by Ruth Wind
He loved too soon, too fast, too deep, and kissing her had been too much. But he had learned well to hide his true feelings, and he did it now, with a quick, wicked grin that spoke in a language that was less dangerous – desire. Women loved to be desired fiercely, and he could give her that, give her that which she most needed. "My blood is still boiling," he said, and kissed her, hoping she tasted lust instead of the worship he could not help offering.
But he could not help moving in that sacred place, adoring her taste and her breath, her soft skin and surprisingly vigorous cries, loving the sweetness of her need, the fury of her climax, could not help kneeling at the altar of his Saint Molly, who had not saved him at all, but made him fall to a purgatory where he could not speak his heart.
* * *
Josefina stirred from a light sleep to find her uncle back again at the side of her bed. He did not see her wake up, and so she could watch him for a minute, trying to decide why he seemed so different tonight. He wore a red shirt that was new and very nice with his black hair, which was clean and shiny even in the low light. He was very handsome, she thought, and not just because he was her uncle. She was not as deaf as grown-ups always thought, and she heard the women talk about him. Sometimes they said things she did not strictly understand, but she knew what they meant.
But now, he was even more than handsome. He made her think of something just out of reach. He had his guitar in his hands and was tuning it softly, and he looked happy in a way she couldn't remember ever seeing. Not a big-grin kind of happy, but as if he was listening to something beautiful inside him.
Josefina thought of kind Molly, who had brought her dolls and books, and had strong hands, like a mother. She hoped it was Molly that made her uncle look this way.
"Will you play me a song, Tío?" she said, yawning. He jumped up, his face blazing now, and came over to take her hand, which he put to his mouth and kissed. "Hija! Do you feel better?"
Josefina considered. Coughed once, to check. "It doesn't hurt so much now."
"Good. It is almost time for your dinner. I will play you something while you eat, eh?" He gave her that look that made her know, deep, deep down where no one could take it from her, that she was the most wonderful little girl in the whole wide world. "I worried, hija. So much."
"I'm okay now."
"So I see. Hey, your little dog is getting spoiled by the farmer! He took him to the doctor and got shots for him and everything. Did you give her a name?"
Josefina shook her head. "I couldn't think too good. Does she miss me?"
"Yes. She came to me and said, 'Where is my Josefina, my little girl? I need her to love me and pet me and take care of me." He used a little-dog kind of voice, and Josefina laughed, which made her cough. Kinda hard for a minute.
"I need to play you a sad song, I think," he said, and gave her a mock smile. "No more laughing until you get better."
"No," she protested. "Play flamenco!"
He grinned and winked at her. "Only if you promise not to dance."
She laughed, which started her coughing again. "Okay."
* * *
Molly sat with Annie, allowing Alejandro and Josefina some time alone together. It was quiet in the ward, and they played a round of War with a battered deck of cards.
The music drifted down the hall like a siren song, exotic and seductive, making both nurses lift their heads and turn toward it. For a moment, they simply looked toward the sound, as if expecting the notes to somehow become visible. Then, as if inhabiting a single body, they dropped their cards and moved toward it.
Molly felt the excitement of the music in her chest and along the nerves on the back of her neck and a strange, hot prick of tears in her eyes.
At the open door of Josefina's room, both Annie and Molly paused, giving a moment's holy silence to the picture he presented, his hair so black against the red of his shirt, his lean body so right with the guitar cradled into it, his lingers flying. And that face, that face that had proved her downfall, was alight with zest and pure happiness in a way she had not yet seen.
Annie whispered, "I am so jealous."
He caught sight of them and turned himself toward them a little, grinning as he finished with a flourish. Josefina clapped. "More!"
"Is that flamenco?" Annie said. "I heard it in Spain."
He bowed. "Sí, señorita." His gaze went to Molly. "I would like to see you dance," he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
His eyes said so much more – that he would like to see her dance naked. For him.
A knock came at the door, and even before she turned, Molly saw the zest and pleasure drain from Alejandro's face, caught a quick look of tenor on Josefina's face before she reached for her uncle's hand.
The sheriff, Kenny Wagner, an Anglo in his forties, stood there, a slightly apologetic expression in his eyes as he looked at Molly. Her heart clutched, hard.
"Alejandro Sosa?" he asked.
"Yes," Alejandro said, putting down his guitar cautiously.
"We need to talk." Wagner shot a glance toward Josefina. "Outside here if you wouldn't mind."
Josefina screamed and clutched her uncle's hand. "No! You can't go!"
Alejandro kissed her, disentangled his hand as gently as he was able. "I will be right back," he said. "Promise."
Josefina looked at Molly. "Help him!"
She nodded, her throat too tight for words. In the hallway, she pulled the door tight and said harshly, "What's going on?"
"Sorry, Molly," the sheriff said soberly. "I … uh … had a tip that I needed to talk to your friend here."
"A tip," she echoed bitterly. "I can just imagine where it came from."
He had the grace to look abashed. "Yeah. Well. I gotta uphold the law."
Molly glanced at Alejandro, and saw that his face was set in grim, sharp lines.
