
Wishing on A Starr
By
Adrianne Byrd
Christmas Eve, Talboton, GA 1990
"I told you ain't had no business marryin' that boy," Ma Belle ranted as she paced across the dingy blue-gray carpet of her small shotgun house. "Now he done run off and got himself killed in that damn war."
Seventeen-year old, Gia Hunter sobbed in the cupped palms of her hands. Her short life had been riddled with pain and loss-and it showed no signs of ever ending.
"Now you might as well cut out all that hollerin'. Cryin' never fix nothin'," Ma Belle continued. "You need to figure out what you gonna to do about that baby. I'm too old to be having another nappy-headed chile runnin' around here. Your sister, Glenda, has plenty-and let's not talk about all those babies that hard-headed brother of yours, Byron, got."
"I c-can take care of my own baby," Gia spat out in between sobs and finally pushed herself out of the rickety dinning room chair. "I don't need nobody's help."
"Now where have I heard that before?" Ma Belle settled her hands against her thick hips while her heated face twisted with a fusion of anger and disappointment. "Oh, yeah. I believe it was Glenda with her first child or maybe it was the sixth."
A waterfall of tears poured down Gia's determined face. Why she thought she could come to her grandmother for support in her time of need she'd never know. She snatched her husband's army dog tags from the table and headed for the door. Her strides were slow, her gait wide.
"Lawd have mercy. Look at you. You're ruining my carpet."
Gia stopped and feverishly wiped away her tears so she could glance down. She still couldn't see anything, but she could feel the moisture running down her legs. "My water broke."
"You don't say." Ma Belle's face flushed burgundy as she turned and hollered toward the back of the house. "Byron, go and pull the car around. It's time to take your sister to the hospital."
Gia's eyes widened as a painful contraction nearly buckled her knees. "But it's too early. I-I'm not due until-" She eased toward the kitchen table.
"No, no. You're not going to ruin my good chairs." Ma Belle strolled over to her and draped a firm arm around her shoulders and redirected her toward the door.
Gia heard Byron's dry callous feet shuffle across the kitchen floor before she saw his tall, thin frame.
"What's all the yellin' about?" he asked groggily, turning toward the refrigerator.
There wasn't much in the old, olive green icebox, but it didn't stop him from peering inside of it twenty times a day.
"Boy, I told you to get the car. Gia is about to have this baby."
"Now?" Byron asked, scratching his large, matted, and lopsided Afro.
"Yes, now," Ma Belle barked.
Another contraction hit Gia and she dropped her husband's dog tags and leaned the majority of her weight against her grandmother. Luckily, Ma Belle was built like the rock of Gibraltar, and she voiced no complaint.
However, her brother was another story. He grumbled and mumbled under his breath while he dressed, started the car, and drove them toward the Baptist hospital on the edge of town. Ma Belle and Glenda squeezed into the car and everyone fussed about there being another hungry mouth to feed.
Gia tuned them out and focused on the tiny life inside of her. She was about to become a mother...a single mother-just like most of the women in her large and dysfunctional family. She closed her eyes while fresh tears leaked from them.
Jermaine Hunter, her high school sweetheart and husband of one year, smiled back at her. She loved and missed him, but she was also angry with him for leaving her. He was supposed to take her away from all of this. Instead she was stuck in a dead-end town with a tenth-grade education, and no hope of escaping her family's curse of poverty.
She cried out as another tidal wave of pain slammed into her small frame. She could feel something happening between her legs.
"All that hollerin' ain't necessary," Ma Belle preached, but there was an undeniable note of concern laced in her voice.
"I feel the baby's head," Gia panted with worry.
"Oh, hell," Byron grumbled and sped up.
Thanks to the lack of tire suspension on the thirty-year-old car, she felt every pebble and dip in the road. A cramp crept along her spine and Gia swore she was just seconds away from crawling out of her skin.
Glenda reached over and took her hand, and Gia squeezed it with all of her might.
The ten-minute drive felt more like an eternity. And sure enough, the baby's head had already crowned by the time the emergency room nurses took over.
Everything seemed like it was going in slow motion and the pain consumed her. There was no time to administer the epidural. And the tension rose at the announcement of the baby being entangled in the umbilical cord. Gia was instructed to stop pushing, but she wasn't aware that she had been doing so.
The pain lasted so long she was becoming numb to it. Once she did, Gia fretted over everyone's pensive expressions and deep frowns. Was something wrong?
When the voice in the back of her head reminded her that she was a month early, Gia feared the worst.
"Here we go," the doctor said, glancing up to meet Gia's gaze. "I want you to give me a big push now. Do you think you can do that?"
She nodded even though she was filled with doubt. She couldn't feel the lower part of her body so how could she muster the strength to push?
"That's it," the doctor encouraged to Gia's surprise. Seconds later, the room filled with a baby's strangled cry.
"It's a girl," the doctor announced.
"Time: twelve-ten," a nurse announced. "We have ourselves a Christmas baby."
Joy and relief erased her body's pain instantly, but she was stunned to see a nurse, after cleaning, and wrapping her baby, rush from the room.
"Wait," she called out.
A nurse moved to her side and placed a reassuring hand against her shoulder. "Don't worry. We're going to take good care of her. She's a tiny little thing, but I'm sure she's a fighter." She winked.
More tears spilled down Gia's face. She wanted to see her baby girl. She wanted to see if she could spot some of Jermaine's beautiful features.
"Okay, here comes the next one."
However, Ma Belle stepped in, and Gia never got that chance to see her beautiful baby girl.
New York, today.
On the first official shopping day of the Christmas season, Daniel Davis couldn't believe he'd agreed to let his daughter, Starr, and her best friend, Neve, drag him down Fifth Avenue to ogle the department store Christmas windows. Moreover, he was stunned by the number of people who crowded around in the freezing cold to do the same thing. Thirty minutes into the trip, he grudgingly admitted he was quite impressed with the spectacular displays. "Is there a prize or something involved?" he asked.
Starr playfully rolled her eyes in a way that was adorable even though the gesture usually meant her father was the biggest goofball she'd ever known.
"No, Mr. Davis. Not unless you count drawing in the most Christmas shoppers. That in itself would be a prize worth fighting for," Neve said, staring dreamily up at him.
Daniel smiled. "I believe you're right."
The teenager beamed a wired smile, while her dimpled cheeks darkened.
Starr elbowed Neve out of her trance and hissed, "Cut it out."
"What?"
Daniel just shook his head at the life-long friends. However, after another hour of bobbing and weaving between shoppers and tourists, he was beginning to feel like an old man.
"Dad, can we go in here to shop for a little while?" Starr asked with anxious eyes.
Daniel glanced up at the name of the store. "Saks Fifth Avenue?" He gave her a dubious look. "I don't think your allowance is going to quite cut it in there."
"Daaad." Starr glanced around, looking as if she hoped no one heard him. "It doesn't cost anything to just look around."
Or use his credit cards, he wanted to add. Though he sensed a trap, Daniel could feel himself succumbing to her ever tried-and-true, lost puppy-dog expression. "All right."
The teenagers squealed and turned toward the door.
"Just for a little while," Daniel shouted above the crowd, but was uncertain if they heard him. By the time he made it inside the door, the girls were gone. He glanced at his watch. "Great. Now I'm going to be here all day."
A petite, Asian salesclerk approached him, wearing a wide smile. "Can I help you with anything, sir?"
"Unfortunately, no." He removed his gloves.
"Ah," she said, brightening. "You must be shopping with your wife. Usually, I can tell, but I didn't see you holding a purse."
Daniel's smile downgraded considerably as his fingers rubbed against his gold wedding band. "Actually...I'm a widower."
"Oh," the woman's smile collapsed on cue as she moved closer. "I'm so sorry. Did she pass recently?"
"It feels that way, but it's been a while." The flow of traffic increased and Daniel quickly stepped out of the way.
The salesclerk moved with him. "And a while is...?"
He blinked. "Four years."
Her smiled returned. "My, that has been a while."
"Yes, it has." This part was always a little tricky for Daniel. Did the glint in the woman's eyes mean she was interested or were there were too many Christmas lights reflecting off of them? He hoped the latter, because he was guessing that he had a minimum of twenty years on the woman.
To say Daniel was a little rusty at the dating game would be putting it mildly. Starr had even gone so far to tease that she never understood how he ever got married in the first place.
"So does this mean you're here with a girlfriend? I'd imagine someone like you has a long line of willing women and an equally long line of broken hearts?"
Daniel laughed awkwardly. "Uh, no. It's nothing like that. I'm just here with my daughter." He moved to check out a table of silk scarves.
Once again, the salesclerk moved with him. "So how old is your daughter?"
"How old are you?" Starr's high, tense voice sliced through the conversation.
Turning with a frown, Daniel found his daughter and her best friend glaring up at the salesclerk.
"Oh, this must be your beautiful daughter. I can definitely see the resemblance."
"I'm adopted," Starr said with a no nonsense attitude and obvious disdain. "How old did you say you were?"
"Starr! That's no way to talk to your elders," he reprimanded.
"Er, you know." The woman took a tentative step backwards. "I need to be getting back to the other customers. If there's anything I can help you with just let me know." She turned and quickly disappeared among the shoppers.
Daniel glanced back at his daughter in time to see her and Neve high-five each other. "I can't believe you just did that."
"She was too young for you," Starr said simply. "I leave you alone for two minutes and you're rocking the cradle with some nine-year old."
"She's hardly nine."
"Might as well be. Jeez, dad. If I'd known you were that desperate I would've set you up with Neve."
Neve smiled and then looked confused to whether she had just been insulted or not.
"I'm not taking dating tips from my fourteen-year old."
"I'll be fifteen on Christmas Day," she announced proudly.
"Keep putting your nose where it doesn't belong and I doubt you'll make it that far."
The lost puppy-dog look came back into play and Daniel resisted wound around Starr's finger. "I mean it, Starr. I'll not have you talk to grownups that way. Know your place."
"Fine." She huffed.
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, yes, sir," she amended.
"That's better." He leaned over and planted a kiss against her forehead.
"You know, I keep telling you that Ms. Roberts, my advance calculus teacher, would be the perfect match for you."
Neve scowled. "I wouldn't say perfect."
"Hey, I thought you two wanted to come in here to do some shopping?" He glanced at his watch. "If you're already done then we can head out."
"Actually," Starr peered sheepishly up at him. "I was wondering if I could get an advance on my allowance? I saw this really cute gift I'd like to get you for Christmas."
"You want me to give you money so you can buy me a gift?" he asked to make sure he understood.
"Daaad!"
"I was just checking." He reached inside his jacket and removed his wallet. "How expensive is this gift I'm buying myself?"
Starr's eyes sparkled at the sight of hundred dollar bills and she quickly reached for them. "Thanks, dad," she said after successfully relieving him of two of the bills. "This should be plenty."
Daniel snatched one of them back. "Don't worry. It's definitely coming out of future allowances."
She frowned, but he held firm.
"Oh, all right." She turned toward her friend. "C'mon. Let's go find him something cheap."
He smiled, unfazed. "That's my girl. I'll do the same thing for you."
Starr rolled her eyes.
"Meet you two back here in one hour," he called after them.
She nodded.
Daniel continued smiling as he watched her stroll off. "That's my girl."
"Something must be seriously wrong with you. How can you not like Christmas?" Bernadette Frye tugged her friend down Fifth Avenue. "It's the best time of the year."
Gia Hunter rolled her eyes and was more than annoyed that she'd allowed her colleague to drag her out in the freezing cold to stare at window displays. "If you're talking about celebrating the birth of Jesus, fine. But if you're talking about gross commercialization, drunken Santas, and off-pitch carolers, then no, it's not my thing."
"Oh, Lord. Don't tell me your middle name is Scrooge or something."
"Why is it when someone doesn't like Christmas they have to be called a Scrooge? Just because I refuse to plunge myself in debt to buy every single person I know a gift doesn't make me a bad person."
"I'm not saying that," Bernie opted for a softer tone. "I just want you to see that the holidays can be fun. It's the time to surround yourself with family and friends."
Gia clenched her jaw in effort to suppress her retort. She knew, after all, Bernie was just trying to be helpful.
"Why is it that you never talk about your family?" Bernie asked.
Gia's irritation returned like a whip. "There's nothing to talk about."
"I know that tone."
"Good. Then you know to drop the subject."
Bernie held up her hands. "As you wish."
As usual after snapping at her dear friend, Gia felt like a complete ass. Yet, she had sworn years ago that if she ever left Talboton she would never look back. So far, she'd kept that promise.
"Ooh, we have to go in here," Bernie said, heading toward the door of Saks.
Gia sighed as she followed and glanced at her watch. "Great. Now I'm going to be here all day."
"I'm looking for the perfect gift for Vinny."
"In Saks?" she questioned thinking of Bernie's mechanic husband whose obsession outside of his wife was any sport with a ball. "This doesn't strike me as his type of store."
"You'd be surprised," Bernie chuckled. "Just help me look around."
Did she have a choice? Bored, Gia strolled behind her friend, trying to muster up a smile whenever her friend showed her something "cute" or "precious." After a half hour of this, she was certain that she was quite literally sleepwalking.
"I think my bladder is about to burst," Bernie whispered. "Come with me to the little girl's room."
Gia's face pinched at the thought at how long that line would be.
"Fine. Then wait right here for me. I'll be back in a minute."
"Fat chance."
"You really are no fun when it comes to shopping," Bernie said.
"You can't say I didn't warn you."
"Amen to that."
Gia laughed and then turned toward a brick wall-or rather a man's chest that felt like a brick wall. When she glanced up into deep, brown eyes, her knees buckled. Acqua Di Gio clung lightly to his skin and seduced her instantly.
"Hello," the man's honeyed voice poured over her. His low cropped hair and nearly trimmed mustache was peppered with a few gray strands. Everything about him spelled sexy.
She opened her mouth, but wasn't quite sure she'd said anything.
When he smiled, her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. It had been years since it had experience that. She smiled back, but her gaze floated downward to the woman's blouse he carried in his hands.
