by Holley Trent
“She doesn’t even know I’m her father.”
“Maybe her not knowing is best.” She nodded with finality and moved toward the door again, but Tito was still standing in the way. “Move, please.”
“No.”
“You may as well. You have things to do, right? Something about a rogue cousin you need to round up, or you have to go play deputy in Maria or whatever. As soon as the storm clears the area, I’m taking Cruz home.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to tell me ‘no.’ I’ve spent too many years caring about your opinion, and I don’t care anymore.”
“You’re lying. You can’t help but to care, just like I can’t help but to care. What you’re not understanding is that there are reasons I stayed away.”
“I don’t want to hear them.”
“Yeah, you probably fuckin’ don’t, but I’m gonna tell you anyway. I’m gonna clear the air so we’re on the same page. I want you to understand why I seem so distant. You think I don’t care about Cruz, and as much as I’d love to be cold to her, I can’t be. That’s my little girl. I didn’t even know she existed, and the longer I know, the more torn up I am about not being there.”
“Cry me a river.”
“I’m not crying anymore. I don’t have any more tears, Dee.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her toe rapidly.
“You listening or are you waiting to interrupt?”
She made get-on-with-it gesture, so he did.
“Hundreds of years ago, my cousin made a disease his toy, and my calpulli was his playground. I had a son, and he died along with the woman I thought was my mate.” He clapped his hands together once, startling her upright. “Just like that that, they were gone. They were human, and he knew how to exploit that. No one punished him because he wasn’t in the wrong. I was the one who’d broken the rules, right? And then you show up here—the woman I’d been trying so damn hard to stay away from so you wouldn’t get attached, because I couldn’t deal with one more person getting killed because of me. You showed up with my baby, and all I could think when I looked at her was that she was gonna die too, and that I was gonna have to watch, or worse—that like the last time, I wouldn’t be there to do anything to stop it from happening. You look at Cruz and you see a sweet little girl who has her whole life ahead of her. I immediately think that she’ll be gone before I know it, and so will you if my turn my back. So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t jump up and down with glee. I’d rather you be alive and thriving away from me, than with me and afraid all the time.”
“I—”
“Nah. You don’t want to talk? That’s okay. I’m done.”
And he left, because that was always easier than trying to fix things that weren’t ready to be fixed.
He started running before he could round the corner, and didn’t stop to see who’d come outside after him. It didn’t matter. They’d never catch up to him.
Running was one of the few things he was really good at.
chapter SEVEN
The following morning, after an expectedly fitful night of sleep at Mrs. Perez’s palatial manse, December was at the Double B Ranch ready to douse some of the tension between her and her child’s father. His words had kept her up all night, and her regrets, too. She was angry about the secrets, but heartbroken over his loss. She couldn’t imagine losing a child. She’d gripped Cruz in what was probably a stranglehold all night, but Cruz hadn’t complained.
She never did.
December cut her gaze toward the big brown pickup truck parked close to a dry stream.
“Go on.” Belle handed a picnic basket down from her perch on her horse and took the reins of December’s borrowed ride in hand with her own. “Go,” Belle goaded. “He should be there. Lola said he’d be around here somewhere.”
“What if he doesn’t want to be bothered?”
Belle shrugged. “Bother him anyway. No point letting him wallow.”
December had wanted to at first. She’d sat on the sofa for a good hour, fuming and swearing and watching dark clouds roll across the sky. She’d thought about how yet another person she’d loved had disappointed her the way her parents had.
But the difference between Tito and her parents was that he had a reason for being the way he was. Her parents had no excuse. She didn’t know which hurt more, only that she was in New Mexico, not Rhode Island, and there was no use worrying about the people who were so far away. Tito was right there.
“I could have listened before I ran my mouth,” she said softly. “I think sometimes I forget that other people have had bad things happen to them, too.”
“Hey. You can’t understand what you haven’t been told, and he’s gotta meet you halfway. I know that’s hard for guys like him who prefer to keep their pasts under wraps, but you can’t let him off the hook.”
“I’ll try not to, but … ”
“Can’t help yourself?” Belle queried.
December shrugged. “I’ve never been able to help myself around him. All he has to do is smile, and I get stupid. I think I needed a smile the night he first visited the bar.”
“The first memory matters a lot, probably.”
“You think maybe you can stick around for a little while in case I need a ride back?”
Belle shook her head, clucked her tongue, and got the horses moving. “Nope.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’ll be all right.”
Sighing, December turned toward the truck and stared for a few moments until the shape of the back of Tito’s head pressed against the driver’s window became clear.
She took a tentative step forward, then another.
Sometime during her hours of tossing and turning, December had convinced herself to stay in Maria for one more day. Too much was unresolved, and Cruz hadn’t seemed to mind the change of plans. She was having great fun with her new “elderly” friend, not doing much of anything. Cruz and Mrs. Perez were so similar that they frightened December. They didn’t have to try so hard around each other, and Cruz … didn’t have to talk so much.
