Fierce Love

by Phoebe Conn

  “She’ll find another man.”

  Maggie knew there were other men, but she wouldn’t make Augustín’s mistake and marry someone she didn’t love.

  Once they were seated on the patio behind the beach house, Maggie slipped her watch on her wrist. She expected Rafael to be there within the hour but was too excited to rest. Santos stretched out on a chaise and closed his eyes, and Fox lost himself in a game on his phone. When Mrs. Lopez came outside to bring her a note from Carmen, she was surprised her grandmother wished to see her. She’d said all she cared to to her, but, hoping Carmen wanted to apologize, even if it were a dim possibility, she’d give her a chance.

  “Fox, if Rafael arrives, please tell him I’m talking with my grandmother.”

  He didn’t look up. “Sure.”

  She followed the housekeeper through the appropriate door to the house behind the main staircase and on into the den. Carmen was dressed in one of her neat black dresses with a demur lace collar, and Maggie regretted not bringing an extra set of clothes to wear after sailing. At least her clothes were dry now, if a bit wrinkled. She was glad she couldn’t see her hair, which had to resemble dark straw.

  “Please sit down, dear,” Carmen said, with the first hint of a smile Maggie had seen from her. “I had Tomas make his special hot chocolate for us. He uses a bit of cinnamon and another spice he refuses to identify. Won’t you have some?”

  Two delicate china mugs were already filled on the tray. “Yes, thank you.”

  Carmen topped both mugs with a spoonful of whipped cream and handed one to Maggie with an embroidered napkin. “You were right. I made no effort to welcome you, and I should have done so for Miguel’s sake.”

  Maggie took a sip of the hot chocolate and found it as delicious as described. She licked the whipped cream off her lip and took another sip. She was elated her grandmother was making an effort to apologize but didn’t dare gloat. “This is a difficult time.”

  “Yes, in every way. Do you like the chocolate? Can you tell what the mystery ingredient is?”

  Maggie took another swallow. “In Mexico they use chili, but this has something different. A dash of nutmeg?”

  “Nutmeg? Perhaps. Years ago, I spoke with your mother on the telephone, and Miguel sent photos of them together, but we never met. I expected you to favor her.”

  Maggie had to cover a yawn. “I’m sorry, it’s been a very long day.”

  “Yes, Sundays are especially tiring.”

  Maggie felt dizzy and set her mug back on the tray. “Perhaps we could speak another…” She knew what she meant to say but produced only a jumbled slur. Something was dreadfully wrong. Her thoughts were as blurred as her speech, and Carmen now wore a triumphant grin. A scream dying in her throat, Maggie wished for Rafael with her last conscious thought and slipped into a drug-laced hole.

  Rafael cleaned up and changed into his street clothes at the arena and left through a side door rather than exit where aficionados of bullfighting would lurk, his mother and half brothers included. He drove to the beach house taking great care not to drive so fast he’d be stopped. He parked out front and jogged around to the patio, where he found Santos sound asleep and Fox busy with a video game.

  “Where’s Magdalena?” he asked.

  Fox nodded toward the house. “With Carmen.”

  The kitchen was dark, but Rafael had seen lights in the front of the house when he’d driven up. “How long has she been with her?”

  “I don’t know, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”

  Rafael tried the kitchen door and found it locked. “Where’s your key?”

  Fox pulled it from his pocket and threw it to him. Rafael unlocked the door and tossed the key back to him. He knew the layout of the house, and when he didn’t see anyone, he went toward the light under the den door. He knocked. “Mrs. Aragon, it’s Rafael Mondragon. Is Magdalena with you?”

  When there was no response, he didn’t waste the time going upstairs to search for them. He tried the doorknob, found the room locked, knew something was wrong and kicked it open. At first, all he saw was blood. Maggie lay slumped on the sofa, her wrists slashed, her blood dripping onto the carpet. Carmen sat in her chair sipping hot chocolate as though she were merely enjoying a relaxing evening while her granddaughter bled to death.

