Scarlet Woman

Folson shook hands and went on his way, but Blake walked back and forth in his office until he forced himself to sit down. He let out a sharp whistle as the truth exploded in his brain. Melinda Rodgers’s behavior as she walked toward that door was solid evidence that she reciprocated what he felt, and she’d lie if she disowned it. Now, how the devil was he supposed to handle that?

He answered the intercom buzzer. “Yes, Irene.”

“Melinda Rodgers on two.”

“Hello, Melinda. What can I do for you?”

“Hello, Blake. I have some questions that occurred to me since I left your office. First, is that clause stipulating that I have to marry within a year legal?”

What was she getting at? “It’s legal. Why do you ask? You thinking about contesting it?”

“Contest it? Why should I do that? He was entitled to specify his wish. I just don’t understand it.”

Angry now at himself for his softness toward her and for having reprimanded Folson in her defense, he spoke sharply to her. “It shouldn’t be difficult for a woman like you to find a husband. If it’s known that you’re looking for one, you can have your pick. So, that certainly won’t be an obstacle to your inheriting Prescott’s estate. Your problem is setting up that foundation.”

Her lengthy silence was as much a reprimand as any words could have been. Finally, she said, “And the foundation. Are you sure someone else can’t set that up and I approve it?”

“Trust me, you’ll do as the will states. That, or nothing. If you want that inheritance, get busy.”

He thought she’d put the telephone receiver down and left it, until he heard her say, “Is there a provision in that will that allows me to replace you as its executor?” Her tone, sharp and cold, was meant to remind him that he was her husband’s employee, a fact that he never forgot.

He looked down at his tapered and polished fingernails. Perfect. You could even say he had elegant hands. But at that moment, he wanted to send one of them crashing through the wall. Replace him, indeed!

“For whatever reason you’d like to have my head, Melinda, don’t even think it. You and I will work together until this is settled.”

“I don’t suppose you’re offering to help me fulfill that second clause in the will.”

She let it hang, loaded with meaning and the possibility of misinterpretation. Thank God for the distance between them; if he’d been near her, he didn’t know whether he’d have paddled her or…or kissed her until she begged him to take her. He told her good-bye at the first opportunity and hung up, shocked at himself. Prescott was dead, but even so, he didn’t covet his friend’s wife. Melinda had pushed his buttons, but the next time, he’d push hers. And she could count on it.

If she wasn’t mistaken, something had happened between Blake and herself while they stood at his office door. For a few seconds, her whole body had anticipated invasion by the wild, primitive being within hand’s reach, and she’d been ready to open herself to him. Men who stood six feet four inches tall and had a strong, masculine personality weren’t all that uncommon. But add those warm fawnlike eyes that electrified you when he smiled and…She grabbed her chest. Oh, Lord…. If she could only avoid him.

Melinda dreaded going to church that next Sunday. Custom allowed her to stay away the first Sunday after becoming a widow, but not longer. After the service, she went to her father’s office on the first floor of the church, not so much to visit with him as to avoid the condolences of her father’s parishioners who huddled in groups at the entrance to the church and on its grounds. She knew what they thought of her, that they believed only wicked women wore high heels, perfume, and makeup and that she had married Prescott for money. For all their righteousness, only one of them had come to sit with her during her husband’s final illness.

“You seem tired, Papa,” she said. “Maybe you need a vacation.”

“Can’t afford it. You get busy and set up that foundation, otherwise you’ll lose that money.”

He wasn’t going to inveigle her into putting him on that board; once the word was out, no one else would sit on it.

“I’ll get started on it, but I wish everybody would remember that Prescott hasn’t been gone three weeks. I need time to adjust.”

“Didn’t mean to rush you, but you have to make hay while the sun’s shining, and people will be more likely to help you now while your grief is fresh.”

Melinda hadn’t associated her father with greed. Maybe he really did need money for the church. Best not to comment on that. “Yes, sir. I’d better be going. See you soon.”

