Midnight Touch Page 6

  Noooooo! “I’m sure Kate is looking for something with a much bigger scope,” Alejo broke in. “Something that will really challenge us.”

  “Actually, I love the idea!” said Kate. “It fits right in with my background of Spinney products.”

  “Uh. But aren’t you bored with that?” Alejandro asked, a bit desperately. “Surely you want to broaden your horizons a little.” No way could he have Kate sniffing around the salon! She’d figure out what he was really doing for a living. She’d laugh. She wouldn’t respect him. She’d think he was a rosquete. He cringed.

  Kate frowned at him. “No. I think this is perfect. And you already do the accounting for After Hours, right? So you’re familiar with the numbers, which is always a good thing. Let’s do it!”

  Peg and Marly grinned like two Cheshire cats upon discovering a cream factory.

  He sent them a murderous look.

  They high-fived each other, completely unconcerned.

  Beauty Boy! Beauty Boy! The old taunt echoed through his head.

  The waitress stopped back by now that Wendell was blessedly gone and offered more coffee. Yes, please. And can you lace mine with cyanide?

  HE WAS GOING to boil Peggy in her own massage oil, Alejandro thought as he turned his Porsche into Tia Carlotta’s driveway. And he would cut off Marly’s head with her texturing shears. How could they have done that to him? The last thing he wanted was Kate anywhere near After Hours. She couldn’t find out his secret. A woman like her would never date a manicurist.

  He shut off the engine and gave the little three-bedroom house a critical once-over. He needed to oil Tia’s storm shutters and make sure the drainpipes were clear before hurricane season started up.

  Tia Carlotta opened the door before he was even on the porch. “Alejo! Como estas? Bien?”

  “Sí, bien, gracias. Y tu?” He kissed her on the cheek. Tia wore a sky-blue tunic over a black stretchy skirt, her hair pulled straight back from her face. She looked younger than her sixty-two years and credited this in equal parts to piety and Youth Dew.

  “Something smells wonderful, Tia,” Alejandro told her as he followed her into the house.

  “I made you choritos, escabeche de pescado and the cau-cau,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble, not for my poor Manuela’s boy, God rest her soul.” Whenever Tia spoke his mother’s name, which was often, she asked God to rest her soul. Alejo figured Mama’s soul had to be in a coma by now, but of course he was never so disrespectful as to say so.

  “So, you take all of this to a dinner party?” she inquired. “Who comes?”

  Alejandro shrugged. “Just a couple of friends.”

  “One of these friends is a girl?”

  He nodded, trying his best to look ultra-casual.

  “This girl, will I meet her one day?”

  He thought about Kate’s gringa, Yankee manners, and Tia’s extreme suspicion when it came to any girlfriend of his. “Maybe,” he said cautiously.

  Tia Carlotta was perfectly capable of mashing Kate’s left breast in a garlic press if she took a dislike to her and got her alone. Then again, Kate was almost certainly capable of fighting back with a meat cleaver.

  Alejo shuddered. He wasn’t eager for them to get acquainted anytime soon.

  “Maybe, he says. Maybe I take you by the ear and put you out, eh?”

  “Now, Tia,” he said soothingly. “Don’t take it that way. I only meant that I might not think she’s worthy of meeting you.”

  “I no meet a girlfriend of yours since sixteen years, your prom!”

  Alejo shrugged. “When I’m ready to get married, you’ll meet her. Until then, why would you want to? I’m not serious about her if I don’t bring her to see you.”

  She sighed in exasperation and handed him a spoon. “You taste,” she said, pushing him towards the stove.

  The cau-cau simmered away on a front burner, happily getting slimier and more rubbery in its rich yellow sauce.

  It was the consistency of tripe, the texture that most gringos couldn’t stomach. Alejo liked it, since he’d grown up on it. He took a big spoonful and blew gently on it, waiting for it to cool.

  She’d done a good job on it, as usual. Tia was a fabulous cook. “Perfecto,” he said, making noises of appreciation as he swallowed. “Esta fabuloso.”

  Tia preened. “Yes? It doesn’t need nothing? Salt? Pepper? Spice?”

