His Temporary Wife (17 page)

“Well, she should still respect you.” She’d felt her aunt’s sharp rebukes several
times; they were as bad as her mother’s, worse if being gouged by metallic finger
nails counted. “I wish I knew how to help her. She’s not who I remember.”

“You didn’t spend a lot of time with her, though, did you?”

Esme must have shown her surprise, because Angel patted her hand. “I’ve been with
her about thirteen years, and she mentioned you once or twice, but you never visited.”
The older woman took an order and turned to hand it off to Tom. “So, I guess you didn’t.”

“No. You’re right.” She glanced off toward the windows for a moment. A tall man in
a cowboy hat, western garb, and boots passed by slowly. He glanced in, apparently
noticed her, and waved a hand. Not a local, probably, Esme decided. She’d found the
quaint practice of tipping hats an endearing Truth custom. Waves just weren’t as …
western. She nodded anyway and turned back to Angel.

“You remind me a little of Tía,” Angel added. “Sometimes.”

“Me? How? I don’t even look like my parents, although my dad’s tall.”

“Not so much the looks, but you’re outspoken. Confident. Those are good things when
you don’t become overbearing with them.”

“I guess. Thanks, Angel. I want to know more about my aunt. I used to wish she were
my mother instead of my aunt. Is that terrible to admit?”

Angel’s thin shoulders shrugged. “It happens.” She paused, then said solemnly, “My
only daughter doesn’t claim me. My sister raised her and now … we don’t have a future.
My fault.”

“Hey, looks like a funeral,” Chuck said, passing by and shooting them a wink. “You
should just get up there and sing, Miss Esme!”

“Go leave us be with our girl talk,” Angel told him and he nodded agreeably.

“Go easy on us cowboys,” he called as he continued back to his table of friends.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” Esme apologized.

“Truth is what it is, and I’m not talking about this town, either!”

“You like Rafael, though?”

Angel’s face lit up. “If I’d had a boy, I’d want him to be Rafael. Or a lot like him.”

“Why?”

“He’s got a good heart,” she answered with absolute conviction. “He’s nobody’s fool,
but you can’t make him hurt you unless you’re hurting somebody else.”

“The day I met you, he came in right after me.”

“I remember.”

“As I left him, I heard him say he’d kill someone. Yesterday, he told me he was threatening
my aunt.”

“He didn’t mean it. He’s furious that she let some really rotten lowlifes come and
go as they wanted. He blames them for his sister’s death, to some extent.”

“Who does he think is most responsible? Does he understand it’s ultimately Cody’s
fault?”

“No.” Angel glanced at the picture of the singer and shook her head. When she turned
back, she looked more troubled than ever. “He blames himself more than anyone.”

• • •

The drive to Laredo hadn’t changed much—mile after mile of interstate without much
to see on either side. They got off to an awkward start, silent and distant, the strangers
they really were.

After a while, though, Rafael reached for the radio dial and turned on a Spanish language
station. The first song was one Toby used to play over and over when they went anywhere,
a young man asking his mother how to know if it was love when he found someone.

“You don’t like Ramon Ayala?” he asked curiously.

“I can listen. I’m not crazy about Norteño—too much accordion. I like steel guitar
and twang better.”

“You and my parents both! Tell you what.” He fished around in the console without
taking his eyes off the road and handed her a remote. “I’ve got all country in the
CD player. You’ll probably like most of it, and I’m fine with it, too.”

“I’ll wait until we’re halfway there,” she volunteered. “Fair’s fair.”

“Okay.” He checked his side mirror, flipped on his blinker, and pulled out to pass
a tanker, glancing at the cab’s door as he did, and smiling.

“Yours?”

“The company’s,” he agreed, nodding. “Business is good.”

“Do you ever get attacked, you or your parents? Not everyone’s good with fracking.”

He glanced her way briefly. “We’re not going to have to argue about real issues while
we’re married, are we?”

She grinned. “Not if we get ’em out of the way now.”

“The people of Cotulla have jobs, houses, hope, and prosperity. Most of them love
to see those Benton trucks and uniforms.”

