Okay, that hadn’t been the right thing to say. “I think she was just joking.”
“She wasn’t laughing. Then Tia Lola said you were sad because you missed Lisa.”
Tyler’s chest tightened. He didn’t miss Lisa. How could he miss someone who turned her back on him when he needed her the most? Someone who —
“And then,” Anna continued, “Leo walked into the room and said it was probably because you picked up a bar of soap in prison.” Her tiny brows pulled in confusion at the same time Tyler’s gut pulled with fury. “I don’t understand that,, Tio. ”
“Leo’s full of. . .” Tyler caught himself just in time.
“Full of what?” Anna asked, a half-smile pulling at her lips.
Tyler’s gaze shot to the pi?ata hanging above the tree. “Full of candy.”
Anna snickered. “Mama said he was full of shit.”
Tyler grinned. “Well, like you just said, your mama doesn’t lie. But . . . we all have . . . excrement in our insides.”
“Excrement?” He could see the child figuring out the word’s meaning and filing it away in her knowledge-hungry brain. “That’s gross.”
“I agree.” Tyler’s smile came easier.
“Almost as gross as how babies are made,” she said.
That little announcement came out of left field and Tyler’s jaw fell open.
Anna stared at him with the same face she’d made at dinner a few weeks ago when her mom made her eat a bite of broccoli. “I read a book about it.”
“What book?” he managed to ask.
“The one mama bought me after I told her I didn’t believe the stork brought my baby brother.”
“Oh,” he said, not sure what else to say. But his smile lingered as he thought about his sister dealing with her inquisitive daughter. He smiled until he saw Anna’s full-of-shit stepfather walk out of the patio door and snag a beer from one of the coolers.
Leo Medina, his twin sister’s second husband, was a jerkwad, right up there with Anna’s deadbeat daddy. While Tyler tried to overlook his sister’s ghastly taste in husbands, ignoring Leo was hard. And for damn good reasons, too—or suspected reasons.
“Did you and Lisa want to have a baby?” Anna asked.
Tyler swallowed, searching for words. “We . . . we weren’t married.”
She made another funny face. “I’m not getting married.”
“Me either,” he told her honestly. After living with the result of his parents’ dysfunctional relationship, he’d always had reservations. Lisa had made him throw caution to the wind. Unfortunately that wind blew up a hell of a lot of heartache.
“I liked Lisa,” Anna said. “She was pretty. She told me I was going to get to be the flower girl in her wedding. Why are you and her not getting married anymore? Is it because you think making babies is gross, too?”
He nearly swallowed his tongue. “Lisa married someone else.”
“Maybe if you told her you were sorry, she would get a divorce like Mama did with my daddy. Then Lisa could marry you.”
Sorry for what? For being framed for a crime he didn’t commit? “I don’t think so.”
“Saying you’re sorry works. It worked on Mom when Leo hit her. And she was mad.”
Tyler felt like his blood pressure shot up a good twenty points. He hadn’t needed another reason to dislike Leo, but damn if he didn’t have one. “Leo hit your mom?”
“Yeah, but he said he was sorry. So if you apologize to Lisa—”
“Excuse me, Anna, but I need to . . . I have to do something.” He passed Anna her cat and gave the girl’s pigtail a teasing yank, hoping his rage didn’t show through his painted clown face.
“Okay.” The innocence on her face was the opposite of everything Tyler felt.
He stood up and looked around for Samantha. When he spotted his twin sister setting food out on a table, he realized her large sunglasses meant something other than protection from the glare. It meant protecting her son-of-bitch husband.
Moving in, Tyler caught her by the arm. “We need to talk.”
“I’m getting the food out,” she protested. Her long black hair shifted around her shoulders. While they shared their light olive skin and dark hair—both inherited from their Hispanic mother—Anna had also taken her mom’s petite build. Tyler’s six foot frame came directly from his father. He hoped to God it was the only trait he’d inherited from the SOB.
“Food can wait.” He pulled off his multi-colored wig, and his red ball nose, and walked her inside the house, guided her past the kitchen and didn’t stop until they stood in the enclosed laundry room that smelled like clean clothes.
“What the hell is up with you?” She snapped her hands on her hips. The action reminded him of their mom that if this wasn’t so damn serious, he might have been distracted. While his mother had been dead for four years, he still missed her.
“Take your sunglasses off, Sis.”
“What?”