Burned (17 page)

“No. People have a past, and no one is perfect. Nick, I have never dated a White man, and you have never dated a Black woman. If we pursue a relationship, it will be a lot of work. I mean we’ll have to grow some tough skin to deal with the hate.”

He got off the sofa and joined her at the window. He embraced her from behind. The smell of her body drifted in his nose. She smelled of lilacs, and he wanted to fall asleep to that smell every night. “Baby, you are worth the fight and more.”  He rocked her in his arms. “I will protect you from harm even though I know you’re strong enough to handle it yourself.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “What about your family?  Will they approve of me?”

He nuzzled the top of her head with his chin. “I’m not going to lie to you. My old man is a fucking bastard and hates Blacks, Jews and anyone, not like him. But I don’t have a relationship with him either. I saw myself becoming him, and that accident was a wakeup call for me to get my shit together. My job is to save lives, and I can’t pick and choose the lives I save. And when my ass was in trapped in that fire, it was a Black man that saved me.”

She squirmed in his arms, and he tightened his hold on her. “Nick, maybe we should think about it and not jump so quickly.”

“I don’t wanna think about it. I want to do this, Lincoln. Thinking about it will only lead to overthinking and eventually us walking away from one another.”  He hands slid down to caress her belly. “If there is a chance I got you pregnant, I want to be a good father to our baby. God knows I won’t be a bastard like my old man.”

“Stop saying that before you jinx us.”  She turned around in his arms. Her gaze locked with his. “We need to work at getting to know one another before starting a relationship, Nick. Just because I can talk about Anthony without breaking down, doesn’t mean I’m completely over him. I don’t want you to think I’m using you to get over him either.”

“I’m okay with that. My one request is that if you feel your love for Ant won’t let you feel anything for me, is that you tell me. I can handle the truth, Lincoln.”

“I promise to do that. So we won’t say anything to anyone. We are keeping this between us, right?”

He kissed her forehead. “Right. We’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing.”

She traced a finger up his bare chest. “One last thing, what about the women you have on speed-dial? If you stop being ‘Nick, the ladies’ man,’ the guys at the station will get suspicious.”

“I’ll take care of them. Plus, I’m not attached to any of those women in any way, Lincoln. We…ya know…”

She shook her head and went back to the sofa to finish her burger. “I get it.”  She shot him an evil eye. “Make sure they’re out of your system too.”

He kept his giddiness under control and folded his arms across his chest. “We’re going to make this work. You’re skeptical about it, but I will make you forget Anthony Jenkins ever existed.”

She winked, and he felt the warmth fill his heart. “I’ll be forever in your debt if you’ll do that for me,” she said.

They never did make it to the Go Kart center as planned, but this was better. They were able to discuss where the direction their relationship was headed.

Chapter Seventeen

Several Weeks Later

Lincoln hurried to get out the door for work. She wouldn’t be late if she left the apartment in the next five minutes. She should’ve known better than to have Nick stay over on a Sunday night. Sleeping was only a term when he stayed over. They never actually slept more than the few hours it took to recover from the vigorous rounds of sexual pleasure they bestowed on one another.

Shaking her head, she looked on the table for her purse and briefcase. It was time to rush out the door and begin the work day. A day that would be hard to keep her concentration. This coming Saturday was Regan’s bachelorette party and she still had a million things to do. She had proposed the idea to Nick to do a gag appearance at the party and pretend to strip for the women. He didn’t agree or disagree but said he would think about it.

She smiled as she thought about him. It was getting hard for her to keep their status to herself. She wasn’t in love with him but extremely attracted to him. She missed him when he had to work or had other obligations to tend to. When her sister’s asked what new was going on in her life, she wanted to blurt out Nick’s name and take the wise-cracks from them, but they weren’t ready to announce it just yet.

Lincoln didn’t want to call what they were in a relationship, but more of a trial-run at a relationship with sex included. Also, she didn’t dismiss the notion that she could not fall in love with him, but Anthony’s deceit had hardened her somewhat. She refused to give her heart away again so easily. Because of that, Nick or any man would have to pay that price and work to get her heart.

