by Karina Halle
“How long is it going to take?” she asks.
I shrug. “They assured me it wouldn’t be long. Maybe a few weeks.”
“So when are you going back?”
I grin down at her. “Estrella, I am not going back without you.”
“But Chloe Ann, your job . . . you just started.”
“It’s all right,” I tell her reassuringly. “I spoke with Pedro, Diego, Warren . . . this is the best time for me to go. In the future, I won’t have so much time. And my daughter is fine, we will see her as usual when we get back. Let’s just have a vacation while we wait.”
“But what if the paparazzi start up again when I return?” she asks. “What if that spurs Isabel and her family into another tirade against us?”
I sigh, my heart still heavy over that. “We can only just survive it. Hold our heads high. It’s not going to be easy, and I still don’t think it’s going to go away completely. But at least the settlement has prevented Cruz from saying anything, and with you in the country legally, there is nothing anyone can do to us. It will hurt and sting at times when they throw around the lies, but we are strong enough to withstand it now.” I kiss her hand and stare at her deeply. “I think we will always pay for our sins, Vera, but our sins have been worth it. Haven’t they?”
She nods. “I’d walk through coals for you.”
“You already have,” I say. “And I wish you didn’t have to. But it is what it is.”
“And it’s beautiful,” she says. Then she gets out of bed and wraps her arms around me.
It is beautiful.
I end up spending three weeks in Vancouver. The process for the student visa takes a bit longer than expected. It’s a pity you can’t bribe the government the way you can other institutions, but Vera and I manage to make the most of it.
The day I arrived at her mother’s house in Vancouver, we ended up having dinner with her family. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable, smooth experience, and her sister grated on my nerves so badly that it took a lot to keep my temper in check. But by the end of it, it seemed that that they were warming up to me. At least Vera’s mother was able to put away her prejudices. Perhaps it helped that I had come all the way for Vera and was actively trying to get her to return to Spain. It should have at least proved that I was serious about her.
After that, however, we were out of there. When the paperwork was all filed and couriered, we rented a car and went on a road trip to the center of the province, a place called the Okanagan. It reminded me a lot of Spain—dry rolling hills the color of khaki and wheat, cold blue lakes, orchards and vineyards as far as the eye could see. It felt less like waiting and more like truly relaxing, enjoying the hot, prolonged summer.
There was a lot of lazing around, a lot of wine, a lot of love-making. Being inside Vera again was like coming home, and her skin, her lips, her touch, was the map that led me there. It was exactly what we needed to reconnect again, and I think when we emerged from our bliss, we somehow came out stronger.
When we finally are granted her visa, there is a surprisingly emotional goodbye between her and her family. Though Josh seems sad to see her go, he’s also happy because she’s happy. But it’s her mother again that surprises me. It makes me think that over time, perhaps she and Vera can have a better relationship. As I said before, distance can do funny things, and sometimes space brings people closer.
On the long plane ride to Madrid, during the night when the cabin lights are off and most of the passengers, including Vera, are asleep, I take out my letter. I read it over, once again out of habit. When I turn my head to look at Vera, I am surprised to see her looking at me with wondering eyes.
“What do you keep reading?” she asks me quietly.
I give her a small smile. “It’s probably silly, but it comforts me.” I pause and place my hand over hers. “When you left me last year, before I decided I had to come after you, I wrote you a letter. It was an apology for everything I had done.”
Her face crumples softly. “Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“Because I felt my apologies would be better in person. Was I wrong?”
She shakes her head. “No. No, you didn’t even need to apologize to begin with.”
I hold it out for her. “Would you like to read it?’
She stares at the paper. “If it’s another glimpse at your heart . . . I would love to.”
I open her hand and place it inside. “Be gentle with it.”
She gingerly takes it, flips on the light above her head, and reads it over in silence. It seems fitting that she’s reading it beside me on a plane that is taking us home.
I shouldn’t, but I can’t help but watch her face. It’s so intimate, knowing she’s taking in my truth right in front of me. Her eyes well up and she places one hand at her heart, but she doesn’t cry. She reads the whole thing in one go. When she is done, she only says, “I love you.” But she says so much more than the simplicity of her words. She says everything I have needed to hear.
“I love you,” I tell her, and she lays her head on my shoulder. I kiss the top of her head and turn off the lights above us.
Chapter Thirteen
Six months later
“At some point, are you going to tell me where we are going?” Vera says from beside me.
I glance at her over my sunglasses. “Wow, look at you all bossy.”
She sticks her tongue out at me. “I’m always bossy. You love it.”
I shrug. “This is true. Especially in the bedroom.”
