Look What the Wind Blew In Read Online Free PDF

humid air, making his mouth water.
    Juan greeted him with a shoulder bump. “Boy, am I glad to see you. My daughter’s been picking on me about my dining room etiquette since I dug in.”
    “A lot of good it’s doing,” Angélica said as Juan picked up his meat-filled tortilla, dripped orange sauce all over his fingers, and bit a chunk out of the wrap. As he chewed, he smirked across the table at her.
    She shook her head. “You need a keeper.”
    “Why do you think I had you?”
    “I was an accident, remember?”
    “No, spilling my drink down the front of your mother’s dress on our first date was an accident. You were an adorable bundle of surprise with Marianne’s lovely hair color and my striking good looks.”
    Angélica laughed. “Good thing I got Mom’s unpretentiousness along with her hair.” She cut a bite-sized piece of her much thinner tortilla. “Hungry, Mr. Parker?” she asked before sticking the morsel into her mouth.
    “Quint,” he corrected, his stomach rumbling. “I could eat a horse.”
    She swallowed. “That’s too bad. We have no horse here. Teodoro has a donkey, but we need him since the motorcycle is out of commission.” She surveyed the room. “Teodoro,” she called above the murmur of conversation. “Will you please ask María to make up a plate of food for Mr. Parker?”
    “I can get my own plate.” He started to stand, but Teodoro was already at the kitchen counter.
    “You will not,” she told him, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Tonight you’re our guest.” She tapped the shoulder of the man sitting to her left. “Fernando, this is Quint Parker. He’s going to write an article about the dig site. Quint, meet Fernando, my foreman.”
    Fernando nodded at him before taking a sip of his coffee. Judging from the lines fanning from Fernando’s eyes and the gray at his temples, Quint guessed him to be a half a decade his senior.
    When he looked back at the boss lady, he found himself the bull’s eye of her focus.
    “As of tomorrow,” she said, “you’re one of the crew, and that involves a couple of rules.”
    Ah, crap. Here we go. He knew the drill—smile and nod as she explained how this was her territory, her crew, and her dig, blah, blah, blah. Then thank her dutifully after she explained where, when, and how often he could eat, breathe, and use the latrine. No problem, he’d play along. He had no choice, really. He’d do whatever it took to buy the time he needed to find the answers he and Jeff Hughes were looking for down here.
    Teodoro placed a tin plate laden with a thick, meaty-looking burrito wrapped in a homemade tortilla in front of Quint. The smell alone had him drooling like his nephew back when the kid had been teething. “Thanks. What is this?”
    “It’s called a panucho ,” Angélica said. “It’s a tortilla typically stuffed with black beans and topped with onion, tomatoes, chile , and sometimes egg. María, our cook, has her own versions of it with various meats, which she super-sizes for the men. It includes what we call her ‘special sauce,’ which is orange and delicious and very top secret. I wouldn’t advise asking her about it.”
    “She’ll threaten you with a cleaver and chase you out of the kitchen,” Juan warned.
    “She does that only to you, Dad.”
    Using both hands, Quint lifted the panucho toward his mouth, his teeth all ready to tear into it. At that moment, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about the heat, the lack of modern plumbing, or the bossy woman eyeing him from across the table. He just wanted a moment alone with his food.
    Angélica cleared her throat.
    He hesitated, his jaw open and ready to chomp.
    Juan leaned over. “Don’t give her an inch, boy.” His tone was full of mirth. “Trust me, I know my daughter. She takes after the bulldozer we have back home on our ranch. A real chip off the old diesel.”
    “Dad, that is a blatant misrepresentation of one of my better character traits.”
    “I