Second Chance Sweethearts (Love Inspired) (5 page)

“Gloria, I know a lot has happened between you and Rigo.”

Could Inez read her mind? Maybe not, Gloria decided. “A lot” was mild compared to how she would have described it.

Gloria waved her hand, noncommittally. “It’s in the past, Inez. Really. We don’t have to talk about it.”

Inez shook her head again. “No. We do.”

The strength in her voice hit Gloria like a punch to the stomach. Clearly, Rigo’s aunt was going to have her say.

“You think he’s responsible for Felipe’s death. You think he left you high and dry after high school and again after the funeral.” Her gaze was unwavering. “Don’t deny it. I know
su madre
. Your mother’s submitted many a prayer request to our Bible study group on your behalf over the years.”

Gloria had no choice but to silently nod. Every word was true.

“And, Gloria, maybe he could have done things better over the years. Maybe you could have, too. He’s had to learn a few lessons—some the hard way. But the simple fact is that God can work all things to good for those who love Him. The Bible says so. The question is, do you love Him?”

She wasn’t expecting the conversation to take this turn. She felt her heart miss a beat.

“Who? Rigo?” She had, once.

“No, silly girl. God. Do you love Him?”

She had, once, too. Now she didn’t know Him anymore. She sat in church, week after week, month after month, year after year, too afraid to not go. And too afraid to let her guard down and ask for the help she needed.

“I did. But then He took everything away from me.” Her voice sounded quiet, even to her own ears. The syllables sounded flat. Just like her spirit the past two years.

Inez gave her hand a light squeeze, just like Gloria had seen her do earlier today to comfort Tanna through the pain of childbirth. It felt unexpectedly reassuring. “Just like you, I’ve lost a husband. And I’ve lost a son. I know how much it hurts.”

Gloria stayed unusually silent. She didn’t even know how to take in what Inez was saying. Part of her wanted to bristle at her words and her assumptions about Gloria’s heart and life. But that prickly feeling was smoothed over a bit by knowing Inez was just an older woman who wanted to do some good.

If only words could wash away things as easily as the rain. But even though she wanted to believe what Inez was saying, it just wasn’t that simple.

“If a hurricane tears off a roof or washes away a building, you can fix it up or build it back. It just takes some time and the right materials.” Gloria looked down at her feet. She couldn’t meet Inez’s gaze. “But Felipe and my Mateo, they’re not coming back. There’s no work I can do to change that.”

Inez put a finger under Gloria’s chin and pressed upward, forcing her to look up.

“You’re right. There’s nothing you can do. But that’s not what I said. I said
He
works all things to good. Why don’t you try letting
Him
work for a change? You don’t have to do everything. Think about what I’m saying.” She pulled her hand away. “Now, then. It’s been a long night for all of us. I’d like to get some rest. Can you go see if they’ve found my dry clothes?”

* * *

Gloria left Inez’s makeshift bed in search of the young doctor who had been attending them earlier. As she stepped into the main hallway of the hotel, she spotted Rigo talking with some officers near a table covered in piles of papers. He’d changed into a new pair of swim trunks and a T-shirt with a blue Port Provident Beach Patrol logo on the back. A pair of cheap black flip-flops had replaced the soggy work boots on his feet.

She was drawn to the cuts on the back of his tanned calves. Some were superficial scrapes, but a few were deeper and covered with new scabs. Clearly, they’d all happened sometime between shuttling her and Tanna to safety and protecting all of Port Provident from Mother Nature. She knew all the salt water he’d walked in had to have stung each and every one of those scrapes and exposed them to infection. And yet, he never said a word.

What had Inez meant when she’d said he’d had to learn some lessons the hard way? Not for the first time in the past day or so, Gloria wondered just where Rigo had been before he returned to take the chief’s role at Beach Patrol. Was that what Inez spoke of? Or something else?

