Admission of Love by Niobia Bryant Read Free Book Online Page B

them she was in town.
    She’d looked over as she eventually passed their house, a white, three-story affair with a large barn yards away with the sign, JAMISON CONTRACTORS INC., on the front. As she sped past she noticed a shirtless man with a well-defined, muscled body bending over washing a truck.
    Just as Cyrus Dobbs had said, one half mile down from the Jamison’s was her land. The car slowed under her direction as she turned left onto the grassy lands. She squealed in pleasure when she first laid eyes upon the sprawling frame structure of her soon-to-be home. With her eyes closed, she could visualize the finished product. The land surrounding the cleared area, where the house stood, was green as emeralds.
    Chloe reached into the car and pulled the small notepad from her Fendi tote, along with a pen. She jotted notes on the lined paper as she walked every inch of the land surrounding the house. Her plans for a colorful garden were clear in her visions, although she planned to hire a professional landscaper. She removed her sandals and relished the feel of the warm blades of grass between her scarlet-lacquered toes.
    Tucking the notepad in her back pocket, Chloe climbed the steps onto the wraparound porch. Although just the frame of the house stood now, she walked through the one-level structure. She studied the size and shape of each of the rooms, pulling on her notepad again to jot down notes on possible decorations and furnishings. Soon the lined pad was filled with ideas, and Chloe felt she could now walk around the structure blind. The house would be beautiful and she knew her mother would’ve loved it. She didn’t stop the tears that filled her eyes as she thought of her.
    As soon as she had been financially able, she had moved her mother from the small, two-bedroom apartment where they lived into a home in an upper middle-class neighborhood on Staten Island. They had traveled around the world together as Chloe worked. Their relationship had been a rare mix of friendship and a solid mother-daughter relationship. Now that she was gone, Chloe truly wished she had built the home here a long time ago so that Adell could have enjoyed it with her.
    She sighed and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Sweat traveled down the valley of her full breasts as she left the frame structure to sit on the porch. She could easily have moved anywhere in the world, but this small town her mother loved was the right choice. Freedom from New York, freedom from traveling and working, freedom from the glamorous lifestyle she left behind. For once she was moving through life at a slower pace and enjoying herself. The small amount of apprehension she felt over relocating to a new place, where she didn’t know a soul, was outweighed by her growing closeness to this land and the meaning it held for her.
    Already she was reluctant to leave it, even with the sweltering heat. Instead of heading back to the comforts of the hotel in Charleston, Chloe leaned back against the porch railing and closed her eyes. With a faint smile she envisioned days of swinging on the very same porch or planting perennials in her garden. She was at peace.

 
    Chapter Three
     
    Devon was washing his midnight blue Ford F-150 pickup truck on the side of the house when he saw the flash of red fly by on the road. He could only make out that it was a woman as the car rounded the bend and disappeared from sight. He didn’t recognize her or the flashy vehicle.
    He heard the sound of the screen door open with a long and loud squeak. “Who’s that, Vonnie?”
    Devon pushed back the irritation he felt at his grandmother’s still addressing him with her childhood pet name for him. He continued to watch the hood with wide, circular motions and answered her the best he could. “I don’t know, Nana Lil.”
    He smiled when she sucked her teeth, and then he heard the familiar long squeak again, just before the slam signaling that the door had closed. Devon assumed that she had