by Maddy Barone
Brutus didn’t look impressed. Isabel was afraid he and Dusty might start a long loud argument, but Denise gave Isabel a glance and rolled her eyes again. “That was some game we saw this afternoon,” she said loudly. “I swear, I thought we were going to see a triple play, but Chavez fumbled the catch at home plate.”
Derailed from knitting, Brutus scowled darkly. “That Chavez is a waste of a uniform.”
“Harper must have been pitching today.” Isabel shook her head. “He won’t have anyone but Chavez catch for him, and that’s too bad. Chavez looked good in spring training, but since the season started, he hasn’t come through.”
Brutus’s look of respect warmed her. “That’s putting it politely. In the past five weeks he’s sucked.”
“Don’t be so hasty. He can pull his stats up,” Dusty argued. “Everybody goes through a slump. Better to get out it of the way at the beginning of the season.”
Denise agreed. “He had the best record of throwing out runners in the league during spring training.”
Their food arrived while they were still discussing — arguing? —baseball, and Isabel loved both the food, which was just as good as Dusty had promised, and the company. Denise was the kind of woman she liked: tomboyish without sacrificing femininity. Like her manicure -- navy-blue nail polish, and baseball decals on the thumbnails. In spite of her first impression of him, she decided that Brutus was a good man. She liked the quick, gentle touches he gave Denise. The tenderness he showed her turned him from a scary-looking guy to a teddy bear. Any woman would be lucky to have a big, strong man treat her like that. She cast a quick, sidelong glance at Dusty, wondering if he were the sort of man to be so tender with a woman. He caught the glance, and gave her a smile.
An hour later, after they had praised, torn apart, or both to every player on the Rangers’ roster, Dusty pushed back his empty plate. “Hey, I’ve got tomorrow off, and the Rangers play the Rockies in the afternoon. I bet I can get a pair of tickets. You want to see the game, Isabel?”
“I’d love to.” Her face fell. “But tomorrow I have plans. We’re having painters come on Monday to paint the back fence at the store, and Inez and I decided to save money by scraping off the old paint ourselves. Sorry. I’d really love to see the game with you. Maybe another time?”
“Sure,” Dusty said. “But maybe we could do both. The game doesn’t start until three, so we could spend the morning working on the fence, and then catch the game.”
“I got some elbow grease,” Brutus offered, curling his arm to show off his biceps. “Me and Dee could spare a couple of hours tomorrow morning.”
Isabel stared from him to Denise, and then at Dusty. “You would do that?”
“Of course,” said Denise.
“Why the hell not?” Brutus gave her a sloppy salute. “Us veterans gotta stick together, right?”
Warmth filled her. “Right.”
She had missed this, the camaraderie between brothers and sisters who had served. Years ago, she had cut herself off from any connection with the military. She had thought it would hurt to be reminded of what she’d once had. She had been so wrong.
She took a store business card from her purse and wrote her cell number on the back. She slid it across the table to Brutus. “There’s the address. What time you want to get started? Ten?”
While they had talked, Dusty had been fiddling with his phone. “I got the tickets,” he announced. “Not the best seats, but decent. Halfway along the third base line, and about halfway up.”
Plans set, they got up from the table, and for the first time Isabel was reminded of her lost leg by the sharp glance Brutus gave her prosthetic. But he didn’t say anything other than a gruff, “Really glad we had a chance to meet you, Isabel. See you tomorrow morning.”
Barely self-conscious at all, she allowed Dusty to lift her into his truck. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he asked where she lived and looked surprised when she said she had an apartment above the store. “Convenient,” he commented, putting the truck in gear.
Isabel settled into the seat with a happy sigh. “I had a lot of fun tonight.”
“You sound surprised.”
“Oh, no. Well, maybe. When I first saw Brutus, I was a little…”
He laughed. “Scared?”
“No, not really. More like intimidated.”
“He liked you, you know.” He hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. “He’s always polite to anyone I introduce to him, but he doesn’t always like them.”
