Once in a Lifetime

Once in a Lifetime
Gwynne Forster

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

This has been a very busy and rewarding year. In my travels to conferences and book signings, I met many of you for the first time and enjoyed the camaraderie. Beginning in June, Kimani Arabesque released my first collection of wedding novellas in an anthology entitled Yes, I Do. And there’s especially good news for readers who are fans of the Harrington brothers and have asked me time and again to continue the series. In September, Love Me Tonight marked the first new book in the Harrington series in many years. Now, with the reissue of Once in a Lifetime, the very first novel in the Harrington brothers series, readers will discover how the eldest brother, Telford, found love and a ready-made family with Alexis Stevenson. Next year look for the second and third books in the Harrington series to be reissued—After the Loving and Love Me or Leave Me.

The really good news is that the Harrington series will continue with at least one novel a year. And be sure to look for Scott Galloway, whom you met in Love Me Tonight, to find love with Pamela Harrington’s sister, in the fifth Harrington novel in September 2011.

I enjoy receiving mail, so please email me at GwynneF@aol.com. If you write by postal mail, reach me at P.O. Box 45, New York, NY 10044, and if you would like a reply, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. For more information, please contact my agent, Pattie Steel-Perkins, Steel-Perkins Literary Agency, email: MYAGENTSPLA@aol.com.

Warmest regards,

Gwynne Forster

Acknowledgments

To my agent, Pattie Steel-Perkins who, like an angel parting the Red Sea, eases my writer’s path. I am fortunate to have an agent of such integrity and dedication to duty.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

Alexis Stevenson had spent most of her thirty years doing what was expected of her. She managed not to fall in love until she met a man of whom her family would approve. Her father expected his girls to lead the pack, and she graduated at the top of her high school and college classes. Indeed, as a model student, her grades were such that her college and graduate schooling didn’t cost her wealthy parents a penny, although they provided her with a lifestyle that she neither needed nor wanted. But her academic successes came at the expense of a healthy social life. After she married Jack Stevenson, she exchanged her job as instructor in home economics at the State University for that of homemaker, spending most of her time either planning for or entertaining her husband’s business associates, smoothing his rise to the top of the corporate ladder.

Her difficult pregnancy didn’t lessen Jack’s expectations of her as homemaker or as hostess to his never-ending parade of guests. Even when his boss’s daughter announced that she was pregnant and that Jack was the father, she did the expected and gave him a friendly divorce. But when he sought and subsequently obtained a ruling that would allow him to stop supporting their daughter, Tara, when she reached eighteen, Alexis balked.

Now, two years after their divorce became final, two years of legal battling, she had what she wanted, custody of her child, though at an enormous cost—forfeiture of her entitlement to half of their joint property. But she would have given up everything she had for custody of Tara. However, she couldn’t revel in victory over a father who cared so little for his child as to give up all rights to her in order to retain all of his wealth. She had been a fool to cater to him in his quest for status and power. But she’d learned a lesson, and in Jack Stevenson, she had a master teacher. What she learned, she learned thoroughly; it would never happen again.

No one, not her friends, her sister, her ex-husband or his relatives would believe her—daughter of a wealthy family and former instructor in home economics and health sciences at State University—capable of the decision she had just made. Too bad; from now on, she planned to live her own life, not anyone else’s. She put the money Jack sent her for Tara into a fund for the little girl’s education and prepared to support her child and herself.

Alexis looked around the house she’d lived in for the past two years, took Tara’s hand and walked out, locking the door. All they would need she’d packed in her azure Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. She put her daughter in her special chair in the backseat, strapped her in, got in the car and drove off. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, she told herself, and put Sting’s “Brand New Day” in the tape deck, pushed the button, said good-bye to Philadelphia and headed for Eagle Park, Maryland.

Four hours later, Alexis brought her Oldsmobile to a halt in front of number ten John Brown Drive, known for miles around as Harrington House. She put the car in Park, expelled a long, tired breath and stared at the sprawling white brick colonial house, its majestic setting proclaiming the status of its owners. An array of multihued pansies, irises, primroses, peonies and daisies along with well-spaced oak, birch and pine trees—green and fresh in the noonday April sun—gave the house a serenity and the appearance of a refuge. Well maintained, she thought, but not a human in sight.

“Are we gonna stay here, Mummy?”

Alexis glanced back at four-year-old Tara, the delight of her life. “I hope so, honey. I hope so.”

Only the Lord knew what Telford Harrington’s reaction would be when he saw her precious Tara. He hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t told, because she knew that would be the end of the best job offer she’d received in three months of frantic searching.

The picture before her beckoned, though she found the manifestation of wealth unsettling; she’d rather not return to the monied environment she escaped when she separated from Jack Stevenson almost three years earlier, but what choice did she have now?

“Let’s get out. Can we, Mummy?”

“In a minute, love.”

Staring at the unknown, she felt compelled to savor what might be her last minutes as a person free to do as she pleased whenever she liked. When she walked through that door, she would be a servant, a full-time housekeeper. She didn’t mind it, nor did she resent it. She’d opened a new chapter in her life, and she looked on it as an opportunity, a lifesaver. A way to support herself and her child. State U now required all of its teachers to have a doctorate degree, which meant that, with only a master’s, she had to find other work.

She got out of the car, took Tara’s little hand and walked with her up the winding brick path to the door. It opened slowly. “You must be the housekeeper.” The voice belonged to a dark-skinned graying man of indeterminate age who looked as if he might at one time have been a bantamweight prizefighter.

“Yes.” She extended her hand. “I’m Alexis Stevenson, and this is my daughter, Tara.” The man didn’t fit the picture of Telford Harrington that she’d formed in her mind’s eye after her one brief conversation with him.

“M’ name’s Henry, and I’m the cook. Come on…” He noticed Tara. “She’s yours?”

Shivers raced through her, but she steadied herself. After all, this was the cook, not Harrington. Still, he probably reflected his boss’s attitude about things. Alexis nodded, as if having the child with her were of no consequence.

“Why, yes. She is.”

Tara moved closer to Alexis. “My name’s Tara. What’s yours?”

Henry stared at the little girl and shook his head. “M’ name’s Henry, like I said. I don’t know if this is gonna work, ma’am. Nobody told me nothing ’bout no little girls. Where’s your stuff? Might as well get you settled in.”

Nothing about his behavior eased her anxiety about Tara; indeed, he behaved as if she needn’t hope for understanding. “How about giving me a tour of the house, Henry?” she called after him, hiding her concern.

“Soon as I put together something for you to eat. Course, if you don’t like what I fix, feel free.”

Henry gave them a lunch of hamburgers and French fries with ginger ale for Alexis and milk for Tara, enough to feed two more people and causing her to think the Harrington men were big meat eaters. Tara walked over to Henry, tapped him on the thigh and thanked him for her lunch. He looked down at her as though making up his mind whether he’d allow himself to be captivated, but Tara smiled and took the matter out of his hands.

Henry wiped his hands on his oversize, blue-denim apron and started out of the kitchen. “Come on,” he threw over his shoulder. “This’ll take a while. Ain’t much changed here since the old man passed, and that was well-nigh twenty years ago.”

Alexis glanced around the kitchen, enormous with Chinese-blue brick walls and kitchen cabinets, and a chrome sink, stove, dishwasher, grill and refrigerator. A round table with three curved-back Moroccan chairs rested in a white nook as if forgotten.

Hmmm. How odd, she thought as she walked with Henry through the dim living and dining rooms, rooms that obviously once boasted the elegance of their day. At the end of the hour-long tour, she’d decided that Telford Harrington lived much to himself. His bedroom contained a huge sleigh-style bed with a bedspread to match the tan-colored drapery, a beige-and-brown Tabriz carpet, mahogany desk, oversize brown leather chair and chest of drawers. What appeared to be a violin or a viola rested in a corner. A large black-and-white drawing hung over his bed. Nothing cheerful there. And nothing to calm her fears that he might send her packing, as would have been the case if his room were bright and cheerful.

Three other bedrooms, two of which belonged to Telford’s brothers, met the criteria for a master bedroom with anterooms and private baths. Henry had placed her things in a different end of the second floor.

“You might want to ask Mr. Tel if you and your little girl can stay back on the other side in the room on the end by the garden. It’s got an anteroom with a nice bay window, and your little girl could have that by herself. Course, I ain’t saying he’s gonna like none of this, but that’s twix you and him.”

She wished Henry would stop his frequent references to Telford Harrington’s certain displeasure about her child. But she said nothing to that effect, only thanked him. She put Tara to bed for a nap, and walked around the gardens to get her bearings. She loved natural settings—gardens, forests, the ocean, places where a person could feel free. On an impulse, she cut a large bouquet of pink peonies and purple irises, put them in a water-filled vase and placed them on the marble-top walnut table in the foyer. Observing the elegance that the flowers added to the area, she moved the gilt-edged mirror from its dark corner in the hallway, found a hook and hung it above the flowers.

“Now that’s really an improvement,” she said to herself.

“The men won’t like you making changes, ma’am,” Henry said, coming up behind her. “They like things the way they is.”

“I can imagine. What are you planning for supper?” They wanted a homemaker, and she intended to turn that mausoleum into a home.

“Whatever I find in there.” He pointed to the pantry. “Some chops, baked potatoes and beans, apple pie…something like that. They ain’t hard to feed.”

“I’ll do the marketing from now on, Henry. We’ll sit together, plan the menus and make out the grocery lists. Okay?”

“Don’t matter none to me. Mr. Tel said I’d take care of the upstairs and the kitchen, and you see to the downstairs. Twice a week, Bennie comes in and does the heavy cleaning.”

Just as he’d written into her contract. “Thanks, I’m sure we’ll get on well.”

She opened the windows downstairs, let the breeze flow through and immediately felt better about her new job. She found table linens, place settings and flatware and set the table in the breakfast room. Then she cut more flowers and put them on the table along with long tapered candles that she discovered in the linen closet.

Henry stood in the doorway scratching his head and shaking it. “Like I said, I don’t know if this is gonna work. The men eat in the kitchen, and I ain’t seen none of this—” he waved a hand around the breakfast room “—since Miss Etta passed. Course, like I said, that’s twix you and Mr. Tel.”

“How long have you worked here, Henry?”

“’Bout thirty years, since the boys were little. Why?”

She raised an eyebrow. “And you call Telford Harrington Mr. Tel?”

“Humph. I call him anything I want to. I figured that’s what you’d call him.”

She liked Henry, but she didn’t think he’d appreciate her telling him that. “What time do we eat dinner?”

“You mean supper? Whenever they gets here…sometime ’round six or seven.”

She’d have to work on that. Around five, she bathed Tara and dressed her in a yellow pique dress, braided her hair and secured the ends with matching yellow bows. Then she showered, put on a floor-length yellow T-shirt that flattered her svelte and curvaceous five-foot-seven-inch frame, secured her permed hair in a French knot and waited for the verdict. Hers and his. Thinking of what she had to lose, tremors raced through her, and she groped her way to a chair. With three hundred and eighty dollars to her name, Telford Harrington would have to see reason or she’d have a problem.

She’d hung up most of their clothing when she heard the doorbell ring but, thinking that anyone who lived there would use a key, she didn’t move from the closet. She couldn’t. The colors of her clothing danced in a mirage before her eyes, and her feet would not budge.

Tara. She had to find Tara. If she’d gotten into something… She looked around for the child, didn’t see her and walked quickly toward the stairs in time to hear a deep male voice—one she wouldn’t likely forget—explain, “Well, hello to you, too, and who are you?”

“My name is Tara. What’s yours? Do you live here?”

“I certainly do.”

“What’s your name?”

Alexis raced down the stairs and stopped, for he had looked up in her direction, and from that distance, his masculine persona, strong and heady, jumped out to her. Lassoed her and claimed her. She shook her body the way one rids clothes of wrinkles and got a grip on herself. “My name’s Telford,” she heard him say to Tara, though he’d locked his gaze on Alexis. “I’ll be right back.”

He stopped before reaching her and stared into her eyes. She tried to look away, but couldn’t. He seemed to pull her to him the way a magnet captures steel, and she realized that she was closing the distance between them. Her whole body slammed on alert, tingling with a strange new vibrancy, with life, and a blaze leaped into his eyes. The expression burning in them nearly unglued her. She felt him then; oh, how she felt him! He rimmed his top lip with the tip of his tongue, bringing her back to herself and to a halt two steps above him. If she trusted her judgment right then, she’d swear that he shuddered as though tension seeped out of him.

“I’m Telford Harrington, and something tells me you’re Alexis Stevenson.” That didn’t sound as if he was happy about it, either.

She took the hand he extended and shimmered with awareness from her scalp to the soles of her feet. He jerked his hand away from hers as if she’d scalded him. What a mess! Maybe she’d better leave right that minute and take her chances somewhere else.

“Yes,” she said, as though leaving hadn’t occurred to her. “I’m glad to meet you.”

He remained there, a breath away, eye to eye with her though she stood two steps above him. “You didn’t tell me you had a child. If you had, I’m not so sure I’d have hired you.”

“You didn’t ask me, nor did you mention it, so I figured you didn’t think it relevant.”

“If you had three kids, would you still think that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what I’d think if I had three. I’m just thankful that I only have to support this one.” She said that pointedly to ring his bell of compassion, if he had any.

He looked down suddenly, and she saw Tara pulling at his pants leg. “Mr. Telfry, Mr. Henry said supper is ready, and I’m hungry.”

“Mr. Telford, honey,” Alexis corrected.

She held her breath while she waited for his reaction. Tara reached up for his hand, anxious, as usual, to get her way. “Come on,” she said, and he turned and let the child lead him down the stairs to the kitchen, where he stopped.

“Where’s the food, Henry?”

“We’re eating in the breakfast room tonight, Tel. New house rules.”

