Present Danger (31 page)

“Rinse out the diaper in the toilet when you’re finished and put it in the plastic bag behind the bathroom door.”

“Christ. You mean she’s done this more than once?”

Aunie raised an eyebrow, and James walked off muttering to himself, still holding the baby as far from his nose as he could get her.

He was gone a long time. Curiosity finally getting the better of her, Aunie tiptoed down the short hallway.

“I don’t know diddly about kids, kid,” James was saying as she approached the bathroom door. He had filled the sink with warm, soapy water, rolled the baby’s T-shirt up under her armpits and was swishing her legs and bottom back and forth in the basin. “Y need three hands for this job.” As Aunie watched, he draped the baby, facedown, over his left forearm, clutching her chubby thigh in his hand, and used his right hand to scoop water up over her bottom. “Your bag’s got everything else in it; you know if it comes
with a washcloth?” He shook excess water from his fingertips, caught the bag’s shoulder strap with his foot, and pulled it nearer. He rummaged through it one-handedly. “Sure enough. I figured I could count on your mama to pack everything we’d need.”

He was somewhat clumsy and his high, bony forehead was beaded with sweat by the time he reached for a towel, but he cleaned the baby thoroughly. He clamped Greta-Leigh on his thigh with one hand while he knelt and used his other to fold a clean towel in two and spread it out on the bathroom floor. Laying her down, he turned back for the bag and started when he saw Aunie propped against the door-jamb, watching him.

“Hey,” he said in greeting. “Why didn’t you tell me the kid was loaded when I picked her up? There was shit like you wouldn’t believe from stem to stern.” He pulled out a clean diaper and flopped it onto the towel. “Y ask me, it’s none too soon to begin toilet training.” Locating a clean pair of rubber pants and the container of powder, he turned back to his task.

Aunie didn’t reply, but she smiled as she watched him. This was the James she knew. When he slipped protective fingers between the diaper and Greta-Leigh’s stomach and then promptly stuck himself with the diaper pin he was using to secure the whole operation, she laughed.

James glanced up at her. “You really enjoy watchin’ me make an ass of myself, don’t you?” He managed to secure both pins and picked up the rubber pants.

“Yeah,” she agreed with easy honesty. “You may be a crackerjack carpenter and cartoonist, but you’re sure a klutz with the kids.”

James held Greta-Leigh up for Aunie’s inspection and said, “I did a
righteous
job. Come on, admit it.”
Aunie swept the baby into her arms. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She stuck her nose into the baby’s neck. “But it took him hours and hours to change one little ol’ diaper, didn’t it, sweetie pie?” Waltzing them out of the room, she called back, “Don’t forget to rinse out the diaper and put it in the bag behind the door.” For some reason, she felt much better, her anger diffused. They still had to talk, but at least she felt hopeful that everything would be all right.

The feeling didn’t last through the next five minutes.

James found them back in their original positions on the floor when he was finished. He dropped the diaper bag on the hardwood next to the blanket and hunkered down. Great-Leigh began to whimper. “What’s the matter, sweet thing?” James stroked a long finger over her silky cheek.

Whimpers turned to wails, wails to a roar.

“Uh oh.” Aunie hopped up. “We know she’s dry, so she must be hungry. I’ll throw a bottle in the microwave.”

“Don’t leave me alone with her!”

Aunie was already in the kitchen, but she poked her head around the door. “See if you can find her bink.”

“Her
what?
”

“You know, her little pacifier.” Aunie withdrew into the kitchen once again. “It’s on the blanket somewhere. Look among her toys.”

James located it, blew a piece of fuzz loose, and popped it into the baby’s mouth. Immediately, Greta-Leigh began working it, sucking vigorously enough to make the plastic bob. It dried her tears, but James found the artificial clownlike smile kind of eerie. “I can’t believe Otis lets her use this thing,” he said. “No kid of mine would ever get one.”

In the kitchen, Aunie laughed. “Never say never, James,” she replied. “It’s an invitation for the famous-last-words fairy to kick your teeth in.” She waited for one of his off-the-wall comebacks, but James had abruptly fallen silent.

When Aunie reappeared with the bottle, she immediately knew the first lighthearted exchange they’d shared in twenty-four hours was over. James had once again retreated behind a barrier. He didn’t appear angry but he had withdrawn. Rage immediately surged up her throat in response, threatening to choke her. Damn him.
Damn
him. For about two minutes, she’d been able to forget yesterday’s mess. What had set him off this time?

