Her dark smooth skin with its untainted finish gleamed with inner luminosity. Long arms topped with slender, elven fingers and oval-shaped nails danced on the rim of her cup as she took in his statement. The crop of thick, wooly hair, pulled back with a wide orange band, gave her a halo effect and put him in mind of an angel.
But she’s not an angel. She’s the child who almost had you killed.
His mouth tightened at the corners. He’d do well to remember that.
“But I was six years old,” she said slowly, a kind of dismay clouding her features.
Kwasi threw her an exasperated look. “I wasn’t eager to be physical with you so put your mind at ease. Half the time I had no idea what the elders and the O’Briens were going on about. I was more excited about getting our faces painted than anything else.”
Her mouth twitched. “Me too.”
If there was one consolation he got from all the pain of his childhood, he was glad he didn’t follow the tradition of his people with their child brides. After all, a mature woman had so much more to offer. A hot wave of appreciation brushed his stomach like a blatant caress as his eyes hungrily ate up what he could see of the dips and swells of her body above the table.
As an adult with a normal appetite of any hot-blooded male, he appreciated the full blossom of this dark rose across the way.
“I was also glad when we got married,” she said unexpectedly.
Kwasi stiffened in shock. “You were?”
Her shoulders hunched and she looked away. The profile reminded him of the elegant and regal bearing of a cameo.
“I wanted you and only you to be my husband,” she went on. “Perhaps I didn’t understand the physical implication of what being a wife entailed. I only knew Baba and Mama were happy. I knew we would be happy, too.”
His chest expanded. “Then—”
Gretchen turned back to him. “It was a good day for me, too,” she finished.
Around them, the Java Cupid café hummed. Coins clinked in the tip jar. Jeb hollered out an order. The frothing machine whirred. In the midst of all the noise, a cocoon of silence enveloped him and Gretchen, lined with unspoken words and emotions too shy to express themselves. But within him, the casing around his heart suffered its first hairline crack.
Don’t be stupid! Kojo’s voice blared in his ear. Don’t let her do this to you again.
As if his body were in cahoots with his twin, the wound from the tiger’s claws fired up. In his mind’s eyes, he pictured the keloidal streaks on his back. Four straight gashes and then another smaller one from the fifth claw that had been dangerously close to puncturing his ribs.
No, he didn’t need reminding of what Gretchen had done.
“Why?”
The single question recaptured his attention. She’d placed her hand over where the mark was. “Why?” she asked again.
How best to answer? Peeling back the veil of that fateful day, he remembered it had started off as any other in the village. After the chores he and Kojo were assigned by the elders to do were completed, they hurried over to Gretchen and her sister’s house. Their mamas often spent the day together as they cooked, made baskets to sell in the city, or relaxed in the heat of the day.
He saw his childhood self, barely clad in a threadbare gray shirt and dingy shorts, run into the dim but happy interior of the hut. Kojo and he had latched onto their respective playmates, or in his case, his bride, and ran with them to the fields.
Kojo and Gretchen’s sister had gone further up the trail to do whatever they had planned. He and Gretchen had stayed closer to the village, playing in the mud.
How would things have played out if the O’Briens had been there? Whenever he forced himself to travel down this landmine-scattered path of misery, he often asked that question. As always, he admonished himself. It was useless to speculate. The O’Briens hadn’t been there. They’d left for a quick trip back to the U. S. to gather more funds for their village. The school he and Gretchen would have attended had closed down while they were gone.
They played in silence for some time, content with each other’s presence. Later on, Gretchen had wandered away. Bored by himself, he’d picked up a stick and practiced spelling his name. He’d come to the “w” which appeared more unsteady than a drunk when Gretchen’s voice screeched.
If he closed his eyes, he could hear it as if it were yesterday. Her clear, high-pitched yell.
“Kwasi, help!”
He’d leapt up and barreled through the high grasses where she’d gone. He found her in a small clearing, her small, yellow-draped figure tense.
