup of black coffee, and tried to think. Considering the way he had responded to Allison Wakefield, all the way to the pit of his gut, he’d probably relax with her, slip up, and reveal more than he should. And she was bound to get suspicious if he periodically interrupted his book tour and disappeared for days at a time, as he would if the chief called on him. Any good journalist would want to know why he disappeared and where he went. He promised himself he’d get out of that commitment.

“I’ve rethought it,” he told Allison when he called her at her office later that morning, “and I’d prefer not to be encumbered on this tour. It’ll be tiring enough without having a reporter around to record every breath I take.”

He’d disappointed her, and he couldn’t help it, but when he’d looked down at the audience and had seen her there with her right hand at her throat and her lips a little apart, he hadn’t known what hit him. In his thirty-five years, he didn’t remember having had such a powerful reaction to a woman. He’d gotten through that lecture, though he didn’t remember how. Then she’d walked up to him and held out her hand, and for a moment he’d thought he’d conjured up a vision.

The extent of her frustration came through when she spoke. “If I can’t tour with you,” she bargained in a voice that lacked her previous toughness, “could you give me a list of people to interview who you’d trust to tell me the truth?”

“Your generosity astonishes me,” he said, clearly baffled. “I don’t get it.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she replied, her tone more confident. “I won’t have any trouble finding people who’ll do you in. If I put an ad in the paper, they’ll come running.”

“That’s blackmail, woman.”

“Tut-tut. Don’t be so harsh. There’s more than one way to ride a horse; you know that. So what do you say? Do I tour with you, or don’t I?”

She sounded tough, and she might be, but something about her reached him, and he didn’t want to hurt her. She inspired in him exactly the opposite response. But he had to protect himself from damage, too. And he didn’t doubt that, if she dug into his private life, she could twist what she found sufficiently to torpedo his dreams of becoming scholar-in-residence at his alma mater.

“Are you equating me with a horse?” he chided. “Your choice of metaphors intrigues me.”

“I didn’t mean... Well, n-no.”

He couldn’t resist a dig. “Don’t apologize, Allison. When you ride, be considerate enough to make it enjoyable.” Oh, if phone lines had mirrors! From her long silence, he knew she’d gone slightly out of joint. Still, he couldn’t help needling her. “It isn’t always what we hear that causes trouble, but how we interpret it. You get my point, I hope.”

“If you’re trying to convince me that six weeks of your company will be unpleasant, don’t squander your energy,” she replied. “And off-color innuendos are wasted on me.”

“Off-color innuendos? I didn’t insinuate anything; I meant what I said. Plain and simple.”

“Like your wink?”

“Like your handshake, lady. Meaningful.” She could hold her own, he saw, as he waited for her reply.

“When do we leave?”

If he hadn’t spent the last thirty minutes talking with her, his answer probably would have been, “We don’t.” But he suspected she’d be good company. And face it, he told himself, you want to know whether that clap of thunder you heard and the lightning fire that roared through you when you first saw her signaled the real thing.

“All right. I’ll give it a shot,” he told her, “but please do your homework. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve had enough of fledgling reporters and their inept questions.”

“This is your first book, but I’ve worked as a reporter for six years. Which one of us is a fledgling?”

A warm flush spread through him, and he couldn’t help laughing; a woman who could hold her own with him was to be prized. And encouraged. “Touché. My publicist will give you my schedule for the next six weeks.” He hung up, and his smile faded. He’d have to make certain that she didn’t tail him on Friday and Saturday nights.

* * *

Jake couldn’t decide whether to rent a car, drive out to Rock Creek Park and spend a couple of hours horseback riding, or call a buddy for a game of tennis. He hadn’t had any useful exercise in ten days. He needed a good workout. “Dunc was always good for an early morning set or two,” he said to himself and telephoned his friend, a freelance journalist who worked at home.

“Jake here. How’s it going, buddy?” he asked Duncan Banks when his friend answered the phone.

