Pink Neon Dreams (29 page)

So far, Cecily liked Luz fine but she hadn’t
expected the question although she guessed she should’ve.
 
Meeting a parent wasn’t something she’d done
often or for years. “No, I’m from Chicago,” she said with honesty. “But I’ve
been living in Branson.”

Surprise rippled across Luz’s face. “Branson?” she
said. “I’ve been there, once, a long time ago. Did you meet my son in Branson?”

Uncertain why it would be a big deal Cecily nodded.
“Yes.”

“He was there?”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Is there some reason why he
shouldn’t be?”

Luz’s expression turned somber. “No,” she said with
slow precision. “It’s just the time I visited Branson, Daniel brought Mollie
down there to see me.
 
We took her to all
the places a little kid would like and had a fine time, but after she was gone,
he said he’d never go again.
 
He did tell
you about his daughter?”

The question seemed like a test but Cecily nodded.
“Yeah, he did.”
 
But he didn’t tell me about taking the child
to Branson.
 
In honesty she admitted
he had said he’d been there before but not when or why. Maybe the memories hurt
too much.

“I understand if he came to see you,” Luz said but
her face said she didn’t understand yet. “So had you met before?”

“No,” Cecily replied. “We met in Branson.
 
I have a shop there, Pink Neon and he came
into the store.”

“
Dios,
”
the older woman said. “Miracles do happen, then.”

“You pray hard enough for them, they should.” Daniel
appeared in the open space between the living room and a dining area. “But I
originally went to Branson on assignment, not on vacation.”

Understanding dawned on his mother’s face and Luz
glanced over at Cecily. “Yeah, he was sent to check me out,” Cecily said with a
sigh.
 

“Oh,” Luz replied, flustered. “Maybe I shouldn’t ask
any questions.”

Daniel sat down beside Cecily on the sofa. He picked
up her hand and caressed the back of it. “You can ask anything you want,
Mamacita,
” he said. “Cecily’s innocent.
 
It’s a long story, but her ex-husband got
murdered and someone tried to pin the crime on her head.
 
So far, the FBI buys it and so we left for a while
to prove the truth.
 
And I wanted to see
you and bring Cecily to meet you.”

Did he? I thought this was just
about being safe and getting away so they wouldn’t take me into custody.
 
Daniel must’ve known how he felt long before
he told me.

 
The idea
delighted her and yet the reminder of why they’d come sobered Cecily.
 
She wrapped her fingers around Daniel’s
seeking comfort and he held her hand,
then
put an arm
around her.
 
For now, she knew they’d
found sanctuary.

Chapter
Sixteen

With his nose filled with the delicious smells of
his mother’s home cooking and his arm around his woman, Daniel thought he
might’ve come as close to heaven as possible on earth.
 
Tense with the ordeal ahead, vulnerable with
his confession of love, and still mentally pinching himself with the knowledge Cecily
loved him he managed to relax in his mother’s home.

“Whatever you’re making smells great,” he told his
mother who smiled.

“Burritos tipicos,” she said, naming one of his
favorites. “And tamales,
frijoles
,
plus a pot roast with potatoes and carrots.
 
I made a wacky cake, too.”

He almost salivated with hunger.
 
A rush of affection for his mama, who’d taken
two days to prepare the feast, prompted him to say, “
Gracias
. You cooked enough for a mob.
 
Is it all just for me and Cecily?”

“Michael’s coming up,” Luz said. “I didn’t think
you’d mind.”

Daniel didn’t. “No, I’d love to see my baby brother.
How long until we eat? I’m hungry.”

Luz grinned. “I told him to be here by five.
 
It’s only three-thirty so you kids have time
to take a shower or grab a nap or whatever.”

Beside him, Cecily ran her hand down his thigh and
his blood quickened.
 
He knew what she hinted
and he’d love it, but he doubted it would happen now.
 
Later, for sure—he’d parked their bags in the
guest bedroom across from his mom’s.
 
