A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father: A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father

On Saturday.

It’s official, cookie, she thought, dropping onto a kitchen chair—you’re losing it. Or already had. Not that she’d never worked on Saturday, if that’s the only time a client could look at houses, but when was the last time that had happened?

At the sound of the chair opposite dragging across the tiled floor, she peered over at Flo, whose heavy-handed makeup was not holding up well in the daylight. Something about the glittery eyeshadow.

“Okay,” Flo said, “I was gonna keep my mouth shut—don’ you roll your eyes at me, young lady—but firs’ you get a call from Eli Garrett, an’ now you come out here dressed like Miss Hot Shot Real Estate Lady when you haven’t been to work in a month—”

“The two are not related.” She didn’t think.

“Maybe not. But somethin’ is going on with you. An’ I’m not leaving this house until I find out what. You can start by telling me where you really were las’ night.”

Tess looked around. “Where’re the kids?”

“Out back, playing. Micky’s keeping an eye on the baby. An’ don’ change the subject.”

“Hard to do when I don’t even know what the subject is.”

Leaning back, Flo crossed her arms across her breasts, such as they were. “I got one word for you…Eli?”

“What makes you think—?” Her aunt laughed. “Glad you think this is funny.” Suddenly starving, Tess got up to pour herself a cup of coffee before wrenching open a large metal tin on the counter filled with Little Debbie treats. She tried to remember how long ago she’d bought the chocolate-coated donuts. Couldn’t. From outside, she heard Julia’s belly laugh; ripping the cellophane off the donuts, she walked to the window over the sink, then twitched back the curtain. Her babies were playing tag, an obviously still bummed Miguel letting Julia tackle him to the ground.

An entire stale, tasteless donut stuffed in her mouth, Tess’s eyes smarted as she decided she was oddly grateful that the kids were as young as they were, that maybe their parents’ divorce wouldn’t scar them for life. But you know, considering the long stretches when they didn’t see Enrique before, how much could his absence—his deliberate uninvolve-ment—affect them now?

Guilt, justifier of all things.

Three of the four donuts devoured, she grabbed her coffee and returned to the table, realigning the crooked salt and pepper shakers before cramming in the last doughnut. “Do I act like I think I’m perfect?” she asked with a full mouth.

“Where did that come from?”

“Something Thea said.”

Underneath a head of stiff, black curls, Flo’s brow crinkled. “I don’ know about perfect, but…when you were real little, you’d go outside and play, bring half the dirt back inside with you. Pull out all your toys an’ leave them all over creation. You know, like a normal kid?” Her mouth thinned. “Then your father walked out, an’ everything changed. Suddenly, you couldn’t stand messes. Wouldn’t let yourself get dirty, never left a toy out of place. Your mother told me how you’d come home from school an’ go straight to your room to make sure everything was exactly the way you left it. How you’d jump up from the dinner table to be the first to clear the dishes.”

“So I became more orderly. What’s wrong with that?”

Her aunt shrugged. “Nothing. On the surface. Only it was like after your father left, a switch flipped inside your brain, you know? An’ suddenly it became all about control. About you having control over your universe. An’ every time something threatened that control…” Her aunt shrugged again. “You got worse.”

Tess stood to rinse out her coffee mug, setting it in exactly the same spot in the drainer she did every morning. Oh, God. But…Frowning, she looked at her aunt over her shoulder. “There was more to it, though, wasn’t there? It was about me trying to please Mama.”

Flo raised her coffee cup to her in salute.

Drying her hands on a dish towel, Tess returned to the table, sinking back into her chair with a sigh. “And after Ricky went into the service…all those months of feeling like my heart was in my throat…” Her eyes watered. “It was the only way I could keep from losing my mind.”

“I know, querida,” Flo said, leaning forward to briefly squeeze Tess’s hand. Then she sat back again, her arms folded again. “Whatever happened las’ night must’ve been really something.”

Tess’s eyes shot to her aunt’s. “What makes you say that?”

