Hot Like Fire (7 page)

"Garcelle, Paco home?" one of the kids yelled out.

"He's sleeping, but go wake him up," she yelled
back.

She cut across the rear of the field and walked
into Marta's yard and past her new Ford Escort. She
was just opening the door to Marta's single-wide
mobile home when their friend Tasha's bright pink
Cadillac whipped into the yard. Garcelle waited
and held the door open for her.

"Whassup, Beyonce?" Tasha teased as she climbed
the wooden steps. She was a short, full-figured girl
who was not afraid in the least to wear a pair of short
shorts and a tube top.

"Hola, chicas. ~ Como estas?" Garcelle joked back as
they walked into Marta's house.

"Girl, I told you don't be speaking no Spanish to
me," said Tasha.

Garcelle just laughed.

Marta and her sister Francesca were already sitting around the small, round table in her kitchen.
Marta shuffled the deck of cards she held as she
looked up at them through a plume of cigarette
smoke. "Poochie's on the way," she told them.

Garcelle took her seat and slapped her fiftydollar stake on the table. This was her one recreation. A Sunday afternoon chilling with her crazy
friends, complete with some light beer, storytelling,
joke cracking, and a good ole deck of fifty-two, was
just what she needed.

They heard the bass of a car system beat against
the walls of the trailer. "Here comes Poochie,"
Tasha said, after peeking out the window. "She and
Tank must be back together, 'cause he just dropped
her off."

Marta pulled harder on her cigarette and rolled
her eyes, with a string of Spanish expletives. "I guess
we gone hear `Tank this' and `Tank that' all damn
night."

"She got her little boy with her?" Garcelle asked.

"No," said Tasha.

"Thank God, 'cause he is bad as hell," Garcelle
said just before the front door opened and Poochie
strolled in.

"Lookey here, Garcelle. I got some new tricks for
your ass today, baby," Poochie said as she slid into a
chair at the table. "You ain't walking out with all the
money this time."

Garcelle picked up the cards and shuffled them,
looking each of her friends in the eye. "The game is
seven-card stud, and in case you chicas still haven't
learned ... I'm the one to beat."

"You boys sure you want to do this?" Kade asked
as he easily handled the stallion that he was riding.

Kahron trotted up. He winked at his brother playfully before removing his chain with the cross
medallion and slipping it into the back pocket of his slacks. "Scared you wrote a check that's going to
bounce?" he asked as he dropped his shades down
over his eyes.

Kade ignored him and looked over his shoulder
as Kaleb slowly trotted his horse like he was in a
parade. "Match him now. He swears that slow and
steady always wins the race," Kade joked as he shook
his head.

After dinner they had all been sitting around their
parents' den, telling stories of their childhood, when
Kade recalled how his younger brothers had always
tried-and failed-to beat him in horse racing. That
led to Kade, Kaleb, and Kahron all removing their
suit jackets and rolling up the sleeves of their shirts.
They were going to race for old time's sake.

Their mother warned them against such foolishness. Their father told them he wanted each and
every one of his horses returned just the way the
boys found them or he would cut some tail for old
time's sake.

Bianca thought they were being childish, placing
the horses at risk for male pride. Even her threats
to withhold her wifely duty didn't stop Kahron
from wanting to beat his older brother.

So here they were.

"Hold on. I want in on this," Kaitlyn called out
from behind them.

The three brothers turned their silver-haired heads
and looked over their equally broad and square
shoulders to see Kaitlyn racing toward them on an allwhite stallion. Kaeden rode with her, with his spectacles in his hand.

Kaitlyn pulled the reins and stopped on a dime
beside them, sending dirt and dust flying. The men
all coughed and covered their faces with their arms as they waited for the soil to settle. "I wasn't old
enough to get in on the fun, but I want a chance to
whup all my brothers' butts ... well, except for
Kaeden. No offense, big brother."

Kaeden cleaned his specs with a handkerchief
from his back pocket. "None taken," he said, with a
wheeze-like cough.

"You okay?" Kade asked, with his powerful eyes
on his brother.

"I'm fine," Kaeden snapped as he slipped his
glasses back on.