December hadn’t told Cruz yet who Lola was to her, but she’d have to soon. She’d have to promise the child they could return for a visit, but in doing so, she’d also be uncovering Tito’s connection to Cruz. December didn’t want to do that just yet—not until he could be near Cruz without that cringe on his face.
She tapped gently on the truck window, and Tito sat up quickly, then turned.
He seemed to let out a breath as he closed his eyes, and then cranked the window down a couple of inches manually. “What are you doing way out here?”
“Not so far by horse. Belle brought me.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked her to.”
“I see.” He leaned rightward and turned the volume on the radio way down, but not so low that she couldn’t hear the strains of accordion.
He was still wearing his uniform, probably having gone straight from work to the wilderness. He’d probably been asleep or something close to it.
She held up the basket for him to see. “I brought lunch. Or, brunch, rather. Mrs. Foye threw some things together. I think that guy Tamatsu was about to raid her fridge again.”
Tito scoffed. “Yeah. Sounds like him. He’s always raiding her fridge. Supernatural types sometimes get crazy hungry ’cause of fast metabolisms, but he’s probably got the biggest appetite I’ve ever seen.”
“Does he not talk? He hasn’t said a single word to me or to anyone else.” But he was obviously tuned in. He watched. Always watched.
Even when he was eating.
“No,” Tito said.
“Why not?”
Tito shrugged. “I don’t know if he’s physically unable to or if he simply chooses not to. Tarik might know, but when you get to be my age, you stop asking questions.”
She still didn’t know his age, but seeing as how the last time she’d gotten anywhere near the subject there�
�d been a major fallout, she was afraid to ask again. She did want to know, though, and she wanted to know if Cruz would live to see that age, too.
She raked hair out of her eyes and pulled in a bracing breath. “You’re not … curious about things?” she asked.
He shrugged again, and grunted. “Keeping up with everyone’s story is hard. Easier to conserve words.”
“Oh.” She rocked back on her heels and looked into the distance, toward the ranch. From where they were, she could just barely make out a couple of silos, the big red barn, and the corrugated metal building that housed the Foye brothers’ woodworking business.
Cruz was there with Lola, somewhere. Lola had thought that the ranch was the safest place for Cruz to hang out during the day. Apparently, there were spells cast around the property that made intruders uncomfortable enough not to stay. Most people in the area had supposedly learned to stay clear of the Double B if they intended anything devious.
“Want me to drive you back?” he asked.
“No. I mean, I’m not in a hurry, because I—” She sputtered her lips and lifted the basket again. “Do you want this?”
He kept his gaze on her face and not the container she held up. His expression was so flat, she wasn’t sure he’d even heard her.
“Tito?”
He looked away. “Not really hungry.”
“Already ate?”
“Nah. Bring it on in, anyway. You might as well come inside. There’s shade in here.”
On the off chance he’d change his mind, she hurried around to the other side. If he’d hesitated just a little more, she might have lost her courage. One of them needed to be aggressive, and she wondered if perhaps she’d been expecting too much from the wrong person. There was no reason she couldn’t take initiative, even if he couldn’t yet. She still had questions she needed answers to. About him, about their daughter. About what she thought had been “them” but had turned out to only be a fling.
She climbed up as he tucked the beach towel he used as seat cover into the seams.
“Sorry,” he said. “Vinyl’s all cracked and messed up. Don’t want the edges to poke ya.”
She pushed the basket toward the middle of the seat and shut the door. “How long have you had this truck?”
He scoffed. “Damn. Pretty much since it rolled off the assembly line. Thirty years, maybe? First and only owner.”
“Wow.”
He had a truck older than her. He’d bought a truck before she was even born, and he was sitting there looking like any other guy that ran in her circle. He didn’t look like the old man he was supposed to be.
He gave the dashboard a little pat and chuckled. “Yeah, me and this truck have been through a lot. Them damn Foyes keep telling me I need to go ahead and trade it in before it leaves me stranded somewhere, but I’m too loyal, I think. Can’t just throw things away because they get a little old and worn out. Put some elbow grease into them, and they’ll hang in there as long as you need them to. Everything’s so throwaway lately.”
“Including people.”
“Dee.”
“Sorry.” She put up her hands, and sighed before slouching a little lower down the seat. “The scold just slipped out. I’ve never had the greatest filter, but you know that.”
“Yeah, I remember that about you. You didn’t used to be so mean to me, though.”
“I’m the one being mean? Seriously?” She looked at the ranch again, anywhere but at him. If he were smiling, she might have to slap him. Being the bigger person had to come with some exceptions. “You just left.”
“What?”
“That last time you were in Tucson. You left the same way you did all the other times and I thought you’d be back, but you disappeared. That … hurt, Tito.”
“You think that would have been my first choice?”
She shrugged. “You succeeded in hurting me, and you didn’t get in touch.”
“I thought that was best.”
“For who?”
“You.”
