Authors: Niobia Bryant
“Chloe.” He cut her words off before she could finish. “Now is not the time nor the place.”
She laughed bitterly and quelled the desire to slap his handsome and arrogant face. “You’re right. Now is not the time nor the place. I don’t think there will ever be that time or police. Just leave me the hell alone! Understand?”
Chloe stood abruptly from the chair, almost knocking it to the floor. She stormed away from him, not waiting for an answer to the question and thus out of earshot as he said, “I will get you back, Cat. I swear it.”
Chloe hated the way that seeing Calvin disturbed her. His sudden appearance into her life should’ve meant nothing to her, but here she was clearly shaking.
What the hell is he doing here anyway
?
She quickly crossed the room, putting space between herself and him. Olivia walked up to her dressed in a sharp black Donna Karan tuxedo styled suit and diamond jewelry. “Chloe… are you okay? It’s time to make your speech.”
A vision of Calvin’s face flashed in her mind and Chloe visibly winced.
Stay cool, Chloe
, she told herself.
Remember what Mama always said. One fool don’t stop no show and life does go on.
She took a deep breath to clear her head and gave Olivia her million-dollar smile: coy, alive, innocent yet sexy, and false. “I’m fine.”
“What are you going to do with yourself?” Olivia asked, finally resigned to the fact that her jewel was lost.
Chloe thought of the tales her mother told and she was called instantly. She envisioned miles and miles of flowers, fresh air, peace and quiet, with only the sun and the moon as her immediate neighbors. “I’m going home.”
Holtsville, South Carolina (one year later
)
The early morning was quiet and the sun was not set to rise for another thirty minutes at six A.M. Devon Jamison stepped down off the sprawling circular porch of the house and crossed the short distance to the renovated barn that now housed the offices for Jamison Contractors Inc. He entered the one-level wooden structure and began the morning ritual of turning on all the fluorescent track lights, pouring ground beans in the coffeemaker and checking the answering machine for any messages left after business hours.
Jamison Contractors was the pride and joy of Devon and his identical twin brother Deshawn. They built solid homes, and their reputation was one of excellence, even beyond South Carolina. Who knew that what they did as chores for their father growing up would become their craft?
They were skilled at their work and had brought growth to the small carpentry company their father had operated. Now their jobs ranged from building and installing woodwork and cabinets to room additions and homebuilding. The combination of their architectural degrees from North Carolina State and the natural skilled acquired from their father made them the best at what they did. He knew his parents were proud of their sons’ work and smiled down at them from where they surely rested in heaven together.
Devon glanced over at the large wood-framed photograph of his parents that hung on the wall of the office. God, he missed them, something he had never said aloud but felt deeply just same. Their deaths had affected him more than he ever let on. First he lost his father to prostate cancer and then just a few short years later his mother joined the man she loved in death as she succumbed to a stroke. It had been more than twelve years and he didn’t know if he would ever be totally numb to the pain.
His father had passed on but had left behind a legacy of hard work. Like his father had, he enjoyed the physical labor. Both he and his brother were in the position financially to sit back and let their crew do all the manual work, but they both threw themselves into every aspect of building a solid, quality home for their clients.
Nothing felt better to him than the sun beating down on his bared back as he hammered, or the rough feel of the calluses on his hands. He looked down at them with pride. The hands of a man who love rugged labor. They didn’t look pretty but they were strong and skilled.
Besides, no woman had ever complained when he caressed the soft contours of their body. Well, no woman except Elissa. But Elissa was so … different.
A deep scowl set on his handsome, stern face as he thought of his ex-girlfriend. He’d met her his senior year in college. The pretty, feminine traits she’d possessed had appealed to him. She was small and petite with an air about her that begged a man to take care of her. He had been more than willing to do so.
Eventually, though, her insistence on taking two or more hours to dress and her refusal to be kissed properly, because she feared her perfectly applied makeup would be altered, had become a nuisance to him. How could he love a woman who love to look at her own reflection instead of looking at him?
Well, he couldn’t. Although in the beginning of their two-year-long relationship he honestly believed he loved her, a bitter final argument over her vanity had finally split them apart.
