Hungry Heart: Konigsburg, Texas, Book 8

by Meg Benjamin

  “How much is it?”

  He shrugged. “Five hundred. Not a whole lot, but anything would help.”

  “How much do you need?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know yet. The insurance adjustor couldn’t give me a figure, but it won’t be much. I’ll have to replace everything in the kitchen and get it cleaned up. And the trailer may not be livable.”

  What about us? Which of course she couldn’t say. Or wouldn’t. Because they both had stuff to do. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.” He reached out, running his fingers along the side of her cheek, his fingertips light as butterfly wings.

  “You could…” Oh god. She paused. What was she doing, anyway? Just keep quiet.

  “I could…” His lips moved up in a faint grin.

  “You could stay with me. If the trailer can’t be fixed. I mean, I’ve got room. Maybe my kitchen would work.” Oh god, oh god, oh god. She hadn’t meant to say that. And now that she had, she wished she could take it back. It was way too close to a commitment. So much for breaking things off.

  He nodded slowly. “Thanks. I may take you up on that.”

  When pigs fly. She could supply the rest of it. Her chest felt tight again. She’d put herself out there and of course she’d gotten stomped on. What did she expect him to say, anyway? They weren’t in love or anything. She turned back to the sink abruptly, grabbing her chef’s knife as she did.

  Behind her, she heard Harris clear his throat, but she didn’t turn around. A person could only take so much rejection in one day.

  Chico fingered the small box in his jeans pocket. His mother had insisted that he take it with him, and it was probably just as well that he had. He wouldn’t have time to look for anything for at least a week, and even then he wasn’t sure he’d know what to pick. This was so far outside his comfort zone that he shuddered whenever he thought about it.

  But Eddie Wells’ suspicions had rankled last night, even though they hadn’t been exactly unexpected. He thought Andy was marrying down. Chico wanted something that would lay that shit to rest.

  His jaw still tensed whenever he thought about marrying Andy, but it wasn’t from doubt. He had no doubts at all. But his mom would invite everybody in the family. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to endure that. The idea of standing up in a suit—his mother would demand a suit—in front of all his relatives gave him hives, or close to it. He’d been thinking seriously of just having the County Clerk marry them like Andy had suggested, then dropping the news in his mom’s lap as a done deal.

  The worst she could do would be to yell at him, and she already did that regularly. Of course it would also hurt her feelings, and he was less sure he could deal with that. He sighed. This whole getting married thing was supposed to be simple.

  He climbed the steps to Andy’s front door, opening it without bothering to knock. He knew she was home. “Andy?” he called.

  “I’ll be right out.” Her voice echoed from the rear of the house. The bedroom. Probably changing clothes. He thought about going back there, maybe interrupting the clothes changing. But he wanted to do this right. That probably meant with all their clothes on and all their wits about them.

  He sank down on her couch and tried to figure out what to do with the box. He could put it on the coffee table so that she saw it when she walked in. Or he could leave it in his pocket and hope he wouldn’t look as clumsy as he suspected he would when he tried to get it out.

  Someone rapped hard on the front door, and he frowned. Visitors right now would be a pain in the ass since they might well prevent him from having the necessary conversation with Andy. Maybe they could just pretend not to be home.

  The rapping came again, and Andy’s voice sounded from the bedroom. “Could you get that? I’ll be there in a minute.”

  He pushed himself to his feet and headed for the door, assuming a suitably intimidating expression. Unless it was somebody from TCEQ with a water emergency, he intended to send them on their way. Fast.

  He pulled the door open and frowned harder. The man on the other side looked like he needed to be frowned at. He was maybe five feet ten or so, and Chico put his weight at somewhere around two hundred pounds. Some of it was muscle, judging from the size of his biceps, but a lot of it wasn’t. His dark hair was cut short around his skull, and he wore sunglasses with a black baseball cap. His black T-shirt pulled tight across his chest, half distorting the white letters that spelled out Burke’s Barbecue Bandits.

