Yet here she was, smiling at the campesinado as she doled out foodstuffs to the women. She was devoid of artifice and full of compassion.
She was his wife, yet he’d never bothered to know this side of her. She was a stranger he found himself attracted to again, only this time it wasn’t just carnal interest.
From the beginning he’d let himself believe he was terrified of losing her as he’d lost his brother. But it went deeper than that.
He was terrified of losing control to the overpowering emotions he held for this woman. A love that deep stripped away his defenses and left him vulnerable.
He hated the feeling. He feared it. So he’d denied it. He’d continue denying it, no matter how strong the lure.
“May I help?” he asked as he joined her.
“I’d like that,” she said, and rewarded him with a smile that coaxed an answering one from him.
For the better part of an hour, they worked side by side and spoke only to the Mayans who came looking for help. Or rather, to those who came seeking the ángel de la guarda.
Working with Allegra let him see a side of her he’d only glimpsed before. She excelled at this, for the people gravitated to her. Miguel caught himself doing the same.
Sí, beyond the desire that simmered in him for her, he admired the strong woman she’d become.
She crouched before a small boy no more than five who’d become separated from his mother. She embraced him and soothed his tears, and something inside Miguel warmed, expanded to chase away the ever-present chill that had filled him for so long.
He wanted her back. Not just in his bed. No, he wanted his wife back in all ways.
That admission was the slap in the face that he needed. Allegra was his passion and his weakness.
He would not blindly fall under her spell and believe her.
“I wish I would have done this before now,” she said simply when the little boy spotted his mother and ran to her.
“It would not have been wise in your condition,” he said.
“Perhaps so.” She shook her head, as if shaking off a memory that plagued her. “How long have you come here to help them?”
He gave a negligent shrug when his body sizzled with annoyance of being thrust in this position of protecting her—of doing as she’d wanted by working and talking. “My padre brought me with him when I was young.”
Her soft lips parted in a smile. “You never told me about that.”
“There was no reason to,” he said, because he’d never thought to include her in this part of his life.
Coming here was private. The reasons he worked so hard with the villagers was his alone. He didn’t need or want approval, laud or validation.
“How often do you come here?”
“As often as I’m needed,” he said. “When there is trouble, I come more often.”
“You were here when I left the casa that day,” she said, a frown pulling at her smooth forehead. “You’d been here for weeks.”
“Sí, there’d been a horrendous rain and much flooding.”
She looked him in the eyes. “I needed you.”
He’d needed her, too. Needed her as a husband needed the wife he’d been afraid to touch during the last troubled month of her pregnancy.
The doctor had warned him that she’d had a difficult birth with Cristobel. She needed time to heal before they resumed marital relations.
Yet being around her day and night had driven him mad with desire. He had stopped sharing a bed with her because he was afraid he’d turn to her in the dead of night, that he’d take her without conscious thought to her condition.
That he’d hurt her.
He’d stayed away because he feared that he’d fall more deeply under her spell and lose the edge that had been hammered into him as a boy. So he’d removed the temptation and the danger of causing her harm by coming here to work day and night.
And she’d packed her belongings and left him for another man. Or had she?
She’d returned on the premise that being here would unlock her memory. Closure.
They had to shut the door on that episode of their past before they could open the one to their future. If he could believe her, she’d not taken a lover. She was still his wife.
Still his in all ways!
“When you’ve finished handing out the supplies, we will return to Hacienda Primaro,” he said.
“I thought you had vital work to do here,” she said.
“Something far more crucial demands my attention,” he said, and before she could ask what, he added, “us.”
Allegra had trouble paying attention to her task of dispensing water and supplies after that pronouncement. Just what did he mean? Had he tired of his quest for vengeance and would divorce her now?
Though Miguel was just across the small plaza that was little more than a muddy field, he hadn’t looked her way since he dropped that bomb on her. He’d done it again. Shut her out.
It was something that had infuriated her and crushed her during her marriage. She’d wanted to be a part of his life in all ways. She wanted him to talk with her about his plans for their future. She wanted to be more than the mother to his child and the woman in his bed.
But he’d never shared this with her, and it was clear he didn’t like doing so now.
Yet she’d felt a different connection flow between them earlier—something besides desire. It was deep and profound and bound them closer than a man and woman. It whispered of a forever kind of love.
But the feeling came and went like the wind. Had she merely imagined it? Was it just wistful thinking?
If it was real, what would it take to bring that closeness they’d shared at the beginning of their affair back to life?
For an hour, Miguel lost himself in hard physical work alongside the other men. Or tried to. More times than not his gaze strayed to Allegra.
Seeing her in this element showed a side of her that he’d never seen before. She was a champion of causes, and it was clear she’d taken up the sword for his people without regard to herself.
Her usual tidy hair was a riot of curls. Her clothes were sweaty and streaked with dirt and mud.
She’d never looked more desirable as a woman.
The temptation to share a hammock with her tonight called to the most primal part of him. But isolating her here with him wouldn’t unlock her memories.
