Santiago's Convenient Fiancée

CHAPTER TWO

YOU KNOW HIM?

That’s what Amanda’s wide-eyed look said. And then she said it out loud for good measure.

“Ha!” Saoirse barked. “No.”

Saoirse’s eyes darted between her friend and Mr. Mysterioso. This was awkward. Why wasn’t the earth being kindly for once and swallowing her up in a freak sinkhole incident? Now would be a pretty good time for Mother Nature to intervene if she was ever going to show her largesse. She hadn’t bothered when her fiancé had left her standing at the altar like a complete and utter ninny in a ridiculous meringue of a dress... Well...it had rained a lot so it had masked the tears, but Hop to it Mummy Nature—now’s your chance to make things right!

“Santiago.”

He stretched his hand forward toward Saoirse, who ignored it, and then to Amanda, who—after exclaiming how fun it was that he was a lefty—took it, gave it a stroke with her other hand to check for a ring and shook it in slow motion, all the while mouthing to Saoirse “You know him?”

“Santi, if Santiago’s too much of a mouthful.”

The comment was aimed directly at her. And elicited some images that would’ve sent a nun straight to the burning flames place.

Saoirse drained her glass. It wasn’t ladylike and rocketed a brain freeze straight to the neurotransmitters that would’ve helped her with witty rebuttals, but...tough. Mr. Created-for-Calendars here had made an impact and she’d been working long and hard on the impenetrable fortress built around her heart, not to mention her—ahem—golden triangle. Or whatever it was called these days. For crying out loud! It was feeling a bit too much like there was some sort of fireworks display going off in her heavily ignored girlie parts.

“And you are...?”

She could hear Santiago speaking again. Santi-ahhhh-go... Of course he’d have a gorgeous name to go with his gorgeous everything else.

Why couldn’t she speak?

“I’m Amanda and Miss Mutey-Pants here is Sear-shuh.” Amanda valiantly stepped into the fray with a perfect mimic of Saoirse trying for the billionth time to get people to pronounce her Gaelic name properly. It wasn’t that hard. And right now she wished she could tell her friend it was actually pronounced Sear-shut up, Amanda!

Santiago turned the full beam of his smile onto Saoirse, clearly enjoying her very obvious discomfort. And that wasn’t just the fact she had to tip her chin way up to meet his amused grin. It had been a right old comedy of errors when the pair of them had boarded up Diego and tried to get him up the embankment to the ambulance.

“You all right after this afternoon’s workout?”

Oh! It appears someone does a little bit of mind reading on the side.

“I think it’ll be safe to say Joe is more than happy to be throwing in the towel today.”

“You held your own.”

Flatterer.

“What? Coming up on the rear, with you pulling him up one-handed like? I don’t think so.” She might not want to like him, but the man deserved all the credit on that one. Diego would be wearing a toe tag in the morgue right now if Santiago hadn’t swooped in to the rescue. There weren’t many folk who would leap off their motorcycles—and, yes, she’d ogled the mint condition road bike, envied it and just for a teensy-tiny second imagined Santiago straddling it—all to come to the aid of a man who most of the world had forgotten about. There was definitely a heart somewhere underneath that big expanse of a chest that was working the plain black T-shirt he was wearing. She tipped her chin to the side as if it would help her see him in a white shirt. Yup! That would look nice, too. Caramel skin rocked all colors of the just-the-right-amount-of-tight T-shirt world.

“We got there in the end.” Santiago’s eyes didn’t leave her, one of his teeth dragging across his full lower lip in slow motion...just as it had earlier in the day when she’d been very obviously staring at his...er...attributes.

Stop staring at his lips. You are no longer in the kissing business.

Saoirse feigned a “whatever” eye roll just to pull her eyes away from his mouth and ended up stopping in midroll when his dark-lashed eyes caught her own with a teasing wink. He knew her game. She could feel it straight down to her tightly laced mental bodice.

“Saoirse’s name means liberty,” Amanda quipped, clearly feeling left out of the staring contest.

“And justice to all?” Santiago asked, his eyes taking a quick side trip to Amanda then straight back to Saoirse’s, all the while doing their jolly best to unnerve her.

For all the flaming rainbows in Ireland. Were those flecks of gold in his coffee-brown eyes? Nah... Had to be all the fairy lights laced around the walled patio’s palm trees. No one had gold flecks in their eyes. Except for tigers. And lions. Best leave the bears out of it because there was nothing grizzly about the man standing in front of her, waiting for a response to his clever quip.

