"Most men would probably head trip off the females chasing them, but it's not what I need right now, for sure," said Kade.
Garcelle bumped her shoulder against his. "Don't worry. I got your back, and those hoochies and hags are gonna have to get through me," she said, pointing to her chest, as Kade dropped his head and laughed.
"You don't look like much of a bodyguard ... for me, anyway," he said as he turned his face to look at her.
Garcelle felt breathless. Kade really was a goodlooking man, with his square, angular features and caramel complexion, which the sun had deepened to a bronze. His eyes were deep set, and so very intense, above sharp and high cheekbones. His features were hard and handsome, in perfect contrast to his soft and curly hair.
"Garcelle?"
"Huh?" she asked, her eyes focusing in on his.
"Thanks for the talk," he said. "I never had a female friend-besides Reema."
She forced a smile. "That's me. Your buddy," she joked, even as the disappointment she felt surprised her.
4
Two Weeks Later
"See, Daddy, we're late for church," Kadina scolded him as she double-checked her ponytail in the passenger-side window.
"God will understand," Kade told her as he turned his Expedition onto the unpaved driveway of the Holtsville Baptist Church. Cars filled the yard, and Kade had to park near the ditch running along the side of the road.
They made their way inside, and Kade saw that his usual seats in the row with his family were taken.
Tsst ... psst."
Kade turned his head to find Portia Minton, an old classmate and the ex-wife of one of the men from his hunting club, patting the empty seat next to her in the pew. She had "gotten saved" a few weeks ago, and everyone mockingly called her Sister Portia because she seemed to be saved only on Sundays. Every other day of the week, she did plenty to repent for.
Kade waved and kept on moving.
He saw his brother Kaeden trying to discreetly get his attention near the front. Kade gripped Kadina's hand tighter and headed that way. Feeling like all eyes were resting on him, Kade was glad when they finally were in their seats.
As the church service continued on, Kade became more and more confused. Wherever he happened to rest his eyes, a woman smiled, winked, waved, or even blew kisses to him! Just when he thought he had to have imagined it, another woman would make her presence known to him. After Hazel Rogers, a divorcee with six kids-all under the age of seven-gave him a more than friendly smile, Kade focused his eyes and his full attention on the minister.
The weirdness continued after church. He could have sworn he saw the twins, Pita and Rita, shoving people out of the way to head in his direction. Kade rushed Kadina out of the church, behind Kaeden.
Everyone mingled outside, on the church grounds, and Kadina went running over to Kade's parents as soon as she spotted them. Kade and Kaeden followed at a slower space.
"Everything going good at the house?" Kaeden asked as he removed his rimless spectacles to clean them.
Kade towered over his brother by nearly four inches and had to look down at him as he answered. "Still have some unpacking to do, but I'm glad to be home."
"Kadina like it?"
"She says she does, and she talks about her mother more ... asking lots of questions and remembering things about Reema," Kade told him, with a smile.
"She was a special woman."
Kade paused in his steps. "Yes, she was."
Kaeden nodded. "There wasn't a better whist player around-"
'th, excuse me, gentlemen."
Kade and Kaeden turned to find Ollie Freehold standing behind them, with a big smile. "How you doing, Ms. Ollie?" Kade asked the sixty-something church secretary.
"Blessed all day, every day. Amen," she replied.
"Yes, ma'am," the brothers said in unison.
"Kade, I wanted to talk to you about hosting a shooting match as a fund-raiser for the church," said Ms. Ollie.
Kaeden smacked Kade on the back. "I'll let y'all talk business then and excuse myself."
Kade glared at his brother's retreating back as he felt himself cornered by Ms. Ollie.
Kaeden chuckled as he walked across the church grounds, toward where his family stood. His stomach growled, and he couldn't wait to taste whatever his mother was serving up for Sunday dinner. Being a bachelor, Kaeden rarely got a home-cooked meal, and when he did, it was at his parents'. His hightech kitchen still looked as spotless and new as the day he moved into his town house. Of course, to meet his Mrs. Right, he had to get more going on in his life than just his work.
Most of his time was spent with facts and figuresnumerical and not feminine. Growing up, his brothers had joked he was the nerd of the family. The safe one. The cautious one. The nonphysical one. The nonfarming one. The nervous one.
It was always a joke that he was the spitting image of Kahron, but they were as different as night and day. Being allergic to everything under the sun had a way of making a small boy find things to do other than be outside. And being the only person in the family to avoid the outdoors had taught him often and early how to be comfortable being alone.
