Love, Honor or Stray: New Day Divas Series Book Three

by E. N. Joy

  “Whoa, hold up. I think I better stop you there before my wife gets jealous,” was the reply that made Paige blush.

  “Oh, I’m sure she won’t mind me borrowing you for an hour or two. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty cool with your wife,” Paige played along, “so if you really want to get down and dirty, I’m sure the three of us—”

  “Please, Mrs. Dickenson, my wife really would get jealous.”

  That’s when Paige realized that the voice on the other end of the phone was just an octave lower than Blake’s. “Blake?” Paige held her breath.

  “Uh, sorry, Mrs. Dickenson, it’s Klyde.” He was Blake’s best friend and partner in crime at the commercial real estate agency they worked at. “Blake is in a meeting that is running way over, so he sent me a text and asked me to call you.”

  Paige smiled. Her husband knew her well—well enough to know that she did not do the texting thing on her cell phone. She felt that phones were meant to talk on and computers were meant to type on. Besides that, she could never figure out how to use it anyway, which is why texting wasn’t part of her cell phone plan.

  “Apparently the meeting is going to run into the dinner hour and he’s not going to be able to go to dinner with you tonight,” Klyde explained on his friend’s behalf.

  Paige’s smile quickly faded.

  “He says to tell you that he’s very—” Klyde paused before saying, “Oh, here he is now. He can tell you himself.”

  Just then Paige heard her husband’s voice, for real this time, come through the phone.

  “Hi, honey. I only have a second. We broke from the meeting for just a minute. I’m so sorry about tonight.” Blake’s voice was rushed. “I know taking you to dinner was supposed to be my gratitude for you being so understanding about having to delay the honeymoon and everything, but I am so close to closing this deal that I just know a Bang Bang shrimp appetizer from Bone Fish will do the trick.” Bone Fish was the restaurant Blake’s company always took their clients to. It had an elegant five star atmosphere and menu choices. The amazing thing about it, though, was that it had next-to-fast-food-restaurant prices.

  “But, babe, I didn’t eat a single thing all day. I’ve been saving my appetite and calories for tonight,” Paige whined. “I guess we can just cancel and go some other time…like with our honeymoon.” She let out a deep, pitiful, exaggerated sigh.

  “I’d hate for those reservations to go to waste after my assistant was so kind as to pass them on to us. On top of that, I’d hate for you to starve. Maybe you can get Tamarra or someone else to go with you.”

  “It won’t be the same,” Paige pouted. “Plus, I remember Tamarra saying that she and Maeyl are taking his daughter to see Sesame Street on Ice, so she’s not available. I can always call Sister Deborah up, but she’s not too long from being back from her sabbatical. She’s been saying how she’s been working into the wee hours of the night trying to catch up. I don’t know anyone—”

  “I’ve got an idea.” He cut off his wife. “See if Norman would like to go with you,” Blake suggested.

  Paige thought for a moment. “Hmm, I guess I would have never thought of that. Well, okay. He’s off work at eight o’clock and the dinner reservation is for nine. I’m sure he’d loved to if he doesn’t already have a hot date. But then again, Norman has toned it down quite a bit since he started visiting New Day.”

  “Great, honey, but look, I gotta go. The meeting is rejoining. Give Norman a call, and tell him to take good care of my wife for me. Okay? And I promise I’ll make it up to you. Saturday I’ll take you to lunch or something while we get your check engine light on your car looked at, okay?”

  “All right, honey, I love—” The click in Paige’s ear halted her words. She looked down at the phone. “You.” She finished her sentence then hung up the phone.

  Although he was the last person she would have imagined having dinner with tonight, Paige picked up the phone again and called Norman. While she invited him out to dinner and he gladly accepted, never once did Paige think about what it might look like to an outsider, the two of them sharing an evening dinner. As she hung up the phone to a growling belly, she didn’t care.

