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After staying awake long enough to watch the moonlight creep through the blinds and across the ceiling, Gloria finally drifted off to sleep in the pitch-black that stole in just before dawn. Although she could not see the stars they’d watched together, their images filled her mind’s eye and the soft touch of Rigo’s kiss still lingered on her lips.
Gloria started awake at the sound of a large thump, followed by a low buzz. Turning her head, through groggy eyes she saw red blinking lights on the clock on the nightstand.
The electricity had come back on, just like that. Water would follow shortly, or so the word around the island said yesterday. Then the causeway would be opening around noon, bringing an army of curious residents and likely a few looky-loos out to see the aftereffects of a natural disaster for themselves.
Today would be the day when everything changed. People would return to Port Provident and begin to repair their homes and businesses. They’d see the curtain pulled back. Surely most residents who’d evacuated had seen the reports on TV, but even an HD picture couldn’t replicate seeing face-to-face the two-by-fours turned to toothpicks across Gulfview Boulevard, the boats from the marinas across town now scattered on streets and in parking lots, the palm trees upended at the roots in the esplanades of the historic avenues, the black spots of insidious mold blooming on every wall that got touched by the brown sludge and water.
A lot of her friends and family would find their worlds rocked today.
Just like her own world shifted on its orbit last night.
Gloria sat up and ran her hands over her face, trying to head off her remaining urge to yawn uncontrollably. A slight, sleepy dizziness reminded her just how off-kilter things had become.
She stretched, feeling the pull of muscles that hadn’t moved in a long time. Again, her thoughts turned back to last night. Gloria raised her arms over her head again and let her mind linger on the memory. And as her shoulders and her arms and her back all felt the warmth and tug of impending activity, so did her heart.
Her lips curved upward in a smile of acknowledgment. It was time to face the changes in the world around her without fear. Thinking about it too much would keep her from progress.
A knock sounded at the sturdy wooden door. “Gloria? Did you hear that?” Inez’s voice echoed a bit in the hallway.
“I did. I think the power is back on.” She scooted off the bed and wrapped the old bathrobe she’d borrowed around her. The early dawn light stained the floral pattern with a pink glow.
Gloria opened the door. “Did the city come by yesterday to check the breakers and such like they said?”
“Yes. After lunch. The tag they left is on the table Rigo put by the door.”
“Is Rigo here?”
Inez shook her head, her hair still pinned tightly in curls. Even the hurricane’s inconveniences couldn’t shake decades-long bedtime rituals. “No. He left for his shift just before eleven last night. I believe this shift will end at eleven. He told me yesterday that they’d be going off those twelve-hour shifts as soon as the utilities came back on. So, I guess this is his last one.”
“I wonder when the water will turn back on.” Maybe sometime soon she’d be able to get clean and be as beautiful as Rigo told her last night she was.
“I hope soon. These curls are getting flat.” She gently patted her hair twirled around the bobby pins. “What are you doing today, Gloria?”
Now that she knew the water could be back on any minute, the layers of salt caked on her body began to itch like the first peeling of a deep, red sunburn. “Well, if the causeway is opening back up, I assume my parents and Gracie and Jake will be first in line. So I’ll probably go finish a few little things I was working on at my parents’ house. And then once the water comes back on, I’m going to take a shower. I’m going to find a new bar of soap somewhere on this island, unwrap it and use the whole thing. Then I’m going to find a bottle of shampoo and squeeze so much of it in my hands that it runs between my fingers like liquid gold. I’m going to lather, rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat.”
“Ay, mija. I completely understand. I dreamed about a bubble bath last night. I haven’t had one of those in years, but I think I’m about to change that.”
Gloria warmed a bit at the older woman using the word for “my daughter.” She certainly had come to think fondly of Inez during the course of the past few days, and she liked knowing that Inez seemed to feel the same.
“Mija, that T-shirt you had on yesterday looked awful. Why don’t you see if you can find another one? I’m sure Rigo has some in his closet and since they were all upstairs here, they didn’t get destroyed like everything in your closet did. He won’t mind if you take one of his to wear after your shower. No sense taking your first shower in days to have to put on that old dirty shirt.” Inez pointed toward Rigo’s closed door at the far end of the hall. “In fact, I can smell you from here. Just go in there now and get one for today and you can get another later if the water comes on. He’s got plenty to spare.”
Gloria didn’t turn. Sure they’d shared a kiss, but she didn’t know about sharing a T-shirt. It seemed against some kind of rule, somehow. She was sure there was something in the few items of clothing she’d brought with her that would do instead.
“What?” Inez picked up on Gloria’s hesitation. “Just because you borrow a shirt from him doesn’t mean you have to marry him, girl. It just means you won’t smell.”
Gloria could feel a red flush plucking at her cheeks from just under the skin. “Of course I’m not marrying him, Inez. That ship sailed, like, a decade ago. But I feel strange about walking in his room without his permission.”
Had she really just said that? Clearly the caked on salt and sweat was getting in her head.
Not to mention that kiss. It definitely had already staked out territory in Gloria’s mind and wouldn’t leave. It just sat on Repeat, kicking up sparks like a July Fourth sparkler over and over and over.
“It’s my house, my room. Not his. You’re not there to snoop. Just walk in and find a T-shirt and walk out. Ay yi yi, hija.” Inez walked back to her room, leaving Gloria alone to contemplate that exasperative sound and Inez’s true meaning behind it.
The older woman was likely right. Gloria had permission from Inez to go in there and it wasn’t as if she was going to be poking around for dirt or anything. Just a shirt to go work in. No big deal. She’d worn plenty of Rigo’s T-shirts in high school. Back then, she wore his letter jacket that he’d earned on the baseball diamond enough that it practically qualified as her own. This couldn’t be much different.
With a tentative push of the door, Gloria walked into Rigo’s room. In spite of days of total chaos, the room looked completely organized. A quilt in tones of navy blue, sky blue and white lay across the mattress. Two white pillows lay fluffed on top. The louvered closet door had been left open. Rigo had been right—the closet was tiny, but the clothes that did fit inside were hung in an orderly fashion. All the hangers were made of neat white wire, and they all faced the same way.
Averting her eyes from the linen guayabera and the memories it evoked in her mind and on her lips, Gloria pulled out two Beach Patrol shirts. She held Rigo’s shirts in her hand and reflexively brought them to her face. She smelled the faint scent of pine and spice. It hadn’t changed over the years.
But she had.
And she knew better now. She just couldn’t let her wandering mind grab her heart and lead it astray.
She had a home and a career to rebuild, and all that came with it.
