He looked familiar. Older. A worn face with faded eyes. The eyes crinkled and the tribesman came closer. He crouched beside Conner. “You don’t look so good.”
Conner didn’t like the idea of hallucinations speaking. Not when he was too weak to protect Rio. He tried to find the knife at his side, but the older man stopped him.
“It’s Adan, Conner. The men of our village met Isabeau and your team in the forest. There was a bit of a battle with those following them, but my men are very accurate. We’ve been backtracking them to find you.”
“The children?”
“All are alive and well.”
Several tribesmen lifted Rio gently from Conner’s back. Conner made a lunge for his partner, but Adan caught him in his strong grip. “They’ll take him to the helicopter. Both of you look a little worse for wear.”
“There’s a leopard dead a few miles from here,” Conner said. “The carcass has to be burned in a hot fire, enough to reduce the entire thing to ashes. Leave no evidence of our species.”
“It will be done. Let my men take you to the helicopter. And, Conner . . . don’t knife anyone. They’re on your side.” Adan grinned at him as his men laid Conner on a cot and began hurrying in the direction of the clearing.
21
THE old wooden rocking chair creaked in time to the breeze blowing through the trees. Boughs shivered and leaves swirled in the air as the wind rushed through the valley. A second chair groaned and rasped in counterpoint to the first one. A third one added a slight squeak to the symphony. Conner leaned heavily on his cane and surveyed the three men rocking on Doc’s porch in the sturdy, hand-carved rocking chairs.
“Well,” Conner said, “we burned her house to the ground. Imelda can’t hurt anyone anymore. We should at least feel good about that.” As he spoke he turned his head to look at the little boy throwing rocks with enough force to make dents in the wooden fence.
“As far as we know, no one left alive knows about our people,” Rio said. “And Adan’s tribe should be safe enough.”
“Until the next monster comes along,” Felipe said gloomily.
Jeremiah stirred. “We’ll cut their head off all over again.” His voice was husky, low, barely there, as if he whispered rather than spoke. His expression, as he looked at the others, was belligerent. “I’m joining your team.”
Rio flashed a small grin. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, kid. Welcome to hell.”
Conner studied the three drawn, gaunt faces. “Aren’t you three a sorry sight,” he observed. “Gossiping old biddies.”
Jeremiah, Felipe and Rio looked at one another.
“I don’t think you’re looking much better,” Rio pointed out. “In fact, you look worse than any of us.”
“The scars add to my rakish appearance.”
“You’re going to scare the kid,” Jeremiah said.
Conner sighed. “Isn’t that the truth?”
Rio frowned. “Conner, the boy wants you to like him. He’s trying as hard as he can. He watches you all the time.”
Conner snorted. “He runs from me. He’s watching me, because he’s afraid I’m going to eat him for dinner.”
“Try smiling,” Felipe offered helpfully.
Conner turned his head to observe the little boy talking so earnestly to Isabeau. Mateo hadn’t smiled once in the three weeks since they’d rescued him. He was a beautiful little boy, his body compact in the way of the leopard people, his eyes large and more gold than yellow, much like Conner. In fact, with his shaggy, unkempt head of hair and his bone structure, he looked very like Conner.
Conner sighed. He had no idea how to talk to children. The boy avoided him. He was a sober little child with big eyes holding too much sorrow and a terrible rage. Conner understood the intensity of both emotions, but didn’t know how to reach the boy. He kept his eyes on Isabeau. She reached her hand down toward Mateo. Conner held his breath. A heartbeat. Two. Willed the boy to take her hand—to make human contact.
Isabeau never moved. Never said a word. If anyone was going to get through to him, it would be Isabeau, not him. She was so patient. She never took his rebuffs personally. She never stopped trying with him. The boy took her hand and Conner let his breath out.
Mateo didn’t want to love again. Or trust. He’d lost too much in his young life. He had nightmares almost every night, and it was almost impossible to comfort him. Conner knew the leopard in the boy was close, trying to protect him with the sheer force of anger, building a wall around the boy. He didn’t know how to bring that wall down.
“It will work out,” Rio said softly.
Conner shook his head and began the slow, rather humbling journey, limping across the yard to Isabeau and Mateo. He had to keep reaching out, hoping to find a way to the reach the boy—to let him know he understood and that the child could count on him to see him through the coming years.
