by Phoebe Conn
Dedication
Fierce Love is dedicated to our dear family friend Mark Torcasso, who inspired my imagination when he married a bullfighter’s lovely daughter.
Chapter One
Come to me.
Had Miguel Aragon not signed the checks for Maggie’s college tuition and expenses, she wouldn’t have recognized her father’s bold, angular writing.
Come to me.
The single sheet of fine vellum was embossed with the golden crest of the medieval kingdom of Aragon. She ran her fingertips lightly over the hastily inked signature.
Come to me.
The threat of tears stung her hazel eyes. She set the precious letter aside rather than allow the salty drops to ruin the only personal note she’d ever received from the father who had been so generous with his wealth but not his time. Her hand trembled as she tucked a long sable curl behind her ear.
Come to me.
Why had he summoned her now? she agonized, when she was a grown woman who’d successfully silenced the painful longings of a child’s lonely heart. Was it mere curiosity that had prompted this urgent summons? He would be sadly disappointed if he imagined her to be as lovely a blonde as her mother, a woman he’d divorced with heartless haste more than twenty years ago.
Come to me.
Repelled by the usually soothing view of the Tucson Mountains, she left the comfortably cushioned window seat and paced the living room. Peter Gunderson, her mother’s second husband, was the only father she’d known, although their relationship had been an awkward one.
She’d always been acutely aware that she wasn’t truly his, and now regretted not loving him as a daughter should. In the evenings, when he’d come home from his law office, her half sisters would erupt in gleeful giggles and throw themselves into his wide-open arms. She’d shyly glance up from her homework, wait for the end of Libby’s and Patty’s exuberant exchange with their beaming father and voice a soft, painfully self-conscious, “Hello.”
Her mother had never described her brief marriage to Miguel Aragon, and Maggie suspected the dear woman was ashamed to have ever known the Spaniard, let alone borne him a raven-haired daughter. Maggie had been too bright not to reach the logical conclusion that her existence created a lingering source of shame. They lived in Edina, Minnesota, a Swedish enclave, and she was surrounded by children with angelic, fair coloring. Her exotic looks often inspired cruel teasing.
The year she’d been in second grade, her mother had made her a Gypsy costume for Halloween with a beautiful black velvet skirt and vest. Her classmates had taunted her as though the word Gypsy itself were obscene, and she’d run home in tears. Her mother had been appalled her classmates had not appreciated the charming costume and had silenced her sobs with a captivating description of beautiful Spanish Gypsies who danced with a fiery grace. It was an image Maggie still cherished, and although the nickname Gypsy had stuck, she regarded it as a compliment.
She returned to the window seat, looped her arms around her bent knees and let her memories drift to a far more profoundly affecting conversation with her mother. Instantly, the remarkable afternoon came back in pristine clarity.
Her little sisters were napping, and after a whispered plea for silence, her mother had drawn her into the bedroom she shared with Peter. It was decorated in creamy peach wallpaper strewn with white roses. The girls were never allowed to play there, so being invited into her parents’ sanctuary was a rare treat. Unlike the traditional décor throughout the rest of the house, their bedroom was furnished with elegant antiques, and against the pervasive silence, the faint tick of the brass alarm clock atop the marble-topped table created a raucous din.
She’d held her breath as her mother knelt beside the wide bed to reach underneath for a mahogany box similar to the one holding their holiday sterling silver. They sat together on the thickly cushioned rug. Maggie was disappointed when the box held only faded newspaper clippings and old photographs.
“Perhaps I should have shown these to you before now,” her mother murmured apologetically, “but when you were small, you wouldn’t have understood who this man is.”
Now intrigued, Maggie had moved closer while her mother sorted through the family photographs. At last, her mother found two showing her at eighteen with a handsome, dark-haired young man. They were at a crowded fraternity party, and the photographer had caught them with their heads together, laughing as they shared the fun. In the second, they were dancing with their lithe bodies so closely entwined neither was recognizable except for their clothes. The third was a group of men, and Maggie easily picked out her mother’s boyfriend by his ready grin.
Her mother handed her a glossy eight-by-ten of the same young man dressed in a fancy gold suit decorated with dazzling embroidery. He’d slung a saffron-lined red satin cape over his shoulder and waved a small black hat in a jaunty salute.
“Is he dressed for Halloween?” she asked.
“I wish that he were, but no. That’s Miguel Aragon, your father, and he really is a matador, a bullfighter, as were his father and grandfather before him. He is praised as one of the finest to have ever practiced the sport, if such a ghastly enterprise can even be described as such.”
Even now, the memory of finally being allowed to see her father’s face inspired the same guilt-laced thrill she’d felt on that memorable afternoon. She at last had a face to go with her father’s name, and it was a marvelous surprise to discover how closely she resembled him. She’d wanted to hug the precious photograph to her heart, but she’d heard the anger in her mother’s voice and hadn’t dared make such a disloyal gesture.
“This must be our secret, precious,” her mother stressed. “I’ll leave the photographs here in the box, and you may look at them whenever you wish. Please don’t share them with your sisters or friends so I won’t be pestered with questions I’d rather not answer. Don’t mention them to Peter either. He’s such a good man, and you mustn’t hurt his feelings.”
