Fearless (20 page)

She laughed in spite of herself.

“You look pretty when you smile,” he told her. His big, lean hand smoothed her disturbed hair. “I did a stupid thing. I was fuming about Kilraven’s place in your life when I left San Antonio. I walked right into a trap that Fuentes’s brother had set, and never saw it coming.”

“I’m so glad they got you out,” she said softly.

“So am I.” He touched her mouth with the tips of his fingers. “It’s too late for philosophical discussions, but I would like to come for you in the morning and take you for a drive. I want to show you something.”

Tomorrow was Saturday. She was off. Her heart raced. “I must be dreaming,” she said.

He bent and touched his mouth tenderly to hers, slowly at first, and then with a heated, desperate pressure that bent her head back onto the pillow. She clutched at his shoulders, returning the ardent caress, hearing his harsh groan as if from afar.

But he drew back quickly. “No,” he said huskily. “Not now. Not like this. I’ll come for you about nine. Okay?”

She was surprised, and touched, by his restraint. He seemed determined to show her that this was more than desire on his part. His eyes were saying incredible things. They made her breathless.

“Okay,” she managed huskily.

He smiled, got up and moved to the door. “Until tomorrow.”

He slipped out as silently as he’d arrived. She lay there, dazed, for several minutes before she turned out the light and went back to sleep.

I
N THE MORNING, OF
course, she was sure that she’d dreamed the whole thing. The apartment house was wired so that an intruder who tried to bypass the buzzer would sound alarms.

But at nine o’clock, the buzzer sounded for real.

“Can you come down?” Rodrigo asked in a warm drawl.

“Give me two minutes!” she exclaimed, and rushed to dress.

S
HE HAD ON BLACK
slacks with a pink shell and sweater under her Berber coat. She wore boots with it. He was waiting in the lobby, in jeans and a sweatshirt, very relaxed and slightly windblown. He looked elegant, just the same.

He took her arm and led her out to his car, tucking her into the front seat.

“Where are we going?” she asked when he started the car and pulled out into traffic.

“It’s a secret,” he replied. He grinned. He looked more relaxed, and happier, than she’d ever seen him.

There was a cold wind blowing, with a few flakes of snow in it. Christmas was coming very soon. Jacobsville’s main street was festooned with gaily lighted garlands that stretched over the streets. There were lights shaped like poinsettias and Christmas trees and wreaths, and Christmas trees in all the shop windows. The square had the biggest tree of all, flanked by lighted reindeer and elves, with a realistic looking Santa Claus in a sleigh.

“I’ve always loved this place,” she commented. “Even with the bad times I had in my childhood.”

“Jason told me about those, the night I left,” he said quietly. “I wish I’d known, Glory.”

She flushed. “It isn’t something I talk about much.”

“Because you don’t want pity. Jason told me that, too. I’ve made so many mistakes with you,
amada,
” he said softly. “I hope to make up for a few of them today.”

“What do you have in mind?” she asked, openly curious.

He smiled. “Wait and see.”

He turned onto a side street and went a little way, and then onto another side street. He pulled into a driveway and cut off the engine.

There was a big For Sale sign in the front yard. There were trees and shrubs everywhere, and what looked like flower gardens in the middle of a semicircular driveway. The house itself was Spanish styled, with arches and a big front porch that seemed to go on forever. To the side was a stone patio with an enormous fish pond, complete with waterfall, made so that people could sit on its edge and look down at the brilliant goldfish. There were black wrought-iron gates. The whole yard was fenced. There were pecan trees out back. It was the most beautiful old home place Glory had ever seen.

“The school bus used to come this way,” she said suddenly, “to pick up one of the children who lived here. I loved the house. I used to dream about living in it.”

“Jason told me,” he replied. “It’s got an indoor, heated swimming pool. Water exercises would help your hip. There’s a modern kitchen, a sunken dining room, a hot tub, walk-in closets and two bathrooms. The garden spot out back is big enough to grow all sorts of vegetables.”

Her heart was slamming against her ribs. She turned to him, and looked up into his dark eyes. Her eyes asked the question she couldn’t manage.

He took a box out of his pocket and opened it. Inside were a set of wedding rings, a band with diamonds and emeralds and a matching emerald solitaire. “This isn’t a set I bought with someone else in mind,” he said, still guilty that he’d presented her with such a set at their wedding. “I bought it for you.”

She was speechless. Her eyes grew misty with tears as she looked at them.

He put the box in her hands and closed them around it. “The house comes with a government agent who’s seen better days,” he said gently. “He’s still a bit rough around the edges, but he can be domesticated with a little work. The district attorney, Blake Kemp, could use a good assistant prosecutor. The cases are a little less pressured than the ones you’re used to in San Antonio. There are good doctors here, who can watch over you. I could work out of San Antonio instead of Houston, and commute. There’s a great bunch of DEA agents there. I’d give up undercover work, of course. I’m too well-known now, and my cousin was killed trying to protect me,” he said, his face giving away his sadness about that.

Her head was spinning. She was flawed, but he seemed not to mind. He wanted to marry her again. He wanted to live with her. He was making promises. His eyes were faintly apprehensive, as if he wasn’t sure she wanted him.

Her lips parted. “I thought you didn’t like women who did the can-can,” she said.

He burst out laughing.

She did, too. She lifted her arms and he went into them. They stood locked together in the cold, kissing as if they would never be able to stop. He loved her. His mouth was telling her so, without speaking a word. She was telling him the same thing. It took a long time.

A siren broke them apart. They turned together toward the street, stunned.

Cash Grier was sitting in his squad car with the blue lights spinning. “Indecent exposure!” he called. “Lewd behavior is not tolerated here in this purest of small town societies!”

