Yours to Keep (8 page)

Ana looked up. A slow smile spread across her face, starting at her mouth and moving to her eyes. Her teeth flashed white, and her eyes lit up. Ethan smiled back, unable to stop himself. A lazy happiness bloomed in him. She was here, and she was as happy to see him as he was to see her.

Oh, he was in trouble.

“I hope you don’t mind.” She gestured toward the stove. Three pots simmered there, covered. “Theo was studying cooking in this unit, so I thought it would be good to do some hands-on. I brought all the ingredients. And Theo said he usually does the dishes, so I hope I haven’t made any extra work for you.” She dipped her chin.

He shook his head. Her long, straight hair gleamed dark on her crown. He wanted to put his hands in it. Both hands. Lift her face to his. His chest tightened with desire.

“I was hoping it would mean less work for you if you didn’t have to worry about making dinner.” She was nervous, he realized. “It’s red beans and rice. If that’s not enough, you can always throw some chicken in. Theo said you always have chicken in the freezer for emergencies.”

“It’s wonderful.” He turned away from the intensity of his own reaction and her worried scrutiny. He went to the stove and lifted one lid, then another. Fragrant steam, spicy and exotic, rose from the red-bean stew. “It’s amazing. It doesn’t need chicken. It doesn’t need anything.”

“It might need salt. I chronically undersalt.” She stood and began to pack up her things. “Anyway, I’ll leave you two to it. Enjoy.”

He set the lid back on the pot and turned quickly to see if she was serious. She slid a notebook into her backpack.

Theo stared at Ana incredulously. “You’re not staying?”

“You’re kidding!” Ethan said.

Ana looked quickly from Theo to Ethan.

“You’ve got to stay. You cooked it. You should enjoy it.” He wanted her to stay. Whether it was a good idea or not. He couldn’t imagine wanting anything more. She wore tight jeans, a fitted gray long-sleeved T-shirt, and boots. Her lashes were thick, her lower lip
glossy and full. His teeth ached, looking at that lower lip.

She shook her head. “I can’t. I have to teach. It takes awhile to get there. I have to take the shuttle and a bus.”

“You teach at night?” Theo said, at the same time Ethan asked, “What do you teach?”

“I teach adults English as a second language. Their schedules can be pretty crazy—multiple jobs and night shifts—so I teach in the morning and the evening.”

So she tutored
and
taught? Did she have any downtime? He knew nothing about her life, he realized, but he was starting to suspect that money was an issue. Maybe that’s why she wanted to be paid in cash. Less lost to taxes.

“How far away is it?” Theo asked eagerly. “Would it be faster if you didn’t have to take that shuttle? We could drive you.”

She hesitated with her hand on the zipper of her pack.

“Where do you need to get to?” Ethan asked her. “What time?”

Her chin came up a fraction of an inch. “Duarte Elementary. On Adams Street, in Hawthorne. By seven-thirty.”

“What is that—fifteen, twenty minutes away?”

She nodded.

“That’s not far at all. I can drive you there. Stay.”

Her glance flickered between them, then to the door, as if she were contemplating her options. In the fitted shirt, the contours of Ana’s body were sleek and obvious. Above the neckline, Ethan could see the topmost curve of her breasts. The shirt clung to her arms and narrow waist, flared over her hips. He wanted to put his hands right there, where narrow swerved to flare, and draw her close. Instead, he touched her arm. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the fabric, warmth that crept over his own skin and surged through his body. “Please stay.”

Her eyes met his, wide with surprise and something else, an echo of his feelings.

“Okay.” She smiled again, not her whole-face sparkling smile but a sweet closemouthed one that pursed her lips and made him want to lean in and touch his mouth to hers.

She watched Ethan’s face when he put the first bite of
habichuelas
into his mouth. She saw
surprise—that would be the cilantro—and pleasure. “Mmm,” he said, and her pulse sped up. She’d underestimated how much she’d enjoy feeding him.

His shoulder was six inches from hers, emanating heat.

Across the table, Theo grinned. “It’s good. I didn’t think I liked beans. But I like this.”

“Thank you.”

