Flying High (5 page)

He switched to the center lane and tuned the radio to the classical music station. “That makes two of us, babe. But from the look of things, you and I may not be running this show. If we were, we probably wouldn’t be together right now. But we are, so let’s enjoy ourselves.”

* * *

They entered the Mount Vernon estate from the back. Although they didn’t consult each other about that choice, each preferred it. The back of the main house faced what had once been a thriving farm: smaller buildings that included the presidential office, smokehouse, mill, outdoor kitchen, stores of harvested and preserved foods and grain, stables and, of course, slave quarters. It didn’t surprise him when she refused to enter a slave cabin. Fearing that that reminder of their country’s shadowed past would make her morose, as it had him, he took her hand and walked more purposefully toward the mansion.

“You making this a habit?” she asked him.

“What? Am I making
what
a habit?”

“Holding my hand.”

He looked closely at her, hoping to judge the import of that comment, but her expression bore the innocence of a newborn child. He decided not to press his luck. If she didn’t like it, she could always move her hand. He didn’t have her handcuffed to him. She left her hand in his as they entered the house and followed an attendant to the guest registry where they signed their names.

“Have you ever signed a registry with a man before?” he asked her.

She released his hand and stepped away from him. “I have never married, Nelson. I hope that’s what you meant.”

Both of his eyebrows shot up. Did she think he was asking if she’d shared a hotel room with a man? Stunned, he grabbed the hand that she’d removed seconds earlier.

“Audrey, that was my way of asking if you’d been married. Period. Nothing more.”

“I’m glad to know it. Wouldn’t have been the first time I misjudged a man. Let’s see what kind of wines George Washington produced.”

He noticed with not a little satisfaction that she didn’t move her left hand from his right one. After tasting several of the wines, he concluded that Virginia Blush wines didn’t quite measure up to the Sonoma Valley wines.

“We’ll have to come back,” she said. “It’s closing time, and we haven’t even been through the mansion.”

“Does this mean you’ll come back with me?” he asked her.

“Uh... Why, yes. This is wonderful, and we’ve seen hardly anything.”

He squeezed her fingers to be certain he had her full attention. “It is...great, and we haven’t seen much. Granted. What I’m asking is whether you want to see it again with
me
.” He poked his chest with his left index finger.

Man, could this woman give a guy the once-over! Her gaze seemed to catalogue every pore on his face, traveling from time to time to his eyes.

“What’s the verdict?” He almost added, “Judge.”

“Sorry, Nelson, but I feel as if I’m in the middle of a minefield. I like being with you, but you’re capable of confusing me. First, at your house, I got two impressions. You were no-nonsense military brass with no sense of humor, and you were a sexy...a stud.”

“What?”

“Let me finish. The other night, I said to myself, he’s a gentleman and he’s considerate, but he’s a bit more laid-back than I’d thought. He’ll play if I let him.”

“Go on.”

“Tonight, you’ve ditched those other Nelsons, and you’re just plain sweet. I’d be smart if I took a bus home and never saw you again, because I have no idea which one of these guys you really are.”

He looked down into her open, honest face, a face he liked. “You aren’t as tough as I thought you were at first, either, Audrey. I reacted to your outward feminine attributes and something in your personality that I found riveting, but there’s much more to you. A hell of a lot more, and it pleases me.”

She continued to look at him. After a short while she said, “We don’t need to go into this right now. Let’s find a place to eat.”

He stopped himself as he was about to put his arm around her. “If you can handle a Colonial meal, we could eat at the Cedar Knoll Inn. I’ve heard it’s rather nice.”

This time, she took
his
hand. “Let’s go there.”

“Let’s leave through the front,” he said, examining his watch and hoping they hadn’t missed the spectacle. They stepped through the door and with her left hand in his right one, she grabbed his arm with her free hand as she gasped aloud.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful.”

“Same here,” he said, equally awed by the sight of the big round disk in the blazing sky above the vast expanse of the Potomac River. “No wonder George Washington loved this place so much. He lived here for the last forty-five years of his life, you know.”

She nodded. “Imagine waking up every day and looking at this breathtaking scene!”

But his gaze had shifted from the beauty that Washington once saw to the sparkles in her eyes and the joy of her smile. “Yeah. I can just imagine.”

