Second Chance Sweethearts (Love Inspired) (17 page)

Chapter Eleven

E
ven though the air all around Port Provident was heavy with September humidity, Gloria pulled oxygen into her lungs, filling them all the way until they pressed down on her diaphragm. She felt like she could finally breathe again.

She’d been so wrapped up in holding her emotions tightly that she hadn’t seen how they were locking her in like a girdle of strife and anxiety. She’d been so concerned with making her family and friends and patients think she was fine that, instead, she’d created more problems.

And she’d been so focused on living day-to-day that she’d forgotten there was an eternal vision.

But as she looked up at the sky, streaked with pink twisted with ribbons of deep blue as the sun began to set over Provident Island, she knew God was up there, along with the people she’d loved so dearly and lost. She’d turned her back on God—and everyone else—but He’d never left her.

She knocked on the door to Gracie and Jake’s carriage-house apartment and heard the melodies of warm laughter coming from inside. “Mija!” Gloria’s mother opened the door, practically shouting the Spanish endearment for a daughter. She folded her into a loving hug.

Gloria had received more hugs since the storm than she had in years. She’d forgotten how it felt to give love as easily as one received it.

“
Hola
,
Mamí. Whatever you’re making sure smells good.”

They walked hand in hand toward the kitchen.

“A relief agency opened a temporary food pantry in the parking lot at La Iglesia this morning. They’d brought fresh vegetables, rice, beans and believe it or not...tortillas. So, Papí is making a sauce and is pulling together some enchiladas. I don’t know how he does it, but he always makes something work.”

Gloria thought of Papí’s last conversation that she’d been a part of. Could her father make something work between himself and Rigo? She settled back into what had been habit for most of her life, the past few years excepted—she said a quiet prayer and tucked it in her heart.

“Go see Tía Gloria.” As soon as she turned into the living room, Gracie placed Gabriela in Gloria’s arms. “You’ve missed your
tía
.”

The little baby stuck out her tongue and blinked as she focused on her aunt’s face. Gloria leaned over and drank in the sweet scent of baby shampoo and milk. For the first time in years, the smell of gentle innocence didn’t tug at her heart with memories of what could have been.

She closed her eyes and appreciated her sweet niece for exactly who she was, instead of mourning who she wasn’t.

“Glo? What’s on your mind?” Gracie asked as she pulled a diaper out of a square canvas tote.

Gloria shook her head just a bit. She wanted to keep this new feeling to herself. She felt that if she brought up the past, she’d be pulled into a whirlpool of talking about it all night and that would be a setback to her progress.

She pressed her nose to the top of Gabriela’s downy head. “Just thankful that she smells like a baby.”

Gracie wrinkled her nose. “I thought she smelled like tinkle when I handed her off to you. Diaper-change time.”

With confidence, Gracie picked up the little bundle, then laid her atop a blanket at the far end of the couch.

“Okay, well, there’s obviously that. But at least it isn’t raw sewage or mold. Natural baby smells—all of them—are far more my style than what my nose has been forced to handle this week.”

“It must have been awful, Glo.” Gracie tucked the diaper together, then snapped the baby’s onesie together. “I wish you could have come to San Antonio with us.”

“I’m sure San Antonio was far more calm than it was here, but Tanna needed me. I couldn’t have left her.”

“I know you couldn’t have. You’ve never been able to turn your back on anyone who needed you, no matter what.” Gracie sat on the couch and arranged the baby for feeding time. “Which brings us to something else.”

Her sister’s voice trailed off slightly, but Gloria knew that wasn’t the end of it. “What?”

Gracie looked down at the baby, quickly shifted her eyes to Gloria, then adjusted her gaze back to her daughter again. “You know what. Rigo. You haven’t been able to leave him alone, either.”

“Graciela. Just stop right there.” Gloria pushed her shoulders down and back, straightening her spine.

“No, Gloria. Not this time. You’ve always looked out for me. You’ve always acted like big sister knows best. But this is one time your little
hermana
really needs to have her say.”

Gloria turned her head slightly and looked at her sister’s expression.

It seemed very familiar.

