A Forever Kind of Love (Kimani Romance) (6 page)

More like a house
robber
. Corey could practically hear her unspoken words.

As Jamal led the way to the kitchen, Corey hung back, assessing Mya.

The Corey Anderson she remembered was a bad boy who bucked authority and did his damnedest to mimic Shawn and Stefan, who had turned making mischief into an art form. Corey had been well on his way to a life of trouble, until Coach Edwards rescued him. But after being a hell-raiser for so long, it was hard to change people’s minds.

He was determined to show the people of Gauthier that he had turned over a new leaf. Maybe in the process he could show Mya what she was missing out on. If Corey had anything to say about it, she wouldn’t be so quick to run back to the big city. She had been away too long; he was going to remind her how great small-town life could be.

Chapter 5

A
s the steel door closed behind her, Mya was catapulted back to her past. Gauthier High School looked exactly the same, from the light green walls to the speckled vinyl tile flooring stretching from one end of the corridor to the other. It even
smelled
the same, like wax and lemon.

She walked with measured steps down the main hallway, her eyes wandering over framed photographs of various academic and social clubs throughout the years. She stopped in front of a picture of the National Beta Honor Society from her senior year and laughed out loud at her hairstyle. She’d spent a good portion of her weekly paycheck from the pharmacy buying the hair gel she used to keep those finger waves shellacked to her scalp.

A cackle of laughter resonated from the end of the hallway. Mya made her way to the home economics room where the civic association held their bimonthly meeting. She was instantly bombarded by people she’d just seen a few days ago at her grandfather’s funeral, all conveying again how sorry they were about Big Harold’s passing and inquiring about her grandmother’s health. Claudette dragged her to a table with store-bought cookies and punch and insisted she have both.

“I saw Eloise today,” Claudette said as she piled on the cookies. “She told me you were joining the committee.”

Mya choked on her drink, shaking her head so vigorously punch sloshed out of her cup and onto her knuckle. “I’m not joining anything,” she said. “I’m just here to take notes and report back to Grandma. She’ll be out of the hospital and able to join you all soon.”

“Whatever you say, honey.” Claudette gave her a patronizing pat on the arm.

Before Mya could voice a rebuttal, Corey walked through the classroom door wearing a green polo shirt with
Gauthier Fighting Lions
embroidered on the left chest pocket.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Practice ran over.”

Margery Lambert, who had been the head of the deaconess board at her childhood church for as long as Mya could remember, clapped her hands together and said, “Now that all the board members or their proxies are here, we can get started. As always, we will open with a prayer and ask God for special healing for Eloise Dubois, who can’t be with us today.”

Mya inched her way over toward Corey as Margery proved to the room just why she deserved her position as head deaconess.

“What are you doing here?” Mya asked in a fierce whisper.

“Shhh,” Corey said. “We’re supposed to be praying.”

“Corey Anderson, don’t stand there pretending you have a religious bone in your body. I know you.”

The sexiest smile in the world pulled at the corner of his mouth, causing Mya’s insides to turn into a melty puddle of goo.

The prayer ended and Margery passed out xeroxed copies of an agenda.

“What are you doing here?” Mya asked again.

“I’m a member of the civic association,” he answered, that smirk broadening.

Yeah, right
. Corey Anderson
so
did not fit in with this crowd.

As Margery ticked off items on the list, ranging from encouraging parish government to fill potholes around town to painting the benches in the park, Mya continued to hound him. “Stop playing around, Corey. What are you
really
doing here?”

He refused to answer her; he just continued to stare at the paper in his hand as if the meeting agenda had the most fascinating words ever written.

“What are we going to do about this new store that’s trying to bully its way onto Main Street?” Barbara Cannon, whose husband owned Lou Cannon’s Dry Cleaning, asked.

“Talk to him,” Margery said, pointing at Corey. “He’s the one who’s trying to put everybody out of business.”

“That is
not
what I’m trying to do,” Corey said with an exasperated sigh. “Like I said at last month’s meeting, the new developers are promising to work
with
the local businesses, not against them.”

“That’s what they say now,” Claudette chimed in. “I stopped in at their Slidell location when I went to visit my daughter. They stock at least twenty national brands in their hair care section, all for less than what I can afford to sell them.”