  Rafael ran to the den’s door leading to the beach and yelled for Fox and Santos. Mrs. Lopez came running, and he sent her for sheets to rip into bandages. He gripped Maggie’s wrists and pressed hard to stem the flow of blood. He shook her. “Wake up!”

  Santos came sliding into the room, and saw by his grandmother’s serene expression that she was to blame for the bloody mess. “Fox, call an ambulance.”

  Mrs. Lopez ran down the stairs with white sheets and, with Santos’s help, followed Rafael’s directions to rip them into large pieces and strips.

  “Come here, Santos,” Rafael called. “I’ll need you to press a cloth against the wound in her left wrist while I wrap the right. Hold her arm up.” Santos leaned over the back of the sofa and pocketed her bloody watch to get a good grip. As fast as Rafael twisted the cloth around her right wrist, her blood soaked through.

  “What did you give her?” he asked Carmen.

  “You should have died,” she uttered softly. Not a hair had escaped her tight chignon, and her dress showed no sign of bloodshed, but her crazed gaze held the truth.

  Fox came in. “They’ll be here as fast as they can. What more can I do?”

  “Find Cirilda, then open the front door and be ready for them,” Santos urged.

  “Cirilda has gone to dinner with Dr. Rivera,” Mrs. Lopez offered. “This would never have happened if she’d been here.”

  Maggie’s blood was oozing through Santos’s fingers, and he pressed harder. “Call her and insist she come home. I’m sorry I asked you to tell prison stories, Rafael, but thank God you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’ve treated men who cut their wrists, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen.” There was a bloody paring knife on the tray. Carmen had not sliced across but along Maggie’s arm to open a three-inch gash. When he at last succeeded in stemming the flow of blood from her right wrist, he had Santos let go and wrapped her left.

  “We should have sent for a second ambulance for Carmen,” Santos posed. “She’s hostile even on her best days, but if she wanted you dead, why did she attack Magdalena? Clearly her mind’s gone.”

  Rafael was too busy to worry about Carmen. “Find a water bottle to empty so we can take what’s left of Magdalena’s chocolate to analyze.”

  “You think Carmen drugged her?”

  “She must have. There’s no sign of a struggle. Maggie wouldn’t have sat still while Carmen slashed her wrists. Call Moreno to come and look after Carmen. What about Manuel, the chauffeur? Couldn’t he come in to help Mrs. Lopez watch her until the doctor arrives?”

  Santos left the room at a run and soon returned with Manuel, who stood back to avoid stepping in Maggie’s blood. Santos had washed his hands and brought an empty bottle to fill with what was left of Maggie’s chocolate. They could hear an ambulance’s wail in the distance.

  “Moreno’s on his way. All he’s prescribed for Carmen is sleeping pills. She must have laced Magdalena’s chocolate with them.” He carefully picked up the bloody knife and slid it into a plastic bag to save as evidence. “We’re lucky she didn’t slit her throat.”

  “God, I wish you hadn’t said that.” Sick clear to his soul, Rafael couldn’t bear to think of how easily he could have lost the woman he loved. If he’d arrived a few minutes later, he couldn’t have saved her. With Manuel and Mrs. Lopez there to stand watch beside Carmen’s chair, he lifted Maggie into his arms and carried her to the front door to meet the paramedics. His hands still covered in her blood, he climbed into the back of the ambulance.

  “Here, you take the bottle,” Santos said. “Fox and I will meet you at the hospital.”

  The paramedic fit an oxygen mask over Maggie’s face
. “You did a good job on her wrists. Where’d you get your training?”

  “Prison,” Rafael replied, but the word sounded strange in his ears. He’d not been this afraid when he’d faced the Miura bulls that afternoon. The beasts brought an exhilarating thrill demanding absolute concentration, but finding Magdalena near death was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. If what he’d done to help her hadn’t been enough, he’d take a knife to his own throat.

  Santos found Rafael standing outside a treatment cubicle in the emergency room. He took Rafael’s arm. “You need to wash off her blood. You can come right back.”

  Rafael followed Santos into the restroom and scrubbed to remove the blood from his hands and under his nails. The front of his black shirt was soaked, but the blood didn’t show. “I should have gotten to the house sooner.”