He felt the heavy pollen in the air tickle his eyes, nose, and throat. He lifted his glasses to rub his eyes and gave in to a sneeze that rose fast. He tried to fight using the inhaler in his suit pocket but eventually gave in, hurrying to put it back in his pocket as soon as he was done.
At the sound of a flirty and feminine laugh, Kaeden turned his head. His heart hammered, and he instantly felt his palms sweat. He paused, and he nervously licked his lips as his eyes locked on her through his spectacles.
Jade Prince.
She was surrounded by four men, who all were just as captivated by her as he was. He watched as she reached out to lightly touch the arm of one of the guys as she spoke to him. She flung her head back and laughed, exposing the smooth dark brown of her neck.
In his mind, everything about her moved in slow motion. Her bright smile. The wind blowing in the medium-length curls of her jet-black hair. The flutter of long and curly eyelashes. The way her dress clung to her curvy, full shape.
She was woman. All woman. Curvy enough to compete with a glass Coke bottle. Full enough to be held tightly by a man. Soft enough to make that lucky man sigh at the very feel of her body pressed against his.
Kaeden wished he could be that man. When it came to Jade, he felt like a character in The Wiz: if he only had the nerve. Chancing one last look at her, Kaeden forced himself to keep on moving. A woman like Jade Prince would never take a second look at a guy like him. He had long since dealt with that fact.
"Well, who put the honey on your brother to draw all those bees?" his mother asked as Kaeden strolled up to his family.
Kaeden turned and looked over his shoulder. His eyes widened at the fifteen or so women circling around Kade. His brother looked like a deer caught in headlights from both directions.
"Whether he wants to be or not, looks like our big brother is back on the market," Kahron quipped from behind Kaeden.
"Oh, Jesus, is that Nettie Barnes gazing up in Kade's face with her fifty-year-old self?" Kael said, sounding annoyed.
"She's just hitting her prime, Pops," Bianca added.
"Well, I would want a stepmother, not a stepgrandmother," Kadina said, with a definite frown.
The entire Strong bunch laughed.
Garcelle stroked her brother Paco's head, which rested in her lap, as they watched television. Her father was napping in the recliner across the room, and her two uncles were in the backyard, playing dominoes with a couple of their neighbors. The house was quiet, and it felt good just spending time with her little brother. Every day he was changing. She was already chasing off fast and hot little thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls who were flirting with him because they thought he was older than he looked.
She knew that soon he would be the one doing the chasing. She smiled at the thought of Paco with a girlfriend. It seemed li
ke it wasjust yesterday that he was a chubby toddler that she loved to rock to sleep.
Paco used to love strawberry ice cream on a cone. He would lick the ice cream and then talk to it in that gibberish talk of toddlers. It was if he was in love with that cone, and he was that way each and every time he had one.
"Paco, do you remember how much you used to love ice cream cones?" she asked.
Her answer was a quiet snore that got louder as it lengthened. She kissed her two fingertips and then pressed them to his cheek. It was a special gesture that she'd done ever since he was just a baby.
She eased his head off her lap and rose to walk into the kitchen. She double-checked their lunch of roasted pork and yellow rice before she glanced out the window. Her uncles' music was blaring and mingled with their and their neighbors' raised voices as they played dominoes like their lives depended on it. They were making quite a ruckus. The trailers were not that far apart, and with the blurred line between one person's backyard and a neighbor's front yard, she was glad everyone in the trailer park got along so well.
She glanced over to the next row of trailers and saw that her friend Marta was home from her job as a housekeeper at the Holiday Inn. Garcelle reached in the back pocket of her jean gauchos. She counted out fifty dollars.
She wasn't at all surprised when the telephone rang just moments later. "What's up, Marta?"
"You know what's up. Get your wide hip ass over here."
Garcelle just laughed as she hung up the phone. She walked out the back door, throwing a wave to her uncles and the hand to their friends, whose mouths started to drool as soon as they spotted her.
"Man, hook me up with your niece," one of them said.
"What the hell this look like? Match.com or some shit?" she heard her Uncle Anthony say. `Just play dominoes, man."
Garcelle walked up the dirt road circling the entire trailer park. She came up on the big field in the center of the park, where the kids were playing kickball.
"Garcelle, Paco home?" one of the kids yelled out.
"He's sleeping, but go wake him up," she yelled back.
She cut across the rear of the field and walked into Marta's yard and past her new Ford Escort. She was just opening the door to Marta's single-wide mobile home when their friend Tasha's bright pink Cadillac whipped into the yard. Garcelle waited and held the door open for her.
