9. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
“ M ore coffee?” Jovita hovered over Steve’s shoulder early the next morning in the smaller dining room.
He offered a roguish grin to the kindly older woman. “Only if it’s as sweet as you.”
“ Ay !” Jovita clicked her teeth and playfully swatted at him with the tea towel in her hand. Across the table, Camila rolled her eyes and made a disgusted sound. Jovita shushed the surly teen and filled Steve’s cup with the steaming hot coffee. She gave him a maternal pat on the back before moving toward the head of the table where Soila was losing her battle feeding Jasper.
There were more scrambled eggs on the floor and in the little boy’s hair than had reached his mouth. Jasper seemed more interested in the brightly colored pink pan dulce Beto had given him and gnawed on the fluffy bread while babbling incoherently. It wasn’t until Dina showed her nephew how to scoop up his eggs with a piece of tortilla that he decided he might want to give them a try.
Steve enjoyed the happy scene before him, but that happiness was overshadowed by fear. Last night had been a close call. Too close. He’d let his guard down. It was a mistake he wasn’t making again.
His phone vibrated in the pocket of his borrowed jeans, and he quickly excused himself from the table to take the call. As he left, he caught Dina’s curious gaze. They had only exchanged morning pleasantries since Camila’s interruption on the stairs last night. If anyone else could feel the tension, they weren’t mentioning it.
Looking for privacy, he exited out the first door he found and walked into a private courtyard with a fountain, tall topiary and flowers. The call had gone to voicemail, but he dialed the number and steeled himself for the ass chewing that was coming.
“What the hell are you doing down there, Morgan?” Bill Trejo, Company B’s Assistant Chief demanded. “I’ve got videos of you hauling a screaming teenage kid around like a sack of horse feed and now my phone is blowing up because you’ve killed someone!”
“Bill,” Steve tried to cut in as respectfully as possible, “I didn’t—.”
“You’ve got me tangled up in a goat rope here, Morgan!” Bill continued angrily. “I let you take this case because I know what it means to your family, to your mother especially. I know y’all have been waiting years to get answers about the murders of your grandparents. You were sent down there to question that kid, liaise with the DEA and then come back here to report your findings and pick up your current cases.”
“I know.” Steve couldn’t argue with any of that. “I know what I was sent down here to do.”
“Then why haven’t you come back? Why are you engaging in a high-speed chase and a shootout on a Mexican highway? This ain’t the Wild West, Morgan! We’re not out chasing bandits on our horses anymore!”
“I know.”
“You know, huh? And, yet, there you are!”
“Here I am,” Steve agreed.
Bill exhaled roughly, and Steve could see his boss in his mind’s eye, pacing his office and squeezing the hell out of that battered stress ball that sat on his desktop. “You’re suspended, Steve. Pending an investigation.”
“Understood.” Steve had expected nothing less, not after that clusterfuck last night.
“You’re to stay there in Mexico, cooperate with the authorities and return home as soon as you’re cleared. You will keep me updated.”
“Understood, sir.” Steve had behaved foolishly, but he wasn’t a fool. He was keenly aware of how big a pile of shit he’d stepped in and how close he was to losing his job or worse.
When the call ended, he tucked his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and closed his tired eyes for a moment. The burbling water soothed his raw nerves, and the scent of flowers and wet earth calmed his worries, if only for a moment.
The likelihood that he would end up in a Mexican prison was very low, but it wasn’t zero. The likelihood that he would catch a bullet was much, much higher. Almost a certainty, all things considered.
“You okay?” Lola cautiously called out as she emerged from behind a dense hedge.
“I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh.” It was early yet, and the rest of her family was still having breakfast. Not Lola. Her well-worn khaki overalls had green stains across the knees, and her boots had an inch of mud caked on the soles. She wore a baseball cap emblazoned with the family’s tequila logo, and her dark hair poked out the back in a peppy little ponytail.
“What are you doing?” He noticed the utility belt slung low on her hips and all of the gardening and landscaping tools tucked into it.
