Tres Leches Cupcakes

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “What you do to get disorderly conduct?” the woman asked after she’d finished off her own coffee and started on Sadie’s.

  “There was a bar fight, and someone said I started it.”

  “You came out pretty good,” the woman said. “Both your eyes isn’t black.”

  Sadie rubbed her left elbow. Her back ached, though she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t from sleeping against the wall. “Yeah, I guess I was lucky in that way. But it wasn’t my fault—we were just asking some questions and then everything went really wrong.”

  “Maybe you asked the wrong questions.”

  “Yeah,” Sadie said dryly, “of the right person it seems.” Why else would Shel have reacted the way he had unless he had something to hide? He knew someone—someone who told him to dig and who helped him get rehired to the smaller crew assigned to finish up the dig. Sadie shook her head. She didn’t want to think about that anymore. She should never have gone to the bar. And why had Margo been so aggressive? Where was she now?

  “What bar didja fight at?” the woman asked.

  “The Conquistador.”

  “On Valero?”

  Sadie looked at her. “You know it?”

  “Sure,” the woman said. “Not the kind of place a lady like you goes to though. What’d you go there for?”

  “I needed to ask some people some questions,” Sadie said again, letting out a heavy breath while reviewing how few answers she’d received.

  “What kind of questions?”

  Sadie cast a sideways glance at the woman and realized she should be more evasive. She didn’t know anything about this person other than the fact that she was in jail. And that didn’t necessarily say glowing things about her character . . . though Sadie was there too, and she was innocent so perhaps she shouldn’t be so judgmental.

  “What are you in here for?” Sadie asked by way of changing the subject.

  “The cops always bring me in when Mack and I start fightin’,” she said, shrugging. “Just ’cause I’m bigger.”

  “Oh,” Sadie said.

  “Mack’ll bail me out after work. What kind of questions were you asking at that bar?”

  “Oh, nothing important.” She managed a smile, wondering if it was standard etiquette to share stories between convicts. “I’m Sadie.” She considered putting out her hand to shake over their budding friendship, but that seemed a little out of place. Only after giving her name did she consider whether she should have said Sarah. Too late now.

  “Lily,” the woman said before polishing off the other coffee and then turning to eye the toilet in the corner.

  Sadie’s breath caught in her throat; Lily had just drank two cups of coffee. Oh dear.

  A door opened at one end of the hallway, and Sadie leaped to her feet, barely restraining herself from running to the bars again. Though she no longer felt in fear of her life from Lily, she was still eager to get out. She was holding her breath when she heard the door close and then footsteps come closer. If they let her out, even just long enough to make a phone call, Lily could have her privacy.

  When none other than Pete Cunningham came into view, Sadie’s mouth dropped open. After a moment of pure shock, Sadie ran across the cement floor, reached through the bars, and grabbed both his hands.

  “Pete!” She let go of his hands and reached for his face, but the crossbar blocked her arms so she grabbed the sleeves of his jacket instead. There could be no more beautiful sight than this—Pete Cunningham!

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said through her tears, letting go of him with one hand so she could wipe her eyes. She pulled her hand away to see a thick black smudge of mascara; she’d forgotten how much makeup she’d worn last night. “Did you drive all night? How did you know? They wouldn’t let me call you. Have you talked to Caro? I’m not really under arrest, am I? No one’s even questioned me since I got to the station. Did I mention they wouldn’t let me call? Is that even allowed?” She realized she was rambling and stopped, just staring into his face instead, taking in every detail and trying to read his expression through that bland detective-mask he wore. Was he angry? Worried?

  “You okay?” he asked in a careful tone, looking past her.

  “I’m fine,” Sadie assured him. She waved over her shoulder. “This is Lily. She’s been very nice.”

  Pete nodded in Lily’s direction, not breaking the mask. “Then maybe I should leave you in here—it might be safer that way.”

  He started to smile at his joke, but the mere idea brought on a fresh round of tears and soon Sadie was unable to see his face through the black mascara curtain.

  “I’m kidding,” he said quickly, gently.

  “Please get me out of here,” she said through her tears. “Please, oh please, get me out.”

  Breakfast Burritos

  ½ pound chorizo sausage (other types of sausage can be used, or omitted altogether)

  8 eggs, beaten

  1 (4-ounce) can diced green chilies, drained

  2 tablespoons mayonnaise

  8 flour tortillas

  Brown sausage in large skillet over medium-high heat, drain. Remove from pan, drain oil, and set aside. In the same pan, add beaten eggs and cook until scrambled, but not yet dry. Add chilies and sausage and finish cooking. Remove from heat. Add mayonnaise and mix. Place a large spoonful of sausage-and-egg mixture in the center of a warmed tortilla and fold into a burrito.

  Serves 8.

  Note: Shawn prefers regular country sausage; Breanna prefers no sausage at all.

  Chapter 9

  Sadie practically flew through the holding cell door as soon as it opened and would have buried her face in Pete’s shirt if not for the fear of ruining it with her smeared makeup. He let her hug him for only a few moments before pulling away. He straightened the lapels of his jacket and leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “I can be your boyfriend in an hour, right now I need to be a police officer.”

