Enchanted Heart (20 page)

He had a really bad feeling about this.

Back in the store, he tried to pump Viv for information. She was having no part of it, but he had to try.

“Mind your own business, Lance. Leave my affairs alone.”

“Let me tell you something, Vivienne. Unless she's been a regular customer here, the presence of Virginia Heart in this store is not a good thing. Tell me what she wanted.”

Ignoring him, Viv propped up a few pink-and-cream teddy bears in a basket.

“What were you two talking about?”

“Nothing,” Viv said. “She just came in.”

“My grandmother doesn't do anything by happenstance or chance. If she came in here today, it was for a specific reason. I heard you two arguing. What were you talking about?”

“It doesn't matter, Lance. What she said isn't important.”

“Then why won't you tell me what she said?”

Vivienne paused in the middle of the busy work she did, actions designed to keep her hands moving while she cast around for a topic to distract Lance. She had no intention of bringing up any of the things Virginia Heart mentioned. Not the fifty-thousand-dollar payoff. And definitely not Dean Khan.

“I wasn't expecting to see you today,” she said.

“Obviously.”

Viv put down the panties she was straightening. In just a few steps, she stood before him. Her own height made it possible to be at eye level with the tall man. She reached for one of his hands and put it at her waist.

“But I'm glad you came in.”

She smiled when his other hand snaked around her as well. She snuggled closer and felt the beginning of his arousal.

“Do you have some free time?”

“Are you alone here?”

“For maybe another thirty minutes.”

The edge of his mouth curved up. “I'll lock the front door, just in case.”

She undid the clasp on her blouse. “You do that.”

He did, then Viv led him to the chaise that had been a part of his fantasy life from the moment he'd seen it and her in the store.

Viv shook her head, letting her hair cascade around him.

Men were so easily distracted.

 

 

Sonja had gotten little work done. Her mind kept roaming to the Williamsburg Lodge, the hotel on South England Street where she knew Jack Spencer was staying. This was his last day in Williamsburg. Thank God for that. She wasn't sure how much longer she'd last under the onslaught of his presence. She'd never cheated on Cole; it had never even crossed her mind to have an affair. Yet, something about Cole's friend Jack sent her emotions and her libido into a tailspin.

“I'll be out,” she told her executive assistant. “Call me if something comes up.” Getting out of the office might do her some good, she told herself.

Maybe it was the stress and tension of her marriage. Maybe it was the workload she carried. She
could
delegate more authority to her vice presidents. But if she did that, she'd have free time to think about all the things that were wrong with her life, all the places where she'd made bad choices.

Had Cole been a bad choice?

She wanted to believe that couldn't be the case. Could she have been that starved for attention that she'd married the wrong man? Maybe her current state of dissatisfaction had more to do with not feeling loved or wanted in so long. Cole was so wrapped up in his own projects . . . Sonja stopped walking across the lot toward her car.

Was that it?

Had they both turned to work instead of each other?

Sonja reached for the phone and dialed Cole's mobile number. Maybe they could have an early dinner together. But Cole didn't pick up, which was unusual since he was usually joined at the hip with the digital phone, his PDA and any other gadget that hit the market promising more efficiency and tinier technology.

When she stopped at the red light near Jack's hotel, Sonja told herself she hadn't deliberately driven here. But she was lying to herself, and she knew it. She was curious, and hungry, and lonely.

She parked in a lot and headed toward the registration area. As she walked in, she saw him across the lobby, a magazine in his hand.

Jack Spencer spotted her and stopped in his tracks. She saw his eyes narrow in quiet assessment. He waited.

This was Sonja's game and she knew it. She swallowed, suddenly conscious of every sight and sound around her. A jazzy Caribbean-flavored melody played on the sound system, a telephone rang. She heard the bing of an elevator arriving and felt the tension arc in the distance between where she stood and Jack waited.

She took a step toward him, but paused when she saw his gaze flick to the left. Sonja paused, unsure. A trick of the light or a message to her?