She’d seen it in the mirror on many occasions. The look Gracie was giving her was 100 percent Gloria.

Gracie barreled ahead, seeming to sense correctly that if she didn’t fill the pause in conversation, Gloria would.

“He’s bad news, Gloria. He’s in the past and you need to leave him there. It’s fine that he was able to help you a few days ago—it was a hurricane, for goodness’ sakes, take whatever help you can get—but the storm’s over, your patient’s safe and your family is back here. You need to leave Inez’s house and go home.”

“Home? I don’t have a home, Graciela.” The words tasted bitter and wiped away all the sweetness she’d carried with her from the afternoon. “I don’t have a home or a job. Everything I had is gone.”

“No it’s not.
Somos familia
. We’re family. Always. You can stay here with us. And you can always work back at Huarache’s.”

Gloria tried to push her hurt aside and be rational, but it was a struggle. “Stay here? With four adults and a baby in an over-the-garage apartment?”

“Hey, it’s clean and dry and not destroyed.” The baby squirmed in Gracie’s lap as the sisters’ voices raised slightly.

“Neither am I, Gracie. I don’t need charity.”

“Family is not charity, Gloria. I don’t understand why you’d rather live at Inez’s instead of here with us, unless you’re really trying to start something up with Rigo again.”

Gloria stood up abruptly. “Start something up? I’m not a high schooler sneaking around behind the bleachers.”

Gracie tried to match her sister’s motion but was moored by the feeding baby in her lap. “Well, the last time you were with this guy, you were a high schooler. He was bad news then and he’s bad news now. Glo, I realize a lot has happened to you, but don’t throw your common sense out the window.”

“What window? Just about every window in this town is blown out unless it got boarded up.”

“It’s a figure of speech, Gloria.”

She’d barely recognized herself in her actions with her family since they’d come home. First she’d walked off from Papí. Now she was snapping at her sister. She felt a pounding in her veins, like a prizefighter in a ring, waiting for the chance to take a swing.

She knew she should be appalled by how she was acting. She knew she was getting caught up in her emotions.

She also knew that for the first time in a long time, she felt like fighting. She felt like fighting for something that mattered to her.

“I meant that everything’s changed, Gracie. The whole island has changed. So has Rigo. And so have I.”

There was no mistaking the tone in Gloria’s voice. Gracie leaned back against the corner of the couch as the baby mewled and waved an arm in a wobbly circle.

“I just think you’re smarter than this, Gloria,” Gracie said, gruff exasperation riding on the syllables of her whisper.

Gloria looked toward the hallway. The rest of the family was cooking in the kitchen at one end. The front door was at the other. She considered both for a moment, then made her decision.

She knew she was about to hurt some people who loved her dearly. She’d always tried to do right by her family, to help Mamí and Papí
at the restaurant, to support Gracie’s school and to be everything she thought a big sister should be, and to never let the people she cared about most worry by knowing how much she’d been hurting the past few years.

Just as clearly as she knew she had never let them down, Gloria also knew she couldn’t live the life she’d known before Hurricane Hope blew through town. She closed her eyes and silently asked God for that strength she’d been pursuing since the storm came and changed everything.

“I’m smart enough to fight for the people I love, Graciela.” Gloria picked up her purse and walked in the direction of the door. “And Rigo is one of them.”

* * *

Rigo knew that flash and howl coming from behind him all too well. He’d lost track of how many times he’d been part of a routine traffic stop as a patrol officer. But his last traffic stop as a patrol officer was anything but routine, and it had cost Felipe Rodriguez his life, Gloria her husband and Rigo his world.

When he first got out of rehab and began to put his life back together, he never even considered asking to become part of the rank and file of PPPD again, instead choosing to wait until there was a position open in the Beach Patrol. He wanted to be responsible for keeping the laws on the beach, and out with the sun and the waves and the lifeguards, while putting as much distance as possible between him and routine traffic stops.

As he looked in the rearview mirror and saw Brock Carpenter getting out of the patrol car, the angle of his face washed in alternating streaks of blue and red, Rigo’s stomach sank. There was no reason to expect gunfire this time, but he was smart enough to know that what happened next could destroy everything he’d been working for just as quickly.

