California Royale

by Deborah Smith

  Shea slipped quickly to the front of him and buried her face against his chest. She shook with sobs as he put both arms around her in an embrace so possessive and tight that he seemed to be pulling her inside his soul. “Don’t leave me,” she begged.

  His arms wound her even closer to him. “I couldn’t,” he whispered against her hair. “God help me, no matter what you refuse to tell me, I couldn’t leave you. You ought to know that.” His voice nearly broke. “You ought to, but you don’t.”

  “Some day, Alejandro … some day I’ll tell you everything.”

  He rested his cheek against her hair and said sadly, “That some day could ruin me, querida.”

  Ten

  A few days later, when he handed her the deed to Estate Mendocino, Shea tore the document up and handed it back to him. He swore colorfully for a full ten seconds.

  “You still feel sorry for me,” she told him frankly. “You want to make up for every bad thing that ever happened to me. But you don’t have to, Alejandro. I’ve never been happier than I am right now.”

  His mouth thinned and he looked exasperated. “You insult me, Palomino. Giving you the estate makes me feel as if I’ve done something to change what happened in your childhood. It makes me feel less angry. So, there! I have a selfish motive. If you want to make me happy, accept my gift.”

  Shea rubbed her forehead and pondered his logic. “Hombre, you’re more confusing than the L.A. freeway during rush hour.” She studied his determined expression. “We’ll be partners,” she said finally. “Have your attorney draw up the papers that way.”

  “You’ve always wanted full control over the fat farm. You know how it operates, you love it, you can run it with your eyes closed. It belongs to you in spirit already. Why won’t you take it as a present?”

  “I don’t need to feel so protected anymore, Alejandro. I know that you won’t sell the estate or do anything to harm it. I trust you. Let’s be partners, fifty-fifty.” She paused, thinking of the income involved. “I’ll be rich!”

  “Ah-hah, and then you’ll buy mauve jogging suits trimmed in mink. You’ll get a poodle and put bows in its hair. Who knows what else? I take the whole offer back!”

  Smiling for the first time in several days, she tossed a poker chip at him. They faced each other across a patio table in the courtyard of his ranch house, playing cards and sharing swigs from a bottle of wine. She wore a silky white robe and he wore cut-off jeans. The day was fading into a brilliant orange sunset.

  “I don’t want mink or a poodle,” Shea told him. “I want to buy an apartment building.”

  “Hmmm. So you want to be a landlord.”

  “I want to be a slumlord.” When he gave her an astonished look, she added, “I want to buy something in Los Angeles and fix it up just for low income families. You know, give them a decent place to live for modest rent.”

  He thought for a moment, frowning. “Palomino, you’re biting off more than you can chew. Why not contribute to some good charities. Instead?”

  “I want to do something more personal.”

  “Bake brownies for the group home, then.”

  “Alejandro! I never expected a cold comment like that from you.”

  Duke was wearing his reading glasses. He pulled them down to the tip of nose and looked at her over the wire rims. “I don’t like cities,” he said bluntly. “Too dangerous. I’d prefer that you not make regular trips to a run-down part of L.A. to visit an apartment building.”

  “So that’s your worry. I’ll hire a good manager to handle everything—it’s not as if I’d be involved in the day-to-day problems. Besides, I grew up in that area. I know how to take care of myself.”

  Duke studied her for a moment, thinking how incredibly beautiful she was, how classy. She had suffered so much as a child, yet survived to become this wise, compassionate person. She was a great lady in the gallant, old-fashioned sense of the words. In some ways she still thought of herself as poor and unattractive, and that was a problem. She couldn’t believe that her sleek blond elegance would draw attention and trouble in a slum neighborhood.

  “You don’t understand, querida,” he said in a soft somber voice. His eyes burned into her. “If someone hurt you, I’d kill him.”

  Shea stared at him for a moment, speechless. He was serious, and his vow had nothing to do with some macho code of honor, but rather with the simple fact that he loved her more than anything or anyone in the world.

