by Aitana Moore
"Tell her—"
"No, Lee, you'll tell her yourself."
"James, please. You won't make it if you try to carry me!"
"I've told you, I never controlled my temper, but I did well at the stamina type of thing. I’m used to surviving in places like this. We'll make it."
There was a small tear at the corner of her eye; she probably had no water left in her body for more than that. "You will, but I—"
"We're on our way out of this." He motioned ahead with his chin and lied, "It's just there, just beyond that part."
"James, you have to make it. I didn't mean to put you in this trouble."
"Don’t be so polite. You didn't put me anywhere, and there is no sense in my making it without you."
"Why?"
He hesitated, looking at her flushed face. "Because you're the best person I know, Lee. The best I've ever known. And the best should always make it, or the world is just a fucking toilet."
Her chest shook as she laughed and mouthed. "Toilet ..."
"You'll be in a hospital soon," he said, "they'll take care of your knee, and we'll call your sister together. Then I will have the Aguirres' guts for garters for ever having touched you, or any other girl. But especially you."
Lee managed to smile again. "I know you'll do that."
"Don't you want to be there to see it?" He stood, holding her. "No more talk of dying."
Lee was too tired to protest anymore. She let her head fall on his shoulder and closed her eyes.
In the afternoon, the sun beat down on them like a hammer, even if it was winter. As James walked, he could hear the rattlesnakes; there must be dozens of them, but if they didn't chance upon one on the path, they wouldn't be attacked. There were bloated lizards standing motionless, looking ready to explode.
The sun was a pale iris hiding behind red rocks, and clouds like spaceships raced across the hard sky. The desert had turned all shades between yellow and brown, and the hills in the distance had become dark blue.
Lee’s breath was faint, and her calf and foot more swollen than before. Her head still lay against his neck, and her hand on his chest.
James walked and carried Lee, and it would have been good to know that Arizona was just round the next bend, and that she would be saved. When the big rocks ended he felt hopeful, but there was just more land stretching out in front of them. He walked knowing that it was wrong to hope there should be justice in the world, and that a woman who had cared about the life of another shouldn't die for it. Such things happened all the time to the best people.
The Maasai had believed in Engai Narok, the black god who was good, and Engai Na-niokle, the cruel red god. You had to be careful what you asked for, as you never knew whose attention you were going to get. Engai Narok could give you good things, and Engai Na-niokle could take all you had in a second.
But even if there were no justice, a woman like Lee shouldn't be dying in his arms. James thought of Lee as a child, of her probable poverty, of the bad things she must have suffered to make her lie and steal to survive. He thought of how clever she must have been; how resourceful she must have been to survive whatever had made her run away, to take care of her sister, to fool men who were rich.
She had always done everything alone.
“Come on, darling,” he said out loud, without looking at her. “Stay with me. You are my darling. You are.”
He thought of her as she ran up the stairs of his house in Condesa and into his bedroom. The desire to be happy had been written all over her face; the belief that on that day, meeting him, she would be happy. She was so brave, but she was scared of happiness; yet it was still possible.
There was no justice in this, that a woman with so much love in her should die a few miles away from redemption.
No, it wouldn't happen, not while his legs could walk, and his arms could carry her.
James walked, and he was tired, he was in pain, he was hungry and thirsty, but he knew they were close to the border; he knew it. If he had been more successful at training his body than his mind, it had been for this. It had been to save Lee. All the training, all the meditations, all the physical agony, all the boiling days hunting in the desert: it had all been for this.
As he walked, he thought of Lee as part of himself, just as his arms or his head were. She weighed no more than them and was no greater burden. The ground beneath his feet was also part of him, as was the sky above his head. Everything was good, everything was the same, everything helped him forward. Nothing held him back.
He forgot that he was walking and must have fallen asleep on his feet at some point. He felt knuckles rapping sharply on his head and laughed: it was his training, telling him to be aware.
He walked, and he felt no more pain.
James was a stubborn man. He wouldn't stop walking — and he would never leave Lee behind.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ahead, there were dust devils — or was it dust being raised by cars?
The harsh sound of wheels against sand and gravel made James curse under his breath. Patrol cars were riding their way. Had he doubled back and gone the wrong way, and were they in Sonora again?
He was sure he hadn't. He couldn't have.
Instinctively he moved his arm so that Lee's head wouldn't hang over the emptiness. He wanted it to lie against his neck, as it had done for a while. He hadn't looked at her in a long time because he hadn't needed to know anything; he had needed to believe.
The cars came to a halt, and two big men with red faces came out, their hands hovering over their guns. James could only imagine what he and Lee looked like to them.
"Sir, we need you to stay where you are," one of them said in American English. "Are you all right? Where have you come from?"
Swallowing hard, James managed to say, "We've come out of the desert. Where are we?"