She had been a small-town girl with big city dreams and ideals. Hardly the woman for him, a simple down-home man who needed and wanted nothing less than a down-home girl in his life. Not that he was ready to settle down and wed, but he knew that when he did lose his heart to another woman she would meet his criteria. She had to or they wouldn’t last forever. The last thing he needed in his life was another prima donna. That was one mistake he would
never
make again.
He wondered briefly how Elissa was. Probably married to some well-to-do white-collar man that allowed her to be as prissy and self-indulgent as she wanted to be. Well, it didn’t matter where she was as long as she was away from him. She had been his first big mistake in love and he hoped she would be the last.
Pushing all thoughts of the woman in his past aside, Devon focused his attention on the blueprints sprawled on the drafting table before him. It was their latest project: a sprawling, one-level structure for Chloe Bolton.
About nine months ago, he and Deshawn had come into the office to find a message on the answering machine from an attorney by the name of Anthony Barnett. He had said he represented Chloe Bolton and asked if someone could call him back as soon as possible at the number he gave.
They both had been more than confused by the message. Of course they knew who Chloe Bolton was. Who didn’t? But the million-dollar question was: What could the supermodel need from them?
They knew she was also the grandchild of Tessa and Odis Bolton, a wonderfully loving couple who had lived in Holtsville all their lives until their untimely deaths. The twins had immediately figured that whatever it was that she wanted, it had to do with the twelve acres of land her family owned. Land that was just a half mile from Devon and his families land.
The only way to get to the truth was to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Or at least the horse’s attorney’s mouth. The day after they received the message from Mr. Barnett, an eager Deshawn had returned the call.
It seemed the beautiful supermodel wanted to build a home on the land that she inherited from her deceased mother. An award-winning architect from New York had already been contracted to design the house to the model’s specifications. Her lawyer, Anthony Barnett, was now offering them the opportunity to build the house. The terms offered by him, who served as her liaison, had been very tempting and generous, so of course Deshawn had accepted the deal on his brother’s and his behalf.
Two months ago, construction of the uniquely designed house began and today, as he had almost every day since that first call from her attorney, Devon wondered what the jet-setting model could possibly want in Holtsville, South Carolina. The little town would definitely be considered “roughing it”.
The population of Holtsville was well under a thousand, with just five police officers and even fewer city officials. Anyone who wanted to see a movie had to drive the twenty-five minutes to nearby Walterboro, and even that movie house never showed movies on the day of their nationwide opening. It was sometimes weeks or more to see the new releases. No major department store or boutiques were located in the small town, and the lone eating establishment was Donnie’s Diner, which wasn’t saying much. The only nightlife was a splattering of hastily opened clubs that could barely hold more than fifty people at one time. A good ride to nearby Charleston had to supply the more upscale restaurants, shopping malls and other forms of entertainment for the townspeople. Holtsville, like many other small towns, was also ripe and salivating for gossip. Word of someone having an affair, or being involved in a fight, or going broke or being injured or
anything
juicy spread through the town like a brush fire. What these people could accomplish with word of mouth was amazing. Not always accurate, but amazing nonetheless.
He knew that she had not step foot in the small town of her mother’s birth since her grandparents’ death when she was a toddler. He had been a child himself and didn’t remember her, just like mostly everyone didn’t, but that didn’t stop most of the folks from claiming her as their hometown celebrity. “Chloe Bolton’s from Holtsville, you know,” was their claim to fame. They had all followed her career because they knew she was the grandchild of the late Boltons, Tessa and Odis. Everyone was talking about the celebrity moving “back home,” as they put it. Ever since the story leaked out about her plans for building a home there, her name stayed in the local newspapers ripe with speculation on her plans.
Like everyone, Devon had read the rumors about her relationships with fellow celebrities, supposed suicide attempts, drug overdoses, outrageous spending of her money and, recently, outlandish reasons for her retirement last year. Those gossip rags that his best friend and secretary, Alicia, always brought to work with her were filled with all types of tales about the beauty.
