Sizzle All Day (43 page)

So Chrissy had been spending her evenings listening to this charlatan's drivel? Cole heaved a disgusted sigh. Apparently Christina Elizabeth Delaney had managed to do something exceptionally stupid this time. Considering her vast experience with idiotic acts, surpassing previous efforts took some doing.

The girl had been a pest all her life. She used to drive him and Jake crazy when they were children, trailing at the older boys' heels from the day she learned to walk. By the time she'd turned six, they'd dubbed her "Bug."

Somewhere between the age of nine and twelve her adulation for her brother and his friend had evolved into competition toward them. That's when the more serious trouble started. Dressed as a boy, she once entered a horse race and ran against them both. Beat them, too. He and Jake had had a hard time living that one down. Then there was the time she played that outhouse prank on the headmaster of Royal Oaks Boys' School and set Cole and her brother up to take the blame. Such incidents went on for months until the night she followed them to the Gentleman's Club and got an eyewitness education of what the world's oldest profession was all about.

One good thing came out of that night, however. The Delaneys sent Christina back east to finishing school, and they'd all enjoyed three years of relative peace prior to her return.

Those
Yankees had finished Christina, all right,
Cole thought darkly. A tomboy had traveled north. A certified flirt made the trip back south. Over the course of the past five years since coming home to San Antonio, she'd broken seven marriage engagements, innumerable hearts, and now, by the looks of things, the backbone of her brother's patience.

Cole didn't ask whether Jake wanted his help. Instead he climbed into the shotgun seat of the coal-box buggy and waited for his friend to take the reins.

After a good five minutes of brooding silence while he drove toward the plaza, Jake started talking. "I can't believe her. Ever since Pa died, she's acted wild as a turpentined cat. Why does she have to be so different from other girls? Did my family make it happen? Did the Yankees do it to her? What do you think, Cole?"

What Cole thought was that he should choose his words carefully. Instead, as usual, he was blunt. "She's wild because you've let her get away with it. The girl has played you like a hoedown fiddle since the day we buried your father. You should have taken her in hand years ago, Jake."

"I know," he acknowledged with a sigh. "I just felt so guilty."

"You shouldn't. Your father sent her off to school, not you. She shouldn't have followed us to the whorehouse."

"You know how close she and Father were. She missed sharing the last three years of his life because I told him what she did."

"No." Cole resisted the urge to slap some sense into his friend and instead replied in a patient tone. "No, she missed sharing the last years of your father's life due to her own actions. You are not the responsible party, Jake. She is."

He shrugged, but sat a little taller in his seat. They rode in silence another few minutes until they passed one of the local Catholic churches. Cole's grin was wry as he cocked his head toward the front doors. "I still say it could be worse. She could be at Frank Simpson's wedding causing a scene."

Jake shut his eyes and shuddered at the thought.

One of Chrissy's old fiancés was getting married tonight. Cole wouldn't put it past her to waltz into the church and tell ol' Frank she'd changed her mind and wanted him after all. The fool would take her back, Cole knew, even at the altar in front of the priest.

Because Christina Elizabeth Delaney was beautiful. Punch-in-the-gut gorgeous. Cole wasn't exactly certain when the gangly, gawky girl had been transformed into a well-rounded woman with thick, fiery hair, warm malachite eyes, and full, pouty lips that begged a man's kiss. All he knew was that one day he looked up and there she was, breathtaking and alluring.

It had been a disconcerting moment for Cole.

Luckily, his knowledge of her true nature kept him thinking straight. He'd realized long ago that a good disposition in a woman was much more important to a man's happiness than physical beauty. Christina's own mother was responsible for the lesson. To Cole's mind, Elizabeth Delaney was as near to perfection as a woman could be. She was charming, witty, gracious and graceful. Her manners were impeccable, her social skills unsurpassed. She was a Lady with a capital L and Cole had honored and respected her all his life. He hoped when he was ready to marry he could find a woman much like Elizabeth Delaney.

He observed aloud, "Isn't it curious how different your sister is from your mother? One would think two females in the same family would be a good deal more alike."