"You're in Arizona, sir, in the United States of America."
It was annoying that the man should add "of America." He had some notion of geography.
"I'm a British citizen. My passport is in my back pocket. She's American."
He finally fell to his knees, still holding Lee, and the two men, as well as others that climbed out of the SUVs, ran toward them.
"She needs help," James said, and his voice cracked as he added, "She's dying."
James let the men take Lee from his arms; he let them help him stand up and walk to one of the cars. They made soothing noises and gave him assurances: they would be driving to a hospital now, Lee would be treated, everything would be all right.
He got into the back seat where they had put Lee and pulled her toward him.
"We've made it, my darling," he said with his lips against her hair. "We've made it."
TWENTY-EIGHT
"Darling."
"It's a good word," Lee whispered.
James' lips were on her face, her cheeks, her lips. "Open your eyes."
"No, I like it like this ..."
She wrapped her legs around him, keeping her eyes closed. Sometimes it was too much to look at him. She let him look at her; he felt so good.
"It's complicated," she whispered.
He moved, his tongue teasing hers. "It's really simple."
They had been in that bed for a long time and she never wanted to leave it — but when he leapt out and opened the windows, the sky was silver blue, and the sea sparkled more than diamonds.
Smiling, James looked back at her, opened the door and ran outside. She ran after him — and past him. She could hear him laughing; he was almost catching her. Her legs were long, and her feet barely touched the sand as she ran.
She reached the water first and dived in. They had so longed for water in the desert that she would never forget what a wonderful thing it was. Even salty water that you could not drink was life.
His head emerged next to hers and they laughed. Paradise must have been like this. What else would there have been for a man and a woman to do but make love, jump in a sea that sparkled,
eat fish and fruit?
How could an apple have spoiled such happiness?
Tell me what's forbidden and I'll never do it, so we can always be this happy.
James kissed her again and put his cheek against hers as they looked at the sea. The water went on and on, still as a lake, till it met the sky.
But he broke away and dived; she followed. Lee marveled at the life under the surface, at the purple coral fans swaying as the sand formed shapes. There were gentle turtles and colorful parrot fish, squid flying in formation, and barracuda quietly watching her.
She found it hard to follow James all the way to the bottom of the water, but if he wanted to show her something — a cuttlefish hiding under a rock or a nurse shark sleeping — he would pull her down with him. But now he was swimming away without looking back at her. She moved her hands and arms, trying to get his attention.
Come and get me! I want to see what you're seeing.
He swam so fast.
Lee took a deep breath and slowly expelled the air from her lips so that she would sink. James had disappeared amidst a coral garden ahead. Her lungs began to hurt a little. Soon she would have to go up. But where was he? The water was so clear, she would have seen him if he were right ahead. How could he be gone?
If she stuck her head out of the sea, she would no longer find him.
Something like a sob escaped her; why did she feel so desolate, as if he were gone forever? What a terrible ache, to think that he might be gone, and that she wouldn't find him again.
The corals around her swirled, lay flat or curved like big heads. There were rocks too, and underneath them unblinking yellow eyes followed her. A movement made her turn — a black and white snake, sinuous and quick, moved away from her and toward James.
"James!" she cried underwater.
A bubble left her lips and returned to enter her throat. She couldn't breathe, and there was a lot of water above her. She needed to reach the surface.
It's too far up!
There was a platform floating there, if only she could reach it. She needed to get her breath back and find James. He was in danger!
She swam, but her lungs hurt, and she wasn't going to make it. The water was clear, and the sky seemed so close — but it wasn’t.
Yet James was already outside, looking down. He was smiling; he hadn't been hurt. He was just waiting for her.
Lee shook her head. She wasn't going to make it. She was running out of air.
The water moved, and his body entered halfway into the sea, hanging from the platform. His arms reached for her.
Take my hand, he must be saying. She stretched but couldn't grasp it. Lee closed her eyes and began to sink.
The grip on her wrists was sudden and strong, and she was pulled up, up, up. She was pulled up, out of the water and into the sun. She took a raucous breath.
"Open your eyes, my heart," he said, his face against hers.
She did.
TWENTY-NINE
"Open your eyes, my heart," James said.
She did, and in the bright light of the hospital her eyes were clear and green as spring.
James smiled. "There you are.”
Lee blinked a few times, her throat moving, and said in a low, raspy voice, "There you are."
He laughed out loud and stole a kiss from her before he went to get the nurse.
The doctors came, examined her and pronounced her vitals stable. She was a miracle, but he had known that.
Lying next to her as she rested, he thought of her being whisked away on a gurney as soon as they arrived at the hospital. He had found the strength to push away doctors and nurses bent on taking him somewhere else to see to his own dehydration.
“I’m not budging,” he had said as he took a seat outside the operating room where Lee had disappeared.
