The shortest one (and none of them seemed over five feet) clapped her hands in front of her as she spied Ramirez. “Mijo, you came!”
“Of course I came.” Ramirez walked over to the woman, planting a quick kiss on her cheek. “You didn’t think I’d miss your birthday, Mama?”
Mama? Uh oh. Sinking feeling realized.
I tugged at the hem of my dress, wondering if I could make it grow about three inches if I just wished it hard enough. I wasn’t fond of meeting anyone’s mother dressed like this, let alone one who baked sugar cookies. Maybe if I backed up real slowly I could just disappear out the front door with some shred of my dignity left.
As if he could read my mind, Ramirez said, “Mama, this is Maddie.”
I froze as five pairs of deep brown eyes turned on me. So much for backing out the door.
Mama looked me up and down. She raised one thick eyebrow at Ramirez. The other women simply stared at me, their eyes as big and round as their soft faces. All except the younger one. Her eyes narrowed into a tight line and she pursed her lips together.
“Maddie, this my sister BillieJo, and The Aunts – Swoozie, Cookie, and Kiki.”
The Aunts stared. BillieJo glared.
“Hi,” I said. I did a little one finger wave. No one waved back.
I felt the word “hooker” flashing on my forehead like a neon sign. “I, uh, don’t usually dress like this,” I said quickly, my cheeks burning brighter than Rudolph’s shiny nose.
Mama gave me a slow once over. Her gaze lingered on my hemline. Self-consciously, I gave it another tug south.
“Nice legs,” she said.
“Uh…” I looked to Ramirez for an appropriate response. No help there. He crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels, a smirk pasted on his face that clearly said this was payback for following him around town.
“Thanks,” I finally managed.
“I used to have legs like that,” Mama went on. “Before I had babies. Babies ruin your legs. Varicose veins, cellulite. It’s not pretty. You have any babies?”
“No. No babies.” Yet.
“Good for you. Keep those legs as long as you can. I had my first baby when I was seventeen. How old are you?”
“Um. Twenty-nine,” I answered. Only it sounded more like a question, as if I was hoping I’d gotten the right answer on the pop quiz
“Oh.” Mama leaned in and pseudo whispered. “Are you barren?”
I think I heard Ramirez snort.
“No! No, I’m not barren. I’m just… I have a job.”
“Oh. Well, then. Good for you. A career girl. I always wanted to be a career girl. I thought I’d make a really good firefighter.”
I tried not to laugh as I pictured Mama’s portly frame hauling someone from a burning building.
“So, what do you do?” she asked.
“I design shoes.”
Mama looked down at my acrylic chunky heels.
“Not these,” I added quickly. “I design children’s shoes.”
Mama perked up. “See, she does like children. This one’s good. I like her.” Mama gave Ramirez a pat on the cheek.
“Glad you approve,” he said. He really was enjoying this too much.
Mama gave me a pat on the cheek too, for good measure. Then she gestured to Ramirez. “Make him use condoms. You gotta keep those legs as long as you can.”
I think I swallowed my tongue. I looked to Ramirez to dispel his mother’s idea that we needed condoms. But he was trying too hard not to laugh.
“Well,” Mama said to the room at large, “tamales are ready, let’s eat.”
I blinked hard, watching Mama’s stout frame waddle back into the kitchen. The Aunts followed as one, BillieJo bringing up the rear with one last glare at me over her shoulder.
I was still contemplating whether it was too late to bolt for the door when I felt Ramirez’s breath on my neck.
“I told you, you didn’t want to come in here,” he murmured. He shot me a grin to rival the Cheshire cat’s as he grabbed my hand and led me into the kitchen.
I was so going to get him for this.
Chapter Ten
Ramirez led me outside to a spacious backyard that made my paltry window box of geraniums look downright pathetic. Three picnic style tables were set up on the lawn, covered in brightly color tablecloths. Mismatched chairs and benches surrounded them, while piles of fragrant tamales, chilies, and empanadas sat atop. Strings of lights had been hung between the tall oak trees and a battered piñata swung from one of the lower branches. A handful of dark haired children sat beneath it, lollipop sticks protruding from their mouths.
