Southern Admirer (Southern Loving Book 2) (18 page)

Shane’s face darkened. “The hell you will—”

“I’m not leaving Dallas,” she said quickly
interrupting him. “I’m going to get a job even if it’s a teaching position,
find a nice house in the suburbs and we will co-parent.”

Shane took off his hat and walked into the office.
“I guess you thought about everything. Is this because I won’t commit to you
because you’re the mother of my child?”

Sitting up Jasmine sent her last resume, before
powering off the laptop. “You say you love me but honestly I don’t think you
know what love is… What you’re offering me I can get any day of the week; I can
have incredible sex with any man out there. Just because we have a kid doesn’t
mean you love me.”

Shane licked his lips. “What else do you need
beside love?”

Ignoring his question, Jasmine packed up her
laptop and left the room without saying another word to Shane.

Shane sat in front of his desk. How could he tell
Jazzy that marriage scared him to death? How could he tell this young,
beautiful woman that settling down stressed the hell out of him or the idea of
marrying the wrong person again made his palms sweat? When his parents, Melody
and Gerald, got married they married with the intentions of staying together
forever; when he married Sarah, his father gave him one of those speeches that
every man tells their son ‘Love her right and stick by her side…you got a
keeper.” So when he went home to his parents two years ago and told them that
he was filing for divorce, there was that shock on their faces that he let them
down.

Now, here he was a widower after sixteen years of
marriage. The anniversary of his wife’s death, he made love to another woman
and during the throw of passion, he felt guilty and called out her name. It’s
like someone was looking out for him by blessing him with another chance to be
a husband, Shane couldn’t ask for more with Jazzy.

He had a nagging doubt in the back of his head
that kept asking him if ‘Relationships are built to last forever?’ But his
mother’s voice took over and said, “If you meet someone, fall in love and get
married.”

Running his hand down his face, Shane had to
figure out how to keep Jazzy on the ranch, and on top of that he had to mend
his broken relationship with his partner. That Monday he returned to work after
the baby shower, Benjamin requested for a new partner.

“Shane!” Jasmine yelled from the front.

“Yeah.”

“I’m going out and taking Shay.”

“Who are you going out with?” he asked.

Silence.

“Jazz,” he called her name. When she didn’t
answer, he stood up and walked to the empty room. He stood by the window and
watched her car pull out of the driveway. When he dialed her cell phone number,
he groaned when her voicemail picked up.

Shane sat in his recliner and thought about his
options. He could put an all-points bulletin on her ass or trace her cell phone
or lastly, he could just wait until she returned from wherever she went to.
Don’t
do anything stupid
, he told himself.

***

Everyday Jasmine was replaying the conversations
he had with her parents over and over in her head. At the age of twenty-five years
old she felt abandoned by her parents because of the choices she made. For
weeks, she Googled and searched for information regarding her grandparents. Her
parents essentially became the very people who hated their union years ago.

Jasmine thought her grandparents, Tarak &
Kushala Sandoval, would have lived on an Indian Reservation instead of a
prominent neighborhood in Dallas-Fort Worth Area. She prayed while traveling
the short distance to see these people who’d never laid eyes on her a day in her
life. Parking in the circular driveway, Jasmine stepped out the car and gave
herself a once over, she wore a Native American inspired knee length dress and
knee-high moccasins. Reaching in the backseat and getting the carseat, she
walked up the winding pathway to a dark red front door and rang the doorbell.

Jasmine swallowed the rising panic that was
bubbling up to the surface. The door opened slowly, a woman who was the
splitting image as her mother stood in the threshold. “Hi. I’m your
granddaughter, Jasmine St. Clair, and this is your great-granddaughter, Shay
McBride.” She didn’t know how she did it but her voice didn’t tremble.

“I have been waiting for years for this day to
come.”

Jasmine smiled at the tall, older woman with high cheekbones
and striking salt and pepper hair that hung across from her shoulder in a
braid. She was slightly taken aback by the hug and kiss on the cheek she was
greeted with.

“Please come in, my child.” Her voice cracked as
she ushered Jasmine into the house.

The smell of lavender greeted Jasmine as she toted
the car seat to a living room space that was decorated in Native American
artwork; there was a large picture of a Chief Sitting Bear hanging proudly on
the wall next to framed Texas state flag.

“I’m going to get Grey Wolf from his study,” she
said happily, and disappeared down the hallway.

Unbuckling Shay from the carrier, Jasmine got up
and walked to the fireplace mantel where pictures and newspaper clipping were
carefully placed in black frames. It seemed like her grandparents kept track of
their movements; from graduation pictures, to Benjamin joining the police force
and her first reporting piece at the college newspaper.

“Hello, little one.”

Turning around quickly, she stared at a man who
appeared to be in his late sixties, his long, grey hair was pulled into a
ponytail. He walked into the room with the assistance of a cane.

“Hi,” she replied. There were so many emotions
running through Jasmine, as she stood in front of the very people who she heard
her parents arguing about. The same people who been a missing element from her
life.

“My God, you look just like Kushala when she was
younger,” her grandfather said, with a single tear running down his face. “This
meeting should have came sooner.”

“I for one second that.” Kushala walked into the
room carrying a tray with lemonade and sat it down on the table. “Do you prefer
us to call you Jasmine or Jazzy? Please make yourself at home.”

Walking to the sofa, Jasmine sat down across from
her grandparents. “Family and friends call me Jazzy.” She patted Shay on the
back gently soothing the baby.

“I remember when your mother was that small,”
Tarak said, his brown eyes were soft and sad.