  “Hombre,” she murmured, and gave him a teary, adoring look. “We’ll talk about this later. I don’t think you can change my mind.”

  Duke tossed his cards down. Frustration rose inside him, giving birth to the anger that stayed just beneath the surface now. “Buying the damned apartment building is a shield,” he told her. “You can’t dissolve your past by doing good deeds.”

  “It’s one way,” she protested softly, her voice strained.

  “One way to bury memories that you ought to share with me.”

  Shea stiffened with misery. The light-hearted mood they had cultivated so carefully all day was fading with the sunset. “It’s a simple thing, Alejandro. Don’t analyze it. I want to help people.”

  “Help yourself, first. Help me by talking.”

  “There are times when I think you’re the most stub-bom, impatient man I’ve ever known.”

  He spread his hands in a gesture of futility. “What are you afraid of? That I’ll be shocked by what you tell me? That I would blame you for a situation you couldn’t control? That I want to learn more so that I can torture you with it?”

  Swiftly, with a violence she didn’t know she possessed, Shea slung a hand out and whipped their playing cards from the table. They fluttered in bright disarray to the courtyard’s rust-red tiles. She stood, trembling, and glared down at him through furious tears. “Give me some peace!” she pleaded in Spanish. “You have no way of knowing what you’ll feel, and neither do I! No more talk right now! When you can come to me without demands and anger, I’ll be waiting!” Her taut expression crumpled in a look of abject sorrow as she swung around on one bare heel and went into the house.

  Seconds later he heard a door shut heavily, and judged by the sound that she had secluded herself in the study near his bedroom. Duke grabbed the wine bottle they had shared moments earlier, threw it across the courtyard, and watched with narrowed eyes as it smashed into glittering pieces.

  They took Amanda on a shopping spree at Giorgio’s Beverly Hills boutique, then had lunch at a streetside cafe near the UCLA campus. When they settled once again in the Cadillac Duke had rented at the Los Angeles airport, they rode through Beverly Hills’ palm-lined streets in silence.

  “I cried the first time I came here,” Shea finally admitted.

  Amanda nodded fervently. “If the Greesons kick me out, I’m coming back to Mendocino.”

  “No one’ll kick you out,” Duke assured her. “Pretty soon you’ll feel right at home.”

  “Good,” Amanda noted. “It’d be nice to feel at home somewhere.”

  Her mother hadn’t protested at all when they’d suggested that Amanda move into a foster home. Amanda hadn’t been terribly hurt by her mother’s reaction; it was typical. Arranging the move with the state juvenile authorities had been relatively simple.

  When they reached their destination, a gardener opened a massive, wrought-iron gate and waved them through. “Double hell,” Amanda said fearfully when she saw the 20-room, Tudor-style mansion surrounded by formal gardens. “I’ll get lost going to the bathroom.”

  Amanda and her belongings were quickly installed in an upstairs bedroom. The Greesons had five other foster children, ranging in age from seven to fifteen, three girls and two boys. The hearty crew took Amanda on a tour of the house, and when Shea and Duke left, Amanda was learning to play backgammon.

  Shea sat close to the passenger window and stared out silently as Duke drove away.

  “Sad?” he asked.

  “I’ll miss her. But sad? No.
I’m excited that she’s going to have the same opportunities I had.” She hesitated a moment. “I want to show you something this afternoon. In downtown L.A.”

  “Where?”

  “Just follow my directions, hombre, and don’t ask questions.”

  “Kidnapped,” he muttered.

  • • •

  He figured out her scheme when he realized that she was heading them toward a run-down section of the city. Duke’s mood turned black, but he said nothing. The summer sun seemed to be roasting Los Angeles under a covering of brown smog. The streets were treeless and gray, as if the life had been drained out of them. Trash littered the sidewalks, and the storefront windows were covered with bars.

  “The exterior scenes for Hill Street Blues were filmed nearby,” Shea said pleasantly.

  Duke scowled. “A great recommendation.”

  “I suppose you know why I wanted to come here.”