They walked the several blocks to the restaurant, and since she didn’t talk, he left her to her thoughts. He liked the Colonial charm of the Cedar Knoll Inn and imagined that if it were winter, and there was a fire in the hearth and a lighted Christmas tree beside it, he’d do something stupid like ask Audrey Powers if he could see her on a regular basis. But since it was May and he still had all of his faculties, he banished the thought and beckoned the wine steward.

When she frowned and assumed a serious mien, he realized he’d been holding the back of his neck. “It’s nothing I’m not used to, Audrey. Let’s not let it spoil our evening.” She shifted her gaze downward, and he knew she would let it pass as he wished, but that keeping her mouth shut about it didn’t please her.

“Did you like the Virginia Blush wine we had at the estate,” he asked her, “or should we get something else?”

“Uh-hum...” The wine steward cleared his throat as if they had forgotten his presence. “We have some excellent estate-bottled champagne, sir.”

He looked at Audrey. “Would you like that?”

She nodded. “Why not? I’m not driving.”

“I am, which means I’m only going to have one glass of it.”

“Hmm. Prudence becomes you.” With her head angled slightly to one side, she patted the back of it and rolled her eyes in the manner of someone experiencing pure delight.

He wondered at her playfulness. “It can be a hell of a handicap, too.” After the steward filled their glasses with the bubbling liquid, he raised his glass to Audrey and winked. “Here’s to Prudence, whoever that may be.”

Seemingly preoccupied, she ate little but enjoyed a second glass of champagne. When she accepted the wine steward’s offer to pour a third glass, he wondered if she was being reckless.

“Sure you want to drink that? It tastes great going down, but it can rattle your cage if you’re not used to it.”

She squinted at him, held the glass to her lips and let all of the champagne stream down her throat. “You won’t let one single thing happen to me. If you can be trusted with the entire United States of America, I’m in perfect hands.”

What kind of thinking was that?

“You wait right here,” he said as they walked out of the restaurant, “I’ll get my car. Be right back.”

“It’s such a pretty evening. I’m going to—”

He interrupted her. “Please. I won’t be gone but a couple of minutes. Okay?” Not wanting her to use up any more energy than was necessary, considering the amount of alcohol in her system, he walked away without waiting for her answer.

Fortunately, no traffic detained him, and he returned to her within minutes. They got into the car and, as he always did for the women who rode in his car, he buckled her seat belt.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked her.

“Uh-huh. It was great. Makes me realize I spend too much of my time working. I love music, but I don’t know when I last went to a concert. Work. Work. Sometimes ten or eleven hours a day.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Hmm. This is nice.” Within minutes her deep breathing told him that she had gone to sleep.

He parked in front of 68 Hickory Drive, cut the motor and looked down at the woman who had unwittingly drawn him into an act of intimacy by using his body for a resting place. For a long while, he gazed at her face, relaxed and beautiful in childlike repose.

He swore beneath his breath. “Get thee behind me, Satan.” He didn’t want to wake her up, but the longer he watched her the more he wanted her. And he wanted her. He thought of his pledge to himself that he’d die a bachelor. Then he let himself believe that if Audrey Powers wanted a man in her life on a permanent basis, she’d have one. But only for a minute. He was where he was because he kept his own counsel and didn’t depend on anybody, male or female, to do his thinking.

He eased her head from his shoulder, got out of the car and walked around to the passenger’s side. Opening the door, he reached in with both hands and slipped her to the edge of the seat. As if he’d touched a live wire, he jerked away his hands. Her body, soft but firm in his hands, was like a jolt of electricity, kicking his libido into high gear. She opened her eyes and looked at him.

“What’re you doing? Am I home?”

He blew out a long breath. “You are, and I was trying to get you out of the car without waking you, but since you’re awake...” He let it hang.

“Goodness. I slept all the way, didn’t I?”

Her voice was softer than he’d ever heard it, gentle and sweet. He had to get her into that house and leave her without...

“Want to get out? I’ll see you to the door.”

She held out her hand and stepped out of the car. Even tipsy, her graciousness and feminine charm beguiled him. He grasped her hand and walked with her along the winding cobblestones to her front door, and when he held out his hand for her key, she surrendered it without hesitation. He opened the door, walked in with her and waited for her next move.

“The light,” she said in a rising voice that caused him to wonder at her panic, as she clutched his arm.

He found the switch, flicked it, and a soft glow illumined the foyer. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.

“I’m scared to death of the darkness if I’m in a building. Thanks.”

“You all right now?”

“A little unsteady, but I can walk up the stairs.”