“How am I? Man, I need a vacation. I just finished a piece on undertaker scams, and damned near wound up the victim of one of ’em myself. Don’t tell me you want a game. I just told my wife I needed some exercise.”

“I can be ready for a couple of sets in half an hour. How are Justine and Tonya?”

“Still spicing my life. I’ll pick you up in forty-five minutes.”

* * *

“You look as if you’ve been hanging out on a beach,” Duncan told Jake when he opened the door.

“Hardly,” Jake said. He didn’t discuss his work for the department, and especially not his trips, and Duncan never asked him where he’d been. However, Jake didn’t doubt that a news reporter of Duncan Banks’s stature had done his research, knew the answers, and kept his thoughts to himself.

“I hope you’re paid up with your club dues,” Jake told him, “because I forgot to pay mine.” He didn’t mention that the notice arrived while he was on a department mission.

“I forget sometimes, too,” Duncan said, “but they won’t throw us out.”

They practiced hitting the ball for several minutes, tossed a coin, and Duncan served first.

“Brother, that was one wicked lob you sent over here,” Duncan called to Jake after returning it for a point. After winning a set each during nearly two hours of play, they sat on a bench and helped themselves to the lemonade that Justine had made and sent in a cooler.

“You’ve been married to Justine how long now?”

“Two years. The happiest and the most productive of my life. I hardly remember who I was before I met Justine. Looking back—and I often do—I realize my first marriage was a sham.”

Jake stretched out his legs and leaned back against the bench. “Marriage is a risk any way you slice it.”

A frown slid over Duncan’s face. “Sure. And so is taking a shower. It’s simple, Jake; if you don’t gamble—I mean, take a chance—you can’t win. From the first time I looked at Justine, I was a changed man.”

Jake sat forward, remembering his reaction to Allison Wakefield. “You mean as soon as you laid eyes on her?”

“That’s just what I mean. Man, I did everything, told myself all kind of lies about how she wasn’t for me, even left my own house to stay at the lodge so I wouldn’t see her...trying to avoid the inevitable. I didn’t stand a chance.”

“Damn!” Jake sat back, put his hands in the pockets of his tennis shorts, and shook his head. “Man, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Whoa! Wait a minute,” Duncan said, coloring his words with barely restrained laughter. “What’s her name?”

Jake shook his head again as if perplexed. “There isn’t any her. I am not even going to repeat her name. It’s too ridiculous. I am definitely not going there!” He spoke forcibly.

“Go ahead and convince yourself.” Jake didn’t like the laughter that spilled out of Duncan like water cascading from a mountaintop. “That’s just what I said,” Duncan told him. “I’d be honored to be your best man.”

With that, Jake stood, ready to leave. “You’re off your rocker.”

Duncan permitted himself a long laugh. “Whatever you say. In the thirteen years we’ve known each other, you’ve intimated a serious interest in one woman. One. And for that particular one, your youth was ample excuse.” He stood and looked Jake in the eye. “Getting a jolt at the age of twenty-two is nothing compared to being poleaxed at this age.”

A look of fond remembrance claimed Duncan’s face. “I’ll never forget the day and the minute I gave in to it; oceans roared.”

“That was you. This is me. Tell Justine I want some of Mattie’s stuffed roast loin of pork and lemon-roast potatoes. That woman can really cook.”

“That, she can. When are you leaving on your book tour?”

“Monday, but I’ll probably be back home on weekends.”

“I thought most book signings were held on weekends.”

“Or at lunchtime, like mine. Thanks for the workout, Dunc.”

“My pleasure.”

“The guy’s a lucky man,” Jake said to himself later as he stood beside his kitchen sink, eating a ham sandwich. “One long year of trouble, and then his ship came in. I should be so fortunate.”

* * *

“Covington goes on national tour pretty soon, and he’s agreed to let me accompany him,” Allison told her boss.

“Atta girl.”