  “I was there,” Santos exclaimed. “No one expected something this awful to happen.”

  Rafael was startled by his image in the mirror. A few hours earlier, he’d been handsome in his traje de luces, but now he looked haunted, as though his dear Magdalena were already dead.

  “She’s going to need blood, isn’t she?” Santos asked on their way back to the emergency room.

  “Yes. Ask where you can donate.”

  “Aren’t you going to donate blood too?”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  Santos grabbed his arm. “You’re not HIV positive, are you?”

  “No, but I still shouldn’t give her blood.”

  “A Gypsy’s blood wouldn’t be my first choice for a transfusion, but blood’s blood, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but she doesn’t need mine.”

  Santos just shook his head in disgust and asked where he could donate blood for his sister. Fox was too young, which he took as an insult, and sulked along behind him.

  Maggie didn’t wake for hours. She recognized the spare décor of a hospital room and saw Rafael seated nearby with his head in his hands, but she couldn’t recall how she’d gotten there. Her nose itched, and when she raised her hand to scratch, she saw the thick bandages encircling her wrists.

  “Rafael?” she called. Her throat hurt, and she spoke in a painful whisper.

  He jumped out of the chair to come to her. “How do you feel?”

  She tried to sit up but felt too weak and sank back into her pillow. He pushed the button to raise the head of the bed. He looked to be on the verge of tears, and she didn’t understand why he’d be so depressed. “Were we in an accident?”

  He pushed her hair off her forehead and kissed her brow. “What do you remember?” He gave her a sip of water.

  She closed her eyes to think. “Santos took Fox and me sailing. On the way home, we stopped so they could eat, but I was waiting to have dinner with you. They had these huge plates of shrimp and crab, lobster claws.” She looked up at him. “I thought we’d made it to the beach house, but I don’t recall what happened there.”

  Rafael had spent most of the night searching for a way to explain Carmen’s assault. Fox would have just spit it out. Santos would add their grandmother often mistreated them, but he still wanted to soften the murder attempt somehow. Unfortunately, there was no reasonable way to cushion an insane attack. As calmly as he could, he told her what he’d found at the beach house.

  Maggie’s eyes grew wide with disbelief. “The woman’s my grandmother.”

  “Yes, she is. She told me I should have died. I don’t know how many people she intended to kill. She’d drugged you and just sat there sipping hot chocolate while Santos and I worked to save you.”

  Maggie understood Carmen’s comment even if he didn’t. She must have known what her son had hoped for him. They were lucky Carmen hadn’t gone on a murder spree while Miguel was still alive and could have benefitted from a heart transplant. Maybe she’d been marked like Rafael all along. She needed another sip of water.

  “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “You lost so much blood you needed several transfusions. I doubt they’ll release you before tomorrow.”

  Dr. Moreno peeked in the door. “Good, you’re awake. I’m so sorry this happened to you, my dear.” He approached the foot of her bed. “Carmen has always been high-strung and harsh in her judgments of others, but I never anticipated violence. She’s been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. Your aunt became hysterical when she arrived home and discovered what had happened. Fortunately, her ex-husband has stayed with her. Apparently they’ve become close again.”

  Maggie felt too weak to take any joy in Cirilda’s rekindled romance. By the time Santos and Fox came in, she could barely stay awake. “Thank you for helping to save my life.”

  “Any time,” Santos replied. “I want you to come home with me. I’ll take a lot better care of you than Rafael would. Did he mention he refused to donate blood for you? I thought you’d lost every drop you’d had, but he wasn’t overly concerned.”

  “Let it go, Santos,” Rafael cautioned.

  “Why? So you can play hero?”

  “He is the hero,” Fox insisted. “If he hadn’t arrived when he did, Magdalena would have bled out, and we’d be planning her funeral.”

  “Still, he should have donated blood,” Santos insisted.

  “I’m sure he had a good reason not to,” Maggie uttered through a yawn.

  “Yeah, he probably wanted to be paid for it.”