“Uncle Jack,” one of them yelled, flying at Ramirez. Two more little girls followed suit and soon Ramirez had candy fingered rug rats permanently affixed to both his legs.
My turn to smirk a little. “Uncle Jack” was about the last role I’d have picture Ramirez in. But, to his credit, he didn’t even grimace as one of his nieces made a chocolate covered handprint on his white shirt.
Mama came out carrying another tray of tamales and sat down on one of the benches. This seemed to be the signal as suddenly a swarm of people appeared from nowhere. BillieJo and three other young women came out the sliding glass doors, followed by the man I’d seen dozing in the lay-z-boy. Two men came around the side of the house, both with an unmistakable resemblance to Ramirez, though one was a little pudgier and the other wore his dark hair in a ponytail at the nape of his neck.
Mama shoved a plate into my hands, with a commanding, “Eat, eat,” and under her watchful eye I piled one of everything on my plate, for fear of offending her. (I figured my outfit was offensive enough for one evening.)
As we sat down to eat, two more men emerged from the house, guitars slung over their shoulders as they converged on the food, laughing, talking, and generally adding to the roar of voices that seemed to surround me.
Now, my grandmother is, as I may have mentioned, Irish Catholic. Before my grandfather bought his one-way ticket to St. Peter’s, we used to spend every Christmas Eve at their house. All seven of my aunts and uncles, all nineteen of my cousins, and all forty gazillion of their little darlings running around the house in plaid Christmas dresses and tiny red bow ties. So, I’m no stranger to big families. But I had never in my life encountered people who could talk so loudly and yet eat so much, all at the same time. I was in awe.
And if I’d hoped to fade into the background, I was sorely disappointed. Mama pulled me down on the bench beside her and proceeded to introduce me to each and every family remember in attendance. I met Ramirez’s brothers, Bart, Dillon, Marshal, and Clint. Along with BillieJo there was Clint’s wife, Amelia, Bart’s wife, Maria, and cousins, Mary Jane and José. In addition to the ten or so nieces and nephews whose names I knew I wouldn’t remember past dessert.
While their volume began to rival that of Mulligan’s amateur hour, somehow, instead of feeling lost in the crowd, their noise was actually kind of comforting. Like a big warm blanket filtering out the rest of the world and all its problems. I swear for a half a second I forgot everything else that had gone on today and actually began to relax as Mama shoveled a second helping onto my plate.
“I like to see a girl eat,” Mama said with approval as I dug in. “So many of these young girls are too skinny. Not like you. You got some meat on you.”
I paused, forkful of empanada halfway to my mouth. Maybe I should have quit at two. “Thanks,” I answered uncertainly.
“Of course, my Jackie, he likes a woman with some curves.”
Jackie? Too cute. I looked across the table at Ramirez, eating mole enchiladas with one hand while jiggling a toddler in bright pink ruffles on his knee.
“Can I ask you a question, Mrs. Ramirez?”
“Call me Mama. Everyone calls me Mama.”
“Okay…” I hesitated. “Mama.” I felt funny calling someone else’s mother “Mama.” Especially if that someone’s mother was under the false impression I wa
s dating her son. But I couldn’t very well tell her I was tailing him around now that I’d eaten her homemade empanadas. Ramirez had me over a barrel and by the way he kept glancing across the table and flashing that dimple at me, I think he knew it too.
“What do you want to know, dear?”
“What does fregadita mean?” I asked.
Mama looked thoughtful for a moment. “It means little pain in the back side. Why?”
I resisted the urge to toss an empanada at Ramirez while he was holding a child. “No reason,” I said instead.
“It’s such a nice night. I’m glad Jackie could make it. You know, the weather man, he say it was going to rain.”
“It never rains in L.A.”
“That’s what I said. But that newscaster, he say rain. I knew he was wrong. Mama knows.” She nodded sagely at me and I couldn’t help but start to like her.