“I told you. It’s Murphy. Murph if you get tired halfway through.”

She received a lightly arced eyebrow and a suggestion of a smile in response.

Why did everything they said to each other seem to have a sexy, satin-sheets connotation? She briskly turned to Amanda. “I need a drink. Shall I get you anything when I’m at the bar?”

“Same again.” Amanda wiggled her near-empty margarita glass, delighted to have a little me time with Mr. Luscious. Saoirse hesitated for a second. Happily married herself, Amanda had matchmaking down to a fine art. Especially given Saoirse’s...how to put this exactly...little bitty visa problem. The one she didn’t really want to think about ever but had to, given the high-speed tick-tock of that old life clock. Her advanced work-study degree to shift from NICU nurse to paramedic was running out and just thinking about heading back to Ireland turned her palms clammy.

Even so...she gave Santiago a sidelong glance. Poor mite. He wouldn’t know what had hit him. Give Amanda five minutes alone with a man and she would have the rest of his life planned out, whether he saw it coming or not.

Ping!

Mr. Luscious blinked.

Uh-oh.

Had they just done that connect-eyes, mind reading thing again?

“How ’bout I give you a hand? The crowd’s pretty wild in there.” Santiago turned to join her, much to Amanda’s delight.

“I’m all right, thanks.” Saoirse bristled. Talk about a rock and a hard place. She might be short but she wasn’t some helpless female who needed a big strong man to help her carry a couple of drinks. On the other hand, if she left him alone with Amanda it was highly likely they’d find themselves hand in hand on the beach, their bare feet being lapped by the waves as some new age minister united them in eternal marital harmony. She shrugged. This was pretty much a no-win situation. “Do what you like.”

“We’ll all come!” Amanda hooked her arms through each of theirs as if she were Dorothy and they were all going to gaily skip off on a grand adventure, conquering evil and learning some valuable lessons about themselves along the way.

The only delight at the end of this particular rainbow was going to be another margarita.

* * *

“Let’s just hope these were worth waiting for. Made by the man himself.” Santi handed over the icy goblet.

“Ángel?”

Saoirse’s smile broadened for the first time since her friend had made a flimsy excuse to go and speak with someone else. “Work matters.” He knew a setup when he saw one. Not that he minded. Saoirse was ticking a lot of boxes he hadn’t realized needed ticking: Unimpressed. Funny. Intelligent. Pixie-sexy. He’d never thought he had a type, but...the length of time it took to finish a margarita would be time well spent. And then he’d move on. Like he always did.

“Mad Ron,” Santiago corrected with gravitas, body blocking a couple of people trying to get to the bar so he could hand Saoirse her fresh drink.

He watched as she took the glass with a reverent nod.

A Mad Ron Margarita. He hadn’t had one for years. ’Twas a thing to be cherished.

She took a slow sip, closed her eyes, the thick goblet resting against the pink of her lower lip, and tipped her head back, visibly enjoying the sensation of the citrusy drink sliding down her throat. The tip of her tongue slipped out between her lips and added a bit of salt to the mix. Salsa music was pumping through the bar, but he was pretty sure he heard a little moan of pleasure vibrate along the length of her delicate throat. Halfway through the motion, he realized he had licked his own lips in response. He hooked a thumb in the belt buckle of his jeans and cleared his throat. Ojos de ángel.

“Someone looks like they needed a drink.”

“I’m not one to drown my sorrows,” Saoirse said with a hint of a prim edge to her voice, “but I am losing an amazing partner today.”

“Joe?” He stated the obvious, but scintillating comebacks were eluding him.

“The one and only.” She lifted up her glass to toast her invisible partner, who was no doubt holding court in one of the huge semicircular leather banquettes. “I presume that’s why you’re here.”

He gave a vague nod. “Joe mentioned the party when we were loading up Diego.” To Saoirse, but that made it public information, right?

She didn’t need to know he was psyching himself up to do some long overdue bridge building. Mad Ron’s wasn’t much more than a stone’s throw away from the family’s bodega and for some reason he’d gotten it into his head that a sighting of Saoirse would strengthen his resolve. Something—or someone—to strengthen the desire to stay in his hometown long enough to make amends. He’d flown back before—on leave—and not even made it this far. It was time he did more than drive by.

“What’s your story, then?” He needed to shift focus off of himself. “You’re a long way from home.”

