Catch Me in Castile (4 page)

“Ah jeez, look at my hair.” My sandy-blond strands crackled and popped.

“Got a little electricity there?”

“Enough to power up a small city. Why does yours always look good?” I flipped my finger through her dark curls.

“Genes. You should have seen my mother’s hair when she was young. Hey, speaking of jeans, you have a big stain on yours.” She pointed to the burnished spot on the crotch of my pants.

“Coffee, courtesy of the Seat Bumper.” I thumbed over my shoulder. “I swear if he kicks my chair one more time…”

She stole a peek at the guy behind me through the crack between our seats. “I don’t know Erin, he’s kind of burly, but if you think you can take him.”

I grunted. “Thank God I don’t know anyone in Salamanca.”

Maria cleared her throat. “It’s kind of a tradition…” She saw the murderous look I gave her. “Okay, a few people will be there to welcome me home. Friends, family, teachers, priest, neighbors. That sort of thing.”

“What?”

“Relax. You look fine.”

I opened my compact and was horrified at what peered back at me in the mirror. “You call this fine? No makeup. Hair gone badly wrong. Dark circles. Stained, wrinkled clothes—”

“The bruises are gone. And your lip looks better without the stitches, not so Bride of Frankenstein anymore. See? I’m working on that compliment thing.”

“That’s it. I’m not leaving this plane.”

Maria turned a deaf ear to my protests. The instant we landed she jumped out of her seat. “Don’t lag, Erin,” she called, dragging me along with her carry-on luggage down the corridor toward the customs and baggage-claim areas.

I scrambled to keep up with her. A mass of humanity the size of Delaware was smashed in and around the gate outside the customs area, squealing her name. I had the odd sensation something bad was about to happen. Too late I reached for Maria’s arm. I was unable to latch onto her before she was snatched away into a sea of cheek-kissers. Strange bodies pressed against me, sucking the oxygen out of the air with their foreign words. Ah, but then I saw
him
.

Whoa!
My mind sighed.
Who is that?

Easily the tallest in the crowd, a gorgeous hunk stood apart, as if the press of hot bodies pushing and shoving didn’t concern him. His long fingers ran through neatly trimmed dark hair.

My breath caught when his stunning green eyes locked onto mine. The expression in those eyes was intense—a broody mixture of regality or renegade. His jet-black eyebrows unfurrowed and a light flickered across his face.

Ooh-la-la.

I fluffed my hair and tucked the bit of T-shirt that had popped out back into my jeans. Nothing could be done about the coffee stains.

The moment was ruined when a security guard tapped the Spanish god on the shoulder and both turned to look at me.

Uh-oh. Was I in trouble? Could it be a crime in Spain to stare at an unbelievably handsome man?

Then it hit me like a car crash. I’d seen enough cop shows to know I was busted. The investigation of the accident was completed and an APB put out for my arrest. Spanish Security was coming to pick up the American wanted for attempted vehicular manslaughter. I’d be handcuffed and sent on the next flight home. They’d put me in the loony bin next to my nutty Aunt Lulu who ate her husband’s socks. Oh dear Lord, my life was over.

I had to do something. Quickly. I didn’t want life to be over, I had barely accomplished Step 1: Go to Spain. But what could I do? Both men were staring at me over the sea of people. The panic attack was a tornado building behind my eyeballs. I itched to shove my way through the crowd.

For the love of God, get me out of here.

A short exchange took place between the two men. It was my chance to escape.

Hunching down, I gathered my luggage and pushed toward the exit, keeping an eye out for Maria as I went. I had no plan other than to get away. I couldn’t go back to the States and face the music. I’d almost made it to the door when—

“Oof! Excuse me. Oh.”

I had smashed into the chest of the Spanish god. Startled as a possum on a highway, I gazed up at his green headlights. When he gave me the head-to-toe once-over I knew I was in big trouble. Yep, he was obviously an undercover cop. I was caught.

“Ms. Carter. Please come with me.” He reached out and tried to take one of my suitcases out of my hand.

