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could enjoy the warmth of his touch.
“I believe I reminded you once that most people envy the rich, but when a woman is both rich and beautiful, women will dislike her and men will turn cartwheels for her. Even so, Martha Greene isn’t known as a charitable person.”
Flushed with the pleasure of knowing that he thought her beautiful, she lowered her gaze. “You don’t know how happy I’ll be when the will is settled and this business is history.”
The expression in his eyes sliced through her, and she knew that somewhere in those words, she’d made a blunder. A serious one, at that.
“I imagine you want to get on with your life,” he said, “especially after having spent almost five of your best years in semiretirement. But don’t forget that when you finish this round, you’ve got to show me a marriage certificate.”
She knew that she gaped at him; she couldn’t help it. Her fingers clutched the table, knocking over the long-stem glass of white wine that soaked the tablecloth and wet her dress.
“You kissed me and held me as if I were the most precious person in the world, and now you can say that to me. You’re just like all the others.” As though oblivious to the wet tablecloth and the dampness in her lap, she gripped the table and leaned toward him.
“You at least know that Prescott was happy with me, that I made his life pleasant, and that I was loyal to him. You know I never looked at another man, because I didn’t look at you.”
“Look! There’s no need to—”
“Yes, there is. You listen to me. It happened the minute you opened your office door for Prescott and me when we went there to be married. And the first time you came to our home I knew that what I felt for you twenty minutes before I took my marriage vows was definitely not superficial. From then on—at least once a week for almost five years—I had to deal with you. But you didn’t know it, and don’t tell me you did. You don’t know what it cost me, and you’ll never know. So don’t sit there like a judge-penitent and pass sentence.”
She tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the table, grabbed her purse and briefcase. “I’ll eat whatever Ruby cooked. I’ll…I’m sorry, Blake.”
Walking with head high, away from the source of her pain, her eyes beheld only a blur of human flesh and artifacts. She didn’t see the gilded candles on the hanging chandelier, the huge bowl of red and yellow roses on a marble stand beneath it, or her reflection in the antique gold-framed mirrors that lined the walls. Only the gray bleakness of her life. But none of those who accused her would ever see one of her tears. The gossiping citizens of Ellicott City irritated her. But Blake’s words bored a hole in her. She got into her car and sat there, too drained to drive. Should she fault herself for having let him hold her and show her what she’d missed? Maybe she shouldn’t have allowed it. But I’m human, and I’ve got feelings. After a while, she started the car and moved away from the curb. “You’re dealing with your own guilt, Blake,” she said aloud, and immediately felt better. “You wanted your friend’s wife. Well, take it out on yourself.”
Blake washed his Maryland crab cakes down with half a bottle of chardonnay wine and considered drinking the whole bottle but thought better of it. He shouldn’t have plowed into her, knowing he’d hurt her, but she had infuriated him with her tale about the men who wanted to marry her. He knew she’d attract every trifling money hunter and womanizer in Howard County and maybe farther away than that.
As much as he wanted her, he didn’t intend to get in that line. Her apparent eagerness to gain control of Prescott’s millions didn’t sit well with him, especially since she hadn’t once shown the grief you’d expect of a woman recently widowed. His left hand swept over his face. It wasn’t a fair accusation, and he knew it. Not everybody grieved for public consumption. He didn’t covet another person’s wealth; he made a good living and had every comfort that he could want, but he’d earned it. He’d worked for every dime he had, and he couldn’t sympathize with, much less respect, anybody who didn’t work for what they got. He let out a long, heavy breath. How had it come to this? She was in him, down deep, clinging to the marrow of his being, wrapped around his nerve ends. Way down. Right where he lived.
“Oh, what the hell. If it hasn’t killed me so far, it won’t!” He paid the check and left her twenty-dollar bill on the table for the waiter.
He walked into his house, threw his briefcase on the carved walnut dining-room table, and looked at the elegance all around him. Thick oriental carpets covered his parquet floors; Italian leather sofa and chairs; silk draperies, fine walnut tables and wall units and fixtures, and fine paintings adorned his living room. All of it aeons away from the days when water soaked his bed every time it rained, and wind whistled through the cracks of the house in winter. The memory depressed him, and he wondered if the hardships of his youth had made him a tough, cynical man. He hoped not. Shaking it off, he telephoned his mother in Alabama, his thoughts filled with the one problem he’d never solved. His relationship with his father.
“How’s Papa?” he asked her after they greeted each other.
“Just fair. I think he’s tired, and I don’t mean ordinary tired. I sense that he doesn’t feel like going on.”
“You serious?”
“I wish I wasn’t, son.”
“I don’t like the sound of it,” he told her. He’d gotten the same feeling when he spoke with his father the previous morning. “I’ll be down there tomorrow.”
After hanging up, he remembered his promise to visit Phil and Johnny. The warden had separated them from Lobo, who’d set up business as usual there in the jail. Blake called the warden and asked him to explain to the boys that he’d see them on Sunday.
“I’d hoped to hold my grandchildren,” his father told him, “but none of the three of you bothered to get married yet.” His thoughts appeared to ramble. “You had a tough life, but you made something of yourself, and I’m proud of you. I know I seemed hard, maybe too hard, but we had to live. Make sure you find a girl who’ll stick with you through thick and thin. One like your mother.”
The old man’s feeble fingers patted Blake’s hand. He’d never thought he’d shed tears for his father, but when he walked out of the room, they came. And they flowed.
He didn’t want to use Melinda, but when he boarded the plane in Birmingham, his only thought was to have her near him. It might be unfair to her, but life wasn’t fair. Right then, he knew he could handle most anything, if she was there for him. As soon as he walked into the terminal in Baltimore, he dialed her on his cell phone, and when she didn’t answer, he felt as if the bottom had dropped out of him. Surely she didn’t mean that much to him.
“It’s because I know I’m losing my father,” he rationalized. As a child, he’d almost hated the man who’d driven him so relentlessly. How often he’d wondered if he worked so hard to save young boys from a life of crime because he’d had neither a childhood nor the freedom that adolescence gives the young. What the heck! He put the car in Drive and headed for the Metropolitan Transition Center.
For the first time, he thought his private visit with the young boys—this time, Johnny and Phil—was less than rewarding, because he didn’t feel enthusiasm and couldn’t force it.
“You got a load, man?” Phil asked him.
He shrugged; it wasn’t good policy to share your personal life with the prisoners, who tended to focus on themselves.
“You not sick?” Johnny’s question surprised him, because the boy hardly ever showed interest in anyone.
“I’m fine. But I think my father is dy…isn’t going to make it.”
“That ain’t so good,” Phil said and, to his astonishment, the boy put an arm around his shoulder. “It sucks, man. I know how you feel.”
Another time, he would’ve asked Phil about his father, but right then, he was grateful