The old man laughed, like he’d just told himself a great joke. It was kind of funny, if you thought about it. Even if Ricky didn’t have guests, he’d still need people to work the horses.
“It sounds like a great opportunity for the right person,” Nicole said.
Erin nodded. “It is. I’m sure you know how happy I am, working for Ricky, and I think it would be a good job for anyone.”
Then Erin turned to Ricky. “Leah has been wanting to have you over for dinner for a while anyway, so why don’t you come over tomorrow night? You can meet Fernando, and you guys can talk to see if applying for your job would be a good fit for him. Shane seems to think the world of him, and honestly, I think we all like him. Plus, I want you to see what he’s done with Snookie.”
Ricky made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “That stubborn mare I said was only good for dog food?”
It pained Nicole to hear Snookie talked about like that, but it wasn’t the first she’d heard that term being used. Still, it felt good to know what they had accomplished.
“The same,” Nicole said. “I’m glad I didn’t listen to everyone who told me to give up on her. Fernando says she’s going to be a good horse.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Ricky muttered. “But if he can turn that horse around, I definitely want him on my team.”
His vote of confidence warmed Nicole’s heart. Working for Ricky sounded like it had real promise for Fernando. Could she convince Fernando to give his dream a chance? Because of him, Nicole had found a deeper healing in her life and was starting to have a greater hope for her future. Perhaps making this connection with Ricky would give Fernando the same.
Her sisters had been right in thinking that Nicole and Fernando needed each other for their healing. The question was, would Fernando be open to it as well?
* * *
Fernando was just putting the finishing touches on the tile of the apartment kitchen when he heard a knock at his door. He stepped back, pleased with his progress. It was nice he’d have someone to show it off to.
He opened the door to find Nicole standing there, a wide grin filling her face.
“Guess what?” she asked, stepping into his apartment before he could invite her in.
“Come in. What’s going on?”
She waved off his attempt to get her to sit. “I can’t stay. Leah needs me to help her clean house for tomorrow night.”
Her wide grin made him want to smile, too. “What’s tomorrow night?”
Seeing her happy, especially since it wasn’t often he saw her this excited, made his heart swell with joy.
“Erin’s boss, Ricky, is coming to dinner, and he wants to meet you,” she said. “He’s looking for a new horse trainer. We mentioned you, and he was excited to hear about your work with Snookie. Leah has been wanting to have him over anyway, so this is perfect.”
He started to open his mouth to explain to her just how much he didn’t appreciate her interference. But she was so excited, and she didn’t have all the facts. Facts he still wasn’t sure he wanted her to have.
“Oh no,” she said. “I know that look. You’re going to argue with me and tell me how impractical it is or how a dude ranch isn’t ideal. But let me tell you. He said this is a full-time job. He has a string of over seventy-five horses that need work year-round. You would be perfect.”
No, he wouldn’t. Not with his record.
“I told you, I already have a job with my uncle.”
Nicole made a noise. “You would honestly rather work for your uncle, doing a job you don’t love, for what has to be a pathetically low wage, when you could be working with horses? Sorry, but that’s crazy. And you can’t say it’s about family loyalty. I know the uncle you’re talking about. Adriana said he was a jerk and a cheapskate.”
She looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t have an answer. She was right. What was he supposed to say?
“You should at least talk to Ricky,” Nicole said. “I’ll admit I don’t know all the details, but Erin loves working for him, and he’s done so much for our family out of the kindness of his heart. You should have seen all the Christmas presents he bought the boys. He’s a really great person, and I know you’ll love meeting him. Come to dinner tomorrow night, and you can see for yourself.”
Why couldn’t she have just given up on her crazy idea and let him be?
“I can’t,” he said finally.
Nicole plopped down on his couch. “Why not? And don’t tell me it’s because you have other plans. You don’t have plans. You have no friends in this town, and you haven’t tried to get to know anyone. When you come to church, you sit in the back, come in late and leave early so you don’t have to talk to anyone. What’s with you?”
He didn’t think she’d noticed. He’d actually hoped to slip in and out of church without anyone noticing. But so far, that plan was failing miserably.
He looked up at the fridge, where one of the magnets held up the flyer for all the church activities. So tempting...but no.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to get involved in a church that I’m not going to be around for in a few weeks,” he finally said. “It’s not fair to them or me.”
Nicole looked up at him, a childlike expression on her face. “You could be if you wanted to. What’s this really about?”
He hadn’t thought that Nicole would take his decision personally, but as he looked at the sadness in her eyes, he realized that’s exactly what happened.
He sat down beside her. “It’s complicated,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you need to understand that there’s a lot more going on here. And you have to trust me that this is for the best.”
