“I would make time,” Mona said, handing her sister the knife and setting the two saucers she retrieved next to the can.
“Not me. I’m too busy trying to find a new job,” Reeba said.
And that was another part of the reason Mona thought her sister might jump on the chance to help work with her—she had been laid off when the call center where she was a supervisor closed down last month. Mona didn’t bother to broach the subject again.
She fell silent as she sipped her tea and broke pieces of the cake off with her fingers to nibble on. “Have you ever had visions that had nothing to do with love?” she finally spoke into the silence, her thoughts filling with Anson.
“Not really.”
Mona looked over at her sister sharply. “Not really . . . or no?” she emphasized.
Reeba looked like she struggled with the answer at first. “No,” she finally answered with emphasis.
Mona squinted her eyes and pressed her elbows against the top of the island as she peered at her sister.
“What?” Reeba asked, sitting up straight and looking affronted.
Mona leaned in closer toward her with an even harder stare.
“Okay, once or twice.... It just felt like if I would think of someone I hadn’t seen in years, then within days—weeks at the most—I would cross their path whether in person or online. I always thought it was odd,” Reeba said. “But it could just be a coincidence. . . or not.”
Mona nodded and rose to her feet. “I gotta go,” she said, pinching the last few crumbs from her plate to suck from her fingers.
“Everything okay?” Reeba asked.
Mona nodded again.
“If you can’t or won’t talk to me, then call the aunties,” she suggested, placing their cups and saucers into the deep cast iron sink.
Aunts Winifred and Millicent were the keepers of the family history and still resided in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in a small but beautiful mansion on a converted plantation. But Mona wouldn’t call them. Not now. It had been weeks since she’d last called her beloved aunts and for that she was ashamed.
Mona was back in her rain boots and trench and headed out the front door before Reeba had time to leave the kitchen. She rushed to her car, just remembering she forgot her umbrella as the light rain wet her. She hurried to close the door and rev the motor to life before blasting the heat and waiting for the chill to leave her. Then she reversed down the drive and onto the unpaved road.
“But it could just be a coincidence . . . or not.”
Mona drove out to the main road toward Chloe Bolton’s old residence. In the days after Mona’s clash with Anson Tyler, she had done what anyone naturally did in the age of social media—she researched him online. Although she found him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and About.me, it was the before and after pictures on his company’s Web site that revealed that he lived right in Holtsville in the house she could tell was obviously the former home of Chloe Bolton.
What person in Holtsville didn’t know exactly where the supermodel’s home was? She was a world-wide celebrity living in a small southern town. Of course, Mona had driven by the sprawling home to take a gander.
So she knew where he resided and that’s where she was headed.
It wasn’t until his home first came into sight and she saw that every window was dark that she glanced at the time on the dash and paused. It was nearing nine o’ clock. That wasn’t late. Sometimes she didn’t go to bed until one or two in the morning, but it was rude to stroll up to someone’s home without warning. “And I’m in pajamas,” she muttered, shaking her head at herself. “Come on, Mona. Get your shit together.”
She braked and then put her car in reverse to back down the dead end road. She didn’t even want to chance being seen turning around in his driveway.
Hitting the gas, she started the car in reverse.
THUD!
Mona gasped and slammed on the brakes, her eyes darting up to the rearview mirror that she hadn’t been using. “What did I hit? What did I hit?” she kept repeating frantically as she put the car in park and scrambled out the door to race around it.
She screamed out at the sight of Anson on the ground, his face twisted in pain. She dropped to her knees beside him as the rain continued to pelt their bodies. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” she said, her words running together.
“Shut. Up.” He forced the words through clenched teeth.
Mona opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it.
“Call. Ambulance.”
“Okay,” she said, snatching off her pricey trench coat to ball up and ease beneath his head to cushion him from the asphalt road.
She rushed back to her car, but then paused and turned back. “I don’t have my phone with me,” she admitted.
“Pocket.”
Mona lifted the pocket of his running pants, which were plastered to his leg, and scooped her hand in to retrieve the phone. She jerked it back as she accidentally brushed against his member.
He moaned in pain.
She knew he needed help and had no time for being shy. Arching her brow, she dug her hand back in his pocket and grabbed his phone. Shielding it from the rain, she quickly dialed 911.
“I am so sorry, Anson,” Mona said with just her head peeking through the curtains of the examination room of Colleton Medical’s emergency room department.
Anson’s jaw was tight as he lay in the hospital bed with his left wrist in a brace and his right foot in a cast. He continued to stare at the cabinets lining the wall and paid her no mind as she walked into the room and stood by his bedside table. She could tell that the hours he spent awaiting treatment hadn’t helped his anger toward her cool off.
“I told them I was your sister,” she said.
He glared at her.
Mona licked her full lips and fought back the urge to yawn. It was nearly one in the morning and she had been sitting in the waiting room on a chair that should have been meant for torture. The candy she’d purchased from the vending machine barely did anything to kill the taste of coffee and sleep clinging to her tongue. She was wet. She was cold. She was exhausted.