Dr. Stephenson, the young ER doctor who had been checking on Inez, turned the corner. In her hands was a pile of shorts and T-shirts with some socks on top. Gloria chuckled inside at the thought of proper Inez Vasquez in a pair of board shorts and an old T-shirt instead of the floral embroidered dresses she wore every day of her life. But at least they’d be dry.

“Gloria. I finally found what I was looking for. I have clothes for you and for Mrs. Vasquez and Tanna. For now, we’re just going to have to use what spare towels and T-shirts we can find as swaddling and diapers for the baby. We hadn’t planned on having a newborn here at the city government command center, but we should have everyone taken care of in no time.” Dr. Stephenson reached out a pair of blue shorts and a T-shirt and handed them to Gloria. “I think the shorts are going to be a little big for you, but they have a drawstring, so you should be able to get them to fit, more or less. Most of the spare clothes they had in the workroom were in men’s sizes. Here’s a blanket, too, in case you’re still cold.”

Gloria smiled. It would be good to peel off some of the layers—almost like shedding a very sodden layer of skin. “Thanks, doctor. I’m just going to step into the bathroom across the hall and change. Do you need me for anything?”

She shook her head, making her brown ponytail bounce. “No, we’re good. I’m going to make sure that Mrs. Vasquez and Tanna get a nap, since we still have a few more hours before we can even think about getting them out of here. The best thing for them will just be to rest. For you, too. Why don’t you come lie down on one of the couches in the clinic, too?”

It sounded appealing, Gloria had to admit, since she felt as if she hadn’t truly rested in days. But she knew her body’s signals pretty well and she knew she was still too keyed up to sleep just yet. “Maybe in a little bit. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” Dr. Stephenson turned and headed back toward her patients in the clinic. Gloria walked to the bathroom and into the handicapped stall to give herself more room to change. The whole outfit was wet and brown and reminded her of nothing but chaos. She discarded it all in a heap on the tile floor, then slid a pair of too-big socks on her feet and wiggled her toes in the warm softness.

When she was done changing, Gloria threw the blanket over her shoulders. She kicked the wet pile of clothes out of the stall with her foot and took her tennis shoes to the hand dryer. She tried to convince herself that a couple of cycles of hot air had made her shoes a little less wet. But she decided against putting them back on just yet. She held them, pinched between two fingers, then awkwardly picked up the stack of wet clothes and shoved them in the trash can.

“Good riddance,” she said as the door shut behind her. “I don’t ever want to see—or smell—you again.”

As she approached the makeshift clinic, she saw Rigo just outside the door. “Looks like everyone is doing well. All three of them are resting, and the doctor said they should be fine. She’s eager to get Tanna and the baby off the island for observation once the coast is clear, though. She’s insisting Tía go, too, because of her age. I don’t want to be the one to tell Tía that when she wakes up.” He laughed and shook his head.

Gloria nodded in agreement, remembering their earlier conversation. Rigo’s
tía
had a will of iron. She would almost assuredly put up a fight and insist that she was perfectly fine. But considering the conditions that would be revealed on the island once the storm passed, it would be better for her health to leave.

“Hey. Nice shirt.” Rigo pointed at the small logo on the front of Gloria’s new clothes.

She’d been so grateful just to have dry clothes that she hadn’t really even paid attention. She was wearing the same design as Rigo, a Port Provident Beach Patrol logo shirt. They looked like twins. Gloria couldn’t stop the loud laugh that popped out of her throat.

“What’s so funny?” Rigo looked at her, slightly sideways.

“Remember junior year when I asked you to the spring dance and we wore those ridiculous matching rainbow-striped rugby jersey shirts?”

Rigo leaned his head back and rolled his eyes. He laughed right along with Gloria. “And the khaki pants with the woven belts and loafers. I hated those dances—no offense. It was bad enough having to wear a penguin suit at prom, but having to dress alike at the spring dance was just too much.”

