Love, Honor or Stray: New Day Divas Series Book Three Read online

  Lynox cheered up. “Great.” He rubbed his hands together. “Does that mean you’ll stay? I made a wonderful chicken parmesan dinner.”

  Deborah looked around at the romantic surroundings. Not even recalling the last time she’d had an evening appetizer with a man, let alone a romantic dinner, she knew if she stayed, there was a chance she’d end up being dessert—or the brown-skinned hunk of a man standing before her would be hers. That was a chance she didn’t want to take. Well, she wanted to—her flesh did, anyway—but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. For His name’s sake.

  “Sorry, Mr. Chase, but it’s a no.” She turned around and walked away before she could even consider changing her mind. She swooped a couple of her sister-locks out of her face before exiting his front door.

  “You haven’t seen the last of me, Miss Lewis,” Lynox said with a smile as he watched her walk to her car.

  Deborah got into her car and started it up, thinking, I hope not, Mr. Chase. I hope not. After inhaling the sweet fragrance of the rose, she pulled away from Lynox’s home, but not his heart.

  Chapter Five

  “I cannot believe what a wonderful time I had,” Paige told Norman as they exited the fondue restaurant. “And you know you a fool, right?” Paige laughed. “Sitting up in there with a bib on like you’re a toddler or something.” She looked him up and down. “With your big ol’, grown self.”

  “Laugh all you want.” Norman popped the collar of his multi-colored, expensive dress shirt as he walked Paige to her car. “But it’s not like I can afford another Versace shirt on my salary. I wasn’t about to drip any of that fondue stuff on me, especially the chocolate from the dipped strawberries.” Norman closed his eyes and licked his lips in remembrance. He opened them again and looked down at his shirt, double checking that he hadn’t spilled any chocolate on it. “I wouldn’t even have this one if what’s-her-name hadn’t bought it for me while we were in Vegas.”

  “Who’s what’s-her-name?”

  Norman thought for a minute. “Hmm… I don’t recall. I guess it’s really true what they say: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

  “Yeah, Norman, but I don’t think they meant the names of people you go with, especially people who buy you expensive gifts.” Paige stopped and rubbed the soft fabric of Norman’s shirt. “Hmm, nice.” She made the final few steps to her car.

  “Well, you know how I do it.” He smiled and ran his hands down his gelled, dirty blonde hair.

  With a grin on her face, Paige asked, “What is it with all the white guys wearing their hair like that boy in Twilight? To me it looks like he has a Something About Mary thing going on.” She quickly looked to Norman, hoping she hadn’t offended him. “But not you, of course. Yours looks good on you.” She patted his hair playfully. “Oh, wow, and it’s soft.” She looked down at her hand. “I expected it to cut me. Seems like it would be hard and spiky.”

  “Where have you been? The days of Dippity-do hair gel and Aqua Net spray are long gone. There is stuff on the market now to make it stiff but keep it soft.”

  There was awkward silence. Paige cleared her throat. “I’ll leave that one alone.”

  “As you should, you being a Christian and all. But I really wasn’t trying to be funny or—” Norman seriously began apologizing before Paige cut him off.

  “I know, I know.” She put her hands up to let him know it was okay.

  Back before she got saved, Norman would have deliberately made a comment like that to Paige. She and Norman would have taken the comment and run a mile with it, as most of their conversations had involved the adventures of singlehood, dating, and mating. But not now that Paige had been saved for well over two years.

  Only a few months ago Norman would have those same conversations with Paige, but they would be one-sided. Eventually, Paige got frustrated that Norman wouldn’t respect the fact that she was a Christian and continued to talk to her as if she were still in the world. That all changed a few months ago when she invited him to a church service at New Day. He got to experience firsthand a move of the God Paige now served. After that, not only did he respect God, but he respected Paige’s walk with God.

  “Anyway, I can’t thank you enough for inviting me to dinner with you tonight. Blake is going to be sorry he missed it. But his loss is my gain.”

  “Thank you for coming. I can’t think of a better date—besides my husband, of course. And thanks for walking me to my car.”