“I can’t risk having to rebuild a heart, too,” she said with a whisper, hoping her heart and her head would both hear and obey.
She walked out of Rigo’s room and quietly clicked the heavy white-painted door closed behind her. The memories mingled with the idle dreams of what could be as she walked back across the hall.
Determined to get to her parents’ house and get back to real rebuilding as quickly as possible, Gloria pulled off the stained, sweat-soaked shirt she’d been wearing and exchanged it for the one that smelled of pine and the past, powerless to keep her mind off of last night’s kiss.
Rigo raised the hemline of his T-shirt and wiped it across his brow. Humidity was a part of life on the Texas Gulf Coast, but since Hurricane Hope blew through town, the water in the air felt more like a faucet. Oppressive seemed like the best word to describe how it felt to walk around in air that was thick enough to be served up in a bowl like soup or posole.
But as heavy as the air lay, the way Gloria left the widow’s walk last night lay even heavier on Rigo’s heart and mind.
He’d told himself not to expect anything from the evening. He’d promised himself he was doing it only to bring a smile to an old friend’s face at a stressful time. He just wanted to prove she could trust him. He’d been ready to follow all his own advice and keep things simple.
Until Gloria walked out in that raspberry-pink dress.
Then everything changed. And even the heat and the humidity couldn’t melt that memory of Gloria’s petite curves hugged by that just-clingy-enough dress from his mind.
“Taking a break, Vasquez?” Rigo looked up from his thoughts to see Bradley Thorpe, the director of the Park Board. Bradley ran the island’s beach parks and other tourist entities from a management standpoint, and Rigo was responsible for keeping them safe and secure. Brad had recently moved to the area from South Padre Island at the southernmost tip of Texas, but he and Rigo had immediately hit it off and become friends. Best of all, he hadn’t been a witness to Rigo’s downfall or heard any of the gossip of several years ago. It felt good to have a friend who knew him just as Rigo, with no attached baggage.
“Hey, Brad. Just evaluating these lifeguard towers. Believe it or not, there’s not a lot of damage. I think lining them up here behind the building blocked some of the wind shear.” Rigo gestured at the four-story brown brick tower behind them, the home of the Port Provident Park Board.
“That’s great news. I’ve been digging through files, trying to see exactly how our insurance coverage stacks up. The downstairs of the building is flooded and a total wreck, just like everything else on the ground here. Both pavilions at the main beach parks look like they have structural damage.”
Rigo nodded his head.
“You’re a million miles away, Vasquez. Something’s on your mind. Anything I can help with? Don’t worry about the pavilions, man. You can use an office here for the time being. There are a few open spots on the third floor.” Bradley leaned against one of the wooden lifeguard stands.
“It’s not that, though I appreciate the offer.”
“Then what’s up?”
Rigo could see real concern in Bradley’s eyes, overriding the tired glaze they all seemed to carry around these days.
Could he come clean with Brad? He liked that Brad didn’t know everything about his past. While it would be nice to get a sanity check on these reemerging feelings for Gloria, Rigo just couldn’t get comfortable with airing his dirty laundry right now with this colleague who’d become a steady friend.
“Do you read the Bible, Brad?”
“A little, why?” Bradley crossed his arms over his chest.
Rigo kicked at a small pile of muddy pebbles near his feet. “Ever heard of Jeremiah 29:11?”
“My sister has it up on a poster. Something about hope, right?”
The sun inched out from behind a cloud overhead, sweeping the lingering midmorning shadows off the lifeguard stands that stood all around them.
“Right. ‘I know the plans I have for you...plans to give you a hope and a future.’” Rigo scuffed at the muddy mess he’d made under the soles of his feet. “I’m thinking about Hurricane Hope and wondering about the future.”
“Okay, I’m not totally following you. From the look on your face, I thought you had trouble with some woman, though. Except that I’ve never heard you talk about a relationship or anything, so at least it’s not that.”
“Brad, I think it’s exactly that.” Rigo didn’t want to change the dynamic of his friendship with Bradley, and he thought opening up would put them in a place he didn’t want to be. But he didn’t want to be evasive with his friend, either. Evasion was the first step on the road to dishonesty, and Rigo promised himself in rehab he wouldn’t again keep secrets from those who cared about him.
“You remember the people I brought with me to the command center during the eye of the hurricane?”
Bradley nodded. “Your aunt and that mom and baby and the nurse?”
“Midwife.” He may as well go all the way with this honesty thing. He knew Gloria’s official title was Certified Nurse-Midwife, and it seemed worth making the distinction.
“Wait a minute.” Brad’s hazel eyes opened wide. “That baby was yours?”
A short laugh escaped Rigo, and he waved his hand shortly. “No, no.”
“The baby belonged to the midwife?”
Rigo chuckled again. “No, the baby belonged to the young woman. The midwife, though, she used to belong to me.”
“Wait. What?”
Rigo could tell he was throwing Bradley for a loop. Clearly, they all needed to get more sleep. Twelve-hour shifts in a disaster-damaged world took their toll on mind and body.
“Brad. Not literally. I dated her a long time ago.” Seeing clarity in Brad’s eyes, Rigo decided just to throw it out there. “And then I was a jerk and went to Mexico to surf and left her. She started dating a guy I’d been good friends with in high school. They got married. And when I came back to town and went to work on the police force, I got paired up with him. I tried to act like we were still friends, just like when we were younger, like nothing had changed. But it all had. The jealousy that he had her and they had a baby on the way—it ate me alive. I was there the night he died. It was all my fault. And then I messed everything up even worse than before.”
Bradley uncrossed his arms, then crossed them behind his lower back and leaned against the lifeguard tower again. “So you killed this guy?”
Rigo waved his hands in front of him. “No, no. I was jealous. But not like that. I pulled over a car for a routine traffic stop, but as I questioned the driver, it didn’t feel right. Felipe had gotten a call that Gloria had been taken to the hospital. But when I called him on the radio, he turned around and came back to help me. Gloria hadn’t told him how serious her condition was, so she wouldn’t scare him. He thought he had time to turn around.”
He turned his head away. He’d kept this story inside for so long. Letting the words out took a flood of emotions with them. “My gut was right about the kids in the car. They were a group of small-time drug dealers and they thought they’d make a name for themselves. When Felipe got there, a guy popped out of the trunk that they’d rigged for defense. Neither of us saw it coming. Gloria was at the hospital upstairs, alone in L & D, when they rushed Felipe down to the ER. Their baby died that day from blood loss due to a ruptured placenta. I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to the baby, but Felipe should have been with her. She lost everything because of me.”
