She knew that soon he would be the one doing the chasing. She smiled at the thought of Paco with a girlfriend. It seemed like it was just yesterday that he was a chubby toddler that she loved to rock to sleep.
Paco used to love strawberry ice cream on a cone. He would lick the ice cream and then talk to it in that gibberish talk of toddlers. It was if he was in love with that cone, and he was that way each and every time he had one.
“Paco, do you remember how much you used to love ice cream cones?” she asked.
Her answer was a quiet snore that got louder as it lengthened. She kissed her two fingertips and then pressed them to his cheek. It was a special gesture that she’d done ever since he was just a baby.
She eased his head off her lap and rose to walk into the kitchen. She double-checked their lunch of roasted pork and yellow rice before she glanced out the window. Her uncles’ music was blaring and mingled with their and their neighbors’ raised voices as they played dominoes like their lives depended on it. They were making quite a ruckus. The trailers were not that far apart, and with the blurred line between one person’s backyard and a neighbor’s front yard, she was glad everyone in the trailer park got along so well.
She glanced over to the next row of trailers and saw that her friend Marta was home from her job as a housekeeper at the Holiday Inn. Garcelle reached in the back pocket of her jean gauchos. She counted out fifty dollars.
She wasn’t at all surprised when the telephone rang just moments later. “What’s up, Marta?”
“You know what’s up. Get your wide hip ass over here.”
Garcelle just laughed as she hung up the phone. She walked out the back door, throwing a wave to her uncles and the hand to their friends, whose mouths started to drool as soon as they spotted her.
“Man, hook me up with your niece,” one of them said.
“What the hell this look like? Match.com or some shit?” she heard her Uncle Anthony say. “Just play dominoes, man.”
Garcelle walked up the dirt road circling the entire trailer park. She came up on the big field in the center of the park, where the kids were playing kickball.
“Garcelle, Paco home?” one of the kids yelled out.
“He’s sleeping, but go wake him up,” she yelled back.
She cut across the rear of the field and walked into Marta’s yard and past her new Ford Escort. She was just opening the door to Marta’s single-wide mobile home when their friend Tasha’s bright pink Cadillac whipped into the yard. Garcelle waited and held the door open for her.
“Whassup, Beyoncé?” Tasha teased as she climbed the wooden steps. She was a short, full-figured girl who was not afraid in the least to wear a pair of short shorts and a tube top.
“Hola, chicas. ¿Cómo estás?” Garcelle joked back as they walked into Marta’s house.
“Girl, I told you don’t be speaking no Spanish to me,” said Tasha.
Garcelle just laughed.
Marta and her sister Francesca were already sitting around the small, round table in her kitchen. Marta shuffled the deck of cards she held as she looked up at them through a plume of cigarette smoke. “Poochie’s on the way,” she told them.
Garcelle took her seat and slapped her fifty-dollar stake on the table. This was her one recreation. A Sunday afternoon chilling with her crazy friends, complete with some light beer, storytelling, joke cracking, and a good ole deck of fifty-two, was just what she needed.
They heard the bass of a car system beat against the walls of the trailer. “Here comes Poochie,” Tasha said, after peeking out the window. “She and Tank must be back together, ’cause he just dropped her off.”
Marta pulled harder on her cigarette and rolled her eyes, with a string of Spanish expletives. “I guess we gone hear ‘Tank this’ and ‘Tank that’ all damn night.”
“She got her little boy with her?” Garcelle asked.
“No,” said Tasha.
“Thank God, ’cause he is bad as hell,” Garcelle said just before the front door opened and Poochie strolled in.
“Lookey here, Garcelle. I got some new tricks for your ass today, baby,” Poochie said as she slid into a chair at the table. “You ain’t walking out with all the money this time.”
Garcelle picked up the cards and shuffled them, looking each of her friends in the eye. “The game is seven-card stud, and in case you chicas still haven’t learned . . . I’m the one to beat.”
“You boys sure you want to do this?” Kade asked as he easily handled the stallion that he was riding.
Kahron trotted up. He winked at his brother playfully before removing his chain with the cross medallion and slipping it into the back pocket of his slacks. “Scared you wrote a check that’s going to bounce?” he asked as he dropped his shades down over his eyes.
Kade ignored him and looked over his shoulder as Kaleb slowly trotted his horse like he was in a parade. “Watch him now. He swears that slow and steady always wins the race,” Kade joked as he shook his head.
After dinner they had all been sitting around their parents’ den, telling stories of their childhood, when Kade recalled how his younger brothers had always tried—and failed—to beat him in horse racing. That led to Kade, Kaleb, and Kahron all removing their suit jackets and rolling up the sleeves of their shirts. They were going to race for old time’s sake.
Their mother warned them against such foolishness. Their father told them he wanted each and every one of his horses returned just the way the boys found them or he would cut some tail for old time’s sake.
Bianca thought they were being childish, placing the horses at risk for male pride. Even her threats to withhold her wifely duty didn’t stop Kahron from wanting to beat his older brother.
So here they were.
