“To make heating and cooling easier,” he says, almost absently as he eyes the ceiling. “Back before central air, it was easier to heat small rooms in the winter, and in the summer, you wanted to keep the heat in the kitchen from the rest of the house. Whoever took down that wall did a really good job leaving a smooth transition.”
I smile. “That was Mom. She worked in interiors, and she did a lot of projects, updating the house over the years.” He may not be able to hear the pride in my voice, but I can. God, I miss her. “She always said she was going to hire someone to deliver her dream kitchen. She said she couldn’t be responsible for that kind of disruption to the household day-to-day.”
Valencia gives me a wincing grin. “Kitchen renovations are pretty disruptive.”
Stifling a sigh, I wonder just exactly how much more disruption the Delacroix clan can handle. And would it even be worth it?
Oblivious to my doubts, Luc moves past me to the middle of the kitchen before executing a slow three-sixty. Finally, his eyes land on mine.
“Dios mío. It’s like the set of every John Hughes’ movie ever made.”
His accented Spanish and my breathy laugh catch me off guard. “Something like that.”
Don’t start flirting, Delacroix.
He sets down the plans and the board on the kitchen table, which still bears Emmett’s cereal bowl featuring a few soggy Frosted Flakes. I pick up the bowl and his near empty orange juice glass and quickly ferry them to the sink.
I hear Valencia’s footsteps behind me. “That stove looks older than me,” he mutters.
“You’d think it would know how to behave by now,” I say, giving the bowl and glass a quick rinse. I’d set them in the dishwasher if it were empty, but that was another chore I didn’t have time for this morning.
He chuckles under his breath, and I turn to find him peering beneath the burners. “Having trouble lighting it?”
I dry my hands on a dishtowel. “Yeah, mostly that front burner on the right.”
“The one you need the most,” he says almost to himself. His eyes meet mine as he taps the enameled surface. “Mind if I take a look?”
I shrug. “Knock yourself out.”
He lifts the cooking grate and sets it aside. Then he peels back the little metal cap in the center of the burner, leans over, and inspects the ring. I step closer to try to see what he’s looking at. “The base looks clean…” He squats down so he’s eye-level with the stovetop. Then he turns to burner knob to light it. As usual, the igniter pops, but the burner refuses to light. He kills the switch before the kitchen can fill with natural gas. “You might have a bad igniter.”
“But it’s sparking,” I say, squatting down beside him, eyeing the stubborn burner. “If it’s sparking, it should light, right?”
He inhales to respond... and I see the moment it happens.
He smells me.
Or rather, not me, but the evidence of the anal sacculectomy I’m wearing on my scrubs. But the way his eyes cut to me with sudden horror, it may as well be me, not my clothes. A full-body blush assaults me.
Why did I think this was a good idea?
“That’s not me,” I hear myself say.
Valencia looks away, giving me his profile. He clears his throat and nods. Oh my God. Are his eyes watering?
“Good to know.” He rises and takes a not so discrete step to the right. Presumably out of sniffing range.
My face burns like I’ve moisturized with Tabasco. “I swear, it’s not me,” I say, almost pleading. “It’s… from a patient.”
He raises a fist to his mouth and coughs against it. I’m not sure, but he might be trying not to gag. “O-Okay,” he rasps. When he clenches his jaw, I know he’s trying not to gag.
“Oh, Jesus,” I mutter, roasting with embarrassment. I take three steps backward, guessing that my rising body temperature isn’t going to help matters. “I should go change.”
He clears his throat again with obvious force and shakes his head. “No. I’m good.” His face is red now too, but I know he can’t possibly be embarrassed. Can he? He looks like he’s fighting a smile, but it’s a lost cause. “So… uh… are you a nurse?”
“No.” I frown. “I’m a vet.”
He looks genuinely surprised, and he blinks at me with confusion. And my humiliation gladly steps aside to make room for affront.
“Why would you assume I’m a nurse and not a doctor?” I ask, cocking a hand on my hip.
