“A few moments ago you seemed to be deep in thought,” she said. “What was on your brain, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He answered without looking at her. “How fortunate I am to be sitting next to the most stunning woman here.”
“Rave looks pretty,” she said, and he thought he heard a crimp in her tone. “Have you been friends long?”
Trevor followed Cassidy’s stare and focused on Kregg and the woman mashed against him. “Kregg and I have been friends since the day our tricycles collided on the playground.”
“I meant you and Rave.”
A dry chuckle left Trevor’s throat. “Isn’t Rave one of
your
friends?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I believe I’ve seen the two of you rather buddy-buddy at church.”
“We attended the same high school. She’s more acquaintance than friend. But last week I got the impression that you two were”—she parroted his words—
“buddy-buddy.”
The fingers of his hand folded into a fist. Had Cassidy seen Rave hanging all over him? What that must have looked like! “Rave had a flat, and she asked for my help.” Trevor felt he didn’t need to explain himself, but he wanted no misinformation about Rave and him simmering in anyone’s hearsay pot. He faced Cassidy, secured her gaze for as long as she would allow, and made it clear: “There’s nothing going on between me and Rave.”
Rave stopped pumping her pelvis. “I want to go,” she blurted to Kregg. Trevor and Cassidy were sitting like two doves in a nest, and it was giving her stomach pains. Rave spun on her spiked heels and stomped toward an exit sign. She tossed her long hair over her shoulder, an insecure gesture much more than vanity, although she knew most assumed it was only the latter.
“Leaving so soon?” Lydia asked as Rave passed.
“Yes,” Rave snapped. She had to leave. As volatile as she was feeling, she dared not stay.
“Take me home now,” Cassidy insisted.
“I don’t think so,” he growled, and stopped the car in a woodland section of Fairmount Park. “Not until you give me some.” He leaned over to the passenger side. Clutching the back of her neck, he aimed his lips at her mouth.
His husky whisper had the odor of the breath mint he’d eaten. “I told you no, Larenz, and I’m not changing my mind. When I have sex, it will be with my husband.” She kept her voice strong, although her insides felt weak and queasy.
“That’s unfortunate.” A thick layer of ice covered his voice. “Get out of my car.”
Cassidy peered around. The headlights were the only glow. Even the moon and the stars had forsaken her. “Just take me home, please,” she said in as conciliatory a tone as she could manage, recognizing she was at Larenz’s mercy.
“If you don’t get out, I will take what I want,” he barked.
He pulled at a button on her blouse, and she knocked his hand away. Fear gouged her heart, but she wouldn’t give Larenz the satisfaction of tears. She opened the door. The inside light came on, giving her a clearer view of the evil, stark and hungry, in Larenz’s eyes.
“I can’t believe you call yourself a man of God,” she chided, giving him some of her anger now. She stepped onto the grass and slammed the door. He sped away, and she began walking in the same direction, hoping it would lead her to civilization. Her imagination became her worst enemy, and she came to numerous breath-holding stops, listening over her shoulder to make sure her footsteps were the only ones there. Despite being dizzy with fright, Cassidy was determined to maintain her assurance in God, and as she staggered through the darkness, searching for the way out of the park, she called on Him. He would get her home safely.
Cassidy shut down the memory and leaned out of the car window. “Can you fix it?” she hollered.
“No,” Trevor hollered back over the rumble of a passing truck. He popped from under the hood of the car, whacking his head. “Ow.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he grumbled. He rubbed the sore spot on his head as he came up to the passenger-side window. “Maybe if I knew what was wrong with the car, I could fix it. I’ve never been too good with mechanics. I was scheduled to take a couple of auto clinics but never got around to actually going.”
Cassidy didn’t think his not being able to fix the car was anything for him to look so embarrassed over. “One person can’t know how to do everything,” she said, touched by the little-boy-who’s-lost-his-puppy tint in Trevor’s eyes.
Don’t fall for it,
her good sense advised.
Not even,
she promised.
Trevor had turned his back to her. He was on the phone, plugging his left ear with a fingertip to drown out the steady groan of the City Avenue traffic. Cassidy pinned him with a studious squint. He’d taken off his jacket, and she had no trouble seeing the effects of weight lifting in his broad back. Trevor clicked off the phone and did an about-face, and Cassidy jerked forward so fast she thought she might have sprained a muscle in her neck.
