“You were counting cars.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“God, she’s not even here yet and you’re already acting like her.”
“¿Estás loca? I don’t act like my sister. It’s not even possible.”
“Isn’t it? You don’t see how you change when she’s around. I do.”
“Luckily, she’d not around very often, okay?”
The scowl Lia wore as the elevator doors swooshed open told Marisela that once every few years was more than often enough, as far as Lia was concerned. She marched inside and wedged herself into the corner. Marisela followed, jabbing the button for the third floor arrivals just as a dark SUV pulled into the lot and parked directly next to her Camaro.
Before she could jump out and determine why the driver hadn’t used any of the other multiple open spaces, the doors closed. Working for Titan was making her paranoid.
Or was it?
During her decent, she checked her messages. No alerts. No warnings. She hadn’t worked on a dangerous case in over a month, when her handler, Max, had called her out of the Tampa satellite office to assist with a money laundering case in Miami. Since then, she’d wrapped up two cheating spouse investigations and did some follow up work on a twenty-year-old missing child case, in which she’d discovered a couple of new leads to pass on to police.
In other words, nothing that should have been tingling her spidey-senses.
And yet, tingle they did.
Chapter Two
“Wait, you’re wearing your gun?” Lia grabbed Marisela’s arm so that her manicured nails dug through her worn leather sleeve.
Marisela yanked away. Thanks to Titan, her license to carry a concealed weapon had been reinstated. She hadn’t gone without her piece since. Not that she’d stopped packing when her permit was pulled, but now, she was less careful about hiding the fact that she was armed and dangerous.
“Yeah, so?”
“This is an airport,” Lia said.
Marisela shrugged. “We’re not going through security.”
Lia huffed. She was still pissed about Belinda and she was going to make Marisela pay in a million little ways until she felt sufficiently satisfied. That might happen in, oh, a hundred years.
When the elevator doors sprung open on the third floor, Marisela ignored Lia’s continued mutterings of doom at the hands of Homeland Security and concentrated on finding the arrival area for international passengers. She double-checked Belinda’s flight on the monitor, which was listed as “arrived,” causing her heartbeat to accelerate. Not only did her sister have to make it from the plane to the main terminal without getting lost or distracted—a task Marisela still had trouble believing she could do—she had to fully accept that for the next few days at least, Belinda would be her constant companion.
Her big sister had always been part-shadow and part-mirror, reflecting back every one of Marisela’s imperfections. Unless she was checking the bootyliciousness of her own ass in a new pair of jeans, Marisela hated mirrors.
The crowd lingering near the tram to and from airside F was sparse, so by hanging back near the escalators, Marisela had a clear view of both monorail exits. She checked her phone. No texts. She watched, silently, noting the timing between the dual trains sliding back and forth to the main terminal, spewing out passengers who’d barely hooked up with the people collecting them from the airport before they started tearing off their heavy coats and scarves. The main building of Tampa International was festooned with the requisite sparkly lights and ornamented trees, but in Florida, the Christmas spirit never had and never would include cold weather.
But the moment Marisela laid eyes on her sister, wrapped in an oversized Burberry plaid wool coat and standing as tall as a runway model, her blood chilled.
Then her heart squeezed tight, compressing her uneasy feelings and icy memories into a tight ball she tucked away. A smile broke on her face, unbidden and unplanned, but as real as the holster strapped across her chest or the genuine half-carat diamond she’d glued to the nail of her trigger finger. No matter how much sadness her sister had caused in the past, she was here. Home for Christmas. Even Lia’s lips twitched up on the sides.
“Belinda!”
Her sister’s head instantly cocked in her direction. She didn’t smile when Marisela hurried over, but instead, braced herself, hands fisted, for the inevitable sisterly hug.
Her grimace stopped Marisela dead in her tracks. Though the urge to force her sister into her arms was powerful, she resisted. Marisela hated bowing to other people’s boundaries, but in this case, she knew the price she’d pay.
