by Vella Munn
“That was an accident.” Chela pointedly avoided meeting the coyote’s eyes; instead, she allowed her eyes the freedom to bore into her father’s face, looking for what she didn’t know.
“No accident. Your mother and I were married, Chela.”
“So she told me. Why?” Chela asked. She hated having to talk to her father, and yet it was a question that had never been answered. “Why did you marry her? You never wanted anything to do with her after I was born.”
Lou’s voice was almost sad as he answered Chela’s question, and he seemed to have difficulty meeting her grinding gaze. “Look at yourself, Chela. Your mother was so much like you at that age. She was a beautiful woman. I wanted her badly.”
“You wanted a beautiful woman to show off. That’s it, isn’t it?” Chela could say those words because she had no feelings for the man who was her father. “And because she wouldn’t have you without marriage.”
“Her people wouldn’t have anything to do with me even after we were married. The marriage was over before you were born. But that isn’t why we’re here.” Lou turned toward Kohl. “Can we get on with this?”
“What’s the matter, Lou? Isn’t the reunion turning out the way you wanted it to? Never mind. You can always reconcile with your daughter later.”
“There isn’t going to be any reconciliation,” Chela spat. “I don’t want him here. Why did you bring him?”
“We’re getting to that, my wild one.” Kohl laughed. “Don’t rush things. This has to go my way or not at all. First, the money.”
Chela shook her head. She hadn’t had time to switch from confronting her father to talking about the reason for the meeting, but she’d played this scene so many times in her mind that she didn’t need time. “First, you tell me when I’ll see Ortez.”
Kohl laughed again. “You and I should be working together. We think alike. And we don’t move quickly. You want to know when you’ll be able to take your lover to your bed, do you?”
Chela nodded, hating Kohl, knowing it showed.
“Two weeks. Maybe. Maybe a month.”
“That’s too long!” Chela moved restlessly in her rockerbut didn’t allow her eyes to hide from Kohl’s stare. If she wasn’t very, very careful now, the men could overpower her. Was her father capable of that? “I’m not paying you to stall.”
“You haven’t paid me anything yet,” he pointed out.
“And I won’t until I know when Ortez will be in the country.”
“These things take time,” Kohl started, and then, as if he’d grown tired of his own game, he shrugged. “I can have him here in ten days. That’s my end of the bargain. Now for yours.”
Chela waited.
“Good.” He nodded. “You are learning the virtue of patience. Now you will learn about telling the truth. Forgive me if I’m still suspicious. You have had nothing but hate for me from the beginning. I smell a rat.”
“What are you talking about?” Chela asked because she knew Kohl wanted some kind of response from her. “I have the money. What more do you want?”
“Reassurance that you’re telling me everything, that I’m not going to come to regret this alliance of ours. You asked why I brought your father. What would happen if Ortez was to learn you aren’t an orphan after all, that your father is Lou Dye? Your father’s reputation is known even in Mexico. When he comes here, Ortez will learn much, much more from the migrants.”
Ortez thought she was an orphan? Magadan must have told him to say that. And now Kohl was twisting it to his advantage, only in a way even he didn’t suspect. It wasn’t Ortez that Chela was thinking about, it was Magadan. “Ortez has no way of knowing what the name Lou Dye means,” Chela stalled.
“Not yet he doesn’t. But unless you keep him in your bed all the time, he’s going to find out. Do you want your lover to learn that your father is the man who cost more than one hundred Mexicans their jobs, their homes, their reason for coming to this country? Do you want your precious Ortez to hear about the most unscrupulous orchardist to ever do business in the valley?”
Chela cringed. She glanced over at her father, but no emotion touched his sagging face. It didn’t matter to him. Nothing of what Lou Dye had done mattered to him. That wasn’t important, Chela reminded herself. What was important was concentrating on what Kohl was saying. “You’d tell Ortez that?”
