“People were talking about this place of miracles. How happy the children were here. The police told me Joe was released from prison. I was scared, señora. He told me he would kill me the next time he saw me. I believe him. He’s a terrible man, yes, but he doesn’t lie. He will kill me. I had to get Pedro safe. Please, I had nowhere to go.”
“Why didn’t you just come with us that night on the road?”
Tear-drenched black eyes looked from Corrie to Mack and back again. “You only take children,” she said with devastating simplicity.
“Oh,” Corrie said, nonplussed. “But we wouldn’t have turned you away.”
Dark eyes, so like Pedro’s, rose to meet hers. “No? I didn’t know. I was only concerned with Pedro.”
Mack cleared his throat. “So you abandoned him at the welfare office and then scared the others—and your own son—by pretending to be a ghost?” His voice was soft enough, but his tone and message rang sharp with censure.
She cowered against Corrie, beginning to cry again. Corrie threw Mack a hard look, angry he would be so callous.
He shook his head, his lips tight with barely checked anger.
“I didn’t abandon him as you say, señor. I knew they would send him here. I hid on the side of the road when you went into town. You never saw me. I was going to be here when Pedro got here. But you saw me on your way back. You thought I was La Dolorosa.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” Mack said.
“Mack,” Corrie said softly. He couldn’t know what desperate measures people might be driven to. She’d interviewed countless women in similar situations. At least Pedro’s mother deserved a modicum of approbation for an innovative solution.
“As long as people just thought La Dolorosa was here, Pedro was safe enough. But if Joe hears about me, he will come. Promise me you won’t tell anyone. I’ll leave today. I swear it. But you can’t let anyone know I was here. You have to watch over Pedro for me.” Her voice hitched pathetically.
“And you,” Corrie said.
“No! I can’t stay here. I only came to make sure Pedro was all right. And to say goodbye. I bring danger.”
“You’re already here,” Mack said gruffly. “And if your excuse for a husband comes around, he’ll be asking for bigger trouble than he’s prepared to face.”
Looking at him, Corrie believed this. The ice was back in his eyes and he looked hard as proverbial nails and ready to tackle anything.
But Pedro’s mother shook her head. “You don’t know him, señor. It’s like he has a demon in his soul. He won’t care who he hurts to get at me. To take Pedro.”
“At least he loves Pedro,” Corrie said.
The woman looked at her as if Corrie had admitted she was a devil-worshipper. “He doesn’t love Pedro. He believes he owns Pedro. That he can do anything he wants with him. And he wants to sell him like he does me. Or, how is it? Rent him out. Like a pimp.”
Corrie’s hands involuntarily tightened around the woman. “Over my dead body,” she said.
“If Joe Turnbull has his way, señora, it will be. Believe me.”
Corrie hid her shudder at the note of implacability in the very human voice. “Call me Corrie,” she said, unable to think of anything to say as a capper to the woman’s prediction of her own death.
Pedro’s mother pointed at her chest. “Lucinda. Lucinda Ortega.”
Corrie frowned, lost in last names. “Well, Lucinda,” she said, leading the woman who was just a hint taller than she was from the stall, barely glancing at Mack’s frustrated face, “let’s take things one step at a time, okay? First off, I think it’s time to let the kids see that you’re not really a ghost. That reminds me. Are you missing a piece of your shawl or skirt?”
Lucinda shook her head, clearly baffled.
Corrie exchanged a glance with Mack.
“Never mind. Now, I think maybe Pedro would like to spend some time with his mama. Okay?”
Lucinda began to cry again. But these tears had nothing to do with sorrow or fear.
The children hung back as Corrie led Lucinda Ortega from the barn.
As always, Juan Carlos was the first to speak. “See, I told you she was real. Now do you believe me? La Dolorosa herself.”
None of the other children ventured an opinion. They stared at the woman leaning on Corrie, their eyes wide with awe and an apprehensive curiosity—all except Pedro, who looked bolted to the ground. In quick succession, a series of clear expressions crossed his features: guilt, fear, worry and a pity for his mother that Corrie never wanted to see in such a young face again.
