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Florita looked at her for several seconds, burst out laughing, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s jus’ that I worry ‘bout them, you know? An’ I see you worming your way into this family, making pizza in my kitchen, an’ I think, this chick, she doesn’t have any family of her own—”
“And you think I’m trying to find an instant family here?” When Flo shrugged, Winnie sighed, figuring this rat terrier of a housekeeper was the least of her worries. “Trust me, nothing could be further from my mind. All I was doing was making supper. And then tomorrow Aidan will fix my truck and I’ll be outta everybody’s hair for good.”
Flo gave her a speculative look, then turned to the meatlocker-size refrigerator to get out salad fixings. “You made the pizza from scratch?”
If that was Flo’s attempt at being conciliatory, Winnie supposed she could climb down off her high horse for a minute or two. “I found flour and yeast and that pizza stone under the cabinet, so I made up a crust dough earlier. It was either that or meat loaf for fifty.”
Winnie saw the woman’s glittery mouth twitch as she dumped lettuce, tomatoes and a cucumber on the counter. “You should be married.”
“I’ll put it on my list. But this is your business how?”
“You’re in my kitchen,” she said, pulling several leaves off a head of romaine, “I get to ask the questions. Besides, it’s boring as hell up here, I got nothin’ else to do.”
Grabbing the cucumber and peeler, Winnie went to the sink to strip it. “What can I say, it just hasn’t happened for me yet.”
“Some pendejo dumped you?” she heard behind her.
“More than one, actually,” Winnie said, getting the gist.
“Pretty girl like you, I’m surprised the men aren’t lined up for miles.”
“I live in a town smaller than this one, Flo,” Winnie said, thinking, Pretty? “There’s not enough available men to line up for twenty feet, let alone miles. And half of those…” She shuddered.
“So you should move.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it. But I couldn’t before now. And anyway, it’s not that easy to pull up roots that deep. Especially when you haven’t had two seconds to think about what comes next.” Winnie handed the now naked cucumber to Flo, then glanced outside just as the last rays of sunset gilded the landscape. “It’s really beautiful up here. Closest thing we’ve got to mountains back home is the occasional dead armadillo by the side of the road.”
“The winters can be a bitch, though.”
“Can’t be any worse than gettin’ a sand facial every time you walk out your door.”
Flo almost chuckled. “Tierra Rosa’s jus’ like any other small town, it’s got its good and its bad.”
“You’re still here.”
“Like you said…deep roots.”
Winnie slid up onto a stool across from Flo, propping one booted foot on the railing at the base of the breakfast bar, her arms crossed. “I gather June was from around here, too?”
A shadow crossed the housekeeper’s features before she said, “Nearby. Next town over. Her folks’re gone now, too.” Her knife passing through a tomato in slow motion, she added, “Sometimes, I can almos’ still feel her presence.”
“Whose presence? June’s?”
“Yes. Especially as it gets closer to Los Días de Los Muertos. You know about that?”
“The Days of the Dead? Sure. Well, a little. A couple Mexican families back home observe it. I never really got it, myself.”
“You think it’s spooky, no?” Flo said with a grin. “But it’s not like that for us, it’s a celebration. We don’t go all out the way they do in Mexico, maybe, but it’s still important. We get together, we remember those who’ve gone on before, we laugh, we tell stories, we show them we haven’t forgotten them, that they still live in our memories. Our hearts. So in a way, they really do ‘come back’ to visit us, you see? It’s a time to show we’re not afraid of death, because it can’t really take our loved ones from us. Not in the way that most matters.”
“Oh. When you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense. But what if…?”
Flo’s eyes lifted to hers. “What?”
“Nothing,” Winnie said, refusing to let moroseness gain a foothold. Like wondering about people who die with no family. Who celebrates their lives? Who remembers them?
“You know,” Flo was saying, “everybody loved Miss June. She could cut a person down to size with three words if they had it coming, but Dios mío, I never knew anyone with a bigger heart.” Her mouth thinned. “I know people sometimes said things. Mean things. Because Miss June was so much older than the boss. But what does love know about age?” she added with a shrug. “About friendship. ‘Cause you never saw two people who were better friends. And I know he still misses her real bad.”