“Ortez and everyone who’ll listen. You haven’t told anyone who your father is, I know that. You’ve kept that knowledge to yourself, just as your father has. I’ve talked to your precious migrants. None of them have any inkling that your father is the man responsible for the worst housing conditions a migrant had to endure here. And, I’ll bet, neither do your employers.”
Neither does Magadan. Most of all, not Magadan. Chela took a ragged breath. Kohl had her right where he wanted her. It was just as bad as she feared it would be. “What do you want?” she whispered, her eyes on her father’s impassive face.
“The wild bird has been caged. Admit it, Chela. I knew it could be done. I always knew I could use what Lou told me one drunken night.” His laugh was both savage and victorious. “I don’t want you to do anything, at least not yet. All I want from you is your reassurance that you won’t double-cross me. I want half of that money now and the other half in ten days. Do you understand what happens if you don’t do that?”
Chela nodded. She had never felt more like killing another human being, had never felt more defeated. “I have the money,” she managed. “Do you want it now?”
“That’s right, my little wild bird. How does your cage feel? Tight? Good. I can make it much tighter, squeeze the life out of you, if necessary. Now, get me the money.”
Chela found her feet. She stepped past her father without looking at him and padded into the bedroom. It was somehow fitting that she was barefoot: Slave owners kept their slaves barefoot so they couldn’t run off. Chela’s captive state wasn’t because she didn’t have shoes. If Kohl made good on his threat to reveal her parentage—something he was completely capable of—Magadan would find out.
He would know that she was the daughter of a man whose ruthlessness equaled Kohl’s.
The envelope was in her middle dresser drawer. As she drew it out, she sensed something of the essence of the man who’d given it to her. If only Magadan were here now!
But that couldn’t happen. He’d hear what was being said, look at Lou Dye and know that in her veins flowed the same blood as a man who had left more than one hundred migrants to starve. What would he think of a woman like that?
Chela wasn’t going to risk that.
She returned to the living room with the envelope stuffed with money in her numb fingers. She handed it to Kohl without saying a word and sank back into her rocker, trapped. Her father was hand in glove with this man just as he’d been when he was a powerful man in the valley. Kohl was capable of anything, any lie to further himself. Why should she expect her father to be any different?
Finally she lifted her head and faced her father. “If he goes through with his threat, you’ll have to acknowledge me as your daughter. Do you want people to know you were once married to a Mexican?”
“Do you think anyone cares?” Lou asked tonelessly. “I’m dirt here, the lowest snake there is. No one cares about my past.”
Chela cared. She had to live with the consequences. “It was a stupid question, wasn’t it?” she said savagely. “You never cared that you had a daughter before, so why should I expect it to be any different now?”
“Please.” Kohl waved skinny fingers and the envelope in Chela’s face. “Let’s don’t have any more of this touching reunion. What matters is that you understand the options I’ve given you. You deal with me like a businesswoman, and no one needs to know anything about your father. Double-cross me and you’ll have to slink out of this valley with your tail between your legs.”
“I understand,” Chela managed. Now that his ultimatum had sunk in, she was less shocked by it. She hadn’t had t
ime to come to grips with it. That would have to wait for later.
“I thought so. You’re no fool, Chela. In fact you’ll probably survive much better than your father has. At least you aren’t plagued by his arrogance, his greed. That’s what caught up with him.”
If Chela hadn’t been numb, she might have agreed. Arrogance had always been the key to her father’s personality. He thought that money gave him the right to be as ruthless as he deemed necessary to build upon that wealth. It took a long, long time for his downfall to take place, because he had money behind him. When it did, he took a lot of innocent people with him.
Chela waited. There was nothing more to say. She was in no mood to continue any kind of conversation. The only thing she wanted was for the two men to leave. She was aware that Kohl was staring at her in obvious glee, relishing his mastery over her. But that didn’t affect her nearly as much as the way her father’s eyes kept skidding off her face instead of making honest contact. What was he feeling? In a curious sort of way, Chela would have liked to ask him that.
