“That means Gloria, Ines and Tia make Indy and Ally look like amateurs.”

I blinked in the darkness. “Now, what does that mean?”

“Indy has her own police code,” Hector informed me.

Oh my.

* * * * *

I woke to a cold thus, I knew, empty bed.

I rolled, looked at Hector’s side but, sure enough, he was gone. I sat up, pulled my hair out of my face and looked around the room.

No Hector.

Then I realized I had to use the bathroom.

I slid out from under the covers, walked out of the room and down the hall, looking into empty rooms, two more bedrooms (neither of them refinished, one unused save to store more stacked boxes and furniture, the smallest one being utilized as an office), one bath.

When I got in the bathroom, I noticed Hector had already renovated it. A handsome, what looked like top-of-the-line (but what did I know, I was no plumber) bathroom suite and lots of warm, Mexican tile up the walls, cobalt, mustard yellow and terracotta designs against a buttery-cream background.

I did my business and walked down the stairs in search of Hector. I found him in the kitchen.

At the sight of him, I stopped in the doorway.

He was still wearing his cutoff pajama bottoms but he’d added a dark-gray, long-sleeved, skintight thermal. He was standing by the sink on the opposite side of the room, his side was partially turned to the counter, hip resting against it, eyes looking out the window over the sink, coffee cup held aloft but forgotten in front of him.

His mind was on something.

I stared at him and thought for the millionth time that he never looked better.

The kitchen had not been renovated and it looked like an extension of the restoration efforts. Paint brushes and drying rollers lying out on rags on the countertops, buckets on the floor, bags filled with I didn’t know what stacked in the corner.

I must have moved because Hector’s eyes sliced to me, his thoughtful face warmed and he demanded softly, “Come here.”

As if guided by their own personal brain, my feet moved me toward him as I watched him put his mug on the counter. When I got within reaching distance, one of his arms came around my shoulders, the other one around my waist and he curled me into his heat.

His head came down and he gave me a soft, sweet kiss (with tongues) that lasted until my arms slid around his waist and my body melted into his. Then his head lifted.

“You want coffee?” he asked quietly.

Robbed of speech by the kiss, I nodded.

Before he could move, there was a clamor from the other room. A loud clamor.

Our bodies grew tight in unison before we heard Blanca call, “Hola, mi hijo! Dónde estás?”

“Fuck,” Hector muttered.

I stared in horror at Hector’s set face.

“Hector!” Blanca shouted.

“Kitchen!” Hector shouted back.

Oh no.

Someone, please tell me Hector didn’t just tell his mother our whereabouts.

I was standing, in Hector’s t-shirt, in Hector’s arms, in Hector’s kitchen and Blanca (from what I could hear, carrying rustling bags) was headed our way.

My body prepared to flee. Hector’s arms went tight. Blanca filled the kitchen doorframe.

She stared at us a second then shouted as if we were across a football field and not across a room, “Hola!”

I was robbed of speech again, now for a different reason.

“Mamá, Sadie and I want a quiet morning.”

“Bah!” Blanca exploded, bustling in and dropping six (yes, six!) bulging King Soopers bags on the counter. “Sadie needs breakfast. Do you cook, mi hijo? No, you do not cook. Hola Sadie.” She smiled at me and then started to pull food out of the bags.

I watched as the food was revealed and I noted no breakfast-type items. It looked more like she was planning to stock the cupboards before the government announced rationing.

I found my voice. “Um, hola Blanca.”

I felt Hector’s eyes on me and I looked up at him. He was smiling.

Yes, smiling!

I shot him a glare. His body moved with laughter. I did not think this was funny. Instead, I found it mortifying. I pulled out of his arms and put some distance between us.

I’d never been caught in the morning by someone’s mother. If I had dared to bring my boyfriends to my father’s house and they wandered around in their pajama bottoms, my father would have had them executed (this might be a bit over the top but my father really didn’t like to share me and he had loads of suffocating ways to make that terrible fact perfectly clear).

Therefore, awake for approximately ten minutes, I found myself caught in a new predicament and I had no idea what to do.

New Sadie, however, surprisingly knew exactly what to do.

“Can I help?” New Sadie chirped to Blanca.

“Coffee. Black,” Blanca answered.

Still annoyed at him, I shot another glare at Hector and then started opening and closing cupboards to find the mugs. His hand slid around my waist, pulled me into his side, he reached well beyond me and opened the cupboard over the coffeemaker. It was filled with mismatched mugs. I turned my head to give him another glare but this effort failed when his mouth hit mine for a touch on the lips. Then he let me go.

I shrugged off his kiss and got down to the business of coffee. I was in the middle of finishing mugs for Blanca and me (and Hector, who slid his cup beside mine when I was pouring) and wondering how on earth I was going to get through this latest trauma (in a t-shirt, no less!) when I heard a man’s voice call out, “Chavez?”

“Christ, is there a sign on my door that says come, the f**k, in?” Hector muttered.

I noticed at our latest visitor Hector instantly lost his good morning mood and it was Blanca’s turn to shoot him a glare.

But my eyes flew to the kitchen doorway, wondering who this was now (and also wondering why my life couldn’t be the eeniest bit easier) when Hector moved across the room and out of the kitchen.

“Café, mi hija,” Blanca reminded me and I stopped staring at Hector’s departing back and brought her coffee to her.

“What else can I do?” I asked as I heard male voices in the other room, they were getting closer and my eyes went back to the door.

“Do you cook?” Blanca asked.

“Not really,” I answered somewhat dishonestly. I’d never had to cook much but I did know how to make coffee and toast which was something.

“I’ll teach you,” Blanca assured me, moving around the room, putting away food and pulling out cooking implements.

I was feeling a weird, happy glow at Blanca offering to teach me to cook when Hector walked in. He was followed, to my horror, by the tall, handsome, dark-haired Ren Zano wearing a tailored suit (and wearing it really well, by the way), making me acutely aware that I was wearing nothing but Hector’s t-shirt and a pair of dove gray satin panties which, luckily, you couldn’t see as the shirt hung to mid-thigh.