  “No, no. Nothing. It is full of amor, Tia, that is enough.”

  She swatted him on the arm. “You make fun of an old woman, Alejo.”

  “I don’t,” he protested. “It’s your love, the secret ingredient, that makes it so delicious.”

  She flapped a dismissive hand at him, but her bosom swelled and she stood taller. He grinned inwardly. Women. You complimented their beauty when they were young, and their cooking when they got old. It was a simple formula to keep them happy.

  “You like this outfit, mi corazon?”

  And sometimes you compliment both. “It’s very pretty. Slimming, too. You look beautiful, Tia.” He moved on to a more serious subject. “The palm tree in the front yard—I think it’s much too close to the house, and I’m worried it will fall on your roof in the next storm. I want to get a quote for removing it.”

  She frowned. “God put the tree there. It’s not for us to take it out. If He wants it to fall, then it will be so.”

  “Yes, but, Tia, I don’t want it to fall on your head one night when you’re asleep.” Alejandro put a hand on her arm. “Isn’t it God who gave us the power-saw and the backhoe, too? Why would He have done that, if He didn’t mean for us to use them? You’ve said so yourself—God helps those who help themselves.”

  “Hmph.”

  “And God brought me here to look after you. You wouldn’t want to stand in the way of my doing that, would you?”

  She eyed him suspiciously, hands on her hips.

  He blinked, all innocence, his own hands spread and palm up in supplication.

  “Bueno. Take out the tree.”

  “Thank you, Tia. We can go to the nursery when I have a free day and find something nice to replace it.”

  They chatted some more as she loaded up all the food in disposable aluminum containers. She gave him rapid-fire instructions for how to heat it again, and asked him about a couple of investments. Then she said, “You are still serving liquor at the salon?”

  “Not liquor. Just wine and beer.”

  She shook her head and clucked. “I never hear of such a thing.”

  “That’s because it’s new. A fresh marketing angle. We stay open late and serve drinks. It’s been very popular so far, Tia. Come on, wipe the frown off your face.”

  “A salon should be a salon, and not a bar!”

  “People like it. It’s getting busier and busier.”

  “Soon you will have a massage parlor in back.”

  “Well, Peggy does give massages, but—”

  “You know what I mean, Alejo. You serve drinks, people tocar por aqui, tocar por alla, soon you have goings-on in the closet, the powder room, God only knows where.”

  He laughed. “I can promise you, mi corazon, there are no goings-on in closets. Absolutely not.” He kissed her cheek. “Please don’t worry, Tia. We have everything under control.”

  Alejandro thanked her for the food, stowed it in his Porsche and got on his way, trying not to think about having a naked Kate under his control in a closet or a powder room. He couldn’t wait to see her, even clothed and around her awful cousin.

  Chapter 7

  Kate had actually acquired a small kitchen table and four chairs from a furniture warehouse by the next day. They were streamlined, modern blond wood, some assembly required. The store had delivered them on the same day and they fit her needs perfectly, even if they weren’t up to Wendell’s standards. “Cheap and pedestrian,” he pronounced them.

  Just like a Spinney. She rolled her e
yes.

  Her mother had pronounced perms “cheap and pedestrian” back in their heyday, and when Kate had snuck out and gotten one anyway, she’d marched her by the ear back to the salon and made them straighten it again, then smooth it down with wax.

  “Why did you invite this Eric Estrada person to dinner, again?” Wendell asked, disturbing her fond memories. “You don’t have a thing for him, do you?”

  “Stop calling him Eric Estrada!” said Kate. “And we’re just classmates working on a project. Of course I don’t have a thing for him.” Especially not if he’s after my money.

  “Good. Because you can only imagine what the family would say.”

  Kate froze in the act of rinsing some lettuce and tomatoes—she figured the least she could do was make a salad. Alejandro was bringing everything else. “You know, Wendell, if I did choose to have a ‘thing’ for him, I really wouldn’t give a hoot what the bloody family said.”

  “Riiiiight. You think they’d just ignore the fact that some low-life Spic—”

  Kate gasped.

  “—was moving in on a Spinney?” Wendell laughed. “Because I can assure you, they wouldn’t.”