“Hold on. I want in on this,” Kaitlyn called out from behind them.
The three brothers turned their silver-haired heads and looked over their equally broad and square shoulders to see Kaitlyn racing toward them on an all-white stallion. Kaeden rode with her, with his spectacles in his hand.
Kaitlyn pulled the reins and stopped on a dime beside them, sending dirt and dust flying. The men all coughed and covered their faces with their arms as they waited for the soil to settle. “I wasn’t old enough to get in on the fun, but I want a chance to whup all my brothers’ butts . . . well, except for Kaeden. No offense, big brother.”
Kaeden cleaned his specs with a handkerchief from his back pocket. “None taken,” he said, with a wheeze-like cough.
“You okay?” Kade asked, with his powerful eyes on his brother.
“I’m fine,” Kaeden snapped as he slipped his glasses back on.
Kahron and Kade shared a long look.
“Okay, Kaeden, you can be the judge, like always,” Kaleb said as he tried to settle down the black Arabian he rode. “You stay here, and we’ll all go down to that line of trees, our starting point.”
Kaeden slid down from the horse. As soon as his feet hit the ground, the other Strong siblings rode their horses toward the spot Kaleb had pointed out.
Kade was the first one to reach the trees. “Just a little preview of what I’m ’bout to do to y’all.”
“You haven’t crossed the finish line yet, brother,” Kahron told him.
“Damn right,” Kaleb threw in.
Kaitlyn just held the reins tighter and positioned her slender frame on the saddle, with a determined look on her face.
In the distance, Kaeden raised one arm. “On your mark . . . get set . . . go!”
They all took off.
Kade rode his horse hard, rising up from the saddle as he let the animal take the lead. He passed the stretches of trees and grass drying from the heat of the sun. He could hear the hooves thundering against the ground as his siblings all vied to beat him. His heart thundered from the exhilaration of the race. Kaeden’s silhouette increased in size as Kade neared him.
Risking a look back to check his competition, Kade glanced over his shoulder. Kaleb
was on his heels. Kahron was coming up strong, with his shades making him look like a robot. Kaitlyn brought up the rear but was fighting to close the gap.
Kade faced forward, but his expression went from that of victory to confusion as his horse suddenly reared up and then stopped, causing his body to go flying over the horse’s head. He landed on the ground, with a thud.
“Shit,” he swore, with a grimace, as pain radiated across his body.
“Paco, come and eat,” Garcelle called out to her brother as she left Marta’s house. She counted her poker winnings as she walked into the house. Two hundred and thirty dollars, she told herself. She walked straight into her room and grabbed the empty pickle jar, where she kept her money until she went to the bank. She rammed the money atop the bills already crunched in there.
She loved playing poker. Joaquin had taught her how to play, and she had taken to it like a fish to water. She hated when the state outlawed those video poker machines, because it had been nothing for her to win five hundred dollars or better in one sitting. Most times when men heard she was a skilled poker player, they laughed and tried to play her like a joke . . . until she had their pockets empty or their backsides bare.
She wasn’t addicted to gambling at all. In fact, she only played with her friends on Sunday afternoons, and even then, once she lost her fifty-dollar table stake, she sat out or went home. Oh, she loved poker, but the game wasn’t serious enough to cut into her money for school or make her borrow money to play.
Garcelle left her room. “You awake, Papi?” she asked her father.
Carlos laughed as he wiped his hand over his mouth. “Yes, and I’m starving,” he answered.
“Coming right up,” she told him over her softly rounded shoulder as she headed for the kitchen.
“Paco, wash your hands, and go and set the table,” she heard her father tell her brother in Spanish.
They always ate their dinner together as a family. It was their way of honoring her mother, because family meals had been so important to her. Even when Garcelle worked late, watching Kadina, or her father and her uncles had an emergency at the ranch that held them up, no one would eat until everyone was home.
Paco set the table as Garcelle placed steaming platters of food in the center of the table. Her father came into the kitchen and walked to the back door. “Anthony and Raul,” he called out to his two twenty-something younger brothers. They shared the same father, but had different mothers. Once he was settled in America, Carlos had sent for her uncles and got them the jobs at the Circle S Ranch.
Garcelle enjoyed the family banter as they talked freely and with ease in Spanish while she fixed the plates and handed one to each of the men. As their talk turned to the ranch, Garcelle immediately thought of Kade.
The women of Holtsville were on a full-blown campaign to see who would be the woman to snag the very eligible but very reluctant bachelor Kade Strong. In the two weeks since the package had been left on Kade’s step, Garcelle had intercepted letters, cards, phone calls, and even more risqué packages from the single women of Holtsville, South Carolina. She swore, if she laid eyes on one more nudie shot, she would retch.
All of it smelled of man-hungry, desperate women. Not to say there wasn’t a good woman out there for Kade, but so far these women, who were trying to lure him with sex, were hardly great candidates to be Kadina’s stepmother. No, these women only wanted to lie up in Kade’s bed and probably send Kadina to her room or outside to amuse herself.
