“Years,” he scoffed. “You’re what, twenty?”
She blinked at him. “I’m thirty.”
“You’re—“ He was speechless. “You’re—the little sister?”
“Yes, though Angelica wouldn’t like you knowing how old she is.“
“I thought—you were a kid.” Okay, not a kid, exactly, but she acted so much younger than any of his friends who were thirty and older.
“Um, thanks?”
She said it like a question, like she was trying to figure out where he was going with it.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“I’m thirty this year.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “You will be thirty, or you are thirty?”
“I’ll be thirty in August.”
“So I’m an older woman,” she said with a smile. “See, I can take care of myself just fine.”
“I’m still going to wait,” he said, though his nerves were jittery. He had until tomorrow to let his mom know about the storms. She might know about them already if she’d thought to turn the news on, but he wanted to make sure. His mom was one of those people who needed time to think things through. And he wanted to make sure she had as much time as possible to make her plan. He already knew she would put up a fight when he asked her to leave her home to stay at his place, so he was going to take this time to figure out his own plan to convince her.
Esperanza bounded toward the house with her purchases, then a few minutes later reappeared, a crease between her eyebrows.
“What’s going on?” he asked when she climbed back into his truck.
“Tommy already had it taken apart and he said the timing chain needed to be replaced, too, and naturally he does not have the parts he needs for that.”
Javi’s stomach sank. He did not relish another drive back to San Angelo. “Back to the city, then?”
She shook her head, her face downcast. “No. Even if they had one and were still open, I wouldn’t make you take me back, but thank you for the offer.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“He ordered the part he needs, but it won’t be here until the day after tomorrow. He said I can use one of his vans as a loaner, but they are more like delivery vans and won’t be secure enough for me to trust with my clients. On top of that, they don’t have windows for them to be able to see the storms.”
“Let me think,” Javi said. Who did he know with an SUV? Beck, but he had two little kids, and all the accoutrements that went with two little kids, like car seats and stuff. The department had a couple, but they were just the regular size SUVs, not really big enough for a group the size that Esperanza had.
“It’s okay,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll talk to my sister and see what she thinks we can do. Then we’ll go from there. I do appreciate all you’ve done for us. I don’t know how to thank you.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. He didn’t know how she could thank him either, didn’t know her well enough to know if he could tease her about owing him. He just wasn’t that good at flirting, and was out of practice, anyway.
Why worry about it, though, when she was leaving the day after tomorrow? Why not take a chance?
But he just wasn’t like that. He wasn’t going to take a chance when he saw no likelihood of a future between them. So he drove her the short distance to the motel and dropped her off with a wave before he headed to his mother’s house.
CHAPTER5
Espy found her sister sitting in the motel courtyard in one of the circular chairs, her head back, her eyes closed, her legs stretched out in front of her, an open bottle of wine from their stash on the table beside her.
Espy knew that pose. That was the surrender pose.
Espy dropped into the chair beside her. Okay, maybe dropped was not the action she should have taken, because the chair protested the violent act.
“What’s going on?”
