Page 16 of Love Me, Cowboy
“Mom’s expecting me for dinner.” Claire looked at her watch. Then at her feet. Anywhere but at the cowboy with his hand out. “You should head out, too. Thanks for helping the kids.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, but she barely heard the words as she hopped off the truck and stepped through the open warehouse door into a chilly December evening.
* * *
Claire tossed the salad as Bonita Fuentes hummed an upbeat Spanish tune. They didn’t employ the cook on a regular basis, but Sylvia Campbell liked to give the impression that they had staff when it came to dinner party nights. Which happened at least once a week.
Bonita suited her name, a pretty, curvy woman with laughing brown eyes and dark hair that Claire would love to have. Long and lush with a soft wave. Nothing like her shock of red hair that garnered the kind of attention Claire preferred to avoid.
No, she did not have a temper.
No, she was not a sex kitten in bed.
No, she did not get the color from a box.
“If Claire is in your way, Bonnie, tell her to move,” her mother said as she breezed into the kitchen to refill her wineglass. In the minutes before a party, she always tossed back two glasses of red, then chewed a mint seconds before greeting the first guests.
Claire cringed every time, knowing the mixture of flavors had to be awful.
“Your lovely Claire is never in the way,” Bonita said, winking in the long-suffering daughter’s direction. “I love having her around.”
“At least someone does,” Sylvia muttered, running a finger over each eyebrow in the mirror near the swinging kitchen door. “Please tell me you’re wearing makeup, Claire.” Instead of looking at her daughter to answer her own question, the first lady of Holly Hills continued to stare at her own reflection.
“Yes, Mother,” Claire said, tossing the salad harder than necessary and sending a string of onion over the side. After dropping it back in, she set the wooden spoons on the counter so she wouldn’t throw one at her mother’s head.
“With that face,” Bonita said, “she doesn’t need any makeup. Porcelain perfection like that is a gift.”
“She gets it from my mother-in-law, who looks like an albino raisin in her old age. We’ll see if she’s still calling it a gift in forty years.”
Claire managed not to dump the salad bowl over her mother’s head. Barely.
“I’ll be happy to look like Grandma when I reach her age.” Which wouldn’t be for fifty years, but Claire left that part out. “She’s a beautiful woman, inside and out.”
Bonita snorted, Claire’s mother huffed, and a heavy, yet not unwelcome, silence fell over the kitchen. Until her mother downed the second glass of wine.
“By the way, Claire. I’ve invited Greg Reddington to dine with us tonight. You’ll be next to him at the table.”
“Greg Reddington?” Claire asked. The boy who’d called her Claire the Pear in high school because she resembled the shape of one? Who had seen her changing in the girls’ locker room and told everyone she wore granny panties?
The boy who had single-handedly made her life even more of a living hell than it already was from ninth to twelfth grade?
“Relax,” her mother said with narrowed eyes. “You’ve lost enough weight that he might consider you now. His father has been on the city council for years, as was his grandfather. I’m sure Greg will follow in their footsteps.”
Claire was still reeling from the “consider you now” part and unable to form a coherent reply before her mother exited the kitchen. This could not be happening. Though Claire hadn’t seen Greg in years, thank the heavens, she highly doubted he’d changed. Thinking about having to spend an evening with him made her want to toss something besides a salad.
“Why does she do this to me?” Claire asked Bonita, who floated across the kitchen to place a consolation pat on her shoulder. “Why can’t she deal with the fact that I’ll marry when I find the right guy? When I find him. On my own.”
The cook shook her head. “Some mamas can’t stand to give up control. And if there was ever a woman with control issues, it’s your mother.”
“If you’d like to apply for the job, I’d happily replace her.”
“If only we got to pick our family.” Bonita returned to stirring something that smelled wonderful on the stovetop. “My paternal grandmother thinks I’m disgracing my heritage by hiring myself out as a cook. Says I should be home raising babies and serving a man, not the fancy townspeople.”
“Since that would mean missing out on your amazing empanadas, I’m very happy you’re generous enough to offer your services.”
With a broad smile, Bonita said, “I’ll pass that along to my grandmother. Since those are from her recipe, at least she’ll know my clients have good taste.”
In that moment, the doorbell rang, and Claire’s heart sank. She considered her options. She could hide in the kitchen and refuse to join the party. Or claim a sudden migraine, though she had never experienced one in her life. Which was a miracle considering she’d grown up with her mother’s constant harping.