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Tomás drained the sink water, hung the dishrag over the faucet and turned to face Ruby. She looked great, vibrant as ever. He knew only too well how deceptive MS could be, though.
“How are you feeling?” He didn’t ask often, and only offhand when he found he couldn’t stop himself. His grandmother was matter-of-fact about her condition and didn’t want nor tolerate mollycoddling. A lot of people were worse off, she never failed to remind him. Save your moonfaced sympathy for them, she’d say. I have a life to live and you’re on my last good nerve.
“Tired,” was her only response. She waved vaguely toward the small glass vial resting atop the counter. Its cap had been punctured by a hypodermic needle, and the whole mess had to sit until the medication had liquified within the saline. “Let’s get that shot over with so I can go to bed. It’s been sitting long enough, I think.”
Tomás quickly dried his hands, then rolled the small vial between his palms smoothly, so as not to bubble the mixture. Ruby, meanwhile, fished in her medication dispenser and popped a pain pill, dry.
“How do you think Hope’s going to feel about it?” No need to elaborate—Ruby knew what he meant.
“You should ask her.”
“Come on, Rube. I want your input.”
“Hope will be fine,” she said patiently, in a tone meant to convey her opinion that he spent far too much time worrying about Hope for no good reason.
He drew up a syringeful of Copaxone, then checked the chart they kept on the refrigerator to remind them which injection site to use. “Right arm,” he said, then squatted next to her. She’d already begun to roll up the loose sleeve of her blouse. They’d both grown so used to the intricate routine of these shots, Tomás found it hard to believe he’d ever been nervous to give them.
Alcohol swab, one swift jab, pause, then depress the syringe. Tomás administered the medication, removed the needle, then slipped it into a sharps disposal box mounted in an out-of-sight spot on the wall next to the refrigerator. He handed Ruby a Band-Aid. While she put it on, he crossed to the freezer to retrieve an ice-pack. The first half hour after each injection burned like a snakebite, according to Ruby.
“What I mean is, do you think she’ll be disappointed that a stranger is helping her plan this instead of her father?”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “For goodness’ sake, sonny. I think she’ll be overjoyed to shop for clothes with someone of the female persuasion for once, if you want the truth.”
Tomás pursed his lips. He didn’t know how he felt about that. He’d always tried his damnedest to be both parents for Hope, shopping for clothing with her and learning the purposes of all the various pots of makeup, in case she ever wanted to start wearing the stuff—which she didn’t need, mind you. He wasn’t some clumsy, clueless male. He was her father and her mother—had been since she was six weeks old.
He needed to think about this a little longer, come to terms with how he felt about letting a stranger replace him in Hope’s life like that.
“Stop worrying so much,” his grandmother urged, reaching out to pat his arm. “People would think you’re the old woman in this household instead of me. Hope will be fine, like I’ve told you a million times. It’s you I worry about.”
He didn’t need her worry. Hope was his concern. “You’re missing the point, Rube—”
“You always think I’m missing the point,” she said, aiming a gnarled finger at him. She smiled, to soften her words. “Someday you’ll find out it’s been you missing the point all along, m’ijo. But people learn when they’re ready to learn.” She shrugged, unconcerned. “I just hope I’m still around to witness the swan song. Good night.” Without waiting for reciprocation, she deftly maneuvered her wheelchair around the table leg and sped from the room.
Poised to push open his daughter’s bedroom door, Tomás checked himself, paused, and then knocked. He had to constantly remind himself Hope was a young lady now, an adolescent who deserved—and demanded—respect for her privacy.
“Yeah?”
He cracked the door and peered in. From across the room, behind a computer screen, and beneath a purple baseball cap, Hope peered back. He didn’t like her cloistered behind the desk, but she’d patiently explained that the new location of her desk was good feng shui, and he was lucky she didn’t paint her bedroom door red. “Hi, baby.”
“Hi, Dad.”
