Yet? Did he think he’d have a say after they signed a marriage license? She thought they’d agreed that wasn’t settled. She straightened a little and nodded curtly. “Goodnight, Rafael.”
He caught her arm before she could leave. “Two things,” he said. “One, I’ll pick you up at eight tomorrow. We’ll be there in time for breakfast, and I’ll have a chance to meet your family.”
He certainly seemed sure of himself suddenly. He wouldn’t meet her family until long after this pretend relationship ended. Not if she could help it.
She didn’t argue the point, though. No point letting him get a head start on manipulating the situation.
“And the second?” she challenged.
“We’re engaged. This is how we say goodnight.”
He drew her close and lowered his lips to hers.
She froze for a moment, surprised, then slid her hands up to cup his face, urging him closer, returning his kiss, trying to stifle a moan as his hands caressed her back and slid down to rest on her hips, holding her against him.
The blare of a car horn and a blast of derisive laughter made them jerk away from each other.
“We’re in trouble if this is hands-off,” she muttered. He started to say something, but she held up a hand. “I’ve signed the contract. We’re going to have to find other ways to lie to this stupid town for two months. Pick me up on time.” She turned and stalked off, not giving him a chance to speak.
Chapter Eleven
Esme didn’t sing. Angel, Tom, and a handful of customers greeted her warmly when she came in, but she asked Tom for a handful of quarters and went to the jukebox. She’d always said you could tell anyone’s life with country songs. She put on a lot of Rascal Flatts, including a song that always made her remember her brief time with Toby. “What Hurts the Most” could still make her cry, but she vowed not to let it affect her tonight. She punched in a number of songs, ending with another Flatts tune. “God Bless the Broken Road”—where had that come from? She’d been following broken roads all life, and none of them had led her anywhere. Certainly not to love, and even if she’d found Truth, she couldn’t say it was much different than any other place she’d stopped. She wanted it to be home, but she just wasn’t feeling that yet.
After filling the jukebox for a selfishly long time, she chose a table by the window and slowly sipped a margarita, occasionally glancing out the window. Night had come on while she tuned everything out and listened to the music, and most of the people walking around arm-in-arm or hurrying by on worn boots with hats pulled low were people she hadn’t met. Apparently the other two bars had far more weeknight traffic than her aunt. She puzzled over that briefly, wondering what could help Tía. Advertising in this tiny town didn’t make sense, and really, neither did the almost nightly karaoke sessions, if there just weren’t any warm bodies to come in.
The Silver Booty and Boots had that horrible, almost sinister descent into the bar, but it was spacious and friendly—nicer, she thought, after meeting Lillie Mae there, than her aunt’s club. That establishment seemed, from the cars she saw parked there and comments she’d heard, to be the most popular of Truth’s watering holes. She hadn’t been in the Silver Dollar. She’d heard it was “old” country—sawdust on the floor, beer being passed around from patrons to the live bands who played there sometimes, and the infamous honky-tonk women. She grinned. They wouldn’t appreciate her thinking of them that way, with the reputation she had in places where people knew her. Her claims were overstated, but she did have a horse misnamed Domatrix. She giggled, not meaning to, but a couple of nearby customers turned and looked at her curiously. She’d have to be careful, or Tom and Angel would be trying to cut off her alcohol, knowing that the route home was full of curves.
She looked around, noticing for the first time that Tina wasn’t down here mingling with the clients and playing her role as town aunt. She could be up in the office; the smoked glass wouldn’t let light through, but the blinds were drawn. Esme had never even seen that there were blinds before. Worried, she walked over to where Angel was rearranging some bowls of nuts she’d just filled.
“Hey, Angel, is Tía here?”
“No.” Angel stopped what she was doing and sighed. “She’s been coming in late when she comes. I hope everything’s okay.”
“I hope so, too. Do you think I should go home and check?”
