by CATHY L. CLAMP; FRANCIS RAY; BEVERLY JENKINS; MONICA JACKSON; GERI GUILLAUME
Anne heard a coy and seductive feminine voice from the other room. She strained to hear the words between them. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the tones of the woman’s voice grew strained, then louder and challenging.
“What do you mean you have someone staying here?” Anne heard the woman say as the staccato tap of heels on Trey’s hardwood floors moved closer to the kitchen.
A woman strode in with an air of possession and stood staring at Anne with her hands on her hips. She was dark-skinned and wore an elegant black pantsuit that fitted her slender form perfectly. Her braids were pulled back in a loose knot at her neck. Anne got the impression of energy and motion suppressed within the woman like a tightened spring.
Anne’s first emotion was alarm. She’d never been much for confrontation, and this fiery-seeming woman looked like she could cut her to shreds with her tongue. Anne’s second emotion was envy. What she wouldn’t give for a body like that.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman demanded.
Anne raised an eyebrow.
“Hold up, Renee. You don’t talk like that to a guest in my home.”
The woman rounded on Trey. “Our bed was still warm from when I left it before you put this fat yellow heifer in—”
“That’s enough. Get out.” Trey’s voice carried authority and command. This was not a man to fool with. Apparently Renee realized it, because she backed down.
“Damn no-good dog,” she muttered, and stalked out. A second later the slam of a door reverberated throughout the house.
Chapter 5
Trey wanted to strangle Renee. It wasn’t so much that her visit had discomfited him and that she had insulted Anne, but she’d wiped the satisfied, happy smile off Anne’s face and replaced it with an anxious, guarded expression.
“Forgive Renee,” he said. “She has a hair-trigger temper and was speaking out of her hurt. We just broke up.”
“Uh, sorry,” Anne said.
“Yeah, so am I.”
“That you broke up?”
“No. I’m sorry she upset you.”
“I’m all right.”
But the easy camaraderie they’d shared had evaporated. She looked at her watch. “I should call my folks in Boston. I’m sure they’re worried sick.”
“I thought you said that there was no love lost when you left.”
“I was angry; they were hurt and upset. But they’re the only parents I’ve ever known. That’s a fact I can’t run away from.”
“You love them.”
Anne nodded. “They’ve been good to me, in the best way they knew. I have to accept their limitations, but I’m not going to allow them to limit me anymore, much less define me.”
“What are you going to do?” Trey asked.
“I don’t know yet, except that things are going to have to change.”
Trey reached out and touched her hand, an intended gesture of comfort. He was stunned by the current that passed between them, the rush of sexual energy, unbidden and unwanted. Why was he attracted to a woman who for all intents and purposes shouldn’t attract him? He liked slim women, he liked culturally aware women, and he liked black women. But he wanted to lean over and pull this plump, light, and bright woman to him. He wanted to kiss her and feel her rosy lips under his.
He didn’t need the complications in his life. He liked things simple and straightforward. He was a logical man, and things he didn’t fully understand . . . well, they scared him. She scared him—this woman with the witchy cloud-colored eyes who seemed to hold some spell over him.
Anne pulled her fingers away from his and stood, clearing her throat in the manner that he recognized signaled her anxiety. He also stood, and headed for the coffeepot to cover his own confusion. When he looked her way again, she’d gone, silent as a ghost.
“I don’t understand how you could have just up and left us Christmas Day without letting us know where you were all night. We were worried sick,” Grammy said.
Anne took a deep breath. “I should have called sooner.”
“Where are you anyway? I’ve called your friends, everybody who I could think—”
“I’m in Atlanta.”
“Are you staying with his people?” Grammy asked after a too-long pause.
“Would I be welcome back in your house if I were?”
“If it weren’t for him, you’d still have your mother. . . . I’d still have my Lydia.”
“It was an accident, a tragic accident. They loved each other.”
Silence.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Anne said in a soft voice.
“Why are you doing this to us after all this time? Why now? Didn’t we do enough for you?”
“I’m not doing anything to you. I’m simply trying to find a part of myself. I should have done it sooner. I suppose you’ve answered my question. I won’t darken your door again.” Anne gave a bitter laugh. “Pardon the pun.”
“This is your home and it always will be. You’re my grandchild and I raised you as my own. Nothing can ever change that. This has nothing to do with race.”
“Are you kidding?” Anne said. “This has everything to do with race. You can’t stand the fact that I’m finally acknowledging what everybody else has known from the get-go: I’m a black woman.”
“You are not a black woman.”
“No, Grammy. I am a black woman and there’s nothing bad or shameful about it. There’s a whole side of myself that I tried not to see because you never wanted me to. But you know what? It changed nothing. I am black and I’ve always been black. I can see it in the faces of my white friends and my white relatives. I’m not one of you. I’m treated like someone fundamentally flawed, as if I were born with some sort of birth defect.”
“It’s not true,” Grammy whispered.
“You know that it’s true. As a child I believed that I was treated differently because I was ugly. It’s time I faced the fact that I’m not extraordinarily ugly; I’m treated differently because I’m black.”
