Yours to Keep: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance Page 6

  Ethan hesitated, unwilling to break the moment but knowing that something real was called for. “Sure,” he said finally. “But next time, if you want to do something different, ask first. And I’ll tell you if it’s a really bad idea.”

  “ ’Kay.”

  “I’m going to go make dinner.”

  “Do you—do you need help?”

  Ethan kept his face carefully neutral. “Do you want to chop onions?”

  “Do I have to wear those stupid goggles?”

  He laughed, and even Theo’s mouth curved in the suggestion of a smile. “No.”

  “Okay.” Theo stood up and followed his father down to the kitchen, while Ethan tried to feel glad for what he’d been given and not terrified of how tenuous it felt.

  Chapter 6

  Ana heard the yowl of an electric guitar as she walked up the front path of the Hansens’ house on Thursday afternoon. She rang the bell and waited, but no one came to the door. The guitar was cranked loud, catchy chords and clever, improvised riffs. She didn’t recognize the tune.

  There was a maple tree in the yard that had begun to turn red and orange and yellow. She tried to memorize the way that tree looked against the blue fall sky, to store it up for later.

  She rang again then tried the doorknob. It turned, and she let herself in. She went up the stairs with her bags, following the sound, and knocked loudly on the door where the music was coming from, which she assumed was Theo’s bedroom.

  The guitar stopped abruptly. She heard him fumble with the instrument. The door opened. His face was flushed, his eyes slightly hooded. “Sorry.” He shook his head, as if trying to wake himself from a dream. “I get so into it, I lose track of time.”

  “You’re really good,” she said in Spanish.

  A little smile flitted across his face then vanished. “I’m okay,” he said in English.

  She let him get away with it. There would be time enough for Spanish practice. “Was that an original you were playing?”

  “Yeah.” That little smile again.

  “I liked it. Do you ever play anywhere? Like in clubs?”

  He shook his head. “I think I’m too young to play in clubs.”

  There was a place that Ana and her family walked by on their way to the Laundromat that had a big sign in the window advertising a teen open mike on Thursday nights. She’d tell Ethan about it. Maybe he could take Theo sometime. She wondered what had happened between father and son after she’d left the other night, whether they’d fought, what punishment Ethan had meted out. Despite what Theo had put her through that afternoon, despite how dangerous his actions had been, she didn’t think it was hard punishment he needed.

  Theo’s eyes found the shopping bag she was holding. “What’s in there?”

  She hoisted it up, grinning. “Dinner.”

  “What?”

  She opened the bag to show him. Canned red beans, bell peppers, onions, tomato sauce, garlic, brown rice, a couple of bouillon cubes. She’d premixed the spices in a plastic ziplock. “Estamos” (she pointed to herself, then to him), “cocinando” (she mimed stirring a pot), “habichuelas rojas.” She held up the red beans and looked up to see his reaction.

  His mouth hung open. “You’re kidding. We’re cooking?”

  She grinned. “For the cooking chapter in your textbook. Do you think your dad will mind?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “So let’s go.” She led the way downstairs to the kitchen. “En Español,” she warned him, setting the bag down on the floor and unpacking it. “Todo en Español.”

  “Sí,” he agreed.

  She made him wash his hands and put him to work chopping peppers. “Estás cortando los pimientos.” He was obviously nervous with the big knife. “Síi, es un cuchillo de cocina. Tambien necesitas esta tabla de cortar, ¿síi?” She handed him the cutting board.

  He began to awkwardly dismember the peppers, and she watched uneasily, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake. But he gained confidence quickly. She helped him pull out the cores, showing him how to tap the seeds off the flesh. He tossed the stems and cores in the garbage and said in English, “You tutor my friend Leah, too.”

  “Leah Abrams?” Leah’s mom, Mrs. Abrams, was the nicest of the nice, always ready with a bag of hand-me-down designer clothes in good condition. Ana sneaked those bags into the apartment, divvying up the clothes between herself and her sister, hiding their existence from her brother so that he wouldn’t rant about “rich white people’s castoffs.”

