Swept Away, page 28
At six o’clock sharp the following Saturday afternoon, gowned in a dusty-rose satin dress that was identical to the bride’s white one, Veronica began the long walk toward the altar of the Bethel AME Church where Madison Wright stood with Schyler waiting for Enid. A lump settled in her throat and threatened to cut off her breathing. Dampness cooled her bare arms, but at least there were no tears in her eyes. Schyler had said about everything to her that a woman could want to hear a man say. Everything but “Will you marry me?” To her way of thinking, the worst of it was that he wanted that. He hadn’t said it, but she knew it, because his moves, his protectiveness, his loving and his growing possessiveness shouted the words. She reached the altar and stood opposite the man she loved as the music heralded the arrival of the bride. Finally, with her heart dancing wildly in her chest, she forced herself to look at him. His gaze captured her, and she had to steady herself against the sensation of being pulled to him like a nail to a magnet. Though she struggled to do so, she couldn’t wrench her gaze from his, from the blaze of passion that burned in his eyes.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
The words pierced through her consciousness, slowly, like an old boat breaking through the fog, and she realized she’d missed the ceremony. Seconds later, Schyler touched her elbow, and her feet took her along with him, out of the church, into the limousine and to the reception.
“I’m beat,” she told him later, as he walked with her to her front door.
He opened her door before he said anything, and she wondered at his quiet manner. “I realize that, and I know it’s mental. You missed the whole thing.”
She didn’t want him to leave her; she just needed to be alone. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. I…Schyler, would you excuse me, please?”
He stepped into the foyer with her and handed her the bunch of keys. “Of course. Will you call me?”
She nodded. What was wrong with her? She sucked in her lips to hide their quivering and squeezed her eyes tight to protect them from his knowing appraisal, but as she turned from him, he grabbed her. One of his hands went to the back of her head and the other wrapped tightly around her shoulders as he whispered to her words that could have been Greek or Finnish for all she knew. What mattered was his sweetness and his tenderness, that way he had of removing any doubt that he was there for her. She relaxed in his arms, that precious place she knew as home, and absorbed his gentle loving.
“It’s going to be all right. You understand? Now be happy for Enid and Madison, and stop worrying about us. Our day will come.”
She stared up at him, waiting for more, but she had to settle for the words of love and commitment mirrored in his eyes. She made herself smile, kissed him on the cheek and watched him leave her.
Self-pity wasn’t a thing in which she indulged. She hung up the maid-of-honor’s dress that had been a gift from Enid and stared at it. A month earlier, Jenny had been living on the street in beggar’s rags. That day, she’d sat in the second row on the bride’s side of the church, resplendent in a blue silk suit of her own making, and enjoyed looking at the elegance she’d created.
“I’m crazy,” she mocked herself. Nothing to be miserable about; the next move is up to me. Her mood lighter now, she dialed Jenny’s number.
“Lord, Ronnie,” Jenny greeted her, “wasn’t Enid the most beautiful bride you ever seen? And that man of hers is…Lord, just think of wakin’ up and finding him right there beside you. Ain’t no flies on Schyler, though. Now, there’s a man. When you want me to start on your wedding dress? I got the picture right here.”
“Back up, will you, Jenny? I called to tell you what a great job you did on our dresses. Enid looked like a young princess.”
“Well, she still got a good shape. You can’t sew nothing nice for butt and bulges, as we used to say at the factory. How’d you like how I dressed my men? I done everything but they suits.”
“I guessed that because they matched the dresses you made for Enid and me. Congratulations, honey. You’re on your way.”
“I makes real pretty baby clothes, too.”
She had to laugh; Jenny couldn’t help behaving like a mother hen, and that prompted a question.
“Jenny, do you have any children?”
The long silence told her she was too close to home. “I guess so, Ronnie. I had a daughter, but when I lost everything and had to go on the street, she didn’t have no room in her three-bedroom apartment. I ’spect now that I’m making a little change again, I’ll hear from her. But you and Schyler is more like my children. So you hurry up and—”
“All right. All right. I’m working on it.”
“That’s exactly the same old line what Schyler give me. I ain’t gonna stop reminding you though.”
Schyler stood on his balcony looking at the changing season, wondering what his life would be a year from then. If she had cried as she walked up that aisle, he’d have broken tradition and gone to meet her. And she’d come close to it later as they stood in her foyer, but the woman was put together with stern stuff; his admiration for her had never been higher. She wanted marriage for them. He wanted it, too, and he knew it was right for them. But what if they had a formal wedding—and he didn’t doubt that she’d want one—which man was entitled to walk with her to the altar, her father or her stepfather? And how could she justify choosing one over the other, when she knew that either one of them would suffer mortification? And what of her future relationship with the father she didn’t choose?
She’d been so beautiful standing there beside Enid, gazing at him as though transfixed. And in his heart, he’d said every word to Veronica that Madison had spoken to Enid. They had been lost in each other, and neither he nor Veronica had followed the ceremony as witnesses were supposed to do. He changed out of his tuxedo, put some underwear, socks and a T-shirt in a duffel bag, got in his car and headed for Tilghman. He’d give it another three weeks, and then he’d force the issue.