"Whassup, Beyonce?" Tasha teased as she climbed the wooden steps. She was a short, full-figured girl who was not afraid in the least to wear a pair of short shorts and a tube top.
"Hola, chicas. ~ Como estas?" Garcelle joked back as they walked into Marta's house.
"Girl, I told you don't be speaking no Spanish to me," said Tasha.
Garcelle just laughed.
Marta and her sister Francesca were already sitting around the small, round table in her kitchen. Marta shuffled the deck of cards she held as she looked up at them through a plume of cigarette smoke. "Poochie's on the way," she told them.
Garcelle took her seat and slapped her fiftydollar stake on the table. This was her one recreation. A Sunday afternoon chilling with her crazy friends, complete with some light beer, storytelling, joke cracking, and a good ole deck of fifty-two, was just what she needed.
They heard the bass of a car system beat against the walls of the trailer. "Here comes Poochie," Tasha said, after peeking out the window. "She and Tank must be back together, 'cause he just dropped her off."
Marta pulled harder on her cigarette and rolled her eyes, with a string of Spanish expletives. "I guess we gone hear `Tank this' and `Tank that' all damn night."
"She got her little boy with her?" Garcelle asked.
"No," said Tasha.
"Thank God, 'cause he is bad as hell," Garcelle said just before the front door opened and Poochie strolled in.
"Lookey here, Garcelle. I got some new tricks for your ass today, baby," Poochie said as she slid into a chair at the table. "You ain't walking out with all the money this time."
Garcelle picked up the cards and shuffled them, looking each of her friends in the eye. "The game is seven-card stud, and in case you chicas still haven't learned ... I'm the one to beat."
"You boys sure you want to do this?" Kade asked as he easily handled the stallion that he was riding.
Kahron trotted up. He winked at his brother playfully before removing his chain with the cross medallion and slipping it into the back pocket of his slacks. "Scared you wrote a check that's going to bounce?" he asked as he dropped his shades down over his eyes.
Kade ignored him and looked over his shoulder as Kaleb slowly trotted his horse like he was in a parade. "Match him now. He swears that slow and steady always wins the race," Kade joked as he shook his head.
After dinner they had all been sitting around their parents' den, telling stories of their childhood, when Kade recalled how his younger brothers had always tried-and failed-to beat him in horse racing. That led to Kade, Kaleb, and Kahron all removing their suit jackets and rolling up the sleeves of their shirts. They were going to race for old time's sake.
Their mother warned them against such foolishness. Their father told them he wanted each and every one of his horses returned just the way the boys found them or he would cut some tail for old time's sake.
Bianca thought they were being childish, placing the horses at risk for male pride. Even her threats to withhold her wifely duty didn't stop Kahron from wanting to beat his older brother.
So here they were.
"Hold on. I want in on this," Kaitlyn called out from behind them.
The three brothers turned their silver-haired heads and looked over their equally broad and square shoulders to see Kaitlyn racing toward them on an allwhite stallion. Kaeden rode with her, with his spectacles in his hand.
Kaitlyn pulled the reins and stopped on a dime beside them, sending dirt and dust flying. The men all coughed and covered their faces with their arms as they waited for the soil to settle. "I wasn't old enough to get in on the fun, but I want a chance to whup all my brothers' butts ... well, except for Kaeden. No offense, big brother."
Kaeden cleaned his specs with a handkerchief from his back pocket. "None taken," he said, with a wheeze-like cough.
"You okay?" Kade asked, with his powerful eyes on his brother.
"I'm fine," Kaeden snapped as he slipped his glasses back on.
Kahron and Kade shared a long look.
"Okay, Kaeden, you can be the judge, like always," Kaleb said as he tried to settle down the black Arabian he rode. "You stay here, and we'll all go down to that line of trees, our starting point."
Kaeden slid down from the horse. As soon as his feet hit the ground, the other Strong siblings rode their horses toward the spot Kaleb had pointed out.
Kade was the first one to reach the trees. `Just a little preview of what I'm 'bout to do to y'all."
"You haven't crossed the finish line yet, brother," Kahron told him.
"Damn right," Kaleb threw in.
Kaitlyn just held the reins tighter and positioned her slender frame on the saddle, with a determined look on her face.
In the distance, Kaeden raised one arm. "On your mark. . . get set. . . go!"
Hot Like Fire (Dafina Contemporary Romance) Page 5