His Temporary Wife (25 page)

She couldn’t stand so close to him with his anger so apparent. She walked to the far
side of the room and opened the door to the balcony. “My aunt was having a meltdown
the day I left. I didn’t want to believe her, but she told me to ask Marie. I did.
She wouldn’t exactly say yes, but she also didn’t say no—just mumbled that a husband
wouldn’t buy a wife, so maybe I should ask you.”

“Have you ever used an online dating service, Esmeralda?”

His question was so unexpected that she couldn’t understand it. When she did, it made
her angrier.

“Don’t you patronize me! If I pay a few bucks for an introduction that is not like
some money-out-his-nose jerk paying my aunt to be sure I wind up with him.”

“No?” She could see Rafael let go of the anger, see his face become the reasonable,
unemotional mask he must have perfected over the years. “You pay a finder’s fee, don’t
you? You don’t guarantee you’ll fall in bed with any guy you might meet, do you?”

“But …”

“Esmeralda, one of the reasons I didn’t tell you is that I wasn’t happy about it either.
I accused your aunt of pimping—because I was outraged that she wanted money just to
mention the job to you. But she insisted it was nothing more than the fee companies
pay employment agencies to find qualified candidates for important positions. And
nothing—nothing—is more important than the position of wife.”

Why did he make everything rotten sound better?

“Lillie Mae knew. And who else?”

“Jade Brockton. He’s the owner of—”

“The Silver Boot and Booty. Lillie Mae told me. Did they get finders fees?”

Rafael ran a hand over his face. “I wish you’d just let it go, Esme. Has it ever occurred
to you that I don’t want to tell you the things you don’t want to hear? That I’m afraid
the truth will hurt you? No, they didn’t get a penny. They were offended I’d asked,
but since your aunt had insisted—well, I wanted to be fair.”

“I wonder if she had your job in mind when she told me to stay.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I told Tina—I am not going to call her tía anymore unless I’m speaking Spanish—that
I’d come to take her up on her invitation and move in with her, she wasn’t happy at
all.”

“That’s more or less the impression I got,” he agreed.

“You … how do you know?”

“I was in her office waiting for her. You can watch the whole floor through the glass.
She seemed angry, and you looked … wounded.” She started to protest, but he held up
a hand. “You asked,” he reminded her, gently.

“Yeah.” She suddenly felt too tired of all the pain coming from and leading back to
her family to deal with someone, even if his intentions were good. So she stretched
and walked over to the door connecting the study and bedroom. “Rafael, this is your
room and all, but …”

“I should scram?”

“Please?”

He nodded. “Scramming,” he agreed. “But Esme, if you need anything—or just want something—come
tell me, okay?” Then he grinned. “Especially if it’s just kicking your family’s collective
asses.” He stopped in front of her, leaned over, and kissed her softly. “Don’t let
them hurt you.”

She bit back a sob and managed a carefree snort. “Why should I let marriage change
anything now?”

“Esme, I mean it. Don’t joke about what hurts you so much. If I can do anything to
help you with them—anything—I will.”

“Okay.” She lifted her hand and touched his cheek. “Thanks.” She nudged his arm. “Out
you go. Oh, and Rafael … don’t knock on my door. I don’t think husbands knock on their
wives’ doors.” She grinned at him. “It’s not manly.”

He laughed and then closed the door softly between them. She heard the lock click.

“You, on the other hand,” he told her through the wood, “are welcome to knock.”

She laughed, too, and wished that she really could.

• • •

Easy living would kill her. Esmeralda stretched her legs out on the couch and smiled
at Justin, playing on the floor between the two huge Danes. Rafael had flown to Houston,
but promised to be back in time to take her to dinner. In the six days since the wedding,
she mostly had eaten and listened to music. Nana Ellen let her play with Rafael’s
cherubic nephew, but she always hovered about, maintaining the chain of custody. The
inactivity was killing her, even though she had managed to ride every day this week,
a new lifetime best.

She was surprised that she missed Rafael. He usually was hard at work in his study,
and she’d be with the horses or walking the grounds for hours at a time. Frequently,
though, she sat in the study when he was there, to read or watch a baseball game.
The presence of another person was comforting, and when she’d let herself daydream
about Rafael while he sat there unawares, keyboarding away, well—the time was well
spent.