“Aren’t you going to kiss your daughter goodbye, Lou?” Kohl asked with a false innocence that was sickening. “I brought about this touching reunion, and you’ve hardly spoken to your daughter.”
Lou rose. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing more to be said.”
Kohl laughed. “You’re right, there is nothing more to be said. Do you find that sad, Chela? Your father came back to the valley to see you, at my request, and the two of you are still strangers.”
“We’ll always be strangers,” Chela said, taking small pleasure in the punishing words. “We’ve never been anything else. Why should it change now?”
“You don’t understand,” Lou broke in. “Your mother and I, we were worlds apart. She wanted nothing to do with my life. She wanted to be with her people.”
“So you threw her out of your life,” Chela accused, standing so she wouldn’t have to look up at the man. “She had your child, but that didn’t mean you had any responsibility toward us. No, don’t say anything.” Chela held up a restraining hand. “I don’t want to talk about it any more than you do. Being my father was just as much an accident for you as it was for me. I don’t want any more to do with you than you want with me.”
“Your mother was never that bitter.”
“My mother was too busy trying to raise me,” Chela spat. “After all, she had to do it with no help from her husband. She had no skills to take her out of the orchards.” She could have said more, made Lou Dye listen to her talk about how the orchards had stripped a fragile woman first of her beauty and then her life. But if Chela did that, she might start crying, and she’d never let her father or Kohl see her cry.
“You’re right, Chela,” her father sighed. “She wasn’t much more than a child when we were married, but then neither was I. I didn’t know how to make her happy.”
“Enough!” Kohl interrupted. “It’s the present we came to talk about, not ancient history.”
“I’m aware of that,” Lou said, turning on him with anger Chela couldn’t fathom. Lou turned back toward his daughter. “Don’t try to cross him. That’s what I’m here to tell you. You’ll regret it.”
Chela could almost reach out and finger the vise that tightened around her heart as she watched the two men head for the door. She had to clench her fingers to keep from attacking them, but clench them she did. Chela might indeed be a wild bird trapped in a cage, but she wouldn’t let her captors have the satisfaction of watching her struggles.
She made herself wait for the sound of the car pulling out of the driveway and then reached for the telephone. Magadan answered on the first ring. “They just left,” Chela blurted out, the words reaching Magadan before she could bring them back.
“They? Who was with Kohl?”
“No one. A partner of his.” Chela shut her eyes, praying Magadan would believe what she was saying. “I can’t stay here,” she whispered, feeling her father in the room. “Magadan, can I come to your place?”
A pause. “No, Chela, I can’t let that happen. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Chapter Nine
Chela was sitting outside on the porch when Magadan arrived. She’d tried to make herself stay inside, but her father’s unrelenting image was everywhere. Chela hadn’t realized that seeing him would be that upsetting. She felt a little like an accident victim trying to assess her injuries. On top of that was the reoccurring thought that he’d tried to warn her, as if he had some feeling for her. It didn’t make sense. Magadan would look at her and know she’d been deeply affected by something, but he had no way of knowing her father was around, let alone Lou’s connection with Kohl. Let him think her distracted state had been caused by the latter.
Let him think anything he wanted to, she thought as his car pulled into her drive. He still wouldn’t tell her where he lived. Didn’t that entitle her to some privacy of her own?
Magadan didn’t speak. The feeling that crawled up his throat and set his heart to pounding made words impossible. He’d been impressed by Chela’s independence, her courage. Now he was looking at a wounded creature who might slip away to suffer in silence if his approach was wrong. Slowly, carefully, he walked up to her, dropped to his knees in front of her and took her icy fingers. Another woman would have collapsed in his arms, but not, he knew, this woman. Somehow he had to find the patience to wait until she was ready to explain the pain in her eyes. For a moment he simply ran his own warm hands from her palm to the tip of her nails until some warmth had been restored to her. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.
