* * *
Jenna’s white Toyota blocked Jake from parking in his usual spot next to the carriage house. He looked up and saw his sister bouncing his oversized black suitcase down the front stairs.
“Hey there, big brother!” Jenna waved her free arm in an enthusiastic greeting. “I got Nana to let me in.”
“What are you doing?” Jake shook his head as he called out to her. “I’m going to need that.”
“I’m giving it back, silly. You told me the other day I could borrow it for the cruise. Mitch and I leave a week from Saturday. I’m going to start packing now so I’m not rushing at the last minute, as I always do. I’m tired of throwing everything together like a tornado and then realizing I forgot my toothbrush. In the middle of the ocean, I can’t just run down to the store and pick up what I need.”
Jake stopped at the bottom of the stairs, blocking Jenna’s path to her car. “Well, you’ll need to pick up a new suitcase first. I’m taking that one with me.”
His sister quirked one eyebrow high. “Taking it where?”
“To Austin.” Jake reached for the black rectangle.
The usually chatty Jenna spluttered, trying to find her words. “But...why?”
“Just because.” The words tasted bitter, like bad medicine. He wanted to say more, to confide in the sister who’d always loved him even when his parents hadn’t, but he couldn’t let Jenna know what was about to happen. Not after he’d promised to take care of the company—and her—earlier this very week.
Knowing he would not be able to keep his word to his sister shamed him.
Jenna sat the suitcase on the stair behind her and looked straight at Jake. “Not good enough. You went to college and then you never came back. I’m just getting to know you all over again. I like having you around. I need my big brother. And a certain little person will need his or her uncle.”
Like a small child turned loose on a pile of wrapping paper, Jenna’s words ripped apart the numbness fogging up Jake’s brain.
“Wait a minute. You don’t mean...”
Jenna’s shy smile broke into a shining grin. She nodded her head. “Your little sister is going to be a mommy.”
Jake stared at her as though he was seeing her for the first time. She wasn’t just making those words up to get him to stay. The rosy glow to her cheeks looked too fresh to have been created by makeup.
He raked a hand through his hair. Jake tried to balance his desire to run far from his problems with the rising need to know the next generation of Peoples.
But no matter how badly he wanted to support Jenna at this time of her life, and no matter how much he wanted to be this baby’s uncle, it was out of his hands. Johnny Peoples had poisoned the cup years before.
Jake looked at his feet and sighed. He couldn’t be there for Jenna’s baby because the only lessons he could teach were ones of failure and regret. A certain little person didn’t need that.
Jake wouldn’t stack the deck against the newest and most innocent branch on the Peoples family tree.
“Congratulations, Jenna.” He reached out. Jenna leaned over to return what she interpreted as the beginning of a brotherly hug.
Jake ducked her embrace and kept his head low. Maybe if Jenna couldn’t see his eyes, she wouldn’t know how much it hurt to know what would happen to him tomorrow.
His hand slipped past his sister and rested on the handle of the suitcase, tugging it out of the grip of the mother-to-be. “But I’m still going to need this.”
* * *
Jake pulled into El Centro’s parking lot and tried to adjust his attitude. The afternoon’s phone call from Nana had started his emotional slide. After running into Jenna and realizing that his father’s disapproval—brought back to life by Sam Pennington—was going to keep him from knowing his first niece or nephew, he’d fallen into a funk he just couldn’t pull himself out of.
Gracie appeared at the truck’s passenger door and gave a quick knock on the glass. He hadn’t even realized she stood there. The fog that had settled into his brain a few hours ago seemed too thick to clear.
“You don’t look like yourself at all.”
“What do you mean?” He didn’t want to worry her with his problems. He’d caused enough stress for everyone around him—especially Gracie. He’d decided to leave after this evening with her so he wouldn’t add more stress by standing her up. She deserved better than he could ever give.
Gracie, the woman he’d just pledged his friendship to this very afternoon, would be another person disappointed by him tomorrow once Sam Pennington finished resurrecting decades of gossip.
“You don’t seem like yourself. Something’s wrong.” She settled herself into the seat, and Jake pulled out of the parking lot.
“Not really.” Pride rose to the top of his throat, blocking the exit for any words to escape. “Now, how do we get to Huarache’s?”
“It’s not far from the church. Forty-Seventh and Gulfview.”
“It’s on Gulfview?” He couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice.
“Mmm-hmm. Why do you ask?” Gracie’s eyebrows drew together as she studied him.
“Well, I...” He stopped speaking abruptly, embarrassed. “I’ve never noticed it. Has it been there long?”
Gracie’s eyebrows changed position from confusion to amusement. “Only about twenty years. It’s pink-and-orange stucco on the main beachfront street in town. How could you possibly miss it?”
“Good question. I seem to have missed a lot. I missed the signs that trusting a lying client would lead me into bankruptcy. And today it seems I missed the fact that my father’s legacy will keep me from running my family’s company.” He pulled into the parking lot behind Huarache’s.