  “To look at an apartment building. Dammit, Shea—”

  “Just keep an open mind.”

  The building’s simple angular design marked its age at about thirty years. The exterior was white concrete block, but neighborhood graffiti artists had decorated the lower level with a variety of slogans, some of them obscene. The building stood three stories tall. It was. centered on a small lot where a few tufts of grass and scraggly box shrubs struggled to survive.

  Duke parked on the street next to a crumbling walkway that led to the building’s front doors. A dark-haired boy, probably no more than ten years old, walked up immediately and pointed to the rental car. “Mister, you give me five bucks. I make sure no one rips you off.” His voice was heavily accented, and Duke answered him in Spanish.

  “Here’s five bucks, muchacho, and there’ll be five more if the radio and hubcaps are still here when I get back.”

  “Sí.”

  Shea winced a little and avoided looking at Duke. He took her arm in a tight grip and they started up the walkway. She could almost feel his thoughts churning angrily.

  They found the resident manager’s apartment on the bottom floor. When Shea knocked, a tall skeletal old man came to the door. The wad of tobacco stopped moving in his cheek as he gave the two of them a startled once over. Duke suddenly wished that he’d worn jeans and a T-shirt instead of a sport jacket, golf shirt, and crisp tan slacks. Shea looked like rainbow sherbet in a raw-silk jacket, peach-colored slacks, and a pink silk top. They were both out of place.

  “Yeah?” the man grunted.

  “I’m Shea Somerton. The owner was supposed to tell you that I’d be here today.”

  “Yeah. What d’ya wanna know?”

  “How many apartments are rented?”

  “Fifteen. I got fifteen others vacant. They need to be fixed up ’fore anybody’ll rent ’em. Second floor’s all empty. Part of the third, too. Doors are unlocked in the vacant apartments.”

  “We’ll just walk around the place, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure. I don’t give a damn.”

  “Thank you,” Shea said politely. The man shut the door without answering.

  Duke grimaced. “Son of a … Let’s get out of this rat hole, querida.”

  “You promised to keep an open mind.”

  He looked at her for a moment, then beyond her to a narrow hallway with its dirty walls and stained floors. “If you want to look around, let’s look,” he said. “My mind’s closing fast.”

  “I want to see the second story.” They walked to a staircase at the back of the hallway. Duke angled in front of her and started up. “You don’t have to run defense for me, Alejandro.”

  “Indulge my masculine pride.” He kicked a fast-food wrapper aside with his foot. “How the hell did you find this place?”

  They reached the landing of the second level. Distracted, Duke didn’t realize that she hadn’t answered. Shea pushed in front of him and pulled open the fire door that led to a hallway. He glanced at her face and saw that she was very pale except for small clouds of pink that colored her cheeks. She looked sick.

  “Palomino …” he began anxiously, but she was already walking down the hallway.

  Cursing, Duke strode after her. The apartment doors were painted a revolting shade of green. The hall carpet looked as if a herd of elephants had been quartered on it. She stopped near the end of the hall and gazed fixedly at the corroded metal number on one of the doors. She reached for the doorknob tentatively, as if she were afraid it might shock her.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Duke said. He blocked her way with his arm and covered her hand on the doorknob. “Step back.”

  “It’s just an empty apartment,” she protested, a strained expression on her face.

  “Except for rats and Lord knows what else.”

  She sighed, defeated. “I love you, Alejandro, even if you are a bully.”

  “Good.”

  She moved back several feet and watched him shove the door open. She saw torn floor covering, piles of boxes and rags, and a filthy mattress. A bare, dirty window framed the Los Angeles skyline in the distance.

  “A real Taj Mahal,” Duke noted grimly. He stepped into the apartment, put his hands on his hips, and gazed around. She walked in after him, her steps slow, her hands clasped in front of her.

  “It used to be a good deal better than this.”

  He turned around, took a long look at the sorrowful expression on her face, and everything about her strange attitude clicked into place. “Dammit, Shea,” he murmured tightly. “This is where you grew up. You look like you’ve just stepped inside a tomb.”