He watched her feed the baby for a while, but it wasn’t long before he excused himself, ostensibly to complete a cartoon that he’d been working on. He bent down to give Aunie a kiss but she turned her face aside, so he ruffled the baby’s dark hair instead. Then he left, quietly closing the door behind him.

No kid of mine.
The words mocked him all the way down the hall. Inside his apartment, he closed the door with extra care, gripped the door frame until his knuckles stood white, and then deliberately, viciously cracked his forehead against the unyielding wood panels in an attempt to obliterate the chanting, sneering little voice in his brain.
No kid of mine.

Ow, shit, that hurt. Nursing his aching head, he stumbled to the couch and sank down onto the cool leather. God. No wonder she wouldn’t speak to him last night. He’d never known her to be so reserved, but in his oblivion he’d thought he understood. He hadn’t been able to cough up the apology she’d
deserved for the lousy things he’d said during their fight. Always articulate, he hadn’t been able to express himself on the one topic that needed to be verbalized. He’d hated it that she hadn’t seemed to find it necessary to make conversation at all, but now … Oh, Jesus, she must think he was such a bastard.

All the while he’d been rushing to fill in the silences with a surplus of words, he hadn’t uttered one relevant remark, hadn’t asked one appropriate question. Like: Was it a safe time for her or was it a fertile period? Was there a chance he could have gotten her pregnant? What did she want to do if he had?

He had an ugly suspicion regarding the latter. She still had two years of university left and he’d lost count of the number of times she’d told him how much she looked forward to holding a job and earning her keep in the real world. The last thing she was likely to want was to be saddled with his kid.

Son of a bitch. He couldn’t believe he’d been so careless. From his very first sexual encounter, safety had been his middle name; but now, with the one person who really mattered, responsibility had flown out the window. So where did they go from here?

He knew what he wanted, but he wouldn’t hold his breath. She hadn’t even let him kiss her. His abrupt bark of laughter was long on bitterness, short on humor. Hell, what did he actually know about lasting relationships, anyway, or about any relationship, come to that? It wasn’t as if he’d ever had one before Aunie. What he’d had was a parade of one-nighters.

If he didn’t get off his butt and talk to her pretty damned quick, that was all he was likely to ever have. But first he had to marshall his arguments. If he flew off the handle with this one, he could kiss everything he wanted goodbye, which was pretty damned ironic
when you thought about it. His entire life, he’d been able to submerge his emotions behind a fast wit and a faster tongue and talk his way out of nearly any situation. With Aunie, however, his trademark verbal adeptness just fell to pieces. Instead, he went brain-dead and his emotions roared to the surface, dominating his every action. From the very beginning, it seemed, she’d turned him upside down without breaking a sweat, causing him in the process to react first and apply rational thought second. Just when it was most important to keep a cool head, he invariably lost his temper.

Well, he couldn’t afford to do that this time. So he was going to get some rest and give this considerable thought. And then he was going to take his much-vaunted ability to fight his way out of a tight corner and put it to good use.

Tomorrow, little Miss Magnolia Blossom had better look to her laurels. Because he was playing this one to win.

The plane that landed at Sea-Tac airport in the middle of the night was more than half an hour late and the limousine that Wesley’s secretary had ordered for his arrival was not waiting. He shot his cuffs in irritation and impatiently consulted his Rolex watch once a minute for an additional fifteen minutes before he condescended to collect his own baggage and take a taxi.

Just one more inconvenience for which that faithless bitch wife of his would answer.

Staring disdainfully through rain-soaked windows at what he considered uniformly bleak scenery, he reflected on all he had done for her. He had raised
her from a poor relation to a woman of consequence, had given her everything a woman could possibly want. In return the ungrateful little slut had ruined his life, destroyed his reputation. His business had suffered in the past nine months, many of his friends had dropped from sight, and the agency he had hired to find her had taken their own sweet time, soaking him for a fortune in the process. That was no coincidence, he was sure.

Gazing out at the sparse traffic on the interstate, however, Wesley, a perpetually dissatisfied man, allowed himself one brief, pinched smile of satisfaction. For he had found her now, just as he’d always known he would. The moment he’d awaited was rapidly approaching. In less than twenty-four hours, he would be in a position to exact his revenge. Oh, yes, she was going to pay for every slight he’d suffered, for each and every humiliation. She was going to pay dearly.

