Sounds of Silence (8 page)

Then she tried to imagine Eli’s feelings. Would he be offended or hurt if she left the ring on? Or, despite what he’d said, would he be relieved that she’d left that symbolic wall in place? She’d told him she wasn’t ready to think about another relationship.

But was she? She experimentally twisted the ring past the first knuckle, then the second. She laid it on the dresser, felt the nakedness of that third finger. Holding up her hand, she examined the tender skin and had to admit there was no visible indentation. She’d lost weight since Rico died, because she hadn’t had much appetite lately, and she probably weighed less than when she got married.

No outward sign of having belonged to Rico Valenzuela. Just one little boy, a house, and a lot of memories.

“Lord, I think this is a good thing,” she said aloud. “I feel you smiling at my silliness.” Even if she weren’t going anywhere with Eli today, removing the ring was right.

Yes, it’s time to let Rico go, child
, she seemed to hear.
He’s here with Me
.

Isabel closed her eyes. “I’ll see him again,” she whispered.

Feeling as if some solemn, private ceremony had been completed, Isabel picked up the ring and slid it into a drawer where she kept a dried rosebud that had been her prom corsage; her high school diploma, her wedding certificate.

The doorbell rang, and her breath caught.

Eli’s here.

Chapter Seven

“W
here are we going?”

Eli glanced at Isabel as he backed out of her driveway. He still couldn’t quite get over the fact that she sat in the front seat of his car—alone, undistracted by children, dogs, or yard sale items. She didn’t really look any different from all the other times he’d seen her. Well, at church she was usually dressed up a little more—skirts and heels sometimes.

But in general she possessed a glowing Latin beauty that drew him in like a de Goya painting.

And she had no idea.

Before he could answer her question, she brushed a hand over her knees and said, “I mean, I didn’t have any idea what to wear.”

He looked at her again, confused. “Didn’t Owen tell you comfortable shoes?”

She laughed. “Yes. Never mind.”

“You look great. We’re going to Seminole Canyon. Happy birthday.”

He was greeted with stunned silence. “How did you know it’s my birthday?”

Eli pulled up to a red light and summoned the courage to look at Isabel. He hoped she didn’t think he was kidnapping her.

Which, come to think of it, he kind of was.

“I saw the date in the book I borrowed. The Eisenhower biography.”

Isabel bit her lip and, to Eli’s utter horror, her eyes filled with tears.

“What’s the matter?”

She sniffed. “That’s the sweetest thing anybody’s ever done for me.”

“I haven’t done anything yet! We’re just riding in the car.”

“You arranged babysitting and picked me up and surprised me. We don’t even have to go anywhere at all now.”

“Isabel,” he said, shaking his head, “you are hilarious. But please don’t sit over there and cry, because the lady in the car next to us is giving me dirty looks.”

Isabel gave a watery giggle, then a strangled gasp. “Oh, no!”

“What’s the matter now?”

“That’s Pamela Hatcher!”

Eli squinted. “Sure is. So what?”

“She’s going to think—don’t you remember what we talked about the other night?”

Like he was ever going to forget
that
in a million years. “Oh, yeah.” The light changed and he had to concentrate on driving again. “Look, Isabel. I know your concerns, but we’ll be back before dark. I promise not to say or do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I’m just your buddy, Eli. Okay?” He glanced at her and found her looking at him, those tears making onyx jewels of her eyes. “I m-mean, it’s your birthday. You’ve been under a load of responsibility for a long time, and you deserve a little downtime.”

“Okay.” Isabel smiled. “It feels weird, but I think I can do it. And—thank you, Eli. You’ve been a very good friend to me and Nilo.”

Well. That was something, Eli supposed as he took the entrance ramp onto the highway.

He’d thought long and hard about whether or not he should pursue Isabel. During the past five years of living in Del Rio, he’d combed through the single female population until he’d reluctantly concluded God might have marked him for celibacy.

And then, miraculously, like a wildflower in a rocky desert, Isabel’s friendship had blossomed out of the tragedy of his father’s death.

But while Owen had always been the one with the cavalier attitude who attracted girls liking bad-boy charisma, Eli had no idea how to take a relationship past everyday kindness and courtesy. Flowers? Romantic gestures? The idea made his brain freeze. He suspected he was an emotional coward, a lot like his father.

Now there was a lowering thought.

Pablo reached the center of the bridge across Seminole Canyon and made the mistake of looking down. His brain whirled like a merry-go-round.

