Once in a Lifetime (11 page)

He stood, and Tara immediately reached for his hand. He pitched his empty ice cream container in the nearby refuse bin and, with his other hand, reached for Alexis. “There’s a lesson in what she said,” he murmured softly for Alexis’s ears only. “I’ve told her I love her, but what impressed her is the way I treat her.”

Her workday ended at four, but she couldn’t leave it at that. It wasn’t merely a job; it was her home, and she couldn’t help treating it as such. So she set the supper table that evening as always and changed from the clothes she’d worn all day to a soft, feminine dress. It wasn’t fancy. She didn’t have many elegant clothes; she’d stored most of them with her furniture. The black cotton chiffon skirt flowed in numerous folds around her ankles, and the sleeves of the plain yellow top billowed in the breeze. Modest at best. She’d paid seventeen dollars for it at a thrift shop in Frederick a week earlier.

“It’s pretty warm,” Henry said. “Maybe I’ll make some iced tea. Why don’t you get some mint from the garden?”

“Right. I was about to gather some roses for the table.” She put on a pair of garden gloves, got a pair of scissors, stepped out into the garden and inhaled deeply of the fresh, fragrant air.

“Looking mighty pretty there. Come over here, so I can touch you.”

Even before she flipped around, she knew who it was and that it spelled trouble.

“And would you bring me in a few sprigs of… What the devil you doing loitering around here? You after trouble, ’n you gonna git it sure’s my name’s Henry. You go on in, Alexis, I’ll get the herbs.”

“I’m staying right here and picking these flowers, and if he comes near me, he’ll wish he’d never seen me,” she said waving the fifteen-inch garden sheers.

Henry stood at the door, his hands braced on his hips, and shook his head. “In all my life, I never seed a man so anxious for trouble.”

“Mr. Henry, where’s mummy? She said she’d make Biscuit a bell, so I can find him if I lose him. She said…” Tara stared toward Biff Jackson. “I don’t like that man, Mr. Henry.”

“You got good and proper taste, girl. We’ll wait here till your mummy finishes cutting her flowers.”

She’d as soon Tara hadn’t seen Biff, because she blurted
out everything she knew. “This ought to do it,” she said of the roses she picked, and walked toward the house.

“You’ll come around,” she heard him snarl. “They all do.”

She went inside, arranged the flowers in a crystal bowl and placed them on the dining table between long tapered white candles in Etta Harrington’s silver candlesticks. Her efforts brought a cryptic comment from Russ as they sat down to dinner that evening.

“I’d avoid these daily banquets, but the level of the cuisine has gone up so high that I gladly suffer this grandiose setting. Believe me, I love good food.”

“Since you ain’t complimenting me, I don’t thank you,” Henry said. “These recipes of Alexis calls for cooking by the clock. When she says ten minutes, she don’t mean ten and a half.”

“Otherwise,” Russ said, “you just put the food on the stove or in the oven and go on about your business. Right?”

“It ain’t killed you so far, has it? And it ain’t stunted your growth, neither.”

“Mr. Telford, that man was here at the fence today when Mummy was in the garden getting flowers.”

Alexis nearly choked on the veal cordon bleu.

Telford’s fork clattered on his plate. “What man are you talking about?”

“The man from down the road.”

She looked at Telford then, because she knew his gaze would be on her. His eyes bore a murderous look, and shudders rifled through her when he began to grind his teeth.

“Don’t you go, Telford,” Drake said. “Let me talk to him.”

“There’s nothing you can say to him. I’ve told him the score. Tomorrow morning, he’ll get his severance pay.”

“Telford, I told you, I—”

“You can’t handle him, Alexis, and even if you could, I told him what to expect if he came back here. He ignored me. I keep my word.” He leaned back in his chair and stared at her,
his eyes ablaze with the fire of determination. “Do you want him here for some reason?”

He could ask her that in the presence of his family? Without thinking, she blew aside the strand of hair that hung over her eye. He had the nerve to ask, so she’d tell him. “If I have to tell you the answer to that question, you don’t have the right to know.”

He gazed at her for a long time, and she knew without looking that all eyes were on them. Finally, a smile lighted his face, and she could feel the electricity flowing from him to her. His face radiated happiness, and when she saw the smile on her child’s face, she knew that even Tara was relieved that the tension had subsided.

“So he’s out of here,” Russ said. “I warned him a couple of days ago, but the man’s stupid.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“It wasn’t my place to tell you. I left that up to Alexis. Anyhow, what can you handle that I can’t?”

“I’m not going there,” Telford said.