She didn’t dare reveal that though. At least she hadn’t been hit by a car, resulting in a sprained wrist and broken ankle.
“I just want to apologize again,” Mona said. “I didn’t see you, Anson.”
His lips thinned until the smooth caramel complexion of them blanched a shade.
She knew he was itching to tell her something, but he was fighting to keep the words from flowing out of his mouth.
“Of course, you should send me your medical bills and I’ll cover them,” she said. “Umm . . . you . . . know the office address.”
Anson released a heavy breath that was brimming with his anger—and probably continued dislike of her.
Mona felt flushed with guilt. “Carina said you were an architect. I hope you’re right handed.”
“Be quiet,” he said, as he struggled to sit up on the edge of the bed and swing his injured foot around until it hung off the bed.
“Huh?” Mona asked, stepping forward with her hands outreached to help him.
The look he shot her made her freeze like a mime.
“Be quiet,” he repeated. “And go away. Matter of fact . . . stay away. You have single-handedly done more to screw with my life than anyone I have had the displeasure to meet.”
Mona gasped in shock.
“First you ruin my personal life,” he said, glaring at her over his shoulder. “And then you stalk me—”
“Stalk?” she repeated in disbelief.
“Stalk,” Anson repeated with emphasis, his brown eyes lit with anger. “How did you know where I live? What were you doing there? Who throws a car in reverse and hits the gas without looking over their shoulder? What do you have against me?”
Each question was delivered with an ever-increasing level of bellicosity.
Mona opened her
mouth and then shut it. She wisely figured it wasn’t the time to regale him with the idea that she came to warn him of something based on premonitions that might be nothing more than dreams.
But why would I dream of him?
Because he’s fine.
Mona felt her cheeks warm as she admitted that Anson Tyler was indeed a fine-looking man. Very dark and delicious, like Lance Gross or Blair Underwood. Very fit. Very fine.
“Then you hit me with that stupid little car and take me out of commission for the next six to eight weeks.”
Mona’s shaped brows dipped above her pert nose. “It was an accident—”
“YOU. HIT. ME. WITH. YOUR. CAR.”
She jumped back and grimaced.
“Just get out. And stay away from me,” he said, sounding tired as he lay back on the narrow hospital bed and covered his eyes with the forearm of his uninjured arm.
“Can I offer you a ride home?” she asked.
Anson raised his forearm just high enough to look at her in exasperation. He reached across his chest to hit the button to call the nurse.
“Yes. Can we help you?” a voice said through the intercom in the room.
“Security, please,” he said, covering his eyes again.
Is he going to press charges? Can the hospital security keep me here until the police come? Should I run?
“It was an accident, Mr. Tyler,” Mona insisted, already backing out of the examination room.
She literally jumped when she lightly collided with someone entering the room.
The security guard sidestepped and held back the curtain to enter. “Is there a problem here?”
“She lied to get back here. She’s not family,” Anson said without uncovering his eyes.
“Ma’am,” the guard said.
Mona eyed him. He was her height and only about twenty pounds heavier. I could take him. Easily.
But instead of making a scene she just walked out of the room ahead of him.
Chapter 4
Brrrrnnnggg . . .
Brrrrnnnggg . . .
Brrrrnnnggg . . .
Brrrrnnnggg . . .
Propped up on pillows in the middle of his king-sized bed, Anson stirred from his sleep He was completely lost to time and place, and the brightness of the morning sun still streaming through the windows of the expansive suite surprised him.
Had a full day passed or was it just later in the same day? He had no clue. “Damn pills,” he muttered.
Brrrrnnnggg . . .
He reached out and patted the bed beside him until he felt the coolness of his phone. Swiping his finger across the touch screen, he raised the cell to his face. “Yeah,” he said, his voice still filled with his interrupted slumber.
“So you running into cars now, big brother?”
Anson chuckled at the sound of his younger brother Hunter’s voice as he reached for the remote sitting on the bedside table topped with caramel-tinted leather trimmed in copper studs. “No, cars are running into me. Well, one car. Driven by one curly-haired she-devil who’s like a thorn in my ass since the first mention of her name,” he said, grimacing as he shifted his cumbersome foot atop the pillows.
“Is she fine?” Hunter asked.
Anson flipped through the digital satellite channels. “Who?”
“The curly-haired she-devil,” Hunter said.
“That’s irrelevant,” Anson countered, tapping the remote against his thigh in the white track pants he wore.
“Looks are never irrelevant, and because you said that I know she’s fine. Next question is just how fine?” Hunter said. “Enough for me to drive down from Atlanta?”
Anson thought about Mona and he could clearly remember the day he confronted her at her office and how the first sight of her climbing from her car in that red suit had made him forget that he was angry at her. She was even more beautiful when her eyes were lit with anger as she told him to get out of her office. Pretty caramel brown skin and jet black hair that was vibrant in the red suit she wore, which showed off her tall figure with her wide hips. Bright eyes. Full pouty lips. Long lashes. Dimpled chin.
