“Probably,” Gian answered.
Tracy turned back to Gian, her sun-damaged face drawn in severe lines meant to resemble an expression of motherly pride. “Aren’t they adorable? So full of life and imagination. There are times I look at them and ask myself, what more could I possibly need?”
“A tranquilizer gun,” Zae suggested.
“Who are your friends, Gian?” Tracy’s tone chilly, she finally acknowledged Cinder and Zae with a glassy smile.
“Zae Richardson, Cinder White, this is Tracy Leach-Roche,” Gian said.
“I’m just Leach now,” Tracy corrected him. “I dropped my ex-husband’s surname.”
“Zae and Cinder are two of my best students at Sheng Li,” Gian went on. “Zae got her second black belt last winter and Cinder is my prize pupil.”
The beauty of Cinder’s innocent surprise caught Gian off guard. His heart surged, a breath caught in his chest, and in the short second it took him to regain control of himself, he was certain the three women could read his burgeoning feelings for Cinder as if his heart and head were transparent.
Tracy, a wrinkle like a hatchet mark appearing between her overly tweezed eyebrows, very precisely said, “Prize pupil?”
Gian kept his eyes on Cinder. “You’d never know that she hadn’t had any prior training when she came to me. She’s amazing.”
Cinder smiled, this one unfolding slowly, this one meant for Gian only. His appreciation for the gift was such that had they been anyplace else other than the meat counter of Freddie’s Market, he would have cupped her face and drawn her in for a kiss that would have shown her exactly how much he loved that smile.
“I’ll just bet she is,” Tracy muttered tersely through an icy grin that shattered with the sound of a loud metallic crash from the produce section. “I’d better see what my darlings are up to. Good running into you, Gian.” She gave Cinder and Zae a dismissive glance, saying, “Cindy, May.”
At the end of the produce section, Tracy ran into a group of women she knew. Another crash, followed by the voice of an angry Freddy’s employee, sounded while Tracy huddled with her friends, each of them doing a poor job of sneaking glances at Zae, Cinder, and Gian.
“You might want to get out of here before the hyenas finish strategizing, Gian,” Zae warned. “They look like they haven’t had meat in a long time.”
While Zae and Cinder collected their neat white bundles from the butcher, Gian vanished into the cereal aisle and raced for the two check-out stands.
Zae leaned in close to Cinder. “You better go after him,” she directed. “Tracy Leach-Roche don’t play. She’s been trying to fix Gian up with her motley crew of fellow divorcees ever since he shot her down at last year’s Christmas parade. She seems to think that getting him with one of her friends is the next best thing to having him herself.”
“You know Tracy?” Cinder asked.
“I know of her. Her oldest goes to school with my twins.”
Cinder and Zae steered their shopping carts into the cereal aisle. Without looking at what she was doing, Zae grabbed two boxes of shredded wheat from the shelf and put them in her cart as she spoke. “You saw the way they broke as soon as Gian left us. They’re on the hunt,” Zae whispered through gritted teeth. “Go get your man, girl!”
“He’s not my man,” Cinder said.
“Do you want him to be?” Zae speeded up, narrowly missing a shopper parked in the center of the aisle. “Then you better get up here!”
Cinder’s heart drummed so hard, the beating reverberated in her ears. There had been a time when asking a man out had been as easy for her as blinking or breathing, but a lot had changed in the intervening years. She had changed. How much, she didn’t know. But when she exited the cereal aisle and saw Tracy overlooking three of her friends surrounding Gian, Cinder decided that there was one part of her long-lost self she could recover.
She didn’t need the extra little push from Zae to shove her cart through the gaggle of grinning ex-wives at register two. Cinder threw her shoulders back in a move that would have made the most of the long hair she’d once had. Without as much as an “excuse me” or a nod of acknowledgement, she shouldered her way to Gian.
“Would you care to have dinner with me?”
She congratulated herself on how normal her voice sounded despite the nerves that made her stomach dance and her palms moist.
