by Francis Ray
“I know, but I can’t say. Sorry,” she said.
His fingers threaded through her hair, then cupped her head. “I understand. I’m just glad she has you and the Sisterhood to help her through this.”
“Granddaddy is certainly livening things up,” Traci commented.
“That he is.” Ryan tsked. “Your grandfather is something, but I like him.”
Traci traced his lips with her fingers. “He likes you, too, and he also likes to be asleep by ten. I can meet you at the back door at eleven.”
“Make it ten thirty.”
“Ten thirty.” She kissed him again.
Maureen waited until everyone had left to make the phone call.
“Hello?”
Hearing Simon’s voice, her legs felt rubbery. She plopped on the side of the bed. She’d debated about the wisdom of this call for the past hour. Now she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps she should just hang—
“Maureen.”
Too late. Either he had caller ID or was very perceptive. In either case, he knew it was her. “Hello, Simon.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
He certainly believed in not wasting time. She moistened her lips. “I thought we should talk.”
“We did. I asked you to marry me, and you said no.”
The bite in his voice made her wince. “I had reasons.”
“That I don’t accept,” he came back.
“Simon, please be reasonable,” she implored, hearing the crack in her voice. “Why do things have to change? Why can’t you accept what I can give?”
“Because I don’t want to creep to and from your bed at night. I don’t want to have to remind myself when we’re out not to touch you, kiss you. I want to have the right to wake up with you each morning. The right to go to sleep with you in my arms each night without worrying about getting up before Ryan sees me. I want to share my dreams with you, share yours.”
If only that were possible. “We do share things.”
“On the surface level,” he said. “If you had a problem at the store or with the house or were just feeling blue, who would you think of to call first?”
She closed her eyes as the truth hit her.
“Exactly. I’m the man you sleep with, but not the man you need the way I need you in my life.”
“That’s not true,” she cried. “I love you. I’m miserable without you.”
“Then love me enough to say yes, to know that my love for you won’t change because we won’t have children,” he said.
Her grip on the phone tightened. “I can’t.”
“Please, Maureen.”
“I don’t want to ruin your life.”
“You already have.”
She gasped at the pain his words caused.
“This conversation is over.”
“Simon,” she pleaded, but all she heard was the dial tone.
Hand in hand, Traci and Ryan crept up the stairs to her room.
“You’re sure he’s asleep?” Ryan whispered. Not even in his wildest days had he ever done anything like this.
“Shhh,” Traci admonished, and opened the door to her bedroom.
Ryan breathed a sigh of relief, then forgot to breathe as Traci stepped away from him and slipped off the black silk robe she’d worn. The material whispered over skin as it slithered to the floor. The room was bathed in candlelight, but it was enough to see her lush body in a low-cut gown, enough to make his mouth water, his body hard.
“All I want you to think about is me.”
He walked to her, his gaze roaming hotly over her body, anticipation pumping through his bloodstream. He touched her breast with one finger, felt her tremble. Her body was as responsive to his as his was to her. “Beautiful.”
Her smile was slow and beautiful and powerful. “I’m going to do bad things to you tonight, and you’re going to enjoy every one of them.”
He hardened even more. He didn’t know whether to ask for mercy or enough stamina to keep up.
She unbuttoned his shirt, tossed it aside, then reached for his belt. He didn’t think it was an accident that, as she shoved his pants and silk briefs down, the back of her hand grazed his erection. Air hissed through his teeth. He toed off his loafers, kicked his pants and briefs away.
“You’re asking for trouble,” he said, air rushing through his lungs as her hand stroked him.
“No. Pleasure,” she practically purred the words.
If he had any control, it left him with those two words. He whipped her gown over her head. His head dipped, his lips closing around the pebbled hardness of her distended nipple. He sucked one rigid point, then the other. His hand found her softness. She was hot and hungry for him.
