One Night With You

A judge! Was fate playing games with him, putting him on his honor? If Kendra Rutherford presided in Queenstown, chances were fair that she would hear his case against Brown and Worley, provided he managed to bring it to trial. She hadn’t been reluctant to give him good advice, and he meant to follow it, but the less he saw of her, the better it would be for both of them. He’d spent six long years on Philip Dickerson’s estate, during which time he hadn’t wanted a woman and hadn’t touched one. Before Myrna walked out of his life, he hadn’t been celibate or even considered it since he was thirteen, but his disappointment in Myrna had so embittered him that he couldn’t have made love with a woman if his life had depended on it. Yet, the minute he saw Kendra sprawled out on the ice, relaxed and yielding to her inability to get up, much like a dying man submitting to the inevitable, his libido had returned with a vengeance.

It wouldn’t have concerned him too much—after all, a man wanted to know that he could cut the mustard if he wanted to, but she knew he was there, and she knew it the minute she looked at him. That made the nagging desire that afflicted him when he saw her more difficult to ignore. But he had a long way to go before he could consider tying up with a woman; he meant to clear his name and reestablish himself, both of which could take years. By that time, Kendra Rutherford would have long forgotten that Reid Maguire existed.

He walked into his bedroom, pulled off his jacket and hung it up. He wouldn’t mind having some more of that wonderful coffee she’d made. “Oh, damn. I left my drawing pad in her house. Too bad. It’ll just stay there. I’m not going to give her the impression that I left it as an excuse to go back there. I’ll use some plain bond paper.” He remembered that a former classmate had settled in Caution Point and telephoned him.

“Marcus, this is Reid Maguire.”

“Great guns! How are you, Reid? It’s been years. Are you in town?”

He explained where he was, where he’d been and the reason for his call. “I can’t even begin work, because I know nothing about Caution Point. What kind of place is it?”

“We’re right at the edge of the Albemarle Sound, a sleepy town that looks old. You wouldn’t want to put anything like the Sydney Opera House here. New buildings are usually dark-red brick or cement, and almost none are glass-fronted. Trees everywhere, park benches and wide streets. The tallest building is around eight stories, and we have only a few of those. I’m glad to know you’re back in business, man. When you come here, I’d like you to meet my family.”

“I’ll let you know. Thanks for your help, Marcus.”

He hung up, satisfied that he could acquit himself well. The structure shouldn’t be ultramodern, but neither should it be standard. He decided to produce a design that resembled a huge multi-level private house with a glass-and-cement exterior. Trees would surround its front and sides, and every long walkway would have two-way moving walks with comfortable, built-in seating at strategic stops. He warmed up to the idea, and was still hard at work at two o’clock the following morning.

On Sunday morning, Kendra went to one of the churches nearest to Albemarle Gates, a big, white-brick Baptist church on the corner of Albemarle Heights and Atlantic Avenue. African-Americans made up the bulk of the worshipers, and the smaller fraction consisted of Latinos, Native Americans and a sprinkling of whites. She sat in an aisle seat about midway, and it stunned her that when the collection was taken, the usher moved the basket past her so quickly that she did not have a chance to put in the twenty-dollar bill she held in her hand. When he retrieved the basket, he lifted it above her head, so that she knew his action was deliberate, that he did not want her to contribute. Whoever heard of a Baptist church turning down money?

Still shocked by the usher’s deliberate snub, at the end of the service she attended the coffee hour in the hope of meeting some of the parishioners. However, to her chagrin, no one spoke to her. She left and trudged up the hill, hunched over against the wind that whipped in from the Albemarle, blowing her breath upward to warm her face. Finally, she ran the last few steps to her house.

The phone rang shortly after she entered her house. “This is Kendra Rutherford,” she answered and remembered that she’d better stop identifying herself when she answered the phone, for she was sure to encounter local hostility in the course of her work.

“Hi. This is Claudine. Where were you? I rang you a dozen times.”

“I went to church.”

“See any nice guys?”

“Don’t make jokes. If I had, I doubt they would have spoken to me.” She told her sister about her experience at church. “I won’t be going back there.”

