her chin his hand and tilted her face upward, looked into her eyes. “What?” he asked, very gently.
She shook her head.
He drew her close, held her tightly, his chin propped on the top of her head.
They were still standing there, minutes later, not a word having passed between them, when Esperanza returned, the front of her dress soaked, her lustrous, gray-streaked hair coming down from its pins. Barking and the laughter of little girls sounded in the distance.
“The dogs,” Esperanza told Tate breathlessly, “they are in the bathtub, with the children.”
Tate sighed in benign exasperation, then stepped away from Libby. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. As he passed Esperanza, he laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezed.
“These children,” Esperanza fretted. “I am too old—”
Libby hurried over to help the other woman into a chair at the table. Brought her a glass of water.
“Are you all right?”
Esperanza hid her face in her hands, and her shoulders began to shake.
It took Libby a moment to realize the woman was laughing, not crying.
Relieved, Libby laughed, too.
Tears of mirth gleamed on Esperanza’s smooth brown cheeks, and she used the hem of her apron to wipe them away.
Then, crossing herself, she said, “It is just like the old days, when the boys were young. Always in trouble, the three of them.”
Tate returned, pausing in the doorway to take in the scene. Like most men, he was probably wary of female emotion unleashed.
Libby took in every inch of him.
Tate McKettrick, all grown up, was still trouble.
The kind it was impossible to resist.
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