“A friend of mine, Hulk, will be out in an hour or so to take a look at the car. If Hulk can’t get the car running, it’ll have to be towed. I’ll call a cab so you can go home. I apologize for the inconvenience and for not being able to take you myself.” He rapped his knuckles on the roof and looked somewhere off into the distance. “This was Brenda’s car,” he continued. “It hasn’t been driven in months, and I should have had it checked out before putting it back on the road.”
Trevor lowered his gaze to Cassidy. She lifted hers to his.
“I’ll make that call,” he said.
Cassidy pulled her phone out of her purse. “I can do it.”
He nodded and stepped away from the door. “Then I’ll call Natasha and let her know I won’t be back until late.”
“Dunbar should be here in fifteen minutes,” she called out to him a few minutes later.
Trevor frowned and sauntered closer. “Dunbar?”
A black Saturn parked in front of them, and Trevor assisted Cassidy with a hand as she climbed out of the Maxima. Trevor wore a smile he didn’t feel. Cassidy had a right to call whomever she pleased to come and take her home, but the fact she’d called Dunbar annoyed him. It was probably because of the way Cassidy was with Dunbar. Trevor had been at the house one evening when Dunbar stopped by. Cassidy seemed happy and relaxed in Dunbar’s presence. Cassidy was at the opposite end of the spectrum around Trevor most times, so uptight and guarded.
Dunbar greeted him first. “Trevor.”
“Dunbar,” Trevor responded. He reached and pounded hands with Dunbar, a wiry, average-height, clean-cut, dark brown man with small brown eyes that looked as if they were pressed too close to the lenses of his eyeglasses. The assistant funeral director of Smith Funeral Home was rarely without a tie or the gold stud in his left ear that Trevor thought didn’t quite blend with the other parts of Dunbar’s stiff personality. Trevor had never talked one-on-one with Dunbar for any length of time, but he had heard the young minister preach over the years and had never been disappointed. Dunbar Smith always had something to say that left Trevor feeling inspired to live a better life.
“Thanks for coming,” Cassidy said to Dunbar. “As you can see, we’re stranded.”
“I’m always here for you, C.C., day or night.”
Trevor’s gut tightened. They were not stranded. And what was up with the nickname? It was as if he’d asked the question out loud because in the next breath Dunbar said, “I don’t know if you know it, but Cassidy’s middle name is Christine. I call her C.C. for short. I think I’m the only one who calls you that, right?”
Cassidy nodded and smiled at her rescuer. She had a wide, white smile, balanced with the perfect alliance of sweetness, charisma, and sensual energy. Every time she flashed it, it sent a rush of excitement through Trevor’s heart, and he wondered what it would take to get her to smile at him the way she did at Dunbar.
“Well,” Dunbar said, “we’d better get going. That movie you wanted to see is still playing. Why don’t we catch the eleven o’clock?”
“Sure,” she said. “But I want to go home and change first.”
“By the way”—Dunbar’s voice deepened—“you look wonderful as always, C.C.”
Trevor smirked. The nickname “Sky” was a thousand times prettier than “C.C.”
Cassidy peeled her gaze from Dunbar and pressed it on Trevor. Her smile, Trevor noted, had weakened. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said.
“Good luck with the car,” Dunbar wished.
Trevor forced out the word “Thanks.” His posture was like granite and his arms rigidly crossed his rib cage as the others turned away and he watched Dunbar clasp Cassidy’s hand with the confidence of a man who had done so many times before.
C
assidy climbed out of Lena’s Neon and glanced indifferently at the SUV parked in front of the house. The Monroes had gone to the earlier worship service and apparently had already returned.
“I’ll call you later.” Lena hung a huge grin. “You can finish telling me about your date with Trevor.” She hit the gas pedal and waved.
Singing the praise song the choir had ministered during the offertory, Cassidy bounced up the steps to the porch and poised her key to go into the lock when the front door jerked open.
“Hi.” A jolly Brandi hugged Cassidy’s thigh. She stayed this way as she chattered, “I saw you when you got out of the car. My daddy said it would be okay for me to open the door for you.”
