He had no answer for that. Mainly because she was right.
“Your aunt Ida was craving my mulled wine, and the idea of spending another Christmas on a boat didn’t hold the appeal it once did, so home we went.”
The very idea of his mother’s mulled wine brought a smile to his face. It had been years since his mother had made it—the last Christmas his father had been alive. That she was even thinking about putting on a pot meant she’d turned that final corner on her grief. And maybe, just maybe, he had, too. “If you’re calling to find out if I’m coming home for the holidays—”
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” she chided him. “You just started this job. That wouldn’t be fair to want you to come home and visit your widowed, lonely mother, whose only son, whose only child, has moved all the way across the country.” She hesitated. “Would it?”
“No,” he laughed. “It wouldn’t.” While he had no doubt his mother was still missing his father, and him, if there was one thing Esmeralda Salazar was not, it was lonely. “I’ll see what I can do after the first of the year, but it’s a small department. There’s only me and Frankie full-time. If I were to take off, it would mean pulling volunteers away from their families and other jobs, and I don’t think you’d want me to do that.”
“Of course not. What about this Frankie? Does he have a family?”
“Frankie’s got a brother in town. And lots of friends.”
“I’m sure you have lots of friends now, too. You’re so much like your father, Roman. You never met a stranger. Speaking of your father, I’ve been going through the last of his things.”
Ah. That explained the multiple calls. And the guilt crawling around inside him.
“I found his humidor. You know that thing he kept moving around the house trying to hide it from me?”
“I remember.” Roman also remembered it was where his father had hidden most of his mother’s birthday, anniversary and Christmas gifts. Antonio Salazar was well aware of his wife’s aversion to cigars, but he also knew she could suss out a surprise with the bat of an eyelash. The box she detested had made for the perfect hiding place.
“I want to send it to you. Along with some other things. Do I have your address?”
“I don’t really have an address yet, Mom.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The station house has a nice room, and I really haven’t had time to look for a place yet. I will. Eventually.”
“Well, where do I send this stuff in the meantime?”
“I’ll text you an address.”
“See that you do. I don’t want to lose my momentum cleaning all this stuff out. Before Christmas, do you hear me?”
“I hear you and I’ll get it to you. ’Bye. Love you.”
“I love you, too, son. Stay safe.”
An address. Roman slipped his phone away. Leave it to his mother and her questions to remind him he had, whether he’d intended to or not, become part of this community. House or not, home or not, he detoured from the diner and headed to the hardware store to get himself a PO box.
* * *
“WHAT ON EARTH are those?” Frankie, fresh off cleaning out the station house fridge, was finally able to address the growing elephant in the office. Countless file boxes—some covered in dust older than she was—sat stacked against the wall, obscuring the metal file cabinet and covering the chief’s—Roman’s—desk.
“Archived files.” Roman appeared as if she’d conjured him, arms loaded with even more boxes. He set them down with a thunk, shook his head and ran a hand over his sweaty face. “And who knows what else.”
Frankie had to look away. Somehow, since their kiss, he’d managed to get even more handsome. Or maybe she was seeing him through different eyes. Dreamy eyes. Frankie caught herself. There she went again!
“Didn’t realize when I got started there would be this many. Do you know some of these boxes go back to the ’60s? That basement is a gold mine of history.”
“Ah, the good old days when the station house was estrogen-free and ran on testosterone and adrenaline.” Frankie chewed the inside of her cheek. He’d been increasingly contemplative the last few days, something she was trying not to attribute to their kiss the other night. Roman hadn’t brought up the topic at all, and she certainly wasn’t going to. Still, while she appreciated the silence, she couldn’t quite set aside the feeling he was keeping something from her. Did these files have something to do with his odd behavior? “Why the interest?”