Bubba had been so wrapped up in his own sorry state, he hadn’t noticed how unusually withdrawn Marisol had become. She’d chattered her fair share as they left Austin, but the closer they got to Lonesome Point, the quieter she’d become. He didn’t know if she was nervous about meeting his family, or simply sick of being trapped in a truck with a cranky bastard. Either way, he felt bad for being a shitty host. It wasn’t Marisol’s fault that their kiss had unleashed all the raging hormones he’d managed to ignore since he’d called things off eight months ago with Raney, who worked at the coffee shop, thus forcing him to make due with gas station coffee ever since.
“You hungry?” he asked. Marisol hadn’t eaten more than a few bites of the chicken sandwich she’d ordered at the drive through four hours back, and only picked at her fries. “My mom usually has dinner on the table early, but we can raid the freezer in the barn on the way up to the main house if you want. My other brother, Cole, keeps it stocked with popsicles and ice cream. He’s got a sweet tooth.”
“How many brothers do you have?” she asked, eyes still fixed on the road.
“Two. John is thirty-two. Cole just turned thirty.”
“So you’re the baby of the family,” she said with a soft laugh. “I didn’t peg you for a baby brother.”
“Why’s that?” Bubba asked, wishing she would glance his way. It was hard to tell what Marisol was thinking when he couldn’t see her eyes.
She lifted one slim shoulder. “I don’t know. You work so hard. My youngest brothers are the laziest people I know. They couldn’t even be bothered to wipe their own bottoms for years. Matteo was six by the time he finally stopped calling me into the bathroom to clean him up and pull up his pants.”
Bubba’s foot eased up on the pedal. They were getting close to the house, but he wasn’t ready for this conversation to end. In the entire month they’d been working together, Marisol hadn’t said a word about her family. He’d started to think she crawled out of a fashion magazine, fully formed, with none of the family ties that bind and chafe as much as they support and nurture.
“How many brothers and sisters do you have?” he asked.
“Seven brothers,” she said flatly, giving him no clue how she felt about her siblings. “Two older, five younger.”
“Wow, that’s…a lot of testosterone.”
“It was. And a lot of stinky socks.”
He hesitated, hoping she would go on before he gently prodded, “So are y’all close? It must have been hard being the only sister.”
“It was harder being my parents’ only daughter,” she said, before adding in a brighter voice. “So tell me about your parents. Are Mom and Pop going to freak that you’ve brought a woman home for the week, or are they cool?”
“My parents were both cool, but it’s just my mom now. My dad passed away when I was sixteen.” Bubba wished they could have stayed on the subject of Marisol’s family a little longer, but he knew she wasn’t the type to bare her soul all at once. With Marisol, a person was lucky to catch glimpses of her inner life through the hairline cracks in her defenses.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but without the tragic inflection he was used to hearing when people learned his father had passed. “That must have been hard on your family.”
“It was, but we got through.” Bubba shrugged, pretending it didn’t still hurt to know he’d never see his dad’s smile again. “We all wish we’d had more time with him, but what we had was the good stuff. He was a wonderful man.”
Marisol turned to him, a soft smile on her lips. “I don’t doubt it. He certainly raised a good son.”
Bubba didn’t know whether to be flattered or ashamed of howun-wonderful he’d been to Marisol for most of the drive. But before he could figure out a way to apologize without admitting why he was so damned cranky in the first place, they were pulling up to the main house.
The moment he parked the truck, the front door flew open and his mother rushed out onto the porch, a giddy smile on her face that would make a person think it had been two years since she’d seen her baby boy, not a little over two weeks. Bubba had been working overtime in preparation for his trip to Austin, and before that he’d been so worried about his friend, Mia, he’d spent most of his down time hanging out near her place, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t talk to his mother on the phone at least twice a week.
But Laura Mae was used to seeing John and Cole every day. Her older sons hadn’t ventured from the family ranch for more than a week at a time since the day they were born. In contrast, even Bubba’s move to a bungalow in downtown Lonesome Point seemed like a big step away from the family.
“There you are.” Laura Mae bustled down the porch stairs, brown eyes shining and her arms outstretched, the slight hitch in her step from her arthritis not slowing her down. “Come here you sweet thing.”
Bubba took four long steps, meeting his mother by the hitching post his grandmother had carved in the fifties and leaning down for his hug. The long, gray hair Laura Mae wore pulled into a ponytail tickled his arms as they embraced, and the buttons of her western shirt dug into his chest through his tee shirt. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his mother in anything but a battered polo and jeans, and knew the button up was her version of getting gussied up for his homecoming.
“Thank you so much, Bubs,” she said, hugging him tight before she released him with a few pats on the arm. “John told me this morning that you were cutting your trip short to come lend a hand, so I put on your favorite slow cooker ribs just before noon. They should be ready as soon as…”
Laura Mae trailed off, her smile fading as her eyes focused on something behind him. Bubba turned to see Marisol standing by the rear wheel of the truck, her trendy blue suitcase in one hand and her designer purse in the other, looking so out of place in her slinky black sundress and spiked-heel sandals that Bubba wanted to bustle her back down to John’s house to borrow blue jeans and a tee shirt from Lily this very second.
The women in the Lawson family didn’t do fancy. They didn’t wear dresses except on Sundays, and those were comfortable skirts and shirts that could go from a church service to a BBQ in the back yard without any fuss. Bubba couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his mother wearing makeup, and he’d never seen Lily wear more than lip gloss and mascara, even on her and John’s wedding day. None of his mother’s friends bothered with fashion, and Bubba’s friends, Tulsi and Mia, were almost as no frills as Laura Mae’s buddies from her pottery classes.
Still, for some reason, Bubba hadn’t stopped to think that his mom would take a dislike to Marisol based on the way she looked. But the moment his mother’s usually warm brown eyes grew frosty, and her happy smile tipped into a frown, he realized that was what was happening. There was no other explanation. Marisol hadn’t done a damn thing except stand there with a smile on her face.
A part of him wanted to defuse the situation by reminding his mother it took fewer muscles to smile than to frown—one of her favorite sayings—but he had a feeling drawing attention to the problem would only make things worse.
“Mom, this is Marisol, one of my friends from the city,” he said with a smile, doing his best to ignore the tension simmering in the air as Marisol came to stand next to him. “Marisol, this is my mother, Laura Mae Lawson.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Lawson.” Marisol set her suitcase down and extended her hand. “I’ve heard so many great things about you, and I can’t wait to see your pottery. Robert says it’s really something special.”