The Bride Tamer

by Ann Major

  When Cash didn’t answer, the kid grinned again and lowered his voice to a plaintive stage whisper. “She’s not upstairs. She’s not anywhere. And I’m scared of the bees.”

  Alarm flashed through Cash. “She has to be somewhere.”

  “She keeps her bathing suit in the pool house. I thought maybe she’d gone there looking for it or something.”

  Cash felt a wave of heat flash beneath his collar. “Haven’t seen her…er…lately—”

  “Usually she swims with me or watches me swim.”

  “She likes to swim, does she?” Cash replied, moving again, away from the pool because the kid was staring at his face with laser-bright eyes and smiling that smile that cut through all his defenses.

  “Do you have a kid?”

  “What?” Cash turned, feeling trapped.

  The boy’s expression was eager, rapt.

  “A little girl,” Cash admitted.

  “Why isn’t she with you?”

  The muscles in his shoulders bunched. “She…couldn’t come….” Cash felt numb, dead in the center. He should run. He stood where he was—paralyzed.

  “Oh.” There was a pause, and the boy’s smile faltered. “Are you divorced?”

  “No.”

  The maid and the gardener sitting in lawn chairs on the opposite side of the pool were watching them curiously.

  “What’s her name?” the boy said.

  “Who?”

  “Your kid.”

  Cash’s lips barely moved. “Sophie.”

  “Mine’s Miguelito, and my mommy takes me everywhere.”

  “Except not this morning,” Cash said, hoping to end this impossible conversation.

  Miguelito’s mouth puckered. “So will you watch me swim till she comes?”

  “You have people watching you already—”

  “Pedro and Lisa,” the kid said, waving to them and yet never taking his eager eyes off Cash.

  The servants waved back reassuringly. When the kid’s black eyes, eyes too like Isabela’s, continued to drill him pleadingly, Cash felt even more trapped, just like he had last night by the kid’s aunt. The Escobars came on too strong.

  “I want you because I’m scared of the bees,” Miguelito said simply but in that engaging child’s whisper that made Cash feel big and important.

  “Bees?” he asked, remembering the droning.

  “They keep drinking out of the pool. One stung me yesterday.” He pointed to his shoulder.

  “Your shoulder looks okay to me.”

  “There’s a little red dot where it bit me.”

  “You know you’re a lot bigger than a bee.”

  “But it really hurts.” Miguelito glanced worriedly at the bougainvillea. “Stay—please.”

  Much to his surprise, Cash stalked to the pool and sat down. The kid grinned, and Spot came up and lay down beside Cash.

  He was her kid. He was cute and friendly, maybe too friendly, but he made Cash feel needed…just as Sophie used to. Maybe he could do this.

  Grinning again, his dark eyes flashing with self-importance now that he’d increased his admiring audience, Miguelito climbed out of the pool, and then ran, spattering water all over the red tiles.

  “No corras,” the maid screamed when his small, wet feet slid out from under him and he nearly fell.

  Miguelito slowed for a second, regained his balance, shot Cash another big grin and then sped up again. He leaped up the chrome stairs to the diving board as agilely as a baby monkey. “Watch me dive, señor!” Fearlessly he jumped up and down at the end of the board. “Can your little girl dive?”

  Sophie hadn’t lived long enough to learn to swim.

  When Cash choked, the kid grew still as if he sensed something was terribly wrong. Then he yelled, “Watch me!” He dove, feet splayed too widely apart, sloppily, slamming onto his belly with such force that waves splashed out of the pool.

  Cash jumped up as the kid went under, sinking deeper and deeper. Just as Cash was about to fling himself into the pool, the kid’s black head bobbed to the surface like a cork. The little daredevil shot Cash a quick smile and shook his wet hair out of his eyes.

  For someone so little, the kid was one hell of a swimmer.

  Sophie…

  Don’t think about her.

