A Love To Remember

“Is he around?”

“He’s out checking the caves. Now, how did you find out about Camden’s death? I thought you were on an island in the Asia.”

“Uncle Camden’s attorney tracked me down.”

“Why? It would have been impossible for you make it back in time for the funeral.”

“I’m required to be at the reading of the will,” Sasha responded slowly.

Several heartbeats passed before her mother said, “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“I’m not sure I like it, either, but I really didn’t have a choice. Uncle Camden’s attorneys took care of everything from the plane tickets to this hotel suite.”

“Hotel suite?”

Sasha smiled and curled her legs under her like a child. “At the Ritz Carlton. The place has a bathroom bigger than my studio in Brooklyn. Not to mention the monogrammed slippers, bathrobes and a Jacuzzi tub.”

“Samuel won’t like the sound of that.”

Sasha automatically tensed at the mention of her father’s disapproval. “Mom, I know you don’t like to keep secrets, but if you tell Dad that Uncle Camden included me in his will Dad’s blood pressure will shoot through the stratosphere.”

“I’ll let him know you called and that you’re all right. But you have to call me back and let me know what’s going on.”

“Promise. I love you, Momma.”

“I love you more, hummingbird.”

Sasha’s chest suffused with love at the sound of her pet name. She waited for the click on the other end of the line before placing the phone back on its cradle. Sasha slid off the bed and stretched as her toes sunk into the carpet before slipping into the hotel slippers and donning the plush terry bathrobe.

Spying a small counter with a coffee pot, tea and snacks, her stomach growled, reminding Sasha that she hadn’t eaten since arriving on the East Coast. Just as she crossed the living area, she heard a knock on the door.

Sasha secured the belt around her robe and opened the door. A hotel attendant smiled and Sasha stepped aside as the man wheeled in a dish-laden cart. “Good morning,” she greeted him.

“Morning, I hope you don’t mind that I’m a little late. We had a little problem with the service elevator this morning. But don’t let that bother you because the toast should still be warm and the coffee could still scald the living daylights out of a man.”

Sasha laughed and shook her head as she let go of the doorknob and let the door swing closed. “I wasn’t expecting breakfast, so cold or hot really doesn’t matter to me since I’m starving.”

Her eyes, which had just minutes before been narrow slits, opened when the smell of fresh roasted coffee wafted into her nostrils. He sat the cart alongside the windows and pushed back the curtains, letting bright sunlight into the room. She crossed the room and picked up one of the silver covers to discover fresh croissants, muffins, toast, fruit and an assortment of jams.

“This is enough to feed a small family.”

“The Ritz might be cheap when it comes close to Christmas bonus time, but they don’t play around with making the guests feel welcome.”

“Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Originally? No. I was born in North Carolina, but I’ve spent most of my life traveling.”

He chuckled and a smile slid up his face. “You know, we’re not really supposed to talk to the guests.”

Happy to hear American English and be in the company of a fellow person of color, she winked. “I won’t tell if you won’t. How about a cup of coffee?”

“All right. My name is Frank.”

After a half hour of food and conversation, Sasha locked the hotel door behind Frank and made her way to the bathroom. All it took was one quick look into the wall-length mirror to ruin her easy morning. The Senegalese woman who’d braided her hair had done an excellent job. But hiking through tropical forests and moving through thick underbrush had turned her stunning hairstyle into a complete disaster. The cornrows were in dire need of rebraiding. Since that wasn’t an option and she didn’t possess a proper hat or scarf, she sighed heavily. Sasha sat on top of the closed toilet seat, reached over her head and pursued her only option. Wincing at the thought, she began the two-hour process of unbraiding her hair.

People should be required to give three months’ notice before dying.

Sasha reached into her purse, pulled out a small packet of facial tissues, and wiped away a stray tear. So what if dying was an inevitable part of life—her uncle Camden should have told her he was terminally ill with cancer and he was putting her in the will.

