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“Oh, has she talked about me? Don’t listen to anything she says. It’s all lies,” Neesa said.
The three women looked at each other and burst out into laughter. Heath sensed it was an inside joke that he didn’t understand. Having such an array of family a stone’s throw away was something totally outside his realm of experience.
He was curious about Sylvie’s large extended family. It would be interesting learning more about all of them. But really, he’d prefer to learn it later … much later.
Phae and Neesa asked a few more leading questions which Sylvie neatly ducked, then with a quick goodbye to Heath, both cousins hooked arms and strolled away to the front of the cafe. They picked up a couple of orders to go and then were gone.
“I don’t know how much lunch you’re going to be able to eat,” Sylvie confessed. “We can pretty much expect that someone from my family is going to pop up at this table every couple of minutes the rest of the time we’re here. I should have picked a different spot for lunch.”
“How about we try our little get to know you a little bit better conversation somewhere else?”
“No. I’ve got myself all set for those chicken and dumplings.” Sylvie craned her neck and looked toward the kitchen. “Where are they, anyway?”
Rita saw her looking and ambled over. “Family reunion over? You ready to eat?”
“You know our reunions are never over, cuz.” Sylvie glanced at Heath. “Rita’s a Jones, too.”
“I only married into it, though,” she said. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”
The two women laughed.
“Okay, so I was keeping your stuff warm,” Rita said. “I’ll bring it out.”
“Yeah, make it quick before anyone else comes in.”
“Like quick will make a difference,” Rita mumbled as she left.
Heath thought he’d give it another try. “Seriously, we could have her bag up our lunches to go. I have a nice room over at —?”
“Please,” Sylvie interrupted. “Don’t even try.”
“It would be perfectly innocent.”
“Mmmhmm. Doesn’t matter. No time. I have a life and a business to run. You wouldn’t believe my schedule. And anyway, you’re just passing through, as I recall.”
“No,” Heath said, “actually, I’m not if you think about what I told you a few minutes ago.” Heath wasn’t sure if she was deliberately acting as if she couldn’t remember his confession or not. There was a lot of noise in the café, and they had been interrupted so many times.
“I’m flattered, Heath. But I really don’t understand why you came looking for me.”
Rita came back by, dropping off bowls of steaming dumplings and two tall glasses of iced tea. They thanked her.
Heath refused to be distracted again. When Rita was gone, he said, “You said you don’t understand why I came looking for you. Your favorite color is yellow. Your favorite game when you were a kid was dominoes. You said you learned to fish before you learned to walk. You said you had a big family and loved every single one of them, even the annoying ones. Your favorite music is jazz. Your first concert was Kids on the Block. You want to skydive someday.”
Sylvie listened wide-eyed, her spoon full of chicken and dumplings paused halfway between bowl and mouth.
“These are all things that I remember we talked about,” Heath continued, “and every single one of them was something that resonated with me. I might not have known your real name, Sylvie, but I felt like I knew who you were. And I wanted to spend more time with that woman. I came halfway across the country to see you. What else do I have to say or do to convince you?”
Once again, Sylvie looked as if she was going to respond when this time a good-looking younger man appeared next to her and leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek.
Heath wanted to growl in frustration and a bit of jealousy. What now? Who was this guy?
Sylvie jerked away from the man. “Don’t sneak up on me like that! You nearly made me drop my spoon.”
He scowled at Heath. “So who’s this?”
“Don’t be rude,” she said. “Heath, this is my little brother, Will. Will, this is Heath. Be nice.”
Will opened his mouth to speak, but Sylvie cut him off.
“Heath is my friend,” she said as if repeating something by rote. “He’s only in town for a couple of days. He’s someone I met a little while ago when I was traveling. No, he doesn’t know everyone in town. Yes, he’s single. You don’t need to know anything else, so don’t bother prying.”
Heath watched a very large woman come down the main aisle. She was headed straight for them. She stopped beside Will and, hands on wide hips, gave Sylvie a hard look.
Sylvie squirmed under the woman’s glare.
“Single?” the woman said a bit more forcefully than she probably had to.
Heath was amazed that she could have heard that part since she wasn’t close to the table yet when Sylvie said it. Then he remembered Sylvie’s comment about ears like bats. He almost grinned.
Sylvie looked heavenward and said, “This is my mother, Heath, Sachet Jones-Ford.”
Now it was making sense, Heath thought. He stood and greeted Sachet, but unlike the other Jones women, she wasn’t impressed if her sour expression was anything to go by.
As he sat down, he realized a hush had fallen over the cafe.
Sylvie’s mother turned her attention back to her daughter. “If you’re looking to spend time with a single man, don’t you think you should be spending it with the father of your children?”
No one in the cafe spoke or moved. Even Rita had stopped, standing there with wide eyes, frozen in the act of delivering the plates she was holding.
Everyone was watching Sylvie.
Heath had no idea what Sachet was talking about. There was someone everyone acknowledged as th
e babies’ father? This woman’s snide comment seemed to indicate just that. Heath experienced a boggling sensation of disappointment.
Sylvie lifted her chin. “Momma, Heath and I are having lunch, or we’re trying to. It’s just lunch. And we haven’t had a chance to say much of anything to each other with everyone showing up.”
“Well, I just got a call from Charmaine telling me that you were here showing off some type of gigolo,” Sachet said, her glare at Heath deepening.
“What?” Sylvie half-shrieked.
“Momma, that’s going too far,” Will said, looking deeply embarrassed. “Come on, let’s go.”
Sachet eyed her son. “I say when things have gone too far.”
“Then you’d best start talking,” Will said. “But not here. Sorry, Syl. Come on, Momma. We’re supposed to be having a nice lunch.”
He nodded at Heath, gave Sylvie a quick squeeze on the shoulder, then pulled a grumbling Sachet away toward a booth at the front of the cafe.
Sylvie put her head in her hands and stared down at the table. “This is a disaster.”
“I say we reconsider our options and get the hell out of here before someone else shows up,” Heath said.
Sylvie raised her head. “I wouldn’t blame you if you ran out of here like your butt’s on fire.”
“My butt’s fine, thank you,” he said.
She gave him a weak smile. “I’d have a good comeback for that if I weren’t drowning in humiliation.”
“Hey, I wish I had so much family that gave a damn about me. I can’t point to a single person, so I’m actually jealous of you.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“Nope. Hey, this may be the longest stretch of conversation we’ve had since you got here.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Maybe we’d better get out while we can.”
“I’m not leaving my chicken and dumplings,” she said.
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
