Desperado

by Sandra Hill

  The door opened abruptly, and his sister Inez rushed in, without knocking. “I heard about Ramon. I’m going with you.”

  “Absolutely not!”

  He tried shoving her to the side, but she wouldn’t budge. In fact, she shoved back. Inez was of medium height, with coal-black hair and dark, glittering eyes. A petite fireball.

  “I’ve already made my reservation on the same flight as yours. So, listen up, brother. I’m going, whether you want me or not.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  She told him something vulgar he could do to himself, and Phyllis and Lorenzo cringed in the background. Inhaling deeply, she wagged a forefinger at him. “I’m a cop. He’s my brother, too. I’m going.”

  “You were supposed to be checking on Helen’s telephone number for me,” he accused. “How come everyone expects me to jump when they ask for a favor, but when I want something, it never gets done?”

  “Ramon is more important than locating one of your bimbos.”

  “Watch your mouth, little sister. That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

  Everyone in the room gasped. “Well, well. You can tell me all about this remarkable woman on the plane, bro. Besides, my partner is getting the information for you. It’ll be here when you get back.”

  With a shrug of surrender, he gave in, and Inez flashed him one of those million-dollar smiles of hers. The kind that had men banging at her door in herds. He wasn’t impressed; he knew how much it had cost.

  He had one last call to make. Going into his private office, he called Eduardo and gave him specific directions on how to reach a certain redwood tree and bring back a precious item he’d hidden there, wrapped in oilcloth. That done, he tried Antonio to see if he’d gotten Helen’s number, but all he reached was his brother’s answering machine.

  Within an hour of Ramon’s call, Rafe was out the door and headed for the airport with his nagging sister badgering him the whole way. Five hours later, he sat beside his brother in a drab Mexico prison cell. They were both under arrest.

  Inez was holed up in the local hotel running up his American Express bill. He hoped a few of the bills would be for telephone calls to bail them out.

  And all he could think was, Helen, where are you? I miss you, babe.

  Where was Rafe? . . .

  Helen had been drugged for two days.

  She’d been frantic when her memory returned and she’d learned that Rafe was being detained for interrogation, as if he’d done something wrong. “I want Rafe. I want Rafe,” she’d kept screaming. Only when her father had promised to get Rafe released had she sat down and stopped shrieking.

  “That soldier was responsible for almost killing you,” her father had seethed. “I’ll see him court-martialed.”

  “Helen, your father’s right,” Elliott had added. “He didn’t follow correct military procedure.”

  Both men had flinched when Helen told them what they could do with their “correct military procedure.”

  After setting her father and all the other brass straight, Helen had been examined by the base physician, who learned that she was pregnant. That had created a new flurry of arguments.

  First, she’d had to explain to Elliott that, of course, it wasn’t his child. They hadn’t had sex in months. He’d been on assignment overseas much of the time.

  After apologizing for her “infidelity,” which was difficult to do without disclosing details about the time travel, Helen had called off the wedding. Elliott had been surprisingly good about the whole thing, wanting to know what he could do to help her. Elliott was a good man.

  Her father hadn’t been so understanding. Not about her breaking the engagement. Not about her involvement with “that rogue lawyer.” Not about her pregnancy. Not about her plans to leave the military. In fact, nothing she’d said set well with him.

  Helen hadn’t cared. Rafe was the most important thing.

  When Helen had begun raging at her father again, demanding to be taken to Rafe, her father had signaled the doctor and they’d given her a sedative, one that was safe for pregnant women. She hadn’t awakened for two days.

  Now, a week later, Helen was finding it impossible to make contact with Rafe. Oh, it wasn’t that she couldn’t locate him. She had his office number in L.A., which she’d called repeatedly. Most times, she just got Rafe’s answering machine, but sometimes Lorenzo answered. “He is still in Mexico, Miss Prescott. That’s all I know. Would you like to leave a message?”

  Helen had a feeling that Lorenzo wasn’t writing any of her messages down, or that they weren’t being transmitted to Rafe. Why else wouldn’t he call her?