“That’s up to you,” Angel said, “but if it were me, I wouldn’t. She wouldn’t thank you for it, and if she’s drinking she can be really pí—” she broke off the Spanish vulgarity, flushing. “I’m sorry. I forget myself sometimes.”
“Angel, I’ve heard my aunt treat you pretty badly,” Esmeralda admitted, keeping her voice low. “Why do you stay with her?”
“I owe your aunt.” Angel moved away to take and refill a mug from someone Esme recognized as a regular. When she came back, she moved even closer to Esme. “I got in trouble when I was younger. Bad choices.” Emotion clouded her face for a moment. “I had a record. No one else would give me a job.”
“Well, she should still respect you.” She’d felt her aunt’s sharp rebukes several times; they were as bad as her mother’s, worse if being gouged by metallic finger nails counted. “I wish I knew how to help her. She’s not who I remember.”
“You didn’t spend a lot of time with her, though, did you?”
Esme must have shown her surprise, because Angel patted her hand. “I’ve been with her about thirteen years, and she mentioned you once or twice, but you never visited.” The older woman took an order and turned to hand it off to Tom. “So, I guess you didn’t.”
“No. You’re right.” She glanced off toward the windows for a moment. A tall man in a cowboy hat, western garb, and boots passed by slowly. He glanced in, apparently noticed her, and waved a hand. Not a local, probably, Esme decided. She’d found the quaint practice of tipping hats an endearing Truth custom. Waves just weren’t as … western. She nodded anyway and turned back to Angel.
“You remind me a little of Tía,” Angel added. “Sometimes.”
“Me? How? I don’t even look like my parents, although my dad’s tall.”
“Not so much the looks, but you’re outspoken. Confident. Those are good things when you don’t become overbearing with them.”
“I guess. Thanks, Angel. I want to know more about my aunt. I used to wish she were my mother instead of my aunt. Is that terrible to admit?”
Angel’s thin shoulders shrugged. “It happens.” She paused, then said solemnly, “My only daughter doesn’t claim me. My sister raised her and now … we don’t have a future. My fault.”
“Hey, looks like a funeral,” Chuck said, passing by and shooting them a wink. “You should just get up there and sing, Miss Esme!”
“Go leave us be with our girl talk,” Angel told him and he nodded agreeably.
“Go easy on us cowboys,” he called as he continued back to his table of friends.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” Esme apologized.
“Truth is what it is, and I’m not talking about this town, either!”
“You like Rafael, though?”
Angel’s face lit up. “If I’d had a boy, I’d want him to be Rafael. Or a lot like him.”
“Why?”
“He’s got a good heart,” she answered with absolute conviction. “He’s nobody’s fool, but you can’t make him hurt you unless you’re hurting somebody else.”
“The day I met you, he came in right after me.”
“I remember.”
“As I left him, I heard him say he’d kill someone. Yesterday, he told me he was threatening my aunt.”
“He didn’t mean it. He’s furious that she let some really rotten lowlifes come and go as they wanted. He blames them for his sister’s death, to some extent.”
“Who does he think is most responsible? Does he understand it’s ultimately Cody’s fault?”
“No.” Angel glanced at the picture of the singer and shoo
k her head. When she turned back, she looked more troubled than ever. “He blames himself more than anyone.”
• • •
The drive to Laredo hadn’t changed much—mile after mile of interstate without much to see on either side. They got off to an awkward start, silent and distant, the strangers they really were.
After a while, though, Rafael reached for the radio dial and turned on a Spanish language station. The first song was one Toby used to play over and over when they went anywhere, a young man asking his mother how to know if it was love when he found someone.
“You don’t like Ramon Ayala?” he asked curiously.
“I can listen. I’m not crazy about Norteño—too much accordion. I like steel guitar and twang better.”
“You and my parents both! Tell you what.” He fished around in the console without taking his eyes off the road and handed her a remote. “I’ve got all country in the CD player. You’ll probably like most of it, and I’m fine with it, too.”
“I’ll wait until we’re halfway there,” she volunteered. “Fair’s fair.”