Jake snorted. "They're as alike as night and day. Of course, Mother was reared in England, so that probably accounts for some of the difference. Remember those stories Pa used to tell about my grandfather? 'Strict disciplinarian' doesn't begin to describe it." After a moment's thought, he added, "You know, I've never looked at it this way before. It truly is amazing to think that Mother and Chrissy belong to the same family. I mean, can you even begin to picture my mother joining the Chili Queens?"

"About as well as I can picture your Christina taking tea with the Queen of England." After a moment's pause, he added, "That word makes me shudder."

"Queen?"

"No. The other one."

"England." Jake considered it a moment, then shrugged. "It'll be fine, Cole. You'll track down our missing Declaration. I have faith in you." Then Jake's mouth settled into a glum smile and he added, "Shoot, I think you have the better end of the stick. You get to travel to England and maybe see their queen. I have to stay here and deal with ours."

Cole nodded. Christina Elizabeth Delaney, Chili Queen of San Antonio, Texas. "It's enough to turn a man off beans, isn't it?"

* * *

Christina Delaney laughed as she whirled across the plaza to the tune of the Mexican street band.

Wearing a white peasant blouse and a flowing scarlet skirt, she flashed a smile at the handsome vaquero who was her partner and lifted her hands above her head to clap in time to the beat. She loved to dance. She loved to lose herself in music, to feel the rhythm of the song deep within her soul. When she danced, she felt free to be herself.

Chrissy especially loved that feeling.

The yen for freedom had been a part of her since childhood, and she suspected it had its roots in the innumerable times she had watched her brother and Cole go off on an adventure while she was made to stay behind in deference to her gender. For a long, long time she had hated being a girl. She'd tried to deny her femininity, to overcome the liability of being female. Then, in a series of experiences that began with a broken heart and ended with her first severed engagement, she learned the power of being a woman.

After that, Chrissy embraced her womanhood with enthusiasm.

As the song ended, she hugged her dance partner, accepted his kiss on the cheek, then took up with another man for the next dance as the music started anew. She knew she acted recklessly, knew she'd launch San Antonio society tongues wagging with the scandal, but she truly didn't care. The last battle with her mother had driven her to it.

For months she'd tried to conform to Elizabeth's wishes. She'd dressed respectably, acted properly, and tried to get along. She'd even joined the Garden Club despite the fact the flowers they surrounded themselves with invariably made her sneeze. She had felt trapped like a frisky filly in a small corral, but she'd given it her best effort.

Did her mother notice? Hardly. Did she praise Chrissy's efforts? Seldom. Did she ever tell her she loved her? Never. Not ever. Not once in Chrissy's recollection.

On the other hand, Elizabeth Delaney sure managed to notice and express her disapproval when Chrissy did something so objectionable as to attend the Garden Club meeting with her hair down. From her mother's reaction, you'd have thought she'd committed the crime of the century. Chrissy had reached the end of her rope. She quit trying to be what she was not. She might have been born to Society, but she fit better with those down here in the plaza.

Plaza de Las Armas, or Military Plaza, was an open-air bazaar for hucksters, nighthawks, and peddlers at whose stands might be purchased everything from a pair of spectacles to a serape. But the features which made Military Plaza different from other city squares in the South were the open-air restaurants serving chili con carne and other pungent Mexican dishes to customers seated on small benches around cloth-draped tables. Lanterns and smoldering mesquite fires provided the light. Raven-haired senoritas waited tables and sang out to the cooks:
"Un medio tamales y chili gravey, un plata frijoles, un enchilada y tassa cafe."

One stand, however, proved different from the rest. While most of the queens were of Spanish descent, Anglo-Saxon aggressiveness had asserted itself and, this very night, had earned for a certain red-haired, light-eyed woman the acknowledgment of queen of all queens. As announced by the official tabulator a short time ago, on account of her beauty, vivacity, aptitude of repartee, and of course, the superior quality of her chili, Miss Chrissy Delaney had been voted Queen of the Chili Queens of San Antonio, Texas.

Chrissy had started to cry. Acceptance. What a delicious dish.

