Chapter Four

In the kitchen at Abuelita’s, my father worked the stove. Sauces simmered. Meats sautéed. One by one, he constructed burritos, enchiladas, gorditas, and tacos. “Hola, mi’ja,” he said as I came in.

“Hola, Papi.”

The knife my brother, Antonio, had been using to mince green onions stopped its rapid chopping. He scowled the second he saw me. “You’re late.”

I was so not in the mood for him playing boss. I was tired, starving, sore, and anxious about seeing Jack. I scowled back. “I have a new case at my real job.”

“Good for you.” Antonio tossed the green onions into the vat of guacamole, squeezed a lime into it, and stirred. “Pero, you need to be here when you’re scheduled. Somos tu familia.”

“Yes, but the restaurant is yours,” I said, “not mine. I’m here now.” I tried to end my sentence the way my mother did, with an implied punto.

But my punto fell short because he kept pushing. “It’s all of ours.”

I really had to start paying more attention to Mami and how she made things so final with her tone.

I flicked my chin toward the swinging door that led to the dining room. “It’s all good, Tonio. Sylvia’s still here.”

My brother grumbled, but he knew I was right. He went back into the dining room, the obligatory harassment over. Appealing to my father, I smiled sweetly, rubbing my rumbling stomach with one hand. “¿Papá, por favor, puedo tener una enchilada?”

His leathery face relaxed into a thousand lines, his salt-and-pepper hair aging him beyond his fifty-three years. “Sí, pero”—he wagged a wooden spoon at the kitchen at large—“stay behind the cooking line.”

I waited while my father crafted two cheese enchiladas, filling them with minced onions, a mix of shredded cheese, and sliced black olives. He topped them with a ladleful of red chili sauce and slid the plate across the stainless steel warming shelf.

I covered the plate with a paper towel, popped it in the microwave for a few seconds, then lopped a dollop of sour cream and a healthy spoonful of chunky guacamole onto the enchiladas. I returned the plate to the warming shelf. “¿Arroz y frijoles, por favor?”

My father took the plate, heaped on rice and beans, and handed it to me just as Antonio came back into the kitchen, his arms weighted down with dirty plates.

I took a bite, muttering a blissful, “Gracias.”

“Por nada,” Papi said.

Antonio sighed in exasperation, shaking his head. “Hurry, would you? Chely can’t make it tonight.”

Oh, man. That meant I’d be filling salt and pepper shakers, refilling hot sauce bottles, and cleaning the pint-sized flower vases to get them ready for tomorrow. “Why?”

“She has cheerleading practice.”

I whipped my head around. “Since when is she a cheerleader?”

“Uh, since the beginning of the school year.” Antonio waved a hand in front of my face. “What’s going on in there?”

I forked a piece of enchilada into my mouth. Wow, I was too out of touch with la familia Cruz. Then a thought struck me. I could get private cheerleading help from my fifteen-year-old cousin if Victoria couldn’t get me up to speed muy rápido. Pero, no. Chely couldn’t keep a secret.

“What are you mumbling about?” my brother asked.

I swallowed and took another bite. “Nothing.”

“You better watch it,” he said, still peering at me as if I’d done something wrong. “You’re gonna pack on the pounds if you keep eating like that.”

“More to love,” I said, my mouth full of enchilada. I swallowed and readied the next forkful. “Busy day. Lot of running around,” I said.

He grabbed the plates my father slid onto the warming shelf, backed out the swinging door to the dining room, and left me to finish my dinner.

When I was done, I stopped in front of the mirror by the In door, ran my tongue over my teeth and my fingers through my hair, pulling it into a bulky ponytail. Streaks of copper shot through the dark brown like shards of light. I liked the effect, even if my grandmother constantly reminded me that it was unnatural and indecent to have dyed hair.

Of course she didn’t believe in painted fingernails, either, something I’d embraced at ten years old. The fact that nail polish was forbidden but earrings on infants were commonplace was something she could never give me a satisfactory explanation for. If I ever have a daughter, I know my grandmother will be the first in line to make her scream by piercing her tiny lobes.

With a half-apron tied around my waist, I tucked my order book into the pocket and pushed out the swinging door into the dining room. Antonio was right. It was a busy night. Three-fourths of the tables were occupied with diners and I got right to work filling baskets with chips, spooning homemade salsa into molcojetes, delivering water, and bussing tables. Sylvia waved as she grabbed her purse and ran out the front door.

“Where’s she going?” I asked Antonio as he headed toward the kitchen to pick up an order. Sylvia had been taming my brother’s philandering ways ever since they’d started dating a few months ago, so I knew he’d have the scoop.

“Meeting with the social worker. She’s supposed to get her son back next week.”

I felt a surge of joy for Sylvia and I suddenly didn’t mind pulling the shift at Abuelita’s; Sylvia had spent too long thinking that her infant son was dead and now she was getting him back. That was more important than my aching thighs.