Daniel
doubted Mama would object, either, since he noticed on the way down the hall
she’d turned the smaller bedroom into a sort of office.

Before he could answer, the telephone rang and Luz
hurried to answer it in the kitchen.

“Later,
querida,”
he told Cecily.
 
Desire moved in a lazy
spiral through his body, but he could wait. “We’ll have time for it later.”

She flipped her abundant braids back with a
flourish. “Then I’m going to take a shower and clean my hair,” she said. “It
takes a while to do it right.”

He’d wondered why she hadn’t the night before but
looking at her cornrowed hair Daniel marveled she could wash it at all without
taking all the tiny braids out. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead and I’ll visit
with mama.”

Cecily flashed him a brilliant smile and headed down
the hallway.
 
He watched her go and when
he turned around, his mother stood in the dining room wearing a grin. “So you
found a woman,” she said. “I like her,
mi
hijo.
She’s got some sand and she’s strong.”

Daniel smiled, too. “She does and she is. Who’s on
the phone?”

“So now my FBI agent son is going to question me?”
Luz said with a teasing note in her voice. “It was your brother.”

“Michael?”

“Yes,” his mother said.
 
She switched to Spanish. “Tell me about Cecily.
 
I like her very much, but are you sure she’s
innocent?”

“Very,” he said. “It’s complicated but I’m certain.”

Luz nodded. “Is she in danger? Are you?”

He waved his hand in the air to dismiss her
concerns. “Maybe but
it’s
not important. I’ll take
care of her and I can watch my own back.”

Her deep blue eyes darkened. “I think I need to pray
harder.
 
Maybe there’s time for a rosary
before your brother arrives and we eat.
 
But you love Cecily and she loves you?”

“Yes.” Daniel kept his voice soft.

His mother nodded.
 
“I see it between you and it looks real.
 
And she knows about your daughter. That’s good.
 
Secrets are bad between lovers.”

Yeah, he’d learned that the hard way. “Yes.
 
Now tell me how you are, Mama.”

A smile creased the corners of her mouth. “I’m good,
much better since I don’t work anymore, but you shouldn’t send me money.
 
You’ll need it now for you, to buy a house
and make a family.”

“Do the others send any?”

“They do, the boys more than your sisters, but they
have children to bring up. Thanks to you and Tomas the house is paid off. Tomas
has his allotment sent to me, too.
 
I get
more than enough.
 
How long are you
staying?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “I wish I did.”

Whether they’d be in El Paso a day, several days, or
a week depended on what happened.
 
He’d
decided to do nothing the remainder of the day but visit with family and enjoy
his mother’s cooking, but tomorrow would be different.
 
Daniel planned to use Cecily’s laptop and his
mother’s internet connection to check into the whereabouts of Johnson
Hamilton.
 
He hadn’t brought his FBI
issue model because he figured it’d be far easier to track.
 
Thinking about the bureau made him more than
a little nervous.
 
By now, more than
forty-eight hours after the hostile meeting in Springfield, he knew someone
would’ve attempted to get in touch with him.
 
Whether it was his boss or the head of the local satellite office, they
would be pissed.
 
Maybe I can buy a little time with the notion they can’t reach my
cell.
 
And if they come looking, they’ll
find my junk in that sleazy motel.
 
Maybe
they’ll list me as a missing person.
 
He snorted at the unlikely idea and pushed the issue out of mind.
 
He’d have this one evening to enjoy with his
family and Cecily before the shit began to splatter.

Michael drove up in a late model Ford pickup, one
shiny enough to make Daniel’s truck look like a stepchild at the family
reunion.
 
Cecily dashed from bathroom to
bedroom to dress and while he longed to follow, he headed outside instead.
 
Last time he’d seen his youngest brother,
Michael fit the description of a geeky college kid, but the young man who walked
up the drive appeared fit and prosperous as well as academic.
 
Despite the humid day, he wore a dress shirt
and a tweed jacket.
 
