Surprisingly, Detria didn’t blame him for their daughter’s accident.
“You drove here by yourself?”
“Yes, I’m pregnant, Stiles. I’m not an invalid.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I know you can drive. But Brooke was at the house and I, well anyway, you’re here and I’m glad you aren’t upset with me.”
“Brooke left right after you did.”
Detria stopped walking and stood in front of Stiles as they exited the ER and approached her car, which was only a few cars from where he parked.
“Look, Stiles. No matter what our issues are, one thing I know is that you would never do anything to hurt our daughter. Kids have accidents all the time, and it doesn’t always mean someone else is at fault. You’re a good father. Our daughter is going to be fine. That’s all I’m concerned about.” With that, Detria opened her car door then she opened the back door.
“Thanks,” he said.
“It’s the truth. Now, if you’ll put her in her car seat, I’d appreciate it.”
“Are you sure? She was pretty upset after that fall and having to get stitches. If she wakes up on the drive home, she might have another one of her tantrums.”
“She’ll be fine, but…,” Detria paused, “if you want to follow me home, you can. If that’ll make you feel better.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that. Oh, do you want me to stop and grab something for her to eat? I never got the chance to get that pizza I promised her.”
“Yeah, that would be nice. When she wakes up, I’m sure she’s going to be starving.”
“Okay. See you in a few.”
Stiles waited until Detria was safely inside her car. He double-checked to make sure a sleeping Audrey was securely latched in her car seat before he turned and walked to his own car.
He drove behind Detria until he made it to the street where the pizza restaurant was located.
Detria continued the drive home and Audrey didn’t wake up. God, I wish I could say I love my husband. I really do wish that I could.
She turned on to their street, pushed the remote button built into the car and the garage door opened. Her cell phone started ringing just after she pulled in. She ignored it, but right away it started ringing again while she was trying to unlatch Audrey from her car seat. She ignored the call again.
When she unlatched Audrey, the little girl woke up. She stared at her mother like she was still half-asleep but then quickly started crying and reaching for her.
“You’re going to be okay, Audrey. Daddy’s going to get you some pizza. You want some pizza, don’t you?”
Audrey whined, but she nodded her head too.
“Okay, come on then. Stand up like a big girl. I can’t hold you because Mommy’s tummy is in the way. So hold my hand, and we’re going to go in the house and wait for Daddy.”
For the third time the phone started ringing. This time Detria had made it inside the house. She pulled the phone from her purse and looked at the number. “Dang, Skip. You have a weird sense of timing,” she said aloud, while at the same time pushing the button to answer his call.
Chapter 29
“There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” M. L. King, Jr.
Skip pulled up into Detria’s driveway. He was sick and tired of her putting him on a back burner like he didn’t matter. And to make matters worse, the broad had hurried him off the phone – again by talking all crazy. No way was she going to push him off like he was some okie-doke kinda dude. He wasn’t one to be played with; he was always the one to call the shots. A female like Detria would never control him or kick him to the curb. Women like Detria came a dime a dozen and his motto was, he didn’t chase ‘em he replaced ‘em. That was his motto. If it hadn’t been for the fact she might be carrying his child, he would have been glad to call it quits. She was the one who went after him in the first place.
Detria hadn’t been shy at all about letting him know that she was attracted to him. That day when Audrey was still just a baby, and Detria exposed her supple breasts in her office at Holy Rock on the premise that she had to feed her child, Skip knew what time it was. Detria wanted him, and he wasn’t one to back away from a female, especially one as hot as Detria Graham.
He didn’t especially like that the years of friendship between him and Stiles was over but in his book, Stiles must not have been doing something right, or Detria wouldn’t have stepped his way in the first place.
Now, here he was, about to knock on Detria’s door, unannounced. But it is what it is. He knocked on the door repeatedly until Detria answered. She looked like she could have been bought for a dime when she saw him standing there.
“What are you doing here? Turn right back around and leave.” She tried to close the door, but Skip pressed the palm of his hand against it, halting her attempt.
“Look, all I want to do is know how you’re doing.” He reached out and touched her belly.
“Skip, you need to leave.”
Skip ignored her and walked up on her. Gently pushing her inside the house, he closed the door behind them. He pulled her into his arms and began kissing her passionately. His hands visited her familiar curves and mounds as his breath grew heavy with desire.
In return, Detria tried to push him away but her desire for him was greater than what her mind was telling her she needed to do. When it came to Skip, there was no turning back. This was the very reason she tried to ignore him, tried to get him out of her life.
“Momma.” Audrey appeared and started crying. “Momma,” she said again.
Skip stepped off. Detria moved slowly from against the wall and looked down at her daughter like she was irritated that the little girl had walked up on her and Skip.
“What happened to her?” Skip asked, looking at the bandage on Audrey’s head.
“She was with her daddy earlier and she had an accident in the park.”
Skip stooped down until he was face to face with the toddler. “Hi, there, sweet girl. You all right?”
Audrey stopped crying and looked at Skip.
Skip reached for her tiny little hand. “You’re going to be all right. You’re a big girl, you know.” He continued talking to her, and before long, Audrey was practically giggling.
