Looking For Trouble (3 page)

“Stop it!” She hissed into the stillness surrounding her. “I don't care about your fight. All I want is peace and quiet. Leave me alone.”

She rose from her couch and went into her bathroom. “This has got to stop,” she said as she pulled her long hair back into a ponytail and reached for her facial cleanser. “I can't take this any longer. Why can't I block out this voice, like I can the others?”

After washing and exfoliating her skin, Alexandria looked into the mirror and studied the nude face that stared back at her. She hadn't inherited her mother's chocolate hue, but her light caramel-colored skin—compliments of her white father—was smooth and so even that she looked as though she were wearing foundation. She appraised her sultry brown eyes, perfectly arched brows, and full, bow-shaped lips. She was thankful that despite her stress, she still looked good.

“This is taking a toll,” she said, crawling under her soft, cool bedsheets. She prayed for a restful night's sleep, but she could already tell that wasn't going to happen because of the buzzing that just returned to her ear. Hearing voices and seeing visions—which no one else could—was nothing new for Alexandria.

She'd experienced her first encounter when she was just a toddler, playfully talking with the spirits of children from bygone years. Her imaginary friends were as real as the ones she played with at school. As she grew older, she developed the ability of premonition. When she was five years old, she predicted her father's heart attack before it happened. A few months later, she drew a picture of her younger brother, Christian, before he was conceived. It had startled her teacher so much that she'd called Alexandria's parents. From that point on, she stopped drawing the things she saw happening in her mind.

Growing up the child of a black mother and a white father, Alexandria was taught by her parents that she came from extraordinary people on both sides of her family. But there was another dimension of who she was that she knew her parents would never be able to understand—let alone teach her about—so she made up her mind early on to bury the mysterious haunting that often gripped her in her sleep.

Over the years, she'd developed the ability to tune out voices when they tried to roar inside her mind. For some reason, though, she couldn't do it with the woman who was now drumming words into her ear. When she'd started hearing whispers a few weeks ago, she immediately knew there was something different about this new voice that was contacting her, and the spirit of the person to whom it belonged.

As she sat alone, finishing the last spoonful of chocolate ice cream, Alexandria heard the voice again. This time, the sound came in a little more clearly:
“Look for the diamond, 'cause the one who has that is the one who's gonna help save you.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Alexandria said. She set her empty container of ice cream on the coffee table in front of her. She knew that whether she wanted to or not, she would soon find out.

Chapter 3

 

 

J
ohn squinted and yawned as he slowly opened his eyes, adjusting to his unfamiliar surroundings. He blinked twice, still groggy from the rush of the previous day's activities. He'd traveled from New York City to Nedine, South Carolina, with a pocketful of money and a heart filled with dreams. And as waking consciousness took hold of his strong body, he could tell that something special was going to happen today. He didn't know what wondrous thing was about to unfold, or at what point in the day his good fortune would present itself, but he had no doubt that a great opportunity was coming his way.

John had always trusted his gut instincts—a skill he'd inherited from his wise old grandmother. If something felt right, he went with it. But if he got an uneasy feeling about a situation, he backed away. He was a natural risk taker, with a head for business, and it was a quality that had served him well, helping him to become the only black executive at the privately owned Wall Street investment bank where he worked.

John was lying comfortably in bed, enjoying the peace of the early-morning sun as it flooded through the thin beige curtains in his modest hotel room. He stretched his left leg and felt a warm thigh slide against his skin, followed by the soft caress of smooth, naked flesh pressed against his bare back.

“Good morning,” Madeline purred behind him.

“Mornin',” John answered.

“How do you feel this morning?”

“Fine.”

Madeline tightened her embrace. “John, I'm hungry. Are you?”

“No.”

She let out a long sigh. “I'm ravenous. I worked up an appetite from last night.” Madeline grinned seductively, rubbing her foot along John's muscular calf. “I'm surprised you're not hungry, too. Especially after your performance, which, I must say, was so
Mmmm
delicious.”

John didn't respond, because although he agreed with Madeline—he, too, had worked up an appetite from their ferocious lovemaking the night before—he didn't want to move a muscle. His only desire at the moment was to lie in bed and enjoy the peaceful Saturday morning as he soaked up the anticipation of good things to come.

“John?” Madeline prodded.

“Yes?”

“Didn't you hear what I said?” she asked, ignoring the fact that his one-word answers meant he obviously wasn't in the mood for early-morning chatter. She gave him a hard nudge, urging him to turn over and face her. “John, I'm hungry, and this piece of a hotel doesn't even offer room service.”

