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Talk about playing with fire. He was smarter than that—or so he kept trying to tell himself.
She said, “You mentioned that your brother was your business manager?”
“Cormac. Yes.” He braced a hand on the doorframe a few inches from her head, much too close to all that glorious gold-shot dark hair.
“Will Cormac be coming down here soon—I mean, if the negotiations continue?”
“Yes, he will. Next week.”
“And you’ll both stay here, at Caleb’s?”
“No, we have a suite reserved at the Hilton—the one on the River Walk? Caleb and Irina have been great, but I don’t want to take advantage of them.”
“They have plenty of room. I think they’d love to have you and Cormac stay with them.”
“That’s what they said, too. But no. The Hilton will be perfect.”
“So…the negotiations are moving right along, then?”
“Absolutely.”
She slanted him a knowing look. “But you still won’t admit that it’s a done deal.”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll look forward to meeting Cormac.” She smiled—and there it was, that tempting dimple teasing him again, right there beside her way-too-kissable mouth.
It was his turn to say something. Anything. It didn’t really matter what the words were, he realized. Only that he spoke. And she answered. “I like your dad.”
“He likes you.” Her gaze slid to his mouth—and then swiftly lifted again so she was looking in his eyes.
A kiss, he was thinking. Just one. How wrong could it be to steal one little kiss?
True, it couldn’t go anywhere between them. But not everything had to go somewhere. It was such a simple, perfect moment. A beautiful woman, a whispered good-night.
A kiss. One kiss…
He went for it, stepping in a little closer, lowering his head.
She lifted hers.
Their lips met. Electric and tender.
He wanted to linger, to take her by the shoulders, pull her body close to his, to wrap his arms good and tight around her, to taste her more deeply.
To take his sweet time about it.
But he didn’t. That wouldn’t be right.
He lifted his head, whispered her name. “Elena…” It tasted so good in his mouth, as good as her lips had felt pressed to his, as good as the scent of her, sultry and sweet.
“Good night, Rogan.” She slipped away from him, opened the door and went out.
He followed, as if pulled by invisible strings, and stood on the porch to watch her run down the walk away from him, the high heels of her red sandals tapping briskly with each step. At her car, she circled around to the driver’s door, pausing when she got there to give him a last wave.
He lifted his hand, returned the gesture.
And then she was ducking inside. The engine started up. The car pulled away from the curb and rolled off down the street.
Rogan stood there on the front step after she was gone, thinking that he shouldn’t have kissed her.
Wishing he had kissed her again.
Chapter Three
That night, Elena dreamed of Rogan. Of kissing Rogan. Of being with him in some hazy, romantic place where they talked about everything, all through the night.
But when she woke in the morning, she couldn’t remember a single thing they’d said. All she knew was that she would see him again that afternoon.
She could not wait.
Eager for the day to come, she threw back the covers and headed for the shower. An hour later, she met her mother at church and they attended early mass together, took communion side-by-side. After mass, Elena suggested they share Easter breakfast.
But Luz only hugged her and said, “Not today, m’hija. Have a beautiful holiday….”
Elena almost told her then. I plan to. Mami, I’ve met someone. Someone so special…
But she didn’t. She hugged Luz a second time and they parted on the church steps.
At home, she made coffee and stared out the kitchen window while it brewed, thinking about Rogan, trying to make the all-important decision as to what to wear to Bravo Ridge that afternoon. The knock came at the front door as she was filling a cup.
She went to answer and found her dad, wearing a white dress shirt and dark trousers, holding a bakery box. “I stopped in at El Mercado.”
Laughing with pleasure at the sight of him, she took his arm and pulled him inside. “Just in time. I have the coffee ready.”
She filled two cups, got out the milk and sugar and they sat at her kitchen table and ate cuernos de azúcar—Mexican croissants dusted with sugar—and lemon-filled empanadas.
“More coffee?” she asked.
At his nod, she got up and poured them both another cup and then carried the pot back to the warming ring.
When she returned to the table and slid into her seat, he reached out and laid his hand on her arm. “Elena…” All at once, his eyes were so serious, the set of his mouth way too grim.
A panicked tightness squeezed her throat. She gulped. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He patted her arm. “Please. Don’t be afraid. It’s nothing so terrible.” A sad laugh escaped him. He withdrew his hand. “Or at least, it’s nothing you don’t already know about.”
She remembered her mother’s refusal to have breakfast with her. Not today, m’hija, Luz had said, but nothing about why not. “Mom knows you’re here?”
He gave a slow nod. “She told me that she spoke with you, about the ways we are working to have peace in our family, at last.” He looked so uncomfortable. She ached for him.
“Dad, we don’t have to talk about this.”
“Ah. But I think we do. I want you to understand….” He seemed unsure how to continue.
She made a sound of encouragement. “What? Tell me.”
He sipped from his cup, set it down with a tired sigh. “Most of the time I was a good husband to your mother. But not always.”
“Yes. I know. It was bad, that you hit her.”
“It was worse than bad. It was not acceptable. She betrayed me. She lied to me. And that hurt me deeply. But striking her was no answer to my pain. She had never—ever—done any violence to me.”
Softly, she confessed, “Mami said you’ve been seeing a counselor.”
He nodded again. “To try to…understand myself a little better, to face all the ways I have lied to myself over the years. To look honestly into my own heart, to face the darkness there.”
An outraged sound escaped her and tears stung her eyes. “Darkness? What are you talking about? Why do you have to make yourself the bad guy in this? You’re not. No way.”
“Elena,” he said so gently. “No llores. Don’t cry…” He touched her arm again.
She grabbed for his hand, held it tight between both of hers. “Sorry.” She sniffed, blinked away the moisture. “So sorry…”
“There is nothing for you to be sorry about. Know that. Believe that.”