Sasha balled the damp tissue in her hand and looked out the window at the passing scenery. The afternoon sunshine felt warm against her skin, but she turned away and closed her eyes. She let the motion of the moving car and butter-soft leather seats against her spine lull her into a calm state. But not even soothing jazz pouring from the invisible back speakers could rid her of the sense of loss and sadness.

She was feeling guilty and angry, and she hated it. Hated that she’d been off on the other side of the world while her godfather had suffered. Hated the fact that she hadn’t called or written in over a month. If only she’d known…

Her nails dug into the armrest and she resisted the urge to rub her eyes as she contemplated the remainder of the day. Uncle Camden’s attorneys had arranged for the three-hundred-dollar-a-night suite with all the perks money could buy, but she’d barely slept a wink. The idea of spending an afternoon of sitting with people she didn’t know and finding out that she might have inherited things that she didn’t want had kept her awake throughout the transcontinental flight. Sasha shivered with the thought.

This was the first time in her memory that someone she loved had died. Both her maternal and paternal grandparents had died when she was a baby. Her mother and father had been only children and keeping with what she called the Clayton tradition, Sasha was on only child. Not for lack of trying for a little brother or sister. Her mother’s second miscarriage had guaranteed that she would be the only offspring. If the day came that she actually took part in the mating cycle and got married, she vowed to have at least three kids. Every child should have a sibling. Instead of having an older brother or younger sister, she’d been alone. Of course, that meant extra attention from her parents and the undivided love of Uncle Camden, but she could have traded it all to not feel the loneliness she felt at that moment.

“Here we are, miss.”

The car stopped and the driver began to unbuckle his seat belt in preparation for opening the door, but Sasha waved him off. “I can get the door.”

“Of course, I shall be returning you to the hotel. Please wait in the lobby for me.”

“Thank you.” Sasha looked the driver again. Short black curly hair with a smattering of silver. She’d been too distracted and upset to pay attention to the man when he’d picked her up at the airport the day before. But now she noticed his British accent. It wasn’t the fashionable accent of the international reporters she often met in her travels, but the familiar lilt of Uncle Camden’s British lilt. Feeling another bout of weeping coming on, she scrambled out of the car.

Sasha stepped out of the taxi into a landscaped lower plaza. A cold breeze hit her cheek as the car door closed behind her. She pulled the winter air deep into her lungs, let it out slowly and released a smidgen of tension. A clear blue sky complete with tiny dots of clouds reflected off the doors. She instinctively tilted her back and she looked upward over the glass-and-steel structure. Her eyes landed on the top of the building and she blinked in pleasant surprise. Unlike most of the skyscrapers she encountered in her travels, she didn’t find the pointed top. Instead, the building hosted two half circles like delicate wings curving toward one another.

Shaking off her thoughts, Sasha gripped her purse and joined in the stream of people entering the building. Men and women were dressed in the latest business wear chic. By the time Sasha made it from the automatic glass doors to the richly appointed elevator lobby, she’d lost count of the number of designer handbags, ties, timepieces, cell phones and wireless headsets.

Sasha felt more out of place than ever, not that she didn’t blend in. She’d had her herringbone black suit custom-made from one of the best tailors in Bangkok. So what if the Brooks Brothers design was two years old. Her ex-high school roommate and Manhattan-dwelling best friend had assured her that a well-made black suit matched with a cream-colored silk camisole never went out of style. She followed a group of briefcase-toting men into the elevator and pressed the button for one of the higher floors. Briefly glancing at the LCD panel, she checked the time and the temperature. A groan welled up in the back of her throat—she was early. She would have to wait an extra twenty minutes. She caught an interested glance from one of the male passengers, and quickly returned her gaze to the door, before curiosity drew her eyes back. Sure enough, he was looking right at her. Sasha dropped her gaze again and barely kept from squirming. He looked to be in his late thirties with straight brown hair and a curious twinkle in his green eyes. Like the rest of the group, he wore a blue dress shirt underneath his dark suit jacket.