Finding stuff, she ran out the apartment and came to a screeching halt.

Her face turned inside out as she laid eyes on Anthony leaning against her garage door. She hit the button to open the garage not warning him first. The movement caused him to jump away. “What are you doing here?” she asked walking inside the garage.

Anthony shoved his hands inside the pocket of his jeans, following behind her. “We need to talk, Lincoln.”

“We don’t have anything to talk about and I’m late for work,” she said throwing her stuff inside the car.

“Have lunch with me today, then.”

“No thank you.”

He grabbed the edge of the car’s door so she couldn’t close it. “Lincoln, I’m trying to be civil, the least you can do is meet me halfway.”

Her anger rose and poured out of every pore in her body. “I don’t owe you anything! Let go of my door so I can go to work,” she seethed through clenched teeth.

He bit back. “I helped you get this damn apartment or have you forgotten that?  When you moved from that rat hole you lived in you couldn’t afford this place on your own.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot, Lincoln. You should be nicer to me or I might have to tell the leasing office I’m no longer a co-signer for your lease.”

She shook her head and started the car. “Don’t waste your breath. I already had them remove your name. The lease is now in MY name only.”

Anthony pinched the nerve between his eyes. “This is not how I expected this to go. I’m ready to clear up the questions you have and not fight with you. Can you give me five minutes?”

“I don’t have five minutes. Didn’t you hear me say I was late for work?”

“I can’t believe this is us,” he said in a low voice. “We never argued or talked like this to each other.”

She agreed. “No, we didn’t do that. But then you started creeping behind my back. Why couldn’t you be a man and tell me about your son?”

“I didn’t know about him, Lincoln. I had a son living somewhere else that I didn’t know about until now.”

Her throat tightened. “And when you found out, you continued to keep it from me. Why, Anthony?  Why couldn’t you tell me the truth?  We could’ve worked it out together.”

“Lincoln, please, can we go inside and talk?”

Lincoln remembered she hadn’t cleaned the apartment. The dinner plates she and Nick used last night were still on the dining room table. Also, clothes she had washed for him were on the sofa that he had not yet put away. He had accumulated a stash of clothes and other personal items that he left at her apartment. “We can talk here.”

Anthony got in the passenger’s seat and closed the door. “How have you been otherwise?”

She frowned not wanting to exchange pleasantries with him. “Don’t waste your five minutes on drivel, Anthony.”

“You’re right. Okay, I have to say that I do miss you. I miss the way you laugh at my jokes and just the fun we had together.”

“Do you miss me when you’re making love to Melanie?  Did you think about me when you were with her knowing I was at home waiting on you?”

He cupped his head in his hands. “God, Lincoln…”

“Don’t even try it!” She said meanly. “Look what you did to us, Anthony! You didn’t think about me or us. You made your decision and totally left me out. You could have handled the news about your son differently, but you took the extreme step and slammed the door in my face! Was I that insignificant to you?”

“Lincoln…it’s not…”

She shouted. “Answer me, dammit! I don’t want a round-about explanation, just the damn truth for a change!”

His dark skin was moist with a thin sheen of sweat as she glared at him. She once trusted this man with her life. Sitting next to him in the car now made her want to vomit. He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “It was a hard decision for me to make. I didn’t want to hurt you or Melanie.”

“So why me when she had been gone for two years?”

“Don’t make me say it, please.”

His face tensed and his eyes glossed over, Lincoln saw tears forming in his eyes. “I want to hear it. I have to hear it in order for me to move on. I’m tired of hating you.”

Anthony sucked in a deep breath; his rugged, masculine hand covered his face. “I’ve never stopped loving her. She was off my mind when I first met you, but I thought about her here and there. When she got married I figured that would help me get over her but it didn’t. I’m ashamed I broke down and called her. When we talked on the phone, we realized we weren’t over each other.”

“Hold it a second! You had talked to her before she came back to Cleveland?”  She didn’t know how she did it, but she remained calm. “So your lie is larger than I imagined. You knew about your son and didn’t just find out about him.”

“I’ve known about him for over a year. Melanie’s parents have a vacation home in Michigan; I would drive to see him. I felt sick when I had to leave my son, Lincoln.”