“A likely story,” Rodrigo tossed back. “You’re just jealous! Why don’t you go home and kiss your own wife while I finish trying to get mine back?”

Cash laughed uproariously. “You should marry him, Glory,” he called to her. “I’ve never seen a man who needed coaching in social graces more. You should hear him curse!”

“I already have, thanks!”

Another squad car pulled up behind the chief’s and threw on its blue lights as well. “Hey,” Kilraven called to Cash, “you’re obstructing traffic! Get moving or I’ll ticket you!”

“Watch your mouth, Kilraven, or I’ll give you school crossing duty!”

“Little kids love me!” came the laughing reply. “Hi, Glory!” he called to her. “I guess you’re about to be taken off the market?”

“You can bet your life on it, Kilraven!” Rodrigo told him. He put a possessive arm around Glory to prove it. “See what you get for saving people’s lives?” he teased.

Kilraven just laughed. “I wouldn’t dare get married,” he said. “Women would commit suicide in droves if I went out of circulation!”

“Let’s go,” Cash called to his man. “Sandy’s made us a big pot of beef stew for lunch at the station, with homemade cornbread and real butter!”

“Race you!” Kilraven dared, pulling his head back in. He waved to the couple in front of the For Sale sign and raced past Cash onto the street. The police chief threw on his lights, and his sirens, and took off in hot pursuit.

Rodrigo looked down at Glory with his heart in his dark, soft eyes. “Marry me,” he coaxed. “I’ll love you until the dark washes over me and carries me away, and the last word I whisper will be your name,” he whispered.

Tears poured from her eyes. “I love you,” she choked.

“And I love you,” he said huskily. “I love you more than my own life.”

She pressed hard against him, clinging. “I’ll marry you.”

“Yes.”

He bent and kissed away the tears. It took a long time. He held her and rocked her in the wind, his eyes closed as he savored the newness of belonging to someone.

“You won’t mind, that I can’t keep up with you some of the time?” she asked, still insecure.

His lips touched her forehead. “Would you mind, if I were blind, or if I’d lost an arm, like Colby Lane?”

“Oh, no,” she said at once. “You’d still be Rodrigo. And I’d still love you. More than ever.”

He looked down at her tenderly. He smiled. “More than ever,” he repeated. He folded her close in his arms. “Do you like the house?”

“I love it. Can we buy it and live here?”

He pulled some papers out of his inside jacket pocket and handed them to her. It was a bill of sale for the house. She looked up, awed.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure of my chances,” he confessed with a grin. “I thought if you liked the house, you might marry the owner to get it.”

She grinned. “Smart thinking.”

He linked his hand in hers. “I have the key, if you’d like a look inside before we apply for a marriage license.”

She nuzzled his shoulder with her cheek. “Yes, I would.”

He curled his arm around her and drew her along with him to the house. He grinned as he inserted the key and opened the door, letting her go in first.

There were six huge vases full of roses in the elegant, and furnished, living room. There were several boxes of very expensive chocolates piled on the sofa. And just as Glory was getting used to that surprise, a group of mariachis began playing a love song, grinning at her from behind their instruments.

Rodrigo sighed. “Flowers, candy, serenading,” he said as he gave her a wicked smile. “The perfect combination for winning a woman’s heart. Did I get it right?”

“Oh, yes, my darling,” she laughed. “You got it right!” And she kissed him, very hard, to prove it.

In the darkest hours of her life, she’d dreamed of having a home and a loving husband and children. This seemed like a miracle. If only there could be a child, one day, she would be the happiest woman on earth despite her flaws.

He seemed to sense that sadness. He turned her to him, while the singers crooned, and tilted her face up to his. “Sometimes,” he said, “all we have is faith, and hope. But miracles happen every day. Wait and see.”

She smiled. It was a bittersweet hope, at best.

T
WO YEARS LATER
, almost to the day, she gave birth to a son, thanks to constant medical monitoring, new drugs and much prayer. Eyes brimming with tears, she looked up into her husband’s radiant face and said, “Yes. Miracles do happen!”

“What did I tell you?” he teased.

They looked down at the tiny boy and saw generations of Ramirez and Barnes ancestors in that handsome small face. John Antonio Frederick Ramirez was named for two grandfathers, one of whom was Danish, and a great-uncle.

Rodrigo kissed her. “One is enough,” he said firmly. “I won’t go through that fear again. I can’t live if I lose you,” he said.

The simple statement was so profound that it made her heart skip a beat. The truth of it was in the eyes that adored her. She reached up and drew her fingertips across his wide, sensuous mouth. “You won’t lose me,” she promised. “I’ll stick like glue.”

He drew in a long breath and relaxed. He cocked his head as he watched the tiny little boy feed at her breast and counted his blessings. He had so many!

Glory smiled to herself, secure in his love and the wonder of the years that still lay ahead. The pain of her early life had tempered her, as fire tempers steel. Her strength had carried her through the dangers she faced and, in the end, won the heart of this firebrand next to her. She thought of what she’d endured, fearlessly, and knew that what she had now was worth every single tear she’d shed, every stab of pain.

She looked down into the face of her child and felt his tiny fist curl around her finger. It was the most beautiful day of her life. She laid her cheek against Rodrigo’s broad shoulder. “I was just thinking,” she murmured.

“What?” he asked, kissing her forehead.

“That my life began the day I met you,” she said simply.

“Amada mia!”
he breathed at her ear. “As did mine begin, when I met you.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. It was, she thought, a perfect day.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-1999-5

FEARLESS

Copyright © 2008 by Diana Palmer

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