She cocked her head. And then she knew.

Cole stepped out of the gift shop behind Jack.

“Ah, Sonja, I see you got my message,” he said.

“Message?”

Jack nodded, just slightly.

Sonja caught on, quickly. “Yes.” She stepped forward, sticking her hand out to Jack. “It's good to see you again, Mr. Spencer. I trust you've enjoyed your stay in Williamsburg.”

“Not as much as I would have liked,” Jack said.

Sonja flushed and dropped her hand.

“And please,” he said, “call me Jack.”

“Shall we?” Cole said, holding out a guiding hand.

Sonja fell into place between the two men, her husband to her right and Jack, her almost indiscretion, to her left.

 

 

Lance felt numb. According to the PI's report, Gayla was right here. In Newport News. Under his nose the entire time. He'd always imagined that she'd gone to Washington, D.C., or maybe Atlanta or L.A. Under the circumstances, he would have. He would have put as much distance between himself and the scene of the crime as possible. And that's just how he viewed her betrayal, as a crime. A crime of passion, a crime of the heart.

How could she have just left him like that? With no explanation other than a paltry, ineffective “I'm sorry. I'm not ready for this.”

Lance stood at his balcony, watching the river, watching the sun set on the James. It was a beautiful sight, one of the reasons he'd bought this apartment. But tonight he didn't see the view. Holding the fax from the PI, his mind was on the day he'd married Gayla.

It had been June 21, the summer solstice, the longest day of the year; symbolic, Lance had told Gayla, because their love would last an eternity. He'd stopped believing in love when she'd abandoned him.

Henderson expected Lance to live happily ever after with Gayla, but Lance didn't want that. He just wanted some closure, especially now that things were progressing with Viv. Love, of course, didn't enter that equation. But mutual interests, business compatibility and damn good sex had to count for something. He would consider a merger with Viv, but before he was free to explore that avenue, he had to be free, emotionally and legally, from Gayla.

Gayla Stewart Heart Smith, his wife, his first love, was alive and living in Newport News, not fifteen minutes from where he stood.

“So what are you waiting for?” he asked himself.

He dropped the faxed report on a table and headed to the garage for his truck.

The address the PI provided was in the heart of the city's East End. Lance wasn't all that familiar with the area, except the streets near T.J.'s recreation center, but he found Granger Shores Homes, a public housing project, with little trouble. Several police squad cars were out front with lights flashing. A crowd gathered nearby. The building he sought was about a block away from the action. Lance parked the black Escalade at a curb and prayed that it looked enough like a drug dealer's car that no one would bother it. He activated the alarm, but had reservations about whether that would even matter.

He found the right courtyard and headed toward Building 2, Apartment G. Even in the now near-dark he could tell that neglect and a thousand trampling feet had long since killed off any grass in the courtyard. Someone had made a feeble attempt at adding color near one unit. Inside a Goodyear tire was a garden of plastic flowers—dahlias and irises and tulips—all out of season, all faded from many days or years as the resident's bright spot.

At Apartment G, the screen in the door was ripped, it looked almost slashed. The paint, a dull and peeling gray, was supposed to be one of those colors that covered flaws. But the only thing covered was the permanent decay of the place.

A raggedy and dirty yellow-and-blue Power Rangers sheet served as curtain in the front window.

Surely Henderson had made a mistake.

Lance reached for the screen door handle, the door fell with a clank onto the landing.

He propped it up and then rapped on the front door.

“Who is it?” someone yelled from within.

Lance had no intention of calling out his name. “I've come to see Gayla Stewart,” he said. The woman Henderson had found used Stewart, Gayla's maiden name. Gayla wasn't all that common a name, but there were lots of Stewarts. Lance hoped this wasn't the right address or the right woman. His Gayla couldn't live here. Could she?

“Who wants her?” the voice from within called.

Lance tried the door handle. It turned. He pushed a little and heard Jerry Seinfeld crack a joke. “Hello? Gayla?”