The expression on her face was like he’d just told her he wasn’t going to help with Snookie anymore. That was crazy. What did it matter to her? She hated him. Okay, so she didn’t. She’d already said as much. And they’d definitely come to a place of forgiveness and understanding. He just hadn’t realized that in making peace with Nicole, he would make it harder on her for him to leave.
The look she gave him wasn’t one of trust, but one of concern. “I know I’ve been difficult. But I wanted to explain, and to apologize.”
She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to him. When he looked at it, he realized it was the list he’d lost.
“I’ve been upset with you,” she said. “When you said you didn’t want to ride with us to church because you had errands to run, and I saw you at home, having clearly not run any errands, I thought you’d lied to me. I was hurt and angry, because it took a lot for me to open up to you about my faith and invite you to church.”
The dejected expression on her face made his heart hurt. He hadn’t realized that by not participating with her in church, it would cause so much damage. After that first Sunday, he’d known she was upset, but it hadn’t occurred to him just how deeply she’d be wounded.
“The fact that you’d lied to me told me you hadn’t changed. You’d obviously lied to me before, with Adriana and Brandon, and this was proof that I still couldn’t trust you. I’m sorry. I believed the worst of you when I should have just asked you and not jumped to conclusions.”
Though he knew her apology was meant to clear the air between them, it only made him feel worse.
“Thanks,” he said. “But I don’t deserve your apology. No, I didn’t lie, but I was looking for excuses not to spend time with you at church. I’m sorry. I should have just told you that while I did want to go to church, I didn’t want to get involved. Instead, I made up excuses. You were right to mistrust me.”
His confession didn’t make him feel any better. Especially since it made the pained expression on Nicole’s face even worse.
“But why?” she asked.
He couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. Not when he would love to s
tay and build a life here. But built on the foundation of his record, it would be like building on sand.
They were silent for a moment, then Nicole straightened her back and looked over at him. “I get it. I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I’ve made you uncomfortable a few times because...”
She hesitated and looked dejected again. Then she let out a long sigh. “I’m not sure why I’m attracted to you. Except that it’s more than just how good-looking you are. I mean, yes, you are. But you’re such a good man, and you’ve been so kind and patient with me, as well as with my horse. If it’s any consolation, I’m trying not to have feelings for you, because it’s obvious you don’t return them and I don’t even know what this is.”
She looked like she was about to cry. He couldn’t help himself. He pulled her close to him and kissed her gently.
How could she think he didn’t want her? Sometimes it was all he thought about, wanting her. For all the same reasons she’d just described about wanting him.
But just as soon as he kissed her, he knew what a terrible mistake he’d made. Kissing her only made him want her more. And it only made the pain in his heart at the inevitable even worse.
He pulled away and looked at her. Her face was flushed, her lips puffy, and her eyes were shining. She looked like a woman who’d been kissed by a man she loved. And he was about to break her heart.
“Don’t ever think that I don’t feel the same way. I do, and that’s exactly why those fleeting moments have been so uncomfortable for me. We can’t be together. You need to know that now and accept it as reality. It’s sweet that you’re trying to keep me here, but I can’t stay. I’m no good for you.”
He watched the various expressions play across her face as she shook her head slowly. “If it’s because of our past history...”
“It’s not. None of this has anything to do with you. It’s about me. And my past.”
The confusion on her face brought an ache to his heart. She’d already been through so much, and he hated how difficult he was making things for her.
“Then what?” she asked. “You don’t have a secret wife or something, do you? Adriana said you went away for a while to find yourself, but that was before I knew you, so I don’t know anything about that. But it can’t be so terrible that we can’t work through whatever it is. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me or anything, but we should at least explore what’s going on between us.”
He figured he’d end up having to tell her the truth at some point, but he hadn’t expected it to be this hard. Fernando took a deep breath and asked for the words he needed.
“I didn’t go find myself,” he said. “I was in prison. My family was ashamed of me and what I’d done, so they made it sound like I was off on some youthful lark when in reality, I was behind bars.”
She stared at him like she couldn’t process his words. But she had to learn to accept the reality. His reality. And the reason they couldn’t be together.
“It’s true,” he said. “I spent seven years in prison. Federal prison. It’s where I learned to train horses. They get mustangs from the Bureau of Land Management and they give them to prisoners to train as part of their rehabilitation program. I’m sure it was one of the best things that ever happened to me, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time.”
She gave him a funny look. “I don’t understand what that has to do with us.”
Had she not understood what he’d just said?
“I told you, I went to prison. I’m a convicted felon. We don’t have a future together.”
“What did you do?” Nicole asked.
He’d been a little surprised Adriana hadn’t told her, since Adriana had told him that she hated him for ruining her life by going to prison. He’d have figured that she’d tell her best friend all about it, but apparently, her shame over Fernando’s actions was too great for even that.
