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  She thought her looks were her identity. No one had ever lauded her intelligence the way they praised her flawless skin or impeccable bone structure. No one had ever told her she was smart enough to do whatever she wanted to do. It was understood that she possessed one marketable commodity. Her duty was to use her physical attractiveness to marry well. Insecure beneath her bogus surface vivacity, that was what she set out to do.

  Upon completing a year of finishing school, she was introduced to a number of eligible, family-approved bachelors: young men with solid family connections and bright prospects. But although she often had fun with them and was even drawn to one or two, there was an elemental spark that was missing. She had been taught that wealth was the primary objective, but in a stubborn corner of her mind she was convinced there had to be more. She wanted love as well.

  Then Wesley Cunningham entered her life and swept her off her feet.

  Wesley wasn’t a boy or a young man; he was thirty-six to her nineteen years. A respected, established gallery owner whose personal collection of rare and beautiful objets d’art was lauded as unequaled in the South, he was an urbane man at ease in the most exalted company. That such a man should exhibit signs of being quite taken with her took Aunie’s breath away. His pursuit of her was persistent, sophisticated, and romantic, and it quite turned her head. When he requested her hand in marriage following an eleven-month courtship, she thought she was the luckiest woman alive.

  Later, she liked to believe that if she’d had even a glimmer of realization that she was about to become the prized possession of an obsessed man, she would have run as far away as fast as she could. But the truth was, she simply wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Maybe the signs had been there all along and she had simply refused to see them. Her ego had been inflated by Wesley’s attentions and—given her own determination at the time to fulfill every expectation her family had ever had of her—perhaps it was possible she had just turned a blind eye to the flaws in his personality.

  She didn’t think that was the truth of what had happened.

  But she had to live with the knowledge that she would never be one hundred percent certain that it was not.

  “Afternoon, Otis.” There was a soft clatter on the stairs. “I swear, you’re one of the hardest workin’ men I have ever met. Lola tells me you’re a fire fighter, and yet all your free time seems to be spent workin’ around here.”

  James looked up from his crouched position on the floor near the end of the hall. He watched as Aunie reached the top of the stairs. She stopped in the pool of light cast by the hanging trouble light and smiled brilliantly up into Otis’s face.

  James settled back on his buttocks and crossed his ankles, Indian style. He had been relying on the natural daylight pouring through the hall window to illuminate his work up until a few moments ago when the sun had abruptly gone behind a cloud. On the verge of fetching the other trouble light, he was now glad he’d held off.

  It gave him an unexpected opportunity to observe without being observed in return.

  He couldn’t get over what a looker she was. It had knocked him on his butt every time he’d run across her these past few weeks. Who would have guessed that beneath all those bruises and contusions which she’d been sporting that first day, there would be such creamy, c’mon-and-touch-me skin? The fairness of her complexion was another surprise, a marked contrast to her shiny, dark brown hair, dark brows, and sooty, tangled eyelashes. Her eyes were also a deep brown, large and exotically tilted, the whites almost childlike in their blue-white clarity. That mouth of hers, however, was anything but childlike. The upper lip was narrow and shapely, the bottom lip more lushly full. And just to gild the lily, she not only possessed deep dimples to frame her smile, there was also a tiny mole just to the right of the bow of her upper lip. Talk about a case of overkill, he thought sourly.

  Okay, okay, so maybe when he was around her he felt a little bit foolish for the way he’d overreacted the day she’d come to rent the apartment, and maybe it made him regard her with less than rose-colored approval. But he’d be damned if he’d take full blame for it. Her own attitude hadn’t helped matters. In fact, instead of graciously ignoring what had happened that day and starting all over—which is what he would have done—she seemed to go out of her way to rub it in whenever their paths crossed. Instead of letting bygones be bygones, she was all pretty, dimpled smiles for Otis and Lola, calling them by their first names, while he was still Mistah Rydah, spoken in that cool, polite manner that never failed to put his back up. Her level, shuttered glances and that damned mister business with his name could really make him feel like a mannerless clod. Which he supposed he sometimes was.