Bradley’s brow furrowed with the weight of Rigo’s words.
“So that’s the past. You said you were thinking about the future. She’s obviously talking to you. She was with you at the command center. I saw you two leave together. So something’s changed.”
Rigo nodded and recapped the past week for his friend.
“Look, Rigo, I haven’t walked through the door of a church in a long time for a lot of reasons. But I grew up with a grandmother who went every Sunday, every Wednesday, and a few other times in between. And she used to always love to talk about how God would close doors and open windows.”
“My tía Inez still says that all the time,” Rigo said.
Bradley shrugged mildly. “Maybe this is your window. The past is past. The door is closed. You know your actions have hurt her, but you came back to make amends. Maybe when the hurricane blew out half the windows in town, it opened one for you, too.”
Rigo let Bradley’s words soak in like rain. “Maybe so. I just wish I knew what to do with my window.”
“Do the right thing.”
“Sure, Brad. That sounds way better than breaking her heart again.” Rigo could hear the sarcasm on each syllable and he knew Bradley could, too.
“Hey, settle down, smart aleck. I just mean do all those things you meant to do. In a perfect world where you’d never broken her heart, what would you do?”
During all those nights in rehab when he’d laid in that stiff bed after curfew and thought about what he’d done to get to that point, Rigo rewrote history in his head over and over and over. He knew where he’d gone wrong. And it wasn’t fair to blame the bottle or Mexico. They were symptoms of the problem.
He, Rodrigo Vasquez, was the problem.
He’d taken Gloria for granted. He’d accepted her and her teenage love for him as ordinary.
He’d been wrong. Her steadfast, loyal heart was extraordinary. And he should have treasured it.
“I’d make her feel special.”
“So, what are you waiting for?”
Rigo pointed at the chaos around them. He knew what he was up against. “Gloria’s lost her home and her job. I’m pretty sure she’s been grateful for my help the last few days, but she’s like everyone else—focused on one thing and one thing only right now. Not happily-ever-after. Rebuilding. I mean, Brad, are you crazy?”
“No. Are you?”
“What?”
“You’re telling me you may have a second chance with the woman you’ve loved since you were a teenager. You’re telling me that you believe a window may have cracked open for you. But you’re also making excuses and telling me that some hurricane debris is in your way.” Bradley locked his gaze on Rigo with a steel-like seriousness. “Let me tell you something, Rigo. My grandfather had known my grandmother for three weeks before he shipped out to France in 1943. But he never forgot her, just like you never forgot Gloria. He crawled on his belly on Omaha Beach, seeing her face in a haze of bullets and the ugliest side of humanity. He lost two toes to frostbite in the trenches in France. And he still made his way home to her. He’s in his nineties now, and he’d do it again today if that’s what it took to be with her. He said he didn’t see the carnage of D-day as he came ashore. He saw her. What do you see? A hurricane? Or Gloria?”
His friend’s words flew straight to his heart with the piercing accuracy of a sniper’s bullet.
Since the moment he’d answered his phone Wednesday afternoon, everything tumbled in a constant cycle of change—it made him think of the careening roll and spin of socks in a dryer. In the time he’d been back in Port Provident, Rigo followed his plan to stay out of Gloria’s way and make amends around town where he needed to. He’d been content.
Then his phone rang and a hurricane named Hope blew his past straight back into his present.
He used to feel so guilty about still having feelings for Gloria. He’d partner up with Felipe, day after day, feeling paralyzed by the ever-present fact that he’d never gotten over the woman who’d gone on to marry his friend. And then when his call for backup led to Felipe’s death, the dark clouds crushed him stronger than any hurricane’s destructive slap of wind.
Through rehab and a return to La Iglesia, he’d started to shed that guilt, but it sloughed off awkwardly, like a chameleon’s shedding skin.
He didn’t want to be a chameleon, ever changing. He wanted to be a rock.
And more than anything, he wanted to be that rock for Gloria.
“You’re right, Brad.”
“So, what are you gonna do about it?”
Rigo thought for a moment. “Man, I don’t know. I made her a makeshift restaurant at Inez’s house last night so she’d have a fresh hot meal. But there’s just not much out there right now. My relationship with Gloria isn’t the only thing that’s a mess.”
“Your options are limited. How about the First Responder Thank-You Dinner that Porter’s Seafood is hosting tonight?”
Now that the basic services had returned, the oldest family-owned restaurant in town quickly put together plans to celebrate the efforts of Port Provident’s first responders during the past week. They promised it would be simple, but they also promised it would be a time where the men and women who helped save the island could relax and enjoy a meal prepared with love and gratitude. Almost everyone Rigo knew in the police, fire and paramedic community would be there at least for a while.
And therein seemed to be the problem.
“No, man. I can’t do that.” His shoulders tensed up at the thought.
“I don’t get it. You just told me you want to make her feel special. Take her out on a date that’s not on your aunt’s porch.” Bradley’s stare fell on Rigo so hard it landed like a punch.
He wanted to. He wanted to take the stress of the past few days—of the past few years—away from her. Wasn’t that the whole point of the catch of the day on Inez’s rooftop porch last night?
“There are limits to what I can do.”
Brad’s unwavering expression told Rigo he didn’t believe a word of it.
“Really, Bradley. Half this town knows I broke her heart after high school and the other half knows I was there the night her husband died. I’ve got an unspoken peace with a lot of the guys on the force. I turned my life around. They can support that. But how much support do you think I’m going to get when I show up with my dead patrol partner’s widow? And worse, what are they going to say to her? I’m not going to let them hurt her any more than she’s been hurt, Brad.”
Bradley took one measured step forward and pointed at Rigo. “I know you won’t. But when you’re on the beach, in the middle of battle, do you see those guys?”
“No. Of course not. Didn’t I just say you were right?”
“Yeah.”
His smugness lingered a bit in the air. It made Rigo want to fire back with his own short-clipped reply. “So?”
“Then you have to stand up to your past and knock it down. Treat her in such a way that they can’t second-guess you now. Why are you letting excuses get in your way? Seems like you stood behind a big pile of excuses on a beach in Mexico and it didn’t get you anywhere. Seems like maybe you think you see that window, but you’ve decided it’s too small for you to climb through.” Bradley took aim and fired with his words. “Seems like you’re still not the man she needs you to be.”
One. Two. Three seconds passed before Rigo caught his breath. Everything within him felt slow and deliberate.
Especially the realization that Bradley was right.
