This Holiday Magic (23 page)

“Okay, here's the deal, Kel. When you see Erica today, you're going to tell her that you've changed your mind about the deal and that if it's all right with her, you'll give back her watch and get your hair bows.”

“What if she doesn't want to?”

“Then you'll be out of those bows, but at least you'll still have your doll. And when Aunt Henrietta asks about them, you'll need to tell her the truth.”

Kelly, already looking dejected, seemed to deflate even more. It tore at Trey's heart to see her so miserable, but he knew he was doing the right thing. “Do you understand?” he asked.

She bit her lip and nodded.

If it came down to it, telling her cherished aunt that she had given away a gift would stay with Kelly for a long time—and hopefully put the kibosh on future trades, Trey thought. She'd then have a sense of what was valuable and what meant the most to her.

“All right, then,” he said and glanced at Keisha, who had remained quiet during the exchange. “Kelly, hand me your fix-it bag, please.”

A moment later, a small zippered tote was passed over the seat and to him. “There's nothing wrong with my hair,” she said, a tremor in her voice telling him fresh tears could be forthcoming at any moment.

“I know,” Trey said, unzipping the bag and pulling out a brush and a few scrunchies. “Keisha, hop up front, please.”

In the rearview mirror he saw the two girls look at each other. Then Keisha unbuckled her seat belt.

Trey had no idea what had been going on at the Armstrong house that morning, but he wasn't going to let this child spend all day in school looking as if she'd run her hair through a briar patch. While he wasn't sure what he could do, he figured he could tame it at least a little bit.

Keisha hopped into the front seat and looked at him.

“Creating a new style?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral on whether he liked it or not.

“I was taking my braids out.”

“Hmm,” Trey said. “I don't think you finished. You want me to give you some ponytails?”

Keisha looked back at Kelly, who nodded.

“Okay,” she said, turning so her back faced him. “But I kind of made a mess.”

That was an understatement, but Trey kept the thought to himself as he studied the girl's hair for a moment.

“How about a twist?” Kelly offered from the backseat.

Trey nodded. “I was just thinking that instead of pony­tails.”

A few brush strokes later, he'd fashioned two twists, one with the still-braided hair and the other with the rest. “Hold this,” he directed Keisha while he put the scrunchies back in the bag and scrounged for some bobby pins. He tucked them in his mouth and replaced her hand with his. With some judicious pins, he created a passable hairstyle for her that wouldn't have the teachers wondering if the girl was being neglected at home.

“Okay, you're good to go,” he told her.

Keisha patted her hair, getting a feel for what he'd done, then pulled down the passenger-seat visor and surveyed his work in the small mirror there.

She turned toward him and gave him a bright grin. “I like it.”

Trey smiled. He tucked the brush back in the bag. “All right, ladies. Grab your backpacks. I'll check you in at the school office.”

He engaged the door locks, and with a girl on either side of him, they walked toward the school's entrance. Kelly's small hand was in his left one. He felt something brush his right hand and a moment later, Keisha's hand was in his, as well.

The gesture surprised him, but it also made his heart swell in an unexpected way.

Chapter 7

“C
ocoa, coffee or wine?”

The girls were doing homework in the dining room with spelling and storybooks scattered across the table while Trey and Renee talked in the kitchen. The text invitation later that night from Trey were just the words Renee had needed to hear to calm her frazzled nerves.

“The day I've had calls for hard liquor, but the cocoa sounds lovely,” Renee said.

“One double shot of hot cocoa coming up,” he said.

“Thank you for what you did, taking Keisha to school and taming her hair. I was at my wit's end this morning. She decided to take her braids out before consulting me. But I did make an appointment at your aunt's shop.”

“No problem,” he said. “I told you I had some skills.”

Trey made fast work of getting the cocoa together, then, with the mugs in hand, motioned for her to follow him into the family room. As she settled on the sofa, one leg tucked under the other and the warm mug cupped in her hands, he put another log on the fire. Closing the gate, he picked up his mug, took a sip, then set it on the coffee table.

“There's something I wanted to ask you about.”

Renee sighed. She knew what was coming. It was one of the reasons she hadn't pursued a relationship since Keisha had come into her life. “You want to know what's wrong with Keisha.”

Trey lifted a brow. “Wrong with her?”

“Keisha has had a hard life,” Renee said. “She's just eight, but she's seen and experienced things that most adults haven't.”

She could tell she had his undivided attention. She blew out a sigh. She'd come this far; she may as well tell him the whole story.

“Keisha is my foster daughter. She came to me two years ago after being rescued from a drug house. Her birth mother was about to turn Keisha out to do tricks to pay for her drugs. Thank God a neighbor intervened and called police when she heard a ruckus next door. Keisha had locked herself in her bedroom and a man her mother promised her to was trying to bust down the door to get in.”

“Oh, my God,” Trey said. He placed a comforting hand on Renee's knee.

She needed his contact right now and placed her hand on top of his. “Child Protective Services got her out of there, and she came to me a day later.”