I worked steadily for the next hour and a half. Finally, there was a lull and I leaned against the hostess counter, running through one of the dance routines I’d learned in my mind. My eyes opened at the ding of the bell above the door. And blinked when they registered Jack coming into the restaurant. He had his laptop tucked under his arm and his ever-present journalist’s notepad clutched in his hand. God, he made my insides turn to goo. Tousled brown hair, dark skin, the faintest hint of a dimple gracing his cheek, and eyes just for me.

My gaze had started to travel down his body, but it screeched to a stop at his torso. Oh no, not eyes just for me. He had eyes for Sarah, too. Or some crazy sense of responsibility toward her that he couldn’t explain to me for some reason. Which made him honorable. Damn it, this was too complicated.

“Working hard?” Jack’s question interrupted the reality check I was giving myself.

I brought my gaze back to his face. “Always.” Absently running my hand over my hair, I fed the ponytail through my fingers. Then I took a slow yoga Ujjayi breath to get some balance in my thoughts. “Do you want a table?”

A slow smile spread onto his lips. “In your section.”

I frowned. If he kept looking at me like that, I might have to kick him out. “My section is the whole restaurant. This way.” I led him to what was fast becoming “his table” and pulled out the chair that faced the wall. I didn’t want him spending the entire evening watching me. We’d come too close to making love too many times. He wanted it. I wanted it.

But I’d had a few too many years of crumbs in bed with Sergio, and I wasn’t about to give myself to a man who wasn’t fully committed to me.

No way, no how.

I was not a one-night-stand kind of girl.

He set his laptop on the chair I’d pulled out for him. “Thanks.” Then he sat down on the other side of the table, facing the dining room. And me.

Damn. So much for that plan. “Do you know what you want?”

His dimple enticingly etched itself into his right cheek. “I know exactly what I want.”

A slow tingle burned its way through my body. ¡Dios mío! If I wasn’t careful, Jack’s charm would wear me down and my grandmother would be saying rosaries to save my heathen, wanton soul. Again.

I swallowed and regrouped. “From the menu. To eat.”

His smile took on a hint of wicked. This wasn’t going well.

I breathed in through my nose. Constricted my throat. Out through my nose. “For dinner,” I added.

He picked up his menu. “Not sure yet.”

I waved my order pad around. Other tables needed service. Hot food waited in the kitchen to be delivered. “Okay!” Way too perky, Lola. Get a grip. “I’ll be back. Take your time.”

We did our own seductive dance from that moment on. I took his order, and he flirted with me. I refilled his water. And he flirted some more. I brought him his food, and he tried to get me to sit with him.

“I have other customers,” I said, weakening from repeated exposure to his pheromones.

“Yes, but will they tip you like I will?”

“What, are you going to give me the answers to the Sacramento Bee’s Sunday crossword puzzle?” He could do it, too, being one of the paper’s most popular columnists.

“Not quite what I had in mind,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” I grinned, un poquito seductively. Two could play at this game. I put my palms flat on the table and leaned toward him. “Just what do you have in mind?”

His eyes smoldered, turning from blue to gray, and his lips parted slightly. Just enough for me to imagine exactly what he was thinking.

“¡Dolores! ¡Ven aquí!” My grandfather’s Marlon Brando voice swept me out of my fantasy with Jack and back into the restaurant. My grandparents held court in their booth, receiving guests, day in and day out. He was sauntering up to his regular table and seeing his wannabe mafioso face and his slick peppery hair knocked the sense right back into me. Jack and I were on hold.

“Espera, Abuelo,” I said over my shoulder as I straightened.

Jack blinked, the heat of attraction under control again. “Better go see what he wants before he fires you.”

I laughed. “If only he would. Then I could work on my cases without splitting my time.”

“Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Ah, but I couldn’t do that. I’d learned that revealing my undercover status to Jack was a risky business. He—and my brother, Antonio—had nearly blown my first incognito moment when I’d worn a wire to catch some flashing shoplifters at Laughlin’s Market. Distance, I reminded myself. The less time I spent with him, the better. And I was still hoping I’d make some great discovery before game time and be able to avoid actually doing the cheerleading thing.

“I’m closing, Jack, then I’m going home.”

He flashed that crooked grin, but something in his expression reminded me of the married mind-reading stare Victoria and Lance Wolfe had shared at Camacho & Associates. “I could come with you,” he finally said.

Yes, you could, I thought. Especially if he didn’t stop making me feel like he was undressing me with his eyes. “N-no you can’t.”

He blinked, breaking the thread connecting us. “Her family’s coming to get her.”

I shifted my weight to one side and put my hand on hip, my elbow angled out. “¿Otra vez?”

He gave me a long, searching look, finally saying, “For good this time. And they’ll keep her on her meds.”

Right. And I really was Xena. “They haven’t been able to do that so far.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

I caught—or maybe I imagined—the double entendre. “Maybe,” I said, but I wasn’t sure there would ever actually be a first time for Jack and me.