Chapter 3 Zuri
zuri
. . .
My eyes locked onto the man my body wanted to trust. Broad shoulders shielded my child as I placed him in Montana’s arms. My glare warned Montana to remain statue-still with my baby. No questions. No moving! Hell, don’t even breathe wrong!
I spun, eyes locked onto a man—white hair, ruddy cheeks—clawing at his throat. His eyes bulged, lips turning blue. The blonde at his side pounded her age-spotted hand on his back.
“Ma’am, don’t! It’ll make things worse!” I barked the order. Suddenly, I wasn’t in the Creole restaurant on Royal Street. I landed in the trauma bay at an equally upscale, private hospital. “Move aside!”
She did, trembling.
A peach decorative pillow fell while I slipped behind him, braced my stance, and hooked my fists under his rib cage, then executed a swift, practiced thrust. Hard. Upward.
He wheezed, body convulsing for air.
Crap.
“C’mon, c’mon,” I muttered.
The Heimlich wasn’t working.
His body sagged. My strained muscles almost caved when Montana appeared. The sight of him not holding my most prized possession halted my impulse to save a life.
My glare should’ve slapped the taste from his mouth and all those perfect teeth. I trusted you with my son!
“Don’t worry. Momma has Darius,” he said, helping me bring the man to the polished herringbone floor. “Ambulance is five minutes out.”
Unable to trust a soul, I spent precious seconds I didn’t have seeking Darius. Miss Virginia tucked him in her protective embrace near the office hallway.
Zuri, chill, he’s safe. But this man wouldn’t be.
My mind snapped into ER mode. The hushed whispers morphed into the hum of a ventilator. My fingers pressed against the older man’s throat, finding the small hollow between the Adam’s apple and the cricoid cartilage. Training took over.
I dug into my apron. Pulled out more napkins while the man’s eyes crushed closed.
“What do you need, Journey?” Montana sat on his haunches.
“A straw.”
Someone chucked one in Montana’s direction, and I snagged a steak knife from the linen table, dunking it into the Creole Kool-Aid Royale. I prayed the vodka sterilized it enough.
“You don’t need to watch this,” I suggested to the wife.
Blood pooled at his throat as I made my quick incision.
I pressed my fingers into the cut, moving tissue and muscle, slid the straw in, and crossed my fingers. For one heart-pounding second, nothing happened.
Then air rattled through the straw, allowing the man to breathe.
The room exploded with applause. His wife dropped to her knees, clutching his hand, kissing his face.
I sat back hard on the floor, my own hands slick with blood, and wiped them on the apron.
Montana’s face. Lawd. He wasn’t just looking at me. He saw me. Zuri Caldwell, MD.
Felt good.
Frightening.
And prompted me into action.
I tore the bloody apron off and rushed toward my son.
As if Virginia understood my need to get away, she carried him toward the office.
She tossed a silent plea over her shoulder.
Don’t take him. Virginia had a deep maternal connection to Darius.
I followed. Behind me, Montana ordered, “No pictures, please.”
Had they?
Had anyone captured an image—
I stumbled over a crate in the middle of the office floor. “What the—”
Diana Ross went on vacation. Darn that wig! It sailed across the air.
On the ground, I pressed my hands to my head, locs tightly cornrowed to my scalp. My son shot off like a rocket toward the wig, as Peaches entered the room. “Journey, you’re fabulous—” She murmured, “Child, you okay?”
“She tripped,” Virginia said, helping me up off the floor.
My son bounded over, twisties bouncing to the tempo of his excitement.
Just then, Montana entered. “I mentioned legal—”
Darius held up the hair. “Mommy, your puppy.”
Ugh. That’s what I got for trying to shut Darius up with a wig joke.
Anytime he was about to burst and mention my wig, we used code words.
After a while, I’d embedded a history lesson, using the term peruke, a popular seventeenth- and eighteenth-century wig.
My bright boy forgot the code word. Peruke. Not puppy.
I slapped the Diana Ross wig into place. I think. She was a beast in one direction.
I scooped up my son. “I won’t be in tomorrow, Miss Peaches, Miss Virginia. I’m sorry.”
Another server popped in and mumbled how the ambulance had arrived.
Peaches sighed. “I’ll handle that. Don’t go nowhere, Journey, until I hug you and that bébé!”
She vanished. The way Darius and I should. Right now.
Montana stared at me, something in his eyes capturing me. Concern instead of hunger. He said, “Everyone erased what they filmed. Most of them are locals—the weekly lunch crowd is always heavy with the usuals. The rest understood me.”
Okay, so he’d done a mob shakedown. Fear motivated them. Still, my firm stance told him my position stood. We were leaving. That was final. Plus, the $860 first-month and cleaning deposit for the crappy studio. Adios, Louisiana!
Virginia appeared lost in space. She caressed Darius’s cheek, her moist eyes on me. “Please come tomorrow, sugar. We have our new-hire dinner on … Fridays.”
