by Lisa Jackson
“Your what!” Russell and Katherine shrieked in unison.
Kaycee held up her hand to display her engagement ring. “We got engaged the other night. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I was planning to surprise you both with it this weekend.”
Kaycee glanced up at Kendrick’s face and noticed his blank expression. She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them with assurance. Despite the fact that they were just now learning about the man she adored, she knew that they would love him just the same. She stepped forward.
“Mommy, Daddy, this is—”
“Get away from my daughter, Kendrick!” Russell warned through gritted teeth.
Kaycee’s eyes widened in surprise. A gnawing feeling crept into her stomach and her mind twisted with angst. This meeting wasn’t turning out the way she’d hoped.
Kendrick stepped away from Kaycee. “Russell, I know this is hard for you, but—”
“Negro, you don’t know what it is to me!” her father yelled, rushing Kendrick. “I ought to kick your—”
Before he could get his hands on Kendrick, several of the men around them jumped and grabbed Russell. Shrimpy and Ronald held on to Kendrick.
“Russell, I know you’re angry—”
“You don’t know how I’m feeling!” Russell charged at Kendrick a second time.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” Kaycee cried. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The man she had always known to be calm and together had never acted out with such violence and she felt it was all her fault. Her eyes filled with tears.
“What am I doing?” he shouted incredulously. “I’m trying to protect your honor!”
“My honor!” Kaycee gasped. She didn’t know if her father was trying to imply that her honor needed protection because she was in the family way, but he couldn’t be further off course. “My honor doesn’t need protection. Kendrick hasn’t done anything to ruin my reputation.”
Katherine shushed her and snatched her back by the arm.
“Baby girl, you stay out of this,” her father huffed.
“Stay out of it? Stay out of what?” Kaycee screamed in frustration, wrangling herself out of her mother’s grip. She hurried over to where Kendrick stood. “Are you upset about his age? Well, don’t worry, we covered that. If we’re both okay with it then you should be happy for us.”
“Kay, it’s more than that,” Katherine spoke up.
Kaycee searched her mother’s face for answers. She looked at Kendrick, standing with his head hanging. “More? What is it?”
Kendrick took Kaycee’s face in his hands. “Baby, you’re going to have to listen to me before you take all this in.”
“Let her alone, Thompson!” Russell started up again and the men began to pull him off the scene to calm him down. He bucked to free himself, but was unsuccessful.
Kendrick ignored him. “Kaycee, you know how we talked about our past and how we wanted to bring everything forth so that there would be no misunderstandings?”
Kaycee nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, there was one thing I did not mention.”
“What’s that?” she asked, trying to focus her attention on something to block out her the harsh words her father was shouting, but his words came through loud and clear.
“He killed your Aunt Vickie!”
The whole room collectively gasped from surprise.
“Tell her, Thompson, how you killed my sister!”
The men quickly herded Russell out of the room, and her mother followed. Kendrick pulled a disoriented Kaycee away from the crowd and onto the deck.
Kaycee had never met her aunt because she had died before Kaycee was born, but from what she could remember she’d been killed in an automobile accident, not at some man’s hands.
She turned back to Kendrick for confirmation. “What is he talking about?”
Kendrick was looking at the floor, his position revealing that her father’s claims were probably true.
He began to explain as if in a trance.
“Back in college, I used to mess around with Vickie. She was a freshman when I was a senior being looked at by NFL teams. I was young and wasn’t thinking about being serious, all I was thinking about was playing ball. After a while, Vickie and I kind of fell off. It was about two months later when I was in Alabama at a game that my roommate called saying that Vickie came to our place acting weird. He said she was crying and babbling and wasn’t making sense.”
“What was wrong with her?” Kaycee asked.
“He didn’t know, but he said I needed to call her. So I called her. She sounded real messed-up on the phone, like she was drunk or something. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was in love with me and didn’t want to live if we couldn’t get married. I asked her why did she want to get married being that we broke things off, but she was insistent. I told her I couldn’t and had to get off the phone and she told me that she was coming to Alabama to talk.”
He paused, a weariness covering him like a blanket as he related the final details of his story. His eyes slowly closed and his head fell into his hands.
“I thought she was bluffing. I didn’t think she would try to come but she did. About an hour across the Alabama state line, she…she lost control of her car, crossed the median and ran head-on into a tractor trailer. She died instantly.”
Kaycee didn’t know if she should hug him or not. After all, the woman he was talking about was her aunt, her flesh and blood. All her life, she’d heard great things about her Aunt Vickie. She was told that she shared her aunt’s enthusiasm for life and her stubborn streak. Her father had obviously been protective of his baby sister. Their relationship was often compared to hers and Kyle’s. She knew that her aunt’s death had hurt her father deeply. Seeing him so full of rage and out of control for the first time ever was a testament to that fact. She’d always wondered about the woman she’d never known. Hearing that her only love and soul mate was somehow connected to her aunt’s death was hard to swallow.
“Kendrick, I don’t know what to say.”
His head shot up, revealing tears and he gripped her by the forearms.
“Baby, please let’s work through this.”