Tears spilled from her eyes. “Were you sleeping with her then?  The lies have come to light, Anthony, so confess that you have.”

“Why do you think we weren’t making love anymore, Lincoln?  I couldn’t bring myself to do that to you so I made up excuses not to be with you.”

Her face distorted with hurt. “You lying bastard! How can you look me in my face or even say my name after what you’ve done. I accused Orlando of knowing your secret and keeping it from me. He doesn’t even know how long you’ve had the affair going on, does he?”

He shook his head. His face streaked with tears. “Only Gwen knows the whole story. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry. I never found the right time to tell you.”

The inner rage that was oozing erupted as she raised her hand and slapped him hard across the face. The sound of her hand making contact with his face echoed throughout car. “You’re pathetic!”

Her hand stung from the blow and she saw a trickle of blood run from Anthony’s nose.  She waited for him to hit her back but he didn’t move; not even to wipe the blood from his face.

Her sobs became heavy as she continued to berate him.  “How can a man that once declared himself to be honest and faithful do this to a person he’s supposed to love. I am so over you and this shit! Get out of my car!”

Anthony pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the blood running from his nose. He said in hurtful voice, “This has been eating me up inside, Lincoln! That’s why I came here today. I couldn’t live with the guilt anymore.”

“Consider yourself free of your guilt. Now get out of my car! Get the hell out of my life, Anthony!” She screamed at him. Her head rested on the steering wheel waiting to hear the car door close. It did softly. He was gone.

A light tap on the window broke her sobs. She looked up and saw an elderly woman holding a small dog in her arms staring at her. “Honey, are you okay?” The woman’s eyes were filled with concern. “Did that man hurt you?”

Lincoln dried her eyes. She spoke through the car window that was lowered enough for their argument to carry outside the car. “I’m fine. And no, he did not hurt me.”  In fact, what he said hurt worse than a thousand blows to her stomach.

Chapter Eighteen

 “Hmm,” Nick mumbled as he clicked off the phone. He propped his feet on the empty chair next to him and opened the newspaper.

Jon sat at the table sifting through the rest of the newspaper. “Okay, what’s going on?”

He chuckled, “Same old bullshit; murders, corruption, and terrorists running amok.”

 “I’m not talking about the newspaper. You’ve been calling someone every ten minutes. Is it someone new you’ve met?”

Nick lowered the paper and looked over the top of it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“C’mon, Nick, I’m reading right through you.”

Nick folded the paper and put his feet on the floor. “Alright. I’ve been trying to reach Lincoln all day. She won’t answer her cell or her desk phone at work.”

“Maybe she’s busy with Regan. Why are you calling her anyhow?”

“Damn, you’re nosey. We are friends—I’m checking on her that’s all.”

Jon smirked, “Yeah right. Next, you’ll say it doesn’t snow in Alaska. What’s the deal, Nick?”

Nick squirmed in his seat. He was dying to tell someone his secret and Jon and Orlando would be the only people he would trust to keep it. He looked around the room for other firefighters standing around. He leaned into Jon. “You have to promise you won’t breathe a word to anyone, Jon. And I mean not Gabby and especially not Ant.”

Jon held up two fingers. “I swear I won’t say a word. Now what is it?”

“Here’s the deal. Lincoln and I are together but keeping it under wraps until we figure out a way to tell everyone.”

“Damn, you broke the code, man. Anthony’s gonna shit bricks when he finds out.”

“Yeah, I did and I don’t care about that fucking code. I got feelings for this girl and I ain’t letting her get away because of a stupid code implemented by a bunch of jealous ass firefighters. Hell, if you can’t hold onto your woman and she finds another firefighter irresistible, that ain’t my fault.”

“Chill, Nick; I’m kidding with your ass. Seriously, though, Ant will not like it.”

“Where is he anyway?  He’s not on the schedule this week.”

Jon sipped his coffee. “He requested a few days off. He didn’t tell me what he was doing.”

Nick groaned. “I wonder if he is sneaking off to marry Melanie. I see him doing some shit that dirty.”