But then he broke into a grin and bared his front teeth. The white of the enamel stood out brightly, surrounded by his deep black far-more-than-five-o’clock shadow. She felt warmer, all the way down to her chilly toes in the new, dry socks.

“But the company more than made up for it. Thanks again for asking me. We did have some good times, didn’t we, Glo?”

A lot has happened between you and Rigo...

Inez’s recent words rang in Gloria’s ears.

A lot
had
happened. But if she was honest, it wasn’t all bad.

Well, maybe those rugby shirts were.

But they had years of history. And maybe it wasn’t fair for her to erase all the good from her memory and cling only to the bad, like a drowning person clutching a life vest. Maybe it wasn’t fair to have turned her worst moments into defining moments in her relationship with Rigo—or with anyone, for that matter.

“Yeah, we did. A lot of them, actually.” It surprised Gloria that the words didn’t turn her throat raw. The yawn that followed, however, didn’t surprise her at all.

“You’re tired, Gloria. You need to get some rest.” Rigo reached up and readjusted the blanket where it had started to slip from a shoulder. It felt like a gentle hug, comforting and warm at the same time.

“I am. But I can’t sleep. I’d say there’s just something in the air, but that’s an understatement. There’s a lot in the air. More than a hundred and ten miles per hour of something.”

Rigo put his hand on her shoulder and guided her to a couch against the wall of the main hallway. “Why don’t you lie down here? I’ve just checked in with the folks I needed to talk to and I don’t need to check back in for a while. We’re going to meet with the dive team in about an hour to put together a plan for rescuing people who stayed in their homes and got trapped by the storm surge. I’ve got some time. How about I just sit here with you until you fall asleep?”

The other end of the hallway bustled with action, but down here by the clinic, it was quiet. And although the couch was tufted and upholstered with a thick brocaded fabric, it looked like the most comfortable bed she’d ever seen.

“But you don’t have to...” She started to protest, reflexively.

He put one finger to his lips and gave a quick “Shush.”

“I don’t have to. I want to. Now lie down.”

Gloria did as she was told, and Rigo pulled the blanket down around her and tucked it securely under her knees and feet. She felt like a child, when Mamí
would tuck her in at bedtime.

Rigo sat on the floor and leaned his head slightly on the edge of the lower cushion. He reached up and took her hand as it lay on top of the blanket. “You’re completely safe now, Gloria. Just rest.”

She wanted to pull back, but it seemed rude. He wasn’t doing anything but trying to help her get to sleep. As the mild haze of sleep began to take over, Gloria noticed that it felt completely comforting to have her hand resting in his, almost as though hands had some kind of memory for movements and feelings of decades ago.

They were surrounded by the finest team of emergency personnel Port Provident could offer. City government, police, fire, EMS, doctors. All of Port Provident’s leaders were here, staying busy with what needed to be done.

The firefighters moved along the hallways, checking for stress fractures in the walls of the hotel as it was battered by the storm. Others, like Rigo’s colleagues, were meeting in huddled groups, mapping out a game plan for how they would assess damage and rescue citizens once the sun rose and the winds and the waters receded.

All of them were at the top of their game tonight.

But could any of them rescue a broken heart?

Gloria fell asleep before she could determine the answer.

Chapter Five

B
y eight o’clock in the morning, the Grand Provident Hotel seemed close to bursting at the seams with activity. Everyone was just waiting to get the all clear that winds had dropped below the seventy-miles-per-hour mark that signaled the shift from hurricane-force winds to a tropical storm. At that point, another type of flooding would begin as rescue workers would head out to see what was left of Port Provident and how her brave citizens fared.

“Gloria!” Tanna stepped into the hallway, carrying her newborn son, who had already seen more in a few hours than many people saw in a lifetime. “Dr. Stephenson says they’ve arranged for us to be transported to Mainland Regional Hospital. I can’t thank you enough for what you did. When I first met you, I knew you were going to be special—but you’ve been far more than that. You kept me safe from the storm, and you made sure Mateo arrived safely. I don’t know anyone braver than you.”

