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“Oh, she was. Her passion was hairdressing, but she knew what I liked, and my mom was so supportive. She wanted to help me understand, so she had started her training when it all happened,” Dinah said.
“And then she stopped.”
“Someone told her that no one would want to see someone like her. It felt like a different time back then, but her clients stopped going to her, and before long, she had no one who wanted her to work on them. I saw how desolate she had become.”
Road watched her. “What about income?”
“Dad had already prepared for the event of bad news.”Dinah smiled. “That is what my dad always did. He always prepared for the worst, and in most instances, it didn’t happen, but he wanted us to be safe. He got his wish. I know Mom was … she was dying inside. Hairdressing was her life, even as a kid. My grandparents would often say if it had any kind of hair, even fake, my mother would style it.” Dinah laughed. “They had pictures of dolls and teddies, anything that had hair. My mom would do some elaborate style, and she loved it.”
“That’s why you did it?”
“I watched my mother become a shell of her former self. The day she came down, and her hair was pulled back into a single ponytail, I knew she was giving up. I couldn’t allow that to happen, so yeah, I grabbed her bag of tools and the heads she kept out in the garage, and I told her to teach me. That if no one wanted my mother’s gift, that was on them, but I was not going to allow her gift and talent to be wasted.”
He saw the tears in her eyes.
“Excuse me.”
Road knew he should have let her go, but he couldn’t. Before she had even left the kitchen, he grabbed her arm and pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her.
“Stop it,” she said.
“Just let it go.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know, I know, but I’ve got you.”
She sobbed.
He couldn’t help but wonder who had been there for Dinah. Certainly not her friend Raine. The moment Raine had given him the address to get to Dinah, he knew she was useless as a friend, and probably only used Dinah. Now he knew for certain.
At first, her arms were by her sides, she wouldn’t hold onto him, but then it was like she knew he wasn’t going to let hergo. She wrapped her arms around him, and he held her tightly. Road had never held anyone like this. No one had ever relied on him.
Over the years, women had grasped him in moments of passion and begged for him to never let them go, but they were women after their own needs. They didn’t care about him. No one had cared about him.
Dinah wasn’t chasing anything from him. In the few days he’d known her, she had tried to push him away.
He wasn’t going to let her go.
She sniffled. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t,” he said. “You don’t need to apologize for feeling grief. You loved your mom.”
“I did.”
“Still, I, ugh, I don’t know where that came from.” She swiped under her eyes, and lifted her face. “I must look a mess. Excuse me.”
“I’ll finish dinner.”
Some of her mascara had run, but Road had looked down into her eyes, and all he’d seen was beauty. Dinah was a fighter. She cared. She loved. And he wasn’t used to knowing a woman like her.
Dinah didn’t want this path, and yet, to save her mother, she had changed her dreams. That, to him, was selfless.
Running a hand down his face, he couldn’t ever allow her to know what he did. How he didn’t even question Sergey when he was given the order.
He had fucked up big time.
Going back to the stove, he tested the sliced sweet potatoes and found they were cooked, and the chicken was as well. He gave it a final taste, and satisfied with it, he sprinkled some cilantro and gave it a stir, before ladling bowlfuls out for both of them. He gave a final sprinkle of cilantro, squeezed thelime, and carried them through to her dining room.