  Even before he read the T-shirt Chico had already figured out who the man was. He pulled himself up to his full height, folding his arms across his chest. “Yeah?”

  Burke wasn’t intimidated, Chico had to give him that. “Who the hell are you? Where’s Andy?”

  “She’s changing her clothes. What do you want?”

  “To see Andy,” he barked. Burke looked like he was ready to push his way in. Chico was willing to let him try it. It would be a very bad idea, but Chico assumed he knew that already. He didn’t look like a stupid man. Just an asshole.

  “Lew?” Andy sounded slightly annoyed as she walked into the room behind them. “What are you doing here?”

  She stepped up beside Chico, and he moved aside reluctantly, letting Burke past.

  “I’m here to take you to dinner,” Burke said in a flat voice. “Like I told you.”

  Andy grimaced. “And I told you I was busy, Lew. I’m not going out with you. You’ve wasted a trip.”

  Burke glanced at Chico again. “Who’s this?”

  “Chico Burnside.” He raised his eyebrows. “And you are?”

  Burke’s face flushed dull pink.

  “This is my ex-husband, Lew Burke,” Andy said hurriedly. “Lew, I don’t have time to talk to you right now. We’re on our way out.”

  Chico folded his arms again, watching.

  A muscle in Burke’s jaw flexed hard. “What’s going on here?” he snapped. “Who’s he?”

  “What makes you think you have a right to ask questions here?” Andy sounded like she was talking through clenched teeth.

  “I still…”

  Screw it. “Like I said, my name’s Chico Burnside, and Andy’s my fiancée.” He put a little emphasis on the my. Live with it, asshole.

  Burke’s jaw dropped. He turned toward Andy. “You’re getting married?”

  Andy nodded. “I am.”

  “To him?” Burke looked at him incredulously. “Good Lord, Andy, what’s the matter with you?”

  Chico dropped his hands to his sides, flexing his fingers. He longed to plant a fist in Burke’s face, but he had enough self-discipline not to. On the other hand, Burke was definitely nudging him in that direction.

  “How dare you!” Andy’s voice was lethal.

  Chico turned away from Burke for a moment to look at her. Her face was pale. Her hands were drawn into fists at her sides. Judging by the skills in reading expressions he’d developed in his years as a bouncer, he figured she was moments away from throwing a punch.

  She stepped forward until she was inches away from her ex-husband. “How dare you say anything about Chico—or imply anything about him? You pompous ass! You don’t know anything about him, and you never knew anything about me. ” She drew a deep breath. “Now get out of my grandmother’s house. You don’t belong here. Granny Deb couldn’t stand you. And I don’t want to see or hear any more.”

  Burke looked as if somebody had given him a quick jab to the solar plexus. His face flushed pink again, while his jaw flexed. Chico narrowed his eyes. Maybe he’d get a chance to punch the asshole after all.

  Then Burke pivoted on his heel, stomping down the steps and across the yard to a Suburban with Burke’s Barbecue Bandits painted across the door. He didn’t look back.

  Andy still stood in the doorway, hands at her sides, fingers trembling slightly. After a moment, she sighed. “I’m sorry. He just makes me so mad.”

  Chico put a hand on her shoulder, turning her slowly as he closed the door. “What ar
e you sorry about?”

  “That I lost my temper. I just…ranted.”

  “You’re not supposed to lose your temper?” He shook his head. “I didn’t know about that rule.”

  “I hate it when I do.” She leaned forward, resting her cheek against his chest. He put his arm around her shoulders, holding her close. “It’s so classless.”

  “That,” he said, “is ridiculous. Everybody’s got the right to tell off the assholes in your life without losing any class. Hell, I think it’s in the Constitution.”

  Andy snickered, wrapping her arms around his waist. “You’re right. I think it’s part of the Bill of Rights.”

  He put his hand on her back, urging her gently into the living room.

  Andy frowned. “Don’t we need to go? I thought we were meeting the King and Darcy.”

  “They’re back at my place. They’ll wait.” He sat on her couch, pulling her down beside him. “I’ve got something to show you first.”

