Nothing else is at hand, so I grab the wadded up paper towel Harry left on the table this morning and wipe my cheeks, determined to be unashamed. I’ve apologized for dissolving into tears a dozen times in the last five months, especially at the beginning.
I don’t think I can apologize anymore.
Hell, if it bothers Bob the Builder, he can add it to my growing list of unattractive traits. Sarcastic, stinky, slovenly, sobbing psycho.
But when I let my gaze fall on the plans, I forget all about repulsing Luc Valencia, the chores ahead of me, or apologizing for grieving.
The two-dimensional kitchen rendered on graph paper might as well be drawn in Mom’s hand. Every detail is so her—so us—it’s like walking into her hug.
My watery gasp makes him look up at me, but I don’t take my focus from the inked image of Mom’s dream kitchen. I feel rather than see him avert his gaze, but out of the corner of my eye, I can’t help but notice his hands as they grip the edge of the table with obvious strain.
But I have no time for his discomfort. I’m too busy catching tears with the stiff, scratchy paper towel and wishing Mom were here to see her ideas on the page.
A moment later, when Valencia speaks, his voice is low, careful. “I’ll just leave these here,” he says, and then I hear the creak of leather and the whisper of paper against paper. “My number’s on the card. Call if you want to go through with it.”
At first, I can only nod, but when he turns and heads for the front door, I call out. “Wait.” I force myself to face him. He’s standing in my living room, all loose-limbed ease gone. He looks as taut as a bowstring, his expression tense and guarded.
Some men just can’t handle tears.Just like Carter,I think with a stab of bitterness. But I share my words anyway. “Th-thank you for these,” I tell him, my voice catching just a little. “I don’t know yet what we’ll do. It’ll have to be something we all want, but thank you. She would have loved them.”
Chapter Five
LUC
I feellike acabrónleaving her to cry alone, but the only way I know to stop a woman’s tears is to pull her into a hug—and apologize if the tears are my fault. It works with Mami and Abuela. With all my cousins, Aunt Lucinda’s four daughters. My girlfriends back in high school.
In the four years we were together, I never once saw Ronni cry, so I wouldn’t know if it works on her.
But the thought of wrapping Millie Delacroix in my arms feels as dangerous as running into a burning building.
First of all, she’s a client—or she could be—and you don’t hug clients. Secondly, the last half hour has been an exercise in self-control. Giving in to touching her would have been a bad idea. The moment she put her hand in mine I wanted to hold on. When she led me inside, all I could think about was laying a hand on the small of her back. When she cleared the table, I strangled the urge to take the dishes from her. Carry them for her.
At the stove when she bent next to me, I wanted to breathe in her scent, the one the afternoon breeze had carried to me in the soccer stands yesterday. Strawberries and summer.
What you got was exactly what you deserved,I tell myself, chuckling at the memory as I fire up the truck.
A vet. She heals animals. That’s so cool.
My chuckle mellows into a grin. “Yeah, she let you have it when you asked if she was a nurse,” I mutter aloud, backing out onto St. Mary Street when I get a break between cars. I pop the truck back into drive and give Millie Delacroix’s killer folk Victorian one last look.
She’s as fiery as her hair is red. Prickly. And soft. She seemed to get pissed when I asked if she was selling the house. And then she blew me away when she said the decision to renovate would have to be unanimous. Hers as well as the kids’.
Would I do that? Would I leave something that important up to Alex to decide?
Hell, would I be able to handle raising him? Not to mention two others. And that little one only eight?
“Jesucristo.”I cross myself, my prayer half for Millie Delacroix and half for myself. May God help her, and while he’s at it, may I never have to be in her shoes. I love my little brother, but raising that kid would be the end of me. Hanging out with him is one thing. Making sure he’s fed, has clean clothes, and, shit, doesn’t kill himself after he gets a driver’s license is something else entirely.
She must be scared out of her mind.
I come to a stop at the intersection of St. Mary and Johnston Street with one thought in mind: I’d really like to build Millie Delacroix a kitchen.
* * *
“How’s Jorge and Inez?”
Cesar Luis Herrero Blanco has been my best friend since August of 2003. In a sea of white faces, he was the only other Mexican-American in Mrs. Brumsfield's sixth grade homeroom. We didn’t seek each other out, though we’d probably clocked each other before the tardy bell had even rung. But when Mrs. Brumsfield pulled out her seating chart to pair up the class at the fifteen two-person tables, guess who I was partnered with in the back corner?
Cesar and I have joked over the years that we owe our friendship—and even our very lives—to a xenophobic history teacher who smelled like licorice. While her choice to lump us at that table might have been small-minded racism, if I knew where Mrs. Brumsfield was today, I’d send her a fruit basket.