On a scale of one to ten, when it came to beauty Mona Ballinger was a strong nine—he favored a thicker build. When it came to her being a nuisance she was a twenty on that same scale . . . and climbing.
“No woman is worth you leaving Morehouse School of Medicine, Dr. Tyler,” Anson said, not trying to hide his pride.
“What about you?” he asked. “Can I come check on my big brother?”
“Nope. You focus on school. I’m straight,” Anson said. “I’m gonna work from home for a week or so, and my office manager, Malik, is going to make sure the office runs smoothly until I can maneuver this foot better.”
“You need a woman’s touch . . . and that’s doctor’s orders.”
Anson bent his good leg. “I thought you were a surgical resident, not orthopedics.”
Hunter laughed. “Actually I don’t need a medical degree—”
“From Morehouse,” Anson interrupted.
“—to know a man needs a woman to baby him back to good health.”
Anson shook his head. “I’ve had my fill of women between Carina dumping me and Mona plowing into me,” he said. “Good riddance to the opposite sex.”
“Wow. You switched teams, dude?” Hunter joked.
“Let me correct that,” Anson said with a chuckle.
“No need. Just jokes. Just jokes.”
“Whatever,” Anson said dryly.
“So tell me what exactly happened last night.”
“I doubted Mother Nature—and the weatherman calling for a seventy percent chance of rain—and went to look at the Jamison house right down the road from me. They want me to update it—”
“Did you get the contract?” Hunter asked.
Anson’s gut clenched. “They have to meet with the rest of their board first and that won’t be until later this week.”
“Cool.”
“So I walked there. It rained. I waited for it to let up. Got tired of waiting and walked home. I spotted the car sitting a little ways down the road from my place, but I had no clue she would suddenly throw it in reverse and hit me.”
“Damn. You think she did it on purpose?”
“No,” Anson admitted begrudgingly. “Still . . . she did some damage. I don’t want to see her face ever again.”
Ding-dong.
“Shit,” he swore, using the remote to switch to the channel he’d reserved for his video surveillance. “Someone’s at the door.”
“I gotta go. We’re about to do afternoon rounds,” Hunter said.
“A’ight. Call me later,” Anson said.
He dropped the phone and squinted his deep set eyes as he spotted the top of an unmistakable mass of curls. “Is this woman crazy?” he muttered, waving his hand dismissively as he sat the remote down and turned back to the television to watch SportsCenter on ESPN.
Ding-dong.
Anson ignored her and her persistence with his doorbell. He just wanted her to go away. “What’s next?” he muttered, wondering if he needed to get a restraining order to keep the she-devil from continuing to disrupt his neat and orderly life.
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-
“Shit,” Anson swore, reaching to pick up the crutch leaning against the side of the bed. “God forgive me for what I’m thinking right now.”
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
He maneuvered off the bed and used the crutch under the arm on the same side as his injured ankle to hobble from the bedroom and down the long length of the hallway of the sprawling house to finally reach the front door. The constant ringing of the doorbell accompanied his uneven gait.
Ding-dong. Ding-
“Hold on. I’m coming,” he yelled, even though the door was too thick and the house too solid for her to hear him.
Reaching forward with his good hand, Anson opened the front door and then sidestepped it, using the tip of the crutch to nud
ge it back wider.
Mona took in Anson standing there glaring at her and she grimaced as she bit her bottom lip. “Hi, Anson,” she said, with a small wave that she didn’t bother to finish.
He just glared at her standing there with her hair up in a topknot and huge black shades covering nearly half of her face. She was wearing oversized coveralls and a tank with bright pink Converse sneakers, and she looked as childish as she was acting.
“Do I have to call the police?” he asked.
She held up both slender hands. “No, you do not. I felt so bad for accidentally backing into you at night . . . while it was raining . . . and you were wearing dark clothing,” she emphasized. “So I thought I should at least bring you a goody basket because I know you don’t . . . have . . . a woman . . . in your life anymore. Sorry about that too. Ummm . . .”
Now if that don’t beat all . . .
Mona bent down and lifted up a huge basket blocked from his sight by the other door. “I did assume someone was here with you and I was just gonna leave it, but I guess you’re alone?” she asked.
“Miss Ballinger. Please. I am begging you to respect that I am a gentleman and the last thing I would want to do is to curse you or use my one good hand to touch you in a way that would finally help it sink in for you that I really don’t want to see you or be near you or even pass by you in the street.”
Mona looked pained. “That’s extreme,” she said. “Plus you need help, and since I’m the one who harmed you—accidentally—I’ll have to help you. . . . Even though I’m really busy at work and would have to juggle some things and—”
“You do realize you’re trespassing?” he asked tightly.
Mona stepped forward with her basket and it pushed against Anson’s unrelenting build as he remained locked in his position. She kept pushing gently but consistently.
Anson’s eyes widened as he felt his crutch shifting from beneath him and had no choice but to hop back and right it under his arm. “The hell?”
Mona eased right past him and stepped into the foyer, setting her basket down to reach out to help steady him.
“No,” he snapped.
“But—”
Want, Need, Love Page 4