Instinctively, Molly moved to take Alejandro's hand. "Kenny, he's not my friend. He's my husband." She lifted her chin. "We were married two days ago."
Kenny looked down. "So I heard." He pursed his lips. "You may not be aware that the laws governing immigration have changed somewhat in recent years."
Alejandro's hand tightened on Molly's, and with a pain in her chest, she said, "In what way?"
"It doesn't matter if you're married. He has to go back and apply for permission, just the same as everyone else."
"But…! That's impossible! He can't!" As if to hold him here, Molly gripped Alejandro's arm, suddenly aware of the warm scent of his skin. "I love him."
"I'm sorry."
"No!" The word was as fierce as any utterance she'd made in all her life. Wildly, she searched her memory for something, anything that might help.
Alejandro said gently, his hand on her back, "Molly, it will be all right."
"No," she said again, and found herself very near tears.
In a rush, Molly said, "You can't take him. He's setting up my farm for me. No one else can do the work the way I want it."
"Molly, don't make this harder, all right? I'm willing to cut some slack here if you cooperate, but if you draw some line in the sand, you're going to tie my hands, understand?"
"No, I don't understand. What do you mean, slack?"
"I'll let him stay till the little girl is out of the hospital if you'll agree he goes home then and applies for legal entry." He looked at Alejandro.
"But my farm! We have made plans!" She couldn't seem to remember what they were and her words stuttered and stopped as she struggled with them. "He's … drawing. And there will be roosters."
The sheriff smiled over her head. "Not more than one, I hope."
"No," Alejandro said, amusement in his voice. "Only one."
Molly looked up at him and found him smiling. Didn't he understand how serious this was?
"You see why she needs help to make a farm." Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear. "Yes, you see, I can't do it myself."
"I understand that." His lips worked. "Fact is, though, the law sa
ys he can only stay here to do a job if there's no one else to do it. Plenty of folks could help you set up a farm."
"But—"
The blue eyes, usually so genial, went hard. "Take it or leave it, Molly. If you want to make it rough, we can go that road."
"No, sir," Alejandro said, his hands on Molly's shoulders. "Thank you."
They shook hands, an act that, for some reason, made Molly completely crazy. What was there to be friendly about? Still, she held her peace until the sheriff put his hat back on and left them.
"Why did you agree?" she asked.
The affability was gone. "There was no choice. You do not want to be arrested. I do not wish to go until Josefina is better." His expression was grim. "This has been too much trouble for you. For that, I am sorry."
"It hasn't—"
From the room came Josefina's cry. Alejandro held up a finger. "Let me comfort her. I will be right back."
"No, stay with her. I have something I need to do."
"Molly—"
"It won't hurt you or me, I promise. I'm going to see my brother."
"He is only acting as he feels is best for you."
"No," she said bitterly. "You're wrong about that."
* * *
Filled with a sense of betrayal, she stopped first at the station, but the woman behind the desk told Molly that Josh was out.
"Out? Do you have any idea where?" Molly said with veiled impatience, knowing the woman knew exactly where the deputies were at any given moment. "I really need to see him."
The woman languorously wheeled her chair from her computer to a log on the desk. Blinking prettily, she said, "Sorry, Molly. I don't show a location."
Molly bit back a retort, took a breath and said, "Thank you."
Glancing at her watch, she saw it was midafternoon. Josh might have stopped off to get a late lunch. She stopped at the Navajo Café and hopped up on a stool at the counter, glad to see a familiar face. "Hi, Maureen," she said to the waitress. "Have you seen my brother today?"
Maureen didn't look up from her task of dividing a pie into serving sizes. Molly leaned forward, half smiling. "Maureen? Are you daydreaming?"
The woman looked up, met Molly's eyes and kept cutting.
Molly bit her lip, tried one more time. "May I have a cup of coffee, please?"
The waitress put down her knife, stalked over to the coffeemaker, poured a cup neatly and settled it in front of Molly, all without a word. She went back to her pie, put it in the safe and went into the kitchen to fetch an order.
Molly's heart felt as if someone were stepping on it. Sipping coffee, she glanced over her shoulder at the sparse, midafternoon crowd, and was surprised by an expression of dislike on a woman's face. Tiny Moran, in her flowered dresses, had taught Sunday school to Molly as a girl, brought her treats when she was sick. Before Molly could wave or smile, Mrs. Moran looked away.
Turning back to her coffee, Molly had the sense she'd broken some code she'd barely been aware existed.
Behind her, someone laughed, and Molly found herself cringing a little, wondering what they were saying about her. It wasn't that hard to imagine. No doubt Alejandro's good looks had been discussed in detail, and there were bound to be comments about an irascible charmer using the gullible widow to get a green card.
Not all of it would be mean-spirited. They were not, in general, a mean-spirited bunch. They were ruggedly individualistic, as well, forged in the live-and-let-live world of the West. In no time, they would begin to sympathize with the plight of a man who needed to care for a little girl who depended on him – all of them could relate to that, and because extended families were often so large and so common, there would be little distinction made between a niece and a daughter. Soon, everyone would forget that he had come to them an outsider. His charm, his good looks, his devotion to his duty would all win approval for him. The women would lead it.
