He managed to get Edwina’s attention. “Where did you meet my dad?”
She smiled as if savoring a pleasant memory. “In court. I was a witness for the district attorney. Jethro got pretty hot with me, questioned my integrity, and almost lost his temper. After the jury gave him his comeuppance, he met me in the courthouse hallway, apologized, and invited me to lunch. I didn’t see him in person from that afternoon until tonight, but I never forgot him.” She looked at Jethro and lowered her lashes as if embarrassed.
Sam tried to relieve her of the moment’s discomfort by letting her know that he did not disapprove of a relationship between her and his father. “This is fantastic,” he said. “You and I have known each other for at least seven years, and I never dreamed that you knew my dad.”
“I always knew you were his son. How’d you find out that he knew me?”
“He heard the program last Sunday and told me he wanted to see you and to meet Kendra.”
“Interesting. I thought Sunday that you and Kendra had something going, so I wasn’t surprised to see her here tonight.”
Sam glanced at Kendra before staring at Edwina. “You did? I met Kendra Sunday when I walked into that radio station. It’s true that she hit me with the force of a sledgehammer, but I didn’t realize it was so obvious.”
Lettie walked in, putting an end at least temporarily to that conversation. “Dinner’s ready, Mr. Sam.”
“Thanks, Lettie.”
They made their way through a seven-course gourmet meal that consisted of smoked salmon pâté, cream of mushroom soup, filet mignon with marsala wine sauce, lemon roasted potatoes, asparagus, green salad, and assorted cheeses. When Lettie presented the dessert, crystal bowls of crème Courvoisier, Jethro joshed, “Lettie, if I had known you could turn out this kind of meal, I’d have stolen you from Sam long ago.”
Later, as they sat in the living room, sipping liqueurs and espresso, Sam reflected that Kendra seemed perfect in his environment. But the thought that she was the child to whom she referred in her letter to the
Post
cast a pall over what had been for him a perfect evening. It was also the first time that his sprawling apartment had seemed truly like home. He looked at Kendra and found her watching him before she quickly glanced away, but he had seen her feelings of affection and more for him mirrored in her eyes. Damn the luck. If he were alone with her, he’d light her fire.
Jethro went to the kitchen and thanked Lettie for the dinner. “It was wonderful. Your talents are underused,” he told her.
“That’s what I tell Mr. Sam. It won’t hurt him a bit to have nice company like tonight once in a while. I’ll lose my touch.”
“Stay after him,” Jethro said. “He loves to eat.”
Sam couldn’t resist following his father to the kitchen. “Are you glad to see her again?”
A frown marred Jethro’s face as he looked at his son. “Where’ve you been all evening? You mean you can’t tell? I was enchanted with her back then, but it gave me a guilty feeling, and by sheer willpower, I closed my eyes and my heart to it. I loved your mother, and I refused to let demon libido ruin our lives. But I never forgot her; I simply lived with it.”
“But after Mom died, you could have found Edwina. Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know that she wasn’t still married, and I didn’t feel up to dealing with fresh feelings that I’d have to get over later.”
Sam moved closer and patted his father on the shoulder. “I’ll be damned. You’re quite a man.”
They returned to the living room, and Jethro shook hands with Kendra. “I’m looking forward to seeing you again and again.” Then, he walked over to Edwina and grasped her hand. “I’d like to leave now. May I take you home?”
She stood at once. “Thank you. I’d like that.” She looked at Kendra. “Good-bye. I hope to see you again soon.”
Sam walked with them to the door, waited while Jethro got them into their coats, and then he said, “I’m happy for both of you, and I hope this is the beginning of something good.”
“Thank you,” they responded in unison, and Jethro added, “If I’m lucky, it’s a dream come true.”
Sam left them at the door, shaking his head in bemusement as he went back to Kendra. Lettie had left, and his libido kicked up the minute he realized that he and Kendra were alone. When he reached her, he saw that her facial expression reflected her awareness of that fact.
“I’ve had a wonderful visit, and I’m glad I met your father. It’s . . . I think I’d better be going.”
He wondered if she didn’t trust him or whether she couldn’t rely on herself to follow the dictates of her own mind. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready,” he told her, “but we’ve hardly had a minute to ourselves. I’ve been trying to adjust to my dad with Edwina, and that is not easy.”
“Because she’s white?”