“Mrs. Claudette, people have been going to your shop for years. They’re not going to stop because of this new store.”

“They’ll come to get their hair done, but they’re going to go over to that new store to buy their hair spray. The money I make selling styling products pays my shop’s utilities. You think I can do anybody’s hair without electricity?”

Corey glanced over at Mya with a look that said
save me!

She was tempted to let him suffer a bit longer, but it was evident that the room was becoming hostile. The grumblings were near a fever pitch.

“Why don’t we revisit the issue regarding the new development later,” Mya suggested. “If possible, I’d like to move the discussion to the downtown revitalization project.”

“Oh, yes. I have some ideas.”

Mya glanced to see who’d said that and barked out a nervous laugh as Clementine Washington waved her hand in the air.

“Actually,” Mya interrupted, before Clementine could make any suggestions about her grandson pulling a rabbit out of a magical hat. “There is one thing I wanted to mention. As I was going through Grandma’s notes, I couldn’t help but notice that everything you all have planned for the revitalization project involves just the handful of people in this room.”

“Well, we
are
the civic association,” Margery said. “It’s up to us to make sure stuff gets done around this town.”

“You all can champion it, but you don’t have to do it by yourselves,” Mya pointed out. “Why don’t you try getting the entire community more involved in the revitalization effort?”

Margery shot her a
well, duh
look. “That’s what we’re trying to do with the celebration.”

“No, I mean before the celebration takes place. Why not get them involved in the preparation? Main Street is pretty well preserved, but when I was downtown earlier I noticed that there are bricks on the sidewalk that need to be replaced and those wrought-iron lampposts could use a new coat of paint. I’m sure you can get people to donate a few hours of their time to help spruce things up before the celebration.”

“That’s a good idea,” Clementine said with a hint of awe, as if she was surprised Mya could come up with one of those.

“That’s a
really
good idea,” Corey agreed. “We can make it an organized event. I’ll get the entire baseball team to pitch in. Gauthier High now requires students to earn fifty hours of community service before they graduate. I doubt most of them have reached that yet.”

“The Lions Club can help, too,” someone added.

“And the churches would certainly recruit people.”

“Are you going to head this up, Mya?” Claudette asked.

“No.” Mya shook her head. “I was just making the suggestion.”

“Oh, I’ll bet we can get supplies donated from the big hardware store in Maplesville,” someone else said.

“We might as well clean up Heritage Park, too,” another said.

“Mya, why don’t you make a list of everything that we need.”

Mya tried to protest again, but it was as if she were talking to a brick wall.

No doubt sensing her panic, Corey leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll work with you on this.”

She slanted a glance his way and wasn’t sure whether she should feel relieved or even more frightened at the thought of working with Corey on anything.

How had she ended up here? She should have been in her apartment in Brooklyn, eating a slice of pizza from the little restaurant down the block and watching reruns of
The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Instead she’d just been volunteered to head up a committee to spruce up downtown Gauthier?

Mya felt the walls of the town closing in on her. And she couldn’t do a single thing about it.

A half hour later, as she walked to Aunt Maureen’s sedan, which was her new mode of transportation now that she’d returned her rental car, she was stopped by a hand to her shoulder. Mya jumped. She spun around, her hand flat on her chest.

“Sorry,” Corey said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay,” she said with a relieved breath when she saw it was him.

“Thanks for saving me back in there,” he said. “I’m pretty sure pitchforks were about to come out.”

“I still think those women are right about the store,” Mya stated.

He rolled his eyes and ticked items off on his fingers. “New jobs, greater selection of products, more sales tax revenues. Need I go on?”

Resting against the driver’s-side door, she folded her arms across her chest and said, “Nothing you can say will convince me that this store is a good idea, Corey. The one thing I’ve always loved about this town is its unique character, and Main Street is a big part of that. Constructing a huge, windowless monstrosity of a store will do nothing but take away from the character and charm of Main Street.”

“So, is that what your cleanup day is supposed to do? Help restore the character and charm of Main Street?”

“Don’t call it
my
cleanup day. I just suggested it, but I can’t take the lead on this.”

