heart and hope to die’ would be an appropriate response?”
He pulled me closer. “Only if you want me to tie you up next time.”
The thought sounded way more appealing than I let on. “Okay, then I promise.”
Dixie walked in, and I stiffened as though I’d been caught making out with the quarterback during recess.
“What’d I miss this time?” she asked.
“She tie him up,” Sumi said, her voice forlorn. And she had a tiny speckle of drool at the corner of her mouth.
“Janey, would you stop tying up my cook and get back to work?”
After offering Reyes a whispered apology, I bounded past him and out the door, mumbling another apology to the woman who signed my paychecks along the way. All fifty-six dollars’ worth.
By the time I got off work, my body was thrumming with excitement. Reyes was mine. Mine, all mine. I did a little hip twitch and ran to get his jacket. While I would have killed to spend the afternoon with him, there was a whole other place just begging to be broken into. And I had the keys.
“What are you making?” I asked him before heading out. Officially, he was off the clock, too, but he seemed to enjoy the heck out of cooking. And keeping busy in general.
“Posole,” he said, flashing me a crooked grin that dissolved my kneecaps.
His hands were busy chopping stuff, so I rose onto my toes and whispered into his ear. “You are so trying to win my heart through my stomach.”
“Is it working?”
“Hell, yes.” Then I put my mouth squarely on his.
I jumped and whirled around when a plate shattered behind me. Francie was standing there, her mouth open in shock. Embarrassed, she turned and ran out.
“Crap,” I said. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“About what?” he asked, and the fact that he was genuinely confused made me fall down the rabbit hole of crazy-for-Reyes just a little bit farther. “Do you know what you do to people?”
He lifted a powerful shoulder. “I guess. But what are you going to tell her that will make her feel better?”
He had a point.
“I have no idea, but I have to try.”
His expression turned to astonishment. “You’re still so —”
“What?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
“You’re so caring, even when people don’t care about you.”
“Clearly you know next to nothing about me. I bought a Rolex from this guy named Scooter in the Walmart parking lot and it was a fake. I don’t even like him anymore. Seriously.”
A dimple appeared on his right cheek as he tried to fight a grin. “But if he were in trouble and needed your help with something?”
“Oh, well, I might help him. But only if he gave me a refund. Two bucks is two bucks.”
He released a breathy laugh that was part bewilderment and part admiration.
I’d take it.
“I’m sorry, Francie,” I said, walking into the storeroom. “I didn’t mean to just flaunt that in front of you. I wasn’t thinking.”
She scoffed. “Like I care.” She finished applying lip gloss and started out the door. “I could get a date with a different guy every night of the week if I wanted to.”
I wanted to say, “If you wanted to look like a ho?” What I said was “I know. I didn’t mean it that way.” But Francie was already out the door.
I felt the sting that rocketed though her when she saw us. It wasn’t what I wanted for her.
Erin stood a few feet away. “You’re just a ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
“I can be,” I said, defensive. “And what the hell, Erin? I took a couple of extra shifts you’d asked for. It’s not like you can work both shifts all day every day.”
“Is that why you think I can barely stand the sight of you?” she asked.
“Pretty much.”
“You’re so clueless.”
She turned to leave, so I rushed to say, “Then what?” I stepped closer. “What did I do?”
After releasing a sigh of annoyance, she said, “When I was little, I went to a palm reader set up at the state fair.”
An alarm sounded in my head with the words palm reader.
“She told me I’d have three children and all three would die before they were a year old.”
The clanging got louder.
“The first would die when all the land became water. Hailey died after a huge flood five years ago.” She stepped closer to me. “The second would die after my mother’s heart broke. Carrie died two days after my mother had a massive heart attack.”