“Maybe they take seriously that biblical passage that reads, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’”

“I wish I thought it. I’ll have to find out what’s behind this. It’s not normal.”

“Sure isn’t normal for a church to reject money. Why don’t you ask one of your neighbors about it?”

“Maybe I will.”

Reid Maguire didn’t care to be friendly, but she wasn’t asking for friendship. Tomorrow morning, she would be a stranger, perhaps an alien, on display among a people who, so far, hadn’t shown her civility, not to speak of graciousness, the only exception being a man who’d come to town two weeks before she did. She needed information, and if he didn’t want to provide it, she was going to give him an opportunity to refuse. She wasn’t timid, and she didn’t know anyone who thought she was.

Kendra put on her storm coat over jeans and a red cashmere sweater and headed across the street. After checking the list of tenants on the board in the mailroom to find the number of his apartment, she walked down the hall to the garden apartment in the back of the building and rang the bell.

The door opened almost at once, and Reid peeped out at her. Both of his eyebrows shot up. Then he opened the door wide and stared at her. “Uh…Hi. What’s up?”

“I know you’re busy, and I know you don’t want to be bothered, Mr. Maguire, but you’re the only person I’ve seen in this town who seems willing to give me the time of day. I’ve been snubbed royally, and before I’m a sitting duck on that bench tomorrow morning, I want to know what’s going on here.”

He stepped back and opened the door a little wider. “Come on in and have a seat.” He showed her to a comfortable and very masculine living room. “If you’ll excuse me a minute, I’ll be right back.”

She glanced at his bare feet and the jeans rolled up to expose his ankles and well-shaped calves, and took a seat. Evidence that he might be less than peerless, and therefore accessible, was not something that she needed. The man was neat, she observed as she looked around, and he had good taste. He’d furnished his apartment well, and without spending a lot of money.

She’d surprised him, and he didn’t try to hide it. Thoughts of what could have run through his mind when he saw her sent the blood rushing to her face. He returned wearing shoes, his jeans had been unrolled and a plaid, long-sleeved shirt had replaced the short-sleeved T-shirt.

“Sorry I can’t offer you coffee, unless you’d settle for instant.”

She disliked instant coffee. “It’s not my favorite, but if you make it strong, it isn’t too bad,” she said, wanting to be gracious.

“I’ll boil some water.” He was back in a few minutes with two mugs of coffee. “If I remember, you drink yours straight. What’s the problem?”

She told him of her experience in church that morning and reminded him of the supermarket clerk’s rudeness.

“I see. Look, Ms. Rutherford. Out here, African-Americans stick with the Native Americans, and you’re the only African-American who’s bought a town house in Albemarle Gates. According to what I’ve learned, there’s been contention about that place from the time Brown and Worley posted a sign stating the intent to build. For the last three years, there’ve been riots, fighting, sabotage, strikes and picketing about that place. The Native Americans went to court, but as usual, they lost. Nobody cares about Indian graves. In fact, this country has a sorry record in dealing with Native Americans. Period.

“It’s too bad you’re stuck in that mess, but I don’t know how you’ll get out of it. Around here, feelings run high about that site, and from what you’ve told me, the locals seem to feel that you’ve taken sides against them.”

“This is quite a pill.”

“It is, but I don’t think you should explain to people that you were unaware of the controversy. Seems to me, they ought to know that.”

“Well, I thank you. Now that I know what I’m up against, I’m really worried. I’d better go before it gets dark.”

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll walk you across the street.”

She leaned toward him. “Succeeding in this post is so important to me, and here I am in the midst of a political battle. I asked for a change, and this is what I get.”

“What were you doing before you came here?”

“There are a lot of little towns and hamlets whose populations aren’t large enough to warrant a full-time judge. I traveled among the small towns and hamlets in two counties, visiting each at least once monthly to try the cases on the docket. As judges go, that’s about the lowest job. After five years, I demanded a change, and this is what I got.

“Reid—I hope you don’t mind if I call you Reid. And please call me Kendra. As I was saying, I didn’t have a life. I had no friends of any kind, because I couldn’t cultivate them. I rarely saw the inside of my apartment for two consecutive days. I decided I deserved better. I came here with arms open, ready to embrace the world and everybody in it, and I got my first dose of rejection.”