A ribbon of melancholy twirled around his heart. He missed the days when she’d called him Daddy. She still did occasionally, but only when she was trying to get something from him. Like a puppy, God forbid. “What’s up? Homework?”
She shook her head. “Already done. I’m just surfing.”
A quick jolt of concern struck, but he repressed it. Tomás wanted to give his daughter his trust and the benefit of the doubt. Hope had common sense. “Any interesting sites?” He approached the desk as casually as he could.
In a few keystrokes and button pushes, Hope had the computer off. “No. Just…nothing.”
He raised one eyebrow.
Hope sighed. “I’m not going in chat rooms, if that’s what you’re thinking. Those people are all creeps and idiots.” She smiled, deepening the dimples in her cheeks.
Tomás’s heart swelled. He chuckled at his daughter and tugged the ponytail pulled through the back of her cap, then took a seat on her bed. Why did he feel so nervous? “Have a few minutes to talk to your old dad?”
Hope kicked back, planting her heels on the edge of the desk. “You’re not old, newsflash. But go ahead.”
“You know I’ve been trying to plan your quinceañera, but I haven’t been doing a very good job.”
Hope twisted her mouth to the side, her tone turning almost plaintive. “It’s okay, Dad. I don’t need to have one.”
“Nonsense. You’ll have one. But I’ve hired someone to help us plan it. Help you. I think you’ll like her.”
He watched Hope’s eyes widen before a line—worry? annoyance?—creased her forehead. As quickly as it had come, it disappeared. All of a sudden, her expression went bland. “Okay. Who is she?”
“Just okay?”
She bit her bottom lip a moment, thinking. “Oh, I meant, thank you.”
Tomás sighed, hanging his head for a moment. “I wasn’t looking for gratitude, baby, although I appreciate it. I’m asking—what do you think about that? About having help? And she’s an event planner from Santa Fe.”
Hope shrugged, picking at the remains of the sparkle polish that looked so out of place on her stubby little fingernails. “Oh. It’s fine. Why?”
“I…don’t know.” He waited, but Hope didn’t volunteer further comments. “Okay. So, we’re going to have her over for dinner next Wednesday, so the two of you can meet. So we can start to plan this thing.” He paused for comments that never materialized. Weren’t teenage girls supposed to jabber? You wouldn’t know it from his enigmatic daughter. “You have anything going that night I don’t know about?”
“Nope. Nothing important.” Hope offered a placid smile. “What should we have?”
A low-grade sense of dismay settled in Tomás’s gut, and he didn’t know why. It wasn’t Hope—she was cooperative enough. Then again…maybe that was it. He felt as if she never really talked to him anymore, as if he didn’t know how she truly felt, or what went through that fertile mind of hers. “I’ll worry about the menu. You just be here at six next Wednesday. Deal?”
“Deal.” She giggled.
Tomás watched her a moment, loving her with an intensity that nearly suffocated him, and at the same time feeling as though he hardly knew her at all. But, for no reason. She’d always been a good, obedient daughter. No changes there. Somehow, though, he felt…a distance. And a powerlessness to change it. “Is everything okay?”
She shrugged again. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You’d tell me if something wasn’t okay?”
“Dad!” she moaned. “You’re bugging me. Stop being weird.”
With a tired, put-upon chuckle, Tomás stood. “Bueno. Okay. I’m leaving. God forbid a father should try to have a little conversation with his best girl.”
“I’m immune to your parental guilt trips.”
He turned back and grinned. “Dinner Wednesday at six.”
“I heard you the first hundred times, Dad.” She rolled her eyes and saluted. “Be there or be square.”
He stood and crossed to the door, then turned and studied her for a moment, his back braced against the doorjamb. “I love you, baby.”
Hope dropped her feet to the floor and clicked a few buttons on her keyboard before flashing him a quick smile. “Love you, too, Dad.”
“Don’t stay up late.”
“What do I look like, a vampire?” She bared her teeth.