“Okay.” He checked his side mirror, flipped on his blinker, and pulled out to pass a tanker, glancing at the cab’s door as he did, and smiling.
“Yours?”
“The company’s,” he agreed, nodding. “Business is good.”
“Do you ever get attacked, you or your parents? Not everyone’s good with fracking.”
He glanced her way briefly. “We’re not going to have to argue about real issues while we’re married, are we?”
She grinned. “Not if we get ’em out of the way now.”
“The people of Cotulla have jobs, houses, hope, and prosperity. Most of them love to see those Benton trucks and uniforms.”
They fell silent again, and a particularly gory narcocorrido blasted out. Corridos, traditional Mexican story songs, were fine, but some of the music glorifying the drug trade and violence offended Esme, just as gangsta rap about the same topics did. She could deal with vulgarity herself but she’d worked around kids so long that she just didn’t want them exposed. There were no kids in the truck, but she picked up the remote, killed the radio, and turned on the CD player.
He chuckled. “You and I are going to get along great when Justin’s with us.”
“So why didn’t you want to bring me?” she asked, and the smile faded away and she saw his cheek tighten. “If you can tell me.”
“I can tell you, Esme. It’s not a dark, ugly secret. I come down two or three times a year to bring donations for charitable groups I like to work with. The children’s home in Nuevo Laredo that’s really an orphanage—many of the children don’t have parents at all. Others are removed by courts, just as they are in the States. But they work on donations and never turn anyone down. Then there’s Sacred Heart; you know them, of course, since you lived in Laredo.” He turned to smile again. “I especially like the shopping trips they take the children on for Christmas. Letting them experience shopping for themselves or others. It’s such a good thing.”
He turned back to the road, passing another in the unending line of eighteen wheelers headed toward Laredo’s busy land port, and continued, “And there are a few others.”
“Marie said something about Angel Wings,” Esmeralda remembered. “And Angel said something about you having a good heart. Why would you hate letting me see that?”
He huffed indignantly. “You’ve seen the best of me,” he argued. “Did I raise my voice at you when you hooked me?”
“Yes, actually. You shrieked.”
“Shrieked?”
“And cussed.”
“Oh.” He drummed his fingers along as one of the old Brooks and Dunn songs blasted out. “To be honest, Esme, it’s always an emotional trip for me. The memories aren’t all bad, especially the recent ones, but the ones I have from my childhood are. The area around the bridge? Sometimes it’s hard not to be right back there on the street, begging, some of the memories are still so clear.”
She hated the sadness in his voice. Her memories weren’t great, but she’d never been hungry or alone. Still, she wanted to know more.
“Tell me about it,” she urged. “What you can. Were you ever at Sacred Heart, or were you a foster child—what?”
“I suspect things are different now than they were,” he said finally. “But you know our families, Esmeralda—relatives, everyone knows everyone. A lot of times, families step in. My mom and dad tried to sort out my history when they adopted me, and they more or less did.
“My birth mom left me with her mother, my maternal grandmother. But she had diabetes, and they say she wound up institutionalized. I lived in her house with cousins and a niece of hers, and sometimes the woman she used to pay to help with chores. No one was really in charge, and some of the adults were addicts, alcoholics. There were a lot of children. Some must have been cousins, but I really don’t know.”
“And the Bentons found you.” She smiled, trying to ease the memories. “That’s amazing, when you think about it.”
“There’s not a day when it doesn’t amaze me and make me feel like the luckiest guy alive.” He glanced at the mile markers flashing by. “Do you need a bathroom break?”
“No.”
“Then if you don’t mind, we’ll wait until Cotulla. I’m going to pop into our office there and say hi. I haven’t been there much since …”
Since Cody started her career in music, probably. He seemed to have given up a lot of what he wanted to do for his sister. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Was he so overwhelmed by gratitude to his parents that he wasn’t ever his own man? She’d stood up for herself, and it had cost her dearly—but most days, she felt like she’d earned the pride she felt in her decisions and accomplishments.