Tires hissing over wet pavement, the taxi pulled to a stop in front of Aunie’s apartment house. All the lights except the one blazing over the front door were darkened—not surprising, given the hour. Wesley sat and stared at the building with obsessive concentration, caught up in a web of dark thoughts. The driver, watching him in the rearview mirror, shifted uncomfortably. His passenger’s expression was one that was becoming increasingly familiar in Atlanta circles, causing friends and business acquaintances alike to give him a wide berth. To the driver it was unfamiliar, but no less disturbing. The guy looked like a psycho.

“So, what’s it gonna be, bub?”

“Wait here.” Wesley opened the rear door and climbed out, ignoring the driver’s protest. He walked up the path to the front door and studied the names
next to the buzzer. Only three, and one of them was Franklin.

Good.

He climbed back into the taxi and settled himself. Looking at the driver down the length of his nose, he said peremptorily, “Take me to the Four Seasons Olympic.”

Independently, Aunie and James had reached the same conclusion. This impasse in their relationship could not be allowed to continue. Both had spent two difficult nights apart, and both had decided they needed to talk before everything worthwhile they’d built together was reduced to ashes. Each privately swore that the necessary conversation would be handled in a nonconfrontational manner, with logic and calm foremost, emotions strictly controlled and relegated to a back burner.

Their intentions were the best. They just didn’t realize how difficult that particular promise would be to keep.

Aunie was feeling optimistic by the conclusion of her final exam. She wouldn’t know for sure until she saw her grade, but she felt it had gone well and hoped it was an omen for the rest of the day. Due to the continuing inclement weather, she had accepted a
lift from Mary, both to and from school, but she’d declined her friend’s invitation for a celebratory lunch. Promising to make it up to her at a later date, she waved Mary off and ran, head down, up the path, letting herself in the front door. She was anxious to talk to James and settle the future of their relationship once and for all.

She’d decided on the way home that she was most likely blowing the matter of his apartment entirely out of proportion. He’d never actually said she was unwelcome. Well, he had, as a matter of fact, the one and only time she’d entered it, but that was before they’d become involved. She had to believe that the dark suspicion, which had bloomed full-blown yesterday afternoon, was nothing more than an instance of her paranoia at work following what had truly been an immensely eventful and stressful week. It didn’t say much for her state of mind, perhaps, but it certainly beat the alternative, which was that James was deliberately excluding her from a large portion of his life. That was a supposition she found untenable and she refused to make herself crazy thinking about it before she had a chance to talk to him.

By the time Aunie had put away her supplies and stored her book bag on a shelf in her bedroom closet, the steady drizzle had stopped and the thick, lowering clouds had commenced to thin, allowing intermittent rays of weak spring sunshine to break through. Choosing to view the improved weather as another promising omen, she brushed her hair and her teeth and applied a dash of lipstick.

Drawing a deep breath, she decided she was as ready as she’d ever be.

She didn’t bother to lock her door behind her when she exited her apartment. It was nice, now that
the young man responsible for the harassment was safely behind bars, not to feel the need for extra caution. She walked down the hall, hesitated a moment outside James’s apartment, and then resolutely knocked on his door.

“Hang on a sec,” he said through the door, and when he opened it Aunie was reminded of Halloween day. Once again he was wearing a white shirt that was unbuttoned and hanging open and jeans that were not zipped. His hair was damp. “Hi,” he said in surprise. He buttoned up his shirt and stuffed the tails into his waistband, zipping and buttoning the fly. “I thought you’d still be at school. You finish your final already?”

Some of her optimism drained away when he didn’t move out of the doorway or invite her in, but she determinedly gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Yes, and I think I did all right.” She looked up into his face. “We’ve got to talk, Jimmy.”

He stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him. It was strictly a reflex action on his part, not something he’d consciously planned to obstruct her. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I know. It’s been a hellish couple of days.” He placed his hand on her arm and out of habit began to guide her along the hall. “Let’s go down to your place.”

She went cold all over. “No,” she replied through constricted vocal cords, pulling her arm free. “Let’s not.” All her old insecurities rose up to haunt her. Had she once again fooled herself into thinking there was something more to a relationship simply because she so desperately wanted there to be? Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought you loved me.”

He stared at her, dumbfounded. “I do love you!”

Suddenly, she was furious. “You love having sex
with me!” she spat at him. “Sex! That’s all it is. But when it comes down to allowin’ me into your life … boy, is that a different matter!”

