“All right, Bella,” Darren said in what he hoped was a reasonable tone of voice. “We’re going to go in and we’re going to stay together. Got it?”

“Sure.” Bella was already dashing from the car to the front doors of the restaurant.

Darren was pretty sure he already knew why Laredo hated this place. It actually looked like a lot of fun, which, of course, was against Laredo’s personal code. Big brother did not like fun. Beyond that, there was a huge arcade that took up probably more than half of the restaurant itself. There were kids and adults alike packed into the place like sardines. No doubt they were going to have to wait a long time for a table to begin with. Darren was steeling himself for a big fight to keep track of Bella when he spotted a rather familiar face just inside the restaurant.

“Hey, Bella!” Darren called out to his niece.

She was busy biting her lip and sticking out her tongue with the effort of pulling open the front doors. Darren finally caught up to her and grabbed hold of the doors. He held them shut until she gave him her attention.

“Isn’t that Ms. Brown inside?” Darren wanted to know.

Bella immediately let go of the doors and pressed her nose to one of the two crescent-shaped sidelights flanking the doorway. “Yeah. I think so. How cool is that? You get to see her twice in one day!”

“Pretty cool,” Darren told Bella with mock seriousness. “Guess we better go try and get a table.” Of course, Darren wasn’t really in a hurry anymore. Not since he now knew what was waiting for him right inside while he was—er, well, while he was waiting. How lame.

Darren sighed and let Bella into the restaurant. Bella pranced right up to the podium—there was a lot of prancing lately, and Darren was beginning to think it had something to do with the horse obsession.

“Two for dinner,” Bella said, nearly standing on tiptoe and hanging off the edge of the podium in order to speak.

“Can I get a name?” The hostess leaned far over in order to see Bella.

Bella actually glanced over toward where Ms. Brown appeared to be sitting alone at the end of a bench in the waiting area. “Darren Hernandez,” Bella said loudly, so loudly in fact that pretty much the whole restaurant heard her.

Darren snorted. He now felt officially ridiculous, but Ms. Brown turned immediately and spotted them. She actually gave a little wave, and Darren decided Bella’s attention mongering was absolutely worthwhile. He took his niece’s hand. “Let’s have a seat, kiddo.”

“Darren!” Ms. Brown was waving at them. “Come wait down here with me! There’s plenty of room.”

Darren thought he could heard the other guests waiting on that bench groan as they heard Maggie Brown make her offer. With that in mind, he returned her wave and then went to stand by Maggie’s end of the bench. Bella had no such inhibitions, of course. She plopped down onto the bench and made several other people slide down to accommodate her.

“We saw you right away when we came in,” Bella informed Ms. Brown. “That’s why I yelled Uncle Darren’s name.”

Darren rolled his eyes and put a hand to his forehead. From the corner of his eye, he could see several other people waiting for tables decide that this bit of drama made their wait far more interesting. There was a lot of poking and whispering going on. Of course, they all probably thought that Bella was his daughter. The girl was a Hernandez. That meant she looked just like Darren and every single one of her uncles.

Maggie Brown tossed a smile in Darren’s direction. Somehow, it made her face even more beautiful. “Well, I’m very glad that you decided to come over and socialize, then.”

“Do you eat here very often?” Darren managed to keep a straight face. Then he gestured to Bella. “She tells me it’s a very happening place.”

“It’s one of my favorites,” Maggie told them. She had pulled her long strawberry-blond hair up into a ponytail, and Darren could not help but admire the way it curled around her shoulder before trailing down toward her breast.

No. He could not think about her breasts. He needed to keep things platonic with Maggie. He needed to be thinking about something other than the fantastic way she made him feel. It really had nothing to do with the physical. It was more of a strong—no—an overpowering desire to spend more time with her just to see what she would say. She was smart. She was fun. And she had let slip that she played sports growing up. Darren could not help but think that the two of them would have a lot in common.

“Where’s your dad, sweetheart?” Maggie suddenly asked Bella.

Bella’s face went from sunshine to gray in one second flat. “He’s working late.”

There were a myriad of emotions on Maggie’s face. Darren could read the sympathy and compassion plain as day, but there was also anger. And then she looked up at Darren, and he saw a distinct admiration on her face for him.

Admiration? How odd. That usually didn’t last long when people looked at him. Darren didn’t do well with stuff like that in general. People usually admired him when they first met him. It always had something to do with looks or athletic ability. After that, they always grew disappointed with his inability to follow through and actually finish things for people. He had left a trail of broken relationships and unfinished projects and tasks from coast to coast. This would be no different.

