Alejandro thought of her resistance to his vision for the ways her land could be used to make her self-sufficient, and with some surprise realized that it was not everyone's wish to have land to work. “Did your husband work the land?”
She shook her head. “He was going to start the following spring. He'd been saving for it a long time, to buy the equipment and seed and topsoil.” She lifted a shoulder. “When he died, I wanted to buy it anyway, with some of the insurance money. It seemed like a good investment, and I thought he would be glad...” She faltered a little, staring hard at the page. She took a breath and raised her eyes. “Glad to have me do something that would take away some of my sorrow.” She shook her head. “My brother threw a fit. He missed Tim, you know. It really upset him when he diedâand he just thought I was awful for wanting to buy the house. He wanted me to put the money into the land, make a farm, when I never even wanted that!”
Alejandro's heart sank. The one thing he could give she did not want. To hide his disappointment, he took her hand, spoke encouragingly. “And you allowed him to change your mind.”
“Sort of. I didn't do the farm, but I didn't buy the house either. Ever since I've been living in a frozen world, where nothing changes.” She sat on the chair opposite him and touched his face. “I don't know why I had to bring you into my house, Alejandro, and I don't know where it will lead, for either of us. But this time, I know I'm right, and I'm not going to let himâor any of the rest of the people who tried todayâbully me out of it.”
“Others?”
She rolled her eyes, straightening to flip her sketchbook closed. Hiding. “Don't worry about it. It's a small town. I'm sure you know what that's like.”
Yes. He did know. He knew that memories were long and often punishing, that small minds sometimes held the greatest sway. “Molly, I cannot allow you toâ”
She raised an eyebrow. “Can't allow?”
“That's not what I meant. I do not want to give you sorrow, not after all you've done for us. I hate that my coming brought you trouble.”
To his surprise, she smiled. “I don't. For the first time in years, I feel really alive.”
That might be so. Perhaps that was the legacy he would leave her. Still, the situation reinforced his growing sense that he had to find another way to stay here with Josefina. He had to set Molly free to forget this little dream time and go on with the life she was meant to live. Quietly, he said, “I will miss you when I have to go, Molly. But maybe it's best this way, you know?”
She gave him that bright, fake smile he'd grown to understand hid her deepest wounds. “Maybe. Everyone knows it was a green-card wedding anyway.”
He frowned. “Molly, if I do not understand, you must tell me.”
“You understand,” she said. “Once you leave for a while, the people in town will see Josefina and like her, and they'll start thinking of me as a hero. And when you come back and we're divorced, no one will think it's strangeâa quick meeting, then a difference of opinion when our passion cooled.” She lifted one stiff shoulder. “They'll stop gossiping and my brother will come to dinner at my house again.”
Alejandro struggled with the knowledge Annie had given him, that the threat from the sheriff was a lie. That the wedding was enough to secure his green card. His wish to stay in her home, prove to her that he had something to give, warred with the certainty that his presence had made her life very difficult.
She stood and put the drawing pad back in the closet, leaving him wondering how to ease by those walls and discover what was really in her mind. Did she wish for him to stay? It seemed the highest arrogance for him to think so, when she had never uttered words of fondness for him, had even wept in his arms for her lost husband.
He bowed his head for a moment, thinking. In his own world, what would he have done, thought? But it was too hard to imagine. There, where work and family and tradition were the cornerstones of life, Alejandro was a good choice for a husband. He would not ever grow rich, especially in American terms, but his life would be solid, fairly secure. At home, he had much to offer.
Here, he had nothing but the soft talent of guitar and his strong back. No money, no standing, a place only as an outsider whose appearance in her life had dragged her outside, too. His pride would not let him offer himself until he had more to give.
But he found he was not strong enough to stay away from her now, in the quiet of a snowy night, with hurt lying on her spine. He rose and put his arms around her small body, pulling her close. For now he would use his hands and his mouth and his laughter to ease the sorrow she still carried.
Feeling her melt closer into him, he closed his eyes and summoned the right notes of desire for her to hear in his voice. “Tonight we have a big warm bed, hmm?” he said. “Let's use it well.”
She turned, urgently, and put her hands on him. “Let's do,” she said, and laughed as his hands opened her robe, laughed throatily as she pressed her breasts and hips into him.