He realized that he did know this building—he’d just never taken the time to care about it. “I guess it’s no surprise I missed a pink-and-orange restaurant every time I drove down this street for my entire life.”
Jake kicked at a small pile of rocks in the parking lot as he got out of the truck. They scattered in a dozen different directions.
Just like every dream he’d ever had.
He walked over to open Gracie’s door, but she exited on her own before he could plod over there. She stopped his slow progress with a light palm on his chest.
“Jake. Something is wrong. I can see it. Please don’t close yourself off like this.” She gently tapped his shoulder. The soft touch reached through muscle and skin, around to his heart and pride. The stone inside began to waver like a palm tree facing the winds of a hurricane.
“It just hasn’t been a good day, Gracie.” He’d given her the background over their snapper lunch, but if he now started talking about the fact he was going to be the first John Edward Peoples in Port Provident history not to receive a vote of confidence to head the family company, she’d see right through him.
Gracie would know what his father always said. She would know the fraud he must truly be.
The light in her eyes dimmed as she spoke. “You spent most of your day with me. I don’t understand.”
His preoccupation with his own issues had prompted him to speak without thinking. Gracie had no way of knowing the phone call with his grandmother caused his day to take a dark turn. She didn’t know he’d made his sister cry on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life. She didn’t know that his hours with her filled his afternoon with the only pure sunshine in this gloomy day.
“It’s not you, Gracie. It’s me. I promise.”
“What does that mean, Jake? Why are you using some cheap breakup line?” Her voice started strong, then trailed off. If she hadn’t been standing next to him, he would have missed the last phrase entirely.
But when she found out that he couldn’t even save his own job at his own family’s business, she wo
uldn’t trust anything he said to help save hers. And when she realized he had no power to help her, they would go their separate ways in just a few hours.
Jake leaned against the rear bumper of the truck, trying not to think of tomorrow. “I had to let go of a dream this afternoon.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice sounded as soft as her floral fragrance that drifted on the breeze.
Her gentle presence somehow comforted him. He could hold back his thoughts from Nana and Jenna, but for some reason, not from Gracie.
“My grandmother called. She’s been tipped off that the board will not vote to confirm me at tomorrow’s meeting.” His ears ached at the sound of his own words.
Gracie’s expression turned serious. “You sound so sure of it. Nothing’s final yet. They haven’t even heard your presentation.”
“My father’s best friend has gotten enough votes to block me. Even from the grave, my father’s mistrust still follows me all over this town. All my life, my father kept me at arm’s length from everything that meant anything to him. Once Sam Pennington reminds the board that my father didn’t want me as part of his life or his company, I see no reason for the vote to go in a different direction from what Nana said earlier.”
Jake wanted to pull away from her intense stare, but her eyes followed his.
“So you’re going to allow my business to be ruined for nothing? You’re going to allow your family’s business to be run by someone else?” She pulled away when Jake reached out to take her hand. “No. That’s not the Jake Peoples I’ve come to know.”
“Then you don’t know the real Jake Peoples.” The distasteful words practically spit out of his mouth. “Tomorrow, I’ll be the first one in four generations to be shown the door from Peoples Property Group. First my own law office, now this. The only thing it seems I know how to do is fail, Gracie.”
A large family’s laughter carried on the wind all the way from just outside the restaurant’s front door. Their good-natured conversation prodded Jake like a white-hot poker. His family never had moments like that. He couldn’t recall his mother, father, sister and him ever laughing together in that way.
Jake’s jaw clenched. He reached out a hand, without thinking, and slammed his palm into the side of the truck, barely missing Gracie. The sting of skin on steel hurt, but not as much as the memories.
“What are you doing, Jake?” Gracie gasped.
“I don’t know.” His breathing came heavy and short. “This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I was supposed to get it right this time.”
The wind swirled gently around the parking lot as the sun began to set, framing Gracie’s hair in gold.
“You know, Gracie, I think I’m not good company tonight.” He knew canceling on her right here was cheap, but maybe she needed an introduction to the same Jake everyone else appeared to know.
“No, you’re not leaving,” Gracie replied. “My family’s expecting you. You say you let down your family when things didn’t work out for you in the past—well, you’re not going to let down mine tonight.” The determination in her voice could have intimidated a line of army generals.
“Gracie, I’m not trying to—”
She cut him off. “That’s right, Jake, you’re not trying. You’re bailing on mí madre, who’s counting on an extra pair of hands tonight. You’re resigning yourself to being kicked out of your company before you even give your presentation. You’re giving up on yourself because of the expectations of someone who isn’t even alive anymore.” She stared straight at him, brown-velvet eyes full of concern. “And you’re running away from me after you promised your friendship and your help in saving my school.”
She pulled back, swiped her hand in the air dismissively, then began to walk toward the short stucco annex off the back of Huarache’s main building.
Jake wanted to reach out and grab her hand, to hold on for a moment. But by the time he’d sorted through his thoughts enough to act on them, Gracie had already made it to the door. The hinges squeaked open, then a second later, the pink door slammed shut with a metallic thud.