  Sadie nodded, and fell in love with him all over again. He put his hand at the small of her back and guided her out of the cell area into the office portion of the police station. Sadie kept her hands clenched into fists at her side to keep from holding his hand.

  The police returned her shoes, and Pete got permission from an officer to let Sadie use a private restroom. She nearly cried all over again when she saw her reflection. It was a testament to Pete that he’d still let her out of that cell after seeing her in such a state.

  A few minutes and several paper towels later, she felt presentable enough to join Pete and the officer in the hallway. Pete led her through a few doors as though he knew the place, which she found odd until she remembered that Santa Fe had been his hometown once. He’d even been an officer here years ago when he first began his career. Was that why he’d been able to get her out personally? Had he asked favors of his old friends?

  Another officer escorted both of them to an interrogation room where Sadie wrote out her statement of what had happened at the bar. There was no drama, no questioning, and Pete sat next to her the whole time. After giving her official statement, she and Pete followed the officer down a long, narrow waiting room with an exit sign above the door on the far end. Sadie could barely take her eyes off that sign. Was freedom really so close?

  A glass wall separated them from an officer sitting behind a desk. A slit in the glass allowed papers to be passed back and forth. Pete gave the officer Sadie’s name—her real name—and the officer shuffled through some papers before passing some through the slot.

  Sadie scanned the top paper and then looked up at Pete. “You posted bail?”

  He nodded like it was no big deal, but Sadie was mortified. “I was really arrested then?”

  “Yes, Sadie. You were really arrested. Didn’t they tell you that?”

  “Well, I thought maybe they would realize it was a mistake and change their mind.” She’d even hoped for an apology.

  “That’s for the judge to decide.” He pointed at a specific line on
the paper. “Your court date is set for the thirteenth. That’s when you get to explain your side.”

  “Is it like Law and Order where I’m one of the hundreds of people cycled through?” She thought about those orange jumpsuits again. They wouldn’t make her wear one if she wasn’t in jail, would they?

  “Not quite,” Pete said with an amused smile. He pointed at the line where she was supposed to sign her name. After she signed her name, he turned the page and pointed to another line while explaining what it was she was signing: basically that she agreed to come back for her court appearance and if she didn’t, Pete would lose an awful lot of money.

  Sadie didn’t ask many questions; she’d have signed just about anything to get out of there. She finished and slid the papers back through the slot in the glass.

  “I’ll pay you back,” she said to Pete.

  “Don’t worry about that. You can have a seat.” Pete waved toward the bench lining the wall across from the glass-enclosed officer. “I’ll be right back.”

  The officer who’d escorted them to the waiting area opened the interior door for Pete, but then stayed near Sadie, who sat down at the far end of the bench, as close to the exit as possible.

  Now that the ordeal was almost over, she was surprised she hadn’t had a full-blown panic attack. Six months ago she’d have been rocking back and forth in a corner, and although it was nice to reflect on the progress she’d made, a breakdown still felt entirely possible. Maybe it would happen when she came back to court and tried to explain her innocence. What if they didn’t believe her? What if she went back to jail?

  She took a deep breath and focused on being so close to freedom. Positive thinking—that was key. That Pete was here was an additional balm to her soul. Everything was better with Pete.

  She heard a door open and looked up, expecting to see Pete, but startled slightly to see Shel following an officer into the waiting area instead. She swallowed and shrank back against the wall, but not before Shel saw her. He narrowed his discolored eyes at her, at least as much as he could considering the substantial swelling. Surely there was some kind of rule about arrestees being together, right?

  She listened to the officer tell Shel the same kind of things Pete had explained to her a few minutes earlier. Sadie frowned. Who was bailing Shel out?

  A buzzer sounded from the other side of the narrow room. The officer guarding the door crossed the room and opened the outside door that was just a few feet away from Sadie. She held herself back from running through that door.

  “Mornin’, Benny,” the officer said as a man came inside.

  “Buenos días, Paul. How are you?”

  The man was dressed like any other cowboy—jeans, cowboy boots, a gray felt cowboy hat, and denim shirt—but he had an accent she hadn’t expected. She took a second look at his face, noting dark eyes, dark skin, and a thick black mustache that not only covered his top lip, but hung nearly to his chin on either side of his mouth.

  “I hope you get paid overtime for comin’ so early,” Officer Paul said.

  Benny grunted and slid his hands into the front pockets of his Wranglers, rocking back on the heels of his well-used cowboy boots. Sadie wondered if he was a bail bondsman, but he didn’t cross the room to sign anything. Instead he looked toward Shel and lifted his eyebrows. “Are you ready? I need to load fifty head of cattle before eight.”

  Sadie looked at Shel who nodded, finished signing a paper, and crossed in front of Sadie without looking at her. The officer who’d escorted him returned to the inner part of the station, and brought back a plastic bag, which Sadie assumed held Shel’s personal effects.

