She picked up the brush and put it in the thinner bucket, then glanced at her watch, and stared in surprise. Already past one!
“Maybe we ought to have the lunch now?” she suggested. Then held her breath, aware that she was contradicting herself, and braced herself for theWill you make up your mind!Or theBy the time you stop dithering it’ll be tomorrowthat she knew she deserved.
But Alejo straightened up, putting his hands to his hips and stretching, giving her a fine view of every muscle in his chest and abs and…
She yanked her eyes away from what he was packing below the low-slung jeans, afraid her eyes would make popping noises like cartoon tentacle suckers. Hoo, he was just so fine ineverypossible way.
They used the hose to wash their hands, and Alejo insisted on lugging the hamper, leaving her the blanket to carry down to the beach about fifty yards below the house. The tide was out, giving them a nice broad beach to look at as they worked together to set out the food.
Realizing that she had forgotten to ask him for his preferred picnic beverage, she had prepared coffee, tea, and some of her mother’s tart juice, plus water. She pointed to the various thermoses, and he said, “Juice? Your mother’s recipe? I’ve got to try that.”
She poured it out, and he took a sip, breaking into a smile. “Not too sweet. It’s perfect. What is it?”
“Cran-apple with lime juice and ginger ale. Not exactly sophisticated, nor what the purists would even call natural.”
“It’s tasty,” he said. “Right now that’s my main criteria for good. I sometimes think,” he said as he opened the portable crock and ladled out chicken-and-gravy over rice, “that of all human inventions, the hot meal after a morning of work is still one of life’s greatest pleasures.” He handed her a plate before taking his, as if it was everyday behavior. Maybe for him it was. “Mmm. Even better the second day!” He took another hefty bite of the chicken.
They talked about dishes they had grown up with. After listening to him talk about the hot Texas chili he’d had as a kid when Godiva had cooked, and the barbeque he’d had when he moved in with his dad, she said, tentatively, “May I ask a question?”
“Shoot!”
“It’s just that you call Godiva by her name, but you call your father Dad. Is there a reason?”
Alejo laughed. “I wasn’t even aware of that. You’re right! Though when we’re face to face, I call her Mom as much as I say Godiva. I think it might be those years we didn’t see one another. She probably told you about our miscommunication, especially involving moves, back in the days before cell phones and internet. It was easy to lose people.”
“She said a little, yes.”
“When I met her again, I wasn’t a scrawny high schooler, I was a foot and a half taller than she is, and I was trying to get used to Mom again, as my dad was trying to get used to calling her Godiva, and it just sort of came out. She gave that cackle of hers—oh, how I’d missed that—and said she liked hearing me say her name. Which she had picked for herself, after we got separated. So, I guess it’s a habit now. When I talk about her, she’s Godiva, but when I’m with her, she’s Mom.” He grinned. “Probably makes us sound weird, eh? Most kids grow up with Mom or Dad.”
“No, I get it. A little,” Wendy said. “As it happens, I don’t know who my birth parents were. I was adopted when I was ten, and at first they had me say Mama Gertrude and Papa Joe. But within a year or so, that turned into Mama and Papa, and by the time I was a teen, it seemed more natural to say Mom and Dad.”
“I didn’t know you were adopted. Was it tough, at age ten? Feel free to tell me to mind my own business,” he added.
He looked at her with so much kindness that it took all her strength not to blurt out her entire life’s story—which usually she kept to herself.
“It was…a new experience. Foster care wasn’t so bad,” she hastened to add. “It wasn’t like the movies, a matchup between Nurse Ratched andOliver!It’s just that I was seldom anywhere more than a year, so I didn’t really get to know people in real life, whereas books, I could take from place to place, and I imagined bonds with them. I think that’s probably why I started writing.”
She stopped there. She was not about to get into Wendy the Whale, and her horrible thick glasses, that had just about guaranteed she would never get a home.
“My parents were older. A lot older. But the social services weren’t as picky back then, and I was lucky to get them. They never succeeded in having a kid, but Mom had always wanted one. I think she saw me as a…project, but in a very sweet way. They always treated me very well. Every birthday I was like a princess, only in a beach house instead of a castle.” She smiled.
“I take it they moved?” He glanced back toward the house.
“No, they died a few years ago. No, don’t apologize. You didn’t know, and besides, as Dad said right before he died, he’d had a good run. Mom lasted a bit longer. They left the house to me, but in those last years, they kind of let it go to seed, I’m afraid. And I’ve not had much luck getting it fixed.”
“A well-loved home is the best kind to refurbish,” Alejo said. “I’m a firm believer that all the good vibes, all the laughter, even the tears, and the sharing, all sink into the walls and the furniture and things. Why else do people claim houses have their own atmospheres?”
“Is your home like that?” she asked shyly.
He laughed. “I moved around as much as you did. Maybe even more. As for the ranch, that’s my dad’s place. He shared it with me, and I’ve redone at least something in every room, but it still feels like his place. I like to think wherever I hang my hat is home.”
“I think that’s a great compromise,” she said, and discovered that they had cleaned out the dishes. “Have room for peach pie?”
“I will always have room for peach pie,” he assured her with that flashing smile.
When they finished the last of the pie, he helped her stack the dishes and he carried the hamper back to her car while she returned to the porch.
If anything, the afternoon session was even better. As he worked, Alejo told her some stories about trips he’d taken on animal rescue runs, first with his father as a teen, then on his own.