“Oh no, not that. I grant him the right to a woman of his choice, and I demand the same for myself. Because she’s Edwina. I’ve known the professional, always businesslike woman, but this Edwina was as soft as a kitten. Talk about a chameleon!”
“It was a dramatic change, all right,” Kendra said, “but I liked this soft Edwina. She wants your father, and she’s letting him see her without the armor of her Ph.D. Do you think it will work out?”
“I’ll bet on my dad any day. What did you think of him?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder and stroked the back of his hand. “Sam, you know your father is an impressive man. He’s also handsome and self-possessed, and . . . well, he’s also gentle. I like that. In fact, I like him. You resemble him a great deal.”
“Thanks. I hope I’m as much of a man as he is. When will we see each other again?”
“I’ll study until around three tomorrow.”
He played with the fingers of her left hand. “And after that?”
“Do you really want to see me again tomorrow?”
He wanted to shake some sense into her, but he settled for placing a hand on each of her shoulders and looking her in the eye. “I want to see you as often as I can and for as long as possible, and don’t tell me that surprises you. I’m strongly attracted to you, and I want you. That’s normal.”
“I know that,” she said. “Can we go?”
He stood, grasped her hand, and walked with her to the foyer. After helping her into her coat, he buttoned it. “The next time you’re here, I’ll give you a tour of the place.”
“I like what I’ve seen.”
He stared down at her for a few seconds, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You make the nicest promises,” she said with a wicked glint in her eyes.
He wasn’t sure he liked that, and he didn’t know the source of his uncertainty. “Are you laughing at me, Kendra?”
A grin formed around her lips. “Kind of.”
“What’s amusing you? Let me in on it so I can laugh.”
The grin became a laugh. “I’m not trying to ring your bell,” she said, seeming to plead for his understanding. When she managed to control the laughter, she said, “It’s . . . you’re trying so hard not to give me the wrong impression. If I didn’t trust you, Sam, I definitely would not be here.” She eased her arm through his. “Come on. Let’s go.”
He locked the door, and with her hand snug in his, walked down the short hallway to the elevator. He stopped himself as he was about to whistle a song from the summer of his sexual awakening. He rarely whistled and never in a public place, but at the moment he had a need to express the gaiety and the freedom that he felt. He couldn’t explain the feeling, but he knew it sprang from the hand he held, from the evening that was about to end, and from the way he hoped it would end.
Chapter Six
Sam parked a few doors down from the apartment building in which Kendra lived, helped her out of the car, closed the door and—
“You got change for a cup of coffee, buddy?”
Sam swung around. He hadn’t seen the man approach, and he would have if he hadn’t been so absorbed in what could happen when they got into Kendra’s apartment. He took several steps backward and maneuvered so that Kendra was behind him.
“I don’t have any change.”
“Then give me your wallet.”
Looking the man in the eye, he felt something hard at his right side.
“I’ve got a few dollars,” Kendra said. “Just a minute till I find it.” Sam could not imagine what her motive was, so he remained still and focused his attention on the man.
“If she’s being funny, you’d better tell her to zip it while she can.”
“Thank goodness, I found it.” She stepped around Sam and extended her left hand in which she held several bills.
The thief grabbed the money. “What else you got in there?
Ow!
” he yelled, jumping up and down, rubbing his eyes and screaming in discomfort.
“What the hell happened?’ Sam asked Kendra, who was calmly dialing a number on her cell phone.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be useless for a good while. I’m calling the cops.”
Sam stared down at the man, who writhed on the pavement with an open switchblade knife lying beside him. After dealing with the police, who arrived within minutes, they continued to Kendra’s apartment.
Kendra had a feeling of bravery while confronting the man, but as they approached her apartment, she became aware that Sam hadn’t said another word and that he was not holding her hand.
He took her key, opened the door, and closed it behind them. In the dimly lighted foyer, he turned to her, and she saw from his demeanor that kissing her or any other affectionate exchange with her was not on his mind.
Staring into her face without an iota of warmth in his expression, he said, “You’re going to tell me why you’re carrying pepper spray on a date with me.”
So that was it. She had offended his masculine pride. “My father meets me at night when I get off from work. He gave me this a few nights ago to use in case he couldn’t meet me some time and I had a problem such as we had tonight. He made me promise never to take it out of my pocketbook. My money was in my coat pocket, but I had to fish around in my pocketbook to find the pepper spray. I saw the movement of his hands and, after years of living in high-crime neighborhoods, I knew he’d reached for either a gun or a knife.”