“Hey! Let go. I’m not going anywhere with you, buddy. Show me the warrant.” I sounded braver than I felt.

He released the suitcase. “Warrant?”

“Or whatever you call it here.” I flipped the hair out of my eyes. “And identification. Pronto, mister.”

“My apologies. I assumed you knew who I am.” He took a step back and extended his hand. “I’m Santiago. Come with me to the car.”

“I’m not going downtown in your paddy wagon, bud. Forget about it.”

“Wagon?” His face registered confusion. “I believe it’s a Buick.”

“Oh sweet Lord.” The blood in my face dropped to my feet.

“See?” He pointed out the glass window toward a beige car with an
Auto Servicio
sticker in the window. Car Service?

“You’re not—?” The security guard had melted into the crowd. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Santiago. You need a car, right?”

Oh. The driver
, I kicked myself for letting my imagination get the best of me. I took his hand in mine and shook.
Warm, firm grip. Nice. Very…
“Nice to meet you. I’m sorry, I thought… Um, yes, my friend and I need a car.” I started to breathe again.

“Is this all?” He pointed at my luggage.

“It’s more than enough. Don’t you think?” Not sure what to bring, I had grossly over-packed. Ruffling through my Brighton wallet, I pulled out some bills to tip the poor guy.

“Erin, there you are—Santiago!” To my utter surprise, Maria flung her arms around the driver’s neck. “This is my friend, Erin Carter.”

“Yes. We’ve met,” he said.

Another man walked up to us and Santiago handed him my bags. “The driver will take you home. I will see you later.” With a curt nod, he strode back through the crowd.

How many drivers did we need? The tip money was still wadded up in my hand, but Santiago was gone.

“All of these.” Maria showed driver number two our bags.

A weird foreboding washed over me. My skin prickled, tingling into my scalp like I was a B-actress in a horror flick waiting for evil to creep up behind her. It was ridiculous. My nervous system was still flooded with adrenaline after the security guard incident. I had to get a hold of myself.

A cry wailed in my ear and something poked my shoulder. I yelped and spun around. A tiny lady with vacant blue eyes lifted a covered object, ready to poke me with it again.

Evil? If so, I’d just been tagged.

“No thanks, I’m not buying,” I said in a trembling voice and turned away. My body still quaked.

She shoved the object under my nose.

“No thank you, really.”

Her head shook fiercely. Silver strands of hair escaped from her tight bun, sticking out like electrified wires. There was something about her eyes—eerie, haunted, dead? She wasn’t dirty, but had the shutdown look of someone in the shadows of an overpass curled up in a cardboard box. That look hit pretty close to home. I suddenly wanted to hug the poor thing and call her auntie.

“So, what is it you have there?” I asked. “A doll?
Muñeca
?” Her head bobbed up and down. “Sure, I’ll take a peek at your, um, baby.” I put my bag down, mesmerized by the great production she made of unfolding the dingy pink blanket. Slowly one side folded down, and then another, until the treasure was revealed. And what a sight it was.

Grisly
is the best way to describe her doll. Both eyes had been poked out, the hair had been hacked off with some weapon, decidedly not scissors, the nose was missing and the tiny rosebud of a mouth had been opened to a forevermore gaping
O.
Even its cry sounded deranged, as if the voice box had been repeatedly run over by a baby’s stroller.

Taken aback, I reacted. I’m not sure what my reaction was, maybe my hand flew to my mouth, or I gasped, or both. Whatever I did, it was wrong.

Her eyes lit with fury. She raised the mutilated doll and whacked me over the head with it.

“Hey, stop that!” I rubbed my head.

She hugged the battered doll to her chest, glaring at me as if I had been the one to attack her. The doll’s distorted cries sounded like hiccups when she rocked it back and forth.

“Okay. Moving on.” I picked up my bags.

I didn’t get far before she smashed her body against mine. It was like being belly-bumped in the back by a tiny Suma-wrestler. If there weren’t so many people around us, I would surely have crashed to the floor alongside the bag that flew out of my hands.

