Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 02 - Hasta la Vista, Lola!

by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

  ZJ got up to refill his popcorn bowl. “Cool movie, Tía,” he whispered as he passed by me.

  The comment snapped me out of my zoned state. I had no clue what the movie was about, but I nodded and smiled. I looked at Jack again. His legs were stretched out to the side, his head propped up on his elbow. Playing monster had given him that just tumbled out of bed look, and I bit my cheek.

  Mia shivered, her head lobbing drowsily to the side. Jack caught her, scooted himself upright, and deftly scooped her into his arms.

  He turned to me. “Where should I put her?” he mouthed.

  I snapped to attention. Leading him to Mia’s room, I pulled back the covers of her bed so Jack could slip her between the sheets. He covered her with the blanket and ran his hand over her hair. My breath caught in my throat at the tender gesture.

  We tiptoed out of Mia’s room, leaving the door cracked open. I sat back down on my enormous plush chair. Jack dropped down next to me. “How you doing?” he asked, all casual, but the electricity between us was combustible.

  “Fabuloso,” I said, and cringed. I sounded just like Reilly and her wannabe-Latina Spanglish.

  With both of us in the chair, it was a tight fit. Jack edged back, angled his body toward me, and laid his arm across the back.

  I tried to maintain my own space, wishing my cleavage wasn’t so… there. I felt his hip squeezed in next to mine, my eyelids fluttering closed as I smelled his musk. I pulled my shoulders together, shrinking farther away from him. Jack dropped his voice. “Any progress with the case?”

  “I haven’t figured out the why yet,” I said. My teeth were clenched, and I batted away the illicit thoughts I was having.

  His mind was apparently free of wicked thoughts. “Are you sure you weren’t the target?” he whispered.

  “Does gut instinct count?”

  “Not in a court of law.” He turned his focus to the movie, laughing, popping pieces of popcorn into his mouth from the bowl that rested on his leg, and occasionally shifting his gaze to the kids.

  My body, on the other hand, stayed on red alert, but Jack’s arm stayed chastely in place on the back of the chair. Finally, with my muscles weary from their sentry, I relaxed my arms, dropping them to my lap.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jack’s head move slightly; he’d registered the change. He could give Manny Camacho a run for his money as superdetective—totally aware of everything around him.

  It seemed like an eternity, but the movie finally ended. The moment the last line was spoken, I popped up out of the chair, leaving Jack sitting unevenly on one side. Clapping my hands, I said, “Story time, then bedtime.” Not that I should have been pushing for bedtime, since that meant alone time with Jack.

  Chris immediately pulled a book off the bookshelf and donned a pair of child-sized blue reading glasses. With his wavy dark hair, he looked studious and adorable. He jumped on the couch and waited for me. ZJ and Jack pulled out their guitars again and strummed quietly, Jack pointing out chords and notes that ZJ proceeded to practice over and over again. I watched them out of the corner of my eye as Chris read to me.

  Twenty minutes later, the two boys were tucked into bed and I was in the kitchen, cleaning up. Jack sauntered in after me, carrying his guitar.

  I’d slipped on the pair of rubber gloves that I found under Lucy’s sink and began washing the mixing bowl from the cookies. With his guitar resting against a chair, Jack made himself a tostada and munched on it as I worked. “You’re good with the kids,” he said in between mouthfuls.

  “So are you.” I stared at the sink, not wanting to look at him. He was really good with the kids. “Why’d you come tonight?” I asked suddenly, turning to face him despite the warning bells. “You must have better things to do on a Friday night.”

  He shrugged, pushing the last bite of tostada into his mouth. “Not really.”

  Meaning Sarah was on her meds and didn’t need rescuing. “You said you had things to work out… .” I trailed off, hoping he’d give an explanation. Maybe he’d already worked things out and we were free and clear.

  But he didn’t answer. Instead, after tossing the paper plate he’d been using into the garbage can, he began packing up the tostada paraphernalia. Avoidance. Smooth. “Good salsa. Did you make it?”

  I nodded. “Salsa borracha. My grandmother’s recipe.”

  “Borracha—as in ‘drunk’?”