“What happened to her mother?”

Renee closed her eyes for a moment and then glanced toward the dining room to make sure the girls weren't nearby. She blew out another breath and then looked at Trey. “She gave up all parental rights, was charged and convicted of child abuse, neglect, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and a whole slew of drug and prostitution charges. She got sentenced to a long time behind bars.”

Trey turned to face her and took the mug out of her hand. Putting it aside, he gathered both her hands in his. “I hear a ‘but,' Renee.”

She nodded. “I got a call this morning. She died of an overdose in jail.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. I'm in the process of adopting Keisha, but I don't know how to tell her. I don't know how she'll react. I don't know if she'll even care or if she'll lash out or…” She shook her head, willing away the tears that seemed just below the surface.

Before Trey could say anything, Renee rushed on. “I know you've seen her acting out. The foot stomping and pouting and carrying-on. And then this morning with the hair. I just found out why she wants the braids out. That I could handle. Frankly, I thought we'd gotten beyond all or at least most of the issues she had. I've given her two years of love and stability and she sees a therapist twice a week. And apparently, it's not enough. I'm not enough.”

The tears fell then.

* * *

Trey instinctively gathered her in his arms. Tucking her head on his shoulder and letting her cry the tears he suspected she'd kept bottled up for a long time.

Things made sense now. And he'd so badly judged both Renee's parenting skills and Keisha. What he'd thought were lax child-rearing duties were the exact opposite.

He thought of the small hand that had clasped his this morning at the school. From what Renee said, Keisha didn't trust many people. Yet, she'd trusted him. She'd opened up in her own way—by placing her hand in his—and gave him a gift he didn't think he deserved.

“I'm sorry,” Renee sniffled into his shirt.

He kissed the top of her head. “You have nothing to apologize for,” he said.

Renee wiped her eyes and pushed away a bit. He didn't let her go far. She felt too good in his arms.

“I moved here, to Cedar Springs, to get her to a stable environment. A place where we could have a house and a yard and she could go to good schools and make new friends. But all I've done is uproot her. She's been miserable at school.” Renee shrugged. “At least I got to the bottom of that issue. It's like all the forward progress we've made has been turned upside down by coming here.”

“What's wrong at school?”

She told him about the hair issues Keisha had been experiencing at school, what she'd identified as an inferiority complex.

“I wonder if maybe adopting her as a single parent isn't such a good idea. She needs so much, and I worry that I'm not enough for her.”

Although she was no longer crying, Trey continued to hold her as they talked. He loved the feel of her and wondered if she liked the comfort of his embrace. She hadn't pulled away, even when his hands played along her arm in a languid caress.

The fire in the hearth and the beautiful woman in his arms intensified the feeling of intimacy. Trey realized that he liked it a lot, and he could get used to ending each day just like this—with Renee at his side, with their girls quietly playing. A moment later, he realized he was straying down a path that was not just premature, but highly unlikely. Kelly threw the occasional tantrum and had a doll habit that he should have nipped in the bud a while ago, but overall, she was a great kid who gave him no trouble. Renee had willingly taken in someone else's child, a girl who was likely to have issues for the rest of her life. Taking on that sort of long-term responsibility took a strong person, a strong woman.

“You're being too tough on yourself, Renee,” he said. “What you did was good. You made deliberate choices to make life better for Keisha. Besides, it's barely been a month since you moved here. Making friends will take time. And she's already made one good friend,” he added.

Renee smiled. “She and Kelly did seem to hit it off.”

He then told her about the doll, the watch and the collateral.

“Oh, Lord,” Renee said. “What did Keisha do?”

“Nothing,” Trey said. “She was the voice of reason in the whole thing. The big sister, so to speak. If it hadn't been for what Keisha advised, Kelly would have permanently lost her doll. Everybody traded back, though. End of drama.”

“I'm glad something good came out of this miserable day.”

They were quiet for a moment. Then Trey asked the question that had been on his mind. “Why did you take her in? I mean, why be a foster parent? That's taking on a lot of—” he'd been about to say “trouble,” but quickly substituted it with “—a lot of unknown. You don't know anything about the kids who come from the foster system.”

She twisted out of his embrace and then faced him again. Trey bit back a sigh at losing the softness of her snuggled against him.

“I know what I need to know, Trey,” she told him, her face animated and flushed with conviction. “There are a lot of kids in the foster system. And even more who are waiting to be adopted. Many of them age out of the system before they ever find a family. Everybody wants babies, infants, children they can raise from the ground up, so to speak.”

She leaned forward, her gaze locked with his as if willing him to understand. “They all need love and attention and someone to care, unconditionally. Before Keisha, I'd done emergency fostering, taking in kids who needed a stable place for a few weeks. The longest I'd ever had a child was three months. But Keisha's situation was different. Her mother had essentially thrown her away. She was so broken, so in need of care and love. She was a little girl that the world had lost hope on. Something in me responded to that in a way that was…” She shrugged. “The best way I can describe it is ‘soul-deep.' She was the child I could have been if not for a loving grandmother who didn't give up on me.”

