Читать книгу One Night With You - Gwynne Forster, Gwynne Forster - Страница 7

“You haven’t asked where we’re going,” Reid said as they headed out of Queenstown. “Aren’t you concerned?”

“Not really. As long as I can eat when I get hungry, I’ll be happy. Besides, a really sweet man will do whatever he can to make me comfortable.”

“Let’s see. You told me that you’re almost forty. Haven’t you ever misplaced your trust?”

“I did once, and thereafter I protected myself, but while I was protecting myself, life passed me by. Do you get my drift?”

“Yeah. Are you saying you’re willing to take a chance with me?”

“If you want the truth, Reid, I have not let myself face that question. In fact, I have skated all around it, and very skillfully, I might say.”

“That’s two of us. There’re a lot of reasons why we should avoid each other, and you know all of them. But that’s what I think when I’m being logical. The rest of the time, I want what you gave me when I walked into your house this evening.” He drove into a roadside restaurant, parked and turned to her. “I want that and more, and I know that wanting you has nothing to do with the number of women I’m acquainted with in Queenstown. I would want you if I lived in Baltimore, where I know a slew of people, male and female, or for that matter, if I lived in Paris.”

This man was telling her that she should take him seriously; that he wanted her and was bold enough to go after what he wanted. Taken aback by his bluntness, she stammered, “Oh…I think you’re ahead of me.”

“And if I did what I want to do right now, I’d take you in my arms and kiss you until I’m drunker off you than I was forty minutes ago.”

She wanted him as badly as he wanted her, but she didn’t want that to be the basis of their relationship and she decided to tell him so. “Do you think you can slow down, Reid? I confess that I want you, but I am not going to allow that to be the basis of a relationship with you. I need more. I need friendship, companionship and…and…okay, I’ll say it…and love. I need caring and affection, and I’m dying to give all that in return. I want to make love with you in the worst way, but I’ve learned how to deny myself, so…let’s go eat.”

He gazed at her until she began to wonder at his mood. Suddenly, he said, “I’ll buy that.” His face transformed itself into a smile, and she wondered whether she’d be able to handle him if she ever needed to. He held her hand as they walked into the restaurant, a large but cozy room with hanging chandeliers, upholstered chairs, tables spaced far apart and the sound of soft, easy-listening music flowing around them.

“It’s beautiful, Reid. How did you find it?”

“I saw it when I drove to Caution Point this morning and noticed that it was used for wedding parties, so I figured it would be nice. I called and made a reservation.”

“Yes, it’s beautiful,” she repeated, “and so are you. You clean up real good, as they say.”

His smile told her that he appreciated her compliment, but he added, “Thank you, Kendra. I’m beginning to feel like my old self, but when I look at you, knowing who and what you are, I’m humbled. You are so beautiful. I love you in that dress.”

She nearly lost her breath, although she knew there had to be more to that sentence. The maître d’ seated them in a corner near a fireplace, one of several in the room. The place was bound to be expensive, but she didn’t intend to insult him by suggesting that they split the bill. She ordered white wine, and he asked for a wine and club soda spritzer. “I’m driving,” he told the sommelier when the man looked at him disparagingly.

A waiter took their order, and she noted the frown on Reid’s face when the man allowed his gaze to linger on her cleavage.

Reid raised his glass. “Here’s to the loveliest of women.”

“And here’s to the nicest, sweetest man I know.”

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t push you. You don’t have to say anything about my…er…charm and—”

“Then, I won’t. Did you rent a car today?”

“My boss let me use a company car.” He leaned forward. “Kendra, I have so much to tell you. The day got better by the hour.” He told her about his visit with Marcus, of Marcus’s request that he design a building for him, about his boss’s agreement allowing him to do it.

“Kendra, Jack invited me to lunch. He loved the sketch I did for the airport terminal in Caution Point, and another one that he thinks he can use for a deal he’s trying to make. But, Kendra, even before he saw my ideas for that airport terminal, he and Connerly, the junior partner, had decided to raise me from assistant to full architect with double the pay. Do you—”

She interrupted him. “I think I’m going to cry. I—”

“Cry? Why, for heaven’s sake?”

“I’m so happy for you. I…I’m…excuse me.” She stumbled from the table and rushed to the women’s room, where the tears flowed. Now maybe there was a chance for them. He would be his own man, the company recognized his value and he didn’t have to look up to anyone. She patted cold water on her face, dried it with a paper towel, buffed her skin and headed back to the table.

The maître d’ intercepted her. “Is Madame all right?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said, and looked up and saw that Reid stood by the table waiting for her. If she had been at home, she suspected that she would have run to him, but she remembered who and where she was, controlled the urge and let her smile communicate to him her feelings.

He walked to meet her. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Reid. Forgive me for letting it get out of control.”

