Fools Rush In. Gwynne Forster

didn’t want him plundering around in her life. “Waste your time somewhere else, Warren. We’ve got a business arrangement through Al. That’s all. Look, I have to go. Good-bye.”

      Bulldogged as ever, he drawled, “That’s my girl. Same Justine. If you committed a murder, I bet you’d do it in the best lady-like manner. Bye for now.”

      She hung up and regrouped. An involvement with any man, not only Warren, would complicate her life. Besides, she couldn’t afford to have Duncan question her suitability as a nanny for Tonya, and he might if she had men visiting her. Still, if she concentrated on another man, maybe she’d spend less time thinking about Duncan Banks.

      She got back to the nursery in time to see Tonya’s shoe drop out of the crib. The baby smiled at her, banged her other shoe against the bars and sang out, “Juju.”

      Justine stopped herself just as the words, “Mummy’s coming,” perched at the tip of her tongue. She slapped her right hand over her mouth, horrified. Lord forbid that she should ever make that mistake. Weakened by the significance of what she’d almost done, she slumped into the rocker beside the crib, closed her eyes and leaned back. Instead of getting easier as the days passed, the pain became sharper and the charade more difficult. But she couldn’t envisage turning back. Not now. She could never leave her child.

      She lay Tonya in bed for a nap, put on a cassette of Mozart chamber music, collected several letters to Aunt Mariah, sat beside the child’s bed and perused them.

      “Dear Aunt Mariah, My boyfriend is seeing another girl. He didn’t say so, but I know he is, because he hasn’t called me in two months. Should I drop him? Tearful.”

      Justine controlled the urge to laugh, because Tearful had a serious problem. You couldn’t drop what you didn’t have. She wrote:

      “Dear Tearful, be a good sport and let him out of it gracefully. A gentle note saying it’s been nice knowing him, and all the best would sound just the right chord, though he doesn’t deserve that. If he’s cheating, forget him. Yours, Aunt Mariah.”

      A ringing phone sent her scrambling into the hallway to answer it before Mattie gave vent to her ire.

      “Yes?”

      “Hello, Justine, Big Al here. I got a couple of great letters about your column. I told ya people would love it, didn’t I? Keep it up. You’re doing good. Just give ’em plenty of horse sense and that family stuff. But you…er…sat down pretty hard on…let’s see, some woman wrote you that her husband—Linden, I believe—was fooling around. You told her to leave him. Justine, baby, that is not family stuff. The only advice you ever give to a woman who’s man is unfaithful is to kick him out. You gotta do better than that, babe.”

      So that was why he’d called. Might as well set him straight. “Thanks, but that’s what they deserve. By the way, why did you give Warren my phone number here?”

      “You didn’t want him to have it? He said you gave it to him, and he lost it. Wait’ll I chew him out.”

      The man hadn’t changed since school days. Dear as he was, she’d have to reprimand him. “Next time, please ask me first.”

      “Okay, but you could do worse than Warren. He’s smart. A real go-getter. I know. I know,” he said, as though he anticipated her censure. “He can stick to you like glue, but you can handle that. He’s a good guy. Not a lot of ’em are your equal, you know.”

      “Speak for yourself, Al.”

      “Okay. Okay.” She could imagine his hand palm out before him. “I won’t do it again. Say, I could have your mail sent to you by messenger.”

      She knew that gesture was meant to appease her, but instead, it alarmed her. She didn’t want him to have Duncan’s address. Thinking rapidly, she said, “Then the messenger would know where Aunt Mariah lives.”

      She thought she heard air seep through his lips. “Fast thinking. You’re on the ball, honey. We’ll leave it as it is.”

      She hung up, slipped back into the role of Aunt Mariah and finished the column, but she couldn’t make herself advise Rose Akers to stay with her abusive man. “Leave him,” she wrote. At the other extreme, Annie K. couldn’t make up her mind to marry a prince of a guy. Justine wrote, “Annie, dear, a woman who doesn’t know champagne from grape juice doesn’t deserve champagne. Yours, Aunt Mariah.”

      “Is she still asleep?”

      Startled, her head jerked up. She hadn’t heard him climb the stairs. Please Lord, don’t let him ask to see what she’d been writing. She presented him with what she hoped was a smile. “Yes. She’s asleep.”

      “How can she sleep with the radio on?” he continued as he entered the room and stepped with a jazzy rhythm directly to her. She didn’t believe he did it intentionally, because there was nothing personal in his facial expression, only concern for his child. But intentional or not, his dancing gait set her on fire. Darn him. She looked away.

      “It isn’t the radio, it’s a cassette. She sleeps most soundly when this music is playing, and if she’s awake and I put on Mozart’s ‘Concerto for Flute and Harp,’ she’s very quiet and smiles a lot. I think she enjoys it.”

      She wished he wouldn’t stare at her. Those sleepy-lidded reddish-brown eyes seemed to suck her right into his body. “I’d have thought she was too young to have preferences in music, but you’ve already made me ditch some of my ideas about bringing up children.”

      He stepped closer and pinned her with a hypnotic stare. “I’m glad you’re here, Justine. You’ve warmed up this place, changed our lives for the better.”

      What had happened to his light manner of moments earlier? Vanished. His expression had dissolved into a somber cloud, and he stood so close that his knee touched the fabric of her slacks.

      “I hope you’ll be with us a long, long time, Justine.” His tone had gotten deeper, had softened. She had to observe him carefully in order to get what was behind his message, and as she looked into his face, his solemn words and the urgency of his manner sent warm arrows of excitement darting through her, and she closed her eyes to cover her feelings. But only for a second. The sensation of his warm fingers on her shoulders disconcerted her, and she looked into his eyes. He seemed to pull her into himself, to meld with her, to draw her into him as though he were quicksand. She drew back, away from him but she couldn’t loosen his hold on her, an indefinable something that seemed to tie them together. His hand moved to her face, caressed her cheek, and lingered there while he stared into her eyes. Abruptly, he turned and left the room.