“I’m sure he does,” Winnie said, thinking, Okay, cutie, time for a reality check. That she was leaving the following day. That she was smart enough not to confuse chemistry and sympathy and loneliness with anything real. “You call him ‘the boss’?”
Flo smiled. “Miss June would call him that sometimes, just to get a rise out of him. They’d be arguin’ about somethin’, an’ she get this real amused look on her face, and go ‘Whatever you say, b-boss…’”
The last words were barely out of the housekeeper’s mouth before she dissolved into embarrassed tears. Winnie immediately went to her and wrapped her in her arms, getting the strangest, strongest feeling that if June had any idea how mopey everybody was around here, she’d be hugely pissed.
And that while Winnie was here, maybe she should see what she could do about that.
Chapter Seven
Winnie Porter was a strange bird indeed, Aidan decided as he sat across from her at the dining table, its dings and gouges probably hailing from New Mexico’s territorial days.
He’d hung outside the kitchen, listening to her and Flo’s conversation probably far longer than was politic, simply because he’d been too mesmerized to do anything else. Her moods apparently dipped and swerved like a roller coaster, with every bit of the accompanying dizziness and nausea. Women were hard enough to understand when they were levelheaded; one like Winnie…
“Why was six afraid of seven?” Robbie piped up, his mouth full of fresh, aromatic, bubbly-cheesed pizza.
“I have no idea,” Winnie said, aiming a wink in Aidan’s direction, and he thought, What? “Why was six afraid of seven?”
“Because seven ate nine!” Robbie said, both he and Jacob, exploding into knee-slapping laughter, which got Annabelle to barking and spinning in circles for no apparent reason. Winnie laughed, too, just as hard, even though Aidan sincerely doubted she’d never heard the joke before. Then she launched into a series of truly terrible riddles, half of which the boys already knew—which only seemed to make them laugh harder—and the laughter and the barking crescendoed until it seemed the very room would burst.
Winnie’s eyes touched his, begging him to join in.
Barely able to breathe, Aidan got up from the table to refill his tea glass, at which point he realized the jollity had apparently infected his housekeeper, as well. Now this is more like it, he thought he heard her say, although it didn’t really sound like her voice, it sounded like—
He shook his head to clear it. He was knackered, was all, having not slept well in months. Which probably accounted for why the room suddenly seemed brighter than he remembered, the reds and golds and rich blues vibrant in the warm overhead light. He squinted at the fixture: Had Flo changed the bulbs to a higher wattage?
His glass refilled, Aidan returned to his seat. Winnie looked up, grinning full out, breathless, her cheeks flushed, and Thank God you’re leaving and Too bad you’re leaving collided underneath his skull like a pair of daft footballers.
“Dad! Dad! Guess what Winnie taught us?”
“Three-card monte?” Aidan said drily, and Robbie said, “Huh?” as Winnie said, “Honestly, Aidan, give me some credit,” and Robbie said, “No—chess!”
Aidan looked at Winnie. “Chess?”
“Yeah, he had that beautiful set on the shelf in his room, I asked him if he knew how to play and he said no, so I taught him. Him and Jacob,” she said with the kind of smile for Robbie’s friend that young boys had been falling in love with since God did that little hocus-pocus thing with Adam’s rib.
Aidan swallowed down the flare of annoyance, that June had ordered the Harry Potter set for Robbie for his eighth birthday with explicit instructions that Aidan teach their son how to play. That Winnie knew how to play chess.
Not to mention everyone who crossed her path.
Except Aidan, of course. Aidan was immune to being played—
“It’s so cool,” Robbie said. “Almost as cool as Mario Galaxy—Hey!” he squawked as a bit of black olive bounced off his nose. “Who did that?”
“Who did what?” Winnie said, all innocence as she took a sip of her iced tea, and Aidan opened his mouth, only to close it again, refusing to let himself feel…
Alive?
“Somebody threw an olive at me!”
“It was you!” Jacob yelled, eyes alight, pointing at Winnie. “I saw you!”
