“For now,” Sadie replied grumpily. “What are you doing this weekend? I need a rational human being for dress shopping.”
Lena reached her condo door and leaned against it. She could hear her cat meowing indignantly from the other side. Supper was an hour late. “We can do that. But don’t invite my mother. I’m trying to stay off her radar right now.”
“Yeah, by throwing me at her.”
“You’re the blushing bride. Much more fun than the dried-up old maid.”
“Is she still on that?”
“She’s backed down a bit. I think my aunts are planning something. Every time I see one of them, I feel like I’m being interrogated. Look, I gotta go. I just got home and la gata has complaints.”
“Okay, grumpy. Bye.”
* * *
“KEEP YOUR FUR ON,” she said as she entered her condo and kicked her shoes off. Sass, the cat, did not keep her fur on. Winding her way around and between Lena’s ankles, she complained bitterly of the near-death experience of having supper one hour late.
An hour later, she’d been forgiven by Sass, her business suit had been replaced with pajamas and Bon Banh Mi had delivered dinner. Wallowing happily on the couch, she scooped salad into her face and resumed binge-watching Supernatural. Her phone buzzed and Sass smacked at it. “Sthop,” she said around a chunk of lettuce. Estrella Acosta. Shit. What now?
“Hola, Tia. Qué pasa?”
“Are you coming to church on Sunday?”
Okay. Getting straight to the point. That’s new. “I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Contestame, will you come to church on Sunday?”
Lena made a face at the phone. “I haven’t been to confession.”
“You don’t have to go to confession to go to church, Miss Smarty Pants.”
“Which mass?”
That was important because no way she was getting up at four in the morning on a Sunday to drive an hour for a sunrise mass.
“Ten.” Lena grinned at the clipped tone in her aunt’s voice. “You haven’t been to church since Luis died. It would mean a lot to your mother.”
That melted the smile off her face. She slumped into the couch. “Okay. Yes. I will come to the 10:00 a.m. mass this Sunday.”
“And to the house for lunch too?”
“Yes.”
Sass swatted at her hair hanging over the arm of the couch. “This is why I should have got a dog instead of you, Sass. I’d have to walk a dog. Take it out to pee and stuff. Perfect excuse to stay home. But no. I got a cat.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her family. It was that ever since Sadie got engaged, everyone was starting to look at Lena like she was supposed to just pick out a man and start popping out babies. Her mother was calling Sadie’s soon-to-be stepdaughter nieta and dropping grandbaby hints like it was her job. Problem was Lena had spectacularly rotten luck with men.
MATT PLANTED HIS hands on the balcony railing and looked down at the crowd below. He was bone tired and the voices below were echoing off the high ceiling, making his head hurt. The only thing keeping the smile on his face was the memory of Lena Reyes’s departure. Her long black hair swinging side to side as she strode away. He smiled again. She didn’t look like any financial expert he’d ever met. He hadn’t missed the heat in those nearly black eyes either. When he’d sat beside her and she looked at him. There was nothing professional in her eyes at that moment.
A hand patted his shoulder. “Very good turnout, don’t you think?” Dr. Rutledge asked.
“Great turnout. Thank you again for putting it together.”
“I’m seeing a great many sold tags going up. You’re going to be the next big thing.”
“For now. Problem with being the next is there always someone behind you, ready to be the next next.”
Dr. Rutledge laughed. “Very true, but what’s that old cliché? Make hay while the sun shines? Keep this going for as long as you can, give the money to Lena. I don’t know how she does it, but she has the magic touch.”
“If she’ll even take me as a client now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dr. Rutledge said. “She’ll get over it. If you’re lucky.”
“I hope so. I really need her help.”
“What you really need is to get back downstairs and charm wallets out of purses.”
“If I must.”
Dr. Rutledge’s rich laughter echoed in the open area. “Just smile at the ladies and remember what this is all for.”
“I never forget that. I will also never forget all your help.”
“You’re welcome, son. But I’m doing it for selfish reasons.”
“I wouldn’t call helping sick kids selfish.”
“No. I’m doing it because of that look I saw in Clarissa’s eyes when she was painting with you. That joy? All her pain forgotten? I want to see that for a very, very long time.”
Matt followed the older man down the stairs and into the crowd. He hadn’t known who the man was who’d come into the playroom at the Children’s Hospital and interrupted his therapy session with several kids in for cancer treatment. The little redheaded girl’s grandfather, he’d surmised by their greetings. He didn’t know then that Eliot Rutledge was a world-famous neurosurgeon who felt helpless as his beloved granddaughter battled leukemia. Matt didn’t know then that his world was about to change. His dream was suddenly much closer.
But it was going to come with a price. He had to go back into that upper-crust society that he’d rejected when he left Maryland. He smiled and nodded and shook hands. It all came back so easily. Too easily. He gave his patented, panty-melting bad boy grin to the little old ladies and was perfectly polite to the single women. Firm handshakes and backslaps to the men. God, get me out of here. His thoughts drifted back to Lena Reyes. She’d stood out. She didn’t even realize how radical an act sitting alone at a function like this was. It intrigued him.
* * *
“I’D LIKE TO know exactly what was wrong with my original plan to get married at the UPS store by a notary.”
Lena stared openmouthed at Sadie, lowering the bridal gown she was holding. “What were those words that just came out of your face?”
Sadie pouted, flipping quickly through the gowns. “No. No. God, no. Not in a million years no.”
“Slow