He walked to the breakfast room, still holding Tara’s hand, stared at the table and spun around. “What the… What’s all this for? You’re having a party? Before I get all the way in the house, I see the place looks and smells like a woman’s boudoir. Now…”

She lifted her chin. “I’m sorry. Should I have set the table in the dining room? That seemed so formal.”

“What’s wrong with the kitchen?”

“It’s the kitchen. Besides, that table has only three chairs. Why do you have dining and breakfast rooms, if you don’t use them?”

Tara tugged at his hand. “Can we sit down?”

“Yeah.”

“What about Henry?” Alexis asked him. “Doesn’t he eat?”

“Ask him.” He let his impatience show and picked up a slice of jalapeño corn bread.

“We have to say grace,” Tara said and bowed her head.

To her amazement, Telford bowed his head and waited. Realizing that he wouldn’t say it, she did, but she knew Tara would be disappointed.

“I don’t like the pepper, Mummy.”

“Then eat the potato and the pork chop, and remember, you do not complain at the table.”

“Sorry, Mummy.”

Telford looked at her, and she wasn’t sure whether the fire in his eyes bespoke annoyance of or delight in her presence, though she suspected it was not the latter.

“You’ve been here, let’s see, half a day, and in that short time, you’ve managed to get dust flying all through the house, change my furniture around as well as my eating habits, and you’ve got the foyer looking like a girl’s dormitory. Ms. Stevenson, this is the home of three adult men and one grizzly cuss. We don’t need this.”

She leaned back, squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “‘Wanted: a woman of taste, intelligence and refinement as homemaker for three brothers.’ That’s what your ad said, and I was expecting a man who could appreciate that in a woman.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t ask you to come here and change my life.”

“Not to worry,” she said in as casual a tone as she could manage, though she couldn’t get her heart to settle down or her nerves to reassemble themselves. “You’ll be pleased, and it’s only for two years.”

He looked toward the ceiling in an air of resignation. “Two years. We’ll talk after we finish supper.”

She’d thought they were talking about it right then. “Whatever you say, sir.” She emphasized the “sir.”

“Call me Telford, and no nicknames please. Henry calls me Tel, but that’s because he can’t remember that I’m no longer six years old. I don’t accept that from anybody else. What do you want me to call you?”

“Alexis is fine.”

“And you can call me Tara.”

She watched Telford carefully to judge his reaction to her daughter. He smiled at the child—composed and at ease in her new environment with the strange man—and her heart raced a little faster. He may be annoyed, but he wouldn’t take it out on her child.

“How old are you, Tara?”

“I’m four, but I’ll be five this year. Mummy says I change ages every year, but only one time a year. Isn’t that right, Mummy?”

She nodded. If Telford and his brothers accepted them, Tara would thrive in the environment. She reached for some lemonade, but Telford took the pitcher from her and refilled her glass.

“This is a lot more than I thought I was getting, Alexis. With a child this age among us, Drake, Russ and I…well, we’ll have to learn a new way of living. Henry will, too.”

“I…I’m sorry, but I’ve burned all my bridges.”

He focused his gaze on her, and she could hardly withstand the intensity of it. There was no telling what those hazel-brown eyes were saying. “Then…all of us will have to give a little.”

Five minutes later, Drake Harrington breezed into the room. “Man, what the hell’s going on here? Henry told me… Whoa!” He walked over to Alexis. “Things have definitely brightened up around here. First, I see flowers, and now I’m looking at a beauty who puts flowers to shame. I’m Drake, the handsome brother.” He shook her hand.

A smile swept across her face. She liked his sense of humor and answered in kind. “So far, that would describe the two I’ve met. Does the other one live up to this standard?”

Drake’s wide grin gave her a sense of well-being. “You mean old sourpuss? If Russ thought he was handsome, he’d do something to change that.”

“Tut-tut,” she said, barely able to contain a giggle. “You should show more respect for your older brother. Have you met my daughter?”

Drake’s eyes widened. “Your… Well, who are you?” he asked Tara. He hadn’t seen her, partly because he hadn’t expected to find her sitting there and partly because he’d glued his gaze on Alexis.

“Mr. Telford already asked me that.” She pushed her glass to Telford. “I drank my milk. Can I please have some lemonade?”

Telford looked at Alexis. “What do I do here? I don’t know what’s good for children.”

Drake glanced at her and, when she nodded, walked around the table, took the glass and half filled it with lemonade. “Now who’s your friend?”

With her face wreathed in smiles, she said, “Mr. Telford, ’cause I saw him first.”

“Whew,” Drake said, hunkered beside Tara’s chair. “How do you like that?” He got up. “Looks like this one’s yours, brother. I’d better eat before Henry gets antsy and doesn’t leave anything for me.”

Alexis noticed that Telford looked from her to Drake as if he expected something to happen. Then it dawned on her that he thought she’d fall for Drake, who obviously had a way with people and was probably famed as a ladies’ man. She looked at Telford steadily and with as much dispassion as possible, hoping to convince him without speaking about it that, although she liked Drake at once, she was not and never would be attracted to him. By the time they finished the meal, Tara was leaning against Drake’s thigh and talking to him nonstop.

If only Telford will accept us. I can’t stay, contract or not, if he’s not happy having Tara here.

“After you get Tara to bed, we’ll talk,” Telford told Alexis after sipping the last of his coffee.

Drake winked at her. “I’m going for a ride. See you later.”

The two men stared as Tara ran to Henry. “Thank you for my supper, Mr. Henry,” she said, smiling up at him. “Mummy said you’re a nice cook.”

The man had the grace to show embarrassment, and to Alexis’s mind that was a good thing. He liked her daughter.

“You just tell old Henry what you like. I’ll fix it.”

“I like black-cherry ice cream,” she told him, smiled and clasped her hands in front of her.

“First thing you know, I won’t recognize the place,” Telford said before heading upstairs.

For the nth time, she read Puss ’n Boots, and for as many times, Tara applauded constantly. When at last Tara was asleep, Alexis walked down the stairs and into the family room or den, where Telford waited for her.

Telford stood beside the gray-stone fireplace with a snifter of cognac in his right hand. How was he going to turn his life around to fit what he considered an appropriate environment for a little girl? No woman had lived among those four men since his mother died fifteen years earlier. Flowers, open windows in the spring and the breeze wafting through, a properly set dining table and a beautiful woman at its head. It reminded him of his mother, whom he had loved and, on many occasions, hadn’t loved at all. He downed the Hennessy VSOP cognac and walked to the window that overlooked the garden, where he saw Drake dismount his horse and tether him.

“I wanted to be here when you started chewing out Alexis for bringing Tara,” Drake said as he entered the den. “And don’t say you hadn’t planned to do it. I have a feeling she’s just what we need.”

“Who? Alexis or a four-year-old?”

Drake pulled off his riding boots, kicked them under a chair and poured himself a snifter of cognac. “Both of ’em.”

“Sure. Alexis Stevenson and ten more would suit you perfectly, but don’t make a move on her. She’s the housekeeper.”

Drake crossed his unshod right foot over his knee, and a grin burst out on his face. “Wake up, man, I saw what was going on.”

Telford stuffed his hands into his trousers pockets and kicked at the brass andiron that graced the fireplace. “What do you mean by that?”

“Figure it out. Suffice it to say, she’s not one bit interested in me, nor I in her.”

“Glad to hear it. When you start after something you go like a bat out of hell.”

Drake grinned. “By the time you know I’m going after it, I’ve done some thinking about it and made up my mind. Ready to move. And when I take off, I make time.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Say what you please, though, she can’t stay.”

His gaze caught Drake’s foot swinging at a slow, even rhythm. “She stays, Telford, because you know you aren’t going to ask her to leave. If you do, I’ll oppose you.”

Telford expelled a long breath. “Yeah, but she can’t make the rules in this house.”

“Let’s wait and see. I wouldn’t mind having a little order around here.”

“I suppose you’re planning to walk around fully clothed, remember to close the bathroom when you’re taking a shower and watch your mouth when you talk. Et cetera, et cetera.”

“Oh, hell. Yeah, I guess I’ll have to.”

“I was wondering where you were,” Alexis sang as she glided into the room.

The simplest dress a woman could put on, and she looked like a goddess, soft, feminine and…and…for Pete’s sake, what was he thinking? She refused the cognac he offered.

“Wine at dinner and a glass of champagne, occasionally, are my limit. You wanted to talk with me, Telford?”

Champagne, eh? “Yeah. Look,” he began, rubbing the back of his neck, “have a seat. This is no place for a small child.”

She sat forward, alert and anxious, and he had the feeling she’d spring out of the chair in a second. “Are you saying you want me to leave?”

Hearing her voice shake brought out his protective streak, and try as he would, he couldn’t forget that by her own account, she was vulnerable. “Can you imagine what it’s like for three men and a male cook living in a house this size together? On summer weekends, we hardly ever put on clothes, and I don’t ever remember wearing bathing trunks in that pool out back.”

Alexis stood. “Maybe you should have advertised for a homemaker with greatly impaired vision. You’ll have to be just as circumspect around me as around Tara.”

The howls of laughter from Drake accentuated Telford’s embarrassment. He hadn’t thought of that. He folded his arms against his chest, leaned against the wall and asked her, “Will I have to refrain from saying damn?”

“Yes, you will.” He realized he’d raised her temperature level when she walked to within a foot of where he stood. “And there are a few other things we have to straighten out. My contract says two years, and I intend to stay for at least that long. If you’re three blood brothers, you’re a family. Families eat their meals together, so you shouldn’t straggle in whenever it suits you. Say dinner’s at seven, all of you sit down to the table at seven. Or six, or whatever time you decide.”

“Anything else?” Telford asked her, and Drake eyed them the way a sleuth watches a suspected criminal.

“No hats on in the house or at the table, no boots beneath chairs and no swearing. I don’t want my daughter conditioned to accept such behavior from men.”

She had hutzpah, all right, he had to hand it to her.

“Of course not,” he said, sarcasm lacing his words. “She might one day go to college and live in a coed dormitory, and she’d be prepared for just what she found there—a bunch of naked men in the showers. Alexis, I would treat Tara with no less respect than I would my own daughter.”

Drake got up, took off the Stetson he wore when riding, pulled his boots from beneath the chair and winked at Alexis. “You won’t get any flack from me; unlike Robinson Crusoe over there, who enjoys his own company—” he pointed to Telford “—I love women. The more around me, the merrier. And Tara can stay here as long as she likes. She’s just what this tomb needs.” He left them and walked up the stairs, whistling “Knock About Sweetheart” as he went.

“Oh, yes,” Alexis said. “I forgot to add that you shouldn’t raise your voices in disagreement or anger.”

His glare had to suffice, since he couldn’t grab her and shake her till…till she was soft and…and warm and perfumed with the tantalizing odor of woman, till she… He brought himself up short and regrouped. “Alexis, don’t push me too far. Don’t ever do that. Never. You got that?”

She didn’t give quarter, and in spite of his annoyance, he admired her. “I know this all sounds like a bad pill you have to swallow, and I’m sorry, but I figured you’d want us to settle everything now, and it’s best to get these things straight in advance.”

He’d had enough. “Do you think you’ve happened upon a houseful of barbaric, uncivilized men? If so, you’d better make a run for it.”

She appeared thoughtful. “Barbaric? Uncivilized? Hmmm. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far. A little rough around the edges, maybe.”

His glare broadened to a thunderous glower. “You trying to test my restraint?”

She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Wouldn’t think of it. Anybody can see you’re a paragon of willpower and self-control. Cool. Real laid-back.”

“All right, all right. You and I both know what’s going on here. If these verbal whacks are helping to relieve your frustration, by all means don’t spare me.”

Apparently less assured now, she avoided looking him in the eye for the first time. “You’re assuming a lot, Mr. Harrington.”

“Don’t fool yourself.” He poured half a glass of club soda, dropped two cubes of ice in it, offered the glass to her and, when she declined, sipped it slowly. “Let’s get back to business. I was not expecting you to come with a child. You told me you were divorced, and I got the impression you were much older.”

“If you’d asked my age, I would have told you. You didn’t.”

“I know, I know. But I always heard that women don’t like to tell their age.”

“Sorry, I can’t help you there.” Suddenly her demeanor seemed to change. Lord forbid she should try some feminine tactics on him. He wasn’t holding still for that.

But she fooled him. “Telford, let’s see this from my point of view. I sublet my house, packed some necessities, stored the remainder of my belongings, got in my car and changed my life by coming here. Where do I go if I leave here, and what will I do with Tara while I find another job and a place to stay? That’s my dilemma, but if you don’t want my child here, I don’t want to stay, and I won’t.”

“I’m not asking you to leave. What do you think I am, an ogre of some kind?”

“She’s obedient, and she’s smart. You’ll see.”

And she was a beautiful, loving child who would soon have him and every other man around rolling over whenever she snapped her fingers. He looked at the hopeful expression in Alexis’s soft brown eyes. Hopeful, but not pleading. What had he thought he’d gain by giving her the third degree? Except perhaps to establish some vital distance between them. They’d hooked the minute they looked at each other on those stairs. She could deny it if she wanted to, but he’d felt it to the marrow of his bones, and he’d bet anything, even his varsity ring, that it was the same for her.

The present arrangement wouldn’t work; he didn’t want Tara running around in the corridors near their bedrooms. “Tomorrow, I’d like you to move over to that guest room off the garden. It’s private and safe, and it’s much more spacious. No one can scale that wall without spending a few weeks in a hospital. Furthermore, Tara will be less likely to grow up too fast. Henry will show you to that room.”

“Thanks. When you have time, please tell me how you like things done.”

He looked at her to see if she might be pulling his leg, and realized that she was serious. In spite of himself, he laughed aloud. “Why would I bother to do that? You’ll do what you like. Sleep well.”

For some reason, he didn’t want to see her walk out of the door, so he went over to the window and busied himself closing first the blinds and then the draperies. He heard her say good-night, but he pushed from his mind the soft caress that was her voice.

