SHE’D WANTED A change of subject, away from American Jimmy and his new girlfriend, but going from that to Karlene and Roy, and Kiah having to talk to Charm about them, left her raw. Both were subjects that made her heartache all the harder to bear, albeit in different ways.
Not that she was bitter, really; she wished nothing but the best for Jimmy and his lady. But hearing about them falling in love was a reminder of how unlikely it was that she’d ever be in a similar situation. Warren and his ugly truths had put paid to that.
Then talking about Karlene and Roy... Ouch.
She’d been the one Kiah called, after hearing from the cops, and it was Mina who’d gone to the police station to be with Charm. The memory was one that haunted her still, and she could only imagine how Kiah felt about having to relive that time with his niece.
So, having the waiter come to take their drink orders was something of a relief.
“Rum punch?” Kiah questioned, after the waiter left. “You remember how strong those are, right?”
Mina gave him a grin and nodded. “Yep, but I feel like celebrating, and I know you’ll take care of me if I get a little tipsy.”
The club started filling up, and people gravitated to their table. A couple of men, whom Kiah introduced to her as Slim and Henkel—she never did get their real names—were the ones who stuck around, while others came and went. They were fun, trading jokes and stories with Kiah while flirting outrageously with Mina, who laughed it all off.
“Hey, why you so nosy, Henkel?” Kiah broke in to the conversation, as his friend started questioning Mina about her life.
“Cho, man. Just trying to get to know this lovely lady a little better,” came the easy reply, accompanied by a sly grin. “I think your friend is old enough to take care of herself. You mind your own business.”
“On that note,” Mina said, laughing as she got up, “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”
There was no way she was hanging around for the part when he asked her what happened to her hand.
She’d seen the men glancing at her empty sleeve whenever she raised her arm above the level of the table, and knew it was coming. If she could forestall it until after she’d had another rum punch, maybe she could come up with a witty, pithy reply.
There was a bit of a line for the bathroom, and by the time she came back outside it was to find the dance floor crowded with people, all jumping and dancing to a popular calypso song. And there, in the midst of it all, was Kiah.
Mina kept walking, even though her first impulse was to stop and stare. The woman dancing with him was gorgeous, with long, professionally streaked hair, impeccable makeup and an hourglass figure on full display in a tight, skimpy jumpsuit.
And if she danced any closer to Kiah, they’d be wearing the same pants.
Why that annoyed Mina as much as it did, she didn’t want to contemplate, but it took everything she had to keep a slight smile on her face and not look back at the gyrating couple.
Slim and Henkel got up as she approached, and Henkel held out his hand. Then he did a little sideways shimmy toward the dance floor.
“Come dance with me, Mina,” he said.
She laughed and shook her head, already lowering herself into her chair. Thankfully it was facing away from the dance floor, so she could avoid the display going on there.
With an elaborate sigh, Henkel sat down beside her and, resting his elbow on the table, put his chin in his palm so he was looking right into her face.
“So, Miss Mina, how long are you staying here with me?”
He made it sound as though she came specifically to see him, and would be moving into his house any minute, and she couldn’t help chuckling.
“I’m not sure yet. Probably about a month. Just until I get the new systems I’ll be working on for the hospital squared away.”
How a man of his age could still achieve puppy-dog eyes was a mystery to Mina, but somehow he managed it.
“If you need someone to show you around and take you to nicer places than this, just let me know, you hear?”
Slim kissed his teeth and rolled his eyes, then leaned forward so he was almost right between Mina and his friend.
“Don’t go anywhere with him. You don’t need an old reprobate like him hanging around.”
“Who you calling a reprobate?” Henkel abandoned his attempt at flirtation and rounded on his friend.
“You, same one,” was the reply.
“Huh. If I’m so much of a reprobate, how come you’re always hanging out with me?”
“Because I’m one, too,” was the response. “But I’m just honest about it.”
Mina couldn’t help laughing at the banter, even though her thoughts remained fixed on the dance floor. The song had changed, but Kiah hadn’t come back.
As though reading her mind, Slim looked that way and shook his head, before taking a sip of his drink.
“Aii, sah. That Trini girl goin’ wine off Kiah’s pants front, if he’s not careful.”
“We used to call him ‘Calypso Kiah’ back at university,” Mina said, trying to sound nonchalant, and steadfastly resisting the urge to turn around to gawk, too.
“Not surprised,” Henkel replied, his eyes narrowing, so that Mina wondered exactly what was happening. “You knock two tin cans together on the other side of the island, and that man is there to dance. Whew, that woman getting on bad.”
