Darkangel(52)

I was here now, though, so I tried to focus. I knew my great-aunt wouldn’t want us to mourn. No, I wanted to write something that paid tribute to her without being all weepy about it. Finally, I bent over the table and wrote on my sticker, Ruby, your strength inspires all of us, and you will live in our hearts forever. There wasn’t really room for anything more than that, so I showed it to Adam, who nodded his approval.

“I think she’d like that. Now, where do you want to put it?”

Hmm. Already candles covered almost every available level surface — crowding the altar I’d spied earlier, ringing the fountain in the center of the courtyard, even running along the edges of the stucco and concrete planters. But then I noticed off to the side a smaller altar with a few open spots in front of it.

“How about over there?”

He peered through the crowd. “That looks good. Better hurry before someone else fills it up.”

No kidding. Everywhere I looked I saw people hunting for the perfect spot for their own candles. I put the sticker on the glass container — the man who’d given us the candle had prelit it for us — and then pushed through the crowd to set it down in one of the few remaining spaces. The flame flickered a little, but then stood up straight and tall, strong the way my great-aunt had been almost until the day she died.

“Okay, now what?” Adam asked, once I straightened and stood next to him.

Why he was asking me, when it had been his idea to come here, I didn’t know. Maybe he just thought as prima I should be the one calling the shots. I decided it wasn’t worth arguing about and pointed to the next courtyard over, which was where the flamenco music seemed to be coming from.

It wasn’t quite as crowded in that spot, although there were still plenty of people milling around. Here I spied some tables with chairs around them, and a second or two later I saw the reason why: the restaurant at the far end of the courtyard had an outside stand where they were selling margaritas and sangria.

Now that we’d paid our respects to Great-Aunt Ruby, I didn’t see why we couldn’t have a little fun. She certainly hadn’t been above having a drink or two, although her poison of choice was gin martinis.

“Buy you a drink?” I asked, and Adam grinned.

“Sure.”

We went over to the stand and waited for the couple ahead of us to finish their transaction. I stepped up to the pretty Hispanic woman who was taking the orders and said, “A sangria and…” I trailed off, since I hadn’t asked Adam what he wanted.

“Regular margarita — on the rocks, not blended, please.”

She smiled and said, “Just a minute,” then poured our drinks. “That’ll be fifteen dollars.”

I handed over a twenty and told her to keep the change. Her eyes widened a little, but she just thanked me before going on to assist the next set of customers who were waiting for drinks.

Truth be told, it was probably a little chilly to be drinking either sangria or a margarita, but I found I didn’t mind too much. The sangria was good, too. I knew there was probably a lot more to go see. For some reason I wanted to linger here for a while and listen to the guitarist in the center of the courtyard playing intricate Spanish tunes that matched the architecture around me, the white stucco walls and the red tile roofs and the balconies and overhangs of dark wood. The bodyguards had paused a few yards off, pretending to be looking at a display of fine art photographs in a gallery window.

A half-familiar voice said from over my left shoulder, “Angela? Angela McAllister?”

I turned and saw him. All right, not him him, not the man of my dreams, but a close second — the Zorro from the Halloween dance a week ago. I blinked, certain I must be hallucinating. Or maybe that sangria was a lot stronger than I’d thought it was.

“Hi, um….” I managed, realizing that I’d given him my name, but I still didn’t know his.

He grinned, even as I felt Adam shift irritably next to me. “Sorry about that. We didn’t get to the formal introductions. I’m Chris Wilson.”

“Hi, Chris.” Then, realizing that I really shouldn’t neglect Adam, I added, “And this is my cousin Adam.”

“Hi,” Chris said, extending a gloved hand. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought he looked almost relieved at the word “cousin,” as though he’d been worried that Adam was my boyfriend or something. Or maybe I was just flattering myself.

Adam looked like he really didn’t want to shake Chris’s hand. After I slanted him a sideways glance through my eyelashes, though, he reached out and took his hand, saying, “Nice to meet you.”