“What is it, Afia?”
“Look!” Her face full of fear, she tried to look behind her. “It’s on my neck. I can’t get it off.”
“What is it?” Drifting closer to her, he cast a cautious eye over the surrounding area. He wanted to make sure no morning predators would think of seeing them as a feast.
“I don’t know.”
To this day, he’d never discovered what kind of insect it was that landed on Gretchen that fateful day. Once, years later, he’d spend the better part of a day searching online to see if he could identify the creature which wreaked havoc on his life. It was a multi-legged monstrosity with wings. That was all he could gather from the brief glimpse of the thing.
“Ugh!” His skin crawled.
“Get it off!” she yelled shrilly. “It’s hurting me!”
His practical mind shouted out, “I don’t want to touch it. It may hurt me, too!”
She’d folded her arms across her flat, bony chest. “Husbands are supposed to protect the wife. So, protect me!”
His boyish mind reeled with the implications of what she’d said. “I don’t want to be the husband anymore.” Not if he had to touch an ugly-looking bug like the one attached to her.
“My Baba always helps my Mama. You get it off me, now!”
Her tiny fists threatened harm but it was the fear evident on her face that made him relent. Afia was his wife now. Just like his own Baba took care of his Mama, he had to take care of her.
“Kwasi?”
Gretchen’s voice hauled him out of his reverie. A quizzical expression dominated her features.
“What did you say?”
“You were going to tell me why—”
“I was just remembering, is all.” He grunted. “That was a nasty-looking bug. It creeped me out.”
She blinked. “You? What about me? It attacked me!”
He drummed his fingers on the glass top table. “I still get scared of bugs. And I’m a grown man.”
Her unreadable gaze roved over him in a slow, languid fashion. It revealed nothing of her thoughts but its intensity left his body tingling in awareness.
Did she like what she saw? After all, he wasn’t a scrawny little boy anymore. He worked out several times a week in order to remove himself from the helplessness of his youth.
“That you are,” she said in a low tone when her eyes lifted back to his face. “That you are,” she said again.
The collar of his shirt constricted around his neck. He had to call her on it. “What does that mean?”
Those long curly lashes veiled her eyes and fanned over her cheekbones. “It’s simply a statement of fact.”
“Hey, my man!”
Kwasi bit back a groan. Talk about the worst timing!
“Hey, Jeb,” he greeted back.
He liked the guy, but not right now. Especially when Gretchen sat there as they tiptoed and parried around these events of the past. “What’s up?”
The barista’s brown eyes sparked with amusement. “Saw you with my sweet, chocolate-dipped, oh-so-fine lady here. I wasn’t too busy so I thought I’d mosey up over here and see what I could get for you.”
His fingers swayed back and forth as if he accused them of stealing cookies from the cookie jar. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” A feverish gleam brightened Jeb’s eyes.
What grade was this dude in, third?
“We
’re enjoying each other’s company,” Gretchen replied in a cool tone. She lifted her cup and downed the rest of her tea. “I’m glad you came as I would like another one of these, if you please.” Raising a slender waxed eyebrow, she inquired, “Kwasi?”
“Sure, I’ll have one.” Anything to get this fool away from them.
“Oh, I get it. I’m cramping your style. Interfering where I shouldn’t be.”
Ya think?
Jeb winked and backed away. “I gotcha, I gotcha. I’ll take my time bringing you the tea.” Jeb traipsed away, whistling a tune.
“That’ll be another half hour,” Kwasi couldn’t help but add.
“Good. Which means we can continue our discussion about why this mark means so much to you.”
Do you think you were saved by the barista, Kwasi?
He’d evaded her question by going down rabbit trails but Gretchen was determined to get the answers she sought. One of the answers was matched to the question of why. Why would this mark be a symbol of a good day when it was the catalyst of being run out of the village forever? Chased and hunted from the only home he’d ever known?