  The louse! The two-timing louse! . . .

  “I know why he hasn’t called you,” her father told her three weeks later.

  “You do?” Helen looked up hopefully. She’d been kneeling on the floor, sorting through boxes that had been sent to her father’s house. They represented all the belongings she’d accumulated over twelve years in the military. She stood now, waiting.

  “Honey, I don’t want you hurt,” he said softly. “Really, I just want you to put this man behind you. You’re too good for him.”

  “Tell me,” she said icily.

  He handed her a newspaper clipping from a Mexican-American newspaper out of L.A. It was a photo of Rafe. A different Rafe than the one she knew. Dressed in a business suit. The power lawyer. He was boarding an airplane. A gorgeous, dark-haired woman stood next to him. He had his arm looped over her shoulder, protecting her from the cameras.

  Her heart froze in that instant and she couldn’t breathe. “What . . . what does the caption say?”

  Her father cleared his throat. “It’s dated the day after your skydiving accident. The article says that Rafael Santiago, well-known Hispanic attorney from Los Angeles, is off for a trip to Mexico. And it mentions that he is a hero from a recent military operation and is being considered for a medal.”

  The words didn’t matter. It was the picture of the couple that tore at her heart.

  He hadn’t loved her, after all. To him, their lovemaking had been an interlude, a brief affair. Even the marriage had been a sham.

  She handed the clipping back to her father. She almost hated him for bringing this news. With a control she’d cultivated over the years, she refused to give in to tears. Later, she would assimilate this betrayal, but not now. Not in front of her father.

  “And that’s not all, Helen.”

  She flinched. She wasn’t sure she could take any more.

  He showed her another clipping, this from a tabloid. A young man identified as Eduardo Santiago was holding a huge gold nugget that he claimed his brother had found in a redwood tree the day he’d been involved in a skydiving accident in the California mountains.

  So, Rafe hid his precious nugget, after all. And he found time to go to Rich Bar to his gold, but no time for me.

  Her father held out his arms to comfort her, but she ducked away. “Not now, Daddy. Maybe later I’ll forgive you for this. But not now.”

  “Helen!” he called out as she walked stiffly from the room. “Where are you going?”

  “To begin a new life for myself,” she whispered, slipping the gold band off her finger.

  So what if her marriage was on the rebound! . . .

  In early December, three months from the time of the ill-fated skydiving accident, Helen was putting up Christmas decorations in the townhouse she’d purchased for herself outside Sacramento. Not exactly the little house with the white picket fence she’d always dreamed of, but she was happy with her new life. Well, not exactly happy, but content.

  After her father’s disclosures, Helen had cried for days on end in the seclusion of her apartment. Then the anger had set in. How dare Rafe do this to her? The jerk! Soon after that, she’d grown determined. She had a baby to consider, and Rafe wasn’t good enough for her—just as her father had said.

  She was painting again, taking it one day at a time, and moving on with he
r life. Oh, she wouldn’t deny that Rafe was on her mind still, but she was getting better about the crying bouts.

  “Where do you want this one?” Elliott asked, holding up an angel ornament near the tree. It was from a box of heirloom decorations handed down from her mother.

  An angel! She started to tell Elliott to put it away, but stopped. “Anywhere. In the back. I never liked that one much.”

  “Oh.” He looked at her with concern. Laying the box aside, he stepped up, taking her by the forearms. “Are you having second thoughts about the wedding, darling? New Year’s Eve is almost a month away. There’s still time to cancel if you’re not sure.”

  She shook her head. “No, but I’m troubled that you’re getting the short end of the stick. I care for you deeply, Elliott, but you know I’m not in love with you. I’m doing this for my own selfish reasons . . . for the baby.” She put a palm protectively over her still-flat stomach.

  “I love you enough for both of us, sweetheart, and I’m convinced you’ll grow to love me, too.” He hugged her warmly, and Helen almost wept with yearning for another man’s arms. Why couldn’t she feel the same passion for Elliott that she had for Rafe? Why? It just wasn’t fair.