Chapter 13
M
olly and Alejandro went to the hospital after breakfast. In the brilliant, snow-washed morning, it seemed they should both be cloaked in a gilded, new-lovers' glow, but that wasn't what Molly felt at all. She felt dread. Worry.
And worst of all, a doomed sense of her own impending broken heart. It had been very, very foolish to let herself fall in love with a man from another world, one so very distant from her own. And yet, she had.
He held open the door for her, arid she looked up at his face, that face she had almost recognized when she'd seen it the very first time, a face that was now carved irrevocably upon her heart. For one tiny moment, he paused, those dark eyes full of light and gentleness and strength, then he was gesturing for her to proceed him.
He waved at the nurses jauntily. Annie called them over. “I have some good news for you,” Annie said. “Dr. Indira is waiting for you in her office. She asked me to tell you to come see her when you got here.”
Alejandro looked at Molly and she caught a wild flare of emotion in his eyes. For a moment, she thought he was going to reach for her hand, but then he was standing straight and leading the way down the hall.
“Good morning, Mr. Sosa,” Dr. Indira said, smiling broadly. “Hi, Molly. I have great news for both of youâJosefina is out of the woods. I'd like her to stay overnight, but there's no reason in the world that you can't take her home tomorrow.”
A swoop of emotion went through Molly. Joy and sorrow, mixed together. How would this change things? “Tomorrow?”
“If you weren't a nurse, I might keep her for a few days, but you're familiar enough with procedures that I don't have to worry about her. The pneumonia is clearing, and you can keep her isolated from others until the TB comes back clean, right?”
“Yes!” Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth, but she managed to inject some confidence into her voice. “I know the drill perfectly, and it would be so much healthier for her to be home.”
Only then did she glance at Alejandro and see the troubled expression on his face.
So did the doctor. “Are you worried about her, Mr. Sosa?”
“No.” He seemed to come from a place far away, and shook his head. “No, this is very good.” He looked at Molly. “Let's tell her.”
In the hall, he stepped out of the traffic flow and took her arm, drawing her next to him, putting his hand around her shoulders, and Molly felt an almost painful swell of emotion. “What will we do now, my saint?” he whispered. His breath was warm and moist against her hair. “Will you care for her in your home?”
She raised her head, realizing how selfish she'd been. Alejandro wasn't thinking of them at all, but of Josefina and her safety. “Of course, Alejandro! Whatever else happens, you can trust me. I'll take very good care of her.”
He swallowed. “I know.”
He cocked his head down the hall. A wash of whitish light glossed his hair as he did it, and Molly thought,
even this is beautiful
. “Let's tell Josefina.”
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Alejandro felt as if he were dragging a bag of rocks behind him as they spoke with Josefina. He kept his mask carefully neutral, but the moment had arrived. Now he would have to let Molly go.
Let her go. Even the words caused a deep echo of protest to stir in his guts, but he knew it was the only choice. He'd seen too clearly how much she missed her brother, how much it pained her to be ignored by the people of the town. If he did not release her now, she would resent him one day.
That he could not bear.
He mentally rehearsed his plan. She would protest, and he thought carefully how to counter that, in terms with which she could not argue.
And suddenly, he sympathized with her brother, Josh, worrying over her goodness and generosity of spirit. Taking Alejandro into her house might have been a very dangerous act, something her brother knew very clearly, working as he did with the law. Alejandro might have been anyone, of any sort of character. He might have hurt Molly.
And though he believed his character was strong, Alejandro was going to hurt her nowâto save them both pain later. He mourned that. Mourned that she might think he had only made love to her in a casual way, that he took lovers as easily as many of the men he knew. Mourned that even their easy friendship would have to be sacrificed.
But it was necessary. To preserve and restore her reputation, Alejandro would have to pretend to believe her brother's lie, return to Mexico. Josefina could heal a little. Maybe then, he could come get her, take her back with him. And leave Molly to repair her life and make peace with the husband she still mourned, though she did not admit it.
He loved her. And love, as his mother told him often enough, was not selfish or grasping. Love served.
Alejandro would serve her best by letting her go.
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Outside the hospital, Alejandro halted. “Molly, you must listen.”
