Her Passionate Hero

by Caitlyn O'Leary

  “Hunter, you came.”

  “Babička, what’s going on?” Aliana asked hoarsely. It killed Hunter to see how much pain Aliana was in. She looked like she had been run over by a Mac truck, and it was clear his presence was adding to it.

  Her friend did what he wanted to, put her arm around Alia’s shoulders and whispered something in her ear. Then she turned to Aliana’s grandmother.

  “Mrs. Jankovic, who is this?”

  “Allow me to introduce.” Mrs. Jankovic swept into the middle of the room and kissed his grandmother on the cheek. “Rosa, thank you for bringing your pretty grandson.” She looked up at him. “Bend down. You too tall for me to climb you.”

  Hunter suppressed a grin. He’d forgotten Mrs. J’s ability to butcher the English language. He bent so the noble woman could touch her cheek to his.

  “Make this better,” she whispered into his ear. “I’m depending on you.”

  How was he supposed to do that when Aliana was looking at him like he’d killed her puppy? Before he could say anything, Aliana beat him to the punch.

  “Lottie, Babička, we need to go. It was good seeing you, Mrs. Diaz.” She was squeezing his grandmother’s hand and giving her a sad, loving smile and totally ignoring him.

  “Aliana?”

  “I can’t, Hunter.” She stared at the floor. “I don’t feel well, I need to go.”

  Lottie cleared her throat. “Uhm, Aliana, you need to wait for the wheelchair.” Aliana gave her friend a panicked look. “I’m sorry honey, I don’t know who he is to you. Maybe he can leave until the doctor gets here.”

  “No, he’s not leaving,” her grandmother decreed. “Carlotta, this is Mrs. Diaz and her grandson Hunter Diaz. He’s a sailor.”

  “SEAL,” his grandmother corrected.

  “But that sounds like a cute little creature of marine life. Sailor sounds more like a man,” Mrs. Jankovic said.

  Hunter closed his eyes, praying for patience.

  “Holy hell, you have a Navy SEAL on tap? No wonder you didn’t tell the cops anything,” Lottie tried to tease Aliana.

  “Please, Lottie, it’s not funny.” She turned to Hunter. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but can you go?”

  “He’s here to help,” her grandmother said.

  As much as her anxiety concerned him, one thing bothered him a hell of a lot more.

  “Why aren’t you cooperating with the police?” Hunter asked Aliana.

  She stiffened, then looked down at the floor, “I can’t talk about it.” She turned and limped toward the bed. “I’m going to phone for the wheelchair.”

  “You are dirtying this up,” Mrs. Jankovic hissed softly at him so that Aliana couldn’t hear.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he smiled.

  “Good.”

  She watched the two of them as she made the phone call. “What are you talking about?” she asked as she hung up the phone.

  “Aliana, your grandmother called my grandmother. I came to help you.”

  She bit her lip, then hissed, and brought her hand up to her already swollen mouth.

  “Please Alia, let me help you.”

  She opened her mouth to ask a question, then looked around at the audience they had and shut her mouth. In three steps he was in front of her.

  “What?” he asked.

  Her pretty face had a unique expression on it. “You’re not supposed to be here. You were supposed to stay away.”

  “I stayed away far too long.” Now that he was here, he was thinking he should have been here a damn sight sooner. He realized the look on her face was hope. He knew it as he watched it slip away.

  “No, you should never have come back. It’s for your own good.”

  There was a knock behind him.

  “Somebody call for a ride?” an orderly with a wheelchair asked.

  “That’s for me,” Aliana said. He walked with her as she gingerly sat down in the chair.

  Mrs. Jankovic patted his arm. She leaned in to say something to his grandmother that he couldn’t quite make out. Then she and Lottie followed Aliana out of the room.

  “Mamie?”

  “We’ll talk about it in the car. Let’s give them a chance to go out first. You’re upsetting your Alia,” she said in Spanish.

