Once in a Lifetime (20 page)

“You’re the boss.”

“Let’s see. Since the hosts are men, I’ll start with an old rose and dark tan color scheme. You’re in Maryland, and it’s crab season. So it’s little Maryland crab cakes, broiled bacon-wrapped chicken livers, tiny buttermilk biscuits, broiled scallop kebabs, barbecued buffalo wings—”

“Right on, girl,” Alexis interrupted. “I’m impressed. If you need any contacts here, let me know.”

“Nothing. Just the phone number of someone at the chamber of commerce who’s got good sense. I’ll take it from there.”

She hadn’t brought an evening gown to Harrington House, and she didn’t plan to waste on a ball gown the money she’d saved since coming there. The next Thursday, her day off, she drove to her house in Philadelphia and after a brief visit with her tenants, collected from a storage closet in the basement two evening gowns, accessories and several elegant street-length dresses, lingerie and a nightgown set. It amazed her that she had no emotional attachment to her home, no sense of belonging in that place.

Late in the afternoon, she parked in front of Harrington House and lingered in the car as the uncertainty of her life pressed heavily on her. She hadn’t lied when she told Telford she’d burned her bridges. She looked up at the Harrington brothers’ imposing colonial house, closed her eyes and leaned against the steering wheel. She was home, the place where she knew she belonged. Home, where she loved a man who loved her. Home, where she worked as a housekeeper. She dried her tears and drove into the big four-car garage.

Velma arrived a week before the reception, though she had already organized the affair. “Girl, you trust me up here with those three hunks?” she asked her sister when Alexis settled her in the upstairs guest room. “Sleepwalking is something a person can’t control.”

Velma had always enjoyed making practical jokes, and
Alexis tolerated her sister’s off-the-wall sense of humor, but she meant to make it clear that pranks involving Telford were out of bounds.

“Just be sure you don’t wake up in a mahogany-colored sleigh bed. Fratricide has been around ever since Cain knocked off Abel.”

Velma stroked her hips and allowed herself a hearty laugh. “You used to cover your corners better than that, honey. You just told me where Telford sleeps. He
is
the one, right?”

Alexis nodded. “Looks like it, but nothing’s definite.”

Velma leaned her head to one side and contemplated her sister. “No? Well, if he’s an upstanding citizen, looks and acts sweet, got a nice slow hand and it swings right in the sack, put a lock on it. If you don’t, a smarter sister definitely will.” She rubbed her hands together, and an expression of pure glee seemed to change her face into a charismatic neon sign. “Which one’s the tallest?”

“Telford’s the tallest, but not by much, and they’ll be here by seven, because that’s when we eat.”

“Hmmm. Wonder whose rule
that
is,” she said dryly, as if to herself. “What time does Tara get home from school?”

“Around four if she comes on the bus; a bit earlier when Telford brings her.”

Velma stopped hanging up her clothes, walked over to her sister, who was taller by two inches, and looked up at her. “You love this man. It’s on your face, in your voice when you say his name, in your whole demeanor. I can’t wait to see him.”

Alexis set the dining room table for seven people that evening and added a centerpiece of yellow and orange chrysanthemums, autumn-colored oak leaves, evergreen branches and candles. “Why do I enjoy doing this so much, when I hated entertaining during my marriage to Jack?” she asked herself aloud. She knew the answer. Jack used her, but although they paid her, Telford and his brothers treated her as if this were her own home.

Velma looked at the table with an expression of approval. “Mama flunked out when it came to human relations, but she
definitely knew the requisites of an elegant home. I’ve often wished she’d been as meticulous about giving me a hug once in a while as she was about the shine on the damned silver.”

“I know. Me, too, but she’s gone now, and I forgive her.”

Velma walked around the table as if she were inspecting it, but Alexis knew her sister’s mind was in the past. “Good for you. I wish I could embrace the Quaker teachings, because I think it has something to do with this peacefulness in you. Not me though. My mouth is never going to be still, and I can’t imagine forgoing a chance to tell it like it is. I’ll die a Presbyterian.”

Alexis hugged her sister, reveling in the joy of having her near. “You’re something of a nut, but I love you just like you are. Don’t overdress for dinner. I’m wearing an ankle-length rust-colored T-shirt.”