Grudgingly John rolled onto his other side to meet Madeline's glaring eyes. “I heard you, but I really don't feel like getting up right now. Let's just lie here and relax for a little while.”

Madeline exhaled an exasperated breath. “Oh, I get it. Now that we're down south, in the country, you want to slow things down to a snail's pace.”

“You got it.”

“John, I'm a city girl.”

If you don't like the country, why did you beg me to bring you down here?
John thought. But instead of saying what was on his mind, he calmly smiled and told her, “Indeed you are.”

“There's only one speed I'm built for, and that's fast.”

“Sometimes it's good to slow down, Madeline.”

Another exasperated look clouded Madeline's angular face. “The swiftest and the fastest always win the race. You know that.”

“Depends on what kind of race you're in, and what kind of prize you're after.”

“That's so, so true,” Madeline cooed, snuggling even closer to John. “But you see, the thing about me is that I set out to win everything, no matter the prize, and full speed ahead is the only way I know how to run.”

John didn't say a word. He simply stared into the intense brown eyes of the attractive woman sharing his bed, hoping he wasn't going to regret his decision to bring her along on this visit. This was Madeline's first trip to his hometown, and he knew it was going to be a learning experience for both of them, and possibly the biggest test of their one-year relationship to date.

John had made the trip because his best friend, Maxx Sanders, was celebrating his thirty-second birthday this weekend. A big party had been planned for Maxx. All their old friends—and practically everyone in town—were going to be in attendance, and John wouldn't have missed the celebration for anything. He knew that bringing Madeline home with him was sure to start tongues wagging with gossip because he'd only ever brought one other woman to Nedine, and that had been five years ago.

John was what people called a “confirmed bachelor” and a “ladies' man.” Many of his friends were married, with children, and had been settled into family life since their late teens and early twenties. But John's adventurous nature and ambitious career moves had led him down a single path filled with a multitude of women. His success, polished good looks, and smooth charm all helped him to maintain that status.

But as time was sliding by, John had starting thinking more and more about settling down, getting married, and starting a family of his own. The last few months leading up to final negotiations for the bank he planned to open had been grueling ones, and he'd thought more than once about how nice it would be to come home to the stable comfort of a loving wife. He and Madeline were both so busy with their careers that their time was mostly relegated to weekends. Now, however, he was beginning to want something more—if not from her, then from someone else.

In the weeks leading up to their trip, Madeline had shown dogged persistence in her desire to accompany him to Nedine. “John, we've been dating a whole year,” she'd told him. “Once my parents died, my aunt raised me. After she passed, I didn't have anyone left, besides my brother, who I barely ever see. But that's not the case with you. You have a family—yet I've never gotten a chance to meet them.”

John shrugged. “My folks are down south, and—”

“That's no excuse for why you haven't introduced me to them.”

“You've met Maxx.”

Madeline rolled her eyes. “Friends don't count.”

“Maxx counts. He's family to me.”

John had tried to dissuade her, but Madeline wouldn't let up, until she finally got him to agree. He firmly understood the implications involved with her visit, and he'd made it clear to her that this wasn't a “you're meeting my friends and family because you're the one” kind of visit. This was more of a “I'm taking you home to test the waters” kind of trip.

John knew he needed to settle down soon, and he also knew how important it was to make the right choice in finding a mate. So he figured he might as well bring Madeline home and see how things would work out.

Despite the fact that Madeline was difficult, and at times slightly abrasive, John had grown to become very fond of her. She was an accountant, and a damn good one. She was smart, accomplished, and world traveled. Physically she was exactly what he liked in a woman. Her tall frame, slim figure, pretty face, and milk chocolate brown skin had drawn him to her when they'd met at a business function sponsored by his bank.

She was what Maxx had called a “pistol” when he'd met her six months ago during a weekend trip to the city. John was aware that Madeline was an acquired taste, and that she was what some might even consider obnoxious. But he appreciated that she took charge of situations and was confident and self-assured. She was business savvy and ambitious, just like he was, and he knew that having a woman like Madeline by his side would help him reach his professional goals even quicker than he'd already projected. An added bonus, which sweetened the pot, was that she always met his sexual needs. So he was able to tolerate what he saw as small annoyances because he felt her pluses outweighed her minuses.

“Well . . . ,” Madeline said, seductively whispering into John's ear, “if we're not going to venture out for breakfast, we need to find something productive to do with our time, don't you think?”

The look in Madeline's sultry eyes told John all he needed to know. He kissed her slowly, falling back into the same rhythm that had fueled their passionate lovemaking the night before.