Then Maggie put her hand on Bella’s thin shoulder and gave her a smile so warm and so accepting that Darren actually felt the glow reflecting off his niece and hitting him square in the chest. “Then, let me tell you, kiddo, you are a very lucky girl to have an uncle who will take such good care of you and bring you to Maxine’s for dinner.”

“He is pretty special,” Bella agreed. She shot Darren a mischievous look over her shoulder. “Do you think he’s handsome? People always tell me that they think he’s handsome.”

Maggie’s pale complexion did not hide embarrassment very well. Red bloomed along her cheekbones, but it was very becoming. Then she looked down at her hands for a moment before lifting that green gaze to look back up at Darren. “He is pretty handsome, Bella. You’re a very lucky girl.”

“He’s my uncle!” Bella burst out. Then Bella stared from Darren to Maggie and back again. “You should have dinner with us,” Bella told Maggie. “It’s really crowded. I bet if I tell the lady we have three instead of two tables for two, we’ll get our food faster.”

“You should go ahead and do that,” Maggie agreed almost instantly. “It will help some of these other people get in faster too.”

Bella disappeared up to the podium to chat with the hostess. Darren figured she would be asking the hostess to bring a minister so her uncle Darren could get married during dinner. It was obvious the little girl was doing some matchmaking.

“She’s very precocious for nine, you know?” Maggie spoke to Darren, but her gaze was focused on Bella. “I’ve never known a nine-year-old to be so comfortable marching up to a counter or dealing with restaurant staff like that.”

“I imagine her father has had something to do with that,” Darren mused. He thought about Laredo. “I swear my brother was telling businesses what they were doing wrong and how their business plans could be improved before he was ten years old.”

“I almost believe that.” Maggie started to laugh. “Mr. Hernandez is very intense.”

“He expects a lot out of Bella.” Darren felt the smile slip off his face. “Sometimes I think it’s too much. It reminds me a little bit of my parents and our adopted sister. She was only eleven when she came to live with us, but my mother was over the moon about having a daughter. They pushed poor Jesse to do all kinds of girlish type activities when Jesse is more of a tomboy than anything else.” Darren recalled those days with a strange sort of clarity. “She tried, I think, but the cheerleading and the dancing weren’t her thing. She’d been raised on a ranch for too long, and she was used to running wild all over the front range. That was where she was happiest.”

“Sounds like you had a lot of compassion for her,” Maggie murmured. She reached out and touched his hand.

The contact was searing. His physical response was almost instant. His heart started pounding, and he felt the blood begin to rush through his body. He felt more alive in that moment than he had in the last dozen or more football games that he’d played. It was electric and he wanted more. He wanted to be around her. He wanted to learn everything there was to know about her. And he didn’t care that it was probably not a good idea. Sometimes it was impossible to ignore animal instinct.

“Our table is ready.” Bella suddenly appeared beside them bouncing on her toes as though she were going to launch herself into the air with excitement. “When I finish my burger, will you give me quarters so I can play on the machines, Uncle Darren?”

Darren was still trying to find his center of gravity. All he could manage was a nod. Forcing his feet to move, he followed the little hostess as she led them to a table in the back corner of the restaurant. It was almost quiet back here compared to the hubbub of the front of the house.

Darren, Maggie, and Bella took their places in the corner booth. Bella sat between Darren and Maggie. He was glad. He could not trust himself right now. There was something too intimate about sitting in a booth beside a beautiful woman where he would feel the heat of her thigh pressing up against his. It would have been too simple to wrap his arm around her body on the pretext of slinging it over the back of the booth. All of that was too easy. But Maggie Brown was not easy. She was better than that. She deserved better than that. She deserved better than Darren Hernandez too. Unfortunately, he just could not stop himself from wanting to get to know her better.

“Can I get you all some drinks?” A waitress bounced over. She was in her mid-twenties. Darren could tell as soon as she took one look at him that he was about to be inundated by shallow flirtation and cheap pickup lines. Dammit. This was not the time. “Sir, would you like a beer? We have some amazing local brews on tap.”

“Actually, I just want a soda,” Darren told the waitress without looking at her. “What would you like, Bella?”

“Soda!” Bella burst out excitedly.

“Clear soda,” Darren amended. “It’s way too close to bedtime for anything else.”

“Ugh!” Bella rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you’re way worse than Dad. He doesn’t care about soda.”

“I want you to sleep good so you have a good day at school,” Darren shot back. He was rather surprised to find that he was giving her an honest statement. He did want her to sleep well. He wanted her to be healthy and happy and everything that he did not know about his own child.

Darren shook his head. No. He was not going to think about Jaeger right now. It wouldn’t do anyone any good. He needed to focus on the moment at hand. That was what mattered. That was what would get him where he needed to be in life.

Wherever the hell that was.