The dinner hour arrived at the Sable Inn and Lorna was on duty. As the Director of Food and Design, Lorna was in charge of all the menus, in addition to the interior decoration of the Inn. Although, the Inn already served organic and locally grown items, the Boot Camp instructor had additional special requests, that Lorna made sure were followed to a tee.
The guests were all seated for their first meal, before the actual start of the camp in the morning. The instructor waved for Lorna to come over to her table and when she arrived, Lorna smiled down at her.
“How can I help you, Lisa?”
“I just wanted to tell you that everything is perfect. You and your sisters have lived up to your word so far,”
Lorna smiled. “Well, we thank you for your business.”
“I’ll definitely be sending you more,”
“That’s what we like to hear.” Lorna said happily. “Enjoy your meal.”
Walking away, Lorna was stopped by Cassandra as she walked past her table.
“Excuse me?”
Lorna looked down. “How may I help you, Cassidee?”
“I’d like a glass of wine,”
“The instructor requested no alcoholic beverages this week for the attendees,” Lorna informed her.
Cassandra frowned. “What the hell is that?”
“You’re welcome to take it up with Lisa,”
“You mean I have to be in this terrible place with no alcohol?”
Lorna smiled. “You could always check out. Of course, you’d still be charged for the full week.”
“I’m here for an additional two weeks, now.” Cassandra informed her. “I have unfinished business.”
“Enjoy your stay at the Sable Inn,” Lorna told her and walked away.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Langston joined her at the counter. “What did she want?”
“Some liquor,”
“I bet she did,” Mrs. Langston shook her head. “I’m surprised she didn’t pull out a brown paper bag at the table.”
Lorna laughed. “Mrs. Langston?”
“That one’s a mess and always gonna be a mess.” She turned to Lorna. “Don’t let her bring her mess in here. I told Jamal the same thing.”
“This is a big week for us and no one is going to ruin it,” Lorna vowed. “My sisters and I have worked too hard.”
Mrs. Langston nodded. “That’s my girl.”
The back door opened and Jamal walked inside with a smile. He’d changed into jeans, boots and a long sleeved thermal shirt.
“Hey, you two need any help?”
Mrs. Langston smiled at him. “This week we can use all the hands we can get.”
“Here I am,”
Lorna looked at him. “Thank you,”
“You know I love the Sables,” he said staring down at her.
Mrs. Langston looked between the two. “Did you come to help or stare at Lorna?”
He grinned. “Both.”
She hit him with her cloth. “Come on here boy, you can stare at her later.”
For the next hour and a half, it was all hands on deck to get everyone served then both the dining room and kitchen cleaned. With the room emptied, Lorna and her sisters sat at one of the tables.
“We did good,” Lana told them proudly.
“You made it happen,” Lena told her.
Lana shook her head. “We all made it happen.”
Lorna smiled. “We have to build this legacy for our Sable baby.”
“You know, Derek is tired of you all calling this your Sable baby,” Lana told them.
Lena smirked. “You’re a Sable. You’re having our baby. It’s our Sable baby.”
Lana shook her head. “Okay, when the Wells sisters show up, we’ll see.”
Lorna looked at Lena. “There are four of them.”
“So…” Lena answered.
Lana laughed. “Well, I’m going home to get ready for tomorrow.”
On cue, Derek showed up at the door, then walked over to them. “Kitchen’s done. Are you ready for me to take you home?”
Lana stood to her feet. “Yes, my wonderful husband. Thank you for helping out tonight.”
Derek slid an arm around her waist. “Where else would I be?”
Lana smiled at him and they said their goodbyes, before leaving.
Lena turned to Lorna and asked, “Are you leaving now?”
“I’m going to talk with Jamal,” Lorna told her.
Lena stood with a smile. “Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’m going to check on Daddy and walk home.”
Lorna nodded. “Thanks for everything, Lena,” she told her sister.
Lena paused. “Are you still sad, Lorna?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sad anymore. I have my sisters and everything I need.”
“I’m always here for you,”
Lorna stood. “You always have been and I love you.”
The two women hugged and kissed each other’s cheek. “I will kick some ass over you,” Lena told her.
“I know,” Lorna chuckled. “You got all of that gene.”
“Lana has some too,” Lena teased. “We didn’t leave any for you. You got all of Momma’s sweetness.”
Lorna agreed. “Daddy says that if we all had that ass kicking gene, he’d have pulled all of his hair out.”
