RW sat at his desk in the den studying the Harper Industries’ quarterly report. So far, so good. The stocks were up, crude oil was holding its own and no one had figured out that he was a complete fraud.
Good news, all things considered.
There was a rap on the door. He rose quickly, hoping Angel had returned. “Come in.”
He couldn’t hide his disappointment when his bodyguard stepped into the room. “I have news, sir. The private investigator in Los Angeles has located a mole inside the gang. Someone who should be able to give us more information.”
“That is excellent news. Who is it?”
“A woman named Cristina Sanchez. She came forward because Angel saved her life long ago, keeping her safe on the streets.”
RW smiled. Of course Angel had saved her. His sweet, gentle Angel had a way of protecting and healing strays. Wasn’t he living proof of that?
“Cristina says the gang is agitated again. She doesn’t know why, but fears they have a new lead on Angel’s whereabouts. The PI also noted that they’ve been packing up and getting ready to move. Should I tell Angel, sir?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
If Angel thought her ex was coming for her, she’d flee again. RW might never find her. She needed his protection now. One way or another, he would save the woman who’d saved him.
“I want you to beef up the security around Plunder Cove. Men on boats monitoring the coast. Two in the lookout. Teams north and south. If anyone suspicious comes anywhere near Plunder Cove, you stop them. Hear me? No one gets within a mile of Angel. No one. If that bastard sends his entire gang after her, we will be ready. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Let’s hope the mole will give us something we can use.”
It was about time something went his way. He was going to do everything in his power to make Angel feel safe here in his home and maybe, just maybe, she would agree to stay.
* * *
Matt wandered into the kitchen and opened the massive double-doored refrigerator to peek inside. There were cheeses, fruits, spreads—it was like a mini grocery store in there.
“Matthew! Whatcha looking for?” Donna, the cook, called out.
She was standing over the stove, stirring a large pot of something that smelled good. That same short white bob still curled under her chin like it used to. Pushing seventy now, she wore red-rimmed glasses and orthopedic shoes, but she still had a youthful spunk to her steps. She was a kind and generous woman with a round, cherublike face and an infectious smile.
He closed the doors and went to her. Wrapping his arm around her shoulder, he peeked into the pot. “Mmm. This! What is it? It smells good.”
“Wild boar stew. Sit. It’s almost ready. I’ll give you a bowl in a few minutes.”
“Great. I’m starved.” He hitched himself up onto the countertop and swung his legs like a kid.
“What else is new? I was told you were going out to dinner tonight.”
“I am. But I can’t wait until then.” He held his stomach. “I’m dying here, Donna.”
She walked to the fridge and pulled out a bowl. “I’ve got hard-boiled eggs, too. Want one?”
“How about two?”
“Growing boy.” She smiled, handing him the whole bowl, and went back to stirring the stew. “Just like old times, huh? So good to have you back.”
“Thanks. Not exactly like old times. I don’t think I’d still be here if it was.” He cracked an egg and started peeling off the shell. “Brown eggs?”
“Yes, we have a chicken coop around the back now. And an herb garden. We’ve gone to organic foods as much as possible after your father was ill.”
He frowned. “Dad was sick?”
Donna stopped stirring. Her back stiffened but she didn’t turn to face him. “You didn’t know?”
“No. What was wrong with him? Is he still sick?”
Just then Alfred walked into the kitchen. “Perhaps you should ask your father about this, Matthew. We wouldn’t want to speak out of turn.”
Matt shook his head. “Communication between me and RW? That’s not going to happen. Who is going to tell me what’s going on?”
Donna turned slowly and he could see the concern on her face. “Now, Matt, we don’t want to worry you, but your father has had some...well, troubles. He wasn’t himself.”
“You mean he was an even bigger jerk than he usually is? Donna, did he hurt any of you?”
“No! That’s not what I mean.” She looked at the driver. “Help. I don’t know how to say this. Should I say this?”
Alfred let out a deep exhale that whistled through his nose. “Wait.”
He looked around the corner and pulled the kitchen door closed. “Okay. They’re still upstairs.”
Who?
Alfred leaned against the countertop next to Matt’s leg. “The divorce was very hard on your father. And even before that, when your parents were fighting, that was hard on him, too.”
“When weren’t they fighting?” Matt grumbled.
“Yes. But things got worse after you left. You weren’t here to see how bad.”
“That’s when the illness really started to show,” Donna pitched in.
He ran his hand through his hair. What the hell were these two trying to tell him?
“Spit it out, Alfred. The suspense is killing me.”