“Wow, Belinda. Mija, you look…” Marisela tried to pick the right word. Her sister looked nearly exactly the same as always—taller than anyone else in their family by two inches, with fair skin and bright, turquoise eyes that she inherited from their paternal grandmother.
“Tired, I expect.” Belinda did not talk much, but once a sentence was started, she was compelled to finish it, even if it wasn’t hers to begin with.
“But in a good way,” Marisela replied.
Belinda’s mouth curled into what only a sister who’d shared a bedroom with her for seven years would recognize as a smile. To anyone else, she was merely staring, waiting for someone to say something more important than commenting on her looks. She took no pride in them, since—how had she put it?—she had no control over the genetics that had given her dark hair like Marisela’s but skin just one shade pinker than china and eyes that rivaled the Florida sky.
“Is there a good way to look tired?” she asked.
“Apparently so,” Marisela reassured, even though she knew her sister really didn’t need to be reassured as much as she needed a logical answer to the question. “Good flight?”
“Efficient. Shorter than I remember. Eight hours and forty-eight minutes flight time, plus one hour and fifty-eight minutes from arrival at Heathrow. I’ve been on the ground here for precisely twenty-two minutes. So that’s—”
“Twelve hours and eight minutes,” Lia supplied, a tad more superior than Marisela liked to hear.
Belinda, on the other hand, widened her eyes—not in surprise, but with a hint of pleasure.
Typical Belinda. She wouldn’t get excited to see Marisela after five years, but she’d practically lose her shit over someone who could do math?
“Lia, I’m pleased to see you.”
“Pleased?” Lia asked.
But whatever pleasure she might have felt disappeared the minute Belinda’s gaze snapped back to Marisela.
“I didn’t know you were bringing Lia. You said my arrival was to be a surprise. You told me not to tell Mami or Papi that I was coming. I did not tell them, despite the fact that this choice will result in at least six complaints in the first fifteen minutes of our reunion.”
Marisela took a deep breath, though Belinda was so used to chattering she clearly didn’t need one. Marisela had forgotten what it was like to have Lia talking one ear off while Belinda stood on the other side, spewing strings upon strings of sentences bloated with numbers and statistics and useless information.
She was going to need a shot of rum in her eggnog the minute they got home.
“Which means, mi hermana, that they will be so surprised and happy that they’ll forget how you didn’t tell them. Trust me, their memories aren’t what they used to be.”
Marisela snagged the handle of Belinda’s carry-on bag and tugged, but her sister held on tight. She blinked uncertainly, as if someone attempting to carry her bag was as foreign as being greeted with a hug.
“Belinda, por favor, you’re back home. You’re going to have to deal with mama’s bitching and you’re going to have to let me carry your bag.”
“Why?”
Marisela straightened and as she opened her mouth to snap back that she didn’t have to explain every single thing she did to Belinda, Lia cupped her elbow and whispered, “Breathe.”
No matter how she’d tried to prepare
herself for dealing with her sister after all these years, reality still struck her hard. Belinda infuriated her. Belinda annoyed the crap out of her. But Belinda was the only sister she had. Besides, her inability to grasp the fine points of basic social interaction was a breath of fresh air in Marisela’s smoky, shadowy world where everyone had an ulterior motive and ready cache of mistruths and lies.
“Because I’m trying to be nice,” she replied simply.
Marisela threw Lia the first of what she assumed would be a week or two’s worth of exasperated looks, but her best friend was staring intently at Belinda’s bag, her mouth partly open as if Marisela’s grab for the Louis Vuitton tote had shocked the hell out of her, too.
“I’ve transported this bag successfully on my own since leaving my apartment in London. And since I’ve had that opportunity to rest during the transatlantic flight, I’m more than capable of carrying this added burden. I don’t understand why people insist on trying to make things easier for me. My condition alone should prove that I can manage an additional six-point-three-five kilograms of science journals, my iPad, prenatal vitamins, a bottled water, my passport, wallet, and assorted toiletries, all packed in pre-packaged containers holding less than one hundred milliliters.”