  Sometimes she thought that under different circumstances she and Rena Abrams might have been friends. They had the same taste in clothes and, if the piles of books Mrs. Abrams left lying around were any indication, in reading, too.

  “Leah and her mom are kind people,” she said in Spanish.

  “I’m going to ask Leah out,” he whispered, as if there were someone around who might hear.

  “En Español,” she reminded him.

  “No, I’m going to ask her out in English,” he said, laughing. “To the movies. Do you think she’ll say yes?”

  “I’m sure she will.” He was a cute kid, when he wasn’t causing trouble. She hoped Leah would say yes to him, even though the thought of an open back channel between two of her tutoring households made her faintly ill.

  She’d bet he hadn’t told his father about his plans. She wondered what, exactly, had opened the rift between Ethan and Theo, or whether it was the natural evolution of father and teenage son. Tensions in her household had grown between her brother and his nephews when Marco hit twelve or so, and Ricky wasn’t even his dad.

  Theo chopped the peppers while she set the beans and broth on the stove and went to work on the onions, sans goggles. She’d finished almost all the other prep work by the time Theo put down the knife.

  “Wash the knife and the cutting board,” she told him.

  “You know, this is the coolest Spanish project ever. You should get a job teaching at the high school. You’d be so much better than the Spanish teachers they have there. They really suck. You’d be great at it.”

  He was so earnest and so naïve that she wished she could tell him the truth: She couldn’t get a job there or anywhere else where a Social Security number was required.

  “I like tutoring.” She did, especially at times like this. The broth and beans bubbled on the stove. The chopped veggies lay in neat heaps on the cutting board. As they worked, she’d pointed to appliances, kitchen implements, ingredients, naming and labeling, making him repeat them. He’d tossed the answers back at her, cheerful, compliant.

  And she felt her own bubbling sense of anticipation for the moment Ethan would walk through the door.

  Ethan could smell food cooking as soon as he came through the garage door into the basement. His first thought was that Theo had cooked to surprise him, and he ransacked his memory to see if there was an occasion he’d forgotten. It wasn’t Ethan’s birthday, or Theo’s, or Trish’s, or an anniversary of any kind. What was cooking? It smelled vaguely Mexican. Then he remembered that it was Ana’s second time tutoring Theo, and his heart leaped. Could she be cooking?

  He came upstairs to find them sitting at the kitchen table just as they’d been the other day. Latin music played quietly on the kitchen stereo. Theo was laughing. Laughing! Something lightened in Ethan’s chest.

  Ana looked up. A slow smile spread across her face, starting at her mouth and moving to her eyes. Her teeth flashed white, and her eyes lit up. Ethan smiled back, unable to stop himself. A lazy happiness bloomed in him. She was here, and she was as happy to see him as he was to see her.

  Oh, he was in trouble.

  “I hope you don’t mind.” She gestured toward the stove. Three pots simmered there, covered. “Theo was studying cooking in this unit, so I thought it would be good to do some hands-on. I brought all the ingredients. And Theo said he usually does the dishes, so I hope I haven’t made any extra work for you.” She dipped her chin.

  He s
hook his head. Her long, straight hair gleamed dark on her crown. He wanted to put his hands in it. Both hands. Lift her face to his. His chest tightened with desire.

  “I was hoping it would mean less work for you if you didn’t have to worry about making dinner.” She was nervous, he realized. “It’s red beans and rice. If that’s not enough, you can always throw some chicken in. Theo said you always have chicken in the freezer for emergencies.”

  “It’s wonderful.” He turned away from the intensity of his own reaction and her worried scrutiny. He went to the stove and lifted one lid, then another. Fragrant steam, spicy and exotic, rose from the red-bean stew. “It’s amazing. It doesn’t need chicken. It doesn’t need anything.”

  “It might need salt. I chronically undersalt.” She stood and began to pack up her things. “Anyway, I’ll leave you two to it. Enjoy.”

