Blush(76)
“You lost the right to ask that question many years ago,” he reminded her gently.
“This is true,” she said with quiet regret. “I wish you well, qīn ài de nĭ. Call me if there is any other service I can provide.”
He was no longer her dear, and Cruz was sorry to hear sadness in her voice. He knew he had been the love of Lì húa’s life, but he’d had nothing but a deep respect and fondness for her when they’d been lovers. He’d been with her for half a year, then left Beijing when—after pressing him for a more formal relationship—she announced her engagement to a family friend. He hadn’t been heartbroken, he’d just moved on.
There was no chitchat or catching up. They said goodbye and Cruz wondered if he’d ever speak to her again.
“I’m not the hearth-and-home kinda guy,” he told Oso, clipping on a leash to take him for a walk while they waited for Mia and Charlie to return. The dog’s eyes tracked his every move, and his slowly wagging tail became an entire body wiggle, with lashing tail and perked ears.
Cruz found a tree-shaded grassy area and let the dog sniff around. Had whoever hired him tried at first to discredit Amelia/Mia and, when that hadn’t worked, put out the hit? It didn’t make sense, but neither did the way things had gone down. The factory fire had only happened this week. He’d taken the job and been paid a shitload of money as a deposit weeks ago.
It made sense if this was all about her leveraged buyout. If someone wanted to prevent that from happening, they could feasibly want her discredited so the stock prices went down. The same if she unexpectedly died.
But by tomorrow all the speculation would be over. Once she signed those papers, it would all be over.
“Which means,” he told the dog, who’d stopped exploring to come and sit at his feet, looking expectant, “that if I was going to kill her, I’d do it before she got her hands on those papers, right?” Oso wagged his tail just as Cruz’s phone vibrated in his back pocket. He checked the number. The person who’d hired the hit. Cruz turned off the phone.
• • •
“I think you were supposed to turn two streets back,” Mia told Cruz. Charlie sat between them, but he kept squirming to scratch Oso’s head.
“We have to stop at the store.” Cruz pulled into the parking lot of a PetSmart. “Oso wants a ball.”
She raised an eyebrow at him over Charlie’s dark head.
“A ball?” Charlie’s voice went up several octaves. “How come he wants a ball?”
“He’s got a boy,” Cruz said, expression serious. “Every dog needs a boy and a ball, right? Hop out on this side, kid.”
“I’m a boy,” Charlie whispered, cheeks flushed, eyes bright as he turned to Mia as if for confirmation.
Her heart squeezed; there was so much longing, so much hope, in that look, and yet the child was already anticipating that this would not go as hoped. “Perfect,” she told him cheerfully, eyes stinging behind her sunglasses. “And you’re exactly the right boy to help Oso pick out the best ball in the whole store.”
Cruz lifted the little boy out of the truck and shot a smile at her, a real smile that showed the long dimple in his cheek and sent rays of light to every part of Mia’s body.
Opening the back door, he grabbed Oso’s leash and let the dog jump out, all happy panting and wagging tail. “Let’s go find him the best ball they have. It might take some time,” he told Mia, straight-faced. “Kick back and turn up the air. We have men’s work to do here.”
“Yes,” Charlie told her, peering at her very seriously as he stood on tiptoe so he could see into the big truck from his position beside Cruz on the curb. “Men’s work.”
A couple of hours in a local park, a stop at a fast-food burger place for Charlie, and the boy and dog were worn-out.
Cruz had a quick talk with Joann Follmer when they dropped Charlie off at his foster family. Permission asked for and granted for an overnight stay for Oso, and they left the two playing tag in the front yard. “That was sweet of you.” Mia threaded her fingers through his as he drove away. “Oso will protect him and help him not be so scared when he goes to bed tonight.”
“Every kid has the right to not be scared every fucking night.”
“Don’t yell. I agree with you one hundred percent.”
• • •
He parked the car in a lot behind Café Du Monde, then guided her along the walkway that bordered the Mississippi River. She said she’d never been to New Orleans, but he’d been here several times. The noisy crowds starting to wander between the bars, nightclubs, and tourist-crowded restaurants over one block to Royal Street. While many of the shops had already closed for the day, some were still open, selling everything from shot glasses and sunscreen to Mardi Gras masks. Here and there the hum of conversation and clinking of dinnerware and the sultry, soulful sounds of jazz music came from the open doors of restaurants, and tourist groups milled about, waiting for tours of the French Quarter to begin.