Perfect Timing Page 25

  “You’re the reason I’m back. You and the baby,” he said without hesitation. He felt her smile against his chest and pulled her body closer to his.

  “They’re also wondering why you met with the mayor yesterday.”

  Christopher chuckled. Evidently some things about Savannah hadn’t changed. It was still filled with a lot of inquisitive minds and big eyes. “I met with the mayor to make him an offer that I hope he can’t refuse.”

  Maxi lifted her head slightly and looked at him. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “I want to purchase the Vines.”

  Maxi sat up in bed and looked down at him. “The Vines?” At his nod she asked. “Why?”

  “Because it was such a part of my childhood and because your name is carved on every tree and because I agree with what you said on the cruise. The Vines should be a place where people can continue to live, but it should be nice and affordable. If the mayor sells me the land, I plan to tear down all those old homes and build a new residential area of single dwelling homes. I’m committed to making sure the Vines never become an eyesore to the city again.”

  “Oh, Christopher, that’s a wonderful idea.”

  He reached out and pulled her on top of him. “But not as wonderful as your loving me, agreeing to become my wife and having my baby. I don’t think anything is as wonderful as that, Maxi.”

  “She smiled at him. “Do you really believe that?”

  “Yes.” He then proceeded to show her how much he did believe it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Mya tried to keep her spirits high when she met Robert Noble in the lobby of her hotel on Wednesday afternoon. They had a meeting with Simon Prentice at Noble Technology at three o’clock.

  “Sorry we couldn’t finish up this business a few weeks ago, Mya, but something unexpected came up,” he explained as he escorted her out of the hotel to his car.

  “That’s fine and I understand. And in a way it worked out better. The stock market has been doing some unbelievable things in the past week.”

  “Good things I hope,” he said with a broad smile as he opened his car door for her.

  “Yes, and did you notice that the price of your stock escalated once word got out you’re now doing business with us?”

  He chuckled. “In my arrogance, I assumed the upward climb in stock prices was because of that calendar getting turned to the month of August.”

  Mya couldn’t help but laugh. Although she hadn’t seen the calendar, she had definitely heard about it. Twelve highly successful black businessmen from across the country had come together in rare form to pose for a calendar where each month one of them was highlighted as the man of the month. Appropriately dressed in designer business suits and looking the epitome of a successful businessman, the calendar told of their accomplishments and the roads that they had traveled to achieve their success. From what she was hearing the calendars were selling like hotcakes and Robert Noble was Mr. August. All the proceeds from the sale of the calendars were being donated to radio celebrity Tom Joyner Scholarship fund to aid historically black colleges from which all twelve of the businessmen had graduated.

  Mya and Robert’s meeting with Simon Prentice lasted until six that afternoon. When the meeting was over she felt good about it. She had covered a lot of ground with the two men and felt confident that she was slowly winning Mr. Prentice over, although he still tried to maintain a reserved attitude.

  “It’s late and you must be starving,” Robert Noble said to her after checking his watch. “How about if I treat you to dinner?”

  “You don’t have to,” she said, although she was hungry.

  “No, I want to. I think I heard the ice around Simon’s heart cracking,” he said whispering to her. “In no time at all, I believe you will have him eating out of your hand, Mya.”

  She smiled. “Instead of having him eating out of my hand, I’ll gladly settle for him being receptive to all of my ideas,” she said.

  “And in time he will. Simon is a very intelligent man. That’s the main reason I have him running things.”

  When they were on their way to the restaurant Robert remembered he needed to go by his house to pick up a package he wanted to deliver to Simon later. Mya wasn’t surprised when he turned his car into the driveway of a very beautiful home that sat on at least ten acres of land.

  “Your home is gorgeous, Robert,” she said when he pulled the car into a four-car garage.

  “Thanks. Come inside and have a look around while I grab the information for Simon. Then I won’t feel so guilty when I also make an important phone call,” he said sheepishly. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind.”

  His home was a decorator’s showcase, she thought, as she moved around looking at things while he chatted on the phone with a business associate in London. She picked up a photograph that was sitting on his fireplace mantel when she heard him hanging up the phone.

  “Her face looks familiar,” she said of the beautiful woman in the photograph. She then noticed the resemblance. “Is this your sister?”

  He walked over to her and looked at the framed photograph Mya held in her hands. “Yes, that’s my sister, Katherine. My one and only. There were only two of us and we’re very close.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “In Atlanta and runs her own pharmaceutical company. You may have seen her in an issue of Essence last year. She was featured in an article that highlighted a number of successful business women.”

  “Your parents must be proud of the two of you.”

  “Yes, the only thing they aren’t proud of is the fact that neither Katherine nor I are married.” He chuckled. “They want grandchildren real bad.”

  Mya smiled as she thought of Garrett’s parents. “Grandparents are special. My grandmother raised me after my parents were killed when I was only six. And my husband’s parents have been wonderful grandparents to my sons.”

  “You are blessed to have them.”

  She nodded knowing what Robert said was true. She was blessed to have the Rivers in her life as well as in her sons’ lives.