Detria stood back and watched the scene as it unfolded before her. She imagined how good a father Skip would be to their son. That was another secret she had kept from both Skip and Stiles. She had an ultrasound and found out she was carrying a boy. She only confided in Brooke, and had sworn her to secrecy.
Detria used to have several women friends that she worked with when she was a nutritionist, but those friendships she had severed long ago. It was hard for her to trust other women because she knew how conniving women could be, especially women in the church who practically preyed on men like Stiles. A handsome, young, charismatic preacher like Stiles…women practically threw their panties up in the pulpit on Sundays.
Detria’s mother had cautioned her more than once about having too many women friends. And when First Lady Graham was alive, she had told her to watch out for church women because they were only out to steal her man from underneath her nose. Detria was not going to have that.
Skip wrapped his arms around her rapidly expanding waist, and used his other hand to rub her belly while Audrey stood next to them.
“Stop, boy. You see Audrey,” she whispered, as the little girl was busy trying to open the stick of gum Skip had given her. “You have to go. Stiles will be here any minute. He stopped to get some pizza for Audrey, and then he’s on his way.”
Skip acted like Detria hadn’t said a word as his hands traveled below her belly, sending shivers of excitement up and down her spine.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered hoarsely. He kissed her again and caressed her tenderly in her intimate spot.
“I told you,” she stuttered.
“If you want me to go, tell me the sex of our child.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had an u
ltrasound yet,” she conveniently lied.
“Feels like a boy,” he said, kissing her again.
“Quit it,” she said in short, almost gasping breaths as she moved his hand off her belly.
The doorbell rang. Detria swiftly shoved him away. “I told you to go. Now Stiles is here. Oh, God!”
Skip appeared unfazed. “That fool knows what time it is. Anyway, he doesn’t live here anymore, and I’m here to check on you.”
“You should have left like I told you,” Detria shouted as the doorbell rang a second time, followed by a third.
Detria rushed to the door, but by the time she got there, Stiles had used his key and bolted inside.
“I know this nee…I know you ain’t got him up in my house around my daughter,” Stiles yelled, dropping the pizza to the floor and rushing up the foyer.
Audrey ran to her daddy and reached for him. Stiles picked her up and then turned and gave Detria, who had followed behind him, a nasty look. “You got him around my daughter?”
“Don’t blame her,” Skip said in a harsh voice as he appeared from around the corner and faced Stiles. “She wanted me to go but like I told her, I have every right to come check on the mother of my child.”
“Get her out of here,” Stiles barked at Detria, putting Audrey back down on the floor.
Detria stepped between them. “Stiles, look...why don’t you just go.”
“What did you say? Me? Go? Are you out of your freaking mind? This is my house,” he barked. “You need to tell him to go!” Stiles pointed at Skip. ”Better yet, I’ll tell him. Get out of my house, now!”
Without warning or saying another word, Stiles lunged at Skip and the two men began fighting, knocking over the bronze finished console table in the foyer. The mirror above it came crashing down to the floor next, shattering in pieces, followed by the two sconces that framed the mirror.
Audrey was crying and Detria was screaming for the two of them to stop. She took hold of Audrey’s hand and practically dragged her to the family room and sat her down in one of the chairs.
“Stay here.” Audrey shook her head and cried even louder, refusing to be still. “I said stay here!”
Audrey buried her head in its soft cushion and cried her little heart out, while Detria turned and raced back into the foyer.
When she got back to the foyer, she was blood was all over the hardwood floors. Both hands flew up against her face as she yelled and screamed. “Stop. Stiles…don’t. You’re going to kill him. Pleease, stop!”
Stiles pounded Skip mercilessly. Skip struggled to get up off the floor, only to have Stiles kick him in the ribs again and again.
“I’m calling the police,” Detria warned but Stiles still didn’t stop. He was acting like a lunatic, like he’d gone out of his mind.
Skip managed to get up. His face was bloody and swollen. It was like a tag team match or something because now Skip was pounding Stiles. Stiles fell back and landed on the box of pizza. Now there was sauce and pepperoni pizza mixed with blood all over the floor.
Detria, in her haste to separate her husband and lover, slipped, and fell hard. Her belly hit against the broken table. She hollered in pain but the men didn’t seem to notice or hear her.
She held on to her cell phone, and slowly managed to get to her feet, though she was wobbly. She called 9-1-1. While listening to the operator on the other end, without warning, she collapsed onto the floor again. This time she screamed even louder like she was in excruciating pain, causing both men to stop fighting as she begged for help.
“Detria.” Skip staggered like a drunk man over to her side, falling down on his knees beside her.
“Ohhhh,” Detria cried. “My baby, I think my baby is coming.”
“It’s too early,” Stiles yelled as he rushed to her other side and glared with evil eyes at Skip. “Get away from her. Get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Skip screamed back, cussing violently. His left eye was swollen shut and blood dripped down on his clothes and onto the floor from his busted lip and nose.
Audrey came in the foyer crying so loud that Stiles had to leave Detria’s side and go to his daughter.