Then, the band had struck up the music, vaqueros tossed down their sombreros, and Chrissy began to dance. Forty-five minutes later she was still dancing, barefoot now, her eyes alight, her face flushed, and her smile as wide as the West Texas plain. She swished her skirt, showed a little ankle, threw a few kisses, and glanced up to see her brother and his starched-shirt, disapproving, hypocritical sidekick, Cole I'm-perfect-and- you're-not Morgan.

Chrissy stumbled a step as the night's magic evaporated and frustration took its place. She'd known they'd learn of her chili stand eventually. In fact, she'd planned on it.

But she hadn't planned on it being tonight. Her strategy involved sitting down with facts and figures in hand to help her present an unassailable argument why she should be allowed to continue the chili stand. The boys showing up in the midst of a barefooted hat dance wasn't on her agenda anywhere.

Just my luck.
Why did it have to be tonight? Couldn't she have had just this one evening of fun and freedom?

"Apparently not."

"What did you say, sweetheart?" asked the monte dealer with whom she was dancing.

Ignoring the card sharp, she glanced back toward her brother. He had that avenging angel look about him again. The words she'd heard all her life from him and from her parents echoed through her mind.
You're a Delaney, Christina, and Delaneys have a reputation to uphold.

She turned back to her dance partner, smiled, and said, "I must think of my reputation." Then she grabbed him by the flashy satin lapels, yanked him toward her, and planted a kiss right on his lips.

The sound she heard behind her could have been a volcano blowing its top, but since San Antonio didn't have any volcanoes, she thought it might be her brother. Or maybe Cole.

She ended the scandalous public kiss with a flourish and flashed a saucy smile around the catcalling crowd. Then, adopting a regal mein in keeping with her newly crowned status, she glided over to her chili stand and took up her scepter, otherwise known as a ladle, and prepared to meet the enemy.

* * *

She kissed that rogue. In public.

Cole was shocked. Jake was obviously in a similar state because when they reached the chili stand, he simply stood there, his mouth working like a fish out of water. Cole had to take control.

Any tolerance he'd had concerning this situation had evaporated the moment Christina locked her lips on the gambler. He wanted to yell, but thought it best to avoid adding fuel to the gossip fire so he clipped out his words in a low, threatening tone. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Serving up chili con carne, of course," Chrissy replied, accompanying her words with a casual wave of her hand. The one holding the ladle.

A dark, orange-red chili stain blossomed on Cole's favorite white shirt. He rolled his tongue around his mouth to keep from saying something ugly and calmly removed his handkerchief from his jacket pocket, then wiped the spot.

Chrissy picked up a plate, lifted her chin, and said, "Chili, beans, with a tortilla on the side costs a dime. You can pay me later."

"I don't want your chili."

"Then don't stand in my line."

Jake found his voice. "Chrissy, you are supposed to be at the San Antonio Young Ladies' Sewing Circle. This is... this is... awful."

Anger snapped in her eyes as she looked at her brother. "How can you judge what you haven't tasted? My chili is the best on the plaza. My customers voted it so." She ladled a spoonful of the thick, aromatic mixture onto a plate, added a fork and shoved it at Jake. "Here, see for yourself."

"We've seen all we need to see." Cole swept her with a raking gaze. She looked like a strumpet in her Mexican skirt and blouse, her hair loose and flowing and mussed from the dance.

A disturbing thought struck. Surely it was mussed from only the dance. Surely she hadn't taken to serving up more than her chili in Military Plaza.

A sick feeling rolled through his gut at the idea.

Almost against his will, he took a second look, only this time he removed the brotherly blinders he made it his habit to wear and allowed his eyes to feast on the sight of her—the waterfall of burnished copper hair, sparkling green eyes, full red lips. His gaze skimmed her long, graceful neck and the hint of bare shoulder that teased from the edge of her blouse and beckoned a man's kiss. Full breasts, tiny waist, slim, flaring hips draped tonight in scarlet made a man ache to touch.

Cole's mouth went dry. His loins stirred. He snapped the blinders back into place, but not before recognizing that every man in the plaza had undoubtedly made a run at her. "How could you do this to your mother?"