Kahron and Kade shared a long look.

"Okay, Kaeden, you can be the judge, like always,"
Kaleb said as he tried to settle down the black Arabian he rode. "You stay here, and we'll all go down
to that line of trees, our starting point."

Kaeden slid down from the horse. As soon as his
feet hit the ground, the other Strong siblings rode
their horses toward the spot Kaleb had pointed out.

Kade was the first one to reach the trees. `Just a
little preview of what I'm 'bout to do to y'all."

"You haven't crossed the finish line yet, brother,"
Kahron told him.

"Damn right," Kaleb threw in.

Kaitlyn just held the reins tighter and positioned
her slender frame on the saddle, with a determined
look on her face.

In the distance, Kaeden raised one arm. "On
your mark. . . get set. . . go!"

They all took off.

Kade rode his horse hard, rising up from the
saddle as he let the animal take the lead. He passed
the stretches of trees and grass drying from the
heat of the sun. He could hear the hooves thundering against the ground as his siblings all vied to beat him. His heart thundered from the exhilaration of
the race. Kaeden's silhouette increased in size as
Kade neared him.

Risking a look back to check his competition,
Kade glanced over his shoulder. Kaleb was on his
heels. Kahron was coming up strong, with his shades
making him look like a robot. Kaitlyn brought up
the rear but was fighting to close the gap.

Kade faced forward, but his expression went
from that of victory to confusion as his horse suddenly reared up and then stopped, causing his
body to go flying over the horse's head. He landed
on the ground, with a thud.

"Shit," he swore, with a grimace, as pain radiated
across his body.

"Paco, come and eat," Garcelle called out to her
brother as she left Marta's house. She counted her
poker winnings as she walked into the house. Two
hundred and thirty dollars, she told herself. She
walked straight into her room and grabbed the
empty pickle jar, where she kept her money until
she went to the bank. She rammed the money atop
the bills already crunched in there.

She loved playing poker. Joaquin had taught her
how to play, and she had taken to it like a fish to
water. She hated when the state outlawed those
video poker machines, because it had been nothing
for her to win five hundred dollars or better in one
sitting. Most times when men heard she was a
skilled poker player, they laughed and tried to play
her like a joke ... until she had their pockets empty
or their backsides bare.

She wasn't addicted to gambling at all. In fact, she only played with her friends on Sunday afternoons,
and even then, once she lost her fifty-dollar table
stake, she sat out or went home. Oh, she loved poker,
but the game wasn't serious enough to cut into her
money for school or make her borrow money to play.

Garcelle left her room. "You awake, Papi?" she
asked her father.

Carlos laughed as he wiped his hand over his
mouth. "Yes, and I'm starving," he answered.

"Coming right up," she told him over her softly
rounded shoulder as she headed for the kitchen.

"Paco, wash your hands, and go and set the table,"
she heard her father tell her brother in Spanish.

They always ate their dinner together as a family.
It was their way of honoring her mother, because
family meals had been so important to her. Even
when Garcelle worked late, watching Kadina, or
her father and her uncles had an emergency at the
ranch that held them up, no one would eat until
everyone was home.

Paco set the table as Garcelle placed steaming
platters of food in the center of the table. Her father
came into the kitchen and walked to the back door.
"Anthony and Raul," he called out to his two twentysomething younger brothers. They shared the same
father, but had different mothers. Once he was settled in America, Carlos had sent for her uncles and
got them the jobs at the Circle S Ranch.

Garcelle enjoyed the family banter as they talked
freely and with ease in Spanish while she fixed the
plates and handed one to each of the men. As their
talk turned to the ranch, Garcelle immediately
thought of Kade.

The women of Holtsville were on a full-blown
campaign to see who would be the woman to snag the very eligible but very reluctant bachelor Kade
Strong. In the two weeks since the package had
been left on Kade's step, Garcelle had intercepted
letters, cards, phone calls, and even more risque
packages from the single women of Holtsville,
South Carolina. She swore, if she laid eyes on one
more nudie shot, she would retch.

