Desperado

  Everyone stared at her as if she’d just said Rafe had grown two heads.

  “Oh, my God! Mama will have a heart attack,” Juanita said, making the sign of the cross over her chest.

  “You can’t tell her,” Helen insisted.

  It was as if she was invisible. They talked right over her.

  “Vasectomies can be reversed,” Jacinta said, and her sisters asked her to explain. On and on the four women went until Helen began to think Rafe had the right idea about his family being a big pain in the behind.

  When they finally left, helping her clean up the empty wine bottles and offering to send her some of their own Christmas goodies to replenish her stock, Helen sank into bed with a cup of herbal tea.

  She refused to answer the doorbell the next day. There was only one more family member left, and Helen didn’t need to peek through the peephole to know that her visitor—a younger, more sensitive version of Rafe—was Ramon. His eyes were a luminous blue, tearful with misery.

  “Helen? Are you in there? I can hear your Christmas music. Your car is parked out front. Please, I have to talk to you.”

  Helen pressed her forehead against the door. She really, really couldn’t handle any more stress.

  “It’s all my fault that you and Rafe broke up. Please, you gotta take him back. He won’t even talk to me. He punched me. He’s making Mama cry.”

  He waited for her response. When she didn’t answer or open the door, he continued, “Man, he loves you. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  Again, the poignant silence. Helen bit her lip to stifle a sob.

  “I had to listen to him talk about you for three months in that damn jail. Sometimes I thought I’d puke if I heard the name Helen again. He’s got it real bad. Don’t you even care?”

  Tears were streaming down Helen’s face.

  Finally, she heard Ramon walk away, muttering, “Women!”

  That day, Helen collapsed in bed, not even trying to find the blessed numbness of sleep. She loved Rafe’s family. Despite all his griping about his clinging mother and siblings, when they saw him in pain, they all united to help him. That was what families were all about. She hoped he would see that someday.

  Helen would love to be enfolded in the warmth of his family, but there were two people she had to consider here, two people she loved very much. Rafe and her baby.

  No matter what everyone said, Rafe did not want children. It would make him miserable in the end to be saddled with a baby.

  And what kind of life would it be for a child with a father who had not wanted him or her?

  Helen placed her hand over her stomach, and her baby moved for the first time, as if reassuring her that she was making the right decision.

  But it was so hard.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The fool came to his senses . . .

  “I’m a gold-plated fool.”

  Rafe made the declaration aloud on December fifteenth, more than a week after his confrontation with Helen.

  “I’m a thick-headed, gold-plated fool,” he immediately amended, because only a thick-headed jackass would take so long to come to his senses.

  Hmmm. A gold-plated fool. That gives me an idea.

  He headed for the shower with a determined step, ready to set his life to order.

  Hallelujah! a voice in his head said.

  Why had it taken him until now to realize that he and Helen had been given a special gift in their time-travel experience? A celestial nudge had sent them to the past to discover the meaning of love. What he needed now was a celestial kick in the ass for his stupidity in almost losing it.

  Hallelujah! the voice said again.

  For days, he’d walked around like a zombie, feeling sorry for himself, barely living. He’d gone to work, carried out his legal practice like a robot, and come home to an empty apartment, refusing to talk to anyone—even his mother who kept leaving messages on his answering machine. All her little sermons harped on the same topic; “Rafa-el San-ti-ago, you are going to hell for having that vistorectomy operation. You better go to confession. Do you hear me, Rafael?”

  Rafe couldn’t dwell on the explanation he’d have to give his mother now. He looked at the wedding band on his finger. He had a mission, and its name was Helen.

  Damn, he loved her, and she loved him. He knew that, no matter what she said. So what did anything else matter?

  He didn’t even care about her being pregnant with another man’s child. Well, actually, he cared, but he could live with it. The baby would be Helen’s child, and he would love him, or her, like his own.

  The important thing was that he was miserable without Helen. He couldn’t face a life without her. He was sure—at least, he hoped—she was miserable, too.