He muttered a curse and crossed himself. Where was a blindfold when you needed one? He’d always been afraid of heights, but the opportunity to follow
la migra
and the beautiful
señora
had been too good to pass up.

He’d almost missed them leaving the house together because Governor Avila had called and asked him to take care of security clearances for a cadre of businessmen from Mexico City. They wanted to cross into Texas for a baseball game in Dallas, and Pablo had to visit the U.S. Immigration office in person to present the authorized papers. Why it could not wait for a more convenient time he did not know.

Clutching the railing, Pablo inched farther across the bridge, keeping his quarry in sight through a thin crowd of tourists. For several days, ever since Rand Hatcher had reported some interesting facts, Pablo had been watching the tall Border Patrol agent called Eli Carmichael. If he’d had any idea the man was such a lover of heights, he would have sent Camino to follow him. As it was, he was having a hard time keeping up.

Ah, at last the end of the bridge. Pablo’s breath returned to his lungs where it belonged. He cursed as Carmichael and the
señora
split off from the main body of sightseers, entering a cavern to the left. How was he going to keep an eye on them without alerting them that they were being followed? Their conversation was of great interest to Pablo. He should have worn some kind of disguise.

Then, on the other hand, there was no reason either of them should recognize him. Though his employer often occupied the screen of a TV camera, or the stage of a public forum, Pablo himself might as well have been invisible for all the attention paid a lowly bodyguard.

One day all that would change, of course. Pablo possessed great ambition.

But first he must eliminate that cursed little girl.

Boldly, Pablo followed the agent and the woman into the cave. This man was a very slippery individual. Camino reported that Carmichael, using an assumed name and pretending interest in cocaine, had visited Hector Caslas’s place to ask about Bryan Hatcher. Pablo didn’t believe for one minute that a good-looking young law officer, particularly one who attended church three out of every seven days of the week, was seriously interested in drugs.

Sidling along, a few feet away from his quarry, Pablo feigned interest in the childlike drawings on the cavern walls. Ignorant savages, what did they know about art? The Spanish
conquistadors
had brought the beauties of fine stained glass and metal work and wood carving into Mexico. Pablo already owned several fine pieces. Soon he would have a place to display them.

The live acoustics in the cavern amplified every word spoken between the man and woman, but unfortunately their conversation concerned children and dogs and church. Pablo’s respect for Carmichael diminished rapidly. What man worthy of the name deferred to a woman’s interests?

Then Pablo’s attention jerked like a metal-detector hitting copper. One of the woman’s children was named
Mercedes?
Suddenly the whole thing made sense. Carmichael not only knew where the brat was; he had hidden her with this woman.

Filled with a mixture of anger and satisfaction, Pablo flattened himself against the cavern wall. Where was the girl right now? Was she at home with a babysitter? If he hurried, he might get back there before Carmichael and the woman returned.

He turned, shoved past a couple of tourists entering the cave, and faced the bridge once more. Taking a deep breath to quell his nausea, he focused his gaze on the opposite edge of the canyon. Nothing, not even the dizzying depths of this great hole in the ground, would thwart his purpose this time.

“So you’ve never been here before?” Eli steadied Isabel with a hand on her elbow as she moved along the uneven floor of Fate Bell Shelter. They’d been examining Native American pictographs along the canyon wall for more than two hours, and he couldn’t get over the genuine delight in Isabel’s dark eyes. He could tell from the goosebumps on her arms that she was uncomfortably chilly, but she’d wanted to keep going and see as much as possible before lunch.

She gave him a bright grin, pushing her black sunglasses up on her nose. “You know what they say about touring your own backyard. And Rico would rather have had a root canal than spend a day looking at pictures and rocks.”

Eli wondered what that said about his own history nerd quotient. “My dad used to bring me and Owen here when we were kids. Good way to burn off that excess testosterone.” He followed Isabel to the next drawing.

She wrinkled her nose and pushed the glasses north again. “I can imagine. Nilo will have to get a little bigger, though, before I can bring him out here. He’d give me a heart attack on these cliffs.”

Eli turned to follow Isabel’s gesture indicating the sweeping sienna and terracotta panorama of boulders, the sheer drop-offs to the Pecos River, and rocky trails zigzagging along the canyon. He smiled. “God’s playground.”

Isabel wandered over to lean against the guardrail, and Eli followed. Quiet, they stood absorbing the grand, wild starkness of the scene, and Eli remembered something he hadn’t thought of in years. “The summer I turned thirteen, Dad took us camping in the Grand Canyon. We had so much junk in our backpacks, I thought we were gonna die before we made it back to the top.”

