Wildflower Redemption

by Leslie P. García

  “Well!” Aaron rubbed a hand through his hair and scooped Chloe up into a bear hug as she bounced into his arms. “That was a little strange.”

  “Yes.”

  “You really should consider locks on your door. When Chloe and I walked in, he was sitting there staring at a picture.”

  “You mean his painting?”

  Aaron shook his head slowly. “No. I mean that picture.” He pointed toward the mantel, toward her mother’s gold-framed engagement portrait.

  Chills made her shiver. Could her father have been right?

  Shaking herself free of the questions and the niggling uneasiness, she shrugged. “Nothing to worry about. Guess I could get the lock fixed, but it’s the odd door in Rose Creek that’s locked.”

  Aaron didn’t say anything, just stared at the wall for a moment, then leaned over and kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “Chloe, do us a favor.”

  She turned expectant eyes up. “Yes?”

  “The dog needs food, water, and a name. Could you do all that?”

  Chloe sniffed. “Of course. I know where Luz keeps the food and water.” She frowned a little. “But a name—”

  “Well, Luz has been kind of busy teaching kids like you to ride,” he pointed out. “And I’m tired of saying things like ‘Here, dog. Nice dog.’” He winked at her. “So write down your top fifteen choices, and we’ll ask Luz to choose one.”

  “Awesome!” Chloe turned to the kitchen, clapping her hand on her leg. “Come on, girl! Let’s get you dinner and a name.”

  “She won’t be long, and she’s all ears, but—” He shrugged again. “We need to talk, Luz.”

  “About?” Luz bit her bottom lip, and curled her fingers into her legs. “Look, what I said at the corral—I wouldn’t hurt Chloe for the world. And you were joking, but—”

  “But you’re not ready for a daughter. And mine would come with baggage?”

  “No, dammit! No!” She wanted to kick him. To scream in frustration. To do anything except talk about the little girl she had lost. She inhaled slightly and steadied herself. He couldn’t understand. She’d never explained.

  He reached out suddenly and cupped her cheek in his hand. The touch burned, but with a deep, soothing heat. She saw compassion in his eyes.

  “The divorce.” He didn’t question, and she couldn’t argue with finality. “I’m sorry.”

  She just stood there, soaking in the comfort. Relishing a touch that demanded nothing.

  “What happened?” he asked, after long moments, and the comfort shattered and fell away. Then he shrugged and drew his hand back, and answered himself. “He cheated, right?”

  In the worst possible way. She wasn’t thinking of Brian’s sexual betrayal, though. No, he’d cheated her into believing she’d be Lily’s mother forever. What had he said? Our daughter will never call anyone else “Mom”? She shook herself out of her plummeting thoughts and stepped away from Aaron, avoiding his eyes.

  “I bet Chloe’s finished her list,” she said.

  On cue, Chloe popped into the room, waving a notepad, her face glowing.

  “Got some good ones?”

  “Yes! Look!” She thrust the list out at Luz instead of her dad, and Luz scanned it then handed it to Aaron with a grin but no comment.

  He read it with raised eyebrows before handing it back to Luz.

  “Goddess?” he asked. “Jellybean?”

  “She needs to feel pretty,” Chloe explained sincerely. “Goddesses and jellybeans are pretty.”

  “Where did you even hear the word goddess?” he probed, and Chloe sniffed in disdain.

  “You don’t remember anything!” she sniffed. “Mom used to say I’d be her goddess of good luck when she’d let me give her numbers for that game she played.”

  Aaron looked like she’d punched him in the gut. Color drained from his face and his lips tightened and thinned. “I’d forgotten,” he muttered.

  Luz glanced at the list again. “Princess?”

  Chloe immediately focused on her, and Aaron looked visibly relieved.

  “Thought you hated princesses, Chloe?”

  “Well, the name isn’t for me,” she snorted. “It’s for a dog.”

  “Good point.” She looked at the nameless dog, curled in her corner asleep. “So, I think you should choose one.” She winked at Chloe. “After all, I haven’t even been able to name one little old kitten!”