“I was convicted of being an accomplice to a robbery in which a lady was killed,” he said.
The wide-eyed look she gave him was exactly what he would have expected. But he didn’t want to sugarcoat things to make it sound like he wasn’t accepting responsibility for his role in the situation.
“That doesn’t sound like something you’d do. I can’t see you being part of something like that.”
Her faith in him was surprising, even though she’d just admitted having feelings for him. His own mother called him a murderer, even though the prosecution admitted there was nothing tying him to the lady’s death—just driving the getaway car.
But somehow he wanted to maintain Nicole’s faith in him, even though he knew at the end of this, he’d have to let her go. What else was he supposed to do? Beyond all hope, she’d gone from hating his guts to caring about him, and even though it felt good to have the attention, he knew that staying with him would ruin her life.
What happened if they did end up together, married, creating a life together? And then he got fired from the job supporting them because someone was uncomfortable with his record? What happened when someone accused him of stealing and people believed it because they found out what he’d been convicted of in the past?
All things that had happened since his release, things that seemed innocuous to most people, but were capable of ruining not just his life, but that of the ones he loved.
He needed Nicole to understand the truth.
“I didn’t know I was helping out in a robbery,” he said. “My buddy Mike started hanging out with a bad crowd. I don’t have any idea why he thought he had to impress those guys, but it became an obsession with him.”
He looked at Nicole, hoping she’d understand where he was coming from. “I did everything I could to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Nicole nodded slowly, like she was processing his words. “How did that turn into a robbery?”
“Mike called one night, frantic, because something bad happened. He wouldn’t say what. He asked me to pick him up, and to hurry.”
Even now, looking back, he wouldn’t have said no. There was no way he could have known what Mike had done. A friend was in trouble, and he’d thought it was just a ride.
“I met him at a park. When he got in the car, he was freaking out. These guys he got involved with had asked him to prove himself by robbing this lady. But it all went wrong, and the lady was home, and she had a gun. There was a struggle with one of the guys, and the gun went off, killing her. The other guys left, leaving Mike there by himself. He ran, ending up in the park, where he called me.”
Nicole made a sympathetic noise, and though he expected her to have the same judgmental expression on her face others had when he described his crime, she seemed more...open.
“It probably would have turned out differently, but the cops pulled me over less than a mile away for an expired tag on Adriana’s car. I’d taken hers, not knowing that the reason she’d borrowed mine was because she needed new tags. They immediately recognized Mike as being the robbery suspect, so they searched my car. The stolen items were in his backpack on my back seat. Which made me an accomplice.”
As he told the story, he’d walked over to the window and looked out. The open space made him feel less confined after having been trapped, not just in a physical prison, but in a mental one.
Nicole came to stand beside him. “Why didn’t you tell the police you were innocent?”
“I was a Mexican in a rich white neighborhood. Those cops weren’t going to listen. I figured I’d use my right to remain silent, talk to an attorney and then everything would be sorted out.”
Which was the logical response. Only that hadn’t been what happened. He turned to look at Nicole.
“When I got to jail, my mom refused to take the call. The police said I’d have to wait until the next morning to get a public defender. That first night, one of the guys in my cell got a message to me from the ringleader. If I
told anyone what I knew, they’d go after my family.”
He could still feel the fear of having that man’s hands on him, his foul breath and the whispered threats.
“He mentioned Adriana by name.”
The shock on Nicole’s face made him feel better about his decision. She’d do anything for her sisters, and their conversation had made her realize that his love for Adriana had been no different.
“So I didn’t say anything about what I knew of the crime. I told my public defender that a friend called and needed a ride, so I picked him up. Told them I didn’t know anything else. I couldn’t prove that I didn’t know. The DA knew I was innocent. That was the crazy thing. He told me if I just named names, they would drop all charges against me.”
Nicole looked at him like he’d been crazy not to take the deal. But she didn’t understand. No one did, especially since he’d been too afraid to tell anyone the rest. But Nicole had shared a very deep part of herself with him, and it seemed wrong not to be completely open with her.
“My family was getting threats, so I said nothing. They all thought it was because the media was all over the story and people wanted to punish me for killing a poor, innocent lady. My lawyer negotiated a plea, and I took it. It was better than going to trial and being convicted of murder.”
Nicole nodded slowly. “You went to prison to get them to leave your family alone.”
“Exactly. But no one knew that. My family was humiliated. They didn’t know the full story, and honestly, no one cares. They see the conviction on my record, and that’s all that matters.”
He opened the window and looked out at the open space of the ranch. He’d never take this ability for granted again. Even though there was sympathy on her face, he wondered if he should have told her. The truth meant he wasn’t the hardened criminal his conviction said he was, but she also didn’t understand what his silence had cost him.
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