“
Lo siento
, sorry,” I said as total strangers helped right me again. I couldn’t shake the grunting, belly-bumping woman with the hideous doll tucked under one arm. I was completely dumbstruck.

Maria rushed to my rescue. She clutched at the woman’s bony shoulders. “Mama! Stop that.”

Wait, what?

“It’s Maria. I’m home. See? Stop bumping Erin.”

Mrs. Botello rolled her thin shoulders to wriggle free from Maria’s fingers and continued pestering me. It would have been comical if it were not so sad. I stopped trying to get away. Raising my eyebrows at Maria, I wondered what, if anything, I could do to help.

It was heartbreaking to see Maria’s eyes misty with tears. “Please, Mama, look at my face.”

“Mrs. Botello, I like your dolly, really—” I tried to reason with her, until she lifted the hapless thing to club me again.

Maria’s face burned dark and angry. “That’s it!” She yanked the doll out of her mother’s hands. “Be nice.”

Mrs. Botello turned her watery blue eyes on Maria. The wild fury immediately evaporated. She seemed to shrink, her tiny body collapsing.

“Oh, Mama.” With a weak smile, Maria re-wrapped the doll in the grungy pink blanket and placed the whole lot in her mother’s hands. “This is my friend, Erin. Remember, I told you she was coming to stay with us?”

Mrs. Botello scurried to her daughter’s side. Using Maria as a body shield, she stole glances at me as if I were evil incarnate.

“Come on,” Maria said to me. “She’ll follow us.” And she did, toddling along beside Maria like a two-year-old with the mangled
muñeca
in her left hand. “
Señora
Hernán!” Maria called to a woman in the crowd.

The woman hurried toward us looking panic-stricken. “
Lo siento
, she got away from me.”

“It’s all right. Nothing bad happened. This is my friend, Erin. Mrs. Hernán is the nurse who takes care of my mother.”

When we got to the car, Maria buckled her mother in the backseat and kissed her forehead while I plopped my carry-on into the trunk. Maria met me at the back of the car. “Sorry. My mother is…” She searched for the right word and couldn’t find it. “She does some funny things, but she’s harmless. I think she liked you. Really.”

It surprised me Maria had kept her mother’s mental state a secret. We’d both hid our skeletons pretty well. “You think?”

“Definitely. You should see how she acts around people she doesn’t like.”

Maria had me sit up front with the driver.
Señora
Botello was still “getting to know me” which involved humming in a loud voice with her palms pressed to her ears. It was like being stuck in a car with the radio tuned full blast to the emergency broadcast signal.

“Sorry,” Maria yelled over the monotone humming. “It’s only a ten-minute ride to the house.”

After the longest three-and-a-half minutes of my life, the humming ended abruptly. Mrs. Botello was asleep.

“Phew, the drugs finally kicked in. Why was she so agitated?” Maria asked.

Mrs. Hernán wouldn’t meet her gaze. “She’s been out of sorts since we received word you were coming home.”

Maria fell silent.

“Nah, my hair probably freaked her out. Look at this disaster.” I tugged at the mess sticking out from my head.

Maria smiled. “Oh yeah, you look hideous.”

I shook my finger at her. “The compliment thing is not working out for you.”

The driver took us through a giant roundabout. I gripped the dashboard. I’m used to the LA freeways, but this congested circle whipped cars out like a slingshot.

Maria was unfazed. “Oh, look, the
Parque de la Alamedilla
. My parents used to bring us to this park every summer. My brother and I tried catching pigeons for pets.”

Buildings sprouted up at the edge of the park. Aged and majestic, many of the architectural structures were beautifully ornate with distinctive arches. The Spanish painters of old had been an agreeable bunch—the colors blurred together outside my window were varying shades of sand—from off-white to sunset pink. No shocking turquoise houses here. Red tiled roofs were the norm. Growing up in California I had been to many of the Spanish missions dotting the state, but none of them resembled this bustling city. It was all so
European
.

“Your city is beautiful,” I said.

Maria smiled. “Salamanca has the oldest university in Spain. We’ll take a tour one of these days. Here’s my street.”