How many women have you introduced to him? Dozens? “It must have been the baseball talk. He probably didn’t think I even knew who Chavez was.”
He laughed again. “You sure proved him wrong.”
“I liked him. I like him and Denise both. His appearance doesn’t really match his true self, does it?”
The quick smile he gave her was warm. “Yes and no. If anyone did anything to bother Denise, he would turn just as mean as he looks. He’s tough. He won a Silver Star in Iraq, and has two Purple Hearts. But he’s not some gangster’s dumb muscle.”
She had a Purple Heart sitting in a case in her dresser drawer. She hadn’t looked at it in ten years. Maybe it was time to give it a polish.
She directed him to the alley behind the store and debated whether or not to invite him up to her apartment for coffee. She decided against it. At this point, they were friends sharing a meal and going out to the ballgame together. Nothing romantic about their relationship at all. Besides, her apartment was a mess.
Dusty put the truck in park and leaned back against the seat to look at her. “Would you mind if I came a little early tomorrow? Say, nine thirty?”
“That will be fine. I thought I’d make some sweet tea tonight. It’ll be warm tomorrow, even in the morning.”
“Yeah, iced tea would be good.”
He hopped out of the truck and came around to her door to open it and to lift her down. They stood chest to chest for a long moment. The weight and heat of his hands on her waist made Isabel dizzy. Without removing his hands, he said, “I know you’ve been going up those stairs every day for as long as you’ve lived here. You probably don’t need my help, do you?”
She swallowed. Was he hinting for an invitation to come up with her? His mouth looked soft. “No,” she said, ignoring her heart’s increased tempo. She tried to look casual as she stepped back out of his grasp. “But thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Dusty.”
Chapter Six
At half past nine the next morning, Isabel took the blueberry muffins out of the oven and set them on the cooling rack. She glanced around her apartment with satisfaction. She had spent three hours last night giving it the most thorough cleaning it had had in months. If Dusty wanted to come up after the game, she was ready for him. At the thought of having Dusty’s strong masculine presence in her apartment, her insides quivered. Nerves? No, she decided, it was anticipation that made her breathless.
The doorbell rang five minutes later. Isabel opened the door for Dusty. He stepped in and inhaled deeply with a smile on his lips.
“Good morning. It sure smells good in here,” he said.
She closed the door and gestured him into the kitchen. “I made some muffins. I thought you all deserved something for your trouble. Can I get you some coffee? Or there’s iced tea.”
They were sitting at the kitchen table with coffee and muffins when the doorbell rang again. She ushered Brutus and Denise in and sat them at the kitchen table. Denise bit into a muffin and made a sound of appreciation.
“That will give me the energy I need for physical labor,” she said. “So, what’s the plan?”
“I thought we’d get started on the west side of the fence.” Israel gestured to the window that looked down on the fence. “Inez and her husband will be here in a half hour or so. Three of my nephews are coming too, but not until after lunch. The fence isn’t really all that big, but there are several layers of paint on it, so it might take a little time. Tha
nk you so much for your help.”
They headed downstairs, and Isabel opened the little shed that housed lawn and garden supplies. She handed out masks and sandpaper and other tools, and the four of them began scraping the paint on the fence.
It was only midmorning, but the sun and the humidity had them all dripping with sweat very quickly. Dusty and Brutus removed their T-shirts.
Denise raised her mask to sit on the top of her head and gave Isabel a wink. “Hard for a girl to get any work done,” she remarked, “with those two looking like that.”
Oh, yeah. Isabel raised her own mask and took a long, thorough look. She’d guessed that Dusty had a fine physique even when he had a shirt on, but now that he had it off, she had no doubt at all. Sweat gleamed on his brown skin, defining the muscles in his back and shoulders in a way that made her unable to tear her gaze off him.
Beside her, Denise chuckled. “It’s a good thing there’s not much traffic in your alley, or there be an accident for sure.”