  “She hasn’t been mine for a long time.”

  “She’s always been yours. And she needs you now.”

  Maybe. He thought about that first moment when she had seen him. Despite everything, her instinct had been to come to him. It was like the clouds parted for just a moment and the sun burst through, shining directly on him. He savored it. But now, he needed to focus on matters at hand.

  “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “I have our book club looking into things.”

  He stepped back so he could look down at the small woman he called grandmother.

  “I did not just hear you say that your book club is trying to figure out who planted a bomb in Aliana’s house.”

  “The twelve of us are very well-connected here in the neighborhood. We’re meeting on Saturday. Velma is bringing German chocolate cake, and her aunt is bringing apple pie. I’ll have ice cream. We want to bring you up to speed.”

  “I don’t want you involved,” he commanded.

  “Too late, we’re involved. You’re coming and listening. I had Velma bake your favorite cake. Don’t give me any shit, boy.”

  Hunter burst out laughing. He hadn’t actually been up to visit his grandmother in over a year, and they hadn’t argued like this in forever. It was fun. He wrapped her up in a hug.

  “I love you Mamie, but I’m not letting you and your crazy cronies get involved with street gangs.”

  “Some of those women were in the original gangs back in the day. They know what’s up. Granted, anyone truly loyal to that way of life has long since dropped out of the book club.”

  He looked down at her. “You’re not hearing me. I’m serious, you’re not involved. Today you’re going to give me the information I need, then you’re taking down your Miss Marple Detective Agency shingle. Tell me what I need to know.”

  “We’ll tell you on Saturday.”

  “I want to know why Aliana hasn’t talked to the cops.”

  Rosa brightened. “She’s better now, you know.”

  “What do you mean better?”

  “After her father killed himself, she went into a shell. But it wasn’t until six months later that she seemed to disappear.”

  Six months later would have been when he stopped sending letters. “What do you mean, disappear?”

  “It was the beginning of her senior year. Her mother and her grandmother didn’t notice.”

  The back of his neck tingled. “Go on.”

  “She fainted in school.”

  “What was wrong with her?”

  “She hadn’t been eating. She’d lost weight, but she was wearing so many layers of clothes, nobody noticed. They had to hospitalize her.”

  “Ah shit, Mamie.”

  “According to Magda, it just made her more of a target at school. But there is good news, mi hijo, she won a big poetry award and got a scholarship. She got to go to Arizona I think. Anyway, she got out. She came back because her mom got sick. She’s a good girl. She takes care of her mama.”

  “Her mom’s sick?”

  “Alzheimer’s. Aliana had to eventually put her in a home. For a long time, though, she was living with Aliana, but now that she is a vice principal, she can afford a place.”

  “She’s a vice principal?”

  “Yes, at Bertrum High School.”

  His Alia had come a long way. But then he thought about her having to take care of a mother who was slowly losing herself and his heart ached all over again for her.

  “Why isn’t she talking to the cops?” he asked.

  “This is the first I heard about it. You need to find out. In the meantime, I’ll tell the girls in the club about the latest developments.”

 
Holy hell. “Mamie, stop with the book club already. I’m going to take care of everything. What gang is after her? Is it Las Nuevas Espadas?”

  “Velma doesn’t think so. She’ll know more on Saturday when you get your cake.”

  God, there was no stopping his grandmother.

  Chapter Four

  “She doesn’t want to see you.”

  “You need an alarm system. You didn’t even turn on the porch light,” Hunter chided the older lady.

  “You have screwed the cat. Aliana is resting. Seeing you upset her. You here will make her more so. I cannot let you in.” He saw she was leaning heavily on the doorjamb. He hated seeing the strong woman looking so frail.

  “Babička, who’s at the―?” She was smiling until she saw him, then she shut down. “Hi, Hunter, what are you doing here?” He winced at the bruising on the side of her face and arm and the bandage on her neck.

