Three years later
“GIRL, DID YOU see what Beyoncé was wearing at the VMAs last night? She was so wrong for that. Don’t she know leggings don’t look good on a female after she’s had a baby?” Anj asked in her usual cheeky way.
I rolled my eyes and kept typing the email to my mother.
Mom,
I hope all is well in Paris. I loved the cashmere scarf you sent. Please send Rich my love. Your relentless begging and now bribery still won’t work. I love my job here, and no, I don’t plan to ever finish college. It just wasn’t for me. Can you please let it go? Pops pays me well and I have my own cabin by the lake. Life is great. For your other question, no, I am not gay… I just haven’t found the right guy, nor am I even looking at the moment. I’m focusing on my career at the bank. I hope to see you both at Thanksgiving.
Kisses and hugs,
Lia
After I hit send, I looked over at Anj. She was a beautiful black girl, but she was as feisty as they come. She always had the “hot brotha” she wanted to set me up with, never thwarted by my constant refusals. Each week, she’d have a new prospect for me. I would politely remind her every time that I didn’t date at all. Today, she was on a roll.
“Lia! I almost forgot to tell you. Brother Hagan was introducing some new folks to the congregation yesterday and he brought up a fine specimen of a man that had my lady parts quivering,” she said.
“Ugh! TMI, Anj! You’re a married woman and were at church for crying out loud,” I grumbled to her.
“I can still look,” she replied sweetly with a wink.
Her adorable, uncontrollable laughter had me cracking a smile of my own.
Anj was married to Deion, the stereotypical hot fireman, and they had the cutest little kids: Tatum, six, and Neveah, four. Anj was short for Anjel, which she refused to go by “because my momma don’t know how to spell.”
When I heard a door open, I looked up to see Pops. This elicited a huge grin from me, which was mirrored on his face. Pops was Ben Johnson, owner of Jonestown Bank & Trust where Anj and I worked.
“Lia,” his voice boomed. “Looks like we got the new builder that was featured in Austin Homes magazine.”
I jumped up and ran over to give him a big hug. “Congrats, Pops! I know how hard you were wooing him.”
Pops was an older gentleman with white hair, and he was the epitome of a grandfatherly figure even though he and his wife Betty hadn’t been able to have children. He was the reason I had this job.
When horrors that I wanted to forget had happened three years ago, I’d driven until I’d come to the small town of Jonestown, Texas. After spending the night in an old motel, I intended on applying to be a teller at the local bank there in town, hoping that my partial finance degree could be put to use. When the old man walked into the lobby, he hired me on the spot to be his assistant.
Later, he told me that something in my teary eyes, quivering chin—which I’d still managed to hold high—and the most ridiculous gold, sparkly, high-heeled shoes he’d ever seen had prompted a need in him to look after me. The huge bruise on the side of my face and cuts all over my arms had probably added to his protective manner as well. He’d insisted that I call him ‘Pops’ right from the beginning. I’d been his sidekick ever since.
Thinking about my love for shoes, I looked down at my newest find, which I’d ordered from Steve Madden. Sigh. Shoes were my life.
“Mr. Reeves will be here tomorrow to sign some preliminary documentation and bring over his financials,” Pops informed me, tearing me from admiring my shoes. “I’ll also need you to go check the progress on the spec homes out in Wildwood Creek Estates this afternoon so we can fund their draw requests.”
“No problem. Hey, Pops? It’s Wednesday and we’ll be super slow this afternoon anyway. Do you think I could go home afterwards?” I begged with a sweet smile, knowing he couldn’t resist even if he tried.
He let out a groan of defeat, causing Anj to snicker to herself in the corner. “Anj, back to work,” he boomed in an attempt to sound authoritative, sending her and me into a fit of hysterics.
I chuckled all the way to my desk and started to gather my things when I noticed that Pops had set a sack on my desk. “What’s this?” I questioned, peeking inside.
He grinned mischievously at me. “Betty sent more of those romance novels for you to read. She told me to tell you she expects a full report on the last ones she lent you.”