The silence in the night air wrapped around him. The laughing family had found their way inside and were probably sitting down to a good meal. Gracie had gone inside to her family, as well. But Jake remained in the parking lot, on the outside, as usual.
He looked at the door Gracie had just walked through, then looked at the keys in his hand. It was time to go home and get ready to face tomorrow. Gracie Garcia was just one more missed opportunity in the life of Jake Peoples.
* * *
“Aren’t you missing someone?” Juanita Garcia looked up as soon as her youngest daughter walked in. “Your sister told us you were bringing a friend tonight, Graciela.”
Her mother’s eyes sparkled with mischief as her arms rested almost elbow-deep in masa, the ground corn dough that formed the chewy exterior of a tamale.
“No, Mamí. Something came up.”
Like a complete and total turnaround from the self-confident Jake she thought she knew. Gracie couldn’t explain what had happened to Jake tonight. How could one phone call bring about such a change in a person?
“It tells you a lot about a man if he’s afraid of tamale-making.” Juanita Garcia’s warm, throaty laugh—a sound Gracie had always loved—rippled through the room.
“I don’t think it’s that, Mamí. I wish I really knew what happened. Earlier this afternoon, he helped me find a new location for the school that will work if I get the grant, then we had lunch and ran into Gloria on the beach.”
Gracie walked to the prep table and picked up a stack of dried corn husks, placing them in a bowl of water for softening. “Then tonight, he picked me up to come here and he wasn’t himself.”
Gloria walked through the side door, carefully balancing an assortment of spice bottles in each hand. “Where’s Jake?”
“He’s not coming,” said Gracie and her mother at the same time.
“Qué?” The bottles rolled out of Gloria’s arms and across the countertop with a thud that punctuated her simple question.
“I really don’t know, Gloria.” Gracie reached in her mother’s bowl and grabbed a hunk of pliant white dough. “It feels good to do something productive instead of worrying. I’ve done enough of that this past week. First about the school, and then about Jake. I’m done worrying. On to tamales.”
The vaguely grainy masa squished between Gracie’s fingers. Each round of flexing and working the dough released a little more of her frustration.
Her sister gave a gentle hip bump as she passed by on the way to her own station. “Well, if you’re not going to worry about him, Graciela, can I?”
“You don’t even like him, Gloria. Why on earth would you worry about him?”
Gloria moved a pan of cooked pork close to her and laid an empty pan alongside it. “What do you mean I don’t like him?”
“Well, both times you’ve met him, you’ve pretty much torn him to shreds.” A voice several octaves deeper than those of the three Garcia women came from the doorway.
Jake looked pointedly at Gloria, who pulled at the large rounds of cooked pork until they became small strips in the pan.
“Jake...you said you weren’t coming.” Gracie tried to keep the surprise out of her voice. She didn’t want him—or any of her family members—to know how her heart leaped when he spoke.
“Well, you were right, Gracie. I promised some people I’d be here. I seem to have blown a big opportunity with my family. I didn’t want to do the same with yours. And if I went home, all I’d do was think about more negative things.” He crossed the room in two steps and stood next to her mom. “Señora Garcia, how can I help?”
“Bienvenidos, Jake. Any friend of Gracie’s is always welcome in our kitchen.” Her mother smiled a knowing smile. She nodded at the bowl,
indicating she would shake his proffered hand, except for the mess that covered her to the forearms. “You can help Gloriana shred the pork, if you’d like. Gracie’s measuring out the balls of masa. But we will need something to stuff them with.”
“I’d be happy to. Gloria, you’ll tell me what I need to know?”
Gloria’s eyes lit with mischief. Gracie knew that look from a hundred childhood pranks.
“You’re up to something, Gloria.” She wished she knew just what was running through her sister’s head.
“Me? Never.” Gloria looked down at the pork roasts and began shredding methodically. She lifted her head and met Gracie’s eyes, then began to giggle. Gracie’s own eyes rolled at her sister’s silliness.
“I brought sodas.” Gracie’s father stopped as soon as he entered the room and looked from Gracie to Gloria and then at Jake. He didn’t say another word to his daughters, and instead set the bottles of fizzy drinks on the nearest counter and then turned to Jake. “Carlos Garcia. You must be Gracie’s friend—the one Gloria told us about.”
Jake reached quickly for the outstretched hand and gave it a strong shake. “Jake Peoples. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Garcia.”
“The pleasure is mine. Please, call me Carlos.”
Gracie stood dumbfounded, watching the introductions she’d been so certain weren’t going to happen. “I thought you were heading home.”
“I did head home. I even pulled up to Nana’s gate. But the sound of your voice replaying in my head wouldn’t let me drive any farther.” His knuckles looked white as he gripped the edge of the counter. “If I don’t keep my commitments when times get rough, I’m proving my father right.”
A different warmth began to come over Gracie, starting deep in her stomach, when she heard him say he’d thought about her words as he drove in the car. She spoke softly, wanting to keep the bubbling emotion out of her words. “I think you made the right decision.”
Saving Gracie Page 10