The number couldn’t go up fast enough for Sasha. The sooner she got off the elevator, the sooner she’d find out why her godfather had summoned her to Atlanta, and the sooner she could get back to her work. Correction: the sooner she could get the heck away from all those people. She exhaled, remembering the words from one of her previous therapists. No, she wasn’t anti-social; she just hadn’t been properly socialized. The elevator stopped and Mr. Green Eyes stepped off. Sasha let out a breath and then pulled it back in as the elevator stopped on her floor. She stepped off onto a plush Persian rug and inhaled. The slightly heavy scent of vanilla made her sneeze.

“Ms. Clayton?”

“Yes?” Sasha looked up from digging into her purse to grab another Kleenex. She wiped her nose and looked in the direction of the female voice that had called her name.

“Good Afternoon. My name is Gretchen Stevens. I’m Mr. Hawthorne’s executive assistant.”

She held out her hand in greeting. After a moment’s hesitation, Sasha shook her hand. The woman’s fingernails were perfectly manicured while hers hadn’t seen polish in months.

“The attorneys are on their way from the courthouse and should arrive within the hour.”

Sasha nodded and was careful not to examine the slight brown at the woman’s perfectly blond roots. Instantly, she compared the woman’s expertly applied makeup to the female sable’s instinctual urge to groom before coming into season. The human animal had never been the subject of her academic studies, but she couldn’t help but see the similarities with her professional research.

“Please follow me.”

She stopped in a separate room. Three walls were covered in Impressionist art and the third wall was in fact a window looking out over the city.

“Please feel free to use the laptop, watch TV or peruse the magazines while you wait.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I get you something to drink, Ms. Clayton? Coffee, tea or soda?” she asked through a toothy smile that shouted cosmetic dentistry. The assistant kept addressing Sasha by her last name, a fact that made her feel older than her thirty-one years. She opened her mouth to tell the woman who had her beat in age by at least half a decade, that her name was Sasha. But she shoved the irritated thought to the back of her mind and she recalled the Southern tradition of calling adults by their last name.

“No, thank you.” She smiled. “With the time change I won’t have any trouble staying awake. It’s the sleeping that will be difficult tonight.”

“How about a mineral water? Transcontinental flights have a nasty tendency to cause dehydration. My skin is always parched even after a short flight to New York.”

Startled, Sasha looked from the sight of the airplane flying in the horizon to Gretchen. “How did you know?”

“I made your travel arrangements. I hope that the flight and your hotel are adequate?”

“Very nice.”

“Good. I’ll go get that Pellegrino. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“No, thank you,” she responded with a hastily contrived smile. At that moment she was about to take anything to get the secretary away from her. Sasha watched the woman leave the room and sat in the stuffed leather chairs near the window. Needing something to grab a hold of besides her purse, she picked up a copy of the local newspaper and sat it on her lap.

She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. She thought she’d conquered her issues with being around people. Or she thought she had. Taking a hard look at her life for the past two years, she brutally came to the conclusion she was deluding herself. She hadn’t spent more than a total of three months in civilization since she’d broken up with Byron Jackson.

They’d covered half of the Oregon wilderness and some of Washington. They’d slept in the same tent, splashed naked in the small mountain springs and tracked a den of migrating elk. It had been about this time of the year that he’d left her for a lucrative position as a college professor and a San Francisco socialite.

Sasha opened her eyes at the stab of pain in her stomach. The day after the break-up, she’d packed her bags and jumped on a plane to Cuba to visit her parents for two week. That’s all she’d thought she’d need to get over the man she’d thought would be her life partner. Just a few days on the beach with her parents and she’d be back to her old self.

At least that what she’d told herself, until she’d returned to Oregon and walked past the campsite they’d stayed at weeks before. For months afterwards, she’d munched on antacids like they were peanuts and blamed it on a combination of stomach upset and food allergies. A quick trip to a village doctor in Vietnam had confirmed the fact that she had indeed been healing from a broken heart.

It wasn’t that he’d found someone else. It really wasn’t about Byron at all. She’d had this hope that she’d found her other half. Found the ideal relationship that her parents held. Someone who’d shared her love of animals, who understood her passion for natural research. She looked out over the wispy clouds towards downtown Atlanta and past the tall building to the skyline.

