Since she wasn’t sure how to respond, Caitlin finally picked up one of her tacos and took a bite, knowing if she didn’t start eating, the food would soon get cold. In an abstract way, she realized it was very good, and so she took another bite. Strangely enough, eating something seemed to help settle the nervous churning of her stomach. After she washed the food down with a swallow of her sangria, she said, “Maybe they will retaliate. I can’t speak for them. But I know that whatever they do, it will be measured. They won’t do something stupid, just in the name of revenge.”
Alex didn’t respond at first, but followed her lead by eating a few bites of his own meal. Then he asked, “You think a lot of them, don’t you?”
“Connor and Angela? Well, why wouldn’t I? She’s my prima, and he’s her consort.”
“True, but not everyone always agrees with their prima, do they? Even if they publicly go along with what she says.”
Caitlin thought that over for a few seconds. “Maybe, but so far Angela hasn’t done anything that would make me question her judgment. She and Connor are both kind of live-and-let-live types. I’m not saying she hasn’t stepped in from time to time when someone’s gotten out of hand, but she’s definitely not some kind of dictator. Which is as it should be. I don’t have any reason to think she’ll do something crazy now, either.”
The expression on Alex’s face was hard to decipher. He didn’t say anything at first, but from the way his eyes narrowed slightly, Caitlin wondered if he was trying to process her view of her prima with the girl he’d only met a few times, someone he hadn’t seen for several years. And those were important years. Angela was now a mother, had a few years of being prima under her belt. She’d changed. But then, who wouldn’t, after everything she’d experienced?
Finally, Alex said, “Well, that’s good to hear. Because the last thing we need is a clan war on our hands.”
Caitlin couldn’t argue with that. “Even though Matías might turn out to be one of Simón Santiago’s, I kind of doubt he’d do much to stick up for him, once the truth comes out about what Matías has been doing. You’d think Simón would wash his hands of him, if only to do some damage control.”
“I hope you’re right.” The worried expression on Alex’s features smoothed itself into something else entirely. There was even a hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “So, since we can’t fix all the world’s problems at dinner, why don’t we let that all go for now?”
That sounded like a great idea. She raised her glass in agreement. “I’ll drink to that.”
* * *
It was a relief to shift gears, to watch some of the tension leave Caitlin’s face as he purposely moved the conversation to something a little lighter, like how he’d found this restaurant, his favorite places to go in and around the city — anything except her kidnapped friends and the dark powers their kidnappers seemed to be employing. She asked about his family, and he told her how Diego was now living down near Bisbee, his wife already expecting their first child. “Nothing like not wasting any time, considering they just got married in June,” Alex had remarked, and Caitlin grinned, a dancing light he hadn’t seen before coming to her eyes.
She told him about her brother the chef, how his talent was coming up with amazing recipes and food combinations right out of thin air — or so it appeared to the foodies who had started flocking to Cottonwood to try his various creations. “Everyone was so amazed by Michael that they sort of missed how I hadn’t developed any powers,” she said. “Which was fine by me.”
“Well, any powers you were willing to tell them about,” he countered, and a bit of the twinkle in her eyes faded.
“Okay, you got me there. But yeah, I was just fine with letting my brother bask in the limelight. It made things a lot easier for me.”
Alex reflected there might be something to that. His own brother charmed everyone within a twenty-mile radius, it seemed like, to the point that even when he married Maria and disappeared to Bisbee to make wine, neither of his parents were that upset with him. Then again, why should they be? There was always good old dependable Alex to pick up the slack at the store.
“Something wrong?” Caitlin asked.
This was a topic he really didn’t feel like going into, so he just shrugged. “Not really.”
“Oh, come on. For a split-second, you looked like you’d been sucking on a lemon or something.”