Читать книгу Heated - Niobia Bryant - Страница 9

1

Atlanta, Georgia

“Say cheese, Dr. King.”

Bianca smiled as instructed, posing with her glass star-shaped Woman of the Year award from Modern Women magazine held in front of her. She tried not to grimace as the flash went off several times in rapid succession.

“Absolutely beautiful, Bianca.”

Her smile stiffened. She knew without shifting her eyes from the camera that it was Armand Toussaint.

“Thanks, Dr. King and congrats again,” the male photographer said, moving back into the Imperial Ballroom of the Marriott Marquis Hotel to take further photos of the social event.

Bianca took a deep breath as she slid her circle-shaped beaded purse under her arm. She had just stepped into the hall outside the ballroom for a small reprieve from the room of people there to honor her with yet another accomplishment in her career as an equine veterinarian.

She considered Armand’s appearance an intrusion.

“Hello, Armand,” she said, not even sounding like she meant it.

“Une belle femme ne doit pas être seule,” he said, his French accent very heavy as he told her she was too beautiful to be alone.

Armand had lived around the world and spoke seven languages, but when he was really trying to put his mack down he always reverted to French—a language he knew Bianca spoke fluently.

Bianca sighed. “I thank you for the compliment on my beauty, but I also thank you for respecting my desire to be alone,” she countered with ease. She knew it would take more bluntness to send the amorous admirer truly on his way.

It’s not like he wasn’t appealing to the eye—the man was tall and gorgeous like a young Sidney Poitier—and Bianca even found his conversation quite amusing—when he wasn’t trying to seduce her out of her La Perla panties… and there was a certain allure to a tall man with skin like dark chocolate with a French accent. The man was just insufferable because he was aware of his attributes and he couldn’t fathom that there was a woman in existence who didn’t want him.

Bianca certainly didn’t.

She usually ran into Armand at the many charity and social events they attended in Atlanta. They both served on several of the same boards, advisory councils, and minority organizations. On every occasion—whether with a date or not—Armand let Bianca know that he had a personal cure for her “supposed” loneliness blues.

Was Bianca lonely?

She fixed her hazel eyes on the rogue and saw his eyes shift to her left. Bianca turned to see what drew his attention and her eyes fell on a curvaceous woman in a strapless dress that defied gravity. She turned her gaze back to him and he smiled at her in a charming—and apologetic—fashion.

Not that lonely.

She firmly believed his penis had more miles on it than two hundred laps around the Indianapolis Speedway. Even though he loved to tell Bianca that he was quite skilled in making a woman come at least ten times in one session of lovemaking, Bianca was more than willing to pass.

“No one should be alone on such a beautiful night as tonight, mon doux,” he said in a husky voice, stepping closer to her.

Bianca stepped back. “I’m sure you’ll find… something to get into,” she told him wryly.

“Bianca—”

Her cell phone rang from inside her purse. “Excuse me, Armand,” she told him, pulling it out to answer. “Dr. King speaking.”

“This is Travis out at the Clover Ranch.”

“Yes, hello Travis.”

“We got a mare about to foal. We’ve been monitoring her and she was doing good with the rolling to position the foal, but for the last five minute she’s actin’ awful funny for normal foaling, you know?”

Bianca nodded. “Has her water broke?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I’m about twenty good minutes from the ranch, but I’m on my way.”

“Thank God,” Travis sighed.

Bianca bit back a smile before she ended the call.

Armand came to stand beside her, lightly touching her bare elbow. “Everything okay, Bianca?”

“I have to go. Please make my apologies to everyone.”

“But—”

“Goodbye, Armand.”

Bianca flew out of the ballroom, not even waiting for the elevator as she took to the grand staircase. She was quite a site with her shoulder-length pressed hair flying behind her and the slinky skirt of her mocha sequined Roberto Cavali dress in her hands as she hitched it up around her knees to run straight down the center of the staircase.

Very Scarlet O’Hara–like.

She wasn’t aware or caring of the dramatic sight she made, though. She just wanted to get to the ranch and it was a good fifteen miles just outside of Atlanta in Sandy Springs.

Thank God I keep a change of clothes in my trunk.

She was soon accepting the keys to her silver convertible Volvo C70. She lowered the automatic roof as she sped away from the hotel.

“Home sweet home.”

The sun was just beginning to rise when Bianca dragged herself into the foyer of her elegant three thousand square foot home in an affluent gated community in a suburb of Atlanta. She flung her dress over the banister and carried her award into her study. She came to a stop before her massive cherry desk and took in the full wall of shelves behind it. Every accomplishment of her adult life was chronicled. There were more awards and accolades than she could count. She didn’t even know if she could make room for her latest achievement.

Reflective, she walked to the far end of the study and slowly began to review all of the statues in various shapes, sizes, and materials. Some meant more to her than others, and those she touched briefly with a hint of a smile.

For anyone on the outside looking in at her life it was seemingly ideal.

She started her own veterinary practice at twenty-seven from her savings. Just three short years later her workload nearly doubled and she brought on two additional vets. She was now thirty-two, and her equine clinic was one of the top such facilities in the Southeast.

