Ready to Roll

by Melanie Greene

  Well, Janice could do better than that. She picked up a chunk of the skirt steak and, with an expert flick her second-youngest cousin had taught her after swearing her to secrecy, sent it sailing straight into the depths of the bushes that marked Miguel’s property line.

  "Hey," he protested. "I marinated that meat for ten hours."

  The froglets got chirpy over the idea that he’d been planning their night well in advance. She swallowed them back down. “You ought not to have cooked it so long; it destroys the flavor.”

  “It was not my intention."

  "I suspected as much."

  "Janice."

  “Miguel.” She couldn't help the grin accompanying her use his name.

  Either he noticed the grin, or he noticed his name, or he noticed that she managed to slide her shoulder up next to his side when she was showing him how good she was at chip tossing. Whatever it was, Miguel was smiling again, and the flash of his white teeth in the darkness around them hatched a whole new pond full of tadpoles in Janice’s nervous system.

  "I was even going to tell you my secret recipe, if you liked these tacos."

  "I liked how they smelled, before they started smelling like charcoal."

  "Chistosa."

  “You can swear me to secrecy."

  “Yeah?" He took a step—more like a half step, as she was already pretty close to him—into Janice's body. "Because if I tell you, and I found out you told Eddie or somebody later, there would be retribution."

  "Is that right?"

  “Verdad.”

  “Don't you go scaring me now." Janice shifted. It was barely more movement than a blade of grass in a gentle spring breeze, but it was enough to send all the tadpoles swarming over to the side of her body that was now pressing right up against Miguel. And maybe he shifted too, or maybe he was some kind of natural furnace, or maybe it was just the residual heat of the grill. Whichever it was, those tadpoles were like to turn to frog soup from the way the blood boiled under her skin everywhere they touched.

  Miguel sighed. ”Well, my empanadas are muy deliciosas, but I was hoping to have a little more to feed you. Will you come inside with me, and together we will see what treasures the kitchen has for us?”

  Chapter Eight

  Janice’s proximity was enchanting, but if Miguel didn’t get away from his grill he was going to start throwing things again. Maybe her constant recourse to physical outlets was wiser even than Miguel had credited. Hand placed gently on the small of her back, he guided Janice inside, away from the scene of his ridiculous temper tantrum.

  His kitchen was well stocked, despite its compressed size. As the baby of the family, Miguel had spent more than his share of time helping Mami prepare their family meals. He’d whined about it plenty as a child, but as an adult had yet to find the woman who complained about his culinary skills.

  “It was the Dr. Pepper."

  "What was?"

  He waggled his eyebrows at her. "The secret to my marinade. One of the ingredients is Dr. Pepper, and it makes the meat completely tender and a little sweet.”

  “Tender and a little sweet, eh?” Janice sounded just the tiniest bit distracted as he moved around her, gathering supplies.

  Oh, she was hooked. Miguel tossed her a package of pasta, which Janice caught and set on the counter beside the stove.

  “Very tender, if you want the truth.” He moved around her, brushing lightly across her backside on the way, and bent down to retrieve a pot from the lower cabinet. And he made sure not to be in a hurry about it. Sure enough, he caught her checking him out as he stood up, and barely bothered to hide his quirking lips.

  “Uh-huh,” Janice said, and this time Miguel put a hand to her waist as he moved behind her, and left it there. He was anchored to her always trim, always strong form as he positioned the pot under the water tap.

  “So,” he teased, “now you know one of my secrets. It’s only fair that you tell me one of yours.”

  She leaned back, the straight column of her spine flexing against his arm. He wanted to watch her bare skin shift as her body moved, as her muscles activated and the promise of her strength and her energy was focused on everything that would be happening between them.

  Miguel hadn’t spent the past half decade longing for this woman who now, predictably restless, reached to take his tomatoes and began dicing them. Si, when they’d first met, he’d tried to maneuver them to an intimate place. After a few forays were knocked down, thanks to Janice’s substantial defense mechanisms, he’d dropped the idea of getting with her. Dated outside of Lanigan. Just became her friend.