She was glad to be here with them, but she was unsure about what the hell she was doing. Ethan had almost kissed her the other day. The look on his face when he touched her arm earlier had been unmistakably, gloriously covetous. It had sent a thrill all through her. But that was dumb and crazy, right? She had excellent—the very best—reasons not to let anything happen between them. And yet she was here.

Ethan ate gravely, giving her meal its full due. She bet that was the way he did everything.

She bet that was the way he made love.

Where had that thought come from?

Oh, she knew. From the depths of her sex-deprived brain, egged on by the vibrations he seemed to set up in the air all around her.

She put a cool palm to her cheek, willing herself to calm down.

“Is this something you cook at home?” Ethan gestured at the plate with his fork.

“It’s my mother’s recipe.”

“Do you live with your mother?” Theo asked.

Her stomach clenched, as it always did when she thought of her mother.

“Theo,” cautioned Ethan. He shot her a worried glance.

“My mother’s dead,” Ana said.

“Mine, too,” Theo said earnestly.

She’d known that, but hearing it said aloud filled her with fresh grief, for the younger Theo and for herself. “How old were you when your mom died?” she asked him. She sneaked a look at Ethan, who gave her a tight nod.

“Seven. She had lymphoma. I don’t remember her very well. I remember some things, like her tucking me into bed, and some games she used to play with me before she got sick.”

“I was eight when my mom died,” she said. “I remember her pretty well. She was very sick the last year, though.”

“Mine, too,” Theo said. “I don’t really remember that part, though.”

Ethan made a tiny, startled noise. Ana’s eyes sought his, saw a mirror of her pain there. He gave her a lopsided smile.

“Do you have kids?” Theo asked her.

“Theo,” his father said again.

Theo made her want to laugh. He reminded her so much of Marco. There was an adult quality to his ease with small talk. It made a fine contrast with his childlike ignorance of what was appropriate conversation.

Theo’s eyes had narrowed at his father’s intervention. “What?”

“It’s not a polite question.”

“You’re too worried about being polite.”

Anger flared in the green of Ethan’s eyes, and the lines at the bridge of his nose deepened.

“Your dad’s got a point. Some people want kids and can’t have them, so it hurts when they have to answer a question like that. But I don’t mind that you asked. I don’t have kids, but I have a niece and two nephews. I live with them. With my niece, my nephews, my brother, and my sister.” She hadn’t exactly meant to spill all that, but there it was.

“That’s a lot of people,” Theo said. “All in one house?”

She felt Ethan shift beside her, ready to call Theo off again. “It’s an apartment. Two bedrooms. One bathroom.”

She saw the exact moment when that registered with Ethan, the look of disbelief that came over his face.
Well,
she thought,
that’s that.
He’d had no idea how different their worlds were, but now he knew.

“Three women and one bathroom?” he asked.

Of all the things he could have said, or asked, she was not expecting that one. She’d thought he might make a sympathetic murmur. Or ask a question like “Is that difficult, so many people in such a small space?” Or blush and change the subject.

He’d done none of those things.

She liked him so much right then, she could feel it in every cell, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair.

Chapter 7

“I’m sorry about all Theo’s questions at dinner,” Ethan said.
Embarrassed
might actually be a more accurate word, but, whatever you called it, he owed her an apology. “We seem determined to make you squirm every time you visit our house.”

She was washing dishes. Ethan was drying. Theo was upstairs doing his homework.

Ethan had offered to wash, since she’d cooked, but she said it made more sense this way, since he knew where things went. She’d filled the sink with hot water and suds, and she scrubbed, her sleeves pushed way up to reveal slim pale brown arms. He’d had ample time, too much time, to regard the back view of her, the impossible narrowness of her waist and the sweet curve of her behind in those body-hugging jeans, which made him want to fit himself against her. Now, though, he was watching her face.

She looked surprised by his apology. “I didn’t mind. People are always asking me questions. Or the opposite—pretending they don’t have any questions when I know they’re brimming over with them. Especially when I’m in Beacon. I’m exotic here.”

He supposed she was, although he wouldn’t have chosen that word. Despite everything he’d learned about her, she felt more familiar to him than the women he encountered daily.

“Beacon doesn’t have a lot of families of six living in apartments,” he admitted.

She smiled widely at that. “No.”