Isabel laughed. “Must be a guy thing. My dad took my brother when he was fourteen.”

Eli leaned down to rest his elbows on the top rail and looked over at Isabel. There was so much he wanted to learn about her childhood, her family. “What’s your dad like?”

She glanced at him over the top of those slip-sliding glasses. “You’d like him. He’s the one who got me interested in history. I think we’ve visited every fort in the west.”

“Is he—are your parents American by birth?”

“No.” She smiled. “They were both born in Piedras Negras and immigrated before I was born. My grandparents are still there.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Mama and Daddy started out as migrant fruit pickers. We moved all over the Midwest when I was small, then they made enough money to buy a truck and a little camper. That’s what we did our traveling in. Eventually we settled in San Antonio.”

Eli tried to imagine Isabel as a bright little Mercedes-like sprite. “So you went to high school there?”

“Yes.” She sighed, and somehow he knew she was thinking about her late husband.

He didn’t want to open a discussion about Rico. “Where’d you go to college?”

“UT San Antonio, but I barely got started.” Eli couldn’t interpret her expression, so he waited for her continue. Finally she looked at him. “I’m not very well-educated.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve been jabbering about ancient American history for three hours.”

She waved a hand. “Oh, that. That’s just what I’m interested in.”

Eli nudged her shoulder with his. “Isabel, that’s what education is. Studying something you enjoy. Being able to talk about it.” He reached up and teasingly removed her sunglasses. “You’re either gonna have to get some smaller shades or a bigger nose.”

She crossed her eyes. “Can’t do much about the nose.”

Which was a good thing, Eli thought. It was perfect like it was. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. So if you could go to college again, what would you study?”

“Secondary ed. History.” She lifted her chin. “I’m going to go to UTSA when I move back to San’tone. Mama said she’d keep Danilo for me while I’m in class.”

Eli had managed to forget all about Isabel’s intention of moving. “You could go to college down here somewhere.”

She gave him a funny look. “Eli, I have to sell the house in order to afford college. Besides, my family’s all in San Antonio. Who’d help me out with babysitting and stuff if I stayed here?”

“Oh, yeah. I guess you’re right.” Thoroughly unhappy all of a sudden, he looked down. And noticed Isabel’s characteristic ring-twisting motion.

Only there was no wedding band on the third finger of her left hand.

As his heart took an acrobatic leap, he tried to think logical thoughts. She’d probably taken the ring off to get it resized. Or she had an infection on that finger.

He was not going to ask her, and he wasn’t going to get his hopes up. After all, she’d just told him in no uncertain terms she still planned to leave Del Rio.

But he sure couldn’t help wondering.

“Well,” he said, “how about lunch and birthday cake? There’s a pretty spectacular picnic area not too far from here.”

“You brought a
birthday
cake?”

“Well, it’s not anything fancy, but yeah, I picked one up on the way over here this morning.”

To Eli’s astonishment, Isabel reached up and took him by the back of the neck, pulling his head down to her level. She gave him a smacking kiss on the forehead.

“Wh-what was that for?” He felt his face scorch.

“For being so adorable,” she said, face alight. “Come on, I’m starving.”

Isabel took off for the parking lot, leaving Eli to follow like a man who’d been hit by a bus.

Adorable?

Isabel couldn’t wait to get home. Only five more minutes before they pulled into her driveway.

She knew she shouldn’t have kissed him. For the rest of the afternoon, every time she’d looked at Eli, he’d flushed scarlet, making those ice-blue eyes, by contrast, a study in panic.

Undoubtedly she’d taken his gesture of friendship entirely the wrong way. She could just bang her head against one of those painted cavern walls for her stupidity.

In total silence they’d finished the sandwiches he’d packed, and gone on to cut thick slabs of gooey chocolate cake without meeting each other’s eyes.

How embarrassing. Now what was she going to say to him? There were only so many ways to say thank you without sounding like a fool.

When he stopped the Jeep in front of her house, Isabel grabbed for the door handle. “It looks like Owen’s home with the kids.” Well, duh. His pickup sat in the driveway.

“I’ll just come in and make sure he didn’t let ’em tear the house down,” Eli said easily. He seemed to have regained some of his composure during the forty-five-minute drive home. “Sit tight for a sec.” He got out and loped around to the other side of the vehicle, then he opened her door with a smile.

Isabel blinked. She wasn’t used to such small chivalrous acts anymore. She stepped out and looked up at him, feeling the ground shift beneath her feet. He wasn’t moving away.