Without commenting, she turned to her computer and began to sketch the questions that would guide her interviews with Jacob Covington. She worked on them until two o’clock, packed her briefcase, and headed for her home on Monroe Avenue in the outskirts of Alexandria, Virginia, en route to her other life. Her boss and her peers thought her tough, and she had developed a crust of self-protection against their slurs and slights, had hardened herself. But not even for the sake of her ambitions would she step on anyone for personal gain. Let them think whatever they like. She had their respect, and that was what she wanted.

Allison changed into casual clothes and prepared to enjoy the happiest two hours of her week. She parked in front of the two-story redbrick structure whose colonial front gave it the appearance of a gracious private home. Mother’s Rest was a temporary haven for eleven children under the age of two who were awaiting foster homes. A child rarely remained there more than six months.

Zena Carter, the head nurse, greeted Allison as she entered the house. “I’ve got a brand-new one for you today,” she said. “Cute little tyke, too. She’s in a fit of temper, and I sure hope you can calm her down.”

Allison followed Zena down the hall. “Is she sick?”

“Doctor said she wasn’t. Just hates yet another environment and more strangers, I guess. Your things are in there.”

Allison stepped into the little cubicle, washed her face and hands, put on a white gown, and covered her mouth with a small mask. She took the baby, and her little charge stared up at her with big brown eyes that beautified her dark face. How could anybody... Quickly, she put a stop to that train of thought. Hadn’t the social worker warned her not to judge the mothers or to become attached to any of the children? It was one thing to give that advice; as far as she was concerned, the ability to follow it required superhuman command of one’s emotions.

For two hours, she coddled, stroked, and chatted with the seven-month-old baby girl who, like the other babies there, was awaiting a foster home or an adoption. The child’s bubbly personality tore at her heart, and when she sang, the baby clapped her hands and tried to join her. The time passed too quickly. To avoid bonding, the volunteer mothers, as they were called, were not allowed to stay for more than two hours, nor could they visit with the same baby twice in one month. Her coworkers wouldn’t believe her capable of those gentle, tender moments with the children, and she didn’t want them to know. But the hours spent there nourished her for the rest of the week.

She walked out into the warm summer drizzle and raced half a block to her car, shielding her hair as the moisture rid it of its elegance, dampening her and shrinking her rayon shirt. At Matty’s Gourmet Shop, she bought her dinner and two boxes of Arlington Fair Blue Ribbon gingersnaps and went home with the intention of preparing for her interview with Jacob Covington. She answered the phone with reluctance.

“Yes?”

“Hi, Allison. Want to go to Blues Alley tonight?”

Of course she did. Connie knew she never got enough of good jazz. “I’m all set to work because I didn’t have other plans. But it’ll be a while before I can get back there, so why not? Who’s there?”

“Buddy Dee, and Mac Connelly is with him tonight.”

“No kidding? I’ll meet you there at quarter to eight.”

“I thought that would get your juices flowing. First one there takes a table. Say, I ran into Carly Thompson this morning. She’s here sealing a deal with Woodie’s to carry a full line of her Scarlet Woman Cosmetics. Can you beat that? The girl is gone.”

“She sure is. Last time we spoke, she said she had some hot irons in the fire, but I thought she was talking about a man.”

“She’s headed for Martha’s Vineyard,” Connie said, releasing a sigh of longing. “Wish I could go with her.”

“Me too, but I’ll settle for my new assignment. See you later.”

* * *

Jake dressed in the style associated with jazzmen of the thirties and forties, picked up his guitar, and headed for Blues Alley. Half a block from the club, he put on dark glasses to hide his telltale hazel eyes, conceal his wink, and complete his masquerade.

When that curtain rose, he was Mac Connelly. He wasn’t ashamed of what he did, but he couldn’t afford to have his name associated with the jazz subculture. If his association with the musicians was known, the reputation could deny him his coveted goal of an appointment as scholar-in-residence at his alma mater. Furthermore, his boss at the department had warned him that, on a nightclub bandstand, he was a sitting duck for the enemies he had incurred in his former work, and the bullet wound in his left shoulder was a testimonial to his boss’s wisdom. He’d taken that bullet three blocks from the department, proof at that time—if he needed any—that his enemies knew where to find him.

