Chapter 56

I was still thinking about my damp hair and wondering if I should let it grow out, when the doorbell rang. I glanced at my watch and realized it was just a few minutes before six. Bud had done a good job of keeping track of time for us and I had left the cavern in plenty of time, but had taken longer than I'd expected in the bathroom. Just dawdling, my mind still going over some of what Bud had talked about and shown me. I took one more quick glance in the mirror and then galloped down the stairs.

"Hi!" Kelli said brightly when I opened the door, way to quickly. I had to catch myself before I slammed it into the wall behind it.

"Hi!" I grinned and answered back. "You look nice." She did too. Bright yellow dress that set off her dusky, tanned shoulders. She had a matching sweater folded over the crook of one arm and a grocery bag in the other.

"Thank you," she grinned back. "So do you. Your hair's still damp."

"Yeah, I kind of dawdled in the shower. Here, let me take that," I reached out for the bag and she handed it to me. It was bigger than I'd expected, and seemed full.

"This all needs to go to the kitchen. Do you have ice? This would work best with crushed ice."

"I do, but we'll have to crush it in the blender." I walked toward the kitchen, looking back to make sure she was following. I set the bag on the breakfast bar and turned back to her. She didn't stop, but kept walking up to me until she'd violated my personal space quite severely. Such impudence deserved only one response. I leaned in until our personal spaces were in mutual and intimate violation and kissed her.

"There's the nice welcome I was hoping for," she breathed into my ear as we hugged following the kiss.

"That's a welcome I'm happy to offer you any time," I breathed back. I kissed her again, a quicker, more traditional welcoming kiss and leaned back to separate us a little. "Can I take that sweater for you?"

"Oh yes, thank you. I'll get our Mojita fixings going while you do that," she moved around me to grab the bag, brushing against me and my abused personal space again. I smiled and rushed back to the entryway to put the sweater in the entry closet. I looked at the hangers in the closet and decided the loose, cable-knit sweater would be safer laid on the high shelf at the back.

When I got back to the kitchen, Kelli was slicing a couple of limes very efficiently and quickly. I was jealous at the uniformity of the slices she was achieving seemingly without actually watching hand, or knife. "Wow, you're good!"

"Thanks," she giggled. "I worked as a waitress at several of our hotel restaurants while I was in high school. Slicing fruit as garnish for drinks and food was one of the things the waitresses did. I got lots of practice. Between that and all the time I spent in the kitchen with my Abuelita Isabel ... Ah how she can cook!"

Her evident delight in her grandmother was contagious, driving my already wide grin even wider. I grabbed a big stainless steel bowl out of a cabinet and kissed her cheek while I walked past her. "I'll get the ice crushed while you're doing that."

"Okay, do you have a pitcher?" she asked as I walked into the pantry.

"There should be a big one in the dishwasher," I said, poking my head back around the corner.

I had just got the lid of the ice maker open when I heard a "Got it, thanks!" called back at me. I reached in and grabbed the ice scoop out of the ice bin and stared down at it for a moment. There was a chute in the sidewall of the bin and the lid I'd opened was only one half of the top. There was another lid for the other side. I reached over and opened the other side. There was another bin and this one was half filled with crushed ice. There was a pusher with a handle on it in this bin that was obviously used to feed ice into the chute on the other side. I quickly filled my bowl and then gleefully spent a couple of minutes pressing scoops of ice cubes through the chute of the crusher.

"My ice maker was more awesome than I knew," I joked as I walked back out to the kitchen with my crushed ice.

Kelli had a deep glass bowl half filled with some of the Mojita stuff, and was working it over very seriously with a wooden bat about 8 inches long. I watched raptly while she finished mashing the ingredients together before dumping it into the pitcher.

"Would you fill the pitcher about three quarters full with the ice?" I did, using a plastic measuring cup I found in the cupboard to scoop the ice from the bowl to the pitcher.

She followed this with cans of club soda, pouring them into the pitcher until it was full, stirring everything gently as she did.

"There we go," she said, wiping her hands on a dish cloth. "A pitcher of virgin Mojitos We should save that to have with dinner I guess," she said as I put it in the fridge. "What else do you have to drink, and do you have any bar glasses?

"I've got a six pack of Anchor Steam cold in here," I said from the fridge door. "And there's a full bar setup over there," I pointed towards the living room where Mrs. Ibarra had demonstrated the hidden bar for me. I went over and opened it up for her, then retreated back to the kitchen so I could put out a plate of the cheese and tomato that I'd bought for snacking on. I broke out a clean knife and sliced the tomatoes, but there was a cool little cheese slicing toy on the back counter I wanted to try, and had fun with it while Kelli explored the bar.

"The bar is very nicely stocked," she said as she came back into the kitchen. "We'll have no problem heating up our Mojitos later if we want to." I perked up my ears at that. It sort of implied that she'd still be here after Mitch and his date left. I hadn't let myself consider that, but apparently she had.

"I've got a plate of appetite encouragement here," I waved the plate in the air as I went to put it in the fridge to keep fresh for later. "I hope its not too upscale for our teenagers."

"Most of them are happy to experiment a little with the food if it means being treated like an adult. Can you bring those glasses over that I set on top of the bar? We should probably close the bar up while they're here and just treat it like it doesn't exist."