They fell silent again, and a particularly gory
narcocorrido
blasted out.
Corridos
, traditional Mexican story songs, were fine, but some of the music glorifying the
drug trade and violence offended Esme, just as gangsta rap about the same topics did.
She could deal with vulgarity herself but she’d worked around kids so long that she
just didn’t want them exposed. There were no kids in the truck, but she picked up
the remote, killed the radio, and turned on the CD player.

He chuckled. “You and I are going to get along great when Justin’s with us.”

“So why didn’t you want to bring me?” she asked, and the smile faded away and she
saw his cheek tighten. “If you can tell me.”

“I can tell you, Esme. It’s not a dark, ugly secret. I come down two or three times
a year to bring donations for charitable groups I like to work with. The children’s
home in Nuevo Laredo that’s really an orphanage—many of the children don’t have parents
at all. Others are removed by courts, just as they are in the States. But they work
on donations and never turn anyone down. Then there’s Sacred Heart; you know them,
of course, since you lived in Laredo.” He turned to smile again. “I especially like
the shopping trips they take the children on for Christmas. Letting them experience
shopping for themselves or others. It’s such a good thing.”

He turned back to the road, passing another in the unending line of eighteen wheelers
headed toward Laredo’s busy land port, and continued, “And there are a few others.”

“Marie said something about Angel Wings,” Esmeralda remembered. “And Angel said something
about you having a good heart. Why would you hate letting me see that?”

He huffed indignantly. “You’ve seen the best of me,” he argued. “Did I raise my voice
at you when you hooked me?”

“Yes, actually. You shrieked.”

“Shrieked?”

“And cussed.”

“Oh.” He drummed his fingers along as one of the old Brooks and Dunn songs blasted
out. “To be honest, Esme, it’s always an emotional trip for me. The memories aren’t
all bad, especially the recent ones, but the ones I have from my childhood are. The
area around the bridge? Sometimes it’s hard not to be right back there on the street,
begging, some of the memories are still so clear.”

She hated the sadness in his voice. Her memories weren’t great, but she’d never been
hungry or alone. Still, she wanted to know more.

“Tell me about it,” she urged. “What you can. Were you ever at Sacred Heart, or were
you a foster child—what?”

“I suspect things are different now than they were,” he said finally. “But you know
our families, Esmeralda—relatives, everyone knows everyone. A lot of times, families
step in. My mom and dad tried to sort out my history when they adopted me, and they
more or less did.

“My birth mom left me with her mother, my maternal grandmother. But she had diabetes,
and they say she wound up institutionalized. I lived in her house with cousins and
a niece of hers, and sometimes the woman she used to pay to help with chores. No one
was really in charge, and some of the adults were addicts, alcoholics. There were
a lot of children. Some must have been cousins, but I really don’t know.”

“And the Bentons found you.” She smiled, trying to ease the memories. “That’s amazing,
when you think about it.”

“There’s not a day when it doesn’t amaze me and make me feel like the luckiest guy
alive.” He glanced at the mile markers flashing by. “Do you need a bathroom break?”

“No.”

“Then if you don’t mind, we’ll wait until Cotulla. I’m going to pop into our office
there and say hi. I haven’t been there much since …”

Since Cody started her career in music, probably. He seemed to have given up a lot
of what he wanted to do for his sister. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Was
he so overwhelmed by gratitude to his parents that he wasn’t ever his own man? She’d
stood up for herself, and it had cost her dearly—but most days, she felt like she’d
earned the pride she felt in her decisions and accomplishments.

She just nodded, not wanting to question too much. He didn’t owe her any explanations.
Remembering that was hard, though. They’d had fun fishing together. Angel’s insistence
on how he was a good man had stayed with her through the night. And their kiss—she
hadn’t expected that. The contact had gone from sweet to knee-buckling in seconds.
Again, she wondered how on earth they’d keep their relationship platonic.

And if she didn’t want to? If she could forget her pride, and the fact that she would
be paid a small fortune for what was supposed to be a mere acting job?

The pickup slowed suddenly and she looked up, expecting to see a slow-moving car or
truck, but he put the signal on and exited, and she realized that they’d already reached
Cotulla.

“We’re just making a pit stop,” he assured her. “In and out.”

“You’re the boss.”

