Chapter 26
CHAPTER
I trudged home that evening, feeling emotionally drained but happy that we’d made such strong progress in the fourteen hours since we’d caught the Shay Mansion homicide investigation.
Sampson and I were not entirely sure that Guillermo Costa was walking the straight and narrow. Still, I thought, the guy sure knows a lot about—
All thoughts of the ex-con, the murdered boy, and his shattered mother fled as I reached the front door and smelled a familiar aroma.
Before going in, I closed my eyes to savor the glorious scents pouring out.
As I opened the door, the river of smells became a wave and then a flood that carried me straight into the kitchen, where Maria was stirring a pot on the stove.
“Daddy!” Damon called from his high chair. His face held evidence of every item he’d eaten, from applesauce to ground meat to squash.
“Damon!” I cried. I managed to kiss him without getting the remnants of his meal on my chin and went over to Maria. I looked into the simmering pot, put my hand over my heart, and moaned. “Your mother’s secret spaghetti sauce. Welcome back, old friend. Welcome back.”
“Hey, what about me?” Maria said, feigning hurt.
“I am always about you.”
“Is that right?” She set down her spoon and embraced me, her belly bumping mine.
“Always,” I said. “I am here to protect my queen and give her what she needs.”
Maria squeezed me. “And I’m here for you in every way I can think of, Alex.”
“Mommy?” Damon said.
“Hold on, kiddo,” she said, peering up at me. “Long day for you?”
“Tough day,” I said.
“Tell me what you can while we eat.”
“Mommy? I finish!”
“Okay, baby. Peaches now,” she told Damon, breaking our embrace. In short order, Maria had diced peaches in Damon’s bowl, and our pasta was steaming on plates on the table. My boy loved peaches and wolfed them down, ignoring us.
I took a bite of the spaghetti with Maria’s mom’s incredible secret sauce and groaned with pleasure. “What is it? What is it that makes it so good?”
“Can’t tell you.”
“I’m your husband. Your soulmate. You won’t share the secret with me?”
Maria set down her fork and gazed at me with a dead-serious expression. “If I gave you the recipe, you could leave me.”
“What? I would never leave you.”
“But if you knew the secrets of the sauce, you could.”
“Are you telling me you think that’s all that’s keeping us together?”
“Not even close. The sauce is just part of the…”
“What?”
I could tell she was trying not to laugh, but then she did and flashed her eyes in that way that always melted me. “The sauce is part of the spell I weave over you.”
“You are mesmerizing,” I said. “And you do weave a spell over me.”
“Good,” she said. “So forget about how the sauce is made and how the spell is cast and just enjoy.”