Sugar Read online

  Macro Publishing Group

  Macro Marketing & Promotions Group

  www.macrompg.com

  © 2018 by Macro Publishing Group

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 9-78173262250-0

  e-book ISBN: 9-78097541309-8

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means including electronic, mechanical or photocopying or stored in a retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages to be included in a review.

  First printing October 2018

  Cover designed by: J. L. Woodson www.jlwoodson.com

  Interior design by: Lissa Woodson www.macrompg.com

  What is NK’s Tribe Called Success?

  NKTCS is an author support group of Macro Marketing & Promotions Group clients which was founded by Naleighna Kai in May 2018. Our main purpose is to grow, learn to write new genres, and cross-promote. Our mission is to build a broad base of mainstream readers and travel the country to events that will connect us with book clubs and avid readers. Our ultimate goal is to land on the national bestsellers lists—together.

  On April 26, 2018, twenty-seven authors, a graphic designer, a beta reader, and a book reviewer came together as Naleighna Kai’s Tribe Called Success to create stories that were a slice of literature that represented each author in the best possible way. Along the way, we dropped down to seventeen authors, but gained more editors and betas. Authors within the group stepped up to mentor and help each other to have this all come together in a short amount of time. Four months from inception to completion, but the process strengthened and brought a sense of teamwork that was daunting, but enriched everyone involved.

  Two anthologies, one entitled Sugar, the other, Spice, are the creative result of all of their hard work.

  Enjoy!

  Acknowledgements and Gratitude

  As a group, we’d like to thank everyone who had a hand in the project in one way or another:

  Editorial

  Naleighna Kai/Lissa Woodson ([email protected])

  Rhonda M. Lawson ([email protected])

  Mo Systma ([email protected])

  Brynn Weimer ([email protected])

  J. D. Mason

  Lisa Watson

  Beta Readers

  Debra Mitchell

  Christine Pauls ([email protected])

  Priscilla Jackson

  Royce Slade Morton

  Margaret “Bunny” Ervin

  Scene Development

  Martha Kennerson (Sex/Sensuality)

  Shakir Rashaan (Flow)

  Karen D. Bradley (Action)

  Graphic Design

  J. L. Woodson [Woodson Creative Studio / (Covers/Website]

  www.woodsoncreativenumbers.com

  Naleighna Kai [Promotion Graphics]

  Group Social Media Coordinator/Publicists

  Kisha Green ([email protected])

  Naleighna Kai/Lissa Woodson

  Format and Final / Interior Layout

  Michelle D. Rayford (Ms Word/typesetting)

  Naleighna Kai/Lissa Woodson (interior layout)

  Group Assistants

  Anita L. Roseboro

  Shannan Harper

  Finance Assistant

  Terri Ann Johnson

  Conversion/Ingestion/Representative

  Kelly Peterson (Inscribe Digital)

  Interior Design/Layout

  Naleighna Kai/Lissa Woodson

  Note: The continous flow layout is intentional. Without it, this book would’ve been 500 pages. :)

  Also be sure to check out …

  Nine authors, featuring national bestsellers and award-winners, bring an array of prose that is sure to provide a delicious literary experience. Naleighna Kai, Lisa Watson, Pat G’Orge-Walker, Martha Kennerson, Michelle D. Rayford, Janice Pernell, J. L. Campbell, Kisha Green, and Terri Ann Johnson have crafted stories in a range of genres from contemporary fiction, women’s fiction, romance, erotica, and even a thriller to give you a taste of the most anticipated fiction offerings of the year. We hope you’ll find this anthology is an eclectic blend that will stay with you long after the pages have been turned.

  WWW.NKTRIBECALLEDSUCCESS.COM

  Dirty Diana

  Turbinado Sugar

  J. D. Mason

  Chapter 1

  “Looks like the champ’s in trouble, Ron,” the raspy-voiced sports announcer said.

  “That kick to the ribs certainly looks like it did some damage, Chuck. I don’t know.” Ron said, shaking his head.

  Chuck flinched, keeping a steady focus on the boxing ring. “Oh! Newton just landed a devastating blow to the head!”

  “The fact that Rigby’s still standing is nothing short of a miracle, Chuck.”

  “She’s got her down!” Ron was on his feet.

  So was Chuck.

  “The champ’s down,” Ron yelled. “Newton’s got her in the triangle choke and I don’t think Rigby’s got the strength to get out of this one.”

  “Looks like it’s over, Ron. We have a new world champion.”

  Diana Rigby stood on the deck of her Seattle home overlooking the still, blue waters and the distant, haunting image of a snowcapped Mt. Rainier across the Puget Sound, gradually waking up from the fog she’d been living in since she lost the title fight to a nobody. She’d been a Mixed Martial Arts fighter for the last ten years and had held the title for three of those years. But just like that, everything she’d lived and breathed for in the last decade was gone. She was thirty-four years old, too old to contend with these women coming up in the ranks now. Her body felt twice its age, her spirit, ancient. Suddenly, she found herself faced with the dilemma of what to do next.

