Burn (10 page)

“Not if that’s who she wanted to be with. But he’s not
who she’s into.”

Gian pulled the stopper from the drain and the stain
less steel sink emptied with a soft sucking sound. He
dried his hands on a white, waffle-weave kitchen towel.
“I’d love to hear all about your love connection with
Cinder, but I got laundry to do and some yard work that
needs—”

“It’s not me, Gian,” Chip cut in. “I think it’s you.” Gian’s interest in the conversation renewed instantly.
“Did she say something? How do you know?”

With a tiny grin, Chip shook his head. “The ol’ Kish
charm didn’t move her one bit last night. She only
w
anted to know about you. I don’t think she even real
ized it until I pointed it out.”

Gian’s chest seemed to inflate and his step was lighter
as he went to the refrigerator. Karl’s fingerprints in bar
beque sauce were on the door handle, but Gian didn’t
seem to care. He simply wiped them away with paper
towels. “There’s something about her. It’s like with
Lucia.” Forgetting about his laundry and yard work, he took a couple of beers from the refrigerator and handed
one to Chip. “They’re so different, but they’re so much
alike.”

“You think so?” Chip followed Gian back into the
media room.

Gian sank into a loveseat while Chip took the
recliner. “I want to be wrong,” Gian said softly. “I hope
to God I’m wrong.”

“Is there something wrong with you?”

Zae had stopped in the middle of the baking aisle in
Freddy’s Market to bark her question. Mindless of stares
from housewives dropping flour or sugar into their carts, Cinder drew to a halt, her response to Zae’s question suc
cinct. “No.”

“Chip Kish asked you out, and you’re only telling me
now, two months later?” Zae started piling two-pound
bags of confectioner’s sugar into her cart.

“What are you going to do with twelve pounds of
powdered sugar?” Cinder asked.

“Make twelve pounds of frosting. Why did you turn
down Chip? What did he do wrong?”

“Nothing.” Cinder moved closer to Zae, almost top
pling a floor display of discontinued brownie mixes in
the narrow aisle. “I haven’t felt anything for anyone in
such a long time, I’m not sure I’m capable of it anymore.”

“You need to see a doctor,” Zae deadpanned. “Chip
Kish is sick.”

“Sick with what? He looked fine when I saw him at
Sheng Li last night.”

“Sick means good,” Zae explained. She chose two
packages of shortening sticks and set them on top of her
confectioner’s sugar. “It means fine. Handsome.”

“
You’ve been reading Dawn’s e-mails again, haven’t
you?”

“Yes, once Eve translated them into English for me.”

They left the baking aisle for the Deli & Meat
counter at the back of the store. “Why don’t you go after
him yourself if you think he’s so sick?”

Zae bent over to peer more closely into the glass case housing the prepared salads and heat-and-eat entrees. “It
doesn’t sound right when you say it.”

“Why don’t you ask him out?”

Zae stood and, with one hand planted on her hip,
said, “Woman, heal thyself. Once you pull a Lazarus on
your own love life, then you can try to rebuild mine.”

Cinder held Zae’s gaze. Cinder’s experience main
taining a blank expression served her well, but she had
never been able to cloak her feelings from Zae.

“I’m sorry.” Zae ran a consoling hand along Cinder’s
bare upper arm. “I shouldn’t be so defensive. Or so
resistant to . . .” She took a deep breath to force out her
next words. “Starting over.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Cinder assured her.
“You’re right, about all of it. There is something wrong with me, and I’ve known it for a while now. I just don’t feel right. I don’t feel at all.”

“It takes time to fully recover from what you’ve been
through. It hasn’t been two years.”

“I don’t mean that way.” Cinder lowered her voice. “I
haven’t had
that
urge, in so long. I can’t remember the last
time I felt . . .” She widened her eyes and tipped her head
to one side, hoping Zae would know what she meant.

“Horny,” Zae blurted.

The apron-clad butchers behind the counter looked
up from their cutting and wrapping.

“Mind your meat, man,” Zae directed them before
turning back to Cinder. “You have to do something
about that. You can’t let what happened back East perma
nently change your life.”

“But it did.”

“You’re in charge, kiddo. You can determine how it’s
changed you. Whether it’s for the good or the pitiful.
You’ve already made positive strides toward putting the
you
back in you. You moved to Webster Groves, you’re learning
at Sheng Li. You won’t ever be the woman you were before
everything went down back East. You’ll be better.”

“If I can rebuild my life,” Cinder started pointedly,
“then so can you.”

“I set myself up for that, didn’t I?”

“Good advice works both ways.” Cinder smiled. “It’s
been eight years since Colin died, Zae. You’re still young . . . relatively.”

“Girl,” Zae said, warning in her tone.

Cinder laughed.

“It’s good to see you smile again,” Zae said, her own
brightening.

“I’ll say.”

Cinder turned, Zae looking over her shoulder, to see
who had spoken.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” Gian said. His eyes on
Cinder, he added, “I’m with Zae on this. It really is good to see you smile.”