“My vote for foreman goes to Allen Krenner,” Drake said.

The bottom dropped out of Alexis’s stomach. “Who?”

“Allen Krenner. You met him. He’s a good man.”

“I agree with you and Drake,” Russ said. “Biff knew how to control the men, but Allen will be a much better all-around foreman, and I won’t get sick to the stomach every time he starts talking about women. I was getting fed up with Biff.”

“I been fed up with him ever since he come here. Good riddance,” Henry said. “Here, Tara, I made this cherry pie just for you.”

“Thanks, and I’m gonna eat every bit of it, too.”

“Oh, no, you’re not. All of us are going to eat some of that pie. You mustn’t be selfish, darling.”

“Okay. I’ll give some to everybody at the table, and I’ll save some for Biscuit.”

Telford raised an eyebrow. “Tara, didn’t I tell you that sweets might make Biscuit sick?”

“Oh. I forgot. What can I give him?”

“We’ll get some dog biscuits when we come from church school day after tomorrow.”

She clapped her hands. “Biscuit’s gonna be happy.”

Alexis made herself smile, but she didn’t feel like it. Not one bit. Surely there had to be more than one family with the last name
Krenner
. At least, she prayed that it was so.

A
lexis soon learned that she had good reason to worry. Several afternoons later, Telford surprised her with a phone call. As they greeted each other, a sense of foreboding crept over her. Why was he calling her two hours before he was supposed to get home, and why did he speak in such solemn tones?

“You’ll remember that my brothers and I decided the other night to make Allen our foreman at the warehouse. I’ve asked him to come to dinner tonight, because that’s about the only time the three of us are together.”

Allen Krenner. Her blood seemed to curdle, and she had to sit down.

“We need to talk with Allen…the three of us together, I mean. Could you set a place for him?”

“Of course. Would you like me to…to do anything differently? I mean, do you want me to change anything…or, would you like Tara and me to…eat separately?”

“What? Of course not. You and Tara are… Look. The breakfast-room table won’t seat seven people, and we’ll have
to eat in the dining room. That’s a lot more trouble for you, but I’d appreciate it if you’d do it.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. She was his housekeeper, even though he liked to refer to her as the homemaker, and he didn’t have to apologize for asking her to set the dining-room table for dinner. It struck her then that Telford didn’t regard her as a servant, and that was a complication she didn’t need. If she worked for him and lived in his home, if she was his servant, he was honor-bound not to inveigle her into intimacy with him. She didn’t like that, and yet it thrilled her.

“It’s a simple thing, Telford, provided I can find a big enough tablecloth.”

“Look in that old Aetna cedar chest in the game room. That’s where my mother hid her precious linens and things like that.”

“Not to worry. Everything will be in order.”

“I know that. You…you’ve made that house a home, something it’s never been. I’ll see you later.” He hung up.

He’d uttered the word “hid” with sarcasm or distaste, she wasn’t sure which. She suspected that Harrington House held some ugly ghosts. Three handsome, accomplished and eligible men, all over thirty, all single and none committed to a woman. She shook her head in bemusement. The explanation had to lie all around her; when Etta Harrington faced her heavenly maker, she must have hung her head in shame. Alexis opened the storage chest and found a cloth large enough for the dining-room table and a fortune in linens and silver. The woman must have had delusions of grandeur. Not even Jack’s parents were more frivolous, and they didn’t buy anything unless it was outrageously expensive.

She set the table in the dining room with a little more care than usual, placing two bowls of flowers and candles in three silver candlesticks between them. The feeling that destiny was hard on her heels wouldn’t leave her, and she had to fight off increasingly morose feelings.

“Better make this as simple as possible,” she told herself when she was trying to decide what to wear for dinner. Finally,
she settled on mother/daughter dresses for herself and Tara—pale green, short-sleeved and double-breasted with big white mother-of-pearl buttons down their collarless fronts. Her dress didn’t give the effect of a ruffled apron, but it was reasonably modest.

When the doorbell rang, she thought the bottom dropped out of her stomach.
Please, God, don’t let the man be Melanie Krenner’s father.
She met them in the hallway between the dining room and the den. Tara dashed any semblance of propriety between employer and employee when she ran to Telford with open arms, her face glittering with happiness at the sight of him. He picked her up and hugged her, and when Tara kissed his chin, he grinned with delight and returned the gesture.

“Mr. Telford, I look just like my mummy.”

His gaze caressed Alexis lovingly. “Yes, you do, and you’re beautiful, too.”

She couldn’t look at him for fear her eyes mirrored her feelings.

