My Man Pendleton(19)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Faith eyed the slate sky overhead and felt the sting of ice-cold rain patter against her face. The Temperance League offices were on Chestnut Street and down some, a walk of nearly a dozen blocks from her present position. No way could she afford a taxi, and she had no idea which bus to take, or the time to figure it out. And her umbrella was in the backseat of her car. Her locked car.

Just as the realization materialized, the rain began to fall more resolutely. Faith sighed as she stepped from beneath the meager protection of the Humana Building’s generous overhang. Was there anything that could possibly make this day worse?

It was only a matter of hours until Faith had the answer to that question. Yes. As a matter of fact, the day could get worse. Much, much worse. Not because Miriam Anderson, the director of the Louisville Temperance League, had pontificated with even more vigor than usual about Faith’s inability to achieve her goal where Hensley’s Distilleries was concerned. Not because Faith’s car dealer told her that it would be at least twenty-four hours before he could get her a new set of keys. Nor was it because she was notified that her car was towed away, due to its being parked illegally during rush hour. It wasn’t even because she had to sit on her sister’s back porch for forty-five minutes—in the pouring, icy rain—waiting for Ellen to arrive home from work.

No, Faith’s day didn’t really get much, much worse until after Ellen drove her back to her Highlands apartment. Until after she was safe and sound at home, had towel-dried her hair and slipped into her favorite flannel pajamas and brewed a cup of hot chamomile tea, Not until she was settling down to enjoy a rented copy of My Man Godfrey. Right around the time the credits for the film began to roll, when there was a soft knock at her front door.

That was a sound Faith seldom heard. Although she had plenty of acquaintances, people with whom she could pass the time pleasantly enough, there really wasn’t anyone she considered a friend. Certainly there was no one who would pop in for an impromptu visit. She’d gradually abandoned all her friends after she married Stephen, and she was too embarrassed to look up any of them again after his death. She didn’t want to have to explain things. It was just easier to be alone.

Carefully, she set her mug of tea on the coffee table and rose from the sofa. Quietly, she padded in her stocking feet to the front door. Cautiously, she peeked through the peephole. And crestfallen, she saw Holt McClellan standing on the other side.

She should have just gone back for her keys when she had the chance, she thought. Gee, hindsight really was twenty-twenty.

“Yes?” she called through the door, keeping her eye pressed to the peephole.

“Mrs. Ivory?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“It’s Holt McClellan. Of Hensley’s Distilleries?”

“What do you want?”

Belatedly, she realized how rude the question sounded. But really, what difference did it make? She had no reason to be polite to the man. Their exchange earlier in the day made clear their feelings for each other’s outlooks on life—and for each other—and they were scarcely on the same side when it came to their personal and professional philosophies. What did Faith care if she offended the man? Strangely, however, she found that she did care.

“You, uh, you left something in my office this morning,” he told her. “But I imagine you’ve already discovered that.”

“My keys,” she said unnecessarily.

“Your keys,” he concurred.

As was always the case when Faith was home, the chain was in place on the door. So she braved twisted the key in the lock, braved loosing the deadbolt, and even braved edging the door open a scant few inches to look beyond it.

The peephole had distorted him more than she realized. Only when she saw Holt McClellan standing there in the flesh did she recall how handsome he was, how blond, how large. How much like Stephen. Faith swallowed hard and tried not to panic. But when he began to lift his hand, her fear—her irrational, irrepressible fear—betrayed her. Automatically, she closed her eyes and waited in arrested silence for him to—

“Mrs. Ivory?”

She snapped her eyes open again. Holt McClellan stood exactly as he had before, except that now, he was extending a ring of keys toward her and he was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. Who could blame him? There were times when she looked at herself in the mirror in exactly that same way.

Pushing the sensation away, she reached beyond the door for her keys, only to watch them be withdrawn again. When she glanced up at Holt McClellan’s face, he was smiling. Softly, sweetly, seductively.

Oh, my.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, she, thought. Absolutely not. But her voice betrayed her conviction when she stammered, “Wh-what for?”

“Because our conversation today was interrupted before we could finish it,” he said easily.

“I know,” she replied. “I was the one who interrupted it.”

“So you were. I can only wonder why you did.”

“I… I just didn’t see any reason to continue our discussion.”

“Why not? Things were just starting to heat up.”

That was the problem. Faith bit her lip to keep the rash words from spilling out of her mouth “It’s just that… We didn’t seem to be…I mean, the whole conversation was just…”

“What?”

She licked her lips against the dryness that had overtaken her mouth and forced herself to look away from his eyes. His beautiful midnight-blue eyes. The eyes that had created no small amount of turbulence in her midsection the moment she entered his office. The eyes that continued to dazzle her now.

“We both, um…" she tried again. “We both seem to be pretty strong in our convictions, that’s all.”

“Is that surprising?”

“Well, no, but…”

“But what?”

She raked a hand restlessly through her unbound, still-damp hair and pretended she knew where she was going with her thoughts. “Look, if we’re going to start this thing up again, can I at least change out of my pajamas?”

He arched his eyebrows in surprise. “You’re already in your pajamas? But it’s barely seven-thirty.”

“Yeah, well…somewhere in the world, it’s bedtime.”

He quirked a smile at that. “Somewhere in the world it’s mambo time, too, but you don’t see me putting on my ruffled shirt, do you?”