  There were so many triumphs Cash would never get to share with Sophie. He remembered her wide smile and the way she’d run to the door on her short chubby legs, brown curls flying, every night when he’d come home, and thrown her arms out, signaling she wanted to be picked up. If he hadn’t done so, she’d climbed him, searching his pockets for the little presents he often brought her, as he carried her to find Susana.

  Something hot and wet splashed Cash’s cheek, and he brushed the dampness away as if it were acid.

  “Watch me do another one!”

  The kid grinned at him so trustingly that Cash’s heart ached. Sophie’s grin had been like that.

  It had been a mistake to sit down, to watch Miguelito. Cash had broken his rule and let his guard slip. The mortal wound was too raw still. He swallowed, and his throat seemed to tighten. He brought a fist to his lips. When would the grief ever quit eating him alive?

  Why didn’t I know how much I loved them before it was too late? If only I’d been home….

  “Gotta go, kid. I’m late.”

  Miguelito’s smile faded.

  Cash bolted to his feet. Spot stood up too, tail wagging so hard it thumped Cash’s leg.

  “What about the bees?”

  “Your aunt— I’m supposed to eat—”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing!”

  Cash loped toward the opposite side of the lawn with Spot hot on his heels. He was glad to get away, until he saw Isabela sexily posed on a yellow-and-white chaise longue beneath thick dripping curtains of orange bougainvillea. She lifted a glass of iced tea, saluting before putting her red lips to the glass’s rim and sipping.

  The urge to run nearly overpowered him even as he reminded himself that she was perfect for him. She was flamboyantly beautiful. She understood his kind of life. Men would envy him as they’d envied him Susana. But what if he never came to love her?

  Isabela’s tight red shorts and low-cut white T-shirt clung to her voluptuous curves. When she licked a droplet of condensation off the side of her glass and smiled at him again, guilt made the little hammers in his head pound even harder.

  Damn—why wasn’t his blood zinging the way it had when he’d been awakened by shy, gorgeous Aphrodite?

  If only he’d proposed last night, maybe Isabela and he would have had this damn mating ritual behind them and they could relax and enjoy each other at her beach house today.

  Blast Spot for going berserk under Vivian’s infernal balcony last night. When Cash had followed the damn dog, he’d sensed something or somebody up there. Then Isabela had told him the balcony was Vivian’s. Isabela had gone on to tell him more than he’d needed to know about her sister-in-law.

  As he’d listened, he’d felt sympathy toward this woman he hadn’t even met. Ever since Vivian had appeared stark naked first thing this morning, his thoughts about her had gotten a powerful grip on his imagination. Just the thought of her was enough to make his body throb.

  Again, as if Isabela sensed something amiss she got up and padded toward him. When he didn’t take her into his arms, she twined her arms around his neck and pulled him close.

  Strangely, the heat of her half-naked breasts pressed into his chest just made him feel uncomfortably sweaty. Then she kissed him, and her kiss was as practiced and perfect as any man could wish for. Her lips clung, her long fingernails caressed his nape.

  He sighed heavily. The urge to escape intensified. Last night when she’d kissed him after they’d danced under Vivian’s balcony, he’d felt a little sick. The music had seemed too loud, the wine too strong, his jet lag too wearying. All those damn candles had begun to blur…and her hands, all over him, had made him dizzy.

&n
bsp; Funny, he’d liked her enthusiasm in Mexico City.

  “You smell good,” he whispered, his voice cool as he let his arms fall away. “I’m starved,” he said, backing away from her. “I can’t wait to see the beach house. Marco designed it too?”

  “Yes.” With a little frown, she held up her hand and signaled a maid. “I saw you with Miguelito, mi precioso—at the pool.”

  “Your nephew, right?” He sat down, thankful to have a table between them.

  “Vivian’s little emperor,” she said.

  “Where is she, by the way, your Vivian?”

  “I—I’m afraid she can’t make it down to breakfast.” Isabela frowned.

  Faking indifference, he leaned back in the chair, his long legs sprawling beneath the table. His heart actually ached.

  “Don’t be hurt.” Isabela sat down opposite him. “Vivian can be, well, I hate to say this about someone I love so much…but exasperating and unpredictable.”

