Jared saw Alex’s SUV the moment he pulled up to the address in one of Red Oak’s older neighborhoods. He was reporting for duty for the home-repair ministry’s newest project: a porch for elderly Sister Wilhelmena Kendall.
He got out and began walking toward the house. At seven-thirty in the morning, there were four cars in Sister Kendall’s yard, and several people standing around the sagging porch. Alex saw him and waved him over. Jared’s heart did a somersault at the sight of her. She looked beautiful, in a pair of well-worn jeans, a white tank top tucked into the waist, and a pair of tan work boots. Jared smiled. They’d worn the same colors today. He was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, as well. His work boots were black, though.
“Hey,” Alex said, smiling. They hugged briefly before joining the others.
Jared greeted Ruben and Gayle, the only two other people in the group that he knew.
“Glad to have a real builder join us,” Ruben said.
“Yeah,” Gayle agreed. “The rest of us are well-intentioned but only know the basics, like how to hammer a nail.”
Everybody laughed.
“Jared Kyles,” Alex said, introducing him to the other two men. “Wallace Bradley.”
Wallace was a tall, broad-shouldered black gentleman in his sixties. He had an intense stare and fairly bristled with nervous energy.
“Mr. Wallace,” Jared said politely.
Wallace pumped his hand. “C-call me Wally,” he stammered. “E-everybody does.”
“Wally, it is,” Jared said with a smile.
“And this is Patrick Wilson,” Alex said next, smiling at a stocky young man of medium height with dreadlocks down to his waist. “Patrick, Jared Kyles.”
Patrick nodded his hello. “Good to meet you, man.” He narrowed his light brown eyes at Jared. Puzzled by his attitude, Jared assumed it was simply a touch of xenophonia, or wariness of strangers, on the younger man’s part. Then Patrick’s gaze fell on Alex, and Jared knew that Patrick had a crush on her.
He didn’t have time to dwell on the revelation because as soon as Alex had finished introducing him around, she addressed the group. “Mrs. Kendall’s going to spend the night with Mother Maybelle. She’s not feeling her best and construction noises make her nervous.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s seven-forty now. The materials were delivered earlier this morning. Jared was nice enough to draw up the plans after coming last week to check out the old porch, and I estimate that we should be able to do the job in under eight hours, with a break for lunch from twelve-thirty to one. Okay! Let’s get the fun part out of the way.”
Jared took the lead in tearing the old porch down due to the experience needed to pry old nails out of the house without causing damage to the siding. After he had detached the porch from the house, the rest of them made short work of dismantling the footings, posts, and floor boards that comprised the porch.
They worked well together, everyone pulling his or her weight, and no one displaying ego when it came to taking directions from Jared, who was slinging commands at a fast pace. By noon, they’d all broken a nice sweat, and the frame for the large porch was up and resting on proper supports.
Alex and Jared were working next to each other. As she hammered a nail into a post, he said, “You swing that hammer so well, you could be part of my crew.”
Alex briefly looked up at him. The sunshine rendered his eyes the color of a copper penny. His skin glistened with perspiration, and the muscles in his chest and arms were nicely delineated beneath his T-shirt. She could have spent the day just admiring him in that shirt. “I don’t think working for you would be a good idea.”
“Oh? Why?”
“I’ve been on lots of construction sites, and the crews are never shy about expressing their appreciation for the female form. Could you handle your men gawking at me all day long?”
“I don’t have a jealous bone in my body,” Jared professed.
Alex laughed softly. “So you say!”
Jared looked serious. “You can’t possibly mean that if I offered you a lucrative landscaping job on one of my sites, you’d turn it down. Think of your company. Think of the extra money your men would earn.”
“Yeah, think of us!” Ruben put in. He couldn’t help overhearing their conversation because he was working less than five feet away from them.
Alex laughed even harder. “Listen, you two, keep your minds on the job. We’ll cross that bridge if we ever get to it.”
“I’m offering you a job now,” Jared challenged her. “The company’s building at least fifty new homes in a subdivision outside of town.”
“I’ll think about it and give you my answer later,” Alex said noncommittally. She looked pointedly at the hammer in his hand as if to tell him to stop dawdling.
Jared smiled and continued working.
