Rafe yawned widely — it had been another grueling day digging for gold — and propped his elbows on the table, bracing his chin. He regarded her tenderly. “I like it.”
“Did you watch a lot of TV when you were a kid?” she asked, forcing her mind in a different direction.
“Nah. I told you, my mother was a tyrant. She always worked, sometimes two jobs a day, and — ”
“What kind of jobs?”
“Cleaning houses mostly. In Beverly Hills.” He chuckled. “We got the neatest hand-me-down clothes,” he recalled, wrinkling his nose at her. “Gucci loafers. Polo shirts. Girbaud jeans. Even a leather bomber jacket from Michael Douglas one time.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah, we fit in swell at the local public schools. The other kids wore chic de Levi, and we sported designer duds. That went over real big.”
“That’s probably when you first learned to fight.”
“Yep.”
Her lips twitched with amusement. “Tell me more about your mother.”
“She’s about five-foot-zip. Wears polyester slacks — though all us kids have tried to break her of that — with sweatshirts. Her feet hurt from standing all day, so she’s never without her thick-soled orthopedic shoes. She’s a ball of energy, always has to be doing something. She yells a lot, but not in a mean way — ”
“Maybe she had to yell. A sort of survival skill to be heard over all you children.”
“Probably. Anyhow, my mother had a way of saying our names that could be heard blocks away. When she yelled, ‘RA-FAY-ELL SAN-TEE-AGO!’ I ran like hell or got my bottom whacked.”
They exchanged a smile.
“And your father?”
His face tightened. “My father came and went as he pleased. Stayed long enough to give my mother another baby, then zipped off into the sunset. I think it’s the only time I ever saw my mother cry… when my dad walked out. He’s dead now, but I heard a few years back that the bastard had a wife and family in Mexico, too.” He swallowed with some difficulty, then added flatly, “He was a son of a bitch. We kids were glad when he left.”
Helen fought back tears. She wanted to reach across the table and take Rafe’s hand, but somehow she knew he would take the gesture for pity. “Tell me about your brothers and sisters.”
He rolled his shoulders in hopeless resignation. “I’m the oldest. Juanita is next. She’s thirty-three, a teacher in one of the project schools.” Grimacing, he added, “Juanita and I don’t get along. She was always beating up on me, as a kid, and she still rags on me, as an adult. Anyhow, she’s got three kids she’s raising herself. Her husband got killed in a drive-by shooting five years ago.”
Before Helen had a chance to react to that horrifying news, Rafe went on, “Antonio is next. Tony’s a police detective upstate. He’s thirty-two and single. Women think he looks like Antonio Banderas, and he bleeds that for all it’s worth.”
“Next?”
“Inez is thirty, a police officer for L.A.P.D. Not the most popular job these days,” he noted, obviously referring to the continuing bad press from the O. J. Simpson trial. “She’s single, and, like me, plans to stay that way.” Helen tilted her head in inquiry, and he explained, “She got stuck with lots of the babysitting, like I did.”
She frowned, beginning to get an image of Rafe’s family that was contrary to what she’d always imagined. “Hmmm. You give the impression of having been a rebel… a gang member… and yet your brothers and sisters have law-and-order careers.”
He shrugged. “Some of us do, but we all went through some rocky times, too. My mother earned every one of her gray hairs.”
“Okay, that’s three. You have five other siblings, right?”
He nodded. “Luisa is twenty-eight and has five kids. She’s on welfare, although she helps my mother out on some cleaning jobs sometimes. LuLu — she hates that nickname, by the way — is divorced and lives at home.”
A flash of anger in Rafe’s eyes warned Helen not to ask for more details about Luisa — for now.
“My mother and I have to help her pay her bills most months. Her husband left her with a pigload of debts. Plus, she has a baby with asthma. I’m hoping LuLu finds another husband soon so she’ll get off my back. I don’t suppose you know any wealthy, eligible bachelors who’re in the market for a ready-made family?”