  That was easy to believe.

  “She does her own thing, if you know what I mean.”

  Like popping into my room naked?

  “When she isn’t teaching, she works in a Mayan village, helping the women,” Isabela continued.

  “How?”

  “She teaches them crafts—so they can be independent.” She sighed. “I think the men in the village wish she’d go away and stay away. She’s giving the women ideas.”

  Cash stared at Vivian’s empty chair at the table and felt increasingly gloomy that she was avoiding him. “You said Vivian was from New Orleans.”

  “She was an archaeology student. Very intense until she fell so madly in love with Julio. You should have seen them. They were on fire for each other.”

  Cash shook his head, not liking the image her words conveyed. “You said she was very artistic too.”

  “That’s why she went downtown to the market.”

  “Downtown?”

  “She had to help this Mayan artisan arrange his straw products. Like I said, she works in the villages a lot. When I reminded her she’d promised to meet you, she ran out the door.”

  “She ran?” He hoped Isabela missed the appalling rasp in his voice.

  “It isn’t you. The divorce changed her. She hasn’t liked men much—or the idea of marriage—since Julio. She’s even been strange about you. The first time I showed her pictures of you, she said such odd things.”

  A weird pain mushroomed in Cash’s heart. “You said Julio cheated on her?”

  “Men will be men. At least in Mexico. She’s too sensitive. But then her parents died when she was very young. Afterward she went to live with an uncle nobody approved of and a friend of his, a dancer I believe. From what I gather it was an…unconventional household—perhaps not entirely appropriate for a young girl. Still, she loved her uncle very much, and she took his death hard too.”

  Cash’s heart softened toward the young orphaned girl.

  “Her parents had been very much in love. I’m afraid they left her with a highly romanticized notion of marriage.”

  “So, you think it’s okay for men to cheat?”

  “No. Not usually. But Vivian never wore makeup or pretty clothes. Then she got so fat and swollen when she was pregnant. She was sick a lot too.”

  Cash imagined a young girl in a strange land who’d been misunderstood, pregnant, sick, her emotions in turmoil. It sounded like she’d had no one, not even her husband, to turn to.

  “Clearly Vivian won you over at some point.”

  “As soon as Miguelito was born, I began to adore her.” Isabela explained, “She’s a wonderful, selfless mother. He was a sickly baby at first.”

  “My wife had a difficult pregnancy,” Cash said. “I didn’t cheat on her.”

  “Well, Julio said she gave Miguelito more attention than she gave him. But I don’t want to talk about her.” Isabela’s hand curled over his.

  Cash’s fingers remained stiff. He couldn’t stop thinking that Vivian deserved a better life. He wanted to go to her, to find her, to apologize for this morning—not to sit here where he had to force every smile.

  He was in a strange mood. If the maid hadn’t been heading toward them with a breakfast tray and his huevos motuleros, he would have made some excuse to Isabela and gone to look for Vivian.

  “How’s your father feeling?” he asked after the maid left them alone to enjoy glasses of fresh orange juice, plates of fruit, and huevos motuleros.

  Warily he observed the dish of mole, a favorite, spicy, chocolate-flavored sauce. Marco had splashed it on everything. Cash detested mole. Luckily Isabela had served it on the side.

  “Papacito?”

  Isabela watched him attack his huevos motuleros, a dish composed of refried beans, fried eggs, chopped ham and cheese on a tortilla slathered in tomato sauce, bits of fried banana, and peas.

  “Better?” she asked. Isabela was watching him as she picked at her fruit.

  He kept their conversation to the old days, to impersonal, shared interests. They talked of their impending trip to her beach house this afternoon and her ideas for its renovations.

  “I want something much grander,” she said.

  “Then you shall have it.”

  He relaxed when she didn’t flirt with him, and he could think about the house instead of her. But the more questions he asked about the beach house, the more tense she became.

  “What’s the matter?” she finally whispered, leaning forward.

  “Nothing.” He dropped his fork on the stones of the patio and had to shove his chair back to pick it up.