He went back to the bar, poured himself another glass of club soda and sipped it, mostly to have something to do. When he’d looked up those stairs and seen her looking down at him, he thought a barrel of bricks had fallen on his head. And as she glided toward him, her motion slow and fluid as if something other than her feet propelled her, a sweet, terrible hunger that he hadn’t experienced in his thirty-six years began to churn in him. She stopped just in time, bringing him to his senses seconds before he would have reached out for her.

He brushed his fingers over his curly hair, exasperated at the thought of having that woman in his home for the next two years. He’d had enough of women, beautiful and otherwise. First his unfaithful mother, and then… He pushed the thought from his mind.

“Well, does she stay?”

He spun around at the sound of Drake’s voice. “She stays. What else can I do? She has to work, and she has a child. I—”

“That’s a great little girl, too. Don’t sweat it, Telford. We’re in the doldrums; been in ’em for years. I liked sitting at a properly set table. Hell, half the time, Henry serves the food right from the pot so he can wash one less dish.”

“I know, but it’s… Well—”

Drake’s hand clasped his right shoulder. “Don’t let it get to you. You’ll either like it or it won’t amount to a thing. Trust me; I’ve been there.”

He looked at his brother, the person closest to him, and shook his head. For all Drake’s apparent frivolousness, his insight into human feelings and behavior could be startlingly clear, so he didn’t try to mislead him. “Right. It may take me a few days, but I’ll get it together.”

“I may be a little late for breakfast tomorrow morning, Tel,” Henry called from the door. “I don’t suppose that matters, though, since it’s Saturday. But I thought I’d run down to Bridge Market and get some of that good double-smoked bacon. We ain’t got nothing here but country sausage.”

“Isn’t that what we always eat for breakfast?”

“Yeah, but Tara told me she likes pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. We got the syrup, but we ain’t got—”

Telford held up his hands, palms out. “All right, all right. Get the bacon. Anything else she wants. I hope I get my breakfast before I have to leave for Baltimore.”

“Do my best.”

Do his best. “Henry knows breakfast is my favorite meal. I have to change my suppertime, eat in the breakfast room, walk around in the house fully clothed with dust flying around in my face, wait till you get home before I can eat and I’ll probably have to give up sausage and eat bacon with my grits?” He threw up his hands.

“Don’t look at me,” Drake said, his white teeth sparkling against his olive complexion. “And quit complaining. Just think of the fun you’re probably going to have.”

“Man, you’re wasting your thought process. I’m not going that way.”

“If you say so. A first-class woman is in the house.”

Drake raced back upstairs, and his thoughts turned inward. If only he were as sure as he’d sounded.

Chapter 2

Alexis crawled into bed long after midnight, having survived a day in which she’d turned her life around, hurtling from society matron to live-in housekeeper, from college teacher to a woman with limited means of earning a living. At nine o’clock yesterday morning, the judge had banged his gavel and finally closed her custody case for all time, thwarting Jack Stevenson’s last effort to take their child from her. Jack had badgered and threatened her until she relinquished her share of their joint property in exchange for Tara’s custody. A month later, supported by his enormous wealth and high-priced lawyers, he challenged her fitness as a mother, as if to break her spirit by depriving her of her only remaining treasure. All of her savings had gone to lawyers’ fees, but she had her child, and that was all that mattered.

She leaned over the sleeping little girl—conscious that they were sharing a bed for the first time—and closed her eyes in gratitude. Tara was hers, and the future was bright, or would be if… She bolted upright and tremors streaked down her limbs as she recalled Telford Harrington and her reaction to him. She still felt the shock of seeing the man for the first time, of looking into hazel-brown eyes that mesmerized her, of having the stuffing knocked out of her. When she’d finally gotten back in her room, her fingers shook so badly that she could hardly remove her shoes. She didn’t know how she’d do it, but she’d deal with it. She had to; her life and that of her child depended on it. She kissed Tara’s cheek and turned out the light.

She had a home for herself and Tara and she could save a little money. But what if… Perspiration matted her hair. If he discovered her education and social status in mainline Philadelphia, he’d fire her as an imposter. She prayed he wouldn’t investigate her. She hadn’t lied, but no sane man would have hired her as a housekeeper if he knew the life she’d lived.

Alexis didn’t know how long she counted sheep, but she awoke from peaceful oblivion to hear Tara say, “I wanna go eat, Mummy. Mr. Henry’s cooking something for me.”

“In a minute, and say please.”

“Please.”

She dressed Tara and then herself and went downstairs, where Telford and Drake sat at the table in the kitchen. Drake got up immediately and went to the breakfast room to get two chairs.

“I hope you slept well,” Telford said when they greeted each other, warily, like two cats who’d lost their night vision.

“Well as could be expected.”

He stopped chewing and looked directly at her. “What do you mean by that? If you weren’t comfortable, I’ll get you some new mattresses. Today.”

“I was very comfortable, and the room is delightful. But… Telford, I’ve just changed my life. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

She had his full attention then, and her nerves rioted as his piercing gaze focused on her, his beloved sausage and grits momentarily forgotten. “If you have a problem you think I can help you with, let me know. That’s what I’m here for.”

She hadn’t expected that show of compassion, and her eyebrows arched sharply. “I appreciate that, Telford, but if you and I get along well, that’s all the help I think I’ll need. Now where on earth did Tara go?”

He waved his fork in the direction of the kitchen stove. “She’s over there admiring Henry. I hope she can get him to cook something other than hamburgers, steaks and chops. I’ve begun to hate that stuff.” Something suggestive of pain streaked across his face.

“I’ll see what I can do about that. Not to worry.”

He stared at her for a long time before he asked, “You can cook?”

“Wouldn’t you expect a housekeeper to be able to cook? You bet I can.”

“Right on!” Drake said, walking back to the table holding two stacked chairs in one hand and Tara by the other. “Maybe we’ll get some variety in these meals.”

Telford’s face creased into a smile. “If Henry hears you say that, we’ll be eating cabbage stew until he decides he’s had adequate revenge.”

“Tell me about it. You going to Baltimore this morning?” Drake asked Telford. “It wouldn’t hurt you to take a Saturday off once a year.” He took his plate to the stove for more eggs and bacon.

“Can’t. That school’s going to be perfect if I have to lay every stone with my own hands. The Harrington name will stand for the last word in building again, for the very best. People will take notice, if I die trying.”

She didn’t like the harshness of his voice or the rage that she sensed just below his veneer of gentility.

“I’ll drag old man Sparkman and his gang down to their knees, if it’s the last thing I do,” he spat out. “That school building is going to be a symbol of quality, and I’ll bring it in on time and on budget.”

Alexis looked at Telford’s clenched fists and the muscles working in his jaw. Her gaze moved to his eyes and the fierce emotion that robbed them of the warmth that had cast a spell over her the night before. Oh, those eyes held fire, all right, but a different kind of fire, the fire of animosity and a hunger for revenge.

She didn’t know the reason for his hostility, but she knew that it made him hard and vengeful; no person could be happy feeling as he did.

The fingers of her right hand closed over his left wrist. “If you dislike this man so much, he will occupy your thoughts when your mind should be free for other concerns. Whenever you hate anyone, you’re the loser.” His glare didn’t shake her resolve. “What I said is true,” she continued. “Do what you have to do, but don’t think about the man; these feelings you have…they’re…they’re destructive.”

“Look here. You don’t know anything about this, nor what this man has cost my family. You’d do well not to talk out of turn.”

She couldn’t let it go at that. This man hurt, and he would go on hurting until he got the better of his enemy, but she knew that when he did, he’d have a hollow victory.

“I don’t mean to offend you, but you’ll never be at peace this way.”

He pushed his chair back from the table and put his hands on his knees in a move to leave. “I don’t care for namby-pamby. That’s not… Wait a minute, you’re not a pacifist or a…” His eyes widened. “A—”

She finished it for him. “A Quaker, a member of the Society of Friends. I am not namby-pamby, as you put it, and I stand up for my rights. But I do not argue or hold grudges, and I don’t let anger get in the way of my common sense. Yours is ruling you.”

He leaned back in the chair. “Who the… Who’d have thought it? Did you come from a family of Quakers?”

She shook her head. “I was raised a Methodist.”

“Why the change? Is your ex-husband a Quaker?”

That was good for a laugh. “I don’t know what he is. I joined the Friends because I needed to be with people whose lives were different from the volatile and sometimes violent relationships I witnessed in my parents, and whose values were unlike those of my manipulative and greedy husband.”

She supposed she’d shocked him until she saw on his face something akin to recognition. He seemed uncomfortable, as though she’d given him information that he’d rather not have.

“Sorry if I’ve embarrassed you.”

He held up his hand. “No. No. It’s all right. I…I was thinking what a difficult life you must have had. Yet you take me to task for being angry. Neither of us has had a happy time of it.” He stood. “I hope you’ll be happier here. Henry will show you that room by the garden. See you this evening.”

“Around seven?” she asked to emphasize their agreement to eat dinner at a fixed time.

“All right. Seven.”

“Mr. Telford, I wanna go with you.”

She’d almost forgotten that Tara sat quietly at the table listening to their conversation.

“Tell you what,” he said to Tara, who’d left the table and was holding his hand. “You and I will take a little walk another day, but not today. Okay?”

“Don’t forget, Mr. Telford. We’re going to walk.”

She hoped he wouldn’t disappoint her child. Jack never remembered his promises to his daughter, and she didn’t want her to grow up thinking that men were unreliable.

“Did he leave?” Drake asked, pulled out the chair Telford vacated and sat down.

She nodded. “He’ll be back by seven.”

An amused twinkle danced in Drake’s dark eyes. “Oh, yeah. You said we had to be home by seven and eat together. I was surprised he didn’t tell you who was boss.”

“You make me sound like a bore.”

“Trust me, I didn’t mean to. Think the two of you will get on all right? Telford’s been through plenty, and when he puts himself to it, he can be a real handful.”

“He’s sensitive, and Tara likes him.”

“Tara likes any guy wearing pants, which is why I’m not jealous of her affection for Henry. He doesn’t even want people to like him.” He buttered a biscuit and spread raspberry jam on it. “Three or four hours after she meets him, she’s trailing behind him, and he’s going halfway to Frederick to get bacon for her. He wouldn’t do that for me or my brothers.”

“Why not?”

The expression on his face suggested that there might be some doubt as to her sanity. “What we want doesn’t matter a hoot to Henry. He does as he pleases.” He reached over and patted Tara’s shoulder. “I gotta get out of here. See you later.”

She noticed that, although Tara told him good-bye, smiled and waved at him, she didn’t hold on to him or ask to go with him. She wondered if Tara had sensed her own reaction to Telford and been favorably impressed because of it. She cleared the table and took the dishes over to the kitchen sink.

“Ain’t no reason for you to do that. You hear?” Henry wiped his hands on his apron. “I’ll take care of the kitchen. You go get your things ready so I can take you to your new room. You’ll like it.” He looked down at Tara. “You will, too.”

She loved the enormous room with its sand-colored walls, cinnamon-colored carpeting and soft yellow accessories. A wall of windows let her look at the garden, a grove of trees and what appeared to be a river in the distance. She stood by the window and took in the beauty.

Henry took pride in showing her her new quarters. “Swimming pool’s at the other end of the garden. When it’s hot in midsummer, we just turn on the floodlights and swim at night.” He walked to the far end of the room and opened a door. “This is supposed to be a sitting room, but we can put a bed and some furniture in here for Tara. Bath and Jacuzzi right there.” He pointed to another door. “That opens to the garden. Don’t worry, it’s safe. The fence is twelve feet high and has barbed wire on top.”

She thanked him. “I’ll plan some menus, make a shopping list, and I can write out some recipes for you, if you want me to.”

He scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know. If it don’t broil, and you can’t French-fry it, I ain’t got no use for it.”

She allowed herself the familiarity of a pat on his shoulder. “You’ll be surprised how easy this will be.”

Henry hadn’t been young for a long, long time, she realized when his face sagged and a shadow flashed in his eyes. “I guess I could use a few tips. Ain’t easy figuring out new ways to cook the same old thing.”

“You don’t have to worry about that in the future, or at least not for as long as I’m here. We’ll help each other, Henry. I don’t know a fifth of what you know.” She wanted him for a friend, and she meant to be one.

Telford had been away for several days on a business trip, and Alexis didn’t know he’d come home until Tara ran down the hall calling his name. “Mr. Telford. Mr. Telford. Mummy, can Mr. Telford come look at what I drew?”

Telford wasn’t pleased that she brought a child to his home, and she didn’t want Tara’s fondness for him to become tiresome.

“Darling, Mr. Telford just came home, and he’s probably very tired. You must wait till he’s had time to…to rest.”

“I have to put on some work clothes, Tara. Think you can wait a little while?”

Alexis couldn’t believe the smile that lit up Tara’s face. Her daughter was as impatient as a four-year-old could be, but she graciously accepted whatever Telford offered her.

“You must have magic powers, Telford. I can hardly believe that’s my daughter.”

“Why’s that?”

“Her patience, this new trait she adopted after she came here, boggles my mind.”

His wink nearly knocked her off balance. “Some females know a man when they see one.”

And I don’t? This woman was far ahead of Tara. “I’m not going there, Telford. Not for a second.”

With his hands in the back pockets of his trousers and his feet planted wide apart, his lips slowly exposed his perfect white teeth in a grin. Devastating. But if he knew it, unlike Drake, he didn’t show it. Thank goodness she was able to resist grabbing her chest to slow down her heartbeat. If she wasn’t careful or very lucky, she’d be the one to break the contract. A little of this man could set a dozen women on fire.

“Suit yourself,” he said, winking again. “I’ve got to check the warehouse. If you’re not busy, you and Tara can come along, see one of our operations and meet some of the men working on that building.”

“They work on Saturday?”