A perfectly normal exchange, Tomás told himself as he left the room, his soft chuckle feeling a little choked off by the lump in his throat.
Perfectly normal.
So why did he feel so disconnected?
Chapter Four
Rule number one for leaving a good impression with a man: Don’t assume he’s gay within the first ten minutes of your introduction, and if for some ridiculous reason you do, for God’s sake, don’t voice your thoughts.
Sheesh, what a colossal mess she’d created for herself. There wasn’t anything on earth wrong with being gay in her opinion, but experience taught her that straight guys didn’t appreciate being mistaken for gay guys. That’s all. And she’d done it, unabashedly, to probably the hottest man she’d encountered in months. Ugh.
It had been nearly a week, and still Erica couldn’t get past the embarrassing exchange with Tomás. She’d replayed it over and over in her mind all week, cringing inside each time she heard him say, “I’m…not gay. Not even a little bit.”
And now she had to face him again.
A fresh fist of humiliation punched Erica’s middle as she guided her Honda Accord over the rolling hills and twisting curves of the Northern New Mexico back roads en route to Tomás’s house. Soft flamenco-guitar instrumentals drifted out of her stereo speakers, and the scents of sage and May sunshine wafted in through her open window. The scenery in this area was beautiful, but try as she might, she couldn’t concentrate on it. Instead, two distracting questions ran incessantly through her mind: One, how could she have been such a flipping idiot? And two—though she’d never admit having pondered this question—if Tomás was, as he claimed, a healthy, red-blooded heterosexual male, why had he assured her she’d never have to worry about him hitting on her?
Did he find her so unattractive?
Was she the polar opposite of “his type”?
Make no mistake, she knew it was fickle of her to even wonder. She herself claimed to have no interest in a relationship and to never date colleagues or clients. And she didn’t. She really didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. She was human, and female, and when a drop-dead gorgeous, come-to-papa man flat out stated that he had No Interest in Her Whatsoever, well sorry, but give a woman and her stillbruisable ego a chance to wonder why.
The simplest and most palatable answer would be that Tomás was already involved with someone, but Erica just hadn’t gotten that sense from their first encounter. After all, he’d hired her to plan Hope’s party. Had there been an available girlfriend, logic said the woman likely would’ve planned the quinceañera herself. So, no girlfriend, and yet zip, zero, nada attraction. Yeah, she was fickle to the core, but still. She couldn’t deny feeling judged and found lacking.
“Stop being ridiculous!” Erica told herself, smacking the side of her fist on the steering wheel. It didn’t matter what Tomás Garza did or didn’t think about her, and it wasn’t worth the mental energy she’d been wasting on it for an entire week.
Interested, not interested, or full-on disgusted, facts were facts: the sum total of her association with Tomás was (1) his contribution to the Cultural Arts Festival, and (2) the quinceañera she would plan for his daughter, Hope—to the tune of five grand in her business fund. And the sole purpose of this dinner meeting tonight was to meet Hope and discuss preliminary plans. Period. She needn’t obsess about anything else. So she’d taken extra pains with her outfit this evening, with her hair and makeup. Big whoop. She’d merely hoped to try for a second chance at an obviously poor first impression, despite the old adage that claimed no such chance existed.
Sometimes a woman just had to try.
Erica forced her mind on to the business at hand and gave one last glance at the directions Tomás had e-mailed her, hoping she was close. She’d driven so far into the boonies that his directions were now reduced to such landmarks as, “pass the blue-fenced property with a brown-and-white horse and a goat in the pasture, then turn left at the next dirt farm road adjacent to the large piñon tree.” Thank goodness for cell phones or she might never make it, not that it would be such a bad thing….
Yes. Yes, it would be a bad thing. She was a business professional with a reputation to uphold, and this was a business meeting. She straightened her shoulders, tossed her hair. After a weekend of researching quinceañera traditions, she’d actually come up with some fun ideas, and she looked forward to running them by Tomás and his daughter and grandmother. She prayed Hope was an easy child to get along with and could only wish her first encounter with Hope and the grandmother would be better than—
Erica pressed her lips together in a resolute line.
