Tango & Lace

by Misty Dietz

  “How convenient for you,” Mya snapped.

  “Don’t start, lobita,” Cole said, starting back up the ladder. Ty, Nat, and Rosie had also quietly dispersed, which was a bad sign. Time to head out. Organizing his tools in his new office would be a good way to decompress. Hopefully, they’d arrived from overseas.

  “When someone wants to do something nice like host a welcome-home party for you, it’s bad manners to reject their offer. I would’ve thought spending two years in the Holy Land would’ve amended your lack of social graces.” Mya had drawn closer to him, one hand gathering her long hair into a fist like she always did when gearing up for a fight. Her eyes flashed, and a highly distracting flush had begun to spread across her chest. How far south did that flush ride across her satin skin?

  Not your business anymore. Keep your damn distance.

  Jack forced his lips to tip upwards. “I will not be influenced by immature attempts to provoke me. My gratitude for your nurturing nature stands, as does my position on bringing Rosie to the university. Being that I have yet to visit the department, however, it would be insensitive of me to bring her into a situation that I cannot predict. Now, good day, Mya.”

  Her apparent shock at his stiff formality bought him precious seconds. Gramma’s back door was only five steps away. Five, unbearably long steps. Aaand…

  He didn’t make it before Mya lobed her next emotional hand grenade.

  “You think you can just come back here and be the hero, but you have no idea how hard this has been on her. Or how run down her house has gotten!”

  He swung back around, fully cognizant that his cerebral cortex was losing ground to his limbic system as Mya’s emotional hand grenade exploded. His face, chest, and neck grew hot with feelings that had been ignored for a long time. He closed his eyes and reached for calm.

  Ablation, accretion, active layer, alluvial fan, alpha decay…

  He ran through more geological terminology, starting with the letter A, feeling his blood pressure begin to normalize. She’d somehow slashed and burned though his shelved emotions in less time than it took him to calibrate a gravimeter using short data sets. He ran both hands through his hair to release some energy. “I left Jordan as soon as I could without jeopardizing my team’s entire project. I’ve accepted a position in CSU’s Geoscience Department so I can take my turn to be near her and so our family can relieve the burden from your family. I also plan to review and repair any electrical work in her house. What else do you want from me, Mya?”

  “First of all, Rosie’s never been a burden. To suggest otherwise shows how out of touch you are. Secondly, from what I understand, your position at CSU is only temporary. Not because la universidad doesn’t want to keep you, but because you—like always—can’t commit to anything.”

  Low blow. “You delusional little hellion. Do you really want to hash through this again?”

  “Anyone for some lemonade?” Rosie called in a falsely bright voice.

  Mya’s angry gaze stayed pinned on his. “Rehashing is a waste of time. I have better things to do, hombre.”

  She was actually going to walk away now?

  He grabbed her arm, but she shook him off. “No touching!”

  “Fine!” He yelled, totally not recognizing himself, goddammit.

  “Yes, fine! Perfecto!” she yelled back several decibels louder.

  Neither one moved. From his peripheral vision, he noticed all activity had stopped on the roof and on the patio.

  It had taken him two years to think he might actually be able to see her again without his heart breaking. Without thinking of all the what-might-have-beens.

  And all of twenty minutes to show him how wrong he’d been to think he’d ever be able to look at her beautiful, passionate face and not remember how miserably it had all ended.

  I can’t do this with her. Not again.

  He clenched his teeth, the hollow in his chest expanding unbearably until he finally forced his feet to pivot away just as a scream erupted from Mya’s house.

  Chapter Three

  “Natalia!” Heart pounding, Mya followed Jackson as he sprinted toward her house. She smacked into his backside when he stopped abruptly inside the back door and put his arms out so she couldn’t pass. “Move! This is my house, and that’s my sister!”

  She heard loud gasps of pain, alternated with coughing and wheezing. When Jack crouched down, Mya saw Artie lying on his side on her kitchen floor, clutching his eyes, saliva and mucus coming from his mouth and nose, his body contorting in what looked like a tremendous effort to breathe. Nat stood just inside the patio door, exhibiting many of the same symptoms.