  Chloe gave an exaggerated sigh. “How can a kitten be old?” She shook her head. “I think you should name her Princess.”

  Lily’s nickname. Luz shook the momentary hesitation off and even smiled. Maybe it was a good thing, Chloe being a little more accepting to what was, for many girls her age, a shared vision of make-believe and possibility. Besides, the kid was right—the pit bull wasn’t a pretty girl. A royal title couldn’t hurt her doggy self-esteem.

  Aaron looked surprised at the choice, but not annoyed.

  “Well, then! We have a name and a dinner date!” he declared.

  Luz thought about arguing. She didn’t want a dinner date with the man whose touch still warmed her shoulder. And then there was Esmeralda.

  “Don’t think I’m up for dinner,” she told them. Chloe’s face fell. Aaron frowned.

  “But a few minutes ago—”

  “If you mean when Ross was here, I thought—” She bit back the rest of her statement. She’d been going to say that he’d been trying to make the other man leave. That she’d just been playing along. But what kind of conversation was that in front of a kid? Kids learned all about manipulation and adult gamesmanship too soon. And she could hardly say anything about Chloe’s counselor in front of her. She tapped her toe on the floor, cornered and not happy.

  Then she remembered their impromptu dinner, and Chloe slumbering peacefully on her couch, dead to the world, or any conversations adults might hold. Conversations, for example, about how another woman’s man would never hold any interest for her. At all.

  “Would you invite me to your place for dinner?”

  Luz asked Chloe, though, not her father. Chloe wouldn’t say no, and her father wouldn’t override her. Ha! The negotiating skills that endeared her to her former students without compromising her own agenda had finally resurfaced!

  “Uh—sure.” He hardly even hesitated. “Not sure what we have to feed you, but—”

  “Dad, we have tons of stuff—”

  “I’ll bring dinner.”

  They all spoke at once, stopped at the same time, and broke into laughter.

  “All that being said, shall we go?” Aaron asked.

  “You two run along. I’ll wrap things up and take a shower. I did run kids around on ponies all day in the heat.”

  “But—”

  “Now, would I leave you without food? Seriously, go so we won’t all die of hunger! Just tell me if there’s anything you hate?”

  “Chinese food!” Chloe’s face twisted. “Horrible stuff!”

  “Anything but Chinese,” Aaron agreed. “I like it, but someone here doesn’t care for it.”

  Luz shrugged off Chloe’s drama, and smiled at her. “Scram, kid. It’s my turn to surprise y’all.”

  Aaron looked like he wanted to try one more time to get her to go with them, but she shook him off and walked with them to the door.

  Aaron settled Chloe in the middle seat in her booster, and walked around to open his own door. Suddenly he stopped and leaned across the hood. “Don’t you need my address?” he called.

  She laughed. “Aaron Estes, this is Rose Creek! I knew your address the day you rented that place from the Thompsons! Go home!”

  Inside, she checked that the newly named Princess had food and water. The dog seemed fine, and she could go out the kitchen door if she needed to. Then Luz called the diner, which featured barbecue every Saturday night. She placed her order, throwing in a couple of their hot dogs just in case Chloe felt about barbecue the way she apparently felt about Chinese food.

  Humming, sh
e went to take a shower. It wasn’t until she was in the stall, letting the hot water pound the day’s activity away that she remembered Aaron and Chloe walking in to find Ross Thurmond sitting in her living room. Staring at her mother’s picture.

  Chapter Eight

  Chloe and Aaron liked barbecue. Watching them eat amused her. They truly must have been starving, from the amount both put away. She ate a respectable amount herself, but the idea was not to stuff herself and be unable to think coherently. She hoped that Chloe would decide on an early night, but the six-year-old dragged her into her bedroom to show off her collection of stuffed animals and action figures.

  Luz supposed the action figures fit right into the hate-princesses attitude Chloe professed, even if the dainty peach walls and prim white furniture didn’t. These were women from games and movies, apparently, warrior women with fashion doll figures but alarming weapons and sleek, tight-fitting, and strange outfits. She fingered one of the two or three she recognized. Catwoman. She and Lily had looked at one, once, in a toy store, when the little girl was five. Lily, however, had returned the hard plastic figurine to its place and asked for a baby doll instead.

