by Rhonda Bowen
“I know.”
“I didn’t even know my sister was married,” he continued. “We don’t exactly have a close relationship. In fact, I barely see her a couple times a year. We have the same mother, but that’s about the depth of our connection.”
Sydney heard him take another deep breath.
“Does that bother you?” she asked.
He paused. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Sometimes I feel guilty about not having a better relationship with her. She didn’t do too well growing up. I lived with my dad, and he was able to give me everything I needed and more. But she lived with Mom, and, well . . . that wasn’t always easy.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” Hayden said with another sigh. “If you met my birth mother you would understand. She was never married, and I don’t think Sheree knew a lot about her father. I know she moved out of Mom’s house not long after she graduated high school, and she’s been bouncing around since. I try to help her where I can, but she’s pretty stubborn and independent.”
He chuckled. “A little like you, actually.”
Sydney felt her spine stiffen. “I doubt it.”
“Anyway, she always took care of herself, but like I said, we didn’t have a close relationship. I would go years without hearing from her. And after I left Toronto and moved to Boston it got even harder. Today is the first time I’ve seen her in over a year. I knew she was dating someone, but I . . . I couldn’t even imagine this.”
“OK,” Sydney said, letting out a deep breath. “I believe you. I didn’t really think you knew, but it was just too much. I just needed some space.”
“I know, baby, I understand. It was a shock for me, too.” He let out a deep breath. “So are we good?”
“Yeah, we’re good.”
Sydney paused. “I just need to ask. Sheree . . . she wouldn’t . . .”
“She’s a good person, Sydney,” Hayden said. “She’s had some difficulties, but all she ever needed was someone to love her. To give her a chance. And it looks like your brother really loves her.”
“I just don’t want him to get hurt,” Sydney said. “I may be mad at him. But if anyone hurts him they’ll have to deal with me.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that from her,” Hayden said. “She seems a lot more settled now than the last time I saw her. And happy.”
“Glad to hear it,” Sydney said.
“So where did you end up anyway?”
“At my mother’s,” Sydney said, returning to the fridge. “We’ve been lacking quality time.”
“Well, I better let you get off the phone, then,” he said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Sydney put the makings of a chicken sandwich on the counter and sat down on the stool. But as she thought about the situation ahead of her she lost her appetite.
She closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands.
If there was ever a time she needed to hear from God in an up-close and personal way, it was now. Because at that moment, she had no idea what she was going to do next.
Chapter 14
It was barely six fifteen when Sydney dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. Almost four weeks had passed since her life had fallen to pieces, and even the distraction of Christmas and New Year’s hadn’t tamed the urge she had every morning to stay buried under the comforter. But as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t. Life wasn’t stopping so she could have her pity party. And even though she still didn’t know what she was going to do at the end of the month when her time at Decadent ran out, she still had to keep going.
This morning she had the joy of meeting with the development team Something Sweet had hired to take care of the transition and prepare the store to become just like the others in the franchise. Watching the place her father had bought and turned into his own being stripped of its individuality made Sydney want to hurl. Instead, she stood under the hot spray a little longer and let it beat more reality into her.
“Syd. Hurry up and get out of the shower. I gotta get to work,” JJ hollered from the bathroom doorway. “Besides, there’s a gorgeous man cooking breakfast in our kitchen.”
Sydney stuck her head around the side of the shower doors. “Huh?”
“You heard me,” JJ said, her hip leaned against the doorway and a plate piled high in her hands. “Your man is pulling an Iron Chef downstairs.”
Of all of Jackie’s children, JJ was the least prone to lying. But this, Sydney had to see for herself. Jumping out of the shower, she quickly dried off and pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt before padding downstairs to the kitchen. Her mouth fell open when she saw Hayden standing in her kitchen. As if sensing her presence, he turned around and grinned. His smile was almost as bright as the sunflowers on JJ’s apron that he wore over his starkly contrasting navy blue dress shirt and pants.
“Good morning,” he said, his eyes sparkling.
Yes, it definitely was.
“Good morning yourself.” Sydney was unable to stop her lips from spreading into a huge smile. “How did you get in here?”
“I let him in,” Lissandra said from the small breakfast table off the side of the kitchen, where she was stuffing food into her face. “And I’ll get him his own key if he’ll come cook breakfast like this every morning.”
“Let me get back to you on that,” Hayden said, winking at Sydney.
Sydney shook her head and smirked as she slid onto one of the breakfast stools by the counter. “Never gonna happen, babe,” she said.
“A brother’s gotta try.” He leaned over the counter and gave Sydney a deliciously slow kiss before turning back to the stove.
She rested her chin on her hand, a dreamy expression on her face. “Mmm. Now that I could get used to.”
“You know what I could get used to,” Lissandra said through a mouthful of food. “These boiled dumplings. Can a sister get another one of these?”