“When was the last time we actually talked?” At Tess’s blush, she added, “So. You spent the night with a man. An’ now you’re eaten up with guilt.”

Tess’s mouth flattened. “I’m not exactly proud of myself.”

“One lapse don’ make you a bad person, Tess.” Her lipsticked mouth quirked up. “An’ not to put too fine a point on it…but if you ask me, you were way overdue.” At Tess’s slightly hysterical laugh, Flo added, “You’re a young woman still. An’ a divorce isn’t a death sentence.”

“It’s only been a year—”

“You don’ really expect me to believe that, do you?”

Tess bounced up out of her chair again and returned to the sink, her hand knotting atop the cold porcelain as she watched the kids through the window. It was true, she rarely talked about her feelings, to her aunt or anybody. But after last night…“Having a man around…it’s just too confusing, trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be. And anyway, then they leave, or change their mind—or change, period—and then what?”

Flo came up to pull Tess close, as always the mother Tess’s own mother had never really been. “You know, baby doll, you don’ have to be strong all the time.”

“What choice do I have?” she said, gesturing lamely toward the window, her babies. “It’s not like their dad’s exactly picking up the slack.”

“What about Eli?”

Tess frowned into her aunt’s concerned eyes. “What about him?”

“Does he like kids?”

“Oh, geez,” Tess said on an airless laugh. “Eli as…as…omigod, I can’t even find the words. No, no, no…” Her hands lifted, she walked back to the coffeemaker and poured herself another cup. “That was an aberration, pure and simple. A meltdown. And no how no way will it happen again.”

“Why not?”

“You’re not serious? Flo, you’ve heard the stories, same as I have—”

“So maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

The mug almost to her mouth, Tess lowered it, nonplussed. This from the Gossip Queen of Tierra Rosa. “Yeah, well,” Tess said, “not only do I have firsthand experience—”

“Sixteen doesn’t count.”

“—but corroborative evidence abounds,” she continued, ignoring her aunt, “to back up my theory.” Never mind his parting words—that he had changed—gonging in her head. “Eli and me…ain’t gonna happen. End of discussion.”

After a moment, her aunt returned to the table to retrieve her own mug. “So. You going into work?”

“No,” Tess sighed out. “Not sure I’m ready yet. Besides, it is Saturday.”

“So?” Flo said, clicking back to the sink to rinse it out. “Give your brain something to do besides chew the past to bits. Find an outlet for all that excess energy. Not unless you wanna have another one of those meltdowns.”

“I won’t—”

“I’m off until Monday, I’ll watch the kids since I know Carmen doesn’t sit for you on the weekends—”

“I’m not going into work today! It was a mistake, okay?”

“Tell that to the boots and skirt,” her aunt said, nodding at Tess’s outfit, and Tess thought, Rotten subconscious.

“I know you needed some downtime after…after you signed the papers,” Flo said gently. “But you gotta be goin’ nuts by now, not working. So go into the office for a couple hours. Jus’ to take your mind off…everything.”

She could fight her, she supposed. Say, No, don’t wanna, not ready yet. Except…Flo was right, damn her meddling little heart. A couple hours focused on the miserable real estate market would definitely take her mind off Eli, yep.

“You sure Winnie and Aidan don’t need you?”

“I’m the housekeeper, not their slave. An’ he’s busy workin’ on one of those big paintings for that show in New York, anyway. He won’t even miss me. So go.”

So Tess hugged her aunt, grabbed a leather jacket from the coat closet and her purse from the counter, kissed her children—who’d tumbled back into the house, panting and looking for juice—bye-bye and told them she’d see them in a little while, to be good for 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 black gaze zeroed in on Eli. “Dios mio—don’ tell me you’re back in the picture?”

“No!” Tess said, her face flaming. “Just a coincidence, us running into each other…” She cleared her throat, which also apparently sparked An Idea. “Hey, Eva, you don’t by any chance know of anybody looking to sell their house who might need a listing agent?”

Black brows lifted. “Why you asking me?”

“Because nothing gets past you?”