  Shaking with anger, Kate said evenly, “Wendell, call him a Spic again and you can get the hell out of my condo and never contact me again, you racist son of a bitch.”

  Her cousin leaned back in the kitchen chair he occupied, causing it to creak. He raised an eyebrow. “Touchy, touchy. Maybe you doooo have a thing for Al, or why would you care what I call him?”

  “Because he’s my friend,” Kate said, furious despite her own uncertainty about Alejandro’s motives for getting to know her. “And because with your expensive education, you should be a little more enlightened.”

  This time, Wendell rolled his eyes and she wished passionately that they would just fall right out of his head and Gracious would snuffle them up as an afternoon snack. But the pig was sacked out on a couch pillow, snoozing.

  Her cousin cast Gracious a glance of dislike. “Really, Kate. You probably have all kinds of vermin in here, now, because of that creature.”

  Yup. There’s one kind sitting right there, and it’s about five foot ten with pale blue eyes and an obnoxious personality.

  “You should seriously think about a goat and some chickens, just so the place will smell fab. Throw down some straw, too. Paint the door red. Sing ‘Old MacDonald’ when you get up in the morning….”

  The phone rang before Kate gutted him with a paring knife or twisted a corkscrew into his skull. It was Kevin, the clerk from the reception desk downstairs, announcing that Alejandro had arrived.

  She opened the door minutes later to find him on the other side with a large shopping bag, laden with containers of food. “Hi. Come on in. Can I take that from you?”

  “Hi, Kate.” He bent and kissed her cheek, Peruvian style. Her cousin looked on with a smirk.

  “Wendell wants a kiss, too,” she said provocatively.

  Alejandro looked alarmed. “Sorry, but I just ran out. That was my last one.” He grinned and shrugged, while behind her Wendell breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” he drawled, “because Spinney men don’t kiss men.” He looked at Kate. “Well, unless they’re her brother, Marcus.”

  “Let’s leave Marcus out of this, shall we?” Kate said as pleasantly as possible.

  “Whatever you say. Hey, something smells pretty good. I hear we’re having a Third World feast.”

  Kate closed her eyes.

  “No, we’re having a Peruvian feast,” Alejandro corrected him, a glint in his eye. “We’ll start with choritos, or baked mussels with fresh salsa. Then we’ll move on to the cau-cau, a type of…stew. And then there’s the escabeche de pescado, a pan-fried fish with vegetables on top. I brought flan for dessert.”

  “Sounds delish,” said Wendell. “Katy, shall I open a bottle of wine? Do you even have any decent wine?”

  “There are two bottles of rioja in the pantry over there.”

  Wendell pulled them out and sniffed. “Table wine? 2003? Really, Kate.”

  She considered stoning him to death with canned goods she had in the hurricane-preparedness stash. But instead, she took a deep breath. “Sorry, Wendie—I’m fresh out of vintage Lafite Rothschild.”

  Alejandro’s eyes danced. “What a shame.”

  Kate pulled three glasses from a cabinet and set them on the counter. “Do you want to just serve everything in here, Alejandro? The table’s rather small.”

  “Perfecto.” He began unloading aluminum containers from the shopping bag and setting them on the kitchen counter. “We’ll need to warm the escabeche and the cau-cau.”

  They put them into the oven and sat around the new table with their wine and some cheese. Kate tried not to look at Alejandro’s sexy, exotic mouth or the triangle of lickable brown skin bared by the open top button of his shirt.

  Her nerves were jangling, both because of Wendell’s sniping and because of her unfortunate attraction to Alejandro. She might as well admit it—she thought the man was hot. In no way did he fit the stereotype of an accountant.

  Kate tipped back a healthy amount of wine to (a) calm down, (b) keep from killing her cousin and (c) stop herself from jumping onto Alejandro’s lap and shouting, “Do me, do me, baby!”

  She’d go to jail if she killed her cousin, and Wendell was so not worth spending one’s life in jail for. As for option c, she’d be demonstrating serious lack of control, something quite alien to a Spinney.