  “You and your husband have been together a long time haven’t you?”

  His question caught her by surprise and it was then that she noticed just how close the two of them were standing. “Yes. We began dating in junior high school and got married in college.”

  “So you’ve never dated another man in your entire life?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Garrett has been the only one.”

  Robert was staring at her with such intensity she suddenly felt heated…a tad uncomfortable. “Then he is a lucky man,” he said huskily.

  Her heart began thundering when she noticed Robert had moved to stand closer. So close it would seen almost natural for the two of them to kiss. But even with the problems she was having in her marriage, she still physically and emotionally belonged to Garrett.

  “And what about you, Robert? Is there a lucky lady in your life?” she asked taking a step back as she placed the photograph of his sister back on the fireplace mantel.

  Robert sighed deeply, getting the message with her movement. “No.”

  She turned and met his gaze, which was a soft caress. “I’m sure one day there will be.” She then checked her watch. “Shouldn’t we be leaving for dinner now?”

  Later that night back in her hotel room she thought about Robert and how easily it would have been to have an affair with him. She knew from his body language that he would have been more than willing if she’d shown the least bit of interest. A part of her wanted to feel that she didn’t owe Garrett anything, especially not her faithfulness. But another part of her knew that wasn’t true. She still loved Garrett and she wouldn’t get involved with someone else just for spite. Two wrongs didn’t make a right.

  Mya wiped a lone tear from her eye when she thought about how much history she and Garrett had together. She remembered
the first day that she had seen Garrett at school and how he had walked her home that day. She remembered the first time they had made love, teenagers satisfying their curiosity about sex, and how gentle and responsible he had been with her. But what stuck out most in her mind was that summer when she thought she had gotten pregnant. All it had taken was a phone call and within forty-eight hours he had returned to Savannah to be there with her and to take care of her. Without wasting any time and running the risk of losing a football scholarship, he had married her and had given her his name. There had never been a time that she had doubted his love for her.

  She wiped another tear from her eye. She loved her husband with all her heart. Was there any way she could find it in that same heart to forgive him?

  Tomorrow when she returned to Dallas, she would call to see if Reverend Stonewall could meet with her, counsel her, and pray with her. And she wanted to meet with Sister Stonewall as well. She wanted to know how the two of them had moved beyond his infidelity to hold on to the love they had.

  When Mya drifted off to sleep moments later, her mind was filled with thoughts of Garret and how they could resolve the problems between them.

  The next day Mya started shaking her head in disbelief as she glanced around her living room. The placed looked like a florist shop. Vases of flowers were everywhere.

  “They are beautiful, aren’t they?” Mrs. Butler said behind her. “They were delivered this morning.”

  “Yes, they are beautiful,” Mya said as she continued looking around her living room. She had just arrived back in town and had been met by the fragrance of various flowers the moment she had walked in the door.

  “The card is on the table, Mrs. Rivers.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mya crossed the room to the table to pick up the card. Her breath caught when she pulled it out of the envelope and read it:

  To the woman who has always had my heart. A different arrangement of flowers for every year we’ve been together. I love you, Mya. And I will love you until the day I die.

  Garrett

  Mya read the card again. And again. She then smiled through her tears.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Mya stretched her body when she became awake and then remembered she was not in her own bed. She and the boys had caught a flight from Dallas midday on Friday for Savannah to attend Maxi’s wedding.

  The sun was already flooding through the bedroom window indicating it was going to be a beautiful day. She was happy for Maxi and wanted only the best for her and Christopher. She and Maxi had spent some time together last night and had talked about a lot of things, but mostly they had talked about what the two of them had had to endure this year and how they had become stronger women because of it.

  There was a knock on the bedroom door and Mya pulled herself up in bed. “Come in.”

  “You’re awake, sweetheart?”

  The older woman who entered the room still looked good for her sixty-one years. Her hair was styled like Mya had always known her to wear it, long and loose around her shoulders. And it was beautiful hair, thick and black, with only a sprinkle of gray at the temples.

  The one thing Mya had always liked about Garrett’s mom was her smile. From the first time Garrett had brought her home to meet his parents when she was a shy girl of fourteen, his mother had made her feel welcome with that smile. And another thing she had always liked about her was that she was fair. She never took sides. Mya knew that although she was Garrett’s mother, from the day Garrett had declared to his family that Mya would always be his girl, his mother had accepted that and had made Mya feel like the daughter she’d never had. That’s why even with the problems she and Garrett were having, she felt comfortable in coming here to stay during the time she was in Savannah. To her, the Rivers’s house had been her home, too.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m awake, Ma Rivers.” Mya sat up in bed. Pa Rivers had been the one to pick her and the boys up from the airport yesterday afternoon. Ma Rivers had been at choir practice. One of Garrett’s sisters-in-law had come by before Mya could unpack and got the boys, eager for them to spend the night at her house with her three kids. By the time Mya had finished unpacking and had changed into something comfortable, Ma Rivers had come home. Mya had been in the bedroom putting things away when she had looked up to see the woman standing in the doorway. As if she had immediately known what Mya needed, she had held out her arms to her. Mya had quickly gone into the older woman’s embrace and cried what she hoped were the last of her tears.