She lifted a dangerous looking crimper tool. “Broken sprinkler head and pipe that’s been flooding this section for weeks. I finally had an opening in my schedule to handle it and take some of the load off of our gardeners.”
“You like working with your hands.”
“Beto and I are more comfortable outside than inside an office.” She holstered the tool and gestured toward a bright green UTV parked under one of the courtyard’s arches. “You want a tour of the grounds? I’m headed out to my flower fields.”
“Your flower fields? I thought you only grew agave out here.”
She smirked impishly. “You’d be surprised at all the interesting things that grow out here.”
He realized what she meant and laughed. “It’s always the babies in the family, huh?”
“My parents were so exhausted after raising Rafa, Dina, Jaime and Beto that they basically let me run feral out here.” She waved for him to follow. “Come on. I’ll tell you all the juicy family secrets on the drive.”
Figuring that was an offer he couldn’t refuse, he trailed Lola to the UTV and hopped into the passenger side. Of course, she drove like a bat out of hell. As he gripped the roll cage on the vehicle, he grunted, “Shit, if you’d been driving last night, those idiots wouldn’t have ever gotten close enough to fire a shot.”
Lola cackled like a witch. “Beto taught me to drive.”
“I believe it.” He pressed an imaginary brake as she took a turn onto a gravel pathway and kicked up a cloud of dust. “Are you two pretty close?”
She nodded. “Rafa, Dina and Jaime were really close. Beto and I were like two mischievous peas in a pod.”
“I’m sorry about your brother and sister-in-law. That must have a terrible shock.”
“It was awful.” Lola shook her head and eased off the accelerator as they hit a particularly rough patch. “He was a gifted pilot. He’d been flying since he was a teenager, you know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yeah, he learned on crop dusters out in the fields and then moved up to bigger and faster planes and jets. He probably would have been happiest as an airline pilot, but the family business needed him. Family always comes first to a Farias.” Lola smiled sadly. “He wanted to do something romantic and beautiful for Maddie. It was their first vacation since having Jasper. After all the infertility and the miscarriages, they were so happy when he was born—and then...well.”
“It’s not fair.” Steve couldn’t even imagine.
“We’ve had more than our fair share of heartache in this family,” Lola said, “but we’re still luckier than most.” She let the UTV roll to a stop as they crested a hill. “I always think of this as our Pride Rock.”
Steve has spent enough time with his nieces to recognize The Lion King reference. “Everything the light touches, huh?”
“And more,” she said, her gaze fixed on the gently rolling hills and valleys that stretched as far as the eye could see. The neatly laid out rows of agave formed a satisfying pattern. Here and there, barns and other buildings occupied squares of space. Far off on the east, there were neat and tidy stripes of tract housing.
“Do all of your employees live out here?” He didn’t like the idea of having to vet every single one of them as possible accomplices to Diego.
“Anyone attached to the farming,” she confirmed. “Back when my grandfather was in charge, it was mostly families. Now, though, it’s hard to get people to stay, even with free housing and other perks. We have a lot of turnover and a very young workforce.”
“I imagine the work is tough.” He didn’t think he could hack a shift in the blazing sun, swinging a machete or hauling plants.
“It is.”
“You’re the only one in the family who works out here?” He had a hard time imaging Dina, Beto or Rafa in the fields.
“Rafa likes to come out and get dirty a few times a month.” She made a face. “Well, he did before he handed off the business to Dina and decided to move to San Antonio with Sky and Jasper.”
“Sky doesn’t want to live here?” He didn’t know anything about Rafa’s young wife other than she was beautiful and sweet and had been horribly mistreated by her father’s first wife.
“Oh, she’d love to live here!”
“But?”
“The will and all the letters.” Lola rolled her eyes. “I loved Maddie, but she was such a control freak. Like even in death, she’s still controlling Sky and Rafa.”
“How so?”
“She and Jaime wrote these letters when they drew up their will and left instructions for how Jasper was to be raised if anything happened to them.” As if seeing the morbid curiosity on his face, she explained, “Maddie had a lot of anxiety. Like a lot a lot. I’m sure writing out those instructions gave her a sense of peace, but I wonder if she knew how they would affect Sky and Jasper.”