Velma raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. And you’ll look like a fashion model. If I put that on, somebody would mistake me for a butterball. I’m going with my green caftan.”

“At least we won’t clash. I’ve got a few things to do in my room. See you a little later.”

When Telford brought Tara home that afternoon, the child’s squeals filled the house. “Aunt Velma. My mummy told me you were coming.”

Alexis introduced Telford and her sister. When he grinned, Alexis knew he understood the blatant once-over Velma gave him.

“Hi,” he said, his facial expression reminding her more of Drake than of himself. “Do I pass muster?”

She could have told him that, when it came to freshness, he’d met his equal. “And with plenty to spare,” Velma said. “A regular number ten. Any more where you came from?”

He laughed aloud. “I have a feeling I’m out of my league here. There’re two more, but they don’t think I’m like them. Thanks for helping me out.” He looked at Tara. “We’ll get to your lessons as soon as you drink some milk and eat whatever Henry’s got for you.”

“Okay,” she said, blew him a kiss and ran off toward the kitchen.

Drake greeted Velma with the warmth and charm he reserved for females, and Velma responded in kind. One ladies’ man and one coquettish woman, Alexis decided. Nothing there. At dinner, she waited for Russ to show annoyance at Velma’s presence. He hated inconveniences, and with Velma occupying the guest room across the hall from his bedroom for the next eight days, he’d have to clean up his act.

“So you’re an entertainment manager,” he said to Velma.

Velma focused her attention on the rack of lamb, fluted mushrooms, spinach and potato croquettes in her plate. “That’s what I do.”

“Any good at it?” he asked her.

“Uh-huh, and I’m well paid for it.”

“Say, don’t get your back up. I’m just making conversation. Where do you live?”

“I pay rent in Wilmington, Delaware, but I work all over the country, so I’m not there much.”

“Who’s older? You or Alexis?”

“Me, by a year and eight months.”

Alexis listened to them talk, suddenly aware that no one at the table joined in.
He’s not hostile toward her.

Her gaze swept around the table. Henry, Telford and Drake ate as if dining alone. For Russ, laconic by nature and never one to lead a conversation, this amounted to a barrage of words and, what was more, it was he who propelled it.

“Hope you enjoy your stay here,” he said.

Velma finally looked at him, though with little more than a quick appraisal and none of the impudence she displayed when jostling with Drake. “I’ll take any help I can get. And thanks.”

Alexis managed to catch her fork before it clattered on her plate.
That wasn’t flirtation; it was a come-on.

“Don’t expect no help from him,” Henry put in. “He thinks house guests is some kind of virus.”

“Knock it off, Henry,” Russ said, but without his usual bite.
“Don’t pay any attention to him, Velma.
He
thinks that if he keeps his mouth shut for a few minutes, he’ll get lockjaw.”

“Oh, Mr. Russ.” The adults stared at Tara as if they’d forgotten she was there. “Mr. Russ, please. Please don’t say that. Mr. Henry will cook cabbage stew, and I don’t like cabbage stew.”

Telford explained the comment to Velma, and a chorus of laughter ended the meal.

Telford leaned against the marble fireplace in the den, sipping espresso and watching Alexis. Who would guess that she wasn’t mistress of Harrington House, but a paid homemaker? He no longer signed her checks; in his eyes, that demeaned her. He left that job to their business accountant.
We can’t continue this way. She avoids being alone with me, especially after dinner, and I know it’s because she fears having an affair. She’s erected a barrier between us, subtle and troublesome.

He glanced around the den. In one corner, Drake accused Tara of cheating in their game of checkers. In another, Velma was apparently charming Russ, who laughed more than he’d known his brother to laugh. Alexis sat alone in a tan-colored wing chair, her legs crossed at the knee while she swung her left foot, the essence of self-possession and tranquillity.

He ambled over to where she sat. “You’re a soft rain after a long summer’s draught. You light up my world.”

She looked up at him, and he knew the second he got to her. Eyes that had been clear pools of serenity flashed with the heat of desire, the fire of a woman who knows what’s there for her.

“Get your coat, and let’s go for a walk. Want to?”