“I don’t have sex with you, Magnolia; I make love to you.”

“Indeed?” she said with flat disbelief as the episode in her kitchen flashed through her mind. “What’s the difference?”

James paled. “Jesus,” he whispered, staring down at her flushed and furious, upturned face. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “You don’t really believe that, do you Aunie? That there’s no difference between some slam-bam, back-alley fuck and the way you and I make love?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” she demanded. “How do I differ from your other girlfriends, Jimmy? Name me one way, aside from the obvious of course … that they all have big boobs and no intellect, while I have a big intellect and no boobs.”

“Dammit, Aunie, there’s no comparison between you and the women I used to see! They were … friends. Hell, not even that, some of them. I
love
you!”

“Then why am I just as excluded from your life as they were, Jimmy? Why haven’t you
once
invited me into your apartment, showed me your work? And how come, if you make
love
to me the way you claim to do, the other day in my kitchen felt more like makin’ war?” She was mortified and furious with herself when she began to cry in earnest. “Why did I feel like Ah was bein’ punished, Gawd, Ah hate it that I can’t even remembah what was said that started the whole thing!”

“You called me a prick.”

“I didn’t!” The word had arisen in her mind on
a number of occasions, particularly where Wesley was concerned, but she’d never said it aloud in her life.

“Yes you did, baby. And hearing it come from your mouth … I don’t know, I lost what little control I was exercising up to that point. “ He thrust his hand through his hair. “Dammit, Aunie!”
I was scared to death and it transmuted into anger,
he wanted to say. But Terrace machismo inoculated in the boy prevented the man from admitting it. He tried an oblique explanation instead. “Not only had you just nonchalantly informed me that someone was still watching you, you’d also put yourself at risk when you contacted Cunningham. So I guess when you called me a prick on top of it, I lost it. I decided to show you just how big a prick I could be.” He moved close and touched the tears streaming down her cheeks with a rough-tipped finger. “But I’m sorry, Aunie. I am. And I swear to God it didn’t occur to me until yesterday when we were talking about Greta-Leigh’s pacifier, but … Could I have gotten you pregnant?”

She wiped her palms across her cheeks and sniffed. Knuckling her nose like a little girl, she hunched one shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve gone over it and over it, and the closest I can determine is that it was right on the boundary between the days that are safe and the days that aren’t. I won’t know for sure for a week or so.”

“Have you thought about what you wanna do, if it turns out you are?”

“Have I—? Of course, I’ve thought about it! That’s been practically all I’ve
been able
to think about.”

“And I suppose you’ve come to some sort of decision?” he queried her neutrally. He felt he’d screwed up so many things in their relationship. He regretted his aggressiveness on Wednesday: the deliberately
wounding words and the way he’d taken her in anger up against the fridge. He was sorry about his failure to use a condom, which had left her unprotected; sorrier still—given that look of betrayal on her face—about not sharing the most important aspects of his life with her: his home, his work. When he’d first made the decision to keep them separate, it had seemed a smart way to protect himself in case she walked out on him. Now it merely seemed childish. He was trying to make it up to her by showing her he’d abide by whatever decision she made and not attempt to muscle her into doing what he desired.

Aunie’s emotions, however, were running high, her self-esteem was at an all-time low, and she misread his intentions entirely. She equated his carefully impartial tone with indifference, thought this was his way of humoring her. She jerked back from him furiously. “Don’t you patronize me, James!”

Every defense he’d built over the course of two decades threatened to slam irrevocably into place, and his temper, which up until that moment he had managed to contain, flared at the way she’d repudiated his sincerely offered overture. “Patronize! Jesus, lady, I’m bending over backward here to be a New Age sensitive guy by letting you set all the rules! This is
my
kid we’re talking about if you’re pregnant, but it appears to me that I’m just spinnin’ my wheels because you’re determined to be pissed no matter what I say. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Just what the hell do you want from me, Aunie?”

Aunie plunged both hands into her hair and raked it off her forehead with such vigor her eyelids stretched. “I don’t know! Maybe I’d like, just once, for you to define the terms of our relationship! Every time there’s been a move to be made, I’ve had to
make it and I’m tired of pushin’ myself in where I’m not even sure I’m wanted. I want to know if you are willin’ to take any risks in this, this … Gawd, I don’t even know what to call it! Love affair? Shack-up, what?”

