“Usted hizo? Cool! Ahora dé a su mama un beso, sweetie!”
And wouldn’t that frost Julia’s grandmother? Tess thought as she and her daughter exchanged a dozen kisses before the little girl gleefully stomped up the few steps into the uber-babyproofed house filled with toys and dolls and books and healthy snacks…and no TV.
Yeah, maybe she shouldn’t think too hard about Carmen’s extraordinary child-care skills. “I should be back no later than two,” she said, and the young woman smiled.
“No problem. Since she takes her nap from one to three, take your time.”
As she was saying.
Twenty minutes later, some radio talk show—en espanol, natch—spilled through the half-open front door when Tess arrived at the house. Devoid of the rotting blue window trim, the house now looked like that old woman without any makeup at all, mouth and eyes agape in shock. Inside, the noise was as thick as the dust—bursts of laughter, the pow! pow! pow! of a nail gun, that radio show.
“Hello!” she yelled over the din, even as she took in the remarkable progress Eli and his elves had already made. Sure, it looked like a bomb had gone off, but you can’t re-do until you un-do. Not only that, but the pow-pow-powing was due to the brand-new shelving going into the living room, replacing the sorry, warped built-ins.
One of the workers noticed her and nodded, grinning. “Buscando Mr. Eli?”
“Yeah. Is he here?”
“In the back. He’ll be out in a minute.” He loaded another nail into the gun, then gestured with it toward the new shelves. “You like?”
“Very much,” Tess said. “They look terrific.”
“Gracias, senora.”
“De nada. I’m sorry…what’s your name?”
“Teo,” Eli answered, coming into the room. Smiling. Making Tess’s lungs seize up. “Teo Martinez.” He nodded toward both the gray-haired man and the younger one on the other side of the shelves. “And his son, Luis. I was damn lucky they were both available. Couldn’t ask for a better crew.”
“No, it’s us who are grateful, Mr. Garrett. With the economy the way it is?” He did the in-the-tank gesture with his thumb. “Not so easy, finding construction work these days.” Turning back to the shelves, he lined up the nail gun and let ’er rip. Pow. He glanced over his shoulder at Tess while reloading. “Las’ month was the firs’ time in twenty-five years I have to go on unemployment. Luis, he’s been laid off, what? Three, four times in the last year. With a wife and son to support, he’s thinking, maybe he should join the army or the marines—”
“It’s just an option, Pop,” the younger man said as Tess’s lungs seized again, for an entirely different reason.
“An’ I tell you—” pow “—wait a little while, see if things pick up. An’ see?” He tossed a grin in Eli’s direction. “They did.”
Tess’s gaze slid to Eli, exchanging an apologetic glance with the younger Martinez, and Tess guessed that this job was at best only a reprieve. The younger man shrugged—It’s okay, man, I’m cool—then bestowed a beautiful smile on Tess that broke her heart.
At that moment, Eli wasn’t sure what was tearing him up more—Luis’s bravado or the obvious turmoil that bravado provoked in Tess. Because even though she was smiling and commending Luis for wanting to serve his country, Eli could tell the conversation was bringing a whole lot of junk to the surface…even if he couldn’t immediately identify what that junk was.
“Looks great, guys,” Eli said to the two workers, then steered Tess into the gutted kitchen. “You okay?”
Caution flashed in her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know…maybe because the minute Luis brought up the military you looked like a brick had fallen on your head?”
“That obvious, huh?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Watching the young man, she breathed out a sigh. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Same age as Ricky when he first went in,” she said, more to herself than Eli. “Teo said there’s a kid?”
“Yeah. A little boy. Just turned one a couple weeks ago.” When Tess sucked in a breath, Eli said, “Tess? What is it?”
After several seconds, she shook her head. “Nothing. You ready to go?”
“Sure,” Eli said slowly, grabbing a leather baseball jacket off the counter’s skeleton and shrugging into it. He fished his car keys out of his pants pocket, then patted his other pockets, sighing. “Okay, I’m an idiot, I must’ve left my wallet at the shop.”
“It’s okay, we can take my car. I just gassed up, anyway.”
“That’s fine, but I need the company credit card. Which is in my wallet—”
“Wait—you’ve been driving without your license?”
“Yeah. From the shop to here. And since I wasn’t giving the sheriff any reason to pull me over, you can wipe that oh-my-God-you-didn’t look off your face. But you mind if we swing by the shop on our way out of town?”
“Not at all,” Tess said. Looking highly amused.
He told the guys they’d be back in a couple of hours, then followed Tess outside and to her car, not realizing until his hand landed on the driver door handle what he was doing. As he trooped around to the passenger side, grumbling, Tess laughed. It wasn’t the old Tess laugh—the laugh that used to drive him crazy, in a good way—but then, this wasn’t the old Tess.
“It must be killing you,” she said as they both got in, “letting me drive. You couldn’t stand it…” The key in the ignition, her eyes darted to his. “Before.”
“What can I say? I’ve evolved.” Shoulder belt latched, Eli leaned back, watching her. “At least, on the surface.” When she gave him a puzzled look, he shrugged. “It’s not like letting a woman drive threatens my masculinity or something. But to tell you the truth…sitting on this side of the car? I hate it. If I’m in a vehicle, I want to be the one driving. The one making the decisions that could mean the difference between me being alive at the end of the trip or not.” At her silence, he glanced over. “Just bein’ honest.”
Her mouth twitching, she glanced at him. “Can’t very well take offence since I feel exactly the same way.”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“You think this means we have control issues?”
“Oh, I know we do,” he said. Then grinned. “Especially you.”
She didn’t grin back. Although she didn’t try smacking him with her purse, either. So he’d count that as a draw. “How on earth I’ll ever teach the kids to drive, though, I have no idea.”
“This is why God made driver’s ed. And you need to turn right up ahead—”
“I know where I’m going, Eli. Sheesh.”
But at least she was smiling.
When they got to the shop, Eli said, “You may as well come in. This might take a while.”
“You don’t know where your wallet is?”
“Sure I do. It’s in there. Somewhere.”
Rolling her eyes, she got out of the car and followed him inside.