Once in a Lifetime (16 page)

A few minutes later, he walked into his makeshift office at the school construction site. “How’s it going, man?” he asked Allen, whom he’d transferred from the warehouse.

“You’re in for a surprise, friend. Those six extra men have made a big difference. We ought to sweep it clean, mop and polish the floors by next Wednesday.”

He grabbed Allen’s shoulders. “You wouldn’t lie about a thing like this.”

“It’s true. Nothing else left. Every bit of debris’s been hauled out, and McCallister’s already working on the landscaping.”

“Getting you on this job was a stroke of genius.” Now he could make plans for himself and…Alexis.

On Wednesday, August the eleventh, he walked through the school building with the mayor, the Eagle Park buildings inspectors, Russ and Drake, bursting with pride. They’d done it with a little more than three weeks to spare. After they walked out of the building’s front door, Drake locked it and handed the mayor the keys.

“We got the best-built, most modern school in the state of Maryland,” the mayor boasted. “Now all those who said I should give the contract to Sparkman can eat their words.”

Joy and pride hardly described Telford’s emotions. He hadn’t known he underbid Sparkman, or that influential people in his own town thought him incapable of delivering the school on time. He didn’t care who they were, only that he and his
brothers had made them look foolish. He wondered if it was over or if he had to continue proving to those who doubted Harrington, Inc. One thing was certain: he’d brought Fentress Sparkman to his knees.

“I’m off to m’ sister’s,” Henry said to Alexis when she entered the breakfast room that morning. “I takes me two weeks vacation every August. They give me a month, but I ain’t got nothing to do a whole month, and I can hardly stand m’ brother-in-law a day, much less a month.”

“You have a good time. Tara and I will miss you.”

“I doubt that. I’ll be having me a good time big-game fishing, though. If it wasn’t for that, I’d stay right here. I’m leaving soon as breakfast is over and Russ is ready to take me to the airport.”

Nobody had said anything to her about cooking arrangements while Henry was away. “Does that mean I cook while you’re gone?”

“Course not. Telford wouldn’t ask you to do that. Everybody leaves here these two weeks.” He gazed at her with the look of one who’d just talked too much and knew it. “We needs a break from each other. Ain’t you planning going off?”

“Oh, I get a vacation, too, Henry,” she said, evading his question.

Russ walked in carrying a suitcase and dressed so casually as to be hardly recognizable.

“Don’t tell me you’re off somewhere, too,” she said as cold tentacles of fear wafted through her. What was going on here?

“Yeah. We close the house the last half of August. Didn’t Telford tell you?”

“Didn’t I tell her what?”

She spun around and saw Telford standing in the doorway with both hands on his hips. “I didn’t realize you closed up here this time of year.”

“I’m sorry, Alexis. It’s in a separate paragraph in your contract in bold black lettering. I assumed you remembered it and were planning for it. Frankly, I wondered why you hadn’t
mentioned your plans to me, but I didn’t want to invade your privacy.”

“You could have asked me what I planned to do. Where’re you going?” It occurred to her that she sounded more like an offended lover than an employee, not that she cared right then. She didn’t like the feeling—however unfounded—that she hadn’t been told because her status didn’t warrant it.

If Telford found something amusing in the situation, she wished he’d tell her what it was. His grin broadened almost to a laugh. “I’m waiting to know what you’re doing.”

Russ slapped his hand on the back of his neck and furrowed his brow. “We’re not leaving her and Tara here alone. Suppose they have an emergency.”

She wondered at the grin on Henry’s face as well, but ignored it for the sake of prudence. “I’ll be fine. I should have remembered that clause. No problem. I’ll phone my sister, and we’ll have a great time together.”

“I’ve got to get to Baltimore to catch my plane,” Drake said. “I wish we’d settled all this last night.” He hugged Alexis and went to find Tara, whose attention to the piano even before breakfast had become more persistent since Telford’s return.

“None of you should worry about this,” Telford said. “I’ll look after Alexis and Tara.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Russ asked, his mouth curved into a half smile, half smirk. “See that you do, brother.”

