Defending the Eyewitness. Rachel Lee
a mess of this sweater. Sighing, she put the knitting on the bed and rose from her chair, wondering how she could handle this situation better. How she could make this man feel a little more welcome.
He must feel like a fish totally out of water. She could barely remember that feeling, she’d been ensconced here so long. She had to remember the days when the police had taken her to a social worker and then to a foster family, where she had waited for her grandmother to come. Had to remember how strange living here had seemed, how far from home it had felt.
A long time ago, but those feelings lived on. This man was no child, as she had been, but she had possibly found a point of connection with Austin. Fish out of water.
Gage had said that the man couldn’t pick up his old relationships just yet, and she wondered what that meant. Might someone dangerous still come after him? Bringing trouble right to her front door?
She caught herself as her old suspicions started to rise up. Enough. The past was past, a very old past. There were limits to how much she could allow it to run her life.
She heard him come downstairs. Biting her lip, she hesitated, then unlocked her bedroom door and stepped into the hallway. Light spilled from upstairs and out of the kitchen door. She made her steps a little noisier as she approached. Startling this man struck her as unwise.
He was facing her as she entered the room, and she could see the tension in him. Okay, he was not feeling safe. She froze on the threshold.
His body softened a little. He was wearing a black T-shirt and old jeans and walking barefoot. “I thought I’d make some coffee. Is that okay?”
“Of course it’s okay. Are you hungry, too?”
“I ate at the diner.” Then he gave her a crooked smile. “No tortillas.”
“No...” Then she got it and smiled. “No, no tortillas, but you can get them at the grocery. Want me to make the coffee?”
“I make it strong.”
“That’s the way I like it.” She gathered he wanted to do it himself, so she sat at the table.
All of a sudden he stuck his hand in his front pocket and put a folded stack of bills in front of her. “Rent,” he said, and went back to making coffee.
“Are you going to miss the tortillas?” she asked, seeking something friendly to say even as her nerves kept coiling tighter.
“Fresh ones? You bet. The beginning and end to every meal. Stacks of them. Usually corn. There was one little stand I frequented and sometimes I just stood there watching that woman’s hands fly. You wouldn’t believe how fast she could roll a ball of dough, flatten it into a near-perfect circle and toss it on the grill for just a short time. Hot and always delicious.”
“A real skill.”
“Definitely. And it wasn’t only her. I just happened to like her stand.” His face darkened a bit as he spoke. Then, “Cups?”
She rose and went to open the cupboard. As she did, she accidentally brushed against him and nearly froze as a sizzle ran along her nerve endings. It was a feeling so rare in her life that it astonished her. She leaped away like a startled rabbit.
“Something wrong?”
Only then did she realize she’d been staring into the cupboard too long, and that he’d stepped away from her. She grabbed two mugs at random, closed the cabinet, then handed him one.
“Nothing,” she managed to answer.
After he filled his mug, he remained standing as if he wondered whether she wanted him to go upstairs or remain. Be friendly, she ordered herself.
“Have a seat if you like,” she invited as she returned to her own with coffee. Just before she sat, she changed her mind and went to get out a tray of raspberry-and-cheese Danish and two plates. She offered him some.
“Thanks. That looks good.”
“It is. One of my friends finally fulfilled her dream of opening a bakery. It’s an awful lot of work, though. Up well before the birds and all that.”
Silence fell again. Apparently he wasn’t in a mood to talk, and she didn’t know what to say to him. Very awkward. Of course, she was used to hanging out with women at the shop or in the classes she hosted, but she knew most of them. Being confronted with a total stranger left her stymied. How in the world did you get past this when you came from such different worlds?
She supposed it didn’t matter. She should just take her coffee into the bedroom and figure out where she had gone wrong on her knitting. Because she was sure she had. Knitting a diamond design into the sweater was not a mindless task.
“Well,” she said, tired of the uncomfortable silence, and wondering what she was doing sitting here with a strange man, anyway, “I’ll just get back to my knitting.”
“Lo siento,” he said, then quickly, “I’m sorry. You’re trying to be friendly. I’m usually a friendly guy. For some reason, I’ve been finding that hard lately.”
She hesitated. “Are you bilingual?”
“From the cradle.”
“That’s very cool. I wish I were.”
At last he cracked a faint smile. “Being bilingual took me places, all right. My dad was from Mexico and my mom lived in San Antonio when they met. She was Anglo. Anyway, I grew up speaking both languages. Don’t ask me how I sorted it all out, but at some point I did.”
She laughed quietly. “Kids seem to be good at that. So, did you grow up in San Antonio?”
“Mostly. I spent some summers in Mexico with my father’s family. They had a large finca. Country estate. Plenty for young boys to do there.”
“What did your parents do?”
“Both of them taught at the university. That’s how they met. What about you? Have you always lived here?”
“I grew up here,” she said, shading the truth a bit. She could barely remember Denver at all.
“And you have your own business, I think Gage said?”
“Yes, it’s kind of a crafts shop for women who like sewing, knitting, that kind of thing.”
“Does it keep you busy?”
“Pleasantly so. I think we’ve become the up-to-date version of the women’s sewing circle. We have all kinds of gatherings and classes.”
“Sounds very friendly.” He managed another smile. As his gaze drifted toward the Danish, she pushed it in his direction. “Help yourself. I can get more.”
“It looks really good,” he said. “I can understand why your friend is successful.”
“I should ask her to make tortillas for you. I’m sure they’d be better than the stuff on the shelf in the store.”
He looked surprised. “Why would she do that? She doesn’t know me, and one person isn’t a whole market.”
“She’d do it because she’s that kind of person.”
This time his smile deepened, and some of the tension around his eyes eased. “Maybe it’s not so different here, after all.”
She wondered what he meant by that but wasn’t sure how to ask. How much was she supposed to know? And she didn’t have even a remote experience with Mexico. All she knew was this town and this county. Rightly or wrongly, she couldn’t imagine a better place.
“Help yourself to anything you like,” she said, rising. It was time to retreat behind her walls. “I know you haven’t had time to go shopping yet.”
He said something that might have been Spanish, leaving her perplexed as she walked down the hall. Then it occurred to her he’d probably been saying some form of good-night.