“That you, Peanut Head? You got my stuff ?”

The woman he'd married wouldn't know anyone by the name of Peanut Head. Of that, Lance was sure.

A thin, almost emaciated woman lay half sprawled on a broken-down plaid sofa. A television set tuned to a
Seinfeld
rerun blared in front of her as did loud hip-hop from a radio or stereo elsewhere in the apartment.

The woman looked up at him. “You from the school? I told that boy he had to go to them summer school classes.”

Lance glanced around. There wasn't a place to sit anywhere. Dishes and old newspapers filled the two chairs and a table across the room. The only available space was the saggy cushion next to the woman. A coffee table in front of her was covered with
TV Guide
magazines, overflowing ashtrays, a pizza box and several glasses, some empty, some with what could have been red Kool-Aid or fruit punch.

“I'm not from the school,” he said.

She eyed him. “Then who are you?”

“Are you Gayla Stewart?”

“Yeah, why?” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on top of the pizza box then scrounged for a lighter. She found a pack of matches in the cushion next to her and bent to light the smoke.

“Gayla Stewart Heart Smith?”

The woman paused. She squinted up at him, then drew back. She lit the cigarette and took a deep drag on the nicotine.

Lance waited.

“Who wants to know?” she finally asked.

He saw it then, in her eyes, in the flick of her glance over him. She saw him and she remembered. He peered closer. “Gayla, it's me.”

She laughed, the sound bitter. “Yeah, it's you all right, Lance. Now get the hell out of my house.”

17

H
e didn't budge. “I didn't come this far to find you to leave now. We need to talk.”

She sat up, then got up. She edged around the coffee table then went to the dining area in the small apartment. She pushed aside the pile of dishes and papers and made a clear space at the table and sat in the chair.

“I wondered if you'd ever come looking for me.”

“Why didn't you look for me?”

She chuckled, and ignored his question. “What do you want, Lance?”

He stood there for a moment, not sure how to answer the question. Then, “How have you been?”

She cut her eyes at him. “How does it look like I've been?”

Lance tugged on his ear. “You look like hell.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, well that's where I live these days.”

Because he couldn't stand it any longer, Lance went to the table and started clearing things up. Music still blared from a back room. The beat was starting to reverberate in his head.

“What are you doing?”

He dropped a paper plate. “I don't know, Gayla. I . . .” He glanced around. “This isn't what I expected. It's not how I expected to see you.”

“What did you expect?”

It was his turn to shrug. “I don't know. A house in the suburbs. Two kids, a dog, a swimming pool and a Volvo.”

“That was your dream, Lance. And far as I know, there's still a law about having two husbands.”

He faced her. “Why'd you leave me?”

“Why didn't you come after me?”

He didn't answer.

That's when he realized that coming here without a plan, without any idea of what he'd say or do had been a mistake. He ran a hand over his head. “Have you eaten dinner? Is there somewhere we can go? To talk.”

“Sure. Rique!”

“What?” came a surly reply from beyond.

“I'm going out. Don't you go anywhere.”

“Is that your boyfriend?”

She looked at him. “My man don't stay here.”

Lance wondered how many children she had. The place looked like several people lived in it. A Big Wheel and a beat-up Barbie dream house were pushed in a corner. “Do you need to get a sitter for your children?”

She snorted and gave him an odd look. “Let's go. I'm hungry.”

He got a glimpse of the old Gayla when she paused to glance in a mirror. She ran a hand through her hair, hair he remembered as being full and thick and glossy. Now, like her body, it had the dull look of too many chemicals and not enough nourishment.

“Where would you like to go?”

She named a buffet and Lance led her to the Escalade.

Gayla looked at the truck. “Doing well, huh? You must still be getting those trust-fund checks.”

The trust-fund issue kept coming up. First Cole, then Virginia, and now his wife, a woman he hadn't seen in almost eleven years, throwing it in his face.