Daniel half-expected
a briar pipe to protrude from a pocket or to see his brother don a pair of
tortoise shell-rimmed glasses.
 
Michael
paused and stared.

“It’s me,” Daniel said.

His brother’s serious expression transformed into a
grin as he said, “I guess you’re the surprise.
 
It’s good to see you, Daniel.” He extended his hand out to shake but
Daniel ignored it.

Instead, he hugged his brother and after a moment’s
hesitation, the kid brother he hadn’t seen in far too long returned the
embrace.
 
“Didn’t Mama tell you I was
here?”

“No,” Michael said. “All she promised was home
cooking and a surprise.
 
I figured it’d
be one of us, but I didn’t expect you. Did she mention I’m spending the night?”

Unspoken the youngest Padilla managed to convey the
belief Daniel seldom returned to the nest.
 
Was it tinged with condemnation or stated with fact? Daniel wasn’t
certain.
 

“No, but I’m glad you are. I brought my lady, Cecily,”
he told his brother. He wasn’t sure what to call her—companion, lover, or
friend. Girlfriend seemed somehow juvenile although he was aware people of all
ages used the term. “Come in and meet her, then we’ll eat.”

Michael thumped his shoulder with affection and they
headed inside.
 
Cecily glanced up from
setting the dining table and smiled.
 
“Hi,” she said.

“Cecily, this is my youngest brother, Michael,”
Daniel said. “Michael, this is Cecily Brown.”

She extended her hand to Michael and they shook.
“I’m happy to meet you,” she said.

“It’s my pleasure.”

When they gathered, the four of them around the oval
table, they linked hands as Luz led them through the Catholic grace before
meals.
 
The words resonated in Daniel’s
heart, familiar and somehow comforting.
 
Each bite of his favorite foods tasted wonderful on his tongue, the
tender chuck in the burritos tipicos, the handmade tamales with their cornmeal
exterior and seasoned pork filling, the frijoles made from a traditional
recipe, and the American pot roast with all the trimmings.
 
He enjoyed watching Cecily taste his mama’s
dishes for the first time and could tell from the delighted expression she
wore, she liked what she ate.
 
By the
time his mother served the wacky cake, a rich chocolate cake made with the ‘secret’
ingredient of vinegar, Daniel thought he’d burst or get a bellyache, but he
wasn’t complaining.
 
He enjoyed the
homey, humble conversation almost as much as the cuisine.

After the dishes were washed and put away, they
settled down in the living room, Luz in her recliner, Michael in the other arm
chair, and Cecily curled against Daniel’s side on the couch.
 
Mama enjoyed television programs and Daniel
had been afraid they’d have to sit through some reality show or network sitcoms.
Instead, they watched vintage television shows dating long before his
birth.
 
Full and more laidback than he
could recall being in a very long time, Daniel was content to watch the
suburban witch Samantha Stevens wrinkle her nose and the ditzy genie from a
bottle, Jeannie, devil astronaut Tony Nelson with her antics.

Although he’d never lived in this house, his mother
carted most of her long-time possessions along when she moved from Fort Worth
so most of the furniture, the same old lamps, the knickknacks arranged on the
entertainment center, and the pictures hung on the wall were all familiar.
 
The humble aromas lingering from the meal
were those of childhood, of comfort and foundations.
 
He inhaled the scents with pleasure and the
meal lay easy within his stomach although the combination of being full and the
warm room made him sleepy.
 
He never
experienced this kind of contentment or sense of belonging in his sparse
apartment, but he’d flirted with a hint of it at Cecily’s.
 
Experiencing the real deal grounded him and
soothed some of his worries although he knew, as an adult and a law enforcement
professional, safety and security were both fleeting.
Don’t think about tomorrow, enjoy this evening.
 
At one time or another, they all laughed at
some of the comic moments, but when the hour grew late, Michael sat up. “Mama,
tell me where I’m sleeping,” he said. “I need to bring my kit in from the
truck.”