I planted Darius on the ground and folded my arms. Visions of New York—a place Darius and I should’ve gotten lost in—warned me not to fall for her kindness.
I’d almost died … he’d almost gotten my son.
Arms crossed, I attempted a smile, hoping it came off playful, not mean. “Huh, a new-hire dinner. Cute idea, but I don’t buy it. Nor do kids eat free in a place this bougie.”
Montana cleared his throat. “Like my momma done told you, we have a new-hire dinner. Reduces turnovers.”
“Sure.” I didn’t even meet those simmering chocolate eyes, just held back drool and glanced at his shoulder.
“When were you last here, Montana? Because speaking of dinners, Virginia is so family oriented. She has Wednesday dinners with her sons. Figure that is real. Seemed routine the way they sat, ate, chatted.” Damn, I loved it.
Family like that. “I met three of them yesterday evening because of ice cream—”
“Ohhh!” Darius tugged my leg. “I scream, you scream, we all—”
“Scream for ice cream. Bye.” Virginia snatched his hand and rushed away like a fabulous GiGi on a weekend social media reel.
Leave it to this woman to make a mad dash with my child, and my body forgets to break out in hives. Well, my baby needed a grandma.
When the door closed, Montana studied me.
“What?” I still avoided his eyes. Best not to get lost beneath the heat. But? It felt better to stare at him rather than watch my son vanish.
After a second, he broke into a smile. “You built different.”
How so …?
I took a step forward, but sexiness stood between me and that door. Dang, Zuri, tell the man to move!
“I saw the fire in your eyes when we locked gazes. Then you …” A chuckle rode his abdomen.
My vision popped upward and landed on him. I could see it in his eyes. Visions of me cleaning his shirt, and yes, I would’ve stripped him bare—waist up. “Keep flirting, I’ll get you the HC&PP bib.”
Montana glanced down at his chest. Um-hmm, he’d forgotten the abstract art. I grinned. “You were running around here looking like Baby Huey in a onesie.” Ugh, perfect time to mention seriously old cartoons. “That shirt is too tight, anyway.”
He chuckled, then I burst out laughing, and the whole mood shifted. Tears falling, hands swiping them.
“You a little funny.” He measured with index and thumb, stepping close enough to shift the mood again.
Hotter than all outside? Yes, it was.
Another step forward, and he had me on the run. I backed up. Needed to escape. Hyperaware, I danced around the box that had no business sitting on the ground. Placed space between us. Still, he kept me trapped under his gaze. “Just a little funny, Journey.”
“Boy, I gave you stand-up comedy. Tip your waitress. She’s hilarious.” The layers of deception—and protection—melted away as I wore a sloppy grin. His was lopsided in a way only the male species pulled off. “Funniest person you know.”
“Actually.” He stepped over the box in the middle of the room. Close, he looked down at me. The man forced me to focus on exhaling.
In.
Out.
Repeat. “Actually?” I echoed him, barely above a whisper. I was not that deliriously attracted to him. I’d stitched coherent words.
One.
Coherent word.
Montana’s head tilted. “My friend Nico would try to chew you up and spit you out on the stand-up scene for saying you’re the funniest person I know. I’m not saying he’d drop the mic. He’d fight for his title as my funniest acquaintance.”
“You know Nico Roman?”
Montana shook his head, as if disappointment radiated through his large frame. “Bruh, you know of one of my oldest friends, even his government, but you didn’t know Big Country?”
“Saw him at Madison Square Garden before I had Darius. Even watched his Netflix—ahem …” I took a step back. Went quiet. Seconds ago? I was with the top-shelf banter. A let-me-have-this-meet-cute moment, then deuces!
His eyes lit up, knowing we’d crossed a line. The wrong one. “Journey, you can’t. You can’t go. You see how my momma is with that boy.”
“M’kay? Let me show you how it’s done.” I strutted past him.
“Wait.” He turned me around.
“No!” I backed away.
“Journey, don’t—”
“I don’t know you!” I took another rear flanking step, prepared to pivot and stroll away when my foot caught on the same wood crate we’d danced around. My body fell backward, eyes wide, a yelp lurching from my lips.
Montana grabbed my wrist and tugged me straight to him.
“Yay! Mommy’s kissing the boobie man. We can stay!” Darius’s squeal from behind me made me push away from Montana.
“What? No.” Like déjà vu, my foot hit the crate. Yeah, I was gonna have a bonfire. Me, this crate, marshmallows, graham crackers. Maybe an upgrade to Reese’s chocolate. Montana caught me, then we both went tumbling.
“Ugh,” I groaned. This big old cornbread-fed, body-conditioning machine fell on top of me. His shoulder smacked against my mouth. Seriously? All that time I’d admired those shoulders like they were God’s gift, and He said, “Bet.”
Instead of an apology for crushing me, Montana rolled onto his back, placed his hands behind his head, and grinned. “Journey, y’know what they say about a hard head?”
The nerve of this man!