“Which reminds me, here, we’re just … together. I don’t want word about the engagement
to hit the company grapevine yet. Everything would fall apart if my parents came back
early.”

He pulled into a parking spot marked with his name and walked around to open her door,
then held out a hand to help her down. She drove a pickup and could get in and out
of one in a miniskirt and heels. Strangely, though, his gesture touched her.

“Rafael,” she said, as they headed up a walk paved with flagstone, “you love your
parents. I’m not questioning that. But you told me about Paulette, and well—I’m just
wondering how you can be okay with lying to them.”

He faced her, frowning. “I’m not lying,” he said. “That’s why we’re marrying. Legally.”

“So, if they ask about why you didn’t wait?”

“They know I’m impulsive. Dad will worry, until he sees I thought of a pre-nuptial.”

“And if they ask you if you love me?”

“Then I’d have to lie,” he admitted quietly. “But I hope we can head that off by pretending
when we have to and avoiding them as much as possible.”

“Won’t that seem strange?” she persisted, stopping outside the door.

“We’ll be newlyweds. We can spend hours upstairs or fishing or something. They’ll
respect our privacy.”

But will we be able to keep our hands of each other?
She walked into a spacious, well-decorated room. The receptionist looked up and broke
into a huge smile. “Rafael!” She came out and hugged him, then turned and hugged Esme
before Rafael even introduced them.

“Gwen, a friend of mine, Esmeralda Salinas.” He wrapped an arm around the receptionist’s
shoulders. “Gwen’s been with Mom and Dad—I don’t know. Twenty years?”

“Almost thirty,” the woman corrected, still beaming. She reached up and touched her
hair. “And I don’t look a day older!”

“No, you don’t.”

“So, what can I do for you? Drinks? You know your way to the employees’ lounge, but
come with me, Ms. Salinas. I’ll show you around. Do you want to talk to anyone, Rafael?”

“No, I don’t have time. If you’ll get Esme something, that would be fine.”

“You might want to go by your office, Rafael,” Gwen suggested. “I’ll take Ms. Salinas
along after I show her the lounge.”

Rafael frowned. “Why would I go to my office, Gwen? We’re leaving—”

The receptionist smiled. “Just trust me. And go.”

• • •

Rafael smiled and watched Gwen guide Esme in the direction of the lounge. He knew
Gwen well, and clearly she wanted him to go to his office. He wondered if she’d remodeled
it for him again, or—

He opened the door. “
Carnal
!” He used the old street slang, knowing that the man walking over to hug him and
slap him was his brother in every sense of the word. “Marc, I thought you were in
Houston.”

“I just got in a while ago. And I have a flight out in a few hours.”

“Is something wrong?” Usually, Marc arrived to check out problems—employee malfeasance,
insurance or regulatory problems. He’d heard people in Benton Energy Resources groan
when they saw Marc Dryer appear. The cheekier ones made crosses with their fingers
as protection against the Dryer curse.

“No. Your dad and mom loved the story about the Cotulla team that made the national
news. You saw it?”

“Sure.”

“So?”

“So for once, I’m the bearer of good news. Bonuses all around and a contribution to
the library.”

Rafael slapped him on the back. “Good deal, buddy.” He grinned, then saw Esmeralda
pause at the door.

“Is she?” Marc’s question was so low he barely heard it, but he nodded.

“Esmeralda, Marc Dryer.” He walked over and closed the door. “Marc, Esme has agreed
to marry me.”

“Congratulations.” Marc grinned. “If I were Rafael, I’d make damn sure it was permanent.”

“Thank you.” But she shot a killing glance at Rafael. “Does everybody here know?”

“I had to tell Marc. He’s been involved with the situation in Truth, trying to find
out more about some of the people who were there the night Cody died. And he’s my
best man. If he weren’t there with me, my dad and mom would see through everything.”

“Just for the record, Esmeralda, I told him the idea was crazy. But his folks really
are stubborn about their beliefs. They’ve been trying to marry me off since my freshman
year in college. You’ll see when you meet them.”

“I guess. Still it’s kind of hard having perfect strangers knowing you married for
money, Marc.”

“I can see that.” He nodded. “But you shouldn’t take it as marrying for money.”

“No? So how should I take it?”