When the lights came up, he was already seated, tuning his guitar and waiting for the six other band members to walk onstage. His blood accelerated its pace through his veins the minute he heard Buddy’s downbeat. As usual, the dance of his magic fingers up and down the strings brought cries of “Right on, Mac”, “Kill it, man” and “Take it on home, baby” from his devoted fans. And as they did whenever he played, the crowd clamored for his rendition of “Back Home in Indiana,” his signature piece.

The third and last set ended too quickly. As always, he remained seated while the band took a bow and the lights dimmed. Still high from total immersion in his music, he picked up the glass of iced tea that he’d placed on the floor beside him to resemble liquor, emptied it, and ducked out back. He’d had a ball, but uneasiness pervaded him because, unlikely as it seemed, he was fairly certain that Allison Wakefield had been in the audience. Allison wore her hair up, and this woman’s hair hung around her shoulders, but an African-American woman with big, almond-shaped brown eyes and long sweeping lashes in a flawless, oval-shaped ebony face was not the most common sight. Besides, he not only had the facial similarity for a clue, his reaction to the woman was similar to what he felt when he first saw Allison. He’d thought her the Bach fugue type; it wouldn’t have occurred to him that she’d pay to hear jazz.

He took every conceivable precaution to conceal his identity at the club, including never being seen standing, since his six-feet-five-and-a-half-inch height and 215-pound weight might give him away. His music was his life, and he cherished those few hours on Friday and Saturday nights with Buddy Dee’s band. He’d have to watch his every move, because a reporter could damage him almost irreparably.

* * *

“He got away again,” Allison grumbled to Connie, as they waited outside the club.

Connie scrutinized Allison’s face. “Are you sweet on Mac?”

Allison glared at her. “Of course not. With those black glasses, I don’t even know what he looked like. But pins and needles shoot all through me when that man plays, and he sits there, in his element. He’s so mysterious.”

Connie’s shoulders lifted in a quick shrug. “You reporters are all alike. You have to know everything. It’s a wonder you don’t walk up to the man and interrogate him.”

“Can you see anybody intimidating that big guy?”

“Yeah. You might not try to browbeat him, but you’d dig into his business just to talk to him. He’s your type.”

“My type?”

“Sure he is. You like a man who’s four or five inches taller than your five feet nine, and you could really luxuriate and feel tiny with this guy. He must be near six feet six. Of course, I’m just guessing; he’s always sitting down.”

“Yeah, he is,” Allison replied, bemused. He’d already taken his seat when the lights went up and remained sitting after they went down, while other band members walked in and out in full view of the audience. She could only conclude that he had a disability. Maybe he couldn’t walk. She dismissed the matter with a shrug. It was of no import. A jazz musician would be the last man who’d interest her.

She put on her Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong CDs as soon as she got home and sang along with them while she sorted out her clothes for the tour. With gentle strokes, her fingers brushed the once-yellow leather rose that had long since turned brown from her loving caresses. Half a dozen times, she’d thrown it into the wastebasket, only to retrieve it and return it to her little collection of treasures—the green quilted silk box in which she kept her first bra, the lace handkerchief she’d carried to her freshman high school prom, the empty perfume bottle that had held the first gift she received from a man. The yellow rose had nestled in the elegant bow on the box in which the perfume had been wrapped. Edna Wakefield hadn’t approved of a deliveryman for her daughter, and she’d let him go. But unlike opportunistic Roland Farr—her betrayer—that man had loved her, she now knew.

What of Mac Connelly? She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Tonight, she’d sensed in him a peculiarly erotic aura that she hadn’t detected the many other nights she’d seen him play. As she watched his fingers tease those strings, an unfamiliar heat had pulsated in her. A laugh rumbled in her throat. First Jacob Covington had poleaxed her, and now this. No doubt about it; she was a late bloomer.

