“I know, but you will be.”
* * *
LARISSA GLANCED AROUND the restaurant. Margaritaville had been pretty quiet when they’d arrived, but it was filling up now. There were plenty of locals, but also lots of tourists, which was good for the economy.
Her initial grief had passed. It was always like this, she thought sadly. When one of the children they helped died. She hated the loss and the pain, and knew that whatever she was feeling, the families were suffering so much more.
Jack pushed the chips toward her. He’d ordered tableside guacamole and chips to start, telling their server they would get to food later.
“If you don’t eat something, you’re going to feel crappy in the morning,” he pointed out.
“I know.” She reached for a chip. “It’s the margaritas. They’re really strong.”
“Such a girl drink.”
She glanced at his glass. “Because beer is so masculine?”
“You know it.”
“Monks invented champagne.”
He grinned. “We’re not drinking champagne.”
She smiled back at him, only to remember what had happened. The smile faded.
“Mary was a sweet girl. So happy.” Larissa had only met her once, but she’d emailed a lot with her mother. “The transplant gave her an extra year. That’s something, right?”
“Yes, and it gave her hope. She and family were allowed to imagine a better future. You do good work, Larissa. You have to remember that.”
“You’re the one who has the money to give them,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but you’re the one with the open heart. Don’t discount that. Heart trumps just about everything.”
Larissa wished that were true. She leaned back in the booth and chewed on her chip. Food probably was a good idea, she thought. After all, this was her second margarita.
“I talked to my mother today,” she said when she’d swallowed. “She still wants me to come back to L.A.”
Jack’s expression was carefully neutral. “What did you tell her?”
“I said she’d been wrong to tell you what she did.” She wrinkled her nose. “She promised to never do that again.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes. But in return I had to promise to think about what she said.” She turned to him. “Do I hide behind my causes?”
Jack cleared his throat. “Why no, Larissa. I’m shocked you’d ask.”
She managed another small smile. “Very funny. I’m being serious.”
“I am, too. You’ve always had your causes. They’re a part of who you are.”
Maybe, but there was a difference if she was truly using various charities to avoid her personal life. Something to consider when she wasn’t feeling the buzz that only tequila could bring.
He put his hand over hers. “You make me a better person and it’s not wrong to want to save the world.”
“Thank you. Now enough about me. Please distract me with an unexpected football fact.”
He gave her a quick smile. “You know that committee Mayor Marsha wants me on? To find Cal U Fool’s Gold a new football coach?”
“Uh-huh.”
“They don’t have a team.”
“What? They don’t play football?”
“Not officially. They’re in the Western Athletic Conference, which is a nonfootball conference.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
The smile returned. “There are other sports.”
“I find that so hard to believe. So why did she want you to find them a football coach?”
“From the research I’ve done, they’re thinking of building a team.”
“Can they do that?”
“I guess. You start with a group of kids and grow from there. It’ll take a while and it’s a big commitment for the university. They’re going to have to sink a lot of money into the program.”
“That’s probably more than you’d planned to take on.”
“A circumstance I deal with frequently.” He leaned toward her. “Want to hear what I think about the Stallions’ chances on opening day?”
“There’s nothing I would like more.”
* * *
JACK DROVE THROUGH the quiet streets of Fool’s Gold. The days were noticeably shorter than they had been just a few weeks before. Summer was nearly over and fall would be here soon. He couldn’t begin to imagine what the festival-loving town would be like through the holidays, but he was looking forward to finding out.
Larissa sat next to him. Despite her claims of not being hungry, she’d polished off the entire taco platter without help and now looked out the passenger’s window. She was quiet—no doubt thinking about Mary. But at least she wasn’t crying. He hated to see her cry.
“Pull over!”
He hit the brakes. “What?”
She pointed to the side of the road. “Pull over.”
He’d barely reached the curb when she jumped out of the car and bolted across the street and into the park. Jack leaned back in his seat and sighed. There was no point in speculating, he reminded himself. Larissa had obviously seen some kind of creature in need of aid. As it could be anything from an endangered leaf to a three-legged moose in need of antler care, he would simply wait it out. When the time came, he would figure out how to lessen the impact on his life.
She was back in less than five minutes, dragging a lanky dark-haired teenaged boy behind her. The kid was tall and skinny, with a medium-dark complexion and a wary expression.
Jack sighed heavily and got out of his Mercedes. He could feel the beginnings of a headache starting around his temples.
“Larissa,” he began, his voice warning.
She cut him off with a cheerful smile. “Jack, this is Percy.”
Jack nodded at the kid.
“Percy’s from Los Angeles and he turned eighteen a couple of weeks ago. He spent the summer at End Zone for Kids. That’s Raoul Moreno’s summer camp.”
“I know what it is,” he told her. He turned to the teen. “You miss the bus, son?”
Percy shook his head.
Larissa put her hand on Jack’s chest. “He aged out of foster care, Jack. Percy doesn’t have any family and he didn’t finish high school. He has nowhere to go, so he made his way back here. He thought Fool’s Gold would be a good place to spend the winter.”
Obviously the kid had never taken geography, Jack thought grimly. Winters in L.A. barely dipped into the fifties. Fool’s Gold got snow. This was not a well-conceived plan. But he wasn’t even surprised.
“You were gone three minutes,” he said to Larissa. “How did you get all that information?”
She smiled up at him. “I have my ways.” Her blue eyes locked on his. “Jack,” she said slowly.
