Touched by Angels (Angels Everywhere #3)(29)

“But carburetors can be expensive.” She didn’t want Roberto absorbing the cost of this.

“Roberto says he found another carburetor at the junkyard and got it for next to nothing. Besides, he let me do most of the work myself.” His dark eyes pleaded with her to accept this small gift.

“Emilio, I don’t know how to thank you.”

His face erupted in a wide smile. “I’ll think of something.”

Roberto shouted from the other room, and Emilio’s smart smile disappeared. “Think nothing of it, Miss Cassidy.”

“Thank you both again.” Brynn felt like a fool for having made such an issue of Emilio driving her vehicle. She glanced toward the garage, but Roberto was bent over the side of the truck, busy at work. “Tell your brother that I’m grateful.”

“I will.” Emilio followed her outside and held open her car door for her.

When she couldn’t find her car keys, she eyed the youth. A desperate look came over him, and he slapped his hands over his shirt and pants pockets, then laughed and withdrew them from his hip pocket. “I had you worried there, didn’t I?”

Brynn rolled her eyes, then started the engine. As Emilio had said earlier, it purred like new. Her car sounded better than it had in years. She backed out of the driveway. It was as she started down the street that she noticed Roberto Alcantara watching her from inside the building.

* * *

He owed her an apology, Roberto reasoned. He’d been angry and frustrated the day they’d met, and he’d taken his irritation out on her. True, he believed the things he’d said, but generally he kept his opinions to himself. It had helped relieve his irritation to sound off at Emilio’s teacher; but it hadn’t been fair.

An hour before he’d met Brynn, Roberto had learned his offer to lease a building in another neighborhood had been rejected. It hadn’t been the first time a landlord had refused to rent to him. Naturally he’d been given some flimsy excuse, but Roberto had learned long ago the real reason. No one wanted a Hispanic taking up residence nearby.

Brynn Cassidy was everything Emilio had said. Bright. Intelligent. Pretty. Roberto feared his younger brother was half in love with her himself. But this spunky teacher was off-limits to the both of them, and Roberto knew it. It would be best if he never saw her again.

Funny how a woman could be so dangerous; but Roberto had recognized it from the first moment they’d met. Brynn Cassidy just might teach him to dream, too.

Friday evening Brynn arrived at the gymnasium behind St. Philip’s. She walked into the gaily decorated room and stopped to admire the decorations. Red and green streamers were looped across the ceiling from one end of the room to the other. A refreshment table was set up alongside the folded bleachers.

“Hello, Miss Cassidy.” The first one to greet her was Suzie Chang, who looked exceptionally pretty in a dark blue silk pants suit.

“Oh, Suzie, you look so nice.”

The Chinese girl lowered her head and blushed. “So do you.”

Brynn hadn’t been exactly sure what to wear and had opted for a blouse and skirt and patent-leather flats. Although she’d attended a number of school dances at St. Mary’s, she’d never actually served as a chaperone. Generally the girls’ school relied on parents and members of the PTA.

“Miss Cassidy,” Emilio called. He helped himself to a handful of cookies. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a chaperone.”

“Hey, that’s cool. So’s my brother.”

Brynn hadn’t recognized Roberto without his coveralls. She hadn’t given Roberto much notice before, but now . . . caught by his piercing dark eyes, Brynn found it difficult to look away.

“Hello, Roberto.”

“Miss Cassidy.” He nodded politely in her direction.

The music started. It came from a sound system with large speakers that blared from the front of the stage. No one seemed to want to be the first one on the dance floor.

“Hey, you two,” Emilio said. “Shouldn’t you start the dancing or something?”

Hannah needed to talk to Joshua. It was important that she return the gloves as soon as possible. It was wrong of her to have kept them this long. Then to walk past him on the street and pretend that she didn’t know him was a terrible insult. She’d witnessed for herself the surprise and confusion in his gaze. Yet she was forever grateful that he’d read her silent message and hadn’t greeted her. Hannah didn’t know how she would explain knowing him to her mother.

For herself, Hannah was both bewildered and guilty, and she felt like a coward. It was unfair to Joshua to lead him to believe that she was free to care for him. Unfair to Carl, who’d courted her faithfully these many months. She’d juggled with her conscience until she couldn’t think straight any longer.

“I do wish we weren’t doing this,” Hannah said to her mother.

“Doing what?” Ruth questioned. “Buying my daughter a trousseau? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“We haven’t set the wedding date yet.”

“You will soon enough.” In the eyes of her parents she was all but married to Carl Rabinsky.

“Your father and I have patiently waited all these years for a man who was worthy of you.”

A lifetime of accepting what her parents felt was right was what helped Hannah hold her tongue.