responses were “Yes, Mama” and “No, Mama.”
Finally the older woman stepped back. “You keep your future wife waiting outside the house? Cruz, where are your manners?”
“Mama, this is Lexi Titan. Lexi, my mother, Juanita.”
Lexi smiled and offered her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Rodriguez.”
The tiny woman waved away the words. “Call me Juanita. Or Mama. Everyone does. Come, come. Inside.”
She herded them through the open living area into a large kitchen where delicious smells escaped from pots on the stove.
The room was light and bright, with starched curtains at the gleaming windows and a tile floor that glowed so much it was practically a light source. Lexi immediately wanted to slip off her shoes and clean where she’d walked.
Juanita, pretty and full of life, stepped in front of her and took both of Lexi’s hands in hers. “Let me look at you.”
The other woman barely came up to her shoulders. She was casually dressed in dark slacks and a blouse. Gold earrings swayed as she tilted her head first one way then the other.
“Lexi,” she said. “You are to marry my son? Yes?”
Lexi felt like something coughed up by a stray cat. “Yes,” she whispered.
“I never thought someone would catch my wild boy. How did you get him to settle down?” Juanita had a slight accent that gave her words a hint of musical cadence.
“You’d have to ask him that,” she said. “I’m not sure I know.”
“You didn’t chase him or play games?”
At last a question she could answer truthfully. “Not at all. We were totally honest with each other the entire time we were together. We’re very clear on what we can give to each other and what we want.” Their relationship was based on a business proposition. Coming to terms had taken a whole fifteen minutes.
Juanita looked at Cruz. “She’s very beautiful. You have found yourself a beautiful wife.”
Cruz met Lexi’s eyes. “Yes, but that’s not the reason I want to marry her.”
He spoke so sincerely that Lexi wanted to believe him. Which made her feel awful. How could she lie to this lovely woman? On the other hand, how could she tell her the truth?
She thought about her father and her desperate need to hear him say that he loved her, that he was proud of her. She was thirty years old. When was she going to accept that Jed would never be the kind of father she’d always longed for? That he enjoyed making those around him squirm?
She smiled at Juanita and joined her at the round kitchen table in the corner. Apparently that kind of acceptance wasn’t going to happen today.
JUANITA SERVED a salad and homemade tamales for lunch. But as much as Lexi loved the food, she found it difficult to eat very much, even with Cruz telling charming stories about their past, including how they’d met.
“You risked your car?” Juanita asked.
Lexi sighed. “I was young and foolish and thought I would win. What did I know? I lost, of course.”
His mother glared at him. “You took her car? What kind of man does that?”
“It was part of my job.”
“An illegal job.” She spoke quickly in Spanish for a few seconds.
“He returned it,” Lexi said quickly. “He kept my car all this time and returned it to me when we got engaged.”
Juanita looked between them. “You won her car from her, then didn’t sell it?”
Cruz seemed to find his food very interesting. “It was nothing. I was busy. I kept it around.”
Lexi smiled, then glanced up and saw Juanita studying her. The other woman nodded slowly. “I see,” she said. “Have you set a date for the wedding?”
If Lexi had been swallowing, she would have choked. “Um, not really. We’re going to wait a while.”
“There’s no rush,” Cruz added.
Juanita nodded. Lexi thought she might push back, but she seemed pleased about something.
“But there will be grandbabies. You are going to have children, yes?”
He went pale. If Lexi hadn’t been part of the “grandbabies” connection, she might have felt sorry for him. As it was, this time she was the one studying the table.
“Mama, maybe we could talk about this later,” he said firmly.
“I’m not getting any younger, you know.” She raised her hands in the air. “All right. I won’t push. But I want at least four. My neighbor has four. It’s a good number. It fills the table.”
Two hours later, when they’d finished lunch and left, Lexi waited until Cruz had gotten onto the freeway before asking, “She’s your mother and you obviously love her. Doesn’t it bother you to lie to her like this?”
He shrugged. “I don’t enjoy it, but it’s necessary. She wouldn’t understand the truth.”
Lexi was wondering if she did. She knew exactly what she got out of the arrangement, but why had Cruz done it? Did he really want a woman with a bloodline? To what end?
“I’ve kept things from her all my life,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”
“What kind of things?”
“How I made my money.”
“She knew about you racing for pink slips.”
He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the road. “That’s the least of it. I joined a gang when I was twelve. I ran errands and acted as a lookout during robberies. It gave me money. I saved until I had enough to buy a gun.”
She could feel her eyes widening. “Seriously?”
“I had something to take care of. Don’t ask what. Once that was done, I managed to get out of the gang, mostly by pretending to be too young and scared to get into the really bad stuff. Then I started racing cars for pinks. Eventually I took that money and invested it into legitimate businesses. Auto parts, dealerships. I have a business partner who runs things for me. Manny. I’ve known him since I was a kid. We grew up on the same street.”
She’d known there were some dangerous parts to his past-she just hadn’t known how bad it had been. “You’ve come a long way.”
“I had goals and I wasn’t afraid to work for them. I did what had to be done.”
“Did you finish high school?”
He smiled. “Oh, yeah. My mom made sure of that. She’s small, but she’s determined. Thanks to her, I was careful. I wasn’t scared of jail, but having her mad at me? No way.”
“But you did go to jail.”
“A few times. Nothing after I turned eighteen. The records are sealed.” He glanced at her again. “Rethinking the deal?”
“No. I’m not surprised by any of this.”
“Because you knew I was bad.”
“You’re a lot of things, Cruz, but bad isn’t one of them.”
“You’re wrong about that, Lexi. I’m bad in ways you can’t begin to imagine.”
As she’d grown up in Titanville, under the shadow of her father’s protection, that might be true.
“Any other ghosts from the past I should know about?” she asked.
“No. Do you have any deep, dark secrets?” he asked.
If only. “Sorry, no. My life is exactly what you’d think it would be.”
Boring.
She wasn’t sure where the word came from, but suddenly it was there.
She wasn’t boring, she told herself. She had a good life. Her work, her sisters. But no one special. She had always wanted a family, wanted to fall in love. She almost had once. Andrew. And that had been a disaster.
“You’re thinking about something,” Cruz said.
“Nothing that matters.”
LEXI WALKED INTO the bedroom she’d grown up in and found both her sisters already there. Skye was dressed in a short, green cocktail dress that showed off her lush curves. She wore her red hair long and curly. Pearls hugged