"It's not that," Kinsey hedged, lifting a sequined flapper-era shift from the rack. Nope. All wrong for her shoulders and, unfortunately, not skimpy enough for the job at hand.
"It is that and you know it." Lauren grabbed the hanger and returned the dress to the rack. "You're trying to decide what Doug would like. I can see it in your face."
Kinsey schooled her expression into a blank stare. "See what in my face?"
Lauren rolled her eyes at Kinsey's lame attempt to hide her emotional confusion. "You are a woman conflicted. Should you show off what you want Doug to see? Or hide it in case he doesn't put in an appearance?"
He'd damn well better put in an appearance. Not to mention a hefty bid, Kinsey thought. "I just want to look …
auctionable
."
"As if you have a worry over that. Blond hair and blue eyes and all that leg?" Izzy raised a brow, quirked her mouth to one side. "I'd like to borrow about half that length if you don't mind."
Placing one hand on her hip, Kinsey frowned. "And why would you want to do that? I think Joseph Baron was quite taken with you as you are."
Izzy's chin went up. "
Is
quite taken with me.
Is
."
"See, Kinsey?" Lauren gestured toward the stunning African-American woman who'd been Kinsey's friend when the two had been girls in bare feet and pigtails. "Izzy's working on something with Baron and she's not complaining about being auctioned."
"Are you kidding?" Izzy shook her head. "I'm getting a great outfit here, and the chance to show Baron that he'd better get to working on his game if he doesn't want to lose out on the best thing that hasn't yet happened to him."
"It's not the same thing at all. You're not in love—" Kinsey bit her tongue midsentence, but not in time for all three of her co-shoppers to hear, as Poe had just walked out of the dressing room.
"Love?" Wearing a pale ivory beaded, thigh-length slip with narrow straps and a square bodice that barely covered the swell of her breasts, Poe stared at Kinsey. "After two weeks of man-trapping, you've decided you're in love?"
Kinsey sighed, fingering a faux mink stole. Calm, cool, collected.
Ohhmmm
. "It happened a long time ago, not only during the past two weeks. It's just that in the past two weeks I've let the truth sink in and I've faced it. The denial just wasn't working anymore."
Lauren finally shut her gaping mouth. "Kinsey. Why didn't you face this a long time ago? You could've saved yourself all this hassle."
Kinsey twirled the circular clothes rack separating her from the dagger-throwing gazes trained her way. "I don't think me facing it sooner would've made any difference in Doug leaving. For some reason, he's determined to go."
"And you've asked him why?" This from Poe as she checked out her reflection in an alcove of mirrors. The ivory silk shimmered beneath the lights; the pleats in the bodice and the sheer lace in the skirt were the perfect decorations for her perfect body and porcelain skin.
Kinsey couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy. "Yes, duh. I've asked him repeatedly."
"What does he say?" Lauren asked.
"He doesn't. He changes the subject. He remembers a phone call he needs to make."
He shuts me up with a sponge and soap bubbles and an amazing massage
. She shrugged. "He kisses me."
"Well, that's good to know. At least there's kissing going on," Izzy said, pulling a strapless yellow camisole off the rack and giving it and the coordinating, very sheer ballet skirt a thoughtful once-over.
Lauren, who had been pacing to the dressing room and back all this time, came to a complete and sudden stop that blocked Kinsey's view of the clothes she was sifting through. "Do you want him to stay?"
The question of the day, the week, her lifetime. "Selfishly speaking? Of course I do. But not if it's not what he wants, not if it'll make him unhappy. Not if there's something in
Denver
he can't get here."
"Another woman, perhaps?"
Kinsey delivered a withering glare to Poe. "If there's another woman giving him something he's not getting here, then I'd like to know what it is."
"Then it must be all about his work," Izzy offered.
Lauren shook her head, twining a strand of glass beads through her spread fingers. "I find that hard to believe. How could another firm give him anything he can't get from the one he established with Anton?"
Poe left the alcove and joined the others. "So, find out what he's looking for."
"Easy for you to say." Kinsey heaved another sigh, moved to stack her hands on the end of a rectangular rack next to the circular one she'd abandoned. She propped her chin on top. "It's not like I haven't tried."
"So try harder. Time is running out."
"Stop right there." Lauren held up her hand to halt Izzy from returning a rich burgundy-and-black-velvet bustier with matching tap pants to the rack. "Kinsey, this set would be perfect for you. Go try it on."
Poe canted her head and considered the lingerie. "I actually agree with Lauren. And, really, Kinsey, you need to put more effort into winning over this man if he's the one you want. This outfit can't help but grab his attention."
"Poe, get a grip. I think I know fashion.
gO
gIRL
and
gROWL
gIRL
are both doing phenomenally well."
"You know gIRL-gEAR fashion. You wear gIRL-gEAR fashion." Pursing her bowlike mouth, Poe gave Kinsey a thorough assessment, starting at the floor and working to the top of Kinsey's head.
Today she was wearing a black-and-white polka-dot skirt with a gusseted hemline and a close-fitting black top with a flirty lettuce-edge ruffle at the scoop neck. Poe took it all in, then advised, "What you need is a makeover."
Kinsey frowned and turned to check out her reflection in the mirror Poe had abandoned. Her frown deepened. "You really think I need a makeover?"
Lauren began to nod. "I see what Poe's saying. Not a permanent makeover. Just enough of one to catch a certain man's eye."
"Thank you, but I think I have his eye." And quite a few of his other parts.
"Don't listen to Lauren," Poe argued. "Listen to me. This isn't about catching his eye as much as making sure he knows he's been caught."
"I
sorta
think that's obvious," Kinsey said, reluctantly taking the ridiculous underwear from Lauren's hand. "We've spent every weekend since the fire together."