His grandmother Nana Lil, who had been close to both Tessa and Odis, thought it hard to believe that anyone with their blood flowing through them could turn out as bad as the papers proclaimed. She also spoke well of her friends level-headed and kind-natured daughter Adell, whom she was sure could never raise a drug-abusing and promiscuous child. Whenever his grandmother would tout Chloe’s impeccable family ties, Devon would just think to himself,
You can lead a horse to water, but you sure can’t make it drink!
Perhaps even with the blood of honorable people in her and being raised by a good woman, Chloe Bolton had gone to pot anyway. He did know you couldn’t believe everything you read in the press, and Deshawn, a loyal fan of Chloe Bolton, didn’t believe any of it.
He had to admit, as he focused attention on the blueprints before him, that although the house was grand compared to many of the small, centuries-old homes in the area, it was modest compared to what he had assumed she would want. He had been more than surprised when Barnett had arrived for their first meeting, plans in hand.
As someone with an architectural degree of his own and a critical eye, Devon was willing to admit he was impressed by the architect’s unique design. The man was truly a visionary for using an Olympic-sized, glass-enclosed circular pool with a retractable glass ceiling as the centerpiece of the house. Yes, the design was artistic and still functional, but Devon had made a point to let Barnett know that both he and his brother were architects themselves.
All communications thus far had been through Barnett, who, when asked by an eager Deshawn when Ms. Bolton would arrive in town, would only say that she was out of the country traveling. It was due to the friendly attorney, they had then learned, that they had been offered the contract. It seemed he was a business associate of one of their former clients, a young African-American politician from Washington, DC, who have wanted a vacation home built in Virginia for his family. The fact that they lived just half a mile from the site was just a bonus, he had assured them during the first week of construction when he flew into Charleston to meet with them in person to go over any last-minute details. During the couple of months after they began construction on the house, the attorney had returned several times to check on the developments.
“Morning, brother.”
Devon looked up to see his mirror image walk into the office, similarly clad in well-worn baggy jeans and long sleeve henley with GAP embroidered on the front. “Good morning. Nana up yet?”
Deshawn laughed, a smile always ready to break through on his handsome face. “Yeah, she’s flipping through those three hundred channels from the satellite dish we brought her. She’s in rerun heaven right about now.”
Devon smiled, not as quick to laugh as his easy-going twin. It was odd because as much as they looked alike, they were different in their personalities. Nana Lil, with her ornery sense of humor, called Deshawn the “friendly one”. Devon never took offense because he knew their grandmother loved them both equally and she was right. The truth was just the truth. Since before he could remember, Deshawn was always the talkative one, instantly making friends while Devon kept to himself and spoke only when he deemed it necessary. Nothing had changed over the years since their childhood. Well, except that Deshawn’s charm made it hard for any woman to resist him and Devon aloofness seemed to draw women to him in droves. They both had very active social lives.
The differences in their personalities didn’t stop them from being close, as most twins were. Sometimes Devon could just shake his head in wonder when he saw that his twin had many of the same idiosyncrasies that he had, like eating with the spoon most of the time or biting his thumbnail when he was thinking something over.
The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, and the skies were a bluish lavender mix as day began to break. Summers in the south were one-of-a-kind and Devon knew that by noon the temperature would soar. He made a mental note to make sure he brought the water coolers filled with ice to the site for the crew to use throughout the day. If it was anything like yesterday, then it would be another scorcher as they worked.
Deshawn walked over to look down at the blueprints. Devon steeled himself for what he knew was about to spew from his brother’s mouth.
“Chloe Bolton’s house, just a half mile from
my
house.” He smiled heavenward, as if thanking the Great One above. “Life around here is definitely going to get real interesting when she gets here.”
“
If
she gets here,” Devon snapped. “She’s probably not moving down south permanently, like I’ve told you before. Barnett seems to be the only one in contact with her and he doesn’t even know when she plans on showing her face around here. She’s ‘out of the country,’ remember? I mean, the woman didn’t even care enough about the house to come check out how it’s developing herself, so it might not be number one on her priority list. She’s probably more concerned about getting a manicure or a facial or something else inane.”
Devon sighed as he stood from his desk and began to make preparations to go to the site. “Look, you’re not going to talk me to death about her all day again? It’s bad enough that it’s all the whole town is concerned about and on top of that, I have to look at that damn calendar.”