“Was not,” Winnie said, picking a pepperoni slice off her pizza and chucking it at Jacob, which set off a whole new round of giggles. Then a mushroom bounced off Aidan’s forehead and the boys roared, and from the other end of the kitchen Flo threw her hands up and muttered something in Spanish that Aidan only half heard, and when he met Winnie’s gaze she cocked her head at him, grinning, her eyes full of mischief and mayhem, and he thought, No.
But not before the sucker punch hit. With far more devastation than the mushroom. Because from somewhere deep, deep inside him, a funny, fuzzy feeling bubbled up, like inhaling helium.
Go with it, babe…
Aidan picked up the artillerized fungus. “Lose something?” he said, his gaze locked with hers.
She grinned, full of herself. Smug. Dangerous. “Consider it a gift,” she said.
Only to shriek with laughter when he threw it back.
An hour later, Aidan sneaked a glance at Winnie’s face as his truck jostled down the mountain to take Winnie and Annabelle back to the Old House, then Jacob home. Behind him, the boys squealed every time the truck hit a bump. Beside him, Winnie smiled, thinking more secret Winnie thoughts. Aidan jerked his head back around, telling himself he wasn’t interested. In her thoughts, or…anything else.
Now there’s a lie for you.
Feeling his nostrils flare, a certain swift, hot kick to his groin, Aidan shifted gears as they navigated a particularly steep part of the road. Two years ago he wouldn’t have believed it possible that the time would come when he wouldn’t miss sex. Until June got sick, and things changed, and Aidan basically put his libido in cold storage.
Then June died, and what would have been the point in taking it back out?
Not that he didn’t occasionally still think about That Side of Things, as his mother would say. But not so much about having sex—or not—as how strangely easy it had been to simply disconnect one or two crucial wires. That he hadn’t felt deprived so much as disinterested.
Until tonight.
Which was making him confused as all hell. Not to mention cranky. Crankier.
The truck bumped up in front of the Old House; when Winnie opened the door, Aidan told the boys to sit tight, he’d be back straightaway, and got out before he caught Winnie’s look. Because he knew there’d be a Look.
Sure enough, as soon as they were out of earshot her eyes slid to his. “Walkin’ me to the door’s kinda overkill, don’t you think?”
“I’m just setting a good example for the lads.”
“Ah.” She pulled the persimmon-colored jacket closed, shivering; nightfall had sucked all the warmth out of the air. At least, that provided by the sun.
“I just…wanted to thank you for watching the boys. And for the pizza, it was great.”
“You’re welcome—”
“And for gettin’ Robbie out of himself like that.”
Her grin was cautious. “Yeah, nothin’ like a good food fight to shake things up. Although Flo may never speak to any of us again.”
Aidan smiled back, telling himself that her lips were just lips. That this was a helluva time for That Side of Things to kick in again. “She’ll survive. Besides, the dog cleaned most of it up already.”
“Good old Annabelle,” Winnie said warmly to the beast, who barked up at her. Then burped.
“It should’ve been me, though,” he said.
“To lick the food off the floor?”
“No,” he said on a half laugh, then sighed, raking one hand through his hair. Which really was getting too long. “To teach Robbie how to play chess.” He paused. “To make him laugh again.”
He caught her gaze dipping from his hair to someplace below his neck. “I didn’t mean to step on any toes, honest—”
“And I didn’t mean to imply you had. Well, not too much anyway. What I mean to say is, what’s important is seeing Robbie happy. How that came about is immaterial. ” Tamping down the tremor of disloyalty, he said, “I think June would be pleased.”
Her eyes lifted, glittering in the half-assed porch light. She nodded, then turned to unlock the door. “So. What time should I be ready tomorrow?”
“So you’re really going, then?”
Winnie twisted around, at least as shocked as he. Then she sighed. “I had a blast today, Aidan. I really did. But it wasn’t easy.”
“No, I don’t suppose it was,” he said, appalled to discover how badly he wanted to hold her. To rub her back and tell her it would be okay. “Well, then. Is eight too early?”