She was the type of active and smart little girl who needed someone to talk to her and spend time with her. Take her to the parks and museums she loved. Take her to the bookstore to carefully select the next book she would read. Tell her about little boys when the time came. And do all the things women knew that a man didn’t do, such as help her through her first menstrual cycle.
Kadina needed someone patient, loving, and fun like . . . Garcelle herself. Garcelle literally shook her head at the thought. She definitely was not throwing herself in the running to be the second Mrs. Kade Strong. In the last two weeks, they had settled into a cool friendship. They joked with each other. They asked each other for advice. They laughed at the antics of the women.
Yes, she thought Kade Strong was hotter than a dozen Playgirl centerfolds combined—she could admit that—but the last thing she wanted was to get involved with a man who was so deeply in love with his dead wife. Besides, she enjoyed their newfound friendship, and after the Joaquin BS, she wasn’t looking for love right now, anyway.
Kade Strong was her friend and nothing more. She was more than fine with that.
“Garcelle . . . Garcelle?”
She turned her head and focused her attention on her father, who was handing her the cordless phone. Did it ring? she wondered as she took the phone from him.
“Hel—”
“Garcelle, this is Kade. You’re on a speakerphone, okay?”
Garcelle placed her fork on her plate as she sat back from the table a bit. She furrowed her brow. “Okay,” she said, with obvious hesitation.
“Long story short. I fell off a horse during a race—”
“You fell?” she shrieked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m more than fine. That’s my whole point.”
“You call breaking two ribs fine?” Garcelle heard a woman say in the background.
“You broke your ribs?” Garcelle gasped in horror.
“What is going on, Garcelle?” her father demanded in Spanish.
“Kade fell off a horse and broke his ribs,” she told her father, holding the mouthpiece away from her mouth.
“I . . . didn’t . . . break . . . anything,” Kade roared into the phone. “I bruised my ribs.”
“Oh, he bruised his ribs,” Garcelle relayed to her father. She frowned as she focused again on the phone conversation. “And why were you horse racing at your age?”
“For the love of God, Garcelle—”
“Okay, okay. Go ahead.” She placed the phone between her cheek and shoulder so that she could use both of her hands to twist her hair atop her head—a nervous gesture of hers.
“I know looking out for a grouchy injured man in his midthirties isn’t a part of your baby-sitting duties, but I need a favor.”
Garcelle rose from the table when she saw three sets of velvet brown eyes resting on her in open curiosity. “I’ll do it,” she said before he could even ask. She waved her hands to let her family know to continue with dinner. She left the kitchen, then walked through the living room and out the front door to sit down on the top step of the porch.
“Garcelle, are you sure? Because he could stay at Strong Ranch until he’s better,” Lisha Strong called out.
“It’s no problem at all,” she assured Kade’s mother.
“Garcelle, I’m taking you off speakerphone, okay?” said Kade.
She heard the background noises disappear. “Kade, are you really okay? Just say yes or no.”
“No. Hell, no,” he said, with emphasis.
She bit back a smile. “It hurts like hell, doesn’t it, Mr. Tough Guy?” she asked, her accent making mister sound more like meester.
He grunted. “Yes.”
“When will you be home?” she asked as her eyes drifted up to watch the sun set.
“They’re keeping me overnight to make sure I don’t have a concussion.”
Garcelle snorted in laughter. “For you to be horse racing, you had to have bumped your head before the race.”
“Don’t make me laugh, Garcelle,” he said in a strained voice.
“You want me to come tonight?” she asked.
“No, don’t bother. I’m about to run the whole Strong bunch out of here now.” She heard protests in the background. “Kadina will spend tonight at my parents’.”
“Well, I will pick you up from the hospital tomorrow,” she told him as she rose from the step. She brushed any dust from her backside.
“You don’t have to do that.”
G
arcelle shrugged as if he could see her. “Okay. I just thought I could get you and Kadina and take you home. That way we could part from your family at the hospital and not have to worry about clearing them out of your house.”
The line went quiet for just a second. “Good idea,” he said quickly. “I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
Garcelle laughed low and husky. “I thought so.”
“Garcelle?”
“Yes, Kade?” she said as she walked back into the house.
“Thank you,” he said warmly.
She ignored the shiver that raced down her spine and made her bare feet tingle. “No problemo. That’s what friends are for.”
5
Garcelle had just walked through the automatic doors of Colleton Medical Center when she spotted Rita and Pita climbing from their white station wagon. She didn’t even break a sweat as she rode the elevator to the second floor of the three-story hospital. She smiled sweetly at the nurses at their station.
“Hello, I’m Kade Strong’s sister,” she lied, hoping none of the women knew the family and caught her. “Two women are on their way up to visit my brother, but we would like them barred from his room. Aggravation, you know?”
A petite blonde leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion. “The women have been in and out of that room all morning. Even the hospital workers have been sniffing around like crazy. His room has got to be cleaner than an operating room.”
Garcelle smiled.
“I must admit, he’s not even my patient, and I’ve been in there twice to check on him,” said the blond nurse.
“I’m glad you understand,” Garcelle said, turning away from the station.
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