“Absolutely.” Taking another one of the small, firm spheres from a pot on the stove, Hayden placed it on a plate and hand delivered it to Lissandra. While he was on his way, Sydney slipped into the kitchen and began opening the other pots. An amazing aroma of codfish and ackee hit her as soon as she opened one of the smaller ones. She was about to stick a fork in to sample, when a wooden spoon lightly tapped her knuckles.
“Hey hey,” Hayden said teasingly, slipping an arm around her waist as he pulled her out of the way. “No peeking into my pots. You just sit and wait.”
“But I just—”
“Sit.”
Sydney put her hands on her hips. “But this is my—”
“Sit.”
Hayden’s raised eyebrow was enough to move her back to her stool.
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” He took a plate from the drainer and dished food from all the pots onto it. “Can’t you just let me do something for you?”
“But I just wanted to see how you made it,” she said, biting her lip.
Hayden laughed. “Do you go into the kitchen at Banjara and tell them you just want to see how they make it?”
“Actually, she has,” Lissandra called out from the table. Hayden turned to look at Lissandra, surprised.
Lissandra laughed. “Oh yeah. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
Hayden turned to look at Sydney for confirmation.
She shrugged. “We have a good relationship with the guys over there.”
He shook his head at her as he placed the plate in front of her. “I have two words for you, baby. Control. Freak.”
But as Sydney looked down at her plate filled with boiled green bananas, boiled dumplings, ackee with codfish, and tomatoes, she decided that she could definitely give up her controlling tendencies for this.
She looked up at him for a long moment, wondering what she had done to deserve such a wonderful man.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, for his ears only. It didn’t cover the gratitude she was feeling, but it was the best she could come up with at the momen
t.
“You’re welcome.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the counter. “I’ll admit I’m motivated by mostly selfish reasons. I wanted to see you before I went out of town tonight, but I have a packed afternoon, and I know you have that big meeting this morning. I figured this might be the only way it could happen.”
Sydney nodded, remembering that he had mentioned he would be away for a while.
“How long will you be gone?” she asked, cutting a dumpling with her fork and spearing a piece.
“Week and a half,” he said.
Sydney pouted.
He smiled. “I know. But I’ll call you.”
“You better.” She pointed her fork at him threateningly.
“I promise,” he said. “We have a bunch of away games, so we’ll be on a bus most of the time. It will be nothing but cramped seats, hotel food, and living out of a suitcase.”
“Along with court lights, fast-paced games, and screaming fans.” Sydney smiled. “Admit it. You love the life.”
Hayden tilted his head to the side. “Yeah, I do. Basketball runs through my veins. And I love to see these players develop from rookies to stars. Coach says it’s probably because I love building players more than I love being a player.”
“It’s true.” Sydney paused from her eating to look up at him. “I can see it when I see you with them. That’s one of the things I like about you. Among other things.”
Hayden raised his eyebrow, mischief tilting his lips. “What other things?”
Hayden’s watch beeped and Sydney laughed. “I guess that part’s gonna have to wait until after you come back.”
Hayden let out a deep breath as he glanced at the time. “Guess so. Gotta go.” He looked around at the kitchen. “As soon as I clean up this mess.”
“Don’t worry,” Sydney said. “Lissandra will do it.”
“I will?”
Sydney glared at her sister, who was scanning the morning’s paper. “You will.”
“Thanks, Lissandra,” Hayden said with a grin as he grabbed Sydney’s hand and pulled her with him toward the front door.
“All the best with your meeting this morning.” He pulled her into his arms for a brief moment.
Sydney turned away a second, but he touched her cheek and turned her downcast eyes back to his.
“Don’t worry. God knows what he’s doing. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than ours,” he said, referencing Isaiah 55:9.
Sydney nodded but said nothing.
Seeing her doubt, he pulled her into another embrace.
“It will be fine,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I promise.”
He pulled away and began to dash through the door when Sydney grabbed his arm.
“Wait!”
“Huh?”
Sydney drew him close, wrapped both arms around his neck, and kissed him so hard she felt his arms shake. When she finally let him go, it took him a moment to find his voice.
“Baby.” He gazed at her through eyes glazed with desire. “I am coming back.”
“I know,” she said with a grin, as she pulled JJ’s apron that he was still wearing over his head.
He laughed when he realized the real reason she had stopped him.
“But with all those groupies, I just don’t want you to forget what you’re coming back to.”
Backing her up against the doorframe, he dipped his head toward hers and caught her lips in a smoldering kiss of his own. And as he easily lifted her slim body slightly off the floor so he could have easier access to her mouth, Sydney felt every inch of her heat up like a furnace. When he finally set her feet back on the ground, he pressed warm lips against her ear.
“No chance of that.”
Sydney slumped back against the doorframe, breathless, and fanned herself with her hand, as he laughed and backed away toward his car. It was a good thing he was leaving. Because after a kiss like that, she wasn’t sure she could remember their boundaries. She watched his car disappear down the road before she drifted back into the kitchen, where she found Lissandra washing up the pots and dishes from Hayden’s meal.
“You guys finally wrap up that PDA session?” Lissandra asked.