Not bad for a little black girl from Holtsville, South Carolina.

Bianca came to a stop before the 8 X 11 photograph in the center of the wall of awards and certifications. It was a picture of a tall and distinguished man standing beside a little girl and woman atop a horse. They were all smiling and obviously happy.

My eighth birthday, Bianca thought.

Her parents had just surprised her with her very first pony, Star. Even though she had had plenty access to ponies living on a successful horse ranch Star had been special because it was hers alone.

The photo was one of the few that she treasured.

A reminder of better times.

The little girl in that picture didn’t have a clue that her mother would die seven years later and her stable world would never be the same again.

Bianca set her award on the shelf with the photo as her eyes fell on the handsome man. Her father. Her Daddy. Once her hero.

She hadn’t seen him or the ranch in fifteen years.

When her mother died Bianca thought her world would end. Her one saving grace had been her close relationship with her father. She knew they would help each other through the loss.

But that hadn’t happened.

Her father shut down completely. He isolated himself in his bedroom for days at a time, only to emerge reeking of alcohol. The ranch felt his neglect, right along with Bianca. That hurt.

It was far too much weight for a fifteen year old to bear. Between going to school—and maintaining her grades—and trying to take over running the farm, she would sometimes wake up and find her father sprawled out by the door drunk as a skunk.

She barely had time to grieve her mother’s passing because she began cleaning up her father’s messes. She became really good at it. She became just as good at hiding her anger and disappointment.

Until the day her father brought home Trishon Haddock—a woman twenty years his junior—and proclaimed that at forty he was getting married.

That’s when Bianca—soft, agreeable, and passive—welcomed that part of her personality that let her hit the roof. It hadn’t been little Bianca struggling to make sense of her world. She was seventeen-year-old Bianca, senior in high school, and running a horse ranch—and she was pissed.

Even though she told her father that he was being a fool for marrying a woman with the reputation around town of a harlot; even though she told him he was disrespecting her and her Mama by bringing another woman into their house; even though she refused to be nice as he requested… she never once told him that it hurt her that he made time in his life for a wife when he hadn’t made time for his daughter.

That she held on to, protected, shielded.

As she stood at her second-story bedroom window and looked down at the wedding she refused to attend, Bianca made the decision to leave her father in the chaos he created. Bianca rescinded her decision to attend a local university. The further she got away, the better.

She left for college in Georgia that summer and hadn’t been back since.

Bianca turned away from the photo, but her memories—very painful recollections—remained. Her relationship with her father was barely visible. They spoke on the phone sporadically and went through motions.

Pathetic as hell, she thought.

Releasing a heavy breath, Bianca strolled out of the study and headed toward the rear of the house to her kitchen. She was ready to fall into her bed and sleep away the hours, but she had appointments at the clinic, so rest would have to wait.

Bianca hoped some of her “kick-ass” iced coffee would get her going again.

Soon the slow drip-drip of the coffee maker seemed to be the only sound in the house. Most considered that quiet to be peaceful, restful, and precious. To Bianca it was the sound of living alone, which she refused to equate to being lonely. Sometimes, however, she thought that the sound of children laughing and a husband showering to prepare for his workday would be… peaceful, restful, and precious.

With her last date being more than two months ago perhaps the line between alone and lonely was thinning to the width of a strand of hair.

“Maybe I need a dog,” she muttered, pouring a large cup of coffee that she sweetened and lightened considerably before pouring it over a tall cup of crushed ice.

Bianca took a deep sip. “Liquid crack,” she sighed.

She was strolling out of the kitchen when there was a knock at her kitchen door. She smiled at the sight of her nearest neighbor and friend, Mimi Cooley, peering through the glass of the door.

“Let me in, Sweetie, before people think I’m a Peeping Tom, okay,” Mimi said in that odd voice of hers that was a blend of nasal whining and Southern belle haughtiness.

Mimi was an ex–child star of the popular Seventies sitcom, Just the Two of Us. At thirteen, the show was canceled and, unfortunately, her acting career ended. Her family moved from Hollywood back to Atlanta and tried to give Mimi as normal a life as possible.

But normalcy and Mimi didn’t go in the same sentence.

She married the first of her seven husbands at eighteen—men who were wealthy and a tad bit older than Mimi. At fifty she now lived off syndication from the show and the hundreds of television commercials she did during her childhood career. She never got used to the idea of a nine to five job, and spent her days shopping and drinking Long Island iced teas—without showing one indication of being drunk or even tipsy.

Regardless of the time of day, Mimi was always dressed to the nines: heels and skirts, slacks and spectator pumps, and not a pair of jeans to be seen. Her make-up was always in place, and her hair was perfectly coiffed—and religiously died jet black—like she was the second coming of Diahann Carroll’s character on Dynasty.

Mimi was one of a kind, and Bianca loved the diva to death.

“Hi, Mimi.”

She breezed in with a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and turquoise silk. “I thought I was going to have to retire and collect Social Security before you let me in, darling.”

“How can I help you, Mimi… dah-ling?”

“Well, a shot of brandy wouldn’t hurt a bit, Sweetie,” Mimi said, moving across the kitchen to set her purse on the center island.

