by Kayla Perrin
“Baden...”
Whatever he had been about to say got cut short when she closed the distance between them and wrapped herself around him like a blanket on a cold winter night.
A moment later, there were no barriers between them. He lifted her and Baden went willingly.
“This is what she meant?” Baden asked.
“She who and what?”
“The song,” Baden said. “‘Killing Me Softly.’ You’re killing me, Jesse.”
He grunted. “You think this is softly?”
* * *
She let her mouth on his warm brown skin answer the question.
He tasted like summer and honey and something that she couldn’t quite identify. What Baden did know was that kissing Jesse felt like coming home, like she’d waited her entire life to be in the arms of this man.
It was a struggle, but she eventually forced herself to focus on what was actually important right now.
“You did a nice job of dancing around my question,” she said.
Jesse sighed.
“I didn’t dodge the question, Baden. You’re just not getting that I came here to find you.”
“Yeah, to deliver a message from Sean.”
He shook his head. “That was only part of it. I knew that that had to be dealt with before we could...before I could, well, before I could approach you about a future us.”
He sounded sincere. But Baden no longer trusted her ability to discern the truth. Didn’t cops always withhold a part of the truth?
She could only wonder if there was more that he wasn’t telling her.
“It’s too much, too soon,” she said. “And I refuse to be held down anymore, by guilt or by regret.”
* * *
Jesse started to make a crack about lyrics of old disco tunes, but her expression told him this was not the moment to play.
Sean hadn’t known how to tell Baden the truth about himself. At least he had had a legitimate excuse. While he was being honest regarding his feelings for Baden, he was withholding a vital truth—or two—from her and Jesse got the feeling that Baden sensed that. Maybe that was the cause of her reticence to acknowledge what he’d now twice told her.
Also twice he had been given the perfect segue into his extended time off from the Raleigh Police Department. Like Sean, he had taken the coward’s way out of an unpleasant situation.
He was going to do it again, too.
“Do you have to work today?” he asked her.
“No, and I thought I’d surprise you with a little excursion.”
“Excursion?”
“I’m putting on my Miss Hawaii Chamber of Commerce Tourism Hostess hat.”
Jesse grinned.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Big Island.”
* * *
The pink-and-white bikini designed to turn heads was keeping up its end of the boutique’s marketing department’s promise. Jesse wanted to shoot every man who looked at Baden twice. And there was a lot of Baden to see.
She filled out the bikini top in a way that let a man know he could lose himself in her bosom for hours on end. Her stomach, flat and taut, also sported a surprising gold belly ring. He wouldn’t have pegged her for the type, but it looked good on her. And then those chocolate-colored legs, they just kept going on and on.
He smiled as she approached holding two froufrou drinks with umbrellas in them.
She thought it would be nice for him to see Hawaii’s Big Island. But all he wanted to do was drag Baden off to a secluded spot and make sweet love to her until neither of them could see straight.
The sun was warm on his body, but it wasn’t the heat of the day that had him worked up.
“I brought you a little refreshment,” she said.
“I could use something to cool me down.”
She eyed him, and because he was watching, he saw her surreptitious glance at his crotch. His desire for her was evident.
* * *
“Yo-hoo! I do declare. Is that you Baden Calloway?”
Baden placed the drinks on the small table anchored in the sand and turned to see who hailed her.
Jesse groaned. “The world is entirely too small,” he muttered as he reached for a beach towel and draped it across his lap.
“What do you mean?” She put her hand up to shield the sun from her eyes and see who was calling her.
Before Jesse could answer her, she was enveloped in a hug that took her breath away.
“Baden. It is you! Howard, look who’s here!”
When the woman finally let her go and she was able to take a decent breath again, Baden recognized the woman. Etta Rae Baker and her husband, Howard.
The two were in full-tourist Hawaiian gear, a long muumuu and sandals for Miss Etta Rae, with a giant straw purse with the word Hawaii embroidered on it. She’d gotten her hair done for her vacation, the gray, and a liberal bit of blue-black added, was pulled back and pinned up in a twist. And Mr. Howard, who was heading to a tiki stand, wore a Hawaiian shirt, a pair of unfortunate white shorts and sandals with what looked like white tube socks.
Baden bit back a groan even as she plastered a smile on her face. Miss Etta Rae was one of the biggest gossips in Cedar Springs. She could get news out faster than CNN, Twitter and TMZ combined.
“Well, I declare! This is such a surprise to see you. I didn’t know you were in Hawaii. I’m gonna have to tell Henrietta that we ran into you. Can you believe it, right here on the beach with your, uh, friend.”
“I’m so glad to see that you’re not out here just wasting away after that, well, you know, the, uh...” She waved a hand in a vague motion. “That was all so terrible what happened. But I see you’ve settled down with a young man.”
Etta Rae Baker took in Jesse, who’d stood up during the extended hug and her monologue. Curiosity faded away and a sly smile filled her round face. “Well, well, look, Howard. It’s Officer Jesse.”