“Your father had Harper Industries to run. No one could know how bad things were. How sick he was,” Alfred said slowly. “If competitors found out, it would have been the end of Harper Industries. Your father could’ve lost the company his father and his grandfather and all the generations of Harper men had worked so hard to build.”
“If they found out what?” Matt asked.
Donna walked around the counter until Matt was surrounded. It was as if they were trying to form a protective shield around him to ward off whatever bad news they were having trouble sharing.
“Your father,” Alfred said quietly, “had a mental breakdown.”
Matt blinked. “He what?”
Donna nodded. “RW went stark raving mad.”
It was a sledgehammer to the solar plexus.
Matt had no words. He swung his head from Alfred to Donna and back again. When he finally found air in his lungs, he mumbled, “That’s not possible.”
Donna rubbed his arm. Her usual cherubic face was paler, stricken. “It’s been truly horrible. He was slipping for quite a while but hid it pretty well. No one knew how much he was hurting. I doubt you kids had any clue.”
“Hell, guys. Are you sure you’re talking about RW? My father? The toughest SOB in California?”
Alfred moved back and cracked a boiled egg for himself. “Tough doesn’t always mean strong.”
Donna nodded. “That’s exactly right. And RW had to be strong for the family, the company and you kids. I’m sorry to say this, Matthew, but your mother was not an easy woman to live with.”
Matt snorted. “Understatement of the year.”
“They were bad for one another,” Alfred said quietly. “As we now understand. The only good that came out of their union was you three kids. For that, your father is proud, even if he couldn’t show it.”
“Absolutely. RW was proud of you. In his own way. That’s why all of this was so hard for him. He didn’t want his problems to sink your future.”
The air in the kitchen was suddenly laced with foreboding. Matt had a good sense of when danger was coming. He didn’t always avoid it, but he could usually tell when it was heading his way. That sense had served him well in the Air Force. It was telling him now to get the hell out of the kitchen.
The chef and driver he loved were trying to feed him one of RW’s lines of bull.
Matt pressed the headache that started burrowing between his eyes. RW didn’t have a mental illness. Impossible. “I’m sorry, but I have to call this bull. I don’t know why RW is tricking you like this, but there has to be a reason. He’s not mentally ill.”
Donna’s face looked a little brighter. “Oh, you’re right. He is better now, thanks to Angel. She nursed him back to health. Without her, I don’t think he would’ve made it. Your mother was not the nurse type. She filed for a divorce when things got really tough.”
No surprise there, but...
“Who the hell is Angel?”
“His savior. She was the only one who knew what to do because she’d apparently had some hard times herself. Private woman, that one. Anyway, she knew how to speak to RW in just the right way. We were lucky she happened to be in town. Otherwise your father might have been institutionalized. Imagine what a field day the press would have had with that news. Angel stayed with him. Helped him get stronger. And because of her kindness, he is better. You saw him. He looks great, right?”
Great was not the way he’d ever describe his old man. He was a good-looking guy, sure, but Matt no longer looked up to him. Until he was old enough to know better, he might have believed that his father was a great man, but that ship had sailed and wasn’t coming back. A great man protects his kids, tries to make sure they are happy, secure and on the path to healthy futures. RW did none of those things. Still, the man Matt had seen at the party was not the same one who’d yanked him up by the collar and ordered him to “shape up or ship out.”
Matt hadn’t been able to put his finger on it, but he’d sensed that his father was different.
“Tell me. What did he do?” Matt said.
Donna and Alfred glanced at each other.
“He wanted to protect you,” Donna said softly. “That’s why he sent you away.”
“Nope. Not buying it. He booted my ass to the Air Force academy to keep me away from Julia. He told her I died! That wasn’t protection. That was being overbearing. He wanted to break us up because she was from Pueblicito. My parents hated that, especially my mom. And now I hate them for destroying the one good and beautiful thing I had.”
He scooted off the countertop and started pacing. What in the hell was this crap? Had the old con artist bamboozled his staff into feeling sorry for him? Donna and Alfred should’ve seen through RW’s tricks a long time ago. Was Matt the only one who knew what a terror RW could be?
“That’s only part of the story, Matthew. Listen to Donna,” Alfred said. “She saw the whole thing.”
He spun and faced her. “What whole thing?”
“Do you know why your father didn’t take you to the Air Force academy himself?” she said carefully, like she was wrapping cotton around each syllable to soften the coming blow.
“Haven’t we already determined that he’s an ass? It was easier to pay two men to dump his kid than to do it himself.”