  Chapter Three

  As Maeyl sat at the stoplight, he couldn’t help but peep over his shoulder at his snoring little girl. Sakaya was as snug as a bug in a rug in the backseat. Looking at her, he regretted not being in her life for the first three years. In just the last few months, she’d brought him so much joy; he could only imagine all that he’d missed out on. A tinge of guilt tried to creep in, but Maeyl quickly declared the devil that was trying to influence his thoughts a liar. After all, it had not been his fault, nor his decision, not to be a part of his child’s life.

  Although he could have easily turned guilt into blame, blaming Sasha, the child’s mother, he chose not to. Sakaya had been the product of a one night stand between a stripper and a tipper. Just as easily as Maeyl had slipped into Sasha’s bed on the same night they’d met, he’d slipped away, not even leaving his contact information. Unbeknownst to him, he’d left behind something far greater than that.

  Ashamed at how the child was conceived? Yes, he was. Ashamed of the child? Not in a million years. Fatherhood was becoming to Maeyl. It was becoming to Tamarra also: becoming a pain in the butt.

  “Isn’t she just the sweetest little girl you’ve ever known?” Maeyl asked Tamarra, who sat in the passenger seat. His eyes remained glued on his little girl.

  “Oh, yes,” Tamarra replied in a singsong voice. “She’s something, all right.” Tamarra looked back at the little girl and tried to muster up the same joy Maeyl was so obviously filled with. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t to save her life.

  “Just think, it won’t be long before she becomes your little girl too.” Maeyl looked over to his fiancée. “You’re about to become a mommy. Aren’t you excited?”

  Tamarra remained silent as she turned back around to face the road. That’s when she realized that Maeyl’s question hadn’t been rhetorical. He was looking at her…waiting on her to tell him just how absolutely beside herself she was to inherit a stepdaughter. God had truly brought her through so much. Did she repay Him now by allowing a lie to roll off of her tongue and then repent later? Or did she tell her husband-to-be the honest to God truth that the last thing she ever wanted in life was to deal with a man with a baby? Which meant, of course, there was a baby’s momma to go along with it, and baby’s momma drama to top it all off.

  God had been too good for her to become a slave to the father of sin by worshipping Satan with a lie. When she accepted Maeyl’s proposal to marry him, she knew it was a package deal; she would have to accept his daughter as well. Eventually, she figured, she could, but in the meantime, she had come up with the ol’ “fake it until you make it” master plan. Seeing as how drama class had not been one of her electives in high school, she didn’t know how believably she could play the role, so before she was found out, she might as well come clean now. And if Maeyl chose not to go forth with the marriage, then so be it. Besides, going into a marriage based on a lie was not a good foundation to build upon.

  “You’re so excited about becoming Sakaya’s other mommy that you’re speechless, huh?” Maeyl asked Tamarra.

  “Maeyl,” Tamarra started, her head down, eyes locked on her fumbling fingers. “About Sakaya and becoming her stepmother and all, I—”

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  The blaring horn from the car behind them interrupted their conversation.

  “Oh, shoot!” Maeyl looked up in front of him. “Green light.” He drove off. “Speaking of green light, Sasha said that Sakaya’s doctor gave her the green light to go ahead and enroll into regular pre-school. No special educational needs classes or anything. Just regular schooling with regular kids.” Maeyl beamed. “I wish I could find that woman who laid hands on Sakaya and prayed for her after the doctor diagnosed her with symptoms of autism. Her obedience to what the Lord told her to do changed my littl
e girl’s life. That woman laid healing hands on my child and changed the course of her life. It’s a miracle. My Sakaya is a miracle, and I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world.”

  “Not even me?” Tamarra thought the color would drain from her oak-with-gloss-finish complexion. It was times like these she wished she wore makeup in order to add a little color to her face. She nervously ran her fingers through her short, natural hair that she’d started growing out.

  “Excuse me?” Maeyl wasn’t sure if he’d actually heard the words come out of Tamarra’s mouth.

  Tamarra couldn’t believe the words had actually come out. She’d only meant to think the words, not speak them out loud. She looked over to see Maeyl give her a quick glare. He looked at her as if she were a stranger. She felt awful. She wanted to tell Maeyl the truth about how she felt about his newfound daughter, but not this way. Not so crude and blunt.