While he still had the strength, he picked her up and mercifully made it to her bed across the room. Then he remembered the condoms were in his pants pocket. He didn’t think he could make it there and back.
“Protection,” was all he could get out. He saw her reach under the pillow and produce a foil package. He almost sagged in relief. Then she dropped a kiss on his bulging member, and he groaned. “Hurry.”
As soon as she finished, she was on her back on the bed and he was over her. Blood pounded in his ears. He wanted nothing more than to surge into her moist heat, to feel her clamp tightly around him, but he could hold it together long enough to give her the pleasure she wanted, the pleasure he wanted to give her.
He dropped soft kisses on her face, her generous breasts, her quivering stomach. Then he kissed her there. She moaned, thrashing on the bed. He loved her until she whimpered with ecstasy, and only then did he thrust into her waiting sheath. She climaxed, a long moan starting in the back of her throat.
He kissed her, and thrust into her again and again until she was with him again, racing toward satisfaction. She finished seconds before he did, her walls clamping around him, holding him in her body. He’d never felt such completeness, such oneness.
When his breathing evened out, he rolled to one side, holding her to him. He never wanted to let her go. “I—” He barely caught himself before he completed the sentence. I love you.
“What?” she murmured, her voice sleepy.
He dropped a kiss on her damp forehead and tried to drag the covers up with his foot without releasing her. “Go to sleep.”
Her head lifted. “You aren’t leaving me, are you?”
He frowned, puzzled by the near-panic in her voice, then he realized she must have felt the crazy acrobatics with his foot. “No. Just trying to snag the covers. You’re stuck with me.”
She didn’t say anything, just stared at him a moment longer before lying back down.
He finally managed to draw the covers up and pull them over her shoulders. Her breathing was even, so he knew she was asleep. He tried to figure out what had caused the fear in her voice earlier, and finally reached the conclusion that she didn’t want them to break up like his mother and Simon.
She wanted their relationship to be status quo. Asking for anything more was asking for trouble. Yet, as he held her while she slept, he recalled what Simon had said about wanting more, wanting all of the woman you loved. Simon had predicted that, soon, what Ryan and Traci had wouldn’t be enough.
Ryan stroked Traci’s shoulder, feeling that day might have already come.
Growing up in the country, where the weather change could destroy a crop or a wild animal might wander too close to the house, I learned to be a light sleeper,” Ezekiel said calmly as he sipped his coffee.
Traci’s eyes cut to Ryan, who was sitting at the breakfast table, before she could stop herself. Just as she couldn’t stop the flush that crawled up her throat to her forehead. She and Ryan thought they’d been so clever, having him shower, then go downstairs, and ring the doorbell that morning as if he’d just arrived.
“I’m the same way.” Ryan forked his pancake. “During my internship and residency, you had to be a light sleeper and prepared for everything.”
“A man had to protect his family fro
m vermin that might sneak into the house at night and the chickens from a fox in the henhouse.” Setting his cup aside, Ezekiel stared at Ryan. “I learned to be a good shot.”
Ryan held his gaze without flinching. “If there were a fox or vermin that only wanted to destroy what’s in this house, I’d help you load that gun.”
“Anyone for more pancakes or coffee?” Traci interjected into the charged stillness. Neither man paid her any attention.
“Traci is important. Her happiness is important.” Ryan shoved his plate aside.
“Men say one thing and mean another to get what they want,” Ezekiel countered.
“Granddaddy, I think—”
“He has a right to want what’s best for you, Traci,” Ryan interrupted.
“I love and respect you, Granddaddy, but I can take care of myself.” She turned to Ryan and picked up his empty plate. “I can talk for myself.”
“Always was hardheaded,” Ezekiel mused, draining his coffee cup.
“So I noticed.” Ryan stood and began helping clear off the table. “When all of you finish at the flower show, call and I’ll take everyone to an early dinner.”