Forget that. She was done thinking about it, done feeling humiliated, done apologizing. The last thing she needed in her life right now was a man, anyway, so the point was so moot it wasn’t even a point. Meet the girl, plan the event and get out of this situation with her sanity and her independence intact—that was the goal. The only goal.
Spying the large piñon tree she’d almost missed, Erica jerked the wheel and made a bouncing turn onto the dirt farm road that would lead her to whatever lay ahead. As the dust cloud cleared, so did her head. Finally. She could survive this. No sweat. Well…not much, anyway.
Hope swung her stocking feet under the table and watched her father from beneath her lashes with a mixture of wonder and amusement. Something was definitely up. He bustled around the kitchen between the oven, the countertop and the bubbling pots atop the stove while she pretended to work on homework at the kitchen table. She was able to work here rather than in her room because tonight they were eating at the dining room table, believe it or not. Needless to say, she wasn’t making much progress on her boring French conjugations. Watching Dad was way more interesting at this point and WAY distracting.
Who was this lady he’d hired to help plan the quinceañera, anyway? Hope hadn’t seen her dad this…spazzed out for a long time, and they never ate at the dining room table unless it was, like, a holiday. Seriously, Thanksgiving, Christmas and their birthdays, period. Never on a regular old Wednesday.
Speaking of holidays—she inhaled, trying to pretend she wasn’t actually sniffing him—was Dad wearing cologne? He smelled like Christmas, since the only time he seemed to wear his Gray Flannel cologne was for Christmas dinner each year. He usually just smelled like laundry soap and bleach, like the paste and paper in his studio. Comfortable, like her dad.
But he was wearing cologne now. She was 99.9 percent sure.
Not only that, but he was dressed UP. He wore his black microfiber slacks, the ones she begged him to buy because they were SO cool and he didn’t want to because they weren’t practical, and black shirt—with buttons! Like, a shirt for church, not one of his regular day shirts. Not only that, but the house was spotless, smelling of pine trees and lemons, and he’d been racing around all nervous, exactly like a guy preparing to impress someone on a hot, first date.
It so rocked!
The cologne, clothing, and cleanliness were definite clues that something was brewing. Business meeting? Yeah, sure. Maybe partly, but it was so totally more than that. Tonight’s “meeting” was special, and she might only be fourteen but she knew why. Duh, can you say obvious? They were learning about variables in algebra, and the only variable tonight was this Erica, so it had to be her. Her dad was making all this effort for a woman, something he never, ever did. It was so completely romantic that Hope’s tummy swirled with anticipation. She fought to hold back a giggle!
Biting her lip, Hope made a mental note to keep a close eye on her father tonight. She was pretty good at reading him, which wasn’t saying much because he was a total open book. If he was interested in this lady, all Hope had to say about it was, like, FINALLY. Sheesh. Her dad always claimed he was happy without a wife or girlfriend, but Hope knew better. She was just in the way. She was! But maybe things were changing? From the looks of things, this Erica was the first woman in a long time who even had a remote shot at the title of girlfriend when it came to her stubborn dad.
Her tummy clenched and she fought back another nervous giggle. Hope had no idea what would happen after tonight—maybe nothing at all. But she knew one thing for sure: things in the Garza household were about to get WAY interesting.
By the time Erica pulled up the long gravel drive, her focus of anxiety had moved to Hope. She hadn’t been ex-aggerating when she’d told Tomás she wasn’t really a kid person, and yet she knew kids were far more intuitive than adults. They quickly recognized adults who were uncomfortable around them, and she knew she’d be pegged. Her only hope at this point was that the assignment wouldn’t turn out to be horrid.