  She looked up and silently said to God, Forgive me, Lord, for I know exactly what I’m about to do. She then looked to Maeyl. “I said ‘Not even me.’ Not even myself… Not even I would trade Sakaya for anything in the world.” Then came the fake laugh. “Ahe-he.”

  Maeyl exhaled. “Sweetie, you don’t know how good it makes me feel to hear you say that.” He leaned over, keeping his eyes on the road, twisted his lips, and planted a kiss on Tamarra’s cheek. “That’s why you’re one of my favorite girls.” He then happily drove up the road.

  Tamarra turned her head in disgust. Already she’d gone from being Maeyl’s favorite girl to just one of his favorite girls. Now she couldn’t help but wonder who ranked the highest. Who was Maeyl’s most favorite: her or Punky Brewster back there?

  Tamarra shook her head in shame. She was a grown woman. She couldn’t believe she was comparing herself to a little girl who was just a month shy of turning four. But what was even worse, she knew that if she kept living this lie, she’d spend the next fourteen years competing with this child as well. She wouldn’t have peace and security in her and Maeyl’s relationship until the child turned eighteen and headed off to college.

  The entire situation was driving her stir crazy. She should have gotten out of this relationship when she could, before Maeyl proposed and she accepted. That day she met him at the park with the intentions of breaking things off, she should have just told him. But before she knew it, he’d proposed, she’d accepted, and he’d slipped that beautiful ring on her finger.

  Tamarra looked down at the two carat diamond engagement ring. On the day he’d given it to her, the bling on it had her caught like a deer in headlights. It was so beautiful. She’d never had a ring that beautiful. Not even that low down, cheating, having a baby on the side ex-husband of hers had invested in such a gem.

  I wonder if I break off the engagement if I’d have to give the ring back. Tamarra flushed that gold-digging thought out of her head quick, fast, and in a hurry, not even knowing where it had come from. She’d never had that type of mindset before when it came to men, so what was going on inside that head of hers now?

  She might not have known what was going on inside her head, but she definitely knew what was going on inside of her heart. Too bad her head and her heart just couldn’t get on one accord. Why couldn’t her heart feel the same way about Maeyl’s little girl as it did for the man himself? Perhaps she could just fast and pray, asking God to work on her heart so that eventually it would.

  With their wedding date set for late spring/early summer, she knew she only had a few months to get it together. Was that enough time to fall in love with Maeyl’s daughter just as easily as she had fallen in love with him?

  Chapter Four

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” the familiar voice spoke over the soft music. “I know you are probably more than surprised to see me right about now.” He gave Deborah a mischievous look. “But you didn’t think I’d give up that easily, did you?”

  Deborah stood in what she now knew to be the dining room in the house. Her mouth hung wide, the opening for words to march out. But none came. Not a single one. Then finally, she was able to speak. “I… I can’t believe this. Wha…what have you done?”

  He looked down and helped himself to one of the roses that sat in a vase in the middle of the dining room table. “Isn’t it obvious?” He slowly walked toward Deborah while smelling the rose. “I’ve fallen in love.” He extended the rose to her.

  At first she just stood there staring down at the rose, still in awe at the sight before her. There were roses, dozens of them, in vases all around the room. There were flickering candles, scented ones. Deborah inhaled: vanilla candles. A bottle of sparkling cider sat in an ice bucket next to the roses on the dining room table. There was a place setting for two. It looked to be fine china and silverware. The flutes at each setting waited to be drenched with the non-alcoholic chilled beverage. The laced table cloth, a slightly dingy white, looked as though it might have belonged to his grandmother, probably the china too.

  She met her hand with his, momentarily taken in by the delightful ambiance. Deborah quickly snapped out of her vanilla-scented trance. She demanded her hand take its rightful place by her side without the likes of the rose.

  “Still up to your same old tricks again, huh, Mr. Chase?” Deborah asked with a glare, shaking her head. “First your little stunt at Family Café and now this.”

