Carole Buck - Three-Alarm Love

“What do you think, sugar?” he countered, keeping his voice low

Keezia recovered her poise with remarkable rapidity. The suspicion in her expression was replaced by a don’t-mess-with-me sassiness. “I think you had plenty to be looking at besides the door I might be comin’ in through,” she retorted with a disdainful sniff

Her refusal to take the bait he’d offered didn’t surprise him. He’d expected her to sidestep his question. But the admission embedded in her evasion—the admission that she’d been keeping tabs on him in the same way he’d been keeping tabs on her—pretty much blind sided him.

“You mean Bernadine?” he asked after a few seconds. Fridge didn’t believe in playing one woman off against another. But if a little bit of jealousy helped clarify some of Keezia’s other feelings ..

“Is that her name?”

“So she said. Miss Bernadine Wallace.”

“Somebody... new?”

Fridge controlled the urge to grin, relishing the way his partner was trying—but not quite succeeding—to make her inquiries sound offhand. He suspected that he’d been similarly unconvincing when he’d done his cool and casual routine prior to asking her to dance.

“Somebody’s sister,” he answered after a second or two.

“Sister? ”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Whose?”

He shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

Keezia stared up at him, her eyes flicking back and forth, back and forth. “Uh-huh,” she eventually said, her tone skeptical in the extreme. Then she turned her head and leaned her cheek against his chest. She muttered something under her breath as she did so. Fridge couldn’t make out the exact words. He didn’t really need to. The gist of what she’d said came through loud and clear. Namely, that of all the roles his current dance partner might be inclined to assign to his previous one, sister was way, way down on the list.

They danced without speaking for ten, maybe fifteen seconds. Out of the corner of his eye, Fridge caught a glimpse of Jackson Miller and his teenage daughter. They appeared to be having a small disagreement. If the direction in which Lauralee was gesturing was any indication, it involved him and Keezia.

“Why the late entrance?” he finally inquired, wondering uneasily whether his jones for Keezia Carew was a lot more obvious to people than he’d thought. Jackson had picked up on the situation pretty early on, of course. His mama had made a few uncomfortably acute remarks on the subject, too. But aside from them...

No, he told himself. If anybody else knew or suspected how he felt about Keezia, it’d be all over the department. The guys at the station would be ragging him around the clock!

Keezia muttered under her breath, much as she’d done before This time, though, Fridge caught what he thought was the operative word in her response.

“Say what?” he prompted, wanting to make certain of the facts before he reacted.

A long, frustrated-sounding sigh insinuated its way through the thin cotton fabric of his T-shirt. “I had some trouble with my car.”

Exactly what he’d suspected. Should have guessed without asking, in fact.

“The transmission?” That had been the problem the last time, as he recalled.

“Could have been.”

“What about the spark plugs?” They’d been at fault the time before last. Or had it been the fan belt?

Another sigh. “Could have been them, too.”

Much as he liked the feel of her warm breath fanning against his chest, Fridge figured it was his turn to ease back and make some eye contact. He did so.

“Sugar,” he began, gazing down at Keezia. “I know it’s pickin’ on a sore subject, but that car of yours is one of the sorriest excuses for an automobile I’ve ever seen. You are in desperate need of a new ride.”

“Tell me about it.” Her prickly tone suggested that if he knew what was good for him, he wouldn’t. “But unless I strike it rich in the Georgia State Lottery, I’m not going to get one till this fall. I want to finish paying off what I owe on my new furniture before I take on any more debt.”

Fridge had spent a lot of years messing with cars. Based on that experience—plus his under-the-hood acquaintance with the vehicle in question—he had some major doubts about whether Keezia was going to be able to stick with her very admirable fiscal plans. Not that he intended to voice these doubts at this particular juncture. He didn’t. Because unless his ears deceived him, the song he and Keezia were dancing to was going to be over very shortly. He didn’t want to squander what was left of it on arguing about how much life might be left in her old junker.

“I’ll ask my mama to remember your car in her prayers,” he promised, tightening the circle of his arms.

Keezia gave a throaty ripple of laughter. “To tell the truth,” she said, letting herself be drawn against him, “I was kind of hoping you’d ask her to ask Reverend Dixon whether he’d consider trying some faith healing on it I’ve noticed she seems to carry a lot of weight with him ”

“Mama carries a lot of weight with everybody,” Fridge returned, chuckling. He wasn’t just referring to her considerable stature within Atlanta’s African-American community, either. Helen Rose Randall definitely believed in living large. If old photographs were anything to depend on, she hadn’t just kept her girlish figure over the years, she’d doubted—maybe tripled—it. “But I’m sure she’d be pleased to have a word with Reverend Dixon.”

They lapsed into silence at this point, moving in perfect harmony to the last verse of the song and the final rendition of the chorus. Fridge savored the sensation of holding Keezia. It felt so good to him. So...right.

Please, Lord, he thought. Let this last.

The song came to an end. They didn’t separate immediately, though. In fact, Keezia seemed as reluctant to let go as he. Eventually, though, she lowered her arms from his neck and started to ease away. While his masculine instincts urged him to do otherwise, Fridge made no effort to stop her. He simply opened his hands and let her step back.

She stared up at him for several seconds, a hint of heat shimmering in the depths of her enticingly exotic eyes. He could see the jump of her pulse at the base of her long, queenly throat. The rise and fall of her breasts lured his gaze for a provocative moment or two before he forced his attention back to her face.

“Thank you,” she finally said.

“My pleasure,” he answered, meaning it.

There was a pause. Keezia glanced at her watch.

“Well—” she began.

“I’ll walk you out,” Fridge quickly volunteered. He had a number of reasons for not wanting her to leave alone. Included among them was the fact that they weren’t in the safest area of the city.

She shook her head. “You don’t have to.”

“I know,” he responded, clamping down on a spurt of annoyance at her knee-jerk rejection of his offer. He admired Keezia Carew’s independence, he really did. He also respected the dark power of the forces that drove her to defend it so intensely. Still, he lived for the day when she abandoned the notion that saying yes to a helping hand somehow translated into taking the first step toward inviting a smack in the face. “But I want to ”

Keezia was acutely conscious of the curve of Fridge’s strong right arm around her shoulders as he escorted her to the entrance of her apartment building about ninety minutes later. The contact was protective without being possessive. There was nothing about it to make her uneasy. Yet nagging at the back of her mind was the painful recognition that protectiveness could be a trap. Accepting it could sap a woman’s self-esteem. Make her vulnerable. Being dependent on a man could be dangerous. A woman needed to be able to take care of herself