“Risks?” James roared. “You want risks? Fine, I’ve got one for you that’ll make your hair curl!” He grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her along behind him, pulling her through his apartment door and slamming it shut behind them.

He dragged her over to his drafting table and pressed on her shoulders until she sank down onto the secretarial chair in front of it. “Here! Look at my stuff. Explore my apartment. Do what you want … just don’t leave. I’ll be right back.” He rummaged through the desk while she stared blankly at his work in progress. Locating his wallet, he checked his cash supply, picked up his checkbook, and stuffed both in his pocket. He collected shoes and a pair of socks from his bedroom; but not trusting her not to bolt, he brought them into the living room where he could keep his eye on her while he donned them. He hurriedly brushed back his hair and whipped a rubber band around it. Then he gathered his keys and came to collect her. “Let’s go.” He hustled her out of his apartment again. “And tonight you’re sleeping here. I’m sick of having my performance judged by that roomful of steroid-fed beefcake.”

Aunie stumbled the combined length of their arms behind him, hustled along by his grip on her wrist. She had to practically trot to keep up with his ground-eating stride. Dazed by the implications of being told she would be sleeping in his apartment that night, she only spared enough mental energy to wonder where he was taking her.

James was just reaching for the doorknob on the building’s front entrance when the Jacksons’ door opened. Lola looked out. “Oh,” she said dully, “You’re goin’ out.”

The static aura of supercharged emotions that surrounded James and Aunie subsided somewhat as they looked down the hallway at Lola. Their expressions became concerned, for her characteristic energy was absent as she slumped against the door frame and her creamy brown skin was overlaid by an unhealthy tinge of grey. Aunie twisted her wrist out of James’s grasp and crossed over to her friend.

“Sick again?” she asked her sympathetically. Lola nodded, then suddenly slapped her hand over her mouth and ran for the bathroom. They could hear the sounds of her being ill behind the hastily closed door and met each other’s eyes uneasily. “I don’t understand this,” Aunie said. “How can one person go up and down the way she’s doin’? She was so sick yesterday. But when I stopped by before Mary picked me up for our final this morning, she was feeling great. Now she’s sick again. I’m goin’ to call her doctor.”

“Good idea,” James agreed. He squatted down to peer at Greta-Leigh through the mesh in her playpen. “Hello, sweet thing,” he murmured. “Your mama’s not feeling too perky right now, but it’s nothing for you to worry about. Ol’ Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Magnolia are gonna see to it she gets fixed up.”

Greta-Leigh stared up at the overhead light.

Lola emerged from the bathroom just as Aunie was hanging up the phone. She collapsed on the couch in exhaustion and watched as Aunie began gathering baby items and stuffing them into the diaper bag. “What are you doin’?”

“Packin’ up. Dr. Woo had a cancellation and can
fit you in, but you have to be there in twenty minutes. James will drive you, won’t you, Jimmy?” He nodded. “I’ll take Greta-Leigh up to my place.”

“Oh, but,” Lola protested, “she hasn’t had her bottle yet and it’s almost time for her—”

“No buts,” James interrupted and handed Lola her purse. “Aunie can handle it. C’mon, now. We’ve gotta get going.” He helped her to her feet. Aunie trailed them to the front door where James suddenly turned back and wrapped his hand around the base of her skull. He pulled her onto her tiptoes and gave her a rough kiss. Raising his head, he stared down at her intently. “Don’t think I’m gonna be sidetracked by this,” he said. “You want me to take a risk in our relationship and I’m plannin’ on taking one. This is a postponement, Aunie, nothing more.”

“Where were you takin’ me?” Five minutes ago it hadn’t seemed important. Now she was consumed with curiosity.

His face creased with his smile. “Ah, now,” he whispered, sliding his thumb down the side of her throat. “That’d be tellin’, wouldn’t it?”

“Jimmy!”

“Okay, okay. The King County Administration Office.”

She stared at him blankly. “Whatever for?”

He slipped his fingers out from behind her neck and stepped out in the hall. “To apply for a marriage license,” he said and closed the door in her face. By the time Aunie collected her wits sufficiently to yank it open again, he and Lola were gone.

Slumped low on the seat of a rental car on the next block, Wesley folded down a corner of his newspaper
and watched as a muscular, long-haired blonde and a tall black woman left the apartment house. The man escorted the woman to a Jeep parked near the corner, helped her in, stood and stared a moment up at the apartment they had vacated, and then walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in. They drove away.