“Kids,” Corrie said clearly, “this is Lucinda Ortega. She’s Pedro’s mother. She’s going to be staying with us for a while.”
Pedro’s eyes shot to hers and held there. “Verdad?”
“Truly,” Corrie answered with a smile.
The solemn little face broke into the most beautiful smile Corrie believed she had ever seen. “Mama!” he called, and sprang across the few feet separating them and straight into his mother’s arms.
“Oh, Pedro. My big, strong son. I love you so much. You were so brave. So good.”
“I was scared, Mama. Scared for you.”
“I know, jito. I’m so sorry.”
Corrie’s eyes stung, snared by the tender reunion. When she glanced at Mack, she saw his jaw flexed as if he was swallowing emotions as well.
Analissa came to Mack and tugged on his pant leg before holding out her arms imperiously. With only the slightest hesitation, Mack hefted her to his shoulder and settled her comfortably on his side.
“Pedro’s mama is a ghost,” she confided. She patted Mack’s cheek. “But we’re not scared, right?”
“Not of her, pumpkin,” Mack said.
“No, ’cause it’s silly to be afeared of ghosts. Because they can be somebody’s mama, right?”
Mack gave an involuntary chuckle and his eyes cut to Corrie’s, sharing the humor before turning back to the child. “I never thought of it quite that way,” he admitted. He smiled at the little girl and shared a slightly rueful grin with Corrie.
“No, because you’re a growed-up.”
Mack nodded. “I think all us growed-ups and the rest of you young uns ought to head back to the house for now, get Pedro’s mama some food and let them talk for a while.”
On the way back to the house, Jason took Jenny’s hand in his. Corrie’s heart wrenched at the shy smile the silent girl gave the boy.
She looked over at Mack. He’d witnessed the sweet moment as well. “It’s easier for them,” he told her softly.
“Easier?”
“Young love.”
“I don’t remember it being easy, exactly,” she said. “But then, I don’t think I was ever really in love.”
“Never, Corrie?”
“Not—” She broke off. Not until now? Not really? Not like this?
He looked as if he’d say more.
Analissa patted his face. “Are you going to kiss Corrie?”
“Not here,” Mack said.
“Why not?”
“Too hard to kiss somebody when I’m carrying somebody else,” he said, and smiled at the little girl.
She giggled. “Me. I’m somebody. You love me, don’t you?”
When he hesitated, Analissa snared his face between her tiny hands and pressed her forehead to his. “Tell me.”
He gave a ragged chuckle. “Okay. I love you.”
Analissa gave him a smack roughly on his eye. And firmly patted his cheeks. “I love you, too, Mack.”
So simple, Corrie thought. The little girl had demanded Mack admit his love for her and he did so. Cornered, trapped by two sticky little hands and entreating eyes, he’d given her his heart for the asking.
She wished she had the courage to do the same. But knew he wouldn’t feel the same compunction with her that he did with a vulnerable child.
“Now tell Corrie,” Analissa said as she pushed his head sideways.
“Time to get inside,”
he said, his eyes briefly connecting with Corrie’s.
Nice try, Analissa, Corrie thought sadly.
He swept up the steps and into the house without further pleas from Analissa impeding his swift getaway.
Corrie spent the remainder of the afternoon on the telephone, first with the sheriff, breaking Lucinda’s confidence by letting him know the woman was alive and well at Rancho Milagro. She couldn’t very well let him keep on searching for a dead body when the woman was presently in the kitchen eating tamales with her son. She told him what Lucinda had said about her husband, Joe, and the sheriff assured her he would keep her whereabouts under wraps.
“But, if I know Chance, he’d have my hide if you didn’t get some help out there on the double. Trouble is, if I send a couple of deputies out there, Joe Turnbull would figure out the situation right off. He’s dumb as a fence post about some things and smart as a fox about others. I think it would be better if we slipped in a couple of Chance’s federal deputies. How about Ted? You know him, right?”