He walked with her into her living room. “Come over here and let’s sit down. I need to digest this thing. I didn’t expect that in this neighborhood, but I suppose I should have. Thieves know where to get the bigger haul, and it isn’t from the poor. You upset me when you walked up to that man holding out that money. My first thought was that I couldn’t protect you, and that he might use you for a hostage. I was horrified.”
She didn’t want him to dwell on it. She knew that most men prided themselves on their ability to protect their woman and she’d taken that role from him.
“Can we put it behind us, Sam? If he had hurt you, I don’t think I would ever have gotten over it. I was afraid, but I would never stand by like a shrinking violet and watch anyone hurt you. I couldn’t do that.”
He leaned against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. “This has been a very eventful night, filled with surprises.”
“Bad ones?”
“Except for the incident with that unfortunate thief, I certainly wouldn’t say bad.”
“Does this mean you aren’t going to kiss me tonight? I mean
kiss me.
Not one of your safe little cheek smacks.”
Laughter poured out of him, and she thanked God that he could laugh about it.
“You are precious, Kendra, more precious than you could realize. Walk with me to the door.”
He reached for her hand and, needing the physical connection to him, she leaned into him in a bodily caress and rested her head against his shoulder. He slid his arm around her and turned her to face him.
“I told you, Kendra, that I don’t want to make any mistakes with you. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you. God knows I do. Kiss me?” Her hands moved past the lapels of his jacket to his shoulders, and as she gazed up at him, her eyes must have portrayed her vulnerability and her trust in him, for a strange turbulence leaped into his eyes. He lowered his head.
She had thought that she wanted him to kiss her, but when she looked into his eyes, eyes that mirrored such tenderness and caring, everything changed. She knew for the first time in her life what it meant to need a man. And as if he saw and understood the change in her, he lifted her to him with an urgency that excited her and, with parted lips, she took him in. Feeling him inside of her, she clutched him to her in a frenzied passion. But when his hand pressed her buttocks, she stepped back.
He opened his arms to her. “It seems unreal, but I care deeply for you,” he said.
“This is awful, and it’s so wonderful,” she said. “Considering the life I’ve had, this seems like something in a novel.”
“Yes,” he said. “It seems to have an agenda of its own. When we meet tomorrow, I want us to talk. We’re both in this deep, and we need to know more about each other. I’ll be here tomorrow at four, and we can spend the afternoon and evening together if you’re willing.”
“I’d love that.”
“Dress casually.” His lips brushed hers sweetly and gently. She’d never felt so cherished, protected, and cared for. He gazed at her for a second. Then, he was gone.
Kendra didn’t know whether to be happy or scared. Maybe it wasn’t real and Sam Hayes had supernatural traits that drugged her into a hypnotic state whenever she was in his presence.
“I’m being silly thinking such things,” she told herself. “I just haven’t known a man who made me feel as he does. I’m going to stop second-guessing him and my feelings for him. After all, he’s only a man.” She made a pot of strong coffee, changed into comfortable clothes, and sat down to study.
At eight o’clock Sunday morning, four hours after Kendra went to bed, her phone rang, awakening her. She lifted the receiver, saw a blank ID screen, and said hello. Hearing no response, she said hello again and again. “Whoever you are, I don’t like you. Not one bit.” She slammed the receiver into its cradle. Ginny. No one else who knew her would do such a thing. “That woman causes me more pain than I’d have if she stabbed me.”
Ginny was not thinking of the pain she caused her daughter or anyone else. Fate was chasing her and seemed to be closing in. She had decided that she wanted Asa on a more permanent basis than she had originally thought. But the brother considered himself king of the hill, a godsend to womankind, and he didn’t do anything unless he wanted to. To make it worse, she had, at age fifty-two, sixteen years on him, and she knew she’d better do something and soon. Maybe Kendra would let her have a few hundred or a thousand if she could come up with a good story. She’d even offer to do Kendra’s hair and manicure at no charge. Ginny Hunter was not going to stand on her feet all day, five days a week, working on a bunch of ridiculous women. Period. She dialed Kendra’s phone number hoping to catch her before she went to church.
