Chapter 6 #3
“Thank you,” he said. “That was…” And then instead of finding the right word, he just smiled, all the way to his eyes. “That was very cool.”
“Screw the gawkers,” she said. “You own the place. You can throw ‘em out on their collective backsides if you want. I’ll help. I’d enjoy it!”
There was a bite in her voice. She heard it herself and it surprised her as much as it seemed to surprise him.
“Huh,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re really not all sweetness and light after all, are you, Lily?”
She looked across the table at her brother, talking and laughing with his new bride. “Don’t blow my cover with Dad and Harrison, okay?”
“That’s a promise.” Then he said, “Do you feel like you can’t be real around them?”
The taco platter was passed their way, saving her from having to answer right away. Ethan took the tongs and set three of them on her plate. He was going for a fourth but she held up a hand, so he started filling his own. And man, did he fill it.
She asked for the mango salsa, her favorite, and slathered it over her tacos. “It’s more that I don’t want to disappoint them.”
“I don’t think that can happen.”
“Oh, it can,” she said. “Mom left a big hole in our family.”
“And you’ve been tryin’ to fill it.”
She nodded. “Trying, and failing, mostly.”
“But you’re so?—”
“Don’t tell me it’s not a valid way to feel. You don’t feel worthy of your family, either. Ridiculous as that seems to me.” She dug into her tacos. And she didn’t talk again until her plate was clean, and she was chugging sweet tea to wash it down.
She wasn’t too busy eating to notice when Maria took her first bite and looked as if she’d tasted heaven.
The family was noisy, all talking over each other and laughing.
The Brands really enjoyed being together.
You couldn’t fake that kind of affection.
And she enjoyed it, too. So did her brother.
They’d melded seamlessly into the clan. The Brand brothers, Garrett, Ben, Wes, Adam, and Elliot, and their baby sis Jessie, treated Hyram like a long-lost seventh sibling.
A fresh tray of tacos came, and she took one more as it made the rounds.
They took their time, eating until they were full. She knew when the bellies were topped off because the conversation got louder again. And that’s when Ethan said, “So on the advice of my manager, I’m gonna be stayin’ home for a while.”
His announcement got the attention of everyone at the table.
“Two months, anyway. Durin’ that time, I plan to keep the cantina closed while we get it ready for a grand reopenin’. And after that, I’ll decide how to proceed.”
He looked down at Lily, and she saw the question in his eyes. Did she want to tell them her news, too? She bit her lip, cleared her throat. “Ethan’s hired me to help him get the place ready and manage the grand reopening.”
“What about your day-job, Sis?” Harrison asked.
“It’s…it’s been…I’ve recently decided it’s just not what I’m meant to do.” She couldn’t look at her brother when she said it. “And the time I was happiest with my work was when I was helping Dad at the diner.”
“So this is…” Harrison looked from her to Ethan and back, over and over. “It’s a long-term arrangement?”
“It’s a two-month arrangement,” Lily said, before Ethan could try to answer. “After that, we’ll recalculate.”
“But Lil, where’s the job security in that? You need to think about your future, and?—”
Maria interrupted with, “Because there’s fixin’ to be a shortage of nursin’ jobs in the next quarter?” She put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “An RN can always find work, hon. She’s okay.”
Harrison shifted his gaze to Ethan’s, and Lily saw how unhappy her brother was about all this.
Didn’t he realize that if she could’ve forced herself to keep working as a nurse, she would have?
She’d have spent the rest of her life tied up in knots at work, terrified of making a mistake that would kill someone, just to make her dad and brother happy.
Just to make them miss Mom a little less.
She’d been trying for a year to do just that. But it was no good. She couldn’t force it, and it would be wrong to try. Wrong for the patients, and wrong for her.
Ethan cleared his throat and pulled everyone’s attention back to him.
“My manager says I have to make a video.” He said it loudly enough for most of the table to hear.
“You know, to address that article. What it said, what the truth is and like that. I was supposed to have done it two days ago, but…” He ended with a palms-up gesture.
Baxter looked around the crowded place, and said, “Why don’t you do it right here?”
“Right here,” Ethan repeated, as if trying to interpret the words.
“Yeah, go on up front and talk to the locals. Tell ‘em your side of it.”
“Baxter’s right,” Willow said. “That would stop the gossip in its tracks. Just be the guy they know.”
Maria was nodding. “We could livestream it,” she said. “We can, right, Orrin?”
Orrin nodded. “Already gettin’ out my phone.”
For some reason, Ethan looked at Lily, as if wanting her opinion more than anyone else’s.
She said, “It would shift the focus from the dark stuff about your parentage to the brighter news about converting the cantina into a honky-tonk. If it works, mission accomplished.”
He looked around the packed cantina. Even as he did, Manny was climbing up onto an overturned whiskey crate in the front of the room. He had a microphone and held up his other hand for quiet.
The mariachis stopped playing and the diners stopped chattering.
“Too late,” Ethan said. “Manny’s already underway, I can’t?—”
“He’ll call you up there in a minute,” Lily said.
“Why would he do that?” Ethan asked.
“Cause you’re the new owner.”
His eyes widened at her.
“Well, it seems obvious that’s what he’s about to tell them, doesn’t it?”