Desperado

  “I love it when you moan for me,” he said huskily, placing his lips a hairbreadth from hers. “Does the colonel make you moan, Prissy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar.” He breathed against her mouth and brushed his lips across hers. A whispery caress. Not really a kiss. Hah! He made a low hissing sound, and cupped her face with his hands, devouring her with his hard kisses.

  Her determination shattered under the onslaught of the passion that always flared between them. Between each devouring kiss, he kept murmuring, “Helen.” One word, that’s all.

  Her rubbery legs gave way and Rafe chuckled against her neck, putting his arms around her waist and holding her against his aroused body. The whole time, he traced a path of searing kissing from her lips to her ears and neck and back again.

  Helen surrendered to Rafe’s raw sensuality. She couldn’t help herself. Only Rafe could make her forget everything. Soon they would be engaging in sex on the hall floor, two steps away from her studio on the one side and the nursery on the other.

  The nursery!

  Alarm bells went off in Helen’s dizzy brain and clanged a halting message to her overcharged senses. The baby. I have to think about the baby.

  She tore her mouth out from under Rafe’s kiss and shoved against his chest. “No!”

  “No?” Rafe asked dully. He raked his fingers through his long hair with agitation. “Why?”

  “Because . . . because we have to talk.” She stepped to the side, putting some distance between them.

  He said something really vulgar about talking and moved closer, trailing a forefinger over lips that felt swollen from his kisses, and throbbing for more.

  “Because I’m going to marry another man.” She swatted his finger away and edged farther along the wall, hitting a door jamb.

  “No, you are not. You’re already married to me.”

  “Yes, I am, Rafe. And our marriage isn’t legal.”

  “You love me. It doesn’t matter what you say. Your body just told me that.”

  “It was just . . .” Her words died off as she saw his eyes fix on something over her shoulder. Too late, she realized that her studio was visible through the doorway, cast in shadows from the hallway light and a full moon shining through the many windows.

  “You’re painting again?” he asked with surprise, and, before she could stop him, he stepped into the room and switched on the overhead lights. A dozen paintings in various stages of completion stood on easels and stacked around the room. All of them depicted scenes of their travels together, most of them set in Angel Valley with the cabin in the background.

  She groaned.

  “They’re good, Helen,” he said, smiling at her with pride as he examined each of them in detail.

  She leaned against the wall, not sure how much more she could take.

  Rafe chuckled when he saw her depiction of Ben and Bertha. He grew serious at the image of him and Zeb standing in the stream prospecting for gold, highlighted by the magnificent mountains. He cast her a sidelong glance of awareness when he came to one painting—him standing in the snow, wearing only trousers and suspenders, his arms raised joyously to the skies. “Can I have this one?” he requested softly.

  “No!” she cried, too quickly. It was her favorite painting.

  His one brow rose inquiringly.

  “It’s not done yet,” she prevaricated.

  “Then this one?” He pointed to one of a man and woman standing before a primitive cabin. All of her paintings had a blurry, impressionistic character. The figures would be recognizable only to her and Rafe.

  “All right.”

  He tucked the painting under one arm and walked toward her, taking her hand. “I’m beat, Helen. I haven’t slept in two days. I came here directly from the airport. My mother’s probably catatonic with worry. I’ll come back tomorrow. We’ll settle things then.” He was leading her toward the front door, an arm looped intimately over her shoulder, her head resting on his chest.

  NO! She couldn’t see him again. Another emotional encounter like this would devastate her. Might even hurt the baby.

  She halted near the doorway and faced him, resolved to end their relationship in the only way possible.

  “Rafe, I’m pregnant.”

  He jerked back as if she’d punched him in the stomach. His face whitened with horror. “A baby?”

  She nodded.

  “You and Elliott are having a baby?” he lashed out. “Oh, God, what a fool I’ve been. Here I thought this was all about love and caring, but, no, it all boils down to this obsession you have with kids.”

  Helen reeled under Rafe’s misconception. She hadn’t meant to imply that the baby’s father was Elliott. She’d been about to explain. “You bastard!”

  “You bitch! How could you?”

