BlackWind by Charlotte Boyett-Compo Read Free Book Online

man's lined, beefy face. “I'm sure you understand how a father would like to protect his child.”
    “Sean can protect himself, but I reckon you need to protect your baby girl from him, now, don't you?”
    Dermot's back stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean?”
    Cullen's lips twitched. “Reckon you heard he is of a mind to Join with your girl.”
    “Join?” The word sent a chill down Dermot's back.
    “Aye, as in the Joining of bondmates and all that.” Cullen's grin turned to a hateful leer when he realized Dermot did not understand. “You know, Doc—as in wedding your soul mate.”
    “Most certainly not!” Dermot declared, his eyes going wide. “There could never be a marriage between my daughter and your son!”
    “Then you'd best tell him that ‘cause he's been telling me and his ma how Bronwyn McGregor will be his bride at the Summer Solstice of her eighteenth year. He's been a'planning on that Joining from the first day he laid eyes on your baby girl.”
    “No!” Dermot snarled, shaking his head fiercely. “That is totally out of the question. I will not allow it!”
    “Can't always stop what's destined to be, Doc. Sometimes when you do, destiny sorta rears up and bites you on your boney ass, you know?”
    His temper flaring, Dermot did not reply. He snatched open the door and strode out, his face as hard and set as granite. As he pulled his car door open, Cullen stepped out of the shop.
    “You'll have to do more than just tell Sean Cullen no, Doc. It ain't never worked for me and it won't work for you.”
    Dermot ground the gears of his Italian sports car as he peeled out of the parking lot. In his rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of Cullen laughing uproariously as he went back inside his shop.
    * * * *
    Andy Griffin winced as the squeal of tires took his attention from the carburetor he was tuning. He looked out the garage bay opening and saw the low-slung black sports car braking to a stop in front of the showroom. Picking up a rag, he began wiping his greasy hands as he went to see what this late customer might need. He was already forming his response in his mind because his shop wasn't equipped to work on foreign cars. He never got a chance to ask what was needed, for the enraged man who climbed out of the sports car came at him like an avalanche.
    “Where's Sean Cullen?”
    Griffin took in the rigid posture, set face, and glaring eyes of his visitor and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Out back,” he replied and barely had time to step aside as the man pushed past him.
    The black man who was changing the oil under a station wagon stopped what he was doing and stepped to the back door of the garage. “Sean!” he yelled. “You gots company!”
    Griffin nodded. He appreciated Zeke giving the boy some warning that he was about to go toe to toe with, who might well be, Sean's girlfriend's father.
    “Ten to one he done got that girl in the family way,” Zeke said in a low voice.
    “Lord help him if he did,” Griffin quipped as he joined his employee. “That man looked mad enough to spit nails.”
    “Yassir. Mad enough to crucify dat boy,” Zeke agreed, pulling off his baseball cap to arm the sweat from his brow.
    They stood in the doorway and watched the angry man march over to where Sean was washing a new trade-in. Sean twisted the nozzle of the hose to turn off the water, then turned to face the man storming toward him.
    * * * *
    “I want you to stay the hell away from my daughter!”
    Sean looked past Bronnie's father to Andy and Zeke. He knew whatever was said here would be all over Albany by morning. Zeke would tell the patrons of the Satin Kat bar down in Harlem and every black woman there who had a job as a maid would tell her white employer. Andy would tell his wife, Harriet, who would tell everyone in her beauty shop. By midday tomorrow, there wouldn't be many people of consequence in town who wouldn't know Dr. Dermot McGregor had called out his daughter's