lapse,” she assured him.
“Is this a bad time? If you have a date or something...” His voice trailed off as he studied her speculatively.
“No date,” she responded tersely. “And this is as good a time as any. I should warn you, though, that my mother’s at the house with the kids. That might ensure that you’ll get an invitation to a good meal, but it will also come with a lengthy interrogation.”
“I made it through your brother’s. I imagine I can handle whatever your mother asks.”
Adelia regarded him with alarm. “Elliott interrogated you? When?”
“On the day we were looking for Selena. He came by the construction site that evening. He told me he was there to apologize for the way he’d reacted when we stopped by the gym, but it was evident he wanted to clarify a few things for me.”
“Such as?”
“My intentions. His concerns. That sort of protective guy stuff.”
Adelia groaned. “He didn’t! I may have to kill him. He had no business getting in your face like that.”
“Oh, he thought he was being subtle about it, but men are rarely as subtle as they’d like to think when they’re warning people off. I got the message.” He shrugged. “Then we went out for pizza.”
“Men!” she said, shaking her head.
“He just wanted me to know you have someone looking out for you. I don’t imagine he realizes he’s not the only one.”
“Who else?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“Mitch chimed in just a couple of hours ago. He also said there’s some group of women in town, the Sweet Magnolias I think he called them. He said they’d have my hide if I hurt you.”
Adelia actually laughed at that. Though she wasn’t an actual member of that unofficial group of women, she certainly knew them all. She also knew their reputation for protecting their own with a ferocity that was a little terrifying to any rational man in town.
“And yet here you are,” she said. “Risking life and limb by walking through town with me.”
“Darlin’, there are some things worth taking an occasional risk for,” he said.
Then he very deliberately added a wink that rocked her nice, safe world. Adelia actually thought her heart might have come to a complete standstill for a few seconds.
And that, she concluded, should be sufficient warning to send her right back to where her day had started, knowing that she needed to avoid this man at all costs.
Gabe got one whiff of the aromas coming from Adelia’s kitchen and decided that any interrogation that might lie ahead would be well worth it, as long as he was invited to stick around for dinner. Adelia must have noticed that he was practically drooling, because she chuckled.
“Let me put you out of your misery,” she said. “Would you like to join us for dinner?”
“Yes,” he said so quickly that it immediately brought a deepening smile to her lips.
“You haven’t even met my mother yet,” she reminded him. “Are you sure?”
“Not a doubt in my mind.”
“Either you’re sick of pizza or you’re a very brave man.”
Gabe laughed. “Probably a little of both with some curiosity thrown in.”
“Curiosity?”
He nodded. “I find myself wanting to meet the woman who can fill this house with such incredible aromas and yet make grown men cower. That’s an impressive combination. It’ll be interesting to discover if you two are anything alike.”
Just then the very woman in question, diminutive in size but with the regal bearing of a matriarch used to respect, came out of the kitchen.
“I thought I heard voices,” she said, regarding Gabe speculatively. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Mother, I’d like you to meet Gabe Franklin,” Adelia said.
Mrs. Cruz’s eyes narrowed. “I believe my son has mentioned you.”
“Uh-oh,” Adelia murmured under her breath.
“He probably has,” Gabe said easily. “Elliott and I had dinner just the other night.”
Mrs. Cruz’s eyes lit with amusement at his interpretation of the encounter. “I hardly think my son’s choice of a dinner companion would have stuck in my mind. I believe it was his comment that we needed to keep an eye on you around Adelia. Do we?”
“Mother!” Adelia said, blushing furiously. She turned to him. “I warned you. There’s still time to make a run for it.”
“Not a chance,” he replied. Since Mrs. Cruz didn’t seem to harbor any particular biases toward him, Gabe figured he’d passed some sort of test with Elliott, if not yet with her. He was eager to see how the evening might play out. He couldn’t help it. Challenges always caught his interest.
“Gabe is here to check out the work I want to have done on the house,” Adelia explained quickly. “I’ve invited him to join us for dinner.”
“If it’s not an imposition,” Gabe told the older woman, drawing on manners he’d picked up from watching the way civilized people behaved, rather than any examples that had been set in his home.
“It’s not an imposition at all,” Mrs. Cruz said. “I have a large family. I cook accordingly. There’s always more than enough for company. Dinner will be ready in a half hour, if that will give you time to look around at the renovations my daughter has in mind.”
“Absolutely,” Gabe said, relieved to have passed the initial screening at least.
Somehow, though, he wouldn’t be one bit surprised to find Elliott and heaven knew how many other members of the Cruz family joining them at the table.
* * *
Adelia took one look at her mother’s face and decided that giving Gabe a personal tour to go over her notes would be preferable to the cross-examination she was likely to receive if she joined her mother in the kitchen, even long enough to apologize for bringing home a last-minute guest. She realized there was a certain irony in the fact that she was more intimidated by the thought of answering her mother’s penetrating questions than Gabe was. Of course, she’d had experience that he didn’t share.
“Let’s start outside,” she suggested to Gabe. “I think I saw a ladder in the shed, if you want to check out the roof. Mother, you don’t need my help, do you?”
Her mother gave her a knowing look. “Of course not. The girls are helping. It’s time they learned their way around a kitchen.