So many years had gone by, and she didn’t know
what to say. And neither did them. Nobody seemed to know where to start the
conversation. So for the first few minutes the conversation centered on Shay
and Jasmine didn’t mind.

As she sat there and watched her grandmother hold
Shay carefully in her arms, Jasmine started to wonder. She wanted better for
her daughter. She wanted Shay to know her grandparents, uncles, aunts and
cousins. She didn’t want her daughter to miss out on the love of a grandparent.

“I know what you’re thinking,” her grandfather
said, looking at his wife playing with Shay.

“It’s been too long, grandfather, to allow some
crazy stuff to keep family apart.” Jasmine wiped a tear that threaten to fall.
“I…my brothers and I missed out on so much. Our mother’s beginning starts with
you guys…just like mine starts with my parents.”

Tarak nodded his head up and down. “You’re right
my child…we allowed days to turn into months and months turned to years.”

“I remember it was my tenth birthday party. Momma
and Daddy was arguing, I was supposed to be outside playing, but I wanted something
to drink. Daddy was saying, ‘
They should be allowed to come, that you were
my grandparents.'
” Jasmine reached across the table and held her
grandfather hands. “You were trying to make amends.”

“We reached out but your mother has always been a
stubborn woman, since the day she was born.” Kushala voice was low and her lips
trembled. “We haven’t spoken with either of your parents in decades; we have
missed so much from the birth of our grandchildren to our great-grandchildren.
The estrangement was our choice at first because, we didn’t support who our
child choose to love because the color of our skin was different.”

“When we realized how huge of a mistake and how
awful we sounded…it was too late,” Tarak interrupted. “Went to Dena and pleaded
with her for forgiveness but it was too late, the words we’d said, we're like
seeds that planted in Dena’s heart. She wasn’t trying to hear us anymore; she
put distance between us.”

“But you only live thirty minutes from them!”
Jasmine exclaimed.

“We started this ugly chapter in our life…and
sadly your mother has decided to continue with it even though we finally wanted
to put an end to it…but she won’t,” her grandmother said, tears in her eyes.

Jasmine remembered asking her mother about her
grandparents and her only reply was that she wanted to protect her family from
her parents. “You hated my brothers and me because we were black.”

Her grandparents appeared to be ashamed. “We never
hated the color of your skin, we expected more for your mother…the plan was for
your mother to marry within her tribe,” her grandfather muttered.

“We were mad at your mother, she got pregnant at
eighteen years old and dropped out of college to marry a man we didn’t know,”
her grandmother tried to explain. “We said a few harsh words thinking that our
threats could sway Dena’s choice…a terrible and painstakingly mistake that
resulted in us losing our only daughter and miss out on our grandchildren.”

Jasmine nodded her head. She couldn’t picture
decades going by and not speaking to her mother.

Her grandmother pulled out a photo album. There
were many pictures of her mother participating in annual tribal festivities.
There were even baby pictures of her mother and grandmother. There was a
generation picture with her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother. Jasmine
had all her grandparents’ ancestral identity. They were two complete strangers.
Two people made it possible for her to come into this world, and she didn’t
know them from a hole in the wall.

She studied her grandmother’s smile that was
similar to her daughters. Shane would always say that Shay had her smile;
Jasmine noticed that she resembled her grandmother a lot.

Sitting in the chair watching her grandparents fall
in love with Shay, Jasmine wondered how her life would have been with them in
her life. Looking out the bay window that led to the backyard, the sheer tan
curtains were pulled back revealing a garden in full bloom. She would have
loved to spend spring and summer break with her grandparents learning her
Native American culture or just spending the dog days of summer working in the
garden with them. If only time and things were different, if people wouldn’t
allow their hatred and their own views to get in the way of love, happiness and
family.

Standing in the kitchen helping her grandmother
with another round of snacks and drinks, they laughed and joked like there
wasn’t a twenty-five year old gap between them. During her afternoon with
grandparents she caught them up on what was new in her life.

“Tell me about the man you’re obviously in love
with,” her grandmother asked, as she placed homemade oatmeal cookies into the
oven.

“It’s nothing romantic—”

“Ump,” she replied. “Is he good to you and his
daughter?”

“Yes.”

“When your mother left I told her not to settle
for a man who’ll only offer you crumbs of love.” She refilled Jazzy glass with
sweet lemonade and handed it to her.

Jasmine stood there soaking in the knowledge her
wise grandmother was giving her, the same wisdom her mother used to give her
about the boys she dated in college. Dena St. Clair would always say if she
accepted the crumbs that a man left her with, she would eventually starve.

“Always love fully and completely! Don’t settle
for anything less in return,” her grandmother said, looking at her sternly.
“Love is written all over your face…but I can also see the guilt and fear in
your eyes.”

Jasmine focused on the colorful mason jars filled
with different fruits and vegetables. She didn’t want to tell a woman who
didn’t know her that she was right. When her grandmother smiled, there was
something comforting in her smile that was genuine and caring.

“Your grandfather missed this.”

Jasmine turned around and looked at her grandfather
sitting in a rocking chair by the fireplace singing a lullaby in his native
Apache tongue. The same song that her mother sang to her when she was a child.
Taking a seat at the kitchen table as her grandmother plated the freshly hot
oatmeal cookies, Jasmine told her the PG-13 version of Shay’s conception,
Shane, and how her family had practically disowned her for the decision she’d
made.

***

The day was endless especially with having a new
partner who’s work ethic didn’t come close to his former partner, Benjamin St.
Clair. He hoped there was a slight glimmer of hope for his relationship with
Benjamin. Why couldn’t he have the friendship and the woman? All he needed was
the St. Clair clan to see his intentions with Jasmine were honorable.