Fearless

3

RODRIGO STARED AT HER curiously. She was a contradiction. She seemed simple and sweet, but she was educated. He was certain that she wasn’t what she appeared to be, but it was far too soon to start dissecting her personality. She interested him, but he didn’t want her to. He was still mourning Sarina. Anyway, it amused him that she liked the same poems he did.

She got up slowly and picked up her peach, tossing it away because Consuelo had waxed the floor that morning and she was wary of getting even a trace of wax in her fruit. She washed her hands again as well.

“I’m glad to see that you appreciate the danger of contamination,” Rodrigo said.

She smiled. “Consuelo would have whacked me with a broom if she’d caught me putting anything in the pot that had been on her floor, no matter how clean it is.”

“She’s a good woman.”

“She is,” Glory agreed. “She’s been very kind to me.”

He finished his coffee and got up. But he didn’t leave. “One of the workers told me that Castillo made a suggestive remark to you when you went to ask him for replacement baskets for some berries that had molded.”

She gave him a wary look. She’d had words with Castillo over his foul language. He’d only laughed. It had made her very angry. But she didn’t want to get a reputation for tale-telling. There was more to it than that, of course. Her mother hadn’t been the only person who’d been physically abusive to her. The two teenage boys in the foster home had harassed and frightened her for months and then assaulted her. As a result of the violence in her past, she was uneasy and frightened around men. Rodrigo had been away when the new employee had made suggestive remarks, and Glory and Consuelo would have been no match for a man with the muscles Castillo enjoyed displaying, if Glory had antagonized him.

“You’re afraid of him,” Rodrigo said quietly, watching her reaction to the statement.

She swallowed. Her hand contracted on the knife. She didn’t want to admit that, even though it was true. She was afraid of men. It hurt her pride to have to admit it.

“Was it a man, who did that to you?” he asked unexpectedly, indicating her hip.

She was too emotionally torn to choose her words. “My mother did it,” she replied.

Whatever reply he’d expected, that wasn’t it. “God in heaven, your mother?” he exclaimed.

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“She was killing my cat,” she said, feeling the pain all over again. “I tried to stop her.”

“What did she hit you with?”

The memory was still painful. “A baseball bat. My own baseball bat. I played on my school team just briefly.”

His indrawn breath was audible in the silence that followed.

“And the cat?”

The memory hurt. “My daddy buried it for me while I was in the hospital,” she managed huskily.

“Niña,” he whispered huskily. “Lo siento.”

She’d never had comfort. It had been offered, and refused, several times during traumatic periods of her life. Sympathy was weakening. It was the enemy. She tried valiantly to stem the tears, but she couldn’t stop them. The tenderness in Rodrigo’s deep voice made her hungry for comfort. Her wet eyes betrayed that need to him.

He took the knife and the peaches from her, set them aside and pulled her up tight into his arms. He held her, rocked her, while years of sorrow and grief poured out of her in a blinding tide.

“What a witch she must have been,” he murmured into her soft hair.

“Yes,” she said simply, remembering what came after her accident. The arrest of her father and his conviction, the foster homes, the assault…

She should have been afraid of him. The memory of the boys overpowering her in her foster home haunted her. But she wasn’t afraid. She clung to him, burying her wet face in his broad chest. His arms were strong and warm, and he held her in a gentle but tight nonsexual way. It was a landmark in her life, that comfort. Jason had held her when she cried, of course, but Jason was like a loving big brother. This man was something entirely different.

He smoothed her hair, thinking how it helped to feel another human body close against his. He grieved for the loss of Sarina and Bernadette, and deep inside he remembered his anguish when the drug lord, Manuel Lopez, had killed his only sister. He knew grief. He began to understand this woman a little. She was strong. She must be, to have survived such an ordeal. He suspected there were more traumatic things in her past, things she’d never told another living soul.

After a minute, she moved away from him. She was embarrassed. She dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her apron and turned to pick up the peaches and the knife.

“We all have tragedies,” he said quietly. “We live with them in silence. Sometimes the pain breaks free and becomes visible. It should not embarrass you to realize that you are human.”

She looked up at him with red eyes. She nodded.

He smiled and glanced at his watch. “I have to get the men started. Breakfast was very nice. Your biscuits are better than Consuelo’s, but don’t tell her.”

She managed a watery smile. “I won’t.”

He started out the door.

“Señor Ramirez,” she called.

He turned, his eyebrows arched.

“Thank you,” she managed.

“You’re welcome.”

She watched him go, twisting inside with unfamiliar emotions. She couldn’t remember any man, except for Jason, holding her like that in her adult life. It had been wonderful. Now she had to put it right out of her mind. She didn’t want anyone close to her emotionally. Not even Rodrigo.

THE NEXT WEEK, SHE was surprised to find a police car in the front yard. She went to the front porch and paused as the town’s police chief, Cash Grier, bounded up the steps.

She hadn’t seen him before, and she was surprised by the long ponytail he wore. She’d heard that he was unconventional, and there were some interesting rumors about his past that were spoken in whispers. Even up in San Antonio, he was something of a legend in law enforcement circles.

“You’re Chief Grier,” she said as he approached her.

He grinned. “What gave me away?” he asked.

“The badge that says ‘Police Chief,’” she replied, tongue-in-cheek. “What can I do for you?”

He chuckled. “I came to see Rodrigo. Is he around?”

“He was,” she replied. “But he hasn’t come in for lunch, or called.” She turned and opened the screen door, leaning heavily on the cane. “Consuelo, do you know where Mr. Ramirez is?”

“He said he was going to the hardware store to pick up the extra buckets he ordered,” she called.

Glory turned back to the chief, and found him eyeing her cane. She became defensive. “Something bothering you?” she asked pertly.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to stare. You’re young to be walking with a cane.”