She leaned in and hugged Gloria with one arm, careful not to squish the baby.

“When Mateo is older, I’m gonna tell him about you and tonight. And the first Mateo. I won’t let him forget.”

The words wrapped Gloria’s heart like a healing bandage. They touched her. To know that somehow, her own little Mateo would live on in spirit beyond just her own memories felt like a blessing.

She couldn’t think of anything to say other than simply and softly, “Thank you.”

Gloria had attended numerous mothers and patients throughout her career as a nurse and midwife. She hated to say she’d forgotten many of them, but it was the truth. Tanna, though, and this little Mateo... Never. They would stay with her the rest of her life. Just like her own Mateo would.

Tanna headed back to the command center’s clinic. Gloria hadn’t seen Rigo since she woke up from her nap. She made her way around the hallways in search of a familiar face. Maybe she’d see a friend from the police force and they would be able to give her a lift home as they dispersed from the hotel.

“Gloria! Hey...wait up.” Rigo jogged down the hallway when he saw her. “I came by a while ago to check on you, but you were still asleep. They just gave us the all clear. I need to get out there. We know there are people trapped in their homes. I’ve got to round up my beach patrol lifeguards. Several of them were staying behind at a house. They can help with rescues today.”

She grabbed at Rigo’s arm. “Can you take me with you?”

“I don’t think it will be safe for you. You’re not trained in rescue.” She could see hesitancy in Rigo’s dark eyes. “The best thing for you is to go with Tía and Tanna and make sure everything is okay.”

Gloria shook her head, the flattened layers of hair flopping out of control across her face. She pushed her bangs back with a forceful hand. “No, that is not the best thing for me to do.”

“Why, Gloria? What’s gotten into you? There’s no need to bite my head off. I’m just trying to help you.”

A little ashamed of the tone that had overtaken her voice, Gloria tried to moderate her reply. “I need to go home.”

She could see compassion in Rigo’s face. The lines of tension between his eyebrows faded. “Glo. You own a one-story house in one of the most flood-prone areas of town. There’s probably not much left. Why don’t you let me check it while I’m out today and I’ll report back to you?”

It was a generous offer, to be sure, one that thousands of Port Provident homeowners who’d evacuated would likely wish they could take advantage of. But for Gloria, it wouldn’t do. She thought of wiping her tears with her Mateo’s stuffed bear yesterday, and she couldn’t stomach thinking about what had happened to what she’d left behind.

Exhausted by the long night, and heartsore from the past two years, a cry tore from Gloria’s chest. “Noooo. I have to know. Myself. Now.”

Rigo took one step forward and gathered her in his arms. She leaned against him and her tears began to turn his dry shirt wet. “Shh, Gloria. It’s okay. What do you need to know? Whatever it is, I’ll help you find it.”

“Mateo’s room.” Her voice was muffled against Rigo’s broad chest. She wanted to collapse on the floor in a puddle, but his arms wouldn’t let go. “I have to know if it’s still there.”

Rigo swayed back and forth, rocking Gloria gently as her heart cracked with a mother’s renewed grief. “Shh. It’s okay. I’m going to tell Tía and Tanna goodbye, then we’ll go together.”

* * *

The water was only about midthigh deep at the palm tree where Rigo had left his little boat tied up, instead of the chest-deep it had been only hours before. He couldn’t believe it, but the small craft was still there. He boosted Gloria in and ungracefully wiggled himself in, as well. The boat swayed with the movement but thankfully didn’t dump them back out.

Gloria remained silent, and now that Rigo had seen through that window she’d opened to her heart, he understood why. He didn’t understand from personal experience, as he’d never been a parent. He didn’t really even see it in the cards for him. The only girl he’d ever truly loved was sitting across from him in a beat-up plastic boat, cruising debris-laden waters with him.