  “Everyone back up, the house is contaminated!” Jack ordered, then held his breath as he grabbed Arturo under the armpits and dragged him outside.

  Mya pulled Nat out into the yard and put her hands on her sister’s back, crooning to her in English and Spanish as Nat bent over, coughing and spitting into the grass.

  “Oh dear, what happened?” Rosie’s face paled as she walked between the two yards.

  Jack’s lips compressed when he glanced at his grandmother. “I think he’s been gassed,” he said. “I saw this in Syria multiple times.” Arturo coughed, gagged, and vomited, his eyes squeezed shut and watering like crazy. Jack turned to Cole. “Call 911. This was more than hand-held pepper spray. It must’ve been a tear gas canister like the police use for riot control. I didn’t take time to look for the canister, but once the authorities get here they should be able to find it. Arturo must’ve taken a direct hit to the face. And with his chest and face injuries from the roofing incident, that gas might do more damage than usual.”

  Cole turned away to make the emergency call. Jack instructed Mya to put Nat under Rosie’s shower for several minutes, fully clothed, using lots of soap.

  “I’m not helpless, Jack. Mya, I’ll take your sister. You see to Artie.” Rosie reached for Natalia. “Come, darling.”

  While Rosie and Nat made their way inside, Jack hauled Mya’s water hose over and bent down to Arturo. “We need rinse the chemicals from your eyes as soon as possible. I know it hurts like hell, but you have to try to keep them open, okay?”

  Mya saw concern riding under Jack’s focus. She spoke quietly to Artie, trying to keep him calm as Jack flushed so much water in Artie’s face she thought he’d drown. Ty came around the side of the house with the first responding police officers in tow. Soon the paramedics arrived, the SWAT hazmat team shortly after that. Mya wanted to follow the ambulance to make sure Artie would be okay, but first she had to make sure Nat was alright. And the police had questions since it was her home.

  What could she tell them? Her front door had been locked. Not her back door, but they’d been hanging out next door at Rosie’s with a view of Mya’s backyard. How had someone gotten in, and why? Artie said he hadn’t seen his attacker, so he couldn’t help.

  Officer Ramos had tired eyes and the swarthy good looks of an aging movie star. “I’ll get a report from the hazmat team after they’ve had a chance to go through everything in the house. Have you had problems with break-ins in the past?”

  Mya shook her head. “Never. There was some minor vandalism down the street about a year ago, but this neighborhood is generally quiet,” she replied. She felt Jackson’s gray-blue eyes pinned on her. She glanced over at him. His polo and jeans clung to his perfect body, soaked through from power rinsing the toxin off Arturo.

  He put his hands on his hips and frowned at her. “You have a feud with anyone?”

  “You think this is my fault?”

  “I’m not implying that. But if your job as a 911 dispatcher inadvertently landed some whack job in trouble, and they got angry enough to try to hurt you, we should be aware of that. We need to know if this is premeditated or random.”

  She didn’t know. Wasn’t that awful? She’d handled several dicey situations where drugs were involved and criminals ended up in the District Attorney’s cross-hairs. If this violence had been
intended for her, she didn’t know how she’d ever be able to forgive herself for putting Artie in this position.

  “Mya?”

  She looked up. Jack’s voice had softened. His eyes, too.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she replied.

  A man in a plastic hazmat suit came out of her house, heading for Officer Ramos. “The front door lock was picked and several drawers were upended in one of the bedrooms. At first glance, it seems like a standard break-in with the perp being surprised by the victim’s unexpected entrance. But I haven’t seen one of these bad boys in a long while.” The hazmat tech held up a metallic-silver canister with RIOT CS SMOKE in blue lettering.

  “Seems pretty ballsy with all of us outside next door.” Cole’s gaze swung from Ramos to Mya. “Why don’t you call Andre. He stayed overnight at his buddy Matt’s, right?”