“Time for me to take him,” Nana Ellen declared, coming in to swoop him up. She pressed
kisses on his bare feet and he giggled and squirmed, making both of them laugh. Motion
near the door made Esme’s head swivel. Marie stood there, her face hard, clearly not
ready to be friends anymore.

“Good morning, Marie.”

“Good morning, Ms. Salinas,” Marie responded, with even more of a sneer than before
the Bounty Collins incident.

Because Marie’s hostility annoyed her, Esme smiled back. “It’s Mrs. Benton, now,”
she reminded the other woman. “If you don’t mind.”

Marie frowned. “I do mind. You married Rafael, you tried to pick up Bounty—and you
got me suspended.”

Marie had been gone? Thinking back, Esme had to admit to herself that she hadn’t seen
her around and really hadn’t cared.

“I don’t know how I could have done that.”

“I sent Lillie Mae the picture of you and Bounty,” Marie explained indignantly. “I
thought the town needed to know who you were.”

“And who am I? Besides Rafael’s wife?”

“His wife!” Marie’s snort was derisive. “We both know you’re not that, don’t we? I’m
his assistant. I wrote the check to your aunt. There’s nothing about you I don’t know,
Esmeralda.”

“Why did you ask me out, feeling the way you do?”

“I thought I might be wrong. But I wasn’t. I came in here to see Justin. He looks
like his daddy, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know his daddy,” Esme pointed out.

“Sure you do. Bounty Collins is his daddy. They look just alike. He wanted to start
custody proceedings, but I told him he should wait.”

“Why should he—if he really believes he’s Justin’s dad?” Esmeralda demanded, worried.

“Because,” Marie said, gleefully, “you’ll be gone in two months. All Rafael’s crazy
plans will go down the toilet. If Justin’s dad is a happy, married man and Rafael’s
a vengeance seeking madman—guess who’ll get custody?”

“I didn’t know Doug was married.”

“Oh, he isn’t.” Marie smiled and held up her hand, showing an engagement ring. “We’re
getting married two weeks from now. My life will be starting out with Bounty and his
son—and your job will be winding down. ’Bye now, honey.”

Her former elementary school colleagues in Rose Creek always warned each other not
to think that a day couldn’t get worse. A bad day could always get worse. When Esme
saw Beto’s name and number on her cell phone, she wanted to hurl the device against
the wall and just get a new one. With a private number.

Instead, she clicked the call on and waited for the day to get worse.

“Hey, sis,” Beto slurred. “Guess where I am.”

“I don’t care where you are. Why are you calling?”

“Well, a friend and I were talking, and he thinks maybe I’m being selfish. Maybe I
shouldn’t have kept it to myself all those years.”

Esme’s heart hammered. Was he going to apologize for that incident so long ago? Maybe
he felt driven to confess to their mother that she hadn’t lied. “What are you talking
about, Beto?”

“Look, sis, here’s the thing. I’m in a bit of a fix. But I got something really important
to tell you. Come to Tía’s and talk to me. Oh, and I need the rent money for one more
month. Because after that, I’m gonna be payin’ my own way. Forever.” He hung up on
his end.

She stared at the phone, knowing that she’d probably be either disappointed or infuriated.
Knowing, too, that she didn’t have a choice.

Sighing, she went upstairs for her purse and checkbook.

• • •

Esmeralda didn’t see her aunt anywhere, but Tom greeted her warmly and Angel hugged
her as if she were a lost child returning home safely. Then she pointed wordlessly
to a corner booth in the back, where Beto sat, facing the wall.

“He’s had too much,” Tom muttered, keeping his voice low. “But we have orders from
Tía that he’s to get what he wants on her tab.”

“And this from the woman who needed me to bail her out financially,” Esme noted, pain
stabbing her again at the thought of her aunt.

Esme walked over and gasped in shock when he turned around. He’d been in a fight and
she’d bet he’d lost. Both eyes were swollen, the right eye looking much worse than
the left, and his lips were swollen and cut.

“What the hell did you do now?” she demanded.

“How do you know it wasn’t your husband? He threatened me, did’ja know?” He squinted
at her. “No, don’t go.” His words were hard to understand, partly because of his injuries,
and partly because of the almost empty pitcher of beer on his table.

