In front of him were three Hispanic women. One of them (the one yelling who was also gesticulating wildly with her arms) was short and gorgeous. She looked like a younger, less round but no less fiery version of Blanca.

A relative.

I let out a breath and put my hand holding the cell phone to my chest.

The minute I did her eyes lifted to the stairs, she stopped yelling and her mouth dropped open.

I wanted to turn and run back to the bed, pull the covers over my head and wait until Hector got back.

Instead, New Sadie clicked into place, took her hand from her chest, waved the cell phone at the woman and called, "Hi."

Hector twisted and looked up at me. I watched him bite his bottom lip and as I'd never seen him do that before I didn't know whether he was biting back a smile or annoyance.

I took in a deep breath and walked down the stairs.

All three women watched me descend, all of them had their mouths hanging open.

I thought this was bizarre. Hector was Hispanic Hottie, he'd nearly been married to Belinda. It wasn't like he'd never had a woman at his house.

Hector stepped to the side when I got to the bottom and I stopped next to him.

"Sadie, this is my sister Gloria. Gloria, Sadie," Hector introduced us when I came to a halt.

So this was Catfight, Rough Up Belinda Gloria.

I couldn't help it, I smiled at her.

Her eyes bugged out.

Now, this was bizarre too.

Hector rapped out something in terse Spanish and Gloria blinked.

Then she said to me, "It's just like Mam said, you do look like a fairy princess."

Oh. That again.

I shrugged.

Eyes still on me, she breathed, "Dios mio, please tell me it's just a little hard to be that beautiful."

I stared at her, not knowing how to react.

On the one hand, what she said was really sweet and that made me feel nice.

On the other hand, it was more than "just a little hard" to look like me because looking like me made me a Balducci Brothers Target of Terror.

On this thought, of their own accord, my fingers started toward the scar on my cheek and for some reason when I did this, Hector's body gave off his angry electric current and it began snapping around the room.

His arm slid around my shoulders and he tucked my front into his side. His other hand came up, his fingers wrapped around my raised wrist and he pulled my hand to his chest. While he did this, he barked low, angry Spanish words at his sister.

She shook her head then nodded and, her face going a bit pale, she said, "I'm sorry, Sadie. I didn't think."

So, Gloria knew what happened to me too.

This time, I mentally shrugged. It was way harder than the fairy princess thing but I was getting used to it too.

"Please, don't worry about it," I said softly.

Finally, she gave me a small, hesitant grin, turned and gestured to the two girls behind her. "These are my girls, Ines and Tia."

I looked at them, they were smiling at me and both were nearly as pretty as Gloria (but not quite) and finally I said, "Hi."

They said, "Hi," back.

I was feeling weird then I realized this was because I was standing in Hector's t-shirt, tucked in Hector's side, in the middle of the night, with Hector's sister and her two friends in Hector's living room.

I wondered briefly why Hector's sister would break into her brother's house in the middle of the night but I decided it was none of my business. I didn't have siblings, who knew how they acted? Maybe this was normal.

I put my hand holding the cell phone around Hector's waist and waited for someone to say something. No one did.

So I tried to figure out what was the nice thing to do in this situation and I settled on asking, "Should I make coffee?"

"Fuck no," Hector said immediately.

This jerked Gloria out of her Sadie Daze and she started snapping in Spanish at Hector.

Hector listened for about half a second then interrupted (thankfully, in English), "Gloria, no fuckin' way are you and the girls sittin' in my hot tub at fuckin' one o'clock in the fuckin' morning."

Hector had a hot tub?

"We'll be quiet," Gloria assured him.

"I don't give a fuck. What's in your head, breakin' into my house in the middle of the night? I could have shot you, for fuck's sake," Hector replied sharply.

"Mam said you've been spendin' the night at Sadie's. We didn't think you'd be here," Gloria responded.

Blanca knew Hector was spending the night at my house?

How? Why? Again, how?

"That makes it okay?" Hector shot back, breaking into my crazed thoughts.

"You aren't using it!" Gloria snapped back.

"Jesus," Hector muttered, obviously at a loss to come up with a retort against his sister's (I had to admit) bizarre logic.

"Maybe I should make coffee," I broke in, trying to be peacemaker.

"Maybe Gloria, Ines and Tia should get their Mexican asses out of my fuckin' house," Hector didn't feel like allowing me to make peace.

Thus began a hot-blooded, Mexican-American sibling stare down that was so scorching, I felt even the latent Ice Princess shy away.

New Sadie, however, felt like marching straight into the fire.