  “Well, you said that Blake said for me to take good care of you. If you know anything about me, it’s that I know how to take care of a woman.”

  Paige pursed her lips, tilted her head, and with furrowed eyebrows, shot Norman a glare.

  “Oh, my bad.” He forced a grin. “Some old habits are hard to break.”

  Paige smiled. “Not to worry, my friend. Keep coming back to New Day, and between Pastor’s preaching, the Holy Ghost’s conviction, and a miracle from God Himself, you’ll be delivered and all those old habits will be forgotten…like what’s-her-name in Vegas.” Paige winked.

  “You know something? You really are cool, boss,” Norman complimented. “And I think I will come visit New Day again. It’s been a couple of months. Lord only knows how much sinning I’ve done in those months that call for repenting.”

  “You know we always love to see you there. And don’t feel bad; I’m there pretty much every Sunday, and I still find myself having to repent on occasion.”

  “Like your pastor preached that one time: We have to die daily to ourselves.”

  “So you do be listening?” Paige joked. “Yes, my brother, we are all a work in progress.”

  “Speaking of work, tomorrow’s Saturday. Early morning, long day.”

  “You’re right,” Paige agreed, unlocking her car door. “Thanks again for being my date tonight.”

  Norman gave her a hug. “The pleasure was all mine.” He went to give her a friendly kiss on the cheek, but she turned quickly, preparing to make one final comment. With her mouth open, Norman’s lips landed on hers. Realizing that it wasn’t her cheek his lips were pressed against, Norman quickly pulled away. Okay, not quickly, but eventually he pulled away.

  “I’m sorry,” they both said simultaneously. “No, I’m sorry.” Again, simultaneously. “I was trying to—” Simultaneously. “Good night.” Simultaneously.

  Paige watched as Norman scurried off to his car. She pressed her index and middle finger against her lips, still in disbelief that the lips of a man other than her husband had just been there. She put her entire hand over her mouth, trying to cover the smile that for some reason she couldn’t stop from forming. She chuckled like a school girl, and then laughed even harder as she said to herself, “Well, Norman, looks like you ended up getting a little bit of chocolate on you anyway.”

  Chapter Six

  “You won’t be sorry that you hired me, Sister Tamarra. I promise you,” Unique said as she tied the apron around her waist. For the past two weeks, she had helped Tamarra set up a catering affair or two, but today would be her first time actually serving. Having this job meant the world to Unique. After a conversation she’d had with Lorain, the Singles’ Ministry leader, she’d considered doing something with herself besides sitting on welfare. Lorain had made a valid point to Unique. She’d informed her that sitting on welfare wasn’t paying into social security, and that if anything, God forbid, was to happen to Unique, where would money come from to take care of her children? Unique’s three boys meant the world to her.

  Tamarra had been contemplating hiring some extra hands for her catering business for a while now. In spite of all the turmoil her personal life seemed to be caught up in, her business was booming. Word of mouth had nearly doubled Tamarra’s clientele in the last six months or so. Just two weeks ago she’d invested in a new catering van and two new employees, one of them being Unique, her New Day sister in Christ.

  Unique’s position doing setup and serving only called for a few hours a week, but that was all the tim
e she could spare as a single mother of three young sons. Tamarra knew that eight dollars an hour for a less than part-time position wasn’t big money, but she knew Unique would appreciate the opportunity.

  “I know I won’t be sorry I hired you, Unique.” Tamarra smiled, grateful to see such determination and excitement in the twenty-three-year-old mother.

  Tamarra didn’t know a whole lot about Unique. She’d only really started getting to know her since Unique had taken over the position of co-leader of the New Day Singles’ Ministry. For the past month or so, with Lorain being on a sabbatical, Unique had been serving as the interim leader. She’d been handling both her duties well as she now stood in a party house with Tamarra about to serve food to more than seventy-five women of all ages.