  How could he have been so dumb?

  He called her right away, before he lost his nerve, but got no answer. The same thing occurred throughout the day, and the next morning. He even drove over, but there was no response to his repeated knocks on the door.

  A neighbor came out and informed him that Helen had moved out temporarily, and her mail was being forwarded. Rafe’s eyes narrowed with resolve. She couldn’t hide from him. He’d set Antonio and Inez to work sniffing out her whereabouts. In the meantime, the U.S. mail would forward any messages. Or packages, if he paid the forwarding postage in advance.

  Rafe grinned. He had some serious shopping to do.

  Not the usual courtship gifts! . . .

  Helen was staying at her father’s home in San Clemente until the wedding. Her father and Elliott had been right to talk her into moving. The visits from Rafe’s family had distressed her terribly, turned her into a virtual basket case. She needed some calm before she started her new life, both as a wife and mother.

  Then the packages started to arrive.

  The first day, she got a small parcel, forwarded from her address. It had no return address. Opening it hesitantly, she found a Rolex box. A Post-It was attached with only one word, “Remember.”

  Rafe.

  But why would he send her a Rolex watch? She flipped the lid, but didn’t find a watch. Inside was a black felt-tipped marker.

  And she remembered Rafe saying that one of the first things he would buy on their return to the future was a marker. To connect the “dots” across her body. A sexual fantasy.

  She tried to be angry, but she had to smile at his creativity. No romantic roses or boxes of candy from this rogue. He knew just how to shake her heart.

  The next day, she got a letter. It contained a copy of a receipt from the House of Transcendentalism. Oh, my heavens! Rafe had signed up for meditation classes.

  That made her smile, too, because she knew how wretched he would be.

  The third day, another parcel came. This one contained a book. A book? Rafe had sent her a coffee-table edition of Alberto Vargas paintings. A Post-It note stuck out of one page on which he’d written, “See what I mean?” Helen blushed when she saw the gorgeous, redheaded nude pinup Rafe had circled.

  Is that really the way he sees me? My goodness!

  The fourth day, a florist delivered a houseplant, with no card attached. It was an Anthurium, better known as “little boy plant.” Her father walked by just as the delivery boy left, and he remarked, with a shiver of distaste, “Who sent you the plant? God, I’ve always hated those things—looks like a bunch of hard red tongues.”

  Indeed!

  The fifth day, she thought Rafe had given up. No such luck. It was just that the package was so small and had been buried under a pile of mail. When she peeled back the expensive foil paper, she saw Tiffany imprinted on the box.

  Tiffany? What could Rafe possibly afford at Tiffany’s?

  She soon found out. Inside was a silverplated corkscrew, and a notecard. “You still owe me.” The only signature was a smiley face.

  The rascal!

  The following day, a mailer came with a CD. Helen didn’t want to play it. In fact, she set it aside while she prepared dinner
and wrapped Christmas presents and went out to a movie with Elliott. But she thought about it. Too much. And, in the end, she played it while she sat in bed that night. When she pressed the button on the small CD player, Rafe’s voice came out, deep and masculine. She trembled as she listened.

  “Helen, I love you,” he said. “Please don’t turn this off. Just listen to me. We love each other, you can’t deny that. Your being pregnant isn’t a problem for me . . . anymore. Really. I’ll love your baby like it’s my own. But I don’t want to tell you all this stuff on a CD. I want to tell you in person. In the meantime—don’t laugh—I have a song to sing for you. Your favorite.” Then he launched into an off-key version of “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

  Helen cried over that gift. A lot.

  She stayed in her room the next day when the mailman came, but her father handed her a stack of correspondence when she came down stairs, including one envelope with no return address. She opened it tentatively, and began to weep openly.

  “Honey, what is it?” her father asked, but Helen couldn’t tell him. How could she explain what a wonderful, hopeless dolt Rafe was? And why he was so wrong for her.