“Getting on bad” was one of those all-purpose expressions Mina had learned over years of knowing Kiah. It could mean anything, from praise of the woman’s dancing skills to her being about to start a fight, but somehow she didn’t think Henkel meant the latter. His eyes were wide, and he raised a hand to fan at his face.
Slim chuckled. “Niesha’s been trying to reel Kiah in for the last six months, not realizing she hasn’t set the hook yet.”
Henkel shook his head. “Lost cause, that man. She could hook me, reel me in and sink me, all in that time, and I wouldn’t even mind.”
“Ha, that’s what you say now, but Niesha would chew you up and spit you out without blinking, and if she ever looks at you the way she looking at Kiah now, you’d run so fast.”
Okay, now Mina had to glance over her shoulder to see what it was the men were looking at, and when she did, she wished she hadn’t.
With her body pressed flush to Kiah’s and one arm draped over his shoulder, Niesha was staring up into his face with an expression of blatant hunger. And that swivel thing she was doing with her hips...
With heat rising at her nape, Mina forced herself to turn back around and reached for her glass, trying to push away the emotions bubbling in her chest. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t used to seeing women throw themselves at Kiah. That had been happening since they hit puberty and the girls started noticing how handsome he was. Yet, somehow, tonight was different.
It actually hurt.
She took a long swallow of her drink and tried to focus on what the other men were saying. And by the time Kiah made his way back to the table, Niesha in tow, Mina thought she’d got her inexplicable jealousy under control.
“Whew, that was something, boy.” Niesha sank into a chair and flipped her hair back over one shoulder, giving Kiah a sultry glance as he sat next to her. “You know how to move, man.”
Kiah just laughed, glancing at Mina, who quirked her eyebrows at him, trying not to show him her teeth, the way she wanted to.
“Niesha, this is my friend Mina. Mina, this is Niesha.”
“Hi,” Niesha said with a grin, but Mina thought her eyes were watchful. “You’re Kiah’s friend from Canada, right?”
“Yes,” Mina said, smiling in return, although it was the last thing she felt like doing.
“I don’t know how you stand the cold up there. I like things hot.”
The look she gave Kiah made it obvious she considered him one of those hot things she liked.
“It’s not so bad when you get used to it,” Kiah said, sending Mina a mischievous grin. “Although Mina always complained all through winter, and she was born there.”
Mina made a blah-blah-blah motion with her hand back at him, which made him laugh, then Niesha leaned toward him, pressing her ample bosom against his arm.
“While I remember, I’m putting together a team for the bank’s fund-raising 5K run. Join me?”
And after that Niesha dominated the conversation, leaving Mina mostly to her own thoughts, since they were talking about places and people she didn’t know. And when Kiah tried to draw her into the conversation, she resisted, albeit with a smile, unaccountably annoyed with him, although he’d really done nothing wrong.
Kiah glanced at his watch and decided to call it a night. He’d had more than enough of Niesha, who was loud, brassy and handsy, too. She’d dragged him onto the dance floor while he was on his way to the bar, and, as hard as he tried to keep a decent distance between them, she’d been all over him like polyester on a humid day.
Normally he didn’t think twice about dancing that way. But since Niesha had made it clear on several occasions that she was willing to have an intimate relationship with him, and Kiah wasn’t interested, it didn’t feel right to encourage her.
Worse, once back at the table, she’d totally taken over, hardly giving anyone else a chance to get a word in edgewise. He’d been unable to resist making the comparison between her and Mina, who didn’t need to slather on makeup or wear a barely-there outfit to be beautiful. And although she’d consumed a number of rum punches, Mina hadn’t gotten loud or boisterous, nor demanded the attention of everyone at the table be focused on her.
Even though he thought Mina was still too slender, he preferred her more subtle curves—her delicacy—to Niesha’s buxom figure.
But he was going to have to have some sharp words with Henkel, who was hanging all over Mina as if he was about to smother her. Not that Mina seemed to particularly mind, since she just laughed and had a joking reply to most of his advances.
Kiah didn’t know why seeing the other man whispering in Mina’s ear made him so annoyed, but it definitely had to stop.
As soon as he said they were leaving, both Niesha and Henkel objected, but Kiah didn’t bother arguing with them. Instead he put his arm around Mina’s shoulders and, with a last round of goodbyes, led her out of the club.
“You can stay, if you want,” she said, once they were outside. “No need to leave on my account.”
Kiah paused. “Did you want to stay?”
“No, but I can grab a cab home, if you wanted to go back in. Niesha seemed very disappointed that you were leaving so soon.”