“He was incapable of taking you. That morning when I went up to bring him his coffee, I found him on the floor...” Donna tipped her head to the ceiling, struggling with the memory. “He’d taken pills, Matthew. Painkillers from a little vial. All of them. Your father tried to commit suicide.”
And just like that, Matt’s whole world slipped on its axis. The burrowing headache went off like a grenade. His body went weak. He blinked back tears he didn’t know he had.
A voice that barely sounded like his rumbled across the back of his throat, “You’re going to have to start at the beginning.”
* * *
Matt turned up the second street in Pueblicito. The story Alfred and Donna had told him bounced inside his head. Shock waves were still rocking through his bones.
RW was mentally ill? He couldn’t believe it and yet it explained a lot. Maybe he’d been such a hard-ass because he didn’t know how to deal with his emotions...his life. Not to mention his crappy marriage. Matt’s mother had a way of pushing everyone to the brink.
Matt parked in front of the fifth house on the street. It looked identical to the last four lined up in a row, except this one had kids’ bikes piled in the front yard and music blasting inside. The only home in the whole town that stood out was the one Julia and Henry lived in. Julia had added pretty touches inside and out, making it a real home. If he lived here, he’d do his best to make sure Pueblicito got the upgrades it needed. Maybe those upgrades would come from the vast fortune his father was donating.
Matt rolled his eyes at the thought. Mental illness or no, his father was not so far gone that he’d give away money.
And I don’t live here.
He had to keep reminding himself that his future was elsewhere. He was only a tourist having one last vacation.
He re-tucked his white shirt. His black shoes had been shined to perfection and his pants had been pressed because he wanted to look good for Julia. He’d even shaved off his beard. His palms were sweating when he knocked on the door.
Linda opened it. “You made it, guapo. Julia, Prince Charming is here.”
Henry ran out to meet him first, bouncing and bobbing with energy. “Hey, did Alfred bring the Batmobile so I can show it off to the guys? They don’t believe me that I got to ride in an Aston Martin Rapide.”
Matt grinned. “Nope. I brought it myself. But it’s not the Aston Martin.” He cocked his head. “Take a look.”
Henry peeked around Matt’s elbow. His eyes grew wide. “Whoa. What is that?”
“It’s a Lamborghini Veneno. If you promise not to put a scratch on it, I’ll let you sit in it.”
Henry’s eyes were bugging out. “Are you serious?”
“I’d never lie to Robin. Just make sure you tell your buddies that it’s not just any Lambo. Only three of these bad boys were ever sold.”
“Really? Oh, wow. Guys! Get out here!” Henry yelled back inside the house. Then he turned around and hugged Matt around the waist. “Thank you.”
It was the second time he’d been surprise bro-hugged in one day. He was starting to like it. He patted Henry’s skinny back. “No problem.”
Sure, RW might kill him for letting a passel of boys climb all over his Lamborghini, but the trouble was worth it to see the kid smile like that.
Julia stepped out on the porch in a low-cut dress. It was the same deep red that she’d painted on her toenails. Her dark, thick hair was draped over one shoulder. The hungry look in her eyes could not in any dimension compare to the ache filling his insides. He nearly died where he stood.
If he grabbed her up now, fireman-style, and carried her over his shoulder, he could run and maybe no one would notice.
She stared at him a beat too long, not moving, not speaking.
“You okay?” he asked.
“You shaved.”
“I wanted to look respectable for you.”
Touching his cheek, she let her cool fingers run along his jawline. Her hands were shaky and her lip quivered.
He took her arms. “You going to cry? It’ll grow back. I promise.”
“No, it’s just...you look like my Matt again.” Damned if a tear didn’t roll down her cheek.
Her Matt. His heart pounded. “That’s a bad thing?” He was treading on a thin precipice here. One wrong step and he was done for.
“No, not bad. You took my breath away. I’m being silly.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Too emotional. Don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He laced her fingers with his. “I don’t mind emotion, Julia. You can cry if you want. At least it’s not because my bare face hurts your eyes.”
She laughed and the last tears danced on her dark lashes. “Your face—bare or bearded—is like dark chocolate for my eyes.” She planted a kiss on his lips. He felt it all the way to the soles of his feet.
Pulling back, she whispered, “I was hoping we could slip out early and go back to your place.”
“But?” he asked.
“Tía Nona came with us tonight. I’m afraid we might have to stay a little longer than I’d hoped to take her home.”
As if summoned, the old woman stepped onto the porch. “Why are you two out here? We’re about to eat. Maybe you should help your cousin with the salad, hija, while Matthew and I get reacquainted.” Tía Nona took his elbow.