I looked up at Hector. "Hector, let them sit in the hot tub."

Hector looked down at me, face still angry but for some reason I knew he was not angry at me and he started, "Sadie "

"What's it going to hurt?" I broke in.

I watched Hector's teeth clench and a muscle leap in his cheek.

"That's okay," Gloria said and Hector and my eyes moved to her. "We'd have to use the bathroom to change and we'd have to come back in to dry off afterward. We'd probably be noisy," she explained, now smiling the Glamorous Chavez Smile at me (hers had a dimple, like Eddie's). "We didn't know you were here, Sadie, or we wouldn't have woken you up."

"No problem," I told her, wanting to laugh at her implication that if it had been just Hector at home they wouldn't have hesitated waking him up.

"We'll come back when you're here some other time. We'll all sit in the hot tub," Gloria invited herself over.

Hector's body went tight.

I was thinking I'd likely be in Crete by that time, licking my wounds and obsessively sketching versions of Hector's celebration tattoo, my father's skull, my beautiful rose even though I didn't sketch, I'd have all the time in the world to teach myself.

Instead, I said, "I'll look forward to that."

"Jesus," Hector for some reason muttered again.

Gloria was close to laughing when her gaze swung to her brother. She said something to him in Spanish, his body grew tighter and Ines and Tia started giggling.

"You do that," Hector said, his voice as tight as his body, "there'll be retribution."

"Bring it on," Gloria returned, still smiling and not at all scared of Hector's threatened "retribution".

Then they hitched their bags over their shoulders, waved at me calling, "Hasta luego," and they were gone.

Hector let me go and I watched him lock the door behind them. He flipped the light switch and came back to me. Throwing his arm around my shoulders again, he turned me and guided me up the stairs.

"What did she say at the end, before she left?" I asked as we walked up the stairs. I felt weird with his arm around me like that so I put mine around his waist and immediately didn't feel weird anymore.

"She told me she was gonna tell Mam you're here."

Since, apparently, Blanca knew he was spending the night at my house, I didn't know why this was a big deal.

"Why is that a big deal?" I asked.

"She tells her, you'll find out," Hector said ominously.

Oh no.

We went back to his room, I crawled into bed while he put his gun away and then he joined me, moved into me, turning me so my back was to his front and his arms were around me.

His heat seeped through me and I started to relax, feeling safe, snug, comfy, lovely when he called, "Sadie?"

"Yes?" I replied in a sleepy voice.

"Gloria gets you in the hot tub with her posse, they have any bright ideas, you ignore them and go your own way."

"What does that mean?"

"That means Gloria, Ines and Tia make Indy and Ally look like amateurs."

I blinked in the darkness. "Now, what does that mean?"

"Indy has her own police code," Hector informed me.

Oh my.

I woke to a cold thus, I knew, empty bed.

I rolled, looked at Hector's side but, sure enough, he was gone. I sat up, pulled my hair out of my face and looked around the room.

No Hector.

Then I realized I had to use the bathroom.

I slid out from under the covers, walked out of the room and down the hall, looking into empty rooms, two more bedrooms (neither of them refinished, one unused save to store more stacked boxes and furniture, the smallest one being utilized as an office), one bath.

When I got in the bathroom, I noticed Hector had already renovated it. A handsome, what looked like top-of-the-line (but what did I know, I was no plumber) bathroom suite and lots of warm, Mexican tile up the walls, cobalt, mustard yellow and terracotta designs against a buttery-cream background.

I did my business and walked down the stairs in search of Hector. I found him in the kitchen.

At the sight of him, I stopped in the doorway.

He was still wearing his cutoff pajama bottoms but he'd added a dark-gray, long-sleeved, skintight thermal. He was standing by the sink on the opposite side of the room, his side was partially turned to the counter, hip resting against it, eyes looking out the window over the sink, coffee cup held aloft but forgotten in front of him.

His mind was on something.

I stared at him and thought for the millionth time that he never looked better.

The kitchen had not been renovated and it looked like an extension of the restoration efforts. Paint brushes and drying rollers lying out on rags on the countertops, buckets on the floor, bags filled with I didn't know what stacked in the corner.

I must have moved because Hector's eyes sliced to me, his thoughtful face warmed and he demanded softly, "Come here."

As if guided by their own personal brain, my feet moved me toward him as I watched him put his mug on the counter. When I got within reaching distance, one of his arms came around my shoulders, the other one around my waist and he curled me into his heat.

His head came down and he gave me a soft, sweet kiss (with tongues) that lasted until my arms slid around his waist and my body melted into his. Then his head lifted.