Her mouth pulled down in a this-is-true expression, Eva nodded. Then sighed. “Other than that old junker up on Coyote Trail? Nada.”

“Charley Harris’s place, you mean?” Eli put in. Because he was clearly harder to get rid of than mold.

“That’s the one. His kids’ve been trying to unload it for more’n a year now.”

“Yeah, I know that place,” Tess said. “My partner had it listed for a while.”

“My cousin, she did some cleaning for the old guy who used to live there,” Evangelista said, clearly unconcerned about her other customers. “Said the inside looks like something out of a vampire movie. Guy was a real pack rat, she said, although they probably got rid of all the crap by now, if they’ve been trying to sell it. But the kitchen and bathrooms?” She rolled her eyes. “God himself couldn’t move that place. Oh, here’s your food,” she said to Eli, peering through her glasses at the ticket. “Put it on your tab?”

“Yeah,” he said, hefting the plastic bag as he slid off the stool. With a nod to Tess, he started toward the door.

“By the way,” Evangelista called, “how were those enchiladas? I tried something a little different with the sauce, did you notice?”

Shouldering the door open, Eli turned, dimples flashin’. “Can’t say as I did.”

“They weren’t too hot, then?”

His eyes touched Tess’s. “Nope, not too hot at all,” he said, then pushed his way outside.

“Man,” Evangelista said on a wistful sigh as they both watched Eli through the plate glass window as he got into his truck, “if I was twenty years younger, I would be all over that hombre.”

Blowing out a breath, Tess gathered up her replaced cup of coffee and the battered roll in its bag, refusing to meet Evangelista’s questioning gaze before hotfooting it out herself. She’d intended to head straight for the little office on Main Street she’d shared with Suzanne Jenkins, her partner; instead she headed east, toward the house in question. Normally she’d never go after one of Suz’s old listings—the real estate equivalent of dating your best friend’s ex—but times being what they were, she’d take what she could get.

As far as listings went, that is.

She pulled up in front of the secluded old adobe and got out, getting a scolding from a crow atop a nearby telephone pole, a thick layer of pine needles cushioning her footsteps as she walked up the flagstone path. From the outside, the pinon-smothered house didn’t look too bad—the adobe was solid, the pitched, tin roof seemed in fairly decent condition. On the small side, maybe, but not everybody needed or wanted a big house. And—she turned—the setting was spectacular, with great, sweeping views of sky and mountains and valley.

Location, location, location…

Shivering in the frigid breeze, Tess tiptoed around the house’s perimeter, peering inside cloudy windows, the turquoise-painted wooden trim peeling and pockmarked with dry rot…an easy-enough fix. Heck, once the trim was replaced, she could paint it herself if she had to. The inside, though…oh, dear. Even through the murky glass, she could see the outdated kitchen cabinets and countertops, the scarred, smoke-smudged walls, the worn shag carpeting in the living room.

She got back in her car, giving the poor, neglected house a final glance. Were these people off their nut? Who on earth put a house on the market in that condition? Especially these days?

Was she off her nut, even considering taking the thing on?

Twenty minutes later, she walked into the office, nearly giving Candy Stevens, their receptionist, heart failure. “What in the blue blazes are you doing here?” the well-past-forty redhead barked from behind her desk by the front door.

“Got a divine message I was supposed to come back today,” Tess said, crossing to her side of the one-room office. Dust of postapocalyptic proportions lay thick on her desk.

“You might’ve given us some warning,” Candy—whose fashion philosophy pretty much began and ended with pushup bras, fringe and Aqua Net—said, following. Today’s ensemble included a snuggly sweater, tight jeans and cowboy boots never meant to come anywhere near a horse. “I haven’t even dusted or anything over here in weeks.”

“So I noticed.” Tess set her coffee and roll on top of her printer, then shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it on the back of her chair. “Where’s Suze?”

Who, knowing her partner, would be less than thrilled by her return. Suze wasn’t real big on sharing. Except for rent and utilities.

