Chocolate Girls with Golden Hair Read Free Page A

door and a warm smile
flashed over her face. "Come on out, Lee," she said, as she picked
up the ice cream.
    From around the corner, Lee trotted, as
only he could do, so sneakily. He was thirty-three, slightly
shorter than Bianca and sported a dark Kangol hat.
    Lee had been engaged to marry Bianca's
sister before she passed away, and in the aftermath, he and Bianca
continued to maintain a sweet and platonic friendship. Though there
was much chemistry between the two, Bianca felt at odds with
carrying on a relationship with someone who was once engaged to her
sister. And there was something else. Though she hated to admit it,
she had major reservations about dating someone shorter than she
was. She would forever keep that to herself, however, the same, it
was the cold hard truth.
    It was her sister's engagement to Lee
that connected them, and it was her sister's death that would
forever keep them intimately apart.
    "Hey, Sunshine," Lee said, carrying a
beautifully wrapped gift box. It wasn't uncommon for Lee to bring
gifts with him whenever he came to see her. Though she always
welcomed his cute gifts, she found herself more concerned with his
Houdini ability to bypass the security door in her
lobby.
    "How is it that you always manage to
get up here without calling up first?" she asked him.
    "There's always someone coming in or
out. This is a very busy building."
    As he shed his leather jacket, he
kissed her lightly on the cheek.
    "I didn't expect you until this
weekend," Bianca said.
    "As cold as it is here, I missed this
city, and I missed you."
    "And how is your father?"
    "Fantastic as always."
    Bianca sat across from Lee at the
oval-shaped kitchen table, and dipped her spoon into her ice
cream.
    "So how have you been?" he asked her.
"Have you been doing all right?"
    "You act like I'm a basket case or
something. I'm fine, just bored as always."
    A faint, sneaky smile appeared on Lee's
face. "You need a husband. That's what you need."
    She licked the back of the spoon and
swallowed the ice cream in her mouth. "Is that what I
need?"
    "It's exactly what you
need."
    It was no secret that she charmed him,
but she never assessed his feelings as anything more than harmless
flirting. After everything she endured, Lee was a good friend; a
much-welcomed delight, and she didn't dare tamper with
perfection.
    "Well, you know what I think?" she
asked him.
    He slid his hand on top of hers and
gently stroked the back of her hand. "No, tell me what you
think."
    She gazed down at his hand on hers,
then flashed him a warm smile. "I think you want a
wife."
    "Maybe."
    The pin in Bianca's hair slipped out,
and she grabbed the back of her bun. "Who would want to marry Ms.
Plain Jane, anyway?" she asked, referring to herself.
    "You would be surprised. He may be
closer than you think. Besides that's one of the things I like
about you─your natural beauty."
    For a moment, she considered telling
him about the visit from her sister, but fearing he might not
understand, she chose not to, having shared that incident with her
doctor was enough.
    She smiled and admired him staring
across the table at her as it was always flattering.
    "You have to give it time," he
said.
    She didn't have a clue to what he was
talking about. "Give what time?" she asked.
    "Your situation, the
sadness."
    "Oh, that."
    "Things are never comfortable at
first."
    "Is that what you have learned from
your thirty-three years of living?"
    "This is what I know because I speak
from experience."
    After showing incredible restraint,
Bianca glanced at the psychedelic gift box on the table, and her
curiosity set in. "What's in the box?"
    Lee slid the box in her direction.
"Open it and find out."
    A warm smile lit Bianca's face as she
grasped the box, thinking that it was a shame to ruin the
beautifully wrapped package. Upon unwrapping it, she uncovered a
red glass alarm clock with polk-a-dot numbers. "This is beautiful,
Lee. Thank you."
    This was an unusual gift. Having grown
accustomed to