done since he’d already lost half a day on account of that damn part, and then it got late so I went ahead and made supper because it seemed the logical thing to do. So if that makes me some kind of, I don’t know, manipulative hussy or something, well, ex-cuse me for living!”
Florita looked at her for several seconds, burst out laughing, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s jus’ that I worry ‘bout them, you know? An’ I see you worming your way into this family, making pizza in my kitchen, an’ I think, this chick, she doesn’t have any family of her own—”
“And you think I’m trying to find an instant family here?” When Flo shrugged, Winnie sighed, figuring this rat terrier of a housekeeper was the least of her worries. “Trust me, nothing could be further from my mind. All I was doing was making supper. And then tomorrow Aidan will fix my truck and I’ll be outta everybody’s hair for good.”
Flo gave her a speculative look, then turned to the meatlocker-size refrigerator to get out salad fixings. “You made the pizza from scratch?”
If that was Flo’s attempt at being conciliatory, Winnie supposed she could climb down off her high horse for a minute or two. “I found flour and yeast and that pizza stone under the cabinet, so I made up a crust dough earlier. It was either that or meat loaf for fifty.”
Winnie saw the woman’s glittery mouth twitch as she dumped lettuce, tomatoes and a cucumber on the counter. “You should be married.”
“I’ll put it on my list. But this is your business how?”
“You’re in my kitchen,” she said, pulling several leaves off a head of romaine, “I get to ask the questions. Besides, it’s boring as hell up here, I got nothin’ else to do.”
Grabbing the cucumber and peeler, Winnie went to the sink to strip it. “What can I say, it just hasn’t happened for me yet.”
“Some pendejo dumped you?” she heard behind her.
“More than one, actually,” Winnie said, getting the gist.
“Pretty girl like you, I’m surprised the men aren’t lined up for miles.”
“I live in a town smaller than this one, Flo,” Winnie said, thinking, Pretty? “There’s not enough available men to line up for twenty feet, let alone miles. And half of those…” She shuddered.
“So you should move.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it. But I couldn’t before now. And anyway, it’s not that easy to pull up roots that deep. Especially when you haven’t had two seconds to think about what comes next.” Winnie handed the now naked cucumber to Flo, then glanced outside just as the last rays of sunset gilded the landscape. “It’s really beautiful up here. Closest thing we’ve got to mountains back home is the occasional dead armadillo by the side of the road.”
“The winters can be a bitch, though.”
“Can’t be any worse than gettin’ a sand facial every time you walk out your door.”
Flo almost chuckled. “Tierra Rosa’s jus’ like any other small town, it’s got its good and its bad.”
“You’re still here.”
“Like you said…deep roots.”
Winnie slid up onto a stool across from Flo, propping one booted foot on the railing at the base of the breakfast bar, her arms crossed. “I gather June was from around here, too?”
A shadow crossed the housekeeper’s features before she said, “Nearby. Next town over. Her folks’re gone now, too.” Her knife passing through a tomato in slow motion, she added, “Sometimes, I can almos’ still feel her presence.”
“Whose presence? June’s?”
“Yes. Especially as it gets closer to Los Días de Los Muertos. You know about that?”
“The Days of the Dead? Sure. Well, a little. A couple Mexican families back home observe it. I never really got it, myself.”
“You think it’s spooky, no?” Flo said with a grin. “But it’s not like that for us, it’s a celebration. We don’t go all out the way they do in Mexico, maybe, but it’s still important. We get together, we remember those who’ve gone on before, we laugh, we tell stories, we show them we haven’t forgotten them, that they still live in our memories. Our hearts. So in a way, they really do ‘come back’ to visit us, you see? It’s a time to show we’re not afraid of death, because it can’t really take our loved ones from us. Not in the way that most matters.”
“Oh. When you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense. But what if…?”
Flo’s eyes lifted to hers. “What?”
“Nothing,” Winnie said, refusing to let moroseness gain a foothold. Like wondering about people who die with no family. Who celebrates their lives? Who remembers them?
“You know,” Flo was saying, “everybody loved Miss June. She could cut a person down to size with three words if they had it coming, but Dios mío, I never knew anyone with a bigger heart.” Her mouth thinned. “I know people sometimes said things. Mean things. Because Miss June was so much older than the boss. But what does love know about age?” she added with a shrug. “About friendship. ‘Cause you never saw two people who were better friends. And I know he still misses her real bad.”
“I’m sure he does,” Winnie said, thinking, Okay, cutie, time for a reality check. That she was leaving the following day. That she was smart enough not to confuse chemistry and sympathy and loneliness with anything real. “You call him ‘the boss’?”
Flo smiled. “Miss June would call him that sometimes, just to get a rise out of him. They’d be arguin’ about somethin’, an’ she get this real amused look on her face, and go ‘Whatever you say, b-boss…’”
The last words were barely out of the housekeeper’s mouth before she dissolved into embarrassed tears. Winnie immediately went to her and wrapped her in her arms, getting the strangest, strongest feeling that if June had any idea how mopey everybody was around here, she’d be hugely pissed.
And that while Winnie was here, maybe she should see what she could do about that.
Chapter Seven
Winnie Porter was a strange bird indeed, Aidan decided as he sat across from her at the dining table, its dings and gouges probably hailing from New Mexico’s territorial days.
He’d hung outside the kitchen, listening to her and Flo’s conversation probably far longer than was politic, simply because he’d been too mesmerized to do anything else. Her moods apparently dipped and swerved like a roller coaster, with every bit of the accompanying dizziness and nausea. Women were hard enough to understand when they were levelheaded; one like Winnie…
“Why was six afraid of seven?” Robbie piped up, his mouth full of fresh, aromatic, bubbly-cheesed pizza.
“I have no idea,” Winnie said, aiming a wink in Aidan’s direction, and he thought, What? “Why was six afraid of seven?”
“Because seven ate nine!” Robbie said, both he and Jacob, exploding into knee-slapping laughter, which got Annabelle to barking and spinning in circles for no apparent reason. Winnie laughed, too, just as hard, even though Aidan sincerely doubted she’d never heard the joke before. Then she launched into a series of truly terrible riddles, half of which the boys already knew—which only seemed to make them laugh harder—and the laughter and the barking crescendoed until it seemed the very room would burst.
Winnie’s eyes touched his, begging him to join in.
Barely able to breathe, Aidan got up from the table to refill his tea glass, at which point he realized the jollity had apparently infected his