His sheepish expression grabbed at her feminine being. “Yeah. I guess so.”
He kissed Tonya, but she yelled, “Juju.”
Justine leaned over and kissed her cheek. She had to get out of there before she broke beneath the strain of it all.
“I’ll show you your room. Of course, you’ll have the freedom of the house. Your friends are welcome.” He ran his right hand across the back of his neck and stopped walking. “My child means everything to me, Justine. I’ve decided to postpone that assignment a few days and stay home until she gets used to you, though I think she’s already decided that she likes you.”
He opened the door to a large bedroom that faced Tonya’s and was decorated in mauve and violet blue. She would not have chosen those colors, but she found the effect appealing. A king-size bed bore a violet-blue silk spread and, except for a copy of Botticelli’s “Spring” that hung beside a large mirror, mauve adorned everything else in the room.
“Like it?”
She caught the anxiety in his voice, and realized that he wanted her comfort and contentment “Yes. Very much.” A smile claimed his incredible eyes, and she had to shake herself out of the trance into which they quickly dragged her. She had to get out of there.
“I’d better be going. Thanks for your confidence. I’ll see you Saturday. Oh. Do I get a day off?”
“Yeah. I nearly forgot that. Sunday for sure, and we’ll work out something else. Okay?”
“Fine.” She wanted to avoid his extended hand, but accepted it along with the feeling that she knew would come with it. “Good-bye, Mr. Banks.”
“Duncan. Good-bye, Justine.”
He’d said good-bye, but he didn’t stop looking at her. A hammer began pounding her insides. Had he seen the resemblance? Had he noticed that Tonya had her eyes? Why was he staring at her? She forced a smile and reached for the doorknob, but his hand shot out to open the door and landed on her own. He didn’t move it, but looked down into her face with a strange and indefinable expression.
“Goodnight,” he said at last, and opened the door.
She made her way to her car, got in, and sat there for a good half hour before she found the strength to drive away. Over and over she told herself that he hadn’t seen the resemblance, but she didn’t see how he or anybody else could be so unobservant.
Justine released the brake and started home, reliving the feel of her baby in her arms, pulling her earrings and pinching her nose. A screech of somebody’s automobile brakes called her attention to the red light she’d shot through, and she eased up on the accelerator. Shocks scooted up her spine as she recalled the soft flesh of little fingers on the back of her neck, the child’s joyous laughter, and Duncan Banks’s indulgent words, “Some daughter you are. Ready to chase after the first stranger who comes along.” She, a stranger to her own child. She attempted to pull out of the center lane, but a honking horn impeded her effort to get to the roadside and wipe the tears that blurred her vision.
When at last she reached the brown brick Tudor house in which she’d lived with Kenneth Montgomery, she parked in front of it, too drained to put the car in the garage. Sane enough not to sit in a car alone on a dark street at night, she dragged her weary body into the house she’d come to hate, changed her clothes, and washed her tear-stained face. The flashing light on her answering machine got her attention. Her real estate agent had a buyer for the house, a diplomat who didn’t bargain, and two co-op apartments in Washington for her inspection. Thank God, she could put Alexandria behind her. If she wasn’t certain the buyer would object, she’d walk away from that house and leave everything in it except her clothes.
Duncan stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers, fishing for change, and toyed absentmindedly with what he found there, something he did when he was thoroughly discombobulated. He tried to figure out his reaction to Justine Taylor, the strange feeling he got the minute he opened the door and looked at her. He’d swear he’d never seen her before, yet something in him said he knew her, had always known her. As if she’d somehow sprung out of him and had found her way back to where she belonged. It wasn’t sexual, at least he didn’t think so, though when he’d opened the door, she’d reacted to him as woman to man. But she had quickly controlled it. A refined woman. He’d give her that.
Tonya, too, had sensed something special about her. Granted, you couldn’t miss her warmth and sincerity. And she was pretty easy on the eyes. For a second, he let himself imagine what she’d look like if she pulled her hair out of that old-lady’s twist in the back of her head. He shrugged. A little too plump for his taste, but she had the height, around five-six, he guessed, to carry it. But why did he feel as if he knew her? He played with the change in his pocket and dismissed the thought. Some people had the kind of face that cropped up everywhere.
He started to Tonya’s room to check on her and stopped. Dee Dee’s notice had been in the paper more than a month, and Justine hadn’t answered it. So she wasn’t looking for a husband. Thank God for that. Accustomed to examining both sides of an issue or a fact, he considered the possibility that Justine hadn’t answered the ad because she didn’t read Maryland papers. Well, his daughter liked her, and that settled it as far as he was concerned. If Justine Taylor possessed any unsavory traits, Mattie would detect it at once, he could count on that. But he’d gotten good vibes from Justine—honesty, warmth, femininity, and self-confidence, traits he admired in a woman. And she clearly loved children. He phoned his sister.
“Banks speaking.”
Duncan took a deep, impatient breath. If only he could knock some sense into his sister. “Leah, I’ve told you a few million times to stop calling yourself by our last name. It’s too masculine.”
“And I’ve told you not to call me Leah. I can’t stand that name.”
“Then change it, for Pete’s sake. Oughta be easy, since nobody but the family knows what it is.”
“Duncan, did you call me to fight with me? I’m sleepy.”
“When will you have an evening free? I want to ask some people over. Seems like I owe everybody I know an invitation to dinner.”
“I’m always free. Promise to invite some men who still have their own hair on their head. And I’d like to see their chests before I see their bay windows.”
Duncan was used to his sister’s cynicism, but he couldn’t resist trying to change her. “Leah, your attitude needs refining. Learn to judge a man by the content of his character—to quote a famous one—instead of his girth and how much of his scalp you can see.”
He imagined that she tossed her head and shrugged her left shoulder. She was the only person he knew who did that. “Thanks for nothing, brother dear. Most of us women like a guy we can get our arms around, if need be. Besides, Martin Luther King was talking about kids; I had in mind cool brown brothers over the age of thirty.”
She never failed to amuse him—the best dose of anti-tension medicine to be had anywhere. Laughter flowed out of him. “Trust you to twist it your way. How about it?”
“Improve your list of men friends, and you can count me in. And no cigars. Why do newspaper men like those hideous things?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Everybody needs at least one virtue. Good for you”
“All right. All right. You’ll be glad to know that I just hired a nanny for Tonya.”
“You mean you’ve given up the idea of marrying somebody to mother her? It’s a dumb idea, anyway.”
“No, I haven’t, Miss know-it-all, but I haven’t found anyone who suits me, and I needed somebody to look after Tonya. So I hired Justine Taylor.”
“Well, this I’ve got to see. Is she good-looking?”
Trust Leah