Carpenter would like nothing more than to see Rigo off the island again—that much was clear to everyone at the first responder dinner.

A tap sounded on the glass of the window, and Rigo rolled it down.

“License and registra—Vasquez. I should have known that you’d be behind the wheel of a suspected DUI stop.”

Rigo handed the twin rectangles of driver’s license and insurance card out the window. “I’m not drunk, Carpenter.”

“Well, I’ve been following you since you left O’Boyle’s, and you’ve made several questionable lane changes.” Carpenter put his hands on his hips and spread his legs into a triangle stance.

“I was trying to get around the dump truck hauling all that debris to the temporary landfill so I could get on the causeway, and you know it.”

A soft choking snort, then a lazy snore, came from the passenger seat.

“What was that?” Carpenter leaned inside the window. “Milton’s with you?”

Rigo put his hands on the steering wheel and clenched them, since he wouldn’t be able to answer Carpenter’s questions with a locked jaw. He needed to direct his tension somewhere. “Pretty sure he’s passed out.”

“I’m going to need you to step out of the car, Vasquez.”

Rigo turned his head so Carpenter wouldn’t hear the words he mumbled under his breath. He faced Carpenter, who was still studying the flopping figure in the other seat of the truck.

“I told you, I’m not drunk. I haven’t had a single drink. I went to O’Boyle’s to pick Milton up. He called me and needed help. All the people he leans on for support are still evacuated. I’m taking him to a rehab clinic in Houston.”

“You know all about rehab clinics, don’t you Vasquez?”

“Cut it out, Carpenter. I don’t have to answer that.” Just like at the first-responder dinner, it wasn’t taking long in Carpenter’s presence to make Rigo’s blood pressure rise almost uncontrollably.

Carpenter tapped the door of the car. “You don’t, but you do have to step out of the car.”

Rigo tugged with deliberate, measured force on the door handle. He knew he didn’t have any choice but to comply. What he didn’t know was how far Carpenter wanted to take this. There was a probationary clause in Rigo’s contract that didn’t expire for another month. He served at the pleasure of the chief of police and the mayor of Port Provident. Any conduct issues would quickly lead to the displeasure of those two.

And then where would he be?

He’d lose his job and more important, his chance with Gloria. They’d made so much progress but it was still fragile. He knew they were on the path to being strong, but for right now, even the merest hint of him being back to his old ways would send Gloria back into her shell.

That much he knew for sure.

And it scared him to the core.

Rigo knew the different faces of fear. They’d been well acquainted over the years. He’d been full of false bravado when he’d called and left Gloria that message from Mexico. He’d been numb with shock as he watched Felipe fall to the ground after the gunshot. But today he knew acutely what was at stake, and his awareness wasn’t dulled by drink or swept up in the middle of fight-or-flight instinct.

He stepped out of the vehicle, determined to get through this, get away from Carpenter, get Milton the help he needed.

And then he would get to Gloria as fast as he could and kiss her and do whatever it took to move them from fragile to forever.

Carpenter motioned to the trunk of the car. “Empty your pockets, then put your hands there where I can see them.”

Rigo did as he was told. He laid his cell phone and wallet on the trunk of the car, then laid his hands on the edge, clearly visible.

Carpenter opened the door to the squad car and fiddled with his equipment. “It’s better for both of us if I have this on. You’re a trained cop and I suspect you’re under the influence. I don’t know what you’ll try, but you went to the same academy I did and you know the same holds and tactics I know. This dash cam is best for us both.”

“I told you, I’m not drunk. You want me to say the alphabet backward or walk in a straight line, man?”

“No. I want you to do as you’re told, Chief Vasquez, and quit being belligerent. It’s really not going to look good when the media hears that the brand-new chief of Beach Patrol is driving under the influence and resisting law enforcement.”

Carpenter was crazy, no doubt. But he was right. Any other cop in this town would bend over backward to not put a black eye on a chief of a department if he could avoid doing so. Rigo didn’t necessarily expect special treatment—he just expected fair treatment—but he knew many an incident had been swept under a rug or two in order to keep someone with a chief’s rank from being publicly embarrassed.