“You’re Lydia’s child; you’re as much white as—”
“Black. My God, you can’t even say the word,” Anne said. Her hand tightened on the phone as she heard the sound of her grammy’s soft sobs.
“Please come home,” her grammy said, pain crinkling her voice. “We can work this out. We love you. I love you. Just . . . please come home.”
She felt more at home with Trey than she’d ever felt in her life. But she couldn’t say that to her grammy. “Later. I have to do this first.”
“Have you met them yet?”
Anne drew in a breath. “I have. They are nice people. You’d like them.”
“When will you be back?”
“I’m not sure. Possibly after Kwanzaa.”
“After what?”
“Kwanzaa. It’s an African-American holiday over the next seven days. I’m celebrating it with them.”
“Will you at least let me know where you are?”
There was a pleading tone in her grammy’s voice. Anne wished she could hug the woman who’d raised her. She did believe that her grandparents had done the best they could. They were old Boston Irish, a product of a prejudiced and more insular generation. Maybe asking them to change was too much. But if they wanted her to continue to be a part of their lives, they’d have to change. She wasn’t turning her back on who she was any longer.
“Do you have something to write with?” Anne asked.
She waited as her grammy wrote down Trey’s address and phone number.
Tears filled Grammy’s voice as she said good-bye. “I love you, Anne. Please don’t forget that,” she said.
“I love you, too, Grammy.”
Anne wasn’t sure what she should wear on this special evening, the first day of Kwanzaa and the first day visiting her paternal grandparents’ home. She still basked in the warm glow of their acceptance, but she couldn’t deny her fears. Would she fit in? Would she be good enough?
Anne had
had a lifetime of not fitting in. It would be almost too painful to bear if she felt that too-familiar polite distancing, that unspoken communication that she wasn’t one of them. This had to be where she belonged and where she was accepted. Her grandmother Helen had welcomed her home.
She prayed that it was true as she reached for the simple black dress hanging in the closet. It would have to do; it was all she had. She’d always believed in traveling light. She took special care with her makeup. When she was finished, Anne stared at herself in the mirror and frowned. She didn’t like the way. she looked. Tonight she wanted to look special.
She reached back and uncoiled her hair from her customary knot. She shook her hair loose. It cascaded around her face and over her shoulders like an auburn cloud.
Her hair was wild and bushy, with a woolly texture. Unacceptable. Which was why she always wore it tightly pulled back. When she was a child, Grammy would drag her to white beauty salons and beg the hairdressers to straighten it. Anne couldn’t deal with the hair breakage that seemed to inevitably ensue and refused to go as she became older.
Despite the grief her family and friends gave her over her hair, she had always secretly loved it. She touched it now. Her hair was strong and healthy, long and natural. She had never wanted straight and silky locks.
Anne picked up a brush and ran it over her hair. Even with its tight woolly curl, it reached to her mid-back; straightened, it would easily be waist-length. While she had inherited her hair’s length and color from her mother, its texture branded her as a black woman. Tonight she’d proudly wear it loose in public for the first time in her life.
She walked into the living room to meet Trey and drew in a quick breath at the sight of him in African garb. His orange, blue, and brown–striped hat matched his flowing tunic and accentuated the handsome masculinity of his features.
He was staring at her like she was an apparition who had materialized suddenly in front of him.
“What?” she asked.
“Your hair . . .”
She touched it, suddenly feeling self-conscious and defensive. “I wanted to wear it down. I generally never do.”
“It’s beautiful. More than beautiful—glorious.”
Anne felt her face warming. “Thanks,” she muttered.
He reached out to touch it. “I love it natural. You should never straighten it.”
“I won’t. It breaks it off.”
Her words were a cover for the pounding of her heart. She felt the heat radiating from his body, generating an answering heat from her own. She could almost swear that her hair had grown nerve endings from where his hand lingered.
It felt natural to tilt her head upward as her tongue slipped out and moistened her lips. She wanted this man to kiss her more than anything in the world. She needed it. Needed to feel his body next to hers.
She stared into Trey’s half-lidded eyes, at the unmistakable sexual challenge within them, and reached out a hand. Moving close to him, she touched the tight, wiry curls at the nape of his neck.
He exhaled and her eyes closed; his arms circled her body and drew her close. He lowered his head and his lips covered hers, warm and firm, wholly masculine.
The room spun. When his tongue gently touched hers, she felt a shudder of passion explode through them both. He drew her closer against his hard body and the once-gentle kiss became hungry, needing. The hard ridge of male flesh drove all thought from her mind. Her body wanted it, wanted him. She couldn’t help moving her aroused, swollen flesh against the hard heat of him. He groaned and the sound of it reverberated through her body, sending a rush of dampness. Their kiss turned ravenous and they slid rhythmically against each other. She gasped as desire rippled through her, coiling tight in her belly, ready to explode.
“Let’s go to the bedroom,” Trey whispered in her ear, his voice husky and hoarse. His hands were reaching under her dress, his lips traveling down her throat to her breasts—
Anne turned to ice inside. His bedroom meant clothes shed, penetration, and exposure. She drew away, trying to steady her breathing, and clenched her hands to gain control of her aroused body. It needed the one thing her mind also desired but feared.
