A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father: A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father

“Nothing,” she muttered, and Eli swiveled his stool, plunked his elbows on the counter and resumed his conversation with Christine, now serving a couple at one of the tables.

“How’s your grandmother getting on?”

“Oh, she’s fine now. She’d just forgotten to eat breakfast and fainted, was all. That reminds me—she said to thank you for cleaning out her gutters last week.”

“No problem,” he said with a bright, completely nonflir-tatious smile, then swung back around, pinning Tess with his gaze. “What?”

“Who are you?”

He laughed, then tilted his head. “I like that sweater on you.”

“Um, thanks?”

“Although…”

“Don’t even go there,” she muttered because she knew exactly where he was going. As did her nipples, which perked up quite nicely at the unspoken innuendo.

“You know, you really need to loosen up some.”

“Yeah, like it worked so well the first time.”

“And the second. And the third—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake—” Her head whipped around. “Is this the way it’s gonna be from now on?” she whispered. Savagely. “You never letting me forget my one…indi-discretion?”

Last thing she’d expected was for her voice to go rogue on her. Or for a pair of contrite golden eyes to find hers. Which didn’t at all jibe with the soft, intense, “Maybe I don’t want you to forget it,” that followed.

Christine picked that moment to return with Tess’s bagged cinnamon roll, bless her soul. Armed with her coffee and snack, Tess turned smartly on her skinny boot heel…and ran smack into some dude who’d come up behind her.

“Oh! Sorry!” she said to the cowboy as the flimsy lid flew off the coffee, which erupted all over her jacket. She yelped, wondering when she’d turned into such a klutz, as Eli grabbed her from behind to keep her from creaming the poor guy.

“You okay?” Eli asked, so gently tears crowded her eyes, which was even more ridiculous than the tingling and all that it represented. “Honey,” he said to the startled waitress, “you mind bringing us a damp cloth or something?”

But before she could scurry off, Evangelista Ortega herself appeared, three hundred pounds of take-no-crap efficiency. “Gimme your jacket,” she demanded, practically ripping it off Tess as she barked to the new girl to get another cup of coffee, for God’s sake, what was she waiting for?

Diplomacy had never been Evangelista’s thing.

Her gigantic bosoms shimmying magnificently, she carefully blotted up the coffee from the leather, blew on it until she was satisfied and handed the coat back to Tess.

“There. Good as new. But I never see you this jumpy before.” Her black gaze zeroed in on Eli. “Dios mio—don’ tell me you’re back in the picture?”

“No!” Tess said, her face flaming. “Just a coincidence, us running into each other…” She cleared her throat, which also apparently sparked An Idea. “Hey, Eva, you don’t by any chance know of anybody looking to sell their house who might need a listing agent?”

Black brows lifted. “Why you asking me?”

“Because nothing gets past you?”

Her mouth pulled down in a this-is-true expression, Eva nodded. Then sighed. “Other than that old junker up on Coyote Trail? Nada.”

“Charley Harris’s place, you mean?” Eli put in. Because he was clearly harder to get rid of than mold.

“That’s the one. His kids’ve been trying to unload it for more’n a year now.”

“Yeah, I know that place,” Tess said. “My partner had it listed for a while.”

“My cousin, she did some cleaning for the old guy who used to live there,” Evangelista said, clearly unconcerned about her other customers. “Said the inside looks like something out of a vampire movie. Guy was a real pack rat, she said, although they probably got rid of all the crap by now, if they’ve been trying to sell it. But the kitchen and bathrooms?” She rolled her eyes. “God himself couldn’t move that place. Oh, here’s your food,” she said to Eli, peering through her glasses at the ticket. “Put it on your tab?”

“Yeah,” he said, hefting the plastic bag as he slid off the stool. With a nod to Tess, he started toward the door.

“By the way,” Evangelista called, “how were those enchiladas? I tried something a little different with the sauce, did you notice?”

Shouldering the door open, Eli turned, dimples flashin’. “Can’t say as I did.”

“They weren’t too hot, then?”

His eyes touched Tess’s. “Nope, not too hot at all,” he said, then pushed his way outside.

“Man,” Evangelista said on a wistful sigh as they both watched Eli through the plate glass window as he got into his truck, “if I was twenty years younger, I would be all over that hombre.”

Blowing out a breath, Tess gathered up her replaced cup of coffee and the battered roll in its bag, refusing to meet Evangelista’s questioning gaze before hotfooting it out herself. She’d intended to head straight for the little office on Main Street she’d shared with Suzanne Jenkins, her partner; instead she headed east, toward the house in question. Normally she’d never go after one of Suz’s old listings—the real estate equivalent of dating your best friend’s ex—but times being what they were, she’d take what she could get.

As far as listings went, that is.

She pulled up in front of the secluded old adobe and got out, getting a scolding from a crow atop a nearby telephone pole, a thick layer of pine needles cushioning her footsteps as she walked up the flagstone path. From the outside, the pinon-smothered house didn’t look too bad—the adobe was solid, the pitched, tin roof seemed in fairly decent condition. On the small side, maybe, but not everybody needed or wanted a big house. And—she turned—the setting was spectacular, with great, sweeping views of sky and mountains and valley.

Location, location, location…

Shivering in the frigid breeze, Tess tiptoed around the house’s perimeter, peering inside cloudy windows, the turquoise-painted wooden trim peeling and pockmarked with dry rot…an easy-enough fix. Heck, once the trim was replaced, she could paint it herself if she had to. The inside, though…oh, dear. Even through the murky glass, she could see the outdated kitchen cabinets and countertops, the scarred, smoke-smudged walls, the worn shag carpeting in the living room.

She got back in her car, giving the poor, neglected house a final glance. Were these people off their nut? Who on earth put a house on the market in that condition? Especially these days?

Was she off her nut, even considering taking the thing on?

Twenty minutes later, she walked into the office, nearly giving Candy Stevens, their receptionist, heart failure. “What in the blue blazes are you doing here?” the well-past-forty redhead barked from behind her desk by the front door.

“Got a divine message I was supposed to come back today,” Tess said, crossing to her side of the one-room office. Dust of postapocalyptic proportions lay thick on her desk.

“You might’ve given us some warning,” Candy—whose fashion philosophy pretty much began and ended with pushup bras, fringe and Aqua Net—said, following. Today’s ensemble included a snuggly sweater, tight jeans and cowboy boots never meant to come anywhere near a horse. “I haven’t even dusted or anything over here in weeks.”

“So I noticed.” Tess set her coffee and roll on top of her printer, then shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it on the back of her chair. “Where’s Suze?”

Who, knowing her partner, would be less than thrilled by her return. Suze wasn’t real big on sharing. Except for rent and utilities.

“On vacation,” Candy said, madly taking a feather duster to shelves and things, stirring up a lot more dust than she was dispatching. “She’ll be back Monday. Oh, my goodness, honey—you got a rash or something on your neck? You’re all red—”

“It’s nothing!” Tess said, only to be suddenly squished against Candy’s copious bazooms.

“God, I missed you,” the older woman whispered, as though somebody might be eavesdropping. Then she let Tess go. “You know I love Suze to death, but she’s…”