"Ah. It's for my daughter," he said, following her gaze. "She and her best friend sort of dragged me down here this morning," he said with a nervous flutter in his voice. "We're supposed to be just looking at windows."
"I was dragged down here under the same ruse," Gia laughed, but then caught sight of the gold band around his finger.
"Widower," he answered the unasked question, and then added. "If you were wondering."
Her smile ballooned. "I was."
Daniel's chest tightened painfully when the beautiful woman before him smiled. Her warm toffee complexion held just a hint of cinnamon around her cheeks while her feline shaped eyes were perfect for her dark magnetic orbs. A pang of guilt sideswiped him momentarily and he lowered his gaze to fidget with his gold band.
"Is something wrong?"
He covered his sudden unease with a smile and met her steady gaze.
She seemed to recognize something in his expression because her smile softened. "How long have you been a widower?"
"Four years."
She reached for the chain around her neck and, to his surprise, flashed a set of army dog tags and simple gold band. "Fifteen."
Daniel's brows furrowed.
"I married young," she answered the unspoken question shortly before sadness ghosted around her eyes.
"Sooo." He decided to break their melancholy mood. "Do you come here often?" he asked, dusting off his pickup lines.
The woman's full lips widened as she shook her head.
He winced. "That was pretty bad, huh?"
"Yeah, I'm afraid so," she laughed.
"Sorry, but it's been awhile."
"I figured as much."
When she laughed again, he sobered at its light, haunting, and lyrical sound. After a few seconds, he realized he was staring. "I'm Daniel," he said, jutting out his hand.
"Gia. Pleased to meet you."
Her hand slid lightly into his and he marveled at its softness. She smelled like a bouquet of spring flowers, which was interesting in the end of the fall season. He stared again, unable to help himself. "I know this is going to sound corny, but have we met before?"
"Boy. You really are bad at this."
"No, no." He laughed. "It's just that...Well, you look familiar."
"I'm certain we've never met."
"Oh?"
"I have a good memory when it comes to handsome men," she said boldly with a twinkle in her eyes.
He smiled. "I'm supposed to do the complimenting. That much I remember."
"Don't worry. You can make it up at dinner."
"Dinner? Oh, dinner. Yes, I would like...wait a minute. I'm supposed to be doing the asking, too," he said cheekily.
"So ask me," she smiled.
Daniel liked her sass. It was a great combination with her ethereal beauty. "Well, Gia, I was wondering if I could interest you in having dinner with me tonight? I happen to know this great restaurant in the Village."
"Can't."
He blinked as his smile evaporated. "Pardon?"
"I can't. I already have plans for tonight," she said sadly, and then brightened. "But I'm free tomorrow night."
His smile ballooned while relief deflated his shoulders. "Tomorrow will be great."
Neve tapped Starr on the shoulder and then quickly pointed across the store. "Ho, alert."
Starr turned away from the shelves of men's sweaters to squint through her glasses. "At least this one looks a little older," she said, still inspecting the woman. "Actually, she's very pretty."
"Yeah, but she could be a gold-digger," Neve warned. "Manhattan is crawling with them. She looks like she's chewed and spitted out a few men in her time."
"Will you quit it?" Starr rolled her eyes. "Don't you think it's a little gross for you to have a crush on my dad?"
"I don't have a crush...I'm just...concerned." Neve shrugged. "I've been just as involved as you in trying to find him a new wife. You know, if he and my mother hooked up, then we could be sisters."
Starr nodded, but continued to watch her father. "I thought about that, too, but..." She turned and smiled politely at her best friend. "No offense, but your mother does come off a little desperate at times. She baked him three cakes for his birthday."
"What's wrong with that? She likes to bake."
Though it was on the tip of her tongue to also point out that her mom showed up every Sunday with freshly baked rolls or popped up every Wednesday with Chicken Marsala, but Starr decided against it. Instead, her attention returned to her father and the way he practically lit up in front of this beautiful woman. Starr hadn't seen him do that in a long time. Four years to be exact.
"Then what about your backup plan?" Neve inquired. "Have you contacted the adoption agency yet?"
Starr sighed. "Not yet. I'm still a little nervous on whether it's a good idea or not. I don't know anything about my real mother. She could be married, dead, or in prison."
Neve glanced back. "They are looking awfully cozy."
"C'mon," Starr coaxed. "Let's see if we can get a little closer."
"I think I can find the place," Daniel said, accepting a business card with Gia's home address written on the back and then flipping it over. "Ah, an interior designer?" He glanced at her. "You probably won't believe this, but I'm in the market for a designer."
"What a coincidence," she said, with a tinge of disbelief. "If you prefer to have a business lunch instead"
"No, no," he hastily corrected. "Dinner..." he glanced over her shoulder to catch sight of Starr and Neve ease into view. "...will be great. Okay, then. I'll see you tomorrow." He stepped back. "Say eight o'clock?" He took another giant step.
Gia frowned. "Uh, sure. Eight is good."
"Great." He bumped into someone and turned to apologize.
"I'm back," Bernie sang, approaching behind her.
Her thick New York accent penetrated Gia's thoughts and she quickly turned around. "That was fast."
"Turns out the lines weren't so bad. Did you find anything?" Bernie quickly scanned the shelves.
"I found something all right." Gia's gaze traveled back to where she'd last seen Daniel. "But nothing that would remotely interest Vinny," she added when Bernie turned her inquiring eyes on her.
"Tell you what," Bernie sighed. "Why don't we split up? We can zip through here faster that way."
"I don't know what to buy Vinny," Gia whined. "Why don't I look for something for your daughter Tonya. That should be easier."
"Good idea. Meet you back in this very spot in one hour."
That long? Gia smiled. "Deal." She waited until her friend dashed off before she made another futile glance for Daniel.
He was gone.
A bubble of hope popped, but Gia's smile lingered. With a head and nose for business, flirting had never been Gia's strong suit, but she was positively stunned by her performance today. Stunned and proud.
For years, Gia suffered through countless lectures from her employees that she needed to find a life outside of her work. And for years, she'd lied saying her work was all she needed to be happy. She didn't hate men or think she was better off without them, it's just that she'd been so driven to succeed for so long, she feared she no longer knew how to relate to the opposite sex on an intimate level. Well, long term anyway.
As loony as that sounded, it was the truth.
Yeah, sure, she dated from time to time, but thus far, she hadn't found anyone she could stand to be around more than three dates. But something told her that wouldn't be the case with Daniel. Daniel what?
She stopped strolling the aisles to realize that she'd given him her number, but he'd disappeared before giving her his information. And what was up with him disappearing like that?
Daniel left Saks with Starr and Neve flanked on opposite sides. So far, he'd managed to successfully dodge their needling questions, but if he knew his daughter, and he did, he was certain he wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.
"Admit it, Dad. You liked her," Starr pressed. "I saw how you were looking at her."
"I'm pleading the fifth."
"You're not on trial," she informed him with an exasperated breath.
"You could've fooled me," he chuckled.
They strolled down the walkway, heading to Rockefeller Center. Memories of Hilary surfaced in the back of his mind while a familiar ache resonated around his heart. At the sight of the golden Prometheus statue, Daniel drew a deep breath. Twenty-five years ago, he met Hilary at that very fountain.
"Are we coming back here when they light the Christmas tree on Tuesday?" Starr asked out of the blue.
"We have to," Neve insisted. "We have to make a wish."
Daniel frowned. "A wish?"
Simultaneously, the girls rolled their eyes-therefore transforming him into a double dummy, he supposed.
"Everyone is entitled to one wish upon the star. But you have to make it on the first night in order for it to come true," Starr said simply. "Everybody knows that."
"Yeah, yeah. I think I might of heard about that somewhere," he lied and took a moment to do his own series of eye rolling.
"Make fun of it all you want, Daddy, but its true. Mom told me."
His strides slowed. "She did?"
"When I was little." Starr shrugged. "She said she'd only done it twice, but each time, it worked."
Daniel was surprised he'd never heard this story. "What did she wish for?"
"You and me, silly."
The way Starr smiled melted Daniel's heart and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I'm about to be mushy in public," he warned, shortly before he brushed a kiss against her cheek.
Instead of protesting, Starr allowed it, and kissed him back.
"So are you going to call her, Mr. Davis?" Neve asked timidly. "The lady in the store."
He drew a deep breath and watched how Starr's eyes had zeroed back onto him. "I'm going to do more than that," he announced proudly and produced Gia's business card. "I'm taking her to dinner."
Shock colored Starr's expression shortly before her eyes glowed with excitement. "You're kidding me. Let me see it."
She reached for the card, but Daniel quickly jerked it out of reach. At the same time, a sudden gust of wind slipped it out of his fingers. Stunned, Daniel turned a bit to quickly and slipped on a patch of invisible ice.
"Hey, buddy. Watch it."
His fall was everything but graceful. Daniel arms flailed wide and by the time he landed with an awkward thud, Starr and Neve tumbled on top of him, knocking what little wind he had left out. True to form, not a single New Yorker stopped or inquired if they were okay, but Starr and Neve suddenly caught a case of the giggles.
"So glad that I amuse you girls," he groaned. "Do you mind getting off me now, so I can stop looking like a idiot?"
Still laughing, they lumbered slowly to their feet and then did a lousy job trying to help him up.
Bones aching, muscles throbbing, Daniel dusted the snow from his clothes and glanced around. "Please tell me you saw where the card went."
The trio's gazes searched around the snow-covered ground and in between the feet of the bustling crowd. However, after fifteen minutes, they gave up.
"Maybe she's still in the store," Starr said, hopefully.
Daniel glanced at his watch and sighed. "I seriously doubt that. Not to mention the low probability of finding her in that crowd. "What was the name of that interior decorating business?" he asked himself and tried to will an image of the card in his mind, but it wasn't working.
Neve patted him on the shoulder. "It looks like you have a wish to make, too, Mr. Davis."
"Yeah, but by Tuesday it'll be too late."
"Don't you dare call that gal," Ma Belle spat from her sickbed. "She hasn't come to see me in all these years, so she doesn't need to come and see me now." Her jaw set in a stubborn line, but she was unable to prevent her bottom lip from quivering.
Glenda said nothing as she tucked the blanket tighter around her grandmother.
"You might as well fix your face 'cause I'm not gonna change my mind."
"I didn't say anything," Glenda said, turning and lifting the dinner tray from the nightstand. Everyone knew there was no point in arguing with Ma Belle. She rarely, if ever, changed her mind about anything.
However, Glenda was hardly fooled by the matriarch's blustering. Ma Belle's heart broke the minute Gia escaped Talboton, and it never healed.
The majority of the family thought Gia's dreams of finding a better life in a big city like New York wouldn't last more than a couple of weeks. Some even suggested that she should set her sights on Atlanta-where she would at least be no more than a couple of hours from home and the fall on her face wouldn't be as painful.
But Glenda knew her sister would make it because despite what everybody else believed, Gia had already hit rock bottom.
"Momma, we're out of Coco Puffs."
Glenda glanced at her sixteen-year-old daughter, Jenny, and her bulging pregnant belly, and felt an overwhelming weariness in her bones.
"Momma, did you hear me?"
"Yes, chile. Just put it on the grocery list and I'll get some more in the morning. Why in the world you want to eat cereal for dinner anyway?" Glenda headed for the kitchen sink to get started on the dishes.
"'Cause that's what I have a craving for," Jenny laughed. "Don't tell me that I have to explain cravings to a woman who had ten kids."
Glenda bit her lip and warded off the sting of tears. Without a doubt, Jenny didn't mean anything by the casual comment, but that didn't stop it from smacking her with the truth of her life.
Gia fled from Talboton to avoid turning into Glenda: an endless baby factory and a woman who fell for every lie every man has ever told her. Glenda pressed a hand to her mouth, but failed to stop a ragged sob.
"Momma, are you okay?" Jenny closed the refrigerator door and waddled next to her.
"I'm fine," she answered, but the tears that followed said otherwise.
"Did I say something wrong?" The concern in Jenny's voice heightened as she slid her arm around her mother's waist. "I'm sorry if I did."
"No, Chile. I think I just need to go lie down for a few minutes. Be a dear and finish the dishes for me." Glenda avoided making eye contact and slid out of her daughter's arms to shuffle to her own bedroom in the back of the house. Once she had entered and closed the door behind her, she glanced around the room she had lived in her entire life and drew a deep breath. "Gia, whatever you do, don't you ever come back here."
#
Miraculously, Gia survived a full day of shopping. Of course the ten-hour venture resulted in only two Christmas gifts, but that was another gripe for another day.
After closing and locking her front door, Gia tossed her keys onto the first end table she passed in the living room and pretended not to notice the flashing light on the answering machine.
"It's my day off," she mumbled under her breath. The first one she'd had in almost four months, three weeks, and two days.
Not that she was counting.
Gia wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a Diet Pepsi from the fridge before meandering to her bedroom where she placed her cell phone on its charger. Like most of the day, her thoughts returned to the wickedly handsome man she'd met at Saks. Her lips curled upward at the memory of his dimpled cheeks and Crest-white smile, but they kept turning south whenever she'd replayed the way the man had taken off.
She sighed as her gaze landed on her little red dress across her bed, still plastic-wrapped from the dry cleaners. The only thing about heading to a private birthday dinner was the meal itself. She was starving.
On cue, Gia's stomach released a mighty growl as if seconding the thought. "Just hang in there," she mumbled under her breath and glanced at her watch. "Two hours until chow time." Popping the top to her soda, she made a beeline toward the adjoining bathroom and turned on the shower to full blast.
She took her time peeling out of her clothes and pinning up the back of her hair, but instead of stepping into the shower, Gia froze at the sight of her blurred reflection. Her heart skipped a beat when she caught a glimpse of a younger version of herself with a protruding belly.
Gia drew a shaky breath and inched a trembling hand along her stomachher flat stomach. Sorrow, her old and faithful friend, swept across her body and squeezed her heart until tears leaked from her eyes.