After we’d been fully stuffed with Mexican sweet breads, cinnamon rolls, and sugar cookies with little green sprinkles on top, the guitar slingers tuned up their instruments and began playing a slow, soft rhythm. It was soothing and, along with the two servings of spicy food settling in my belly, left me feeling full and content. Dare I say, almost peaceful?
A state which ended with a jolt as I felt a warm hand land on the small of my back.
Ramirez leaned down and whispered, “Let’s dance.”
I thought about protesting as he grabbed my hand and led me to the lawn where Clint and his wife were already swaying to the music. But then again, he was a cop and it didn’t seem wise to tick him off. (It had nothing to do with the way his deep voice so close to my ear produced animal sex visions again. I swear!)
Ramirez slung one arm casually around my waist, taking my right hand in his as we moved in slow time with the music. He was surprisingly graceful on his feet, moving almost like I’d imagine that long, sleek panther on his arm would. Dancing with him suddenly made me feel like Ginger Rogers. It was nice.
A little too nice. And, I noticed as that familiar heat began to pool somewhere south of my belly button, a little too intimate. A little too easy to get used to.
I cleared my throat, trying to come up with some mundane conversation to cool the heat wave flooding my body.
“So, uh, your sister has an unusual name. Why BillieJo?”
Ramirez smiled. “What, you think all Hispanic people should be named José or Maria?”
At the risk of being lumped in with grand dragons in white sheets, I resisted the urge to point out that there were, in fact, a José and Maria in attendance. “No, no, I didn’t mean that at all. It’s, just, well, BillieJo isn’t a name you hear everyday in L.A. Maybe in the south. Or Texas. Or someplace, um, more cowboyish.” Then I remembered the dozing man in the cowboy hat. “Not that there aren’t Hispanic cowboys. I mean, I’m sure there are some Hispanic cowboys. It’s just, they aren’t named BillieJo. Well, except your sister. Who is clearly not a cowboy.” I was dying here.
“Relax,” he said, pulling me just a smidgen closer to him. “I’m just yanking your chain.”
“Oh.” I pretended I didn’t notice the hormone signals my stupid body started flashing me as his hips touched mine. Didn’t my body know this was a totally inappropriate time to be thinking of jumping some guy’s bones?
Ramirez seemed unaware. Or maybe just a little too used to dancing with girls in hookerware.
“BillieJo,” he continued, “is a character on Petticoat Junction. Bart’s from Maverick. Marshall, well every TV western has a Marshal. See a trend? When Mom and Dad moved here from Mexico in the sixties, Mom learned to speak English by watching those western shows on TV. She became a little attached to them.”
“How’d you escape it?”
He flashed his white teeth at me. “Jackson Wyoming Ramirez.”
“Ouch.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So, what was it like growing up with so many siblings?”
“Crowded.” He smiled. “I think I was fifteen before my mom finally stopped dressing me in hand-me-downs.”
“You poor thing,” I answered, appropriately horrified.
He laughed. One of those real person laughs, not the smirky cop ones I’d gotten to know so well. Again I had a little talk with my body about those hormone signals.
“No pity, please, Miss Fashion Designer. Having older brothers had some advantages too. There was always a stack of Playboy’s under the mattress.”
“I should have known you were one of those boys.”
“Those boys?”
“I bet you looked up girls’ skirts in class too.”
The wicked twinkle in his eyes answered that question clearly enough.
“What about you? Something tells me you were no angel, Miss Girly Girl.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean.”
“You strike me as the kind of girl who took her own peek in the boy’s locker room now and then.”
“It’s the clothes. The spandex gives the wrong impression.”
“Uh huh.” He didn’t believe that anymore than he believed I’d go home and knit after this.
“So,” I said, clearly changing the subject. “I think BillieJo doesn’t like me much.” I glanced across the lawn to find her still glaring, her arms crossed over her ample chest.
“She’s just a little overprotective.”
“Older sister syndrome?”
“Younger. By two years. She’s the baby of the family, always following me and my friends around when we were young.”