All of it smelled of man-hungry, desperate
women. Not to say there wasn't a good woman out
there for Kade, but so far these women, who were
trying to lure him with sex, were hardly great candidates to be Kadina's stepmother. No, these
women only wanted to lie up in Kade's bed and
probably send Kadina to her room or outside to
amuse herself.

She was the type of active and smart little girl
who needed someone to talk to her and spend time
with her. Take her to the parks and museums she
loved. Take her to the bookstore to carefully select
the next book she would read. Tell her about little
boys when the time came. And do all the things
women knew that a man didn't do, such as help her
through her first menstrual cycle.

Kadina needed someone patient, loving, and fun
like ... Garcelle herself. Garcelle literally shook her
head at the thought. She definitely was not throwing herself in the running to be the second Mrs.
Kade Strong. In the last two weeks, they had settled
into a cool friendship. They joked with each other.
They asked each other for advice. They laughed at
the antics of the women.

Yes, she thought Kade Strong was hotter than a
dozen Playgirl centerfolds combined-she could
admit that-but the last thing she wanted was to get
involved with a man who was so deeply in love with his dead wife. Besides, she enjoyed their newfound
friendship, and after the Joaquin BS, she wasn't
looking for love right now, anyway.

Kade Strong was her friend and nothing more.
She was more than fine with that.

"Garcelle ... Garcelle?"

She turned her head and focused her attention
on her father, who was handing her the cordless
phone. Did it ring? she wondered as she took the
phone from him.

"Hel-"

"Garcelle, this is Kade. You're on a speakerphone, okay?"

Garcelle placed her fork on her plate as she sat
back from the table a bit. She furrowed her brow.
"Okay," she said, with obvious hesitation.

"Long story short. I fell off a horse during a
race-

"You fell?" she shrieked. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm more than fine. That's my whole
point."

"You call breaking two ribs fine?" Garcelle heard
a woman say in the background.

"You broke your ribs?" Garcelle gasped in horror.

"What is going on, Garcelle?" her father demanded in Spanish.

"Kade fell off a horse and broke his ribs," she
told her father, holding the mouthpiece away from
her mouth.

"I ... didn't ... break ... anything," Kade roared
into the phone. "I bruised my ribs."

"Oh, he bruised his ribs," Garcelle relayed to her
father. She frowned as she focused again on the
phone conversation. "And why were you horse
racing at your age?"

"For the love of God, Garcelle-"

"Okay, okay. Go ahead." She placed the phone
between her cheek and shoulder so that she could
use both of her hands to twist her hair atop her
head-a nervous gesture of hers.

"I know looking out for a grouchy injured man
in his midthirties isn't a part of your baby-sitting
duties, but I need a favor."

Garcelle rose from the table when she saw three
sets of velvet brown eyes resting on her in open curiosity. "I'll do it," she said before he could even ask.
She waved her hands to let her family know to continue with dinner. She left the kitchen, then walked
through the living room and out the front door to
sit down on the top step of the porch.

"Garcelle, are you sure? Because he could stay at
Strong Ranch until he's better," Lisha Strong called
out.

"It's no problem at all," she assured Kade's mother.

"Garcelle, I'm taking you off speakerphone,
okay?" said Kade.

She heard the background noises disappear.
"Kade, are you really okay? Just say yes or no."

"No. Hell, no," he said, with emphasis.

She bit back a smile. "It hurts like hell, doesn't it,
Mr. Tough Guy?" she asked, her accent making
mister sound more like meester.

He grunted. "Yes."

"When will you be home?" she asked as her eyes
drifted up to watch the sun set.

"They're keeping me overnight to make sure I
don't have a concussion."

Garcelle snorted in laughter. "For you to be
horse racing, you had to have bumped your head
before the race."

"Don't make me laugh, Garcelle," he said in a
strained voice.

"You want me to come tonight?" she asked.

"No, don't bother. I'm about to run the whole
Strong bunch out of here now." She heard protests
in the background. "Kadina will spend tonight at
my parents'."

"Well, I will pick you up from the hospital tomorrow," she told him as she rose from the step. She
brushed any dust from her backside.