  He set the lid back on the pot and turned quickly to see if she was serious. She slid a notebook into her backpack.

  Theo stared at Ana incredulously. “You’re not staying?”

  “You’re kidding!” Ethan said.

  Ana looked quickly from Theo to Ethan.

  “You’ve got to stay. You cooked it. You should enjoy it.” He wanted her to stay. Whether it was a good idea or not. He couldn’t imagine wanting anything more. She wore tight jeans, a fitted gray long-sleeved T-shirt, and boots. Her lashes were thick, her lower lip glossy and full. His teeth ached, looking at that lower lip.

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I have to teach. It takes awhile to get there. I have to take the shuttle and a bus.”

  “You teach at night?” Theo said, at the same time Ethan asked, “What do you teach?”

  “I teach adults English as a second language. Their schedules can be pretty crazy—multiple jobs and night shifts—so I teach in the morning and the evening.”

  So she tutored and taught? Did she have any downtime? He knew nothing about her life, he realized, but he was starting to suspect that money was an issue. Maybe that’s why she wanted to be paid in cash. Less lost to taxes.

  “How far away is it?” Theo asked eagerly. “Would it be faster if you didn’t have to take that shuttle? We could drive you.”

  She hesitated with her hand on the zipper of her pack.

  “Where do you need to get to?” Ethan asked her. “What time?”

  Her chin came up a fraction of an inch. “Duarte Elementary. On Adams Street, in Hawthorne. By seven-thirty.”

  “What is that—fifteen, twenty minutes away?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s not far at all. I can drive you there. Stay.”

  Her glance flickered between them, then to the door, as if she were contemplating her options. In the fitted shirt, the contours of Ana’s body were sleek and obvious. Above the neckline, Ethan could see the topmost curve of her breasts. The shirt clung to her arms and narrow waist, flared over her hips. He wanted to put his hands right there, where narrow swerved to flare, and draw her close. Instead, he touched her arm. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the fabric, warmth that crept over his own skin and surged through his body. “Please stay.”

  Her eyes met his, wide with surprise and something else, an echo of his feelings.

  “Okay.” She smiled again, not her whole-face sparkling smile but a sweet closemouthed one that pursed her lips and made him want to lean in and touch his mouth to hers.

  She watched Ethan’s face when he put the first bite of habichuelas into his mouth. She saw surprise—that would be the cilantro—and pleasure. “Mmm,” he said, and her pulse sped up. She’d underestimated how much she’d enjoy feeding him.

  His shoulder was six inches from hers, emanating heat.

  Across the table, Theo grinned. “It’s good. I didn’t think I liked beans. But I like this.”

  “Thank you.”

  She was glad to be here with them, but she was unsure about what the hell she was doing. Ethan had almost kissed her the other day. The look on his face when he touched her arm earlier had been unmistakably, gloriously covetous. It had sent a thrill all through her. But that was dumb and crazy, right? She had excellent—the very best—reasons not to let anything happen between them. And yet she was here.

  Ethan ate gravely, giving her meal its full due. She bet that was the way he did everything.

  She bet that was the way he made love.

  Where had that thought come from?

  Oh, she knew. From the depths of her sex-deprived brain, egged on by the vibrations he seemed to set up in the air all around her.

  She put a cool palm to her cheek, willing herself to calm down.

  “Is this something you cook at home?” Ethan gestured at the plate with his fork.

  “It’s my mother’s recipe.”

  “Do you live with your mother?” Theo asked.

  Her stomach clenched, as it always did when she thought of her mother.

  “Theo,” cautioned Ethan. He shot her a worried glance.

  “My mother’s dead,” Ana said.

  “Mine, too,” Theo said earnestly.

  She’d known that, but hearing it said aloud filled her with fresh grief, for the younger Theo and for herself. “How old were you when your mom died?” she asked him. She sneaked a look at Ethan, who gave her a tight nod.

  “Seven. She had lymphoma. I don’t remember her very well. I remember some things, like her tucking me into bed, and some games she used to play with me before she got sick.”