“Want me to carry you?” He said it jokingly, but she looked up at him as if she wasn’t sure.

“Okay, I’ll carry you up, but you have to get out of your clothes by yourself because I have not yet achieved sainthood.”

“You have so,” she said. He carried her up the stairs thinking that, for a tall woman, she didn’t weigh much.

“You are so sweet,” she said when he set her on her feet and flicked on the hall light. He stared down at her. What he wouldn’t give to hold her and love her into a stupor! As if she knew he had to come back to earth, she reached up and kissed his cheek.

“’Night.”

“Uh... ’Night. I’ll lock the door.” He raced down the stairs, extinguished the foyer light, turned the automatic lock, got into his car and breathed deeply. How strange! Tipsy as she was, it apparently hadn’t occurred to her to detain him. And that kiss on his cheek was so puritanical it could have been intended for Ricky. He looked up, noticed a light in what he assumed was her bedroom and started the car. He hoped she didn’t make it a habit of testing his decency.

Chapter 3

A
udrey woke up the next morning and bolted upright in bed. After rubbing her eyes, she grabbed her head.
Oh, no! What on earth did I do to myself?

Gingerly, as if to avoid contact with the air around her, she raised her head and looked around. Surely she hadn’t dropped her blue silk designer suit in a heap on the chair. As she climbed out of bed, she remembered the previous evening—or part of it—with Nelson and sat down. For the first time in her life she couldn’t recall events that might be of the utmost importance. Thoroughly annoyed with herself for having drunk so much wine she slapped her forehead with the palm of her right hand. Good Lord! How much champagne did she drink? One glass was her limit and that with dessert after a full meal. What kind of woman called a man to ask what happened the night before? She padded to the bathroom, showered, brushed her teeth and wished she’d made coffee first.

When she finally sat down with a cup of coffee in front of her and was about to give herself the luxury of ignoring the ringing telephone, she remembered that, as a doctor, she couldn’t do that.

“Hello,” she said, having hurriedly scalded her throat with that first precious sip of black coffee.

“Hi. How do you feel this morning?”

Good heavens, it was
him
. “How do I...maybe I’d better ask you how
should
I feel?”

“Pretty rotten, I would think. I asked you if you were sure you wanted to drink that third glass of champagne. Suffice it to say you drank it. Did you get some coffee?”

Third glass. He had to be kidding.
“I just got one swallow before I had to answer the phone.”

“Sorry about that. If you have any Alka Seltzer, take a couple. Next time I won’t let you drink that much.”

“You mean I didn’t disgrace myself? You want us to go out to dinner again?” His loud laugher was not what she wanted to hear. Besides, it sent a pain shooting through her head. “Well, did I?” She didn’t try to hide her annoyance.

“Of course not. You were sweeter than I dreamed you could be.”

“Nelson! Please don’t tease. I remember your buckling my seat belt when we left the restaurant, and that’s all.”

“Really? What a pity! I don’t know when I’ve been with such a loving woman. I’ll never forget that kiss, and you don’t even remember it.”

“Now, you look here. I did not kiss you.”

“No? Then come on over here and look at my face. I haven’t washed it yet.”

“You must have gone somewhere after you left me.”

“Come on, now, Audrey. What do your take me for? No woman could follow you.”

“Ohhhh,” she groaned. “Nelson, I do remember thinking you were a gentleman. Not last night, but earlier. I think I may have made a big error.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Audrey. You kissed me and told me I was sweet. I practically fell down the steps.”

“Steps? What steps?”

“Uh, the ones in your house. You weren’t sure you could walk up the stairs, so I carried you.”

She looked at the cup of cold coffee and closed her eyes. “I don’t want to hear any more. This gets worse by the second.”

“Not really. You aren’t very heavy, you know, for a tall woman. I thought I’d have to stagger up those stairs, but you couldn’t weigh more that a hundred and twenty-five. A delightful armful.”

“A hundred and thirty. Nelson, promise you won’t mention any of this to me again.”

“Well, I’ll try, but when I think about that kiss, there’s no telling what I might do. And then, there’s—”

“Stop it! Whatever else I did, please forget it and don’t ever mention it to me.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but there are things a man
never
forgets. If you don’t want me to mention it to you, I’ll respect your wishes, but I will always remember.”

“
Sweetheart!
Oh, Lord, are we that chummy? If it turns out you’re pulling my leg, you look for a good undertaker.”