  He couldn’t very well throw Mrs. J under the bus and say she invited him. “I wanted to know about your conversations with the police.”

  “Yes, what about them?” her grandmother asked, looking up at her.

  Aliana threw Hunter a frustrated look.

  “I’m taking care of everything,” she told both of them.

  “Hunter can take care of everything, you’re tired. The doctor said you still need more rest, Láska. He doesn’t want you to go out of the house until Friday.”

  “I’m fine, Babička,” she stroked her grandmother’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go inside and sit down. I’ll just have a few words with Hunter before he leaves, okay?”

  Mrs. Jankovic frowned. “We should invite him in. I made Marlenka honey cake,” she said stubbornly. He had to admire the woman for sticking to a plan, but he hated how Aliana looked like a trapped kitten. She didn’t know if she should run or try out her sharp little claws.

  “That sounds wonderful, Mrs. J.”

  “I’ll go get it,” her grandmother said. She was clearly relieved that he had gone along with her efforts.

  Aliana smiled at her grandmother. “I’ll serve it. You go to the parlor, I’ll bring it out to both of you.” As soon as her grandmother turned around, Aliana fixed him with a fierce stare. Apparently, she was going with the kitten claws.

  He laughed. “I’m going to help Alia,” he called out to the older woman as she slowly started to make her way to another room.

  “You’re such a gentleman,” Mrs. Jancovik called out over her shoulder.

  He followed Aliana into the kitchen. “So, tell me why you haven’t been forthcoming with the police.”

  She stopped in the middle of the kitchen and spun around. She lost her balance, it was clear she wasn’t used to being injured. He put his hand under her elbow to brace her.

  “Careful, mi Cariña, you just got out of the hospital.”

  “I would take better care of myself if you weren’t making me so confused,” she said weakly.

  He guided her towards the kitchen table and had them both sitting down.

  “Just think of me like the tide. I’m here to stay and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, so you might as well just go with the flow.”

  She pushed her hair out of her face and grimaced as she touched the bruise at her temple. “But that’s the thing, I don’t want you here.”

  He winced.

  She reached over and touched his hand. Stroked it.

  “Please don’t make me beg you. You don’t belong here anymore. You have a life apart from mine. Please live it, for your own sake, I want what’s best for you. I have my mom to take care of, I have a life with Babička and my job. Hunter, my problems are no longer your problems, okay?”

  It hurt. Even after thirteen years being told she didn’t want him in her life still felt like a punch in the gut. It would have hurt a hell of a lot more if he hadn’t smelled the bullshit. She wanted him here as much as he needed to be here. Nobody giving someone a brush off would basically hold their hand. He’d had brush-offs, and they didn’t work that way.

  But there was something going on. There was part of her that wanted him gone. Was it their past history together? Was it whatever trouble which had her in its sights? He didn’t know, but he intended to find out. He put his hand over hers.

  “You’re avoiding the question, Alia. What haven’t you told the cops?”

  She looked away and pushed up from the table. “I’ll get the cake.”

  “Answer the question.”

  Aliana went to the counter and lifted the lid off a cake stand. She slowly pulled out a knife from the butcher block and ran her finger along the side of it. Then she turned to him.

  “I’ll tell you what I told them,” she said very calmly. “Somebody I didn’t know saw fit to plant a bomb in my home. I’ve made some enemies at school. Kids have threatened me when I’ve suspended or expelled them. It could have been any one of them. I gave them some names.” She set the knife down beside the cake and pulled three plates out of the cupboard.

  “But you don’t think it was one of them, do you?” he asked slowly.

  “It could be,” she hedged as she picked up a plate to put a slice of cake on it.

  It was a bunch of crap.

  “You do realize you’re putting your grandmother at risk by not cooperating, don’t you?”

  The dish she had been holding clattered to the counter, but didn’t break. She looked up at him, her face a sick shade of white.

  “Fuck, you hadn’t thought of that.” She shook her head. “Why not?”