  Joanne Rivers looked at the woman her son had always loved to distraction and continued smiling. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, I slept fine.” Mya glanced around. She was in Garrett’s old room. His football trophies took up one entire area of the room and on the other side of the room was a wall he had dedicated to her. Mya believed every single picture she had ever taken while in high school was somehow plastered on Garrett’s bedroom wall. Looking at them made her remember what everyone had said—Mya and football were Garrett’s two passions in life.

  “Well, Pa wanted me to let you know that breakfast is ready. You know how he is. He wants to spend time with his baby girl.”

  Mya chuckled. The Rivers had a total of six children, all boys. At twenty-eight, Garrett was the baby in the family and when he had married her that had automatically made her the baby, too. “Tell, Pa Rivers, I wouldn’t miss a chance to eat breakfast with my favorite guy.”

  Ma Rivers nodded and turned to leave the room. She turned back around as if to say something, shook her head, decided not to, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Mya pondered Ma Rivers’s actions. Was there something she had wanted to say? Breathing deeply she pushed the covers aside and grabbed her robe. The bathroom was at the end of the hall and she needed to use it and to get dressed for breakfast.

  A few moments later, dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, Mya entered the Rivers’s kitchen and stopped. Garrett was sitting at the table talking to his father. She placed her hand on her chest, surprised to see him. He sensed her presence and looked up. She held his gaze for several seconds as she tried to get herself together. She noticed that the room had gotten quiet. Also sitting at the breakfast table besides Ma and Pa Rivers was Garrett’s oldest brother, Randy. At six-foot-eight-inches tall, Randy had a love for basketball and for a while had played in the pros before a severe ankle injury ended that career.

  Taking a deep breath, Mya continued walking into the room. “Good morning, everyone.” As expected Randy stood and gave her a big brotherly hug. “You need to stop growing, Randy.”

  He laughed. “Mya, at thirty-six I’m too old to still be growing. You, Mya Ki’Shae, on the other hand, needs to stop getting shorter.”

  She smiled. “How’s Andrea and the kids?”

  “Everybody’s fine. They’ll be by later.”

  When he released her Mya took the only chair not occupied at the breakfast table, which just happened to be next to Garrett. She only hesitated for just a second before sitting down.

  “Good morning, Mya.”

  “Good morning, Garrett. I didn’t know you were coming here.”

  “I got a call from Christopher inviting me to the wedding.”

  Mya nodded. “Where did you sleep last night, since I used your room?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t get in until five this morning so I haven’t done much sleeping. But I did crash for a little while in Randy’s old room. I felt like a midget in a room made for a giant.”

  Mya couldn’t help but laugh. And she could tell by everyone’s expressions that her laughter was what was needed to make everyone at the table relax. Evidently Ma and Pa Rivers had not been sure how she would react upon seeing Garrett.

  Breakfast had always been a special time at the Rivers’s house and this day wasn’t an exception. Ma Rivers brought everyone up to date on everyone at church and Pa Rivers talked about all the fishing he and Deacon Matthews were doing now since bo
th men had retired. After breakfast Mya helped Ma Rivers clear the table and load the dishes in the dishwasher her five sons had chipped in to buy her a few Mother’s Days ago. In fact they had purchased her all new appliances that year since it was no secret how much she liked to cook.

  “I hope you’re not too upset with seeing Garrett here, Mya,” Ma Rivers said to her after they had loaded the last dish.

  “No, this is Garrett’s home. I just didn’t know he was going to be here.”

  Ma Rivers smiled. “Neither did we until he called from the airport saying he was on his way.”

  Mya nodded. So it had been an unplanned trip for Garrett just like she had thought. “I’m fine with it. Like I told you last night, I feel better after talking to Reverend Stonewall. I still hurt but I love Garrett.”

  Ma Rivers smiled. “And everyone knows that he loves you. He always has.”

  “And I think that had me worried most of all, Ma Rivers. The possibility that Garrett didn’t love me as much as he always had. A part of me was convinced that I was no longer woman enough to satisfy him. I never had to worry about other women before but then I suddenly found that I had to worry.”

  Ma Rivers waved her hand. “You still don’t have to worry. If you could have only seen the expression on Garrett’s face when you walked into the kitchen for breakfast you would definitely know that. Love was written all over it for everyone to see. And it’s always been that way. Garrett has never been ashamed of loving you and admitting to anyone that he did.” She chuckled. “I remember one time he almost knocked Elgin’s head off because Elgin told him that it wasn’t cool for a guy to admit to liking a girl. Garrett had gotten all in Elgin’s face and said that was too bad because he wanted everyone to know that he loved you and just how much.”

  Mya smiled. Elgin was Garrett’s thirty-three-year-old brother who was as big as a locomotive. Not too many people messed with him because of his size. She couldn’t imagine Garrett being that bold as to get in Elgin’s face.