He propped his left foot over his right knee. “I can easily imagine that. You seem very young for a judge.”

“I’ll be forty in a couple of days. I’d hoped that my sister would come up to be with me, but she’s preparing for a show, and can’t spare the time.”

“Can’t you go to be with her?”

“It’s a thought. We could at least have dinner together.” Each time she caught him looking directly at her, he shifted his gaze, except when he was talking to her.

“You had five wasted years,” he said. “Oh, I know you can rationalize that as years of learning, but I suspect you didn’t need to learn what you experienced in country courtrooms.”

“Not all of it, or even most of it, but I did learn that there’s something beautiful about simple people who see life and themselves accurately and who don’t shy away from the truth, not even when it reflects adversely upon them.”

“I met a few such individuals working on an estate during the last few years.”

“What did you do at that estate, Reid, if you don’t mind saying?”

“Philip taught me to be a groom. I worked on his farm and in his orchards, but mostly with his horses. I couldn’t have made it back this far, if I hadn’t had refuge on Philip Dickerson’s estate. The man literally saved my life, and then helped me back on my feet. He wanted a dormitory for the men he’d salvaged, so I designed one and supervised its construction. Those guys live in splendor now. Philip gave us bank books and deposited a high percentage of our salary in it weekly. Since we had no expenses, our savings added up quickly because he paid us standard wages. He had rules, but those rules helped to strengthen every one of the twelve men who worked for him.”

“Does he make any profit?”

Reid’s fondness for Philip Dickerson showed in the warmth of his smile. His face radiated pleasure, captivating her. “Absolutely. Every man there would go to the wall for Philip. He treated each of us as if we were his blood brother. He and I became really close. I miss him.”

Reid caught her staring at him, and she glanced away. “I’ve…uh…ruined your Sunday afternoon, Reid. Thanks for being so nice. I’d better go.”

He stood when she did. “You haven’t ruined my afternoon and another thing, Kendra. I’m not all that helpful. I mind my business and stay out of trouble.

“Something tells me that if you want to win a case in this town, you might need some local friends. You never know what’s in the back of a juror’s mind.” He held her coat for her, and she had to resist the urge to move away from him. The man’s aura was getting to her. She’d never shied away from men, but whenever she was close to this one, she got the feeling that she was about to step into a pool of hot quicksand. She turned, buttoning her coat, and he remained there, inches from her. She sucked in her breath and he stepped away from her in a move that said he did not want to become involved.

“Did you see a white plastic bag at your place?” he asked her, as if she had imagined that tense moment.

“About like this?” She held out her hands to suggest a space of about fourteen inches wide.

He nodded. “That could be it.”

“I think I saw it on the kitchen counter.”

He put on his leather jacket and walked out with her. When they reached the curb, a caravan of motorcycle riders approached, and he grabbed her hand, restraining her. “Let’s wait till the last one passes,” he said. “Sometimes they’ll observe this crosswalk, but usually they won’t.”

She prayed in silence, “Please turn loose my hand.” The last motorcycle passed, and he released her hand, as unceremoniously as if he’d never touched it. She had an urge to smack him.

“I’ll get your bag,” she said as they entered the house.

“Thanks. I’ll wait right here.” She brought the bag that obviously contained a tablet of some kind. “Why didn’t you come back for it?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you. Thanks.” He had his hand on the doorknob and a grin on his face when he said, “Good luck tomorrow, Your Honor,” and treated her to a wink. As usual, he didn’t waste his breath saying more, but turned and left.

“I wonder what a full dose of that man’s charisma would be like,” she said aloud, “but I am not anxious to find out.”

Chapter 2

Kendra locked her front door and sat down on the sofa in her living room, contemplating the enigma that was Reid Maguire. He didn’t want an involvement with her, and probably not with anyone else, but if, as she suspected, he hadn’t had a woman in his life for a while, he’d be as tempted as she was. Those were not terms that she cared for.