“I’ll tell the others.” Traci picked up the serving platter. Nettie loved flowers and had suggested the outing so Maureen wouldn’t be alone that day. They were all coming back over that morning.
“We haven’t finished, Ryan.” Ezekiel handed Ryan his cup as he picked up his flatware.
“Never thought we had.” Ryan took the things to the sink and began rinsing them.
Traci looked from one stubborn man to the other. “So what I say doesn’t count?”
The doorbell rang just as Ryan began stacking dishes in the dishwasher. “The doorbell.”
“Doorbell,” her granddaddy repeated.
“Behave. No talk of guns while I’m gone.” She stalked out of the kitchen wondering how they were going to reconcile her grandfather’s old-fashioned values with those of today. Sleeping together did not mean marriage … no matter how much she’d thought about just that lately.
Deep in thought, Traci opened the door without looking through the peephole and saw the last person on earth she expected to see.
“Get off my porch!”
Vera Jefferson didn’t even flinch at the venom in her daughter’s voice. “You were a nasty child who grew into a nasty adult.”
Once those words would have brought Traci to her knees. “So you shouldn’t want to be around me.”
She started to close the door, but her stepfather, Nat Jefferson, planted his palm on the door facing. “We want the old man.”
Once, before the booze and late nights of gambling, Nat had been a handsome man. Now his dark brown skin was ravaged. He carried enough bags under his eyes for a weekend getaway. On the porch behind him were Traci’s half sister, Carla, and her no-good, unemployed husband, Martin. Traci couldn’t see their boisterous seven-year-old twin boys, but she could hear their bickering over whose turn it was on the Game Boy.
“Take your hand off my door before I call the police,” Traci told him with precise fury.
“Go ahead and call them. I know he’s here,” Vera said. “Daddy, get out here unless you want something to happen to Traci!”
“You’re wasting your breath.” Traci hoped her grandfather wouldn’t take the bait, that he’d remember she could take care of herself.
“You leave my baby alone,” shouted her grandfather.
She looked over her shoulder. Both he and Ryan were coming at a fast clip. Ryan was the last person she wanted to hear the airing of her dirty laundry.
“I told you he was here,” Vera said smugly.
Ezekiel insinuated himself in front of Traci. “Leave her alone.”
“It’s you we want, old man,” Nat said and pulled a thick envelope from his coat pocket. “Just sign over the property and we’re out of your life.”
“That property’s been in the family for generations,” Traci reminded them. “And that’s where it stays.”
“Make her invite us in, Mama,” Carla whined. “We got a right to go inside.”
Traci shot her half sister a killing look. She and Traci were practically the same size, but where Traci took pride in her appearance, Carla had let herself go. She’d dyed her hair red and the nappy black roots were showing. The dress was a size too tight. “None of you will step one foot inside my house.”
“You’re no better than us,” Martin, Carla’s husband, spat from beside her.
“A snake in the grass is better than you, Martin,” Traci told him. “If Carla wants to turn a blind eye to the women you chase and let you control the little money she makes at the factory that’s her business, but you’re still slime in my book.”
“You—” Martin began.
Ryan shoved Traci aside. “You want to watch your mouth and your hands.”
“Who are you?” Nat snapped.
“Someone you don’t want to mess with,” Ryan told him, fury in every word. “Now, if Traci doesn’t want you in her house, we can discuss this on the porch or you can leave.”
“That’s telling them, son,” Ezekiel said. “Now back up, or I’ll get my gun.”
They scrambled off the porch. Traci might have been amused at their hasty retreat, but she knew it wasn’t over. It wouldn’t be until they had what they came for.
Flanked by Ryan and Ezekiel, Traci stepped off the porch. “You wasted a trip. He’s not going back with you.”
Vera pulled an envelope out of her imitation Louis Vuitton tote and shook it in Traci’s face. “These papers give me custodial rights to him. The police told me where you live. They gave me your address. If I call them you’ll be put in jail for obstruction of justice.”