How well she knew them! And in that moment of honesty, she could admit that she had not broken some vague community code she'd known nothing about. She had known, right from the beginning, that she was risking their censure if they discovered what she'd done. More, she'd done it willfully, and everyone knew it now.
Her crime was not one of passion. They would have forgiven passion. No, her crime was much more basic: she'd lied.
She'd lied when she found him – lied to her brother about Josefina visiting her, lied to her doctor and the pharmacist about a nonexistent sore throat, lied to her boss about being sick. And lied some more by saying she was in love with a man only so he could get a green card.
Lied, and they all knew it. Her punishment would be a form of banishment, an exclusion from their ranks that would last until she had had time to win back their trust. In some cases, it was likely gone forever. With the rest, it would take quite a while.
Maureen sailed by with the coffeepot and topped off Molly's coffee and bolted away before Molly could say anything. Which, now that she understood the lay of the land, she would not.
She had known what consequences she had risked by undertaking this business, and thinking of Alejandro, lying almost dead on her land that morning, she knew she would do exactly the same thing all over again. Her actions had saved a little girl's life, and even if she could, she wouldn't do anything to change that.
Still, it was with a vague sense of loss that she took two one-dollar bills from her purse and put them on the counter for the coffee and a tip and left, as an outsider would, without stopping to chat with anyone.
On the sidewalk, the wind sailed around the corner of the building and slammed into her body, ice-cold. Surprised, she lifted her head and scented moisture in the air, and to the west was a line of dark gray clouds, low and heavy. There would be snow before morning – and right on time.
She still needed to find her brother. But just now, she had lost heart.
* * *
Alejandro sat with Josefina until she was calm again, and fell asleep, then remembered he had promised to keep his strength up, and went to the cafeteria for a meal.
As he sat there, the pretty nurse from Molly's floor came in. Spying Alejandro, she made a beeline to him. "Hi. Are you okay?"
He nodded, and glanced around, unwilling to give the wrong impression. "Yes, thank you." He went back to his food.
"Do you mind if I sit down for a minute?"
He had no wish to be rude, but he had not missed her flirtatious glances before, and perhaps someone would think the wrong thing. As he tried to think how to answer her, she smiled. "Don't worry. It's not the same here. No one will think anything if I sit with you." She smiled at his hesitation. "Promise."
With a gesture, he indicated the place across from him.
"I couldn't help overhearing what happened in the hallway this afternoon," she said. "And, uh, I want to tell you that they're lying."
He raised his head. "Who is lying?"
"The sheriff. And Molly's brother." Her large eyes were grave. "I don't know what the law is exactly, but my cousin married a guy from Mexico and he has a green card, not trouble." She shrugged. "They're just trying to scare you guys."
Alejandro put down his fork, narrowing his eyes. "So they cannot make me go."
The woman sighed, tapping her nail against the table. "I'm not sure, exactly. They could cook something up, trying to hurt you. If they actually deport you, it might be really hard to get back."
"Ah." He tore a section of tortilla. "What happens to Molly if I do not let them deport me? Can she be in trouble?"
"Not really." She made a sad little face. "No more than she's in already."
"She is in trouble now?"
"Not law trouble," she said matter-of-factly. "Just town trouble. Nobody is talking to her."
He made a face. "They are making her the outsider."
"Right. It would be easier for her if she wasn't an Anglo. If her brother wasn't a deputy sheriff, if her husband wasn't a guy—" She broke off. "Sorry. I sound like I'm trying to make troub
le between you, and although I think she's a very lucky woman, I'm really not like that." She started to stand up. "Sorry."
"Annie, is it?"
"Yes."
"Please, stay a little." He frowned, gesturing her into place. She settled uneasily, her palms flat on the table. "I did not know all these things," he said. "I understand about her brother. And if she were Latina, like you, there would be a place for us, no?"
She nodded.
"But I do not know about her husband. Why does he make it harder for her?"
Annie took a breath, let it go. "Because everybody loved him. He was good people. He was handsome, and real strong, and nice to everybody. If you had trouble, he'd give you the shirt off his back." She warmed to the story, leaned forward. "One time? My grandpa's roof caved in on one side in the snow, and it was Tim who went there and fixed it for nothing."
"I thought," Alejandro said slowly, "that he must have been a very good man to have won Molly."
"Oh my God!" She put a hand over her mouth. "This is a green card wedding! I should have guessed! It's just like her to do something like this, and really, it seemed kinda weird that she was just all of a sudden in love so fast—!" She winced. "Sorry."
He shook his head. "I do not wish to cause her problems. She has been very kind to me. To us. My niece would have died if Molly…" He took a breath and blinked at the stab in his side. "I must let her go. There must be something. Some way?"
"Are you sure that's what she wants?"
"No." He raised his head, very sure. "She will wish to continue this marriage, because she thinks it is the best thing for us. But she will lose her brother. Her community. The price is too high."
Troubled, Annie frowned. "Do you want me to see what I can find out?"
