Sunday morning, Councilman Reynard Parker sat leafing through the day’s paper in his sun-filled breakfast nook. He was searching for anything related to the dumping his crews were doing. Since he was an equal opportunity polluter, the suburbs were getting their fair share of the waste too. The snooty residents of Oakland County were going to pitch a fit when the barrels started turning up in their manicured neighborhoods and in the parking lots of their pricey strip malls, but why should Detroit have all the fun?
He smiled at his own drab humor, even though the situation wasn’t humorous at all. Were it ever proven that his company trucks were responsible, his political career would be over. Wheeler’s thievery necessitated this plan of action. The feds were coming in on Tuesday to look at Wheeler’s computer. They were still treating the disappearance as a missing persons case, or so they told him, but he was no fool. He’d done his best to cover his ass. The day Wheeler was made into gull food, he’d had one of his employees—who’d done five years time for computer crimes—sweep Wheeler’s hard drive. Parker wanted to make sure Wheeler hadn’t already made contact with the law, as he’d claimed. No smoking guns were found. Luckily, the accounting spread sheets were left intact, giving Parker hard proof that Wheeler had been an embezzler. When it became known that he hadn’t gotten wind of the embezzling until after Wheeler disappeared, the feds would have to look elsewhere for clues, and he could fix his problems without anyone looking over his shoulder. Or so he hoped.
On the back page of the paper’s first section, a small item caught Parker’s eye. The story was on the recent sighting of yet another mysterious black van. The vans first showed up in the city about two years ago. No one knew who the occupants were. The only thing folks could agree on was that the teams wore all black, wore ski masks to hide their identities, and targeted drug houses. They kicked in doors, stole product, made dealers disappear, and weren’t afraid to shoot it out with anyone silly enough to fire on them. The residents called them the Drug Busters; the police and mayor called them vigilantes.
There were all kinds of urban rumors attached to the group: that they were responsible for bringing down all those rich White suburban drug dealers convicted back in ’03; that, even though the feds kept claiming they weren’t involved, the group was a covert government operation; and that the police had a stack of missing persons reports filed by families of teens who vanished after being caught in the raids, but the police weren’t processing the paperwork. The nightly takedowns of crack dens and drug dealers occurred so frequently, there’d been reports on the local news and in the papers almost daily. Then the sightings tailed off.
The small article in today’s paper was the first Parker had seen on the vans in the past eighteen months. Were they back, or had they just gone underground for a while? Supposedly, the city’s police department hadn’t been able to find, let alone arrest, anyone connected with the vans, but he hadn’t believed it back then, and he certainly didn’t believe it now. He was convinced that the police and the current Randolph administration knew way more than they were telling. Although he didn’t have a shred of evidence, his gut said he was right. For him, it was just too much of a coincidence that the vans began showing up right after Randolph took office.
Parker folded up the paper. He had an appointment with Randolph in the morning. Maybe he’d ask the mayor a few questions. If he could prove his theory, Randolph would certainly be charged and then disgraced, and he could win the upcoming election with no problems at all. And as mayor, he wouldn’t have to worry about cash flow problems, Wheeler, or anything else, because he would be in control of the board.
Sunday evening Lacy was out on the balcony watering her plants when she heard her phone ringing. She put watering can down and ran to catch it. She hadn’t heard from Drake, and feeling like a teenager, she prayed it was him. “Hello.”
“Hey, baby.”
Her knees went weak. “Hey. How are you?”
“You can judge for yourself. I’m downstairs in the parking lot.”
Her heart began racing. “Okay.”
He hung up, and Lacy ran around the apartment like the super heroine Storm, picking up the junk the place had accumulated over the weekend. The buzzer sounded just as she threw a pair of dirty socks into the bedroom and closed the door. She hit the button to let him in, then ran her fingers through her twists and took in a deep breath.
“Hi,” he said, and his smile seemed to brighten the fading daylight.
“Hi,” she said back, and hoped she wasn’t grinning like the village idiot. “Come on in.”