  Elliott pulled away slightly and worried his bottom lip with his teeth. “Will you tell the father—Rafe—about the baby?”

  “Someday. Not now.”

  He frowned.

  “You disagree?”

  “He has a right to know.”

  She nodded. “Even if I wanted to, I haven’t had any luck locating him.”

  “You haven’t tried in two months,” he pointed out, then added, “Have you?”

  “No, I haven’t.” She kissed him lightly on the lips, seeing his jealousy. “And I do love you, Elliott. Someday, I hope to be ‘in love’ with you, as well.”

  “C’mon, let’s finish decorating this tree,” he said in a choked-up voice, squeezing her to his side.

  But all Helen could see was the blasted angel peeking out from the boughs at the back of the tree.

  Finally, he got out of the slammer . . .

  Three months after surviving an amazing skydiving accident, Rafael Santiago survived imprisonment in a Mexican jail. The latter had been the scarier event.

  Twenty pounds thinner, bearded and long-haired, Rafe walked out to the waiting car, driven by his sister Inez. Ramon hurried to catch up.

  “I don’t see why you’re so mad at me,” his brother said. “Everything turned out okay. We’re free. Big deal!”

  Rafe turned slowly, set his briefcase on the ground, and punched his youngest brother in the jaw. Ramon fell to the ground with a thud.

  “That woman has driven you crazy,” Ramon yelled after him.

  “No, you and my family have driven me crazy,” he raged, slipping behind the wheel and shoving Inez over to the passenger side. As they pulled away from the curb with Ramon barely making it into the back seat, he demanded, “Where’s the telephone number?”

  “Now? You want it now?” she asked incredulously.

  “I want it right now,” he gritted out.

  She rummaged in her purse, where he noticed at least a dozen American Express receipts, and finally handed him a scrap of paper. “Here. She’s living outside Sacramento now. Bought a townhouse. Here’s your cell phone.”

  Before she had a chance to say more, Rafe swerved the car over to a skidding halt at the side of the road.

  “I told you, Inez. He’s nuts. I been listening to him talk about this chick twenty-four hours a day for three whole months.”

  “Screw you, Ramon,” Rafe said and jumped from the car.

  Rafe’s hands trembled as he tapped in her member.

  It stopped on the third ring. “Hello.”

  “Helen?” He felt as if his heart was lodged in his throat. “Is that you, babe?”

  There was a gasp, followed by a throbbing silence.

  Then he heard the dial tone.

  At first, he just stared at the phone, blinking with confusion. Then he stomped back to the car and turned angrily on Inez. “What the hell is going on?”

  Inez and Ramon exchanged significant looks. Apparently, they’d been talking while he was at the phone. “Tell me,” he yelled, and Inez jumped.

  “She’s getting married.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Sometimes love is not enough . . .

  Helen was not at all surprised to hear a pounding on her door at midnight. Nor was she surprised to look through the security peephole and see Rafael Santiago standing on her doorstep.

  But she was shocked when he stepped inside—an angry, pacing animal who looked as if he’d as soon tear her limb from limb as crush her in his embrace. She ducked the arms that reached out for her. And he did, indeed, growl.

  “Rafe, what happened to you?” She wasn’t talking about his hurtful absence from her life for three long months. His hair reached down to the shoulders of a rumpled, dark business suit. A months’ old beard covered his face. He’d lost a lot of weight.

  Despite all that, he looked wonderful to her. He was still Rafe. And she knew in that instant that growing to love Elliott was going to take a long, long time. Because learning not to love Rafe was going to take a long, long time.

  Quickly, she put the sofa between them, fearing her crumbling defenses. She had to be strong. Elliott had wanted to stay after Rafe’s call, but she’d declined the offer. This was something she had to handle herself.

  He just stared at her, alternately hungry and ferociously furious, and paced, taking in all the aspects of her new home. Touching objects. Watching her.