“It’s their choice, and they’re well paid for it. Better put on some jeans.”

“How about chinos? I don’t own any jeans.”

“Whatever. Be back here in fifteen minutes.”

“I get the impression you’re involved in building. What do you do?”

“I’m a builder. We put up buildings. All kinds. Russ, Drake and I work together as Harrington, Incorporated.”

“Impressive. I’d like to see some of your buildings sometime.” Realizing that a housekeeper wouldn’t have said that, she lowered her gaze, flustered.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

This man was sensitive, and she’d better not call attention to herself. If he became curious about her, she might soon be looking for work. Furthermore, causing him to focus on her could precipitate an eruption she didn’t want. She knew enough psychology to appreciate that an attraction as strong as his for her was not one-sided. Besides, that wasn’t ice she saw in his eyes as he faced her on the steps the day she arrived, nor was it disinterest she was looking at right then.

“Uh…nothing. I forgot I have work to do.”

His facial expression dissolved into the picture of puzzlement. “It’s after four, so you’re off for the weekend. At least I thought that was our agreement. Meet you down here in a few minutes.”

“All right. But, Telford, you don’t have to take Tara for a walk. She’s…only a little girl, and she has to understand that you’re not here to cater to her.”

“I told her we’d go for a walk, and nobody forced me to say that. My word is my bond, and I keep my promises. If I tell you I’ll do something, count on it. And I expect the same from anyone else. See you in a minute.” He whirled around and dashed up the stairs.

Telford swore at himself as he headed for his room. He had to watch his behavior with Alexis Stevenson. She possessed grace, charm and intelligence—traits that he admired—not to mention sizzling femininity. He’d observed her at breakfast a few mornings earlier, when she thought his mind was on biscuits, sausage and grits. Her finesse went far beyond what he’d expect of a housekeeper. Tactful, too. He threw off his outer clothing, kicked off his shoes, put on jeans, a long-sleeved collared T-shirt, alligator boots and a denim jacket and raced down the stairs. To his surprise, Alexis and Tara waited for him at the bottom of the steps.

“I thought I moved fast. You two must have raced back here.”

“I ran. Mummy walked. Where’re we going?”

She gazed up at him with soft brown eyes, smiling eyes, and reached for his hand. He supposed she touched him the way she did because she expected him to like her or…maybe because he’d once dreamed he’d have a family of his own—sons like him and soft, feminine daughters. He shook himself out of the memory, the residual of his youthful desires.

“I’m going to show you around the place,” he told them. “We’re building a warehouse down the road there because it will give us greater security. Want to see it?”

Her little fingers relaxed, warm and trusting in his big hand.

“I do, and I wanna see the puppies, too.”

He glanced at Alexis, hoping that she knew something about them. “Puppies? I didn’t know we had any.”

She lifted her left shoulder in a slight shrug. “Neither did I.”

Wondering if he was dealing with the fruits of a child’s imagination, he hunkered beside Tara and asked her, “Did Henry say we have puppies?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh. And they’re brown.”

He stood, and she grasped his hand again. “In that case, I’ll see if I can find them. When I was little like you, Tara, I played under this tree while my dad worked nearby.” Now why had he shared that with them? He pointed to a sycamore tree that towered over the stable. “That one.” When he looked in that direction, he glimpsed Alexis’s upturned face and her soft kissable lips, and his heart leapfrogged in his chest.

At the warehouse, he introduced Alexis and Tara to the workers. “Mrs. Stevenson, this is Biff Jackson, my project foreman. Biff, Mrs. Stevenson is our new homemaker.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted introducing Alexis to Biff, who assumed the stance of a man looking at a woman he desired but for whom he had low regard.

“And this is Tara, Mrs. Stevenson’s daughter. If she strays out here, send her back immediately with a man you trust.”

“Sure thing,” Biff said, his gaze fixed on Alexis. “Howdy, Ms. Stevenson.” He extended his hand. “Things are looking up around here.”

Telford didn’t imagine that she hesitated before shaking Biff’s hand, and it was clear to him that the man continued to hold her grip when she’d indicated she wanted him to release her. Her gaze swept to him, furor flashing in her eyes.

“Knock it off, Biff. If you want to play, find someone who’s willing.”

Biff’s shrug was lazy and insolent. “They’re all willing, boss. Some just need a little help.” He saluted in mocking fashion. “Glad to meet you. Be seeing you around.” She didn’t respond.

Telford narrowed his eyes. “Just make certain you know when that help is wanted.”

He knew Biff regarded himself highly; he’d heard enough of the man’s braggadocios of his way with women. Alexis had just dusted him off, and with Biff’s outsized ego, he was probably already thinking of a way to make her pay. Wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on Biff.

“Seen any puppies around here, Biff?”

“Puppies? Naaah. Say, wait. I think Henry has some at his place. Some golden retrievers.”

He thanked his foreman and guided Alexis and Tara around the structure, pointing out its features and explaining things to Tara, an intelligent child who possessed a healthy curiosity. The warehouse was a relatively simple structure, and he had built suspension bridges, municipal buildings, schools and mansions, yet his pride in showing Alexis and Tara that uncomplicated job—what he did and who he was—eclipsed his regard for his previous accomplishments. As they headed for Henry’s cottage, the significance of his feelings worried him.

Henry stopped mowing the grass as they approached. “I guess you come for your little puppy.”

Tara looked at her mother, who pinned soft, warm brown eyes on him.

“All right, all right, but we’ll have to establish some house rules, and it has to be a male.”

Tara squealed and hugged his leg, and Henry disappeared into the house. Telford liked animals, but he didn’t keep pets. As a child, he feared losing things he loved, so he hadn’t let himself love. His mother, Etta Harrington, used to disappear whenever it suited her, or it seemed that way to a small boy, and when he was in the third grade, his best friend died of the flu. There’d been times when he’d tried not to love his brothers for fear of losing them.

Henry returned with a puppy in a towel-lined basket, his face bright with smiles as he handed it to Tara, and it dawned on him that the little girl gave the old man unqualified love and affection, a new life.

Tara looked up at them as she cradled her treasure, her face the image of pure joy. “Thanks, Mr. Henry. I’m going to name him Biscuit, ’cause Mr. Telford loves biscuits. I like ’em, too.”

What a sensitive child. If she’d learned that from her mother… He shoved the thought aside. He rarely walked around the Harrington property or took the time to enjoy its beauty, and he realized that he found pleasure in it now because he shared it with Alexis and Tara. If he was smart, he’d shake off that domesticity right then.

The little girl held her basket with one hand and grasped his fingers with her other one. “Where we going now, Mr. Telford?”

“We’re going home. You need to take care of your puppy, and I’ve…uh got to do some work.”

He wanted to ask Alexis if she was always so serene or if… No, that wasn’t it. Maybe he just didn’t understand her facial expressions. And maybe you’d better not try, a niggling voice warned him.

“Thanks for showing us around,” she said, as he prepared to leave them at the bottom of the stairs. “And for letting Tara have the puppy. You’ve made her so happy.”

“My pleasure.” Remembering his father’s words, “Always get it straight in advance,” he sat on the steps and pulled Tara into the curve of his arm.

“Puppies need rules. He cannot run through the house. For now, he sleeps in your room, but when he’s older, on the back porch. You bathe him at least once a week. Henry will tell you about feeding him. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” To his amazement, her little arms snaked around his neck and she pressed kisses to his cheek. “I have to go take care of Biscuit,” she said, cradling the basket. “Bye.”

Tara ran off, but Alexis remained there. He looked at her, and this time he could read her, because he’d caught her off guard with her feelings naked in her eyes. He didn’t think he saw gratitude there, but with lightning speed, she pulled a curtain over her emotions, leaving him unsure. In that second, she set off something inside him that he couldn’t shove aside, and unless he put on the brakes right then…

He jumped up. “See you at supper.”

She called it dinner, thanks to her Yankee roots, and the Southerner in him thought of it as supper. He half smiled. Another of their inconsequential differences.

“Thanks again, Telford.”

Her voice, soft and sweet, soothed him, gave him a strange peace, and he had to admit that she represented what he needed and didn’t have: a warm and loving woman in whom he could lose himself and his cares.

Suddenly, he spun around. “What am I thinking? I won’t be home for supper tonight. Tell Henry, if you don’t mind.”

He’d been single for thirty-six years and content with his status. Alone, he’d sent himself and his brothers through school, held his family together after losing his parents, and he’d done it on his own, gone through the tough times by himself. These days, life was a piece of cake by comparison. He wasn’t about to complicate his life. But what a temptation Alexis Stevenson was! When she fixed her wide, soft brown eyes on him and subjected him to the peaceful air she wore like a cloak, she weakened his defenses. Inviting. Captivating. Her smooth black skin, patrician nose, luscious lips and full breasts did all kinds of things to his libido. He exhaled a harsh breath. Every perfect curve of her body said woman. Jack Stevenson had to be either a fool or a modern tragedy.

When he opened his room door, he thought of Tara expecting him at supper. Now what? He waited twenty minutes and dialed Alexis’s phone number.

“Mind if I speak with Tara?”

“Not at all. Just a second.”

No preliminaries. He liked that. “Hello, Tara. This is Telford. Have you fed your puppy?”

“Yes, and he’s already asleep.”

“Good. I’ll see you in the morning at breakfast.” He hadn’t lied, and she wouldn’t expect him, so she wouldn’t be disappointed. He breathed a deep sigh of relief. An hour later, he was in his Buick Le Sabre headed for Frederick.

Alexis finished pulling the red caftan over her head, tied the thongs of her sandals around her ankles, walked over to her daughter and put the phone back into its cradle. “What did he say?”

“He told me to feed Biscuit.”

“That’s all?”

“No. He said he’d see me in the morning. Can I have my keyboard now?”

She gave Tara the keyboard, opened the door and walked out into the garden. He’d decided not to have dinner with them and, remembering that Tara would miss him, he’d prepared her. A kind, thoughtful man, but he walked alone, and after what she’d suffered the past four and a half years, she preferred to do the same. Whether she’d made a mistake in signing the contract with Telford would depend on how they deported themselves. Worrying about her reaction to him was a waste of time, and she intended to focus on her sculpting.

“Mummy. Telephone.”

“Hello,” she said, winded after running halfway across the garden. “Velma! I’d begun to wonder if you’d gotten my message.”

“I did, but I’ve been flying around like crazy. What’s he like?”

She prepared herself for the third degree. “What’s who like?”

“Don’t try to bamboozle me, sis. Anytime your mind goes blank, I know you’re hiding something. And this time, it’s a man.”

“Velma, I’ve been here exactly six days.”

“So? You could’ve conceived sextuplets by now. What’s he like?”

She sat down, crossed her legs and prepared for a grilling by her older sister. “Telford Harrington is, so far as I have been able to determine, a gentleman. That’s the sum total of my knowledge of the man.”

“My, my. And we’re so precise. If he’s too much of a gentleman, he can be a bore. What do you think of the place?”

She told her, adding, “Nobody who lives here is suffering.”

“Does he have any brothers?”

Alexis laughed aloud, figuring she’d get some of her own. “Two of ’em. Drake, the one I met, makes Billy Dee Williams look ordinary.”

Velma’s whistle burned her ear. “Quit lying, girl. When I look at Billy Dee in those old movies, I just get plain unconscious. He’s da man. If this brother’s in Billy Dee’s class, honey, look for me, and soon.”

“Trust me. He’s a sizzler.” She could picture Velma’s mental machine at work.

“If he’s so hot, what’s wrong with him that you’re not interested?”

“No chemistry.” That much was true. “And I work for these guys.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to carry it off, hon? That’s hard work, and you’re not used to it. I could strangle Jack Stevenson.”

“As Grandma used to say, ‘let him lie.’ I have Tara—or did have. She has mutual affairs going with both Harringtons and the cook.” Alexis wiped the dampness from beneath her eyes. “Jack ignored Tara, and she is really basking in the attention these men give her. I think she’s fallen for Telford.”

“Telford, huh? So that’s his name?”

“Would you please back up, Velma? I am not interested in these men.”

“Of course you aren’t. If one of those blood brothers is a knockout, so are the others. That thing runs in families, and I’ll bet Telford’s good-looking and you’re sweet on him. Anyhow, I want to meet Drake.”

“No, you don’t. He’s younger than you are.”

“Don’t start preaching. If he’s of legal age, intelligent, otherwise mature and has everything in the right places, so what?”

Alexis couldn’t help laughing. “Drake Harrington is an architectural engineer and time enough for you and a few more women. If you meet him, you’ll have to pay me not to tell him what you just said.”

“I’m crying a river. What about the other brother?”

He was a question mark, an important one, because she didn’t know how he would react to Tara. “Haven’t seen him yet, but Drake referred to him as ‘old sourpuss.’ He’s the middle brother. When can you come visit me?”

“Soon as you can get the family together. I want my pick of those brothers.”

“I’ll bet. How’s business?”

“Great. I just signed to cater the Omega convention. And keep your fingers crossed. I’m bidding for the AKA annual.”

“I’m proud of you, sis. I wish you’d show me how to make that crisscross lemon-almond cake.”

“Get me a Harrington, and I will.”

“I’ll… I think that’s the doorbell. I’d better answer it. Talk to you later.”

She rushed down the long hallway to the front door, peeped out and saw a black Mercedes parked in front of the house. She slipped on the chain, cracked the door and peeped at the visitor.

“You can open it,” Henry called to her, and she wondered why he hadn’t done that himself.

She flung the door open and gaped at the man who continued to stand there staring at her. “I’m Russ Harrington,” he said at last and brushed past her.

Forgetting that she was the housekeeper, she left the door ajar in a kind of reprimand and walked past him.

“Just a minute, miss. Where’s Drake?”

“Drake? I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Then who’re…what’re you doing here?”

“I’m Alexis Stevenson, and I’m not visiting either one of your brothers. I’m the housekeeper.”