  “I was eight when my mom died,” she said. “I remember her pretty well. She was very sick the last year, though.”

  “Mine, too,” Theo said. “I don’t really remember that part, though.”

  Ethan made a tiny, startled noise. Ana’s eyes sought his, saw a mirror of her pain there. He gave her a lopsided smile.

  “Do you have kids?” Theo asked her.

  “Theo,” his father said again.

  Theo made her want to laugh. He reminded her so much of Marco. There was an adult quality to his ease with small talk. It made a fine contrast with his childlike ignorance of what was appropriate conversation.

  Theo’s eyes had narrowed at his father’s intervention. “What?”

  “It’s not a polite question.”

  “You’re too worried about being polite.”

  Anger flared in the green of Ethan’s eyes, and the lines at the bridge of his nose deepened.

  “Your dad’s got a point. Some people want kids and can’t have them, so it hurts when they have to answer a question like that. But I don’t mind that you asked. I don’t have kids, but I have a niece and two nephews. I live with them. With my niece, my nephews, my brother, and my sister.” She hadn’t exactly meant to spill all that, but there it was.

  “That’s a lot of people,” Theo said. “All in one house?”

  She felt Ethan shift beside her, ready to call Theo off again. “It’s an apartment. Two bedrooms. One bathroom.”

  She saw the exact moment when that registered with Ethan, the look of disbelief that came over his face. Well, she thought, that’s that. He’d had no idea how different their worlds were, but now he knew.

  “Three women and one bathroom?” he asked.

  Of all the things he could have said, or asked, she was not expecting that one. She’d thought he might make a sympathetic murmur. Or ask a question like “Is that difficult, so many people in such a small space?” Or blush and change the subject.

  He’d done none of those things.

  She liked him so much right then, she could feel it in every cell, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair.

  Chapter 7

  “I’m sorry about all Theo’s questions at dinner,” Ethan said. Embarrassed might actually be a more accurate word, but, whatever you called it, he owed her an apology. “We seem determined to make you squirm every time you visit our house.”

  She was washing dishes. Ethan was drying. Theo was upstairs doing his homework.

  Ethan had offered to
wash, since she’d cooked, but she said it made more sense this way, since he knew where things went. She’d filled the sink with hot water and suds, and she scrubbed, her sleeves pushed way up to reveal slim pale brown arms. He’d had ample time, too much time, to regard the back view of her, the impossible narrowness of her waist and the sweet curve of her behind in those body-hugging jeans, which made him want to fit himself against her. Now, though, he was watching her face.

  She looked surprised by his apology. “I didn’t mind. People are always asking me questions. Or the opposite—pretending they don’t have any questions when I know they’re brimming over with them. Especially when I’m in Beacon. I’m exotic here.”

  He supposed she was, although he wouldn’t have chosen that word. Despite everything he’d learned about her, she felt more familiar to him than the women he encountered daily.

  “Beacon doesn’t have a lot of families of six living in apartments,” he admitted.

  She smiled widely at that. “No.”

  “Or people with the last name Travares.” He picked up a serving bowl and began drying it.

  “No. Not very many Dominicans. Not very many Latinos. Not very many families with three adults working five jobs.”

  “Wow. Not five each?”

  “God, no. Among us.” She tossed her head, and the long, thick strands of her gorgeous hair resettled around her shoulders.

  He wanted to reach out and touch it, to see if it felt as smooth and soft as it looked. “You’re right,” he said instead. “Not many Beacon families with three adults working five jobs. Although I do know this one family where the father is a programmer and a musician and a piano teacher and the mother is a freelance journalist and has a mail-order cookie service.” He hung a skillet back on the pot rack above the stove. “Or are those more like hobbies?”

  “Hobbies.”

  His gaze traced the curve of her behind again, and his mouth went dry. “Do you have hobbies?” His voice, despite his thoughts, was steady and calm, and he willed his body to follow suit. Otherwise, he was going to reach out and grab that lovely ass of hers, and once he put his hands on her—