But it wasn’t about one dinner with some of the guys at Port Provident PD who would immediately begin an investigation into what was going on. It was about showing Gloria he would be there for her, both in physical presence and emotional support.
“I’ll ask her to come tonight. But what if she says no?”
“Then you’ve gotta keep crawling across the beach until you get past every single one of the bullets. She’s worth the fight, right?”
Rigo wished he’d known then what he knew now. If he’d known what he’d lose, he’d have realized she was worth the fight—any fight it took—and he wouldn’t have listened to all those lies he told himself in Mexico all those years ago.
Gloria was worth the fight. She was worth squeezing through whatever window God put in front of him.
If it took crawling across a battlefield or a field of hurricane debris, Rigo knew Bradley was right. He’d have to do it. Now that he’d had her back in his life, even for just a few days, he knew he couldn’t let her go again.
“You mentioned your sister earlier. Does she still work at that print shop up in Houston?”
A wide stripe of sunlight cracked over the small cloud that had been playing peekaboo earlier. Bradley pulled his sunglasses from where they’d been folded over the neckline of his T-shirt.
“Yeah, she and my brother-in-law own it. From what I’ve heard from the control center, the hurricane really didn’t do much damage over there in Sugar Land. Just a lot of rain and downed tree limbs.”
Rigo smiled. “That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear. Can you help me with something else? I have a window to crawl through.”
Gloria felt something before she even heard the sound of tires in the parking lot at Huarache’s. An awareness, a flicker of excitement, came over her and made her look up from the bag she was stuffing with wet table linens to take to the ever-growing pile of junk outside.
They’d come home.
Her whole family—the people she loved more than anyone on earth—were back on the island. Gloria couldn’t have kept her feet from running toward them if she’d wanted to.
“Gracie!” Gloria wrapped her sister tightly in her arms as soon as she was close enough to touch her. They’d been apart only a matter of days, but something about being separated by a natural disaster—with no phones or open roads for a time—made the hours seem longer and more burdensome.
She could feel small streaks of wetness on her sister’s cheeks. Gracie clearly felt the same weight of separation. “Glo. Hermanita, we’ve all been so worried about you. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Rigo made sure all of us in the house were all right.”
“Vasquez?” Her father cleared his throat and Gloria thought for a split second he was going to spit on the ground in front of him. “Well, it’s hard to run away when the roads are closed.”
The words from her usually mild-mannered papí took her aback. She knew he didn’t like what Rigo did after high school. What she didn’t know was that he still carried it around with him.
Just like she’d carried it around with her for all these years. Funny how events could profoundly affect even someone who wasn’t directly involved.
“I think he’s changed.” Gloria remembered the conversation they’d had in Mateo’s room, where he’d opened up about his mistakes, his journey to rehab and his desire to prove to Gloria he wasn’t the same person he had been.
“Gloriana. Don’t be naive.” Juanita Garcia stretched out her oldest daughter’s name with about ten more syllables than it usually had, each very clearly enunciated. Gloria realized it made her uncomfortable because it sounded uncannily like how she herself addressed Gracie when she thought her little sister was making a big mistake.
Gloria couldn’t think of how to reply. Before she put something past her tongue, Papí headed for the doors of Huarache’s. “Vamonos.”
Let’s go. Indeed. Gloria would be glad to explain the mess from Hurricane Hope to her family instead of the time she’d been spending with Rigo Vasquez.
Mamí handed baby Gabi to Gracie, then caught Papí’s hand as they walked through the door. Gloria lingered a few steps behind. She knew the heartbreak they were about to encounter and wasn’t sure she could bear to see the emotions in their eyes.
“You know they just care about you, right? They only want what’s best for you.” Gracie’s husband, Jake Peoples, stayed back with Gloria.
Gloria turned her head slightly and looked at Jake, while still monitoring her family’s progress out of the corner of her eye. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the subject of you and Rigo Vasquez has come up about once an hour, every hour, since you briefly called to say you were staying at Inez’s. I’m pretty sure they talked about it more than the actual hurricane.” Jake nodded in the direction of his wife and in-laws.
Gloria gave a short, acknowledging nod of her own. “I just wish they’d understand it’s between me and Rigo. Not them.”
“Oh, you mean like when I took Gracie to the beach shortly after meeting her and you interrogated us both?” Jake’s look told Gloria he remembered every single disapproving sister conversation she’d given Gracie at that time. And there had been more than a few. “I’m pretty sure that whatever he did to you in the past hurt them for you as much as it actually hurt you. Who picked up the pieces after he left?”
“Gracie. And Mamí. And Papí.” Gloria lowered her voice. “They’ve always been there for me. Every single time. It’s just what we do. We look out for each other. Somos familia.”
We are family.
And they always would be.
“I’ve never seen another family like y’all. My own family wasn’t like that. My mother couldn’t be bothered to care one bit about her children and my father—well, the man who raised me—couldn’t see past his own anger and jealousy to do anything but scheme and hate. Your family is special, Gloria. Don’t let yourself get mad because they care. Their biggest crime is maybe caring too much. But you wouldn’t know a thing about that, would you?”
His slow smile showed the sarcasm in his words. No, she wouldn’t know a thing about that. Except that it was her specialty. Especially when it came to her family.
Gloria shook her head. “I was wrong, you know.”
“About what?”
“You. I misjudged you. I’m sorry. And I’m glad Gracie didn’t listen to me...too much. I’m glad you’re my brother-in-law.” She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice but was pretty sure that he wouldn’t have to listen too closely to hear it. She’d been so skeptical of the early days of Gracie and Jake’s relationship, when Jake had been the interim CEO of his family’s development company, and he’d been determined to evict Gracie’s English-as-a-second-language school, La Escuela por las Lenguas, from the property she leased from the Peoples Property Group.
“I’m glad she didn’t listen too closely, either.” Jake leaned over and gave Gloria a quick but reassuring hug. “And I’m glad you’re my sister-in-law. I remember Rigo. I didn’t know him well, but we surfed together down by the Memorial Hotel quite a few times back in school. I don’t know what happened between the two of you—and I don’t speak Spanish well enough to keep up with all the names your mother called him in the car—but I do know that things are not always what they seem. A guy who finds out a family secret in a boardroom won’t ever forget that lesson. I hope you’ll remember that, too, Gloria. They love you, but if you think he’s changed, sometimes you’ve got to just go with your gut.”
“Or God.”
“Exactly. I know now there was a reason why I decided to serve eviction papers myself to one Graciela Garcia de Piedra. I’d never served eviction papers before, and I’ve never served them since. Maybe it’s the same reason you dialed Rigo’s number for help.”