He was dressed for business in a fine gray suit and a gray, lightweight, all-weather coat that didn’t appear to have a wrinkle in it. The very air in the room seemed charged with his presence.
“How was San Antonio?” she asked him.
“Hot,” he said, taking a seat on the couch. “And humid. How’d your thing go at the Northwest Activities Center?”
Lacy took a seat beside him and gave him a rundown on her meeting and her introduction to Rick Klein.
“I’ve worked with him and his people on a few projects,” Drake said. “His group’s doing good work. Making a nice little profit reselling those refurbished homes, too, but hey, whatever the market will bear. I’m just glad they’re bringing residents back into the city.”
“Do you know about a group called BAD?”
“Lenny Durant? Yes. The young brother is angry all the time. I had a couple of meetings with him when I first took office. He wanted to shoot the polluters like rats, was how he phrased it.”
“Well, he still does.”
“He didn’t give you any trouble, did he?”
She shook her head. “Nah. He wanted to know if I had a man.”
His eyebrow rose. “What did you tell him?”
“None of his business.”
For a moment he didn’t say anything, then asked in that low rich voice, “Are you taking applications?”
The hushed tone made her dizzy for a moment. She tried to play it off, but failed miserably. “It—the job hasn’t been posted.”
He reached out and very gently stroked her cheek. “When it is, I want to know….”
Lacy’s breath was stacked up in her throat. She was shaking like a virgin on her wedding night. “Drake…”
He leaned in and kissed her softly. “What…?”
She couldn’t think.
He kissed her again, slower this time and with more intent. “I’m the best man for the job, hands down….”
Her eyes closed and she sighed, moaned, with pleasure.
Drake enjoyed the sound of her surrender almost as much as he was enjoying the slow, seductive kisses. Her lush lips seemed to have been especially made for him. He brought a hand up to cup her jaw and slid his tongue into the warmth of her mouth. Her tongue played provocatively with his. When the passion inched up in intensity, he felt her tremble and felt his own shuddering response. Lord, he wanted this woman.
Lacy had never been kissed with such lazy passion before. There was no rushing here. This was a lingering, languid exercise that made her run her hand up the side of his neck so the two of them could come closer.
The encouraging gesture made Drake want her closer still, and with a low growl of passion, he pulled her onto his lap. The heat of her teased him everywhere. He sought her lips once more, moving his hands up and down her back. The male in him wanted to carry her to the nearest bed, right now, but the man in him wanted this relationship to be more than an occasional booty call. The man in him knew that she’d need time to get back in the relationship game.
Fitting actions to thought, Drake took his time. He let his kisses cajole her, tempt her. He invited her to explore passion at any pace she desired. He assured her in the only way he knew how that it was okay to come out and play because he would treasure her.
Lacy was so filled with desire, her eyes were covered by a veil of sensation. He hadn’t even touched her inside of her clothes, but sh
e already knew the touch would be hot and true. She could feel his hard response beneath her hips, and that added to the fiery sensations. When he moved his hot lips down her jaw and over the thin gold chain circling her neck, she just knew she would dissolve and blow away. She could hear the laugh track on the TV, and her hand searched blindly for the remote to shut it off. In the silence that followed, their passionate breathing sounded magnified.
Drake raised his head and recaptured her mouth. He was hot and hard and wanted to do more than kiss her. “If you don’t want me to touch you, you need to tell me….” She responded by teasing her tongue against the corner on his mouth, and it sent him spiraling. His hand explored her curves and the flare of her behind in her loose sweats. On fire, he filled his hand with her small breast and played with it until she purred. Only then did he lower his head to bite the marble-hard tip. Lacy arched and cooed. He teased the nipple until it stood out against the thin fabric of her short-sleeve blouse before moving his attention to its twin.
Lacy could feel her buttons being undone, but she didn’t stop him; she didn’t want him to. His touches and kisses were as reverent as they were fiery; she felt treasured, priceless, not a sensation she’d ever experienced with a man before.
