More Than He Can Handle (18 page)

Louis threw his hands up. “I'm going to bed,” he said. “It's late and I don't have the energy.”

Once Louis had disappeared upstairs, Freddie looked at her friend. “Don't make my problems yours,” she said.

“I'm not, but I told Louis that I didn't think you and Cleveland were a good idea. He was the one who said Cleveland was a good guy. Whatever.”

“But Louis is a good guy and your husband. This has nothing to do with you guys, all right? I'll be gone in the morning,” she said.

Freddie and Lillian hugged tightly. “Girl, it's going to be fine,” Lillian said.

She nodded and smiled weakly. “I know,” she said. “I'm going to go home and forget all about Cleveland Alexander.” But Freddie knew those words were lies as soon as they left her mouth. She would never be able to forget Cleveland.

Cleveland didn't close his eyes to sleep, so when the sun crept over the horizon he hopped out of bed, still dressed from the night before in his jeans and AFD T-shirt, and dashed downstairs.

Heading for his car, Cleveland could think of nothing but going to New Orleans and telling Freddie that he meant every word he'd said and that he loved her too much to let her go.
Damn it,
he thought,
this isn't how this week was supposed to turn out.

He started the car and headed for Louis and Lillian's house. He didn't see Freddie's car parked in the driveway and he was not going to knock on the door and take more abuse from Lillian. If she weren't Louis's wife, he would've given her a piece of his mind last night, but out of respect for his friend, he held his tongue.

Turning his car around, he headed for the station and prayed that Darren was in. Knowing that it was going to be a long shot for him to take more time off, all he could hope for was his brother's belief in the power of love.

Pulling up at the station, Cleveland slammed his car door shut, ran inside and called out for Darren. As he ran down the hall, he saw Roland peak his head out of the sleeping quarters. “What's all this damned racket?” he demanded.

Cleveland ignored him and walked into Darren's office, where he found his brother leaned back in his leather desk chair sound asleep.

“Darren,” Cleveland said, slamming his hands against the desk.

Darren nearly fell out of the chair as his eyes fluttered open. “What—Cleveland, what's wrong?”

“I've got to go to New Orleans, I need at least two days to get her back.”

Darren blinked several times in succession as if he was trying to get his bearing straight. “Okay, you're in here at the crack of dawn because you and your girlfriend had a fight? And you're asking for more time off, even though you've just gotten back from a week's vacation? I've got to be dreaming, because you have lost your mind.” Darren wiped his eyes and yawned.

“I don't ask for much,” Cleveland said, “and I'm not one to ask for favors, but D, I love Freddie and she thinks that I've betrayed her when I didn't.”

Darren sat straight up in his chair, fully awake now as if he'd just drank a pot of coffee. “Did you say that you love her?”

Cleveland nodded. “I've never felt this way about a woman and if she doesn't love me back, then at least I need to clear my name.”

Darren motioned for his brother to sit down. “What happened?”

Cleveland told his brother the story, how he'd done some research on her father on the Internet, printed the story and Freddie found it. “I don't want the money that comes from turning her father in. Why would I do that? Why would I break her heart for money?”

Darren nodded. “I understand that. But do you think that she's going to listen to you if you run down there?”

Cleveland shrugged. “I can't go on wondering what if. Maybe Freddie is that woman who I've been waiting for. I've never had these kinds of feelings for any other woman. When you and Louis were talking about love and all that mess, I knew I'd never feel it. Then she walked into my life. A woman who speaks her mind and isn't afraid to think outside the box. Freddie is the kind of woman who will keep me on my toes. She's not . . .”

Darren threw his hand up and said, “She's your soul mate.”

“Yes.”

“I saw the look in your eyes when you were talking about her a few days ago and I recognized it.”

“What look?” Cleveland asked.

Darren smiled, “The same look that I have in my eyes when I look at Jill. Now, I'm glad that you're in love, but we're still short-staffed here. I can only let you go for two days. So whatever the two of you have going on between you better be cleared up in forty-eight hours.”