“Yeah.” She scanned the room, a twist of anxiety tugging at the edges of her blue eyes. The girl didn’t give up information freely. Woman, rather. There wasn’t a curve on her he wasn’t itching to caress. But she didn’t seem the type for a cheap alleyway make-out session and he was the last person on earth to offer himself up as relationship material. All the more reason to keep his hands to himself.

“Miami suits you.”

One of her eyebrows lifted imperiously while the rest of her facial features tried their best not to overtly dismiss him.

He could’ve chewed the words up and spat them out in the gutter. Ridiculous space fillers. One roadside rescue and a margarita’s worth of time with this woman and it was easy enough to ascertain she wasn’t a thing like the pata sucia he’d grown up with. Dedicated clubbers who regularly saw dawn from the wrong end of the day. There was no lip liner or gloss that could improve on this woman’s mouth, let alone any of her other features. A natural beauty.

“What makes you say Miami suits me?” she finally asked. “You think I look like a snowbird, do you?”

“Hardly.” He laughed appreciatively. “I think we can safely say I wasn’t likening you to a geriatric. However long you’ve been here in Miami, it seems to have rubbed off on you. In a nice way,” he emphasized, smiling as her eyes skittered off again in a vain attempt to find her long-gone friend.

He couldn’t help himself. As much as the crowded bar would allow, he took advantage of her divided attention to take a luxurious head-to-toe scan of her tomboyish ensemble. Blond hair gone nearly white with the sun. Half pixie, half mermaid, he was guessing by the bikini tan lines ribboning across her collarbones. Sun-kissed shoulders. A bit freckled. Her body-skimming T-backed tank top swept along the curve of her waist. That was all he could make out as the rest of her curves were mostly hidden by a baggy overalls dress thingy. Something a girl who wasn’t on the lookout for a boyfriend would wear. Even so, the shortish skirt showed off a pair of athletic legs. Flip-flops rather than heels. No surprise there. He had his own stash of flip-flops. They were de rigueur in Miami. Her toenails were painted an unforgiving jet black. Interesting. Her natural coloring would’ve suited pastels to a T. It was almost as if she was fighting her own, very feminine, genetic makeup.

“Stop your gawking, would you?” she muttered, flip-flopped feet shifting uncomfortably as the crowd jostled and moved around them. “I’m not so good at taking all these American compliments.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “That was an American compliment, was it? What would an Irish person say?”

“Oh...” She ran a finger along her full bottom lip as she thought and for the second time that night Santi felt envious. It was too easy to imagine using his own finger taking that journey, lips descending on hers to explore and taste, salt, lime—Focus. F-O-C-U-S.

“They probably wouldn’t say anything nice at all,” she said with a huge grin. “Just something dispirited about the weather. ‘The rain’s not rotted your boots yet, then?’ Or, ‘What on God’s green earth have you done, moving to Ireland when you’ve got the whole of America and the sunshine and the crunchy peanut butter and heaven knows what else when all we’ve got is too much poetry about getting in the peat before the rains set in and not a single pot of gold at the end of one of blessed rainbow...’”

Her eyes caught with his. The sharp shock of connection hit him again. A connection Saoirse broke so quickly he wondered for an instant if he’d imagined it. Her eyes were so alive, Santi felt he could practically see the memories of her homeland hit her one by one until...hmm...a not-so-nice memory clouded the rest of the good ones out. Pity. She all but lit up from within when she smiled.

“You know—” he tried to give her an out “—they say one of the true tests of becoming a local is surviving a hurricane. Have you been here long enough to go through a season?” He cringed at his own lack of finesse. This was a massive flunk-out in the charm-the-flip-flops-off-the-lady school of making a good impression. He near enough checked his T-shirt for a pocket guard and a row of tidily stashed writing utensils.

“Arrived in the middle of one,” she shot back triumphantly, blissfully unaware of his internal fistfight. “The plane nearly had to be diverted.”

“But you obviously made it through the storm.”

“Something like that.”

Another cloud of emotion colored the pure sea blue of her eyes.

And...three strikes...you’re out!

Her tone said what her eyes had already told him. They were done now.

She raised her glass with a thanks-for-the-drink lift of the chin. No words necessary for that universal gesture.

See you later, pal. Better luck next time.

And then she disappeared into the thick of the crowd.

Santi looked down at his own drink, considered taking it down in one, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to reek of booze the first time he spoke to his brothers in... he looked at his watch to tot up the years that had passed since he’d last spoken to them, proof his brain was all but addled by his run-in with the Irish Rose of Miami Beach.