“See how the Universe works.”
Laughing, Lorna looked up as Jamal appeared in the room. She watched as he crossed over to them.
“Can I walk you ladies home?” he asked.
The Sable sisters all had homes built on the land in proximity to the Inn. Their father had built each of them a residence when they returned home from college.
Lena smiled. “I’m going to check on my father, but you can walk Lorna.”
He nodded. “Goodnight Lena,”
“Goodnight Jamal,” Lena told him, before giving him a look.
He watched Lena leave the room and head toward the lobby, before he turned to Lorna. “What did you tell her?”
“What?” Lorna asked.
“She looked at me like she wanted to beat my ass.”’
Lorna smirked. “Lena always looks like that.”
“This is about Cass?” he asked.
She nodded. “I told her about how we started spending time together at the cabin.”
Jamal stared down at her. “I remember you caught me smoking in there.”
“You asked if I wanted some?” Lorna laughed.
“And you looked at me like I’d asked you take your clothes off,” he joked.
She shook her head. “You surprised me. I didn’t know anyone like you.”
He took her hand. “But you still spent time with me.”
Lorna looked away.
“You ready to go?” he asked and she nodded.
Still holding her hand, they made their way through the lobby and past the Night Manager, Willie. He looked at the pair and lifted a brow.
“Goodnight Willie,” Lorna said, stopping at the desk. “Call me at home, if you need anything.”
Willie looked at Jamal, holding Lorna’s hand. “I sure will, Lorna. Have a good night.”
She smiled. “You too,”
“Goodnight Willie,” Jamal told the older man.
“Hmm…goodnight Jamal.”
The couple walked out the door, oblivious to Willie’s stares and the woman watching out of the window, as they strolled away from the Inn.
“You know Willie is going to tell everybody that you held my hand and walked me home,” Lorna told Jamal.
“When this business pays off, I’m going to be holding your hand and walking you home every night,” Jamal replied.
Lorna stared up at the starlit sky and felt the chill in the air. “You know that part doesn’t matter to me.”
“Girl, after what I’ve done, I can’t even look at Mr. Lloyd Sable about his daughter, without having ALL of my shit together.”
“Daddy loves you,” Lorna told him as they walked. “He was all Team Jamal today.”
Jamal gave her a look. “He put Derek on notice about Lana, and that dude helps elect Presidents.”
Lorna laughed. “So what is this big business venture?”
He smiled down at her. “I’ll tell you inside.”
They continued to her door and Lorna handed him the key. Jamal used it to unlock the door, then opened it, allowing her inside. Locking the door behind him, he turned to her and she was in his arms before he could reach for her.
Their mouths connected in a heated exchange as Jamal pulled her firmly against his body. Lorna’s arms wrapped around his neck and they continued until neither could breathe.
“Lorna…” Jamal breathed heavily against her mouth.
She cradled his handsome face and studied his neatly lined haircut. His light coffee complexion was complimented by somber dark eyes under heavy dark brows. Jamal sported a trimmed mustache with neat chin hair. He had sexy full lips that felt like plush pillows against hers.
She felt his six-foot-two, muscular frame against hers and smiled at him. “Yes?”
“I love you…”
“I know,”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “This Cass thing…” Jamal looked at her again. “I didn’t like saying that we’re not together.”
“We’re not together, Jamal.” Lorna said, removing herself from his embrace.
She began turning on lights in her living room while he remained by the door.
“Then what are we Lorna?”
Lorna turned to him. “Two old friends acting on affections that haven’t diminished.”
“How long are you going to keep us in that box?” he questioned.
She frowned. “We agreed that we’d keep our personal business…personal, until we were sure.”
“I agreed to that because I had no other option,” Jamal told her.
Lorna lifted a brow. “Has a new option arrived in town?”
He walked over to her. “There is no other option.”
Lorna looked away. “No one even had questions, until she got here. Now everyone wants to know what’s up between us and all the past is coming back.”
Jamal pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry.” He kissed the top of her curly afro that smelled like coconut oil.
Lorna wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m worried, Jamal.”
“About what, Beauty?”
“What do you think?” she asked, looking up at him.
Jamal sighed. “I think that you’re finally going to have to trust me, again.”
She looked at him. “You don’t think I trust you?”
“You don’t, Lorna,” he confirmed. “But I understand why…”
She backed up. “Why do you want to be with someone who doesn’t trust you?”