  The women were members of a national book club with various chapters throughout the country. Every other year one of the chapters hosted an annual book club meeting with a featured author. This year the Columbus chapter was hosting and the guest author was someone named Tysha. Tamarra had never heard of the author, but Unique seemed to know exactly who the young lady was.

  “Not only do I have a job, a real paying job, no under the table flim-flam stuff, but I am about to serve food to an Essence magazine bestselling author.” Unique clapped her hands together. “God is good.” She noticed that Tamarra wasn’t as excited. “You do know who Tysha is, right?”

  “With the way you’re acting, I guess I should, but sad to say, I don’t. Does she write Christian fiction?”

  “Oh, no, far from it. She writes that street lit stuff—hood books—and I love ’em.”

  “Then that explains it. I try to stick to Christian fiction and some clean chick lit.”

  “I feel you,” Unique said, putting on some plastic gloves.

  Tamarra smiled. The girl had listened when she’d explained to her how important it was to wear gloves when handling food.

  “Street lit probably would be a bit much for someone your age.” Unique looked Tamarra up and down. “No offense. I can just tell that you’re not the typical street lit following.”

  “’Scuse me,” Tamarra said playfully, hands on hips. “I’ll have you know that I own and have read every Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim book ever written. Now, you wanna talk some real gangsta lit…boom!” Tamarra sucked her teeth, snapped her neck, and rolled her eyes. Both women burst out laughing. Forty-something or not, Tamarra could be hip when need be.

  “Okay, all right, Sister Tamarra. I see you, boo,” Unique said. “I had you pegged wrong. My bad. You do know a little somethin’-somethin’ ’bout that gangsta stuff.”

  “Know a little somethin’-somethin’ about it? Girl, back in high school you might as well have called me gangstress.” Tamarra gave a snap around the world.

  “Okay, Sister Tamarra, now you’re exaggerating just a little too much.” Unique chuckled.

  “Hmm…” Tamarra slouched her shoulders and stared off as if reminiscing. “I wish I was, Sister Unique.” She shook her head at some of the things she had done back in her hoodlum stage of high school, back when she was rebelling against her parents, and God, for all the bad things they’d allowed to happen to her.

  She had been suspended and assigned to Saturday school more times than she could count. As a freshman in high school, she missed more classes than she attended, always cutting to hang out with some upperclassmen boy. She got a reputation by doing so, but not a good one. Still, by the time she was a junior, deep inside, a part of all the girls wanted to be just like her. She was their alter ego, that chick who wasn’t afraid to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to do it.

  Tamarra’s mother missed so much work having to take off and go up to the school that she lost more than one job throughout Tamarra’s high school years. Just once, Tamarra wanted her father to come all the way from Maryland and show up at one of the meetings. She just wanted him to show that he cared. She wanted him to love her more than he loved protecting her brother, the brother that had raped her as a child and stolen her innocence. She wanted the charade to be over. He never came. So, Tamarra would always top off her last incident with something worse, hoping eventually her father would come. Still, he never came.

  Thankful for Tamarra, though, in her senior year, Missy Swanson, the new girl, did come. Missy, too, was a girl who did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. She was a rebel, but she was a rebel for the Lord. When told she had to do a book report of some sort, Missy did it on a book in the Bible, reading her Bible during study hall and free time in class. During lunch, she’d hold her own little Bible study, a big no-no since, like Mary’s little lamb, Missy’s lamb, Jesus Christ, wasn’t really allowed in school either. Missy and her lamb were kicked out, from the cafeteria anyway, but that didn’t stop her. She and her growing group would pack their lunches and hold their Bible study outside.

  “Jesus is the answer,” were the four words Missy said to Tamarra one day in passing. It was those four words that planted the seed that ultimately led Tamarra to her salvation. It was also the beginning of a friendship for the two girls.

  For some reason, Tamarra was led to tell Missy of the things she had endured in her young life. She shared with her the details of her brother raping her and how her parents dealt with it. Well, she didn’t outright tell Missy that the things had happened to her; she told Missy that they’d happened to a friend of hers. But Missy knew, and Missy never judged her; she only prayed for her. Not once during that school year did anything that Tamarra ever said to Missy get back to her.