“Why not?” Corey asked, mimicking her stance as he leaned against the back door and crossed his ankles. “You just said yesterday that you don’t have anything to do over at Mrs. Eloise’s. And I already offered to help out. Why don’t we get together tomorrow afternoon after I’m done with baseball practice? We can go over ideas.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Spending time with you,” she clarified when he looked confused.

“Come on, Mya. I’m not that bad.”

“You, Corey Anderson, are the very definition of bad.”

“Well, I am one of those Anderson boys,” he said.

“It has nothing to do with you being one of those Anderson boys. You know that’s not the kind of bad I’m talking about.”

He flashed that smile again, and she went liquid. God, how could he still have this effect on her?

“Admit it,” he said in a low, way-too-sexy-for-her-own-good voice. “You like being bad with me.”

She swallowed deep. “Liked. Past tense,” Mya said. “And, yes, I liked it way too much.”

Looking over at him, she tilted her head to the side. There was a time when the man standing next to her could get her to do just about anything. He was just a boy back then, but he had consumed her every waking thought. Mya was sure he had no idea the power he wielded over her. She would have moved heaven and earth to please him.

A smile touching her lips, she shook her head. “You always were my favorite mistake.”

He covered his chest as if she’d struck him. “Ouch. A mistake? That’s harsh, Peaches.”

Mya didn’t bother to correct him. As frightening as it was to admit, she got a slight thrill at hearing the long-ago nickname roll so effortlessly off his tongue. Memories of other times he’d whispered that name in her ear sent tendrils of heat cascading along her skin.

It was a bad idea to allow those thoughts to invade her mind.

“I need to go,” Mya said with an abrupt start. “Grandma is expecting a report on tonight’s meeting.”

She opened the car door, but Corey reached across the open space, bracing his hand on the doorjamb. “Are we meeting tomorrow?” he asked. “Just to discuss plans. I promise.”

That word slapped her in the face. Sobering, Mya said, “From what I remember, your promises aren’t always kept.”

He dropped his hands, along with the smile that had been on his lips. “Mya,” he said with a defeated sigh.

She didn’t wait for the rest of his response as she ducked into the car. Slipping behind the wheel, she started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.

* * *

Mya knocked gently on the door to her grandmother’s hospital room, not wanting to disturb her if she was sleeping.

“Come in,” Aunt Mo called.

She pushed the door open and laughed at the sight before her. A serious game of cards was in progress, and judging by the pile of cotton balls stacked on Grandma’s side of the small tray table, she was whipping Aunt Mo’s butt.

“All this place needs is dim lighting and a haze of hovering cigar smoke,” Mya said.

“Just let me win this hand,” Grandma said. “Then you can fill me in on what happened tonight.”

A minute later, Aunt Mo was pushing away from the bed and mumbling about cheaters. Mya took her spot, gathering the cotton balls and placing them in the plastic bin that was supposed to serve as a washtub.

“First things first,” Mya said. “What did the doctors tell you today?”

“My sugar is under control,” Grandma announced. “All four readings today were in the safe range, so it looks as if I’ll be changing to this new insulin.”

“And the anemia?”

“The doctor thinks it’ll be okay if she adds more iron to her diet,” Aunt Mo said from the recliner that had served as her bed for the past two nights. “They’re discharging her tomorrow morning.”

Mya’s shoulders slumped with relief. “That’s wonderful.”

“I don’t know about that,” her grandmother said. “Are you going back to New York now that I’m on my way home?” The layer of guilt in those words was thicker than molasses.

“I don’t think I’ll be leaving that soon,” Mya sighed. “Especially now that I’m the head of the Gauthier Civic Association’s Cleanup Day.”

A whoop of laughter came from Aunt Mo. “What did those women talk you into?”

Mya gave them the rundown on the night’s meeting, with Grandma stopping her to interject comments. Her eyes beamed with pride when Mya told her about her suggestion to get the community involved in sprucing up Main Street, and how the entire group loved it.

“That is exactly what this town needs,” Grandma said. She covered Mya’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you for agreeing to do this.”

If her grandmother knew how close Mya had been to bolting from that classroom, she wouldn’t be looking at her as if she were Mother Teresa reincarnated.

“It isn’t that big of a deal,” Mya said, smoothing the edges on the thin bedsheet before pushing up from the chair.