  But if she was supposed to be so fucking mannerly, then she sure as hell shouldn’t be bending over backwards to make him feel that way.

  Ah purely don’t recall Superman havin’ such a filthy mouth.

  James rolled his shoulders uneasily. He’d been hearing those words in his mind repeatedly these past few weeks, and following the casual obscenity of his thoughts, he heard them again now. At first they’d just made him defensive. Not everyone was lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Some folks had to make do with the cold reality of a day-to-day scramble for survival beneath the uncaring eyes of the Housing Authority.

  In the Terrace, the low-income project where James grew up, obscenities were a way of life. He hadn’t thought to question his use of them until she’d made him feel like so much dog shit for his spontaneous utterances.

  Sounding like the meanest mother in town had saved his ass on more than one occasion in his formative years. James hadn’t been naturally drawn to trouble the way his brothers had been. He’d much preferred building things with his hands and drawing his cartoons to knocking heads together. He’d had to fight his way out of his fair share of bad situations, of course, but on the whole he’d preferred to depend on his quick wit and offbeat sense of humor to maneuver him out of a tight spot. Sounding as though he’d as soon rip a man’s eyeballs out of his head as look at him sure as hell hadn’t hurt, though. Neither had his friendship with Otis.

  They’d both been on the verge of adolescence when Otis had moved into an upstairs unit of their Terrace apartment house. Otis had been blossoming into every bigot’s nightmare even then: already over six feet tall, showing promise of his future bulk, and losing his hair to a rare dermatological condition. James had hung around the base of the stairs the day he had moved in, sketching rapidly as he’d watched Otis’s family pack their meager belongings into their new home. They had marched smartly to the tersely voiced directions of a tall black lady. He’d learned later that when Otis’s ma was on a roll, she could put a drill sergeant to shame.

  It was, in fact, his quickly drawn cartoon of her in a marine uniform that had more or less introduced the boys. Otis had suddenly paused to stare over James’s shoulder, wanting to see what the blond boy was drawing. James had stiffened and held his breath, knowing his cartoon could easily backfire. In their neighborhood, making fun of somebody’s mama could get your head laid open by a rusty pipe.

  But Otis had roared with laughter and snatched the sketch pad from James’s hands. “Hey, Ma,” he’d called and carried the pad over to his mother. “This here white boy’s already got yer number!”

  They’d been friends ever since.

  Now, two decades later, he suddenly realized that somewhere along the way Otis had cleaned up the worst of his language, while he never had. Maybe it was time he did. They’d both moved well beyond the need to protect themselves or intimidate others through the use of rough, crude language.

  But it was going to be one effin’ difficult habit to break.

  In any case, he was trying his best not to resent the way the little Southern princess made him feel, because in all fairness, he didn’t think she was doing it deliberately—except for that mister business. Hell, he didn’t harbor any burning desire to be her good friend. They were two entirely diffe
rent people and the less he knew her, the less apt he was to get corralled into her troubles. It would be much better all around to keep a healthy distance between them. But he didn’t see the need for hostilities either. Living in the same building—hell, on the same floor—they were going to bump into each other. Seemed to him they could at least manage to be polite acquaintances.

  “Well, I guess I’d better get going and let you get back to work,” Aunie said to Otis. “I’ve got a ton of homework to do today, myself.” She hefted her book bag. As she started to turn away the sun broke through the clouds, illuminating the end of the hallway. She noticed James for the first time, sitting cross-legged on the floor, plaster dust liberally coating his hair, bare shoulders, black tank top, and worn Levis.

  Her mouth went dry with a sense of inadequacy she never felt with Otis or Lola. “Hello, Mistah Rydah,” she said softly. “I didn’t see you back there.”

  “Hello, yourself, Magnolia Blossom.” He gave her a sleepy smile and looked her over with those uncivilized eyes of his. She swallowed dryly.