“On vacation,” Candy said, madly taking a feather duster to shelves and things, stirring up a lot more dust than she was dispatching. “She’ll be back Monday. Oh, my goodness, honey—you got a rash or something on your neck? You’re all red—”

“It’s nothing!” Tess said, only to be suddenly squished against Candy’s copious bazooms.

“God, I missed you,” the older woman whispered, as though somebody might be eavesdropping. Then she let Tess go. “You know I love Suze to death, but she’s…”

“Suze,” Tess said, smiling. Heaven knew why Suze had taken Tess under her wing, mentoring Tess into as good an agent as she was. Or at least had been. But the four-times-married blonde’s piranha-esque tactics were legendary. Woman could probably sell property to the dead. So why hadn’t she been able to unload the house up on the hill?

“So I see she dropped the Coyote Trail listing?” Tess said, settling in front of her computer.

“More like the sellers dropped Suze,” Candy said, butt twitching as she returned to her own desk by the front door. “Birdbrains. They wanna dump it but won’t spend a dime on updates. Suze took a stab at selling it as a fixer-upper, but in this market? No way.”

“So there’s no lockbox?”

Candy’s eyes snapped to hers. “You went up there?”

“Just a little bit ago, yeah. I think it has potential.”

“For the Addams family, maybe.”

Tess smiled. “You got the clients’ contact info?”

Now Candy frowned. Carefully. “Well, sure, it’s still in the system, but honey…you can’t be serious.”

“What can I say? I’m up for a challenge.”

Anything to take her mind off Eli, she thought, catching herself moments before she touched the aforementioned “rash” on her neck. But not before the memory of how that rash got there started up the tingling. Again.

“There’s challenges and then there’s banging your head against a wall. Sugar, I hate to break it to you, but business hasn’t exactly picked up while you were gone. In fact…” She sighed. “Suze said if things didn’t improve by the end of the month she’d have to let me go. So I’m thinking this might not be the best time for you to be thinking about getting back in the groove.”

A feeling like hot steam flashed up the back of Tess’s neck. “Nobody’s letting you go, Candy,” she said, even as she wondered how she planned on making good on her promise. A moment later, she had the contact info on the screen in front of her; five minutes after that, she’d arranged to meet Fred and Gillian Harris at the house the following Monday.

She hung up the phone to see Candy wagging her head. “Honey, you are one serious glutton for punishment.”

Yeah. Tell her about it.

Once inside the house on Monday morning, Tess decided it reminded her of a tired housewife who’d given up the good fight. Unfortunately, houses were not capable of dragging their saggy butts to the gym or touching up their own roots.

According to Fred and Gillian-please-call-me-Gilly, the late-middle-aged, well-heeled sibling duo currently dogging Tess’s heels on her preliminary walk-through, their father had succumbed to Alzheimer’s more than a year before, necessitating their putting him in a care facility. Clearly the poor guy hadn’t been able to keep the place up for some years before that. Still, there was a lot of charm left in the old girl, if you knew what to look for.

How to bring her back to life.

But it hadn’t taken Tess five minutes to size up the pair as the “just make it happen” type. These days, though, making it happen took a bit more effort than simply sticking a For Sale sign out by the road and slapping the place up on the Internet.

“It’s already been on the market more’n a year,” Fred said to Tess’s back as she frowned at the worn, fake brick flooring, the dark, depressing cabinets. Big difference between retro and regressive.

“So I heard,” Tess said with a slight smile as she peered inside the good-size pantry, recoiling at the telltale scent of rodent droppings.

“We really need to sell it,” Gilly said. “For Dad.” The neatly coiffed brunette glanced at her brother, then back at Tess. “The place we’ve got him in…it’s good. And, well, pricey.”

As were, Tess surmised, the gal’s diamond earrings and Fred’s watch. So she wasn’t exactly getting an indigent vibe here, even if she didn’t doubt Charley’s new “home” was costing an arm and a leg. Still, she knew she had to tread very carefully if she wanted this listing. Which she did, so badly she could taste it. To feed her sense of self-worth almost more than her bank account. Not to mention help Candy keep her job.