  “I promised your sister I wouldn’t insult you within her hearing, but don’t push me.” He reached for Maggie’s fingertips. “When a man donates blood to a woman, she may develop an antibody to an antigen in his red blood cells. When they have children, if a fetus has his father’s antigen, an antibody from the mother can destroy the baby’s red blood cells and cause serious problems. It’s not a risk I’d take.”

  Santos looked to Dr. Moreno. “Now he’s fallen back on medical jargon. Is he making any sense?”

  “Yes, he’s correct, but I’m surprised you’d know it, Mr. Mondragon.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve read a lot of medical books.”

  “Maybe, but you’re dreaming if you think Magdalena would ever have children with you,” Santos interjected.

  Rafael held his breath, waiting for her to say it was a real possibility, but she’d fallen asleep. “We should let her rest,” he whispered.

  “Anyone want something to eat?” Fox asked.

  Santos laid his arm around Fox’s shoulders to lead him from the room, but at the door, he paused to speak to Rafael. “You owe me a lot of money.”

  “You’ll get it,” Rafael promised.

  Dr. Moreno stayed behind. “Magdalena will need to make a statement for the police, but I’ll urge her to fly home to recover. She doesn’t need to remain in Spain where she’s been surrounded by so much sorrow.”

  Rafael didn’t argue, but when the physician left, he moved his chair close to her bed where he could rest his head on his arms and sleep too.

  Afternoon shadows spread across the room the next time Maggie woke. Rafael stood at the window. He’d shaved and changed his clothes, but he looked miserably unhappy. He’d wanted to go out last night, and they’d had no chance to celebrate the week before. Now she was too weak to sit up on her own, let alone dance and make love. She’d fly home to recover rather than saddle him with her care. She hadn’t known how she’d find the strength to leave him, but sadly, circumstance had made the choice easy.

  A nurse came in with a food tray and placed it on the rolling table at the end of the bed. Rafael noticed she was awake and smiled, but Maggie had seen how sad he’d looked in an unguarded moment. “I’m feeling better. Why don’t you go on home?”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you,” he replied. “Do you think you can eat? They had to pump your stomach last night, but you ought to be able to have soup.”

  The nursed raised the head of the bed and rolled the table up to her. “Just ring for me when you’re finished, and I’ll bring ice cream if you like.”

&nbs
p; There was a package of crackers, but Maggie couldn’t hold it tightly enough to open. Rafael ripped the cellophane easily. She nibbled on one of the crackers but couldn’t hold a spoon firmly, and the clear soup dribbled down her chin. “How long will it take my wrists take to heal?”

  He picked up the spoon and fed her a swallow. “Not long. There was a hand surgeon on duty last night. He has an excellent reputation, and while the hospital wouldn’t let me watch, he assured me you’d soon be fine. Your scars will grow faint in time.”

  “I’ll bet we’ll be back in the tabloids.” While it was a clumsy effort, she picked up another cracker and took a bite.

  “Probably, but I didn’t look.”

  “Santos told me you did really well on Sunday.”

  Rafael kept feeding her spoonfuls of beef bouillon. “I did. My mother was there with her sons. I doubt she told them we were brothers, but whatever her story, I don’t want anything to do with her or them.”

  “I thought the same way about my father, but I wouldn’t have met you if I’d stayed in Arizona. You should do as you please, though.”

  “I intend to. Do you want some ice cream?”

  “If they have chocolate. I should call my mother, but I don’t want to terrify her when she’s so far away.”

  “A murder attempt isn’t something you can include in your Christmas card,” he advised.

  She laughed before she realized he was serious. “No, it isn’t. I could make a stop in Minneapolis on my way home.”

  “I’ll get your ice cream.” He picked up the tray and carried it out of her room.

  He was attentive yet distant, leaving her to fear something was dreadfully wrong. Maybe he wasn’t telling her the truth about her recovery. She wiggled her fingers but couldn’t coil her hands into tight fists. When he returned with a huge bowl of soft chocolate ice cream and two spoons, she thanked him and saved her questions for the surgeon.

  “All the nurse had to offer was vanilla, so I went down to the cafeteria.” He held on to the bowl and gave her one of the spoons. “You should be able to scoop it up.”