Heated. Niobia Bryant

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СКАЧАТЬ came to a stop before the 8 X 11 photograph in the center of the wall of awards and certifications. It was a picture of a tall and distinguished man standing beside a little girl and woman atop a horse. They were all smiling and obviously happy.

      My eighth birthday, Bianca thought.

      Her parents had just surprised her with her very first pony, Star. Even though she had had plenty access to ponies living on a successful horse ranch Star had been special because it was hers alone.

      The photo was one of the few that she treasured.

      A reminder of better times.

      The little girl in that picture didn’t have a clue that her mother would die seven years later and her stable world would never be the same again.

      Bianca set her award on the shelf with the photo as her eyes fell on the handsome man. Her father. Her Daddy. Once her hero.

      She hadn’t seen him or the ranch in fifteen years.

      When her mother died Bianca thought her world would end. Her one saving grace had been her close relationship with her father. She knew they would help each other through the loss.

      But that hadn’t happened.

      Her father shut down completely. He isolated himself in his bedroom for days at a time, only to emerge reeking of alcohol. The ranch felt his neglect, right along with Bianca. That hurt.

      It was far too much weight for a fifteen year old to bear. Between going to school—and maintaining her grades—and trying to take over running the farm, she would sometimes wake up and find her father sprawled out by the door drunk as a skunk.

      She barely had time to grieve her mother’s passing because she began cleaning up her father’s messes. She became really good at it. She became just as good at hiding her anger and disappointment.

      Until the day her father brought home Trishon Haddock—a woman twenty years his junior—and proclaimed that at forty he was getting married.

      That’s when Bianca—soft, agreeable, and passive—welcomed that part of her personality that let her hit the roof. It hadn’t been little Bianca struggling to make sense of her world. She was seventeen-year-old Bianca, senior in high school, and running a horse ranch—and she was pissed.

      Even though she told her father that he was being a fool for marrying a woman with the reputation around town of a harlot; even though she told him he was disrespecting her and her Mama by bringing another woman into their house; even though she refused to be nice as he requested… she never once told him that it hurt her that he made time in his life for a wife when he hadn’t made time for his daughter.

      That she held on to, protected, shielded.

      As she stood at her second-story bedroom window and looked down at the wedding she refused to attend, Bianca made the decision to leave her father in the chaos he created. Bianca rescinded her decision to attend a local university. The further she got away, the better.

      She left for college in Georgia that summer and hadn’t been back since.

      Bianca turned away from the photo, but her memories—very painful recollections—remained. Her relationship with her father was barely visible. They spoke on the phone sporadically and went through motions.

      Pathetic as hell, she thought.

      Releasing a heavy breath, Bianca strolled out of the study and headed toward the rear of the house to her kitchen. She was ready to fall into her bed and sleep away the hours, but she had appointments at the clinic, so rest would have to wait.

      Bianca hoped some of her “kick-ass” iced coffee would get her going again.

      Soon the slow drip-drip of the coffee maker seemed to be the only sound in the house. Most considered that quiet to be peaceful, restful, and precious. To Bianca it was the sound of living alone, which she refused to equate to being lonely. Sometimes, however, she thought that the sound of children laughing and a husband showering to prepare for his workday would be… peaceful, restful, and precious.

      With her last date being more than two months ago perhaps the line between alone and lonely was thinning to the width of a strand of hair.

      “Maybe I need a dog,” she muttered, pouring a large cup of coffee that she sweetened and lightened considerably before pouring it over a tall cup of crushed ice.

      Bianca took a deep sip. “Liquid crack,” she sighed.

      She was strolling out of the kitchen when there was a knock at her kitchen door. She smiled at the sight of her nearest neighbor and friend, Mimi Cooley, peering through the glass of the door.

      “Let me in, Sweetie, before people think I’m a Peeping Tom, okay,” Mimi said in that odd voice of hers that was a blend of nasal whining and Southern belle haughtiness.

      Mimi was an ex–child star of the popular Seventies sitcom, Just the Two of Us. At thirteen, the show was canceled and, unfortunately, her acting career ended. Her family moved from Hollywood back to Atlanta and tried to give Mimi as normal a life as possible.

      But normalcy and Mimi didn’t go in the same sentence.

      She married the first of her seven husbands at eighteen—men who were wealthy and a tad bit older than Mimi. At fifty she now lived off syndication from the show and the hundreds of television commercials she did during her childhood career. She never got used to the idea of a nine to five job, and spent her days shopping and drinking Long Island iced teas—without showing one indication of being drunk or even tipsy.

      Regardless of the time of day, Mimi was always dressed to the nines: heels and skirts, slacks and spectator pumps, and not a pair of jeans to be seen. Her make-up was always in place, and her hair was perfectly coiffed—and religiously died jet black—like she was the second coming of Diahann Carroll’s character on Dynasty.

      Mimi was one of a kind, and Bianca loved the diva to death.

      “Hi, Mimi.”

      She breezed in with a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and turquoise silk. “I thought I was going to have to retire and collect Social Security before you let me in, darling.”

      “How can I help you, Mimi… dah-ling?”

      “Well, a shot of brandy wouldn’t hurt a bit, Sweetie,” Mimi said, moving across the kitchen to set her purse on the center island.

      “For 8 A.M. coffee sounds like a better bet,” Bianca countered.

      “Some barkeep you make. All that advice without the actual, huh, what… liquor, that’s right, Sweetie.”

      “Nothing but coffee ’round here,” Bianca said, taking a deep sip of her iced brew. “Want a cup?”

      Mimi rolled her elaborately made-up eyes—she was so dramatic. “Sweetie, I’d rather be buried in a Wal-Mart, okay,” she said with a shiver.

      Bianca doubted Mimi had even seen the inside of a Wal-Mart, or even knew where to find one. She frowned as she watched Mimi open her purse and extract a silver monogrammed flask.

      “Bianca, a lady is always, huh, what… СКАЧАТЬ