One of Tracy’s friends, a petite woman with banana-blonde waves and chocolate roots, pressed her right hand to her throat. “Pardon me, but we were having a conver—”
“Yes,” Gian answered, cutting the blonde off. “I’d really like that.”
Gian watched relief and joy shape Cinder’s face once more into something so beautiful, everything and everyone else fell away. The offended nattering of Tracy’s posse, the protests of Tracy’s children as she denied them candy, even Zae’s attempt to tug Cinder into the checkout line went unnoticed until Cinder had backed away with her cart to place her groceries on the conveyor belt.
“See,” Zae said, sneaking peaks at Tracy’s disgruntled pals. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“No,” Cinder smiled proudly. “It was easier than I thought it would be.”
She had been anxious and scared asking him out, then exhilarated when he’d said yes. She reveled in her emotions, reacquainting herself with feelings she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
With fewer items, Gian was checked out before Cinder. On his way to the exit, he paused near the bagging platform at the end of her check-out stand. “See you at Sheng Li tomorrow?”
Cinder nodded, smiling in agreement.
“We can make plans for dinner then,” he added. Cinder’s throat went dry. “Sure,” she warbled.
She watched him leave the store and go to his car.
Asking him out had been easy. Going on the actual date—that would be the hard part.
* * *
“You have beautiful veins,” the phlebotomist said, patting the crook of Cinder’s elbow with two stiffened fingers. “I’ve got the Alaska pipeline here.”
The stretchy blue tourniquet tied just above Cinder’s elbow popped her veins out so prominently that the American Red Cross worker had no trouble finding a good one to stick. “They say that every time I give blood,” Cinder told her.
“Good veins, good blood, good attitude,” the woman said. “You’re the kind of donor we love to see.” She unwrapped a needle. “You’re going to feel a little stick now . . .”
Cinder looked away. Needles didn’t bother her as long as she didn’t watch them pierce her skin. Her technician’s skill was excellent. Cinder barely felt a thing. “That’s the best stick I’ve ever had,” she said. “Could I get your business card so I can call you anytime I need a blood draw in the future?”
“I like to use butterfly needles,” the technician said. “They’re more comfortable.” She looked up from the pouch collecting Cinder’s blood. “Sounds like you’ve had a lot of experience with blood draws.”
Cinder nodded but didn’t elaborate. She looked around the Hixson Junior High gymnasium. “It looks like a MASH unit,” she remarked. “Like in that old television show.”
The technician agreed with a laugh, but Cinder was distracted by a donor two stations away. Gian reclined on a maroon padded chair, his left arm being drained. The network of veins in his exposed forearm reminded Cinder of vines along the trunk of a cypress tree. Gian spoke amiably with his phlebotomist, who seemed thoroughly charmed by the conversation, until his gaze happened to land on Cinder.
His mouth stopped moving, he didn’t blink. His right hand rose in a casual wave, which Cinder returned. It had been less than twenty-four hours since they had run into each other at Freddy’s Market, but the unknowing observer might have thought it had been years if judging by the intensity of their connection.
“There you go,” Cinder’s technician said after removing the needle. She peeled open a bandage and adhered it over the draw site. “I’m
going to walk you over to the canteen, where I want you to lie down for about twenty minutes so we can make sure that you have no problems with dizziness, weakness, or nausea. One of the volunteers will bring you some juice and cookies.”
Cinder was escorted to an empty gurney. A volunteer adjusted the bed’s incline to make Cinder more comfortable. Gian finished his donation a moment later, and was ushered into the canteen by his phlebotomist. Cinder was secretly thrilled when he chose the gurney beside hers rather than the distant one his phlebotomist had selected.
“Hi,” he greeted her, climbing onto the gurney. He rolled down the sleeve of his white button-down, covering his draw site. “Are you stalking me?”
Cinder’s smile vanished.
“I was just kidding.” He chuckled. “We keep running into each other.”