  “Aren’t you kind of cold without your shirt?” she blurted. The amusement in his eyes as they roved over her puffy, brightly colored down jacket made her want to squirm, although she couldn’t have said precisely why.

  “No,” he replied politely enough, but Aunie still had the impression he was laughing at her. “Sanding is warm work.” His eyes lit on her coat again. “Maybe we should give you a patch of plaster to smooth out. A little physical exertion and you wouldn’t have to bundle up like a kid on the first day of snow.”

  To James’s astonishment, her eyes lighted with interest. “Really?” she asked. “I’ve got homework to start, but I could give you about twenty minutes. Do you mean it?” When he didn’t immediately say no—primarily because he was too dumbfounded to speak—she smiled in pleasure. “I’ll be right back.” She whirled around and raced down the hallway to her apartment like a kid unexpectedly let out of school. The door slammed behind her a moment later.

  “I was kidding,” James said in amazement to the carpet between his crooked legs.

  Otis’s teeth gleamed whitely. “You were bein’ sarcastic,” he corrected his friend. “You thought she was too hoity-toity to take you up on it, so you figured you were safe to embarrass her a little. Maybe you oughtta get to know that little gal a tiny bit better, Jimmy, before you jump to any more conclusions about her.”

  James muttered an obscenity beneath his breath and turned away, feeling unaccountably small-minded. Okay, so maybe he had intended to knock her down a peg or two. She rubbed him the wrong way. Aunie’s glowing face when she reappeared a moment later—her jacket replaced by an Emerald City sweatshirt—made him feel even lower yet, and perversely he laid the blame for it at her door.

  “What do I do?” she asked him.

  “Put a piece of sandpaper around a block of wood and sand the fu … uh, the wall,” he muttered unhelpfully, and when some of the glow dimmed in her eyes he felt like snapping at her to stop making him feel like such a shit.

  “Okay,” she murmured and looked around. She picked up a sheet of coarse grit and ran her thumb over it. “This must be the sandpaper.”

  James’s mouth dropped open. She had never seen sandpaper before? “Where the hell have you been all your life?” he demanded incredulously.

  “In various cities in Georgia, suh, bein’ totally useless,” Aunie replied with surprising cheer. “But all that’s gonna change, Mistah Rydah, just you wait and see. I’m learnin’ all sorts of new things every day.”

  “Here, Aunie,” Otis said gently as he wrapped his ham-sized hand around her elbow and steered her down to his section of the wall. He stooped to pick up a block of wood on the way, shooting James a sour look over his massive shoulder. “You can work down here with me. Just wrap the paper around the block like so and stroke the high spots on the plaster like this.” He demonstrated for an instant then handed her the block. “Here, you try it.”

  Aunie applied herself industriously. Several moments later she stepped back to view the results. She shot an uncertain glance down the hall at James, then turned to Otis. “It’s not as flat and smooth as the patch you did,” she said in a low voice.

  “You don’t have my upper body strength, girl,” Otis said with a smile. “It’s just gonna take you a little bit longer, is all.”

  “Okay, good.” She flashed him a smile that expressed gratitude for his forbearance in not making her feel as inept as she knew she most likely was and then applied herself once again with renewed vigor. She didn’t stop until Otis tapped her on the arm.

  “You’ve been out here for nearly an hour,” he said and removed the block from her hands. “You’d better get started on that stack of homework you were tellin’ me about. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for preventin’ you from getting a good grade.”

  “Oh. I suppose you’re right.” Aunie flexed her fingers and knocked plaster dust from her arms and legs. She shook her head like a wet puppy and dust flew. Raking her fingers through her hair to hold it off her forehead, she peered up at Otis. “This has been fun. Thanks for broadening my horizons, Otis.”

  “My pleasure.”

  She laughed. “You’re a nice man.” Then, peering down the hall, she nodded to James, who had stopped sanding to watch her. “Mistah Rydah, you were certainly right. Sandin’ keeps you nice and warm.” She left them to their work.