Then the buzzer sounded.
Drake raised his mouth to hers and kissed her with a gentle possessiveness that let her know they’d continue this next time. “Probably Malcolm.”
Every cell in Lacy’s body was singing with lust. She was hard in some places, swollen in others, and breathing like a woman who’d just run a race. “I should go to the door….”
Drake couldn’t seem to stop kissing her. “You button up. I’ll go.”
Drake gave her one last powerful kiss, then got to his feet. He hit the intercom.
“Your twenty minutes are up.”
Drake hung his head. “Okay, be there in a minute.” He looked over at Lacy. “Being mayor is overrated.”
Lacy was absolutely rocked by his loving. The passionate haze encasing her shimmered, and was also pulsing through her body. She wanted him to come back and make her purr some more. It was a scandalous wish, but she didn’t care.
Drake noted that her blouse was still undone, exposing portions of her small dark breasts as they moved in tandem with her breathing. He made a mental note to make love to the brainy Lacy Green as soon as it could be arranged. “I promised Malcolm I’d be back in twenty minutes. He just picked me up from the airport, and he promised to take his wife to the movies tonight.”
Lacy looked back at his dark intense gaze and knew it wouldn’t be long before she invited him into her bed. “Tell Malcolm he owes me one.”
Drake’s smile showed as he studied her kiss-swollen lips and still lidded eyes. He was as hard as he’d been a moment ago. “I’m going to stand over here because if I come back over there, I’m going to start kissing you again.”
Fueled by a sensual mischief she was beginning to enjoy, Lacy walked over to him and stopped a few inches away. “Is that a bad thing?”
“You’re not right,” he said, chuckling and taking in the sensual disarray of her blouse.
She waited.
He placed a finger beneath her chin so he could commit her midnight beauty to his memory once again, then leaned down and gave her a poignant kiss good-bye. “See you, Lacy.”
She kissed him back with a quiet fervor. “’Bye, Drake.”
When the door closed, a pulsing Lacy stood in the silence for a long time.
Nine
Later, she took a quick shower and put on some clean pjs. Her body was still tingling from the mayor’s special handling, and just thinking about him made her shimmer. She was just about to crawl into bed when the phone rang. The caller ID gave up Drake’s name, so she picked it up and asked with mock warning, “Am I going to have to take a PPO out on you?”
He laughed. “The newspapers would love that, wouldn’t they?” Then, in his best television anchor voice, he mimicked, “City administrator files for Personal Protection Order against the mayor. More news at eleven.”
She stretched out on the bed and enjoyed the sound of him.
“I just called to see if you want to have dinner with me Saturday night.”
“Sure. Where?”
“My place.”
“Okay. So, where are you now? Home? In the car?”
“Home. In bed. Alone.”
“Then you have time to knock out another thousand of those thank-you notes to those crazy women from the magazine.”
“Hush,” he said with humor in his tone.
Lacy giggled.
Silence settled for a moment, then he said, “I was serious about applying for that job.”
His declaration thrilled Lacy, but she thought she owed him a few truths before allowing this relationship to move any further. “I really, really like being with you, Drake, but I had such a messed-up marriage and divorce, I’m a little gun-shy.”
“Like I said, slow is fine with me.”
She appreciated that. “You know who Wilton Cox is, right?”
“I do. Your ex.”
Lacy was stunned. “How’d you know?”
“I’m going to apologize up front. I checked you out on Google.”
“You did?”
“I wanted to know who you were, and I didn’t really expect to find anything.”
“Got the surprise of your life, I’ll bet.”
“True dat. Hundreds of hits.”
“Only hundreds?” she asked sarcastically.
Drake heard the coolness in her voice. “Are you going to hang up on me now?”
“I should, but you did tell me the truth about it.”
“With you, always.”
The richly spoken promise slid over her like silk. “My parents tried to tell me Wilton was too old, too arrogant, too everything, but I was twenty-four, hadn’t known a lot of men, and frankly, thought I knew every damn thing.”