  “Me? Me?” she sputtered.

  “You are always so almighty condescending about my greed for gold. Well, take a good look at yourself sometime. Oh, you had a great time pulling my strings, didn’t you? Making me feel guilty because I didn’t ooze fatherhood dreams. Damn it, how could you jump into another man’s bed? So soon?” Rafe’s mouth was tight and grim now, his eyes slicing her like blue daggers.

  “You misunderstand—”

  “Misunderstand? What did I misunderstand? Are you or are you not pregnant?”

  “I am but—”

  “Were you raped?”

  “No, but—”

  “Do you want this baby?”

  “With all my heart.”

  He lifted his hands in a hopeless gesture of defeat, then masked his expression with insolent pride. “Well, that’s that, then. Thank God it’s not mine, because I sure as hell don’t want any brats. And certainly not yours.”

  She flinched. “Rafe, let me explain—”

  He extended a hand to stop her approach. “No. I shouldn’t have come. It’s over, like you wanted. We were doomed from the beginning.” Opening the door, he stumbled out, then turned and said in a soft whisper of regret, “Be happy, babe.”

  Assault by family . . .

  A week later, Helen sat miserable and distraught by the telephone. Rafe hadn’t come back again, and he refused to accept her calls.

  His angry words about not wanting children had hurt Helen the most. Because she knew they were true. They proved more than anything that her marriage to Elliott would be the best thing for her and the baby. Still, she had to tell Rafe the truth. But if she told him now, he’d feel obligated to marry her, and she loved him too much to ruin his life that way.

  Christmas carols played on the radio. Her home was decorated brightly for the holidays. The season of cheer. Hah! She did nothing but cry. Something had to be done soon, or as Elliott and her father had warned, the baby’s health would suffer.

  The doorbell rang, and Helen jumped. She did that a lot lately. Not that she thought Rafe would return, but she subconsciously hoped.

  She opened the door, and her eyes widened with astonishment. A Hispanic woman of about fifty with graying dark hair stood gazing up at her. She wore a Los Angeles Lakers sweatshirt, polyester slacks, and orthopedic shoes.

  Rafe’s mother.

  Oh, God!

  “Can I come in? I am Rafael’s mother. My daughter Luisa is parking the car. She will be here shortly.”

  Helen watched dumbly as Mrs. Santiago passed into the hallway, then entered the living room. Luisa soon came scurrying after her, making a swift introduction and apologizing for their arrival without calling first.

  After bringing them some coffee and Christmas cookies on a tray that she set on the coffee table, and after fifteen minutes of uncomfortable small talk about the weather and her home, which Mrs. Santiago liked very much, Helen said to the younger woman, “You’re LuLu, aren’t you? Rafe said you have five children. Where are they now?”

  “Out in the car,” Luisa said. “Mama’s gonna take them to the mall this afternoon while I go to my classes at the community college. I’m studying to be a nurs
e’s aide.”

  “In the car? But it’s cold out there. Bring them in.”

  So, Helen soon had five children crowded around her kitchen table eating cookies and milk, and Rafe’s mother and sister sitting in her living room chit-chatting about trivialities.

  Mrs. Santiago soon got down to business, though. “Why are you making my Rafael so unhappy?”

  “Me?” she squeaked out.

  “Sí. He won’t eat. He won’t answer his telephone. He punched Ramon.”

  “Mrs. Santiago, I don’t think you understand. I’m engaged to marry another man on—”

  “Engaged? How can that be?” She and her daughter exchanged puzzled frowns. When Mrs. Santiago turned back to her, she said, “But Rafael said you were married to him.”

  Helen cradled her face in her two hands.

  “Did you marry him?” Luisa asked. “Rafael never lies. I do not understand.”

  “Yes, we were married, but it wasn’t legal.”

  Mrs. Santiago tilted her head. “Rafael said you were married by a priest.”

  “Well, a padre did marry us, but—”

  “A padre is a priest, and that makes it legal in God’s eyes.” She took both of Helen’s hands in hers as if welcoming her to the family. “Mi hija . . . my daughter.”

  Helen closed her eyes. How could she explain an unexplainable situation?