He assisted her in sitting down and walked around to his own chair. “I’m glad you’re fine, but I need to know what happened.”

She took a deep breath. “Not since I met you have I seen you so…so full of…of hope, so happy, just bursting with joie de vivre. Seeing you that way, almost watching years fall away from you. I couldn’t help it. I’m so happy for you. It’s the first time I’ve ever cried because I was happy.”

“You were crying for me?” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. She didn’t answer him. Something was happening between them, and neither of them would be able to alter its course. He repeated the question.

“Yes. Silly, aren’t I?”

His gaze—fiery, turbulent—bored into her, refusing to release her, and she couldn’t glance away. “I guarantee you that if I had you alone and in a private place right now, I would make love with you, and I wouldn’t stop until you were mine.”

“Could I…may I have some more wine, please?”

“Of course you may. I see you haven’t disagreed with me. We’re going to be lovers, Kendra. Maybe not soon, but you can bet on it.”

“I’ve never had a man talk like this to me, so I don’t know what to say to you right now.”

“You haven’t told me that I’m out of line. Am I?”

“I don’t…no. You aren’t out of line, but it’s best you don’t push me. I can get stubborn, even against myself.”

A smile lit up his face, and it seemed as if a spotlight shone on him. He squeezed her fingers. “I won’t push you. I’m a patient man, or at least I have been in the past. I hope I’ll be able to boast of my patience six months from now. Something tells me I’ve never been tested.”

She leaned back in her chair and looked at him. “When we met, I had trouble getting you to utter a sentence that had more than six words. Now you’re very expressive. You talk to me. I like the change. Now if I can just get you to tell me goodbye when you leave me.”

“That day probably won’t come, Kendra. My mother was the last person to whom I used those two words. She’s been gone since I was sixteen.”

She turned over her hand so that her palm caressed his. “I’m so sorry, Reid. Who raised you after that? I mean, who saw you through school?”

“My dad. He’s gone now. It happened while I was fighting that class action suit.”

She’d like to know what it was about the man that got to her so thoroughly. I’m not in love with him, so what is it?

“Would Madame care for dessert?” the waiter asked. “Our dessert chef is world famous, sir,” he said to Reid, who ordered a floating island.

“I’ll have raspberry and peach sorbet,” she said, pleased with herself for having resisted the sour lime pie.

“If we were in Baltimore,” Reid said as they left the restaurant, “I would take you dancing. I don’t know any nice place around here, and that’s a pity. You look so lovely that I don’t want to take you home yet.”

“There’ll be other nights, Reid. At least, I hope so.”

“And there will be, if I have my way. Say, do you have a regional map in the glove compartment?” She opened it and removed an AAA map. He took her hand, walked over to the light and examined the map.

“We can be in Elizabeth City in twenty minutes to half an hour at only moderate speed. What do you say?”

She loved to dance; imagined dancing with him. “I’m for it.”

Half a mile down the highway, he filled up the gas tank, got back into the car and drove off singing, “God Didn’t Make Little Green Apples.”

“Can you cook?” she asked him, though she didn’t know why the thought had occurred.

“I’m a pretty good cook. I like to eat, so I taught myself to cook. Cooking is a special kind of chemistry,” he said, warming up to the subject. “It’s a matter of putting together the right flavors and avoiding combinations that will blow up in your face. Right?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that’s close enough. Did you like chemistry in school?”

“I tolerated it. I loved physics.”

They talked of their likes and dislikes in music, art, dance, literature and hobbies, and they shared their dreams. By the time they reached Elizabeth City, nearly an hour had elapsed, but neither noticed. He drove into a gas station and asked the attendant if he knew where a man could take a lady dancing.

“This lady is a judge,” he told the man, “so it has to be a clean and classy place.” He held a ten-dollar bill in his hand where the attendant could see it.

The guy peeped in the car. “Man, she don’t look like no judge to me. Uh, sorry, sir. No problem, sir. Check out the Skylight Roof on top of the Wright Hotel. You won’t find any riffraff there. Go straight till you get to a circle, turn left, drive four blocks. You’ll be there.”

She laid her left hand on his forearm. “Thanks for thinking of the quality of the place, Reid. It’s been so long since I went anywhere special that I didn’t think of it.”

“When you’re with me, Kendra, I’ll do everything I can to take care of you, and I know you’d do the same for me.”

When they reached the hotel, Reid said to the doorman, “Do you have a band tonight?”

“Yes, sir. Every night, sir.”

He looked the man in the eye. “My date is a judge. Is it all right for me to take her in there?”

“Yes, sir. We cater to only the most discriminating guests.”

She loved the room. Pink chandeliers cast a soft glow over the white tables, each of which held three white calla lilies in a slender vase. “I don’t want anything to drink,” he said, “but I’ll order something for you if you’d like.”

“Thanks. I’d like a ginger ale on crushed ice.”