  She nodded wearily. “It is a tomb. There are a lot of memories buried in it.”

  They were both silent for a moment. Duke felt a little stunned. Finally he said grimly, “Querida, you should have told me that this was the building you wanted to buy.” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head in disgust. “One more secret, one more thing you don’t want to tell.”

  “I didn’t know until a few days ago that it was for sale. When Mother and I lived here, it was owned by the city housing authority. I found out that the city sold it a few years ago. And now it’s up for sale again.”

  Duke grimaced in self-reproach. “Forgive me for sounding like such a bastard.” He went over and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him as they walked through the small apartment. “This was mine,” she told him when they stopped in a tiny, windowless room. Shea put a hand on a peeling strip of wallpaper and pulled it away to reveal the older wallpaper underneath. “I put that paper up myself. I must have been about twelve. I did a terrible job, but I thought it was beautiful.”

  Duke looked at the cheap, faded print and felt a poignant sorrow rise in his chest. “Roses,” he said gruffly.

  “Senora Savaiano helped me pick it out.”

  “She was the elderly woman who looked after you?”

  “Yes.”

  They walked into another room, only slightly larger. It had a window, and several of the panes were broken. “Mother’s room,” Shea noted in a brusque tone.

  Duke kissed her forehead, rested his cheek there, and shut his eyes. She was trembling, and he stroked her arm.

  “She could have been beautiful,” Shea murmured hoarsely. “And I loved her.” She twisted abruptly and hid her face against his neck. Her voice was full of torment. “Let’s sit down.”

  “Not here, querida.”

  “Here. It’s the only place I can force myself to talk.”

  She pulled away from him, went back to the main room, and lowered herself gracefully to the floor, heedless of what the dirt would do to her outfit. She hugged her knees to her chest and stared at a point on the far wall. Duke followed and stood over her, watching desperate emotions flicker over her face.

  This was the moment he’d demanded, but he felt no victory. “This isn’t what I wanted,” he said gently. “You don’t have to surround yourself with pain.”

  “Yes, I do,” she corrected. “I know that I have to stop shutting yo
u out of my past.” She paused, struggling hard to sound calm. “I love you so much, and I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  “Sssh.” He sat down behind her and began rubbing her shoulders. “It isn’t me you’re hurting, it’s us.”

  She nodded, and her head drooped. Slowly, pulling the agony out of her mind like briars, she began to tell him how life had been. Minutes flowed away, carrying one excruciating story after another. Shea was dimly aware each time Duke’s hands stopped moving on her shoulders, then gripped fiercely, then stroked in sympathy. She heard him make soft, harsh noises deep in his throat.

  She was handing him her pain and humiliation and fear without any guarantee that he could bear it. “Do you want me to stop?” she asked raggedly.

  “No.” Suddenly his arms came around her from behind. “We’re all right. Go on.”

  He rocked her while she talked, his body a warm, strong support. She cried; she unwound her arms from around her knees and shook clenched fists at everything that had happened to her in these squalid little rooms.

  Two hours passed before she ran out of words and buried her face in her hands. Silence descended, punctuated by the distant sounds of children playing outside. Her nerves were raw as she waited for Duke to say something.

  “It’s over,” he murmured, his voice low and soothing against her ear. “From now on, we can deal with it.”

  She nodded blankly. He was so calm—or was he merely assuming a careful facade to reassure her? Shea twisted to look at him. His face showed the exhaustion of his emotional turmoil. He kissed her tenderly, then got to his feet and helped her up, too.

  Shea was terrified by his silence. Her throat raw, her heart pounding, she held his hand fiercely when they went downstairs, as if she were afraid that the bad aura of the place would hurt him somehow. She didn’t have the courage to ask how he really felt about her now.

  They left through a back exit and walked around the building. Dirty, half-dressed children stopped playing and stared at them with wide eyes. The tenants’ laundry hung from clothes lines held by rickety supports.