His lower lip dropped. “The what?”

“The housekeeper. Dinner’s at seven.” She walked off and left him wide-eyed and openmouthed.

She’d finally met a Harrington she wasn’t sure she liked, and she was almost certain that he wouldn’t like Tara.

Chapter 3

“Well, I’ll be damned. If she’s a housekeeper, I’m William the Conqueror.” Russ walked into the kitchen hoping that Henry would enlighten him, but he wasn’t there. He moved up the stairs at a slow pace. Surely, Telford hadn’t lost his mind and hired that woman to… He stopped on the stairs, took out his cell phone and dialed Telford’s cell number.

He skipped the greeting. “Man, I just got home, and this woman who looked as if she was about to entertain the governor opened the door and told me she’s the housekeeper. Tell me she’s lying or that you’re having a little fun at my expense.”

“Henry’s getting too old to look after that big house, and the place needs more than a—”

Russ sucked in his breath and interrupted his older brother. “So what you’re telling me is the woman gliding around here in a long red getup is a housekeeper you hired. Have you lost your mind?”

“She’s competent. How’d it go in Barbados?’

“More or less as we thought. Five stories and a one-level basement is the maximum, and don’t try to get me off the subject of this glamour girl who’s posing as a housekeeper.” The more he thought about losing his privacy, the madder he got. “I don’t care if she has a PhD in housekeeping, I’m not changing my life for her. You expect me to walk around here fully clothed, keep my room door closed and—”

“Give it a rest, Russ. She and I signed a two-year contract, and it’s binding. Besides, she not a housekeeper; the contract says she’s a homemaker.”

“Whatever. You could at least have hired somebody who looked like a housekeeper. Humph. Homemaker. I thought she was Drake’s latest conquest, and I think I upset her by acting as if she were.”

Telford’s whistle pierced his ears. “I’ll bet that rang her bell.”

“Did it ever. You should have seen how fast her back went up. Where are you right now?”

“I’m in Frederick.”

“Well, you’d better come here and straighten out this mess. Give her a big severance check. Anything. She’s got to go.”

“Not a chance, Russ. By the way, dinner is at seven; hat off in the house; no swearing; no loud voice; we all eat together; and we say grace at meals.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” He couldn’t believe the snicker he heard coming through the wire, but there it was again.

“New house rules. I’ll get in late tonight. See you.”

Russ stared at the dial tone. He was having none of it. After dumping his bags in a corner of his room and kicking off his shoes, he charged, barefooted, downstairs in search of anybody against whom he could release a little venom.

“Hello. What’s your name?”

He whirled around and banged his head against the antique chest that had stood in that spot in the hallway since before he was born. He was on his way out of his mind. He was certain of it.

“My name is Tara. Who’re you?”

He looked down at her and tried to collect his wits. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Maybe you’ll tell me who you are.”

“I already told you. Where’s Mr. Telford?”

“He’s…uh…out of town, but when he gets back here, you will definitely know it.”

“You want to see Biscuit?”

“Biscuit?”

“Biscuit is my little puppy. Mr. Henry gave him to me.”

He looked toward the ceiling and fought the urge to bare his teeth. Animals did not belong in a house, and especially not if he lived there. “Did he, now? Where’s your mother, Tara?”

To his surprise, she took his hand and smiled. “She’s around here.”

He’d been in a trance ever since he walked in the door, so he submitted to the eerie feeling that he might have lost his mind, allowed her to hold his hand and followed her.

“There you are, darling.”

He stopped and waited until Alexis reached him. “I assume this is your kid.”

“You assume wrong. She’s a little girl, my daughter.”

He ran his hand over his silky curls and regrouped. “Didn’t mean to be offensive, but this… Well, it’s unsettling at best. I don’t know what my brother was thinking about. With two females in this… This is a man’s preserve, and with you here, we’ll have to reinvent ourselves. This isn’t going to work.”

She folded her arms, as relaxed as if she were unaware of his annoyance. “You’ll hardly ever run into either one of us, and when you do, you’ll find you don’t mind it at all. We’ll see you at dinner. Come along, Tara.”

“Wait a second. Didn’t you understand me? I said this isn’t—”

This housekeeper had the temerity to interrupt him. “I heard you, but you want to quarrel with somebody. Anybody will do, but I never argue. We’ll see you at dinner. Seven o’clock.”

She took her daughter’s hand, turned and left him standing there.

Housekeeper, huh? Queen of Sheba was more like it. He went to the telephone in the hallway and dialed Henry’s cottage. When he didn’t get an answer, he dialed Henry’s room off the kitchen.

“Henry. I’m trying to sleep.”

“How are you, Henry? This is Russ. I came—”

“I know good and well who it is, and I still need my sleep.”

“And I need some answers. Where did Telford find Alexis Stevenson? How long’s she been here, and what about this little girl and this puppy? This is no place for grown men anymore.”

“No? Things musta changed since I was your age. She’s the housekeeper, and you needn’t raise a stink about Tara, ’cause she’s got your brothers in her pocket.”

“And you, too, I suppose.”

“Well, she is a right cute little tyke, and just as sweet as anything. Might as well get up, since you broke my rest. Supper’s at seven.”

Russ hung up and headed back to his room. An outsider in his own home.

Although she was off duty, Alexis set the table for dinner in the breakfast room. The sooner she got Russ Harrington off his high horse the better, though she suspected he’d resist change until a crisis forced him to be reasonable. She arranged the table with embroidered linen place mats, family-heirloom porcelain, silver and crystal goblets, flowers and lighted candles in silver candlesticks. She’d overdone it, but that was her way of declaring war. Her child deserved a peaceful, happy environment, not an atmosphere soured by Russ’s disgruntlement. She hoped Drake would be home for dinner, because the prospect of eating with Russ and only Tara as a buffer all but took her appetite.

At seven o’clock, she and Tara took their places at the table, and to her surprise, Russ joined them immediately. No one had to tell her he wasn’t motivated by a spirit of cooperation. The man was anxious to strike back.

“What the… Is somebody getting married?”

“I eat at a properly set dinner table,” she said, smiling her best smile. “I try to make the home comfortable, a happy place.”

“You’re kidding. This looks as if you’re expecting the president, or some big shot’s getting married. I don’t call this comfortable.”

She looked at him and smiled, though she knew he was vexed. If he took pleasure in eating with them, he had to be the world’s best actor. He picked up his fork.

“You have to say grace first,” Tara told him. “My mummy always says it before we eat.”

Russ looked steadily at the child, but he didn’t say grace.

“Would you like to say it, Tara?” Alexis asked her daughter.

Tara offered a long, colorful supplication, and Alexis’s respect for Russ mounted with the minutes, for he didn’t attempt to stop her and didn’t begin eating until she finished. In fact, it was the sound of Telford’s voice that ended Tara’s grace; she would have dashed to greet him, if Alexis hadn’t restrained her.

“How’s everybody? Am I late?”

Russ stood, and the way in which they clasped each other tightly told her much about the Harrington men. In spite of Russ’s displeasure with Telford because he’d hired her, he greeted his brother with affection.

“You’re in time,” Alexis said. “We hadn’t started eating.”

“That’s because Tara here treated us to the longest grace I ever heard. I expect she’d still be at it, if you hadn’t walked in. Look, man, this is a hefty dose you’re pouring out.”

Telford ignored him. “Be back as soon as I wash up. That’s another thing. Our homemaker says no dirty hands at the table.” She glimpsed the twinkle in his eye and realized that he enjoyed jostling with Russ.

“Put a lid on it,” Russ said, reaching for his fork. “Who taught you to say grace?” he asked Tara.

“My mummy. Is Mr. Telford coming back?”

He helped himself to a broiled hamburger, tasted it and grimaced. “Henry’s losing it,” he said in reference to the hamburger, then looked at Alexis. “Is she stuck on Telford? What’s Drake’s reaction to this?”

“He graciously capitulated.”

“Hmmm.”

She nearly sighed in relief when Telford sat down, but she knew at once that Russ intended to press for her dismissal when he said, “I’m going to speak to Henry about these meals. And you’ve got a lot to account for, brother.”

“Not till after I eat,” Telford said. He spoke in a gentle tone, but she knew, and she didn’t doubt that Russ knew, that Telford meant what he said.

“How’s Biscuit?” he asked Tara, signaling to Russ that the matter of Alexis’s status was closed for the moment.

As if she’d been waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, Tara’s face bloomed into a smile. “He’s asleep. I fed him like you said.” She looked at Russ. “His name is Biscuit ’cause Mr. Telford likes biscuits.”

A half smile flashed briefly across Russ’s mouth. “In that case, I’m surprised you didn’t name him sausage. Or maybe grits.”

“Lay off, Russ,” Telford said. He looked at Tara. “We’ll have to get him a real puppy bed. I’ll speak to Henry about it.”

Telford had spoken directly to Tara and to his brother, but he hadn’t said a word especially to Alexis; indeed, he hadn’t let his gaze connect with hers.

Tara thanked him and blessed him with one of her most brilliant smiles. Alexis watched in amazement when Telford smiled lovingly at her daughter. She didn’t know what to think. It was as if he wanted her to know that he didn’t welcome the intrusion, but wouldn’t punish the child because of it. Yet… Lost in her thoughts, she lifted the large Waterford crystal pitcher of iced tea and would have spilled it if Telford hadn’t reached across the table and grabbed it. He looked at her then, filled her glass and handed it to her.

“Maybe we should use smaller pitchers. This one’s heavy.”

“Come now,” Russ said. “You don’t mind doing it for her, do you?”

“You’re way out of line, Russ. You want to say something to me, save it for later. And lay off Alexis.”

Her gaze flew to Russ. She hadn’t detected any animosity or hostility in his voice, but Telford took offense. She wanted to go back to her room, but she couldn’t think of a way to do that without giving the impression that Russ had displeased her. Tara yawned, giving her the perfect excuse.

“You can’t go yet,” Telford said when she took Tara’s hand and attempted to leave the table. “I brought Tara some black-cherry ice cream.” He got up to go to the kitchen and stopped beside Tara. “Henry said you like it.”

Tara removed her hands from her mouth, where she’d clasped them to prevent herself from squealing, and laughed. “I love it.”

“I’m bringing it,” Henry said. “You should’ve bought some cake, Tel. Black-cherry ice cream without cake is as bad as bread with no butter.” He gave Tara a dish containing five scoops.

“You didn’t tell me she liked cake.”

“You bought ice cream?” Russ asked, his face the picture of incredulity. “And you practically gave her the whole half gallon,” he said to Henry, who stood by waiting to see her eat it. “Are you trying to kill her?”

Alexis raised her head and glanced at Telford with the intention of thanking him for bringing Tara’s favorite ice cream, but she couldn’t utter a word, only trembled with excitement when she saw the naked desire blazing in his eyes. She glanced past Telford to the knowing look on Russ’s face. Telford hooded his eyes, but she knew she hadn’t imagined it for she had responded to him from the depth of her being.

Still, she was glad for Russ’s presence, because she wouldn’t have bet on what might have happened if she and Telford had been alone at that moment. He generated a warmth, a sweetness that wove him into her like an artist’s needles subduing yarn. The tremble of his bottom lip titillated her woman’s need, shortening her breathing, and he saw it. She knew he did; nothing else would account for the fire of passion that leaped back into his gaze. She had no defense against the primal need that she saw in him. Everything about him beckoned her and claimed her, and she couldn’t help shifting in her chair as his heat singed her. With her eyes closed to banish from her presence the man who tantalized her, who represented the living embodiment of temptation…and maybe ruin, she struggled for composure. What had she gotten herself into?

“I turned the floodlights on out back,” Henry said, making Telford aware that he and Alexis were not alone. “But the one near the guest room didn’t come on. Wouldn’t matter, if it wasn’t for Tara and Alexis. The light might make ’em feel more comfortable.”

“I’ll have a look at it. Could be the fuse.” Any reason to focus on something other than the woman in front of him.

But Russ clearly had other concerns and didn’t hesitate to express them. “When are we going to talk, Telford?”

He narrowed his eyes. If his brother meant to be troublesome about Alexis and Tara, he wouldn’t tolerate it. A contract—whether by word of mouth or in writing—was binding. “About Frenchman’s Village in Barbados, or about…things here?”

“Things here. We can talk about the village when Drake gets back. Where is he?”

“In Philadelphia. He thinks we need lighter-weight material for the top six floors of the Griffith-Joyner houses, and he’s testing some products. I’m going to check on that light.”

“Can I go, too, Mr. Telford?”

When she ran to him and took his hand, her little brown face shimmering with delight, her smile said, I think you’re wonderful, extra special. And though he tried to resist her, joy pervaded his whole being. Before he stopped to consider his action and what it implied, he swung her up on his shoulders, braced her hands on his head and gave the laughing little girl the ride of her life as he strode swiftly to the room she shared with her mother.

Russ’s astonished “Well, I’ll be…” followed in his wake.

“Mind if I duck out here?” Telford asked Alexis, pointing to the door of the anteroom that was designed as a sitting room, but which was now Tara’s room.

“Of course I don’t mind.” She didn’t look at him when she said it, evidence enough that she was as conscious of him as he was of her.

Tara yanked on his hand. “Want to see my keyboard?”

He wanted to give his self-control a break and get out of there, but she took his hand and he followed her into what seemed to be her room. She sat at the portable keyboard and played finger exercises. Then, she asked if he could play.

“I used to.”

She moved, and he sat down and played several nursery rhymes and some Beatles songs that she seemed to appreciate more. It was too cozy, too much like his youthful dreams and too dangerous.