Traci folded her arms before she gave into temptation and snatched the paper out of her mother’s hand and thumped her across the head with it. “You’ve been watching too much TV. I’m a lawyer, remember, and a darn good one.”
Vera sent her angry husband a nervous look. “He’s going back with us, don’t worry.”
Traci’s arms dropped to her side. “How much would it take to end this?”
Vera’s eyes filled with greed. She licked her too-red lips and looked at the two-story house in front of them. “The property is worth a lot.”
“You—” Traci bit the word off as she felt Ryan’s hand on her shoulder. She was sickened by her mother’s avarice, sickened that he had to know what kind of mother she had come from.
“Don’t give her a penny, Traci.” Ezekiel put his hands on his hips and glared at his daughter, who shrank back. “I might have set a couple of fires on the stove while I was watching TV, but there is nothing wrong with my thinking. Bring on the tests and, when it’s over, you will have lost.”
“You think you’re so smart,” Vera riled. “I already have a buyer for the property.”
“Which means squat.” Traci had never been happier that she was a lawyer. “While the tests are being run I’ll file an injunction against the sale of any properties. You do not have power of attorney.”
“Traci does.” Ezekiel laughed at the shocked expression on his daughter’s face. “And if you’re thinking to wait until I’m dead, you’re still out of luck. The day after Traci came to live with me, I had my will changed, leaving everything to her. I’ve kept it updated. You and your sorry family get nothing.”
“You’re lying,” Vera screeched.
“Unlike you, I don’t lie,” Ezekiel said calmly.
“So, Vera, get back in that car you can’t afford and leave, because Granddaddy is not going one foot from this property unless he wants to.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. I have this paper,” Vera said.
“She sure does,” Nat said. “We’ll get that property. It’s her right as his only child and daughter.”
“Right?” Traci felt the rage that she had held inside for thirty-three years explode. “You dare speak of rights to me? What about the rights of a four-year-old child to be
loved by her mother instead of being dumped on her grandfather with two paper sacks of ragged clothes that he threw in the trash?”
“Traci, don’t,” her grandfather said.
“She’d rather pander to you than care for her own child because you didn’t want to see the results of her first marriage, to be reminded that she had been with another man, although that man had been her husband. You spouted biblical verses and she swallowed it and look what it’s gotten both of you.” Traci shoved her hand toward them.
“Nothing. While I have a grandfather who worked his hands raw to ensure that I had the necessities, but also what was more important, his love.” Traci wiped the tears from her eyes. “Get off my property. While you’re driving back, you’d better think of what your congregation is going to say when they learn how their holy and beloved pastor and his first lady turned their back on a helpless child.”
Fear leaped into Nat’s eyes. “You got no right to mess with my church or my life.”
“You should have thought of that when you messed with mine. Look for me in church one bright Sunday morning,” she told them. “Now scat. If I have to tell you again, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
The adults scrambled for the car, then had to come back for Carla’s twin boys, who were fighting on the lawn. Traci watched the clattering, dented Mercedes back out of the driveway, then speed off. They were gone, but she felt exposed.
“I’m proud of you.” Ryan hugged her.
She stiffened. She couldn’t face him. Not now.
“So am I,” Ezekiel said.
“That’s our Traci.”
Traci whirled around on hearing Maureen’s voice. She wasn’t alone. All the members of the Sisterhood were with her. She tucked her head. They all knew her shame. Her mother hadn’t wanted her. She pushed out of Ryan’s arms, but went only a few steps before her granddaddy caught her by the arms.
“You gave me a reason for living when you came to live with me,” he said quietly. “Vera was as mean as her mother. Nothing I did made her happy.”
Traci’s head came up. He’d never said one word.
“Your mother did you a favor or you might be like Carla, trying to hang on to a man who chases everything in a skirt and children she can’t control and who act as if they hate her.” Gently he shook her. “You are the blessed one. You blessed me.”
