Against All Odds (Arabesque) by Gwynne Forster Read Free Book Online

of The Maryland Journal and noted that the price of sweet crude oil had increased more rapidly than the cost of living index. His folks were no longer in the natural gas business and had sold their property in Kentucky, so fuel prices didn’t concern him, but every day his family had to combat the scandal brought on by Moses Morris’s unfair accusation of seventy years earlier. Anger toward the Grants and Morrises surged in him as he reflected on how their maltreatment had shortened his grandfather’s life and embittered his mother. His passion for Melissa cooled, and he strengthened his resolve to stay away from her.
    He dictated a letter pressuring Melissa to find the manager at once, though the contract specified one month. He rationalized that he wasn’t being unfair, that he was in a bind and she should understand.
    Several hours later Adam told himself that he would not behave dishonorably toward Melissa or anyone else, that he should have investigated MTG and identified its president. He tore up the letter and pressed the intercom.
    “Olivia, get Jason for me, please.” Melissa hadn’t been in touch with Jason, and that riled him. He paced the floor of his office as he tried to think of a justifiable reason to telephone her. Finally, he gave up the idea, left his office and went to the gym, reasoning that exercise should clear his head. But after a half hour, having conceded defeat, he stopped as he passed a phone on his way out and dialed her number.
    Adam held his breath while the phone rang. She’s in my blood, he acknowledged and wondered what he’d do about it.
    “Melissa Grant speaking.”
    “Have dinner with me tonight. I want to see you.”
    * * *
    She had dressed when he arrived at her apartment. He liked that, but he noticed her wariness about his entering her home. He didn’t put her at ease—if she didn’t want to be involved with him, she had reason to be cautious, just as he had. It surprised him that she didn’t question why he’d asked her to dinner, and he didn’t tell her, reasoning that she was a smart woman and old enough to divine a man’s motives. He’d selected a Cajun restaurant in Tribeca, and it pleased him that she liked his choice.
    “I love Cajun food. Don’t you think it’s similar to soul food?”
    He thought about that for a bit. “The ingredients, yes, but Cajun’s a lot spicier. A steady diet of blackened fish, whether red or cat, would eat a hole in your stomach. Reminds me of my first trip to Mexico. I’d alternate a mouthful of food with half a glass of water. I don’t want that experience again. Come to think of it, that’s what prompted me to learn to cook.”
    “You cook?”
    He knew she wouldn’t have believed it of him, and neither would any of his staff or business associates. “Of course I cook, Melissa. Why should that surprise you? I eat, don’t I?”
    “Aren’t you surprised that we get on as well as we do?” she asked him. “Considering our backgrounds, I’d have thought it impossible.”
    He let the remark pass rather than risk putting a damper on a pleasant evening. Later they walked up Seventh Avenue to the Village Vanguard, but neither liked the avant-garde jazz offering that night, and they walked on.
    Adam took her arm. “Let’s go over to Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth or so. The Greenwich Village Singers are performing at a church over there, and we may be able to catch the last half of the program. Want to try?” She agreed, and at the end of the concert, Handel’s Judas Maccabeus, he walked with her to the front of the church to shake hands with two acquaintances who sang with the group. While he spoke with a man, his arm went around her shoulder, automatically, as if it belonged there, and she moved closer to him. He glanced down at her and nodded, letting her know that he’d noticed and that he acknowledged her move as natural, but he immediately reprimanded himself. He’d better watch that—he’d been telling the man