Santiago's Convenient Fiancée

by Annie O'Neil

  The veneer of elation he’d felt at volunteering suffered a fault line.

  Making a commitment like this would be...a commitment. One he couldn’t break.

  He watched as Saoirse shrugged into the oversize leather jacket, becoming aware, as he did, how good it made him feel to—in just this little gesture of keeping her safe and warm—be looking after her.

  ¡Dale! It would feel good to be believed in again.

  Field medics were under such pressure to do the best they could by the men they fought alongside, and the more he’d lost... It was tough to keep the whole thing at arm’s length. There were only so many jokes a man could pull when he’s living in hell every day.

  Basta.

  It was why he was here. Why he’d come back after the stream of coffins he’d been forced to send home had become too much.

  He’d learned early on how quickly a life could just...disappear.

  Not more than a few feet away from him, his own mother’s life had been snuffed out right in front of his thirteen-year-old eyes. Life was short and he’d be damned if he was going to his own grave without his brothers knowing the millstone of remorse he’d dragged around the globe. He’d become good at pretending it wasn’t eating him alive. Too good.

  Marrying Saoirse would cement him to the ground long enough to make good with his brothers and—Lord willing—give his bride a bit more sunshine in those glowering eyes of hers.

  He reached out to tug up the zip on the jacket, only to have his hands slapped away.

  “I’ve got it!”

  “Fine.” He unhooked the spare helmet from his bike seat. “Here.” He put the helmet on her head, elbowing away her hands when she tried to attach the straps herself. “I always check the straps.” He snapped the clasps together, eyes glued to hers, before giving the straps a quick tug to make sure they were secure. The more she scowled, the more he could feel his lips peeling into a broad grin. This marriage arrangement didn’t have to be all work and no play.

  “Are we ready yet?” Saoirse tapped her foot impatiently.

  “Not just yet.” He considered her for a moment.

  Leisurely.

  Tropical blue eyes crackling with frustration. Body taut with tension, appearing almost fragile in the oversize bulk of his leather jacket. Little wisps of blonde hair softening the edges of the black half helmet. Instinct overrode intellect as he cupped her chin in his hand and dropped a soft peck on her lips.

  Just as he’d thought. Salty and sweet.

  “Now you’re ready,” he told her, lips brushing against hers as he spoke.

  Without waiting to gauge her response, he swung a leg over his bike and revved it up, certain the beefy roar of the engine was drowning out a colorful response.

  * * *

  There might have been no talking, but Saoirse’s body language was speaking louder than any voice could have as Santi casually wove along the seafront on the way to Mad Ron’s Cantina. He grinned when he felt Saoirse’s fingers hook onto his belt buckle in an attempt not to wrap her arms around his waist. The first corner he hit, he took the bike at a low angle, hoping instinct would take over and she’d wrap her arms around his waist.

  Nope.

  She threw her hands behind her and was holding onto the rack he strapped his gear to.

  Pity.

  This was, hands down, the strangest wooing he’d ever done.

  Not that he’d had a lot of active duty in the Romeo department. A life in the military made hooking up relatively easy and shipping out even easier. No promises. No hard feelings.

  He resisted reaching back to give Saoirse’s leg a reassuring rub, revving the bike up a gear instead. She’d said she liked fast things.

  Or was it that she liked things fast? This...whatever it was with Saoirse was invading his barred-to-all-visitors emotional zone at high speed. Not that he was planning on giving the woman a life of wedded bliss, it was just a good deed thing, but...

  He swore under his breath. It was a chance, wasn’t it? A chance to prove to someone he could be there when it counted.

  Santi took the long route as per Saoirse’s earlier request, fairly certain, given the change of events, she would’ve preferred the express train to a margarita.

  With the wind on his face, the remains of the sun on his arms and a smile on his lips, the idea of marrying Saoirse continued to grow on him. Big time. It was win-win all around. Particularly if they could get back to the playful banter they shared at work.

  And no more lonely nights. It would be nice to have someone to joke with over fish tacos at dinner... Big brother, little sister with—okay—a bit of frisson thrown in. But he could check his libido at the altar.

  She wanted to stay and couldn’t. He needed to stay and prove to himself he could do right by someone. Preferably his brothers, but he might as well start on more neutral territory. Neutral-ish, anyhow.

  Saoirse’s chin rammed into Santi’s back when he hit the brakes a bit too quickly at a stop sign...accidentally on purpose. She jabbed him in the ribs in retaliation.

  He smiled.

  At least they had the bickering couple thing down to a fine art.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I REPEAT, YOU are an angel.”

  “Sí, mija,” the forty-something bartender replied drily. “That’s my name.”

  “But you actually do nice things, too,” Saoirse added, before ducking underneath the bar’s closable in-and-out flap to get to Ángel’s side. “Like letting innocent young ladies such as myself hide behind the bar until they can sneak out the back.” She tacked on an eyelashes flutter for good measure.

  “Who’s sneaking where?” Santi sidled up to the bar, visibly enjoying the fact he’d caught his “fiancée” in midescape. He put on his caveman voice. “C’mon over here, woman. We’ve got a wedding to plan!”