“Or people with the last name Travares.” He picked up a serving bowl and began drying it.

“No. Not very many Dominicans. Not very many Latinos. Not very many families with three adults working five jobs.”

“Wow. Not five
each
?”

“God, no. Among us.” She tossed her head, and the long, thick strands of her gorgeous hair resettled around her shoulders.

He wanted to reach out and touch it, to see if it felt as smooth and soft as it looked. “You’re right,” he said instead. “Not many Beacon families with three adults working five
jobs. Although I do know this one family where the father is a programmer and a musician and a piano teacher and the mother is a freelance journalist and has a mail-order cookie service.” He hung a skillet back on the pot rack above the stove. “Or are those more like hobbies?”

“Hobbies.”

His gaze traced the curve of her behind again, and his mouth went dry. “Do you have hobbies?” His voice, despite his thoughts, was steady and calm, and he willed his body to follow suit. Otherwise, he was going to reach out and grab that lovely ass of hers, and once he put his hands on her—

“No time. Two jobs.”

He swallowed and licked his lips. “The tutoring and the ESL teaching?”

She nodded.

“Do you work for a particular school with the ESL teaching?”

“The school of Ana. I put flyers up in the library. You wouldn’t believe how many people want to learn English, and I think it helps that it’s my second language, so I’m ‘one of them.’ ”

“You’re an entrepreneur,” he said, impressed.

She laughed. “Never thought of it that way, but I guess I am.”

He was beginning to suspect that each revelation she made hid more mysteries. Why, for example, didn’t she teach in a public school, or at least for an established company? Getting her own students couldn’t be easy. He guessed that she didn’t have a teaching degree. Maybe she didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree. Her family sounded painfully poor; it probably hadn’t been in the cards. But if she wasn’t going to volunteer that information, he wasn’t going to pry. “You must be really good at it, if what I’ve seen is any indication.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I love teaching.” She handed him a dripping spatula. His fingertips touched hers. He almost grabbed her hand. He’d draw her close and—

He could. He could do it. He knew how much he liked her now. And Theo obviously adored her.

That was part of the problem, of course. Things had been good since she came into their lives, and now he owed it to Theo not to mess everything up. Not to rock the boat. What if he made a move on Ana and she reacted the way she’d reacted to Ed Branch, and refused to
tutor Theo anymore?

He pulled his hand back and took a deep breath that did nothing to cool the burn he was feeling. He dried the spatula and slid it into the drawer.

“What about you?” She submerged her hands again, seeking another dish. “What do you do?”

“I’m a pediatrician.” He watched her closely. Women usually reacted, one way or the other, to that piece of information. Some of them had been raised to think that marrying a doctor was a legitimate personal goal. Others believed that doctors were snobby. Or too busy for families. They were rarely neutral on the subject.

All she said was, “I bet that never gets boring.”

“Never.”

“Sometime I’ll make you tell me stories. When I’m not up to my elbows.”

“I will. You’ll have to shut me up. I could talk all night.”

That left a hollow moment of silence in the kitchen, while Ethan contemplated the idea of a conversation with Ana that went on all night.

“Any hobbies?” she asked.

“I watch football. Does that count?”

She laughed, a flash of white teeth and dark eyes. “You like football? Marco and Angel, my nephews, both play. My brother was hoping they’d play baseball—it’s more Dominican, and he’s a crazy baseball buff—but no such luck.”

“It’s probably a good thing Theo doesn’t play,” Ethan said. “I played in high school, but now that I’m a pediatrician it would scare the heck out of me. I’ve seen too many head traumas.” He’d tried never to show any outward disappointment at Theo’s lack of interest in the game, but he’d always secretly wished for a son who played.

“Scares me a little,” Ana admitted. “Every time I go to one of Marco’s games. All those helmets cracking.” She’d finished washing the last of the dishes and had let the water out of the sink. She swiped at the sides with her sponge and bent over to empty the drain stopper into the trash. An enticing crescent of bare skin slipped into view between her shirt and her jeans, and his groin tightened painfully.

What the hell had they been talking about? He shook his head to clear it. Football. “There shouldn’t be helmets cracking in high-school football. There shouldn’t be helmets
cracking in the NFL, for God’s sake.”