“It’s detective now, Mrs. Baker.”
“Huh?” She didn’t wait for an explanation. “So, how long y’all been together? You sure make a nice-looking couple.”
She turned to her husband who had drifted off.
“Howard must be off getting another of those mighties.”
“Mighties?” Jesse asked.
“I think she means mai tai,” Baden said translating under her breath. “It’s a common mispronunciation.”
“Oh.”
Maybe the mai tais Miss Etta Rae and her husband had been downing would make them forget running into Baden and Jesse. Baden could only hope that was the case. The last thing she needed or wanted was gossip being spread around town about her and Jesse.
“Lord, those things are good,” Etta Rae was saying. “But don’t you dare tell Chaplain St. Clair. Right before we left Cedar Springs, he was preaching about the seven deadlies.”
“Miss Etta Rae, we’re not a...”
“I heard tell that you were on some kind of extended vacation, Officer Jesse,” Etta Rae said, turning her eagle eye on Jesse. “Nobody said you were out here in Hawaii.” She glanced between the two and grinned. “Is this a secret honeymoon?”
“No!”
The echo blast from both Baden and Jesse startled the older woman. Then she smiled. “I’ll keep your secret,” she said. “I’m gonna go find Howard.”
She pulled Baden in for another smothering hug. “I’m happy for you,” Etta Rae whispered in her ear.
Baden knew Miss Etta Rae’s words were supposed to be reassuring and uplifting, but running into the Bakers put a damper on the afternoon for her.
And the encounter brought her back to reality. She could pretend all she wanted, but there were plenty of people who hadn’t forgotten what had happene
d between her and Sean. And then, the way Sean had died only made things worse. So much worse.
* * *
The call from cousin Vanessa came a couple hours after they’d returned from their excursion. Baden had been thinking about the repercussions of Miss Etta Rae telling everyone that she and Jesse were an item. Would it really be that terrible?
About the time she decided that it wouldn’t, she got news that made everything else irrelevant.
Now, many hours and miles later, she realized she’d forgotten how comforting the Raleigh-Durham International Airport was. If Baden hadn’t been so stressed about getting home and to the hospital, she would have spent time lingering, kicking back in the rocking chairs and watching people go by.
There might be time for that later, much later.
She claimed her two bags and hightailed it to ground transportation for a taxi.
En route she got a text from Phoebe who was about to board a plane from Detroit headed to Raleigh.
Where r u?
DK. Just landed. N cab 2 hosp, Baden replied.
OK. B there soon. V said it’s bad.
I know. Praying hard, Baden texted.
Me too, cuz.
Of all her Calloway cousins, Baden was closest with Phoebe—the one she had the least in common with.
Gotta go. Trey is calling.
K.
She disengaged with Phoebe and greeted her other cousin, skipping the pleasantries.
“How is she, Trey?”
“Stabilized,” he said.
Baden breathed her first clear breath since getting the frantic message from Mama Melia and then the phone call confirming the news. “Good,” she said. “That’s good to hear.”
“Where are you, cousin?”
Baden glanced out the taxi window. “About five minutes away from Duke University Hospital.”
“She’s on the third floor in the cardiac intensive care unit. But I’ll meet you in the lobby and take you up.”
Chapter 9
When she didn’t answer her phone, Jesse got worried. He’d sent a couple text messages and had called, but Baden was either working or ignoring him. Somehow, after their conversations and that embarrassing encounter with the Bakers, he figured she was ignoring him.
If she wouldn’t answer the phone, he would just go see her in person. But there was no answer at the cottage and the silver Jaguar was gone.
Frowning, Jesse made his way to the main house.
Maybe Mama Melia Hookano would know where she was.
But she had no assurances for Jesse.
“Miss Baden gone to mainland, Mr. Jesse. She no tell me when or if she return to Hawaii.”
Jesse thanked Mama Melia who pressed a cellophane bag of cookies into his hand. But the cookies remained uneaten and on the front seat of his rental as Jesse contemplated the why and the I-should-have-known-better ramifications of falling for Baden Calloway.
* * *
Henrietta Calloway was sixty-seven years old and the rock of the Calloway family. A woman of strong faith and an even stronger constitution, none of her sisters, her children or the nieces she’d all but adopted, had ever seen her operating at less than 150 percent.
So it was a blow psychologically and emotionally to see her so small and frail in the hospital bed, surrounded by tubes and machines.
“She just fell asleep,” Patty said as Baden came in with Trey.
Baden hugged her Aunt Patty and squeezed Aunt Vicky’s hand, before making her way to the bedside where Aunt Henrietta lay. Baden placed her hand over her aunt’s and stood there for a moment. Her quiet prayer was interrupted by a tap on her shoulder.
She turned to see her aunts and cousin being ushered out of the room by a nurse who looked none too pleased to see the ICU room full of people.
“Miss, you’ll have to leave now.”
Baden nodded. She leaned over, kissed Aunt Henrietta on the forehead and then exited in front of the nurse.