“Hey,” Sydney said, barely looking up from her plate where she had resumed eating. “It was all PG.”
“Please. More like rated R.”
“No,” Sydney said, motioning with her spoon. “Rated R was you and Jeremy Wilkins on the front steps the night of your senior prom.”
Lissandra paused and looked up as if trying to recapture the memory. “Yeah, you’re right. That was R,” she said after a moment.
Sydney shook her head. “I thought Jackie was going to die. She was so mad. . . .”
“Oh man, Jeremy was so scared,” Lissandra said, glancing back at Sydney. “Especially when Mom came back with that gun.”
Sydney laughed. “Where did she get that again?”
They turned to look at each other as they remembered at the same time.
“Bill!” They burst into laughter, as they remembered Zelia’s dad’s gun collection, a part of which he seemed to have forgotten at the house after the divorce.
“Poor Momma didn’t know what she was doing,” Lissandra said, turning off the faucet. “The thing wasn’t even loaded.”
“Jeremy didn’t know that, though,” Sydney said with a gasp. “I never saw a boy move so fast my whole life.”
Both of them were so doubled over with laughter they never saw JJ come into the kitchen. But when they finally looked up and saw her stone-set face, all the laughter disappeared.
“What’s wrong?” Lissandra asked.
“Zelia just called. We need to go over to Dean’s.” Her voice was tense. “Now.”
No further explanation was needed. Lissandra turned the faucet off on the half-washed dishes and hurried upstairs to get dressed.
“Go on ahead,” she threw after them. “I’ll meet you all over there.”
Sydney and JJ were out the door in five minutes.
Questions burned Sydney’s lips on the drive over, but JJ was too wrapped up in a phone conversation with their mother to answer any of them. Sydney knew how uncomfortable her sister was giving their mother a vague explanation about why she would be late opening up the shop. But there was no use alarming Jackie until they knew exactly what was going on.
Zelia’s and Dean’s cars were already parked in the driveway when they arrived.
“OK, JJ, I’m sufficiently freaked out,” Sydney said as they headed toward the front door. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m not sure. Zelia just told me to get over here.” JJ fished the spare key from the ledge above the door where it was taped flat and unlocked the door. She glanced back at Sydney before stepping inside. “We’re about to find out.”
The first thing Sydney noticed was the way her shoes echoed loudly off the hardwood floors as she stepped inside. When she turned from the front hallway into the living room, she understood why.
“What in the world . . .”
This place looked nothing like the one she had been to over Christmas. Dean’s living room, which before had been tastefully decorated with an expensive three-piece living room suite, Persian area rugs, glass end tables, and a collection of lamps and other furniture that Sydney knew Sheree paid too much for, was now stripped to nothing. There was not one piece of furniture in the living area. Even the paintings on the wall were gone. Only the drapes remained, to give an appearance from the outside that the house was still the same as it was the last time they saw it.
The two women walked around the room examining the emptiness from every angle as if there was furniture hiding in a corner in the ceiling or some other clearly uninhabitable spot.
“It’s the same in every room,” Zelia said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs, panic and alarm written all over her face. “She took everything. That little demon took everything.”
“What do you mean ‘she t
ook everything’?” JJ asked, shock and confusion in her voice as she walked across the hall and into the equally empty kitchen. “Who took everything?”
“Sheree,” Sydney said, standing at the door of the kitchen. Even before Zelia said it, she somehow knew exactly what had happened.
Sheree had cleaned Dean out.
Chapter 15
“I don’t believe this.” JJ shook her head as she pushed past Zelia and went up the stairs of Dean’s three-bedroom home. “That’s impossible. Are you sure she did this?”
“We’re sure,” Zelia said, her jaw set. “Dean came home this morning and everything was gone. She is the only person who could have done all this so fast. It doesn’t help that she’s completely disappeared.”
Sydney and Zelia followed her upstairs, and sure enough, except for Dean’s clothes, every bedroom, every bathroom, the library, and every closet was empty, from the bed to the bedding. Nothing was left. Not a lamp in a corner, not a rug on the floor, not a towel in the closet. Save Dean’s clothes, the whole house was empty as the day the builder had handed the keys of the new house to Dean and Sheree. Scratch that. It was emptier, because the Queen of the Damned had even taken the new appliances that came standard with all the new homes.
“I can’t believe this,” seemed to be the only words that JJ could manage as Sydney followed her sister from one empty room to another.
When they got to the master bedroom, they found Dean sitting on the floor in a corner, his head in his hands. Sydney’s heart broke at the sight of her little brother.
“Oh God, Dean,” Sydney said, squatting down beside her brother and putting her arms around him. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
JJ slipped down on the other side and followed suit, rubbing the back of his neck gently. “What happened, Dean? Did you guys have a fight or something?”
Dean shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice cracking with his effort to speak. “We never fought about anything. I thought we were good—we were happy. But this morning I came home, and she was gone.”
“He was out of town scouting some new artists for about a week,” Zelia supplied from the door. “He just got back a couple hours ago.”