Lauren's eyes went glaringly wide. "Kinsey, wake up. That's only been two weeks."
Kinsey knew the other woman was right. "It seems like forever."
"That's because time has no meaning to a woman in love," Lauren posited.
Izzy frowned. "That's just plain stupid."
"And incredibly untrue."
At that, all eyes turned to Poe, but it was Lauren who pried. "Speaking from experience?"
"I am thirty-three, not thirteen."
"So? Tell us about this wild experience of yours."
Poe went back to admiring herself in the mirror, tucking up the slip's skirt until it barely covered her backside, and nodding at her reflection. "Which one?"
Lauren harrumphed. "Sounds to me as if someone's mouth is writing checks that she can't cash with her—"
"Enough with the cattiness," Kinsey nearly shouted. Sheesh, but those two got on her nerves at times. "I want to hear about making sure Doug knows that I know that he knows … oh, whatever."
She waved a flustered hand because her tongue and her brain had quit working in sync. "I've caught Doug's eye. Now I'm supposed to do what, exactly?"
* * *
Kinsey dumped the contents of another paper bag onto the long folding table in front of her and
begin
the arduous task of sorting the donated clothing by gender, size and
wearability
.
On the other end of the table, Izzy did the same, while her mother, Rose, and Kinsey's mother, Martine, worked at the opposite end of the Gray family's church fellowship hall.
Thursday
evenings
Kinsey spent with her parents. The weekly tradition was as long-standing as the family's early breakfast before Sunday services.
With Kinsey's father out of town this week on business, and the recent advent of the fire, Martine had suggested she and Kinsey spend the evening going through donations made to the ministry.
Izzy and Rose had been invited along, which meant Kinsey's time wouldn't be spent with her mother at all. But that was fine. Martine hadn't seen Rose in ages and the two could talk a vegan into eating beef.
"I will never understand why people think anyone else would want to wear junk that should've seen a trash can forty washings ago." Izzy tossed a
scuzzy
yellow T-shirt into a box beneath the table designated for cleaning rags.
"I'm like that with books," Kinsey said. "It doesn't matter that it's so old and worn that even the used bookstore won't take it. I can't bring myself to throw it away." She held up a pair of denim cutoffs with a missing zipper. "Now trashing these doesn't even cause me to blink." The shorts hit the big rubber garbage bin next to the exit door.
"Score. Two points for number fourteen, Kinsey Gray." Izzy
shimmied
her hips in a wickedly sexy imitation of a courtside cheerleader.
Kinsey rolled her eyes. "Number fourteen? Which ball player do you have a crush on this week?"
"None." Izzy considered a pair of dingy gray briefs. "
Eww
, gross." She pinched them between her forefinger and thumb and carried them to the trash. "Fourteen is the number Baron has tattooed on his forearm."
Like prying a bottle from a baby. "And what does the fourteen signify? I ask since I know you're champing at the bit to tell me."
Having returned to the table, Izzy grew still, her expression pensive and disturbingly sad. She hesitated—Kinsey saw the indecision in her face—before she finally glanced up and said, "That's how many bullets he took in a drive-by."
"What?"
What?
The shock literally had her reeling; Kinsey glanced toward where their mothers were caught up in gossip and sorting at the other end of the fellowship hall.
She reached across the table and took hold of Izzy's wrist. "Let's get out of here."
Kinsey pushed through the heavy door that led out to the church parking lot, holding it open for her friend to follow. Once outside, the two women walked in silence down the sidewalk toward the sanctuary, where they turned in sync and sat down on the covered steps.
Kinsey stared at Izzy, who had her knees pulled up to her chest, her chin propped on top and her eyes closed, looking so anxious that Kinsey didn't know what to say. "What did he tell you?"
Izzy's eyes remained closed as she spoke. "He didn't tell me. Not at first. Not until he showed me. His body is beautiful, Kinsey. So beautiful."
"But he has scars?"
"His entire right side. His shoulder, his ribs. His hip."
Kinsey couldn't even imagine. "When did it happen?"
"When he was sixteen. He spent weeks in the hospital."
"Wow. Did they find out who did it?" Obvious question, though one she could've answered herself. Shooters were rarely apprehended.
Izzy shook her head. "I don't know."
"His family must have been crazy with worry."
Izzy shifted, stretching out her legs. "From what he told me, he didn't have family to speak of. He was put in foster care when he was seven and grew up in the system. When he got shot, the family he lived with basically washed their hands of him. He'd already been gang-banging for a few years, and apparently they didn't want any more close calls."
Kinsey thought back to the protective cocoon she'd grown up in. The life Baron must have lived was one she had only seen in movies and on the
news. "Incredible. I mean, you'd never guess, looking at him now, all that he's been through."
"It scares me. He scares me. A lot," Izzy whispered.
Kinsey frowned. "What? You don't think he's dangerous, do you? Not now. Not after all this time."
Izzy exhaled a long sigh. "He's dangerous, all right. But not that way. I know the gang-banging isn't a part of his life anymore. He had help getting out. One of the doctors who saved him took him under his wing and got him off the streets."
"And now he saves lives in return."
Izzy nodded. "He's stronger than I've ever thought about being. And I don't know if I can be the woman he wants. After all this time of working to prove to Mamma and Gramma Fred how well I know my own mind, and that I know what I'm doing with my life… I just don't know if any of that is true."
Kinsey watched the other woman shake her head, saw her eyes brim with tears. "How can you say that? How can one man make you question everything about your life?"
How bizarre was it that she felt so clearly justified in questioning Izzy when her own thoughts of late had been to consider Doug's reaction before making a decision? That sudden realization dissolved her original worry that Izzy wasn't thinking straight.