Auntie Flo. Julia just waved and resumed her juice quest—little twerp—but Miguel gave her a look of such longing it nearly ripped her heart out.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said, leaning over to cup his cheek. “We’ll make cookies, okay?”
“’Kay,” he said, smiling a little.
And that, Tess mused as she eased herself behind the wheel of her slightly dented and dinged white SUV, just cried out for a serious caffeine and sugar injection, one Flo’s wussy coffee and a pack of stale Little Debbies couldn’t even begin to address.
Fortunately, Tess knew just where to get her fix.
Chapter Four
She jerked the SUV into Ortega’s tiny parking lot, realizing it’d been months since she and her girlfriends—Thea, her stepdaughter Rachel and relative newcomer Winnie Black, married to Flo’s landscape-artist employer—had gotten together for their Wednesday afternoon gabfests, scarfing down churros and nachos or whatever Evangelista had left over after the lunch rush. After Tess’s divorce, they’d tried to hold it together, but a bumper crop of new babies put paid to that idea. Not until Tess set foot inside the chile-, grease-and coffee-scented restaurant, though, did she realize how much her sanity had depended on those get-togethers. Maybe if they’d kept them going, last night wouldn’t’ve happened—
“What can I get for ya?”
Tess smiled for the pimply, painfully young waitress who’d taken over for Thea, who’d realized a night-owl newborn and waitressing were not a good mix.
“Coffee. To go.”
“Large or small?”
“Huge. Cream, no sugar. You’re new?”
Pouring coffee into a foam soup container, the girl flashed a smile. “Just started last week. Name’s Christine.” She popped a plastic top on the cup, then wiped her hands on her jeans. “That’ll be a buck-fifty.”
“Actually, why don’t you toss in one of those cinnamon rolls, too?”
“You know, those’ve been sittin’ out since this morning. We’ve got a fresh batch just about to come out of the oven if you don’t mind waiting.”
“You, honey, are an angel,” Tess said, right about the same time she heard, “How’s the leg?” right behind her. Yeah, just who she wanted to run into. Especially as, awake and sober, the tingling stuff from the night before?
Ten times worse.
“Leg’s fine,” she said, turning back to the counter, thinking if she concentrated real hard Eli wouldn’t be there when she looked around again.
“Workin’ today?”
So much for that. “Maybe.”
Sliding up on the stool right next to her, Eli chuckled, all low and deep and rumbly. That, too, was ten times worse, awake and sober. You would think messing around six ways to Sunday would have gotten it out of her system.
But no.
“Us, too,” Eli said. “Dad’s got a big job installing next week, so couldn’t take the day off.”
“Oh. That’s good, then,” she said, facing him. Acting like she had spontaneous, combustible sex with the random ex-boyfriends all the time. “That you’re so busy.”
“Yeah. It is,” he said, facing away. “Hey, Chrissy,” he called out to the waitress, his voice just as warm and sunshiny as it could be. “Gimme a half dozen breakfast burritos, okay?”
“Got it!”
“That cold all gone?”
The girl beamed. “Sure is. I did just like you said and drank a ton of hot tea, and it hardly even bothered me at all.”
“Told you. What?” he said to Tess, who swung her head back around.
“Nothing,” she muttered, and Eli swiveled his stool, plunked his elbows on the counter and resumed his conversation with Christine, now serving a couple at one of the tables.
“How’s your grandmother getting on?”
“Oh, she’s fine now. She’d just forgotten to eat breakfast and fainted, was all. That reminds me—she said to thank you for cleaning out her gutters last week.”
“No problem,” he said with a bright, completely nonflir-tatious smile, then swung back around, pinning Tess with his gaze. “What?”
“Who are you?”
He laughed, then tilted his head. “I like that sweater on you.”
“Um, thanks?”
“Although…”
“Don’t even go there,” she muttered because she knew exactly where he was going. As did her nipples, which perked up quite nicely at the unspoken innuendo.
“You know, you really need to loosen up some.”
“Yeah, like it worked so well the first time.”
“And the second. And the third—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake—” Her head whipped around. “Is this the way it’s gonna be from now on?” she whispered. Savagely. “You never letting me forget my one…indi-discretion?”
Last thing she’d expected was for her voice to go rogue on her. Or for a pair of contrite golden eyes to find hers. Which didn’t at all jibe with the soft, intense, “Maybe I don’t want you to forget it,” that followed.
Christine picked that moment to return with Tess’s bagged cinnamon roll, bless her soul. Armed with her coffee and snack, Tess turned smartly on her skinny boot heel…and ran smack into some dude who’d come up behind her.
“Oh! Sorry!” she said to the cowboy as the flimsy lid flew off the coffee, which erupted all over her jacket. She yelped, wondering when she’d turned into such a klutz, as Eli grabbed her from behind to keep her from creaming the poor guy.
“You okay?” Eli asked, so gently tears crowded her eyes, which was even more ridiculous than the tingling and all that it represented. “Honey,” he said to the startled waitress, “you mind bringing us a damp cloth or something?”
But before she could scurry off, Evangelista Ortega herself appeared, three hundred pounds of take-no-crap efficiency. “Gimme your jacket,” she demanded, practically ripping it off Tess as she barked to the new girl to get another cup of coffee, for God’s sake, what was she waiting for?
Diplomacy had never been Evangelista’s thing.
Her gigantic bosoms shimmying magnificently, she carefully blotted up the coffee from the leather, blew on it until she was satisfied and handed the coat back to Tess.
“There. Good as new. But I never see you this jumpy before.” Her
