Gwynne Forster - Fools Rush In

As usual, Mattie looked toward heaven before uttering what she considered a profundity. “Well hush my mouth. Like I ain’t said one thing.”

He spread his hands and let a helpless shrug tell Justine that doing battle with Mattie was a waste of time.

“How about a couple of games of pinochle?”

The shock of his suggestion had to show on her face. She hadn’t thought that he would involve them socially, and she wasn’t certain that she liked the idea. “I haven’t played since college, so I’d probably bore you. Besides, I need to get Tonya ready for bed.” She’d had enough of his charisma as well as his bluntness for one evening, and she’d as soon get to work answering Aunt Mariah’s mail.

“Tonya’s asleep. If you take her out, try to have her back before five o’clock so she can be in bed at seven. When she wakes up, I’ll get her something to eat. It’ll take you a while to learn her routine. How about a game? Give us a chance to get acquainted.”

“Well, all right.”

She didn’t remember having played cards or done anything else to the tune of Billie Holiday’s “Fine and Mellow.” Her aunts would have had a hissy fit if they’d caught her listening to “that low class trash.” The earthy and mellow voice and the suggestive rhythm made her wonder as to his motive. The track lighting threw round balls of soft light against the beige-colored ceiling and walls, and the floor-to-ceiling mirror that she faced reflected the intimacy of their surroundings at the far corner of the basement. An eight foot maroon-colored leather sofa graced the side of one wall and a large, framed Gordon Parks photo of an urban park in which children enjoyed greenery, flowers, and early spring sunshine hung above it. A gold patterned Persian carpet covered the parquet floor beneath their feet. The only things missing were lighted candles and sparkling champagne. She diverted her gaze from her seductive surroundings to see him studying her face.

“You don’t feel like playing cards?”

“Not really. I suppose I need to take stock of things. I’m home, but it doesn’t feel like it.” She couldn’t tell him that mothering her child for those few hours and having to deny their true relationship frustrated and saddened her, even as the joy of being with her baby had been almost intolerable.

He pushed away from the card table, got up, and changed the CD. Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp did nothing to lessen the scene’s allure. He braced his shoulders, hips, and the sole of his left shoe against the wall, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Her pulse quickened, and she had to lower her gaze, but he seemed oblivious to the picture of male perfection that he presented. If he knew the woman facing him doubted that she’d ever been loved and longed to know it at least once in her life, would he turn off the heat, or would he…

He trained his reddish-brown eyes on her. “This won’t work if you’re not content, and I don’t want Tonya to get used to you only to have you leave. I know you haven’t ever worked as a nanny, and I hope you’ll someday trust me enough to tell me what this move is about. But if you intend to go, please do it now. Tonya needs a woman’s love and nurturing, and I can see that you’ll fill that role, because she seems taken with you, but I don’t want her hurt. I…If I have to have a…someone living in my home, actually becoming a part of my family, I…well, I’d as soon it was you. I think we’ll get along.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Duncan, but living in someone else’s home takes getting used to.” She switched topics, because the atmosphere was recipe for personal questions. “You have a beautiful home; all you need is a swimming pool.”

“There’s one out back, but I’m keeping it covered ’til Tonya is older. I can’t risk the danger.”

This man loved her child. It came home to her with hurricane force that knowing what Tonya meant to him was enough to suck her into his orbit. Yet, she had to live independently of this new world of which she was now a part.

“I’ve enjoyed our talk, Duncan, but I’d better do a little writing before I turn in.”

“Don’t forget, journalists are professional writers. I’ll be glad to read your stuff and give you some feedback.”

“Thanks,” she threw over her shoulder, petrified. She couldn’t show him her writing, which was actually a newspaper column, because she’d taken an oath not to divulge Aunt Mariah’s identity. And if he knew she worked for a paper, he could easily trace her to Justine Taylor Montgomery, daughter of the Virginia State Assemblyman and widow of Kenneth Montgomery, double-dealer and adulterer.

She stopped in Tonya’s room, and her heart pounded as though to burst with the joy that suffused her as she looked down at the sleeping child. She thought of the horrifying feeling that had engulfed her when she’d come to herself, realized what her therapist, the social worker and nurses had allowed her to do and fought the threatening tears. They said she’d rejected the baby and gave that as their excuse, when they knew she was ill. She resisted the urge to lift Tonya to her breast and know again the happiness of holding her. She secured the baby’s blanket, turned and looked into the shining eyes of Duncan Banks standing in the doorway. She had to pass him, and she didn’t like the tension that danced between them like an unharnessed electric current, wild and dangerous. She suspected that he could get to her if she wasn’t careful, and she wasn’t going to tempt fate with a wrong move, because she didn’t plan to let anything destroy her chance to be with her child.

Stiffening her back, she approached the door. “Excuse me, please.”

When he didn’t move, she had to stop. “Uh, would you please excuse me, Duncan?”

He glided in with the litheness of a wild animal on the prowl and gave her the door, but not without teasing, brushing close enough to let his heat envelop her like hot quicksand, signaling the certain coming of disaster. She opened her bedroom door and closed it, never glancing his way. Duncan Banks was honorable, she was sure of that, but he’d just let her know that he was a man—with limits. She couldn’t imagine what she would have done if he’d decided to let her squeeze past him in that doorway. She hadn’t felt lonely while in the grip of that terrible postpartum psychosis; she hadn’t felt anything, and as a psychologist, she understood that she was only now experiencing the loneliness that she should have felt following Kenneth’s death. Her need to reach out to someone, to have someone care, meant that her health had been restored. But she’d deal with it. One way to exorcise feelings for one man was to develop an attachment to another one. She rubbed her arms. Maybe Duncan wasn’t her type; maybe she was only lonely. Her loud laughter confirmed for her the hopelessness of it.

Duncan fed Tonya and rocked her to sleep. Now what? His notes on Buddy Kilgore’s scam operation didn’t entice him. He couldn’t recall a time when his work had failed to excite him, when the lure of his next winning headline didn’t light him up like gasoline dumped on an open fire. He wandered back down to the basement and put on a stack of his old Ray Charles records, but after a few minutes, he switched off the record player, ambled over to the window, and looked out at the night.

What the devil had come over him? He’d flirted with her. In a way, he’d even challenged Justine. Thank god, she hadn’t taken him up on it. He didn’t know her, and even if he did, he wasn’t letting another woman embroil him in an emotional web as Marie had managed with such wily finesse—withholding affection and sex to get what she wanted and pulling out the stops in wild, frenzied lovemaking if he capitulated. It had taken him months to develop an immunity to her brazen bargaining. Love. She hadn’t known the meaning of it. He recognized something special and different in Justine, but he’d take an oath of celibacy before he’d get involved with his daughter’s nanny. Besides, he liked his women willowy, svelte. Or had. After his debacle of a marriage to tall, slim Marie, he’d be the first to admit the folly of picking women by their size.