“I’ve got two problems,” she said aloud, “and I’ll probably solve my relationship with this community before I get Reid Maguire out of my blood.” It didn’t help that he was starting over, as it were, struggling to reach the pinnacle of his profession. That meant that she would empathize with him because, in some respects, she was doing the same. She went up to her bedroom, took a black robe from the closet and examined it. Deciding not to wear a lace collar with it, she chose a white satin open-collared dickey. Her eight-year-old black patent leather boots would have to do because she’d broken a heel on her more presentable ones. Where was that box of jelly beans? She found it in a kitchen drawer, filled a plastic sandwich bag with some of the beans, put them into her briefcase, and considered herself equipped for work. She seldom allowed herself to be without a bag of jelly beans.

She reread the background information that the clerk had sent her on the first case, the suit of a woman who had bought a diamond bracelet over the Internet, had had it appraised and been advised that it was worthless. Unfortunately for the woman, she’d paid heavily for it. Either the buyer or the seller would learn a lesson.

She awakened the next morning after a restful night, got ready for her first day at work, made coffee and her thoughts immediately went to Reid who, she knew, had to settle for a cup of instant. She walked up Albemarle Heights thinking that she was fortunate to have found a house so close to her work, and so her mood was bright and cheerful when she entered the courthouse and showed her badge to the guard. The man nodded, but she wasn’t sure toward which direction.

“Where is chamber 6A?” she asked him, and he pointed to his left with his thumb much as one uses the thumb to hitch a ride.

She could feel her temper rising. “I am the judge in charge of this court,” she told him, “and nobody who works here should be rude to me and expect to keep his or her job. If you’ve got your behind on your shoulder because I bought a house in Albemarle Gates, it tells me how foolish you are. I came here looking for a house, found one and bought it. Neither you nor anybody else in this town put an ad in the paper or a sign near that property advertising your objection to that housing. So show me your best face and tell all of your colleagues to do the same, or this courthouse will have a completely new slate of employees. And soon! Now, where is chamber 6A?”

She had never seen a colder stare. “Yes, ma’am. Right over here, ma’am,” he said and walked with her to the elevator. “Sixth floor, and turn right.”

“That wasn’t difficult, was it?” she said and got on the elevator without waiting for his answer.

Fortunately, her clerk showed better judgment. “Good morning, Judge Rutherford. I’m Carl Running Moon Howard, your clerk. Court begins at ten, unless you’d like the time changed, and ends at three. We have an hour for lunch. Here are the keys to your chambers. How do you like your coffee?”

“Good morning, Carl. I’m delighted to meet you. That’s the warmest greeting I’ve received since I came to Queenstown. I like it black without sugar. Thank you.”

“I know, ma’am. It’s too bad you didn’t know about those burial grounds. It’s gotten to be political, and people are taking sides. I hate this kind of thing, ma’am.”

“So do I, Carl. I saw ads in the papers for the houses, came here and drove throughout the city looking to see what else was available, and that suited me best. I had no way of knowing what that builder had done. I’d give anything if I hadn’t bought there, but I am there, and I’ve put my money in it. So I’m staying.”

“People will soon know what kind of person you are, ma’am. I’ll get you some coffee. Incidentally, the previous judge had a little microwave oven, mini-refrigerator and coffeepot in that little storage room over there. It came in handy I don’t know how many times. Your cases for today are in that black incoming-mail box.”

He brought the coffee, and she studied her morning cases until she’d satisfied herself that she understood them and the hoopla surrounding them. The clerk had included half a dozen newspaper clippings about the cases she would hear that morning.

The jury had already been selected, and the morning session began normally enough, but within the hour, she found it necessary to put the defendant’s attorney in his place.

“Would counsel approach the bench,” she said after he ignored her mild reprimand.

“What may I do for you?” he asked.

Shocked, she quoted to him a section of the law that specified the conditions under which a trial lawyer may be cited for contempt. “I won’t hesitate to do it,” she said. “In fact, I’d enjoy doing it. It’s best not to play with me. Your client’s in bad enough trouble as it is. Do I make myself clear?”

With his face flushed and his lower lip sagging, he said, “I’m sorry, Your Honor. Please accept my apology.”