* * *

Early Sunday afternoon, two days later, as Allison stepped out of her Jacuzzi, she heard Covington’s voice on her answering machine, interrupted it, and took the call.

“Don’t forget that our flight leaves at eight tomorrow morning, Allison. We might as well use first names. I’m called Jake. As I was saying, please be on time. I have a ten o’clock appointment, and I don’t want to miss that plane.”

As soon as her heartbeat returned to normal, she summoned her most professional demeanor. “Mr. Covington, I’m assuming that you don’t make these statements because you want to rile me, but because you’re deficient in the art of conversation. I will be on time, dear, and I will wash behind my ears before I leave home.” His uproarious laughter cooled her temper, and she vowed not to react negatively to every one of his incautious remarks.

“Did anybody ever try to blunt that sharp tongue of yours?”

“Now, you...” she began, remembered her counsel of seconds earlier, and stopped. “Jake, do you think we automatically rub each other the wrong way?”

That deep, dark, sexy laugh again. “I think we rub each other, but I’d be the last one to suggest it’s the wrong way. Rubbing with you gives me a good feeling.”

“Well, it irritates me,” she huffed.

“In what way? I’d be happy to soothe whatever I irritate. Just let me know what I’ve...uh...inflamed, and I’ll gladly cool it off.” His laugher caressed her. Warmed her. If she didn’t watch out, she could find herself enamored of... Was she out of her mind?

“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that you can keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“It has, but doing that wouldn’t be fun.”

She could imagine that a grin covered his face. “You’re not going to tease me into letting you trap me with innuendos. I’m onto you. Aren’t you ever serious?”

“I’m always serious,” he shot back, “but I’m not a rash man. If I told you in plain English what’s on my mind, I could damage our relationship. I don’t want that.”

She wondered if her nerves would riot. After that comment, he might as well dump it out, but she refrained from saying it. “Thanks for being circumspect,” she replied instead, and she did appreciate it. “Having to suffer my boss’s coarseness is a big enough price for getting ahead in this business.”

“I can well imagine that. See you at eight in the morning.” As though he’d received an unpleasant reminder, his manner changed when she mentioned Bill Jenkins. Who could blame him? She told him goodbye, dressed quickly, and made her way to Mother’s Rest.

* * *

Allison took Leda from the nurse, looked into the child’s sad face, and told herself that, if she were ever fortunate enough to have one of her own, she’d love it so much that it would bubble with joy all the time.

“Leda,” she cooed to the solemn little girl, “smile for me.” She sang “Summertime” and was rewarded with the baby’s rapt attention. She cuddled Leda to her breast and paced the colorful, well-lighted room, singing as she did so. Leda quickly learned that a smile brought another chorus and, when the two hours had passed, Allison surmised that she had sung the famous song well over a dozen times. The nurses let her stay beyond the allotted two hours because the child fretted when she attempted to leave. Finally she managed to sing her to sleep, but for the first time, pangs of separation after leaving one of the children tore at her, and she vowed to have some of her own. But when?

She got home, saw the house’s dark windows, and realized she’d forgotten to set her automatic timer. She searched for the small flashlight that she always carried in her pocketbook, found it, and opened the door.

After sleeping fitfully that night, she arose before daylight, dressed in leisure, and stood leaning against the check-in counter for the Delta Air Lines Washington to New York flight when Jake Covington got there. Captivated, she watched him approach her, his gait loose and his stride lazy. Suggestive. He walked up to her and grinned. Then he winked. Unaccustomed to a promiscuous onslaught of desire for a man, she had to battle the frissons of heat that swirled within her, unsettling her. Six weeks of him could be her undoing.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, replacing the smile with a look of genuine concern.

She wasn’t so foolish as to tell him what seeing him had done to her. She turned to the ticket agent and handed him her credit card. “New York. One way, please.”

* * *

They took their seats in business class, and Allison immediately opened a newspaper, but Jake couldn’t resist closing the paper and relaxed when her inquiring look bore no censorship.