  The letter contained a medical form. A reverse vasectomy had been performed on Rafe yesterday. His Post-It this time said, “Well, I did it. I went under the knife today. Again! The doctor doesn’t guarantee the procedure will work. No promises. I love you. Rafe.” Then there was a P.S., “Ouch!”

  “Helen,” her father said, puzzled by her anguish over Rafe. He’d been trying to talk to her for weeks. “Are you sure this marriage to Elliott is the right thing?”

  She gaped at him in astonishment.

  “Maybe . . . well, maybe, if you love Rafe,” he practically choked on his name, “. . . well, maybe that’s who you should be with. I know I’ve pushed you sometimes in the past, sweetie, but, really, just follow your heart.”

  She couldn’t believe her ears. Her father actually encouraging her to consider Rafe?

  “Thank you, Daddy, for caring. But, really, for many reasons, marrying Elliott is the best thing.”

  Back to gambling . . . . . .

  Helen’s wedding was going to take place in three days, and Rafe was frantic. None of his plans had worked out. Even when he’d located Helen and called on the phone, her father had informed him in a surprisingly gentle voice that Helen wouldn’t talk to him. “Perhaps,” General Prescott advised, “it’s time for you to give up.”

  “Would you?” Rafe asked.

  “Hell, no!”

  “Same here, then. Hell, no!”

  He thought he heard General Prescott laugh and mutter, “Good luck” before he hung up, but he was probably mistaken.

  Okay, three more days. Time to call in some markers with his family. And make some big plans.

  It was a gamble, but he was betting that he would win.

  He had to.

  Can anyone recall the wedding scene in “The Graduate”? . . .

  Helen was standing at the altar of a small chapel outside Sacramento three days later, wearing her mother’s ivory satin wedding gown and a simple veil on her head. Elliott was at her side, handsome in his dress blues, along with her father, a few witnesses, and friends.

  Everyone had tried to talk her out of the wedding, urging a postponement because of her distraught state, but she was determined to put some closure on her past life with Rafe.

  It was the only way.

  The minister was halfway through the ceremony when he got to the part, “Does anyone know just cause why this marriage should not take place?”

  “I do,” a husky voice boomed from the back of the church.

  Her heart dropped to her toes. Oh, no! He wouldn’t.

  She turned.

  He would.

  “Holy Hell!” Elliott said at her side. She had to agree when she turned.

  The minister frowned his disapproval at Elliott’s swearing in church, then cried out, “You can’t bring horses in here.”

  “Are those real guns?” Elliott’s eight-year-old nephew, Darren, exclaimed. “Wow! This wedding is cool!”

  “Oh, my God! I think that’s Adam Levine back there. Hurry! Get the camera,” Helen’s cousin Mary Kay gushed.

  “He looks like a Mexican desperado,” her Aunt Irene said, almost swooning with shock.

  “Damned if he didn’t do it,” her father said admiringly.

  She shot her father an inquiring, suspicious glare.

  Rafe did look like a desperado. And so did his brothers, Antonio and Eduardo and Ramon, all dressed in nineteenth-century clothing, with ammunition belts crossed over their chests, revolvers in their hip holsters, and sexy, wide-brimmed hats tilted cockily over their faces. And, unbelievably, all riding horses up the aisle of the church.

  “Young man, what’s the meaning of this?” the minister shouted. “What reason do you have for disrupting this marriage?”

  “She’s my wife.”

  “Wh-what?” the minister stammered, and everyone in the church gasped.

  Her father gazed at Rafe oddly. “Is this true?”

  “Absolutely.” Rafe held out a piece of parchment for her father to peruse. His thumb was probably planted over the date.

  Her father turned on her then. “Helen?”

  “Oh, Daddy, it’s not legal. Yes, we were married, but—”

  She had no opportunity to finish, because Rafe leaned down and swooped her up into the saddle in front of him, imprisoning her with his arms.

  “You can’t do this.” Elliott rushed forward.

  Antonio aimed a revolver at Elliott, muttering, “I could lose my job for this, Rafe. You owe me big time.”