“Mrs. Stevenson, this is Allen Krenner, our foreman down at the warehouse.” He didn’t bother to say why she was in his house, and she wondered at that.

She had to look at Telford then, and it took every measure of her self-control and all the aplomb she could muster not to betray herself. His eyes burned with warmth and…yes…desire. No other word described it.
Dear Lord, what would it be like to know…
Quickly, she shook herself out of that daydream and extended her hand to Allen Krenner.

“Hello, Mr. Krenner, I’m—”

“Mummy, we saw him down the road when he said he didn’t have any little children for me to play with.”

She made herself smile. “Of course.”

Allen Krenner’s warm, solid handshake impressed her that he was an honorable and dependable man. “I’m glad to see you again, Mrs. Stevenson. I felt your impact on this place before we got here.”

“How’s that?”

“Telford told me a dozen times that we had to be here before seven o’clock.”

She nearly laughed aloud at Telford’s expression. Krenner was enjoying the chance to needle his boss.

The hole in her widened as she observed the affection between the two men, a bond that transcended their employer-employee relationship. She squelched an urge to get out of their company and made herself stand there and mouth small talk until she could gracefully leave. She didn’t follow them to the den, but said they probably wanted to talk business, and turned toward her own quarters.

However, when Telford realized that she didn’t intend to go with them to the den, he swung around and walked back to her. “Aren’t you going to join us?”

Not quite certain as to what she wanted or, for that matter, whether he was only being polite, she looked around for Tara. Stalling.

“She’s in there with Allen,” Telford said, making it obvious that he suspected her of procrastinating. “I think she’s still on that subject of his not having children for her to play with.”

His gaze bore into her, communicating feelings that she wasn’t ready to accept and that she suspected he wasn’t ready to confirm. “What’s the matter, Alexis?” For a second, his strong fingers stroked her arm but, evidently remembering that they were not alone, he withdrew his fingers and jammed his hands into his pants pockets.

“Come on back, I want you there with me.”

She hesitated, and his expression darkened, almost as if he were suddenly less sure of himself.

“Don’t you—”

Heading off his seeming diffidence, she smiled, took his hand and squeezed his fingers. She shouldn’t encourage him, but she couldn’t let him feel as if she rejected him, either. Telford served drinks—gin and tonic for Allen and himself, a lime rickey for her and, to her astonishment, he handed Tara a glass of cranberry juice, explaining that to exclude her would be bad manners.

She suffered the meaningless small talk until Russ and Drake arrived and she could relax, because she’d already learned that Russ had no tolerance for it. The warm hugs and back slapping with which he and Drake greeted Allen told her more convincingly than words could have that Allen Krenner was more to them than an employee.

At dinner, Allen looked at the food and gasped, “What happened, Henry? You gone gourmet?”

“Same as the reason everybody’s sitting at the table together exactly at seven o’clock and Telford said grace. Alexis here put some class into this place.”

As if Allen knew that Henry jealously guarded his position in the kitchen, his eyes widened. “You mean she cooks?”

Henry’s withering look would have diminished one with the most robust ego, and Allen appeared properly chastened. “I’m the cook here.” He pointed to Alexis. “She’s got all these recipes and you have to time ’em right down to the second.”

Allen dipped a bite-sized piece of his Maryland crab cake in aioli sauce, savored it and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Telford, man, you’re living in a state of grace.”

“What was he living in before?” Russ asked, a touch of disdain coloring his speech.

“You don’t wanna ask that,” Henry said. “Shoes, socks and anything you can name all over the place, from the bedrooms to the foyer, you being the main offender.” He looked at Allen. “They asked for sloppy, so I let ’em have sloppy.”

Alexis noticed that Russ and Drake frequently glanced from her to Telford, but Telford focused on everybody at the table but her.

He’s vulnerable tonight,
she told herself, aware that each day she knew him better than she did the day before.

“Heard from Bob and Will?” Telford asked Allen. He looked at her then, but hooded his gaze. “His sons are my godchildren. I’m very fond of them.”

Allen’s face lit up with fatherly pride. “Wil wrote a few lines. Said they had a chance to visit a Masai group and witness a mating ritual. Said we wouldn’t believe the young men form
a circle and dance, and the young, bare-breasted girls who’ve just reached puberty walk around them until they decide which one they want. The men accept the girls’ choices.”

“Whew!” was Russ’s one-word comment.

“Them’s two fine boys,” Henry said.

“But he doesn’t have any little girls,” Tara said.

Telford’s head snapped up, and he glued his gaze to Allen, who suddenly had a hard time swallowing his food.