“Ohhh, God, nooo! It’s too early.” Detria held her stomach. “Hang on, Detria. I’m calling 9-1-1 now,” Skip told her and proceeded calling, unaware that Detria had already put in the call. “Just hang on.”
Within minutes, sirens could be heard as squad cars rode down on the Graham house.
Stiles, with bloody clothes and a bloody face of his own, rushed to the door and opened it. Leaving poor little Audrey crying inside, he ran outside to meet the police.
Next, an ambulance pulled up, and paramedics got out, followed by another squad car. Neighbors started gathering outside their homes and along the sidewalks in the prestigious neighborhood, while still others peered through their picture windows.
“My wife, Officer. She’s pregnant, and I think she’s gone into labor.”
Chapter 30
“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” Charles Schulz
Hezekiah was at home, in his office, on the Internet, finalizing travel arrangements for Xavier’s visit to Memphis, when Fancy burst into the room.
“Baby, I just got off the phone with Sister Kastleberry.” Fancy sounded panicky. “She said Pastor Graham and the first lady were involved in some kind of altercation. They were taken by ambulance to the hospital! She said Pastor Graham is in critical condition, and the first lady lost their baby.”
“What? Are you sure? You know Sister Kastleberry is the church gossip, Fancy.”
“I know, honey. But it sounded like she knew what she was talking about. Anyway, I think it’s worth checking out.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Hezekiah called Stiles’ phone several times, but it kept going to his voicemail. Next, he called Leo and repeated what Fancy told him.
“Deacon Jones, I’ve been trying to reach Pastor Graham, but his phone keeps going to his voicemail. Have you talked to him today?”
“No, not today.”
“I’m starting to get worried,” said Hezekiah.
“Man, I hope he hasn’t done anything stupid,” Leo mouthed.
“Why don’t you try to get in touch with the first lady? Me and Fancy are going to drive over to Pastor Graham’s apartment. I can’t dismiss Sister Kastleberry, because as much as I hate to say this, that woman always seems to have the inside scoop on the going-ons at Holy Rock.”
“How she manages to find out stuff so quickly amazes me too,” Leo responded. “I’ll try calling the first lady before I head over her way.”
“Cool. Let me know what you find out.”
“Will do,” answered Leo.”
“I’ll talk to you in a few,” said Hezekiah and they ended their call.
When the couple arrived at Stiles’ apartment, Hezekiah knocked until he was confident that Stiles wasn’t home. He and Fancy left there and headed straight over to Stiles and Detria’s home, praying that the call Fancy received wasn’t true and was just another ridiculous rumor circulating. So many untruths had been told about Stiles and First Lady Graham ever since news of her affair with Skip went public.
Leo called Hezekiah and told him what he found when he arrived at the Graham’s house. “Man, me and Cynthia are at their house now. Someone just told Cynthia that Stiles and another man got into a big fight, so I take it Stiles wasn’t at his apartment?”
“No, he wasn’t there.” Hezekiah’s voice revealed frustration mixed with uncertainty. “Jesus,” Hezekiah swore before realizing it. “You think it was with Skip?”
“I don’t know, but more than likely it was. Anyway, that’s not all.”
“What else?”
“There’s nothing but chaos. Cops are everywhere. The news and media are out here too,” Leo told Hezekiah.
“This means that what Sister Kastleberry said is probably true. What could Pastor Graham
have been thinking?”
“Who knows, but there’s a big crowd gathered outside their house.”
“And you don’t see the first lady? Pastor Graham? Skip? Anybody?”
“Nope, I’m afraid not.”
Suddenly the phone quality was muffled. Hezekiah could hear people talking but he couldn’t’ understand what was being said.
Leo returned to the phone. “One of the cops out here just confirmed to the media that several people were injured and had to be hospitalized. They didn’t give the names or their conditions.”
“God, no. Not this.”
“What is it?” Fancy asked but Hezekiah ignored her.
“They probably took them to Methodist Germantown. That’s the closest hospital to here,” Leo said.
“Okay. We were headed over your way, but we’ll go to the hospital instead and see what we can find out.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you there,” Leo said. “But first, me and Cynthia are going to see if someone can tell us where Audrey is.”
“Oh, Lord. I pray that little girl didn’t witness anything tragic.”
“Lord, have mercy.” Fancy suddenly looked like all the blood had been drained from her face.
“Leo, I’ll call and let you know what I find out. In the meantime, wait before you contact the First Lady’s family and Pastor Graham’s father. We need to confirm how much of this stuff is true.”
“Yes, Pastor McCoy.” They ended the call and Hezekiah and Fancy took off in the direction of the hospital.
***
Hezekiah and Fancy were stationed in the ER waiting room, waiting to hear news about the condition of Stiles and Detria.
Cynthia located Audrey at one of Detria’s neighbors and carried the traumatized little girl home with her. Leo told her to go on and call the Mackey family and tell them what had happened.
Cynthia called Brother Mackey, told him the unfortunate news, but assured him that Audrey was safe with her and that she would take care of the little girl while they went to the hospital to see about Detria.
My Wife My Baby...And Him Page 14