She nodded eagerly, clutched his hand tighter. “Yes. I do. I know it. But I seem to have…oh, I don’t know, a lot of heat on this whole subject, I guess you could say.”
“It’s not surprising. What happened has hurt you. I hurt you, by turning my back on you when I first learned that you weren’t my blood child.”
“That’s all in the past. We got through it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Javier insisted, “It does matter.”
“Papi. I understood. I really did.”
He said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed. “You are my daughter,” he said. “In all the ways that really matter.”
She knew it already. Still, it felt so good to hear him say it out loud. She bit her lip, swallowed back a fresh flood of tears and leaned across the distance between them to press a kiss on his lined cheek.
He touched the side of her face, a tender caress. “You still blame your mother.”
She sank back to her own chair, wanting to argue. But no. He was right.
He said, “You don’t know how I was, how angry and bitter, when she went to work for Davis Bravo. No, she shouldn’t have done what she did in betraying our marriage vows—and with my sworn, lifelong enemy, too. But I do see my part in it now. In some ways, time and growing older can be a man’s best friend. He learns to see more clearly. And I see that I drove her away. I was angry, so angry—at the Bravos, for taking our land, taking everything. For the death of my father, which I blamed on James Bravo, though it was my father who broke into the Bravo ranch house with murder on his mind. It’s not so hard now, to see that James Bravo had to protect himself and his family when he killed my father.
“And even more than for my father’s death, I was angry for…selfish reasons. For my idea of myself, as a man. I was angry because your mother and I had no babies, while my enemy had so many. I never hit your mother then, all those years ago. But I was cruel to her. I said hard things, things that hurt her. I called her barren. I said she was…no good, as a woman. I didn’t want to face that the problem might lie with me….”
Elena’s hand shook as she picked up her cup and took a slow sip. She knew he wasn’t finished.
He went on, “And then she took that job working for Davis. I left her then. And Davis was kind to her. And he had his own problems at the time, he and Aleta. They…took comfort in each other, your mother and Davis. And both of them regretted what they did as soon as they had done it. Your mother left that job with him and she and I reunited. I was the happiest man alive the day she told me that she was going to have a baby—have you. And we were happy. So happy. Together.”
Elena longed to argue that it wasn’t right. It was all based on a lie. But what good would that do? Her mother’s lie had been found out in time. In the end, they had all paid the price for it.
She turned away as she muttered bleakly, “Mom says you and Davis have made peace with each other.”
“We have, yes,” her father said. “We will never be friends. But I think we understand each other now. There can be true peace between us now. After all, we share two daughters….”
She took his meaning. Mercy was Davis’s daughter-in-law. And she, Elena, was his…
Not his daughter. No. She refused to even let herself think it. “Next, you’ll be telling me you want me to get to know him better.” Her voice was tinged with bitterness and she felt only slightly bad about that.
Her dad just smiled. “No. I will give you no advice when it comes to Davis Bravo.”
“Whew. Thank you.”
“But I will say that if you decide you want to meet with him, to talk with him, to find your way to some kind of closeness with him, I will be pleased for you.”
She gazed at him, disbelieving. “You’re not serious.”
“Ah, but I am. I told you, I see things much more clearly now. Don’t deny your blood father for my sake. There is no law that says you can’t have two fathers. The fact is you do have two fathers.” She opened her mouth to deny it, but he stopped her words with a look. “I’m not telling you what to do, m’hija. I’m only saying, if you hold back from knowing Davis, let it be by your own choice. Don’t lay the blame on me.” He picked up his coffee and took a thoughtful sip.
She was thinking about her mom again. “You know, it’s true what you said a few minutes ago. I love Mom. But I do blame her the most, I think, for everything that happened. She cheated and she lied. She lied every day for over twenty years.”
“M’hija.” With care, her father set down his cup. “Your mother knew me. She knew me so well. If she had told me the truth all those years ago, that she had been with Davis, that the baby—that you were Davis’s blood and not mine…my anger was so deep then. You can’t know how deep. I would have hurt her. And I would have gone after Davis. I might have killed him then, or someone close to him.”
“No!” She didn’t believe that.
He met her gaze steadily. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. Consider what did happen three years ago. I hit your mother when I learned the truth. And I got my pistol and I went after Davis.”
They were silent, the two of them, for what seemed like a long time. Somewhere outside, she heard a woman, calling, “Jenny! Jenny, where are you?” And a child answered, “Here, Mommy! Coming…”
Her father said, “So instead of the truth when you were born, we had happiness. As a family. We grew prosperous. And when the truth finally found us, well, at least I was older, a little bit wiser. A little more able to learn, slowly, from the hard lessons life has thrown at me—at all of us. Can you see that?”
“Yes. All right. I…I see what you mean.”
Her father almost smiled. “You’re wondering why I’ve said all this, wondering why I thought you needed to hear it.”
It had meant a lot—so very much—to hear him say out loud that she was his true daughter, to know that their bond was as strong as it had ever been. But as for the rest of it, well, “Maybe it was something you needed to tell me.”
He chuckled then. “Es verdad. I did need to tell you.” He was shaking his head. “I am so glad that I’m no longer young. It wasn’t easy to be young. So much passion. So much frustration. And confusion. It’s an exhausting time of life.”
She reached for him again, caught his hand. “Are you okay, Papi? I mean, really okay? You look so tired.”
He stood, pulled her close and wrapped her in a loving hug. “I am tired, yes. And yet, more myself. More…content than I have ever been.”
She moved back enough to meet his eyes, but remained in the circle of his strong arms. “Content.” She resisted the urge to make a sour face. “It’s what Mom said.”
“And we are content, your mother and I, both of us. Just as we are now. More than you know.”
