Give Me Fever. Niobia Bryant

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СКАЧАТЬ mother shot him a hard stare.

      He winked at her before he grabbed a serving spoon and scooped a heaping portion of macaroni on his plate.

      Their father was a churchgoing man but not an overly religious man—thus there would never be sweeping blessings of the food from Kael Strong.

      “I am starving,” Kaeden announced as he eyed the heaping bowls of fried chicken, collard greens, candied yams, macaroni and cheese, rice, and the still hot and steaming peach cobbler.

      Kaitlyn elbowed him. “So am I, Specs, so…am…I,” she said, reverting to her childhood nickname for him.

      “You eat like a man,” Kaeden told her. “One of these days you have got to gain weight.”

      “That’s an understatement,” Kahron drawled from across the table.

      Bianca rose from her chair to pile a plate high with food. “Only dogs like bones. Real men like meat on them bones,” she said, sitting down and placing the plate in front of her husband. With a sly smile she added, “Like myself, and Garcelle, and Lord knows, Jade Prince. Right, fellas?”

      Kaeden choked on the lemonade he just sipped from a frosted glass.

      Kahron focused on watching Kadina feeding his two-year-old son KJ.

      “Heck yeah,” Kaleb answered in a heartbeat.

      “Right, Kade?” Garcelle asked, her Spanish accent as prominent as the voluptuous curves of her frame. There was a twinkle in her bright eyes as she cut her eyes up at her handsome husband.

      Kael chuckled as he ate, obviously enjoying his sons being ribbed by their wives.

      “Jade is not all that,” Kaitlyn said with attitude, pushing her jet-black dyed hair back from her face.

      “Yeah, right,” Kaeden muttered in disbelief.

      He looked up to find all eyes on him.

      “I thought Felecia was more your speed, big brother,” Kaleb joked.

      “Trust and believe…. I am ready, willing, and able to handle whatever woman I have in my life,” Kaeden said firmly, completely fed up with his brother’s teasing.

      “All right, now,” Lisha Strong said.

      “Since Jade is the center of our Sunday conversation, this is as good a time as any to tell everyone about my surprise,” Kael said.

      Kaeden focused his attention on his father, just as curious as everyone appeared to be about the news…and very happy that Jade was no longer the focus.

      “Next weekend my sons and I are going camping,” Kael announced.

      “We are?” they all asked in unison.

      “Y’all are?” the ladies asked as well.

      Kaeden was completely disappointed because that surprise had absolutely nothing to do with him. He returned his attention back to his food.

      “Don’t worry, Uncle Kaeden, I’ll come stay with you that weekend,” Kadina offered.

      “Oh no, Kaeden, you’re going too,” Kael said around a mouthful of food.

      Kaeden looked up and his eyes fell directly on his mother, who gave a conspiratorial wink. He knew that his mom had a hand in his addition to the camping trip. The thing was, he wasn’t quite sure if that was truly a good or a bad thing.

      Jade stretched her arms high above her head as she walked out onto the wraparound porch of her grandfather’s house. He was sitting on the top step with his elbows on his knees as he looked up at the sky. His naturally wavy jet-black hair was pulled back tightly into a bushy ponytail. Jade smiled softly as she fondly remembered the many hours she’d spent, as a little girl, on this very porch standing behind him brushing his hair as he sat on that same top step.

      “Hey, old man,” Jade teased as she walked across the green painted porch to sit down beside him.

      Esai Rockwell knocked his bony shoulder against hers in greeting. “Peanut?” he asked, motioning toward the cup of boiled peanuts sitting on the step between them.

      “No thanks, Pappy,” Jade said with a shake of her head. “I’m still full of the rabbit stew you cooked.”

      “Your favorite,” he said.

      “Yup,” Jade agreed, leaning over to rest her head on his bony and broad shoulder in the white long-sleeved T-shirt he wore.

      Pappy was a man of very few words. Always had been.

      Jade couldn’t imagine anyone she adored more than him. Her father had recently remarried a twenty-year-old, and her mother was a flight attendant who was hardly ever in town. Since she was three years old, spending the weekends at her grandfather’s had been her greatest joy. Although her parents waited until she was eighteen to divorce, the signs of failed marriage had been there long before.

      “Heard from your mama?” he asked about his ex-daughter-in-law.

      The thought of her mother immediately brought a smile to Jade’s face. “She’s in Los Angeles and then she flies to London.”

      “Ms. Jetsetter,” he mused, tilting his head back to toss a peanut into his open mouth.

      Jade nodded. She missed her mom but completely understood that after the shock of her father leaving her for a younger woman and divorcing her, Deena was finally enjoying her new freedom and her new job. Her mom married early, had her only child early, and divorced early, but she was trying to catch up on a late start of her independence.

      “How’s the business?” he asked.

      “It’s going okay. Mostly because of a lot of local support. Like Darren’s taking Mr. Strong and his sons on a camping trip this weekend.”

      Esai looked surprised. “Those farmers need a guide to go camping?”

      “That’s what I thought, but we’re not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

      As Jade did give in to dig a handful of the moist and salty boiled peanuts into her hand, she suddenly thought of the nerdy one and how she’d caught him staring at her in church.

      It was a very odd and random thought.

      Chapter 3

      Kaeden shifted his bespectacled eyes away from the flat-screen computer monitor as his secretary Felecia walked into his office after knocking briefly. “Yes?” he asked, his mind really focused on finishing up the weekly payroll for one of his clients who owned a car dealership.

      “I made chicken and dumplings for supper last night. Well, it’s just me, so I had plenty left over and I thought we could have it for lunch…together,” she said.

      Kaeden actually wasn’t ready to take a lunch break when he was so close to being done, but Felecia was already beginning to unpack a picnic basket he’d just noticed she was carrying. СКАЧАТЬ