  I nodded again. “Numbs the senses just like alcohol. At least Abuela’s picosa version does. This one was mild—for the kids. Jack,” I said. “Answer the question.”

  “You didn’t ask a question.”

  Damn. He was right. “Okay, so here it is. Why are you here?”

  “Working some things out doesn’t mean we can’t spend time together.”

  “But the ‘I need time to think about all of this’ does.” I turned my back on him and wiped the counters and table with an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. Jack picked up his guitar and was leaning against the wall, absently strumming. I recognized the tune but couldn’t place the song. There was something seductive about it, though.

  ¡Basta! I had other things to think about.

  “Do you want me to go?” he asked over the music.

  Yes, for my own sanity! “No,” I said, attacking the counter with new invigoration. “It’s fine.”

  “The rubber gloves don’t really go with the look,” he said after a heavy silence.

  I stopped midwipe and turned to find him looking at me, a small smile on his lips. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s not a code,” he said with a smirk. “The gloves make you look—domestic. The rest of you—uh—doesn’t.” He shifted his weight, the sleeves of his white T-shirt pulling up as his fingers worked the strings on the guitar neck. A mark on his arm caught my eye. “You have a tattoo?”

  He looked down at his arm like he had to remind himself that it was there. “Oh, yeah.”

  My gaze zeroed in on his deltoid. And here I thought I knew almost everything there was to know about Jack Callaghan. How had I never noticed his tattoo? “What of?”

  He started strumming again, his grin turning wicked. “I’ll show you my tattoo if you show me your belly piercing.”

  “Ha! Nice try, but no deal.”

  The song he was playing came to me. The chorus popped into my head: Your body is a wonderland.

  He watched me intently. As if he knew I’d figured it out, he moved into the next verse. My internal voice sang along with his guitar-playing. Damn, baby, you frus-trate me.

  Then abruptly, he stopped playing. “You need to add that blouse to the list of clothes not to wear around me.” He stopped smiling. “On second thought, you should just burn your whole wardrobe.”

  I snatched the rag from the sink and threw it at him. “I didn’t know you were going to be here!”

  He caught it one-handed, crossed to me, and dropped it back into the basin. “So who’d you wear it for?”

  Ripping the gloves off my hands, I tossed them into the sink next to the rag. “For myself.”

  “But you wore it to work, right?”

  “Why?”

  Jack put his guitar down. A second later, his fingers danced over the neckline of my blouse. “Because it’s definitely meant for a man to enjoy. All those innocent ruffles, and…” He swallowed, his temple pulsing. “It makes me crazy to think Camacho was looking at you in that.”

  “Yeah? Well, it makes me crazy that you go running whenever Sarah calls, so I guess we’re even.” But my heartbeat skittered around, picking up speed.

  “If you met her, you’d realize there was nothing to be worried about.”

  Likely story. “Convenient offer, seeing as she’s not here to meet.” Or was she? I narrowed my eyes, silently asking the question.

  “No, she’s not in Sacramento,” he answered.

  “Why would meeting her make a difference? Is she incapable of forming complete sentences? Does she have a third eye? No, she’s your ex-f
iancée, so she’s got to have some damn good qualities. Meeting her wouldn’t help. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Jack’s gaze slid over my shoulder. I turned. Mia stood in the doorway. I hurried over to her, dropped to my knees, and took her hands. “What’s wrong, mi’ja?”

  Her face melted, her eyes glazing over. “I want Mamá.”

  I hugged her. “Mia, your mommy and daddy went out to dinner. Remember? I’m staying with you. I’m going to spend the night, make you breakfast, and—” I choked on the words, my consciousness knowing that Rosie’s son wasn’t so lucky as Mia. “And then your mommy will be home.”

  She clutched at her nightgown and hopped from foot to foot. “I have to go potty.”

  I took her to the bathroom and got her settled back in her bed, singing to her until she drifted off.

  When I came back to the living room, Jack was sitting on the edge of the couch, wineglass in hand, another fragile glass on the side table half filled with red wine.

  “Found it on the counter. Think they’ll mind?” he asked, holding the wineglass out to me.