  “You’re different than you were in the city.”

  When their eyes met, he looked away. “I’m just tired…jet lag. Maybe I drank too much last night.”

  He resumed eating, but his eggs were cold and tasteless now, and the pineapple was too sweet. He set his fork down and looked up at her beautiful face. When she smiled, he told himself there was nothing for it but to propose. And yet…

  “Isabela, there’s something I’ve got to do before…”

  He pushed back his chair and stood up. Then he leaned across the table and took her hand and brought it to his lips. “Wait for me? I’ll just be a minute.”

  Her face grew radiant. “I’ll be right here.”

  Unfortunately, as soon as he was in the pool house and had the black velvet box clenched in his palm, he made the mistake of looking at the seven gilded mirrors. In an instant he was flooded with memories of silken copper-red hair cascading over slim shoulders, of large blue eyes filled with longing.

  He snapped the box closed and tossed it back into his suitcase. Before he could ask Isabela to marry him, he had to find Vivian and make things all right between them. Maybe when they met fully clothed and had a real conversation, she would relax, and he would too. Maybe then he could quit obsessing about her and get on with his life. With Isabela.

  Maybe…

  But first he had to find Vivian.

  Six

  Cash’s taxi careened through the narrow streets like a fighter jet. For a second or two he was so worried about crashing he forgot his quandary about Vivian.

  He didn’t need this. Without taking his eyes off the road, Cash tossed his jacket onto the seat. When the driver nearly hit a burro and cursed, Cash forced a tight smile and then tapped the driver on the shoulder.

  “Despacio,” he said. “Más despacio.”

  The driver ignored his suggestion to slow down. Instead of arguing, Cash rolled his long-sleeved shirt up and stuck his left elbow out the cab’s window. Some things were bigger than he was.

  Like what you feel about Aphrodite.

  Suppressing the ridiculous thought, he grinned again. If these were his last few minutes alive, he might as well try to enjoy them.

  Not that he could. He kept remembering Vivian as colonial buildings and the pandemonium of bulldozers and power drills rushed past him in a blur. Normally, he paid attention to old buildings and new construction sites.

&nb
sp; Not possible with the cab jouncing over ruts and holes. Not possible when the exhaust fumes were so dense he could barely breathe.

  Isabela? Vivian? He felt ensnared between the two. Isabela had clung to him for an eternity before letting him get in this suicidal cab, begging him to take her with him.

  Cash had peeled her hands loose from his forearms and tried to calm her, promising he’d be back in an hour.

  “What about my beach house?”

  “We’ll go the second I get back.”

  “It will be too hot,” she’d pouted.

  “Patience, my love.”

  “Am I your love?”

  He hadn’t answered her.

  It was hot and getting hotter fast. His shirt stuck to his body and his thick hair felt damp against his scalp. Still, despite the heat and the stench of the thick fumes of diesel that belched from the exhaust pipe of the truck in front of his cab, he couldn’t help noting that Mérida was more appealing than most cities in Mexico. Maybe it was the colonial architecture painted in pale pastel shades that made the city look so clean.

  Not that Cash was thinking all that fondly of Mérida. The poverty in Mexico always got to him. The bleak hopelessness he saw in so many people’s eyes was the same even in this sparkling city.

  When Cash spied the twin spires of the yellow cathedral, he tapped the driver’s thick shoulder again and told him he’d walk the rest of the way. No sooner was he on the street then he regretted his decision. If the cab had been hot, the sidewalk was broiling.

  He slung his jacket over his wide shoulder. Even so, he soon felt like an egg frying on a preheated griddle.

  Motionless campesinos, their backs plastered against the windowless facade of the cathedral, drooped low on their haunches, their dark, dead-looking gazes following him. No doubt their bodies were boiled. Cash felt even sorrier for the Indian women seated on the sidewalk near the church’s massive Corinthian doors of solid wood and brass nails. They extended their hands toward him even while they suckled their babies. He passed out coins and dollar bills until his pockets were empty.