“I want us to get along well, Allison,” he began. “I grew up in a peaceful, loving family, and I’ve accepted that as the kind of life I need. I do not allow myself to spend a lot of time with contentious people. If you can’t stand my company, I’d rather we called this off before the plane leaves the gate.”

“I’m a little unsettled. It’ll pass over, I hope. In any case, Jake, contentiousness is not part of my disposition, so if that’s what you detect, you probably precipitated it.”

He ignored the remark. “What happened to you back there?” Whatever it was, it had plowed right through him. Oddly, he didn’t expect an explanation, because the incident had the appearance of spontaneity, a phenomenon unto itself and of its own power, so her answer held no surprise.

“I wish I knew. Don’t worry, though; I’m fine.”

He let his hand touch the side of hers; he couldn’t help it. Something in her called out to him, sparked a need in him, and it wasn’t one-sided. He knew she’d deny it, but there it was. She reacted to him exactly as he responded to her, and though he wasn’t anxious for them to get involved, he knew from experience that when nature decided to take a hand in such things, it didn’t ask permission. So he told himself he’d better take his mind off the matter, because the more he thought about her, the more she intrigued him. When the odor of fresh, perking coffee wafted into the cabin, he inhaled deeply, savoring its aroma, grateful that it overrode Allison’s tantalizing scent.

“I’d like some coffee. Sugar and cream,” he told the flight attendant.

Allison asked for plain black coffee and didn’t reply when he commented, “Unadorned, huh?”

She also hadn’t moved her hand from beside his fingers. What was he supposed to make of that?

Trying for a reaction, he teased, “Scared of gaining weight? From where I sit, you’re perfect.” He wouldn’t have thought that a simple blush could give him so much pleasure, but he relished the sight of her embarrassment as evidence that his compliment pleased her.

He sensed her uneasiness, too, but he didn’t think she’d want to be questioned about it, so he opted for impersonal conversation. “My network appearances will be taped at seven-thirty in the mornings and aired at nine-thirty,” he said, “and I have to be there an hour early. You want to go with me, or would you rather—”

That did it; immediately she removed her hand. “You’re not losing me, Mr. Covington, so please don’t try it. If I had wanted to watch you on television, I could have stayed home and done so in the comfort of my bedroom.”

His left hand went to his forehead. How did a man deal with such suspicions? He decided to ask her.

“Do you distrust everybody? Or just me? Allison, I cannot and I will not spend the next six weeks tiptoeing around your tender feelings.”

He watched her lift her chin in a display of aristocratic disdain. For heaven’s sake, not a stuffed shirt, he said to himself.

“My feelings are not tender,” she corrected him. “I want to make it clear that I won’t let anything or anybody prevent my carrying out this assignment, and that includes you.” Tired of hassling when he wanted to be gracious, he resorted to silence.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said after a time. “I’m not usually so touchy, but you seem to... I don’t know... I haven’t been my best self this morning.”

He rewarded her with an obliging smile, though it wasn’t what he felt. She’d glanced up at him for his reaction, and he’d smiled because she needed to be absolved.

* * *

Allison hadn’t considered that the simple business of registering at their hotel could prove embarrassing. After determining that they really did want separate rooms, the Drake Hotel registration clerk asked if they were traveling together. Jake said no, but she said yes, not realizing that they were being asked if they wanted adjoining rooms with a door that opened between them.

“Which is it?” the clerk asked. Heat singed her face when Jake replied that they didn’t want to be together. Flustered, she looked everywhere but at him and cringed before the clerk’s knowing gaze. She’d rather neither of them had known that she’d never checked into a hotel in the company of a man, not that it was their business.

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes,” he said when she walked out of the elevator. “Can you make that? We’re going first to my publisher, then lunch, after which I sign at Barnes and Noble. Okay?”

She nodded. It was one thing to be attracted to him, but if she wasn’t careful she’d like him more than was healthy. Her reaction to him in the Washington Airport had distressed her, and when he’d sensed her unease and almost covered her hand with his, he’d told her more about himself than she needed to know right then. She changed into a burnt-orange suit and brown accessories, refreshed her makeup, and met him in the lobby with minutes to spare. His smile of approval had nothing to do with business and everything to do with a man liking the looks of the woman who approached him.