Marisela let loose a string of curses, but stopped when her sister’s frown turned downright…Morales-like.
She stepped back and rewound her sister’s tirade in her head. At the same time she reached the word that had set off the fire alarms in her brain, Lia squeaked.
“Wait,” Marisela said. “Back-up. What kind of vitamins?”
Belinda dropped her bag, undid the sash on her coat and flung it open. Lia emitted a gagging noise and Marisela nearly shit her pants.
Now she knew why her sister had called.
Why she’d insisted on coming home for the holidays.
Not because she missed her family.
Oh, no. That would be too easy.
The puta had run home because she’d gotten herself knocked up.
Chapter Three
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Marisela said, more loudly than she should have, judging by the horrified reaction of the family passing by.
Belinda pulled the coat closed. “Why would I go to such an elaborate ruse when I know the situation is less than desirable?”
Marisela grabbed her sister by the lapel, not caring that she didn’t like to be touched. Clearly, her aversion to physical contact only applied to people like her parents and her sister and not to lovers, judging by her condition.
“Because you like to mess with me?”
Belinda narrowed her eyes. They might have been blue instead of brown, but her power to exude emotion with a glare was a well-known family trait. Their mother had perfected it, then passed the talent on to her daughters. But Marisela had never seen Belinda wield it with such intensity. The unrelenting ugliness shocked her, giving Belinda a chance to tug her coat from her grip and step away, where she nearly stumbled over her discarded carry-on.
At once, both Lia and Marisela shot out hands to catch her, one grabbing each arm. Belinda seized up like a frozen popsicle.
“Don’t touch me,” she seethed.
“A little too late to say that out loud, verdad?” Marisela sniped.
“Marisela,” Lia warned.
Marisela ignored her. “What the fuck, Belinda? You’re supposed to be coming home to give Mami and Papi a Christmas they’ve been dreaming about for years and you don’t think to warn me that your real intention is to break their hearts to a thousand pieces?”
Under her breath, Lia cursed, then grabbed her by the arm and squeezed so tightly, she cut off her circulation. Since her best friend rarely resorted to physical intervention, she wasn’t surprised when a pair of security guards approached.
“Is there a problem here?” the shorter one asked.
Marisela barely spared him a sidelong glance. She skewered her sister with a look that even she could interpret as meaning, stay quiet.
“Of course not, officer,” she answered, pasting on a smile. “Just a family misunderstanding. It’s the holidays, ¿entiendes?”
“Right,” Lia said, jumping forward. “You know how emotions run high this time of year. Come on, girls. Let’s get home and um, open some presents.”
Thankfully, the airport police lost interest in their squabble when a gang of college boys already deep into the holiday cheer broke into a rowdy rendition of Jingle Bells. After a curt reassurance from Belinda that she was fine, they wished them a “Merry Christmas” and jogged off.
Ten minutes ago, that might have been a possibility. Now? Marisela could already hear her mother’s wails while her father promised to take the next flight to England to shoot every man with a penis in London. As most men had dicks, it was a good thing Marisela was the only person in the family who owned a gun.
Infuriated, she spun toward the escalators, counting on Lia to make sure her sister reached baggage claim in one piece. She could barely see straight. She needed to wrangle her temper before she could figure out what the hell to do.
Belinda wasn’t a teenager. She was over thirty, had a good job with a software developer and had been living independently—apparently more independently than anyone had thought—for a while. But no one in the family had visited London. They checked up with her via phone calls, texts, and recently, video-conferencing. They’d trusted the program that had placed her with her company right out of college. They worked twelve to fourteen hour days, still paying off the loans they’d taken out for Belinda’s special schools and doctors.
They’d done everything in their power to ensure their older daughter had every advantage in life. And how had she paid them back?
By getting herself pregnant.
With a baby.
