Rio Grande Wedding Part 34

"I fell in love with this house when I was about nine years old. An old woman lived there and she used to let me pick lilacs and roses and whatever I wanted, as long as I asked her first, so I wouldn't take her special favorites."

He grinned. "I like such a woman."

"Me, too." A finger traced the edge of the page. "This is what it looks like now. It's been condemned. n.o.body wants to take the time to fix it up and n.o.body has bothered to tear it down, so it sits there, all lonely and sad." Musingly, she said,"Aislado."

He looked from the drawing to her face. "You wanted it."

She nodded. "It came up for sale when my husband and I got married. He didn't want to mess with it too much work." She gave him a little wry smile. "And like you, he was land crazy. Just had to have land."

Alejandro thought of her resistance to his vision for the ways her land could be used to make herself-sufficient, and with some surprise realized that it was not everyone's wish to have land to work. "Did your husband work the land?"

She shook her head. "He was going to start the following spring. He'd been saving for it a long time, to buy the equipment and seed and topsoil." She lifted a shoulder.

"When he died, I wanted to buy it anyway, with some of the insurance money. It seemed like a good investment, and I thought he would be glad..." She faltered a little, staring hard at the page. She took a breath and raised her eyes. "Glad to have me do something that would take away some of my sorrow." She shook her head. "My brother threw a fit.

He missed Tim, you know. It really upset him when he died and he just thought I was awful for wanting to buy the house. He wanted me to put the money into the land, make a farm, when I never even wanted that!"

Alejandro's heart sank. The one thing he could give she did not want. To hide his disappointment, he took her hand, spoke encouragingly. "And you allowed him to change your mind."

"Sort of. I didn't do the farm, but I didn't buy the house either. Ever since I've been living in a frozen world, where nothing changes." She sat on the chair opposite him and touched his face. "I don't know why I had to bring you into my house, Alejandro, and I don't know where it will lead, for either of us. But this time, I know I'm right, and I'm not going to let him or any of the rest of the people who tried today bully me out of it."

"Others?"

She rolled her eyes, straightening to flip her sketchbook closed. Hiding. "Don't worry about it. It's a small town. I'm sure you know what that's like."

Yes. He did know. He knew that memories were long and often punis.h.i.+ng, that small minds sometimes held the greatest sway. "Molly, I cannot allow you to-"

She raised an eyebrow. "Can't allow?"

"That's not what I meant. I do not want to give you sorrow, not after all you've done for us. I hate that my coming brought you trouble."

To his surprise, she smiled. "I don't. For the first time in years, I feel really alive."

That might be so. Perhaps that was the legacy he would leave her. Still, the situation reinforced his growing sense that he had to find another way to stay here with Josefina. He had to set Molly free to forget this little dream time and go on with the

life she was meant to live. Quietly, he said, "I will miss you when I have to go, Molly. But maybe it's best this way, you know?"

She gave him that bright, fake smile he'd grown to understand hid her deepest wounds.

"Maybe. Everyone knows it was a green-card wedding anyway."

He frowned. "Molly, if I do not understand, you must tell me."

"You understand," she said. "Once you leave for a while, the people in town will see Josefina and like her, and they'll start thinking of me as a hero. And when you come back and we're divorced, no one will think it's strange a quick meeting, then a difference of opinion when our pa.s.sion cooled." She lifted one stiff shoulder. "They'll stop gossiping and my brother will come to dinner at my house again."

Alejandro struggled with the knowledge Annie had given him, that the threat from the sheriff was a lie. That the wedding was enough to secure his green card. His wish to stay in her home, prove to her that he had something to give, warred with the certainty that his presence had made her life very difficult.

She stood and put the drawing pad back in the closet, leaving him wondering how to ease by those walls and discover what was really in her mind. Did she wish for him to stay?

It seemed the highest arrogance for him to think so, when she had never uttered words of fondness for him, had even wept in his arms for her lost husband.