Mateo didn’t turn his head, but by the slight stiffening of his body, Conner knew he was acutely aware of him. A shadow slid over the boy’s face as he approached. He felt the hesitation. Should he disturb them? Leave them alone to let the boy have a little peace? Or should he continue to try to insert himself into the boy’s life? How did his mother always seem to know the right thing to do? Isabeau had finally gotten Mateo to hold her hand; maybe this was the wrong time.
Before he could turn away, Isabeau halted, the boy’s hand firmly in hers. “You look so sad, Conner.”
Isabeau. Sweet Isabeau. She was giving him an opening. Willing him to be strong enough to talk about his mother to the child. She had brought up the subject late in the night, while lying in bed, holding him close. She thought the darkness would help him cope better, but he couldn’t talk about his mother or her death. Tears had threatened to choke him. He wasn’t the kind of man to talk about things like losing one’s mother. He didn’t cry. He didn’t acknowledge pain if he could help it. Yet Isabeau was convinced that if he could let down his guard, it would allow the boy to do the same.
Mateo’s expression was closed off, yet so very vulnerable. Conner was a man, and Mateo expected rejection from Conner. Those eyes. He looked at those every day in the mirror. So much pain. So much rage. So much vulnerability.
You’re like her. Your mother. Not like him.
Isabeau’s soft words from the night before reverberated through his mind.
You’re like her. She left you such a wonderful legacy, Conner. She taught you what love really means.
He looked into those upturned eyes so like his own and he felt the shift inside him. Something hard seemed to melt into a softness he didn’t quite understand. Marisa had left this child with him, believing he would give the boy the same gifts she had given Conner. Unconditional love. A sense of belonging. Freedom. Family. He looked at Isabeau. His woman. His wife.
He knew now why Isabeau made him feel whole. It wasn’t the laughter—or the sex. It was moments like this. Moments that counted for a lifetime. That trust in her, that faith, the serenity on her face. As if she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was like his mother—like Marisa—and he would find the way to unlock this boy’s heart.
“Let’s walk over here where I can sit down,” Conner suggested. Because he couldn’t choose his words carefully when his inflamed hip protested just standing. Or maybe, he was putting a confrontation off for as long as possible. The boy looked so frightened.
He turned without waiting, not giving Mateo a chance to protest. He simply headed to the barn where he knew Doc had a bench—and kittens. Isabeau followed with Mateo. He could hear them walking behind him. The boy was surprisingly adept at walking quietly, although Marisa had probably used the same tactics with him as she had with Conner—allowing him to sneak out, thinking he was getting away with it so the boy could practice.
He sank down onto the bench and waited until the boy was standing in front of him. Isabeau took the seat next to him. He could see Mateo brace himself for rejection.
“It’s been a tough few days, hasn’t it?”
Mateo blinked. Nodded. Remained silent.
“The thing is, Mateo, we were lucky. It doesn’t feel that way right now, but we had a mother who loved us and left us each other. When I’m feeling alone without her, I’ll always know I have you and Isabeau. When you’re feeling alone, you’ll have Isabeau and me.”
Mateo hissed, sounding exactly like a leopard cub, spitting mad. His golden eyes flashed and he shook his head violently, stepping back. “She’s gone.”
“Did she talk about me to you, Mateo?”
The boy’s chest heaved and he blinked rapidly, trying to cover up his deep agitation. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“What did our mother tell you about me?”
Mateo set his jaw. “That you were my brother.” His voice broke. “That you would want me. She said . . .” He pushed a fist into his eyes and shook his head.
Conner circled the boy’s wrist with gentle fingers. “For a very long time after I figured out that my father didn’t want anything to do with me, I thought it was because something was wrong with me. That it was my fault.” He shook his head. “It was his fault. There’s something wrong with him.”
The spiked, tear-wet lashes lifted and the boy looked at him solemnly. “That’s what my mom said.”
“You know she never lied, Mateo. We’re leopard. We can smell a lie. She told you the truth. About him. About me. I do want you. Isabeau wants you as well. We’re family.”
The boy’s mouth tightened and he shrugged.
Conner glanced helplessly at Isabeau. She brushed her hand along his thigh. A soft commitment of faith. “I hunt bad guys. That’s what I do. I get in fights and sometimes I win and sometimes the other guy does . . .”