Jake smiled at Gracie, a relaxed, knowing smile that stood out in the middle of the chaos of the hurricane-tossed debris that still covered Gulfview Boulevard—and the conflicting feelings that passed through her heart.
He could be right. There could be a reason she made that phone call a week ago. But her bruised heart just couldn’t afford for her to be naive. She couldn’t make a mistake with her trust again.
Gloria plucked at her brother-in-law’s sleeve as they walked up the sidewalk to the front door of the restaurant.
“Jake?”
He stopped and turned toward her. “Yes?”
Gloria hesitated. But then realized her pause only underscored what she thought of herself and why she had to ask Jake the question on her mind.
“You’ve known me for a little while now. Do you think I’m a strong person? Or is it all an act?”
She swallowed strongly, trying to wash away the slightly metallic taste the words had left in her mouth. She really didn’t know, and she feared the answer.
“Glo, no one could carry the burden of losing a husband and a child without having shoulders stronger than a linebacker. It’s not a question of your strength. That one’s not up for debate. It’s a question of whether you can set the burdens of the past down.”
Jake left her alone to ponder that question. Gloria looked blankly out at the waves rolling in on the other side of Gulfview Boulevard’s narrow, raised black slice of pavement along the coastline.
A yellow-and-red truck pulled into the parking lot and parked slightly askew, next to the three-foot-tall pile of stuffed trash bags Gloria had thrown out over the past few days.
“I drove by your house, but you weren’t there, so I figured I’d find you here.”
Rigo jumped out of the truck. His black hair stuck together at the roots with a damp sheen of leftover sweat. She looked at his shirt, slightly damp with the same signs of physical exertion, then down to his shoes, scuffed with sand and mud. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he’d just stepped off the beach as a teenager. It surprised her to know that just looking at him caused the same feeling of excitement and awareness that it had so many years ago—just like a sparkler on the Fourth of July, glowing with a jumping golden electric spark.
“You’ve been working?” She tried to ignore the tickle of awareness that insisted on teasing her in spite of her conflicted stream of.
“Yeah. I’ve been at the beach patrol storage yard all morning, inspecting damage to our lifeguard towers. I’ve got a few hours off right now, then I’ll be patrolling Gulfview until I get off tonight.”
“Okay. So you’ll be back to Inez’s house late?”
“Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. That’s why I stopped by.”
Gloria’s heart did a small flip of anxiety. Was he moving out of his aunt’s house? Going to stay with some friends from Beach Patrol? She’d miss the brief interactions with him, and the not-so-subtle matchmaking from their unofficial chaperone, Tía Inez.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“After I finish up my shift, there’s a community dinner hosted by Porter’s Seafood Restaurant as a thank-you to the first responders in town. They wanted to do something now that the utilities are back on and the roads are open. We can all bring one guest, and I’d like it if you came with me.”
The sound of a throat clearing from the doorway a few steps away cut through the air before Gloria could answer Rigo’s invitation. She’d heard that noise a thousand times during childhood. Usually when she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have.
“Papí?”
“No, Gloriana. You’re not going. Thank you for your concern for my daughter, Señor Vasquez, but we are home. We will take care of her. You are relieved of your duties, Chief.”
Carlos Garcia placed particular emphasis on Rigo’s title. Gloria had never heard her father speak so harshly to anyone. A neutral tone of voice even when angry was almost second nature to Papí after years in the service industry. The customer was never wrong. But in this case, he made it clear that Rigo certainly was.
“Mr. Garcia, I don’t think you understand.” Rigo began to state his case.
“I understand perfectly, Rodrigo.” Papí cut the younger man off before he could even get started. “Gloriana called you when she needed assistance. But if you think I’ve forgotten how you left after your so-called best friend got shot, I haven’t. And I haven’t forgotten that you never came back to Port Provident after you asked me to marry my daughter.”
“Wait. What?” Shock like liquid fire pushed through her veins. “What are you talking about, Papí?”
Gloria took a step back from Rigo, toward the street side of the parking lot. She needed space.
And air.
And an explanation.
“I never told you, Gloria. I didn’t want to make things even worse for you. But this coward...” Carlos pointed an accusing finger straight at Rigo’s chest. “This coward, he came by this very restaurant two days before he left for that tournament in Mexico. He stood right there, in my office off the kitchen, and promised to love you forever, and asked my permission to marry you. And fool that I am, I believed him and said yes. I told him he could have my first born daughter’s heart for the rest of his days. I told him we’d be proud to have him in the family.”
“Rigo?” She followed the laser-precision point of her father and looked unwaveringly at the man who had held her heart in her youth, and who’d come close to capturing it again.
“He’s right, Gloria.”
In an instant, she tasted that bitter metallic taste again and tried to choke it down without letting her emotions out for everyone to see.
“And he’s right about one more thing,” Rigo continued. “I was a coward. I told you that the other day in Mateo’s room.”
Rigo walked with measured steps to where Gloria stood and took her hand in his. She could feel herself shaking with the trembles of memories and the secrets she never knew had been kept from her.
“But, Gloria, you’ve got to believe me. I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve been forced to see the ugly corners of myself and to learn lessons I’d never wish on anyone else. And I had to go through that battle so that I could stand here today and tell you this with certainty. I’m not afraid anymore, not of your dad or of the past. I know what I’m willing to fight for. It’s you.”
“How can I trust you? How can I trust any of you?” Gloria’s harsh whisper sounded like the rasp of sandpaper. She looked up and pulled her gaze from Rigo, to Papí, then back to Rigo again. “Papí’s right to not believe a word that comes out of your mouth. But, Papí, how could you not tell me the truth?”
“Gloriana. I did what any parent would do. I would never deliberately hurt you.”
The unspoken—unlike some people—hung in the salty, humid air around them.
Rigo’s brown eyes darkened as she watched. “Gloria. I don’t deserve it, but I’d like the chance to prove I’ve learned those lessons. I’ll do whatever it takes. But I can’t show you if you won’t take this first step. I said I’d never leave again, but if your dad is proven right, I will. I’ll be out of your life forever. Will you just come with me tonight? Will you give me the chance?”
Gloria felt Rigo’s grip tighten slightly on her hand.
She didn’t have to give Rigo a second chance. Everyone would understand if she closed the door firmly, especially now that she knew he’d even asked for her hand in marriage, but still ran away.
But maybe, just maybe, she needed to.
Maybe that was the strength she’d been looking for. The strength to forgive. The strength to move on. Maybe it wasn’t physical strength.
Maybe it was something even, well, stronger than that.