“I think we’ve traveled down memory lane enough for one day,” Kwasi replied.
“I don’t think so,” Gretchen countered. It was time to be the aggressor. She had to know. “If it wasn’t for this mark, no one would have hurt you like they did.”
Kwasi’s eyebrows lifted over the rim of the shades. “You don’t know that. Whenever I look back on it, the elders were just looking for any excuse to come after me and Kojo. You simply gave them the ammunition they needed.” His voice ended on a hard note.
Gretchen’s stomach churned at his accusation. He was right.
“I’m sorry for what I did to you, Kwasi.” She’d apologized before but that hastily spoken thing didn’t have the substance nor the depth of her sorrow. She’d long since carried the guilt of the sin which had ripped their lives apart.
Kwasi’s eyes narrowed on her as if he could peer down into her soul. “What did they say to make you name me?”
“It’s not important what they said. The thing is they manipulated a six-year-old girl.”
The trek she and her Baba had made to the center hut in the middle of the village had lasted forever. She’d never been to the head elder’s house before. All the village leaders had gathered there. They motioned for her to stand in the midst of them, their yellow eyes all fixed on her.
The head elder had leaned over, smelling of sweet-scented smoke.
“Afia, if you don’t let us sacrifice your husband, your mother will die.”
Death? She’d seen it enough times in her short life span to know it held finality to it. She’d seen animals in all manner of violent death. Stabbed by a hunter’s bow. Skinned by her Baba’s knife. Flattened by the occasional wheel of an army vehicle. She’d seen it in all those few years of existence.
To think her mother would end up the same way, a stiff, contorted body with a gaping mouth and gnarled fingers frozen in death’s grip.
No, she didn’t want her mother to die.
“We need their bones,” the elder continued his rasp hypnotic. “Their bones will ward off the evil spirit trying to suck away your mama’s soul.”
How could she have known the choice between her best friend and her mother would be what it came down to?
“You don’t have to tell me, Gretchen. I know.” Kwasi sighed wearily, bringing her out of her memories. “Albinism in our home country is as much of a stigma as it ever was. The difference between then and now is that more people are getting educated about it.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“You’d think we were demons or gods from the mysticism surrounding our pale skin.” Cynicism dripped from his lips. Her heart lurched at the acidic remark.
“Ignorance can be fixed. You know that, don’t you, Kwasi?”
His only response was to pick up a napkin and ball it up.
Gretchen bit her bottom lip pensively before she asked her next question. “You can’t ever go back, can you?”
A curt shake of his head gave her the answer.
The tension which gripped his body let her know it was time to move on from that subject of home. She returned to her original question. “Please tell me why this mark you gave me represents a happy day for you. I want to understand.”
Their gazes locked for a few heart-stopping moments. She couldn’t tear her eyes away even if she wanted to. He was too handsome for his own good. His features had hardened in displeasure—or was it unease? — until his broad chest heaved.
“It means you’re mine, Gretchen,” he said without preamble. “The day I gave it to you, it solidified we belong to each other.”
A wave of shock passed over her at the blatant declaration. Something inside of her gave an odd little leap of joy and stole the breath from her.
“I don’t quite get what you mean,” she whispered.
But she had the awful idea that she truly did understand.
“Don’t you?” He leaned forward. “After all these years, it hasn’t gone away. It hasn’t faded out of existence as mysteriously as it came. It hasn’t diminished with age or deepened to match the purity of your flesh. Just like the scar on my back that forever brands your betrayal, you carry my mark.”
The mark heated up on her neck as if to answer his call.
“We blended that day, you and I.” He took off his glasses and she stared directly into his eyes. A color somewhere between a gray and light blue swirl. They resembled diamonds fringed by long curly lashes of gold. The full effect of those jeweled irises caught her by surprise as they roamed over her face.
