All This Love (Stoneworth Series Book 2) Read online

  “Here they come,” Jada warned in a low but panicked tone. She ducked and sat down next to the young girl with the first tattoo.

  The girl put her freshly tatted-up arm under a pillow.

  Jada heard the clinking of the tattoo artist quickly stashing her supplies.

  The footsteps of a small caravan drew closer.

  “Right here! She doin’ tattoos and er’thang!” the snitch pointed at the artist. Then she pointed toward the section where Jada and the girl sat. “She already did that one’s arm. And she payin’ the other one five dollars to watch out!”

  A frown covered the olive-skinned worker’s face. “You know the rules. No illegal activity of any kind. All of you. Leave. Now.”

  “All of who?” the second customer asked. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Raise up her sleeve and look at her shoulder. You’ll see,” the snitch thoroughly informed.

  The tattoo artist rose to her feet. “Whatever.”

  “Wait. We gotta finish.”

  “Come with me, then.” Both women gathered their belongings.

  The worker looked at Jada and the girl. “You two as well. We have a standard to keep here.”

  Disgusted but unwilling to argue, Jada followed suit.

  As she and her three extra-homeless companions filed past the worker, Jada heard the snitch whisper to the artist, “Shoulda hired me instead.”

  The first customer eyed the snitch. “You’d better hope I don’t see you on the streets.”

  “Let’s go.” The worker hurried them along. She opened the front door and told them they had to leave the premises. They had to be at least as far away as the sidewalk in front of the building.

  Crowded together, the tattoo artist quickly became the leader of the exiles as she stated, “The way I see it, we can either go under the bridge or go in together on a motel room.”

  “How much is the room?” Jada asked.

  “Forty, plus tax.”

  Jada wondered which would be better—being holed up with three strangers in a small, nasty motel room with lights and water, or camping under the bridge on the hard concrete without so much as a toilet. Plus there would be men. And men always posed a danger to women in their predicament.

  “I vote for the motel,” Jada said.

  “Bridge,” tattoo customer number one said. “Catch you all another time.” She took off walking down the street.

  And then there were three.

  The woman with the unfinished tattoo spoke up. “We gotta finish my momma’s picture. So I say the motel. You’ll have light there.”

  “Everybody got fifteen to put on it?” the artist asked.

  “Yeah,” Jada and the other woman agreed.

  “Let’s go get a room, then.”

  The three women trudged about a quarter mile to a nearby motel. Along the way, Jada learned that the tattoo artist’s name was Elizabeth and the customer’s name was Mya. When they got to the motel room, it was even nastier and smellier than Jada had imagined it would be. Stained carpet, a hole punched into one of the walls, and two missing tiles in the dark bathroom.

  Yet, there was a sink, a shower, and a toilet.

  Mya shared her bag of powdered donuts with Elizabeth and Jada. They both thanked her and devoured the midnight snack. Elizabeth and Mya took over the small, brown table, while Jada lay on top of the bedspread and looked on in awe as Elizabeth continued the artwork on Mya’s shoulder.

  As she tattooed, Elizabeth and Mya talked the same way Jada recalled women talk at a beauty salon. Elizabeth used to own a tattoo shop, but her boyfriend got mad at her and torched the place. With no income and the insurance company half-blaming her, she lost everything except the set of supplies she’d ordered the week before the fire. She had no family to lean on.

  Jada told them about how she’d moved to Texas for a new job, only to lose it because she refused to comply with questionable directives. She told them about her sister, her brother-in-law, and her bus ticket back to Memphis to start life over again.

  Mya had been on the streets since her mother started choosing men over her, back when she was a teenager. She had wanted to make amends with her mom before she died, but it was too late now.

  “That’s why I want to get this tattoo. To remind me of her. She’s been dead for three years, but I’ll never forget her. She wasn’t perfect, but she was still my momma, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  Jada and Elizabeth agreed as Mya’s voice began to crack.