I
n two months of training her, she hadn’t cracked so
much as a grin. Now her smile, lovely as it was, seemed
permanent as the heat of a blush gave her face new radi
ance. This was the first time in weeks that he’d seen her
in something other than a
gi
, and he spent a moment
studying her.

The voluminous jacket and pants of her
gi
hid the
elegantly sleek muscles of her arms and the fuller, more
defined muscles of her legs, all of which were on display
in her pale sleeveless top, denim cut-offs, and high
espadrilles. He’d noticed the subtle changes in her face
that had come with her hard work at Sheng Li and a
healthy weight gain. No longer gaunt, her cheeks were
sensuously plump. Her eyes appeared vibrant and relaxed
rather than sunken and wary.

The sadness she carried with her remained, but it only
added to her mystery, her beauty. Chip’s revelation, that he thought Cinder had an interest in him, had fertilized
the seed that had been planted the first time he had seen her. Standing in front of the meat counter at Freddie’s Market, Gian’s feelings for Cinder began to bloom.

“What can I get for you, Mrs. Richardson?” the
butcher asked, a wide smile beneath his thick white mus
tache. “I’ve got slab bacon on sale.”

“I’ll take three pounds,” Zae said.

Cinder nudged her.

“Make that five,” Zae amended.

“Someone’s having a big breakfast in the morning,”
the butcher exclaimed, tearing off a sizeable piece of
white paper from the roll behind the counter.

“
It’s this one here.” Zae bumped Cinder with her hip.
“She could live off bacon.”

The butcher winked at Cinder. “Is that so?”

Gian hung his shopping basket over his right arm so he could stand closer to Cinder to hear her answer.

“Bacon is proof of God’s existence.” Cinder’s placid
tone contradicted the passion of her words. “If there was
bacon juice, I’d drink it. If there was bacon perfume, I’d
wear it. I wish there was such a thing as bacon ice cream.
If—”

“See what I mean,” Zae interrupted.

“What other foods do you like?” Gian asked Cinder.

“Donuts,” she and Zae answered together. “LaMar’s
vanilla long johns are my favorite,” Cinder told him.
“Mine, too,” Gian said.

Zae stepped around Cinder to face Gian. “She once
put three strips of bacon on top of a LaMar’s long john
and ate it like an entree.”

“I’ll have to add that to my recipe collection.” Gian
chuckled.

“Me, too,” the butcher said and laughed.

Zae took her massive package of bacon from the top
of the counter and asked for bone-in chicken breasts and lamb chops. Cinder peered into Gian’s basket. Then she
looked at his face. “This is what you live on?”

“Sure.” He shrugged one shoulder.

Cinder inventoried his selections. “HoHos, Cool
Whip, Velveeta—”

“Velveeta is great for nachos,” Gian said defensively.

“It’s great for sealing cracks in your bathroom tile,
too,” Zae muttered.

“How do you stay in such great shape eating stuff like
this?” Cinder wondered.

Gian patted his abdomen. “You think I’m in great
shape?”

Her blush deepened, but she maintained eye contact
with him. “Yes. I do.”

It was Gian’s turn to blush, and he dropped his chin
in a weak attempt to hide it.

“Gian?”

The high-pitched, nasal squawk came from a tall,
skinny woman in white low-rider shorts and a plaid halter.
She exited the dairy section and headed straight for Gian.
“Well, hey, what brings your hot buns into this neck of the
woods?” The woman grasped the handle of her shopping
basket in both hands, and she stood in such a way as to use
her basket to create a gap between Cinder and Gian.

“Hi, Tracy.” Embarrassment flared in Gian’s cheeks.
He cast an uncomfortable glance at Cinder and Zae, who
whispered in Cinder’s ear. “I’m conducting a karate class
at Clark this afternoon.”

Tracy’s heavily lined and shadowed eyes widened in
exaggerated surprise. “If I’d known you were teaching an
Afternoon Enrichment class at the elementary school, I’d
have signed my brood up.” She held up a finger and
craned her long neck to peek down the dairy aisle.
“Garrett! Chesney! Emory!” she shrieked. “Mommy is getting extremely impatient with you! Climb down and come here, right now!”

“Where’s Granddad with his belt,” Zae muttered.

Cinder laughed out loud at Zae’s reference to the way
Granddad from
The Boondocks
would have handled
unruly children in a grocery store.

Gian snickered, certain he could have held a straight face if Cinder’s laugh hadn’t been so contagious.

Three children with shoulder-length blond hair bar
reled out of the dairy aisle and zoomed past the meat
department. Tracy stepped in their direction to watch them race into the produce section. Cinder took that
moment to lean toward Gian. “Are those girls or boys?”

“Probably,” Gian answered.

Tracy turned back to Gian, her sun-damaged face
drawn in severe lines meant to resemble an expression of
motherly pride. “Aren’t they adorable? So full of life and
imagination. There are times I look at them and ask
myself, what more could I possibly need?”

“A tranquilizer gun,” Zae suggested.

“Who are your friends, Gian?” Tracy’s tone chilly, she
finally acknowledged Cinder and Zae with a glassy smile.

“Zae Richardson, Cinder White, this is Tracy Leach-
Roche,” Gian said.