Sealed With a Kiss. Gwynne Forster

extended its facilities to boys. In the Washington, D.C., area, she had insisted, boys had the Police Athletic League for support, but for many girls, especially African American girls, there was only One Last Chance. And she knew its importance. How different her life might have been if the foundation had been there for her thirteen years ago, when she had been sixteen and forced to deal with the shattering aftermath of a misplaced trust.

       She refreshed herself with a warm shower, dressed quickly in a dusty rose cowl-necked sweater and navy pants, and rushed to her best friend Marva’s wedding rehearsal. Dusty rose reminded her of the roses that her mother had so carefully tended and that still flourished around the house on Queens Chapel Terrace, where she had lived with her parents. She couldn’t recall those days well, but she thought she remembered her mother working in her garden on clear, sunny mornings during spring and summer. She regularly resisted the temptation to pass the house and look at the roses. She’d never seen any others that color, her favorite. It was why she had chosen a dress of that shade to wear as maid of honor at Marva’s wedding.

       Marva was her closest friend, though in Naomi’s view they were exact opposites. The women’s one priority was the permanent attainment of an eligible man. Marriage wasn’t for her, but as maid of honor, she had to stand in for the bride—as close to the real thing as she would ever get. At times, she desperately longed for a man’s love and for children—lots of them. But she could not risk the disclosure that an intimate relationship with a man would ultimately require, and to make certain that she was never tempted, she kept men at a distance.

       Naomi knew that men found her attractive, and she had learned how to put them off with empty, meaningless patter. It wasn’t that she didn’t like any of them; she did. She wanted to kick herself when the groom’s best man caught her scrutinizing him, a deeply bronzed six footer with a thin black mustache, good looks, and just the right amount of panache. She figured that her furtive glances had plumped his ego, because he immediately asked her out when the rehearsal was over. She deftly discouraged him, and it was becoming easier, she realized, when he backed off after just a tiny sample of her dazzling double-talk.

       I’ll pay for it, she thought, as she mused over the evening during her drive home. Whenever she misrepresented herself as frivolous or callous to a man whom she could have liked, she became depressed afterward. Already she felt a bit down. But she walked into her apartment determined to dispel it. The day had been a long one that she wouldn’t soon forget. “Keep it light girl,” she reminded herself, as she changed her clothes. To make certain that she did, she put on a jazz cassette and brightened her mood, dancing until she was soaked with perspiration and too exhausted to move. Then she showered, donned her old clothes, and settled down to work.

       She took pride in her work, designing logos, labels, and stationery for large corporations and other businesses, and she was happiest when she produced an elegant, imaginative design. Her considerable skill and novel approaches made her much sought after, and she earned a good living. She was glad that a new ice-cream manufacturer liked a logo that she’d produced, though the company wanted a cow in the middle of it. A cow! She stared at the paper and watched the paint drying on her brush, but not one idea emerged. Why couldn’t she dispel that strange something that welled up in her every time she thought of Rufus? It had been a week since her last provocative note to him, and she wondered whether he would answer. It was dangerous, she knew, to let her mind dwell on him, but his voice had a seductive, almost hypnotic effect on her. Where he was concerned, her mind did as it pleased. Tremors danced through her whenever she recalled his deep voice and lilting speech. Voices weren’t supposed to have that effect, she told herself. But his was a powerful drug. Was he young? Old? Short? She tried without success to banish him from her thoughts. While she hummed softly and struggled to fit the cow into the ice cream logo, an impatient ringing of her doorbell and then a knock on the door startled her. Why hadn’t the doorman announced the visitor, she wondered, as she peeped through the viewer and saw a man there.

       “May I help you?” She couldn’t see all of him. Tall, she guessed.

       “I hope so. I’m looking for Naomi Logan.” Her first reaction was a silent, “My God it’s him!” Her palms suddenly became damp, and tiny shivers of anticipation rushed through her. She would never forget that voice. But she refused him the satisfaction of knowing that she remembered it. She’d written him on her personal stationery, but he’d sent his letter to her through the station; she didn’t have a clue as to where he lived. She struggled to calm herself.

       “Who is it, please?” Could that steady voice be hers?

       “I’m Rufus Meade, and I’d like to see Miss Logan, if I may.”

       “I ought to leave him standing there,” she grumbled to herself, but she knew that neither her sense of decency nor her curiosity would allow her to do it, and she opened the door.

       Rufus Meade stood in the doorway staring at the woman who had vexed him beyond reason. She wasn’t at all what he had expected. Around twenty-nine, he surmised, and by any measure, beautiful. Tall and slim, but deliciously curved. He let his gaze feast on her smooth dark skin, eyes the color of dark walnut, and long, thick curly black tresses that seemed to fly all over the place. God, he hadn’t counted on this. Something just short of a full-blown desire burned in the pit of his belly. He recognized it as more than a simple craving for her; he wanted to know her totally, completely, and in every intimate way possible.

       Naomi borrowed from her years of practice at shoving her emotions aside and pulled herself together first. If there was such a thing as an eviscerating, brain-damaging clap of thunder, she had just experienced it. Grasping the doorknob for support, she shifted her glance from his intense gaze, took in the rest of him, and then risked looking back into those strangely unsettling fawnlike eyes. And she had thought his voice a narcotic. Add that to the rest of him and…Lord! He was lethal! If she had any sense, she’d slam the door shut.

       “You’re Rufus Meade?” she asked. Trying unsuccessfully to appear calm, she knitted her brow and worried her bottom lip. She could see that he was uncomfortable, even slightly awed, as if he, too, was having a new and not particularly agreeable experience. But he shrugged his left shoulder, winked at her, and took control of the situation.

       “Yes, I’m Rufus Meade, and don’t tell me you’re Naomi Logan.”

       She laughed, forgetting her paint-smeared jeans and T-shirt and her bare feet. “Since you don’t look anywhere near ninety, I want to see some identification.” He pulled out his driver’s license and handed it to her, nodding in approval as he did so.

       “I see you’re a fast thinker. Can’t be too careful these days.”

       Unable to resist needling him, she gave him her sweetest smile. “Do you think a bimbo would have thought to do that?” It was the kind of repartee that she used as a screen to hide her interest in a man or to dampen his, like crossing water to throw an animal off one’s trail.

       His silence gave her a very uneasy feeling. What if he was dangerous? She didn’t know a thing about him. She tried to view him with the crust caused by his physical attractiveness removed from her eyes. Clearly he was a most unlikely candidate for ridicule; nothing about him suggested it. A strapping, virile male of about thirty-four, he was good-looking, with smooth dark skin and large fawnlike eyes, a lean face, clean shaven and apparently well mannered. She backed up a step. The man took up a lot of psychological space and had an aura of steely strength. He was also at least six feet four, and he wore clothes like a model. So much for that, she concluded silently; all I learned is that I like what I see.

       His demeanor was that of a self-possessed man. Why, then, did he behave as if he wanted to eat nails? She was tempted to ask him, but she doubted his mood would tolerate the impertinence. He leaned against her door, hands in his pockets, and swept his gaze over her.

       “Miss Logan, your tongue is tart enough to make a saint turn in his halo. Are you going to ask me in, or are you partial to nonagenarians?”

       There was something to be said for his ability to toss out a sally, she decided, stepping back and grinning. “Touché. Come on in.” She noticed that he walked in slowly, as