She followed her relatives to a family waiting room that the Calloways had all but commandeered. She hugged more people, then perched on the edge of one of the available chairs.
“Where’s Uncle Carlton?”
“We finally convinced him to go home, get a shower and a change of clothes,” Aunt Patty said. “He’s been gone about an hour, so that’s a good sign. This has really been hard on him.”
“What happened?”
“Heart attack,” Trey said. “Luckily, she was with her girlfriend, Miss Nancy. You remember her, right, Baden?”
“The nurse, yes,” Baden said, vaguely recalling a tiny woman who manned the nurse’s station at church.
“The Lord was looking out for Henrietta,” Aunt Vicky said. Then added, “Baden, girl, let me take a look at you. It’s been forever.”
* * *
Catching up with her family made Baden realize just how much she had missed them all—and just how much she’d cut herself off from the support system that had defined most of her life.
She didn’t think she would be able to look back with fondness at her hometown after fleeing the way she’d done. But she had forgotten that home and family were always there with open arms.
Her year and a half in Hawaii had also made her forget the slow cadence of North Carolina accents, the cacophony of Calloways, all talking at the same time.
Baden checked in with both her office at Kona Realty and with Mama Melia on the Kapule Garden Estate, letting them both know what had happened. She looked at and deleted Jesse’s text messages, and ignored his calls. What, after all, was there to say to him? There was little that she could say in a text or on a voice mail that would convey her tangled emotions. Then reconsidering, she sent a quick text to him: On mainland. Family emergency. Details later.
She knew that, from Jesse’s perspective, she’d again run away without explanation.
All of the family had been called in because it was touch-and-go while her aunt had been in ICU.
They all said prayers of gratitude when Henrietta’s condition was upgraded. The doctors said her vitals were fine. But she was, for all intents and purposes, in a comatose state.
“She seems to respond to voices and music though,” the doctor said.
That was all the Calloways needed to know.
They agreed to a schedule so someone was always with Henrietta, who had been moved from the intensive care unit to a private room. One aunt read Scripture in the mornings and another read novels by Toni Morrison, Aunt Henrietta’s favorite author, in the afternoons. The senior choir from the Chapel of the Groves came and presented a mini concert to lift Henrietta’s spirit, which the nurses and other patients had enjoyed, as well.
When Baden sat with her aunt in the evenings, she just talked. She poured out her heart about Sean and Hawaii and Jesse Fremont.
On the second day of Baden’s vigil, she’d moved beyond her life in Hawaii and her desire for Aunt Henrietta and Uncle Carlton to come for a visit. Now, she was into personal territory, telling her aunt all the things that she’d kept bottled up inside for so long.
She’d lost her heart to yet another cop, yet another man who could hurt her by compounding the heartache that she had finally thought she’d squelched.
“I don’t quite know how it happened, Aunt Henrietta. I fell for him. Hard. I just looked up one day and realized I’d fallen head over heels in love with Jesse. And it’s just so...complicated,” she said on a sigh. “With Sean, well, you know about all that. Jesse came all the way out to Hawaii to see me. He said he loves me, and I doubted his sincerity because I could hardly bear to go through another heartache. But my heart aches right now, Auntie. I’m so... It’s just...I’m so confused. Jesse probably hates me. I ran off to come here without a word and he has no clue how I feel
about him.”
She fell silent for a moment, contemplating the mess of her personal life.
“I want what you and uncle Carlton have,” she told her aunt. “Decades of mutual respect and love.”
“Then you ought to marry this one.”
* * *
Henrietta’s recovery was cause for an epic Calloway family celebration. That’s what Jesse walked in on in the hospital’s family waiting room.
The crush of people were carrying on like it was a party when, from what he’d heard, Henrietta Calloway was close to death. He’d been angry and hurt when Baden had pulled her disappearing act. It wasn’t until he got in touch with someone back home that he found out it really was a family emergency that had sent her running, not necessarily his declaration of love. Her text read like an abrupt brushoff.
He knew the moment Baden spied him at the door. His skin tingled and the air seemed to leave the room.
Jesse watched as she pushed and excused herself to get across the room to him.
“Hello, Jesse.”
“Hey, Baden. My timing always seems to be off when it comes to you.”
She smiled. “Your timing is just fine,” she said. “Aunt Henrietta is finally awake and talking up a storm. She’s also demanding to be released so she can get home and tend to her family.”
“That sounds like the Henrietta Calloway I know.” He paused. “Can we talk about this?” Jesse asked.
He knew Baden knew that he wasn’t referring to her aunt’s health but the health and longevity of their relationship.
“I’d rather not,” Baden said, indicating the room full of her relatives. “But I think we have to. I’m allegedly a grown-up now despite some of my actions to the contrary. Like leaving without giving you the courtesy of an explanation.”
“You were worried about Mrs. Calloway.”
“That’s convenient and true,” she said, “but it’s not an excuse for just falling off the radar. Again,” she added drily.