  I shook my head and took a sip. Sitting back down on the oversized chair, I started to relax. “Getting me tipsy isn’t going to change anything, you know.”

  “That’s not my plan at all,” he said, his expression saying get real. “When we get together, I want you to have all your senses intact.”

  I laughed. “You say that so confidently. You might not be able to work things out.”

  He took a sip of his wine, never taking his eyes off me. “Oh, I will. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll work it out. I’m not going to stop until I do.”

  I took another long drink, not even registering the taste. I had a feeling he was right. “If I’m still here,” was all I could muster saying.

  He gave me a half smile as he got up to refill my already empty glass. “That’s why I’m going to work fast,” he said, sitting back on the couch. “But I know you, Lola, and you’ll wait.”

  “You don’t know me that well.”

  His grin grew. “Oh yeah? I know your drive and determination got you to where you are now. I know you adore your family—even though they drive you crazy. I know you’re smart.” He stopped, and his face grew serious. “You’re beautiful.” His gaze burned into mine. “Should I go on?”

  No. He shouldn’t. I felt like Reneé Zellweger in Jerry Maguire. You had me at “you’re smart.”

  Again, he seemed to read my mind. Or my weakness. He pushed himself up from the couch, set his wineglass down on the side table next to the telephone, and slid in next to me on the two-person chair. I gulped down half my cabernet just before he pushed my hair back off my face.

  “So what’s the latest on Rosie Gonzales?” he asked, playing with the ruffles on my blouse. His fingers brushed my neck, sending goose bumps to the surface of my skin.

  I swallowed and edged away from him a little bit. “I keep worrying about her son.”

  “No luck with that birthday invitation?”

  I filled him in on my conversation with Juana Zuniga. “Still trying to get ahold of her neighbor. I went by this afternoon, but he wasn’t home. That’s all I—I…” I faltered as one of his hands slid up my thigh. “. . . kn-know,” I finished, my eyelids sinking closed.

  He trailed his lips along my neck. “No ideas what they argued about?” he murmured.

  All I could manage was a gasping “N-no.”

  He nibbled just beneath my earlobe. “Nothing more from the police?”

  My back arched. My breath became shallow. “N-nothing.” Detective Seavers hadn’t shared anything new with me. Come to think of it, all the peripheral men in my life had been oddly silent lately. Manny. The detective. Sergio.

  My spine straightened as a wild thought slipped into my consciousness.

  Jack pulled back to look at me, his hand resting comfortably in the hollow between my thighs. “What’s wrong?”

  “I was just thinking about Sergio.” I swallowed the rest of my wine and put the glass down on the end table.

  I felt him stiffen next to me. “You’re thinking about Sergio,” he repeated, his voice tight, “now?”

  “No, no!” I cringed, realizing what that must have sounded like to him. Two glasses of wine had loosened my tongue and my brain, not a good combination. “I mean, your question made me think about… I just remembered…” It didn’t sound good, no matter what, so I just blurted it out. “I was thinking about his apartment. His cousin, Pancho. That little boy he has.”

  “What about them?”

  “I was just wondering where that boy’s mother is.”

  He considered me, looking like he thought I might be a little bit crazy. “You’re not thinking it’s Rosie Gonzales?” His hand squeezed my thigh. His way of trying to make me see things straight? “You’re reaching, Cruz. There are a lot of kids out there without mothers. And Sergio isn’t the sharpest knife in the block. If Pancho’s his cousin, he’s probably not much smarter. They would have left a string of clues a mile long.”

  I took offense on Pancho’s behalf. He couldn’t help who he was related to. Jack and I both knew that Sergio was plenty sharp. A jerk, yes, but stupid? No. “You can’t judge a person by his relatives and friends,” I said.

  “I can where Garcia’s concerned.” His lips curved up on one side. “Excluding you, of course.”

  He was probably right. I didn’t have time to waste energy on Sergio, let alone on his hapless cousin. “I know it’s not related. There’s just so much heartache out there, you know?” I tried not to think about my own personal heartache involving Jack and his ex-fiancée.

  “We don’t have to have heartache, Lola.”

  But we would as long as there was an invisible third wheel between us.