  “Nobody mentioned her, and we have different last names. I’m such an idiot. Sakra! Fuck!” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Hey, hey, hey. You’re not an idiot,” he said. He tried to pull her away from the counter.

  “I’ve got to finish, Babička is waiting for us.”

  “She can wait a little longer. Tell me who the people were who didn’t mention your grandmother. Somebody threatened your mother?”

  She shook her head, refusing to look at him.

  “Cariña, you’ve got to tell me.”

  She pulled away from him and her gaze swung wildly around the kitchen. “I can fix this. I can fix this.” She mutters.

  “No you can’t, not without my help.”

  “Dammit, Hunter. I told you to go away. You listened before why not this time?” She looked at him beseechingly.

  “Because now I’m thirty-one, not a dumb nineteen-year-old who had my teeth kicked in by the girl who meant everything to him. This time we’re going to resolve this shit. You’re going to let me help, and you’re going to tell me why you sent me away all those years ago.”

  “Please, leave, I’m begging you. It’s what’s best.” More tears spilled. She looked wildly around the kitchen. He followed her glance. Her eyes spied the knife. For a second he thought she was going to grab it, but then she turned to face him.

  “Best for who? It’s sure as hell not best for me.”

  “Then me. Leave so I can still feel good about myself.” She stared past him at the counter. “When I told you to go away before, I was relieving you of a responsibility that would just make you have a crap life.” Her head swung so she could glare at him. “But it got even worse Hunter, far worse. You were so lucky you got away from the crazy girl when you did.”

  “What in the world are you talking about. Mamie can’t sing your praises enough. Your grandmother adores you. You’re a Vice Principal, for God’s sake.”

  “Are you going to go?” she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  He gently placed his hands on her shoulders, not in a million years did he want to cause her physical pain on her bruises.

  “Nothing is going to drag me away.”

  She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Then blew out a breath. She did it rhythmically. He recognized the pattern, he’d done it at his friend’s dojo, and also when he was on the rifle range. Finally, she opened her eyes.

  “Fine. Just fine.”

  “Are you going to
tell me why you told me to leave thirteen years ago?”

  She shook her head.

  He nodded, unsurprised.

  “We really need to get the cake out to Babička.”

  “Not before you tell me what you haven’t told the police.”

  “I told them that I expelled some gang members last month, and it must be retaliation for that.”

  He stared at her. He found that pretty fucking hard to believe. Not the fact that she’d told the police the bullshit story, but that was what had caused her home to blow up. He looked at her and saw the telltale blush creeping up her neck.

  “You want to pull the other leg?”

  She stood up straighter. “What are you talking about?” she asked indignantly. “That is exactly what I told the police.”

  “I don’t doubt that, but it’s hardly the full truth. Now, what the hell are you hiding, Alia?”

  She just stared at him, her blue eyes shooting fire.

  Fuck, he wasn’t going to win. He started to laugh.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Why are you laughing?”

  “Because I’m screwed.”

  “Join the club. I’ve asked you to leave, and you’re being stubborn and staying. You’re annoying the hell out of me.”

  “Come on, Alia, admit this is a little fun. You used to laugh.” The blue fire turned into a bit of a sparkle.

  “I admit nothing.”

  “I can’t even get a smile out of you?”

  “Can you not back off?” she asked with exasperation.

  “Nope, did that thirteen years ago. I’m planted this time. How about that smile?”

  Her lip quirked up at the corner.

  “God, you’ve turned into a beautiful woman.”

  “Don’t say that. I don’t need your lies.”

  Her sparkle left. He stared at her dumbfounded. She was serious. He took his hands away from her cheeks, and she let go of him. Then he stroked his knuckles down her arms.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you about this or be glib. We’ve been through too much real shit together. I’ve been in the trenches with you, Alia. You were always pretty, and your hair was gorgeous, that’s why those bitches were always pulling at it. But now, especially when you light up and smile, you’re beautiful.”