Kiah started walking again, tugging Mina along with him, his arm still over her shoulders. She was walking steadily, but he’d seen how many rum punches she’d drunk, and wasn’t taking any chances. The unpaved, gravel-covered parking lot was uneven. “I can’t help that. Besides, I’m really not interested in her.”
“She’s very beautiful.”
Kiah snorted. “Not my type.”
They’d gotten to the car but before he could open her door, Mina turned her back to it, blocking the handle. “Kiah, when was the last time you had a relationship?”
She knew the answer, he was sure, but he replied anyway. “Not since Valerie and I broke up. Why?”
She didn’t reply to his question, just tilted her head to one side, her shadowed gaze searching his. In the faint light from the street, which cast her cheekbones and tender lips into sharp relief and made her eyes look wide and alluring, her face was mysterious.
“You never told me what happened between you. You’d sounded happy with her.”
Kiah rubbed at his cheek. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about, especially on the heels of their earlier conversation about Karlene and Roy.
“We had a parting of the ways, Mina.”
She huffed out a little breath, her lips curving, although she didn’t really look amused.
“What caused it, this parting of the ways?”
“We...disagreed on the advisability of my taking custody of Charm. Valerie was very up-front about not wanting to raise another person’s child.”
“Wow.” Mina sounded genuinely shocked. “So what did she think should happen to Charm, then, if you didn’t take custody?”
“I don’t think she much cared.”
Mina scowled. “That’s the worst thing I’ve heard in...in forever. I hope you told her where to get off.”
He couldn’t help the bitter, rueful bark of pseudo laughter he gave. “I’m afraid I did, and I’m not proud of it. I hadn’t lost my temper like that in years.”
Mina shook her head, her lips firming for an instant. “You’d just gone through the tragedy of Karlene’s death, and were under the stress of your mother and her nonsense. No one could blame you for losing it. Charm’s future was at stake.”
He blamed himself, though, for the loss of control, for expecting Valerie to be more supportive than she was. “I should have expected her reaction. She’d already told me she wasn’t interested in having children at all.”
“And you agreed with that? Before this...disagreement?”
Kiah nodded, watching Mina’s expression, wondering where she was going with this entire conversation.
“It didn’t really matter to me, whether we had kids or not. I actually would have preferred not to. You know I’ve always said that between my father dying so young and my mom’s emotional instability, it’s probably better these genes don’t get passed on. My thoughts on that haven’t changed.”
“Even though you’ve been tested for the congenital condition your father had?”
He noticed she didn’t mention his mother and was glad. He didn’t want to discuss her if he could help it, nor talk about how much of her he sometimes saw in himself. Like the night he and Valerie got into it, and he’d said some truly hurtful things before walking away, knowing he desperately needed to cool off.
“It’s not worth the risk,” he said. “I didn’t plan on it, but I have Charm to take care of, and that’s enough for me.”
“Is it really?” She held up her hand, as though knowing his answer already. “Forget I said anything. It’s the rum talking. I worry about you, want you to be happy.”
“I am.” Even as he said it, he realized it was true, and a lot of his present happiness came from being there just then, with her. “And I want the same for you.”
Something changed in her expression. If he didn’t know her as well as he did, he’d have missed it, but even so, he couldn’t interpret the emotion that suddenly shadowed her eyes and fractionally tightened her lips.
When she reached out and trailed her fingers along his cheek, so lightly they could have been butterfly wings, he froze, startled by the surge of emotion engendered by her tender caress.
“Let me tell you a secret,” she said, leaning in so her face was close enough that he could have kissed her, if he dared. “Sometimes it’s far easier to accept your limitations than it is to fight against them and get your heart broken.”
Before he realized her intention, Mina closed the gap between them and placed her lips on his. Soft and sweet and warm, they teased his mouth, moving ever so slightly, and now he recognized what he was feeling.
Desire.
Need.
But this was Mina.
Mina!
And although he wanted to pull her closer, deepen the kiss into something carnal and fierce, he held himself as still as possible, hardly daring to breathe, lest she figure out what he was feeling.
She pulled back, her gaze searching his, then she turned away, fumbling with the handle of the car door, saying, “Dammit, Kiah. You got me drunk again, and now you won’t take me home to bed.”
“Lawd,” he groaned, hoping she would think he was just grousing and not wishing he could do just that—take her home to his bed, and make love to her all night long.
And he knew she’d interpreted it the way he hoped when she laughed, and would have tumbled headfirst into the car if he hadn’t had a firm hold on her arm.