  He slid his hand under my hair, spreading his fingers as he cradled my head. “You’re in my head, and I can’t get you out,” he said, his voice low and serious.

  I knew exactly what he meant. He was in every cell of my body. I reached for him, my lips parted and ready.

  I waited. And waited. Wasn’t he going to kiss me? I opened my eyes and saw the desire in his eyes, but he’d stopped short, his lips never making contact with mine. “Hmmm.”

  My voice echoed his. “Hmm, what?” I arched toward him, lacing my fingers behind his neck, trying to pull him closer to me.

  He laid his hands on either side of my face and looked perplexed. I rested my head on his shoulder to quell the dizziness in my head.

  “You’ve had too much to drink,” he finally said. He leaned back and moved one hand to the base of my rib cage. The light pressure of his fingers against the bottom of my breast was possessive, like it was meant to be there. Like it had been there a thousand times before.

  It had. In my dreams.

  My blood pressure rose with every one of his slow blinks. “I’m fine,” I said.

  He seemed to regroup. “Maybe you should call that neighbor again,” he finally said. “Seems like he’s the only potential clue you have.”

  I heard what he said—almost like a challenge—but the majority of my attention was still on the position of his hand and the way it touched the slope of my breast. “Oh, I will talk to him. And this case is about clues, yes, but it’s mostly about thinking.”

  Jack arched an eyebrow at me. “Thinking.”

  “Yes, thinking. The art of deduction. Like Sherlock Holmes or Nero Wolfe.”

  “But Holmes had Watson doing his legwork, and Wolfe had that pretty boy—”

  “Archie Goodwin,” I said, rolling my eyes. Pretty boy, indeed.

  He lifted my legs onto his and ran his hand under my pants at the ankle. “Who does your legwork?” he asked, feeling for stubble.

  “Lady Schick does the trick.” I giggled. “Perfectly smooth, right? I don’t need Watson or Goodwin.”

  His hand stilled on my shin. “You’re tipsy—”

  “From two glasses of wine? I can hold my alcohol better than Tonio, I’ll have
you know.”

  He laughed at that. “I’m sure you can.”

  I wriggled my legs, trying to angle myself differently. Another idea tickled at the edge of my brain. “Hey!” I tried to sit up, working my hips up from deep in the chair. Jack’s hand slid up the side of my leg as I struggled. Then he was cupping my behind, lifting me, and suddenly I was sitting squarely on his lap.

  “Hey, what?” he asked, his grin taking on that hint of wickedness.

  I twisted my body around, lifting one leg over his lap so I was straddling him. “Alcohol.”

  He swallowed. Hard. “Alcohol,” he repeated, his voice a little strangled.

  I laid my hands on his shoulders and squeezed my thighs to reposition myself. “Do you remember seeing any alcohol in Rosie’s apartment?”

  His hands slid from my hips to my waist. “No,” he said.

  “Neither do I!” I felt this might be significant, but I didn’t know how or why it would be.

  He read my mind. “And this is important because…”

  His hips adjusted slightly, and his hands slipped under my blouse. The touch of his fingers almost burned against my skin. Suddenly I forgot what I’d been thinking about. “Important?” I asked, my voice as strangled as his had been a few seconds ago.

  “Maybe she was religious… ,” he muttered.

  I steadied myself by putting my hands against his chest. “So she didn’t drink,” I finished, and for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why this might be important when I could feel Jack stirring under me.

  His eyes were pale in the dim light of the living room, and his face had grown serious; his breath came faster as he tried to maintain control.

  I ran my hands up to his shoulders, then slid them to his neck, his stubbled skin warm to my touch. Moving my hips, I pushed myself against him. The ache inside me was deep and concentrated. Then, complications be damned, I leaned down and brushed my lips against his.

  The ring of the telephone sliced through the air. I looked up at the ceiling, toward heaven. I get it! I wanted to yell to God. Jack and I were not meant to be together. Those complications couldn’t be ignored.

  It rang again, horribly loud, like a cannon firing right next to my ears. I snatched the handset from the side table, tried to calm my breathing, and pushed the ON button. “H-Hello? Fal-cón r-residence.”