She made an effort to hide her eagerness to join him, shrugging her shoulder and swinging her foot, but her eyes and the way she shifted in her seat betrayed her desire to be with him. He leaned over and brushed her forehead with his lips.

“Come with me. I’ll wait for you in the foyer.”

Without a word, she stood and walked over to Tara. “I’m going for a walk. Be back in a few minutes.”

Tara looked up at Alexis. “Mummy, Mr. Drake’s supposed to be teaching me checkers, but he’s cheating.”

“That’s a strong word, honey, and I’m sure you’re wrong.”

Tara looked at Drake. “Are you cheating?”

Drake pulled one of Tara’s braids. “No, and you stop accusing me of it. Friends don’t cheat each other.”

Her bottom lip protruded. “Then how come I don’t win?”

“You will when you learn the game,” Drake said.

Love, warmth and camaraderie shouted at him from every corner of Telford’s home, and he had no trouble tracing it to Alexis.

She didn’t make him wait long for her. She never did, and it was one of the habits that drew him to her—her respect for others. Wrapped in a red woolen shawl, she smiled when she stepped into the foyer and saw him, spontaneously, as if she hadn’t expected to find him there.

He reached for her hand. “Would you rather walk or go for a ride?”

They stepped out into the brisk late-September evening, made bright by the glow of the full moon.

“It’s such a beautiful night. Let’s walk.”

He wanted to stop right there, take her into his arms and love her, but he knew that, with the uncertainties dominating their relationship, he’d better leash his feelings lest they get the better of him. As they strolled arm in arm along Old Liberty Road toward the warehouse, their shadows stretched far ahead of them, elongated and thin, he thought, like figures in an El Greco painting. A breeze stirred the red, yellow and golden leaves that swirled around their feet, dancing like magic creatures of the nearby woods. He stopped suddenly when a doe and her fawn crossed the road half a block in front of them.

“I never knew this until I came here,” she said, almost as if speaking to herself. “This quiet. The stillness. The beauty. It’s almost unbearable.”

When she would have walked on, he restrained her. “I’ve lived here all my life, but I didn’t see this.” He waved his left hand around to indicate what his eyes beheld. “None of it, until I looked at it through your eyes.”

She looked up at him with a question in her gaze. “How could you not see it?”

“Easily. As a child, I wasn’t often happy, so I guess I didn’t know beauty when I saw it. Besides, I’ve done the work of a man ever since I was seventeen. I didn’t have time to appreciate nature.”

She squeezed his fingers. “But it’s everywhere.” She tugged at her shawl, wrapping it more tightly over her shoulders.

Tugging that shawl close, she was like a little bird bracing itself in a blustery wind, and the need to hold and protect her slammed into him. “Are you cold? Let me warm you.”

When he gathered her to him, he intended to hold her close, nothing more. But she gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with fire-hot want. Lustful and yielding. Unmistakable desire. “Alexis!”

Her hand, soft and delicate, stroked his face, and heat sprinted from its touch, boiling the blood that shot through him, blistering his veins and stoking the furnace in his groin. Her lips parted, and he plunged into her, ready to drain her of that sweet potion that fired his manhood.

In a second, she called his number. Always the giver, but not this time. She pulled him into her, demanding that he give, pressing the tips of her fingers into his body, straining him to her.
Give yourself to me,
she seemed to say. And forgetting his own needs, he gave, glorying in the loss of himself to her. She pulled his tongue deeper into her mouth, and with one hand on his buttocks and the other on his upper back, she locked him to her and demanded surrender.

If he didn’t set her away from him, his passion would roar out of control, yet he knew it was no use. She tried to climb his body, to get closer to the source of sweet satisfaction, and he lifted her and let her have her way. Her long legs straddled him,
and when she brought his hand to her breast, her breathing changed to a pant and she moaned her frustration.

With the little energy she hadn’t sapped out of him, he loosened her hold and set her on her feet. He had never made love standing on an open road or even contemplated it and, if he did it then—as badly as she wanted him—she’d be gone when he got up the next morning. And worse, she would dislike him.

“Alexis, sweetheart. We need to get a few things straight. Your head doesn’t want an affair, but your heart and the rest of your body are all for it. Furthermore, you aren’t even sure you want
more
than an affair with me. I don’t want to go on like this.”