Isabel gave her a grin and nodded before pulling down her mask again. All four of them worked with a will, cracking jokes, telling stories, and laughing like old friends. When Inez and Manuel arrived, they were taking a short water break and Isabel was laughing so hard at some stupid joke Brutus had told that she had to lean over with her hands on her thighs.
She caught her breath and straightened up. “Inez!” she called. “Come meet my friends.”
Inez and Manuel were cordial. “It’s so nice of you to help,” she said.
Manuel shook hands heartily with the men and thanked them and Denise for coming to help.
“Our pleasure,” Brutus said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a red bandanna. He stuffed it back into the back pocket of his cutoffs. “Isabel is one of us.”
With six of them now working on the fence, the work went faster. Manuel brought a power sander that made paint and dust fly in the air. After some time, Inez leaned close to Isabel to whisper, “How long have you known Brutus and Denise?”
“I only met them last night. Brutus works with Dusty. We ran into them at the restaurant.”
Inez worked in silence for a few minutes. “I like them,” she said quietly. “They make you laugh. I haven’t heard you laugh like that since before you went to Iraq.”
Isabel nodded, feeling the truth of that settle into her bones. Until last night, she hadn’t laughed very much. No, it wasn’t right. She had laughed. Of course, she had laughed. But recovering from a traumatic injury and learning to live with it had made her laugh quieter, more controlled. This morning her stomach hurt from laughing, as if the muscles hadn’t been exercised for a long time and now they were sore from sudden use. It felt good.
At noon, the pizza she had ordered arrived, and they took a break to go up to her apartment to eat in air-conditioned comfort. Manuel and Brutus seemed hit it off. Inez and Denise were debating the best pizza topping. That left Isabel to sit beside Dusty and inwardly revel in his nearness.
He gestured with a slice of pizza. “I like your apartment,” he said.
“Thanks. Most of the furniture is secondhand, but it’s comfortable.”
“Feels like home,” he agreed. “A lot of times, when all the furniture matches and everything is perfect and shiny new, it doesn’t seem like the kind of place where a person can relax. Your place is great.”
It warmed her that he felt like that about her beat up, mismatched apartment.
“Was it just luck that you found an apartment right above your store?” he asked.
Inez overheard and answered. “No. The whole building actually belongs to our brother Eduardo. He’s in real estate. When we were looking for a place to open our business, we went to him to help us find the right spot. We looked at a bunch of places, but we like this one.
Isabel nodded, peeling a long strand of cheese off her fingers. “Eddie owns the building, and he leases it to us at a ridiculously low rate. Wwe get a little extra income by renting out the other two apartments.”
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t put any money into it,” said Manuel. “Plenty of renovations had to be done, especially in the apartments. The plumbing was in a terrible state.”
Inez kissed his cheek. “But with your expertise to guide us, we were able to do a lot of the work ourselves.”
Dusty nodded. “I like the way you preserved the old woodwork. You said there were two other apartments?”
“This apartment takes up the whole floor, but the top floor is divided into two apartments.” Manuel jerked his chin up to indicate the floor above them. “One is an efficiency apartment; the other is a two bedroom. They rent for a decent price.” His black eyebrows pulled together a little bit. “I’m not sure I like that José Galindo. He’s in the efficiency on the west.”
“José has always been polite whenever I run into him,” Isabel said. “When he got out of prison, he had trouble finding a place, but he’s turning his life around. He volunteers with the youth at Santa Teresa. Father Alvaro vouches for him.”
Inez put in, “He deserves a second chance.”
Manuel grumbled a little, but said nothing else. They went back outside to work for another hour. At half past one, Dusty said casually that it was time to for them to get ready to head out to the game. As they had planned, he had brought a change of clothes and a bag with a few toiletries. Isabel went up first to shower and change. Then she went back downstairs and let Dusty have the bathroom.
Inez gave her a mild frown.“Is this a good thing? To have a man you barely know using your shower?”