I felt my cheeks redden, which caused another eruption of laughter, this time from Anj and Pops. Betty was just as bad as my mother when it came to my love life.
“Thanks. Will do,” I muttered.
On the way to Wildwood, I rolled down the window to my old Honda to enjoy the unusually warm late October air. The scenery in this town was beautiful. I could oftentimes mostly forget what had driven me away from the comforts of a big-city life to the security of the quiet countryside.
When that night tried to replay in my mind or I awoke from a nightmare, I had to remind myself that he never knew who I was. If he’d survived, there would be no way he could ever know how to find me. In an effort to blend in, I traded in my long, blond locks for my natural brown hair color and my manicured nails for calluses from fixing up my cabin. I was no longer the popular president of my sorority—the social butterfly. No, I was a faded version of my original self—a moth. I just wanted to fade into the background. Well, except for my shoes. The line had to be drawn somewhere.
After a few days in my new life, I’d called my mother to tell her about how I’d dropped out of college. She had been shocked and disappointed but supportive of me “finding myself.” As long as she and Rich knew how to get ahold of me while they bounced from city to city, she was happy.
I still hadn’t had the courage to describe to her the terrors of my past. My mother was so caring that she would have dropped her new life with Rich to come take care of me. I might have been a selfish bitch at that school, but my mother was my world and I could never do that to her. Plus, some things are just better left unsaid.
As I pulled into the addition, I stopped at the first home in progress to begin my inspections. I traded my gorgeous, red pumps for my pink Gucci rain boots. There was no way I was going to ruin my newest loves in the muck at these construction sites.
When I stepped out of my car with my camera in hand, I put on my fiercest look, glaring at any workers who dared look my way. They would never know that it was a façade, that I was really just trying to control my shaking hands. I thought secretly, deep down, that Pops knew that I need these types of outings to grow my self-confidence and shake some of my deep-seated fears. I tromped through the mud, ignoring the catcalls from the bored workers, and began my inspections.
Once I finished with the last house, I noticed a red Chevy pickup in the last lot in the addition right next to where I’d been working. Instantly, I became hyperaware of my surroundings. Something about the empty truck in the vacant lot was causing bells to ring loud and clear with warning. Butterflies skittered in my stomach. Quickly, I began to make my way back to my car, mace ready to deliver a deadly concoction to any eyes that dare come near me.
As I reached for the latch to open my car door, a hand grabbed my shoulder, making me spin wildly while viciously spraying my attacker with the mace. The man screamed.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he growled, rubbing at his burning eyes.
“Don’t touch me, you freak,” I hissed back at him while both retreating towards my car and keeping him in my line of vision.
“What’s a girl even doing on a construction site anyway? The mall is that way.” He pointed in no direction at all, really.
My fear subsided as anger took over.
“You deserved that for sneaking up on me!” I retorted scathingly.
As he continued to curse and wheeze, I looked him over. This was one of those “fine specimen of a man” types Anj was always talking about. He stood well over six feet tall and his broad shoulders made me think he was built like a linebacker. His tight, white T-shirt stretched over his extremely muscled chest, which made it difficult look away. The shirt looked every bit too small for him, because every time he raised his arms to ball his fists over his burning eyes, it revealed a sliver of skin just above the waistline of his jeans, which were already low on his hips. He had a sexy-looking tattoo on his right bicep that peeked out under the sleeve of his shirt. I had the urge to reach over and lift it up to see what hid underneath.
Might it be wings of a bird?
The fitted jeans were free of holes or dirt, looking quite expensive for this neck of the woods. The clean work boots didn’t seem to quite fit the look of a typical worker out in this area either. My eyes cursed at me when I finally peeled them away from his hard body.
“You have to take me to have my eyes looked at,” he choked out. I refrained from overtly ogling him now that he was speaking to me.
“What? No!” I replied quickly. “You brought this on yourself, so you can figure it out on your own.”
I flung open my car door, ready to leave him standing there, when he stopped me with his next words. With a gentleness that was so opposite of his initial reaction to the mace, he pleaded, “Please. I’m new here. I wouldn’t even know where to go.”
Against my better judgment, I caved.