Scarlet Woman. Gwynne Forster

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      The nerve of him. She told herself not to react. “Mr. Folson, my late husband’s will requires that I establish a foundation to support remedial reading here in Ellicott City, and I’m inquiring as to your willingness to serve on the board. I’m canvassing twelve of the town’s leading citizens. It’s a charity foundation, so there’s no honorarium for this.” She heard a sound like someone clearing his throat and waited for the verdict.

      “The leading citizens, eh? Well, now, that’s right decent of you. You can put my name down.”

      Martha Greene agreed to serve, but not before she let Melinda know what she thought of the Reverend Booker Jones. “That man thinks everybody’s headed straight for hell, everybody but him, that is. It’s a wonder you turned out as well as you did.”

      Melinda closed her eyes tight. Ten more to go, and she could shake Ellicott City dust from her feet, except for Christmas and Mother’s Day. Turned out as well as you did! Grin and bear it, girl, she admonished herself. It’ll soon be in the past.

      “Then you’ll serve, Mrs. Greene? Thank you so much. My husband would be pleased.”

      “You think I’m doing it for him?” the woman shot back. “I’m signing on because of all the people around here who can barely read a street sign. Prescott Rodgers stayed as far away from the citizens of this town as he could get. Anybody would have thought he was scared we’d absorb some of his money.”

      Just a sweet, loving human being. “Whatever your reason, Mrs. Greene, I do appreciate your help.”

      She hung up. “Whew.” That was as much as she could take for one evening. She went over the lesson plans for her classes in American literature and contemporary fiction writing, got ready for bed, and put on a Billie Holiday CD. Jazz, Mozart, and Brian McKnight ballads could lull her into contentment every time. She sat on the floor with her back against her bed and closed her eyes to let the sound of Billie singing “Why Not Take All of Me?” wash over her. Within seconds, Blake Hunter filled her thoughts, and then she could feel his fingers gently loving her neck, face, arms, her belly, thighs, all of her. She gripped the coverlet on her bed as he hovered above her, and when he wiped tears from her eyes, she felt the dampness on her face and knew that she cried.

      Melinda got to school the next morning, but she’d tossed in bed all night begging for the sleep that never came, and every muscle in her body ached. When questioned about her obvious fatigue, she explained to Rachel that working on the foundation had worn her out.

      “I thought maybe you’d been out with that fine brother who’s handling Prescott’s will.”

      “You saw him the last time I did.”

      Rachel lowered her gaze, and Melinda couldn’t help noticing the look of embarrassment on the woman’s face. “Are you suggesting that I’m seeing Blake socially?” she asked Rachel.

      “Well…uh…no, but you know how people talk.”

      Melinda didn’t press Rachel, but the woman’s words failed to placate her. She’d noticed her fascination with Blake, and Melinda didn’t blame her. Who would? Blake Hunter wasn’t just handsome; his tough, masculine personality and riveting presence jumped out at you, and you had to pay attention to him. Any female between the ages of eight and eighty with warm blood running through her veins would give the man a second look.

      “What are they saying about me and Blake Hunter? What can they say?”

      Rachel patted Melinda’s shoulder and looked as if she wanted to deny her statement. “Girl, our folks love to gossip. You know that.”

      She stared down at Rachel, who stood little more than five feet five inches in her three-inch heels. “It isn’t just ‘our folks’ who gossip. All small-town people gossip—they don’t have much else to do.” Seeing the relief on Rachel’s face, she knew the woman had been saved from embarrassment. Or maybe from lying.

      Later that afternoon, the school’s superintendent called Melinda to his office. “Mrs. Rodgers, I understand your late husband’s will contains provisions that aren’t favorable to you. I was—”

      “Who told you that? As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing bad in that will.”

      “But I heard you’d been disinherited, and I thought you might ask Mr. Hunter to settle some money on the school.”

      She propped her hands on her hips and glared at him. It wasn’t easy to ring her bell, but he’d just managed to do it. “Is that all, Dr. Hicks?” Without waiting for his answer, she spun around and left.

      On an impulse, she stopped by Blake’s office on the way home. If he couldn’t do something to arrest the awful gossip, she’d chuck the whole thing.

      “Melinda. What a surprise,” he said and stood when she entered his office. “What can I do for you?”

      She explained the reasons for being there. “It started yesterday with Judd Folson. Even Rachel’s repeating these stupidities. I’m fed up.”

      The tips of his fingers warmed her elbow. “Come on in.” He didn’t go to his desk as she would have expected, but led her to the leather sofa that rested beneath a collection of paintings by African-American artists and sat there beside her.

      “Tell me about it.” His voice conveyed an unfamiliar softness, a tenderness, maybe even an intimacy. At least she thought so.

      “It’s…I know a lot of people don’t like my father, and I understand that. I even accept it, because he’s a big dose for me sometimes, but what did Prescott ever do to anybody?”

      “Ordinary people envy the rich, Melinda. He didn’t have to do anything to anybody.”

      Her eyes widened, and her pocketbook slipped from her lap to the floor. She caught herself, but not quickly enough to hide her shock. He picked up her pocketbook and put it on the sofa beside her.

      “Why are you surprised? The poor have hated the rich since the beginning of time.”

      She couldn’t help staring at him. “Rich? What do you mean rich? I know Prescott was well off, but rich?”

      Now, she had obviously surprised him. “Prescott Rodgers was worth millions, and his estate will earn royalties probably for as long as people wear glasses and use cameras.”

      She slumped against the back of the sofa and slowly closed her mouth. “I never dreamed…Prescott never talked about his finances, and I didn’t question him about them. I knew we were well off. We had what we needed, but if he hadn’t given me anything more than the first real peace I’d had in my life, I would have been contented.”

      He stared at her for so long that she decided she’d lost his sympathy, that she’d better leave. But he restrained her with a hand on her shoulder, a hand whose warmth she felt to the marrow of her being.

      “Don’t go. Please. This takes some getting used to.”

      “Why? What did you think? That I—”

      He cut her off. “Don’t say it. Right now, I don’t know what to think. Prescott talked freely to me about his affairs, or at least I think СКАЧАТЬ