Cassidy hugged the child in the red sundress for several breathless seconds, overwhelmed by the warm welcome. Was this the pleasure a mother experienced when arriving home to her child, eager to receive her?
“Hi,” the other Monroe child said softly. Her hands were hidden in the pockets of her denim shorts. Her eyes were more tentative than Brandi’s and her cheeks less cheerful, yet her spirit seemed to whisper,
I am friend
.
“Hello, Brittney,” Cassidy said.
“Are you going to eat with us? We’re having peach cobwer for dessert.” Brandi grabbed Cassidy’s hand. “Come on, me and Sis set a place for you.”
As Cassidy was led into the dining room, she chuckled at Brandi’s attempt to say “cobbler” and at being invited to dine in her own house.
“Hello,” Trevor said from the doorway dividing the dining area and the kitchen. He leaned against the door frame. A mitten pot holder covered one hand. The thumb of the other was hooked in the pocket of his sand-colored slacks. A white dish towel, a huge contrast to his black T-shirt, was carelessly draped over his shoulder.
Cassidy drew a breath, met and challenged his gaze. There was no reason for her to wilt beneath his keen perusal. To her surprise, Trevor was the first to look away—somewhat shyly, she was sure she perceived. Cassidy was shocked that Trevor’s attitude toward her was so pleasant. This morning she had lambasted him for leaving little hairs on the bathroom sink, and then she had gone through the items on her complaint list one by one.
“Do you like baked chicken?” he asked, his attention back on her.
So that was the good smell flirting with her nose and convincing her mouth to water. “Yes, I do,” she said. It was much healthier than fried.
Volcanic glee spilled from Brandi. “So you’re going to eat with us?”
“Yes.” She smiled at the girls. Trevor turned and went into the kitchen, and Cassidy followed. She watched him ladle green beans from pot to bowl. “I noticed there are only four places. Aunt Odessa’s not feeling any better?”
“She said she would have something later.”
“I should check on her.” Cassidy went straight to the stairs, not another glance at Trevor and the green beans, as she tried not to let minimal concern deepen into mammoth worry. But Odessa had stayed home from church today, the first Sunday service she had missed since Cassidy was in middle school.
When Cassidy returned to the kitchen, she’d changed from the skirt and blouse she’d worn to church into a pair of pants and a sleeveless sweater. The hair she’d worn on her shoulders had been twisted and pinned up.
Trevor’s smooth tone eased across the room. “How’s Mother Vale?”
“She’s sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake her.” For the second time, Trevor was the first to avert his gaze, and Cassidy was unsure which she liked least. The way he could stare at her as if he had nothing better to do, or the way he could tear his eyes from her as if it pained him. Both turned her knees to foam.
Trevor placed an oval plate of parsley-garnished chicken in the center of the linen tablecloth between crystal candleholders. A tiny flame stood on its toes at the top of each white candle. The dimmed lights of the chandelier partnered with the rays of sun coming through the side window, bathing the dining room in subdued radiance. The table looked holiday lovely, and Cassidy, impressed with the way Trevor had made a simple meal elegant, praised him, saying, “Everything looks wonderful.”
Trevor said the blessing, including a special prayer for Odessa, and he and Cassidy helped the children fix their plates, then served themselves. Cassidy helped herself to the chicken and string beans.
“No, thank you,” she said when Trevor held up the plate of biscuits. She also refused the lemonade she had watched Trevor dump two cups of sugar into, and politely nodded no to the macaroni and cheese. The casserole’s golden top was hot and bubbly with thick yellow cheese, and Cassidy cringed at the thought of how much butter Trevor had probably stirred into it.
“I helped snap the beans,” Brandi announced.
“I helped Aunt Odessa cook when I was a little girl.” Cassidy carved off a small piece of meat. “Often we’d have enough to feed an army, and Aunt Odessa would invite a family to eat with us.”
“Like she invited my family.” Brandi grinned and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Trevor buttered one half of a biscuit. “It sounds as if you had a nice childhood.”
“Yes, thanks to Aunt Odessa.”
A lump of macaroni and cheese flew back to Brandi’s plate as she jerked her fork away from her mouth and ogled Cassidy with curiosity. “Didn’t you have a mommy and daddy?”
“My father wasn’t a part of my life, and my mother died when I was very young.”