“Mostly you win,” Isabeau interjected.
Conner nodded. “I have to win if I want to live. But the point, Mateo, is that for a long time I thought to be a strong man I couldn’t show emotion. I couldn’t ever lose control. Certainly I could never cry, no matter what the circumstances. But I was wrong about being emotional and not being a man. A real man knows it’s okay to show when he’s hurt. I’ll never get over our mother’s death. Not ever. I’ll think about her every day, and at night, I cry when I’m missing her. Isabeau puts her arms around me and then I don’t feel so alone.”
Mateo pulled his wrist away and wrapped both arms around his middle, as if hugging himself. “I don’t cry about it.”
“About what?” Conner prompted.
“My mom leaving.”
“She didn’t leave you, Mateo,” Conner said. When the boy remained stubbornly staring at the floor, Conner put a thumb under his chin and forced his head up. “Look at me.”
The eyes flashed at him. Anger. Unbearable sorrow. Fear. Conner’s heart contracted. “She didn’t leave us, Mateo. Someone took her from us. Isabeau and I killed him.”
Isabeau gasped, pulling her hand away from his thigh. Conner didn’t look at her, knowing she would disapprove of his methods, but he had been this very little boy with that same rage, that same fear. And he felt the same unbearable sorrow.
“We’re leopard, Mateo, and it isn’t always easy to contain that much hatred and rage, even though our mother told us we should be forgiving. We can never justify taking a life because we’re angry, but sometimes it’s necessary, we have no choice. Do you understand? Our mother wouldn’t want us to harm others, not even when we’re hurting, but we have the right and the obligation to defend ourselves and our families.”
“I hate him.”
Conner nodded. “I hate him too. But that won’t bring her back to us. She left us each other, Mateo. When I look at you, I see her in you. I hope when you look at me you can see her too. We’ll make her proud of us. When I’m having a hard time, when I’m so angry I want to hurt someone, I’ll talk to you about it and you will remind me what she would want. When you’re feeling angry, you talk to me and I’ll remind you. We can get through this together.”
Mateo looked him steadily in the eye, and Conner could see the leopard there, judging, weighing him, wanting to believe he could entrust the child to the man. Conner opened his arms. Mateo’s eyes went liquid, drenched in tears, and he stepped into Conner’s arms.
Conner enfolded him tightly and just held the sobbing boy. There was so much pain in that little frame, and Conner felt that same emotion deep inside. “We have a bond no one can ever take away from us, Mateo. Our mother. She’ll always tie us together, our love of her, our memories of her. It will always be us, you and me and Isabeau.”
Mateo sobbed out his anger and sorrow, hiding his face against Conner’s chest. Conner just held him close and remembered all the times his mother had done the same for him. Eventually he stroked the boy’s hair, waiting for the hiccups that signaled the storm was over.
“Isabeau told me Doc rescued some kittens from a poacher. Did you want to show them to us?”
Mateo nodded and sniffed. “He said they were on a freighter, stuffed in a box with sawdust, and their lungs were messed up.”
“Doc can’t keep them all,” Isabeau said helpfully.
The boy looked up at him with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Someone has to help him out.”
Conner’s eyebrow shot up. Now he knew what parents felt like when their child gave them that look. His heart did some kind of funny melting thing and he found himself looking a little helplessly at Isabeau. She laughed softly and took his free hand.
“Come on. These kitties are pretty big, Mateo. You’d have to help us with care and feeding and exercise.”
“I would. I really would.” Mateo skipped ahead of them to the corner of the barn where four little clouded leopards snarled and spit.
Conner limped after the boy, Isabeau at his side. “Funny what I’m already feeling for him.”
“Me too,” Isabeau acknowledged.
“I checked on Teresa, that servant girl you were worried about,” Conner said. “She’s a single mother and was desperate for money, so she went to work for Sobre in spite of the rumors. She sent the money home to her mother, who was taking care of her son. She was happy to be reunited with them. Adan found her a job.”
She smiled up at him. “Thanks. I couldn’t get her out of my mind.” Her gaze followed Mateo as he sank down near the tumbling, squirming bodies of small leopards, watching their antics with enormous eyes. “I can see why she’d do anything for her child. Mateo’s already getting to me, and I didn’t even give birth to him.”