Julia shot him a concerned look over the little woman’s head.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll come find you after Nona and I catch up.”
Julia lifted one eyebrow but walked into the house.
Matt looked down at the old woman. “I have a few questions for you.”
Starting with asking if she knew about his father’s illness. Tía Nona had been his nanny when Matt was a baby and had looked after him when he was little. One day she’d quit and never returned to Casa Larga. Matt didn’t know why Nona had left, but he remembered his mother going ballistic about it.
The woman shifted her weight. “I guessed you might. Come on. Linda has set up the margarita bar in the back.” She led him through a side gate to the backyard. “I haven’t thought about your family in a long time and I remember better with a little tequila.”
The backyard was a near perfect square with a little bit of grass and one oak tree. In the quadrant closest to the house sat an old wooden picnic table with a ragged umbrella in the middle. A small group of people had gathered around, eating chips, salsa and guacamole. They seemed to be ignoring a veggie platter and another one with cheese and crackers.
The table in the second quadrant seemed to be the bar. Matt poured the ice cubes, lime and simple sugar into a blender that was plugged into a long extension cord. There were three bottles of tequila. Nona pointed to the Jose Cuervo.
“Add a little of the Captain, too.” She motioned toward the rum. “And salt the glass. I like my pirate sweet and salty.”
He poured a splash of each into the blender.
“More.” Tía Nona tipped the tequila bottle up, splashing in enough to choke a donkey. Okay, then. He ran the blender and poured the slush into a salted glass in the shape of a cactus.
“¡Salud!” She lifted the glass to her lips. “Wait. You’re not having any?”
He laughed. Rum and tequila? He needed a few brain cells left tonight for all the sweet and salty things he was going to do with Julia. “I’m a cerveza guy.”
She pointed to the coolers where he found a cold bottle to his liking. Nona commandeered two lawn chairs for them and sat heavily. The chair swallowed her up. When he was a kid, he’d thought Tía Nona was bigger than life. Now she seemed tiny. How old was she, anyway? Seventy-five? Eighty?
She leaned toward him, her face stern. “I have worried about you for far too long. Tell me you turned out okay.”
That kicked him back a bit. “Sure. I’m fine.”
Sort of.
The image of Julia and Henry sitting with him at Juanita’s popped into his head. It was like a Rockwell painting that he had no business keeping. He was alone, without a family of his own and no place to call home, but he’d be okay. He had plans for that airline he’d always wanted.
Somehow the thought didn’t soothe him.
She studied him for a long beat and finally nodded. “Good.”
“But I have questions.”
She straightened her back. “Yes. I’ve waited for this day for a long time. Okay, then, ask. I am ready.”
Her face might have been wrinkled and her body tired, but her eyes still snapped with the same spark as they always had. Just like Julia’s. Huh. He’d never noticed that before. They did look alike, which was strange because Julia had been adopted—dropped off in Pueblicito like a puppy in a sack left on a doorstep. Nona wasn’t a blood relation. He leaned closer.
Or was she?
“Tell me about Julia’s mother. What happened to her?” He sipped his beer.
“What?” Her eyes widened. She clutched the salted glass like a shield against her bosom. “That’s what you want to ask me? I thought you’d want to know how your mother threw me out of the house because I knew too much. Or why your father needs an angel to save his black soul.”
Okay, yes. He did want to know those things, too, but Julia was more important. She always had been.
“Tell me,” he said firmly.
Nona’s head swung toward the house. Looking for a savior or making sure Julia was out of earshot?
She reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Julia cannot know what I am about to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because it will put her and Henry in danger, that’s why.” She nearly emptied the cactus glass. “I will only tell you because I know you will keep it to yourself. To keep her safe. And if Julia starts making noises like she wants to find her mother, like she does every now and again, stop her.”
His heartbeat ratcheted up. “Does this have anything to do with my father?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Her lips were pressed together so hard that they turned white.
“Trust me, Nona. I will protect them. I need to know what the threat is.”
She glanced one more time toward the kitchen. Julia was still inside. Her laughter carried across the yard like a soothing warm breeze.
“Ojalá, you could try to protect them. I just don’t think you can.”
His sense of impending danger was going off again. “I will, dammit.” He had once and he would again. “I’m not a kid anymore. I will do whatever it takes to make her safe.”
She chewed her lip, like Julia did when she was thinking, debating. “Julia’s mother was young when she had Julia. Very young. She made mistakes and is still paying for them. What she doesn’t want is for Julia to pay for them, as well.”
“Julia’s mother is alive?”