  The blood froze in Mya’s veins. “Dios.” She hadn’t heard from their eighteen-year-old brother since last night around ten pm, and her mind seized on all sorts of horrible scenarios.

  “Don’t overreact, lobita.” Cole put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “He’s fine, though he’ll be pissed that you woke him up before noon. But he needs to know what’s going on.” He reached for the phone in her hands. “Here, maybe I should talk to him.”

  She smacked his hand away and placed the call to Andre, her heart-rate easing as soon as his crabby voice answered. When she hung up, the hazmat tech handed the tear gas canister to Ramos. “Ms. Castillo, you can’t return to your property until you’ve had a specialty remediation service clean up all the residue. I’ll leave a list of locally-based services we recommend.”

  “Doesn’t tear gas evaporate rapidly?” Cole asked.

  The hazmat tech nodded. “In open-air environments, yes. But the air conditioning was on in the house when the canister deployed, so the toxins were introduced into the HVAC system. If that’s not addressed, long term exposure to the toxin can cause extreme blistering and inflammation of the skin and respiratory systems.”

  “It seems unlikely a run-of-the-mill thief would be carrying riot gas. This can’t be random,” Jack said. He had to be standing directly behind her. His body heat touched all along her back.

  She closed her eyes like that would be enough armor against him. “Why? Because it makes more sense that someone could hate me this much?”

  Jackson turned her toward him. “Jesus, Mya, no.” He walked her away from the others until they stood under the boughs of the willow tree Cole had planted the afternoon they’d laid their father to rest. The concern in Jack’s eyes and the memory of the last kiss they’d shared under the dappled shade of this special tree made her heart bump and skitter.

  “Our relationship ended miserably, but I don’t want us to be at each other’s throat while I’m here. I want us to get along…and I want you to be safe. The thought of you in danger is untenable,” he said.

  Logic and unflinching honesty had always been hallmarks of Jack’s character. She was grateful for his concern. And worried about the safety of her and Cole’s two high school-aged siblings who still lived under her roof.

  Cole approached the tree, looking at Jackson. “Andre, Nat, and Mya can stay with Ivy and me.”

  She pushed the branches aside to stand in front of him. “I’m right here, Cole. I’ll make decisions for myself. Besides, you and Ivy don’t have room for all three of us at your place.”

  His serious hazel gaze bored into hers. “Andre can take the sofa. You and Nat can share the queen in the guest room. It’ll be tight, but we can make it work.”

  “She can stay at Rosie’s,” Jack interjected. Mya tried to keep the shock off her face as he continued, “Ty’s heading back to Noble Pass to be with Faith, so I’ll claim the guesthouse out back. Knox won’t be here for another month, and Blake and Adam the two months after that, so the best guest room in the main house is open.”

  His gramma’s property was the only one in the neighborhood that had two city lots, the back ends of which connected. Her home was situated next to Mya’s, while the guesthouse sat on the lot behind the stone house. “Thanks for the offer, but—”

  “That’s perfect. I’m sure Mya will behave herself.” Cole turned to her. “You can borrow some clothes and whatever else you need from Ivy until you’re able to get some of your own cleaned.”

  Mya grabbed her hair in a makeshift ponytail instead of wrapping her fingers around her brother’s or Jack’s neck. “You two can’t railroad me about where I park my ass for the next couple of days.”

  “Maybe not, but as a mature adult, hermana, I’m sure you’re grateful for Jack’s offer so everyone can be more comfortable.”

  Heat traveled up her neck in waves. Her mouth opened, ready to spew a semi-trailer load of creative Spanish insults, but she clamped it shut and glared instead. This was humiliating. Arguing with her brother in front of the professor about her level of maturity. Unreal. Count to ten. She’d look so much worse in front of Jack if she lost her temper.

  She released her hair and squeezed her fists at her sides while she gave Cole one more scathing glance before turning back to Jack. “I appreciate your offer. I’ll try not to inconvenience you and Rosie too much.”