Isabel shot a quick glance at Manuel and found him frowning at them also. “I don’t see why not. After all, I’m down here with my family and friends, while he showers upstairs. Alone. It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong.”
Inez leaned very close and whispered in her ear. “Would you like to be doing something wrong with him in your shower?”
Isabel choked.
Her sister gave her in exaggeratedly innocent look. “Just wondering.”
Now Isabel couldn’t get that mental image out of her head. Him, wet and muscular, wrapped around her naked body. A shiver of sensual heat skittered through her. She blew out a breath. Maybe she needed another shower.
Dusty appeared with his hair still damp, wearing yet another Dallas Fire & Rescue T-shirt, and jingled his keys. “Ready to go, Isabel?”
Brutus and Denise assured them that they would stick around for another couple of hours and continue work on the fence. Manuel and Inez told them that the boys would be here soon, and that they would finish the work on the fence.
“Go have fun,” Inez ordered.
Isabel glanced out the back window as they drove off. “I feel almost guilty, leaving them to sweat in the sun while we go off to have fun. I can’t believe Brutus and Denise are staying to finish.”
“I think they’re trying to set us up.” Dusty presented a sober face, but his eyes laughed at her. “Brutus loves any woman who speaks baseball, and you are fluent. If he wasn’t a one-woman man, he’d be chasing you himself.”
She could feel the heat of a flush climbing her face. “I don’t think Denise would like to share.”
“Nope.” He shuddered theatrically. “Definitely not.”
Isabel did have fun at the game. She barely spared a thought for the fence brigade once they hit the park. She loved that Dusty didn’t make a big deal about her slower pace climbing the steps up to their seats in the upper tier. With him, it was easy to forget that she had a prosthetic. If they had known each other more than a day, she might think she was falling in love with him. He was gorgeous, but that wasn’t why she liked him so much. He was just plain nice. And he was learning to knit. A nice, handsome, baseball-loving knitter. Her perfect man.
The Rangers won in ten innings. The plays and errors gave them plenty to talk about on the drive home. They got back to her place a little after seven. He swung her down from the truck and she balanced herself with a hand on his shoulde
r, staring at the fence.
“Look at the fence! It’s finished.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’d say so. That’s a lot of naked wood.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry, by tomorrow afternoon it will be dressed in fuchsia and black.”
His face was sad while he stared at the fence. “Black and pink. For a fence? I don’t know about those colors for a fence. I think I feel sorry for it.”
“It goes with the store awning,” she began, indignant, then slapped his shoulder. “Quit kidding around. I thought you were serious!”
“I am serious!”
She folded her arms and stared at him.
“Okay, okay. I’m sure it will be very, uh, nice.” He winked at her. “I think it’s cooling off. Let’s sit under that tree. The grass looks soft.”
The grass was soft. She stretched out on her back, looking up at the sky, with him beside her. “This is nice,” she murmured, watching a fluffy white cloud through an opening in the branches. “That one looks a little bit like a horse.”
From the corner of her eye she saw him squint. “More like a cow. A very pregnant cow.”
That made her laugh again. “I guess it does.” Her smile turned nostalgic. “This reminds me of afternoons with my grandmother. We used to lie in her backyard and watch the clouds. I miss her.”
“When did she die?”
“The year before I enlisted.”
“It sounds like you must’ve been close.”
“Yes, very.” She sighed. “My parents were killed in a car accident, along with my middle brother Oscar, when I was eight. He was only nineteen. Inez was sixteen, Mario was twenty-two, and Eduardo was twenty-four.”
“How did it happen?”
“Drunk driver.” Her voice was curt. “Some idiot kids out for a joy ride.”
“That’s rotten.”
The sympathy melted her. “I don’t drink much. I hate what alcohol did to my family.”
“I get that.” He sounded thoughtful. “Where I come from alcohol abuse is a real problem. I’ll have a beer now and then, but not all that often.”