The sound of footsteps drew Sasha out of her thoughts. A glass and the signature green of the sparkling water sat on the side table next to her chair.

“Good Lord,” she muttered. “I am such a selfish wretch. Here I am at the reading of Uncle Camden’s will and all I can think about is my disastrous personal life.”

“I suck,” Sasha declared borrowing the phrase from one of the numerous in-flight movies she’d been forced to watch. She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes only to open them at the sound of someone entering the room.

“Yeah, that works. Pick out something nice with orchids. Yeah, have the note read, To my favorite ski bunny, have a wonderful birthday. Can’t wait to see you on the slopes. Yes…yes…add the Belgian chocolate and something impressive. You know the kind—engraved and from Tiffany’s. Good… Good…I’ll call you later—got to take another call.”

There was a brief silence and then the masculine voice continued. “Hey, little bit, sorry I missed your performance last night. You got the flowers, right? I’m sure that you’ve got a small greenhouse in that loft of yours. The New York dance scene will never be the same since you hit the stage. Of course, I’ll be in the front row when the company comes to Atlanta. Good. I’ll talk to you later okay? And congratulations.”

In the silence, Sasha opened her eyes and thought about alerting the stranger to her presence. What a dog, she thought, and then revised her observation. Calling the man a dog was not only clichéd, but also a mistake in classification. The canine species had genetic predisposition for loyalty to their pack leader. Moreover, wolves were discerning in their choice of a mate. She stared down at the front page of the newspaper as if all the normal bad news had somehow become new and interesting on reading the paper. More uncomfortable than the time she’d overheard her parents making out in the laundry room, Sasha crossed her legs and loudly unfolded the newspaper in her lap.

She didn’t look up or sideways and thus had an eagle eye of shiny black leather shoes on the plush Persian rug. Mr. Cell Phone settled in the seat next to hers.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t see you over here,” he said.

From across the room, Mr. Cell Phone’s voice had only served to grate her nerves. Now less than five inches from her side, goose bumps prickled her flesh. The masculine tenor of his voice touched the primitive part of her psyche that she couldn’t control.

Several seconds passed before Mr. Cell Phone crossed his ankle over his knee and Sasha heard the rustle of the leather as he sank back into the seat. “Looks like it’s just us this afternoon, huh?”

She didn’t respond but lifted her head and planned to give him a blistery cold stare. Instead, she blinked owlishly at what she observed had to be the cutest combination of smiling brown eyes and twin dimples that she’d seen in her life. Her heart just about flatlined when he smiled and she caught a glimpse of his less than perfect but nicely white teeth. Her thoughts stuttered to a stop and Sasha hurriedly returned her attention to the newspaper in the hopes that he would leave her alone.

She stared down at the black and white letters and for the first time in her life cursed her gift of having a good memory. There was something irresistibly sexy about the stranger with the light boyish eyes. The man was handsome. Not the kind of cosmetically engineered, constant visits to the dermatologist, but the homegrown kind of good looking that came from a severe lack of ugliness in the recessive gene pool. His black curly hair was nicely cut and the clean-shaven look fit with his full lips.

“Mind if I grab the sports section? I haven’t had time to catch up on the Falcons.”

She almost retorted that was because he seemed to be busy juggling women, but she bit her tongue, pulled out the section and handed it over all without glancing in his direction.

“Thank you.”

“Here’s a glass of ice for your water, Ms. Clayton.” Without asking, the secretary opened the bottle and poured the sparkling water into the glass.

“Thank you.”

“Anything I can get for you, Trey?”

“I’m good.”

Sasha bit the inside of her lip as Mr. Cell Phone got a name. But a sting of irritation prickled on her skin. The last thing she wanted floating around in her subconscious was the man’s face, much less now that she could put a name to the person sitting at her side. Automatically, her hand reached out and she took a sip of the ice cold sparkling water. Tears sprang anew in her eyes and she began sniffing while she dug into her purse to pull out another tissue.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” He had the voice of an erotic dream. A hand touched her back and Sasha sprang up like a scalded cat.

“I’m not crying. It was the water.”

