“Later,” Lamar replied in English. He disconnected the Bluetooth and thought about what had just occurred. He’d asked a woman out on a date—something he hadn’t done in nearly a decade. And he had to ask himself, why Nydia? Why a woman who lived nearly thirteen hundred miles away, and one he doubted he would see again once she returned to New York.
When Lamar really thought about it, he realized Nydia was safe; she was passing through and despite being attracted to her beautiful face, intelligence, and wit, there wasn’t the possibility of his becomingthatinvolved with her. He had two responsibilities: his daughter and his company.
* * *
Lamar maneuvered onto the road leading to his sister’s house and pulled into the driveway to the house with the architectural style that reflected South Carolina’s Low Country. Petra’s dream home’s classic design was updated with all the provisions for modern-day living. His sister had met her politician husband when she clerked for his father, who’d been appointed to the state’s appellate court. She’d moved to D.C. during the first year of her marriage, but once she discovered she was pregnant, she informed U.S. Congressman Jonathan Reynolds she wanted their children to be raised in their home state.
Lamar shut off the engine and waved to his mother as she came down off the porch. Gloria Pierce had sold the house she’d shared with her husband and where she raised her two children after he passed away in his sleep, and moved in with her daughter and son-in-law, who’d had a two-bedroom guesthouse built on the property for her. Once his mother volunteered to babysit her granddaughters, Petra went to work for a prestigious Baton Rouge firm specializing in litigation.
Gloria had been her deceased orthodontist husband’s dental assistant, and now at sixty-five she volunteered every other weekend at a local hospital. Jonathan always returned to Louisiana whenever Congress was in recess, and during that time Gloria and a few of her friends who’d referred to themselves as the Globetrotting Grannies took off for foreign and exotic locales.
Lamar got out of the vehicle and met his mother as she came down off the last step. She’d cut her silver hair again, the cropped strands hugging her head like a cap. His parents’ genes had compromised when he inherited his father’s height and complexion and his mother’s eye color and prematurely gray hair.
“Hi, beautiful,” he crooned, kissing her cheek. The scent of lily-of-the-valley wafted to his nostrils. He couldn’t remember when his mother had not worn that fragrance.
An attractive blush darkened Gloria’s tawny-brown face with the compliment. “You definitely are your father’s son. He was always the silver-tongued devil.”
Lamar put his arm around his mother’s shoulders and led her up the porch steps and into the house with large folding doors that had replaced a traditional front entry to completely open the central hallway. “Dad knew what he was getting when he married Grambling State’s homecoming queen, who not only was blessed with beauty but also brains.”
“That’s enough sweet talk, Lamar. That’s something you should save for Petra’s coworker who has been asking about you.”
A slight frown furrowed Lamar’s forehead. “Who are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember that cute intern with the dimples who came to the Memorial Day cookout?”
“There’s no way I could forget her, Mom. She flirted with every man who came within three feet of her, and it didn’t matter whether they were married or single. So, no thank you.”
Lamar had told his mother a number of times after becoming a widower that he did not want to be set up with a woman. He’d given himself another eight years before he could even consider remarrying. By that time Kendra would be eighteen and off to college. And any woman with whom he would find himself involved would have to accept his daughter as her own because they were a package deal. It would be the same if he met a woman with children.
He glanced around the central hallway’s highly polished heart of pine floors and matching ceiling. The blades from an overhead fan circulated cooling air above a round mahogany table with four oyster-white slipcovered chairs. “Where’s everyone?”
“Jonathan and Petra took the girls shopping for school clothes and supplies. Kendra has grown so much over the summer that I doubt she’ll be able to fit into last year’s school uniform.”
“I wish you would’ve told me before I left New Orleans.”
Gloria patted Lamar’s shoulder. “I didn’t know what their plans were until about ten minutes ago. Then it would’ve been too late because you were already on the road.”
Lamar rested his hand over the one on his shoulder. “No harm done. I can hang out with you until they get back.”
“That may not be for a while. You know how Jonathan likes to take the girls out to eat.”
He gave his mother’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “That’s not a problem, because I don’t get to see you enough.”
Gloria nodded. “It’s the same with me. Talking on the phone isn’t the same as seeing each other in person. Did you plan to take Kendra back with you today?”
“No. I just came up to take her shopping for school clothes and supplies.”
“I’ve been running off the mouth so much that I forgot to ask you if you had breakfast.”
“Ramona prepared something for me.”
Lamar’s live-in housekeeper’s duties included cooking and looking after Kendra whenever he was away from the house. Ramona Griffin had become an integral part of his household even before Valerie’s passing. His late wife had hired the professional nanny to care for Kendra after a two-year leave from her career as a flight attendant.
“You need to learn how to cook for yourself, Lamar.”
“I can cook, Mom.”
“You put meat on a grill. That’s called grilling, not cooking. Even Jonathan has learned to put together a passable breakfast now that he’s been taking lessons.”