  They went back to the living room, where Chloe plopped down on the floor and began coloring a book full of animal pictures.

  Aaron smiled and patted the couch. “Come sit a spell,” he offered.

  “You do not say things like that,” Luz noted, arching an eyebrow at him. “You’re just not Texan—not southern—enough.”

  “I resent that,” he protested, stretching. She didn’t think he was doing it on purpose, muscles stretching against taut fabric like that, but her throat went a little dry anyway. She sat down, not at the farthest end, and decided to watch Chloe color—a much safer pastime than watching Aaron do anything. Four years. Has it really been four years?

  She shifted a little, uncomfortable with the sheer, physical need slowly simmering through her, making it difficult to think of anything but his profile. The lips, tilting up slightly at the corners. And the muscles, stretching again as he leaned forward to retrieve the remote and change the channel.

  She thought she’d stifled her sigh until he turned his curious eyes on her. “You okay?”

  She managed a smile. “Fine. Just…achy.”

  “You put in a full day,” he said easily, and abruptly lifted his arm to cover a yawn. “Guess we all did.”

  Chloe rolled over and sat up. “Not me,” she declared. “I’m not even a teeny tiny bit tired.” Almost before she finished speaking, though, she yawned and dropped back to the floor.

  “Time for bed,” Aaron announced firmly, standing and smiling at Luz. “She doesn’t know her own limits, sometimes.”

  Luz wanted to side with Chloe, if for no other reason than to put off being alone with the little girl’s father for a little while longer. But Chloe looked tired, and Luz needed…she needed to talk to Aaron Estes. All those other needs clamoring for her attention—she’d beaten them back before. She could ignore those dimples and muscles and that occasional sideways smile and focus on the problem: he was Esmeralda Salinas’s man.

  So instead of defending Chloe’s pout and mumbled protest, she just smiled. “There’ll be other days, Chloe. Good night.”

  Chloe heaved an exaggerated sigh and pushed herself up. For a moment, Luz thought she might come over for a goodnight kiss, the way Lily always had. Pain bit into her, and she felt guilty but relieved when Chloe murmured “good night” and left.

  “I’ll be back in a minute or two. You don’t have to go yet, right?”

  “No, I’ll stay, Aaron. For a few minutes.”

  He followed his daughter out of the room, and Luz stood and walked around the room, massaging the base of her neck. She hadn’t done anything unusually hard today, so it was annoying that her whole body ached. Or burned.

  As she turned to go back and sit down, she bumped the end table she hadn’t even noticed, and glanced down. School papers covered the surface: a math worksheet, a journal entry with a sticker, a letter announcing a school-wide rally for the upcoming statewide assessments—signed by the school counselor. Esmeralda Salinas.

  The burning went away. The aching eased. She’d never suspected the existence of the other woman, when she’d been a naive wife clinging to her social-climbing husband and loving his little girl as if she’d been her own. She wouldn’t walk into a relationship with a man who was spoken for. Grimly, she decided against sitting at all, picked up her bag, and drew out the keys. Then she propped herself against the counter that separated the kitchen and dining areas, and waited.

  Aaron came through the door almost immediately, humming a snatch of a lullaby he must have been singing to his daughter.

  “That ‘I’m not tired girl’ is down and out,” he announced, then noticed her pose and purse and stopped, lifting his eyebrows.

  “I thought you were planning on staying a while.”

  She shrugged. “It’s time for me to go.”

  He didn’t say anything, just stood there, watching her, then walked toward her. She watched him come, wondering exactly what he thought he was doing.

  But he didn’t really do anything, just stopped inches away from her.

  “I got the distinct impression when you came here you wanted to talk,” he said after a minute, slowly, as if giving her a chance to deny it. “That you were waiting for Chloe to leave the room.”

  Busted.