“How you like my crab cakes?” Henry asked so quickly that his effort to distract Allen was obvious. The three other men gave their food more attention than was normal or necessary.

Her heartbeat accelerated, and she lost her appetite for the meal.

“Nothing yet?” Henry asked after an extended silence.

“Not a thing. Six long years and not a single word. Well,” he said, sighing and smiling gently, “God gives and God takes. I no longer hope.”

She wanted to ask, and she knew she
should
ask, but didn’t dare. The dawning truth was like a noose tightening around her neck. After dinner, she asked to be excused and headed for her room, practically dragging Tara with her.

“I want to stay with Mr. Telford. I don’t wanna go to bed.”

“Sorry, darling, but he has to talk business with his guest.”

“We’ve hired a detective, Allen,” she heard Russ say as she walked away from them. “If Melanie’s alive, he’ll find her.”

She missed a step and nearly fell, her worst fears confirmed.

“You all do so much for me. I can’t ever thank you enough. She was a good girl, and I…if she could have, she’d have been in touch with Grace and me long ago. I…”

Alexis stepped into her room and closed the door, shutting out the damning evidence, confirmation—if she needed it—that no matter how she and Telford felt about each other, they were as close then as they’d ever be.

Never would she forget her wrenching agony and guilt when Melanie Krenner was reported missing from her dormitory room for over a week. She told herself to snap out of it. What was done was done.
Get on with your life, girl. You can’t go back, and even if you could, wouldn’t you do the same thing?
She straightened her back. Her hands were clean, but who in this house would believe her? If the time came, and the brothers didn’t accept her explanation, she’d just move on.

Telford sat in the den with his brothers and Allen drinking coffee and sipping cognac. He wasn’t crazy about cognac, but it was as good a way as any to finish off a meal.

He turned to Allen. “We’ve got sixteen men out there, so we may be able to get far enough along on the warehouse to enable us to start blasting for that hospital.” A huge boulder lay embedded a few feet below the site.

Drake put his snifter of cognac on the floor beside his chair and stood, drawing the attention of the other men when he shoved his fingers through his hair, walked to the other end of the room and back.

“Look,” Drake began, “let’s be practical here. It’s enough that I have to split myself between that apartment house in Baltimore, the high school here in Eagle Park and the warehouse. Either we hire another engineer or we postpone work on that hospital until we’ve finished at least two of these projects.”

“Not the school.” Telford jumped up and stood facing Drake. “You know I won’t permit even the semblance of a slowdown on that.”

“I’m with you on that, Telford,” Russ said, “but I wish you’d stop focusing on Sparkman and his antics. We’ll finish the school on time. And if we don’t, nobody’ll think to drag up that old stuff. And don’t forget, we’ve committed to starting the Frenchman’s Village in Barbados next year.”

“Sparkman’s engineering this building strike just to get the better of me. But he won’t succeed, even if I have to hire myself as a laborer on my own building.”

Later, as Drake and Russ stood at the north end of the garden near the empty pool, Drake picked up a piece of brick and threw it across the fence. “I’d hoped that Alexis would help him to see that the world isn’t on his shoulders. If he doesn’t stop driving himself, he’ll be dead before he’s forty.”

Russ dragged his right hand across his chin. “Why are you so sure she’s the one for him?”

“It’s how he is when he’s with her. It’s indefinable. Subtle. But you can’t miss the difference in him. And the heat between them could scorch air.”

“Tell me about it. I get the willies just watching it. Speaking of hot air, I could use a swim. When are we going to put some water in this pool? It’s June already.”

Drake didn’t have to be urged to open the pool; swimming was his favorite form of leisure. “Until a few days ago, it was too cool to swim. This weekend, all right?”

Russ nodded. “Imagine.
Me
in a damned bathing suit in this pool.”

Drake’s perfect white teeth sparkled against his dark olive skin. “Sorry. That’s too much of a stretch for my mind. I’m turning in.”

Drake went inside, but Russ sat on a stone bench among the flowers and enjoyed the summer evening breeze. He knew why Telford hadn’t mentioned putting water in the swimming pool, and it was another reason why he shouldn’t have hired Alexis. He got up, dusted off the back of his pants—more from habit than necessity—and went inside. He and his brothers rarely said harsh things to each other, though they sometimes disagreed. He figured they would cross each other in a big way tomorrow.

Telford worked side by side with his hard-hat crew that Saturday until three o’clock in the afternoon when the heat of the sun became so oppressive that he feared for the health of the older workers. The first scorcher of the summer.