Yet another puzzle piece that didn’t seem to fit. Lucas brushed his lips against her knuckles, sending a tremor through her, then let go to fish the car keys out of his pocket. He opened the passenger-side door, helping her in before rounding the car to the driver’s side.
As they pulled out of the lot, Allie remembered what Lucas had said about the jeweler. “We don’t need rings,” she told him.
He didn’t even look her way, just glanced at the rearview mirror as he merged into traffic on Douglas Boulevard. “We’re getting rings.”
“I’ll just have to return mine when we…after.”
“You’ll keep it.”
Along with that ridiculous amount of money he was insisting she take. “Then we’ll just get plain bands. Something inexpensive.”
Brow arched, he shot his gaze her way, then returned his attention to his driving. Allie sighed, realizing he might have agreed to treat her with courtesy, but it wouldn’t change his attempts to run her life. She’d have to be constantly vigilant, or he might smother her very identity as her father had done for all those years.
Lucas saw the surprise in Allie’s face when they pulled up to the tiny Mexican restaurant he’d decided on for lunch. She’d expected something pricey and upscale, more like the Cliff House where they’d dined the night he’d proposed to her. Cocina Caldera was nearly a hole-in-the-wall by comparison, but the food was good, the service excellent. That he had a connection to the owner, Teresa Caldera, that he felt a certain comfort here he felt nowhere else was immaterial.
When they stepped inside the packed restaurant, Teresa Caldera and her daughter Inez greeted Lucas by name as they hurried by with steaming plates. As he and Allie waited for a table, Lucas shifted uneasily, wondering what Allie thought of the place, wondering if by being here he somehow revealed too much of his past.
Suddenly anxious to leave, he said, “It’s too crowded. We’ll try somewhere else.”
She smiled up at him. “I’m not in any hurry. This place smells wonderful.”
By now they’d edged their way up to the cash register where Teresa rang up a sale. The stout woman, her dark hair threaded with gray, grinned up at him. “Hola, guapo, ¿Cómo estás?”
“Bien,” he replied in automatic response to the familiar greeting.
Teresa gave Allie a pointed look, and Lucas felt suddenly awkward, like a teenager introducing his girlfriend to his parents for the first time. This was the only time he’d brought anyone but a business associate to the restaurant.
“This is Alison Dickenson, my administrative assistant. Allie, this is Teresa Caldera.”
The two women shook hands, then Teresa rushed off to pick up another order. Inez came to seat them and Lucas sank into the booth in relief.
As they scanned their menus, the crowd thinned out and the din quieted. Lucas could feel Allie’s gaze on him. He raised his eyes to hers.
“What?”
She shrugged. “You didn’t introduce me as your fiancée.”
Of course she’d noticed. “It slipped my mind.”
She eyed him in frank disbelief. “Nothing slips your mind, Lucas.”
“Teresa would have made a big deal over it. I didn’t want her fussing.”
“You must know her well to have her fuss over you like that.”
Damn Allie and her observant nature. “I eat here often,” Lucas said evenly as the plastic edges of the menu bit into his palms. “Teresa has a way of making her regulars family.”
Lucas could see she wanted to push the issue of Teresa. He set the menu down. “Are you ready to order?” Without waiting for her to answer, he signaled Inez.
Out of habit, he ordered in Spanish and Inez joked about his atrocious accent as she always did. She insisted he introduce Allie, her dark brow rising when he described Allie as “his good friend.” No doubt Inez would be comparing notes with Teresa back in the kitchen.
The questions seemed to pile up in Allie’s green eyes. While they waited for their food, Lucas kept Allie busy with questions about work, querying her about when she’d have the month-end reports ready.
When Inez brought their lunch, Lucas dove into his fajitas, focusing on piling strips of beef, red pepper and onion onto the flour tortillas. From the corner of his eye he could see Allie watching him.
“Is there something wrong with your molé?” he asked. “We can send it back.”
“The molé is fine,” Allie said. “But we’re kind of defeating the purpose here. The whole point to having lunch together was to get to know each other. We never will if we keep talking about work.”
He set down his fork. “What do you want to know?”
She smiled at him across the table. “I’d just like to learn a little more about you.”
Wariness crept into the pit of his stomach. “Like what?”
“Where you grew up, where your parents live, if you have brothers and sisters.”
Such ordinary questions, easy enough for most people to answer. But for him, they opened a can of worms he had no intention of opening. “I grew up in the Sacramento area. I have no brothers and sisters. My parents are dead.”
He could see the sympathy in her face. “I’m sorry. How long have they been gone?”
“A long time.” To cut short her inquiry, he turned the question around to her. “What about your family?”
“A brother and a sister. Both married, both have kids. I have four nieces and nephews with another on the way. My mom…” She looked away a moment, and grief flashed across her face. “She died a few years ago. My dad…he lives in Reno.”
“French Dickenson, right? Forbes did quite a write-up on him, what…ten years ago?”
“Twelve.” Her gaze dropped to her plate and she ran the tines of her fork through the thick molé sauce. “He was very proud of that article.”
The motion of Allie’s wrist as it bent and straightened, bent and straightened, snagged Lucas’s attention. He could imagine that same mesmerizing movement against his own body. Shaking the image off, he asked, “Is he still running Postal Express?”
Her hand froze. She kept her eyes on her plate. “No. He’s retired.”
Lucas could see something in her face…. Sorrow? Regret? He wanted to reach across the table, lay a soothing hand against her cheek. He squelched the impulse. “Will he be coming to the wedding?”
Now she did look up at him, eyes wide. “No!” She smiled, gesturing with her hand as if to take away the vehemence of her denial. “Traveling is difficult for him. He’s not in the best of health. Sherril, Stephen and I visit him on Sundays.”
Now it was his turn to be curious. He tried to remember what he might have read in the business-trade magazines about French Dickenson’s retirement. If there had been mention, it must have been small enough to have passed his notice.
“I’ll meet him later, then,” Lucas said.
She nodded, then bent her head to her lunch. She pushed more of it around on her plate than she actually ate. By the time Inez came to bring the check, Allie had slid the nearly full plate aside.
She laced her fingers together and rested them on the table, tipped her head up to him. “So you won’t have anyone to invite to the wedding. No family, I mean.”