Right. He put the unfinished drink down on the bar. It was time to do this thing.

He went out to the street and pulled on his half helmet. The one that let in the wind and the scent of the sea as he rode along the causeways to the Keys. It was his go-to journey when he needed to think and he’d been to the Keys and back more times than you could shake a stick since he’d returned to the States four months ago. He’d flown into Boston for no good reason at all. Putting off the inevitable, most likely. If he was going to do this, he wanted to do it right. Fixing fifteen years of messed-up family history wasn’t going to happen overnight. He looked up at the evening sky as if it held the answer to his unspoken question. What made reconnecting with family so hard?

He swung his leg over his bike, the strong thrust of his foot bringing the Beast to life with a satisfying roar of the engine. The Beast and he had steadily worked their way down the coast, picking up paramedic shifts here and there as he went. He could’ve walked straight into any ER he chose after all the frontline doctoring conflict zone after conflict zone had demanded of him. But “downgrading” to a paramedic had fit right. He wanted the raw immediacy being first on the scene required. A penance for everything he hadn’t set right when he should’ve.

What kind of man abandoned his kid brother when he needed him the most? Left his older brothers in the lurch when they’d been doing the best they could with a bad situation?

A boy who’d been loaded with too much responsibility? Or a plain old coward?

Time to see if a decade-plus of being a Marine had made an actual man out of him.

He shifted gears again and headed toward Little Heliconia. The neighborhood he’d been born and raised in held more of his demons than anywhere else in the world. And he’d seen some hellholes in his time.

Santi reached the familiar corner, leather boots connecting with the ground as he debated whether or not to make the turn. A horn sounded behind him and he fought the urge to kickstand his bike and give the impatient driver a little lesson in common courtesy. Waiting two seconds wasn’t going to kill anyone. His heart caught for a moment.

At least, not in this scenario.

He sucked in a deep breath, flicked on his blinker and took his bike into a low dip, knee stopping just shy of the asphalt as he rounded the corner.

The lights were on in the back alleyway, but he couldn’t see anyone. He turned off the ignition a couple of doors down from the one he knew like the back of his hand, pulled off his helmet and let the night sounds settle around him. The chirrup of tree frogs and steady hum of the crickets kept cadence with the wash and ebb of the waves just a couple of blocks away, but the thud and thump of his heart won out. He’d driven past about twenty times since he’d been back. This was the first time he’d stopped.

“Ay! Dante! Don’t forget to put orange soda on the list this time, pero. We’re out.”

Santi’s spine stiffened as he heard his older brother give the admonishment. Rafe’s words had always held more bark than bite and it didn’t look like much had changed. The sound of his voice transported him right back to the time and place when everything had changed. He couldn’t even remember why they’d all been in the shop. There had been nothing unusual in it. But the command to get down on the ground had been a first. In less than a minute the “perfect family” had been irrevocably altered.

“Not my fault this time, Rafe. Blame it on la fea!”

Santi stifled a guffaw. Still calling each other “the ugly one,” were they?

“You boys! Stop your bickering and get back to work. I don’t want to be here all night.”

“Don’t worry, Carmelita. We’ll get you back home in time for your favorite soaps.”

“No seas tonto,” Carmelita shot back, appearing at the back doorway as she spoke over her shoulder. “I know how to record things now on my thingamajig. I’m every bit as modern as you boys.” She cracked a small area rug out into the empty space of the alley, a cloud of dust left billowing in the pool of streetlight with barely a chance to settle before she was in and out of the doorway with another one. Her efficiency had seen them through the darkest days of their lives. She may not have been blood—but she was all the family they’d had after that day.

“Carmelita, give me those. I can finish up.”

Santi froze when his little brother appeared alongside their adoptive auntie, then he slowly leaned back on the seat of his bike as if the darkness could envelop him more than it already had.

Carmelita clasped Alejandro’s stubbled chin in one of her chubby hands and gave it a loving shake, then patted his cheek as if he were a toddler. “You’re a good boy, Alejandro, but I’m not an old woman yet. You already work too hard at that hospital of yours. All of you boys do.”

Alejandro clucked away her talking-to and wordlessly took the next mat and gave it a sharp shake.

Santi felt a sting hit him at the back of his throat. His lungs constricted against the strain of trying to swallow back the sour twist of emotion fighting to get out.