He bowed his head for a moment, thinking. In his own world, what would he have done, thought? But it was too hard to imagine. There, where work and family and tradition were the cornerstones of life, Alejandro was a good choice for a husband. He would not ever grow rich, especially in American terms, but his life would be solid, fairly secure. At home, he had much to offer.

Here, he had nothing but the soft talent of guitar and his strong back. No money, no standing, a place only as an outsider whose appearance in her life had dragged her outside, too. His pride would not let him offer himself until he had more to give.

But he found he was not strong enough to stay away from her now, in the quiet of a snowy night, with hurt lying on her spine. He rose and put his arms around her small body, pulling her close. For now he would use his hands and his mouth and his laughter to ease the sorrow she still carried.

Feeling her melt closer into him, he closed his eyes and summoned the right notes of desire for her to hear in his voice. "Tonight we have a big warm bed, hmm?" he said.

"Let's use it well."

She turned, urgently, and put her hands on him. "Let's do," she said, and laughed as his hands opened her robe, laughed throatily as she pressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips into him.

Chapter 13.

Molly and Alejandro went to the hospital after breakfast. In the brilliant, snow-washed morning, it seemed they should both be cloaked in a gilded, new-lovers' glow, but that wasn't what Molly felt at all. She felt dread. Worry.

And worst of all, a doomed sense ofher own impending broken heart. It had been very, very foolish to letherself fall in love with a man from another world, one so very distant from her own. And yet, she had.

He held open the door for her, and she looked up at his face, that face she had almost recognized when she'd seen it the very first time, a face that was now carved irrevocably upon her heart. For one tiny moment, he paused, those dark eyes full of light and gentleness and strength,then he was gesturing for her to proceed him.

He waved at the nurses jauntily. Annie called them over. "I have some good news for you," Annie said. "Dr.Indira is waiting for you in her office. She asked me to tell you to come see her when you got here."

Alejandro looked at Molly and she caught a wild flare of emotion in his eyes. For a moment, she thought he was going to reach for her hand, but then he was standing straight and leading the way down the hall.

"Good morning, Mr. Sosa," Dr.Indira said, smiling broadly. "Hi, Molly. I have great news for both of you Josefina is out of the woods. I'd like her to stay overnight, but there's no reason in the world that you can't take her home tomorrow."

A swoop of emotion went through Molly. Joy and sorrow, mixed together. How wouldthis change things ? "Tomorrow?"

"If you weren't a nurse, I might keep her for a few days, but you're familiar enough with procedures that I don't have to worry about her. The pneumonia is clearing, and you can keep her isolated from others until the TB comes back clean, right?"

"Yes!" Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth, but she managed to inject some confidence into her voice. "I know the drill perfectly, and it would be so much healthier for, her to be home."

Only then did she glance at Alejandro and see the troubled expression on his face.

So did the doctor. "Are you worried about her, Mr. Sosa?"

"No." He seemed to come from a place far away, and shook his head. "No, this is very good." He looked at Molly. "Let's tell her."

In the hall, he stepped out of the traffic flow and took her arm, drawing her next to him, putting his hand around her shoulders, and Molly felt an almost painful swell of emotion. "What will we do now, my saint?" he whispered. His breath was warm and moist against her hair. "Will you care for her in your home?"

She raised her head, realizing how selfish she'd been. Alejandro wasn't thinking of them at all, but of Josefina and her safety. "Of course, Alejandro! Whatever else happens, you can trust me. I'll take very good care of her."

He swallowed. "I know."

He c.o.c.ked his head down the hall. A wash of whitish light glossed his hair as he did it, and Molly thought,even this is beautiful . "Let's tell Josefina."

Alejandro felt as if he were dragging a bag of rocks behind him as they spoke with Josefina. He kept his mask carefully neutral, but the moment had arrived. Now he would have to let Molly go.

Let her go. Even the words caused a deep echo of protest to stir in his guts, but he knew it was the only choice. He'd seen too clearly how much she missed her brother, how

much it pained her to be ignored by the people of the town. If he did not release her now, she would resent him one day.