  Missy was an army brat, so before the school year was even over, she and her family were off to another state. She and Tamarra never even vowed to exchange phone numbers and addresses to keep in touch. It was unsaid, but they both knew that God had placed them in each other’s lives for a mere season, and for that they were grateful.

  A smile now covered Tamarra’s lips as she stood in the party house thinking back to who she used to be, just like it was yesterday. She couldn’t help but thank God that she was no longer that person.

  “The author has arrived,” the Columbus chapter president said, sticking her head in the kitchen. “You ladies can begin serving now.” She smiled, then quickly disappeared again.

  “You all set?” Tamarra asked Unique.

  “All set,” she confirmed, then picked up a tray of barbeque meatballs and exited the kitchen.

  “I’m right behind you,” Tamarra told her.

  After Unique was out of sight, Tamarra took a long, deep breath. Thoughts of the past about high school and Missy had momentarily taken her back to a place she wished she could completely forget. She knew, though, that no matter how hard she tried, those memories would always be embedded deep in her heart.

  She picked up a relish tray and held her head high before exiting the kitchen. With the turn of events that were about to take place in her life, how long she’d be able to keep her head held high was yet to be determined.

  Chapter Seven

  “Are you sure your business in Kentucky isn’t over with yet?” Deborah asked Mother Doreen over the phone. “You sure you don’t want to come back to New Day and run the Singles’ Ministry?”

  “Is that the only reason why you want me back there? To work me?” Mother Doreen teased. “And I thought you really missed me.”

  “Now, Mother Doreen, you know I miss you something awful, but somehow I got dragged back into working with the Singles’ Ministry.”

  “Why? What happened? Sister Lorain didn’t work out?” Mother Doreen sounded concerned.

  “No, she worked out just fine, but she’s on a sabbatical. You know she had some type of accident. Fell and hit her head, lost part of her memory, and came back to church thinking Sister Unique was her daughter.”

  “Lord, have mercy. I didn’t hear about that. I haven’t really been staying in touch with my New Day family like I should,” Mother Doreen confessed. “Things here in Kentucky were just more than I thought I could bear, but God saw me th
rough.”

  “He always does.”

  “Amen,” Mother Doreen agreed. “But go back to Sister Lorain thinking that Sister Unique was her daughter.”

  “Oh, yes. Apparently Pastor had assigned Sister Unique to help assist Sister Lorain with the Singles’ Ministry. The two had obviously grown close in working together; so close that after Sister Lorain’s accident and her coming back to church, she saw Sister Unique and thought she was her daughter. Everybody laughed it off, but I don’t know, Mother Doreen. My spirit tells me that there’s something more to it.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what: you better get your master’s degree in Kneeology. Stay on your knees praying and stay on your face in the Lord to make sure you’re hearing clearly from Him,” Mother Doreen warned. “Don’t let Satan try to infiltrate your thoughts like I almost let him do while here in Kentucky. Had I not started to hear clearly from God when I did, I might have jeopardized my relationship with a good man of G—” Mother Doreen cut off her own words. She’d said too much. Way too much.

  There was a moment of silence while Deborah waited on Mother Doreen to finish. Mother Doreen had no intention of finishing. The cat’s tail was already wagging out of the bag; she didn’t need the whole feline creeping out.

  “Go on. You were saying, Mother Doreen,” Deborah pressed.

  Mother Doreen thought for a second, trying to find a way out of the hole she’d dug for herself. There was only one way out. “Oh, well, I might as well tell you. I met someone. A man. A man of God.”

  “My, my, my, so that’s what’s keeping you in Kentucky,” Deborah teased. “And here I thought you were down there on assignment.”

  “I was on assignment. I am on assignment. I mean I—Oh, girl, you got me all flustered and twisted up.”

  “And I bet beads of sweat are dancing all over your forehead too.” Deborah chuckled. “But don’t blame me. My spirit also tells me that it ain’t me who’s got you all flustered and twisted up.”