An hour later, she vacillated between annoyance at Telford and excitement at the thought of nights alone with him in that huge house. With what she didn’t doubt was deliberate discretion, he avoided her until around five o’clock, when he telephoned her.

“I’d like the three of us to go into Frederick for supper. Tara will love it, and I’ll at last get to take you out.”

“I can cook.”

“I know that, but I don’t want you to. If we leave around a quarter to seven, we can eat and get back here before Tara gets too sleepy. What do you say?”

She remembered Henry’s comment that Telford wouldn’t
ask her to cook. “All right. Since Tara will be with us, I guess we’ll be informal.”

“Why? Tara knows how to behave. I’m wearing a jacket and tie.”

“Well, ’scuse me. I get the message. Be ready at quarter of.”

He cooked breakfast the next morning, and planned for them to eat dinner out. She didn’t question that, but she couldn’t understand his treating her as if she were his baby sister. After four days of it and thoroughly fed up, she confronted him.

“How is it that you’re the only one who doesn’t get a vacation? You don’t want me to believe this happens every year, do you?” She hadn’t previously been in his bedroom while he was in it; and with him barefoot and wearing a robe that she knew he put on when she knocked, his rough masculinity jolted her into a more cautious mood. Yet, she was prepared to finish what she began by walking in there.

“Why didn’t you take your vacation?” she pressed.

When he sat down, the robe opened exposing a part of his naked thigh midway above the knee. She swallowed hard, fighting back rising desire, and a smile flickered across his face.

“Did you think I’d go away and leave you and Tara alone here? It didn’t even enter my mind.”

“I can take care of Tara and me. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but there’s no need for you to stay here.”

“I’ve stated my position, and I won’t change it.”

She turned to go and stopped.
Don’t be chicken, girl.
“And another thing, why are you suddenly treating me as if I were your sister?”

He got up and walked as if in slow motion until he reached her. “You once told me I was honorable, and I’m doing my damndest not to make a liar of you. If you think this scenario isn’t getting on my nerves, you’re wrong.”

“You didn’t hear what I said? You’re behaving as if I’m
a piece of wood, and you’re asking me to believe that’s an act?”

Seeing the thunderous expression that leaped into his eyes, she took a step backward. “I lie here every night in physical pain,” he said, “twisting and turning in these sheets, imagining your naked flesh soft and warm against mine and knowing that a walk downstairs to your room might bring me relief.”

She blanched at that, but he didn’t stop. “If you’re ready to talk, I’ll put on some clothes and meet you downstairs in the den. If you stay up here much longer, talk will be out of the question.”

It was D-day, and she knew it. He wanted everything, maybe even that piece of her soul she kept for herself, but she’d forced his hand, and she had to brazen it out.

“See you down there in fifteen minutes.”

He didn’t offer her anything to drink, nor did he get one for himself, signaling to her the seriousness of his thoughts. After waiting until she sat, he took the big, brown leather chair that he preferred, leaned back and looked steadily at her. The tender expression in his hazel-brown eyes, so unlike his dispassionate looks during the past four days, nearly undid her, for it was what she wanted to see in him, what she’d missed.

“Remember my asking how, after years of marriage and of motherhood, you seemed not to know when a man neared the limit of his control? Remember that?”

She hadn’t expected him to return to that, and she wished he hadn’t. “Yes, I remember, but, Telford, the truth is so…so personal and…so unpleasant.”

He leaned forward. “I suspected that. Just tell me whether you had a…a satisfying relationship.”

She didn’t know how to answer that, or maybe she didn’t want to. How could she confess to this man that she’d been a failure?

“It’s all right,” he said after her long hesitation. “I have my answer. Try to remember that one person can’t sing a duet; for that, you need a partner. Never forget that.”

He was telling her that it wasn’t her fault, at least not entirely. Jack had never acted as if she were entitled to anything, neither in the bed nor out of it, but she knew it would be different with Telford. That thought banished her disquiet. She supposed the smile that flowed from the depths of her to cover her face was the reason for the lights that suddenly shone in his wonderful eyes.

“I want to take you and Tara to Cape May for a vacation. What do you say?”

