Heated. Niobia Bryant

the spiral wrought iron staircase to the second level of her home. As she strolled into her master suite she looked at her watch. It was 9:30 A.M. Just enough time to shower, change, and head to her clinic for a 10:30 A.M. appointment. Her next appointment after that was at 1 P.M., and she was hoping to visit Mr. Sandman as much as she could before then.

      Bianca removed the scrubs she kept in her car for emergency vet calls like last night. Dressed only in the beautiful lace thong she originally put on under her evening gown, Bianca took another deep sip of her drink as she moved over to her night table to check her messages. She had a service answer work-related calls and she’d already checked those messages during her drive from Sandy Springs.

      “Hi, this is Bianca. Do what you need to do.”

      Beep.

      Bianca studied her reflection in the oval mirror in the corner, twisting and turning to see if any new cellulite had moved onto her thighs.

      “Bunny… uh, I mean Bianca—”

      She paused at the sound of her father’s gravely and distinctive voice. The thought that the days of him calling her by the childhood pet name were gone pained her.

      “Call me when you get a chance.”

      Bianca lowered her hands from examining the pertness of her breasts—and wondering when a man would touch, tease, and taste them again—to reach out for the cordless phone sitting on its base.

      Beep.

      “Bianca—”

      Her hand paused just above the phone and her face became confused at hearing her father’s voice… again.

      “Never mind.”

      The line went dead.

      Beep.

      Snatching up the phone she quickly dialed her father’s number.

      “King Ranch.”

      “Daddy, this is Bianca. Is something wrong?” she asked.

      He remained quiet—and that was more telling than anything he could have said.

      “Daddy?” she asked with more firmness in her voice—like she was the parent and he was the child. Bianca pressed the phone closer to her face. “What is it?”

      “I need your help. You gotta come home, Bianca.”

      2

      Holtsville, SC One week later

      Being in Holtsville was like going back in time for Bianca. Virtually nothing had changed. Even Donnie’s Diner remained the only eatery in the small “downtown” area—thank the heavens it was renovated. Donnie’s was a landmark in Holtsville, but growing up she felt eating from there was like playing Russian Roulette with your digestive system.

      Yes, Holtsville was still a one gas station town. As she passed by it, Bianca waved at the grizzly man sweeping in front of the storefront. She smiled as she remembered riding with her father to the small store, anxious to spend her nickels and pennies on candy.

      Good memories.

      Bianca pushed her oversized shades up atop her mass of straw set curls as she turned left off the main road. Her father’s ranch was on sixty acres, just ten miles away. As she drove, Bianca looked around at the small houses that looked the same as when she growing up. Many of her childhood memories were tied to those places.

      Cutting the models from the Sears catalogs to play with like paper dolls on the porch of her best friend, Patty Ann. Or her first kiss at the Walker property with Lil’ Willie Walker up in the loft of his family’s barn.

      Bianca laughed as she remembered screaming and running from the barn when he whipped out his little Willie.

      Lots of memories.

      Now she was back in town.

      Last week when her father asked for her to come home, Bianca had reservations, but she set them aside. She knew it took quite a feat for her father to ask for help. For him to admit that he was close to losing the ranch was astounding. For him to say he needed her was the clincher.

      “Well, can you beat that?” Bianca said aloud, her eyes lighting on the wooden sign that read:

      KING EQUINE SERVICES

      ESTABLISHED 1959

       HOLTSVILLE, SC

       (2 MILES AHEAD ON RIGHT)

      She clearly remembered the day she helped her father hang the sign that her mother painted with care. And there it remained after all that time. The letters were faded and the corners of the wood was chipped, but her father hadn’t replaced it.

      Maybe this trip won’t be so bad after all.

      Bianca noticed a large and shiny pick-up truck behind her in her rearview mirror. She paid it no mind until the driver began to blow the truck’s horn and motion out the window with his hand.

      Bianca checked her speedometer. She was doing fifty-five. Humph. “Better go around,” she muttered with attitude.

      As the truck passed, Bianca noticed a man wearing aviator shades and riding in the back. The man and his pose looked straight out of one of those Ralph Lauren print ads—even done to the chocolate lab sitting dutifully at his side.

      The man made Bianca want to do something naughty, like suck her finger or blow him kisses.

      Ruggedly handsome, his salt and pepper smooth hair was cut very low. His beard and mustache was more a five o’clock shadow. She knew his hair was prematurely silver because there was no denying the youth and vitality of the man. She figured him to be in his early thirties, and his deep bronzed caramel complexion perfectly suited that beautiful hair. He had strong features. A lighter version of that male supermodel, Tyson.

      Bianca wished his shades weren’t in place.

      Her eyes took in the black tank he wore and the way it snugly fit his chest and emphasized the steely muscles of his arms.

      Just before the truck accelerated and left her behind, the man waved at her before setting his arm atop his bent knee. The move drew her attention to the large tattoo of an eagle on his upper right arm.

      “Ooh, come here, you,” she said to herself, waving back with a beguiling smile and a little toot-toot of her horn.

      Good girls always loved bad boys, and there was something untamed and wicked about the man that drew her in. “Sexy silver self,” she said in a low voice to herself.

      Did he like what he saw as well? She couldn’t help but get excited at the thought that he did.

      Moments later the truck became a spot in the distance.

      “Whew, he was fine,” Bianca moaned, just as she decelerated the car to turn it down the long and winding dirt road leading to the ranch.

      The grove of trees lining the road offered enough shade to make one think it was suddenly late evening and not early afternoon. As a child Bianca would play among that blanket of trees, feeling like a princess in her own secret garden. Even when it rained the tree’s branches were so densely intertwined that nary a raindrop broke through to touch the ground.

      Then the trees ended. Before her sat her childhood home, the King’s Castle as her father used to call it. The two-story home was an impressive structure. A huge wrap-around porch and so many windows that the sun glinting off the glass looked like the twinkle of diamonds. The navy blue shutters crisply contrasted off the white of the home with the underskirt of the home trimmed in red brick.

      The mahogany front door opened and her father stepped out onto the porch, his arms already opened wide. Bianca flew out of the car and ran up the stairs to him. He enveloped her. She clung to his large impressive frame and to a past when there was no distance between them.

      Although Bianca hadn’t returned once since she left college.

      Although