  “Do you ever…pray?” Jada asked Mya.

  “Pray for what?”

  “Pray for comfort. Healing. So you won’t have to carry the guilt and regret around with you for the rest of your life.”

  “Man, I can’t even remember the last time I prayed.” Elizabeth chuckled, her eyes fixed on her immaculate design. “All I know is it didn’t work.”

  “How do you know it didn’t work?” Jada asked.

  “’Cause I’m still alive.”

  “You prayed to die?” Mya said, twirling her head to face Elizabeth.

  “Stay still!”

  “Sorry,” Mya apologized. “I just never heard of anybody praying to die.”

  Jada hadn’t either. “Why’d you pray to die?”

  “Nothin’ left to live for. Ready for this life to end so I can be with Jesus and God and the angels.”

  “And my momma,” Mya added.

  Elizabeth laughed slightly. “Yep. And your momma.”

  Jada wondered out loud, “Maybe God didn’t agree with that prayer because He has better plans for you. You ever thought about opening up another shop? Or maybe you could get a booth at someone else’s shop and save up until you get enough for your own.”

  “Yeah. I mean, you’re talented enough to have a shop anywhere,” Mya added. “I’ve heard about you. Everybody knows how good you are. You could open up a tattoo booth at the mall and, I swear, people would come from everywhere.”

  Elizabeth shirked. “Easier said than done.”

  “Didn’t say it would be easy. But it can be done,” Jada prodded.

  “Look at you,” Elizabeth teased, “sounding like Mary Poppins’ daughter.”

  Jada had to admit to herself that she did sound quite optimistic…like Knox. She smiled. “Must be this guy I met. He’s rubbing off on me.”

  “Wait? What! Rubbing—”

  “No, not like that.” Jada giggled. “I mean…his personality. His way of thinking. He’s from this really good family. A mom and a dad. And brothers and a sisters that all grew up in the same house. In fact, they have a guesthouse, which is straight up Fresh Prince of Bellaire stuff to me.”

  Mya smacked. “Shoot, if my man came from a rich family, there’s no way I’d be sleeping in this cheap motel tonight. He’d have to pry me out of his life and out of his bed.”

  “He’s not like that.” Jada plopped her chin down on her crossed arms. She closed her eyes and envisioned Knox’s handsome face as she spoke. “I mean, he grew up rich, but he’s not snobby. He’s just…happy and hopeful and he prays. And he’s positive and caring and he wants the best for himself and everyone around him. Everything about him is good.”

  Jada noticed the buzzing of the tattoo machine stopped. She opened her eyes to see both Elizabeth and Mya staring back at her. Jada sat up. “What?”

  Elizabeth said, “I do believe you’re in love, my dear.”

  “Duh!” Mya added. “If he’s so great, why are you here with us losers?”

  “He did ask me if I wanted to stay in the guest house. But I didn’t want to impose. I don’t really like owing people favors, you know?”

  “Girl, you crazy,” Mya said. “I mean, if a good man came along, wanted to add to my life, didn’t have shady motives, came from a good family, and maybe could help show me how to do things a positive way—and he can pray for me, too? You crazy. My momma would tell you you’re crazy, too, if she could.”

  “I can’t impose on his life,” Jada defende
d herself. “I don’t want him to feel like I’m using him. Besides, I don’t have anything to offer him. I want everything to be fifty-fifty. Not like he’s rescuing me.”

  “You have plenty to offer him,” Elizabeth said in a big-sisterly tone. “You’re smart, you got street sense, you know how to encourage people—shoot, you’ve encouraged me tonight already, talking about getting back into business.” Elizabeth wiped her eyes hard. “And it sounds to me like you know God, too, since you answered why He didn’t give me what I prayed for. I’ve been wondering what was taking Him so long. Now I know. You got a lot to offer, Jada. I say get over yourself and go for this guy!”

  “Amen!” Mya seconded.

  Jada smiled at her cheerleaders as their words sank deep into her heart. Knox wasn’t the only one who knew how to speak life into a person.