  None of which meant he’d failed to observe her over the years. None of which meant she wasn’t the one he looked for in the mornings, or the first one he thought of when anything about work entered his mind. They were amigos, he and Janice. True, he hadn’t shared a lot of his personal life with her, but in the beginning he’d avoided bringing it up in case the whole ‘I was a dad in high school’ thing gave her the wrong idea of him, and also there was no value in making her aware of his dating life. So when his home life came up, he generally talked about Mami and his idiot brothers and his sweet nieces, especially Anna Lucia.

  And Janice never talked about a home life at all. At least, not about her family, and other than jokes about how small her town was, not about growing up, either. She had a limitless supply of anecdotes about her crazy cat lady neighbor, and plenty to say about their coworkers and about whatever kind of exercise was on her agenda for the day, but about what was truly in her soul?

  No way. Not his Janice. The only way to see into her soul was to very carefully gather the bits that leaked out when her defenses were down, and hope to piece it together, like a puzzle when the picture was missing.

  It was the kind of thing that could occupy a man’s mind, if he was lying in the dark looking to drift off to sleep, night upon night, year upon year. Shifting all those pieces around, flipping them, assembling the edges and filling in the gaps. And one night, and without even realizing how intently he’d been playing with her particular puzzle, it all came clear to him.

  And once he understood how clearly and brightly Janice’s soul shone, how it pulled him to her, Miguel began to plan. He could no longer ignore the light she brought to his life every work day. But knowing what he wanted didn’t automatically mean he got it. He was the last of five sons; he’d gotten that particular lesson early and often.

  But being the last of five sons, he knew all he’d ever need to know about plotting, and spotting the perfect moment to defeat superior forces. Janice had all the artillery, but Miguel had a tactical advantage.

  “So what’s your secret, then,” Miguel prompted, scraping the tomatoes into the saucepan where diced yellow onions were sizzling, translucent.

  “I don’t have any secrets. Nothing like you.”

  “Dr. Pepper’s not truly a very secret ingredient.”

  “I meant Sophie.” But she hip-bumped him as she said it, and hadn’t called him ‘Toots’ in at least three minutes, so Miguel didn’t have to watch for land mines just yet.

  With a quick grin, he hip-bumped her right back. “I know. So now you know how I spent my high school years: terrified, and tired.”

  “Terrified I get. Why tired?”

  “I wasn’t terrified of Sophie or nothing. Well, maybe before she was born, but from day one, my girl was magic. I was tired and terrified for the same reason. I wanted to pass school, and I wanted to keep my job, and those both took a lot of waking hours. So I didn’t sleep. But I got my diploma and I got promoted and eventually I even got more sleep.” He stirred the tomatoes, smashing them with the flat of the wooden spoon some to hasten the breaking down of their cellular structure. “And you? Small-town high school life, what’s that like? All hay rides and 4H ribbons?”

  Janice slid away from him, busying herself at the sink. He’d have the cleanest chopping board on the block if she kept it up. “No 4H
ribbons. Well, one of my cousins, he’s still in school actually, he’s into all that. He’s had Grand Champion goats and last year a pig, which was a fair-sized deal in the family.”

  “Tasty.”

  “No one ate Gippy the Pig. Well, no one I know, at least.”

  “Aren’t they missing the point?”

  “Point is, no hay rides and no blue ribbons for me. I mostly just had time for school. My friends went to town if hanging in the fields or out by someone’s pond wasn’t on par with our thirst for adventure.”

  “Up to Dallas?” She’d grown up a couple of hours from there. Back when she first described it as a ‘blink and you miss it’ burg, Miguel had once made a little detour on the way back from visiting Sophie. It was hard to imagine anyone passing time on the one dusty main street or running across the acres-wide lawns that separated the houses, much less compact, vibrant Janice Newton.

  “Nah, going up to Dallas was a pain. ‘Town’ is Nacogdoches.”

  “¿Verdad?”

