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

He swerved to avoid the small, ghostlike figure who’d popped up out of nowhere, jogging on the wrong damn side of the road. The figure shrieked, then toppled over into a thicket of brush and chamisa, cussing in a mixture of Spanish and English loud enough to blow poor Willie right off the map.

All the junk in the truck bed crashed mightily as Eli jerked up short on the shoulder ahead and jumped out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you!” he yelled, striding toward the figure, already getting to her feet. “You okay?” In the glow from his taillights, she spun around, glaring, and what was left of Eli’s good mood evaporated like smoke in a high wind.

He froze, unsure of his next move. Recognizing him, Teresa Morales—wrong, Montoya—stiffened, too, a moment before a dry, caustic laugh sprang from her mouth. Eli relaxed. Some.

“Holy hell, Tess—you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Swiping dirt, dead leaves and chamisa gunk off her butt, Tess shot him The Look of Death. “Yeah, well,” she said, “you didn’t exactly do my cardiovascular system any favors, either. Crap.” Shoving a headband off her short, wavy hair, she plunked back down in the dirt, inspecting an ugly-ass dark slash on her shin. “Am I bleeding? I can’t see a damn thing in this light.”

“If I look, you promise not to go after me with a blunt object?”

Her eyes flashed to his, then back to the cut. “It’s your lucky day—I’m unarmed.”

“You sure? That headband looks kinda dangerous—”

“Geez, Eli—just look at my leg, okay?”

Eli squatted beside her, trying not to react to her scent, the same one that used to make his eyes cross as a horny seventeen-year-old. That threatened to short out his brain now. Especially when he yanked up her leg to get a better look and came into contact with all that cool, smooth skin—

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Rubbing the underside of her calf, a little. Noticing she’d recently shaved. Or waxed. Or something. Stubble, the curse of the dark-haired, she’d said. “Yeah, you’re bleeding all right. Must’ve been a branch or something stickin’ out, scratched you up pretty good. What in tarnation were you doing runnin’ this time of night? And why on earth were you way out here?”

“It was still daylight when I started,” she muttered, digging a tissue out of her body-hugging, light-colored jacket. “And I didn’t mean to run this far—or even run at all, I’d just gone for a walk—but it sorta got away from me.” He noticed her hand trembling as she dabbed at the blood, like most of the fight had gone out of her.

Like a woman still stinging from her recent divorce, maybe?

Eli sighed. “Hold on, I’ve got paper towels and water in the truck.”

Amazingly, she was still there when he returned, her forehead propped on her arms, folded across her knees. Knowing Tess, he’d half expected to see her hobbling down the road, muttering, “Don’t need no stinkin’ help from no stinkin’, stupid ex-boyfriends.” He handed her a soaked towel. “Here.”

She jerked her head up like she’d forgotten about him, then took the damp towel and pressed it to the wound, clearly holding back a wince. A single tear dribbled down her cheek, looking like blood itself in the red glow. She shouldered it away.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, then released a breath, her mouth set. “Really,” she said, more softly, and it was everything he could do not to call her on the obvious lie.

Eli sat back on his haunches, trying to reconcile what he saw in front of him with both the carefree sixteen-year-old girl his hormone-crazed younger self had been crazy in love with and the sharp, confident businesswoman she’d become over the past few years. Or so he’d heard, since they’d barely exchanged ten words since Eli’s Big Screwup.

Even so, in a town like Tierra Rosa you could go for years without talking to somebody and still know every detail of their lives. Either you’d overhear something, or some kind soul would fill you in, or you’d notice things with your own two eyes. Things you kept to yourself, no matter how much they might be killing you inside.

“Where’s the kids?” he asked, exchanging the bloodied towel for a clean one.

“In Albuquerque. With their father,” Tess said through a grimace. She glanced at him, just long enough for him to catch the anger-tinged shadows in her eyes, then back at her leg, pressing the towel to the wound. “Yesterday would have been our ninth anniversary.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged. Lifted the towel. “You think it’s stopped?”

“Can’t really tell in the dark. Can you walk?”

“Of course I can walk,” she said, rising and putting her weight on her foot. Doing the stoic thing.

“Come on, I’ll take you back to my place and get you patched up.”

Clearly gritting her teeth, Tess took another step. Swore under her breath. “How about you take me home instead?”

“Because something tells me you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Even in the dark, he felt the full force of her glare. Caught the pain behind it, too. And not just because of her leg. “And I don’t recall asking for your input. If you don’t want to give me a lift, I’ll get back on my own steam.”

“Before next Sunday?”

The glare intensified. Eli almost laughed. “Tell you what—how about we go back to my place and get the dirt cleaned out of that scratch, then I’ll take you home?” When she still hesitated, he said, “Might even rustle up a slug of whiskey from somewhere.”

“Why? In case you need to amputate?”

“Never hurts to be prepared.”

Muttering something about “damn Boy Scouts,” Tess started for the truck. Eli tried to put his arm around her waist, got his hand smacked for the trouble. Of course, she then limped the ten feet to the passenger-side door, leaning against the extended cab for dear life while Eli shifted the enchiladas so she’d have some place to sit. Once settled in her seat, however, she emitted a sound that was half sigh, half moan.

“Those Eva’s enchiladas?” she asked.

“They are.” Huh. “When’s the last time you ate?”

Tess erased the frown before—she thought—Eli noticed it. “A while ago.”

Thinking, Women, sheesh, Eli slammed shut her door and walked around the truck’s hood. Got in. “I got no problem sharing.”

“That’s okay, I’m fine.”

Shaking his head, he pulled back out onto the road. “Your stomach might take issue with you on that.”

Tess crossed her arms over her loudly rumbling middle. “There’s food at home.”

Eli decided to quit while he still had all his crucial body parts.

It didn’t take but a couple of minutes to get to his place, a nondescript pseudo-adobe number he’d bought some time ago, close to a much larger building that housed the family woodworking and cabinetry business, which in turn was maybe fifty yards away from his parents’ house. Award-worthy? God, no. Affordable and convenient? You bet.

Tess slid out of the truck on her own steam—big surprise, there—taking a second to either get her bearings or scrutinize the house. Maybe both.

“Hard to get the full effect in the dark,” he said, carting the enchiladas past her, figuring she’d hobble behind when she was ready.

“I’m sure,” she muttered. Hobbling along behind.

Eventually she made it inside the house. “Huh,” she said, although to the open space—the result of his knocking out a bunch of non-load-bearing walls after he’d first bought the place—or the lack of Clueless Bachelor clutter, he couldn’t say.

“Yeah, good thing the maid came today,” he said, carting the enchiladas to the kitchen.