  “Deborah—”

  “Miss Lewis,” she corrected him.

  He relented with a smile. “Okay, Miss Lewis. I’m not sure what you mean by my little stunt at Family Café. I remember you rambling something about me arranging a bogus meeting. I didn’t know what you were talking about then, and I don’t know what you are talking about now.”

  He wasn’t lying. He had no idea what she was talking about because he hadn’t been involved in setting up any bogus meeting. Right before she’d left for her sabbatical, Deborah thought he’d gotten someone to pretend to be a prospective client just so she would agree to a meeting. With every intention of meeting this so-called prospective client at Family Café, Deborah was shocked when Lynox showed up. Initially, she thought he’d tricked her. When she later learned at Mother Doreen’s going away potluck dinner that there really had been a real client, that the meeting was legitimate, she had to admit that she had been wrong. But still, him just happening to be there, as if he’d been stalking her, was considered a stunt in her book.

  “If I were going to set up some bogus meeting with you, Miss Lewis, trust me, it wouldn’t have been at the Family Café. It would have more like…” He looked around, impressed by his own handiwork. “Something more like this.”

  She’d known from the first time she met him that Mr. Lynox Chase was persistent, but she was certain she’d seen the last of him that day in Family Café when she’d spit her lemon water all over him. Not only that, but she’d snapped at him and practically threw his manuscript he’d wanted her to shop as his agent back at him. What man in his right mind would still want to deal with a woman capable of all that?

  That’s it! Deborah had figured it out. This man standing before her had to be out of his mind.

  “You’re out of your mind, Mr. Chase, to think that I would fall for this…this…this whatever it is you’re trying to do,” she told him. “I am a child of the Most High. God is not going to allow me to be ignorant of the enemy’s devices.”

  “Good, because I’m not the enemy. If I were, then why would God have allowed you to even come here in the first place, let alone come inside? I mean, what woman besides those crazies in those horror movies would have actually come into a stranger’s dark house? Are you kidding me?”

  Deborah had to admit that he had a point, a good one. Why had God allowed her to come here? If it was a trick of the enemy, why had she fallen for it? Why hadn’t she gotten one single suspicion about the entire Mr. Born thing? She didn’t have the answers, but for now she had the solution, and that was to get out of there.

  “Whatever, Mr. Chase. If I’ve told you once, I’m telling
you again, I don’t have time for games. I hope you enjoy your evening.” On that note, Deborah turned on her heels and headed back toward the front door.

  “But wait!” Lynox called out. Deborah stopped, but didn’t turn back around to face him, to face the brown-skinned, medium height, sculptured figure. He took a couple of steps in her direction and turned on the light.

  “I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t take my phone calls, you blocked my e-mail address.” He paused before continuing. “I had gone to eat at Family Café at least a dozen times before God showed me favor and you finally showed up.” He took another step toward her. “And I promise you on everything, before I’d walked into that restaurant, I’d said a prayer to God. I had told him, ‘Lord, if this is meant to be, then let it be, because this is my last time coming here.’ And I’d meant it. If you didn’t show up, I was going to let things go…let you go. But you did show up, and now I can’t… I can’t let you go.”

  Deborah’s heart almost melted like the candle wax. She slowly turned to face him. She noticed his fresh haircut, a nice, tight fade. She blushed within at the thought he’d gotten a fresh cut just for her.

  “I’d heard Family Café was the town restaurant that everyone went to, so I knew sooner or later you would too.” He grabbed his stomach. “I only wish it had been sooner. You have no idea what those twelve bowls of chili did to my digestive system.”

  Deborah chuckled.

  “Ah ha! The lady laughs.” Lynox pointed at Deborah, happy to finally see some emotion other than anger displayed. “Anyway, I’m sorry…about everything. Will you forgive me?” Once again, Lynox extended the rose to Deborah that he still held in his hand.

  And once again, she stared down at the rose. After a few seconds of contemplation, she accepted it. “Because I am a woman of God, I must obey Jesus and forgive you.”