Kaycee held her hands up and took a few hesitant steps backward. “I don’t know.”
He pulled her close to him. “Don’t make a decision about us based on this, baby,” he pleaded. “You know we belong together. We can get counseling to deal with this.”
“She was my family, Kendrick,” Kaycee replied, shaking her head.
“I know, I know,” he whispered. Clasping his hands together, he lowered himself before her. “Please don’t give up on us because of this. Let’s work through it. Please, Kaycee. Please—”
“Kaycee, it’s time to go.”
The commanding sound of her mother’s voice cut through their discussion.
Kaycee looked up at her mother and then back at Kendrick, submissive before her. Katherine looked at Kendrick and shook her head in pity.
“Let’s go,” she said. “We need to get your father back to the hotel.”
Kaycee nodded. She turned to Kendrick and touched his shoulder before announcing that she was leaving. Kendrick remained in his position, hoping and praying that she wasn’t going to walk away. After a few minutes, he looked up to find that she was gone.
His ride home was silent. Kendrick could not believe that he had held Kaycee in his arms and lost her in the same day.
The last people he’d expected to see were her parents. It had never dawned on him that Kaycee was related to the woman to whom he caused so much pain, and he realized the awkward position that her parents were in.
When he turned his truck into their subdivision, he felt like an empty man. Kaycee was supposed to be with him. They were supposed to decide whose house they were going to stay at for the night. He was supposed to make good on his promise to make love to her, slow and sweet. The ache in his body matched the ache in his heart as he turned onto thei
r street.
Kaycee’s house was dark. He stopped the truck beside her mail box and stared at the structure, as if trying to will her to walk out of the front door and into his truck, but he knew it would not happen. Kaycee was probably somewhere with her parents.
It made him cringe to think about all of the things they could be saying to fill her head and turn her against him. He closed his eyes and prayed that the Lord would give him wisdom and peace.
Chapter 26
The hours turned into days without a word from Kaycee. Kendrick realized that she needed time to process everything, but he trusted that their love would have her call him back into her life, but she didn’t.
The fact that she might be gone broke his heart. Kendrick pulled the staff together and broke the news. Everyone rallied around him in support and took up the slack caused by Kaycee’s absence.
Day in and day out, Kendrick didn’t know if he was coming or going. He left home early in the day to come back late into the night without time to do anything but sleep. When he was feeling particularly sentimental he slept in his office, refusing to be around anything that reminded him of his beautiful brown-skinned, brown-eyed beauty.
On one particular evening he was stretched out in his recliner watching the sports channel, and he thought of the last time he and Kaycee had been together watching television and cheering on the team du jour. They’d had so much fun laughing, hollering at referees or players when they made bad calls or plays and recreating plays. He also remembered soft tackling her on the sofa where he proceeded to make a touchdown of his own.
He smiled as he remembered her gasping and then exhaling with satisfaction as he brought her completely under his submission with a stroke of his tongue against her sensitive and intimate places. When her body quivered uncontrollably in release, he mounted her with the urgency of all the stored love and passion that he felt for her. Later as he wrapped her body up against him, he professed his love to her over and over like a mantra until he fell asleep with Kaycee fulfilling his fantasies in his dreams.
Reality sank in quickly, bringing him back to the present, where he sat in his home all alone. Kaycee was gone. All they shared was gone. A pang of disappointment hit his heart. He turned off the television and closed his eyes, allowing the mourning process to begin.
“Where are you going?” Katherine Jordan asked her daughter as she entered the guest room and saw that Kaycee was packing. It had been almost two weeks since the fiasco at the reunion and she had grown accustomed to having her daughter home again in their protective custody.
“Mom, I do have my own place you know,” Kaycee gently reminded her.
“I know, but do you have to go now? Your father was about to fire up the grill.”
“Then you need to fire it up without me. I’m going home to get some things. I have to be at the airport in two hours.”
Thank God for perfect timing. She was on her way to Detroit to be with her best cousin Alexa. She and her husband Darius were expecting their first baby, and she had promised to be there for the birth.
Besides, they needed to talk. Since they were kids, Kaycee had always admired her older cousin. Alexa was not only beautiful, but she was also very smart and knew what she wanted in life. While these were admirable characteristics, Alexa would be the first to say that they also became her downfall. However, she was able to overcome herself, reunite with her first love and start up a ministry helping women realize their purpose in life.
Alexa and Darius’s testimony on how they had to fight through many devils to be together touched Kaycee’s life and she needed to be in the company of someone who had walked in her shoes and who could give her good advice. So she’d called Alexa, who was more than happy to have her come.
“Kaycee, do you think it’s a good idea to go home?”
Kaycee whirled around with irritation. “Yes, it’s a good idea. If you’re worried about me seeing Kendrick, don’t. I’m capable of handling myself.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurt again,” her mother calmly replied.
Kaycee immediately felt bad for snapping off. She walked across the room to give her mother a hug. “You’re right, Ma. I’m sorry for yelling. You just don’t understand.”
Katherine took Kaycee’s hand and led her over to the sofa.