Maggie nodded. She’d had only a shadowy impression of her father, but to know not merely how handsome he was but that he must surely be enormously brave and undoubtedly famous overwhelmed her with pride. That meant she wasn’t simply a lost Gypsy child as she liked to pretend, but a bullfighter’s daughter, and she could not imagine anything more exciting. It had to be a secret, though, as her mother had warned. Although she couldn’t tell another soul, her heart had filled with a nearly delirious joy.
No longer a dreamy child, her throat tightened with a renewed threat of tears. “What an idiot I was.”
The doorbell’s jarring buzz forced a glance at her watch, and, startled by how completely she’d been lost in childhood memories, she rose and hurried to the door. She was still wearing the simple gray knit dress she’d worn to school and apologized to her date.
“I’m so sorry. There was a department meeting after school, and I got home late.”
Craig Sager stepped into her apartment and pulled the door closed. His green eyes held a doubting gleam. “You drove out of the parking lot a couple of cars ahead of me, so you couldn’t have gotten home all that late. What’s up? You look as though you’ve been crying.”
She turned away, but in a single stride he caught up, slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “Come on, I thought you’d learned it’s safe to confide in me.”
She tensed briefly, then gradually relaxed against him. Comforted by his warmth, she covered his broad, capable hands with her own. Her slender fingers brushed his freckled skin. “I’m sorry, but I’ve just received the strangest letter from my father.”
“I hope your mother’s not ill.”
She shook her head, and he nuzzled her cheek with teasing kisses. His sandy hair tickled her ear as he pulled away. “No, m
y mother and stepfather are fine. The letter is from the magnificent Don Miguel Aragon. Do you believe that? He waited twenty-six years to invite me to come for a visit, and even then he didn’t say please.”
Craig’s embrace melted into a warm hug. He was such a sweetheart, and so generous with his affection, but it wasn’t what she needed today. She took his hand and led him into the living room. She’d bought the condo for the stark mountain view and decorated it with a calming blend of pale neutral shades. She’d bought the spring bouquet on the glass-topped coffee table at the market yesterday, her weekly effort to make the place look like home.
“Will you show me the letter?” he coaxed. “Maybe I’ll read something between the lines you missed.”
She sank into the far corner of the cream-colored couch and traced the nubby fabric with her fingertips. “Will you please save your counseling skills for the troubled kids at school?”
He joined her on the couch but wisely kept his distance. “Sorry, but you’re the real challenge. Now show me the letter.”
She’d learned resistance was futile where he was concerned and leaned over to scoop the single sheet from the adjacent window seat. “The bastard’s a man of few words.”
“Come to me.” Craig shook his head. “I thought I’d have to ask you to translate, but he apparently speaks enough English to get his point across. How does he expect you to get there?”
“He included a voucher for an airline ticket, but I won’t use it.”
“Why not? It will do you a world of good to tell him to go to hell to his face.”
She swept her hair off her forehead and wished her feelings were as easy to control. The letter had surprised her, given her a jolt of hope, but there wasn’t even a hint of the love she’d always missed from her father. A threat of tears stung her eyes, but she refused to cry. “It probably would, but defying him might feel even better. God, when I think of how I worshipped him while growing up, it makes me ill. I read every book I could find on bullfighting when I was still in grade school, but I didn’t dare use them for book reports. There’s no more hero worship left in me now. If he didn’t care anything about me then, why should I cater to his whims now?”
Craig studied the brief command. “Come to me,” he repeated. “This doesn’t sound like an idle whim, Magdalena. It could be a desperate plea.”
She tossed her head, sending her silken mane into flying disarray. “What could he possibly want from me?”
He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “The obvious: forgiveness. But regardless of what he might need, you need him more.”
Her thick, dark lashes shaded her narrowed glance. “He was no more than a sperm donor, and it’s too late now for him to bounce me on his knee.”
He laughed. “Now there’s an image. Do you suppose now that he’s retired from the ring, he still wears his fancy suits?”
She leaned into the sofa cushions and closed her eyes. “Probably. I’m sorry. Do you mind if we skip the movie tonight? I adore the Coen brothers, but I just don’t feel up to going out.”
“Damn,” he cursed under his breath. “I want to be the one you adore.”
Maggie opened one eye. He was teasing her, but she knew it pained him she wasn’t ready to be more than an affectionate friend. She reached out and took his hand in a fond clasp. “What could my father have been thinking, Craig, that after all these years I’d be so hungry for a crumb of attention I’d leap on the next flight for Barcelona?”
He pulled her hand to his lips. “It must have been his hope. You’re an independent woman, Maggie, but your father’s influence colors everything you do.” She shot him another dark glance, and he promptly provided examples. “It’s no coincidence that you attended the University of Arizona where your parents met, or that you majored in Spanish and remained here in Tucson to teach. You’ve even taken flamenco lessons and dance so beautifully you could turn professional.”
She ignored his pointed references and shrugged. “I do have long legs, but I’m not tall enough to be a Las Vegas showgirl.”