He held the taxi door for her and took his seat beside her. “I may not be in this evening, Allison; bright lights hold a lot of fascination for a country boy.”

She turned her body fully to face him. “Did you say you’re a country boy?”

“Surprised?”

She nodded. “I am, indeed.”

He winked. Voluntarily or not, she couldn’t tell. “Yep. I was born in Reed Hollow, Maryland, about a mile from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. I was wondering when you’d get around to asking. Couldn’t be that you intend to stick to my present daytime activities, as you promised?”

She glanced down at her long, perfectly manicured fingers. “As a man of the world, you ought to know the folly of whetting a reporter’s appetite. The obvious is far less interesting than that which is obscure or hidden.”

She felt the tension in him, as one feels a speeding object just before it hits, and wondered at his anxiety. “Don’t get antsy. I promise to write nothing but the truth.” She watched in astonishment as he withdrew.

“Another person’s truth isn’t necessarily yours to tell. A man’s privacy is sacred.”

She refused to give quarter. “Public figures have to forgo some of their cherished privacy.”

He eased into the corner, away from her. “And the public has a right to know, damn the individual and what disclosure does to him. Right?”

Stunned, her breath lodged in her throat, and she stared at him. When she regained her equilibrium, she told him, “I’m not a monster, and I never write lies. Never.”

But her words evidently didn’t placate him, for he stared straight ahead, his expression grim. “That’s more than I’ve come to expect from reporters. Some of you can twist the truth to the point that...that love of country seems like a crime. I want to see your text as you go along, and if at any point it’s out of line, this deal is off.”

“In your dreams, mister,” she sputtered. “Not even my editor sees my copy until I’ve finished it.”

“We’ll see about that” was his dark reply.

Allison figured she’d better check in with her boss, though as always she dreaded talking with him.

“Jenkins.”

“Just checking in, Bill. We’re at the Drake.”

“We? Now you’re talking. Squeeze everything out of him. I’ve never yet seen a man that couldn’t be had if a woman played her cards right.”

She swallowed hard. Didn’t he ever elevate his mind? “I called to let you know where I am. My room number is eleven-B, and I believe Mr. Covington is in sixteen-H.”

She imagined his look of incredulity when he said, “You’re joking. I gave you credit for more than that.”

“I hope I didn’t misunderstand what you said, Bill.”

His snort reached her through the wires. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m in the business of scooping other papers. Play it any way you choose. Just bring me a good story, and if you find out that the guy smokes opium or sniffs coke, it had better be in your story.”

She didn’t know why she laughed, because his words hadn’t amused her. When she could control it, she asked him, “Have you ever met Jacob Covington?”

“No, and never wanted to. Why?”

“He’s a gentleman. If he’d heard your reaction to our room arrangements, he’d probably cancel this deal; he doesn’t trust The Journal. If you want this story, you’d better ease up and let me handle it my way.”

His long silence told volumes, but she waited. “I’ve been in this business thirty years,” he said at last, “and you’re a lamb born yesterday, but you know it better. Do what you please, but you get me that story just like I want it.”

A sense of foreboding seeped through her, and she wished she hadn’t called him.

While Jake met privately with his editor, Allison reviewed her notes in the publishing company’s waiting room. Keeping her mind on her work proved difficult; the friction between Jake and herself worried her because she sensed that they had on their hands an attraction that could erupt into full-blown passion. And she didn’t want that, at least not until she’d turned in her story. It was never far from her thoughts that she’d lost her first job because she’d fallen for Roland Farr, on whom she’d been assigned to write a story. She hoped Jacob Covington didn’t have any secrets and that, if he did, she didn’t find out about them, because whatever she discovered was going in that story. After covering for Farr, a gesture that had almost ruined her life, she had learned a painful lesson.