He gave her a look. “Because I love her so much and I always have, even though my actions didn’t show it.”
Lorna turned her back. “I don’t want you to love me like that. Don’t say you loved me when you were running around with someone else and committing crimes that took you away from me.”
Jamal put a hand to his head. “Why do you think I’m here growing damn flowers? The years that I was gone, I promised myself that I would come back for you. To hell with this whole damn town, if Lorna Sable was here, then I was going to be here too.”
“If I died trying, I was going to be a man that she wanted to claim and could be proud to be with. I’ve worked my ass off and stayed on the right side of the law,” he said passionately.
Lorna turned back to him. “Cassandra said that you told her your dreams.”
He nodded. “I told her that I was going to be rich and marry you.”
She blinked. “You told her that?”
“It was the truth and it’s still my dream.”
Lorna walked back into his arms. “You grow the most beautiful flowers,” she whispered.
He smiled. “Thank you. Anger Management and Horticulture classes taught me a lot.”
“How are things with you father?” Lorna questioned.
“Good, he’s gotten over having to arrest his own son. We’ve finally moved past all of that,” Jamal explained.
Lorna rubbed his chest, through his shirt.
“You’ve been through so much, baby.”
He took a seat on the sofa. “When I couldn’t talk to you anymore, the therapy did help me deal with my mother’s death.”
She sat next to him. “I think that’s what drew us together. We were both sad and lonely, losing our mothers to illness.”
Jamal looked at her. “I’d never talked about her to anybody but you…”
“Other than with my family, I hadn’t talked about my mother either.”
He touched her face. “You were so sweet. Like an angel sent to rescue me from my hell.”
“Then why did you get involved with Cassandra?”
Removing his hand, Jamal shook his head. “Misery loves company and my misery connected with hers. All the anger I felt at the world for taking my mother and having to be the sheriff’s son, Cass fed that. Every bad thing that we could think of, we did it, just to say…fuck it.”
“We stole, we got high, we vandalized shit…for no damn reason,” he finished. “And now, I’m ashamed as hell about that, because it made the one person that I ever truly cared about, stop trusting me.”
Jamal shook his head. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going to pay for that for the rest of my life, no matter what I do.”
“You shouldn’t feel that way, Jamal. You’ve changed your life.”
“I’m working on this big deal and finally getting to a point where I can show you that I’m not a fuck up, and Cass shows her ass up,” he said frustrated. “Now everybody’s looking at me like that bad ass boy again.”
Lorna smiled. “There were parts of that bad ass boy that I really liked.”
Jamal stared into her face. Her big hair was like a dark crown on her head and she possessed a baby doll face with an innocence that shone in her dark eyes. Her milk chocolate complexion made Jamal want to taste her, since the first time he’d been alone with her.
“What parts?” he asked quietly.
“I like your city thug in a country boy. I like how you wear Timbs and jeans to go fishing. I like that you don’t care what people say and simply do you,” she told him.
He smiled. “Right now, I really want to do you, Lorna Sable.”
She flushed. “Jamal…”
“It’s true.” He leaned over and kissed her passionately. When he pulled back, her lids lifted slowly.
Lorna licked her lips. “We said that we would take it slow.”
“That was weeks ago,”
She moved away. “You tried that before…”
Jamal lowered his head into his hands. “I know Beauty, it’s all I think about.”
“You tricked me,”
He lifted his head. “I had no idea, that you didn’t know what I meant.”
“I lived in an Inn, Jamal. How was I supposed to know that you wanted to show me something in your car, meant you wanted to have sex with me?”
Jamal laughed. “I forgot how truly innocent you were. You straight tripped.”
“Of course, I tripped. I wasn’t trying to have sex with you at sixteen! I wasn’t trying to have sex with anybody! My Daddy would kill me…and you!” She told him.
“You punched me in the face,” he told her.
“You’re lucky that’s the only place I punched you,”
Jamal grimaced. “I know to make myself perfectly clear now.”
Lorna put her hands up to her face. “You started touching me in…private places.”
He smiled again. “I remember…”
“I was so mad at you,” she said, removing her hands.
“You didn’t come to the cabin for a week,”
She frowned at him. “I didn’t know if you were going to jump me, again.”
“Hold up, I didn’t jump you.” It was his turn to frown. “Let’s get that story straight.”
Lorna folded her arms. “You said, I want to show you something. We got in the car and then you kissed me.”
“And you didn’t stop me,” he inserted.