  Was it wrong that Saoirse found the combo of a commanding voice and an überfit Marine body demanding her presence sexy?

  Yes! And a thousand times yes, on so many levels, yes, yes, yes.

  Even though... She pursed her lips as she eyed Santi from the safety of the other side of the bar. How easy would it be to order a cave-girl outfit?

  “You’re getting married?” Ángel’s eyes were wide with disbelief. And not the good kind. He was looking at Santi as if he’d just made the worst decision in the universe.

  “Hey!” Saoirse demanded. “What’s so revolting about someone wanting to marry me?”

  “Ah! So you do want to marry me now.” Santi gave her a satisfied smirk.

  “Both of you are crazy.” Ángel shook his head and started muttering in Spanish. “Muy loco. Here.” He quickly poured out two shots of tequila and pushed them across the counter. “You take these. Go have a talk in the garden about babies and mortgages and diapers and phone calls right when you’re in the middle of dominoes with the guys and the divorce you never saw coming and visiting your kids when, and only when, their mami deems you worthy, and then you tell me if you’re still on.” He fixed both of them with a disappointed smile before shooing Saoirse out from behind the bar while twirling his index finger by his head. “Loco. Totalmente!”

  The pair of them walked toward the patio in silence, Santi holding their shots and Saoirse using both hands to transport her supersize margarita, wondering, just for a moment, how gauche it would be if she were to take a sweet and sour slug of it right now. Her mind was whirling with its own cocktail of horror, panic and, surprisingly, sadness at Ángel’s words. Santi hadn’t even begun the ridiculous fake-marriage adventure and already it was being kiboshed with a gritty dose of embittered ex-husband? If he wouldn’t marry her for pretend, who would ever marry her for real?

  When they sat down, they solemnly clinked glasses and threw back the tangy tequila, letting it shudder dow
n their spines as it took effect.

  Santi gave Saoirse the most sober look she thought she’d ever seen him wear.

  “Well,” he began somberly, “I guess we know who’s not up for being best man.”

  Laughter didn’t even begin to cover Saoirse’s response to the tension-cutting comment. It was an all-body-encompassing giggle, snort, companionable watering-eyes laugh-until-the-tears-started-falling-out response.

  When she finally had the wherewithal to wipe her eyes and stop laughing she met Santi’s inquisitive gaze and realized they were at a crossroads.

  “All right, Murph, it’s time to get real.” Santi took a long draft of ice water as if it were some sort of strongman tonic. Like Mr. Muscles needed it. “Are we going to do this thing?”

  “Look...um...” Saoirse opted to draw designs in the water rings her margarita had left on the table in lieu of looking at Santi. “Don’t you even want to know the story?”

  Santi shrugged. “I trust you, but if it would make you feel better...”

  “Ha! I know you, you sly old dog. Very clever. Trying to wheedle the truth out of me by pretending not to care.” It was a weak dodge but, wow, did she hate talking about herself. Even if she’d been the one to offer.

  “Of course I care—but if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. That’s all I’m saying.” And he looked like he meant it. Saoirse felt her heart swell with gratitude. And a little bit of something else she thought she’d better shove right back wherever it had come from.

  “I feel like I owe it to you.” That much was true. If he was going to just casually enter into a state of wedded bliss with her, he might as well know why.

  “Fair enough.”

  Santi signaled to the waitress to bring them a menu before refocusing on Saoirse, who was giving him her best you’re-joking-with-me-aren’t-you face.

  “What?” he protested. “If we’re going to be here awhile, I might as well fortify myself. Have you tried the carnitas? Ron makes them.” He kissed his fingertips in appreciation. “Muy delicioso.”

  “Want them at the wedding reception?” Saoirse joked.

  “Qué?” This time the glint of humor was missing in his eyes. “You want the whole white wedding thing after...after...?”

  “What? You mean after getting utterly humiliated in front of everyone I’d ever met in my entire life because my fiancé couldn’t take it that it turned out I can’t have children?”

  There was probably a less embittered way to describe the moment when all of her marital dreams had gone up in smoke, but right now she couldn’t think of one.

  The waitress appeared as Santi’s jaw was still dropping. Saoirse tersely ordered two plates of carnitas and a bucket of tortilla chips. Extra-salty. She waved her hand before the waitress had turned away and doubled the order. She loved those things and if Santi was going to bail on her now, she might as well eat her body weight in tortillas before heading back to Ireland. It wouldn’t matter if she was the size of a whale because nuns’ habits were extra accommodating and from the looks of things a life of solitary confinement behind a thick stone wall was the only thing on offer.

  Santi was looking absolutely mortified and she had half a mind to get up and leave. But when she’d come so far in so few months only to give up at the final—albeit very, very monumentally tall—hurdle? No way.

  “You’re all right, Santi. Don’t you worry. I don’t want the whole white wedding with lollipop-colored bridesmaids, if that’s what’s keeping you so slack-jawed,” Saoirse said.

  “No,” he responded quickly. “I just can’t believe a man who truly loved a woman would walk out on her like that. For such a ridiculous reason.”