“What’s wrong?” Trey said.
“My family is expecting me. We just can’t not show up.”
“We can be a little late,” he said, reaching for her.
“Trey . . .”
He grinned down at her. “OK, I know how important this is to you.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Tonight,” he whispered.
Chapter 6
“Habari gani?” Anne’s grandfather asked.
“Umoja,” her family chorused in unison. Many were dressed in African clothing.
Kwanzaa felt new again to Trey as he watched Anne’s happy and excited face as her grandfather lit the middle black candle in the kinara, the traditional Kwanzaa candleholder with its seven candles.
“Is he going to light them all every night?” Anne whispered.
“No. A candle is lit each successive day of Kwanzaa, starting with the black candle in the middle—that candle symbolizes the unity of the African peoples,” Trey answered.
He saw Anne touch a lock of her hair. “My people,” she whispered.
Her statement didn’t call for an answer. He smiled down at her, feeling her wonder at belonging to a rich heritage she was newly discovering. Sharing and observing Anne’s interest and pride in Kwanzaa made it more meaningful than ever to him.
Finally, the family stood gathered around the long dining room table, loaded with food. They joined hands and bowed their heads. As Trey held Anne’s small warm hand in his, emotion filled him that he couldn’t quite place. An ache in his heart, a sort of longing?
The heat between them, although surprising to him in its intensity and with this particular woman, was something he could understand. He knew about sex and passion, and the responses of his body were predictable. But what this woman was doing to his emotions and mind was something else. There was a deep uneasiness within him at the unexpectedness and newness of it all. But for now, he decided to simply accept the rightness of her by his side, her hand in his. He would deal with how he felt later.
“On this first day of Kwanzaa our guiding principle is unity,” Anne’s grandfather said. “We thank you, Lord, for the unity, strength, and love we share within this family. We thank you for the special blessing and privilege of knowing Evan’s child. His spirit and blood live on in her. We praise you, Father, for bringing her home to us.”
Trey watched Anne’s eyes fill. He couldn’t imagine how she must have felt growing up—somehow alienated from the world that her family insisted she stay in, different and set apart and not fully able to grasp the reasons why. He’d wanted to protect her and was more than grateful that there was no need. These people were loving and caring and they showed no hesitation in enfolding Anne within their family.
The warmth and spirit that he sensed within Anne echoed throughout this family. Her grandparents’ home had a feeling of refuge and sanctuary. He would bet that their daughters still spent a lot of time here and that grandchildren were always in and out of the house.
After the meal, Trey leaned back, groaned, and probably wasn’t the only one who had to surreptitiously let his belt out a notch.
He started to rise to help Anne and her aunts clear the table. “Those dishes aren’t going anywhere,” Helen said. “Jewel and Eve will have their girls wash up after the Kwanzaa celebration at the community center. We don’t want to be late.”
Trey held the door open for Anne as they headed toward his car and the community center. “So what do you think?” he asked.
“I’m overwhelmed. I haven’t even gotten their names all straight yet, but I feel like one of them already.”
“You look like them,” he said. He studied her features. How could he ever have thought of her as ordinary or plain? She was beautiful, a honeyed Botticelli Venus surrounded by a cloud of glorious hair.
The atmosphere within the car grew heavy and thick with tension, longing, and, yes, desire. He smelled her scent, a smoky blend of woods and spices. Was that what she was really like? Smoky and complex, exotic, earthy, and sweet?
He wordlessly ran a finger down her cheekbone, letting his touch speak for him. He lowered his head and touched his lips to hers. Her soft lips, the warmth of her skin, and the scent of her surrounded and intoxicated him. He needed to know her, wanted to touch her, to sink inside her. He hated the confines of his car; he needed to feel her against him. He wanted to feel her against him. All of her.
Suddenly he heard a tapping on the window. “Y’all are steaming up the windows!” one of Anne’s young cousins called, giggling.
“Come on here, girl, and leave them alone.”
The voices receded and Trey pulled away from Anne and grasped the steering wheel, breathing hard. He hadn’t been aroused so quickly for a long time. He turned his head and saw that Anne’s lips were moist and swollen and her hair spilled over his leather seat. Her coat had fallen open. Her breath was coming rapidly between her parted lips, and he could see the outlines of her nipples through her black dress.
Trey inwardly groaned. He wanted to forget about the celebration at the community center and make love to her all through the night. Patience. Tonight she’d finally be his. He tore his gaze away from her and turned the key in the ignition.
“This is my mother, Rachel,” Trey said. “And my sisters, Tess and Tina,” he added.
Anne’s smile faded at the sight of his mother’s and sisters’ assessing gazes. “Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Trey said you’re from Boston. You’re visiting family?” his mother asked.
“Uh, yes,” Anne said. She felt uncomfortable with this woman’s unsmiling stare and staccato question.
“I imagine you’ve known each other for quite a while for you to be staying with him instead of your family.” Trey’s mother’s words had the certainty of fact combined with the force of a question.