  Meanwhile the five children, ranging in age from two to eight, were leapfrogging down her hallways. Their screeching laughter filled the house. Helen could barely think. She began to understand Rafe’s feeling of being crushed by his family.

  After an hour of arguing fruitlessly over her involvement, or lack of involvement, with Rafe. Mrs. Santiago and her brood left. At the doorway, Rafe’s mother patted her hand. “Don’t you be worrying none. Rafael loves you. You love him.”

  “But I don’t love—”

  “Shhh. A mother knows.”

  Helen closed the door and went to bed for the rest of the day.

  The next day, Helen opened her door to the persistent ringing of the doorbell, and her mouth dropped to the floor. She had another visitor. Rather, two visitors. Leaning against either doorjamb were two Hispanic men. One looked like Adam Levine with a long pony tail, wearing a leather jacket and dark sunglasses. The other, younger one, wore faded, very tight blue jeans with a pristine white T-shirt, sporting the logo, “Firemen Have Big Hoses.”

  Oh, God! Antonio and Eduardo Santiago.

  “We came for the Christmas cookies,” Tony said, strutting in without an invitation. “Mama says you bake a mean cookie.”

  “And I like milk,” Eddie said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

  They both took after Rafe. Tall, dark, and exceedingly, dangerously handsome.

  “So, when are you going to put Rafe out of his misery?” Antonio asked later, as he sprawled in an easy chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He did resemble Adam Levine. Women must go nuts over him. “He’s driving everyone loco. He won’t even dance with Carmen, and he always dances with Carmen at Christmas.”

  “Dance?” She blinked with bafflement. I’m in Bedlam, and my roommates are two studmuffins.

  “Yeah, didn’t he tell you? Rafe’s usually so blinkin’ serious, but—”

  “Rafe? Serious? Are you kidding me? The guy who jokes while falling out of an airplane? The guy who claims he can have tongue hard-ons? The guy who teases till he drops? The guy who can ride a horse with a blister on his butt and laugh? The guy who thinks he’s the happy gunslinger? The guy who—”

  “A tongue hard-on?” Tony and Eddie exclaimed at the same time. Then they both burst out laughing.

  Eddie was standing near her Christmas tree, playing with the ornaments. Wasn’t he the firefighter, the one Rafe said had once posed as a centerfold? Yep, he was the one, she decided, looking at his tight buns.

  When they finally stopped laughing, Tony commented, “Damn, I haven’t laughed so hard since Carmen talked all of us into being the Village People in a talent show.”

  “Yeah, but you got to be a sexy construction worker. I had to be an Indian,” Eddie grumbled.

  Helen wondered which one Rafe had been, but before she could ask, Tony continued talking to his brother, “And how ’bout the time Carmen talked Rafe into being her tap dance partner at the church Christmas recital?” At Helen’s raised brows, he explained, “He was sixteen, and Carmen was about five. Her partner got the measles, and Rafe got recruited. Every Christmas since then, Carmen makes him tap dance with her at the church recital. It’s a tradition.”

  Yep, I’m in Bedlam. And visions of Rafe tap dancing are pushing me over the edge.

  “That Carmen could talk a dog into doing the hula. Hell, I remember the time she taught me to moon walk.”

  “You can moon walk?” Tony said. “I didn’t know that. Show me.”

  “NO!” Helen cried, and they both looked at her. Her nerves were shot. Good Lord! First tap dancing. Then moon walking. Next, it would be dipping. More softly, she said, “Did you guys come here for some particular reason? Other than my cookies?”

  “Yes. You’ve got to get back together with Rafe. He’s really hurting,” Tony said.

  “Man, I’ve never seen him care so much for a woman, and it’s obvious you’ve got the hots for him, too,” Eddie added.

  “I do not,” she protested.

  “You are so crude, Eddie,” Tony criticized his brother. “Hots? Geez, didn’t I teach you any finesse?”

  “Hah! You wouldn’t know finesse if it hit you in that ugly face.”

  “Ugly? You’re just jealous because women mistake me for Adam Levine. Don’t you think I look like Adam Levine?” The latter question was addressed to Helen.