Chela shook her head. “I want to get out of here. I can’t go to your place, so I don’t suppose it matters where I go.”
She thought she heard a groan from Magadan’s lips. Before she had time to think about it, he was pulling her to her feet and pressing her against him. “I have an idea. Will you go inside for a few minutes? I want to make a phone call, and there’s something I want you to do.”
Chela didn’t object. For once she was willing to let someone else make the decisions. The house seemed less threatening with Magadan in it. She was able to stand apart from him as he dialed and then asked for a dinner reservation for later that evening. “I promised you that lobster dinner,” he said as he hung up. “What if you go get dressed? I’ll stand sentry to make sure nothing happens.”
“You?” Chela almost laughed. “Maybe it’s you I need protection from.”
“Never. I’d never do anything to hurt you. Go on. Please put on the dress.”
Because the day had already carried too many surprises, Chela found nothing strange about what was taking place now. She was still hurt and angry because Magadan kept some part of himself separate from her, but now wasn’t the time to think about, that. She reached the bathroom door and then turned around. “What are you going to wear?”
He winked. “I always carry a spare suit in the space behind the pickup seat. I wear many hats during the course of a day. I have to be prepared.”
Chela was satisfied with that simple explanation. She, maybe more than anyone else, was aware of the multitude of roles Magadan played. That he kept costume changes in his truck came as no surprise.
Because she felt a need to remove any lingering residue of Kohl’s touch, Chela spent several minutes in the tub scrubbing her skin vigorously. If only there was an effective way to cleanse her mind and eyes of what they’d experienced today. For the first time she applied a little of the perfume the migrant education staff had given her for her last birthday. The scent cleared her nostrils of the memory of sweat and tobacco and left her renewed. Chela even took time to braid a small section of hair and let it drape down over her ear so she wouldn’t have to be constantly brushing her hair out of her eyes. She located her thinnest bra so no seams would show under her dress and slipped on the soft, sensuous peach fabric.
When Chela looked at herself in the mirror, she had to admit that the transformation was complete. Only her t
oo-big eyes gave away anything of what she’d gone through today. Her slim body was the perfect frame for the clinging dress. Her dark coloring highlighted the changing hues in the skirt. Her broad shoulders and firm breasts gave definition to the crossed bodice. Just before leaving the bedroom, Chela applied a light touch of gloss lipstick.
Magadan had changed into his suit while she was in the bathroom. As she was recording the striking way his dark blue suit followed every inch of his frame, he was taking her in with his eyes, his breath. “You look nice,” Chela said uncomfortably as she became aware of his unrelenting gaze.
“And you look like a dream. My God. I may have to beat the men off with a club.”
Chela ducked her head, blushing. “Don’t say that. I’m nervous.”
“Why would you be nervous?” Magadan held out his hands but only held her loosely when she came toward him.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, her just-washed hair bouncing on her shoulders. “I’ve never been dressed up like this before. I feel like a character in a play.”
“If that’s the case, then I want to be the only member of the audience.” He brought his nose to the side of her neck. “Perfume. I was going to buy you some.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, feeling shy. “I—I was given some.”
“I want to. It wasn’t a man, was it?”
Chela thought of her proper supervisor and the two older female members of the migrant education support staff. “Not unless you count a man old enough to be my father.” She fought her way around the comparison and continued. “I hope I don’t trip. I’m not used to heels like this.”
“That’s why ladies take the arm of their escorts: So they don’t trip and hurt themselves.”
Chela laughed, grateful for Magadan’s light mood. “I’ve wondered about that.”
“I didn’t think I’d hear you laugh. It sounds good. Chela, when I saw you sitting there, I thought you looked as if you’d been hit between the eyes by a board. My mission tonight is to take away that look.” His wink lightened the mood. “If I don’t get sidetracked by thinking about how much I want to take you to bed.”