Then he got it. Right. Because the kid was eighteen, there was no social worker to call. Also no family. And he couldn’t go home with Larissa. Her tiny apartment barely had room for her cat.
“I’m sure we can get him a hotel room.”
Her gaze stayed on his face.
“Or not,” he grumbled, bowing to the inevitable. He looked past her to the teen. “Let’s go to my house and we can all chat.”
Percy’s expression tightened. “Why would you do that, man? You don’t know me. What if I murder you or rob your house?”
“Are you going to?”
“No, but you have to ask about that kind of thing. You have to be careful.”
A handful of sentences that told Jack a lot about the kid. One of these days Larissa was going to bring home a serial killer, but apparently not today.
“Right back at you,” he said.
Percy frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not going to murder you, either.”
Percy’s mouth curled. Jack had a feeling it was in humor rather than appreciation for the assurance. No doubt the teen figured no middle-aged guy from a place like Fool’s Gold was a threat. He was probably right about that.
Jack glanced from Larissa to the kid. She didn’t usually take on people projects, he thought. But Mary had died today. He would guess she needed to help Percy as a way to heal. Jack knew he wasn’t going to get in the way of that.
“Let’s go,” he said, getting back in the car.
Larissa and Percy spoke for a couple of seconds before she climbed in next to him and Percy settled in the backseat.
The trip to his house took less than five minutes. Jack parked in the driveway. Percy let out a low whistle.
“You live here?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you rich?”
“Not in privacy,” Jack muttered as he climbed out of the car.
Larissa was already guiding the teen up to the front door.
“Jack has a guest room upstairs,” she was saying. “It’s very comfortable. Have you eaten today?”
Jack followed them, his gaze involuntarily taking in the kid’s too-lean frame. Sure, baggy jeans could be a fashion statement, but he suspected Percy had earned his low-riding pants the old-fashioned way.
“I, ah, sure,” Percy mumbled. “I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am. Come on. Let’s go raid the refrigerator.”
Jack left them to forage through his leftovers. He was pretty sure there was a frozen pizza or two in the freezer, but Larissa would already know that. He made his way upstairs where he dropped his key fob and wallet on the wooden tray in his big closet.
He went to the opposite end of the hall and checked out the guest room. It looked clean enough. He had a weekly service that did things like change sheets, handle his laundry and keep food in the house. He walked into the attached bathroom and saw there were towels.
By the time he’d returned to his room and changed his clothes, the smell of pizza dough wafted upstairs. He headed for the kitchen.
Larissa and Percy sat at the eat-in bar by the main island in his kitchen. The teen had already polished off a banana and was munching his way through an apple. The timer showed less than two minutes on the pizza.
Jack walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He opened it and took a swallow, then leaned against the counter.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said.
Percy stared at him before standing and squaring his shoulders. “Sure. What do you want to know? I don’t have a record, if that’s what you’re asking. Not all black men have a record.”
“Never thought they did.”
“Jack,” Larissa began.
Jack cut her off with a shake of his head. If Percy was going to be living in his house, they had to come to terms. An eighteen-year-old was a whole lot more complicated than butterflies.
He continued to study Percy, who stared back at him. Finally the teen shrugged.
“I never knew my dad. My mom was a waitress who cleaned houses on her days off.” Percy’s chin came up. “She was shot. You know—wrong place, wrong time? It was a drive-by shooting.”
Jack didn’t allow himself to react, even as Larissa touched Percy’s arm.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“How old were you?” Jack asked.
The chin went up more. “Fifteen. That’s when I went into foster care.”
Hell of a thing to have happen, he thought. “You bounced around a lot?”
“Some. I got by.”
“I told him he would be safe here,” Larissa said. “That we would help find him a home and get him moving toward his bright future.”
She spoke earnestly, he thought, watching the determination fill her blue eyes. She believed there was a “we” in all this. But Jack knew the truth. He would provide the means, but Larissa would be the heart and the drive of whatever mission was to be called Percy.
She would save Percy and then move on to another project, dragging them all along in her wake. She was unstoppable and endlessly optimistic. He supposed that was one of the reasons he couldn’t resist her. Larissa still believed.
Jack turned back to the boy. “If you want to stay, you can.”
Percy frowned. “Just like that?”
Jack smiled. “Yeah. Just like that.”
CHAPTER SIX
JACK STEPPED OUT of his shower and reached for a towel. He’d slept well the previous night. No doubt the aftereffects of his good deed. His wallet and cell phone were where he’d left them, also a good sign that he hadn’t been completely idiotic to let some teenager he didn’t know spend the night in his house.
He dressed and made his way downstairs. Percy was already in the kitchen, eating cereal from a bowl. The two males stared at each other. Jack had a feeling that if they were elks or gazelles or something and in the wild, they’d be butting antlers. And if one of them got hurt, Larissa would show up and take him home.
He walked over to the Keurig and turned it on, then dropped in a pod, shoved a mug into place and waited for the magic to happen.
“You sleep okay?” he asked, knowing he was the grown-up in the room and therefore the most likely one to start the conversation.
“Mostly. It’s real quiet here.”
Jack wasn’t sure if Percy meant in the town or the house, then decided it didn’t matter.
The Keurig poured out the elixir of life. When the mug was full, Jack carried it over to the table and sat across from Percy.
The kid was wearing the same clothes he had the previous night, although he’d obviously showered and shaved. There was a small cut on his chin. He thought about the backpack Percy had been carrying and held in yet another sigh.