And he was not the only man she’d ever loved. He knew that, and when she’d called him Felipe in the apartment parking lot, he had been reminded of that reality.

He wished he could tell her where he’d been, where he’d gone after Felipe’s death...but no, this wasn’t the time or place. The truth would not set anyone free in this case. Not now, maybe not ever. And maybe struggling with that and never having the right chance to tell her would just be his cross to bear.

“Where did the lifeguards stay?” Gloria finally spoke up as they navigated the waters near Pirate’s Point.

Rigo shook off the apprehension in his thoughts and pointed to a two-story white house in the distance. “Here in Pirate’s Point. That’s Caleb Simpson’s parents’ house. It’s pretty new, so it’s built to the latest construction standards. I think it’s on pilings that are about twenty-one feet tall, so they should have been safe from most of the flooding.”

As they approached what had once been Blackbeard Boulevard, Rigo caught a whiff of something in the air. Something that wasn’t raw sewage or dead fish—the two most common odors of the morning.

“Do you smell that?”

Gloria’s nose wrinkled. “I do. What on earth...?”

“Vasquez!” A shout came from the tall white house. “Hey, man, up here!”

Rigo looked up. On the deck were eight of his most seasoned beach patrol lifeguards. And a rounded black kettle-style grill.

“We’ve got steak! Are you hungry?” Caleb brandished a pair of tongs over his head. “Woo-hooo-woo! We made it, Chief!”

Well, I’ll be
, Rigo thought. They had made it. And they were throwing a party to celebrate survival. Suddenly, the small box of neon-colored children’s cereal he’d picked up at the hotel wore off and he was starving.

“Glo? You hungry? Can we stop for a few minutes?”

She looked up at the teenagers on the porch, then back at Rigo. A smile full of sunshine slowly crossed her face, lighting up her features, from her wind-tossed hair to her tawny eyes. “We’re all survivors.” She took in a deep breath and then let it out. “I don’t think we should miss this moment. I want to see my house, but I know it will still be there in half an hour.”

They moored to the tall staircase and then angled themselves over the handrail and climbed up. The teenagers greeted them with sports drinks and bags of potato chips and pulled two more steaks out of a high-end cooler packed with ice. Rigo cracked the seal on the orange sports drink and polished off half of it in one gulp. He ate a handful of chips, then finished off the drink and looked around for a trash can.

“Down there,” Caleb said.

“Where?” Rigo looked below the house, but all he could see was murky water.

“Out there, in the street. There goes a Dumpster.”

A giant green metal trash container bobbed along in front of the house, dislodged from its proper place behind some building around the island. Who knew where it had come from, or where it would ultimately come to a stop when the water receded. Rigo cocked his arm back and threw. The plastic bottle sailed through the air and landed right inside the Dumpster’s open door on top.

“He shoots, he scores!” Gloria clapped behind him. “Nice work, Chief Vasquez.” He remembered how she’d cheer for him at high school baseball games. What he hadn’t remembered was how good her cheers sounded.

He knew it was all his fault and he had to live with that. But he also knew he’d missed her support over the years.

“Thanks. It’s crazy to see something that large just floating around.”

As they cut into the T-bones and crunched on chips, Rigo relayed the updates from the command center to this lifeguard team. He informed them that Texas Parks and Wildlife would be bringing air-powered boats across the bay and onto the island in about an hour. They would be pulling up to the Pirate’s Point marina a few blocks away. The lifeguards who’d stayed behind agreed that they would be ready and waiting to assist the boats with patrol and rescue of anyone who still needed it.

As they wrapped up the meal, Rigo turned to Gloria. “Okay, we’ve been here long enough. Let’s get you home.”

It promised to be a long day ahead, but at least they were better fed than most on the island this morning, and he’d gotten to see Gloria’s smile when she was briefly distracted from what was waiting next.