  “Si, truly. There’s lots to do in Nacogdoches. Movies, shops, all that. Or we’d go dancing.”

  Miguel paused in the act of sprinkling cumin on his sauce. “I’m visualizing a bunch of underage kids in a pickup truck, all jeans and plaid shirts, rolling up to the club.”

  She swatted at him with the dish towel. “Yeah, right. First off, you drive a pickup, so don’t toss stones. And anyway, I’m talking about line dancing.”

  Line dancing. Slight, restless Janice in jeans and pearl-buttoned shirt, hair swinging left as she boot-scooted right. That smile she got when she was totally in her skin, relaxed with the knowledge that she had it all under control. Steel strings on a small stage, the beats of country music as familiar to a Texan child as the sound of ‘y’all’ on someone’s lips or a bowl of salsa on the dinner table.

  He was just in the midst of catching the end of the towel to reel her closer to him, to interrogate her about her favorite moves, when a too-familiar combination of doorbell and triple-rap on the door frame announced the impending arrival of Anna Lucia Rosas.

  Chapter Nine

  “Tío! Tío, Tío, Tío!” the little voice sang, cheerful as all get out and more than loud enough to ensure her Uncle Miguel was aware of her presence on the front porch. Janice was sure Miguel would be able to hear the kid if he was in the back yard. Or at the neighbor’s house. Or in the bedroom with the door closed and music on and...other noises distracting him.

  That heated look he gave her before resting the wooden spoon beside the stove and striding towards the front door reminded the chorus of Janice’s little tadpole friends that they weren’t in much better shape than the pasta boiling to a pliable and vulnerable state beside her. She gave the penne a quick stir. Last thing they needed was for dinner round two to get ruined. Dragging out the moments of this evening wasn’t working so well for her, self-preservation wise.

  Why had she gone and told him about Nacogdoches? None of that was any of his concern, and Miguel was proving to be as nosy as his mami. Next he’d be inquiring about the dancing, and that could lead to her dance lessons, and that could lead, well, other places. Places that were a mere hop, skip, and a jump from the places Janice had gone and led him to. Or that he’d gotten her to lead him to, which was worse, because the last thing she needed was him being able to direct her down those roads when she wasn’t intending it.

  Janice just wanted to eat dinner and have sex and go home.

  She hadn’t initially known about the wanting to have sex part of her wants for the evening. Well, not in such plain language. She’d not figured on quite how persuasive kissing Miguel and touching Miguel and looking at Miguel’s bedroom would be in that regard. Thought they would just have a nice meal and sort of explore the options. But somehow, she realized, she’d gone and leapfrogged over that plan and landed herself, mentally, in Miguel’s bed.

  Oh, well. It looked like a fun time.

  Now she just needed him to get rid of the child, who was wearing a tutu over bright striped leggings because apparently she embodied every aspect of little girlhood Janice’s mama had tried to foist on her daughter. She was chattering and bright and patently fond of sparkly pink things and, of course, her uncle. Who had gone from heat-generating, touching, intent teasing guy to crouching-at-kid-eye-level smiling fondly guy.

  Which ought not to have made Janice go as pliable as the damn pasta. And vulnerable. And liable to boil over, she was so hot for every kind of guy Miguel was showing himself to be.

  That did it. Janice snapped the dish towel down on the counter and approached. She could do the eye-level thing, too. Longer than Miguel could, probably. How many squats did Miguel do every day? Not as many as Janice, that was for sure. Every morning, clockwork, that’s how regularly Janice did squats. Her quads would let her crouch in front of a kid for an hour, long past the time Miguel would have tipped over on his ass.

  “Hey, Toots, is this the famous princess you were just telling me about? The one with good grades?” Janice might not have been the girly girl her mama had wanted, but she knew enough about the type to manage a creditable conversation.

  Miguel gave her a look, way less hot than the one earlier. Well, she wasn’t the one who’d invited the kid in.

  Anna Lucia was sold, though. “I got all A’s, look,” she said, grabbing the report card from Miguel and shoving it practically up Janice’s nose.