“Hmm. I bet she was a real fregadita.” I let the word roll slowly off my tongue.
Ramirez’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “You’ve been talking to Mama?”
“Uh huh. Pain in the ass, huh?”
“Relax. You’re a cute little pain in the ass.” He winked at me and I was rendered momentarily speechless.
“What about you,” he asked. “Any annoying little sisters?”
Clearing my throat, I willed myself to get a grasp on the hormone thing. “No I’m an only child. It’s just been my mom and me growing up. Though she’s getting married soon, so I guess our family’s growing a little. Nothing like this, though.” I gestured to the lawn, now full of adults and children alike. The cowboy was dozing again, this time leaning his folding chair against the sliding glass doors, his hat pulled low over his eyes. Mama was swaying her round body in time with the music, a contented smile on her face as she watched her children dance.
“Well, anytime you want to borrow a family for awhile, you’re welcome to mine. Though, you might want to leave the hooker clothes at home next time.” He winked, that smirk returning.
“Thanks for the tip, wise guy.”
But the comment pulled me out of my empanada and guitar music stupor just enough to remember why I was dressed like a Pretty Woman. To remember the unreal events of my evening thus far, and the five million loose ends of my life.
“You think they’ve found anything at the motel yet?” I asked.
“They’ll call me if they do. In the meantime, just relax a little.”
Relax. Right. The problem was I was getting too relaxed. With the abundant food, the warm company, the crowded, festive atmosphere of the backyard, I’d almost completely forgotten about Richard, Greenway and the whole mess. So, what did that say about me? Did I really care so little about the man whose child I was quite possibly carrying that a plate full of empanadas and a cop with a sexy grin could make me forget him in the span of one evening?
But even as I was attacked with serious guilt (the likes of which I hadn’t felt since I’d confessed to my grandmother I hadn’t been to mass since Easter) I didn’t let go of Ramirez’s hand. I didn’t step away, and I didn’t protest when his arm curled around my waist, his hand resting on the small of my back. I was so going to hell, wasn’t I?
Luckily my eternal soul was saved as Ramirez’s cell phone chirped to life on his belt. He picked it up, glancing briefly at the number before answering it witho
ut so much as a look of apology in my direction.
“Ramirez,” he said, stepping off to semi-privacy at the far side of the yard.
I wandered back over to the picnic tables, sitting on a bench as I watched Ramirez talk. It was hard to tell in the dark, but I thought I saw his Bad Cop face return, the lines of his jaw tense, his eyes that impenetrable dark cloud again. I wondered if the call had anything to do with Greenway. Maybe CSI Guy had found something useful after all. Then I wondered if Ramirez would share it or just tear out of here with a “go home,” again. It was hard to tell. He’d almost seemed like a real person a minute ago, but back into cop mode, I wasn’t sure.
“He works too much.” Mama came up behind me, offering a glass of water. I took it gratefully, not admitting even to myself how heated dancing with Ramirez had made me.
“Always that phone going off. Always the beeper. Clint works at the teddy bear factory in Industry. Now that’s a good job. Go to work in the morning. Make the bears. Come home at night and see his wife and kids. Good steady job.”
“Jack’s good at his job.” What irrational idea made me suddenly defend Ramirez, I have no clue. But I did. “He’s a good cop.”
“You better make sure those condoms don’t break. You marry this one, you’ll never see him.”
Unfortunately, it was a little late for the broken condom talk.
“Mama,” Ramirez said, coming up behind me. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go.” He flipped his phone shut, the hard look still in his eyes.
“Oh, so soon?” Mama’s face fell. Then she shot me an I-told-you-so look.
“Sorry, Mama.” Ramirez leaned down to kiss on her on the cheek. “I’ll call you this weekend.”
Ramirez grabbed my arm and steered me back toward the house. I barely got out an, “It was nice to meet you,” before I was propelled back through the chatchki laden house to the front door.
I didn’t like the urgency in Ramirez’s movements any more than I did the hard line of his jaw. My stomach was rapidly sinking like quicksand.
High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-5) Page 12