“Yeah,” he said, his tone surly. “I'm living large.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit, but she didn't say anything as he boosted her up and into the vehicle.

At the buffet restaurant, Gayla ate like she hadn't had a meal in days. From the looks of her, that very well may have been the case. Lance didn't bother trying to get any decent conversation in. He just watched her and mentally compared the woman before him to the one he'd been so in love with that he'd defied his family, lied to his mother and secretly married.

His Gayla had been carefree, almost playful. Her body rounded, full breasts that filled his hands and tempted his mouth. Her hips wide, as one of his aunts would say, perfect for childbearing. He remembered how it felt to have her legs wrapped around him and how he could lose himself in the smell and feel and taste of her for hours.

What he couldn't imagine was taking this Gayla anywhere near his bed. She needed a good bath, a shampoo, haircut, manicure, pedicure and some decent clothes. Lance could make all of those things happen. He'd have to find out how many kids she had before he took in the entire package. He might be a trust-fund bum, but at least in this instance, his money could be put to some good use.

When they left the restaurant, Lance drove straight to the nearest Farm Fresh grocery store.

“What do you need in here?” she said. “We just ate.”

He handed her a basket and fell into step behind her. “Get what you need.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “You paying?”

He nodded.

By the time they made it to the checkout, the grocery basket was filled to overflowing. In addition to the steaks and cigarettes she'd claimed, Lance made sure there was juice and peanut butter, Vitamin C tablets and tuna in the selections.

“Why are you doing this?” Gayla asked as they loaded up the back of the Escalade.

“I want to get to know you again.”

“Why?”

Lance didn't have an answer to that question. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he knew. He needed time to figure it out. “Because,” he told her, and he left it at that.

When they returned to the apartment, Gayla hollered for Rique to come help with the groceries. Lance carried in three bags and almost collided with a kid of about ten who appeared at the door.

“What's all this?”

“Food,” Gayla said. “Go with him over to that black Escalade and get some bags.”

“Bet,” the boy said.

Lance put his bags down and followed the child outside. When they returned with the last sacks of groceries, the boy started rifling through the bags. He snatched up a bag of Oreos. “Got any milk?”

“It's right here,” Lance said. He reached into the bag that held a gallon of milk and a gallon of orange juice. The boy got a glass from a dish drain, rinsed it out in the sink.

“My name's Lance,” he said as he twisted the top from the milk jug.

The boy turned, shook the water from the glass and grinned up at Lance. “Hey, man. I'm Tarique.”

The milk container slipped from Lance's hands.

“Yo, bro!” Some of the milk splashed out, but the boy's quick reaction saved the container from the floor.

Tarique poured himself a glass of milk, put the container on the counter and headed with his bag of Oreos back toward the bedroom and his music.

Lance stood there, stunned, angry, elated. He turned around toward Gayla, the woman who'd betrayed him in incalculable ways. First she'd stolen his heart . . . then his son.

She stood at the wall, leaning against it, a cigarette propped in her mouth as she watched him, an ironic little smile playing at her mouth.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I had a right to know about my son.”

“What makes you think he's yours?”

“Don't fuck with me Gayla. That boy is my son, and I don't need a DNA test to prove it.”

She raised a brow and took a drag on the cigarette, challenging him.

“That boy, what did you call him, Tarique? He looks just like me.
Just
like me, Gayla. His is the image I faced in the mirror half my life. Ten years from now, his face will be the one I have now.”

Gayla shrugged. “So what? He's your son. Big fucking deal.”

Lance reeled as if she'd hit him with a club. He shook his head to clear it. So many thoughts raced through his mind.

He had a son.

She'd lied.

She'd left him.

He had a son. A son!

He advanced on her, slowly, like a provoked lion stalking prey. “The big fucking deal is you lied to me.”

“You didn't care. You didn't care about me or us.”

“I'm not the one who ran away.”

“Get out of my house. Get out before I call the police.”

“I want my son.”

“Go to hell, Lance Heart. That's where you and all your family belong.”

