Two steps into the lobby, she stopped short. Staring.
Rigo gazed past her to . . .
“Alejo?” Godiva said in a high, breathless voice.
“Ma?” He held out his arms.
Godiva launched across the room, hugging Alejo fiercely, her eyes bright as stars, leaving Rigo to watch, his heart knifed by pride and longing.
Chapter 13
GODIVA
“Mom, you’re so . . . small!”
Godiva trembled with a storm of emotions very close to the tears she had forbidden herself to ever indulge. So she laughed heartily, stepping back. “What?”
Alejo was just as handsome as his dad, with a curling grin bracketed by long dimples that had just been shadows in his kid face. “Somehow I remembered you as being so . . . so tall.”
“You were taller than me when you took off,” Godiva said, pretending affront. “I have not shrunk! It’s just that your head is now scraping ceilings!”
Alejo chuckled, and swooped in to hug her again. “I think it’s more because you’ve always been larger than life.”
“If that means tough, I can live with that,” she said, and turned to Rigo, whose smile was there, but kind of . . . wistful? “You didn’t tell me!”
Rigo’s eyes gleamed, tender with laughter as he said, “We thought it would be more fun as a surprise.” And to Alejo, “You have to have had a rough drive, traveling all night. Are you hungry? How about breakfast?”
“Ah, it’s ju
st over five hours if you drive in the wee hours. No traffic, and the rental van I got came with a great sound system. I told them that was my second priority behind brakes that work. But I won’t turn down breakfast, especially since this place is famous for its spread. “
Rigo fell in step on Godiva’s other side, so she walked between the two of them. “A rental?” Rigo asked. “Anything wrong with our cars?”
“Nope. It’s just that two of them are needed for jobs. I could have brought the Mustang, but I didn’t know what we’d find. I thought it best to be free to maneuver, depending. Wow, it smells like heaven in here!”
They walked into what once had been a conservatory for some grand family, and now was a breakfast room. They sat overlooking a lovely garden, and soon had an impressive array before them, right down to the silver coffee and tea service.
“Now this,” Godiva said happily, “is breakfast done right.” And after she helped herself to fluffy eggs and crisp bacon, a crispy waffle with real maple syrup, and scones with real Devonshire cream to slather on, she added, “Alejo, what brought you out?”
“You, of course.” He grinned. “And it’s always a kick to be back here again. Seeing what’s changed and what hasn’t. Throws me back to how much fun it was to be a kid here, when there were meadows and ponds within a short bike ride. And that old theater, where fifty cents got us an entire afternoon, two movies and several cartoons. That’s when we weren’t stalking each other over fences and through yards. The entire town was our playground.”
“I remember how dirty you managed to get. And how banged up,” Godiva added. “But you always said it was just a bump, or just a nick. I was always afraid that I’d get a call from the hospital, especially when you two started coming up against that disgusting brat you called Barf. I forget his actual name. The one who looked like a choirboy, but was as two-faced as Eddie Haskell in Leave it to Beaver. I remember him because of the time he attacked you at school, blamed it on you, and got you suspended. It was the only time you ever got into trouble.”
“Doug Barth.” Alejo glanced around. The two couples at other tables were absorbed in each other. Godiva didn’t think they’d notice much short of a nuclear blast, but Alejo lowered his voice—a reminder that anything that might be related to shifters was a dead secret. “Werewolf,” he said softly.
Godiva blinked. Then came the thought that if basilisks were real, werewolves somehow seemed everyday by comparison. “Are werewolves really demons like in horror films?” she asked.
“Demons are demons.” Rigo shook his head. “Werewolves are just wolf shifters.”
Alejo gave a nod. “Like anybody, werewolves come in all kinds. I’ve met some great packs. The Barths were definitely bad news, though. Doug Barth tried running a pack of his own, with himself as alpha, made up of the meanest guys in the neighborhood. But we knew better than to ever be caught alone by Barth or his pack, and yes, a few of those times I came home black and blue were from encounters with them, but we gave as good as we got. In fact, once Lance started getting some size on him, we came out ahead.” He shook his head reminiscently.
Godiva snorted, suspecting that those fights were part of Alejo’s definition of fun in the good old days. But it was far too late to argue about that. “Talk about small, I can’t imagine Lance with size on him.”
Alejo grinned, and he said at the same time as his father, “He’s huge!” Then they looked at each other and laughed.
Then Alejo looked around. “Bear shifters tend to run big. So. I take it you hit the post office yesterday?”
“Empty,” Godiva said. “But the combo still works, so I know that box is still in my name. Or, Maria Cordova’s name.”