Veronica stared at herself in the mirror, stunned. “I thought I’d changed,” she said aloud in disgust. She took off her Anne Klein suit and kicked off the spike-heel shoes that she’d always hated but felt compelled to wear for the sake of fashion. Her gaze lighted on the penny loafers she’d worn in Europe and a moss green, button-front dress that she loved. Let them think what they like; from now on, I’m pleasing myself.
She spent her first day back at the office doing precisely that. She rejected the two-hour lunch at Wilma’s Blue Moon, skipped the morning and afternoon coffee hours that each usually consumed three-quarters of an hour and left promptly at five o’clock.
“Run that past me again,” Schyler said in a tone of incredulousness when she told him about her day.
“What exactly does this mean?” he added, his voice confirming his bewilderment.
“I’m going to lead a normal life, and work will be a part of it, not all of it. See anything wrong with that?”
“No, ma’am.” She thought she heard laughter in his voice. “What are you planning to do with the other sixteen hours, assuming travel takes up two of them?”
She didn’t know why but she had a need all at once to test his mettle. “Oh, there’s plenty to keep me busy. I can work at Round Midnight. Jack’s after me to—”
“The hell, you say. For the last time—if that brother doesn’t quit hitting on you, I’m going to show him what darkness looks like.”
“Show me, too. Just when you think it’s dark, some light always filters in through—”
“Do you want McCrae?”
“Of course not. You know I don’t.”
“Then tell him to stay out of your way, and if he’s got any sense at all, he’ll avoid me as he would the plague. And don’t play games, Veronica. I may appear mild, and I am most of the time, but if he gets on my turf, he’ll discover that I’m like any other threatened animal. You can help him avoid the consequences of stupidity.”
He wouldn’t appreciate her laughing right then, so she did her best to control it. “I suppose that’s as close to a commitment as I’m likely to get anytime soon. Just checking.”
“Is that what you want?”
She buffed the nails of her left hand against her thigh and considered her answer. “Hmmm. Tactical error. I showed my hand.” Her eyes rounded when she realized a giggle had escaped.
If he heard it, he ignored it. “Sometimes, that’s not a bad thing. What do you think of this? You committed to getting some information from your stepfather, and so far you haven’t done it. If you’re still sitting on the fence, I can ask him for you.”
How had that jocular exchange become a tug of war? So his terms hadn’t changed. “I don’t advise that. You said if I made a step, you’d take one, too. I’m going to make one. If the planes aren’t flying, you can still get there by train.”
“That’s the way I like to hear you talk, sweetheart.”
Several days later, the mayor gave her her first opportunity for revenge, but she declined the chance at pettiness. “Ms. Overton, we’re so delighted to have you back with us. I want you to know how excited our social workers are about your foster care plan. We want to hold a meeting and invite our sister agencies throughout the state to attend. We hope to discuss the plan’s advantages and means of assuring full compliance with it, and I’d like you to be the chairperson.”
How sweet it was! “I’d be delighted to help in any way that I can, sir. Incidentally, I’ve been planning to ask if you would support a review of all the foster care homes under your jurisdiction?”
“Of course, Ms. Overton, and if you need some funds, not over fifty thousand, mind you, I’ll be glad to help.”
She’d done it. She’d get what she’d been after for years, and she’d have the mayor’s support. Hallelujah!
Schyler disliked spending his time woolgathering, but his last exchange with Veronica had left him in a mental tailspin. He ran along the beach with Caesar just ahead of him, feeling the early fall chill. She had to know what she meant to him, but knowing that wasn’t enough for her, and it hadn’t been for some time. He wanted her for his wife, but he also wanted his life in order. Stop second-guessing her, man, he told himself. He had to await her next move, because he didn’t doubt that she planned one. And a serious one, too. The hearing for his appeal had been postponed pending events in Robbins’s case, adding to the disorder in his life. He wanted the freedom to ask Veronica to marry him, provided conditions became propitious, and he didn’t want her to marry an ex-con, even if he had been railroaded.
He hadn’t asked Veronica why she was too busy to see him during the weekend, because he believed in giving her as much space as she needed. He’d just put on his favorite Buddy Guy CD, kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the floor with Caesar beside him, prepared to relax, when the doorbell rang. He sniffed the odor of andouille sausage, Cajun spices and buttermilk biscuits that wafted from the kitchen, pulled himself up and headed for the door where Caesar stood wagging his tail. He furrowed his brow. Caesar didn’t greet strangers with a wagging tail but with a fierce growl.
He opened the door and gasped. There she stood in a red pantsuit with her hair flying everywhere, caught up in the swirling wind. As though she’d done nothing unusual, she handed him her small overnight bag, reached up and kissed him on the mouth and strolled past him.
He recovered and grabbed her hand. “Honey, what are you doing here? You said you’d be busy this weekend. I would have brought you down with me.” He stepped closer, dropped her bag on the floor, and brought her to him with both hands. “Baby, what’s this all about?” The mingling of the perfume she always wore and her own woman’s scent teased his nostrils while he gazed down at her. “Suppose I hadn’t been here?”