“Sorry,” Cinder said softly with a self-conscious smile. “I knew that.”
“Guess what I had for breakfast this morning,” he said to keep her talking.
“Coco Puffs.”
“Nope. Try again.”
“You look like you might be the Fruit Loops type.” “Yeah, when I was seven.”
An elderly woman in pearls pushed a cart laden with paper cups of juice and a big circular tray of cookies. “Can I get you something?” she asked brightly.
“Sure, what are you selling?” Gian asked.
The woman’s smile widened and she gave Gian’s foot a playful swat. “Orange, cranberry, grape, and grapefruit juice, and chocolate chip, oatmeal, and sugar cookies.” “I’d like—” Cinder started.
Gian cut her off with, “This is my treat.” He turned to the refreshment keeper. “The lady will have . . .” He studied Cinder. He had no idea what she’d like, and he wanted to make the best guess. “A grapefruit juice and two chocolate chip cookies.”
“I don’t like chocolate,” Cinder said.
“Seriously?”
“Can’t stand the stuff.”
“Oatmeal and sugar, one each?”
“Perfect, thank you,” she said.
Cookies and juice in hand, Gian and Cinder waited for the refreshment lady to move on before they resumed their conversation. But the woman simply stood between the feet of their gurneys, watching them.
“I want to see you drink some of that juice before I go,” she explained. “We don’t want you passing out when you get up to leave.”
Gian raised his flowered paper cup in a toast and threw back his grapefruit juice in two big gulps. Cinder daintily sipped hers.
“Very good.” The volunteer took their empty cups and replaced them with full ones. “Thank you for donating today.” She returned to her cart to get two little round stickers. She pressed one to Gian’s breast pocket, the other to the short sleeve of Cinder’s airy blouse. “Such nice kids,” she said affectionately, pushing her cart to the next pair of gurneys.
“I can’t remember the last time anyone called me kid,” Gian chuckled lightly.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-nine. Forty, in December.”
“Cream of Wheat.”
“What?” Gian laughed.
“That’s what you had for breakfast.”
“I said thirty-nine, not sixty-nine. Guess again.” “I give up.”
“That’s not what I teach you at Sheng Li.”
“Stand or surrender.” Her eyes sparkled merrily. “I surrender.”
“I had a vanilla long john with bacon strips on top.” She laughed, almost spilling ruby red grapefruit juice on her lap.
“So why don’t you like chocolate?”
The light in her eyes dimmed. “I used to. I just . . . does it matter why?”
“You’re the only woman I’ve ever known who doesn’t like chocolate.” He decided to let her off the hook, for now, to fully restore her good mood. “I’m glad I found out about your aversion to chocolate now instead of later. I was planning to take you to Bissinger’s after we go out for dinner. They’ve got the best chocolates in town.”
“I invited you,” Cinder reminded him. “I’ll choose the place. And I’m paying.”
“What do you do?”
“Do for what?”
“For a job. For a living.” He shifted, lying on his side to fully face her.
Cinder wallowed in the depths of his eyes. The high windows allowed enough bright, clean light to illuminate the flecks of gold and grey muddying the inky blue-green of his gaze. His hair had grown a lot since she first met him. Just short of being too long for military service, it was the perfect length to run her fingers through. He tried to guess her occupation, but Cinder heard few of his words, not when watching his lips shape them held her full attention.
A late summer tan darkened his complexion, doing nothing to conceal the shadow of his beard and mustache. His face, so overwhelmingly masculine, was a thing of beauty that made it hard for Cinder to look away or think about anything other than touching him.
Even his nose was attractive, and Cinder typically gave noses little regard. Gian’s was straight, in excellent proportion to his face, slightly wide at its base, with perfect nostrils. He had a very shallow cleft at the tip of his nose, and Cinder wondered what it would feel like against the tip of her tongue.
“Hey,” Gian said. “You still there?”
She gave herself a mental shake. “I’m sorry. My mind wandered.”
“Where to?”
“Not far.”