 

It was noontime and the blazing sun was bearing down from the cloudless blue sky as John and Madeline made their way outside the four walls of their hotel room. Although the temperature was soaring above ninety degrees, the unrelenting heat was made bearable by a gentle breeze, which had begun to blow just as they stepped outside their door.

“Mother Nature must've known we were coming. You feel that breeze?” John said, smiling as he looked at Madeline.

“Um, yes, I do,” she replied. “But you know the heat doesn't bother me.”

“It will, once you've been out in it for a while. Trust me, the humidity of the South is a lot different from the North.”

Madeline raised her brow and scoffed. “Please tell me we're not going to be outside all day, rocking in a chair on someone's front porch?”

John laughed and shook his head as they walked toward his car. “No, but this is gonna be a busy day. We've got a lot of people to visit, and with all that running around, you're bound to get hot.”

“I thought we were only going to have lunch with your parents and grandmother.”

Now it was John's turn to raise his brow as he opened the passenger door for Madeline. “You've been saying for weeks that you wanted to meet everyone I grew up with, and that you can't wait to go to Maxx's party. Now you only want to meet my folks? Are you serious?”

Madeline smiled, fingering her stylishly coiffed bouffant. “Of course not. I guess I can't think straight because I'm so famished. I can't wait to meet everyone.”

“That's more like it.” John smiled and took his time as he walked around to his driver's side, admiring the beauty of the wide, open space around him. He had traveled to cities across the United States, and in several foreign countries, and he was convinced that summertime in Nedine was the most beautiful place on earth.

Nedine held a special place in John's heart, and he made sure he visited several times a year. All his family and most of his friends were still there because Nedine was the kind of town where people remained firmly rooted. John was one of the few people in his close-knit community who had moved away, and it had almost been mandatory that he'd taken that leap because his father had pushed for it.

“Son, I want you to get outta Nedine and get you a good education,” Isaiah Small had told him from the time John was a little boy. Isaiah had invested all his hopes and dreams into his youngest child.

John hadn't lived in Nedine since he'd entered the University of Pennsylvania fourteen years ago. His upscale, sparsely furnished apartment in a highly sought-after luxury building in Manhattan's Upper East Side was where he laid his head; but to John, Nedine was home. Nonetheless, he had to admit that he liked the adrenaline rush of living and working in the Big Apple. It stretched him and the competition had made him sharper.

As John and Madeline drove from the Holiday Inn on the north side, to his parents' house on the south side of town, he pointed out local and historical landmarks while Madeline sat quietly in the passenger seat, looking bored out of her mind.

“Where's the downtown?” Madeline asked, straining her neck as she stared out the window of the rental car.

“You're looking at it.” John smiled. “This is our downtown.”

“You mean it's
Nedine's
downtown,” she corrected.

John shook his head. “I know what I meant, Madeline. Like I've told you before, Nedine will always be my home.”

Madeline rode in silence as they passed tiny shops and small buildings. John could see that she wasn't impressed, evidenced by the detached expression on her face. “You all right over there?” he asked.

“How much longer until we get to your parents' house?”

John let out a deep breath. “We've only been driving ten minutes. Relax, baby. We'll be there soon.”

“Thank God,” Madeline huffed. “I'm starving. Why couldn't we have stopped and picked up something quick from one of those little restaurants we passed back there? At least, that would tide us over until we get there.”

“Trust me, my mama's cooking is better than anything you'll find on the menu of those restaurants in town. Plus, the best places to eat are on the south side, anyway.”

A few minutes later, John turned off the main road and drove in the direction of open fields and flat land. Shotgun houses dotted the dusty road that branched off into heavily populated, rural subcommunities. The area looked economically distressed, harkening to a history of turbulence and hard times.

“We're not in Kansas anymore.” Madeline smirked as she looked out her window. “I can't believe you grew up here. This place is just . . . I don't know . . . so . . .”

“What?”

“Well . . . it's not at all what I expected, let alone pictured myself visiting.”

John glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Are you forgetting that you're the one who wanted to come home with me? Now you act like being here is a huge inconvenience.”

“I didn't mean it in a bad way, sweetie,” Madeline said, trying to make nice. “Actually, this whole Southern experience has a certain appeal . . . in a rustic sort of way.”

John knew she didn't think much of a town like Nedine, and he hadn't expected her to. She'd been born and bred in New York City, and the home where her aunt had raised her—an elegant brownstone situated on a tree-box–lined street in Harlem's Strivers' Row—was so lavish it had once been featured in a local style magazine. Her worldview had been jaded by fancy homes, tall buildings, bright lights, and fast-moving people. Even though John loved the excitement of the city and was as sophisticated as any Manhattan urbanite could be, he was still a country boy at heart, and that's where he and Madeline would always differ.