“Sorry, again. Just wanted to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” Sasha snapped out and instantly wanted to pull the words back. Normally, she wasn’t rude. Then again she’d never had to deal with the set of circumstances she’d found herself in at that moment. Besides, she didn’t know the man. And she didn’t want to know him.

He stood up but made no move to come closer. Sasha’s gaze slid from his black wool trousers over the tieless cobalt blue button-down shirt, past broad shoulders and a clean-shaven jaw to lock on to his full lips.

She swallowed hard.

“Look, Mrs. Clayton, what’s the problem? I apologized.”

Sasha used the irritation brought by his use of her last name to down the rising hormonal tide south of her waistband. “My name isn’t Mrs. Clayton. That’s my mother. I’m Sasha and just because we’re in the same room doesn’t mean I’m going to tell my life story to a stranger.”

He stared at her like she had two heads and she glared back at him for having the nerve to look like the harmless boy next door when he was actually the wolf in the pasture.

“Okay let me try it this way. Sasha, what’s the problem?”

“Nothing.”

“Then can we clear up some of the hostility in the room? I’m not wearing my bulletproof vest today.”

Sasha took his comment literally and asked, “Are you a police officer?”

“No, I’m a vet.”

“A vet,” she repeated doubtfully.

“As in veterinarian.” He smiled in a way that crinkled his eyes and made her want to step forward. There was something magnetic. Something that reminded her of the pull of salmon swimming upstream. She witnessed the migration only once in her life but the sight of the hundreds of fish throwing themselves against the oncoming tides would forever remain in her memory as one of nature’s truly inexplicable events. And all that wonder she felt looking into the man’s eyes.

Trey continued. “I’m harmless and I love animals, so please, sit. I promise not to touch you. Not even if you were choking.”

She relaxed slightly. “You don’t have to go that far.”

“Sure?” He chuckled. “Because we’re in the office of one of the top law firms in the country and anyone of them can sue me for every dollar in the bank and the clothes on my back.”

Sasha sat down and kept her hand on the hem of her skirt. The last thing she wanted to do was flash the man. She reached down and picked up the fallen newspaper.

“Can we start over, minus the rude phone conversation and the attempt to offer sympathy? I’m Trey Blackfox.”

“Sasha Clayton.”

He stared at her in a peculiar fashion for a moment, then seemed to shake it off. “Nice to meet you.”

She smiled then looked back down at the paper. One inhaled breath brought the scent of cologne and, as if she’d stepping into a hot spring, every part of her body felt flush. It had to be his face. Something about the symmetrical features, masculine voice and pheromones that had her toying with the watch on her wrist instead of reading the words on the page.

She caught sight of him leaning in her direction. “Anything good in the news today?”

“Not unless robbery, apartment fires, another corporate bankruptcy and political scandals are counted as positive news items. Anything good in the sports world?”

“Nah, nothing happens until March Madness.”

Sasha’s brow slanted in a confused frown. “What’s that?” Courtesy of growing up with globe-trotting parents and her continued work outside of the borders of the country of her birth and far away from cable television, it always took her months to get catch up on the latest phrases and trends.

“College basketball championships.”

“Ahh.” She nodded with understanding.

“Not into basketball?”

“I played center in college, and I’ve been to a few NBA games.”

He gave her a quick onceover. “You’ve got the height. Something tells me you’ve got the skills.”

“Don’t put stock in that ‘something’ of yours. I sat on the bench eighty percent of the time. I liked the game. The game and the players just didn’t like me. Did you play?”

“All the time. Caleb wouldn’t let a weekend go by without pulling all of us into a game.

“All of us?”

“I have two brothers, a younger sister and a village of cousins.”

“Sounds like a fun way to grow up.”

“What about you?”

“Me?” Sasha replied while trying to discreetly scratch a spot on her stocking-covered leg.

“Any siblings?”

“No.” She shook her head and, fearing ripping a hole in the only pair of stocking she owned, she flattened her hand and rubbed.

“Panty hose itching, huh?”

“Like the ten minutes after a mosquito bite.”