  “Show me?” She frowned. “What?”

  He reached into his pocket, fumbling about as much as he was afraid he would, and pulled out the velvet box. Beside him, Andy seemed to go very still. He handed it to her wordlessly, mainly because he couldn’t think of any words to say.

  She opened the box slowly, staring down at the ring inside. Three diamonds marched down the center of the setting, the two smaller pear-shaped ones framing the large round one. Sapphire chips nestled on either side of the center diamonds. The white gold setting was carved in delicate filigree around the gems.

  Andy blinked, still staring.

  He took a quick breath. “According to my mom, it belonged to my Great Aunt Evangelina, who brought it with her to San Antonio when she and her husband took off about three steps ahead of Porfirio Diaz and his army. I never knew her.”

  He really hoped Andy would say something soon because he was running out of things to say himself. But she stayed silent.

  “You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. Like I say, I never knew Evangelina. We could go looking for something else next week, maybe in Austin.” All of a sudden he wished he’d shown the ring to Clem first. Or maybe Deirdre. Maybe this was a huge mistake.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Andy said softly. “I’ve never… It’s just so beautiful.” She blinked fast and he saw the shimmer of tears.

  Oh shit. He could deal with almost any situation except for a crying woman. That he not only couldn’t deal with, he didn’t want to try.

  He took the ring out of the box, balancing it in his suddenly clumsy fingers, then slid it carefully onto her left hand. “A little loose.”

  Andy shook her head, taking another deep breath. “It’s fine. It’s perfect.” She turned toward him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her face against his chest. “Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s just right.”

  “Okay.” He stroked his hand along her hair, her shoulder, her back. In another five minutes they’d be flat on the couch.

  And they had things to do.

  He kissed the top of her head. “Hold the thought. For now, we need to go cook some barbecue.”

  She caught her breath in a kind of shaky laugh, then smiled up at him. “Yes, we do. Let’s go kick Lew’s butt.”

  He grinned again. God, he loved this woman. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Harris rolled his smoker into place at their assigned spot in the county fairgrounds. Chico had already set up his own smoker nearby, and he and Andy were assembling the rest of the booth, the makeshift counter where they’d put the plates to sell and the canopy overhead that would protect them from sunstroke. A row of empty coolers lined the back of the booth, probably more contributions from the Burnside family, who seemed to be taking a proprietary interest in their team.

  Their team. Harris frowned. All around them teams wore matching T-shirts and ball caps. Most had signs and banners hanging over their booths. He hadn’t even thought about a name for their team, let alone matching outfits.

  “Hey, Chico,” he called, piling wood chunks into the chimney lighter.

  Chico half turned, giving him one of those blood-chilling looks that were actually his normal expression. “What?”

  “Do we have a name? What did you enter us as?”

  Chico shrugged. “We’re Barbecue Royale. All I could think of at the last minute when I had to turn in the paperwork. I forgot to ask before that. Sorry.”

  Barbecue Royale? Harris couldn’t decide whether he felt embarrassed or smug. Royal Barbecue with the King. Yeah, baby!

  He grinned as he applied a match to the rolled-up newspaper in the bottom of the chimney. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. My cousin Tito made us a sign. Where’s Darcy?”

  And just like that, Harris’s mood soured. He’d left Darcy in the kitchen at Chico’s duplex, chopping up cabbage and apples and ignoring him. She hadn’t been ready to drive to the fairgrounds yet she said. She had to make her goddamned slaw.

  Not that she’d called it that. But he did, or at least he did to himself. Outwardly, he’d given her a tight smile and headed out the door.

  “She’s back at the duplex,” he said, trying to unclench his jaw. “Making slaw.”

  Andy shook her head. “I’ll go pick her up. She shouldn’t miss this.”

  Which would save him from having to drive back there to talk her out of spending her evening chopping cabbage. As an alternative to spending the evening with him. Hell, he was coming in second to sauerkraut.