She nodded shortly and took a fortifying breath. In all her years, she’d never stood in front of her papí and openly defied his wishes. She needed a certain strength to do that, too.
But more than that, Gloria thought, she needed love. Or at least a chance at it. She’d been living scared and closed off from the world, from memories, from emotions, for too long.
“Pick me up at my house at seven.”
The pungent smell of shrimp boil seasoning laced through the air. No nose in a multiblock vicinity could escape the smell of Gulf shrimp, mini cobs of corn and golf-ball-sized new potatoes. A dozen or more aluminum boiling pots stood on iron stands about waist high. A line of perpetually moving white coats piled the food on a series of tables a few steps away until the piles resembled a kind of food Everest.
And then, as soon as the peak would form, it would slide down like an avalanche as another hungry man in or woman would step forward, deposit a shovel of shrimp on a plastic plate, and head back to the table.
The dance would begin again, all executed under a gray banner attached to the front taupe-brick facade of Porter’s Seafood Restaurant, which read in bright red letters We Will Never Forget that You Answered the Call.
Countless hours of frantic rescues, of pushing on in the face of imminent danger, of backbreaking work, of sweat and of tears were represented at the thirty or so tables that had been moved out to the parking lot.
Fire, Police, EMS, Beach Patrol, FEMA, National Guard, state, local, federal...they were all represented here. Although he’d lived every minute alongside these men and women—and there were moments he’d relive in his mind for the rest of his life—Rigo could barely comprehend just what was in front of him as the family behind one of Port Provident’s most historic and well-known establishments used the language they spoke best—food and hospitality—to deliver a message on behalf of the whole town. The carpet they rolled out was stiff with salt and smelled of everything Hope spit ashore, but there was no denying it was red.
Rigo could see the appreciation on the faces of his colleagues. This mountain of shrimp meant more than just a full stomach and a hot meal.
He hoped it would mean something to Gloria, too.
“Do you want to grab those two seats over there?” Rigo pointed at two red padded seats on the corner of one of the far tables. “There aren’t many places to sit left. This is a much bigger crowd than I thought. I’ll go get a plate for each of us if you guard the table.”
“Okay, that sounds good.” Gloria plucked her way through the maze of tables.
Rigo couldn’t help but notice all the little things about her. The slight sway of her hips as she walked, the smile she gave to a group of friends as she passed. She was everything he remembered and so much more. He’d been blind, so blind, before. But as he followed her every step, he knew he could see clearly now.
And he knew what he needed to do. And what he’d never do again.
Steven McLellan, one of Felipe’s closest friends on the force, walked away from where he’d been talking to Gloria as Rigo brought back their plates. Since Rigo returned to Port Provident, Steven had maybe uttered ten words to him. And eight of them probably came while they were in the Grand Provident Hotel’s command center during Hurricane Hope. There had been a time when they’d all been guys on the force, bonded together with life and death and everything that came in between.
Then the death of one of their own broke that circle and Rigo’d run off from the lives that remained. He didn’t blame Steven for avoiding the interaction.
But once again, the weight of regret reached down and crushed straight on Rigo’s shoulders. He’d made a mess of so many things, so many relationships. The fact that Gloria consented to come here tonight with him gave Rigo hope, though. If he could repair this relationship with Gloria, maybe he could make amends with others, as well.
“How’s Steven?”
“He’s good. Kathie and the kids should be returning to the island early next week. They went to stay with her mom up in Nacogdoches. Kathie said there’d been a lot of wind and rain, but otherwise Hope was pretty uneventful that far northeast.”
“Good.” Rigo meant it. He remembered Kathie as a woman who bestowed smiles with ease and acted as a doting mother on her twins. Knowing they’d been away from all the chaos of the past few days definitely was a good thing. “Did he say anything else?”
Gloria looked around, eyes shifting from one person she knew to another. Then she looked down at the table.
“What, Gloria? Did he say something about me?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Gloria? What did Steven say? I’m a big boy. I can handle it.” He needed to know what he needed to answer for. It was almost like doing penance. He needed to answer the questions, he needed to atone for the impression he’d left behind when he left for rehab and gave the strict instructions that no one in town was to know where he went.
“He just wanted to know why I was here with you.” Gloria raised a boiled shrimp and began to deftly separate the peel from the pink, cooked meat. “He said a bunch of the guys started talking after I showed up at the command center with you during the storm. They think I need to stay away from you.”
Rigo knew this warning would reach Gloria sooner or later. The brotherhood in blue looked out for their own—especially the widows of their own—like that. And the fact that he was back leading the beach patrol division wouldn’t give him a free pass from their well-earned skepticism. Rigo knew that and accepted it.
“He’s just trying to protect you. Do you agree with him?” Rigo could feel the pressure at the back of his jaw as his teeth gritted together. He waited for her answer, dreading what it could be.
“No, I don’t. Or I wouldn’t be here with you right now.” She flicked another translucent shrimp shell to a corner of the plate. “But I didn’t have much of a defense to give Steven. For better or worse right now, Rigo, I’m just going with my gut. I use my instinct in birthing situations to help my mothers and their babies. I’ve already said a prayer or two that my instinct doesn’t fail me this time. It’s hard to tell friends and family they’re wrong. Especially when they’ve been there for the last few years.”
“And I haven’t.” He figured he might as well just say the unspoken.
“Right. Don’t make me regret this, please, Rigo. That’s all I ask.”
“Gloria. I gave you my word today in front of your parents and Gracie. I’m all in or I’m out for good.”
She picked up one more shrimp, then dropped it back on the small pile and looked up. “Then tell me you’re all in. Let’s stop talking about what was or what could be. I need to hear you say it.”
“I’m all in.”
“That’s all I needed to know.”
Rigo started to peel his shrimp. The steel of his jaw began to relax enough he thought he could eat. They both savored the fresh shrimp and popped the small, round red potatoes in their mouths—eating in a companionable silence for a few minutes.
“I had an interesting conversation today.” Gloria broke the thin stillness between them. “I think I’ve got some big decisions ahead.”
Rigo put down a potato he was about to eat. He could tell this had nothing to do with their earlier conversation. “What’s going on?”
“It’s my house,” Gloria said. She fiddled with a miniature ear of corn, then set it down and salted it absently. “After I left Huarache’s, I met Billy Patterson to talk about my insurance claim. And he said that based on his experience in Florida two years ago after Hurricane Carmencita, he thinks that they’re going to call my house a total loss. He said FEMA will require it to be raised when it’s rebuilt, and a bunch of other red tape. As my friend, he advised me just to sell it and walk away. He said he’d show me how to take care of everything.”