One side of his mouth rose in an amused grin. “I’m glad you’re back. So what do you do when you’re not throwing me around Sheng Li?”
She traced the pattern of the sugar granules on top of her cookie. “You give me too much credit.”
“Not at all. You’ve developed so much faster than I thought you would. I wish all my students were so dedicated.”
“All your classes are full,” Cinder said. “The women in Zae’s class get there twenty minutes early, just so they can get good spots on the mat.”
“Sure, if the good spots are the ones closest to Chip. My female students love him, even the little ones in our grasshopper class.”
“Why did you leave the Marines?”
“Why did you leave the East coast?”
The smile left Gian’s eyes. Cinder’s hand involuntarily closed around her cookie, breaking it into pieces. “I—” they began at once.
“It’s complicated,” they said in sync.
They laughed, which broke the momentary tension.
“Maybe we should stick to the light stuff and save the heavy duty goods for our second date,” Gian suggested. “Planning ahead?”
“Absolutely.”
“When would you like to have dinner?”
“Tonight.” He held out his hand for her cookie pieces.
She gave them to him. “We have a lesson tonight.”
“We just gave blood.” He ate the remains of her cookie in one bite and brushed the crumbs from his shirt. “We should take it easy for the rest of the day. We can make the class up tomorrow, if you can get off work.”
“I’m a graphic designer. Self-employed. I work from home. I come and go as I please.”
“A graphic designer, huh? I figured you for the creative type.”
“I don’t know how creative I am, but I do okay.”
“Thank you,” he said earnestly.
“For what?”
“For trusting me.”
She squinted in curiosity. “I don’t—”
“You just told me what you do for a living.”
She replayed the last part of their conversation in her head. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know. But I’m glad you did.”
“What made you decide to start your own karate studio?”
“I wanted my own business, so I thought I’d do something that I know. Martial arts.”
Cinder swung her legs over the side of her gurney. Propping her left elbow on the inclined back, she braced her left hand against her head and crossed her legs. “Did you le
arn all those fighting techniques in the Marines?”
“You read the promotional material in my lobby?
“No,” she admitted. “Chip told me that you two were in the service together. How old is Sheng Li?”
“Eight years.”
“Zae told me that you’ve won a couple of business awards from city hall, and that Riverfront Times voted Sheng Li Best Workout for the past three years in a row.”
“I couldn’t have done it without Zae and Colin.” He lay back on the gurney, his fingers laced behind his head, cradling it. “Colin approved the loan that helped me get the studio off the ground. He and Zae were the first ones at the grand opening.” He grinned. “They and their kids were the only ones at the grand opening.” Gian rolled onto his side again to face Cinder, who listened attentively.
“The place was a ghost town until Zae got involved,” he said. “She strategized, rallied her troops, and swept Webster Groves, Maplewood, Kirkwood, Glendale, Oakland, Richmond Heights, Clayton—she hit every town between here and the riverfront. I’d never seen anything like it. If she’d joined the Marines, the war in Iraq would have been over in two months.”
“She’s a great general.” Cinder smiled. “She’ll fight to the death and she’ll never leave a man behind.”
“She called in favors and gave me her connections. I got spots on local morning news shows, premium booths at health and fitness expos. She put me in touch with an insurance agent who gave me great deals. She hooked me up with the athletic department at her university so I could hire assistants who worked for college credit instead of money. That’s how I found Cory. She got seniors involved with Sheng Li by encouraging me to create a low-impact exercise program for the elderly. One of her most brilliant ideas was for me to get involved with the after-school enrichment programs in the Webster Groves’ elementary schools. Each of my instructors goes to a school, and he teaches—”
“Why don’t you have female instructors?”
“What?”
“Why don’t you have any female instructors?”
“I have one, Aja. She’s a part-timer who teaches the Dangerous Housewives self-defense and strength conditioning class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, so you haven’t run into her yet. Aja is the only woman who’s ever applied to work for me,” he said.
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