“Look, I…I have to be going. That light…”

She reached over and hugged him then, her little arms tight around his neck, communicating a need to which, God help him, he responded with every fiber of his being. When she released him, her little face illuminated with smiles, he stared down at her, suddenly pensive, contemplating a truth he’d just learned: this little girl had plugged up a hole, obliterated an emptiness he’d had in him nearly all of his life. She went back to her finger exercises and was soon lost in the pleasure of them. He patted her shoulders and, humbled by the child’s healing love, walked with measured steps out of her room to where Alexis filled his vision, and he received his second shock: tears streamed down her face. And he’d thought her unflappable.

He rushed to her. “What is it? What’s the matter? Alexis, why are you crying?”

His hands went toward her shoulders but didn’t touch them. She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand and tried to speak, but the strength of whatever she felt overwhelmed her, and the tears became a deluge, cascading down her face.

Her loss of composure cut to the quick, and he thought he’d go insane if he couldn’t comfort her. With a groan, he pulled her into the protection of his arms.

“Tell me what hurts you, and if it can be fixed, I’ll fix it. I can’t stand seeing you like this.”

She didn’t move from him, and he clasped her tighter, relishing her nearness and the womanly scent that perfumed his nostrils.

“What is it?” he urged.

“Tara. Her…her father never had time for her. Yet, as busy as I know you are, you sat there and played that keyboard for her, giving her what she’s missed so badly. I don’t know how to th—”

“Don’t. Don’t thank me. Look, I…I’d better check out that floodlight.”

He knew his limit, and he was inches from it. He opened the screen door and stepped out into the garden, still feeling her flesh in his hands, her softness against his chest. He leaned against the side of the house, took deep breaths and counted to ten as he inhaled and exhaled. In thirty-six years, he’d never been so strung out.

Standing where he left her, Alexis, too, let the wall take her weight. Maybe he had herculean self-control, or maybe he didn’t want her as badly as she’d thought. Whatever the reason why he could hold her so tenderly and then walk away when her whole being screamed for his loving, she should be grateful. She rubbed her arms and knew that was a substitute for his warmth. It wasn’t right, and she would regret it, but she wanted him to kiss her so badly that she burned for it.

He knocked on the screen door. “May I come in? I have to get a flashlight.”

“I have one.” She handed it to him, keeping a good distance away.

“Could you hold it while I check out this fuse box?”

She stepped outside in the cool spring night and trained the beam on the light meter. After about ten minutes during which he worked silently, he closed the box.

“Must be the bulb, but I can’t change that tonight.”

“I don’t need that light, Telford.”

He raised himself up from his squatting position. “Then I’ll do it after I get home tomorrow.”

The moonlight cast a glow over his face that softened his features, and gave his hazel-brown eyes a sexy, almost wanton magnetism. She stared at him; she couldn’t help it. Her gaze darted to his broad chest with its pectorals prominent beneath his T-shirt, back to his square chin and settled on his mouth.

She knew the moment had come, when he took the flashlight from her fingers and she heard the gadget fall to the grass. It didn’t occur to her that she ought to move.

“Alexis, if you want our relationship to remain exactly as it is, get back in that house. Now.”

She didn’t want it to change, but she wanted to be in his arms. Needed the warmth and loving that a faithless marriage had denied her. Her head said move, but her heart said stay where you are.

“Did you understand what I said? Did you?”

The hoarse, guttural sounds, so unlike his mellifluous voice, excited her, and a strange heat began wafting its way through her veins. She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came.

Like lightning, he had her in his arms and lifted her until he pressed them breast to chest and belly to belly. One of his big, powerful hands locked to her buttocks and the other to the back of her head. He stared into her face, and then his mouth came down on her, hard and trembling.

“Open for me. Let me in you.”

He parted her lips with his tongue, commanding her to take him. And she did. Hot darts danced inside her and her senses whirled dizzily when at last she had him. His tongue danced within her mouth, tasting, anointing, driving in and out in a symbolic act of love. He teased and tantalized until she gripped him to her and moans sprang from deep in her throat. Frustrated, she twisted against his chest, and experienced man that he was, his fingers found her nipple and pinched and rubbed until she cried aloud.

“Telford, I can’t stand this.”

The tips of his callused fingers brushed her chest before dipping into the scooped-neck caftan and freeing her breast for his rapacious mouth. His tongue, moist, warm and sweet, curled around her erected aureole, bringing a keening cry from her as he suckled her with a wild, animal hunger until electric shocks pelted her feminine core.

Stunned as, for the first time in her life, love’s liquid flowed freely from her, she attempted to move away from him.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered, as if he feared startling her. “Have I…done something wrong?”

Embarrassed, she buried her face in his shoulder. “It’s… I’m sorry…it went further than I… I let it get out of hand.”

He eased her to her feet, but his arm stayed snug around her. “I don’t want you to be upset. There’s no point in that. Both of us knew the minute we first looked at each other that this would happen. Right?”

He caressed her cheek, rhythmically, the way he’d stroked her breast and, to stop his assault on her senses, she covered his hand with her own. But to him, it must have been a gesture of affection, for he kissed her forehead.

“If you had left here then, it could have been a year from now, but I think I would eventually have gone after you.”

“Yes, we both knew, but we didn’t want it to happen,” she whispered.

“In these circumstances? No, we didn’t, but I wouldn’t exchange it for anything. Still, I’ll try to keep my hands off you.”

She couldn’t help smiling at that. “I don’t question your honor.”

He stared until she wanted to lose herself in his eyes. Then he tipped her chin with his right index finger. “You are one beautiful woman. And I’m not talking about looks, though there’s definitely that, too. I mean you are everything a man needs. I’ll see you at breakfast. Sleep well.” He opened the screen door, strode through her room and out of sight.

She sat on the edge of her bed, grateful for a moment of privacy while Tara plunked away at the keyboard. Jack Stevenson hadn’t known what to do with her or, if he had, he hadn’t bothered to apply that knowledge. Maybe she’d asked to be treated as if she were cold porcelain, but she didn’t think so. Until tonight, she had no basis for comparison, but she’d always thought petting and sex ought to be both more demanding and more rewarding. When Jack didn’t show any concern for her lack of response, she began to resent his own release and finally reached the point where she tuned out, even when they were supposed to be making love. After the first six or seven months, she stopped hoping and, as time passed, she no longer tried to feel anything.

She could think of a dozen reasons why she should stay away from Telford Harrington, including the fact that he liked his life as it was. Girl, you’d better use some discipline. If you don’t you’re headed for trouble. If she didn’t use self-control. Precisely what she didn’t want to do.

He had hoped that Russ wouldn’t broach the matter of Tara and Alexis that night. He didn’t have the patience or the will to deal with his brother’s displeasure at his having hired Alexis. It wouldn’t hurt him to shave every day and observe rules of common decency in communal living. All three of them needed to clean up their acts and stop taking self-indulgence to such extremes. He bypassed the den and headed for his room, but Russ would not be deterred and waited for him at the top of the stairs.

“Look, Telford, I suspect it’s useless to ask you to reconsider this. But have you thought about what it’ll be like for her in the midst of four men? This isn’t the place for her, and what about that child? In two weeks, she’ll know every cuss word ever spoken.”

Telford loved his brothers, and he valued their camaraderie and peaceful relations, but this matter was not negotiable. “She stays, Russ. I gave her a contract. I don’t like our disagreeing about something so fundamental as who lives in our home. She’s intelligent, and if she finds that you’re not comfortable around her, I’m sure she’ll avoid you as much as possible. As for the cuss words, Tara won’t learn any in this house.”

“Aw, hell, man. I’m not stupid. A five-year-old could feel the chemistry between the two of you. Tara feels it. And another thing, you can break that little girl’s heart.”

He stared at Russ. “Right. That must be the reason you want me to send her away from here. Don’t expect anything to happen between Alexis and me.” He couldn’t help smiling. “As for Tara, I think she’s got my number.”

Russ raised an eyebrow and let a smile play around his mouth. “If she’s got your number, her mother’s got your address. I just talked with Drake, and he thinks I ought to go up to Philadelphia tomorrow and check the new material he’s considering. You want to examine it, too?”

“Not unless the two of you disagree, and that isn’t likely. I need to keep an eye on that school. That dedication ceremony will go on as scheduled, and the bell will ring for the first day of school on September seventh if I have to hold up that building with my back.” He knocked his left hand into his right palm and ground his teeth. “Fentress Sparkman will be sorry he ever heard of our dad, and it will be a long time before he turns the screw on another one or his partners. I’ve got him this time.”

“Yeah. Just be sure you can give it your full attention.”

Another allusion to Alexis. Both of his brothers wanted the best for him. He knew that, but he didn’t give either of them the right to choose his friends and tamper with his relationships. He told Russ good-night and went to his room, where he paced the floor for half an hour.

She had a wallop like nothing he’d ever experienced. It scared the hell out of him and yet, it felt like coming home to a warm, welcoming fire when you were practically frozen. Unfortunately, he couldn’t let anything happen between him and Alexis Stevenson, though he dared not let himself think about the hot lover she’d be. He shook his head. Not only did she work for him, but she could bring him to his knees the way his mother did his father whenever she got the notion. Besides, he liked his life as it was. He amended that. As it had been, and he’d make certain it stayed that way.

“I’m bringing a friend home for dinner,” he told Henry several mornings later. With Russ and Drake in Philadelphia, he figured he had to do something to put a damper on what was becoming a cozy, family atmosphere with Alexis, Tara and himself. He behaved impersonally with her and kept his hands to himself, though at great cost. But they were like missiles, headed directly at each other, primed for a massive explosion. And nobody would believe what passed for conversation between them. Banality hardly described it.

“Does this friend eat a lot, or does she pick at the food like she was scared it was gonna rise up and bite her?”

At times, he would like to give Henry a piece of his mind, but that would be the same as cussing his father. “Just prepare enough for another adult.”

“And here I was hoping you’d lost her in some nice place like the Bermuda wrangle.”

“You mean Triangle. And, Henry, could you please stop meddling in my business?”

“Humph. Guess you in a hurry for the Fourth of July fireworks. Them two women ain’t gonna like this. You think Alexis gonna hold still for that stuff Evangeline…’scuse me, Miss Evangeline puts down? I’m gonna eat a big lunch to give me plenty energy. I’ll need it for all the laughing I’m gonna have to do.” Henry looked up toward the ceiling and started whistling “Takin’ Care of Business.”

Telford swallowed what remained of his coffee, picked up an umbrella and headed for the Eagle Park High School construction site. Henry had never liked Evangeline, and she’d never been special to him. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked her to dinner, but what else could he do? Heat flared in his loins every time he looked at Alexis; if he couldn’t cool down on his own, maybe after tonight she’d force him to do it. He was halfway across town before he remembered that he hadn’t told Tara good-bye.

As soon as he reached the trailer that housed his temporary office at the corner of Mountain and Edgecomb, he phoned her.

“Henry, is Tara eating breakfast?”

“Ain’t you supposed to be asking her mother that? Hold on.”

“Hi, Mr. Telford. Where are you?”

“I’m at work. I had to leave early this morning, so I called to tell you good-bye.”

“Good-bye. When you coming home?”

“I’ll be there for supper. See you then.”

“Lots of kisses. Bye.”

He hung up. He hadn’t said what he felt, but enough to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her. Somehow, he felt lighter than before. That little girl had gotten inside him, and it wasn’t a question of liking it or not. It just was.

Since the night they gave in to the fire burning in them for each other, he and Alexis hadn’t gotten close enough to touch, except at mealtime when they had Tara and Henry to help them use common sense. She hadn’t made one move toward him, and he knew it was because she didn’t think a relationship with him appropriate, much as she might desire it. So if she didn’t want him, he reasoned, seeing him with Evangeline shouldn’t bother her. Yeah. And the sun rises in the west. He’d cross that bridge when he got there.

Alexis sensed a difference before she got to the kitchen; the house seemed empty for so early in the morning.

“Just you and Tara this morning,” Henry told her. “Tel had to leave early.”

So that was it. If she could sense his absence from a house that big, she had better avoid him altogether. Nothing in her contract said she had to eat her meals with him; indeed, most housekeepers—and that’s what she was, no matter if the contract specified homemaker—didn’t eat with their bosses. She slapped her forehead. Not being able to eat with Telford would devastate Tara.

From somewhere in the distance she heard Henry’s voice. “…and wear that long red thing at supper tonight. Telford’s planning to commit social suicide.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Means he’s bringing company.”

Cold marbles danced around in her belly, and moisture beaded on her forehead. “Are you telling me he’s bringing a woman friend home with him this evening?”

She’d learned that Henry never answered a question directly if he could do it some other way. He raised an eyebrow. “Like I said, come in here looking good. Course, you’d make her look bad if you showed up in dungarees. And fix the supper table real nice.”

Although she appreciated his gesture of friendship, she was too annoyed to show it. “What makes you think I care who Telford Harrington brings here?”

“’Cause you do. But don’t worry none. She won’t spend the night. Never has. He ain’t that crazy.”

That conversation weighed on her as she did the morning chores. Put on that caftan? No way. She intended to wear her red silk sleeveless jumpsuit. He’d get an eyeful whether she was sitting down or walking away from him. She set the table with the best Harrington appointments, added candles and a bouquet of red, white and yellow roses and surveyed the result with satisfaction.

She dressed Tara in a jumpsuit that matched her own, combed the child’s hair out and sprayed it with a lilac scent. Then she showered, put on the red suit, fastened gold hoops to her ears, let down her hair below her shoulders and dabbed Obsession perfume where it counted. She didn’t believe in going to war unless you meant to win.

For whatever reason he’d brought a woman home with him, he remembered that they ate at seven. It wasn’t she, but Henry, who usually opened the door for the brothers, but when the bell rang at a quarter of seven, she beat him to it. Telford gaped at her, speechless and obviously dumbfounded until Tara ran between them and hugged his legs.

“Mr. Telford, I got your telephone call today.” Tara held her arms up for a hug, but he didn’t see the child. His gaze was glued to Alexis.

“Can I have a hug?” That got his attention, and he reached down, lifted her and stroked her back. “Do you like how I look?”