I read the sign.
Calle de Gran Viva
. “Street of the Good Life.”

The driver turned up a long cobblestone driveway overhung with ancient olive trees and parked in the circular driveway of a Mediterranean mansion. He got out and started removing our luggage from the trunk. Mrs. Hernán opened the door, speaking in soft, gentle words to the groggy Mrs. Botello. The two of them went inside the house.

Maria leaned against the car door. “Home. Finally.”

“This is a palace. You never told me you were Spanish royalty.”

Smiling, she hoisted a large bag over her shoulder. “You never asked.”

We dragged our bags through the archway into an outside courtyard complete with a fountain and large fireplace. “You’re a princess, right? Queen?”

She beamed from ear to ear. “My family had ties to the crown of Castile. Ask Santiago, he can give you all the gory details.”

“Santiago?”

“My brother is a history buff.”

“Oh dear.” A sinking feeling rolled down my esophagus and landed in my stomach. “Santiago. The man I met at the airport. Is your brother?”

She rolled her eyes like a teenager. “Duh.”

My face was hot with embarrassment. Good gosh, he must have thought I was a lunatic, demanding to see his warrant and then…had I pulled out tip money? No wonder he left in such a hurry.

“What’s wrong? Did he say anything?” She studied my face.

“About…?”

She bit her lip. “Nothing.”

“Yep, that pretty much covered our conversation. What was the deal with the security guard?”

She frowned.

A thought brought a low hum of panic up my spinal cord
. Was the guard really looking for me and Santiago somehow threw him off my trail?

“You didn’t see a guy in a uniform, about five foot eight, 160 pounds, stop to talk to him?”

“Nope. Santiago knows a ton of people in Salamanca. The guard was probably a patient.”

Maria gave me the tour of her palace, pointing out various antiques and exquisite art pieces. There was a life-sized bronze woman holding a lily up to her nose in the living room. A golden head of an Arabian horse with flying mane, wild eyes and flared nostrils on a pedestal in the entry. Every wall was covered with paintings or tapestries.

“That painting there is a Borrassa, fourteenth century. Been in my family for generations.”

“Impressive.” We kept walking, me gaping, her beaming. “Your family has collected quite a few pieces.”

“Yeah well, this is the Hall of Shame.” She led me into a long hallway lined with photos.

“No way, I love family pictures.”

“This is my favorite. It’s the last one—” her voice caught, “—of us all together.”

“Awww, look how cute you were. Love those pigtails. A skiing vacation?”

“One of our trips to the Pyrenees.” Maria peered closer at the picture. “I’m about nine there. See the look in Santiago’s eye?”

I stared at the handsome young man. Yep, he was the guy from the airport, all right. Only now he was about a foot taller with impossibly wide shoulders, a sexy square jaw and to-die-for green eyes.

“He’s about to smash a huge snowball on my head. He’s hiding it behind his back, the rat. But I got my revenge.” She laughed. “I always do.”

“Is that your dad?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Lord rest his soul.”

“He was very handsome. Your mom sure seems happy.” A much younger Mrs. Botello had wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist. With her head tilted back, her dark hair cascaded over one shoulder. The photographer had captured the exact moment her laughter had erupted.

Maria turned her head away. “He was dead two months after this picture was taken.”

“I’m sorry, Maria.”

Her bottom lip quivered. “It’s just hard, you know. The way things used to be, the way they are now. I barely recognize those people in the picture.”

I hugged her.

She stiffened in my arms. “No. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this.” Pulling away, she angrily swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Enough.”

“It’s okay, Maria, really.”

With one quick shake of her head, she told me it wasn’t okay.

“Listen, if you ever want to talk about it, or anything, I’m here, okay?”

“I know,” she whispered. “As I am for you.”

Sweet, but I wouldn’t burden her with my problems. She had more than her share to deal with.

“Come on, let me show you your room. I can’t wait to see what you think.”

She made a big show of turning the doorknob. I had no idea what would be waiting for me behind the door.