“Hello?”
Ginny opened her mouth to speak, remembered the agreement she’d signed with her brother, Ed, and hung up. As sure as she appeared before that judge for having broken the agreement, she’d go to jail, and she’d had it with jail. She hung up, sat down on a chair near her bed and, for the first time in her memory, tears cascaded down her cheeks until they wet her gown.
Damn Ed. Damn Kendra. Damn the whole bloody lot of them.
She had to have some money, and she’d get it no matter what she had to do. She meant to keep Asa happy. He was not going to get away from her.
When Sam rang Kendra’s doorbell precisely at four o’clock that Sunday afternoon, she answered the door wearing a pair of brown corduroy pants and a burnt-orange turtleneck sweater.
“Hi. You said dress casual,” she said, in effect apologizing for her appearance.
He pressed a quick kiss to her lips and handed her a small package. “Hi. Did you manage to study?”
“I got a lot done. In fact, I caught up. What’s this? Can I open it now?” She imagined that her eyes sparkled like those of a child at Christmas as she opened the package without waiting for his reply. “Sam! What’s this? It looks like a recorder.”
“That’s what it’s supposed to be. Now you can take notes almost anywhere, dictate your assignments, and let the computer print them on the screen. It’s very handy, and it will save you a lot of time.”
She pressed the recorder to her breasts, not so much because of its usefulness, but because he’d thought of her and wanted to make her life easier. Reminded suddenly of her rule about not accepting gifts from men, but wanting to keep it, and still holding the precious gift, she looked at him with a sad expression on her face. “I don’t think you should be giving me presents, and I shouldn’t accept this.”
“You need it, Kendra. I couldn’t offer to help pay your tuition, and I need to be there for you. Can’t you accept such a small thing from me?”
His facial muscles worked furiously in what she realized was an effort to control his emotions. She’d hurt him. With her arms wrapped around his waist, she attempted to undue the damage.
“Sam, my father and my grandmother are the only people who ever gave me anything without expecting something in return. I’m sorry if I made you feel badly. I didn’t want to.”
“Will you keep it?”
“Yes.” She hugged him. “Thanks. I love it.”
“It’s chilly outside, so perhaps you should put on a scarf and some gloves. I thought we’d drive over to Alexandria. There are nice places to walk and to explore, to eat and to watch people,” he said with an apparent enthusiasm for the little things of life. “Would that be a waste of your time?” he asked, and she wondered if he was judging her.
“I don’t consider the time I spend in your company a waste.” Her chin went up when she said it.
“I love chili dogs, and I haven’t had one in a long time. A tavern in the old town sells some of the best I’ve eaten. Could you eat that for dinner?”
She rested a hand on his arm. “You and I have surely led different lives, Sam. I’ve eaten hot dogs and coleslaw for dinner more times than I could ever count. You’ve never been poor, but I’ve never had money. My father has made certain that I didn’t want for anything important. But until the last couple of years, he was poor. He owns and operates an upscale butcher shop now that caters to the moneyed classes, and he’s doing well, but he’s seen very hard times.”
Sam didn’t want to get into her background—for that was what he wanted to know about—until they were seated in a comfortable and quiet place. Who was she really, and what could she tell him that would enable him to understand her and to know whether he’d developed such strong feeling for the right woman?
He found a place to park and walked with her along Queen Street in Alexandria’s “Old Town,” enjoying the light breeze and the pleasant late-autumn Sunday. He stopped at an old building.
“Two decades before the Civil Rights movement, an African American attorney named Samuel Wilbert Tucker staged a sit-in here because African Americans couldn’t use the library.”
“Way back then? What happened?”
“The five men were arrested, but the case was dropped. A year later, Alexandria built a library for blacks. That was in 1940. Common decency in this country is a very recent thing. This town is replete with history of African Americans’ journey from slavery to where we are today.”
“Yeah, but some of it, like that horrible Bruin ‘Negro Jail’—where enslaved people were held while waiting to be purchased—fills me with hatred.”
“I know,” he said, easing his arm around her, “but bitterness is a festering sore that only hurts the one who is embittered. Let it go. This is where we eat,” he said, opening the door of King’s Tavern. “It’s quiet and cozy, and we can talk.” He guided her to a rear corner not far from a fireplace. “I like to sit here and watch the flames.”