Lance headed toward the back bedroom, but Gayla grabbed him, tugging on his arm, scrappling at his shirt, suddenly pathetic in her earnestness.

“No, dammit. Not like this. Don't tell him like this.”

He shrugged her off and whirled around. “What'd you tell him? That I died? That I abandoned the two of you?” He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Tell me, Gayla. What lies have you fed him about me?”

“Go to fucking hell, Lance.”

He shoved her against the wall and stormed down the hall to the room where the music blared. He didn't knock on the door, there was no point. Bow Wow's rap reverberated off the walls and through the door.

Tarique sat in the middle of a twin bed counting cash. The package of Oreos was at his side. On a television Ice Cube was icing somebody in a movie.

Lance stared at the child. He couldn't be more than ten, but he had the hard look of a youth much older. In the weeks he'd been working with T.J.'s kids at the rec center, Lance had seen a lot of kids like Tarique.

“Where'd you get all that money?”

The boy looked up. “You my mama's new pimp?”

For a moment Lance was too stunned to speak. Surely Gayla didn't turn tricks in this apartment, right in front of his son.

He also realized he couldn't just roll up into this child's life and start a
Father Knows Best
routine.

“Your mom and I go back a ways. A lot of years.”

The boy nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He went back to counting his money, which looked to be about eighty dollars in crumpled ones and fives.

“You have a summer job?”

The boy grinned at him and Lance was struck at how much the child looked like he did at that age. Could Tarique, his son, see any familiarity in his image?

“Summer job? Yeah, something like that. I run a protection service.”

Lance rubbed his eyes. A headache pounded a steady beat.

In the space of a few minutes he'd discovered he had a hooker wife and gangster thug kid. What the hell else could go wrong in his life?

He expelled a long, weary sigh. In this, Gayla was right. He couldn't just bust in looking for or expecting a long-lost bonding experience from either of them. It would take time to forge a relationship with Tarique.

“I'm Lance,” he said. “Lance Smith.” He'd leave the Heart part out for now. Things were complicated enough.

“Tarique Stewart.”

He shook hands with his son and Lance admired the boy's firm grip. “I'm going to be stopping by from time to time.”

The kid shrugged, as if he were used to men coming and going.

Lance didn't know what else to say, let alone what to do. He looked around the room. It was, he supposed, a typical kid's room. Posters of rap artists and athletes adorned the walls; clothes were scattered all over. A gleaming ten-speed bike was propped against the far wall.

“If you invest part of that,” Lance said, nodding toward the money, “you can make your money grow and work for you.”

Tarique looked up at him. “You do your business your way. I'll do mine, my way.”

Lance nodded. He had nothing to say to this man-child. Nothing at all that would make a difference. He'd been robbed of the opportunity to see his child grow, to help shape and mold him. He'd have given anything to turn back the clock, to be there for this boy, for Gayla.

“See you around,” he finally said.

The boy grunted.

Lance walked out of the room and down the hall. In the living room, Gayla was on the sofa again. Her head was thrown back and she seemed to be contemplating the ceiling.

“I'll be back,” Lance said.

He got no response from his wife.

Dinner was a torturous affair in Sonja's view. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck between Cole and his friend Jack. Yet, she could hardly make a fuss without drawing undue attention to just what she didn't want to focus on.

And that, she realized was what, at heart, was the matter with her marriage. Neither of them ever took the opportunity to draw undue attention. Cole was set to leave for Brazil in just days. And then there was Jack, who'd blown in like a tempest, leaving her emotionally drenched. Looking at him now in the soft light of the restaurant she realized he was probably of mixed heritage. Whatever the genes, the combination looked good on him. He carried himself like a man who knew his own strength and power.

Again, the contrast between Cole and Jack hit her. Cole could make a suit talk. He wore Armani like a shield or a badge, part of the uniform he donned each day. But unlike some men, he didn't wear it because the label said Armani. He wore only what looked good on him. All the time.