“My grandmother says that God gives us youth so we can make mistakes.”
“Marrying Wilton was a whopper.”
She heard him chuckle softly, then he said, seriously, “Getting your heart broken is no fun, but you’re too vibrant a woman to hide yourself away, Lacy.”
That too touched her heart. “I also didn’t like the press in my face during the divorce, and I definitely won’t like them in any business you and I might have, but I’ll deal with it, like I said.” The rigors of the divorce had taken a lot out of her soul, and she’d been carrying around a measure of that emptiness ever since, but Drake Randolph was just the medicine she needed, it seemed. He was a fascinating, smart, dedicated, and caring man; all the things Wilton was not.
“Lacy? You still there?”
“Yes. Sorry, I was thinking.”
“’Bout what?”
“You applying for the position.”
His voice softened. “And? Do I get the job?”
“I think yes, but you’ll have to serve a ninety day probation period before we talk long-term, though.”
He laughed. “Probation?”
She tossed back playfully, “A girl can’t be too careful, you know.” She turned over onto her stomach.
He chuckled and asked, “So, will you go with me to my gran’s party?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the weekend of May twenty-first.”
“I’ll put it in my calendar.”
Then he added, “Since I don’t want to hang up, what do you want to talk about now?”
Lacy grinned. “I don’t know. What do you want to talk about?”
“Everything. Nothing.”
She wished he were there. “Tell me about your sisters.”
“Okay. Let’s see, the oldest is Madeline. She’s a principal at Cass Tech. Then comes Denise. She teaches English at Wayne State. My third sister, Angela, owns a bakery over on Griswold. Last is Sharon. She’s a stay-at-home mom. Her husband James is a GM executive and he treats her like a queen.”
&nb
sp; “She’s very lucky. Are the others married?”
“Madey has been married for a hundred years to another real nice guy named Raymond. Angie and Denise are divorced. Did you ever want sibs?”
“Sometimes, but my mother said one child was enough. And since you Googled me, you probably know who Mama is, too.”
“I do. I’ve seen many of her pieces.”
“She calls me her and Daddy’s greatest work. You’d like her. She’s all about spirit and creativity and energy. Keeping up with her is like trying to cage the wind sometimes, but I’ve never met anyone she didn’t like. Well, except Wilton, of course. She calls him Studley.”
There was a silence for a moment, then he said, “I could talk to you all night.”
“Me too.” She looked over at the clock on her wall. “But it’s past midnight, Drake. I have to get up in the morning.”
“I know. Just a little longer, okay?”
“Okay.”
So they talked on. The conversation took many twists and turns. He told her about medical school, and she told him about being fired from her last job. “One of the polluters I wanted to prosecute was a fifth or sixth cousin to the governor, so they fired me instead.”
“Their loss is the city’s gain. Not to mention mine.”
“I’m glad I wound up here, too.”
There was silence for a few more moments, then Drake said, “I should let you go to bed.”
Lacy yawned. “Yes, you should. I need my beauty sleep.”
“You get any prettier and you will have to take out a PPO on me.”
“Flattery will get you your own loaf of bread next time you come for dinner.”
“Really?”
She laughed at his eager tone. “Go to bed, Your Honor.”
“I’m going. ’Night, Lacy.”
“’Night, Drake.”
She put down the phone, turned off the lamp beside the bed, and climbed beneath the covers. She was still smiling when she drifted off to sleep.
Drake stood at the windows of his office and watched the city come to life. It was Monday morning and folks were scurrying over the sidewalks and filling the lanes of Jefferson Avenue with their cars on their way to work. He didn’t know why he’d agreed to meet with Parker first thing this morning, because all the encounter would do was ruin the rest of his week. He didn’t like the man and Parker didn’t like him. They had sort of a mutual hate society thing going on. To him Parker was a parasite feeding off the city with his bribes and dirty deals. And Parker dismissed him as being nothing more than a lightweight pretty boy.