  Sadie kept her focus on the man bailing him out, or picking him up, or both. She didn’t think a bail bondsman would be transporting cattle, but picking up Shel did seem to be part of Benny’s job. Did he bail people out for work all the time? Was that why he knew Paul so well? There was a logo embroidered on the left pocket of his faded denim shirt. Sadie couldn’t read it from where she was, but she kept her focus intently trained on the emblem.

  “Let’s go, then,” the cattleman—Benny—said, stepping out of Shel’s way to let him go through the door first. In the process, he moved close enough to Sadie for her to see that the logo consisted of a circle with some kind of design inside and words around the outside. Gold River Ranch? Cold River Ranch?

  The man turned away from her before she could confirm what it actually said. Shel disappeared outside, having ignored Sadie completely.

  Benny said good-bye to the officers, tipped his hat slightly in Sadie’s direction, and left, treating the whole thing as though it were perfectly normal to bail people out of jail first thing on a Tuesday morning.

  “You ready to go?”

  Sadie hadn’t heard Pete return, but jumped to her feet, nodding quickly. “I’m so ready.”

  Chapter 10

  Pete finished checking her out of the police station and listened to her version of events on the way back to Rex and Caro’s house. When she finished, he updated her about what had happened on his end. When she’d first come to Santa Fe, Pete had informed some of his former fellow officers about Sadie’s situation. Sadie had suspected as much since he always seemed to drop a bug in someone’s ear when she came to a new town.

  When she’d been arrested last night, one of those old friends had called Pete, and everyone in the department had given Sadie her space while they waited for him to arrive. Sadie would have appreciated knowing all of that last night; she was still annoyed not to have gotten her phone call.

  “It was a unique situation,” Pete pointed out.

  It was hard for Sadie to argue with that. She was a pro at creating “unique situations.”

  “How did you get out of your Tuesday classes?” Sadie asked, thinking about the training he was supposed to be heading up right now in Denver.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Sadie’s heart sank. “It’s so bad that you don’t want to tell me?”

  “It’s okay. It worked out.”

  “Pete,” she said, her voice soft and repentant. “I’m so sorry. I made a real mess, didn’t I? Are you in trouble?”

  Pete glanced at her, then looked back out the windshield. “I couldn’t not leave, Sadie.”

  “But what about your classes?” she asked again.

  “I told them I had a family emergency. I don’t know what they did to cover for me.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sadie said again. She was touched that she’d been included in his idea of “family,” and yet she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when they found out the real reason he’d left. And they would find out. They were cops, and Sadie had made things hard for Pete and, in the process, the entire Garrison Police Department, more than once. For all her talk about blame and fault for last night’s bar fight, she knew who carried the burden of any fallout Pete might experience in the wake of all of this.

  “I thought I was going to the bar to get some very basic information—which I fully planned to share with you and the police. I had no idea this would happen,” she said.

  Pete reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “I know you didn’t do this on purpose. But when you put yourself into these things, you can’t always control the outcome.”

  Sadie felt tears come to her eyes at the reprimand, gentle as it might be. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why can’t I just leave things alone?”

  He gave her hand another squeeze. “Because you are who you are,” he said, giving her a soft smile so she’d know he wasn’t angry. Maybe he should be angry. “I gotta say it’s kind of nice to see your moxie back.” He winked at her before returning his attention to the road. The sentiment warmed her more than she could say.

  “But I am worried about this,” Pete continued. “Your name’s now on public record where anyone can find it. Other than an official witness protection program, I’m running out of ways to keep you safe.”

  Sadie let those words ring in her h
ead. Since Boston, Pete had utilized every option he could think of to protect her from the threat that loomed over her. The threat had sent her to Hawai’i for several months and into an emotional firestorm unlike anything she’d ever been through before. The fallout from that situation had sent her home for a week, then into hiding in Europe for six weeks, and then finally to Santa Fe. Now where would she go? Where could she go? Beyond those questions, should she go anywhere? Pete was still nervous about her being found, but did she want to keep living this way?

  “I hate knowing that I put you in this situation this time. I’m the one who got you this job and then—”

  “This is not your fault,” Sadie said. “There’s no way you could have known what was in that dig.”

  “But I arranged it and—”

  “Are you seriously saying this to me?” Sadie cut in. She turned to face him and stared at his profile as he watched the road. “After all these years of telling me this type of thing isn’t my fault, you’re going to take the blame? Does that mean these other things are my fault? That I have been responsible every other time?”

  “That’s not what I said,” Pete said quietly. He paused as though gathering his thoughts. “I’m just . . . you were . . . It was supposed to be safe here.”

  “Maybe we need to stop trying so hard to keep me safe,” Sadie said, facing forward again. She felt Pete’s hand tense in hers. “It’s been almost a year now and nothing’s happened. Maybe we’re overreacting and—”

  “Your life was threatened,” Pete said. “And I don’t think what happened in Boston has been forgotten by anyone involved.”

  “Then maybe it’s time to call it out,” Sadie said, though the idea gave her butterflies. “I miss my home, Pete. I miss my life. And the future I want with you has been put on hold in the name of protecting me. Can’t I return to Garrison and get an alarm system? Is hiding really the best option?”