Blink, her brain screamed. If she blinked, the image would go away and the pain would ease in her chest. But there was that part of her that was still fixated on the young girl's belly and it was just a matter of time before a million "what ifs" crammed into her head.
The phone rang, jarring her daydream and forcing her to blink. She quickly tempered her flash of annoyance with a deep breath before she closed the bathroom door. Let the answering machine pick it up. If she didn't hurry, she was going to be late. Of course, what she really wanted to do was stay home and rent a movie.
That was how she spent every December-going in hibernation mode and avoiding people. Sighing, she glanced back at the mirror. It was completely steamed over, but she paid it no mind as she pulled open the medicine cabinet.
Gia hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed the bottle of Prozac. Only one pill slid around in the bottle. If she was going to survive the holidays, she was definitely going to need to get a refill. Up until a few months ago, Gia was hesitant to seek help for her low energy, irritability, and bouts of prolonged depression. For years she had hated doctors, nurses, and especially hospitals; however, Bernie and Maryann were the ones that practically dragged her to a doctor after she had refused to climb out of bed after two weeks of sobbing uncontrollably.
Depression, the doctor had announced proudly. Gia was hardly impressed. Hell, she knew she was depressed. She was just in denial on how bad it had gotten. In a way it still didn't make sense. She had accomplished everything she had set out to do and still...
Gia shook her head to change the direction of her thoughts. She plopped the pill into her hand and grabbed her soda again. However, when she went to pop the medicine into her mouth, the damn pill slipped through her fingers and hit the sink. She scrambled to catch it before it rolled down to the drain-but no such luck.
"Damn," she hissed and immediately felt a wave of panic. For an insane moment, she jabbed her finger down the narrow pipe, but then realized what she was doing and gave up in disgust.
"I have to cancel," she mumbled, fairly conscious of the fact that she might be overreacting; but damn if she could help it. She drew a few deep breaths and then evaluated the situation. Surely, she could survive a weekend without her magic pills, she reasoned. It wasn't like she was addicted or anything.
She laughed and finally stepped into the shower.
An hour later, she had showered, applied her make up, and performed a miracle on her hair before shimmying into her dress.
The fact that she was another year older and the dress still fit her perfectly was reason enough to smile.
"I can do this," she stated with a forced confidence, grabbed her full-length Berber swing coat, and headed out the door.
#
Starr watched her father intently as they waited to be seated for dinner. "Daddy, I'm sorry you lost that lady's business card," Starr apologized yet again with her bottom lip turned downward in a genuine frown.
Daniel looped his arm around his daughter's shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze. "Don't worry about it. It's not your fault."
She nodded, but she didn't believe it. No way after searching high and low for the perfect woman was Starr going to just give up looking for the woman. Starr wanted to see her father light up again.
"Besides," her father added. "It's not like I have time to be pursuing a relationship right now, anyway."
Starr rolled her eyes. That had been his patented answer since she'd started playing matchmaker. She was guessing that it was some kind of defense mechanism-an annoying one.
"With the practice and taking care of you-"
"Don't." Starr's gaze challenged him. "Don't use me as an excuse, Dad. I'm fine. Of course I don't know for how long if you don't stop babying me all the time." The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
Hurt flashed in his eyes as he glanced down at her and allowed his arm to fall from her shoulders.
"Davis party of three," the hostess announced above the steady hum of the crowd.
Daniel, Starr, and Neve worked their way up to the hostess stand where they then followed an attractive woman to their designated table.
Starr continued to feel worse when her father went out of his way to avoid her gaze again. She glanced over at Neve who, in turn, just shrugged and offered no help. "Dad, I didn't mean-"
"Honey, forget about it." He smiled tightly, but still avoided meeting her gaze. "You're just saying how you feel."
Before Starr could respond, the waitress appeared and went over the night's specials. While waiting patiently, Starr reviewed in her mind another way to get her point across. As usual, everything always came out the wrong way.
"I'll give you a few minutes to review the menu," their waitress said and strolled off.
"Dad-"
"If you girls will excuse me. I'm going to run to the men's room." After flashing another plastic smile, he was up and out of his chair before Starr could finish her sentence.
"One of these days, I'm going to stop putting my foot in my mouth," she mumbled.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Neve said, lowering her menu. "You were just giving him a dose of tough love. And we both know that stuff is supposed to be good for us, but its really adults who have the hardest time with it."
"You have a point there." Starr crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. "I just wish we didn't lose that darn card."
"Well, I think it was a sign. I personally didn't like the looks of that lady."
"What was wrong...? You know, never mind." She waved her hand. "I'm starting to think you're not as gung-ho about finding a match for my father as you used to be."
"That's not true. I just really think we should be considering my mother. I mean, don't you want to be sisters?"
She didn't know how she did it, but Starr had marched right into another sticky situation where only tact and saccharine charm could get her out of it. Yet, once again, she never got out what she wanted to say. Instead her gaze drifted to the figure that had just waltzed to the hostess stand. "You're a strong believer of fate, right?"
"Y-yeah," Neve answered slowly.
"Then look who just walked in the door."
Neve turned around in her seat, and then stared open-mouthed at the beautiful woman from Saks Fifth Avenue. "I don't believe it."
Starr smiled. "Looks like Dad doesn't have to make that wish after all."
Daniel washed and dried his hands and then stopped to stare at his reflection in the mirror. As usual, he saw a man who was just barely holding on. The one thing that got him through each day was the idea that his little girl needed him.
But that was a lie.
He lowered his gaze and chuckled. Suddenly it was clear as a bell that all this matchmaking Starr and Neve have been doing was for one purpose only: to get him off his daughter's back. But if he let go, what would become of the man in the mirror?
"I need some help here, Hilary," he mumbled under his breath. Of course, he'd made that request at least once a day-which was down from the ten times a day four years ago, but damn if it wasn't still true. If only Hilary, God, or even Santa Claus could toss him a vowel, he could figure out a clue on how to get on with his life.
The door burst open and two gentlemen entered the facilities and consequently ended Daniel's private reflection. He tossed the men a brief smile as he headed out the door. The steady hum of customer chatter and clinking dishes instantly gave him a headache, but he was determined to end the day with the girls on a good note and forced on a smile that hardly seemed to fit his face.
When he made his way back over to his table, he was stunned to find it vacant. "Where-"
He turned and made a complete three-sixty, unable to catch a glimpse of the missing teenagers anywhere. His heart instantly shifted into panic mode, but he was still able to keep his wits about him-meaning, he didn't immediately launch into screaming their names at the top of his lungs. Maybe they had just gone to the little girls' room.
He relaxed and settled into his chair. He really needed to do something about his ability to always imagine the worse scenario.
"Are you ready to order, sir?" his smiling waitress asked as she returned to the table.
"Uh, no, ma'am." He smiled and glanced around again. "It seems my daughter and her friend have disappeared for a moment. Maybe you should give us a few more minutes?"
The waitress nodded and strolled off to the next table.
Daniel drew a breath and glanced around again. His gaze skittered to laughing families and eye-gazing couples. This was one of the things he loved about the holidays: people changed. Conversations were no longer filled about stock trades or corporate griping. This time of year people talked about their children's school or church play, organized charity events for the less fortunate, or discussed what would be the perfect gift for the grandparents.
It was like magic-just like Hilary had proclaimed.
The thought brought a smile onto Daniel's face. Hilary had been right about so many things he mused, reaching for his iced water.
"Would you marry again if something ever happened to me?" Hilary's voice floated over to him.
Daniel glanced up and was instantly caught up in a memory.
Hilary, beautiful as ever, held his steady gaze. "Come on. Answer the question."
"It's never going to happen," Daniel answered coolly, but felt a small smile tug his lips. "If anything, I'll die first. I eat badly, I hardly exercise, and I get very little sleep."
"Good point." Hilary nodded with a growing smile. "You'll go first."
Daniel chuckled. "Well, don't look so smug about it. You are going to miss me, right?"
"Immensely," she answered lightning-fast and pulled off a look of sincerity that melted his heart.
He reached over and covered her hand, but she gently flipped it over and caressed his palm. He loved it when she did that. The way her fingers would tickle the sensitive area gave him the same wild fluttering in his stomach as her deep sensual kisses. After a moment of watching her, he wondered about her question.
"What about you?" he finally asked. "Would you marry again?"
Her gaze lowered to his hand and then she lifted it to brush a kiss against his knuckles. "If on the rare chance I was able to meet someone as wonderful as you, which is probably unlikely, I'd like to think I would have your blessing to move on."
Another man kissing and making love to his wife didn't exactly bode well with Daniel. He eased his hand out of her grip and leaned back in his chair. "How long are we talking about?"
"What?"
"How long after I'm dead in the ground are we talking about? Fifty years, twenty-five years, or two weeks?"
Hilary rocked her head back with a burst of laughter. A few surrounding diners glanced their direction and Daniel apologized for his wife interrupting their meals by flashing them a brief smile.
"You know on second thought, I don't want to know the answer to that question."
"Oh, c'mon Daniel. I think we should really discuss this. I know I would want you to marry again."
Daniel's brows rose in surprise. "You would?"
Hilary nodded. "I've been thinking about this for awhile..."
"Oh, you have?"
"Yeah." She suddenly became somber again. "The question just popped in my head the other night when I was putting Starr to bed. Actually, a lot of question popped in my head."
He captured her hand again and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Like what?"
"Like-what would I do if one day her birth mother showed up at our door wanting her back?"
"Honey-"
"It could happen. You remember the movie last week with Halle Berry. What would we do in that situation? Before I knew it, I had a whole list of what ifs and among the top ones: if I passed away, would you marry again?"
She was being serious, he knew, so he forced himself to push past his initial discomfort with the topic.
"Would I marry again?" he repeated, and then drew a deep breath. The idea that there was another woman as wonderful as the woman sitting across from him sounded as far-fetched as discovering life on another planet.
Before Hilary, Daniel remembered clearly how alone he was in a city population of more than seven million people. Since she'd walked into his life, there were smiles and laughter every day, and since the adoption of their beautiful little girl, life just kept getting better.
"I don't think so," he finally answered honestly. "I can't imagine my life without you."
Her smile returned. "That is so sweet. But-"
"No," he insisted. "And the point is moot anyway."
Hilary nodded and for a few seconds the subject seemed to be closed, but it wasn't the first or the last time that he was wrong.
"I would want you to marry again," she said. "I wouldn't want you to mourn me the rest of your life."
He looked at her incredulously.
"I want you to be happy...always." Her lips quivered at the corners. "That's what we're supposed to want for each other, right?"
Daniel hesitated at the trick question.
She squeezed his hand again. "Right?"
He finally forced his lips to curl again. "Right."
At long last, Daniel closed his eyes and vanquished the memory, but he continued to mumble, "Right."
Watching the stunning woman in red as she walked toward the back of the restaurant, Starr followed like a moth to a flame. What was it about the woman that enamored her? "Wow," she finally whispered. "I wouldn't mind looking like that when I grow up."
"She's all right," Neve mumbled. "Are you still going to talk to her?"
"Yeah, just give me a minute to think of what to say," Starr answered. In truth she was nervous and didn't understand why-being shy was not one of her characteristics.
"Well, I don't think you should," Neve huffed and crossed her arms. "I mean, look at her. To be wearing something like that she has to have a date or something."
Starr frowned. She hadn't thought of that, but all she had to recall was the way her dad had practically glowed around the woman for her to push the tiny obstacle of a date aside. "I'm going to go talk to her," she announced with newfound courage.
Neve clamped a hand on her friend's shoulder.
When Starr glanced back, she didn't know what to make of her friend's troubled expression. "Look," she started with a patient tone. "It's obvious that my dad likes this lady. You saw how disappointed he looked when he lost her business card."
Neve's gaze skittered downward.
"We've been looking for months for someone to put that kind of smile on his face." She sighed when she noticed the muscles along her friend's jaw pulse. "Besides, we don't have to have my father marry your mom for us to be sisters. We're already family. It's the things that are in our hearts that makes us a family. My mom taught me that."
Neve gave her a sheepish smile and then reached down into her pants pocket and removed the rumpled business card.
Starr blinked and then reached for it. "You found it?"
"You want a wife for your dad and I wanted a husband for my mom. Maybe I wanted it too badly." Neve's eyes glossed with shimmering tears.
Starr embraced her friend. "We'll find someone-for both of them. And no matter what, we'll always be sisters. Agreed?"
Neve nodded against her shoulder. "Agreed."
The sisters slowly eased out of their embrace while still holding onto their smiles. Yet, when they turned back around, the woman in red was gone.
"Where did she go?" Neve asked.
Starr glanced around wondering if the woman had passed them while they were talking, but she didn't see her anywhere. "Well." She held up the business card. "At least we still have this."
"Are you going to tell your dad what I did?" Neve asked in alarm.
"No."
"He's going to want to know how we got the card."
Starr nodded and bit her lower lips while she thought for a moment. "I have an idea."
After initially going to the wrong restaurant for Freddy's birthday party, Gia caught up with her good friends, and then had too much to eat and way too much to drink. When she finally managed to pry her eyes open Saturday morning-well, Saturday afternoon, she felt as if she'd been run down by a Mack truck. This was why she wasn't a party person-the consequences far outweighed the benefits.
The telephone blared from the nightstand, but the thing sounded as though it was somehow implanted in her ear. Pressing a pillow against her head, she tried to ignore it; but her teeth rattled and her brain threatened to explode.
Gia groaned and rolled to the edge of the bed and swung out her hand to seize the torturous object. Before she could tuck the phone under her ear, she fell unceremoniously onto the floor, banged her head on the edge of the nightstand, and roared out a succession of curses that would make a veteran sailor blush.
After waiting for the pain to pass, she scrambled across the floor and retrieved the phone. "Hello."
"Uh, yeah. May I speak to Gia Hunter?"
The caller's rich voice dripped like warm honey into Gia's ear and her pain and anger completely evaporated. She had no problem matching the voice to the handsome man she'd met at Saks. "T-this is Gia."