My question seems to stun him. Yeah, there’s no way he’s looking at me like he did last night. Not now. Never again. And that’s exactly how I want it.
I just wish I didn’t feel this clenching in my stomach. Like I’ve missed winning the lottery by one number.
He stares at me for a second, surprise turning to challenge in the narrowing of his gaze. “You don’t look old enough to be a doctor.”
Damn. That’s a good answer.
My chagrin must show on my face because his expression softens just a little. “Besides, when my dad was in the hospital, it wasn’t the doctors who did the dirty work,” he says, tipping his head in the direction of my fouled top.
Another good answer.
I bite the inside of my lip because he doesn’t need to know I think so. “With animals, a lot of it is dirty work.” But then I have to give credit where it’s due. “I’ll admit that my techs probably have it worse than I do most days.”
“Just not today,” he says under his breath.
Laughter ambushes me.
He smirks. “So if you’re telling me that smell isn’t human, all I can say is Thank God.”
I laugh harder. Wait. What am I doing?
Shit! Flirting alert!
The thought is like a fire alarm. I clear my throat and pull myself together. “So the stove,” I say, brushing wisps of hair off my flushed face. “Is it an easy fix?”
My about-face seems to sober him too because he wipes the smile off his face and turns back to the range. “One way to tell for sure,” he says, squatting down again. “Could you turn off the lights?”
Turn off the lights? That’s a little weird.
“Um… why?”
He taps the top of the range with an index finger. “To check the spark from the igniter. If it’s blue, it should be good, but if it’s yellow or whitish, then you know the thing’s busted.”
“Oh.” Who knew? “Okay.” I reach forward, moving quickly so my German Shepherd Ass-scented scrubs don’t violate him, and I flip the switch over the sink. Then I cross to the wall and turn off the overheads.
He twists the knob, and the popping sound fills the room. The flash is small, but even from where I stand against the wall, I can tell it’s white, not blue.
“Huh,” I utter, impressed with his know-how. “But would it really be worth fixing if we decide to redo the kitchen?”
He shakes his head. “No, but if you decide not to renovate, fixing it will make your life easier.”
Just like that, I wonder why Mom never thought to call someone out to take care of it. Then again, it’s also pretty minor. An aggravation, yes, but I don’t lose any sleep over it.
There are plenty of other things to lose sleep over.
This thought, the way my skin still feels the electric tingle of laughter and charged attraction, and the sudden darkness of the room, make for too much stimuli. I need a break. I flip the lights back on.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go change before we look at the plans,” I say, already backing toward the living room. I gesture to my shirt, but my next words are meant for more than just that. “I don’t think I can handle this.”
A ghost of a smile quirks his mouth. “Sure. Take your time.” The slope of his shoulders and the looseness in his well-favored limbs tells me he means it, and I’m grateful. Both for the reprieve and for his patience.
With a nod, I turn, cross to the front of the house, and dash upstairs. In my bathroom, I carefully peel the disgusting top from my bod
y, regretting there’s absolutely no time for a shower. Hell, there won’t even be time after he leaves. Tuesdays after my shift are for the weekly grocery run. And then it’ll be carpool, snack time, homework, and then time to fix dinner.
At the sink, I scrub my hands and wrists since this is the best I can do at the moment. I hear myself sigh and catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Really, it’s the burgundy lace bra that catches my eye, the way its deep color seems to tie together the pink fairness of my skin and the red of my hair. It’s pulled up in a ponytail this morning, but now slipping out in wisps around my face, my bangs no longer the neat curtain over my forehead but tousled from hours of wrangling animals and sweating through surgery.
With the color still high on my cheeks, I look like I’ve just left someone’s bed. The only evidence to the contrary is the knotted drawstring low on my belly. On a whim, I pluck at the bow with still wet fingers, and the scrub bottoms gape open. The fabric dips just enough so I can see my matching burgundy lace undies.
I may be relegated to the life of a nun for the next ten years, but that doesn’t mean I have to wear granny-panties.