“I think I’ll have the same,” he said and beckoned for the waiter.

“What kind of music do you prefer to dance to?” he asked her.

“I love jazz saxophone, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll enjoy it no matter what they play.”

Why was he looking at her that way? She wished she knew him well enough to read him. The band leader announced a fox-trot, and Reid stood. Just before his arms went around her, he kissed her with his eyes, warmed her with his repressed desire and a riot of sensation sent tremors throughout her body.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’m already drowning in your aura, so don’t pour it on too heavily.”

He was drowning? “If we get into trouble, we’ll save each other.”

He missed a step. “Honesty and straightforwardness are among the things I like about you, but I’d appreciate it if you would choose your times to be candid.”

The piece ended, and the orchestra leader announced “Solitude,” a Duke Ellington song from the 1930s. She moved into him then. She couldn’t help it, for the alto saxophone moaned and cried, haunting, harnessing the blues for posterity. She gripped his shoulders and swung to his rhythm as if she had danced with him from the moment of her birth. Soon, she didn’t hear the orchestra, only the music of his body moving with hers. When at last the music stopped, she looked up at him.

“If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d swear we’ve danced together for years. It’s uncanny. I’ve known you a little over a month, and I feel as if I’ve known you for years and years.”

“Seems that way to me, too. I think we ought to start back. It’ll be after midnight when we get home.”

They didn’t talk on the way home. Normally, she loved silence, because it allowed her to think. But not this mocking quiet, so intense that it spoke with the power of thunder. At last, they reached her house, and he parked and handed her the keys.

“I want to spend the night with you, Kendra, but I know this isn’t the time. My body feels as if it’s in a prison, locked behind bars and rearing to get out, but in a way, it’s a good feeling. I’m alive, and I couldn’t have said that before I met you. Come on, I’ll see you into your house.”

“Wait here,” he said when they entered her foyer, issuing orders as usual. “I’ll take a look around.” As if she didn’t walk into that house alone almost every time she entered it. He came back to her. “All clear. I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven, and we’ll walk down to the Sound, that is if you still want to.”

“I want to. I had a wonderful time tonight, Reid, and I…Thanks for sharing your good news with me.”

“Being able to tell you about it means more to me than you can imagine. See you in the morning.”

“Wait a minute here,” she said. “You give me an evening like this one and you aren’t going to kiss me goodnight? Not even a peck on the cheek?”

He stared down at her until she wondered if she should have kept the thought to herself. “You want me to kiss you?” he said.

She didn’t plan it, but her fingers worked at the buttons on her coat, releasing them one by one. “Yes.” It came out as a whisper.

His hands slid beneath her coat, bringing her body to his, and his mouth came down on hers, fierce and hungry. His ravenous lips and his hands on her body, more possessive now and more familiar, sent darts zinging through her. But as quickly, he softened the kiss, and she parted her lips, shamelessly asking for more of him. He stopped kissing her and hugged her to him as if she were precious.

“Something happened to us back there in that restaurant, Kendra, and if I don’t get out of here, I’ll louse it up.”

She stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. “I don’t want that to happen. I’m a judge, but you’re far more sophisticated, more worldly and more accomplished than I am. Right now, I feel like a schoolgirl on her first big date, and I’m reluctant to end it. See you at eleven.”

“I’ve seen more of the world and I’ve done more, perhaps, but I am not more accomplished than you are. I’m proud of you.” He kissed her forehead and left.

At least now she knew why he never bothered to say goodbye.

What an evening! She wouldn’t lie if she said she’d never had such a good time and certainly not such an elegant date in her whole life. And with that handsome man dressed to the nines. Tripping up the stairs to her bedroom, she stopped midway, sobered by the thought that hit her like a bolt of lightning. She was on the verge of falling for Reid Maguire, a man she barely knew. And yet, it seemed that she’d known him all of her life.

Reid jogged across Albemarle Heights to the building in which he lived, wishing that he was dressed to run miles. He needed to vent, to expel the emotion, the sexual energy coiled inside him like a fanged serpent, energy that had been dormant for years, but which sprang to life the minute he saw her. What a relief it would be if he could open his arms wide and let the wind take him wherever it would.

All that had happened to him that day, beginning with Marcus Hickson in Caution Point, had raised his hopes for his future. But when Kendra had cried for joy at his good news and then opened her arms to him, something had happened to him, something that he had never experienced before, not with Myrna or any other woman. Standing with Kendra in her foyer, he’d felt as if he belonged to her, and it was a strange feeling, indeed, for, even as a child, he had been his own person.

He opened his door, went inside and headed for the kitchen where he got a can of beer from the refrigerator and took it to the living room. After kicking off his shoes and getting rid of his jacket and tie, he popped the can of beer, flipped on the television set, leaned back and prepared to straighten out his head. In the past, that hadn’t been difficult, but the only image he saw on the screen was a sexy red dress and a woman whose allure had the power to shackle him.