A doctor said, “You’re not allowed to—”
“What are you going to do about it?”
He must have looked insane with dust coating him from head to foot and a sunburn. But perhaps the knowledge — whispered by the border guards who had driven them there — that he had carried a woman in the desert for two days had stopped the medical staff from calling security, or from trying to remove him.
It wasn’t easy for the Americans to make exceptions, but they would have had to manhandle him to get him out; the hospital was small, and maybe they weren’t as concerned by lawsuits as other places might be. The nurses brought him an IV, tended to his burns, blisters and cuts and left him alone, until a doctor emerged from the operating room and joined him.
“She has renal and splenic lacerations and three of her lower left ribs were fractured.”
James stood. “Does she have to be taken somewhere else?”
“We can deal with all that and we shouldn’t waste time.”
“But?”
"About the leg — are you her next of kin?"
"How bad is it?"
"We don't know. We are trying to save it, but if it doesn't work—"
"It will work," James said.
"I need options here," the doctor insisted.
“Her body will rally. Save the leg and save her.”
Strange that he had been so calm, so sure that Lee would make it when he didn’t believe in fate or any divine agency. Some people got close to being saved only to die, but it wouldn't happen to her. She had gone through so much pain in that desert; worse than he had even imagined. Lee was strong, and she wanted to live for Cora. Perhaps for him.
But it had been touch-and-go for a while. Staff had run in and out of the operating room, bumping doors open with their shoulders, and James had waited in absolute stillness for them to do their job.
When the door opened again, the doctor took off a cap soaked in sweat and smiled. Lee had undergone five hours of surgery and had needed a generous blood transfusion, but she had survived. That night would be crucial, but James had managed to sit by her side in the small ICU, holding her hand and whispering for her not to go anywhere.
Hers were the most luminous eyes he had ever seen, and she opened them again now, or half opened them as she lay in the crook of his arm. She wasn’t meant to speak, but she wanted to know whether he had sent anyone after the Aguirres.
While she rested, he had apprised Pete of what had happened. The attempted murder of a renowned British citizen had become an international scandal in half a day, and the Prime Minister himself had contacted Washington and Mexico City. An investigation would, nevertheless, have moved at a much slower pace than James would have liked, leaving time for the Aguirres to close ranks and mount a defense.
So James had called Miguel.
"It's like this," he had said, pacing the corridor of the hospital, "Give up your father and claim insanity for him. Give up your son and don't try to claim the same. I won’t allow him to be out in the streets through some ruse of your lawyers. Do this, and you won't get hit by the shitload of bricks I'm otherwise prepared to drop on you. The woman you know as Ashley is with me — and people will listen to me. At the very least, there won’t be any point to all your money, because I swear your reputation won’t be worth fuck anywhere in this world.”
Miguel Aguirre was an intelligent man, and James had counted on that. That morning he had turned in both his father and his son, displaying disbelief, horror and grief at the crimes.
"They get away with it?" Lee mouthed.
"David is going to stay in jail for serial murders, and Eduardo in a loony bin. If we don’t let Miguel and Paloma off, we risk losing that.” James took her hand. "You stopped the murders, and you got justice for those girls. There are other girls who will be safe because of you."
After a moment, Lee nodded. She knew as well as he that not too far in the future they would see the announcement of Diego's betrothal on the internet, or in some newspaper. David was the monster, but Diego was all that was left of the family now. His secret would stay buried, like the girls in the desert.
"I suppose the ties that bind
us the closest aren't always kind," James said. "Which doesn't mean they aren't strong."
Lee’s gaze seemed lost. He had spoken of close ties, and she was home — where she hadn’t wanted to be.
“It’s a problem, isn’t it?” he asked. “Coming here.”
She raised her right hand with difficulty, as it had a needle stuck in it, and touched a fingertip on her left hand.
“You want to know if they took your fingerprints?”
Slowly, she nodded.
“Not yet. The doctors wouldn’t let them, and I wouldn’t either. But you have no documents, so they’ll do that soon.”
Her eyes went to the door. She was thinking of running away.
“What is it, Lee?” he turned her face up to his. “Is it very bad, what they’ll find?”
She seemed to sigh before she mouthed, “No.”
“Promise?”
She nodded.
“Well, then we’ll face whatever comes together. Let’s end the problem, once and for all. People you’ve robbed can be pacified, you know, with enough money. And I don’t care about scandal.” He bent his head to kiss her lips. “Time to stop running.”
Smiling, she managed to caress his cheek. “Yes,” she said, and this time he heard her voice.
We hope you’ve enjoyed Lives Undone.
Lesser Crimes, the last book of the trilogy, is on Amazon!
Lesser Crimes is Lee’s story. She will have to face the mysteries in her past — but this time she’s not alone …
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Other books by the same author:
Historical romance as Lara Blunte:
The Last Earl