“Father knew I was coming. I called him last night.”
His eyebrows nearly reached his hairline. He gazed at her for a long time, trying to add it up. “He’s cooking, as you can probably tell from the odor of things. I’ll put your bag in your room.” He rubbed the back of his neck and let out a long whistle. She wasn’t boring, that was for sure.
“Did you tell him not to tell me?” he called after her.
She walked back a few steps. “I didn’t mention you. Honest. I just asked him if I could come out today and maybe spend the night, and he said I could come here as often as I wanted to and stay as long as I like. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind; I’m glad to see you here. I’m just having a problem understanding why you couldn’t tell me.”
She had an interesting and unusual way of shrugging; when one shoulder went up, the other went down. “I was working on cleaning my slate as you suggested, and suddenly I just made up my mind about this and called him. You always said it was between him and me, and I agree with you. I was hoping you’d be here, though.”
He had thought he understood her, but right then, he wasn’t so sure. He remembered that he wasn’t wearing shoes when Caesar’s tail thumped his toes. “You’re glad I’m here, huh? Well, that’s something.” She was looking down at his feet, and the grin she wore spread until it enveloped her whole face. She laughed.
“You laughing at my feet? What’s wrong with them?”
“You don’t know that I kick off my shoes as soon as I get in my house. If we lived together, I imagine we’d spend a lot of time looking for our shoes.”
There it was again. A couple of simple words, and he wanted her so badly that his stomach cramped. The heat in him must have shone in his eyes, for she started toward him, slowly, almost zombielike until, within inches of him, she sprang into his arms. Arms that he didn’t realize had left his side. With her body pressed to him and the feel of her breasts warm and tight against him, he hungered and ached to lose himself in her. Her parted lips invited the thrust of his tongue, and he yielded, finding every crevice, every sweet centimeter of her mouth until tremors ripped through him. Her accelerated breathing—always his sign that she wanted him—intensified, and when she climbed his body, the hot lava of desire snaked through his frame, gathering fire as it reached his loins. And though he fought it with all the energy he still possessed, he rose against her. Instead of backing away, she took it as a go signal for her greedy passion, pulled his tongue into her mouth and feasted on it. Pots and dishes banged and clanged in the kitchen but, for all she seemed to care, the noise could have been in China.
“Uh-huh.” The sound of a throat being cleared rocked him back to full consciousness, and he set her away from him. He stared at her, lips half parted, as open as he’d ever seen a woman, and the expression in her eyes nearly unglued him. With more effort than he was normally required to exert, he shifted his gaze from her to where he expected to see his father standing, but his dad had mercifully left them alone. He drew her to him, took her into his arms and stroked her back.
“Encounters like that one keep me going, baby. They make me know that only you and I can spoil this fantastic feeling we have for each other. I don’t want to lose it, and I don’t believe you do. Get yourself together and go find Dad.”
She rubbed her arms as she did when vulnerable. “I’ll need a minute or two. I’m…I can’t right now.”
“Tell me about it.” He wasn’t in the best of shape himself. “You’ve got all night.” She still gazed up at him, so he brushed her lips with his own and walked her to her room. “I’m always here if you need me.”
Veronica combed her hair, headed for the kitchen and stopped short as she neared the open door. Richard leaned against the doorjamb, facing her and twirling a spatula. She didn’t know what to think, since a smile lit his face and his mood appeared light and friendly, but it was clear that he knew she hadn’t just walked into the house. This time, he didn’t make the first move, and she knew he was telling her something important, reminding her of their respective roles. She told herself not to blow it. Returning his smile was easy, because he invited warmth, and besides, she found that she enjoyed looking at him and marveling at how much like him she was. She walked to him and kissed his left cheek.
“You knew I was here, didn’t you?” she asked, hoping he’d let slip whether he’d seen her in that clinch with Schyler.
He opened his arms then, and she hugged him. His wink surprised her. “You have to get up early to hide anything around Caesar. I knew it was you when I heard his tail thumping against the floor. I’ve just about got lunch ready.”
“Want me to help with anything?”
He told her she could set the table and make iced tea, and she was glad for the opportunity to concentrate on something other than her feelings about Schyler and her father, and to get her emotions under control. She wondered why Schyler didn’t help her set the table, and sought him in the living room, but he wasn’t here.
“Where’s Schyler?” she asked her father.
“Probably out back in the garden. You surprised him, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “I didn’t think of it as a surprise. Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I wasn’t sure how things were between you, so I figured if he didn’t know, he’d at least be here when you came. I see I needn’t have worried.”
She’d walked right into that one. If she could have disappeared through the wall, she would have. “I…uh—”
He stopped clipping strings off the beef roll-ups. “Veronica, loving a man who loves you is just about the most priceless experience a woman can have. Not one thing to be shy about. I can tell you that for a man nothing beats it either. I must say Caesar had a very surprised expression on his face.”
She fled to the dining room. It seemed as though her father liked to tease. She tried to imagine him and her mother together but couldn’t, because Esther Hunt belonged with Sam Overton. They had fitted like hand and glove. She listened to her father singing and whistling in the kitchen and tried to catalog the traits she’d inherited from him.