* * *

Rigo’s boat made it back out of Pirate’s Point and lasted until about halfway to Gloria’s before the water became too shallow for the motor. Painfully reminded of the thoroughly soaked clothes from yesterday, Gloria was thankful when Rigo said he’d use the boat’s stowed paddles to get as far as he could. She offered to help, but Rigo told her to relax for a few more minutes. There would be plenty to do once she got home, he reminded her.

As though she could forget what was ahead.

“I think this is as far as we can go, Gloria. We’ll have to walk it the rest of the way.” Rigo reached out and grabbed the pole holding up a stop sign about four streets away from Gloria’s house. He looped some rope around the pole and tied up the boat. “Not like anyone’s going to notice another boat in their front yard, anyway.”

Gloria looked around her. She knew most of the residents of these homes. They’d had block parties together, watched homes for each other when people went on vacation, hunted for lost dogs through the lawns and the tight alleyways. It was a small neighborhood, with streets named in tribute to the heroes of the Texas Revolution. There was a spirit of community here that Gloria had always felt.

Today, though, she felt nothing but wind and the remaining light rain. The soul of the neighborhood seemed gone, washed out the open doors and broken windows that hadn’t been boarded up, flung helter-skelter with the mess of thousands of pieces that had once made up people’s lives and now littered yards, streets and alleyways.

But in spite of the overwhelming evidence that confronted her at every glance, Gloria couldn’t focus on what she was seeing. Not right now, at least. She kept putting one foot in front of the other and hoping that Rigo would think the wetness on her face was from the weather.

Gloria knew better, though.

The one thing she didn’t know was what would be left when she turned the corner and saw 909 Travis Place.

It didn’t take long to walk the remaining half a street until the intersection with her street. Gloria closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Rigo came up behind her and squeezed her right shoulder tightly. “It’s going to be okay, Gloria. Whatever happens, you’re not alone.”

She’d never thought she’d feel this way again, but she was grateful for Rigo’s presence. Since she’d dialed his number in an act of last-resort desperation, he’d been nothing but a rock for her. He’d been the Rigo she’d once thought he was, until he left and changed everything she thought about him. The years had taught her who the true Rigo actually was, but just for a moment, it was nice to have the untarnished Rigo back.

Gloria opened her eyes and looked up. Her front door stood open, pushed by the pressure of the storm surge. In her yard was a tangled mess of fencing, couch cushions that didn’t match anything in her own home, paper dropped in wet clumps and even someone else’s cherry-red forty-gallon ice chest. Just as on all the other streets they’d recently passed, pieces of board and roof shingles were everywhere. Neither of them could look up and take in the full landscape around them because they had to watch their feet. Rigo had his work boots back on, but Gloria only had her athletic shoes. Nails and debris were everywhere and they’d poke through an unsuspecting tennis shoe easily. And with no likely way to get a tetanus shot on the island right now, the outcome wouldn’t be good.

“I’ve seen this before.” She felt as flat as the crushed palm fronds submerged beneath her feet.

“What do you mean?” Rigo stepped into the intersection. There was no chance a car was going to come by, so he was completely safe.

She gestured broadly with her arms. “All of this. It looks like something out of the history books. I feel like I’m looking at pictures of the Great Storm of 1910.”

“I can’t fault you there. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it in my life. Unreal. If you live here long enough, you’ve seen a hurricane or two. But never like this.” Rigo turned around and faced Gloria. “Well, are you ready?”

“No. But we’re here. Let’s just go.”

She nodded without hesitation and plowed as best she could across the spongy grass that had once been her perfectly manicured front lawn. Since the front door stood wide-open, Gloria walked right through without pause.

Just dive in and you’ll figure it out
, Gracie was fond of saying when she didn’t quite know how to do something. Gloria wished her sister was here right now, instead of taking refuge more than two hundred miles away in San Antonio.

But Gloria wasn’t alone. Rigo stood right behind her. If she leaned just slightly back, she’d find her shoulder blades resting on his chest. He was so close that at any other time, she’d accuse him of invading her personal space.