“She probably never really believed they would be needed or used,” Steve supposed.
“Probably.”
“So, they’re staying in San Antonio then?”
“For a while,” Lola said before pressing the accelerator and continuing the drive. “Rafa will want to come back here eventually, and Jasper should be raised here like we were. This land is in our blood. It’s in his blood. He needs to grow up with this dirt under his fingernails.”
“Like his Aunt Lola?”
“Yes.” She smiled at him, and it was like looking at a younger version of her mother. “What?” she asked a bit anxiously.
“Nothing.” He offered an apologetic smile. “I was just thinking how much you look like your mom.” She wrinkled her nose, and he quickly clarified, “In a good way!”
Lola laughed. “I’ll take the compliment.”
“Well, at least someone in the family will take one,” he grumbled.
She eyed him knowingly, and her mouth curved with a mischievous grin. “Soooo,” she drew out the word with a dramatic flourish. “What’s the deal with you and my sister?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied, stone-faced.
Lola chortled. “Please. Spare me. Okay? I knew Rafa was in love with Sky for years. There’s no hiding anything from me. I can see that there’s something going on with you and Dina.”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“Bullshit.” She purposely brake-checked, and he lurched forward.
“Hey!”
“Tell me the truth or I’m going to do it again and launch you into that mound of cactus over there!”
“You are crazy!” Steve shouted as she sped up and angled the vehicle toward the dangerously spiky overgrowth. “Lola!”
“Tell me!” She sped up even more and tapped the brakes over and over, causing him to bounce wildly.
“We met at a bar in Dallas!” He flinched as the vehicle swerved so close to the pile of cacti he could smell the floral musk from some of the broken and exposed leaves.
Lola stopped the UTV and turned to gawk at him. “Shut. Up.”
Now that the truth was out, there was no denying it. “We did.”
“When?” Lola narrowed her eyes. “Oh. My. God. Last year? When she was in Dallas for that convention?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t know all those details.”
“Oh. My. God. Ohmygod.” Her jaw dropped, and she gaped at him. “Wait. It was a hookup? My sister—my perfect, modest, demure sister—hooked up with a stranger?”
Steve squirmed uncomfortably. “We met at a bar. That’s it.”
Lola looked like she’d just uncovered the juiciest secret in the world. “I knew it! I knew there was no way she was actually living like a nun since Camila was born!”
“Hey, Lola, cut it out.” Steve liked her, but he wasn’t comfortable with listening to Dina’s sister poke fun at her. “Your sister is an adult, and she’s had a hard life. If she found some happiness in a bar with a grumpy shithead like me, let her have that.”
Lola looked instantly chastised. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just being silly. I would never hold any bit of happiness against her. God knows she deserves some!”
“If Dina wanted y’all to know she and I were acquainted before all of this, she would have said something.” Steve tried not to show how much her refusal to acknowledge that hurt. “Let it go, please.”
“I won’t bring it up. I promise.” Lola might be a snarky gossip, but it was obvious she loved Dina and would do anything to protect her. “She’s my big sister. I only want her to be happy.”
“That’s all I want for her, too.”
“Is it?” she asked carefully. “What about keeping her safe?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Lola’s expression softened. “I might have been eavesdropping on your phone call.”
Steve glowered at her. “Might have?”
“Okay. I totally was,” she confessed. Worried, she asked, “Are you in a lot of trouble?”
“Here or at home?”
“Both?”
“Yes.”
“You know we won’t let you go to jail, right? After what you did to save Beto last night, my mother will move heaven and earth to make sure you get back to Texas safely and without a single charge.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I wish we could help with the work part of it.”
“I’m a big boy. I can handle whatever comes my way.” Steve stretched out his legs, easing the stiffness out of them. “I chose to stay. I could have gone back to Dallas after questioning your niece.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“Because of Dina.”
“Because of Dina,” he echoed quietly.
And I’d make that choice a thousand times over.