“You’re beautiful, and I like it.” She kissed his cheek and he set her on the floor.

“What a touching little scene.”

His head snapped around. “Oh. Sorry. Ms. Moore, this is Mrs. Alexis Stevenson, our homemaker.”

Alexis sized her up and smiled. The woman wouldn’t resist being catty. She extended her hand. “How do you do, Ms. Moore. This is my daughter, Tara.”

“Hi, Miss Moore.” Tara’s greeting lacked enthusiasm.

“Sure you’re a housekeeper?”

Alexis let a smile drift over her face. “If you want to know how competent I am, I guess you’ll have to ask Telford.” With that double entendre, she led them to the living room, aware that she’d made Evangeline Moore blanch. Whether from annoyance or embarrassment, she didn’t know or care. “Would you like something to drink, Ms. Moore? Lemonade or iced tea?” She figured that, as homemaker, she was also hostess. And since she was certain that her tactics didn’t please Telford, she didn’t bother to look at him.

“I’d like a dry martini,” Evangeline said, “and shake it well.”

Alexis sat down, crossed her left leg over her right knee and swung her left foot. “That’s Telford’s domain. I have no idea how to mix a martini.”

She had to stifle the giggles that threatened to spill out of her when she finally looked at Telford and saw his murderous glare. She wanted to dance for joy. He’d get her for it later, but she didn’t care. He started to the refrigerator, and Tara ran to him.

“Mr. Telford, is Miss Moore your mummy?”

“What?” Evangeline jumped from the chair and pointed her finger at Alexis. “Did you tell her to say that?”

“I didn’t, and I apologize for her innocent mistake.”

Telford knelt beside Tara. “No, she isn’t, Tara. She’s my friend and our dinner guest.”

“Is she going to stay with us?”

“No. She’s just here for dinner.”

“Oh.” She ran over to Evangeline. “I’m glad Mr. Telford has a friend.”

He looked at Evangeline, waiting for her response, and when she didn’t say anything, he walked over to Alexis. “Could we have dinner now?”

“What about the martini?”

“I don’t have any vermouth.”

She promised herself she’d check the bar first thing in the morning. Standing, she took Tara’s hand. “Come along, darling.”

He nearly laughed when Evangeline walked into the dining room and gasped. As though it were all especially for her, she headed for the place opposite his own as head of the table and found Alexis seating herself there.

“That’s Mummy’s seat. You can sit here beside me.” Tara patted the chair next to hers.

“I’ll sit over here.”

Tara was too innocent and sweet to realize it, but she was needling Evangeline more than Alexis was. He knew Evangeline wouldn’t show patience for one of Tara’s long graces, so he took the matter in hand.

“Let’s say grace.” He did, and when he glanced from one woman to the other, he saw pride and affection in one and furor in the other.

As if to make certain that he had a heart attack, Henry walked into the dining room and put a bowl in front of him and one in front of Alexis.

“Be right back with the rest.”

“Hello, Henry,” Evangeline called after him.

“Fine,” he called over his shoulder. Seconds later he returned with two more bowls, which he placed before Tara and Evangeline, in that order, then set a soup tureen in the middle of the table.

Telford ground his teeth. One of these days he was going to have to fire Henry. “I don’t believe this.”

Alexis lifted the lid from the tureen and stared at the contents. “Henry,” she called.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, arousing her suspicion, since he never addressed her that way.

“I thought we were having lamb chops for dinner and a full, five-course meal.”

“Didn’t feel like it. Besides, cabbage stew’s healthy.”

Telford thought about it for a few seconds. Tara didn’t need to see adults act ugly, so he served himself a big helping of cabbage, potatoes and smoked pig jowl.

“May I have your plate, Evangeline?”

She pushed it to him and he was certain that she deliberately shoved her soupspoon to the floor. “Get me another soupspoon, Alexis.”

He held his breath, but after Alexis’s eyes widened with momentary shock, a smile drifted over her face, and he exhaled.

“If you ask Henry, I’m sure he’ll bring you one. You always have to ask him nicely, though.”

Henry came in with a pitcher of lemonade, and he was glad for the opportunity to lighten the atmosphere. “Henry, would you bring Evangeline a soupspoon, please.”

“What happened to the one I gave her?”

“She threw it on the floor, Mr. Henry.”

“Tara, please don’t interrupt when adults are speaking.”

“But she did, Mummy.”

That settled it. Telford got up and went to the kitchen to get a soupspoon. Silver or not didn’t matter. Besides, he had no idea where Alexis kept that silver. He put the spoon beside Evangeline’s plate and looked at her, hoping she got his message. Let’s have some peace at this table.

At least Henry made dessert. Telford thanked him for the apple pie.

“Tara likes it, and she wants me to put black-cherry ice cream on it” was Henry’s reply.

“Would you like espresso or regular coffee, Evangeline?” Alexis asked her.

Evangeline looked at Telford. “Whatever you’re having, dear.”

“He’s having regular coffee.”

He couldn’t say she was deliberately aggravating Evangeline, but the women were so dissimilar that the difference itself had to irritate Evangeline. Why hadn’t he realized that Alexis was an upper-class woman? She had some talking to do.

Chapter 4

Serving coffee in the den wouldn’t make Evangeline happy, because it meant sharing Telford with Tara and Alexis for what remained of the evening, but Alexis didn’t intend to ease the situation for him. They had agreed to keep their distance from each other, but he could at least have told her he’d have a woman guest for dinner if only because it was she who set the dinner table. With all the innocence that was natural to Tara, the child engaged Evangeline in conversation, or tried to, frustrating Tara and annoying Evangeline.

When Telford finally stood and Evangeline Moore sighed in resignation, the evening shot, Alexis walked over to her and extended her hand.

“It was nice meeting you, Ms. Moore. I hope you’ll visit us again.”

“Bye, Mr. Telford,” Tara said, raising her arms for a good-bye kiss and, at the same time, saving Evangeline a courteous reply to Alexis. “You coming back?”

“I’ll be back before long.” He smiled lovingly at Tara, but the look he gave Alexis had the explosive power of a ball of TNT headed for a target. She wasn’t afraid of the retribution his eyes promised; what he incited in her was as far from fear as east from west. She knew that her own face bore a glow of triumph, and she felt like a victor, because she’d taught him that he had to reckon with her. Tara walked them to the door holding Telford’s hand, but Alexis went into the kitchen to speak with Henry.

“Why did you serve that cabbage stew? I set a table fit for the president, and you serve cabbage.”

Henry’s head went back. Then he laughed until he doubled up and finally lost his breath. She had to pound his back. “Crazy, huh? Funniest thing I ever done. Miss Etta’s handkerchief linen and her best crystal and porcelain and things… Cabbage. Prissy as she was, I bet the poor woman turned over in her grave.”

“But why? Henry, I wanted us to have a nice dinner.”

“Humph. You didn’t want no such thing. You wanted to show off. Telford knows what I always serve when he done something I don’t like. And bringing that woman here… He shoulda knowed he was gonna have to eat cabbage stew.” Henry rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I bet that ain’t the only punishment he’s gonna get.”

“You’re getting very fanciful, Henry.”

“If you want to call it that. I wasn’t born this morning.”

“Why don’t you like Evangeline Moore?”

He turned out the light over the kitchen sink and leaned against the counter. “I lived a long time, and I know people when I see ’em. He ain’t serious about her, and that’s because he knows she ain’t for him.”

“Why are you so sure of that?”

“’Tain’t difficult. She gets low grades in the manners department, and Tel can’t stand rotten manners. She ain’t bad, mind you, but these boys here…they come up practically by themselves, except for what raising I done and Telford when he got older… They been through a lot and worked hard.”

His countenance darkened with concern, and she could see that Telford and his brothers meant a lot to Henry and that he took pride in them.

“She ain’t got no appreciation for what they been through and what they’ve done with their lives, either,” he went on, “and she don’t care. She just wants a Harrington. Now you. You ain’t asking nothing from no man. My kind of woman, willing and able to make it on your own.”

“Thanks. That doesn’t explain why you don’t like her.”

“She just ain’t for him. I could stand her, maybe, if she wasn’t so supercilious, always pretending to be something she ain’t. She can’t fool me.”

And what about Alexis? Wasn’t she an imposter, an upper-middle-class educator posing as a housekeeper?

Her lower lip dropped. Henry was one surprise after another. “If she wasn’t so what?”

“Super…oh, you mean that? Well, I want you to know I finished high school, even if that was a couple a hundred years ago.”

She paused, wondering how he’d react to her next question. “Did you ever marry?”

He threw his hands up and looked at the ceiling. “I sure did, which is why I understand the Evangelines of this world. First time was plain stupid, but the second…well, the Lord decided he needed her more than I did.” He turned his back, but not before she glimpsed his lips trembling and his eyes blinking rapidly.

She patted the bones that protruded beneath his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’d better get to my room and see what Tara’s doing. Good night.” She didn’t wait for his reply, but rushed from the kitchen to allow him privacy. When she found Tara asleep in her bed, loneliness washed over her. She wasn’t jealous, and she didn’t want an affair with Telford, but seeing him with that woman wasn’t her idea of fun. She walked over to the window and stared at the garden, idyllic in its shroud of moonlight and its blanket of shrubs and flowers, the perfect setting for lovers. She yanked the blinds down and closed them. She might be alone, but at least she no longer had to suffer the indignity of a philandering, lying husband. Anything was better than that, she told herself as convincingly as she could.

What was that? This time the knock sounded louder and lasted longer. “Good Lord. Telford.” It hadn’t occurred to her that he’d be back in less than half an hour. “I’ll bet he’s mad as the devil.”

Anger barely described what he felt. Indeed, outrage more closely approximated his mood. She opened the door, and he looked at her standing there, a siren with the face of an innocent. If he hadn’t been so furious, he would have laughed. He’d never seen her so beautiful as she was that evening. Or sexier, with that décolletage proclaiming the richness of her treasure and her tight-fitting getup emphasizing her nicely rounded bottom. If Henry had cooked the lamb chops instead of the cabbage stew, he doubted he’d have tasted the difference.

A smile crawled warily over her face. “Hi. You wanted me for something?”

“Do I want… You knew I’d come after you, and don’t pretend you didn’t.” Her shrug didn’t fool him. She was strung tight as a bow.

“Did I do something to displease you? If so, I’m—”

He stepped into the room and stopped inches from her. “Of course not. You were the perfect hostess. I couldn’t have asked for a more charming woman to grace my home and entertain my guest, but—”

She interrupted him. “Isn’t that what a homemaker’s supposed to do?”

He stared at the rise and fall of her bosom, and when he let his gaze drift to her eyes, he didn’t doubt that she knew where he’d been looking and that his attention to her breasts excited her. She wet her lips, obviously without knowing she did it, and her breathing accelerated. She knows I’m here.

“You didn’t want Evangeline in this house, and you didn’t want her here with me. Oh, you weren’t rude; in fact you were sweet as sugar. I wanted to get my hands on you—”

“If you had, what would you have done with your girlfriend looking on?”

“I’d have—”

“She’s not looking on now.”

Of their own will, his left hand went to her sweet little bottom and his right one to her shoulder, and in a second he had her in his arms and his tongue deep in her mouth. Shudders plowed through him, and his blood pounded in his ears as she locked him to her. The hardened tips of her breasts rubbed against his chest, and when he heaved her higher to take one into his mouth and suckle her, she straddled him and rocked against him. Heat enveloped him like tongues of fire from a roaring furnace, as she pressed against the weight that hung hard and heavy between his legs. Her hips undulated in a pulsing rhythm. Wild and reckless.

Her whimpers heightened his need to have her thrashing beneath him with his name spilling from her lips, and when she pressed her crossed ankles against the small of his back, he nearly exploded.

“Alexis. Baby, I’m reaching my limit. Do you want us to—”

Her moans quickened, and her hands caressed his hair as she held his head to her breast.

“Tell me what you want.” She held on tighter, and he knew he had to loosen her hold on him and look into her eyes. This was not a time for a gargantuan error on his part. He took several steps away from the door, tripped and fell backward with her across her bed.

He rolled away from her. “Do you want me to leave or stay?”

She ran her fingers across her forehead, as if clearing away a patch of haze. “Both,” she said, sitting up. “I don’t understand how it is that when you put your hands on me, I stop thinking.” She frowned. “What were we talking about?”

He sat forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “You could drive me insane. You know that? One minute you’re setting a torch to me and the next you’re as cool as spring rain.” He’d leave, but he couldn’t stand right then. “Did you think I wouldn’t ever bring a woman guest here?”

“The other time when you kissed me, you went at me as if women were about to be banned. We backed off from that and said we weren’t going that way. But still, you should have told me ahead of time that you were bringing her here.”

“Come off it, Alexis. Henry told you. You want me to believe you dressed like this to have dinner with Tara, Henry and me?”

She had the nerve to grin. “I can do better than this. What’s wrong with looking nice at dinner? Did she like me?”

He threw up his hands. “Did she like you? Of course. Why shouldn’t she? She’s crazy about you.”

She looked at her fingernails, then polished them on the silk that covered her thigh. “Hmmm. Then it’s you she doesn’t like. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten back here so soon.”

“If I thought you meant that, I’d teach you a few things.” He got up and walked to the door. “I wouldn’t advise you to try that again.”

“What? You mean I shouldn’t kiss you if you kiss first? What do you expect from me? I’m human, and you’re…” She licked her lips. “You’re indescribable.”

“I don’t know what I expected to solve by coming here. You’re unreasonable.”

She gazed at him through slightly lowered lashes and served notice that she could give as good as she got. “You expected exactly what you got.”

He wanted to kiss her until she opened to him, surrendered and flowered in his arms, and he wanted to shake her. He did neither. “See you in the morning.”

“Sure thing,” she said with an airiness he knew she didn’t feel. “Good night.”