“No, eight’s fine—”
“I’m going t’do better, Winnie. With Robbie, I mean. Whatever’s still goin’ on inside my head, Robbie’s only a child. And I know he needs to be getting on with things. With bein’ a boy, enjoying life. If y’know what I mean.”
After a moment, she crossed her arms, shivering slightly, her eyes soft with concern. “This is only a suggestion, okay? But Flo was talkin’ about the Day of the Dead, about how it’s not morbid at all, but instead a way to celebrate those who’ve gone on. So maybe, I don’t know…you should think about you and Robbie holding some kind of vigil for June? Because maybe remembering will help ease the pain? Because…because if I were her, I sure as heck wouldn’t be happy knowing that you and Robbie weren’t.”
A sudden gust of woodsmoke-laced air made Aidan’s eyes burn, a shiver lick at his spine, even as those guileless eyes did their best to melt something long frozen inside him. “Y’might be on to something at that,” he said with a jerk of his head, then added, “It’s dipping into the t’irties tonight, are you sure you’ve got enough firewood?”
Winnie’s mouth pulled into a small, damnably understanding smile. “Plenty, thanks. So…see you tomorrow,” she said, slipping inside the house and shutting the door before he could make any more of a fool of himself than he already had.
Dad’s footsteps were so soft outside Robbie’s room he barely got his thumb out of his mouth in time. He knew he was way too old to be still sucking his thumb, but sometimes it made him feel less jumpy inside—
“Laddie?” Dad whispered, right by his bed. Robbie rolled; in the dark, Dad was a big blob, the light from the hallway making this weird glow all around him. “Ah. So you’re not asleep.”
Robbie shook his head, and Dad sat on the edge of his bed, making Robbie tumble toward him. They both laughed, a little. Then Dad leaned over him with his hands on either side of Robbie’s shoulders, making him feel safe. Now he could see his face, even if his hair hung down in his eyes. He was smiling. Sorta.
“Y’had a good time tonight, didn’t’ya?”
Robbie nodded. “It was…”
“What?”
“It kinda reminded me of before. With Mom.”
“I know. It did me, too.”
“Winnie’s really funny, huh?”
“That she is,” Dad said in a strange voice, then pushed Robbie’s hair out of his face. “I’d forgotten how good it felt to laugh. To be a little crazy.”
A little crazy? Before Mom got sick—even after, until she got really bad—Dad and Mom used to go nuts, cracking each other up all the time. Robbie remembered sometimes laughing so hard his stomach would hurt. Tonight was the closest he’d come to feeling like that in a really long time.
Dad’s mouth got all twisted. “It’s been hard on both of us, this last year,” he said, and Robbie nodded, not sure what he was supposed to say. But Dad wasn’t finished. “It occurs to me that maybe I’ve fallen down on the job in my duties as a father. It wasn’t something I did on purpose, I just…” He let out a big breath. “I just want you to know, you can talk to me. About…anything a’tall.”
“About Mom, you mean.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling a little. “About Mom.”
Robbie frowned. “I didn’t think you even thought about her all that much.”
“Oh, Robbie,” Dad said on another breath, this one even longer, “I think about your mother all the time. But it’s been hard for me to talk about her because it hurts so much. Do y’see?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“But that doesn’t mean you can’t talk about her. To me, I mean. To be honest, I don’t think Mom would be very happy about the way I’ve been acting since she died.”
In the dark, Robbie felt his eyes open wide. He couldn’t remember Dad ever coming right out and saying that Mom had died. In a way, he felt like this big rock had rolled off his chest…only to get stuck in his throat. Part of him wanted to tell Dad everything, about how he sometimes felt like Mom was in the Old House, about how he missed the way Mom would sing, really badly and so loud birds would fly up out of the trees. About how he remembered the time she burned the stew she was trying to make and the whole house got full of smoke and how much he missed the way they used to laugh all the time.
But he couldn’t get the words past that dumb rock.
In the dark, he saw Dad’s eyes go all shiny. Then he nudged Robbie over so he could lie down beside him, holding him against his chest.
“It’s okay if you’re not ready, laddie,” Dad whispered into his hair. “But whenever you are, I’m right here, I promise.” He kissed Robbie’s forehead. “How’s that?”