“If you’re in that frame of mind, you can bet you’ll never know. However, under certain conditions, I won’t remind you of this wonderful evening we had.”

“Blackmail, huh? All right, what will it cost me?”

“I’ll let you know. Think you can make it into work? Remember your car’s down at Howard, so you’ll have to call a taxi about half an hour before you want to leave home. I have an appointment first thing this morning, or I’d go get you.”

“Thanks. I expect I would have gone into the garage, failed to see my car there and called the police. Uh, did we have a good time yesterday? I mean serious now?”

“Yes. And after dinner, we got into my car, you put your head on my shoulder, went to sleep, and woke up after I cut the ignition in front of your house.”

She’d been holding her breath. “What else, Nelson?”

“I opened your door with your key, we walked into the foyer and you almost panicked because it was dark. I turned on the light, carried you upstairs and, at the second-floor landing, you told me I was sweet and kissed my cheek. I left you right there, but I will never know how the hell I did it.”

“Thank you. And you are sweet. You really are.”

“Don’t rub it in. Sweetness is not an attribute that I ever tried to acquire. Mind if I call you this evening?”

“Uh...no. I don’t mind. Have a good day.”

“You, too.”

She threw the cold coffee into the sink, refilled her cup from the coffeemaker and drank it while she dressed. She had better watch herself with Nelson Wainwright. He didn’t want to get involved, and neither did she. But neither of them was acting like it.

She got to her office on time to find her ten o’clock appointment waiting for her. By then, the woman should know that arriving an hour early only meant that instead of spending forty-five minutes at the clinic, she stayed there for an hour and forty-five minutes.

“Good morning, Mrs. Blanchard,” she said, and waved as she passed the waiting room. None of that Ms. Stuff for Mrs. Blanchard; she wanted the world to know she was married.

A little after ten when she had begun to feel more like herself, the voice on her intercom advised her of an urgent call from her Aunt Lena. Fearing that something might have happened to Ricky, she left Mrs. Blanchard in the therapy room and hurried to her office to take the call.

“What is it, Aunt Lena? What’s the matter?”

“Who said anything was the matter? Honey, I need to be off Saturday, and I was wondering if you could keep little Ricky for me.”

“Aunt Lena—”

“Hear me out. Little Ricky fell in love with you, and love is not something he’s had a lot of, and the Colonel’s got things to do. So if you could—”

For the next forty-five minutes, with her head the size of a watermelon, she had to deal with the back, neck and shoulder pains as well as the imaginary aches that plagued Mrs. Blanchard, and she was not in the mood for her aunt’s shenanigans. Further, Mrs. Blanchard would not take kindly to having been abandoned during her treatment.

“Aunt Lena, nothing you can ever do is going to get me tied up with Nelson Wainwright or any other man, and if you knew what I went through with that last one, you’d back off. Get Pamela or Wendy to do it. They’re teachers, they should love children, and Wendy is single. Please excuse me now. I have a patient in there on that table who is probably freezing to death and mad as the devil.”

And the less I see of Nelson Wainwright, the less likely I’ll wind up in his bed.

* * *

In that respect, at least, she and Nelson were of one mind. At about the same time, he sat at the conference table, one officer removed from the Commandant—more an indication of his status than of his rank—and forced his attention on the prospective meeting of the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). Audrey Powers spent too much time in his thoughts, and he had to do something about it.

“I want you to go to the strategy meeting, Wainwright,” he heard the Commandant say. “You’ve got plenty of time to prepare for it. See me in my office after this.”

“Yes, sir.” He didn’t want to go to that meeting, but sending him was the Commandant’s way of letting him know he was in for a promotion.

He left the Commandant’s office feeling as if his hard work had begun to pay off. He had the man’s confidence, which meant that unless he faltered, he was on his way to becoming a four-star general. Better get this star first, he thought as he headed for home that afternoon.

He had prepared himself to spend the evening immersing his mind in MEU matters, but Ricky met him at the door squeezing his Audie rabbit, as he called it, and opening his little arms for a hug and a toss in the air. Nelson went through the ritual, greeted Lena, and got into his room as quickly as possible. Inside, he looked around the room...at his king-size walnut sleigh bed, the huge desk facing the picture window, the Isfahan carpet that had cost him a fortune, and all the little things sitting around that spelled his personality. And he thought of Ricky and his loving greeting, of Lena and the efforts she made to make him comfortable.

“Is being married so different?’ he wondered aloud. “I have a woman and a child who depend on me for protection, well-being, and care. But I don’t have the joy that this life is supposed to give.”