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" he asked with trepidation lacing his voice.
"Yes, uh, I mean, no." She winced. Less than a minute into the conversation and she already sounded like a dunce. "I just woke up...and fell out of bed."
Daniel chuckled. "That explains the cursing."
She laughed.
"Sorry for waking you up. I can call you back later, if you'd like?"
"No. Uh, I mean, that won't be necessary." Gia rolled her eyes at her air-headed behavior. "I'm up now."
He laughed with her, but then an awkward silence vibrated over the line.
Should she say something?
"I have to tell you, I was afraid I would never see you again," Daniel jumpstarted the conversation.
"Oh?" She climbed off the floor.
"Yeah, I lost your business card somewhere near the Rockefeller Center, but then this morning I found it bubble-gummed to the bottom of my shoe. You can't imagine my relief."
"Well I'm glad you found it...especially since you dipped without giving me your number."
"Oh," he managed to sound contrite. "I owe you an explanation for that."
"I am curious...but you don't owe me an explanation." Gia rubbed the side of her pounding head and strolled toward her bathroom.
"Then to appease your curiosity, I was trying to get away before my beautiful daughter, who has the best of intentions, by the way, showed up and scared you off."
"Should I be worried?" She switched on a light and winced at her horrible reflection. She looked worse than she felt.
"No, no. Once you get to know her, you hardly notice how she winds you around her finger."
Her smile widened. "She sounds adorable. How old is she?" she asked, opening the medicine cabinet and reaching for the Advil.
"She'll be fifteen on Christmas Day."
Gia froze with her hand clamped around the headache medicine. Her mind instantly filled with images of the delivery room and a nurse rushing off with her newborn child.
"Don't worry. We're going to take good care of her..."
"Of course, I think she's fourteen going on forty." He sighed. "But she's the absolute apple of my eye." Daniel chuckled.
Jolting out of the memory, Gia snatched the Advil out of the cabinet and popped the top.
"What about you?" he asked. "Do you have any kids?"
Gia closed her eyes, but not in time to prevent a lone tear from streaking down her face as she croaked out the lie she'd told for nearly fifteen years, "No."
"Ma Belle is dying," Glenda announced. She lifted her gaze from her fidgeting fingers to meet Byron's hard stare through the jail's Plexiglas. She watched as her brother's hand tightened around the phone before he finally drew in a deep breath.
"How long?" he asked.
Doctor said it would be a miracle if she lives until Christmas.
Byron's face lost none of its intensity. She knew he was wondering-hoping that his release date of December twenty-third wouldn't be too late to say his final goodbyes.
"I can't imagine..."
Glenda nodded. He wasn't about to say anything that she hadn't said to herself a thousand times since she was given the news. Ma Belle, though most believed her to be a little rough around the edges, was truly a remarkable woman with the best of intentions. She was a woman with a limited amount of everything: education, money, and resources. Everyone in the family loved her, except maybe...
"Have you talked with Gia?" Byron asked.
Glenda's gaze dropped.
"You have to call her," Byron said.
Glenda closed her eyes. "What's the point? There's nothing she can do."
"Ma Belle would like to see her again."
"That ain't what she's been telling me." Glenda looked up again.
"What Ma Belle says ain't always what she means. We both know that. I might not be the sharpest tool in the toolbox, but even I know Ma Belle's heart been broken ever since Gia left Talboton."
"I seem to recall Gia's heart broken way before she left this stinking town." Glenda grew hot under the collar.
"More reasons for those two to bury the hatchet."
Glenda shook her head. "You just don't understand."
"What's not to understand? Ma Belle encouraged Gia to give up her child for adoption. Gia signed the papers, regretted it, and blamed Ma Belle for forcing her hand. See? Simple."
"Jail has done wonders for..."
"Let's get one thing straight. I ain't proud of being in here. And once I get out I ain't ever coming back. But being locked up makes a man see things differently-you view time differently. You might not want Gia to come back, but if she's ever going to heal-she has to."
"Okay, young ladies. Are you two ready?" Daniel asked, breezing into the living room and fastening his cuff links.
Starr and Neve glanced up from their current issue of Seventeen magazine and frowned at his attire.
"You're not wearing that are you?" Starr asked.
"What?" he asked, and then glanced down at his outfit. "You don't like it?"
Starr's gaze skittered over to her best friend and then ricocheted back to her father. "Well...you look like you're going to one of those boring medical conventions. Don't you have something more...casual in your closet?"
Embarrassment flashed across her father's face as he glanced down again. "This is one of my best suits."
"Exactly my point, Dad. This is a date not a business dinner."
"And lets not forget it's the holidays," Neve added. "You should be casual and fun at the same time."
Starr agreed. "Oh, what about that sweater I bought you for your birthday? That would look nice."
"Yeah. It warms your eyes." Neve nodded.
Starr and her father frowned at the teenager.
Neve shrugged. "What? It's hard not to notice."
Sighing, Starr shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I think you should change," she told her father. "If she's an interior designer, she probably has a good sense of fashion, too. You don't want to scare her into thinking you're stuck in the dark ages or something."
A palpable silence stretched between the girls and the lone adult in the room. After a few awkward seconds, Daniel turned and marched back to his bedroom.
Starr smiled, but then turned toward her best friend. "It warms his eyes?"
"Well, it does." Neve shrank deeper into the plush sofa.
A few minutes later, Daniel returned to the living room and sashayed around like a male model sporting his only Sean John outfit. "No autographs. No autographs," he said, pretending the girls were a part of his rock star fan club.
Starr and Neve giggled at his theatrics, and then thrust their thumbs high into the air.
"Now, that I've passed inspection, let's go before I'm late. Starr, did you already pack an overnight bag?"
"Yes, Dad," she moaned, easing out of her chair. She hoped they didn't have to run through their usual checklist of the items she might have forgotten. She was only spending the night next door at Neve's. If she had forgotten something, she would just walk back to the house.
"Did you pack your toothbrush?"
"Daaad."
Daniel held up his hands. "All right." He smiled, grabbed her bag by the door, and waited patiently while the girls slid on their coats.
"A few pointers, Dad. When you first show up, make sure you compliment her. But don't just say 'hey, nice shoes' or something crazy like that."
"Make sure you thank her for the date," Neve added.
"Yeah." Starr bobbed her head. "Good manners are still in style."
"That's good to hear," Daniel said sarcastically.
"Dad. We're trying to help you. We all know you're a little rusty."
He looked as if he was about to reprimand her, but then dropped his shoulders and asked, "Is there anything else?"
"Kissing," Starr answered quickly.
"Wait." Daniel held up his hands. "I'm not taking kissing advice from my fourteen..."
Starr stared at him sternly.
"Almost fifteen-year-old daughter," he amended. "I have to draw the line somewhere."
"When was the last time you kissed the opposite sex?" Starr questioned, cocking her head. "And me and grandma, don't count."
"What do you know about kissing?" he asked, and then immediately realized he didn't really want an answer.
Starr stared at him and waited.
"Never mind," her father said, rubbing his temples. "What's the tip?"
"I'm glad you asked." She smiled. "Instead of waiting for the end of the date for that big awkward moment, you should warm her up throughout the date with small kisses."
Daniel frowned.
"You know, when you pick her up, you hand her flowers-you are taking her flowers, right?"
"Flowers." He nodded. "That's a good idea."
"Oh, boy. You're worse off than I thought."
"No, I just...forgot." His forehead wrinkled. "What am I doing?" he mumbled. "I'm going to make a fool of myself."
"No you're not. Just thank your lucky Starr that you have her to help you come off smelling like a rose."
His father's lips sloped unevenly as he tugged one of her pigtails. "Thank you, lucky Starr."
"What do you mean you have a date?" Bernie questioned over the phone. "Since when?"
"Since yesterday-or really this morning," Gia answered as she flitted in and out of her walk-in closet. After a lifetime of having a great metabolism, she grudgingly admitted that if she wanted to remain her current size, she would have to start a medieval practice called exercise.
But for right now, she had a devil of a time trying to find something that flattered her widening hips and rounding bottom. In the end, she settled on a tried and true staple in every woman's closet: the little black dress. It wasn't too dressy or too casual. It was just-perfect.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Bernie whined. "Is he ugly or something?"
"Hardly." Gia squeezed her foot into her favorite pumps and twirled a final time in front of a full-length mirror in the bedroom. "I'm nervous," she admitted, and then belatedly remembered that she still had the phone tucked beneath her ear.
"Ooh. He must be really good looking," Bernie commented. "What does he do for a living?"
The doorbell rang and a million butterflies burst from their cocoons inside of her stomach.
"I have to go. He's here." Gia flattened a hand over her heart at the instant memory of Daniel. "Wish me luck."
"Good luck and I want details tomorrow."
Gia smiled and disconnected the call. At the doorbell's second chime, she hand ironed the front of her dress, and then went to answer the door.
When she finally pulled it open, she was stunned to discover that her memory had a faulty wire. The man standing before her was even more devastatingly handsome than she remembered. "Hello."
"Hello," he greeted in a seductive baritone.
His instant smile was infectious and she found herself standing there with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
"I, uh, brought these for you." Daniel presented a bunch of white carnations and chrysanthemums.
She sucked in a surprised breath and gushed at the beautiful arrangement.
"I hope you like them," he said, and then nervously leaned in and brushed a kiss against her cheek.
Pleasantly surprised, Gia fluttered a hand to her cheek and blushed. "What was that for?"
"I hope it was okay," he said. "I was advised that it was best to get the kiss out of the way."
Gia forced a frown. "But now we don't have anything to look forward to."
"Of course we do."
Her brows rose in curiosity.
"The second kiss."
Gia was smitten by Daniel's boyish charm. "I better put these in some water. Would you like to come in?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
She turned and strolled toward the kitchen. "These are beautiful."
"I'm glad you like them."
"I love them." Gia inhaled the fragrant scent.
"I love the dress," Daniel praised. "You look beautiful."
Gia's smile grew to a ridiculous size while her knees tingled. That definitely had to be a good sign. She had a feeling she was in for a wonderful night and if she played her cards right, she just might end up with Daniel wrapped and placed under her Christmas tree this year. She glanced over her shoulder to sneak another peek at her possible present. "Oh, Santa, baby."
Daniel opened the door to his car and gently ushered Gia into the passenger seat of his silver Cadillac Escalade.
"Thank you." She smiled.
His heartbeat quickened as his lips widened. "You're more than welcome." He closed the door and drew in a breath; however, the gulp of cold air did little to soothe his nervousness. As he walked to the driver's side, his mind scrolled through a list of conversation starters. Once he was settled into his seat, he promptly forgot them all.
"Sooo," Gia sighed. "Where are we going?"
Daniel glanced at her and was instantly entranced by her beautiful eyes and enraptured by her growing smile that he had forgotten how to speak.
"Dinner? Movie? Do you know?" Gia asked with furrowed brows.
"Huh? Oh, uh-yeah." He glanced away with his face burning from embarrassment. "How does Aureole sound to you?"
"Sounds wonderful. I've never been there, but I've heard great things about the restaurant."
"Then prepare to be in for a treat." He slid his key into the ignition and Nat King Coles' unmistakable voice filtered through the speakers singing "The Christmas Song."
"The holidays come faster every year," Gia marveled.
Unable to ignore the sad tone in her voice, Daniel glanced at her. "You don't like the holidays?"
Sighing, she glanced out the side of her window and seemed reluctant to answer the question.
"Well, not everyone does," he continued as he pulled out into traffic. "I know a part of me is saddened by the gross commercialization of the season." He glanced over at her in time to see he'd captured her attention again. "But I have to admit that it's my favorite time of the year."
Again she drew a breath, and held onto her smile. "I know what you want me to say, but to be honest-this time of year is usually hard for me. However, this year I'm determined to turn over a new leaf...if I can."
Daniel wanted to inquire further when the voice of reason intervened and told him not push or pry. It was obvious she was holding back and because they were still strangers, he needed to respect her privacy. Yet, his curiosity was still piqued.
"Well. What is it that you do, Mr. Davis?"
"I'm a pediatrician."
"Oh." Her voice lowered. "It's Dr. Davis then?"
"Yes, but you can call me Daniel." He chuckled, but when he looked at her, there was no amusement in her expression. That's odd. Most of the time when he told women he was a doctor, they seemed quite pleased. "Is something wrong?"
"No, no." She tried to cover with a smile, yet it was painfully obvious that something was indeed wrong. In her apartment everything seemed to have been going well. Now it all seemed to have spun on its ear.
Gia returned her attention to the scenery outside of her window.
Ten minutes into the drive, all Daniel could picture in his head was a plane nose-diving from the air. He hadn't crashed and burned this badly since junior high school.
"So are you a native New Yorker?" she asked.
"No." He grabbed hold of the lifeline and held on tight. "Actually, I was born in Tennessee."
"A fellow southerner?" Her voice rose in surprise.
Daniel nodded while cautiously shifting lanes. "Just for a brief time. My family moved when I was two. My father was in the army and we pretty much just bounced from state to state. I even lived in Germany for a couple of years."
When he glanced at her again he was pleased to see a smile had finally returned to her face. "What about you? Where are you from?"
"Georgia."
"Atlanta?"
"Nah," she chuckled softly. "I'm from a tiny place called Talboton-a place where it's easy to get lost and where very few people escape."
"So I take it you're one of the lucky ones?" he joked.
"Luck had very little to do with it." She drew a deep breath. "New York is perfect for me. It's a melting pot of cultures and the pace is as fast and strong as a human heartbeat. I love it."
Daniel caught the way her eyes sparkled as she talked and glanced around. The air between them was charged with her electricity and passion. It was suddenly clear why a small southern town couldn't hold the fiery beauty for long.
Minutes later, they arrived at their destination. The knots in Daniel's stomach remained tight as he stepped out of the car and handed his keys over to the valet. Before entering the building, he offered Gia his arm.
Her winning smile melted another inch of his heart. This time he noted it held a certain familiarity and he was taken aback by it.
