And once he reached his destination and joined in the conversation, he’d coolly and casually ask Bobby Robbins if he had any pictures of the baby girl his wife had given birth to—what was it? Three, maybe four weeks ago? He might also make a cool, casual reference to J.T. Wilson’s recent engagement. Lucinda, he seemed to recall the girl’s name being. Word was, she was a real sweet lady. She supposedly was working toward her teaching degree at Spelman College.
Bernadine said something to him. What it was, he had no idea. The volume of the music would have made it difficult for him to catch more than a word or two even if he’d been paying close attention. She apparently thought her remark was funny though, because she punctuated it with a shrill string of tee-hee-hee-hees.
He smiled noncommittally and kept on dancing. After executing a few seemingly spontaneous steps, he maneuvered himself into a position where he could take another look across the hall without being obvious about it.
Two more men—both vaguely familiar—had joined the group. It was like ants to a sugar spill, Fridge thought, his stomach muscles tightening. The problem was, he wanted Keezia’s sweetness all for himself.
He’d wanted it for a long time, although he’d spent quite a while avoiding facing up to the fact. And even after finally admitting to his desire, he hadn’t acted on it. He’d...well, the plain truth was, he hadn’t known what to do.
It wasn’t that he was inexperienced with the ladies. Although he didn’t do a whole lot of chasing—it seemed disrespectful to his black sisters as well as to himself not to exercise some restraint in that regard—he’d had his share of romances. But when it came to Keezia Carew...
It was different with her, Fridge acknowledged. Very different.
Maybe if they hadn’t met in church, with his mama performing the introductions...
Maybe if both of them hadn’t been firefighters...
Maybe if he hadn’t seen fear in her beautiful, gemstone eyes the first time he’d touched her...
It had taken him close to two years to learn the source of Keezia’s fear. He and she had become Mends—good, platonic buddies—during that period. They’d eventually reached a point where she’d trusted him enough to share the story of the relationship that had almost destroyed her.
He’d already known that she’d jumped the broom with some dude in Detroit right after graduating high school and that she’d come to Atlanta to visit with relatives a short time after divorcing him. That there’d been some kind of problem in her marriage had gone without saying. Couples did not split up because they were blissfully happy together. But Fridge had never for a moment considered the possibility that this “problem” had involved Keezia being brutalized, body and soul, by the son of a bitch who’d sworn to love, honor and cherish her.
The rage he’d felt after he’d heard her recitation had been more powerful than any he’d ever experienced. It had also shattered the trust Keezia had placed in him.
He hadn’t been angry at her in the aftermath of her tale. Lord, no! He’d been murderously funous with the bastard who’d hurt her so viciously. Nonetheless, the realization that he was capable of such violent emotion had shaken Keezia in ways he was still struggling to comprehend.
She’d pulled back from him, her guard going up, her attitude turning wary and watchful. It had become painfully clear to Fridge that the woman for whom he cared so deeply believed—really, truly believed—that it was only a matter of time before he turned his capacity for rage in her direction.
What was he supposed to do in the face of that kind of attitude? Fridge had asked himself over and over. Try to defend himself against her fear by proclaiming it unreasonable? Swear by all he held holy that he’d never, ever hurt her?
A fat lot of good either one of those approaches would accomplish, he’d eventually concluded. What right did he have to dismiss Keezia’s apprehensions? To maintain that he knew better than she how she should respond to him? Didn’t he see that she’d had enough of being told what to do and think and feel?
As for promising to do her no harm—well. Keezia had made it plain that every episode of abuse by her husband had been followed by pledges it would never, ever happen again. Those pledges had been broken, along with several of her bones and two of her teeth. No matter its sincerity, his rhetoric would carry precious little weight when balanced against her real-life experiences.
In the end, Fridge had decided that the key to the situation was patience. He’d earned Keezia’s trust once. He could earn it back again. Although her perception of him had changed, he had not. He was still the man in whom she’d chosen to confide the truth about her past. Given time, she would realize that.
And once she did ..
He turned, catching yet another glimpse of Keezia. She was laughing, her lush-lipped mouth parted, her slender throat arched like a lily stem. Bold gold earrings dangled from her lobes, glinting richly against her smooth, mocha-colored skin.
She reminded him of the famous statue of that Egyptian queen, Nefertiti. There was such pride in her. Such womanly strength. Not for the first time, Fridge wondered what kind of defect would cause a man to try to obliterate those qualities with his fists.
The Rolling Stones’ song came to an end amid much clapping and hollering. Fridge turned his attention back to his voluptuous partner. She was fanning her sweat-sheened face with both hands. The polite words he’d planned to utter got lost in a jolt of distaste as he registered the length and color of her fingernails. He grimaced inwardly, thinking about the guttearing velociraptors from Jurassic Park.
Bernadine moistened her lips and reached for him with one of her red-taloned hands. “You really know how to get down and move,” she declared throatily.
“Thanks.” He managed to evade her touch without making too big an issue of it. “You shake things pretty good, too, Bernadine.”
“You think?” She preened at his compliment, her acrylic nails clacking against the ceramic ornaments in her hair Then she fluttered her lashes at him. “Tell me, sugar. Do they call you Fridge ‘cuz you’re cool...or ’cuz you’re so bi-i-i-ig?” She stretched out the last word like an elastic band.
In point of fact, Ralph Randall owed his nickname to a little kid. The station where he was assigned was located close to an elementary school and attracted a lot of field trips. A number of years back, he’d found himself knee-to-nose with a kindergartner who’d become separated from his class. The kid had taken a good, long gawk at him and then piped up, “Gee, Mr. Fireman, you’re even bigger than my mama’s ’fridgidator!” His fire fighting buddies had found this innocent observation hilariously apt and insisted on calling him Fridge from that day forward.
“I—”
A shriek of feedback cut off his response to his companion’s deliberately provocative inquiry. A moment later, music started pouring through the sound system again. This time, the selection was a slow, sultry tune. Implicit in the music was the notion that a man and a woman could have just as much fun going at each other standing up as they could lying down.
Bernadine squealed in delighted recognition, practically flinging herself into Fridge’s arms. He winced slightly as several of her hair beads bounced against his T-shirted chest like BB pellets. It occurred to him that between her nails and her braids, this woman could do a man some serious accidental damage.
“Oooooh, I love this song!” she declared, wiggling to underscore the point. “Come on, baby. Dance with me.”
He could have said no, of course. But he didn’t. He didn’t because he knew that by his mama’s lights, it wouldn’t have been mannerly behavior.
Keezia detached herself from the group of firefighters that had gathered around her a few moments after Fridge’s partner super-glued herself against him. No one seemed to notice her