  Almost as if he heard her thought, or saw the admission in her face, he reached out, brushed a strand of hair off her cheek, then caught the strap of her bag and slid it off her shoulder.

  “So, stay? A little longer?” He waved a hand at the kitchen table then nodded towards the living room and couch. “Dessert and something to drink, or we can go sit on the couch.”

  Or they could just stand here while she told him once and for all to quit asking her to dinner. Quit including her in Chloe’s plans as if she were more family than friend. Quit making me want you.

  Maybe just standing here wasn’t a good idea. Her legs might buckle and leave her sprawled on the floor. He’d reach down to help her up, the way he had when she’d fallen out of her bed. Naked.

  He leaned in and peered at her face. For a minute, his breath brushed her cheek. Then he drew back and grinned. The dimples flashed.

  “Private fantasies, Luz? I’m open to suggestions.”

  She pushed past him, going back to the living room, knowing he’d follow her. Then she turned to confront him. “You need to quit, Aaron!”

  Genuine confusion flickered across his face. “Quit? Quit what?”

  “Asking me to dinner. Flirting.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I won’t let Esme worry about my intentions, that’s why! I think the world of Chloe and I like you just fine, but it’s—it’s business, okay?”

  Aaron just stared at her for a moment. Then he laughed. Laughed!

  “Just what is so funny?” she sputtered indignantly.

  “Business, Luz? You won’t even let me pay for Chloe’s riding, and you bring me food, and you claim I was flirting, and suddenly—we have a business relationship?” He chuckled again, his eyes sparkling with his amusement.

  “Quit giggling!” she muttered.

  “So, first I flirt and now I giggle—” He shook his head. “Just cruel, Luz. Give a man a little credit!”

  Luz glared at him a minute longer, then shrugged. “Okay. I’ve said what I needed to, anyway.”

  “No. You really didn’t say anything. Not anything that made sense.” He reached out and caught her hand. “Look, come sit down. You might be able to run around rings and feed animals and people all day, but I get worn out just watching.”

  She frowned, but he didn’t notice, so she sat down and watched as he disappeared into the kitchen, clinking around for a minute or two, and then came back with two bowls of ice cream.

  “Here.”

  “Aaron—”

  “Add it to my bill when you
run the totals for this business relationship,” he teased, and waved at her with a spoon of ice cream. “Eat your ice cream.”

  Luz didn’t argue; the chocolate almond mound in the bowl, already melting around the edges, looked heavenly. She finished before he did, and went to rinse her bowl out. She stood for a moment at the sink, staring out into the darkness. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had actual human companionship this late, and loneliness seldom bothered her. But sharing ice cream with Aaron didn’t bother her much, either. Annoyed at herself, she stalked back to the couch. Aaron finished and set his bowl aside, then locked his hands behind his head.

  “So, you were saying?”

  “Aaron, Esmeralda—”

  “Is Chloe’s counselor, Luz. That’s all.”

  “No. You date. We ran into each other.”

  When Luz didn’t sit back down, he stood, too, bringing him closer. She wished he’d stayed there, farther away.

  “That wasn’t a date, exactly.” He held up a hand. “She invited me to dinner to talk about Chloe, and—she said—to find out if there were any behaviors she needed to deal with.” He rubbed a hand across his neck and flexed his shoulders. “She didn’t exactly follow through on that end.” He hesitated. “Luz, from what little I know about you, I know your marriage ended because some ass of a man cheated on you. I’ve got no reason to lie to you—I’m not that big a jerk. Esme might have decided to turn it into a date, but she and I aren’t involved.” He paused, as if thinking back to their encounter at the diner, and grinned a little. “In fact, I asked her if you could join us. She didn’t much like that idea!”

  Luz laughed. “That I believe! But it doesn’t matter, Aaron. She’s decided that you’re hers. And I learned the hard way—I don’t fight over men.” He started to say something, but she held up a hand, stopping him. “Aaron, even if you don’t think you’re interested in Esme—I just don’t need the hassle of someone coming after me out of jealousy or—or whatever. Chloe can ride. You can come over when she does. But other than that—”