Chapter 4
¡Que demonios! Carlotta wondered, but in a moment, she was alone with Linus Shepherd. It was a situation that required all her attention, for though he had adopted a casual stance with one capable shoulder propped against the wall to his right, she could feel his nearness in every buzzing nerve ending.
Drawing a fortifying breath, she felt her nostrils flare, and her heart race as he raised his leisurely gaze from her chest to her face. “I knew ya was gutsy,” he admitted. “But I didn’t think ya’d have the nerve to come here.”
She forced a shrug and hoped to God she looked half as relaxed, a third as unconcerned as he. “It seems you do not know me so well as you thought, señor.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” he asked and chuckled. “Tell me, darlin’, what’s your real name?”
She raised her brows and allowed a smile, just a little twist of lacquered lips. She’d reapplied her makeup minutes earlier, worn her most flattering dress, her most seductive shoes…just in case Gabriel Durrand was, like every man in her acquaintance thus far, influenced by a shapely figure, a pretty face. “You think I am the liar about my name?”
“Isn’t that what ya do in your country? Your good friend for instance. Seems like he’s got himself a couple a monikers. Buen Sanador, the good doctor, for his medical shit. Señor Tevio for his ahh-shucks-I’m-nothin’-but-a folksy-farmer charade. And Timoteo Santiago for his…less law-abiding adventures.
“But wait, ya don’t believe he’s anythin’ less than a saint, do ya?”
She increased the wattage of her smile, though he was close to the truth. For years, she had believed…had tried to believe…that her supporter was nothing more than a gentle doctor, an admired businessman, a trusted friend. But what did she believe now that her world had been torn to pieces?
“I am not the one to lie about who I am,” she said simply.
“Ya sayin’ ya told me your real name? Honest to God?” He chuckled. “I’m impressed. And honored.” He held the smile carefully in place. “Anythin’ else ya told me that wasn’t a damn lie?”
“Why is it you care?” she asked and trailed a fingertip along the rich grain of Kelsey’s desk. “You have your easy life here in America.” She raked him with her gaze, taking in the tooled leather of his cowboy boots before moving slowly back up his endless legs, his sculpted chest. “Your fine clothes. Your…” She paused, breath held. “¿Adoradora esposa?”
His brows jerked up a notch. “Ya think I’m married?”
She shrugged her disinterest. “In truth, señor, I neither know nor care.”
“I’m wounded,” he said and placed long, splayed fingers against his chest. “Heartbroken.”
She chuckled, circling him. “For that, señor, a heart would be required, would it not?”
“You’re accusin’ me of bein’ heartless?”
“Was it not you whom I tended while your wounds healed?”
“Wounds caused by your beloved countrymen,” he reminded her.
She ignored the accusation, though the truth of his words stung. “Was it not you who vowed never-ending adoration?”
“What I offered was to take you with me,” he said, and his face darkened.
“Sí, you did that,” she agreed. “And when I refused, you swiftly left, flew from my country without the other word. But maybe in America that is how long never-ending lasts.”
“So the fact that your good friend, Santiago, was taking potshots at my head didn’t seem like a good enough reason for me to hightail it?”
Guilt boiled up, spun her toward him. “He believed you meant me harm!”
“Bullshit!” he snarled.
“I owe him my life!” she snapped. “My sister’s life. My—“
“He’s a murderer!”
She drew in a deep breath, steadied her mind, changed tactics. “You believe this? You believe him to be the monster? And yet you made no effort to save me from him?”
“No effort?” He snorted. “I practically got myself cut in half tryin’ to save you.”
“Sí. For a moment!” She raised her hand, index finger and thumb pressed tightly together. “One tiny grain of time. Then you ran like the spineless perro!”
A muscle, taut with anger, jumped in his jaw. “I didn’t think my lifeless corpse was gonna be real beneficial for you, chica.”
“Sí, you were in danger then. But what of later? Maybe you had no phone with which to call? No internet? No post office from which to mail so much as a letter?” Her voice had risen against her will. She admonished herself, calmed her breathing.
“Listen…” He took a step toward her, but she raised her hands, palms out.
“It does not matter,” she assured him, finding that patient tone that some found more galling than her rage. “I care not what you think.”
“Sure.” He grinned, watching her as he settled the hard curve of his hip against the desk behind him. “That’s why ya traveled a couple’a thousand miles to find me.”
Her breathy huff sounded appropriately surprised, endlessly amused, she thought. “You believe I came for you?”
He shrugged. “Ya coulda gone anywhere in the big ol’ US of A, yet ya landed here, where I just happen to be. Kinda coincidental, don’t ya think, sweetheart?”
“It is so like a man…and an Americano…to believe yourself to be the center of the universe.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said and straightened, to saunter toward her.
“You are wrong,” she vowed and refused to back away, though perhaps caution truly was preferable to rash bravery.
“So ya didn’t want to see me?” They were inches apart now.
“I would not cross the Plaza Botero to see you!” she spat, and yet his nearness made something inside her twist…like a blade in her heart. She could remember every word he had spoken to her. But it was the things he’d said in delirium that were most deeply engrained. The sorrow of the warrior mourning his fallen comrades. The agony of the child who had lost his mama.
“So why are ya here then?” he asked.
She shoved the memories from her mind. He was neither a hero nor a boy. He was a man…and an irritating one. “I try to help when I believe someone for which I care is in danger. Unlike some.”
For a moment, she thought he might actually strike her, but finally, he laughed. “So I was right. Santiago’s gone AWOL?”
“No. You are not right,” she said. “It is my sister who is missing.”