I put on sexy underwear almost every day. And shopping for lingerie is a definite guilty pleasure. I like the way it looks. I like the way it feels. And I like the way I feel when I put it on in the morning and when I undress at night.
Sexy underwear is like a secret weapon. Really, it’s like a secret multi-purpose tool. A kind of morale-boosting Swiss Army knife. Good for building confidence, positive body image, and inspiring hope.
I’ve always liked lacy bras and racy panties, but these days, they mean something more to me. They are a little reminder of the truth. Smokin’ hot underwear says, You’re sexy even if there isn’t a man in your life. It says, Maybe the only balls you’ll touch for a decade will be the ones you snip off cats and dogs, but you’ve still got it. It says, This part of you that you can’t share with anyone? It hasn’t died.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” I scold my reflection.
I shuck the scrub bottoms and leave them in a puddle on the floor of my bathroom. A moment later, I’m dressed in a pullover and jeans, ready for my trip to the store as soon as this guy leaves.
Before I reach the kitchen, I hear the rustle of papers. He’s talking as I walk in. “So last time this kitchen was updated, it was sometime in the eighties,” he says, studying the plans. “The vision your mother had fits the age and original decorative style a lot more naturally.”
At the mention of Mom, I feel a little quickening in my heart. Not like the bottomed-out faintness I had earlier, but excitement. He’s about to show me something from my mother. Something new.
Without warning, tears blur my vision. I clutch the frame of a dining chair, trying to hold back the feeling.
But then it hits me.
When is this ever going to happen again? When I’ll get to lay eyes on something she meant to show me? To have a new memory of her to add to my very finite collection?
Probably never. And if this is it, if this is the last time I get to share something new with my mom, I want to feel every minute of it.
So I let the tears fall.
Nothing else is at hand, so I grab the wadded up paper towel Harry left on the table this morning and wipe my cheeks, determined to be unashamed. I’ve apologized for dissolving into tears a dozen times in the last five months, especially at the beginning.
I don’t think I can apologize anymore.
Hell, if it bothers Bob the Builder, he can add it to my growing list of unattractive traits. Sarcastic, stinky, slovenly, sobbing psycho.
But when I let my gaze fall on the plans, I forget all about repulsing Luc Valencia, the chores ahead of me, or apologizing for grieving.
The two-dimensional kitchen rendered on graph paper might as well be drawn in Mom’s hand. Every detail is so her—so us—it’s like walking into her hug.
My watery gasp makes him look up at me, but I don’t take my focus from the inked image of Mom’s dream kitchen. I feel rather than see him avert his gaze, but out of the corner of my eye, I can’t help but notice his hands as they grip the edge of the table with obvious strain.
But I have no time for his discomfort. I’m too busy catching tears with the stiff, scratchy paper towel and wishing Mom were here to see her ideas on the page.
A moment later, when Valencia speaks, his voice is low, careful. “I’ll just leave these here,” he says, and then I hear the creak of leather and the whisper of paper against paper. “My number’s on the card. Call if you want to go through with it.”
At first, I can only nod, but when he turns and heads for the front door, I call out. “Wait.” I force myself to face him. He’s standing in my living room, all loose-limbed ease gone. He looks as taut as a bowstring, his expression tense and guarded.
Some men just can’t handle tears. Just like Carter, I think with a stab of bitterness. But I share my words anyway. “Th-thank you for these,” I tell him, my voice catching just a little. “I don’t know yet what we’ll do. It’ll have to be something we all want, but thank you. She would have loved them.”
Chapter Five
LUC
I feel like a cabrón leaving her to cry alone, but the only way I know to stop a woman’s tears is to pull her into a hug—and apologize if the tears are my fault. It works with Mami and Abuela. With all my cousins, Aunt Lucinda’s four daughters. My girlfriends back in high school.
In the four years we were together, I never once saw Ronni cry, so I wouldn’t know if it works on her.
But the thought of wrapping Millie Delacroix in my arms feels as dangerous as running into a burning building.
