"Since I'm on call during fire season, I can't commit to anything between April and October, because I don't know where I'll be at any given time," he said, sounding apologetic.
"Besides," Maggie added, unable to resist the impulse to poke at her pushy relatives a little. "I'm sure that Steve's family will want his mating ceremony to take place in San Diego."
The shock on the faces of her abuela and the others made her want to smile. She bit the inside of cheek to stop herself.
Because of course they had assumed that Maggie and Steve would be getting married at the Bearpaw Springs Resort.
"Or maybe we could get married somewhere fun, like a beach wedding in Cozumel or Cancun," she continued, just to see their reaction.
Steve squeezed her shoulder in silent warning not to take things too far.
Smooth as ever, he said, "And right now I'm really worried about my abuelita's health. With my parents gone, I really want her to be able to attend my wedding.”
"I promise that we'll let everyone know as soon as Steve and I have settled all of the details," Maggie promised.
* * *
The party was still growing strong an hour later. The lights in the ballroom had been turned down, and the air pulsed with music beats. Nearly everyone had left their seats to dance.
Maggie's sister Ariela and a couple of other female cousins whose names Steve couldn't remember had hauled her away to join them on the dance floor, leaving Steve to sit on the sidelines, his cast-bound leg comfortably propped on an empty chair.
His phone, which sat on the table next to him, lit up and began to vibrate with an incoming call. He glanced at it and was surprised to see Tina's Caller ID displayed.
Uh-oh, he thought. This can't be good.
He hit Answer, and said, "Hey, can I call you back in a couple of minutes?"
"Okay," his sister replied, barely audible over the music.
He hauled himself up on his good leg and hurried to strap on his knee-crutch before grabbing his phone and heading out in search of some privacy and quiet.
There were a couple of people seated in the cavernous lobby, so he continued on through a set of big wood-and-glass doors that led out to a large patio dining area.
The night air had an icy bite, but it felt refreshing after the warmth generated by close-packed bodies inside the ballroom. The overwhelming din had faded too, and only the faintest pulse of dance beats filtered out into the vast silence of the starry blackness. Best of all, he was the only one out here.
He called Tina, and she answered on the first ring.
"Are you at a club or something?" she demanded.
"Nah, at a party. With a date. So I can't talk long," he said, feeling a renewed glow of pleasure at the memory of his shower with Maggie. He couldn't wait until the party ended tonight and they returned to their hotel room. "What's up? Did something happen?"
His gut muscles tightened with fresh worry for his abuelita.
"You could say that." Tina's words were clipped, her tone tight with emotion. "Our lawyer contacted us yesterday and told us that someone filed an objection to our petition for conservatorship." She paused. "What the hell, Stevie? Why are you doing this? I thought I'd explained everything!" Her voice rose with frustration.
"You did," he said. "And I decided that I don't trust our brother further than I can throw him. Especially since he's got so much to gain."
"Stevie!" his sister wailed. "You don't know what Abuelita is like right now. Someone has to be there, watching her, every minute."
"Look, all I want is a second opinion from a doctor that Aarón's not paying," Steve said, a splinter of doubt beginning to pierce his conviction that he was doing the right thing for his grandmother. "My lawyer has referred me to a neurologist in the San Diego area who specializes in dementia cases. If an independent medical evaluation agrees that our abuelita isn't competent to handle her own affairs, I promise I'll withdraw my objection."
"Aarón is furious at you right now," Tina said. "He's had a really bad week, and you know how he gets."
Steve winced. He guessed at the part that Tina wasn't saying out loud—that she was bearing the brunt of their brother's bad mood.
"I'm sorry if I've made things more difficult for you," he said as gently as he could. "And that our brother