Corrie thought of the young deputy marshal so in love with Doreen from the post office, flirtatious single mother of three. “I couldn’t take him away from Doreen.”
“I don’t think dynamite would do that,” the sheriff chuckled. “But why not have Doreen and her brood out there for a visit, too? Nobody would think a thing of that. From what I hear, they go out there a lot, don’t they?”
Corrie grinned. She liked the feisty postal worker and the kids would welcome her rowdy family. She realized with some shock that she hadn’t seen what Leeza called “the horde” in only a scant week. It seemed months. A river of time since Mack had arrived there.
“I wouldn’t want to put them in any danger,” Corrie said. “In fact, I was considering taking the children out of here until all this blows over.”
“With Ted out there, and the others—especially Mack Dorsey. You know Dorsey didn’t say a word about who he was. Neither did Chance. I heard it from Pete over at the crime lab. This Dorsey’s the guy who rescued all those kids a couple years back in that fire.”
“Enchanted Hills,” Corrie said. She felt a frisson of an unfamiliar emotion working across her shoulders. A bit of pride mixed with a strong dose of regret. Regret that she couldn’t erase the losses from him, sorrow that she didn’t know how to wave a magic wand and make it okay for him. Or for them.
“That’s the one. He’s a national hero. At any rate, with all that help, you’re a lot safer right where you are than putting yourself at risk in unfamiliar territory,” the sheriff said. “In the meantime, I’m going to file an injunction against Joe Turnbull and have Judge Sanchez slap a restraining order on him. It won’t do much—they seldom do—but at least we’ll have some reason to arrest him if he gets anywhere near Lucinda.”
When she told Mack about the conversation later, he agreed with Eddy County’s newest political appointment. “And I’ll step up the training with the kids. Have them keep their eyes peeled.”
“I don’t want them scared,” Corrie reminded him.
He took her hand. “I thought we talked this out, Corrie.”
Her breath seemed to tangle in her throat as his thumb caressed her knuckles. “It just seems that a focus on danger is unhealthy.”
“Tell that to Lucinda,” he said. “Or Pedro.”
“That’s not fair,” she said.
“Life’s not fair, Corrie. Nothing about it is fair. Look at Shelley Vandersterre, Allen Parkins, George—”
“The five who perished in the Enchanted Hills firebombing incident,” she interrupted, recognizing the names from her research.
“Trained caution far outweighs blind optimism,” he said.
“I’m not advocating blind optimism,” she said.
“No? Then what do you call it?”
“I call it not frightening children who have already been through enough in their lives.”
“That’s specious logic, Corrie. How does teaching them how to watch for danger and giving them little ways they can help avoid it make them ‘go through’ something? Wouldn’t danger springing on them unaware be so much worse?”
“Maybe. But I don’t think that’s what this is all about,” she said.
“No? What is it, then?”
She struggled to hold in her thoughts, years of having done so trying to override the need to share her thoughts. “I’m afraid you’re trying to undo what you feel is a failure two years ago. You couldn’t save everyone then and you’re beating yourself up for it.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Wow. You know how to hit below the belt, don’t you, sweetheart?”
Tears flooded her eyes. “Oh, Mack, I’m not trying to hit at you. I’m trying to tell you that you can’t protect the whole world.”
“What does the whole world have to do with anything?” he asked, but his face was pale, making the skin grafts all the more noticeable.
Everything inside her trembled, but she persisted. “You can’t protect all of them all the time.”
“Hell, at this rate, I’ll be lucky if I can protect any of you—them,” he snapped.
She half flinched, and that inner voice that had told her to keep quiet issued a little I-told-you-so.
He glared at her, then to her amazement, he didn’t walk away, strike out or even pound a fist against a wall. He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “Kids need to learn to provide some protection for themselves. Don’t you see that, Corrie? If Shelley, George and the others hadn’t panicked, hadn’t felt trapped, they would have known how to get out. They were alive, Corrie. And because they didn’t know any better, they’re dead now. Burned alive.”