  She was spacing out. Kate checked into the conversation again only to find Wendell pontificating about Rembrandt—Rembrandt?—a subject that he knew nothing about but had undoubtedly chosen because he didn’t think Alejandro knew anything about the artist, either.

  Alejo exchanged an amused glance with her and smothered a yawn, before he got up ostensibly to check on the food. Kate drained the rest of her wine and poured everyone some more. Then she, too, abandoned her cousin and fled for the kitchen to get out her best china: paper plates. She did have real cutlery, cheap stuff she’d bought by the dozen at a restaurant supply store. And she tore them each a paper towel to use as a napkin.

  Alejandro brought out the pan of choritos and set it in the middle of the table. “You just pick these up and eat them. They’re a little tricky, but you can use your teeth to scrape the mussel off if necessary.” He demonstrated while Wendell watched, aghast.

  Kate handed him a paper towel and grabbed a chorito, inserting it inelegantly into her mouth and gobbling down the contents of the shell. It tasted fresh and delicious, the shellfish flavor mingling with lime juice, onion, tomato and cilantro. “Yum!”

  Gracious emerged from Kate’s bedroom with a yawn, stretching her short legs. She made a beeline for the table, saw Wendell sitting there, and drew back her lips in a funny porcine snarl.

  “Get away from me,” he said, and finally picked up a chorito. Kate laughed as it stretched his mouth wide, making him look like an outraged Mr. Potato Head. Not that she and Alejandro looked any better.

  “This isn’t half-bad,” Wendell admitted. “Of course, I’ve had better in Rio.”

  “Really.” Alejandro went to Gracious and scratched her head and neck while she wiggled her nose in appreciation of the food smells. She began to drool and edged toward the kitchen. But to enter the room, she had to squeeze past Wendell. She looked at him again and snarled.

  “You’re not being very gracious, Gracious,” Kate said. She gave her a dried apricot.

  Wendell glared at the pig. “You like dining with farm animals, Eric?” he asked. “Er, Alejandro?”

  “It doesn’t bother me. She’s a very nice pig.”

  Wendell smirked. “Well, I guess you’re used to eating in barnyards, since your family hails from a Third World village, right?”

  Alejandro’s face remained impassive.

  “Don’t be a boor, Wendell,” Kate said as pleasantly as she could. “And Lima is not a village. It’s a bustli
ng, modern city, like Rio.”

  “I’ve traveled all over the world,” Wendell announced in pompous tones. “I know Lima.”

  “Ah. Then you must have had cau-cau, one of our popular dishes.” Alejandro slopped a large ladleful onto a plate.

  “Of course I have,” lied Wendell. “It’s delicious.”

  Alejandro added another ladleful. “Here you are.” He passed the plate to Wendell, then turned to Kate. “Would you care for some?”

  “You know, I think I’ll wait for the escabeche de pescado—I won’t have room for both.” Alejandro nodded and helped himself to the cau-cau. They all sat down.

  “I know you people are religious,” Wendell sniped. “Should we say grace?”

  Kate cringed, while Alejandro fought with a murderous expression and finally won. “No, that won’t be necessary, but thank you for your, ah, cultural sensitivity.”

  “Please start,” Kate urged them, raising her glass to her lips.

  Wendell took a large bite of the cau-cau.

  Alejandro did, too.

  Wendell froze mid-chew.

  Alejandro swallowed. “Wonderful,” he said, beaming at her cousin. “One of my Tia Carlotta’s best batches ever. But as a man of international cuisine, of course you recognize that.”

  Wendell’s eyes had begun to bulge, but he nodded.

  “Only sophisticated, well-traveled types such as yourself can appreciate the subtle flavors of a world-class cau-cau.”

  Wendell’s face assumed a greenish hue, and beads of sweat formed at his temples and along his sparse hairline. With a mighty effort, he swallowed what was in his mouth. “Delish,” he managed.

  Alejandro nodded and kept eating heartily.

  Kate watched with glee as Wendell’s pride demanded that he eat what was on his plate, just to prove how cosmopolitan he was. He forked up another mouthful of cau-cau and inserted it into his pie-hole.

  “You know,” Alejo told him, “I’m impressed. A lot of gringos won’t eat tripe, but you’re clearly above that.”