She glanced at the buildings up ahead, taking in this home, getting a feel for the animal in his natural habitat, so to speak. Tomás’s low, smallish house looked to be authentic adobe; the setting sun washed it into shades of gold and peach that Erica found both beautiful and charming. Behind it loomed a newer, large wooden structure, probably a barn. A barn? She took in the property, saw no animals. Undulating meadows spread out around the house and barn, covered with scrub oak, sage, and piñon and juniper trees. Though she was a city girl at heart, she couldn’t deny this would be a great place to raise children.
Okay, she’d stalled enough, avoiding that moment of truth when she’d have to face Tomás again and meet his daughter. What kind of person would be afraid of a fourteen-year-old girl? Idiot. Pulling in a deep breath, Erica stopped her car behind a black Ford pickup parked adjacent to the house and turned off the ignition. As the hot engine ticked, she resisted the urge to flip down her visor and check her makeup in the mirror one last time. Just nerves. She could beat them.
Alighting from the car, she retrieved a black-leather portfolio from the back seat along with her purse. She followed the small sidewalk up to the front door and then lifted her fist and hesitated only momentarily before knocking on the bright red door. As she stepped back and waited, she braced herself for the awkward moment when she’d face Tomás again, uneasy especially because she was on his turf this time.
When the door opened, however, Tomás wasn’t on the other side. Instead, Erica faced a bright-eyed little tomboy who stood, one stocking foot atop the other, smiling shyly. The girl wore low-rise jeans and a baggy Buffy the Vampire Slayer T-shirt that sort of ruined the effect of the cute tummy-baring pants. She had Tomás’s watchful, tiger’s-eye gaze and a choppy haircut that was as bad as it was endearing. Erica wondered if the girl had cut it herself, and a pang of…something unrecognizable tightened her middle. Compassion? She smiled. “Hope?”
“Hi.” The girl teetered on that precipice between girl and woman, gangly and unsure. “My dad’s in the kitchen.” She stepped back from the door and tilted her head. “Come on in, Ms…. I don’t know your last name.”
“How about if you just call me Erica?” She stepped over the threshold into a warm, welcoming living room appointed with deep, comfortable mission-style furniture and bold colors. Intricate quilts shared wall space with Zarape blankets and artwork she recognized from some of the galleries in Santa Fe and Taos. Gorgeous black Santa Clara pottery and Jemez carved redware held places of honor on the lighted shelving adjacent to a huge fireplace. The shelves seemed to have been built just for the collectible Native American pieces, and the effect was stunning. This wasn’t just a house, it was a home. Part haven, part gallery. Erica didn’t know what she’d expected, if anything, but she was impressed.
She glanced over to find Hope studying her with a childlike intensity that caught her off guard. “It’s beautiful.” She indicated the room.
Hope stuffed her hands into her back pockets and turned her attention to the room as though she’d never seen it before. “Grandma Ruby made the quilts. There’s one on my bed, too. It’s a log-cabin pattern.”
Erica couldn’t help the smile that lifted the corners of her mouth. Leave it to a child to miss the significance of the artwork in the room and go straight for the comfortable.
“Is someone talking about me?”
Erica turned at the same time Hope did and saw a small, elderly woman with a shock of almost magenta-tinted hair wheel deftly into the room from the archway behind them. She hadn’t expected Ruby to look so vibrant, but then, she didn’t know much about multiple sclerosis. “If you’re the creator of these fabulous quilts, then the answer is, yes.”
Hope pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “That’s Grandma Ruby. You better just call her Ruby.”
“Well, now. You must be Erica.” Ruby came to a stop just before her and knotted her hands loosely in her lap, which was covered by another small quilt she no doubt made herself.
“In the flesh.” Erica transferred her portfolio to her left hand and thrust out her right. “Thank you for having me.”
Ruby shook Erica’s hand. “Nonsense, it’s our pleasure. Welcome to our home. I can’t tell you how glad we are to have you helping with the quinceañera. Isn’t that right, Hope?”
Erica glanced at the girl, sure she saw something move through Hope’s expression before she bit her bottom lip and nodded silently, a placid smile on her lips.