Cleveland nodded and hugged his brother. “Forty-eight hours, huh?” Cleveland said.

“If you love her as much as you say you do, it's not going to take that long,” he said. “Hell, if it wasn't for you, Jill and I wouldn't be together now. But please take a shower before you go to that woman.”

Cleveland laughed for the first time since his fight with Freddie and took off for the showers.

 

 

Freddie had driven for about four hours before she stopped to gas up her car. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and Atlanta as she could. What was she thinking anyway? Even if Cleveland wasn't a liar, the relationship was doomed from the start. They lived too far away from one another and she couldn't trust that he wouldn't break her heart.

Oh, he's already done that. I hope he didn't think telling me that he loved me was going to turn me into a glob of Jell-O and I was going to believe everything he said. I know he was after the money. For once in his life, my father was right,
she thought as she filled her car with gas. She walked into the store, paid for gas, and purchased a cup of coffee and a bran muffin. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was nearly ten
A.M.
She had to wonder if her father had turned himself in yet. She didn't want to deal with him either.
Why is it that every man in my life is nothing but a huge disappointment?
she thought as she climbed into the car and started it up. The engine sputtered a bit, but soon roared to life. As she got back on the highway, Freddie decided that she was going to get rid of her father's Mustang. Just like Jacques, it was more trouble than it was worth. Loraine had been right all along and admitting that to her was going to be the hardest thing she was going to have to do.

Was that her destiny? To end up alone and bitter just like her mother? Maybe she was listening more than she cared to admit when Loraine told her that men couldn't be trusted and would always disappoint you when you needed them most. Cleveland had certainly let her down. But she was partly to blame for that, because she'd been the one to bring him into her world and her problems. Cleveland hadn't asked her to take him to Pass Christian. She allowed him to find a place inside her heart and she fell in love with him all on her own.

How was she going to pretend that she hadn't fallen in love with Cleveland?

Love?
She thought.
I don't love him, I can't.

A few hours later, Freddie was back at the hotel. Just as she was getting out of the car, someone grabbed her from behind, and a hand covered her mouth, stopping her from screaming. Freddie struggled against the body as the man dragged her into a corner.

“Shh, chere, it's just me,” Jacques Babineaux said when he released her. “I've been waiting for you and hiding from your mother.”

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Or better yet, get arrested? There are cameras everywhere these days,” Freddie said once her heart stopped racing.

“I told you that I'm turning myself in today. My lawyer and I are meeting in an hour. Where's your mother?”

“In Houston, I guess. Why?”

“Because this is her last chance to come clean,” he said. Freddie shook her head and turned her back to her father.

“Why don't you just keep running? You're going to open a can of worms that no one wants to deal with. I read a story about what you did and . . .”

“I didn't do anything but protect your mother and in turn you. But I've spent too much of my life paying for it. It's time for me to stop running and time for your mother to admit the truth.”

She turned around and faced him, her eyes shining with tears. “What about me and what this is going to do to me? Do you think I want both of you in prison?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I'm getting too old to run. You don't need my protection anymore and your mother didn't hold up her end of the deal. She didn't tell the truth, she just left me holding the bag for all of these years. If she would've told the truth, she would've been able to tell the authorities what really happened that night.”

Pushing her hair behind her ears, Freddie asked, “What did happen that night?”

“Your mother is going to have to answer that question,” he said with a far away look in his eyes.

“No, I'm asking you,” she said. “Tell me what happened or I swear to God, I will call the police right now.”

Jacques shook his head. “You're not going to do that and you know that I'd be gone before the NOPD showed up.”

“Fine, let's find out,” Freddie said as she reached into her pocket to pull out her cell phone. Jacques touched her wrist gently.

“All right,” he said. “I'll tell you.”

She closed her eyes and braced herself for the story she'd been waiting her entire life to hear. Jacques cleared his throat and began.