Both handed their coats over at coat check. At the hostess stand, they were greeted with smiles before being shown to their reserved table.
"This place is beautiful," Gia cooed as she glanced around. "Have you been here before?"
"A few times." He held out her chair.
When she lowered into her seat, he gently slid her closer to the table and whispered in her ear. "The food here is exquisite."
She sucked in her breath. "Then I can't wait."
Before Daniel moved away, he caught the soft floral scent of her hair and the tangy sweet fragrance of her perfume.
"Good evening." Their waitress appeared and immediately rattled off the specials of the day.
Daniel didn't hear a word the woman said. He simply couldn't pull his gaze away from the beauty sitting across from him.
"I'll give you a few minutes to decide," the waitress ended, and then drifted away.
"You're going to have to stop that," Gia said slyly, grinning at him.
"Stop what?"
"Staring at me like that."
A rush of embarrassment scorched his face as he finally succeeded in glancing away. "Sorry."
"No need to apologize," she said warmly. "It's actually kind of sweet...but it's also making me nervous," she confessed.
He was surprised by the information, especially since she seemed so calm, cool, and collected. "In that case, I'll try not to stare."
"Thanks."
"But no promises," he added with a smile.
Gia blushed and made another sad attempt to squash the mad fluttering in her stomach. Her long bouts of silence weren't caused by indifference or melancholy. She honestly couldn't seem to control her emotions. His lingering gazes had the same effect as a lover's caress and his voice...
She permitted herself a soft sigh. She could easily cuddle up and listen to him talk all night. Her reaction to him was confusing, wonderful, and scary-all at the same time.
When the waitress returned, both confessed that they had yet to take a peek inside the menu and requested a few more minutes to make their decision. Even that turned out to be a game of stolen glances.
The man had no right to look so good, she mused, nor did he have the right to be so perfect. She couldn't remember a man opening car doors, or holding out chairs for her. Not to mention that he also adored his daughter, loved the holidays, and was a physician. And even though she didn't care for doctors, she could easily see herself caring for this one.
Daniel wasn't the kind of man a woman just dated casually. She knew without a doubt, he was the kind you kept-a "death 'til you part" kind. The million-dollar question was whether she was ready for a relationship-truly ready.
A part of her screamed, yes. Then there was that part that ebbed at her soul and recycled a question in her mind: What if you get hurt again?
The waitress' third appearance jarred her out of her reverie and she arbitrarily selected an appetizer and an entree.
"Hmm. Those are very good choices," the waitress said, accepting the menu. "And what about you, sir?"
"I'll have what the lady is having," he replied with a smirk and handed over his menu.
When they were left alone, the couple's gazes met once again. How in the world was she going to eat if she didn't tame those damn butterflies?
"You're going to have to forgive me," Daniel said after the silence. "I'm a little out of practice."
"Don't worry," she assured him. "You're doing fine."
His widening smile stirred her butterflies and she finally gave up in trying to control them. Their conversation remained light and on safe topics until they were halfway through their main course.
"Does dating ever stop feeling like you're cheating on your dead spouse?" Daniel asked out of the blue.
Gia's heart squeezed as she stared into his intense gaze. "It hasn't for me."
Daniel nodded, but then settled back in his chair. "Do you mind telling me about him?"
She clenched her jaw against the threat of tears. It had been so long since she'd talked about her husband. When Jermaine first passed away, everyone had been so busy telling her how she needed to move on, or how to bury the past, that she was reduced to just speaking his name in the confinements of her dark and lonely bedroom.
"What would you like to know about him?" she asked cautiously before taking a sip of her wine.
"I guess first, what was his name?"
Smiling, she lowered her glass. "Jermaine."
"Jermaine," Daniel repeated with a healthy dose of respect. "How did you two meet? And more importantly, what did he do to make you fall in love with him?"
The tears continued to inch their way toward the rim of her eyes, yet, it felt incredibly wonderful to breathe life back into a man whose footprints walked beside hers for a brief time in her life.
"I don't remember how I met Jermaine," she stated honestly. "He was just always there and I can't remember a time when I didn't love him. Like I said, Talboton is a small place. Everyone knows everyone. Children you played with on your first birthday are the same ones you graduate with from high school. It was the same for Jermaine and I-except I'd dropped out of high school when I got pregnant and married Jermaine."
She caught the question in his expression before he had a chance to voice it. "I know I told you that I didn't have any children...but the truth is more complicated than that."
Daniel stretched his hand out to cover hers. "Look you don't have to discuss this if you don't want to," he assured her.
"I know," she whispered and gently flipped his hand over and caressed his palm.
Daniel sucked in a breath and pulled his hand away.
Surprised, Gia also pulled back and settled her hands into her lap. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
His eyes glossed, but no tears fell as he shook his head. "No." He stretched his hand across the table again and waited. "I have a feeling that everything is just how it's supposed to be."
Gia stared at his long fingers and then into his dark eyes. Without another thought, she placed her hand back into his. He's a keeper, a voice floated inside of her head.
But am I ready?
Their date floated like a dream and Gia never did get around to telling Daniel the truth about her daughter. Instead, the couple conversed about the trials and heartaches of being the spouse left behind. When dinner came to an end, Gia praised how much she enjoyed the evening.
"It's not over yet," he said, starting the car.
Gia glanced at her watch and noted it was nearing eleven. "I don't know. It's getting kind of late." The longer she was with him, the more in danger she was to losing her heart. "I really-"
"Come on. Trust me. You're going to love this next stop." Daniel winked, and then surprised Gia by taking her to Brooklyn to the Up and Over Jazz Café.
"You're a fan?" she inquired, gazing over at him.
"Fan is too mild a word," he confided as he led her to a small circular table near the front. "Wait until you get a load The Eddie Allen Quartet," he whispered, pulling out her chair.
Gia didn't have the heart to tell him that she didn't know the first thing about jazz. Her music heroes were a weird mesh of Michael Jackson and Run DMC; however, when an older gentleman lifted his saxophone and played a soul-stirring melody, she was hooked. Throughout the song, she couldn't pull her gaze way from the musician. And though there were no words, she was certain that it was a song about loneliness and heartbreak.
When the haunting melody ended, she wiped her tears and applauded.
"I hope that means you like it?" Daniel asked.
"That was beautiful," she said, mopping her eyes again.
"Yeah. T.K. Blue can play a mean sax."
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the lovely Up and Over Jazz Café," T.K. greeted the audience. "We hope you'll enjoy your evening with us tonight. If this is your first time, please make yourself right at home." He smiled and then squinted down into the front row. "Well, well. Look who we have here with us tonight."
Gia followed the man's gaze and was stunned that it landed on her date.
"Dr. Daniel Davis," their host laughed. "Mighty long time since we've seen you here."
Daniel gave him a tentative nod and a broad smile.
"Maybe if we ask nicely, we can get the good doctor to join us on a few numbers."
"No, no," Daniel chuckled.
However, the crowd applauded and tried their best to coax him up on the stage.
"You should play," Gia also encouraged. Dr. Davis was full of surprises.
He shook his head. "It's been too long."
"C'mon, man. Get your butt up here," T.K. commanded.
"I would love to hear you play," Gia said sweetly.
Daniel hesitated and stared into her eyes. "In that case, I'll do it...for you." He winked at her and stood from his chair.
She watched him as he made his way to the stage while the applause grew louder. The musicians huddled for a moment and then finally Daniel took his place behind the piano.
The band instantly launched into a snazzy number that had Gia tapping her feet and rocking in her chair. Daniel's talent left her utterly amazed. Pure unadulterated joy radiated from Daniel and, in turn, she enjoyed herself that much more.
After two head-rocking, toe-tapping songs, a beautiful full-figured woman made her way from behind the drumset to take the front microphone.
"I figured, we would do a little number to get everyone in the mood for the holidays," Daniel informed the audience from his bench. "A few of you out there know that Christmas is my favorite time of the year." He glanced at Gia. "So we're going to do one of my favorite songs.
She smiled back and enjoyed the feeling of those fluttering butterflies.
He tickled the ivories for a brief while and Gia instantly recognized the song.
The female singer cooed seductively into the mike. "I really can't stay."
"But baby it's cold outside," Daniel's velvet voice joined in.
"I've got to go away."
"Oh, baby it's cold outside."
Gia shook her head and laughed at memory of their brief conversation before coming to the café. It was a great rendition and they received a thunderous applause at the end.
"I guess this is goodnight." She smiled.
"Sorry I kept you up past your bedtime."
"I'll live."
He nodded and inched closer. "I really had a nice time."
"So did I," she managed to respond as the air thinned in her lungs.
"Does that mean we can do it again sometime?" He leaned in another inch.
"Sure. I'd like that."
"When?" His warm breath rushed again her cheek.
Her brain fogged and scrambled her thoughts. "Huh?"
Daniel smiled. "When would you like to go out again?"
"When?"
"Yes, when?"
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to come back in a few hours for breakfast, but she knew such a request would make her come off as too eager. "Whenever you're free," she finally settled on saying.
"Tomorrow night?" he asked.
His lips now were just inches away from her mouth. She was practically salivating for the taste of him. "Tomorrow will be great."
"Good. I'll pick you up at the same time tomorrow."
Gia opened her mouth to speak, but was caught off guard when Daniel's lips pressed gently against hers. A soft moan escaped her as her arms drifted up and around his neck. She drew him closer and marveled how he tasted like heaven and sin at the same time.
He's the kind you keep. She moaned again though she knew the voice in her head spoke the truth.
He's the kind you keep. Gia could feel the tears rising behind her lashes.
He's the kind you keep. She sighed and finally ended their kiss. "Goodnight," she whispered and turned toward her door.
"Until tomorrow," he whispered back.
She closed her eyes and shivered at the feel of his warm breath against the shell of her ear. "Until tomorrow." She entered her apartment and closed the door without chancing a glance back. It wasn't until she secured the locks did she allow herself to exhale.
She was on dangerous ground, she knew. After knowing Daniel for less than forty-eight hours, she already knew that she didn't want to go back to a life without him. She pondered that thought for a moment. She had completely lost her mind, but the revelation refused to change. "Oh, Jermaine. What should I do now?"
The streets of Manhattan was a madhouse while Starr, Neve, and Daniel shivered and quaked for nearly five hours on Fifth Avenue, waiting for the lighting of the Christmas tree. As the time neared 9:00 p.m., the night was abuzz with excitement.
"Are you girls ready?" Daniel asked, draping his arms around each of the girl's shoulders.
Starr nodded. She would've answered, but she was more concerned about her inability to feel her toes.
How cold do you think it is?" Neve asked as she tried to huddle closer.
"Like fifty below or something ridiculous like that," Starr answered and leaned against her dad.
"Hey, you're the one who wanted to come down here," Daniel reminded her with a chuckle. "We could've stayed in the comfort of our nice warm home and watch this whole thing on television."
"Yeah. How come we couldn't make our wish at home?" Neve asked.
"Because we had to be here in person for it to work," Starr reasoned with a flash of annoyance.
"Said who?" Neve challenged.
"It's common sense," Starr said. "Whoever heard of making a wish via a television set?"
"Girls, girls," her father interrupted. "Calm down. We're here, so lets make the best of it."
The best friends' narrowed gazes softened and seconds later, they flashed each other smiles.
"We have less than five minutes," Her dad announced after a glance at his watch.
"So how come you didn't invite your new lady friend to come here with us tonight?" Starr asked. "And when am I going to meet her?"
"Whoa. Whoa." Daniel held up his hands. "Please tell me that my daughter isn't butting her nose in grown people's business."
"C'mon. You know you like her." She elbowed him. "You've been out with her several nights in a row."
He shook his head. "I don't hear you."
"Yeah, you like her. I heard you singing in the shower this morning. It must have been some date last night. Where did you go?"
"Starr, I'm not going to discuss this with you," he reprimanded out of embarrassment more than anger.
In response, she twinkled a smile at him.
A minute later, he nodded. "Yeah, I like her."
"Ten, nine, eight..."
Starr turned expectant eyes toward the tree. "Don't forget to make your wishes exactly when the lights come on," Starr shouted.
"Four, three, two, one..."
The lights flashed on-and the Christmas tree was an instant glorious sight. Starr, Neve, and Daniel all slammed their eyes closed and made a wish...
Gia opened her eyes and sighed into the night.
"What did you wish for?" Bernie asked, leaning toward her. "Please tell me it was for the winning lottery numbers."
Gia shook her head and exhaled a long stream of white frost. "Don't be silly. You know I don't believe in such nonsense."
"Oh, no?" Bernie's smile widened. "Then why were your eyes closed?"
"I'll tell you what I wished for." Tonya turned and popped into the conversation. "A car."
Bernie groaned at the major hint her sixteen year-old daughter tossed her way. "The only car you're getting after those pathetic grades you've been pulling is a Matchbox car."
"Amen." Bernie's husband, Vinny, tossed back his head with a hearty chuckle.
Tonya rolled her eyes and then gave Gia a wounded look.
She sympathized with a casual shrug. Of course, she knew Tonya's one D in a long list of As was not going to deter her parents from buying the hard-working teenager a car. But, her parents got a kick out of making the teenager squirm.
Gia returned her attention to the breathtaking seventy-nine foot Christmas tree and drew in a long, cold breath. When Tonya told Gia to make a wish upon the star, she had at first thought to wish for her company to have a banner year in business, then she thought about Daniel, then Ma Belle-which surprised her.
The only time she thought about her grandmother was when she made out a monthly check to send back home-checks that were never cashed. Maybe this year she would call them on Christmas. When the crowd commenced the countdown, however, another thought bubbled to the top her mindactually it was a seed of hope that grew with each second of the countdown.
The moment the tree lit up, she squeezed her eyes closed and made her heart's true wish: I want to be reunited with my daughter.
Shivering in the cold with her eyes fixed upon New York's finest Christmas tree, she still felt a residue of hope bloom in her heart. But it was impossible, wasn't it?
Later that night while lying in bed, Gia stared into the darkness surrounding her. Should she dare look for her daughter? What would she say if she found her?