First of all, she’s a client—or she could be—and you don’t hug clients. Secondly, the last half hour has been an exercise in self-control. Giving in to touching her would have been a bad idea. The moment she put her hand in mine I wanted to hold on. When she led me inside, all I could think about was laying a hand on the small of her back. When she cleared the table, I strangled the urge to take the dishes from her. Carry them for her.
At the stove when she bent next to me, I wanted to breathe in her scent, the one the afternoon breeze had carried to me in the soccer stands yesterday. Strawberries and summer.
What you got was exactly what you deserved, I tell myself, chuckling at the memory as I fire up the truck.
A vet. She heals animals. That’s so cool.
My chuckle mellows into a grin. “Yeah, she let you have it when you asked if she was a nurse,” I mutter aloud, backing out onto St. Mary Street when I get a break between cars. I pop the truck back into drive and give Millie Delacroix’s killer folk Victorian one last look.
She’s as fiery as her hair is red. Prickly. And soft. She seemed to get pissed when I asked if she was selling the house. And then she blew me away when she said the decision to renovate would have to be unanimous. Hers as well as the kids’.
Would I do that? Would I leave something that important up to Alex to decide?
Hell, would I be able to handle raising him? Not to mention two others. And that little one only eight?
“Jesucristo.” I cross myself, my prayer half for Millie Delacroix and half for myself. May God help her, and while he’s at it, may I never have to be in her shoes. I love my little brother, but raising that kid would be the end of me. Hanging out with him is one thing. Making sure he’s fed, has clean clothes, and, shit, doesn’t kill himself after he gets a driver’s license is something else entirely.
She must be scared out of her mind.
I come to a stop at the intersection of St. Mary and Johnston Street with one thought in mind: I’d really like to build Millie Delacroix a kitchen.
“How’s Jorge and Inez?”
Cesar Luis Herrero Blanco has been my best friend since August of 2003. In a sea of white faces, he was the only other Mexican-American in Mrs. Brumsfield's sixth grade homeroom. We didn’t seek each other out, though we’d probably c
locked each other before the tardy bell had even rung. But when Mrs. Brumsfield pulled out her seating chart to pair up the class at the fifteen two-person tables, guess who I was partnered with in the back corner?
Cesar and I have joked over the years that we owe our friendship—and even our very lives—to a xenophobic history teacher who smelled like licorice. While her choice to lump us at that table might have been small-minded racism, if I knew where Mrs. Brumsfield was today, I’d send her a fruit basket.
“You know,” I say with a shrug and take a bite of my shrimp patacon. I grabbed a smoothie after my meeting with Millie Delacroix, but that was like seven hours ago. I’m so hungry I could eat a beer can dipped in ketchup.
And Patacon, the Latin cuisine hole in the wall on Bertrand, is a favorite. I savor the bite, the salty-sweet plantain patties, the smoky etouffee shrimp, and the ripe tomatoes, sighing in satisfaction. I swallow and answer Cesar’s question.
“Papi’s hobbling around on his cane, griping about how I’m ruining the business. Mami’s feeding him every carb known to man, deep fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar—”
Cesar’s ill-timed laugh interrupts me. He’s mid-bite around his arepas, and the result is messy. Laughing, I offer my goof of a best friend a napkin. He wipes butter sauce from his chin, shaking his head.
“I can’t take you anywhere.”
He chews and swallows, eyes narrowed into laser beams. “This place is one of my accounts. If anything, I’m taking you.”
Cesar works for Waitr. He started out as a driver when the company first moved into Lafayette. He slid right into middle management as soon as he graduated with a degree in business. Cesar is good at what he does, and that company is expanding every day, giving UberEats some serious competition. Cesar is going nowhere but up.
I’m happy for him. And proud.
“She still busting your balls about Ronni?”
I take another bite and roll my eyes. “You should have heard her yesterday at Alex’s soccer game.”
The words summon an instant memory. Not of Ronni, my ex, but of Millie Delacroix. Looking away from me in those bleachers.
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