He was quiet for a moment, gazing at her with the same intensity that she'd afforded him. And then he did what he'd wanted to do from the moment she'd walked into the house.

He closed the short distance between them and kissed her.

“Ewww!”

The twin voices of two little girls quickly forced them apart.

“Don't look, Kel,” Keisha said. “They're kissing.”

* * *

“Daddy has a girlfriend!”

Trey groaned. He was in the family room at Aunt Henrietta and Uncle Carlton's, chilling with his cousins, when he heard Kelly's announcement. Sunday dinner was a tradition with his family. Once a month, the Calloways got together to break bread. Trey had hoped to keep his relationship with Renee under wraps for a bit…at least until he figured out where it was going.

“Does he, now?” Aunt Henrietta said, the question deliberately loud enough to carry from the kitchen. “Funny, he didn't mention anything like that to me.”

“What's her name, baby?” Aunt Tiny cooed.

“Oh, man, you're in for it now,” Sasha said as she nudged Trey, who then dropped the controller from the video game they were playing on the flat-screen.

“We don't need any headlines at eleven,” Trey said drily as he bent to retrieve it.

“Game over. You lost,” a computerized voice said.

“Ha!” Sasha lifted her hands in victory. “I beat you!”

“I was distracted,” Trey said, glancing toward the kitchen. “I need to go do some damage control.” He tossed the controller to Eric, who was bent over his mobile phone, furiously texting. “And you better not be posting on Facebook.”

“The world doesn't revolve around you and your love life, coz,” Eric said without glancing up.

“Tell me about your girl,” Sasha said.

“No, Miss Action News. No scoops for you. And hopefully, none for Aunt Henrietta and Aunt Tiny.”

That hope was gone, though, when he walked into the kitchen.

“They were kissing,” Kelly reported. “Keisha and I saw them.”

His aunts both gave him The Look. The look that had quelled the Calloway cousins when they were Kelly's age and still had the power to make the now-grown cousins quake.

“And who is Keisha?”

“She's my sister,” Kelly informed them.

“Uh, Kel…” Trey said.

Aunt Tiny swatted him with a dish towel. “Let the child speak.”

“She doesn't have a dad and I don't have a mom, so we decided we're going to be sisters.”

Two sets of inquiring brown eyes turned up to him.

Trey sighed.

The phone rang. “Saved by the bell,” he muttered.

“Not really,” Aunt Henrietta said. “Sasha or Eric, get that please.”

“Who is this woman?” Aunt Tiny asked. “Do we know her people? Where did you meet her? Why is she single? Are you going to marry her?”

“Good Lord, Tiny,” Henrietta said. “Give the man a chance to answer at least one question before you knock him over with a hundred more.”

“I see where Sasha got those newshound traits,” he said on a dry note.

“Don't you sass me, Trey Calloway.”

He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “You know I wouldn't do that, Auntie. Kel, why don't you go ask Eric to show you how to play ‘Candy Crush' on his phone?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

A moment later, she skipped out of the kitchen and Trey was left with two of his aunts, one who'd been more like a mother to him than his own and the other a woman whose hair salon carried more gossip than
TMZ.

“You'll meet her soon enough, Aunt Tiny,” he said. “She's going to be making an appointment at Styles pretty soon, if not already.”

Aunt Henrietta opened the oven and checked on the roast. “Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes. And you have had plenty of time to stall,” she told Trey. “Spill it.”

He did, giving them an abbreviated, sanitized and nosy-aunt version of the Renee and Keisha story. It was enough to satisfy Aunt Tiny, who nodded.

“I have some friends up in Durham who can check on…”

Aunt Henrietta eyed him, then said slowly, “I don't think that'll be necessary, Tiny.”

“Weelllll,” Tiny said, pulling the word out, “I guess he can see to his own affairs. He is a grown man.”

“I'm glad you remembered that,” he muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Auntie.”

She swatted him with the towel again as she headed to the refrigerator. “That's what I thought.” But her smile said she was cool with him. Tiny pulled out a bowl of potato salad and headed to the dining room.

When it was just the two of them in the kitchen, Aunt Henrietta leaned against the counter and regarded her nephew.

He tried not to squirm under the scrutiny. Yes, he was a grown man with a child and a professional career. But Aunt Henrietta always made him want to do better, be a better nephew, man and father. He knew he wasn't alone in thinking that way. She and Uncle Carlton set the bar high for all of the Calloways.

“Is this serious?”

She voiced the very question that had been on his mind since he'd started thinking of the four of them as more than just next-door neighbors.

“I think so.”

She smiled and nodded, then came over and tapped his chest. “When you know so, you'll know what to do.”

* * *

Dinner was the usual raucous Sunday affair for the Calloways. Thankfully for Trey, the subject of Renee and Keisha didn't come up again. He was glad for it, too, since Aunt Henrietta's closing words on the topic still lingered with him.