  He folded his arms and watched the wood chunks smolder in the chimney. Sooner or later he was going to have to figure out what was going on with him and Darcy. Or not going on, as the case might be. He had no idea what would happen when the cook-off was over. Clearly, she didn’t need to apprentice with him anymore. She’d already learned the basics. That, plus her own cooking savvy, put her way ahead of most of the people here, although they’d probably never admit it.

  So would she take a walk once the contest was over? The possibility didn’t exactly delight him.

  On the other hand, she’d invited him to stay with her, possibly indefinitely. Of course, he’d sort of bobbled his answer, largely because he was so surprised that she’d invited him in the first place.

  Unfortunately, he had a feeling Darcy wasn’t somebody who gave out a lot of second chances. You grabbed the first one or you lost. And he hadn’t grabbed it fast enough. He had to figure out a way to change her mind about that. Of course, that meant figuring out where he wanted them to go. And where they might end up.

  Chico regarded the stack of logs at the side of the booth with narrowed eyes. “You think we got enough wood?”

  Harris shrugged. “Yeah, enough to get through the night anyway. We can bring over more tomorrow from the logs I’ve got stacked in your backyard.”

  “What happened to that stuff we threw up on the hillside? Did it make it through the flood?”

  Harris grimaced. He hadn’t brought the wood back down from the hillside yet. He’d been too involved with the insurance adjustor to think about anything else. “Some of it. Most of it’s still up there. I’ll have to get everything cleaned up after we finish this cook-off.”

  Chico shrugged. “Make it a Sunday and I’ll come out too. I can bring part of the family. Most of the time they’re a pain in the ass, but they’re good at taking care of disasters. Having a small army can help.”

  For a moment, Harris wondered what it would be like to have a huge family that kicked in when you got knocked around in a flood. As opposed to using that flood as a handy source of blackmail. These days, it pretty much went without saying that the Temples wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  Chico picked up his own chimney starter, packing it with wood chunks. “No problem. Want a beer? We’ve got all night.”

  “Sure.” All night. He wondered how much luck he’d have getting Darcy to stay with him during his shift. Maybe he sho
uld just tell her he loved her and be done with it.

  Except he had a feeling that would scare her off faster than anything else he could say.

  Andy opened the door of the duplex, calling “Darcy, are you still here?” even though she’d already seen the SUV in the driveway. She figured it was a good idea to announce herself rather than startle a woman with a knife in her hand.

  Darcy appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a towel. “Yeah, I’m here. What do you need?”

  “You. You’re missing everything at the fairgrounds. I came to pick you up.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “Maybe later.”

  Andy narrowed her eyes. “Try to keep that enthusiasm under control. You’re liable to freak everybody out.”

  Darcy shook her head, turning back to the kitchen. “I’m just not in the mood, okay? I may get there, but I’m not feeling it right now.”

  “Which is why you need to come out to the fairgrounds with me. It’s one big party over there.” Andy followed her into the kitchen. “What smells so great? Is that the cobbler?”

  “Yeah, which is why I can’t go anywhere at the moment. I’ve got a bunch of cobblers in the oven.” She leaned back against the counter, folding her arms. “I’ll drive myself over sometime tonight.”

  Andy pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. “I can wait. Right now they’re just getting the fires set up anyway. The party will start later, when the meat’s on and cooking. People go visiting back and forth. It’s really a lot of fun.” Actually, as she recalled, it was the only part of the whole process that she enjoyed, although Lew’s snootiness with the other contestants sometimes put a damper on it.

  Darcy shrugged. “Okay. You don’t have to wait, though. I can get over there on my own.”

  Andy frowned slightly. “What’s up, Darcy? You have a fight with the King?”

  She sighed, shaking her head, then slumped back against the counter again. “What’s going to happen with you and Chico when this is all over? Have you talked about it?”

  Andy’s frown deepened. They hadn’t really told anybody yet, except for Chico’s mother. And Eddie and Lorraine. And Lew. And probably most of the Burnside family knew by now. The hell with it. “We’re getting married.”