“For 8 A.M. coffee sounds like a better bet,” Bianca countered.

“Some barkeep you make. All that advice without the actual, huh, what… liquor, that’s right, Sweetie.”

“Nothing but coffee ’round here,” Bianca said, taking a deep sip of her iced brew. “Want a cup?”

Mimi rolled her elaborately made-up eyes—she was so dramatic. “Sweetie, I’d rather be buried in a Wal-Mart, okay,” she said with a shiver.

Bianca doubted Mimi had even seen the inside of a Wal-Mart, or even knew where to find one. She frowned as she watched Mimi open her purse and extract a silver monogrammed flask.

“Bianca, a lady is always, huh, what… prepared, that’s right,” she said, before taking a small swig. “Now, I usually have the cul de sac all to myself this time of day. Whatcha doing home, Sweetie?”

“A mare foaled last night.”

Mimi wiped the corners of her mouth with her index finger and politely placed the flask back in her purse. “Honey, I’m waiting for the English translation, okay, right.”

Bianca smiled as she folded her arms over her chest and leaned back against the marble counter. “I delivered a horse’s baby,” she explained patiently, ready for the drama. Mimi didn’t fail her one bit.

She made a comical face of pain as she pressed her knees together.

Mimi didn’t have any children. Bianca didn’t know if it was by choice or not.

Deciding to egg her on Bianca said, “Pulling the foal out with chains by its legs wasn’t the hard part—”

Mimi shivered and crossed her slender legs.

“Now sticking my arm inside the horse’s vagina to turn the foal—”

Mimi pretended to gag. “T.M.I., Doc. T… M… I.”

Bianca flung her head back and laughed, unable to stop the hoglike snort that always came with her laughter. T.M.I. was Mimi’s acronym, for “too much information.”

“I don’t know what’s worse, Sweetie. The image of your arm up a horse’s ass or that laugh, Sweetie. You need to, huh, what… work on it, that’s right.”

“Shut up, Mimi,” Bianca said with a deadpan expression. “At least I’m not known for the oh-so-clever sitcom saying “You and me makes we.”

Mimi looked off into the distance—something she did whenever she was discussing the sitcom. “Oh, yes. A better time. And it kept me from being lined up to swallow the scent of horse ass, Sweetie.”

Bianca had to laugh at that one. “Listen, this is fun, but some people got a job, Mimi.”

She rose, sticking her purse under her arm. “Alright, Sweetie, I’m going. I have a save the children or feed the whales breakfast thingy.”

“Isn’t it Save the Whales and Feed the Children?”

Mimi just waved her hand before moving to the kitchen door. “As long as they can cash the check, they don’t care what I call it.”

Bianca shook her head.

Mimi opened the door and paused, turning to look at Bianca. “Listen, Sweetie, is what they say about a male horse’s… uhm, well, you know… jingy-thingy. Is that… is that true, Sweetie?”

Very tongue in cheek, Bianca answered, “Big as my arm,” with a meaningful stare.

Mimi sighed as she patted her perfectly coiffed French roll and leaned a little against the door with a soft smile.

“Mimi?” Bianca said to nudge the woman out of her reverie.

“Just made me think of Vincent, my third husband, Sweetie. Now it’s so hard to say he was good for nothing.”

With nothing to say about that, Bianca started walking out the kitchen. “Goodbye, Mimi,” she called over her shoulder.

“Toodles, Sweetie.”

The door closed behind her.

Bianca climbed the spiral wrought iron staircase to the second level of her home. As she strolled into her master suite she looked at her watch. It was 9:30 A.M. Just enough time to shower, change, and head to her clinic for a 10:30 A.M. appointment. Her next appointment after that was at 1 P.M., and she was hoping to visit Mr. Sandman as much as she could before then.

Bianca removed the scrubs she kept in her car for emergency vet calls like last night. Dressed only in the beautiful lace thong she originally put on under her evening gown, Bianca took another deep sip of her drink as she moved over to her night table to check her messages. She had a service answer work-related calls and she’d already checked those messages during her drive from Sandy Springs.

“Hi, this is Bianca. Do what you need to do.”

Beep.

Bianca studied her reflection in the oval mirror in the corner, twisting and turning to see if any new cellulite had moved onto her thighs.

“Bunny… uh, I mean Bianca—”

She paused at the sound of her father’s gravely and distinctive voice. The thought that the days of him calling her by the childhood pet name were gone pained her.

“Call me when you get a chance.”

Bianca lowered her hands from examining the pertness of her breasts—and wondering when a man would touch, tease, and taste them again—to reach out for the cordless phone sitting on its base.

Beep.

“Bianca—”

Her hand paused just above the phone and her face became confused at hearing her father’s voice… again.

“Never mind.”

The line went dead.

Beep.

Snatching up the phone she quickly dialed her father’s number.

“King Ranch.”

“Daddy, this is Bianca. Is something wrong?” she asked.

He remained quiet—and that was more telling than anything he could have said.

“Daddy?” she asked with more firmness in her voice—like she was the parent and he was the child. Bianca pressed the phone closer to her face. “What is it?”

“I need your help. You gotta come home, Bianca.”