She just nodded, not wanting to question too much. He didn’t owe her any explanations. Remembering that was hard, though. They’d had fun fishing together. Angel’s insistence on how he was a good man had stayed with her through the night. And their kiss—she hadn’t expected that. The contact had gone from sweet to knee-buckling in seconds. Again, she wondered how on earth they’d keep their relationship platonic.
And if she didn’t want to? If she could forget her pride, and the fact that she would be paid a small fortune for what was supposed to be a mere acting job?
The pickup slowed suddenly and she looked up, expecting to see a slow-moving car or truck, but he put the signal on and exited, and she realized that they’d already reached Cotulla.
“We’re just making a pit stop,” he assured her. “In and out.”
“You’re the boss.”
“Which reminds me, here, we’re just … together. I don’t want word about the engagement to hit the company grapevine yet. Everything would fall apart if my parents came back early.”
He pulled into a parking spot marked with his name and walked around to open her door, then held out a hand to help her down. She drove a pickup and could get in and out of one in a miniskirt and heels. Strangely, though, his gesture touched her.
“Rafael,” she said, as they headed up a walk paved with flagstone, “you love your parents. I’m not questioning that. But you told me about Paulette, and well—I’m just wondering how you can be okay with lying to them.”
He faced her, frowning. “I’m not lying,” he said. “That’s why we’re marrying. Legally.”
“So, if they ask about why you didn’t wait?”
“They know I’m impulsive. Dad will worry, until he sees I thought of a pre-nuptial.”
“And if they ask you if you love me?”
“Then I’d have to lie,” he admitted quietly. “But I hope we can head that off by pretending when we have to and avoiding them as much as possible.”
“Won’t that seem strange?” she persisted, stopping outside the door.
“We’ll be newlyweds. We can spend hours upstairs or fishing or something. They’ll respect our privacy.”
But will we be able to keep our ha
nds of each other? She walked into a spacious, well-decorated room. The receptionist looked up and broke into a huge smile. “Rafael!” She came out and hugged him, then turned and hugged Esme before Rafael even introduced them.
“Gwen, a friend of mine, Esmeralda Salinas.” He wrapped an arm around the receptionist’s shoulders. “Gwen’s been with Mom and Dad—I don’t know. Twenty years?”
“Almost thirty,” the woman corrected, still beaming. She reached up and touched her hair. “And I don’t look a day older!”
“No, you don’t.”
“So, what can I do for you? Drinks? You know your way to the employees’ lounge, but come with me, Ms. Salinas. I’ll show you around. Do you want to talk to anyone, Rafael?”
“No, I don’t have time. If you’ll get Esme something, that would be fine.”
“You might want to go by your office, Rafael,” Gwen suggested. “I’ll take Ms. Salinas along after I show her the lounge.”
Rafael frowned. “Why would I go to my office, Gwen? We’re leaving—”
The receptionist smiled. “Just trust me. And go.”
• • •
Rafael smiled and watched Gwen guide Esme in the direction of the lounge. He knew Gwen well, and clearly she wanted him to go to his office. He wondered if she’d remodeled it for him again, or—
He opened the door. “Carnal!” He used the old street slang, knowing that the man walking over to hug him and slap him was his brother in every sense of the word. “Marc, I thought you were in Houston.”
“I just got in a while ago. And I have a flight out in a few hours.”
“Is something wrong?” Usually, Marc arrived to check out problems—employee malfeasance, insurance or regulatory problems. He’d heard people in Benton Energy Resources groan when they saw Marc Dryer appear. The cheekier ones made crosses with their fingers as protection against the Dryer curse.
“No. Your dad and mom loved the story about the Cotulla team that made the national news. You saw it?”
“Sure.”
“So?”
“So for once, I’m the bearer of good news. Bonuses all around and a contribution to the library.”
His Temporary Wife Page 13