  Her aunt Lorraine’s call had shaken her awake with two words she never thought she’d ever hear again—“Yo’ momma.”

  “How’d you get my number?” Diana asked, her head still spinning at the sight of that area code showing up on her screen.

  “Yo’ cousin Tray managed it somehow, using that Internet,” she replied, sounding older than her—what was she now? Maybe sixty?

  “He said you doin’ real good. Somethin’ ‘bout boxin’ or fightin’, somethin’ like that.”

  Fighting. It’s what Diana did. It’s what she’d learned to do growing up, and it defined her in so many ways.

  “I’m callin’ ‘bout yo’ momma,” Aunt Lorraine continued in that slow Southern drawl, laced with a kind of artificial sweetness that compelled an eye roll from Diana.

  “What about her?”

  Through the years, she’d almost forgotten that she’d had a mother. That was her goal after she left Rhino, Texas not long after graduating high school. She left that same day, as a matter of fact, not bothering to tell anyone; determined to put as much space between her and the hell she’d grown up in as possible.

  “She ain’t doin’ too good, Diana,” Lorraine offered, and then she waited, no doubt hoping that Diana would ask the most logical question. What’s wrong?

  Silence hung heavy between the two for several beats before Lorraine continued. “Doctors say she ain’t got much time left. Cancer got her. She stayin’ here with me, until … well.”

 
“That’s too bad,” was the best Diana could muster.

  Lorraine seemed disappointed in Diana’s lack of emotion or any expression of the sincerity of her regret. Diana offered words. That’s all. She had nothing else to give her mother except empty and hollow words that meant absolutely nothing.

  “She asks ‘bout you. Asks Tray to look you up on the Internet to see how you doin’.”

  Again, Diana had no response. She left the edge of the deck and settled onto a cream-colored chaise.

  “I’m sure she’d like to see you, Diana. It’s been so long.”

  The woman called expecting what? Hope? Hope for some happy, but tearful resolution to come to her sister at the end of her life? She was looking for that Hallmark moment of a beautiful reconciliation filled with apologies, regret, joy, and peace. And for her sister to be redeemed for all of her trespasses against Diana, and Diana would be whole again, reunited at last with a mother who never wanted her, never loved her.

  “Give her my best, Lorraine,” Diana said quietly before hanging up.

  The tears came ten minutes later. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried, but it was long before she left home. Now all of a sudden she couldn’t stop, as the most devastating and heartbreaking experiences of her life all came rushing back to her at once. Growing up in Rhino had been a nightmare. Being Louise Rigby’s daughter had been worse.

  Diana made her way from the deck into the kitchen. Her knees suddenly buckling, she lay on the marble floor of her grand kitchen, in her grand house that she’d bought with all of the grand dollars she’d made through the years. She sobbed like that six-year-old girl who, more than anything, wanted her mother to love her, hold her, and make her feel safe.

  “You look like him! Just—just like that sorry fool!”

  How had it been her fault that she resembled her father, a man she’d never even met? But Louise punished her time and time again for that very thing. Diana spent years trying to look like nobody, especially not like him. She made herself as small as she could, kept as quiet as she could, hoping that Louise wouldn’t notice that she was even in the house.

  Returning to Rhino had never been on her radar. She never expected to see her mother again. But apparently the umbilical cord between a mother and child is never fully severed, and it tugged on Diana until a few days later when she drove into town in a rented car on the same road she’d ridden out on in that Greyhound bus when she left.

  Welcome to Rhino, Texas, the sign on the side of the road read. Population 24,353.

  Chapter 2

  “Gimme the hatchet, Claudia.”

  Lord have mercy, this woman has lost her damn mind. Jake Randolph stood on the front porch of the Lewis house, trying to talk Claudia out of chopping off her husband’s—whatever.

  “Take her ass to jail, Jake,” her husband Donald demanded, holding up a pair of jeans with one hand, and covering his exposed nether region with the other.

  “Yeah, he can take me to jail after I chop that shit off between yo’ legs!” she yelled back. “Can’t cheat if you ain’t got no thang.”

  “He ain’t worth going to prison over,” Jake reasoned, struggling to keep space between the two of them as they pushed against him.

  Seemed like Jake or one of his deputies was called to the Lewis house every six months to stop some domestic dispute, usually involving a sharp object wielded by Claudia, and Donald being chased out of the house half naked. Today was just business as usual with these two.

  “I’m sick of him, Jake,” she said tearfully, her face a mask of frustration. “He disrespects me and our marriage all the damn time and I’m sick of it.”

  “Then leave him,” Jake snapped. “Stop all this madness and divorce him. You can do better.”

  For a moment, she seemed to finally hear what Jake was telling her, what he’d told her countless other times. Claudia lowered her ax and her head.

  “Why you keep doin’ this to me?” she asked, sorrowfully looking over at Donald, who was sweating a round of bullets that could fill a machine gun. “Ain’t I enough for you? I’m supposed to be enough.”