The phone rang and startled her. It was the stroke of midnight and she knew precisely who was calling her.
"Good morning, Dr. Davis," she greeted, smiling.
"Good morning, Gia. I hope I didn't wake you," he said with a note of caution.
"No. Actually, I'm wide awake," she admitted honestly. "How did your evening go?"
"Great. Despite the fact that I froze my butt off," he chuckled.
"Ditto." Gia sat up and leaned back against the headboard. "Bernie and Tonya dragged me down there this afternoon as well."
"You're kidding me. You mean we all could've gone together?"
"Seems so."
Daniel's question implied he was ready for her to meet his daughter. Even though things were going well with them, she was pretty sure she wasn't ready for that gigantic leap.
Often when Daniel spoke of his daughter it was with a glowing pride that left Gia envious. Her regret was an emotion that grew heavier each year. She was at a point now where she needed help shouldering the load, but asking for help was something she was unaccustomed to doing.
"I want to see you again," Daniel said.
She closed her eyes and allowed his words to stir her butterflies. "I'd like that." Mildly, she wondered if this need to be around him was such a good thing or was she just setting herself up for an eventual downfall. Too much too fast was a dangerous thing for a new relationship.
A new relationship-was that what they were in? She straightened, suddenly uncomfortable with everything having to do with this man.
"I do have to do some Christmas shopping tomorrow, but after that, I'm free. What about you?" he asked.
"I actually have some work I need to finish," she admitted. "I have three design boards I have to finish by the end of the week and-"
"Oh, yeah, yeah. You don't have to explain. I completely understand. We just met and here I am hogging up all your time."
"No. It's nothing like that," she rushed to explain, but her unease wouldn't go away. "I've enjoyed our time together."
Daniel heard a "but" in the hanging sentence and consequently felt like an ass. Had he been pushing too hard-going too fast? "I've had a good time, too." He drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. "Well, it's getting late. I should let you go."
"It's not...I mean, if you have to go..."
"Yeah. Just give me a call if you find some time tomorrow. I should be around here somewhere." He laughed awkwardly.
"Okay. I'll do that," she said softly.
They held the phone for a few long, awkward seconds, and then finally disconnected. Daniel stared at the portable hand unit with a wave of dread crashing against his body. He pressed the instant replay button in his mind and was still unsure of what just happened and how it went wrong.
He didn't get much sleep that night and Starr accused him of being distracted during breakfast. So this was what it was like being back in the dating arena-a dizzying seesaw of emotions where you're constantly guessing and wondering what the other party is feeling.
Oh, joy.
But the thing was, he really liked Gia. She was strong, smart, and beautiful. My, was she beautiful. My, was she beautiful. The way her eyes lit up when she smiled or laughed. She even had this way of making him want to drop everything to take care of her when at times she looked so sad about something.
It usually happened whenever he talked about Starr. He pondered that for a while.
"I know I told you I didn't have any children...but the truth is more complicated than that."
What exactly did she mean?
On the fourth day he hadn't heard from Gia, Daniel saw the writing on the wall: she wasn't interested. Though it was difficult to put the matter behind him, he was determined to forge ahead, put a smile on his face, and prepared to enjoy the holidays with his daughter. Yet, in the back of his mind, he couldn't help but wonder at what could have been.
Chapter 8
"Twelve days before Christmas and you're not doing anything but staring at the phone," Bernie accused, plopping down a stack of accounts that needed review. "Why don't you do us both a favor and just call him?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Gia shifted her gaze to the pile of swatches on her desk.
"Uh, huh." Bernie cocked her head and crossed her arms. "Then let me tell you what I'm talking about: Call Daniel. What's the point of pretending that you don't like him?"
"I never said I didn't like him," Gia said stiffly. "I've just been busy that's all."
Bernie stared.
"It wouldn't have worked out anyway," Gia added. "It never does."
"Sounds like you're scared."
"Don't be ridiculous." She huffed. However, her heart quickened at just how close Bernie was to the truth. "I just dated the man for a week."
"Every night for a week and then ran away for another week. C'mon. Maybe this guy really is the one. Have you thought about that?"
In truth, she could think of little else. "It just can't be this simple," Gia mumbled.
"Believe it or not sometimes love is simple."
"Love? Who said anything about love? I just said I liked the guy." She bolted to her feet and paced behind her desk. "Who wouldn't like him? He holds out chairs, opens car doors, and sings like..."
"He sings, too?"
"Oh, Bernie." She sank back into her chair. "He has the most incredible voice and the things that man can do on a piano."
Bernie's brow lifted.
"Get your mind out of the gutter," Gia reprimanded. "But all of that isn't why I...like him." She swallowed. "It's the way he talks about his daughter. The pride and love he has for her is so humbling...and in some ways it makes me feel so undeserving of man like him."
"What? That's silly."
"Is it?" Gia challenged. "He's a man who's all about family and doing the right thing. I haven't even spoken to anyone in my family in years." She glanced down at her hands. She had never shared any of this with Bernie. Avoidance was Gia's specialty.
"What happened?" Bernie asked.
"I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life," she whispered. "I sacrificed my child to save myself." When she glanced up again, tears streamed down her face. "How can a man who values family so much ever understand what I've done?"
Starr, Neve, and her dad meticulously combed through Goodman's Tree Farm. Hands down, this was one of Starr's favorite traditions: finding the perfect tree. She would always picked the ones that were too big to squeeze into the house and her dad would always pretend to fall in love with the puniest thing on the lot, and in the old days her mother would always stumble onto the one that was just right.
Starr smiled weakly at the memory.
"So what do you think happened between that lady and your dad?" Neve whispered.
Starr glanced at her father who was busily inspecting a three-foot tree. "I don't know. Like always, he's keeping things pretty close to his vest." She sighed. "I thought we were so close this time."
"Well, you know what I think," Neve hinted.
Instead of tossing up her usual protests or excuses, Starr felt herself wavering. Her father needed someone whether he wanted to admit it or not.
"Hey, Starr," her dad shouted. "What do you think?" he asked, gesturing toward a stick with three branches.
She played her role to the hilt by rolling her eyes and droning, "I don't think so, Dad."
"Is that supposed to be a tree?" Neve whispered.
"He's just playing," Starr assured, and then watched her father meander off to find another ghastly choice. In her mind, she cut back to the day her father had met the attractive interior designer and the way he lit up around her. What did go wrong?
Her thoughts danced around the question until the three of them stumbled upon the perfect eight-foot tree two hours laterconsequently, it gave Starr her next big idea.
Gia picked up the phone and dialed the first three digits to Daniel's home, but as her prepared speech jumbled in her head, she quickly hung up. She wanted to call mainly because she feared what Bernie had said was true: maybe this guy really is the one.
She sighed and tightened the belt on her robe. It was more like wishful thinking on her part. Her confession to her best friend today was dead on. She had no right wanting a man like Dr. Daniel Davis.
Standing at the window of her apartment, she gazed at the buildings across the street. Christmas lights, glowing Santas, and miniature nativity scenes could be seen in just about every window. In the street, she could make out a few teenagers engaged in a fierce snowball fight. It was just another sign of families enjoying the holidays.
She retreated to her bathroom to rummage through her medicine cabinet. How could she have allowed two weeks to pass without getting a refill on her antidepressants?
The doorbell rang and Gia frowned. All her friends knew her golden rule: Call before you come over. So who was at her door?
At the bell's second chime, she again tightened the belt on her robe and headed toward the front door. After peering through the peephole, Gia couldn't make out what was on the other side. It sort of looked like something was blocking the door.
"Who is it?"
"Santa Claus."
Gia's heart leapt at Daniel's unmistakable voice. What is he doing here? Her hand flew to her wet hair and she glanced down at her attire.
"Hello," he called through the door when she hesitated too long.
"Yes, huh. Just a minute." She sweated a few more bullets while teetering in limbo on what to do.
"I know I should have called," Daniel explained through the door. "But while I was out shopping for a Christmas tree tonight, I was reminded of something you said to me."
"What was that?" she asked, leaning against the door and feeling a bubble of hope rise within her.
"I remembered that you wanted to turn over a new leaf this Christmas. So I'm here to help you out." Daniel waited. At the sound of the locks turning, he finally released a sigh of relief and allowed a broad smile to monopolize his face.
Gia opened the door and gasped in surprise at the sight of the large pine tree clogging the hallway. "You brought me a Christmas tree?"
Her gaze swung to him and he was warmed by its radiance. "You didn't have one the last time I was here, so I took the liberty to help you get into the spirit. I hope you don't mind."
She flashed him a smile that was more beautiful than he remembered before she stepped back and allowed him entrance into the apartment. It took a bit of work but Daniel finally squeezed the large tree through the door.
"Nothing says Christmas like a trail of pine needles," Gia joked.
"Ah. You might feel that way now, but wait until we get this baby up and decorated. I guarantee you'll be in the Christmas spirit by then."
"You also brought decorations?"
"Hey, I came prepared." Daniel winked, and then casually glanced over her attire. "I'm not complaining, but, um, you might want to put on something more appropriate for climbing trees."
Her cheeks darkened prettily. "In that case I'll go change."
Daniel nodded and watched her disappear toward the back. Starr's bright idea just earned her another gift under the tree. He was very aware of how badly things could have turned outhow things could still turn out.
A few minutes later, Gia returned to the living room dressed in a pair of form-fitting jeans and a red sweater just tight enough to stir the blood in any man with a pulse.
"Can I get you anything-maybe something to drink?"
"Some coffee would great," he answered, jarring out of his trance. "I hope you're not angry with me for just dropping by?" he asked tentatively.
Gia retrieved a can of Folgers from the cabinet and smiled at him. "No. I'm not angry...just surprised."
He nodded, but still felt like he was treading on thin ice.
"Actually, I've been wanting to call you," she began.
He definitely didn't like the sound of that. "Oh?" he asked, drawing a deep breath and preparing for the worse.
"Yeah. Each time...I chickened out."
Daniel remained composed though his heart was trying to hammer its way out of his chest.
"But I'm glad you came over. You made my night." Her smiled brightened as she made the coffee.
Daniel relaxed, but then grew curious. "Why would you chicken out?"
Gia hit the brew button and crossed her arms. "It's complicated."
He studied her as he nodded. "Well, I'll let it go at that...but when you're ready to talk, I've been told I'm a pretty good listener."
"I'll remember that."
"Good." He clapped his hands. "Now let's go down to my car and get those decorations. Shall we?"
"Okay." Gia quickly bounded out of the kitchen and grabbed her coat by the door. "I can't believe that I'm actually doing this," she said, slipping on her gloves.
"Trust me. You're going to have fun." He winked.
The moment the couple stepped out of the apartment building, an errant snowball hit Daniel.
"Sorry, Mister!" a kid yelled.
Daniel held up his hands. "Not a problem."
Gia laughed and then clamped a hand over her mouth.
"What, you think that's funny?" Daniel asked, grinning.
"It's sort of-"
Bam! Gia was hit in the shoulder by another runaway snowball.
"Hey!" Gia turned toward the snow battling children.
"Sorry, Ma'am," the kids called.
"Now that was funny!" Daniel chuckled.
"Uh, huh." She knelt down and began gathering snow. "There are four of them, but I think we can take them."
"What?"
"Hey, I'm a woman who believes in revenge."
"We can't-"
Bam! Another snowball smacked him in the chest.
"Sorry, Mister!"
"You were saying?" Gia asked, smiling sweetly up at him.
Daniel knelt beside her. "You're right. We can take them."
Gia launched the first snowball. With an astounding aim, it hit one of the boys in the center of his back.
That was all it took to commence a war.
Daniel sent his own snowball flying and caught the shoulder blade of one of the teenage boys.
"Good hit!" Gia declared, but then was smack soundly on the side of her head by return fire.
Squealing, she rocketed two balls in almost rapid succession. But nothing was as hilarious as watching Daniel take two in the face.
Temporarily flattened on his back, Gia struggled to help him up, but she took four hits and toppled over on top of him.
Laughing, the couple scrambled on hands and knees to find protection behind a parked car.
"We're surrounded," Daniel chuckled.
"We can't give up," Gia gathered more snow. However, the moment she stood up, she took a direct hit in the face and toppled right back into Daniel's lap.
"Yeah, that's showing them."
They laughed as she sat up in his lap, but it soon faded to small puffs of frosted air when their eyes and lips were just inches apart.
Daniel remembered the taste of her lips and, despite the cold, his body stirred to life. He didn't want to move too fast or scare her off again, but he wanted to kiss her, too.
To his surprise, she made the first move and close the small gap between them. The petals of her lips were softer than he remembered and their taste was intoxicatingly sweet. For a brief moment he was lost to a roaring passion that threatened everything he'd ever known. Nothing that tasted this good or felt so right could ever be wrong, he reasoned.
However, their attackers had other ideas.
"Ah!" Gia screamed when another snowball hit the back of her neck.
The war was back on.
However, it wasn't long before Daniel and Gia had to reconsidered their position. Sure they managed to get in a few good hits, but the kids had speed and agility on their side. Defeat loomed before them.
In the end, World War III lasted all of twenty minutes.
"We surrender, we surrender!"
Gia and Daniel waved their hands from behind a parked car and were relieved when there was a cease-fire.
By the time, they returned to Gia's apartment with bags of decorations, they were sopping wet and chilled to the bone.
"I definitely could go for that coffee now," Gia chuckled, lowering her bags onto the sofa.
"That makes two of us."
Gia slowly peeled out of her coat, amazed at the amount of snow that made it inside of her clothes. "I'm going to change again. You might want to strip out of those clothes before you catch your death."
Daniel twisted his face in a fake frown. "Are you coming on to me?"
She smiled, feeling flirtatious. "What if I am?"
"In that case-" He settled his jacket over the back of his chair and moved closer until he could feel the gentle radiation of her body heat. "-I'd tell you that you don't have to work so hard."
He drew her close and sampled her lips once again. Problem was, he couldn't stop kissing her, nor could he stop peeling off her clothes.