He’d seen the pain written all over Gloria’s face the day she had to confront that most everything in her house had been laid to total ruin. Now knowing even the structure itself couldn’t be salvaged...it would be more than most people could bear.
“So what are you going to do?”
She twirled the corn on the cob a little absently as she collected her thoughts. “I’d told you earlier I thought I might just go get a condo. So I think I’m going to trust Billy’s advice. Sell it. Move.”
“And move on?”
“I think so.”
The sun dipped into the Gulf of Mexico behind her. The red and orange sunset rays played with the natural highlights in her honey and cinnamon hair, making them shine. The fire and feistiness dancing around her face spoke to the strength Rigo knew she was gathering within so she could make this decision.
She started to speak again, then hesitated before finally getting the words out. “And I think you’re a big part of that decision. I sat there for a long time after Billy left, weighing everything. And at the end of it, all I could think of was gratitude.”
Rigo dipped a shrimp in the small red puddle of cocktail sauce on his plate. “Gratitude? For losing your house?”
Gloria shook her head. “No, for you.”
“Me?” He couldn’t quite make it all add up. “How?”
“I can make the changes I need to make because I have something to look forward to. I told you that all during the hurricane, the word strength kept coming to my mind. I know now I’m strong enough to come out of the shell I forced myself into.”
She threw a translucent shrimp peel on the small pile between them, discarding it as surely as the chains of the past.
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“Maybe move out to the East End. Get something small near the beach. Watch waves roll in. If the clinic doesn’t reopen, I think I want to go back to school.”
Rigo could hear the old Gloria coming back with each syllable. The high school Gloria—fearless, always wanting to learn and do more. “Back to school?”
“Medical school. Pete has wanted to do a medical mission for years, and I think he’ll take this opportunity to go do that. That leaves no doctors on the island who are supportive of a place like the birthing center, and we’ve had so many women over the years appreciate the opportunity for safe out-of-hospital birth. I want to go to the next level and be the one who fills in that gap.”
Rigo couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “I think that’s great, Dr. Rodriguez.”
“Really?” She ended the word questioningly, searching for true approval.
“Really.” Rigo put his hand reassuringly over one of Gloria’s. Her skin felt smooth and slightly cool from the night air. He was amazed that these two hands, these ten fingers, had been the first soft touch for countless little lives, cradling them as they made their journey into the big, wide world. He’d seen her gentle professional hands at work, delivering little Mateo as a hurricane swirled around them.
He squeezed lightly, then stroked the curve by her wrist once, then twice with his finger.
“Hmm.” Rigo’s inner thoughts came out as a mutter.
She didn’t pull her hand away. “What?”
“I was just thinking. Your hands deliver babies. They bring new life into this world. But mine, they’ve been trained to hold guns.” He pressed the finger gently along her wrist. “This finger is my trigger finger. I can end a life with mine.”
“You’ve also been trained to rescue. Like you rescued me. If you hadn’t been there when I called, things could have been so much worse for me and Tanna and baby Mateo.”
Rigo laid his other hand, palm side up, like an offering on the table.
He met her eyes with his gaze, and she almost immediately looked down. Rigo felt his heart plummet with the speed of a passenger headed down a roller coaster’s highest hill. He’d felt so much hope when she’d said he’d rescued her.
He closed his eyes. He just needed a moment to regain his control.
Like a feather, Gloria’s fingertips grazed the heel of his thumb, where it connected into the palm of his hand.
Rigo’s eyes opened to confirm what just happened. He saw her hand in his and swallowed hard.
Although her touch came lightly at first, once her hand landed fully on his, there was no denying its presence or significance. The contours of her palm still fit smoothly into his, and he noticed every curve and valley as they touched.
He opened his mouth to speak, but it had gone dry. Gloria smiled shyly.
“Remember that message you left me?”
“How could I forget? It was the single stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” If he’d just come home that summer, so many lives would be so different and so much time never would have been wasted.
“You told me to go catch my dreams.”
He nodded. There didn’t seem like anything to say. Nothing good, anyway.
“I loved Felipe. I loved Mateo before he was even born.” She tightened her fingers around his, the fingertips pressing his skin. “But you were the first dream I ever had.”
Rigo closed his fingers around Gloria’s hand, connecting them as tightly as woven cloth.
“If you’ll let me, I want to be the last.” He looked in her eyes, gathering strength from the flecks of golden light in the brown irises. He needed it for what he was about to say. “Gloria, I want to kiss you. I want you to know how I feel right now about you, about us. But not here. Not now. Not with all these people around. But later...maybe...would that be okay?”
For the second time tonight, he held his breath. He didn’t know what he’d do if she said no.
Gloria nodded. “Sí, mi sueño.”
She called him her dream. She said yes. That was all he needed to know.
The sound of a bottle clunking into a metal trash can interrupted Gloria’s swirling thoughts.
“Hey, Rigo! Want a drink?” Officer Brock Carpenter held up a small personal cooler. Gloria felt certain it didn’t carry cans of soda.
Knowing now that Rigo had been through rehab for alcohol issues, Gloria tensed as she waited for Rigo’s reply.
“No thanks, guys. We were just about to head home.” Rigo stood and started scooting the shrimp shells onto a plate to throw away.
“Hey, wait. That’s Rodriguez’s wife.” Carpenter’s voice boomed across the three tables between them and rang in Gloria’s ear. “Glo! Haven’t seen you in a while. What are you doing here?”
The force in the officer’s tone nearly pushed her backward. What was the best way to answer that loaded question?
“Dinner. We came to have dinner, guys, same as you.” Rigo jumped in. She knew the sound of a trained law enforcement official trying to diffuse a situation. She’d heard Felipe use this tone many times before.
Sometimes, she smiled slightly with the memories.
“That’s interesting, Vasquez. Get her husband killed, then take off and when you get back to town, take her out on a date. Nice work.” Carpenter saluted Rigo with a tip of the brown longneck bottle in his hand.
Gloria’s blood began to heat up, bubbles crowding into her veins, feeling as though they would soon burst into a boil. She picked up her plate and plastic cup and turned to put them in the trash can. She didn’t want to face Carpenter anymore. He’d always been a bully. She remembered Felipe didn’t like to have anything to do with him. But if she recalled correctly, Rigo had gone out to the local bars with him a few times.
“Carpenter, shut it. You’re letting that bottle do the talking and you’re upsetting Gloria.” Rigo closed two tables’ worth of distance, putting himself squarely between Carpenter and Gloria.