  “I’m not concerned.” He turned away, ending the conversation, then walked into Rosie’s house where she should have gone minutes ago to check on Nat. Instead, she stood there like a moron, watching him as he made another phone call, not only trying to comprehend what she’d just agreed to, but also his nonchalant acceptance of her up in his personal space for the first time in two years.

  They’d gone from habañero hot to cold turkey in moments. Fast forward twenty four months…and the hurt, confusion, and abandonment still felt like it was yesterday.

  She could see Jack through Rosie’s tall, wide kitchen windows where his fingers ran across the white cabinets in search of a water glass. She remembered those hands touching her with such confidence, such possession. She shivered in the rising heat of the day, the police and medics in and out of her own kitchen behind her. She watched Jack’s hands as he filled the glass at the sink, imagining the strong sinew of his forearms, the corded muscles of his biceps, the rise of his shoulders, every line of his body, poetry.

  He wasn’t concerned about her in his space, huh?

  Well, she was.

  And she was damned if she was gonna be the only miserable pendeja in this arrangement. Sometimes offense was the best defense, especially because Jackson Whiteside always brought his A-game.

  Chapter Four

  Once he’d checked on Natalia, Jackson called his cousin Blake Strickland to make sure he got his ass down to Fort Collins to take his turn with gramma. When Blake answered on the first ring, Jack relaxed for the first time since laying eyes on Mya.

  “Hey, Blake, how’s life in the concrete jungle?”

  “More comfortable than sweating it out in the Middle East digging up old scrolls written by men in white beards, I’m sure,” the internet entrepreneur returned with a smile in his voice.

  Jack laughed. “At least I don’t sit on my ass staring at a computer screen all day, every day. You hear about gramma?”

  “Yeah. How’s she doing?”

  “She’ll bounce back. I just got to Fort Collins.” And I have no idea how I’ll deal with my Cuban heartache for an entire month. “Ty’s been here for a while now.”

  “How’s he feeling?”

  “Real good. In fact, we’ll finish reshingling her roof tomorrow, then he’ll head back to Noble Pass since I’m here. We need to take turns staying with gramma. Give her some company and fix up the house. The exterior looks like shit, and who knows what needs tinkering on the inside. If there’s any electrical work to be done, I’ll have that covered by the end of the month. She can’t do it by herself.”

  “Okaaay,” Blake said, drawing out the word.

  “Time to man up, buddy. I’m here through July, and Knox said he’d come after football camp in August. Th
at means you’re on deck in September.”

  “What? I thought Mya looked after her.”

  Jack clenched his jaw. “I’m not discussing Mya.”

  “Touchy much?”

  “Rosie’s our blood, our responsibility. I’m calling so you have time to plan, Mister Big Wig. Can you make it?” Jack lifted the phone away from his ear with Blake’s big sigh.

  “Yeah, I’ll make it.”

  “And leave your monkey suits at home. You’ll need real work clothes. The place needs some TLC.”

  “Shit.”

  Jack chuckled. Blake was so easy to antagonize—especially when it concerned a cute graphic designer by the name of Charlotte. “Hang in there, big man. I’ll see you later.”

  When Jack returned outside to join Cole and Ty, they were conferring with the police regarding anything that might be useful to track the perpetrator. Unfortunately, without any witnesses, the police couldn’t provide any immediate answers.

  Answers that could eliminate ambiguity.

  He hated ambiguity. And restlessness.

  And loose ends.

  Why the hell had he suggested Mya stay at Rosie’s? He knew she’d take the offer. She’d always made sacrifices for her family’s comfort and well being, no matter the fallout to herself.

  It was a trait that had both inspired and perplexed him many times over the years.

  She was a woman of extremes. Being in her sphere was like finding out you’d won the lottery, and in the next breath, informed you had one week to live.

  Mya lived life large and in blinding color. It was exhilarating and amazing and utterly exhausting.