  The room was dim and cozy from the single lit lamp. Too intimate a setting for what she had to say. She flicked on the Christmas tree and the blinking colored lights went into full action.

  Rafe blinked as if disoriented. “For a second—” he swallowed hard—“for a second, the colored lights reminded me of Zeb’s colored-bottle windows. When the sunlight came through. Like a stained-glass window.”

  He remembers the time travel, too.

  Shaking his head as if to rid it of unwelcome thoughts, he turned his steady, questioning gaze on her. Hurt and longing lay naked in the depths of his burning eyes.

  He’s hurt? How dare he be hurt? I’m the one who was crushed here. She had to pull herself together. Glancing down, picking nervously at the nubby fabric on her sofa, she asked, “Have you been ill, Rafe? I had heard you were in Mexico. I assumed you were vacationing. Especially after reading about your gold nugget.”

  He made a snorting noise of disgust. “You assume too damn much.” He threw the words at her, like stones, then added with a tired sigh, “You always did.” He shot her a look of searing condemnation.

  He’s condemning me? “Let’s cut to the chase here, Rafe. It’s midnight. I’m tired. You look like you could use a blood transfusion. I haven’t heard from you for three months. Where the hell have you been?”

  “Prison.”

  She staggered under that unexpected answer, thankful for the support of the sofa.

  “Why?”

  “My brother, Ramon, screwed up, and landed us—” he waved a hand dismissively—“it doesn’t matter why. You and I have more important things to discuss.” Suddenly, all the anger left his face and he held his arms out for her. “Come here, Helen. I missed you so much.”

  A whimpering sound of distress escaped her lips before she pressed them firmly.

  When he saw that she wasn’t coming to him, an icy shield came over Rafe’s vulnerable eyes, and he sank into a chair. “So, it’s true. You really are going to marry Colonel Sanders.”

  She didn’t bother to correct the name. “Yes, Elliott and I are going to be married. On New Year’s Eve.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? What kind of question is that?”

  “Do you love him?”

  She should have said yes, but the word lodged in her tight throat. “You have no right to interrogate me.”

  “I ha
ve every right.”

  Angry herself now, she went to the desk and pulled out two newspaper clippings. She threw them in his lap. “You lost the right with these.”

  He studied the two articles. At the picture of his brother holding up the gold nugget, Rafe cursed under his breath, “Stupid idiot,” but at the picture of him with the woman, he just shook his head in confusion. “So?” he snapped.

  “So? I’ll tell you ‘so.’ You couldn’t wait to get back and get your precious gold, could you? No concern for me, or my safety, or all the . . . all the love you claimed to have for me.” Helen had to stop and inhale deeply. Her voice was unsteady with emotion. “And the other . . . Well, you two-timing bastard . . . you couldn’t wait to find another piece of tail, could you? That’s all I was to you. A little diversion.”

  “Are you done?” he seethed, standing and heading toward her with feral intent. “That woman you’re calling a piece of tail is my sister Inez.”

  She gasped. “It is?”

  “Yeah, babe, it is. And Inez would strangle you for the insult. However, I get first dibs.”

  He moved closer.

  She eased herself around the sofa toward the hall, turning on a light behind her.

  “You thought I wanted another woman, Prissy? How could you? I told you I would love you forever.”

  She put the back of her hand to her mouth to muffle a cry.

  He moved several steps closer.

  She moved several steps backward.

  “What about the gold? It’s always money with you, Rafe. More important than anything. Even . . .”

  “Even you? Is that what you think?”

  She nodded. “Why didn’t you call?” she asked weakly.

  “I couldn’t. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

  “Things changed.”

  “What things?”

  “Rafe, please, don’t make this harder than it already is. I was hurt, at first, by your betrayal, but—”

  “Betrayal? You thought I’d betrayed you?”

  He’d backed her against the wall with an arm braced on either side of her head. His face was lowering toward hers. So close. She yearned to lean up into the impending kiss. She couldn’t. Instead she moaned.