  “I guess he wanted children a whole lot more than he wanted me,” she said without self-pity “I never realized how much I wanted them until I found out I couldn’t. Come to think of it, if you want children of your own, this whole thing would be really stupid for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Uh—the age thing?”

  “I’ll be virile in my nineties, chica,” Santi countered with a sly fox grin.

  “You wish. C’mon. It’s important. Have you thought about having children?”

  “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  * * *

  It was a semitruthful response. Of course he’d love children. One day. But the checklist of things he needed to set right was a long one. And until he felt all the i’s had been dotted and t’s crossed? It was for the best he wasn’t adding babies into the mix. Babies and the women who had them generally wanted a real wedding. A real marriage. Like his parents had shared. He knew he’d probably idealized the memories a bit by now but...

  He swore silently. Those days were gone. Artifice was a good starting point for him.

  Saoirse propped her chin in her cupped hand and stared at him. Hard. “And you are absolutely sure it doesn’t bother you that if we do this thing, you’ll be off the proverbial market for the next couple of years while I wait to get my green card?”

  A lot of things bothered him. Spending time with Saoirse wasn’t one of them.

  “Why do you want to live here so badly?” It was easier to bounce questions off her than answer her probing questions.

  “Because it’s the total opposite of everything I know,” she answered, her face lighting up as if she’d found her true place in the world. “I know I haven’t been in Miami for long, but I feel like I belong here.” She smiled as the waitress slipped a basket of warm tortilla chips onto the table. After munching through a handful, she leaned forward, elbows perched on the picnic table, body alive with whatever it was she was formulating in that overactive brain of hers.

  Whoever won her heart in the end, he realized, would be winning pure gold. Would he really be able to do this and not get attached? Not...wonder?

  He tuned in to what she was saying, realizing that simply staring at her lips was very likely a failure in the fiancé department.

  “Back home, everyone knew everything about me so making decisions, doing anything at all—my job, my hair, my clothes—and choices weren’t an option. It was as though my life had already been written in stone, you know?”

  Santi nodded his head, but he didn’t. Until his parents had been killed everything had been about choices, opportunities. His parents had moved their world straight into the heart of the oyster that was meant to hold all the pearls. It had been up to him and his brothers to reach out and grab the right one. And when their lives had been so brutally ended?

  Everything he’d thought a childhood should have been had been swept under an inky-black darkness that had all but suffocated him. So, sure. There were decisions. But the pearls had all been yanked well out of reach.

  It was why getting used to anything...getting attached to anyone...always came with painful ramifications.

  But this was Saoirse’s story. He wanted to listen attentively and understand, for her. Everything about this moment seemed preserved in a special soundproof bubble wrapped around the garden table they’d chosen in a quiet corner—a bit of added protection against the hurt she’d endured at another’s selfish decision.

  “So, anyway,” Saoirse continued, after another fortifying swig of margarita, “Tom—that’s his name. Feel free to hate it if you like, I do. Anyway, he had been my boyfriend since school days. Off and on, like. You know how relationships are when you’re young.”

  Santi nodded affirmatively but again found he couldn’t really say. His teenaged years had been far from footloose and fancy-free. He forced himself to tune back in.

  “...and then when everyone coupled up or left for the bright lights of Dublin, we started seeing each other again. He became a policeman and I became a nurse in the hospital up in the next town along because our village was only tiny. All our friends were getting mar
ried and so we decided to get married.”

  “A mutual decision?”

  “Sort of, I guess. I mean, he got down on one knee and everything, but it all felt as if he was going through some sort of pantomime version of what a man who was in a relationship at a certain age was meant to do when he proposed to his girl.”

  “Weren’t you in love with him?” Santi felt his brows crowd together. This was hardly the portrait of a bewitched bride.

  “Of course I was! At least, I thought I was.” She twisted her lips as she considered the question. “I was as in love with him as much as a girl who’s only known one boy her entire life could be. We met when I pushed him off the swings at school.” Her eyes took on a faraway look as she gave a mirthless laugh. “He was the same boy I had my first kiss with and saw my first film alongside and just about everything else in the first department.”

  She waved off Santi’s sympathetic murmurs. The proverbial floodgates were open now and there was no stopping this story. Not that he wanted her to stop. They’d spent over eighty working hours together over the past week and he hadn’t even perfected saying her first name, let alone learned much about her other than that she had an unquenchable passion for race car driving.

  “So, to turn a long story into a short one—because I’m guessing you don’t want to hear every revolting detail of my childhood romance...”

  He nodded. The more she told him, the more protective he was feeling about her. And not in a big-brother way.

  “Our big plan was always to come over to America. Maybe that’s the only thing we had in common. A desire to flatten our vowels and strive for more in the land of opportunity!”

  “I thought you said this was the short version.” Santi grinned, grabbing a handful of chips.

  “Right you are.” She nodded. “Instead of getting married straight away, we lived together and all, but our lives were dedicated to scrimping and saving and preparing for the Great American Adventure.” She held her hands up and made a little ta-da trumpet sound.

  This had been a long-term relationship. Would the recovery take as long as the relationship itself? Santi filed the information away.