Gia was lost in a world of passion to a man she hardly knew. The array of candlelight had diminished somewhat, but it still provided enough light for her to watch as waves of ecstasy washed over his handsome features. She could recognize it because they were the same waves crashing through her.
Tears gathered and fell at the exquisite feel of him inside of her. In the back of Gia's mind, a voice tried to reason that this coupling was nothing more than two adults seeking to satisfy a physical need.
But she wasn't buying it.
Something had clicked within her soul-something akin to two pieces of a puzzle finally snapping together. The completion of that puzzle was beautiful and divine.
Daniel thought that he would die at how her body sheathed him. Like an addict, his lips returned to her mouth and he was completely at peace to drown in their sweet taste.
She twisted breathlessly beneath him while her warm passage grew increasingly tight. Together their breathing and leisurely pace quickened until a spark ignited in the core of their souls.
He hiked her hips and dove deeper.
A cry of rapture tore from her lips and, soon after, an explosion erupted inside him and he clutched her body as his roar of release filled the apartment.
"Good Lord, you are incredible," he panted against her ear.
She chuckled lightly and brushed her breasts against his chest. "You weren't so bad yourself."
He stole a quick kiss. "Do we know what we're doing?"
"Haven't a clue," she answered honestly. "That's been the case since the moment I met you."
Daniel rolled onto his side, but still held her close. "I should tell you that I don't do one night stands." His heart sank a bit when her gaze lowered.
"You're not going to try and convinced me that you're in love with me, are you?" she asked.
He wondered at the tremble in her voice. "You don't believe in love at first sight?"
"Things like that don't happen to me. I don't deserve it."
She pulled away, but Daniel held her firmly in place. "What do you mean by that?"
"Please, let me go." Her eyes glossed.
Daniel's heartstrings tightened but he refused to release his hold. "Talk to me." He kissed her. "Trust me."
Gia was tempted.
Daniel's lips slowly traveled the column of her neck and then languished lazily at the crook of her collarbone. "Talk to me. Tell me what you're afraid of."
Her lips trembled and struggled to hold onto her secrets, but as his mouth continued its descent, her body grew warm and the truth about her past, her regrets, and her fears poured out of her.
"It's past midnight," Neve said, brushing on a final coat of nail polish on her toes. "That's a good sign, right?"
I don't want to say that I'm a genius, but I am a genius."
"So when do you think we'll get the chance to meet her?"
"Soon I hope."
"What if she turns out to be like this awful stepmother and has children of her own? Next thing you know you'll be like this modern day Cinderella."
"Oh quit it. That story had a happy ending, by the way."
"Yeah, but look at what she had to go through." Neve shrugged. "I'm not too sure it was all worth it."
"Look, my father would never fall for some evil, manipulative woman. Trust me on that. This Ms. Hunter has to be really someone special to snag my father. You saw how picky he was when we were trying to set him up."
"Yeah, I hope my mom will be easier." Neve brightened. "Maybe we can find her someone for Valentine's Day."
"Hey, what about Principal Hedley? He's single," Starr suggested.
"Our Principle? Are you kidding me? How weird would that be?"
"Yeah. You're right." Starr waved her nails around in the air. "Don't worry. We'll think of something. But first let's keep our finger crossed about this Gia Hunter. I have a feeling that she really could be the one."
"So what about your plans to find your real mother?" Neve asked. "Are you still going to contact the adoption agency?"
Starr drew a deep breath and met her friend's direct gaze head on. "I already have."
Somewhere in between making love and confessions, Gia and Daniel finished decorating her first ever Christmas tree. The beauty of what they created, both while making love and the tree, filled Gia with a warm glow. However, what truly surprised her was that there was no judgment in his expression-only complete understanding and support.
Yet, when she described the minefield between her and her family, it was the first time he looked at her with something akin to disappointment in his eyes.
"It's just complicated," she finally settled on saying.
Daniel said nothing, but continued to hold her.
"Besides, it's too late. Too much time has passed."
"As long as you're both alive," he said, kissing the top of her head. "It's never too late."
She shook her head and closed her eyes. She had plenty of time to figure this whole thing out. Right now, she just wanted Daniel to hold her forever.
Thoughts of Talboton, Ma Belle were put on the back burner. Gia's arms tightened around Daniel. After so many years, it was time for her to be happy.
Five days before Christmas, Glenda could barely pull herself together. She had cried for so hard and for so long, her eyes remained puffy and bloodshot red 24/7.
Not only that, but the usually ornery Ma Belle had changed her tune and was now asking for Gia every hour on the hour.
"Call her," Byron growled through the phone and fixed his hard stare on her through the prison's Plexiglas. "How you goin' deny her dyin' wish?"
"You don't understand." Glenda raked her hands through her dry, un-permed, hair. "Gia escaped this place once. I ain't gonna drag her back here and let this place dig its claws into her again. I won't do it."
"You talkin' nonsense. After all Ma Belle's done for us-takin' us in after Ma died, and then helped raised our chil'in', you gonna sit there and deny her dyin' wish? Hell, you still livin' up in her house, gurl."
Glenda wiped away another stream of tears. "You ain't got in you to understand. I'm doin' this for Gia. If she wanted to see Ma Belle, she would've been here. I ain't tryin' to hurt nobody. I'm just tryin' to do what's right."
Byron shook his head. "You wrong, Glenda. I can't do much about it while locked up, but I'm going to be out of here in a couple of days. And you can bet your last dollar I'm callin' Gia as soon as I walk out."
A nervous Gia kept her eyes on the clock. Tonight, she was going to meet Daniel's beloved daughter Starr. Daniel had arranged for them to spend an evening at Radio City Music Hall. One minute, Gia was excited and anxious, and in the next, she was nauseous and thinking up every excuse she could to back out.
"You're meeting the daughter?" Bernie plopped into the seat across from Gia's desk. "That's the equivalent of meeting the parents-if not higher."
Gia reached into her desk and removed a packet of Alka-Seltzer. "Please, let's just change the subject."
"Are you kidding me? This is the longest relationship I've known you to be in and you want me to just drop it? Not on your life." She settled back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Do you know what I have to go through to get Vinny to get our tree every year? It's like pulling teeth."
"So if a man brings you a Christmas tree he's a keeper?"
" No. If a man brings you a Christmas tree, plays with you in the snow, and puts a smile of your face like the one you've been wearing for the last five days, then he's a keeper."
Gia knew she was right. It was hard enough not to melt every time she spoke his name or even thought about him. Daniel had a way of making her feel young and loved. And she was falling in love with him as well.
"Well, I, for one, am glad that this day has finally come. You deserve to be happy. Grab onto this man and don't you dare let him go."
Gia nodded, and then was startled when her phone rang.
"I'm going. I'm going." Bernice bounded out her chair. "It might be Dr. Davis again. You just remember what I said."
Shaking her head, Gia answered the phone.
"Hello. This is Wendy Robinson at the Independent Adoption Agency in Atlanta, Georgia. Is this Ms. Gia Hunter?"
Gia's heart leapt into her throat as she sat up in her chair. "Yes it is."
"Great. I'm calling because we received an inquiry from your daughter. She wants to meet you."
Daniel hadn't intended to read his daughter's personal mail, however, while he was straightening up the dining room, his eyes snagged on a company's letterhead: Independent Adoption Agency.
Starr was searching for her biological mother-and she hadn't said a word to him.
He lowered into one of the chairs at the dining room table. His hands trembled as his eyes scanned the letter. Yet, before he could finish, the front door opened and his daughter and her constant companion entered the house.
"Hey, Dad," Starr shouted. "Wait until you see the outfit I bought for tonight. You're just going to..."
Daniel's gaze crashed with Starr's when she finally strolled into the dining room.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
It was a simple question, but it was one he had trouble answering.
"That's mine." Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you reading my mail?"
"You left it out," he said simply, and then glanced to her frozen friend. "Neve, do you mind going home? I would like to talk to Starr in private."
Neve's sympathetic gaze shifted to Starr, but she wisely retreated backwards toward the door. "I'll call you later," she said, and then flashed a flat smile when she didn't receive a response.
The house became as silent as a tomb until the click of the front door announced Neve's final departure.
Starr slowly crossed her arms and lifted her chin. "Why are you reading my mail?"
"I didn't mean to," he answered softly and placed the offending letter down on the table. Though his brain was crammed packed with questions, he struggled to pull one out of the clutter.
Starr moved toward the table and picked it up.
"It says that they will be delivering your file within the week. Am I doing such a terrible job?" he finally asked.
His daughter's stern expression collapsed. "How could you possibly think that?" she asked with a tone of disbelief.
The tightening in his chest loosened a bit, but he still didn't know how to handle this latest information. Wasn't this the thing that Hilary always feared: the biological mother showing up and taking Starr away from the people who loved her. "If you wanted to meet your real mother I wish you would've told me." He held her gaze. "I would've helped."
"It's not what you think." Starr's shoulders deflated and she pulled up another chair. "In fact you'd probably wouldn't believe me if I told you what I had in mind."
Daniel patiently folded his hands in his lap. "Why don't you try me?"
"Well," she drew a deep breath. "I had hoped to pair you and my biological mother together, if she's still single."
Of all the things Daniel expected her to say that explanation was nowhere on the list. He took a few seconds to mull the confession again and then decided honesty should only be rewarded with honesty.
"Starr, that has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard."
Gia paced inside her apartment with her nerves tied up in knots. She had several hours to digest the information from the adoption agency and she still couldn't believe the latest course of events. Her wish had come true.
She hadn't made a habit of believing in magic or anything else supernatural, but the call from the agency had her reconsidering. Now that the agency had gotten her okay, the next step was waiting for them to deliver her daughter her entire adoption file, complete with Gia's name and address.
A new waiting game.
There was the possibility that her daughter would receive the file and still never contact her, but she quickly pushed those thoughts aside. So far this season had brought her out of her depression, had given her Daniel, and now her daughter.
The doorbell rang and jarred her out of her stupor. She had forgotten to cancel her date. She glanced at her watch as she headed toward the door. It was an hour before show time and she wasn't even dressed.
She stopped at the front door with her hand on the knob when she suddenly remembered Daniel was coming with his daughter.
She glanced down just as the doorbell rang again.
"I'm off to a great start," she mumbled and pulled open the door. She greeted Daniel with a smile, but then Gia's gaze shifted. She froze unable to believe that she was staring into the eyes of her deceased husband.
Chapter 10
"Oh my God." Gia stepped back but her knees suddenly couldn't support her.
"Are you all right?" Daniel rushed forward and caught Gia before she hit the floor.
"Dad, what's wrong?"
Tears glossed Gia's eyes and then streamed down her face as her gaze took in the teenager's nose, cheeks, and lips. She knew those features all to well, but couldn't wrap her brain around how this was possible.
Daniel easily swooped her into his arms as though she weighed nothing. "Let's get you over to the sofa," he announced. "Starr, can you go into the kitchen and get her some water?"
Starr entered the apartment and meandered around until she found the kitchen.
Meanwhile, Gia dropped her face into her hands and tried to get a grip on herself. It had to be stress that was doing this to her. She couldn't possibly being seeing what she thought she was.
"Are you all right, baby?" Daniel asked again as he gently brushed her hair back from her face. "C'mon talk to me."
"It's not possible," Gia mumbled, trying to convince herself that her eyes were playing tricks on her.
"Here, daddy." Starr returned to the room.
Gia spread her fingers and peeked through them. She hadn't been dreaming. "How can this be?"
Starr nervously glanced at her father.
Gia lowered her hands and Daniel tried to press a glass of water into it.
"Here, drink this."
She obeyed, but her gaze remained locked on his daughter. After draining the water in one long gulp, Gia quickly set the glass down on the coffee table and continued staring.
Starr fidgeted.
"Gia," Daniel said softly. "Do I need to call someone?"
Shaking her head, Gia pushed herself to stand up. However, when she took a step toward Starr, the teenager retreated. Suddenly realizing how her behavior was probably frightening the young girl, Gia smiled to lighten the mood. It didn't help.
The room remained layered with tension and Gia quickly came up with a plan to relieve it. She rushed out of her living room and dashed to her bedroom. When she returned to her stunned guests, she handed Daniel a picture. "That's my late husband Jermaine."
Daniel stared at her as he accepted the picture.
"Look at him."
He glanced down, blinked, and then brought the picture closer to his face.
Now Gia fidgeted with her hand while sneaking more glances at Starr.
With disbelief etched into his features as well, Daniel glanced up at his daughter.
"What?" Starr asked. Finally tired of the adults' odd behavior, Starr moved toward her father and reached for the photograph in his hand. One glance at the handsome man posed in a military uniform and Starr also needed help standing.
The resemblance was too similar to be ignored. "Who is this?"
Gia swallowed. "My deceased husband."
Starr leaned more of her weight against her father. "Why...why does he look like me?"
Gia opened her mouth but couldn't speak. There was still a great possibility that all of this was just a coincidence.
"You gave up a child for adoption," Daniel said slowly. "And Hilary and I adopted a child."
Gia nodded.
Daniel looked as though he needed to sit down as well, but he continued to stand and support his daughter. "We received a letter today," he began.
Gia's heart leapt to her throat. "I received a call."
" F-from whom?" Starr asked.
"The Independent Adoption Agency out of Atlanta."
"Ohmigosh." Starr clamped a hand over her mouth. "You're my mother."
The next four days passed in a blur as Gia, Starr, and Daniel got to know each other. The hardest part for Gia was explaining the circumstances surrounding Starr's adoption. But she took great pride in telling Starr about her real father. To be sure, Gia and Starr took a DNA test.
After nearly fifteen years, mother and daughter were finally reunited.
For Christmas Eve, Gia invited Daniel and her daughter over to her place for a small get together. Close friends and a few associates gathered for the opportunity to meet Gia's daughter.
Being that it was going to be her first Christmas with Starr, Gia had also gone on a mad shopping spree that amazed Bernie. She was driven by a need to give her daughter anything and everything her heart desired. So when Daniel and Starr showed up with their own armloads of gifts they were completely blown away by the amount of packages stuffed under Gia's tree.