She knew she gaped at him. “If you have any more surprises for me, let’s have them now. I’d love to go there, but I can’t let you—”

A smile played around his mouth, and his eyes sparkled as if he were anticipating pleasure. “Your contract says you get a paid vacation.” He got up, walked over to her and knelt beside her chair. “And even if it didn’t, I want to take you there. You can’t say I’m taking you off for…uh…” He grinned. “To have my way with you. There’s plenty of opportunity for that right here. I want to change the scene. Give us a chance, Alexis. Will you, sweetheart? I want you to know me in better circumstances than these.”

And she wanted the same, to be with him away from Harrington House, where they would simply be woman and man. “When do you want to leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. It’s about two hundred miles. If you don’t mind, I’d like to drive, because we’ll need the car. Getting around in Cape May without one is just about impossible.”

“I’d enjoy that. I haven’t been to Cape May.” She’d almost added,
Though I taught not too far from there.
That was something she had to level with him about, she realized.

His hand was warm on her thigh, and when he gazed into her eyes, her heart took off in a mad trot and the heat of desire suffused her. How she wanted, needed this man!

“You only need to bring casual clothes and not much of that. The lifestyle up there is very informal.”

“We’ll be ready to leave right after breakfast.”

She could see that her answer pleased him, for he smiled
broadly and squeezed her thigh. “Then, let’s leave here at eight-thirty, eat breakfast in town and be on our way by nine-thirty.”

“Fine with me. What about Biscuit?”

“We’ll leave him at a kennel in town. Okay?” She nodded.

He stood and looked down at her. He wasn’t smiling then, but as somber as she’d ever seen him. “I want you in my arms so badly, but I’m damned if I’ll put myself through what it’ll cost me later on.”

She eased out of the chair, reached up, kissed him on the mouth and whispered. “I need you, too.”

She didn’t wait for him to react. Her own plan had begun to take shape in her mind, and it didn’t include their making love on the floor of the Harrington House den. Within minutes, she’d closed her bedroom door, pulled out a suitcase and started packing. The first item she folded was a dusty-rose silk negligee.

He strapped Tara into her car seat, got in and headed for Highway 70. Exactly nine-thirty. “We’ll be there by two. I reserved rooms in a small bed-and-breakfast just off the ocean. Except for the waves, it’s quiet, five or six blocks from the tourist hangouts. Do you mind that we’ll have adjoining rooms with a door that opens between them? If you do, I’ll change it.”

He glanced over at her and relaxed when she appeared unperturbed. “I’m sure I’ll love the place.”

He chose Irene Wheeler’s Bed and Board instead of a hotel so that they’d have a sitter he could trust. He always stayed there, because she served him grits, sausage, eggs and biscuits for breakfast and pampered him as though he were her own son.

“Irene, meet Alexis and her daughter, Tara. They’re very special to me.”

“I figured that out myself, since this is the first time you
haven’t come here alone. Glad to meet you, Alexis.” She took Tara’s hand. “I’ll bet you love cookies and ice cream.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tara said, her face beaming her pleasure at the thought. “Black-cherry ice cream.”

As he expected, Tara and Irene embraced each other like old friends. Alexis smiled. “I’m glad to meet you, Irene, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy my stay here.”

“If you need anything, just let me know. If I don’t have it, I know where to get it.”

A strange feeling settled over him when he unlocked the door to room number sixteen. Right down to the recesses of his gut, he felt as if he were checking in there with his family. Half an hour later, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling.

He answered her knock on his room door, and every nerve in his body jumped to alert. Her big brown eyes gazed up at him, warm, seductive and, unless he missed the mark, inviting. But she was in his care, and he intended to take his cues from her.

“Hi. You comfortable in there?” Suddenly, he had the unsettling sense that he’d known her someplace. A different setting and different circumstances. He’d had that feeling the night they swam together in the moonlight, though less strongly. Maybe another life. But he didn’t believe in that. He shrugged it off.

She nodded. “It’s a lovely room. Do you plan to keep this door shut? I know it’s a little awkward with Tara here, since she acts as if she owns you, but…”

“Then we’ll leave it open and close it when we need privacy. Put on some comfortable shoes, and let’s look for some lunch. You’re a tempting dish, but right now, I need food.”