He flipped off the television, drained the can of beer and went to his bedroom. “If I’m in love with her, I’m sunk,” he said aloud. He knew the danger of deep involvement with her, yet he couldn’t seem to stay away from her. But he would have to. It would hurt, probably both of them, but he had to settle the score with Brown and Worley.

He slept fitfully, rose early and began drafting the details of his design for the Caution Point air terminal. He didn’t know when he’d ever felt so good. At nine o’clock, he telephoned Marcus Hickson in Caution Point.

“The news is good,” he said after he and Marcus greeted each other. “And I’m surprised. My boss said I can do the job independent of the company, and he’s promised to send me a letter to that effect. I’ll be over the first weekend after I get that letter, and you can tell me what you need and show me the space.”

“Great. I’ll expect your call.”

“I can’t advertise that I’m doing this, because Jack—he’s my boss—said he’ll have problems with his other architects if they know about it.”

“I can appreciate that, and I’ll keep it to myself.”

At a few minutes before eleven, he dressed in warm clothing, put on his hooded storm jacket and dashed across the street to Kendra’s house. She opened the door at once.

“Hi.” She reached up and kissed him quickly on the mouth, then licked her lips, as if savoring a sweet and wicked thing.

“Hi,” he said. “Do I smell coffee?”

“You do, and I made it for you, because I know you’ve had nothing but instant.”

He followed her to the kitchen, pulled off his jacket and threw it across the back of a chair. She took a mug from one of the cabinets, put a small amount of milk in it, poured the coffee, handed it to him and turned back to pour one for herself.

“Kendra, you’re precious. Are you aware that if we continue this way, we’re liable to be stuck with each other for life?”

She didn’t turn around to look at him when she said, “Worse things could happen to me.”

He should stay where he was, and he should let that pass, but he got up and walked to her and, standing behind her, gripped her shoulders. “Does that mean you could love me?”

“Of course I could love you,” she said, her voice low and without inflection. “Now go back over there and finish your coffee.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is I’m scared. This is moving so fast. I want to be with you every minute, but I don’t even know who you are, and you don’t know who I am. I don’t know what hurts you, makes you sad, angry, happy. I wouldn’t know how to comfort you if you were down and depressed. Do you play jokes on people, Reid.? What games do you like to play? Oh, Reid. Hold me!”

He turned her to face him, wrapped her in his arms and stroked the back of her head as she rested it against his shoulder. “We are moving fast, and I tell myself to slow down, but I don’t really want to. When I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you. Do you want us to…to see less of each other?”

“We ought to, for your sake. I want you to win that case, and a liaison with me could prove to be an impediment. I’m not willing to sacrifice that, no matter how we feel about each other.”

“I know what you’re saying, and I’ve thought about it, too. And then, we’re together, and our being together, like now, is so natural and so fulfilling,” he said to her. “How am I going to give up the pleasure of being with you?” He released her and lifted the mug of coffee. “Could you top this off, please?”

She poured some of the coffee out and refilled the cup. “Let’s go down to the Sound. I’ll get my jacket while you drink that.”

They strolled down Albemarle Heights to Washington Avenue, the road that led them to the Sound. Although flowers bloomed, the wind from the ocean still chilled, and she folded her arms to warm herself against it. As they reached the bottom—as the locals called it—of Washington Street, Reid’s arm went around her, pulling her to his side.

“It irks me that I can’t even hold your hand when we’re walking the streets.”

“Let’s give it a try, Reid. We can talk on the phone, have an occasional dinner together at your house or mine, or maybe not. I don’t know. Anyhow, I’ll always be there for you if you need me. So, let’s not see each other, Reid. I’m afraid that if we get closer, it may hurt you. I won’t be happy with that arrangement, but it’s best.”

Reid faced the wind and turned her so that she had her back to it. “What do you feel for me, Kendra? I care for you. It’s deep, and I know it isn’t going away. Tell me.”

“I care deeply for you. This isn’t a brush-off, and you know it.”

He looked into the distance. “I’m going to hire a lawyer and get started on that suit. I’m going to try to keep my distance, but I don’t promise not to call you, and I want you to promise to let me know whenever you need me. Will you do that?”

“If I need you, I’ll let you know.” Her voice broke.

“To hell with it, baby,” he said and put his arms around her. “Come on, let’s go back.”

After the first court session Monday morning, Kendra asked Carl, her clerk, to come into her chambers. “Carl, I want to get involved in the community, but I don’t quite know how to go about it. If I’m going to live here, I have to have a stake in the place.”

“We have a great little theater group, Judge. I used to belong to it, but after the babies started coming, I dropped out. What free time I had, I use to relieve my wife and look after the children. They’ll be glad to have you, and especially if you can act.”