“Upsetting? It’s upsetting to see an officer’s widow out with the man who was there the night her husband was killed, then didn’t even show up for the man’s funeral. It’s like seeing something out of one of those bad chick TV movies.” He leaned over to the officer sitting next to him, a man Gloria didn’t recognize. His voice dipped low and smooth, like a mock television announcer. “He couldn’t save her husband, but he was the only man who could save her...tonight on the Life and Love TV chick movie of the week.”
A roar of laughter went up from the table.
“Good one, Carpenter,” said the officer across the table from him. He took a slow swig from his own brown bottle.
“Yeah, Rigo was always there for the damsels in distress.” Carpenter winked for emphasis. “What the ladies didn’t know is he always worked it so he was the cause of the distress, then he could come in and save `em.”
Ice began to form in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t believe it was staying there so solidly since her blood continued to boil at a fast roll. Surely Rigo wasn’t manipulating the trust she had placed in him the past few days?
She wasn’t being naive like everyone said. She couldn’t be. She, the midwife, could sniff out problems like a bloodhound.
Rigo began to walk back toward Gloria.
“Come on, Glo, let’s go. And you, Milton—” Rigo pointed at Ricky Milton, one of his friends on the force, seated at the end of the table. “You shouldn’t even be here. I’m not your sponsor, but you can call me anytime. Don’t do something you’re going to regret.”
“The only thing Milton regrets is not calling her first, since she’s back to dating cops.” Carpenter stood up and gave Rigo a forceful shove to the shoulder, knocking him off balance and into the table.
Like a well-timed SWAT attack, a swarm of officers leaped up from their own meals and pulled Rigo and the bully apart. Carpenter spewed a string of words that made Gloria, who’d spent the better part of her adult life around police officers, blanch with shock.
Especially since some of them were about her.
She felt as though the rogue punch had pushed her to the ground instead. The force of Carpenter’s crude words hurt as surely as a fistfight.
“I’m done, I’m done...” Rigo said as he tried to shake an officer off of each arm. “Don’t worry, McLellan. I’m not going to finish off Carpenter. Even though I should.”
Gloria could see the heat in his eyes and the steel on his face. It was taking every ounce of self-control he had not to further defend her honor, but this time not just with words.
“You need to go, Chief Vasquez. Leave now and there won’t be any further action.” McLellan stared down Carpenter, daring him to object. “Gloria, you need to go, too. But remember what I said.”
The implication with his simple sentence seemed clear to Gloria. He saw this as yet another bad situation Rigo found himself in. Another reason why Gloria couldn’t trust Rigo’s judgment. Another reason she shouldn’t let him back into her life.
But that wasn’t how she saw it at all.
“Come on, Rigo.” She took him by the arm, then tucked her hand firmly into the crook of his elbow.
Carpenter’s shove may have brought the assembled group of first responders to their feet, but Gloria’s hand on Rigo’s arm dropped their jaws.
And she knew without a doubt she was strong enough not to care what they thought.
“You okay?” Rigo reached out and patted Gloria gently on the leg as they drove down Gulfview Boulevard. There was no longer hesitation in his touch, nor in how she felt about it. He wanted to be with her. She wanted to be with him.
“That was some dinner, wasn’t it?”
Rigo laughed, the sound tinged with gentle irony. “That it was. The shrimp sure tasted good. And I can’t lie, seeing Carpenter get shut up felt even better. He’s a jerk, Gloria. Always has been. Don’t let him get to you.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m not. This isn’t the first time I’ve been around him. Felipe had words with him at a Christmas party several years ago.”
“Really?” Rigo took his eyes off the road for a second to look at Gloria. “That was one of the greatest things about Felipe—nothing ever got to him. He was Unflappable Felipe.”
“Maybe on the job, but he brought a lot of that frustration home with him.” She stopped herself. She’d never spoken of Felipe’s mood swings to anyone. She knew he’d kept them hidden well from his brothers on the force. He hadn’t always been able to keep them hidden from her, though.
“Wait.” Rigo hit the brake on his truck and pulled quickly into an open parking space along the sidewalk that twisted along the gulf’s edge. “Are you saying he hurt you?”
“No, no. Not physically, nothing like that. But emotionally, not really. Some days were better than others. I knew he still loved me, but he didn’t know how to deal with the stress of the job, then coming home to miscarriages and disappointment. He couldn’t fix it and so he eventually tried to distance himself from it and threw himself into his work.”
“But he didn’t hurt you?” Rigo’s eyes said more than his words. Wide, open, searching. He clearly focused on her face with a hyperintensity, trying to make sure she wasn’t holding anything back.
The concern he showed pulled at Gloria’s heart. She didn’t want to speak badly of Felipe. He’d been a good man, a good husband—even if they’d had some problems in the last years.
But even more than that, she didn’t want any more secrets between her and Rigo. No more misunderstandings.
They’d weathered enough mistakes that had changed the course of their lives. She didn’t know where this newfound trust and redeveloping closeness was leading them. But she knew where she didn’t want it to lead: right back to secrets and lies.
“No. But that night, when I learned he stopped to help you instead of coming straight to me...” She let her words trail off as she gathered a breath. She’d come too far to stop. “It hurt. I lost my husband and my child that night. And on top of that, I had to deal with knowing that backing up a suspicious traffic stop was more important than being at my side as Mateo and I fought for our lives.”
“Gloria, I’m sorry. I didn’t call him to cause a problem—I needed backup—but I’m the reason he wasn’t there with you. My call is the reason he was killed. I’ve made so many mistakes, Gloria. I’d do anything I could to change them, but I don’t know where to start.” Rigo’s voice was as flat as the glass-smooth water just beyond them. There was no wind tonight, no waves.
And no need to hold back anything in their hearts.
“Start here.”
Gloria leaned her head past the center console of the truck. Rigo met her halfway, and the instant she felt the touch of his lips on hers, the past faded away where it belonged.
Rigo slipped a hand behind her neck and pulled Gloria a little closer, a little tighter. She let her head settle a bit on his hand, using his strength to fortify her own.
Her knees weakened a little, and she was happy to let the feeling take over. It meant she could still feel. It meant that spark could still light inside her heart and tickle as it rode through her veins.
She leaned in to Rigo, the solid wall of his chest giving her a strong place to land. She breathed in the faint scent of the cologne he’d put on this evening, the same notes of sandalwood and fir he’d worn since he’d started wearing cologne. It all felt and smelled and tasted so familiar.
She wasn’t in this alone.
And she didn’t want to be without him, without this strength, ever again.