He sat down at his desk and tried to work. He didn’t remember a time when work hadn’t been the drug that pacified him when nothing else would, but instead of opening the bulky confidential file, he stared out the window, not knowing what he saw.

The patter of Ricky’s feet in the hall outside his room brought him to the present and the duty that lay before him. The door opened, and he swung around in the swivel chair.

“Unca Nelson, Miss Lena said Audie isn’t coming to see me Saturday. Can I call her, Unca Nelson?”

He picked the child up and sat him on his knee. “Audie is a doctor, and she may have to take care of patients. She’s very busy.”

“If I hurt my finger, she’ll come. Won’t she?”

If there was ever a mixture of guilelessness and deviltry, Ricky possessed it in good measure. Nelson didn’t want to encourage that kind of devious plotting, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“If she was taking care of another bad little boy, she couldn’t fix your finger, so see that it doesn’t get hurt.”

“But she said she was coming to see me.”

“And she will. I’m sure of it. We can’t call her now, but if I talk with her, I’ll tell her you want to know when she’s coming to see you. All right?”

“I guess. I gotta go help Miss Lena shell the beans.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You know how to shell beans?”

“Yes, sir, and I can pull the ends off the string beans, too. Idle hands are the devil’s workers.”

He stared at the child. “Run that past me again? Oh, well. You’re smart, and I’m proud of you.”

He was about to turn around and attack the work on his desk when Ricky suddenly ran to him and hugged him, smiled and ran off before Nelson could react. In his mind’s eye, he saw Audrey reach up and kiss his cheek.

“Oh, hell,” he said, and reached for the telephone.

“Hello, Audrey,” he said when she answered. “This is Nelson.”

“Hi, I remembered that you said you’d call me this evening, but I thought you’d call later. How are you?”

“Work is staring me in the face, and Ricky just laid out a devious plan to get you over here. Plus, I’m dealing with something I’m not familiar with.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, two things actually. This woman who keeps fooling around in my head, and this sudden procrastination. I suspect there’s a connection.”

“At least it’s
your
head.”

“Still got the effects of that champagne? Maybe if you hadn’t drunk it after you had that Virginia Blush wine—two glasses, I think—it wouldn’t have done you in so thoroughly.”

“Whatever, Nelson. You witnessed a first and a last.”

“I believe that. Ricky will be five the day after tomorrow. Think you could pop by and say hi to him? That would make his day perfect.”

She didn’t answer immediately, and he wondered at her silence. “Thanks for telling me. Of course I’ll come. But didn’t you think I’d like a chance to get him a present and wrap it nicely?”

“You just bought him a present. He doesn’t need...”

“You said it’s his birthday, and I’m not going to visit a five-year-old on his birthday without bringing him a present.”

“All right. All right. Don’t get uptight. I just remembered it a few minutes ago.”

“Isn’t he having a party?”

“I guess I should have planned one, but Lena takes him to preschool, and I don’t know the children or their parents.”

“Never mind. We’ll give him a party. I’ll be over around four-thirty.”

“I’ll be waiting to see you.” It was the truth, but he could have kicked himself for telling her.

“Uh...me too.”

He didn’t care for the grudging way she said it, but if he mentioned that, he’d give away his feelings. He said, “See you in a couple of days,” and hung up.

To his amazement, the Commandant’s words came back to him and, when he opened the file and began to read, what he saw there piqued his interest. Immediately, solutions to the problems presented to him began to swim around in his mind. He couldn’t write fast enough, got his mini-recorder and made notes. Nearly two hours later, he heard Lena banging on his room door.

“I declare, Colonel, Ricky has to eat his supper, and it’s been done I don’t know how long. You all right in there, sir?”

Reluctantly, he stored the tape recorder in its case, locked the file in his desk, opened the door and gazed down at the distraught woman. “Sorry, but I didn’t hear you knock earlier. I was working.”

Her face, open and reflecting the caring that she never expressed in words, made his heart race. How had he been so lucky as to have this woman in his home, lightening his burdens and loving Ricky as if he were her own child? Money couldn’t pay for that.

“You’re a blessing, Lena,” he said, careful not to sound emotional. “You’re just what this house needed.”

Her smiles were his thanks. “You’re a good man, sir, and you deserve the best I can do.”

He walked with her down the stairs and on to the breakfast room where Ricky jumped from his chair and went to meet him.