“I take it you told him what was what,” Carl said to her after she adjourned the court for lunch. “He was the attorney for a builder who tried to get that Albemarle Gates property and failed.”

“How did Brown and Worley get it?”

“They say it was bribery, ma’am, but who knows?”

The lawyer for the plaintiff brought four expert witnesses to prove that the diamonds in the bracelet were, in fact, zircons, and the jury’s guilty verdict did not surprise her. She agreed with it.

She left the court longing to tell Reid how her first day went. But why should he care? She went home, turned up the heat, changed into jeans and a sweater and gave some thought to what she would cook for her dinner. She had never been the object of scorn, and knowing that she was made her want to reach out to someone who cared. Dumping her troubles on her sister didn’t make sense, for Claudine would stagger beneath the burden of it as if the problem were her own.

She scrubbed a potato, dried it, patted it with olive oil, rolled it in a piece of paper towel and put it in the microwave oven. She was staring into the frozen food section of her refrigerator when the telephone rang. Please, God, don’t let that be a harasser.

“Hello.”

“This is Reid. How was your first day?”

“Reid! I wanted to call you…I mean, I wanted to tell you about it.”

“Well, how’d it go?”

“Good and bad.”

“You’re going to explain that?”

Why was she so nervous? “Wait a minute and let me get a chair.” She put the phone down, rushed to the kitchen for a swallow of water, dragged a chair to the console on which the phone rested and sat down. “I’m back. Well, first the guard was rude to me when I walked into the building, but a few choice words subdued him. I have a really nice and competent clerk, a Native American man, who’s gracious and helpful. But I had to put the defendant’s attorney in his place with the threat of contempt. Seems he was the attorney for a builder who tried unsuccessfully to get permission to build on the Albemarle Gates property. Have you heard that Brown and Worley bribed anyone to get that permit?”

“They’ve been accused of it, but the accusation didn’t hold up. I suspect you’ve had all the problems you’re going to have at court—news travels fast. All the same, it pays to watch your back.”

“It’s not a good feeling, Reid, knowing that people don’t like you although you’ve done nothing to earn their dislike. Besides, I’m a people person. I smile at folks, and I expect them to smile back, but nobody’s smiling at me here.”

“Nobody?” She imagined that his eyebrows shot up. “I smiled.”

“Yes, you did.” She settled more comfortably in the chair. “At least once.”

Laughter rumbled out of him, and she wished she could have been with him then to see those lights dancing in his eyes. “If I had another potato,” she said, throwing prudence to the wind, “I’d ask if you wanted to share my supper.”

“What goes with the one you’ve got?”

“Steak burger seasoned with onions, egg, mustard, ketchup and Maggi sauce, fresh asparagus and a mesclun salad.”

“I’ve got an Idaho potato, if that would persuade you to follow through with that idea. And I’m pretty good at cleaning up the kitchen.”

“You wouldn’t consider scrubbing that potato before you bring it over, would you?”

“You bet. Uh…what time would you like to have the potato?”

“About a quarter of seven.”

“Great. By the way, does Her Honor drink wine with her steak burger?”

“Whenever she has it in the house.”

“See you later. And thanks, Kendra.”

She hung up and sat there for some minutes contemplating what she’d just done. For a woman who didn’t want a relationship with the man, she had all but initiated one with that invitation. Oh, I’m not going to exorcise myself about it. He’s not married, and he’s good company. Besides, he’s interested or he wouldn’t have called me. She started down to the basement for some firewood in order to build a fire in the living-room fireplace and stopped. Suppose his case came before her! She shouldn’t develop a relationship with Reid knowing that, if his plan succeeded, he’d have a case before her within the next ten months. Oh, what the heck, I can recuse myself.

She toyed with the idea of changing her clothes to look more respectable, but discarded it. She looked perfectly fine in her jeans and sweater, and if she put on anything sexy, he’d think she was coming on to him, and he’d be right. Still, she combed her hair down, put a pair of medium-sized gold hoops in her ears and set the dining-room table.

Her doorbell rang precisely at a quarter to seven and she wondered if he’d been standing at the door looking at his watch so that he could do that. She opened the door and got a sharply raised eyebrow from him.