Chapter 6
“You are loco!” Rage swept through her. Rage and fear and guilt, colliding like outraged midfielders.
“Sure,” Shep agreed with such infuriating amicability that she wanted to smack him upside the head. Wanted to tear his heart from his chest. “I’m crazy to think you’d sacrifice me in exchange for your sister’s safe return.”
“Señor Tevio has nothing to do with this. He has no interest in you whatsoever.”
“You’d never be less than honest,” he continued evenly. “I’m nuts to think different.”
“Sí. You are that.” Her breath was coming hard. Her heart beat like a hammer in her chest.
“’Cause ya never gave me the notion ya cared for me.”
She hissed in a breath, remembering the time they’d spent alone. He’d been at death’s very door. Yet he’d remained unbroken. His strength had touched her. But there had been more that fired her attraction. Perhaps at the bottom of it, his boyish vulnerability had been just as alluring as his strength. Then again, maybe it was his other notable attributes that intrigued her, she silently admitted, and found it not altogether simple to keep her gaze from slipping down the length of his rangy body. “Just because I helped you does not mean I was in the love with you.”
He watched her, lazy lips quirking slightly, “So I imagined what was between us?”
She glanced away, not able to hold his gaze. “Sí. I am…I am sorry if you were confused.”
“Right.” He chuckled. “Well, at least we’ve straightened it out now.”
She gripped her bag tighter. “Sí, it is straightened.”
“And now, here ya are.”
“I did not…” She took a deep breath, trying to fortify her own strength. “I did not mean to make you become involved.”
“’Course not. But what could ya do? Your sister’s in trouble.”
Though she couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or earnest, she felt her stomach flip at the words. “She is all the family I have.”
He nodded, saying nothing.
“Surely, you understand.” She remembered his voice, little-boy lost as he called for a mama who would never return. But perhaps she was foolish. Perhaps he’d been duplicitous even then. Maybe his midnight ramblings had been nothing but a farce perpetrated to extract her sympathy as Señor Tevio had suggested.
“What makes ya think so?” he asked.
She scowled, wanting, against her better judgment, to know more. To understand, though she was certain she shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t care. “What family have you?”
There was a momentary pause then a devilish, lopsided grin. “None,” he said. “Never did have. Guess the good Lord thought a guy like me didn’t need nobody. I was born just this way.” He gestured to the length of his body.
She tossed her head. “Irritating and arrogant?”
The grin quirked up another quarter of an inch. “Strong as a bull, and quick as a cat.”
“Ahh, well that explains much,” she said, but couldn’t help remembering his small voice in the dark of the night--Stay with me Mama. I’ll be good. I promise. Don’t go.
“Or it would,” she added, pushing the haunting memories from her mind. “If I were naïve enough to believe a singular word you say.”
“Naïve?” he said and laughed. “Surely, ya ain’t tryin’ to make me believe you’re less than innocent.”
“Innocent!” she scoffed. “That I am not. But my sister”—she swallowed, fighting the tears—“she is just that. Always working for the better future. She studies to be the lawyer. Did you know this?”
“Ya may have mentioned it.” He said the words in a way that suggested she’d mentioned it a score of times.
She raised her chin a notch and continued. “Because of this hard work, she is the best in her class.”
“Always?”
“What?”
“Her grades ain’t dropped lately?”
“No. Of course not.” She looked angry again, angry and defensive. “Why would you ask such a things?”
He ignored the question. “And there weren’t no other signs that somethin’ was wrong?”
“No,” she said, but she fidgeted, just a little. “None of which I was aware.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Sofia…” She scowled, thinking. “Always she has been independent.”
“And?”
“And perhaps, of late, she thinks me… What is the word?”
“I can think’a a bunch of ‘em,” he said and hoped to God his tone was derisive rather than appreciative.
“Protective too much,” she said.
“Overprotective?”
“Sí. But…” She shrugged, looking small and lost.
“Maybe if ya back off a mite, she’ll come on home.”
Rage flashed like wildfire in her eyes. “Still you believe she would do this on intention!”
“Maybe.”
The anger remained, but it was smoldering now. “I suppose it is difficult for you to understand familia since you came to this Earth as a fully formed bastardo presumido.
He chuckled. “Let’s be logical here, darlin’. I mean, it’s only natural that she’d wanna spend some time with her friends. She does have friends, doesn’t she?”
“Of course, she has the friends. She is a wonderful girl. Everyone, they love her. But she would not neglect her studies.”
“Even over the holidays?”
“What holiday you speak of?”
“Thanksgivin’s comin’ right up.”
She scowled a question.
“You musta heard’a Thanksgivin’,” he said.
“Sí. It is when you Americanos celebrate stealing the lands of the native peoples.”
“Interesting perspective,” he admitted. “But it ain’t gonna do much for Stouffer sales.”
She scowled in confusion for an instant then, “You are the idiota.”
He refrained from laughing out loud. “So, what’d ya do when ya didn’t hear from her?”
She paced, brow wrinkled. “I was muy busy at the restaurante. The liquors, they had to be ordered, and the salaries paid. Felipe has been ill. And—“
“Guilt ain’t likely to help much, honey.”
She swiveled toward him, brows gathered over snapping eyes. “Who says I feel the guilt?”
“Me.” He kept his gaze steady on hers.
She drew a breath as if to berate him, then winced and exhaled shakily. “I was to make her plump.”
“What?”
“Sofia, as a baby, she was not so big as a loaf of the bread. Too small, the doctor say. He did not expect her to live. Always, she was the skinny one, though Mama fed her the rich sauces, the sweet desserts.” She nodded as if remembering. Winced as if pained. “I promised, upon Mama’s death, that I would look after my sister. That I would not fail.”
“No one’s sayin’ ya failed, Lotta. We don’t even know if she’s in trouble yet. It’s only been a few days.”
She nodded as if trying to believe. “When is it that Señor Durrand will return?”
Shep shook his head, exhaled a snort.
“Something amuses?” she asked.
“Yeah, somethin’ amuses. The fact that ya think Gabe’s gonna find your sister’s funny as hell.”
“He found you, did he not? When you were sick. Off of your head with the delirio, he found you!”
Shep scowled, punctuated it with a scornful huff. “Yeah, he found me. But that’s just ‘cause he was spurred by the I-told-ya-so’s.”
She raised a brow. “I do not believe I am familiar with this thing.”
“He warned me not to go to South America. Damn know-it-all’d jump off a bridge for a chance to tell me to my face that I fucked up.”
“If he can find you, he can find my sister.”
“Listen, I see what you’re sayin’. But the truth is, Durrand couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a divinin’ rod. Not since Eddy showed up, anyhow.”
“Who is this Eddy?”
“His wife. He’s crazy ‘bout her. I mean, he’s always been crazy, but now…” He snapped his hands away from the sides of his head as if his cranium were exploding. “Anyway, if ya think his little bride’s loco enough to let him go gallopin’ off to Colombia with a gal carryin’ enough baggage to fill a 747, you’re off your cayuse about a mile and a half.”
She scowled quizzically as if wondering which phrase to question first then shook her head and spoke. “What of Florida?” she asked.
“What?”
“Would he gallops off to Florida?”
“What’re ya talkin’ ‘bout?”
“I have the reason to believe she is there.”