  “You can do better, Claudia,” Jake reiterated, hoping that the woman would finally see the light, tell this man to leave, divorce him, and get on with her life so that neither he nor any of his deputies would never have to come back for this nonsense ever again.

  “You are enough, baby,” Donald’s dumb behind chimed in, ruining the whole moment just as Jake felt he was finally getting through to her. “I love you, baby. I just—I do stupid things sometimes. It’s me. I’m messed up, honey. But I love you.”

  Jake dropped his head and groaned, slid the ax from Claudia’s hand, then stepped out of the way so that these two could kiss and make up again. Until the next time.

  The woman speeding down Flint Road in the flashy red convertible was definitely not from around here. So, of course, Jake postponed going back to the station to turn around and follow her. The speed limit was thirty, and she had to have been doing at least thirty-five. Being a small-town sheriff, little things like that mattered.

  He flashed his siren and lights only for a moment before she pulled over to the side of the paved road. He’d probably let her get away with a warning, but if nothing else at least he’d get to meet somebody new.

  “Afternoon, Miss,” he said in his best Texas Sheriff drawl.

  Damn! She was lovely, even behind those big sunglasses and that headscarf.

  She turned her face up to look at him. “Was I speeding?”

  Those, big, pretty lips of hers caused him to subconsciously lick his own. At first glance, he took her for a white woman, but up close he could see that she was either real light-skinned, Latina, or biracial. Stylish was the word that came to mind, right after beautiful. Everything about her screamed money, and she shone in the light like a new penny.

  “Little bit,” he said, nodding slightly.

  “I’m sorry,” she said curtly. “I thought the speed limit was thirty.”

  “You were doing thirty-five.”

  “And that’s considered speeding?” she challenged. “I thought there was a five-mile-an-hour-over rule, or something.”

  “In bigger towns, perhaps.”

  She smiled. “But not here?”

  Jake looked up in time to see one of the Carlson brothers give him a wave and speed past. It was none of his business, but since she had him mesmerized and all he figured that it couldn’t hurt to ask. “You just passing through?”

  She hesitated a few moments before answering. “Visiting family.”

  “Who’re your people?”

  The woman seemed to shrink a little at that question. “Are you going to give me a ticket?”

  Of course, he wasn’t giving her a ticket. She was too fine to get a ticket.

  Jake sighed. “Watch your speed, Miss,” he said, stepping away from the car.

  “Yes, Sir.” She gave him a smile that made his stomach turn flips before driving off.

  He’d give it until supper time, for sure by tomorrow morning, and the whole town would know who she’d come to see and who she was. Hell, with a woman like that, he didn’t doubt that he’d know her name by the time he made it back to the station. She was hard to miss, and gossip spread through Rhino like shit on a fly’s behind.

  Jake was back in his office for an hour when Deputy Schultz brought his rotund frame into his office and plopped down in the leather chair across from Jake’s desk.

  “Guess who’s back in town?” he asked, grinning.

  Jake leaned back, satisfied that the good, gossiping folks of Rhino would never let him down.

  “Who?”

  The man’s eyes lit up like stars. “Dirty Diana.”

  Jake’s heart sank at the mention of that name and the memories of that girl that were still fresh in his mind.

  “And I hear she drove into town looking like a movie star.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Go figure. Boy, she was a—” He stopped short and lo
oked up at Jake. “Did you know her?”

  “I knew of her,” he answered carefully, sliding a document out from a manila folder. “Heard some things, but I’m much older than her.”

  Schultz laughed, causing Jake to ignore the arrest warrant for Eddie Carlson and look up at him.

  “I went to school with her. She uh—she could be … accommodating. I’m just saying,” Schultz said, standing and scratching his head while wearing a stupid ass grin on his face. He moseyed out of the office.

  June 1997

  Diana Rigby, Louise Rigby’s only daughter. The girl couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, maybe, when Jake stopped by their house to answer a disturbance call. He’d just joined the force that week and was being shadowed by the sheriff himself, so he’d get the lay of the land. Louise Rigby answered the door, staring back at him like he’d called her out of her name or something.

  “Hello, Ma’am,” he said politely greeting her, then scanning the living room behind her. “We got a call of some disturbances coming from your house.”

  The woman glared at him with hollow eyes and pursed lips. “Everything’s fine.”

  Jake glanced over her shoulder at a wide-eyed little girl with tousled sandy blond curls and flushed red cheeks. Those eyes, red and filled with fear and sadness, said everything.

  Immediately he knew that everything was not fine.

  “Neighbors complained about some yelling going on over here,” the sheriff explained, rocking on the heels of his polished, leather boots. “Sounded like things were being thrown around or broken?”

  The woman rolled her eyes in frustration and nodded in the direction of the little girl.

  “She don’t get her way, she throws a fit,” she replied, dismally. “I’m just trying to raise my child.” This time her tone dared either one of them to challenge her.

  “How you doing, Little Miss?” Jake asked the little girl, though the sheriff grimaced and tried to send him a warning glance. “You all right?”