The Brand clan frequented Manny’s Cantina so much, he was practically family. By virtue of her brother’s marriage, Lily was a member of that clan, and she was quite disgustingly hung up on another member.
Manny sent her a big smile, white against his bronze skin. “I’ll round him up for you in two shakes, Lil,” he called in his thoroughly Texas twang.
It always surprised people who expected him to have a Spanish accent. That would teach them to assume.
“You’re busy. Looks like he is, too,” she said, noticing the impatience in the air. There were nine filled tables, and only two had food on them. “Where are Rosa and the girls?” Manny’s wife and two daughters usually helped run the place. Her dad only helped out part time, in hopes of snagging Rosa’s taco recipe. Her precise seasoning blend, he said, was impossible to duplicate. And he’d tried.
Lily went behind the bar, grabbed an apron and tied it on.
Through the porthole windows in the double doors, she could see her dad’s head bobbing around in the kitchen. He wore a white pillbox hat, not a tall puffy one.
“College visits,” Manny called. Having delivered the food to one table, he moved to another, pulling out his order pad as he went. “Soon they’ll be gone for good, and then what?” He looked around the diner, shaking his head, then attended to the customers.
The kitchen doors split and Lily’s father came out with a big tray of food, spotted her, and smiled ear to ear. “Ah, my salvation. Here, table ten. By the jukebox.”
She took the tray laughing. “Just like old times, right, Pop?”
“How’d you know I needed you?”
“Didn’t. Came in for a taco.”
“I’ll save you some.” Then another group of hungry patrons came in, so Lily got to work.
For the next two hours, she hustled like she hadn’t hustled in years, taking and delivering orders, while keeping glasses filled, condiments topped off, and customers happy. Her wad of tips was getting fat by the time the lunch rush flagged.
Only a couple of patrons remained.
One of them was a regular. He must’ve wandered in during the rush when she hadn’t been paying attention. She stole a look at him while wiping down the bar. Nobody seemed to know who he was, and you couldn’t really tell what he looked like, with the bushy dirty-blond beard and ever-present sombrero. He kept it down low over his eyes.
He came in most afternoons, always sat at the same table, and usually stayed into the night, sipping tequila, and just…watching.
A handful of times, when there’d been trouble, he’d stepped in to help. But he never said much, just did what was needed and returned to his silent, tequila-fed contemplation. He had a long-nosed, black pistola under his blue-and-white woven poncho. Maria said she’d seen him pull it out the day her ex had found her there with Harrison and beaten him bloody.
Lord, what her poor brother hadn’t gone through for Maria Michelle Brand. Oh, but at the wedding, while he’d watched that wild redhead walk down the aisle toward him, there’d been tears in Harrison’s eyes. Lily’d had a perfect view because she was his “best woman” and stood beside him.
She’d glanced past her brother to where Ethan stood on his other side in the little white church with the red doors and the tall steeple. Cousin and bestie of the bride, he’d served as Maria’s “man of honor.”
Ethan Brand had caught her looking at him, and they’d locked eyes. His were full of joy for his cousin, but then turned a little nervous when their gazes held a beat too long.
They’d slow-danced at the reception. She’d asked him after a few beers had given her courage. He’d held her close, too, one arm around her waist up high, the other holding her hand outward, like they were going to waltz. She’d wiggled her hand free and hugged him instead. He surrendered with a sigh and wrapped his arms around her.
He was tall and wide, and she was built like her mother had been, small and slight. She was enveloped by him, and she’d liked the feeling. So she pressed as close as she could and sighed out every wisp of breath in her lungs. When she inhaled again, she smelled Ethan. His soap, his clothes, his skin. She’d lifted her head to look up at the cleft in his chin.
They were outdoors, of course, on the front lawn of the sprawling Texas Brand ranch. He was wearing his hat, so his face was in shadows that emphasized the line of his jaw, the slight hollow of his cheek, and the thin layer of dark scruff that covered it. She wanted to run her own cheek across that scruff.
As if he felt her eyes on him, he looked down. She didn’t look away. She just held his gaze and let him see what was in her eyes, and she must’ve done a good job, because his sparked with desire. But then the spark was banked by what looked like worry. Maybe fear. The song ended. He thanked her for the dance and walked away so fast you’d have thought she was a dragon about to flame-roast him.
He’d avoided her for the rest of the night. Not that she’d put up much of a fight, once she realized that was what he was doing. She had some pride, after all.
The next day he’d left without saying goodbye to resume playing in honky-tonks around the south and southwest, ever in search of his second big hit.
Her father’s hand came to Lily’s shoulder from behind. “You haven’t forgotten a thing, have you?”
She blinked out of her memories and back to the moment at hand—the two of them slinging food together again.
“I loved working at the Sunday Café with you, Dad,” she said, wiping the memory from her eyes and turning to smile at him. “Those were the happiest times of my life. I don’t?—”
Then she bit her lip to stop the flow of words. She’d almost blurted, “I don’t like being a nurse.”