“Sit down.” He grinned lewdly and waggled his eyebrows. “If you can.”

“What did you want?” she demanded, not sitting.

He extracted a piece of paper from his pocket with clumsy fingers and waved at the
bench again. “Gotta sit,” he insisted. “We got a lot to talk about, baby sister.”

Reluctantly, she slid in, and he handed her the paper. She looked at it. Bounty’s
name and a scrawled phone number. She positioned her fingers to rip it in half, but
with surprising speed, Beto recovered it.

“You need to call him. It’s about the kid.”

“Justin?” Alarm gripped her. “What about Justin?”

Beto shrugged. “Why should I give a damn about the brat? I don’t know nothing. I can’t
find a job anywhere. I need a month’s rent.”

With unsteady fingers she wrote a check and handed it to him. He handed her the paper
again. “He’ll only talk to you. He got a deal in Nashville, so he’s leavin’ again.
He don’t know whether or not he’s ready to fight for Justin. He wants you to call
him, so you can talk to Rafa. He thinks maybe you all can work it out and not hurt
the kid. I told him you were reasonable. Practical.” He snorted, filling the air between
them with the fumes of alcohol and stale tobacco. “I also told him you are hot. And
always have been. If you know what I mean.” He laughed lewdly. “He said he’d figgered
that out by himself. Play your cards right, Esme, and you could get the best of both
worlds. If you know what I’m saying.”

Esme refused to recoil from his vile innuendos, concentrating instead on Justin. On
helping Rafael keep his nephew forever, even—she swallowed hard—even when she left
Witches Haven. She forced herself to find that voice of reason that Beto had mentioned.
“Nobody even knows if he’s Justin’s father. He doesn’t have a right—”

Beto reached for the pitcher and held it out. “Want a little?” When she shook her
head, he chugged from the pitcher, beer running out of his misshapen mouth. “Maybe.
Maybe not. I don’t much care, one way or the other. Just doing a favor.”

She looked at the paper and put it in her wallet. She’d tell Rafael. He could decide
whether or not to talk to Doug. Then she stood to go.

“I thought you might have changed,” she told Beto. “I can’t believe I’m letting you
blackmail me. You, my own brother.”

Beto made a big show of looking from side to side before shrugging and crossing his
arms over his chest. “Ain’t no brother of yours here, honey. For you to be my sister,
you’d have to be the daughter of Adriana Martinez Salinas and Ernesto Salinas.”

She couldn’t speak, clutched at what he was saying without quite grasping it.

“Oh, and sweetie, that little lie you tell?” His voice dropped as he spoke, and the
hair on her arms stood up. “Wouldn’t have been a big deal if I got in your pants like
all those other kids did. No big deal, doing it with a cousin.”

She jerked her head, trying to shake it, to deny the filth and anger of the garbage
he was hurling at her. But deep inside, something already screamed. “Why are we cousins?”

“Because Tina’s your mother. Why do you think Mom and Dad hated you always being there,
taking everything from them and me? They adopted you out of pity, because Tina didn’t
want you. And you know what? She don’t even know who your dad is. Or care neither.”

The words hammered into her. She took a few steps towards the door and the bright
sunshine outside. Somewhere between his table and the door, blackness claimed her.

• • •

Somewhere in the darkness she heard jumbled voices, voices she didn’t know. She turned
her head, trying to escape the light trying to call her back. Over the nose and pain,
she suddenly heard Rafael’s voice.

“Esmeralda? Esme!” The panic in his voice registered, and she managed to open her
eyes, but the pain was still there, throbbing through her head.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You fainted. Why? Angel saw you talking to your brother. She said he’d been hurt—was
he that bad? Do you need us to find him and take him to the hospital? Tom said he
left right after you fell. We don’t know what happened.”

As warmth enveloped her, she realized that she was cradled in Rafael’s arms. He was
sitting on the floor, and Angel and Tom were standing near her. Behind them she could
see other denim-clad legs, so clearly they were still in the bar. With that realization,
memory of the confrontation with Beto flooded back, and she pushed against Rafael’s
restraining arms.

“Let me up,” she demanded. “I have to … Rafael, let me up.”

Somehow he got his feet under him and managed to lift her up as he stood, not putting
her down in spite of her struggles.