“That night, your mother and I were in the hotel, we'd just wrapped up a Baptist convention that the good Reverend was hosting. I was tired and left Loraine down at the front desk to run the night audit. I always told her to lock the door at eleven and she never did. It must have been around midnight when I heard her scream. See, at that time, we'd been living in the hotel to make ends meet. The hotel hasn't always been this nice, either. Anyway, I rushed downstairs and saw Nolan Watson sprawled on the floor with a steaming gunshot wound to his chest. Your mother's shirt was ripped, she had scratches on her chest and face and in her hands was the .38 special we kept underneath the counter.

“She was incoherent when I asked her what happened. We had two guests in the hotel and they must have been too drunk to hear anything. I told your mother we should call the police. She shook her head and screamed ‘no.'

“‘The cops are going to take his side. He's so well-known in the community and no one is going to believe that he tried to rape me.' Then she started sobbing and crying like a wounded animal. We couldn't leave the body in the middle of the lobby and I said we had do something.”

“Your mother wanted to dump him in Lake Pontchartrain. But that was too risky. New Orleans was in the middle of a big crime wave and I told her that we should take the body and dump it somewhere in the Lower Ninth. Police would think that he'd been shot in a robbery gone wrong or something like that. Of course, when the time came to move the body, she was too distraught to do it. So I wrapped him up in some old carpet and took him out back in the alley. Someone was coming and I had to leave him there. Inside, your mother had cleaned up all the blood and herself. When the cops found his body, I was the first and only suspect.”

Fingering her throat, Freddie asked, “Why?”

“Watson and I had a public feud that went back years. It was my hotel where he was found and . . .”

“What was the feud about?” she asked.

“Watson was a damned fraud, the public thought that he was a good man and a holy man, but he was nothing but a charlatan. Chasing women, drinking like a fish and defrauding people with his insurance policies. When my mother died, her life insurance policy didn't pay a damned thing. I went to him and he basically laughed me out of his office. Claimed that my mother hadn't paid her premiums. But I knew she had. I hated that man and he knew it. He'd always had a thing for Loraine and it burned him up that I'd married her.”

“If that's really what happened, then why didn't you and Mom go to the police?” Freddie asked.

“When the police questioned your mother, she turned everything around on me,” he spat bitterly. “It's like she wanted me in prison. That other stuff that happened to him, I know she did it.”

Shaking her head, Freddie didn't know what to say, whether she should believe her father's story. “So, why now? Why turn yourself in now?” she asked.

“I told you, I'm tired. And it's time for someone else to pay the price for that night.”

“I have to go,” Freddie said as she attempted to push past her father.

“Chere, I know this is a lot to take in, but it's the truth,” he said. “Make sure you watch the news tonight and you might want to tell your mother to watch as well.”

Freddie watched as her father took off down the alley. It was only a few minutes after one, New Orleans time, and she was exhausted.

 

 

Cleveland pulled into the parking lot of The French Garden Inn's parking lot and looked up at the building. She was in there and he was going to find her come hell or high water. He sighed as he got out of the car and slowly walked to the front door. Upon entering the lobby, he looked for Freddie and hoped she'd be behind the front desk. But he was greeted by a perky, but older woman who had eyes like Freddie.

“Welcome to The French Garden Inn, do you have a reservation?” she asked with a plastic smile on her face.

“I'm looking for the owner,” Cleveland said, his voice clear and strong, not showing an ounce of the desperation that he felt.

“That would be me, I'm Loraine Barker,” she said as she extended her perfectly manicured hand. Cleveland shook her delicate hand, pleased to meet Freddie's mother, but wondering why she was here and not her daughter. “What can I help you with?”

A door slammed behind them and Freddie walked in. She locked eyes with Cleveland and glared at him. “Why are you here?” she demanded.

Loraine looked from Freddie to Cleveland. “Is there a problem? Do I need to call security?”

“No, Mother,” Freddie spat. “Because from what I hear calling the police isn't your strong suit.”

Loraine clutched the pearl choker around her neck. “Winfred, what has gotten into you?”

“Freddie,” Cleveland said. “Can we talk?”