  Aunie laughed at her dusty image in the bathroom mirror a few moments later. Wouldn’t Mama die if she could see her now? She took a quick shower and dressed in jeans, a cotton turtleneck, warm socks, and a warmer sweater. Pouring herself a glass of juice, she lined up her books and papers on the dining room table and sat down to study. It took her some time, though, before she could give it the concentration it deserved.

  Smoothing that plaster had been fun; it had made her feel a little less ineffectual than usual. It would be awhile, however, before she’d forget the look on James Ryder’s face when she had stupidly identified the sandpaper. He’d looked at her as though wondering how she’d ever managed to navigate the face of the earth as long as she had, when it should be quite obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that she didn’t possess the most basic knowledge.

  Gawd, that man made her uncomfortable, and instinctively she maintained a formal distance between them. It wasn’t because of James’s reaction on the day she had rented the apartment that she refused to call him by his first name; well, not entirely at least. Mainly it was because he looked at her as though she were inherently deficient when she was trying very hard to become a competent, independent adult. She’d admit she was starting later in life than most people did, but better late than never. She was making the attempt and she didn’t need him to undermine what was already a limited confidence in her ability to become useful and productive. She was also intimidated by all that he had accomplished when she had never accomplished a damned thing on her own.

  Not only did he own this apartment house, which she never would have guessed that first day, he was also J. T. Ryder. The J. T. Ryder, the inventor of “A Skewed View,” the hottest cartoon to grace the Sunday papers in years. And his cartoons weren’t just in the newspapers, either; there were Skewed View calendars and two collections of cartoons in paperback. Why, just the other week, at the bookstore at school, she had purchased a coffee mug with one of his cartoons on the side. She kept her pencils and pens in it. It was when she was showing her purchase to Lola, actually, laughing once again at the offbeat humor displayed on its side, that she had discovered it was James’s work. She was floored. He was its creator? She had been almost positive that he was a drug dealer.

  His apartment was down the hall from hers, and she couldn’t help seeing the steady procession of men who had come and gone at odd hours ever since the first day she’d moved in. Well, there hadn’t actually been that many of them, but they never seemed to stay for more than five minutes at a time and a couple of them had been so motley in
appearance. Was she ever glad she hadn’t mentioned her suspicions to Lola; God above, she’d feel even more worthless than she already did.

  Both James and Otis had made something of their lives, and neither of them had had a tenth of her advantages. Lola had told her something of the neighborhood where they’d grown up, and Aunie cringed when she thought of everything she had ever been given. She had never had to earn a thing for herself; yet she’d still made a mess of her life in spite of her privileged beginning.

  What most shamed her was knowing that at the beginning of her marriage, she had been totally satisfied with her situation. Well, almost totally. Her love and sex life had been a frustrating disappointment right from the start, but materially, she couldn’t have been happier if she’d won a multimillion-dollar lottery.

  Aunie stared blindly at the text in her book, rapidly tapping her pencil eraser against the tabletop. In her mind’s eye, she saw the well-developed muscles in James Ryder’s shoulders and arms, the ridges of muscle beneath the black material that had been sweat-soaked to his stomach. She had never in her life been so close to two such masculine men as he and Otis.

  Wesley had been baby-soft compared to them. He had looked fit and urbane in his flawlessly tailored suits, but out of them … well, he hadn’t been Michelangelo’s David. Not that it would have made a lick of difference if only he had been lusty and passionate with her, but unfortunately, he’d been anything but. The romantic streak that had swept her off her feet had disappeared almost as soon as he’d said, “I do.”

  It had been terribly confusing … not to mention a debilitating blow to her sense of desirability. She had assumed at first that he was trying to be considerate in the face of her lack of sexual experience; she had been a virgin, after all, and years younger than her new husband. Only gradually had it dawned on her that he quite simply was not often interested in that particular aspect of their marriage. She’d always had the uneasy feeling he’d much prefer to admire her from a distance like one of his rare objets d’art than to engage her in anything as sweaty and vital as sex.