His eyes watery, all Robbie could do was nod.
The next morning, Winnie came out of the bathroom to find Annabelle whining in great excitement at the bottom of the front door, followed by the muffled sounds of somebody messing about with tools and such out front. Momentarily forgetting she was only wearing Ida’s ratty old chenille robe, she swung open the door to an arctic blast that swirled inside like a cat looking for someplace warm.
Madly toweling her hair before it froze, she called out, “It’s not even eight yet, so don’t tell me I’m late!” Then she frowned. “What are you doing?”
From underneath the hood of her truck, Aidan mumbled something about going into town early for the part, there’d been no need for her to go, too, before he popped into view, slamming shut the hood. He was all woodsy today, in a checkered jacket and cute little beanie pulled down over his waves, which she realized—too late—only made his jaw look even sharper and his mouth even more…eyecatching. “I’m just now done, actually. So you can be on your way anytime you like, the truck’s ready to go.”
Okay, by rights she should be leaping about with great joy, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Instead she squeaked out, “Really?”
Aidan frowned at her. She was finally beginning to understand that frowning was his normal expression, not to take it personally. “I t’ought you’d be pleased. Because this way you’ll be home before dark?”
Suddenly aware assorted important bits on her person were about to flash freeze, Winnie held up one finger and ducked inside to yank on some ten-odd layers of clothes, all the while reminding herself that if her reaction to Aidan last night as he stood there, looking contrite as hell and far sexier than was good for either of them, was any indication, she should be down on her knees in gratitude. Especially as those assorted important bits began to defrost and remind her—rudely—exactly how much time had passed since they’d been put to good use. Or any use a’tall, as he might say.
As she tugged on her boots, she idly wondered if she should be questioning her sanity. Then she comforted herself with the thought that she only had to hang on for a little while longer, and she’d be out of there with her dignity intact. Along with her heart and those assorted other bits.
Because, yes, leaving Robbie was going to be a bitch and a half, but the sooner she did, the better. Leaving his father, however, she thought as she scrubbed at her hair one last time with the dry side of the towel, wasn’t supposed to cause so much as a twinge of regret. A flutter of disappointment. A prickle of…whatever the hell was prickling.
Hoping her hair still-damp wouldn’t turn into icicles, she went back outside, where Aidan was talking into his cell. Frowning, of course.
“That was Flo,” he said, clapping the cell phone shut and striding back toward his own truck, all concentration of purpose. “It was half in Spanish, but the upshot was that Tess went into labor, Flo ran out to her car, remembered she was supposed to take Robbie to school, tried to get to her phone in her purse to call me and between not paying attention and the chickens and those stupid high heels she wears, she stumbled. And fell. And now she can’t bend her wrist.”
“Oh, no—!”
But Aidan had shifted into Man Take Action mode. “I suppose I’ll go back to the house and pick her and Robbie up,” he muttered as he yanked open his truck door, “drop Robbie off at school, then go get Tess and take them to the hospital—”
“Aidan!”
He stopped mid-sentence, giving Winnie a look that might have been almost comical if the situation hadn’t been so serious. And she could have said something like, Give everybody my love, then, or What a shame I can’t stick around and help out, but of course she couldn’t do that—
“What?” he said.
She cast a brief, longing glance at her truck, telling herself it couldn’t actually look crestfallen that, for the second time in as many days, plans had changed. On a heartfelt sigh, she returned her gaze to Aidan.
“I know you think you’re ‘The Man,’ but not even you can take three people to three different places at one time.”
A muscle popped in his jaw. “Robbie’s school’s on the way to the hospital and both women’ll be going there—”
“And last time I checked hospitals didn’t generally fix wrists in the maternity wing. Besides, who’s got Miguel?”
“Ah, hell, I forgot about him—”
“So I noticed.” She held out her hand. “Give me my keys. I’ll pick up Robbie and Flo, you go ahead and get Tess and Miguel, and we’ll meet up in Maternity. I know where the hospital is,” she said to his frown, “I passed it when I was out driving the other day.”
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