  “Even in P.E.?”

  “What’s P.E.?”

  “Health Fitness, they call it,” Miguel explained.

  “Yep, even in Health Fitness.”

  “That was my favorite class,” Janice said.

  “I don’t like running laps,” little princess child said, which was hardly an unexpected shock.

  “I love running. Know why?”

  Anna Lucia shook her head, eyeing Janice like she was possibly some kind of monster.

  “‘Cause of dancing.”

  The suspicion gave way to a head-tilt of curiosity. “I like dancing.”

  Janice knew all this kid’s buttons. “I love dancing, Toots. I dance every day, I bet. And since I run a lot, my legs are really strong.” She slapped them for emphasis. “And since my legs are really strong, I can do all kinds of jumps and footwork. I’ll tell you a secret, if you want.”

  Miguel shifted his weight, and Janice tightened up her core. No way was she going to wobble around while he and his niece studied her with matching intent dark brown eyes.

  “Okay,” Anna Lucia agreed.

  “When I was in school, I entered lots of dance competitions.”

  “You did?” Anna Lucia asked, same time as Miguel was saying, “¿Verdad?”

  “Yup. Sure did.”

  Anna Lucia gave her a head-to-toe scrutiny, taking in Janice’s subdued clothes and make-up free face. Only her chipped nail polish attested to Janice’s ability to align with all the feminine things in the kid’s world.

  “What kinds of competitions?”

  Yep, the kid was ready to be sold. “Well, most of my wins were for jazz and tap, but back at home my mama has a whole wall of my awards, and the biggest of all is from when I won at senior nationals with my lyrical solo routine.”

  Anna Lucia’s eyes widened, which was nothing compared to Miguel’s extremely satisfying reaction: he plopped down on his butt. Janice bit her lip, determined to not budge an inch, though she couldn’t help her nose twitching a little. He hadn’t expected that, had he?

  “You were a dance girl?”

  “From the time I was walking, practically.”

  The kid gave her another assessing up-and-down, way way more judgmental than anything Miguel had ever bestowed, and Janice actually flushed a little. Her cheeks tingled and were surely turning red, which was enough to make her want to rise again. Some devil frog reminded her that since she was squatting, she could hop up with a modified coffee grinder that turned her towards the kitchen. Winking at the girl, Janice shuffled
off to Buffalo and hip-walked her way back to the stove.

  She practically hear Miguel salivating behind her. She still contained enough devil to flex her fingers a little, right there over her butt cheeks, strongly suspecting he would imagine he was the one grabbing at her.

  Anna Lucia flew her way. Before Janice could pick up the spoon again, the kid was hanging off of her. “Can you pirouette?”

  Janice rolled her eyes. "Of course."

  "How many turns?"

  "In my day, six easy. Now that I'm old, I usually stop at two."

  "Even though you have strong legs?"

  "Even though," Janice confirmed.

  Anna Lucia seemed to accept this, however reluctantly. Probably she was never impressed with the physical prowess of adults. Miguel was still sitting on the floor by the door, just watching them interact.

  “I don't take dance classes anymore, except Latin. But I still know most of my moves."

  The girl tilted her chin up at Janice, challenging. "Can you do a barrel turn?”

  Janice tilted her chin right back. “Not in these jeans I can't."

  "But you can do it?”

  "I admit it's been a while. I would have to warm-up first. But, yeah, I can. Strong legs, remember?"

  "What's a barrel turn?” Miguel had finally wandered up to join them. Or to tend to his pasta sauce, which was in danger of ruination just like their first dinner.

  Anna Lucia jumped and grabbed at her uncle's arm. "It is so cool, Tío. It's when you jump in the air like you’re going backwards over a barrel and you do a turn that way. I really want to learn one. I’ve been begging and begging and begging and begging and begging but nobody says yes yet. Don’t you think they should let me? Also, I want to do competition and not just recitals all the time, don’t you think they should let me?”

  Janice just looked at her. "How old are you?"

  "Eight.” She was incredibly defiant about it.