  Elliott backed away. “Helen, I’ll call the police. Don’t worry.”

  “No, don’t call the police,” she told him in a panic. “I’ll straighten this out.” Then, she raised pleading eyes to her father. “Daddy?”

  He nodded at her silent supplication. “We won’t do anything until we hear from you.”

  Rafe ordered Tony, Eddie, and Ramon to stay behind and hold everyone off until they escaped. Then his horse galloped out of the church and down the steps. Some spectators were standing outside—wedding groupies. One of them said, “I’ve heard of some weird marriages before, but this one takes the cake!”

  Helen kicked and squirmed and demanded that Rafe put her down. “Let me go,” she shrieked.

  “Not on your life, babe.” He laughed, then groaned as she elbowed him in the ribs.

  He rode the horse only to the end of the church parking lot, where he quickly dismounted with her. To her outrage, he tied her up with rope and gagged her before shoving her in the back of a Jeep Cherokee. She was going to kill him for this.

  She heard Rafe talk to Tony then. Apparently, Eddie and Ramon were still in the church. Rafe told Tony to return the horses and go reassure General Prescott.

  Just before he left, she heard Tony say, “Well, big brother, the oars are in the water, and you’re headed upstream. Let’s see if you sink or float.”

  Rafe said something about being an Olympic-class swimmer.

  Then they were off.

  Rafe drove for more than an hour, carrying on a continuous one-way conversation with her.

  “Don’t be mad, Helen. This was the only way.”

  Imgfhh!

  “I love you, honey. We’ll work everything out.”

  Yrrflift!

  “My mother says I’ll go to hell if I don’t marry you, and I know you wouldn’t want that.”

  Flckye!

  And most outrageous, “Do you have to pee? I hear pregnant women have to pee a lot. I’ll stop along the highway if you want.”

  Hhmmflfhbgt!

  “I checked out some history books last week. Did you know that there were two outlaws named Pablo and Sancho who supposedly rode with Joaquin Murietta?”

  Brrgdll!

  “And Rich Bar was just like we saw it. And, honey, there really was an Indiana Girl and Yank and Curtis
Bancroft. I’ll show you some of the books later. After our honeymoon.”

  Arrrggghhh!

  Finally they stopped, and Rafe helped her out, releasing her ropes and gag with apologies for having had to restrain her.

  “That’s a really nice gown, sweetheart. Your mother’s? Will you be wearing it for our wedding?”

  She sliced him a scorching glare as she stood on wobbly legs and looked around at the secluded cabin. Then she punched him in the stomach.

  “Ooomph! I deserved that, honey. Do you want to do that again?”

  She did.

  “Ooomph! Feel better now?”

  She did.

  While he carried in numerous boxes of supplies, she stormed toward the cabin. “Planning on staying for a while?” she snarled.

  “Yep,” he said and made a big point of showing her the car keys, which he then tossed in a wide arc into the thick forest.

  “Are you totally insane?” she raged, beating at his chest. “We’ll never find them now.”

  “I know. But, not to worry! Tony knows where we are. This cabin belongs to his boss. He’ll pick us up in three days.”

  “Three days!” she sputtered.

  “Uh huh,” he said, toting in the last of the boxes. “Consider it our honeymoon.” Then he winked. He winked. “It will take me at least three days to teach you something I learned in that Mexican prison.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “There was this guy in the next cell who knew a whole lot of good stuff, and, boy, did he like to talk.”

  “I don’t want to know.” Helen folded her arms over her chest. Somewhere along the way she’d lost her veil. Her hair was half in an upsweep and half straggling down her face. She saw at least three runs in her stockings. And she did have to pee. She was not in a good mood.

  “C’mon, Helen. Don’tcha want to know what he taught me?” Rafe prodded with a big grin. “It’s the art of . . .” He paused dramatically.

  “What?”

  “Corkscrewing.”

  Talk about romantic! (If you don’t melt here, you’re dead.) . . .