“Don’t make a joke of this. You might not have toured Spain, but you’ve stalked your father your whole life.”
Upset with him now, she yanked her hand free and buried it in her lap. “As a child that’s certainly true, but I had an epiphany the year I turned seventeen. I’d been invited to the prom and when Peter brought out his camera to photograph my date and me, I realized my father had no pictures of me. He’d never requested my portrait nor sent his to me.
“It was such a simple thing. As we were growing up, Peter must have filled a dozen albums with photographs of my sisters and me, but that night, his passion for photography took on a whole new meaning. I saw it for what it truly was: a valiant attempt to capture the moment before the children he loved were grown and lost to him forever.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and fell unheeded. “Don Miguel missed all that, Craig. He has no idea if I was an adorable little girl with ribbons in my curls or a waif with long straight hair and sad eyes. He just never cared enough to ask.”
When she glanced toward him, she wondered why she’d never realized how much Craig reminded her of her stepfather. He was the same solid, steady sort who could be counted upon no matter how difficult the situation became. He had a handsome build and looked good in khakis and a polo shirt, but she didn’t love him and had to look away before he recognized that sorry truth in her eyes.
He cleared his throat with a nervous cough. “I’ve made no secret of the fact I want more than you’re willing to give, but I don’t believe you’ll ever be able to love any man while you’ve such a huge emotional investment in Miguel Aragon.”
“I despise him!”
He recoiled from her vicious outburst. “It’s indifference that’s the opposite of love, not hate. Your father is a part of you, certainly the most significant part. You need to go to him, and not just for yourself but for all of us who love you. Do it for us.”
She bristled. “Is that an ultimatum?”
“I’ve always admired your spirit, and I know you’ve had other relationships. They’ve all been as one-sided as ours, haven’t they? You shrug off men like old coats. Tell me if I’m wrong. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work out for us, but how many men have you truly loved?”
The setting sun left the jagged mountain range silhouetted against a vermillion blaze. Maggie sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly as the night smeared the sky with red-violet streamers. “Do you want names?”
“No, damn it, I want the truth.” When she didn’t reply, he got up and pushed away from the couch. “You always brush off my counseling skills, but I actually believed I possessed the necessary insights to make things work for us. How’s that for a colossal ego?”
She heard the hurt in his voice and offered the only reassurance she could. “Craig, please. This isn’t about us.”
His shoulders hunched as he shoved his hands into his pockets. “The hell it isn’t. I never stood a chance with you, and if you don’t go to Spain and confront your father for abandoning you, the next man won’t either.”
He walked out of the room, and while he deserved at least a token pursuit, she remained where she sat and flinched when he slammed the door. Her father’s letter lay on the coffee table, and she reached for it but found no tender message left unread. The bastard had simply issued an order, but that didn’t mean she had to meekly comply. Then again, Craig’s advice, no matter how unwanted, was sound.
He had a master’s degree in psychology and had worked with high school students and their families for more than ten years. He had a clear understanding of troubled families, while she’d grown up on the margin of a happy one. She might have stubbornly refused to admit she had unfinished business with Miguel Aragon, but didn’t she owe it to herself to at least meet him in person? She laughed as she thought while he’d faced many a ferocious bull, he wouldn’t be ready for her.
There were only a couple of weeks left in the spring seme
ster and if she cited a family emergency, she could arrange for a substitute to cover her classes and leave early. She owed Craig an apology, but knowing he’d much rather hear the whole story, she’d wait until she returned home.
“Home,” she whispered softly, for it had never been her father’s luxurious estate. Once made, the decision seemed to have come easily, but the trip could be the most difficult of her life. She looked out toward the night where the sky had darkened to a deep mysterious blue and the mountains were no more than serrated shadows.
Chapter Two
Magdalena’s flight landed at Barcelona’s El Prat airport on Saturday afternoon. She’d sent her father her flight information, but with the harried effort to end the school year early and write lesson plans for her sub, there’d been no time to consider her arrival before boarding the plane. Now as she left customs to enter the passenger arrival lounge, she paused and surveyed the waiting crowd with an anxious glance.
A couple of men were in the right age range, but neither even remotely resembled Miguel Aragon. That she’d foolishly assumed he would be there to meet her struck her as not merely naïve but unbelievably stupid. A mist of anguished tears had already begun to blur her vision before she noticed a chauffeur in a muted gray uniform making his way toward her.
Her fellow passengers surged forward, but Maggie hung back and agilely shifted her balance to avoid being jostled aside. Just ahead, a young woman leapt into a waiting man’s arms. Her husband, Maggie thought, or a lover ecstatic to see her again. A laughing family surrounded a dear little grandmother. A businessman’s burly friend reached out to relieve him of his bulging briefcase. The pair then strode off, talking and gesturing excitedly.
Standing alone, Maggie waited for the chauffeur, who had stumbled over a student’s backpack and come perilously close to falling. He was tall, several inches above six feet, and caught his balance with surprising grace. An infant carried in her father’s arms made a passing grab for the silky ends of Maggie’s hair, and just as she pulled free, the chauffeur reached her side.