"Ms. Hunter, you shouldn't have," Starr said with wide eyes.
"Please, call me Gia," she said, though in her heart she longed for her daughter to call her Mom. Maybe one day.
It became an exciting time for Gia and Starr; however, things grew a little awkward between Gia and Daniel.
"Hey, what are you doing hiding in here?" Gia asked, entering the kitchen.
"Oh, nothing. I just came in here for...for a few minutes." Daniel set his cup of eggnog down on the counter.
Gia drew a breath when she realized Daniel was going out of his way to avoid making eye contact.
"Have things changed between us?" she asked bluntly.
His gaze still refused to meet hers. "I don't know."
She nodded and braided her hands together. "I'm not trying to steal her away from you."
"Are you sure?"
Gia sucked in a breath, but waited until he finally looked at her. "I fell for you long before I knew about Starr."
"Now that you know?"
"I hope to always be a part of her life...even if it doesn't work out between us. Though I hope that it does."
"Why?"
She drew a breath but held his gaze. "Because you taught me how to love again. You pulled me out of a dark place, introduced me to jazz, and taught me how to love Christmas." Gia dried the corners of her eyes before the tears had a chance to fall. She couldn't tell if rejection was on the horizon and she felt stripped and vulnerable.
At last, Daniel smiled and closed the distance between them. "It has been a magical few weeks. I, too, didn't think that I would ever find love again."
"Love?" she asked in a shaky tremor.
"Am I going too fast for you?"
"Actually, this whole thing has felt more like a wild roller coaster: fast but exhilarating." She stared into the mirrors of his soul. "I love it and wouldn't have it any other way." A wide smile ballooned across her face.
Daniel leaned forward and savored a light kiss. "That makes two of us."
Starr and Neve stepped back from the kitchen and grinned at each other.
"Wow," Neve whispered. "Your wish came true. I wouldn't have never believed this if I didn't see it with my own eyes."
Starr had a hard time believing it as well, but she couldn't deny that she was ecstatic about the whole situation. Gia Hunter was all that she had hoped for. After learning the circumstance of her adoption, she knew there was no way that she could hate her real mother. Not when such great parents had adopted her.
Yes, everything was just how it was suppose to be. "You know, Neve, this really is going to be the best Christmas ever."
Gia jumped away from Daniel when her phone rang and then laughed at herself. "Jeez, I'm being a lousy hostess," she said, heading toward the phone's wall unit. "Can you take those hors d'oeuvres out to the guests for me?"
"Certainly," Daniel answered with a chuckle. "Don't be too long. Your friends keep asking me when I'm going to propose."
"Oh yeah? When are you?" she asked, picking up the phone.
"Soon." Daniel replied. "Real soon." He exited the kitchen with a wink.
Shaking her head, Gia placed the phone against her ear and answered.
"Hello, Gia? I-it's me-Byron."
Christmas, Talboton, GA
After the flight from hell, Gia rushed through the doors of Baptist Meriwether Hospital by noon with her heart lodged in her throat and tears streaming down her face.
"Can I help you, ma'am?" a woman inquired from behind a nurses station.
"Y-yes." She glanced around, and then swiped at her face with the back of her hand. "I'm here to see Maybelle Jackson. Can you tell me what room she's in?"
Daniel and Starr finally caught up with Gia while the nurse typed into the computer. "I'm showing she's in room three-twelve."
Gia turned and collided into Daniel. Before she had a chance to react, he gently kissed her forehead, and slid a supportive arm around her waist.
"C'mon. We'll help you find her."
Starr favored her mother with a nervous smile and it suddenly occurred to Gia that the young girl was within seconds of meeting more members of her real family of all things on, of all things, her birthday. How traumatic would it be for her to meet her maternal grandmother on the day that she...
Gia reached for her daughter's trembling hand and the small family walked down the hospital's empty hallways looking for room three-twelve. They rounded the corner and stopped when they saw a crowd spilling out of one of the rooms.
Family members-young and old-all stared at Gia slack-jawed. Slowly, she inched toward them. Once the three of them maneuvered through the crowd to reach the door, Gia hesitated. What was she going to say?
"Baby," Daniel whispered. "You can do this."
Gia drew strength from him and lifted her head, but it took the squeeze from Starr's hand for her to push open the door.
The room was cold and dim.
The nerve-racking sounds of machines beeping and pulsing sent a shiver of fear racing down Gia's spine. Her attention locked on the outline on the bed and as she moved farther into the room, her gaze traveled its length.
A loud gasp came from someone sitting in a chair, but Gia blocked out the person as her eyes finally settled on the sleeping face of Ma Belle. It was a face both familiar and foreign to Gia, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by guilt.
"What are you doing here?"
Gia finally lifted her eyes to Glenda's hard gaze.
"I called her."
Gia jumped and turned around to see her brother Byron enter the room behind Daniel and Starr.
Glenda seethed. "I told you-"
"She's got every right to be here," Byron said with a dismissive tone, and then stared at Gia. "Ma Belle's been askin' for you."
Ma Belle drew a deep sigh and shifted in her bed, but her eyes remained closed. "Ya'll goin' keep all this racket up or are you goin' to let an old woman get some rest?"
Gia smiled. Her grandma was going to be cantankerous to the end.
Byron maneuvered around the small crowd and moved toward the bed. "Ma," he said, taking her plump hand. "There's somebody here to see you."
"Honey chile, I'm too tired for more guests right now." She winced and shifted to get comfortable again. "Tell 'em to come back in the mornin'."
Gia immediately took a retreating step, but had once again bumped against Daniel's chest.
Byron motioned Gia to the bed. "Ma, I think you want to see this person tonight. She came all the way from New York on account I told her you wanted to see her."
"New York?" Ma Belle questioned and finally pried open her eyes.
On trembling legs, Gia approached the bed. She was unprepared when Byron grabbed her hand and placed it atop of Ma Belle's. Her grandmother's hand felt more like a block of ice and it trembled as much as her own.
"G-Gia?" Ma Belle questioned. "Chile, is it really you?"
Gia opened her mouth but her warring emotions had choked off her vocal chords and she was unable to speak.
A smile slowly carved its way across Ma Belle's face. "My Lawd, I never thought I'd see your face again." She squeezed Gia's hand. "Glad to see I was wrong. 'Course, I realize I'm the reason you ran from town."
"No," Gia whispered.
"Just 'cause I'm dyin' it's no reason for us to start lyin', chile. I pushed you to give up your baby and I had no right. It's just..."
"It's okay." Gia glanced over at Starr who also had tears brimming her eyes as she clutched her father. "Things worked out just fine, Ma."
"I tried my best with what little I had," Ma Belle went on. "I know you chil'en think I was always hard on you, but I treated you like my folks treated me. I always wanted the best for you and maybe I just didn't know how to go about gettin' it to you. I need you to forgive me because I had no right to-"
"I made the choice, Ma." Gia forced the truth out her mouth. "Me. I wanted to blame you. I tried to blame you, but it was my choice. You don't need to seek forgiveness from me because you did nothing wrong. I ran from Talboton trying to escape myself-but it didn't work." She sighed, thinking about the years, she had spent in depression and then her thoughts turned to how things have changed. She didn't need pills to get through life anymore. Somehow, some way a miracle had been performed this Christmas. She had her daughter, a man of her dreams, and now the chance to mend the tattered bridge between her and her family.
"Ma, there are some people I'd like for you to meet." Gia motioned for Daniel and Starr to come forward.
Ma Belle turned her head. "My Lawd, chile. Do you know who you look like?"
"She looks like her father," Gia said.
` Ma Belle's face pinched with confusion. "You mean to tell me...but how?"
"I'm not sure how myself," Gia chuckled with fresh tears.
"Gia, this is your daughter?" Glenda asked equally astounded.
"Yes. Her name is Starr Davis. Isn't she beautiful?"
Starr blushed and fidgeted with her hands.
"My prayers have been answered." Ma Belle's tears streamed down her face. "Praise be to Jesus, chile. Come over here and give your great grandma a hug."
Starr blinked and glanced over at her father.
Daniel gave her an encouraging nod and then watched as his daughter was enfolded in the elder woman's arms. His eyes stung with emotion watching his little girl with her newfound family. His gaze swept toward Gia and he was overwhelmed by the love he saw radiating there. The fact that she was looking at him confirmed that there was indeed a future for them-together.
"If I remember right, today is your birthday, chile." Ma Belle said, gazing into Starr's eyes. "I'm 'fraid I ain't got anything for you."
"That's okay," Starr swiped her tears and then reached for Gia's hand, and then motioned her father over. "I've already gotten the best birthday and Christmas gift ever."
Daniel's gaze again returned to Gia's. "That goes for me, too."
"And who are you?" Ma Belle asked, squinting up at him. "You a handsome devil. I'll give you that much. And you even look a little respectable, too."
"I'm Daniel Davis," he chuckled. "I'm Starr's adoptive dad."
"My dad," Starr corrected.
Daniel winked at her. "Starr's dad...I'm also the man who is in love with your granddaughter, Gia. I'm hoping that she will have my hand in marriage."
Gia and Starr gasped.
"Well, well, now." Ma Belle's smile broadened. "The gifts just keep on comin' this Christmas."
"Oh, Ma." Gia returned her attention to her ailing grandmother. "We should be letting you get your rest."
"Rest, hell. What is it you do for a livin', Mr. Davis?"
"I'm a doctor."
"Humph. I don't care too much for them." Ma Belle said bluntly and rolled her eyes. "The one I'm seeing is tryin' to tell everyone I'm dyin'. I'm fine I tell you. Women in my family live a long time. I just needed some time off my feet that's all...and maybe get some of these chil'en' to quit worrin' me so much."
Starr slapped a hand across her mouth and snickered.
"Anyways, I hear that doctorin' makes a pretty good livin'. You think you can take care of my Gia?"
Gia glanced at Daniel again. Even in that cold and dim hospital room the intensity in his gaze stirred her butterflies.
"I think we'll do a good job taking care of each other," Daniel responded.
"We're going way too fast," Gia said, shaking her head.
"There's no such thing."
Joy burned the backs of her eyes while hope bloomed within her heart, but somehow words failed her.
"Gia," Glenda hissed under her breath and then a small smile curved her lips. "I think he's waiting for an answer."
"We all are." Ma Belle said, glancing from Daniel to Gia. "If you love him, marry him."
Gia blinked in surprise. She suddenly realized that the room was slowly filling with the Jackson clan.
"What can I say?" Ma Belle shrugged. "I ain't too old to change. Do you love him?"
All eyes turned toward Gia as tears leapt over her lashes. "I love him with all of my heart."
"Then that's a yes?" Starr asked, clutching Gia's hand.
Gia nodded. "That's a yes."
The Jackson clan applauded as Daniel pulled Gia into his arms and kissed her soundly.
"Well, chile," Ma Belle whispered to Starr. "Strange enough, it looks like your mom and dad is gettin' married."
"It's not strange. It's a wish come true."
One year later.
"Four, three, two, one..."
The lights flashed on and the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was once again a magnificent sight. Everyone with the Davis family squeezed their eyes shut and made a wish.
"What did you wish for?" Daniel whispered, cozying up to his beautiful wife.
"I wished for us to always be this happy for the rest of our lives."
"Sounds good to me." He kissed the tip of her nose.
"What about you?" she asked, gazing up at him. "What did you wish for?"
Daniel gently roamed his hands across the bulge of her belly. "I wished or a girl with your eyes and smile."
Gia glowed. "You're not disappointed that it's not a boy?"
"Heck, no. With boys you're a hero for a few years, but girls love you for a lifetime." He kissed her again. "Plus, there's always next time."
Gia laughed and tightened her arms around her husband.
Starr sighed as she watched her parents and then turned toward Neve. "Aren't they cute together?"
"Hardly," Neve moped.
Starr frowned, and then followed the direction of her best friend's gaze. "I wasn't referring to your mom and Principal Hedley."
"Yeah, well I was," Neve said. "Of all the men in New York, why in the world does she have to date him?"
"Hey, she looks happy. I thought that's what you wanted?"
Neve grunted. "Do you know how uncool it is for your mom to have a thing for the principal? It's humiliating."
"She looks happy," Starr sing-songed.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"So what did you wish for?" Starr asked.
"For them to get married after I graduate."
Starr chuckled and turned toward her other guest. "What about you, Ma Belle?"
"I wished for ya'll to get me out of this damn cold. Good Lawd, it must be thirty below. How in the world do any of ya'll stand it? I get better and now ya'll tryin' to give me pneumonia."
Starr rocked her head back with a hearty laugh. Ever since she and her Aunt Glenda moved to the city, Starr delighted herself in her great-grandmother's off-the-cuff remarks. Though most of the family marveled over Ma Belle's miraculous recovery, others like her Uncle Byron simply believed Ma Belle was simply suffering from a broken heart and had practically willed herself to near death.
Aunt Glenda was fun, too, because she treated New York like it was some fantasy land, and she was amazed by almost everything in sight. This Christmas Uncle Byron's family promised to come up and everyone was to meet the members of the Davis family. In other words, it was going to be one large Christmas dinner-just like Starr wanted.
"So what did you wish for?" Daniel slid his arm around Starr's shoulders.
"You mean since my dumb plan worked?"
"All right, all right. I deserved that one. So what did you wish for?"
"Nothing," Starr said smiling. "Everything is just perfect, Dad."
"I'm about to be mushy in public," he warned.
"Me, too," she said, and leaned up on her toes to kiss him softly on the cheek.
Daniel returned the favor by planting one against her forehead.
"You know, there is one thing, Dad. With the family exploding like it has, I'm going to need an increase in my allowance."
Sounds reasonable to me," Gia cut in.
Daniel chuckled and rolled his eyes. "What am I going to do when there's three of you?"
"The only thing you can do," Gia said, leaning against him.
"Yeah," Starr said, flanking his other side. "Just keep loving us."
Daniel nodded. "I think I can handle that."
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