He closed the door softly and headed for the den. One of these times when we come together like that, I’m going to let her call a halt. If she doesn’t…

If that evening had been a bust, and it had, it was his fault. Evangeline Moore was not and never had been special to him; indeed, he could count three perfunctory kisses as the extent of their intimacy. It was the minimum a man could do when he took a fawning woman home after a reasonably decent dinner. Hell, he didn’t even know where her bedroom was and, unless she was confined to bed with a prolonged and serious illness, he didn’t expect to find out. He’d been so intent on covering his flank, on proving to both himself and Alexis that they didn’t have any ties and were free to do as they pleased and with whomever they liked, that he overlooked one simple thing: when a man and a woman fired each other up and came as close to all-out lovemaking as they had, they had solid ties whether they liked it or not. Besides, he hadn’t cleared that agenda with Alexis. She was right when she said he should have told her. He didn’t want to think of his reaction if she’d had a man in her room when he knocked on her door.

He sat in the darkened den with his feet on the coffee table and his hands locked behind his head. If he got Alexis out of his system, what would he do about Tara?

The next morning, Alexis opened the liquor cabinet, her heart in her throat. She needn’t have worried. Her whole being awakened, rejuvenated like new life in early spring, when her gaze took in the six bottles of dry white vermouth on the bottom shelf facing the door where Telford couldn’t have missed them. He had deliberately refused to give Evangeline the martini she asked for. When the woman mistreated Tara with her rudeness, she lost points with Telford, and he took steps immediately to shorten his time in her company.

Several afternoons later, Alexis walked with Tara along the road leading to what would soon become the new Harrington warehouse. They paused at the quaint bridge—logs grayed from the wind and rain and flat from having borne the weight of humans and animals for a century or longer—that straddled the small brook marking what was the end of Harrington land until the brothers bought the adjacent acreage for the warehouse. Tara picked up a few pebbles and tossed them into the moving stream. Lilies of different colors had sprouted up in the patches of briarberries and blueberries that grew on either side, and she wondered about lizards and snakes. A color picture of either one could give her nightmares.

Holding Tara’s hand securely, she walked on. With so much free time on her hands and none of the social obligations she’d had as Jack’s wife, she longed to take up once more the hobby she loved. She planned to begin by sculpting wood and hoped to find some hardwood on the premises. She stopped short when Tara said, “I’m going to ask that man over there if he has any little children for me to play with.”

“Honey, you can’t just…”

But Tara dropped her hand and ran to a tall man who was speaking with a much shorter one and told him what she wanted.

Obviously impressed, the man introduced himself to Alexis. “I’m Allen, and I work for the Harringtons. You have a charming little girl. It’s too bad they’re so fragile.” His eyes mirrored a sadness, and she knew at once that his hurt was deep-seated and raw. “I’m afraid I don’t have any little girls, and my boys are teenagers.”

She didn’t know why, but her heart ached for the man. “I’m so sorry we bothered you. Tara thinks the world is filled with people who love her, and she doesn’t hesitate to ask them for proof of it. She doesn’t meet many strangers.”

He looked past her into the distance. “Wouldn’t it be great if we were all like Tara?”

“Can’t I play with teenagers, Mummy?”

“No, dear,” she said, and explained why. She thanked the man and walked on. They’d walked almost to the construction site when she realized where they were.

“Let’s go back, Tara. Come on.”

Too late. A red Buick station wagon that bore the imprint of a lion’s head encircled by the words HARRINGTON, INC. ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS AND BUILDERS stopped beside them. She knew its driver before she saw him and could have kicked herself for going there.

“Howdy, ma’am. I was wondering when you’d find your way back.” He reached over and opened the front passenger door. “Hop in.”

She squashed the urge to smash his ego. “Sorry. We aren’t going your way.”

He smiled in a way she supposed some people considered captivating—so sure of himself—but he only made her flesh crawl. “You don’t know which way I’m going, babe.”

She took Tara’s hand and prepared to walk on. “No matter where you’re going, it’s opposite from where I’m headed. Come on, Tara.”

When it came to walking and looking backward, Tara was an expert. She stopped and turned Tara to face her. “I need your cooperation. So come on.”

“I’m cop-ter-ating, Mummy, but I don’t like the man.”

That squared it; if Tara didn’t like a man, he bore watching. Later, she mentioned it to Henry.

“You mean Biff? That fellow goes through women like water through a sieve. Tara got sense. As a foreman, he’s first-class, but as a man, he ain’t worth poop.”

“I’ll be happy never to see him again.”

“I hope your happiness don’t depend on that. He’s like a weed. Always shows up where you don’t want to see it.”

Tara barged in, ending that conversation. “Mr. Henry, do you have any little children for me to play with?”

“Nope, not a one. Sorry to say.”

Tara needed playmates. “Maybe I’d better get her into summer camp, or…” She couldn’t think of an alternative.

He sorted the potatoes according to size, selected five and began scrubbing them. “Ain’t no summer camp around here. This ain’t Philadelphia, you know.”

She dragged a stool over to the counter and began stringing beans. “There aren’t any children around here. What do you suggest I do?”

“The church school is open all summer. Telford teaches music over there a couple of mornings a week. Maybe he can tell you something.”

“Of course she can go with me,” Telford told Alexis at supper that night. “You want to learn the violin, Tara?”

“I wanna learn the keyboard. The piano.”

“I’ll teach you.”

Alexis imagined that she gaped at him. “I knew you played the violin, but the piano?”

“I studied that first, starting when I was about Tara’s age. I didn’t start the violin till I was thirteen, but it’s my real love.”

“You ain’t bad on the guitar, neither,” Henry said. “You gonna take Tara to church school with you, ain’t you?”

“Sure, if it’s all right with Alexis. In the fall, she’ll take the bus to school.”

She listened to them, weaving her more tightly into their lives. Closing the hatch. If she wanted to get away from them, she wasn’t sure she could. They gave her what she’d never had, a world free of ugliness and selfishness. Warmth. Peace. Chills streaked through her when she remembered that she was deceiving Telford, and he’d warned her that he demanded honesty.

“Mummy, what’s a unrest?”

“It means…well, it means someone is unhappy.”

“Mr. Allen told that man some was coming.”

Telford put his fork down and spoke in a voice that was unnaturally quiet. “Which Allen are you talking about?”

Alexis completed the story for him. His demeanor, tense and apprehensive, aroused her concern and compassion, for she had never seen him when he didn’t appear to be solidly in control.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I have to make a call. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Telford dashed up the stairs to his bedroom. He wanted absolute privacy for that call. “Allen, this is Telford.” He repeated the essence of Tara’s story. “What’s this all about?”

“Sparkman Manufacturing won’t negotiate with the union, and old man Sparkman’s got most of the other builders in the surrounding counties to side with him. If the union strikes on Sparkman and his cronies, it’ll force the rest of us into a sympathy strike.”

“I hadn’t heard anything about this. You know I’d be the last man to join Fentress Sparkman in anything.”

“Yeah, I know. I just got wind of it this morning, and I didn’t call you because it could have been a false alarm.”

“What’s your take on this?”

“Your employees don’t have any reason to strike; we have a good contract. But if the union says walk, we have to walk. You know that.”

Fentress Sparkman would paralyze western Maryland’s building industry to prevent him from completing that school building on schedule. Talk about dirty politics. He sank my father, but he’ll never trample on me.

“You’ll keep me posted?”

“You know you can count on me, Telford. I’d have called you if I’d been certain that what I heard was anything more than gossip.”

The men wanted more overtime work, so he’d give it to them starting tomorrow. If the union went on strike, he’d be ahead.

“Heard from Bob and Will?”

“Last week. Right after they got to Nairobi. Grace and I don’t know how to thank you, Telford, for giving our boys this summer in a place where they can walk tall among people black like them.”

He didn’t want thanks; he wanted to see the boys complete their education and succeed as men. “They’re my godchildren, and I intend to do what I can for them.”

He phoned Drake in Baltimore to alert him to the possibility of a strike, hung up and trudged back downstairs, weighed down by the prospect of a strike that would make restoring his family’s name a near impossibility.

When he returned to the table, Henry placed his warm food in front of him.

“Thanks, Henry. It’s when you’re thoughtful like this that I forgive you for those times you act as if I’m working for you rather than the other way around.”

“Humph. If you’re still hot under the collar about that cabbage stew I gave you when what’s-her-name was here, it wasn’t nothing more’n you deserved.”

He could feel her gaze on him. If he dared to look into those warm brown eyes with their inviting sparkles and long lashes, she’d learn more about him than he wanted her to know right then. But he felt the pull of her intense concentration; she willed him to look at her and he couldn’t help but obey. The tenderness, the affection he saw there sent his heart into a lurch, riveting him, and his fork remained somewhere between his plate and his lips, while he stared at the feminine heaven that faced him across his table. Immobilized.

He struggled to control his emotions, to put a damper on the hot currents that sizzled between them. The best he could do was open a topic that wouldn’t appeal to her. “It’s none of my business, but did you have a special reason for going down to the warehouse?” He wanted her to stay away from there, but he didn’t think she’d appreciate his telling her that.

He’d never seen anybody switch gears so quickly. She rested her fork on her plate, and he’d swear she took a deep breath. This woman was not a wilting violet.

“I thought I might find some wood that I could use for…for my hobby.”

He figured he’d better go slowly, since she didn’t seem anxious to tell him. A smile lit his face as he savored his chateaubriand. “Henry, you outdid yourself with this steak. It’s the top of the mountain.”

Henry put a fresh dish of roasted potatoes in front of Telford, stepped back and rubbed his hands together as one does when washing them, obviously pleased with himself. “All my food is first-class; it’s your taste buds that’s substandard.”

Telford glanced at Alexis partly to share some merriment, but mainly because looking at her pleased him. Now what was in that comment of Henry’s that embarrassed her? Her facial expression said she’d rather be anywhere than where she was.

“What kind of wood are you looking for, and how much do you need?”

“Hardwood.” She gestured with her hands. “About this much.”

“I’ll see what I got around here. You planning to whittle?”

“She’s gonna make people, aren’t you, Mummy?”

He admired her patience with the child, giving her every opportunity to express herself. Yet, Alexis was not a permissive parent. “I’m going to carve some people, honey.” To him, she said. “I’m an amateur sculptor, but I haven’t worked at it for a long time.”

Not since she married, he imagined. The woman was a bag of surprises. He tried not to appear astonished. “Then you want the wood seasoned. I’ll get you a piece tomorrow.”

He didn’t want her near Biff Jackson, but he dared not tell her that. Still… “Might be a good idea to avoid that area.”

“I didn’t like that man, Mr. Telford.”

Out of the mouths of babes. “What man?”

“The man in the red truck.”

He looked at Alexis and waited for an explanation. When she didn’t offer one, he leaned back in his chair, pushed his plate aside and stared her down.

Obviously irritated, she strummed her fingers on the table. Finally, she said, “Biff Jackson intercepted us, but we walked on. I can handle the man, Telford.”

“Be sure you know what you’re up against. He’s been known to show that he can’t handle himself.”

She hadn’t given him the right to warn Biff to stay away from her, so he had to stand back. But it wouldn’t be long before the man made a false step.

“Why the hell am I whistling?” he asked himself aloud the next morning after chortling through several popular songs. The answer awaited him at the breakfast table, where Tara sat ready for her first day of church school. When he walked into the room, her face bloomed into a smile.

“I didn’t want to make you wait for me,” she said.

“Where’s your mummy?”

“Getting dressed. She had to get me ready for school first. I already ate.”

He stared at her. “What time did you get in here?”

“I don’t know, but Mr. Henry said anybody would think I’m going to get my marriage license.”

Her giggles gave him such a…he couldn’t explain it, but some of her happiness always rubbed off on him.

He finished breakfast, and didn’t have an excuse to linger there longer, especially when he had to have Tara at the school by eight-thirty. But it pained him to leave there without seeing Alexis.

“Let’s go.”

“Mr. Henry, I’m gone.” To his astonishment, she reached for his hand and started for the front door without kissing either Henry or her mother good-bye. He’d have to give that a lot of thought.

“This is terrible, Henry. I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s the first time Tara’s ever been away from me. Do you know, she left here and didn’t even tell me good-bye?”

“She didn’t say nothing to me neither. You better be careful. That little girl’s adopted Telford for a father figure. If you leave here, she’s gonna be in bad shape.”

“She’s very fond of him.”

“She’s crazy ’bout him. She told me he’s gonna teach her how to play the piano. Where she gonna practice?”

“She has an electric keyboard.”

“Shucks. Get a piano. Plenty of space down in the game room.”

“Henry, if I had the price of a piano—”

“Rent one. She needs a piano.”

An hour and a half later, Alexis looked at her watch. Bennie, the cleaning woman, had a habit of coming to work late and leaving early, neglecting basic cleaning, and the house showed it. Alexis opened the door before Bennie could find her key.

“Morning, Miss Alexis. It sure is hot this morning. I declare, I’m wet with sweat. How ya’ll doing?”

“Good morning, Bennie. It’s air-conditioned in here, so you should be happy to spend the entire eight hours today. You’re supposed to be doing a thorough cleaning, but—”

“I know, I know. Day ’fore yesterday, I wasn’t up to snuff, and I just give downstairs a lick and a promise, but—”

“Bennie, you’ve been promising this house a cleaning ever since I’ve been here. Beginning today, I want you to make good on it.”

“Lord, child, you would talk like this today when my knees ’bout to give way and my back feel like it wanna go out.” She looked toward the ceiling. “Well, if I pass out in here, at least somebody’ll take me to the hospital. Where’s Henry?”

“It’s ten o’clock. Henry’s over at his cottage this time a day.”

“I was hoping for some coffee and a little bite to eat.”

She was doggoned if she’d let Bennie get the better of her. She would come to work two hours late, spend an hour in the kitchen with Henry, work a couple of hours and leave the house more or less as she’d found it.

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