His voice washed over her like a silk caress. “If the mark had disappeared, perhaps it wouldn’t matter as much. But it does. I can’t explain why but now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, it means you belong to me.”
The atmosphere about the small table thrummed with an electric sensation. A high voltage shot of awareness that a destiny stunted twenty years ago was at last coming to fruition. From the knowing look in his diamond eyes, she knew he experienced the same unfathomable knowledge. By sheer force of his will, he refused to let her pull away from this magnetic connection.
“You’re my wife, Gretchen.”
Could that be why she’d never had success in her relationships because of this bond they formed all those years ago? Had she, despite her thoughts of the contrary, been waiting for him all this time?
Her practical mind gained enough strength to shove away the drugging allure of his declaration. “No, I am not. There’s no court that would uphold our childhood marriage.”
His eyes dropped from her. “Do you have a man, Gretchen?”
The frank question threw her off kilter. “No,” she responded and then groaned at the admission of her single status.
“I don’t have a woman, either.” He put his glasses back on again. “Don’t you think it’s rather strange we would meet twenty years later in a coffee shop in Mystery Canyon, Colorado, and we’re both unattached?”
Where was this conversation going?
You know where this is going, her heart cried out. And you want it to go there.
“It’s coincidental,” she sniffed. “It could happen to anyone.”
“But it happened to us,” Kwasi said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I don’t take things like this lightly. You were my best friend and my wife. We had it before. We can have it again.”
“Over my dead body!” Two voices in perfect harmony interjected with virulent denial.
Gretchen nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t even heard or sensed her sister’s presence. Gertrude and Kojo stood side by side, their open mouths and wide eyes identical masks of horror.
“Gertie. How—”
“Why are you listening to this bull crap?” Gertrude shouted. “We don’t owe him any explanations.” She whirled on Kwasi, her braids fanning in a wide arc. “My sister did not try to deliberate
ly set out to hurt you, do you understand me?” Then she leaned forward until her nose almost touched Kwasi’s. In a deadly tone, she clipped out, “You stay away from her.”
Kojo grabbed Gertrude’s arm and yanked her back from looming over his brother. “You better make her stay away from him.” He stabbed a long pale finger in both of their directions. “You can live in denial all you want but she’s poison.”
The tint shield of Kojo’s lenses could not contain the fury emanating from his eyes. It was hot enough to singe the hairs along Gretchen’s skin. “You’ve done enough to my family.”
“Don’t you talk to my twin sister that way,” Gertrude snarled as she went toe to toe with Kojo.
“Then don’t talk to my twin brother like you just did.” He thumbed a finger at Gretchen. “Get her out of here.”
Gertrude’s hands landed on both her hips. “You get him out of here.”
“Unlike you, I have a reason for being here,” Kojo shot right back with the calculated aim of a bullet.
The air crackled between Kojo and Gertrude. Gretchen sought Kwasi’s eyes, seeing the same bewilderment reflected in his gaze.
“Umm, here’s your tea.”
Jeb placed the two cups of Java Blend tea they’d forgotten about on the table and hightailed in back to his safe zone at the cash register. Gretchen noticed then the hub of Java Cupid had grown subdued. All around them, patrons watched with unashamed interest at the scene unfolding before them. Some of the baristas had stopped what they were doing in order to watch.
Who could blame them? Kojo and Gertrude were definitely giving them a show.
How often did one see two sets of identical twins crowded at one table? Even so, how often did one see the kind of hostility brewing with the intensity of starting a third world war?
Gertrude and Kojo had a staring contest. Their chests heaved as if from physical exertion when Gretchen was pretty sure it was from exerting control over their tempers.
She reached for her cup of tea at the same time Kwasi grasped his. Their eyes met and then quickly she glanced away.
Too much had happened between herself and Kwasi but something about this confrontation with their respective twin seemed off. A persistent, latent sense of something being quite obvious but hidden in plain sight nagged her. What was she missing with this altercation?
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