A Fare To Remember_ Just Whistle_Driven - Vicki Lewis Thompson [47]
“I smell like lard.” She smoothed a hand over her thick, bunned black hair as she moved in the direction of her stand.
“More like fresh-baked dough sizzling with creamy butter and a dusting of cinnamon.”
She stopped, the rolling cooler she tugged behind her knocking against her heels.
“That was almost…poético.”
He knew little Spanish, but he got her point. Besides, he was fluent in Italian and the languages weren’t so different. Just like the cultures. Just like the people.
“I can wax with the best of them when it comes to food. Can I help you set up?”
She resumed her walk, and like the dog he was, he followed. The minute they reached the front of Rachel’s building, she immediately started unlocking the door with the impressive collection of keys she extracted from inside her blouse.
Oh, to be those keys.
Stop it, Mario! Have you lost all your respect for women?
He cleared his throat and looked away, suddenly feeling more like sixteen than sixty. He glanced up at what he thought was Rachel’s window. The lights were off. Or perhaps, on in the adjacent room only.
“Where’s your cab?” she asked, once she had the coffee brewing and had tossed him a roll of paper towels and some Windex to clean the front of her display case.
“Around the corner. I didn’t want any fares this morning.”
“You still on the clock?”
“Nah, it was my night off.”
She eyed him suspiciously but didn’t ask any more questions until she had her stand nearly ready for operation. He’d helped her set up once before, about three months ago when she’d sprained her wrist. She hadn’t accepted assistance easily, but Mario could be fairly stubborn when he wanted to be.
He could remember the first day he saw Iris again, the fateful morning three years ago when he’d picked Rachel Marlowe up outside a real estate agent’s office. She’d promised him a big tip if he drove her around so she could find a new place, but the twenty she’d slipped him that day in addition to her fare had been nothing compared to what she’d really started. The first question out of her mouth had been, “Where can a girl get a decent cup of real Cuban coffee around here?”
The answer had brought him to Iris, a woman he hadn’t seen in years.
The whole scenario—his attraction to Iris, his friendship with Rachel, his inability to keep his half-crooked Italian nose out of other people’s business—had led him right here after getting little sleep the night before, his adrenaline buzz spawned by an attraction he didn’t know if he could ignore much longer. And then there was his cockamamie plan to find out if Roman Brach was who he said he was.
Which Mario doubted. His cop instincts wailed that Brach wasn’t just some liar leading on his latest squeeze, or a married dude who wanted Rachel on the side. He’d had a friend at the precinct run the plates on the car that had picked Roman up yesterday and got nothing but one of the million car services available throughout town. And a quick search of the guy’s name scored nothing by way of priors. What little he’d told Rachel checked out.
Still, Mario had a strong feeling that this guy wasn’t on the up-and-up. And if the man turned out to be the worst kind of con, Mario would be there. He owed Rachel, since she’d been entirely responsible for Iris coming back into his life.
“If you’re off duty, why are you here?” Iris finally asked.
He put on his best, most appealing grin. “My morning’s shot if I don’t see your smiling face first thing.”
She rolled her eyes, but her tiny grin revealed the effectiveness of his compliment. “You’re full of it, Mario Capelli.”
“Full of what? Infatuation for you? Full of an irresistible need to maybe—” he took a deep breath “—sometime soon, see you somewhere other than on this street corner?”
He waited a full minute, watching Iris’s dark eyes narrow as she considered what he’d said. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of someone