  “A little,” she said, and a headache the size of Tony’s ego bloomed behind her eyeballs.

  Eventually, she walked them to the door, getting more harangues on why she should be with Rafe. She heard Eddie comment to Tony as they walked to their car, “What the hell’s a tongue hard-on?”

  “Damned if I know. But you can be sure I’m gonna ask our big brother. He’s been holding out on us.”

  “Oh, brother!” Helen mumbled, and went to bed for the day.

  The next morning she went Christmas shopping, early, just in case any more of Rafe’s family showed up. She didn’t get home until late afternoon. As she parked her car, she glanced up and groaned. Four Hispanic women were sitting on her doorstep, chattering to beat the band. She wondered how any of them could get a word in edgewise. Three children were racing across the lawn and stopped abruptly in front of her. “Where’s the cookies, Tía Helen?” one of them asked.

  Tía? Doesn’t that mean aunt? Oh, my goodness!

  She assumed these three kids belonged to Juanita, Rafe’s oldest sister. There were only eight nieces and nephews total.

  This time she served wine and Christmas cookies to the adults—she would have to bake another batch—and cookies and diet soda to the kids—she was out of milk. She listened to Rafe’s four sisters tell her in a chaotic hodgepodge of Spanish and English why she should knock some sense into their brother and take him back.

  “Take him back? I never had him,” she said, but no one paid any attention to her. They were too busy spouting their own opinions.

  “Carámba! You should have seen him when I picked him up at the prison,” Inez related, rolling her eyes. She was the L.A. policewoman, the person in the newspaper clipping with Rafe. “He didn’t ask about Mama, or his office, or anything. All he wanted to know was, ‘Where’s the telephone number?’ He had everyone in the world searching for your phone number and address. I wouldn’t be surprised if he called the FBI. Of course, that was before they locked him up. Then they wouldn’t let him talk to anybody.”

  “Well, I think Rafe is ill,” Jacinta interrupted. Jacinta, Helen remembered, was a nurse and had just started graduate school.

  “Ill? Rafe? What do you mean?”

  Everyone turned at the an
xiety in Helen’s voice, and they smiled knowingly. She flushed and tried to backtrack. “I mean, he was thin when I saw him, but not ill.” He didn’t kiss like a man on his death bed, that’s for sure.

  “Oh, not that kind of ill,” Jacinta said, waving a hand in the air. “He’s heartsick. No, no, don’t look at me like that. People can make themselves physically ill when their hearts are broken. It’s a scientific fact.”

  Oh, Lord!

  “Well, I don’t care about that. I want to know how I can plan the church Christmas party if Rafe won’t dance with me.” Carmen—the youngest, the dancer, Rafe’s favorite—tossed her mane of curly black hair over a shoulder and cast an accusing eye at Helen, as if Rafe’s refusal to dance was the biggest tragedy in the world.

  Helen had to smile. Carmen was a spoiled brat, and adorable. “Listen, I’ve enjoyed talking to all of you, but there’s been a big misunderstanding. I’m being married in three weeks, and—” she inhaled for courage—“and I’m pregnant.”

  A loud silence followed her words.

  “Please understand, I’ve always wanted children, and Rafe doesn’t want any children, and it was always a big problem between us,” she rambled. “So, I guess you understand why—”

  “Rafe doesn’t know what he wants,” Juanita scoffed.

  “I think he would have twenty children with you if you would take him back,” Inez added. “He would even love another man’s child. Yes, he would.”

  “Beg him and he will do anything for you,” Carmen advised.

  Juanita took her time before answering, “Having children isn’t everything, you know, but—”

  Her three sisters groaned.

  “Juanita, you think you know everything,” Carmen whined. “Don’t give us a lecture.”

  “—but this is something you and Rafe can work out if you love each other,” Jacinta went on, ignoring her sisters. “I’m sure after you are married, Rafe will come to his senses.”

  Helen gritted her teeth. “That will never happen. Rafe had a vasectomy.” I don’t believe I just said that to four virtual strangers. I need an aspirin. I need sleep. I need sanity.