By four o’clock that afternoon, the porch was finished. The floorboards of pressure-treated pine had been stained, and all that was left to do was allow it to dry before putting Sister Kendall’s swing and rocking chairs back where they belonged. Wally and Patrick volunteered to come back in the morning to do that, leaving everyone else free to collect their tools, say their good-byes, climb into their respective vehicles, and drive away.
Alex’s cell phone rang as she was driving. She carefully flipped it open and answered it. “Hello, handsome.” She’d seen Jared’s number on the cell phone’s screen.
“About our date tonight. Can you be ready by six?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like seafood?”
“Yes.”
“Would you come to my place right now so that we can make love the rest of the afternoon?”
“No.”
Jared laughed. “I was on a roll.”
“Yes, you were,” Alex said, laughing softly. “Where are we going tonight?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Give me a hint.”
“Do you like black-eyed peas?”
“Yes, of course I do. Is that the hint?” Alex asked, sounding disappointed. “Is that all I get?”
“Be patient, church girl. I’m gonna show you a real good time. Wear something funky. See you in a couple of hours.”
He hung up before Alex could ask another question.
As soon as Alex got home, she went to her bedroom to check her messages. She sat on the edge of the bed and pressed the play button, hoping Sam or Vicky had phoned while she was out. Sam was spending the summer in Florida working as a counselor at a basketball camp for high school students. Vicky was interning at an Atlanta hospital and had precious little time for anything other than work. Alex missed them desperately.
She laughed out loud when she heard Vicky’s excited voice. “Girl, you’re not going to believe who came to see me last night. I was coming off a tough shift, and so darned tired I could barely get the key into the lock, when I heard a voice from behind me in the hallway. Kenneth! Looking like he hadn’t slept in days. Fool that I am, I invited him in and for the next hour he told me what a mistake he’d made when he walked out on me. Alex, I sincerely don’t know what to make of him! But I told him I’d think about taking him back. Think about it, nothing certain. He really hurt me.” She sighed deeply. “Well, Dearest, I’m not the basket case you would imagine I would be due to this surprising turn of events. I’m okay. Just wanted to fill you in. Love you much!”
Turning away, Alex smiled contentedly. Her baby sister definitely had her head on straight. She would phone her in the morning when they would both be rested. Vicky usually had Sundays off.
“Look in the glove compartment. There’s a black scarf in there. I want you to blindfold yourself before I make the next turn,” Jared told her as he was driving down the highway a couple of hours later.
Alex thought his request was peculiar but went along with it. Jared was being very secretive tonight. After she’d complied, he said, “We’re almost there now. You won’t have to be blindfolded for much longer.”
“Good, because I hate being in the dark about anything,” Alex told him.
Jared smiled in her direction. She looked like a gypsy in her sexy multicolored silk skirt that swirled around her long legs when she moved, and a fly midriff top in deep purple. The shirt was sleeveless and had a modest neckline but afforded a nice glimpse of her toned stomach. Her golden brown skin was fairly flawless as far as he could see. He couldn’t help wondering if it was the same all over.
“No one’s going to jump out at me and yell in my ears when I remove this?”
Jared laughed shortly. “No.”
Momentarily, he stopped and parked the car. “Don’t move. I’m coming around to get you.”
Alex waited patiently, although her stomach muscles were twitching nervously.
Jared opened her door and helped her out. When her feet touched the ground, her first thought was that they were standing on asphalt.
She heard another male voice say, “Good evening, Mr. Kyles. We have beautiful flying conditions.”
Alex’s heart leaped with excitement. Flying?
Then she felt Jared’s hand on the blindfold. “Okay, you can take it off now,” he said.
When she could see again, a mid-sized Cessna and a tall gentleman she’d never seen before were in front of her.
“Captain Deweese, this is Miss Alexandra Cartwright.”
The captain bowed from the waist, his green eyes twinkling with humor. “A pleasure, Miss Cartwright.”
Alex couldn’t help staring in amazement at the Cessna. “It’s gorgeous!”
She shook the captain’s hand. He grinned down at her. He was in his mid-fifties with thick, wavy iron-gray hair, an angular face and a solid build. He was dressed in a pair of navy blue dress slacks, a pale blue short sleeved shirt, tie, and a pair of black wingtips. She supposed he was a private pilot and that was his uniform of choice.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Captain Deweese said, smiling. “I keep her in great shape.” He turned to Jared. “Shall we get underway?”
