A Sheryl Crow song came on but she was barely paying attention as she remembered that day seventeen years ago. She smiled. “You should have seen Kate then. She took herself so seriously—kind of like you. Always had an answer to every question asked, and it wasn’t hard for her to earn a few haters among the other kids. Kids who were ruthless in their taunting, mostly about things like her Payless shoes, since the uniforms eliminated the possibility of much teasing on that score. She had no reason to like any of us.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I wasn’t anywhere as smart as Kate, but I did okay. Academically and socially, since I was able to stay up on the latest fashions, thanks to Emily Vaughn, who actually hired me my own personal stylist. Don’t ask.

“Anyhow, it was probably just a month after she’d transferred. Poor little old me, with my big first world worries, was crying in the bathroom because I’d heard Heather Little bragging about kissing the boy who was supposedly my boyfriend at the dance the Saturday before. Not important in the big scheme of things and, like I said, Kate had no reason to be nice to any of us. But all the same, it was Kate who found me and who tried to comfort me.”

“Yeah. Sounds like her.”

The soft admiration in his tone gave her the oddest twinge of what could only be described as jealousy. Kate was wonderful. But could Cruz ever see her, Payton, in the same light?

“Kate not only got the tears stopped, but after she told me she’d seen Rob just that morning with a cold sore the size of Mount St. Helens on his upper lip and that Heather may soon have more than a story to share about her special night, I almost bust my gut laughing. And just like that I went from sobbing to laughing on what had felt like, moments before, the worst day of my life.”

“Don’t leave me hanging.”

She looked at him in confusion and he smiled, giving her that squishy feeling again in her belly. Thank goodness she couldn’t see his eyes through those lenses or she might have actually purred.

“Heather’s lip?” he asked in clarification.

She smiled. “It swelled to the size of a small apricot. Kate and I have been best friends ever since. She’s my family. And right now, I’m about all she’s got in this world, which is why it’s so important that I be there at her side on the biggest day of her life.”

“You’ll be there. No worries. And I’m betting right now, with my sisters’, mom’s, and all the aunts’ attention, she’s having second thoughts about having any more family.”

“Not possible. This is everything she’s ever wanted. And I couldn’t be happier for her—” Her voice broke off unexpectedly and she felt tears well in her eyes. She was happy. But all of a sudden, seeing Kate about to be welcomed into this large unknown family, she felt a little lonely. Would Kate still need her as much?

Cruz’s heavy hand settled on her shoulder. So solid. Warm. It felt like he was sending electromagnetic waves through her body. She willed herself not to lean her head against it. “You’re a good friend, Payton. You have every right to feel a little sad that things are changing.”

She wiped a tear away, already done with it. “I am happy for her. Really. Just a little sorry for me is all. What if she doesn’t—doesn’t need me anymore?”

“Never gonna happen. You’re pretty irreplaceable.”

She cracked a grin even as her ovaries squeezed at the raspy way his voice had dropped. “Are you saying that as a compliment?”

“Take it as you will,” he said and smiled back. Something she definitely liked on him, even if it turned her into Ms. Crazypants.

The beginning strain of “I Like Big Butts” flooded the cab and she laughed at Cruz’s pained expression.

She was going to have to work on getting him to smile a lot more often. It really worked for him.

The view outside the passenger window had been spectacular as the freeway curved and looped up and down once they’d began the westward trek away from Guadalajara, and Cruz was glad he’d given in and let Payton have a turn at the wheel again. It was nice to sit back and enjoy things without having to be in control.

The rising hills had begun to space themselves apart, and he could see the bluish tinge of the rows upon rows of agave in the fields nestled between them.

They’d passed most of the past few hours in a comfortable silence. Just enjoying the view or deep in their own thoughts. Payton hummed almost absentmindedly to the latest tune, something that sounded an awful lot like country music and yet…he didn’t totally hate it.

Just like he was finding that after all this time, he didn’t totally hate Payton either. In fact, maybe he never had. It had been easier to fight the unsettling attraction he’d felt for her since he first saw her by almost demonizing her, assuming she was as shallow and selfish as she was pretty.

But now he had another image in his mind. An image of two twelve-year-old girls becoming fast friends and giggling in the school restroom. Of an overbearing mother who tried to mold her daughter into who she thought the girl should be and the girl who, despite that, went off to college and studied things as gauche as environmental and earth science. Payton was a secret tree hugger. At that thought, he smiled.

She was definitely not what he had expected.

“How much longer until we make it to Puerto Vallarta?” Payton asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

He glanced at his watch. Just after three. “We should be there in about three and a half hours. Which is actually something of a relief. The last couple of hours of driving can be pretty treacherous. It’s a two-lane highway that winds through the mountains, and I wouldn’t want to experience that without daylight.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, just staring ahead at the view of the sun on the fields outside. “It really is beautiful here. I could almost forget everything that’s waiting for me back home,” Payton said, her tone wistful. “I’m going to have to come down here again and really explore the area when I’m not rushed for time.”

Hearing the sadness in her tone at returning home, the place where she should be happy, rankled. Not sure of her reception to his question, he started cautiously. “I have a pretty good idea what it must have been like growing up with your mother.”

“Ha! You don’t even know the half of it.” But she was still smiling.

“I can only imagine. You never really mention anything about your father, though. Where does he fit into everything?”

“My father doesn’t fit in anywhere. Not in my life.” The brightness and warmth had left her voice as she looked ahead at the road. “His life is his business. Vaughn Communication is first and foremost in his life. His mistress of the month is a close second, and then somewhere after that is my mother and then me. I’m frankly surprised he even managed to pencil my wedding into his busy life.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” Cruz’s own father might no be as ebullient and openly demonstrative with his emotions as his mom, but he loved his children in a more quiet, subdued way.

“I assure you it is. At my sweet sixteen party—a party I hadn’t wanted, by the way, but Emily Vaughn saw it as a necessity for any young woman coming of age—he was supposed to lead me in the first dance. It was all arranged, what song the band would play and I’d even been practicing with Kate so I wouldn’t be a total spaz in front of him. Then he had a last minute trip to San Diego that couldn’t be rearranged. I danced with my Uncle Walter instead. It was pretty humiliating, even if I was only half surprised.”

He didn’t know much about a world where sixteen-year-old girls had large parties with bands, but he did know something of teenage girls—having lived with two sisters. As much as they might pretend they didn’t care, these things were important. It obviously left a lasting impression on Payton.