A faint, apprehensive frown. “What is it?”
“When Josefina comes to your house, I will stay a day or two, then return to Mexico.” He touched her arm. “Not for me. For you. Annie told me what the town is doing to you.” He paused. “She also told me it is a lie, that the green-card wedding is not enough. So I will go home for a few days, come backâand maybe you can just sayâ” a shrug “âthat it is too much, the little girl and me and the dog.”
“Alejandroâ”
He put his fingers over her mouth. “This is best.”
“its it?”
“Listen.” He took her hands. “You must, to be happy, make peace with your brother and your people here. To give you that chance, I must not live under your roof.”
“Stop being so damned noble, will you?” She tugged out of his grasp. “If you want to go, just go. Stop giving me these weird excuses.”
His eyes narrowed sharply. “You are too stubborn to see what I see. That you need your family. Your town. You have been very unhappy with them looking at you, talking about you behind your back.”
And damn him, he was right. She hated this, hated feeling as if she'd been banished in some arcane tribal ritual. And in time, she would resent him. She crossed her arms, feeling genuine grief well up in her heart. “At least let Josefina stay with me until she's better. Will you let me do that much?”
“How can you, Molly? You have work. You have friends.” He shook his head, smiling softly. “I thought I should make your land give you its bounty, to pay my debt to you. What I see now is that God sent me to you, just as you were sent to me, so we could both have better lives now. You have been frozen, as you said last night. I have been lost.”
She found she had a smile, a very sad one, in her after all. “You thawed me out, all right.”
“And you found me a place to call home.” He looked away and Molly sensed, suddenly, that it was as hard for him to walk away as it was for her to let him. “We will be friends. Later, when it is not so hard. Okay?”
Tears burned in her throat, burned so hot she wanted to scream them away. She closed her eyes and willed them away. “Okay.”
And as if he could not resist, he stepped forward and pulled her into a deep, close, rib-crushing embrace for a long minute, then kissed her head and let her go. “We should make arrangements today, for my niece. Tonight, call your brother and have him come to dinner. I will cook for him, and we will tell him the truth.”
Molly nodded. But she wondered which version of truth they would present.
As she drove toward the ranch, Alejandro said suddenly, “Your house, the one you draw so much, is it around here somewhere?”
“Not far.” She smiled, attempting a normal expression. “It isn't like anything is far from anything else around here.”
“Will you show it to me?”
Molly shrugged. “Sure, I guess.” She changed lanes and turned left, into the oldest part of town. Much of it was shabby, but the lots were generous and flanked with winter-bare elms and poplars and cottonwoods that made a tunnel of shade in summer. Molly parked on the street. “There it is.”
“Can we get out? Look in the windows?”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I want to see what captured you.”
He sounded as though he meant it, and they got out, crunching over leaves and snow in the late afternoon. More clouds had rolled in, and they lent a lonely aspect to the neglected house. She tried to see it with fresh eyes, taking in the peeling paint, the faded gingerbread, the boarded windows.
But instead, she snagged on the same things that always caught her. The leaded glass windows on the first floor, the eyebrow window in the roof, the long, wide porch that circled the front and both sides, ending in a screen door at the side. In memory, she saw it the way it had been in spring, with lilacs blooming from the enormous bushes that ran down one side of the wide lawn. She smiled. “It must seem amazing that this is it.”
“No,” he said quietly, turning to look at her. “I see your name written on it, Molly, right there, under that window. See?”
She glanced up, half expecting to see her name. Of course it wasn't there. He was teasing her, and she smiled again. “It's really amazing inside. Hardwood floors. Big wide staircase. Six bedrooms!”
He bent to pick up a bedraggled For Sale sign. “Why do you not buy it now?”
A wind skittered over the yard, kicking up leaves and waving the arms of the trees overhead. She pulled a lock of loose hair from her eyes. “I don't have the skills to fix it. I needed Tim for that.”
He lifted a shoulder. “He was a good carpenter. But not the only one in the world, eh?”
Molly nodded because he seemed to want agreement. But she looked at the turret with its pointed roof and knew she would never buy the house. And somehow, the thought made her feel winded. Lost.
She shivered and crossed her arms. “I'm freezing. Let's go get this over with.”