Marisela marched past the baggage conveyors, shouldering through the crowds, blind to the computerized screens that indicated which belt delivered the luggage from which flight. She didn’t care if Belinda found her stuff. She didn’t care if Belinda’s crap had fallen out of the plane somewhere over the damned ocean.
She still had her baby.
Madre de Díos, a baby! A squishy, soft, cooing, helpless little infant with her blood was about to enter this world—via her emotionally ice-cold sister—a sister totally incapable of caring for a child.
The realization socked Marisela in the gut. She stumbled onto the nearest flat surface—an unused baggage belt at the far corner of the airport. As she pulled in deep breaths, an airline employee made a beeline toward her as if to warn her away from the restricted area, but one pointed glance and the woman diverted off course.
Too bad Marisela couldn’t solve Belinda’s problem so easily.
What the hell was Belinda going to do with a child? She couldn’t love it. She couldn’t take care of it. That she could take care of herself up until now had been a combination of constant professional intervention and luck, which clearly, she’d run out of. And their parents? They couldn’t take on a baby at their ages.
Which left Marisela, who snorted so hard at the idea, her sinuses burned. She loved los niños as much as anyone, but her maternal instincts were satisfied in random, brief encounters at parks and grocery stores. Tiny baby fingers, chubby thighs and endless supplies of drool were like that green rock to the superhero in the red cape—they sucked all her powers away.
Marisela’s anger surged. Belinda had no business coming here like this, ready to pop with some asshole’s bastard kid, forcing a humiliating choice on their Catholic parents only two days away from Christmas. Of all the self-centered, arrogant, egotistical crap her sister had ever pulled in the name of her fucking syndrome, this was the worst.
This time, Marisela wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
She tore her hands through her hair. What the hell was she going to do? Put her on a plane back to London to deal with this shit alone? Take her home and implode their family on the most holiest holiday of the year? Her ha
nd fisted. She spun, aiming at the nearest wall when her cell phone rang.
She cursed, wrenching her shoulder as she checked her fist before it collided with the wall. She spun and stretched out the cramp, then answered the relentless ring.
“What?”
“Where are you?”
Marisela looked up. “By number 15.”
“Well, get your culo over to number 11. Belinda’s got a big-ass bag and I’m not lugging it all over the damned airport while you have a temper tantrum.”
“I’m not having a temper tantrum.”
“Have you punched anything?”
Marisela shook her fingers out of her cramping fist. “No.”
“Then I stand corrected. But I know you like the back of my hand, so don’t deny that you’re on the verge. How about if you don’t lose your shit again in proximity of the airport police, okay? They aren’t going to be so forgiving this time and with Titan shut down, making your bail two days before Christmas might be more trouble than its worth.”
“Alberto would get me out,” Marisela muttered, wondering if her old boss—the one who’d had to fire her after she’d kicked the crap out of one of his bail jumpers—would really come through, holidays or not.
“He retired six months ago,” Lia snapped. “Look, I know you’re freaking out. I am, too. I thought for sure I’d be pregnant long before your sister. I mean, what the hell? How did she get luckier in bed than me?”
Marisela snorted. “What makes you think this happened in a bed?”
“Ew! You’re not really picturing your sister having sex, are you?”
“No,” Marisela said, but then she shivered and rolled her shoulders as she tried to banish the sudden barrage of pornographic images from her head. To have sex, a girl had to feel passion. Desire. Need. Except for the stimulation she got from mathematical puzzles, Belinda experienced none of those things.
At least, that’s what their family had always been told by the specialists and doctors.
Showed what the hell they knew.
Marisela moved toward where Lia directed, spotting her and Belinda, who was standing distinctly apart from the other passengers as the pre-recorded announcement about checking ID tags crackled above the crowd. Marisela shoved her phone into her back pocket and gave Lia a nod. Her best friend backed away, lugging the carry-on she’d somehow wrestled away.
Holiday Heat Page 14