“Try me.”
Kaycee was thrown off by her mother’s attempt at objectivity concerning her relationship with Kendrick, but she looked at it as a window of opportunity to bare her soul and perhaps build an alliance in the process.
“Ma, Kendrick is really a very nice man. He cares for me and about me. He’s never disrespected me. I never questioned his love for me.”
“But he lied.”
“He didn’t lie,” Kaycee challenged. “He had no reason to tell me about that. He didn’t even know we are related.”
“Kayce, I know Kendrick Thompson. As far back as I can remember he’s always been this pretty-boy playboy. He’s the kind of man who’s used to women approaching him and doing all of the work in a relationship, and then he walks away when he gets bored or tired. Look what happened to Vickie.”
“Well, the Kendrick I know is not any of those things. Since we’ve met, he’s been nothing but kind, loving and thoughtful.”
Katherine groaned. “But why him, baby? He’s old enough to be your daddy. You need to be with a man who is your age so you can grow together and someday have children.”
“Mom, can’t you see? I don’t want any other man. Kendrick and I have this connection. We share the same goals, we both have the same likes and dislikes. I never thought I would find a man who loved James Bond or eating popcorn with M&Ms as much as I do.
“In the beginning, we thought about our age gap and the possibility of having a family. We tried to keep our relationship on the professional level, but we couldn’t fight our feelings.
“You know how you can be with someone and not have to say any words, and when you do, sometimes you finish each other’s sentences? Well, that’s what it’s like with Kendrick. Everything is so in sync. Right now, I think the most important thing is that we love each other.” She reached over and grasped her mother’s hands and looked her square in the eyes. “We really do. I know you know what I’m talking about because I’ve seen it in your relationship with daddy.”
Katherine was quiet for a minute before softly replying, “I understand.”
Kaycee exhaled with relief. “I have to try and talk to him, Mom.”
“Like you said, you are an adult. I need more time to mull this over, maybe search my heart before I can give my blessing.”
Kaycee gave her mother a big hug and kiss and ran off to finish packing.
It wasn’t long before Kaycee was turning into her subdivision. She prayed that she wouldn’t see Kendrick because she didn’t know how she would respond to him. However, her prayers were thwarted when she approached her house and saw his car alongside another in his driveway.
She quickly pressed the button on the garage-door opener and drove inside, closing it before she could be seen. From there she went directly to her bedroom where she began to pack.
About an hour later, Kaycee descended the stairs, suitcase in hand. She placed it on the bottom step beside her carry-on bag and purse and went to the kitchen to straighten before she left.
As she stood at the kitchen window, she noticed movement in Kendrick’s backyard. She leaned closer to the window to find him standing beside, of all people, Martinique Rivers!
The glass that she was holding fell from her hand and shattered into a hundred pieces. She cursed lightly and reached into the sink to pick up the shards while trying to figure out why Martinique was at her fiancé’s house. A piece of glass grazed her finger, breaking the skin.
“Oh, my!” she exclaimed and quickly turned on the cold water. When it looked as if the blood had coagulated enough to cut back on the bleeding, she wrapped her wound in a paper towel. She walked around to the dining room, whic
h gave her a better view of Kendrick’s backyard, but by this time the pair were gone.
She hurried to the library in the front of the house and peeked through the curtains just in time to see what she feared—Kendrick embracing Martinique. Kaycee couldn’t believe her eyes. When he released his hold on her, he opened her car door, allowed her to get settled inside and shut it behind her. Leaning down, he said some final words before she pulled off. As he turned back to go inside, Kendrick paused long enough to look at her house. Kaycee froze at her place in the window, wondering if she had been seen, but he made no acknowledgement and went inside.
She stepped away from the window, holding her stomach. She felt like throwing up. One week away from him and he brings another woman into the picture.
Quickly, she gathered her things and carried them out to her car. She didn’t have time to ponder over what had taken place in the last week. She might go crazy. She just needed to get out of Atlanta.
Chapter 27
“Kaycee, I’m sorry,” Alexa apologized for the umpteenth time since she’d arrived in Detroit.
The pair were in Alexa’s car whizzing down the expressway back to her side of town in Southfield.
“Alex, it’s okay,” Kaycee assured her again.
“I forgot that I rescheduled this session because of the upcoming holiday. I couldn’t disappoint them,” she said, referring to the women’s business support group that was a spin-off of her magazine.
“I’m surprised that you’re still having sessions in your condition.” She said referring to her cousin’s expanded girth. Alexa was in her ninth month, due any day.
“Why not?” she asked matter-of-factly. “If I was on someone’s job I would have to work up to the time to deliver. Besides, I enjoy what I do. The women are so great.”
Kaycee was impressed by her cousin’s recent success.
Since she and her husband had relocated to Detroit three years ago, Alexa had started up her own magazine, Proverbs 31 Woman. The magazine addressed areas of interest to the Christian woman, such as balancing marriage, family and career. She had firsthand experience in that arena. The magazine had been so well received that she’d started up incubator groups that helped women to identify their life purpose and how to make them into a reality in their lives.