  She sighed. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

  Chapter 14

  Knox lay on his bed, half-asleep, yawning, but still replaying the video of Jada releasing him from liability for removing the stitches. Thanks to technology, he could study her smile. Her cheekbones. The wild curls surrounding her face. The spunk in her eyes. Jada was a beautiful human being.

  And she was leaving in two days.

  What do I do, God?

  After another yawn, he rolled over in bed and, by the light of his television screen, caught a glimpse of Jada’s belongings. What did she say was in the bag? He remembered her saying there was a Bible, which was probably what had made the bag so heavy.

  What else is in there?

  Knox hadn’t grown up around many females, but he knew better than to search through a woman’s purse without permission. He also knew there was no better way to get to know a woman than to do this stealthy deed.

  This wasn’t a purse, per se, but it might hold the key to understanding Jada.

  But, is it wrong to go in her bag?

  Undoubtedly, the answer was yes. But what did he have to lose? Jada was leaving Monday. She would never know he went through the bag. Plus, if he found something awful like drug paraphernalia or a picture of her with some guy, he’d feel much better about letting her walk out of his life.

  Knox wrestled with his conscious a few seconds more. Curiosity won the match as he reached for Jada’s bag, slid it onto the bed, and unzipped. He turned on his phone’s flashlight to get a better look inside.

  There was, indeed, a purple leather Bible. A calculator. A set of markers. Two plastic packages of Kleenex. Nothing revealing.

  He suddenly remembered that she’d mentioned pictures, but he didn’t see any. Where are they?

  The only plausible place was inside the Bible, so Knox took it upon himself to extract Jada’s Bible from the bag. He turned off the flash light, then fanned through the Bible until something stopped the flow.

  He grabbed a picture from the book of 2 Kings and examined it. There was a teenaged Jada standing next to a girl with the same facial structure and nearly the exact same height. From their long, gangsta braids and flared pants, Knox guessed the picture had been taken in the early 2000s. He turned the picture over and saw his impressions confirmed by the words, “Jada and Sam. Prince One Nite Alone Tour, 2002, Kansas City.”

  Knox laughed, thinking of how he and his brothers had to sneak to listen to Prince back in the day because their parents said his lyrics were too sexual for teenagers. “You’re already riled up enough,” his father had warned. “No need in adding fuel to the fire.”

  Knox peered at the picture again. He remembered that Sam was Jada’s sister. They couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16 years old in that photo. He wondered if they had snuck and gone to the Prince concert.

  He also wondered how such an equally beautiful young woman had wound up in this violent relationship with her husband. Jada hadn’t said anything about Sam earlier in the day. He wondered if she and her sister were talking. Had this last incident caused an irreparable rift between them? He hoped not. Prayed not. He couldn’t imagine being cut off from one of his siblings for any reason.

  Knox smiled, knowing that picture must have been even more near and dear to Jada now that Prince was gone.

  He put the photo back in its place, then continued searching for more pieces of Jada’s past. He found another clue in the book of Psalms. Jada, Sam, and their mother, as evidenced by the oversized Mother’s Day card the older woman held in her arms.

  Jada’s mother looked incredibly young standing between her daughters. More like an older sister than a mother. He wondered how old the woman had been when she took on the daunting task of motherhood alone. Must have been extremely difficult, to say the least.

  Knox whispered a prayer for Jada’s mother, asking God to show Himself strong in her life and help her to enjoy her current season of life because she certainly deserved to.

  A third and final picture surfaced in the book of John. Jada, Sam, and a baby swaddled in the newborn standard-issue pink, blue, and white striped blanked with knit cap. Jada was leaning over her sister in the hospital bed. The pride shined in their smiles and the love between them was evident in Jada’s protective lean over both Sam and the baby.

  The backside of the picture read: Joo-Joo’s birthday!