The tears in Corrie’s eyes spilled free. “Oh, Mack, I’m so—”
“Don’t you say you’re sorry, Corrie. I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to be mad. Be mad about what happened to you when you were a kid. Be furious, honey, that some bunch of pious jerks let you believe you were responsible for your parents’ deaths. Hell, even be mad at your parents for not teaching you the difference between a smoke cloud and a rain cloud.”
He did pace away from her then, stopped and looked up at the ceiling as if expecting an answer from above as he growled out, “God, when did we become such a passive society?” He whirled back to face her, his features fierce with the passion he felt. “We shouldn’t accept devastating blows, we should rage and scream out against them. We should teach our children to fight and fight hard for their lives.”
As she had thought before, she wondered if there wasn’t a second message in his deeply felt words. She wanted to reel away from him. To run. This man’s love was anything but passive. His love was ferocious, albeit unspoken. She could see it in his face, feel it in the energy emanating from him…had felt it in his lovemaking.
If Mack Dorsey was offering her love, it wasn’t anything safe, it wasn’t open and easy to understand. It wouldn’t be dancing on the surface of life. It would be real, intense, vital and proactive.
“Don’t you get it, Corrie? If we don’t teach them to fight, we’re teaching them to be passive, to be victims. And I damn well refuse to be a party to that kind of thinking. About the only thing we adults have in our arsenal for them is the ability to help them learn to be vigilant and teach them how.”
Surprising her, he reached out and cupped her face in his damaged hands that felt like silk against her skin. “We can fight, Corrie. Us. You and me. We can rail against acceptance. We can fight to get the drunks off the streets so they can’t kill husbands and babies like that idiot did to Jeannie’s first family. We can stop the crazies before they enter a school with madness on their minds. We can empower the weak to stand up against the bullies of the world. These are the answers, Corrie.”
Answers? They were prayers. They were million-dollar treasure chests of hope.
“That’s the real magic of this place.”
She looked at him through a watery haze. “I don’t understand,” she said.
&n
bsp; “Face it, you fought a mountain of rules and paperwork to accomplish this. You’ve given up a career most people would kill for in order to make a few children’s lives a little brighter. When I came here, I only wanted to escape the past, hide from the present. There wasn’t a single thought of futures or happiness, or anything other than just getting by.”
“What are you saying, Mack?”
“What I am I saying?” he asked back, as if truly questioning himself. “I’m saying, then I met you.”
“Oh, Mack.”
He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her with such tenderness that the tears that had sprung free earlier spilled over his fingers. He wiped them away gently.
“Don’t you see what you’ve done, honey? You’ve reminded me that life is worth fighting for. You’ve made me believe that there is something that comes after the battle. Something that smells and tastes like a future. And I’m damned if I’m going to sit back and let some scudsbucket like Joe Turnbull, or some jerk like him, threaten it.”
Corrie’s heart was thundering in her breast. His anger had revealed more than she’d anticipated ever hearing him say. And so much that he didn’t.
“You can’t protect everyone, Mack. Not all the time. No one can.”
“I have to try,” he said. “And I’d like you to help me.”
And this time, she nodded. Not because she was afraid to argue, and certainly not because she felt passive. She nodded because she believed.
Mack should have felt tense, teaching the children to sneak in and out of the barn. Instead, with Corrie beside him, turning the training session into a lighthearted game, he was almost as infected with hilarity as the children. Her throaty chuckle and her mimicry of various television bad guys had the children giggling, and even he was unable to hide his appreciative grin.
Strangely, her antics didn’t detract from his objective one iota. They’d achieved an easy compromise without having taken the time to plot it out. She softened his hard lessons with kind words and laughter. And he punctuated her giggles with mock sternness, but always getting the point across.
Watching her, he was reminded of how they were together in bed. He the taker, she the giver, until the two blended and suddenly he was aware she was demanding all and he dying to give it to her. Soft meeting hard, fire melting in tenderness.
At Close Range Page 16