“No, I didn’t.” She smiled. “I liked that part.”
He grinned at her.
“Then you became the groper,”
Jamal shook his head. “Nope, I just proceeded to the next step.”
“Then I proceeded to punch you in the face.”
He rubbed his jaw. “That hurt too.”
“It was supposed to,” Lorna told him. “I don’t know who you thought I was…”
“I learned, real quick.”
She smiled at him. “Then you left flowers at the cabin for me and a note.”
“I felt bad,” Jamal said quietly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Lorna came and sat next to him again. “And that’s when Jamal Winston won my heart.” She leaned forward and touched her lips to his.
“Tell me about this business venture that you’re so excited about,” Lorna encouraged.
Jamal held her gaze for a minute, then nodded.
“I want to invest in becoming a medical marijuana grower,”
Lorna looked confused. “What?”
He nodded again. “It’s nearly a billion-dollar industry here in Michigan. The applications are due before Christmas and I’ll need around ten thousand dollars to apply.”
“You want to grow marijuana?”
“Legally, yes.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“I think I just said it’s nearly a billion-dollar industry here in Michigan, and growing. Medical marijuana is legal and its needed for those who are suffering,” he explained.
“Do you think that’s a good idea for you?” Lorna questioned.
“I’m not going to smoke my inventory, Lorna. It’s business,” Jamal defended.
“That’s the business you want?”
Jamal sat back. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
Lorna looked surprised. “Why not?”
“Because you wouldn’t understand.”
“Understand that when you used to smoke it, you got into all kinds of trouble and now you want to grow it, yourself?” she questioned.
“Smoking weed didn’t get me into trouble. It was something to do to chill me out. This is money…real money. These white men are investing in this and getting paid, while brothers were getting locked up for it. I’m cashing in on this too,” Jamal told her. “I can play that game with the best of them. I know good product and I know how to grow it.”
Lorna watched him. “Do you have ten thousand dollars?”
He shrugged. “Not yet, but I’m going to get it.”
She lifted a brow. “How?”
“Get a partner or an investor,” he told her.
“Jamal, you were arrested. Will they even let you do that?”
He frowned. “Hold up, I went to juvenile for nine months to get my attitude corrected and teach me a lesson. I’m not a damn felon.”
Lorna heard the offense in his voice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What problem do you have with it?” Jamal asked.
“I don’t really have a problem with you being a grower. Are you going to be a user as well?”
“I mean, I’ll have to test the product for quality.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, weed doesn’t kill anybody Lorna. It’s actually a natural plant that was here long before white men made laws to keep people from selling and using it,” Jamal explained. “I’m not growing it to put on the streets for profit, but for the people with cancer and other diseases that cannabis helps relieve their pain.”
Lorna put a hand to her head. “Wow, this is…wow.”
Jamal watched her. “I can make so much money Lorna. Then I can do all the things that I want to do for you…for us.”
She took his hand and smiled at him. “So what all do you need to do?”
Jamal brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Like I said the application is due a few weeks before Christmas, so I have about eight weeks or so to get the money. I already have the land at my gardens to accommodate the number of plants I want to grow.”
“Once I’m designated as a grower, I’ll work with the dispensaries around the state to supply their customers,” Jamal explained.
Lorna listened intently. “Will this get you caught up in like cartel or gang activity?”
He shook his head. “No, I won’t have any illegal product.”
“But what if someone wants your product for illegal means?”
“I’m going to secure the gardens where the plants will be growing, and if anybody wants some static, they can get it,” he said boldly.
“Jamal…”
“What? I’m out here to make my bread,” Jamal replied. “And nobody’s going to stop me.”
Lorna shook her head. “When the town finds out that you’re growing marijuana, they’re going to lose their minds.”
Jamal sat back. “Won’t be the first time, I made them lose their minds.”
“You don’t care?”
He sat up again. “Listen, this is legal. I don’t make the laws, but I can follow them. Why should I let this opportunity pass when I have the skill and the resources to make enough money to set up myself, my kids and my kid’s kids, while actually helping people.”
“You think the white dude who’s completing his application, is at home worried about what the people in his town are going to think? Or if everybody agrees with him? Hell nah, he’s thinking about getting that paper for his family to take vacations, and buy them houses and cars. Why should I turn down the same opportunity?”
Lorna listened and digested his words.
“You feel me, baby?” he asked earnestly.
She looked at him, and after a minute, she said, “Yes, I feel you, baby.”