  While tucking the picture back in place, Knox noticed the highlights, circling, and writing in the margins of most of the New Testament chapters. For someone who hadn’t been in the faith long, Jada must have spent hours poring over the scriptures, highlighting what hit her and jotting down thoughts and questions in the margins.

  He noted her thoughts about one of his favorite passages of scripture, John chapter fourteen. Near the sixteenth verse, she had written: Who is the helper? Where is he? I need him in my life NOW! Please send him, God.

  Knox read the verse aloud to see how Jada might have misunderstood. “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth.”

  Re-reading this scripture with fresh eyes helped Knox understand why Jada was confused. He’d read this passage dozens of times in his life, but without a “churchy” background, a person could think that there was another physical person coming.

  He lay back on his pillows with Jada’s opened Bible on his chest and prayed a second prayer. He asked that even if he and Jada never saw each other again after Monday, the Holy Spirit would reveal Himself to Jada as her constant companion.

  “In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  He must have fallen asleep after that prayer because Knox woke with Jada’s Bible still in place near his heart. He quickly took in the time from the clock on his nightstand—7:21.

  Quickly, Knox showered, dressed, and headed out the front door to his car. He viewed his text message inbox before putting the car in reverse. There were two notes. The first was a daily devotional which Knox chose to ignore at the moment. The second was from an unknown number.

  This is Jada. I’m at a motel right down the street from the shelter. Call this number when you get here. Thanx!

  Knox couldn’t imagine why Jada was at a motel instead of the shelter. He imagined the motel was a better place. But why was she there and not where he’d left her? Who was she with? Did something happen at the shelter?

  Worry caused him to drive just a little faster than normal which, according to his brother Jarvis, was probably in line with the average driver. “Man, you be drivin’ like you workin’ for Miss Daisy.”

  Thoughts of Jarvis and his wanna-be-streetwise ideas came to Knox. He thought he’d better tell someone where he was. What if Jada was playing him? What if she was taking him to some secluded place so someone could jump him and jack his car?

  Jada’s not like that. He knew better about Jada. But he didn’t know about whoever she might have been with at the motel. And Knox could almost hear his mother saying, “You always let somebody know where you are.”

  Knox called his brother. “Yo, Jarvis.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just wanted to let you
know I’m picking up a friend of mine from a motel, not too far from the M-streets. Taking her to breakfast.”

  “Dude, what kinda friends you got stayin’ in motels?”

  “A girl named Jada.”

  “The one who stayed in the guesthouse?”

  Knox asked, “Who told you about that?”

  “Who else?”

  Knox already knew the answer. Rainey had always been a tattle-tale. “Yeah. She’s the one.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you’ve got going on with her, but you need to finish up by ten. Did you forget? We’re getting fitted for our tuxedos for Braxton’s wedding this morning.”

  Shoot! “Snap. I did forget. Thanks, man, for reminding me.”

  “This Jada chick must have your mind in a daze because you never forget stuff.”

  “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  Chapter 15

  Knox found the shelter first, then traveled about a half mile west until he ran into a motel. A seedy motel. A disgusting motel. Like the kind in one of Steven King’s novels.

  Quickly, he called Jada. “I’m here.”

  “Okay. I’m coming out. But…um…I have a few friends with me. They’d like a ride to the restaurant. If that’s okay.”

  Friends? How did she make friends so quickly?

  “Sure,” Knox replied despite his misgivings.

  He checked his back seat to make sure there was nothing valuable within view. In the few minutes it took for Jada to appear, Knox imagined Jada’s newfound friends as gruff-looking, desperate, and smelly people with bad dental work. Perhaps even demented.

  But the two women who entered his vehicle with Jada were nothing like what he’d imagined. They looked like normal people. Jeans and t-shirts. Tennis shoes. Hair in order. And when they got into the car, no one smelled badly. In fact, the women’s soapy scents might have been doing his car some good.

  “Thanks, Knox. This is Mya and Elizabeth,” Jada said, pointing to each woman respectively. She buckled her seatbelt.