They had to confront the past together.
He reached her just as a young couple and an old woman emerged from the jungle, the trio looking haggard and defeated, as if they’d been walking for days. The young man spoke with one of the elders of the village while the women helped the older woman to a bench.
He wasn’t surprised when Allegra was the first to take bottled water to the older woman. For a moment, he feared the elder wouldn’t take anything from an Ingles.
Seeing a white woman here clearly upset the old woman. Her sudden agitation had Allegra moving back, looking startled.
The young man who’d brought the old woman to the village must have noticed, too, for he ran back toward the pair.
Miguel was at Allegra’s side in a heartbeat, the instinct to protect her as strong as ever. The old Mayan spoke rapidly, her hands animated, her expression intent as she looked from Allegra to Miguel.
He could scarcely believe his ears. The old woman had to be mistaken. Yet this explained Allegra’s flash of memory on the drive to Playa del Carmen.
Allegra had gone pale, despite the flush of sun that stole over her skin. “What is she saying?”
He was loath to tell her, but lying served no purpose, either. Both of them had been kept in the dark far too long regarding the accident.
Accident? Not if the elder could be believed.
“She claims she saw the accident,” Miguel said.
“No! En que el conductor se da a la fuga.” The young man standing beside the elder frowned.
Allegra gripped Miguel’s arm, her fingernails digging into hi
s flesh. “What do you mean?”
The young man glanced nervously to Miguel as if asking his permission to explain. Miguel nodded for him to go on, for though Allegra understood Español, she’d never grasped all of the regional nuances.
“A hit and run, señora,” the young man said. “The car rammed into yours and you lost control.”
Allegra pinched her eyes shut and inhaled so sharply his lungs tightened in empathy. “You are positive he hit me?”
“Sí, señora,” the young man said. “It happened right as you reached the topes.”
“I can’t remember it,” she said.
For once, Miguel wondered if that wasn’t a blessing.
Allegra was a competent driver, but it would have taken lightning quick reflexes to control a car in such a situation. She’d failed and paid a horrific price for leaving him, all because a man had been driving recklessly and caused her to wreck the car.
She turned to him, and her confusion tore at his heart. “Uncle Loring didn’t say anything about a car hitting mine.”
“How could he have known?” he asked, loath to offer any defense of the man who’d lied to him about Allegra’s injuries.
She faced the young man, the frustration in her eyes mirroring his own. “What happened after the collision?”
“The driver stopped,” the young man said. “He went to the car and opened the back door.”
Where Miguel’s niña was strapped in her car seat, sleeping the sleep of death. “You are sure he opened the rear door first?”
“Sí. He glanced at the driver, then he kicked the door shut, returned to his car and sped off.” The young man frowned. “Grandmother thought he went for help.”
“But he didn’t,” Miguel said as a darker possibility for this tragedy slammed into him.
The young man shook his head. “No, señor. I ran to the next village and called la polica. They told me I was the only one who’d alerted them of the accident.”
¡Dios mio! Had the man panicked when he’d realized a woman and baby had died? Or was it as Miguel feared—the man made a clumsy attempt to kidnap either Cristobel or Allegra, and after the accident, realized Miguel’s niña was dead and his wife was clinging to life?
“Can you describe the driver,” Allegra asked, a frantic edge to her voice now.
“He was a Mexican,” the young man said. “Very thin. Close cut black hair.” He shrugged, as if indicating that’s all he could provide.
That description matched half the male population in Mexico. “Do you remember his car?”
The young man nodded. “Sí. It was white, a Jetta.”
“I’ve seen that car,” Allegra said, pinching her eyes shut as if trying to dredge up the memory, only to shake her head in a sign of frustration he now recognized.
“Where?” he asked.
She shook her head, then went still. Her gaze lifted to his, wary and questioning. “At Hacienda Primaro.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes, but I can’t imagine an employee of yours doing something so deadly horrific.”
He could. He’d learned at a young age that those in his family’s employ weren’t immune to the lure of a small fortune gained from a kidnapping. But to realize that his family had lost two children to kidnappers…
A stinging sense of ineptitude needled him. He’d known the possibility of such a tragedy befalling his family again was there even with all the precautions he’d made at the hacienda. That’s why he’d hired Riveras. That’s why he was so vehement that Allegra never leave the casa alone.
But he hadn’t factored in an unfaithful wife, or a deceitful employee. Who’d made the first overture—Riveras or Allegra?
And why the hell hadn’t Riveras gone with Allegra that day? Why had he allowed her to leave the hacienda alone?
“Gracias,” he said to the young man, then led Allegra toward his Jeep with renewed determination to get to the truth.
“What are you going to do?” Allegra asked.
“Find out if your defiance played into a kidnapper’s plans,” he said.
“A kidnapper?” She flinched and pressed trembling fingers to her temples, a whisper of distress escaping her. “My God! You think that’s why I was run off the road?”