Jared nodded. He was beaming at Alex. When the captain walked away to do his final check of the plane before taking off, Alex spontaneously leaped into Jared’s arms and kissed him repeatedly on the cheek. Laughing, Jared hugged her tightly. “Come on, now, darlin’, the evening’s just getting started. Save some of the good stuff for later.”
Alex gave him one last kiss for good measure. “You’ve already impressed me. Whatever comes later is just icing on the cake.”
Jared grinned, grasped her by the arm, and helped her up the steps of the plane. “My goal tonight, sweetness, is to woo you to the full extent of my abilities. And be forewarned, I will do anything to meet my goal. Next stop, Atlanta.”
An hour and a half later they were seated at Jared’s favorite soul food restaurant in Atlanta, Hoppin’ John’s. Alex was charmed by the restaurant’s down-home atmosphere, replete with red-and-white checkered tablecloths and glass pitchers of ice water on every table so that patrons could serve themselves.
“Hoppin’ John,” Alex said as she perused the menu. “That’s the black-eyed peas part of your question.”
“My question?” Jared feigned ignorance of where she was headed.
“You asked me if I liked seafood and black-eyed peas.” She raised her gaze to his. “This isn’t a seafood restaurant.”
“Fried catfish is on the menu,” Jared said, a smile crinkling the corners of his golden-hued eyes.
“Okay,” Alex said, letting it go for now. She would get to the bottom of the mystery before long, though. “I think I’ll try their Hoppin’ John with that fried catfish you mentioned.”
Jared inclined his head in agreement and beckoned the waiter to their table.
A few minutes later, as both of them were finishing their meals, Jared kept glancing at his watch. Alex refrained from asking him why he was doing that for as long as she could tolerate his odd behavior, then blurted out, “Why do you keep looking at your watch? Do you have somewhere else to be?”
Jared smiled wickedly at her. “No, we have more than enough time to linger over our meals. I’m sure Seal won’t start the concert without us.”
Alex stood straight up, pushing her chair back with her legs. Hands on her hips, she stared down at him with a peevish expression on her face. “Jared Kyles, do you mean to tell me you have tickets to the sold-out Seal concert, and I couldn’t get tickets to save my life?”
Jared went into his inside coat pocket and produced the aforementioned tickets. “Third row, center,” he said proudly.
Alex snatched the tickets from him, kissed his lips briefly, then sat back down, not wanting to make a spectacle of herself. “You are a prince!” she cried, keeping her voice low. Their eyes met and held across the table. “But how did you know I’m a Seal fan?”
“Ruben and I had a chance to talk while you and Gayle were getting coffee after dinner on Mother’s Day. He says you have all of Seal’s CDs, and you have a huge crush on him.”
“A crush?” Alex denied. “Not really, I just think he’s super talented, that’s all.”
“Oh, I don’t mind if you have a jones for him, Alexandra, as long as I’m the one you go home with.”
At the concert, they held hands and cuddled while Seal entertained them with a selection of old and new songs. Alex kept stealing glances at Jared. He’d taken the time to plan a perfect evening for her, even going as far as asking her best friend about her likes and dislikes. He was a special man, and she was glad he was in her life. More than glad, delighted!
When Seal launched into an “unplugged” version of “Love’s Divine,” accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar, Alex leaned over and whispered, “This is my favorite.”
Jared kissed her forehead, and she rested her head on his shoulder as they listened. The lights were dimmed, and there were more than two thousand other music lovers in the auditorium, all enraptured with Seal’s mesmerizing voice.
After the song ended, Alex and Jared gazed into each other’s eyes. Then they kissed without saying a word. It was as if the melodious tones and heartfelt words of the song had infused them with the need to come together in as passionate an embrace as they could, given the fact that they were in a public place. Around them, other couples were likewise engaged.
“I’ve never said this to another woman before,” Jared said once they parted.
Alex looked up at him expectantly. “What?”
Jared sighed. “I want to take you to meet my mom.”
Laughing softly, Alex threw her arms around his neck. “I’d love to.”