Julia always wondered if her parents were alive or dead. At least that was one pain she’d been spared.
“Sí, she is alive, but Julia must not try to find her. A deadly gang from Los Angeles is after her because she saw things. Bad things. Kidnapping, murder, drug running, this is their business. Understand? Long ago they said they’d kill her to shut her lips. They warned that they’d hurt everyone she loves.”
“What the hell? So she just disappeared? Why didn’t she go to the authorities?”
“She had her reasons. All of them involved keeping Julia safe.” Nona was talking fast now, getting the words out in a rush. “This is my familia, Matthew. My loved ones. That horrible gang can’t hurt my girl or sweet little Henry.”
“I have to do something.”
She studied him. “What would you do?”
He ran his hands through his hair. He had no answers.
“I have thought on it for years. There is nothing. Julia’s mother has to keep hiding to protect them. That’s the only way. You have to keep Julia out of this.”
Was this the intel that RW had on Julia’s family? The story he’d threatened to go public with ten years ago? What sort of a bastard would put a young girl at risk like that?
Anger pounded in Matt’s chest.
“Julia’s mother should’ve gone to the police and turned state’s evidence against the gang. She should’ve worked with the FBI to have them all arrested. Running away from the problem? From her child? That’s not acceptable.”
She huffed. “One to talk.”
“Excuse me?”
Nona crossed her arms, lips sealed.
Matt pushed up from his chair and paced the yard. Frustration and fury roared through him. All he could think about were those times Julia had cried on his shoulder, missing a mother who’d left her behind. Julia had grown up feeling unworthy because her parents had dumped her. He knew exactly how that felt and it pissed him off.
He turned to face Nona. “What sort of mother abandons her child?”
She puffed up in that chair like a little toad. “A mother who loves her baby more than a life of freedom. A mother who sacrificed everything—even a relationship with her child—to keep her family safe. A mother who would never hurt her daughter. Never beat her. What sort of mother beats her four-year-old son?”
He blinked. “What?”
He walked back and sat beside Nona.
She exhaled deeply. “You were screaming. I ran in and found her hitting you with a silver hairbrush. You had red marks all over your little arms, your sweet cheeks...” Tía Nona’s eyes welled. “Your mother was a brutal woman. I fought with her. Got the brush out of her hand. She called for the guards and had me dragged out of Casa Larga. I was forbidden to return. She told everyone that I was the one who hurt you, but I swear, mijo. I didn’t. I would never.”
He looked down to see her hands holding his. Her expression was pure sorrow.
“I don’t remember that,” he said softly.
“It’s true. Every word.” She cupped his face with her hands. “Not a day went by that I didn’t worry about you. I thought of you as my own, too. Just like Julia and Henry. You all are the children I couldn’t have. I wanted to protect you, save you. I’m sorry I couldn’t. Sometimes the world is too strong for one woman. We do what we can and that is all. Don’t hate Julia’s mother for her mistakes. Mine are worse. I hope you forgive me one day for not rescuing you, too.”
Matt was struck silent as Nona continued to hold his hands. It was hard to process all the news he’d heard in the last couple of hours. The desire to fly a plane, any plane, tugged at him like an addiction. He needed to get into the clouds and fly away from this dysfunctional world for a while. To breathe.
“Matt! Matt!” Henry came running into the backyard, followed by a dozen kids. He stopped short in front of them. His eyebrows shot up like he’d never seen anything quite so strange as Tía Nona holding a man’s hands before.
“Come on. Anthony’s mom bought a huge piñata that looks like SpongeBob. It’s about to pop with all the candy stuffed inside.”
Matt had seen a piñata at a birthday party before. Blindfolded kids took turns swinging a bat at a papier-mâché creature until they busted it to bits and all the candy came flying out. To make the game more difficult, adults pulled the piñata up and away when the bat came close.
Matt patted Nona’s hand and gently pulled his free. “What do you need me to do? Pull the rope?”
“No, Anthony’s brother has that covered. We want you to swing the bat with us. Maybe after me, so that I get one good shot.”
“Really? Isn’t that for you kids? I don’t want to take someone’s turn.”
Henry took his arm and pulled. “Pleeeease? I want you to. The guys all say it’s okay.”
No kid had ever looked at him with such adoring eyes before. It made Matt’s heart swell with an emotion he couldn’t identify. “All right, then. Let’s go annihilate SpongeBob.”
To Tía Nona he said, “Thanks for everything, tía. I mean it. You raised Julia in a loving home. There’s nothing to forgive.”
He hadn’t asked if she believed RW truly had a mental illness. Part of him already knew the answer.