“Sí, and you made it easy for him by leaving the casa alone.” He curled his fingers into fists to keep from reaching for her. “Why didn’t Riveras accompany you, querida?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice small and her gaze troubled. “I remember Cristobel cried out. I glanced in the rearview mirror and recall a sense of terror.” She shook her head and swallowed hard. “I don’t remember anything else, but that must be when the car slammed into me.”
“Sí, you crashed and likely lost consciousness,” he said. And Cristobel’s death ended the kidnapper’s ploy.
Instead of calling for help, the bastard ran. He left Allegra there to die.
Miguel couldn’t stand it any longer and pulling her close enfolded her in his arms, absorbing her tremors as well as his own. His heart beat too fast and too loud, like a native drum heralding war.
This was war. He couldn’t bring back his daughter or regain what he’d lost with Allegra, but he would hunt down the coward who destroyed his family.
He would make him pay.
As for Allegra?
He’d do all in his power to find the key that would unlock her memory. For she’d left him. She’d placed herself and their niña in danger.
It was fitting revenge that her failure would vividly haunt her the rest of her days.
Allegra was so weary from the day’s work that she fell asleep in the car. For someone who’d napped in fits and starts the past six months, dozing off now was unbelievable.
As usual, it wasn’t a long or restful sleep.
The same thing woke her as always—Cristobel crying as she raced down the Merida Libre. She’d wanted to take the autopista, but she’d gotten in the wrong lane.
An overwhelming sense of fear clawed at her, as if she was running for her life. Cristobel was fussy, weary from the trip already.
She’d glanced in the rearview mirror and her heart clenched at that precious little face scrunched red with displeasure. Her first instinct was to pull over and see to her baby and then retrace her route to the autopista that would get her to Cancún much quicker. But the sudden revving of an engine behind her brought her gaze flicking up to the rearview mirror.
The white car was riding her bumper. Her gaze lifted to the driver just as the car slammed into them.
Her head snapped forward, her hands grappling to control the car. Terror engulfed her as the car flipped. Once. Twice.
Metal crunched. Glass shattered. Cristobel screamed.
Pain skewered Allegra, then silence settled over her a heartbeat before she fell into a blessed blackness where there was no pain.
“Why are you scowling?” Miguel asked.
“I remembered the accident again,” she said. “But I don’t know why I was driving to Cancún.”
Miguel muttered a curse and whipped his gaze back to the road, his proud profile tensed in fury. “That is obvious. You were leaving me.”
“No, I wasn’t,” she said, her own anger spiking when he persisted in believing that lie.
“You are certain of this because?”
“Because I loved you,” she said, never doubting that certainty.
Her words echoed in the charged silence that pulsed in the thick, sultry air. Miguel stared straight ahead, his powerful body tense and his chiseled features so resolute that she wanted to scream in frustration.
She couldn’t deal with being here with Miguel, wanting him as much as ever, knowing he cared nothing for her but anger.
“I wouldn’t have left you,” she said again, willing him to believe the truth—to believe her.
His expression turned fierce, though the heat in his eyes hinted of a passionate rage that her body recognized and responded to in a heartbeat. “But yo
u did. You packed your belongings, took our daughter and left the casa.”
“For a day or two at the most,” she said. “I was going to the beach house. I’m certain of it now.”
A fire lit his obsidian eyes in a lightning flash of anger that sparked her own irritation. “Then why did you take a fortune in jewels with you?”
“I didn’t!”
The air between them crackled with raw energy that left her trembling with frustration. Why couldn’t he believe her just once? Why did he persist in thinking the worst of her?
He stared at her for a long time, his features hard and remote, revealing nothing of his emotions, his thoughts. With a muttered curse, he focused his attention on driving.
She hated that he distanced himself from her again. He’d always had that ability to school his emotions, a necessary tool in his business dealings, but a slap in the face to the wife who simply wanted to share her thoughts with her husband.
“Fine! Shut me out of your life again. I don’t care who you believe,” she said, which was a lie.
She cared too much, for if he couldn’t trust, then all they had between them was this sizzling sexual attraction. Perhaps that’s all they’d ever had.
Could she have misjudged this man so?
A deep growl rumbled from him. “Okay, why did you leave? Tell me so I understand why you placed yourself and our niña in great danger.”
She blew out an exasperated breath and voiced what she felt certain of. “I was running away from Riveras, not you.”
He cut her a look that conveyed his doubts of that claim. “You were seen arguing with him the morning you left.”
“Yes, I was angry that he’d charged Jorge’s family more money for their journey north.” She frowned, annoyed that she couldn’t remember that last incident. “He wasn’t a good man.”
He strangled the steering wheel so hard the tendons roped on his bare, bronzed arms. “Damn Riveras for failing to protect you! For involving you in what sounds like human trafficking.”
Silence roared between them, for what could she say when he put it like that? She should’ve realized Riveras wasn’t helping the refugees out of the goodness of his heart.
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