She scoffed. “Did you just not think I was worth the trouble of telling this stuff to? If that’s your opinion, that’s fine, but I need to know. I need to … ”
Know she wasn’t worthless to someone.
She pulled in another deep breath and let it out. “If things had been different—”
“Would I have left you? Dee, I wouldn’t have left you that first night, much less the fifth or sixth.”
She looked up at him then because she needed to see what his face was doing, because he was very good with words and she wasn’t so good at gauging magnitude.
He wasn’t wearing any expression at all, and that wasn’t like him. Or at least, not like the Tito she’d thought she’d known.
“I just didn’t want you to get hurt,” he said. “That’s what it came down to. There are too many stories of ladies like you getting killed for daring to make yourselves equals.” He rolled his eyes and stared out the windshield. “The rules … they’re so fucking stupid.”
“But your mother was with a human. Am I understanding that right?”
He nodded. Grunted. “I think the only reason none of the gods tried to punish him was because Ma dealt with him first. He betrayed her.”
“How?”
“Nearly got her captured by some humans.” He slipped down lower and gave the sides of the steering wheel a squeeze. “I don’t have her kind of magic, Dee. I don’t have her power. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“No.”
He nodded. “Maybe saying it aloud will be cathartic. I can’t stop people from trying to hurt you when I’m not around, and that’s why I left you. I wanted to go break things off before you got attached in the way our partners do. If you’d gotten too attached, you wouldn’t have been able to be with anyone else unless I died.”
“I imagine that would be a very long time from now.”
He turned his hands over. “Guys like me could easily live a couple thousand years. More, if they’re not bothered.”
“Oh.”
She’d fade away, and he’d endure. That sounded to her more like a tragedy than a love story. Without having consumed even a single pepper, she suddenly felt heartburn surge. She put her palm over her sternum and rubbed.
“I’m sorry I had to be a dick,” he said.
“Hmm,” she said, still rubbing. She wasn’t sure if she were ready to accept his apology yet. Six years was a long time to pine over someone she’d thought was “The One.” That hurt wasn’t going to go away with a five-minute chat.
“So,” he said lightly and turned the radio volume up a few ticks. “What have you been doing?”
“What?”
“Mind if I ask you some things since we’re sitting here? This ranch is one of the two safest places in the county—Ma’s place being the other. She’s got strong protective magic around her house. She wouldn’t have taken you there otherwise.”
She’d recalled Mrs. Perez saying something about that to Glenda the previous night, but December’s head had been such a mess that she was processing so many things on a substantial delay. “Ask what you want.”
“What have you been doing since the last time I saw you? Haven’t talked to you.”
“You sure haven’t.” But you could have. Her eye twitched. “That’s the conversation you really want to have right now?”
“I’m curious.”
“You don’t want to talk about your cousin?”
“I’ll take care of him. Don’t worry about him.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry about stuff. If you’re planning something, I want to know what.”
He turned his hands over and shrugged. “No definite plans right now.”
“But you’ve been talking about him with people?”
“Yeah. That’s the way things work in the glaring. The folks who have the ability to assist are thinking of solutions.”
“Obviously, those people know more than I do. I don’t understand
everything that’s going on, but I worry Cruz will figure out things around here aren’t quite normal before she’s old enough to understand why. Hell, I’m not even sure I understand why. Maybe I’m not old enough, either.”
“You’re old enough, Dee.”
“So tell me things. This cousin of yours, where does he live? Do you have the same kind of magic? Did I hear right that he and his crew were in Tucson?”
“It’s better if you don’t know all that stuff. It’s just gonna stress you out. Too much information to take in all at once.”
“But that’s not for you to decide. You need to tell me these things so I know what I’m up against in keeping my daughter safe.”
“Ma will make sure she’s safe.”
“That’s not her job.”
“I doubt she’d agree. She doesn’t respond well to being threatened or to her cats being threatened. She’d scorch the earth when that happens, so what do you think she’d do if anyone tried to hurt Cruz? If anyone can keep Cruz out of harm’s way, Ma would be best.”
“She’s a stranger. Cruz doesn’t know her well enough yet to be with her nonstop.”
“Stop worrying about proprieties. You assume Cruz thinks like normal people, but she’s not a normal person.”
“Is she going to grow up the same way other little girls do?”
“I don’t see why not. I aged like humans do until I was around twenty-five or so. Slowed significantly after that. As to whether or not she’ll be an immortal? I don’t know. Ma might know, or we might just have to wait and see.”
The answer was far from satisfactory, but she nodded reflexively anyway. “I just want her to fit in and to be a normal little girl.”
“Dee, nothing you do will ever make her normal if she isn’t already. Trust me.” He settled a little lower in his seat. “I tried to be normal once.”
“Nothing will make her normal … ” December closed her eyes and rubbed them, her shoulders shaking with the manic laugh that erupted from her lungs. “Oh lord, that sounds like something my uncle once said to my mother before she and my father threw my sister out.”