She patted his shoulder and jerked back her hand, remembering that he didn’t like being touched. She’d like to know what would happen if he unlocked his emotions, but she wouldn’t want to be there. The thought brought Blake Hunter to mind. Now, there was a man who probably controlled the blinking of his eyelids.

After parking her four-year-old Mercury Sable in front of her parents’ house, she went in to see her mother. “Why weren’t you in church this morning, Mama? You aren’t sick, are you?”

“No, honey. Your father had a miniconvention yesterday, and after cooking and serving that gang, I was too tired to get out of bed this morning.”

“Papa ought to get you some help. You’re practically a slave to those preachers and the members of that church.”

Lurlane Jones rolled her eyes and looked toward the ceiling. “Bring me Aladdin and his magic lamp—I’ll get some help a lot quicker that way. Your father does what he can.”

Her mother had the looks and bearing of a woman of sixty, though she’d just turned fifty, and her father looked as if he hadn’t lived a day longer than forty-five years though he’d recently passed his sixtieth birthday.”

“It’s sapping your life, Mama. The hardest work Papa ever does is preach his sermons, and since my brothers and I are no longer here to help you, you’re slaving here all day and half of some nights. You won’t catch me doing that for any man. Never!”

Lurlane tightened the belt of her robe and began brushing her long hair in a soothing, rhythmic fashion, as if expressing pleasure with her life and all around her. “We’re of different generations, Melinda. When you find a man you love the way I love your father, you’ll understand.”

Melinda’s head came up sharply. “Are you suggesting that I didn’t love Prescott?” It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder what her parents thought of that marriage, and they hadn’t let on.

“You loved him as a friend, a pleasant companion, and only that. You’re still an unbroken colt, as your grandfather would say, but that’ll change before long.”

“My life, the part I held to myself, wasn’t secret after all,” she said to herself, walking rapidly out of the dining room to escape the sound of the ticking clock—a source of irritation for as far back as she could remember—knowing that her mother would follow. She wrapped her arms around Lurlane, kissed her, and left.

Driving home with her mind on her options, she was glad she’d invested in blue chip stocks most of her teacher’s salary and every penny of the allowance that Prescott gave her each month. The payoff was having enough money to support herself while she studied for a Ph.D., and enjoying the choice of remaining among the gossipmongers of Ellicott City or leaving the town. But she could not dishonor Prescott’s wishes that she set up that foundation, so school would have to wait one more year.

As she entered the house, she heard Ruby say, “She’s not back yet, Mr. Blake. Maybe she stopped by Reverend Jones’s house. She does that some Sundays.”

Melinda rushed to the phone that rested on a marble-top table in the hallway. “Hello,” but he’d already hung up. She looked down at the receiver she held, while disappointment weighed on her like a load of bricks.

Every molecule in her body shouted, “Call him back,” but he would want to discuss business, while she…She went into her room, threw her hat and pocketbook on her bed, and looked around. Blake Hunter had aggravated her nerves and irritated her libido for almost five years, and it hadn’t gotten the better of her. She wasn’t going to let him mess up her mind now.

She ignored the telephone’s insistent ringing. “Yes, sir, she just walked in. Yoohoo! Miz Melinda, it’s Mr. Blake.”

“Hello, Blake.” Did that cool, modulated voice belong to her?

“Hi.” A pause ensued, and she wondered why, as her heartbeat accelerated.

“What is it, Blake?”

“I hope you didn’t decide to put Reverend Jones on the foundation’s board of trustees.”

She stared down at the phone. “I thought we had an understanding about that.”

“Yeah. Well, I wanted to be sure.”

“Not…to worry.” The words came out slowly as she realized he’d changed his mind about something, and that her father’s membership on the board was not the reason he’d called. She sat on the edge of the bed, perplexed.

“Why are you calling me, Blake?”

“Didn’t I just tell you—”

“No, you didn’t,” she said, interrupting him. “But if that’s the way you want it, fine with me.” Angry at herself for seeming to beg the question, she added in a voice that carried a forced breeziness, “Y’all have a nice day.”

“You bet,” he said and hung up.