She rolls her eyes but a small smile teases her lips. Both of us know that I’m usually the boss in that area.
It is the end of April and Vera only just finished her last exam for the university this past week. I thought a great way to celebrate would be to take her on a short trip for the weekend. Next month, she’s going to be working part-time at a hotel as a front desk clerk, part of her hospitality internship she is doing through school, and I will be busy getting my players ready for another season in the football league.
The last six months haven’t been easy, but they have been worth it. This time around, Vera has had an easier go of things and for that I am grateful. She caught up in her courses at school fairly quickly and I was surprised by her work and study ethic. Her partying with Claudia was cut down to a minimum and when she wasn’t with me, she was studying hard for both her classes and her Spanish.
As for me, being the coach has been one of my greatest challenges. While I think I learned a lot from Diego and Warren before they left, it didn’t prepare me for the way the team dynamics change once you’re in the position and how different guiding these men is once you’re the one leading the way. When games are lost I feel it is my fault, and I am sure I am about to be fired. When we win games, I don’t feel like my coaching had anything to do with it. On rough days, I wonder if I am the man for this job and if someone else could handle it better.
But I soldier on. I ignore the backlash and the praise. I can only do my best and push myself to do better. Vera and I have, once again, become darlings of the paparazzi, but as the months roll past, the focus becomes more on me and my coaching and less on her and our relationship. It’s been about six weeks now since the last picture of us was printed in the tabloids.
That has helped Isabel, too. After the slander her family spread about me, I was expecting to hear more from them, but they also tapered off. I don’t know if Isabel got them to do the right thing or if they just stopped trying once they realized that nothing would keep Vera and me apart. Isabel has started seeing a well-known TV personality, so that has probably helped too. She’s certainly more pliable when it comes to my visits with Chloe Ann.
The more that Vera improves her Spanish and gains confidence from her studies, the more her bond with Chloe Ann grows. They get along very well, and Vera has started to tell her bedtime stories which makes my heart flip.
There is so much more though that I want. I still want Vera to be my wife and the m
other of my children. I’ve made sure not to push her or even bring it up again for fear of scaring her. But it wasn’t until she gave me something of hers that gave me the courage to try again.
When we first got back to the apartment after being in Vancouver, there was a surplus of mail piled up. One of them was a letter from Vera. She had written to me while she was gone and mailed it only a few days before I arrived to get her.
When I found the letter, I asked if I could read it since Vera had read mine. She told me I could but only when I really needed to. I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I put her letter away and didn’t think twice about it.
Then, one particularly cold March evening, when she was at her Spanish class and I was at home, I felt a pinch of worry in my heart, that feeling that still after everything, she would never truly be mine. Instead of reaching for my own letter, as I usually would, I reached for hers.
Her letter was short, but it was everything I needed. She said she had written it in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep and her heart was filled with knives. She told me she loved me, that she couldn’t stand to be apart from me, and that she was sorry about the way she had turned down my proposal. She said that looking back, she knew I had been genuine and wished that she had not been so swept away by her own fears and panic about the future to realize that she should have said yes.
She wanted to say yes. Yes to marriage, yes to children, yes to everything.
That letter saved me that night and every night after that. Her beautiful, simple, sweet words nestled their way deep inside my soul and continued to bloom there.
“This looks familiar,” Vera says, and brings my attention back to her. She peers at a sign on the side of the highway that tells you how many kilometers to Salamanca. “I’ve been here before.”
She has but I don’t say anything.
Still, when another hour goes past, she starts fidgeting in her seat, her eyes bright and wide.
“Oh my god,” she says. “I know where you are taking me.”
“That took you long enough,” I tell her with a smile.
“Better late than never,” she says. “Acantilado!” Then her eyes seem to darken, her face falling slightly. “Are we going to Las Palabras?”
I shake my head. “We are staying at the same hotel we were at for the program, but they are not holding it there this year. We won’t have to see any of those jerks who let you go, don’t worry about it. It’s just you and me.”
“Two years later,” she says.
“Two years later.”
Soon I am pulling the car up the hill toward the reception and the cabins, and a million memories are smacking me right in the face. I am remembering us walking off the bus, the nervous glances I kept shooting her, the way she was making my body feel alive for the first time, the danger she represented. Now, as I stare at her sitting beside me in the passenger seat, she is no longer dangerous and I am no longer nervous, but she still makes me feel more alive than I’ll ever feel.
“Shall we check in?” I ask her, my heart fluttering slightly. All right, perhaps I am just a little nervous after all.
She nods, looking bewildered, maybe by the same memories that are accosting me. We make our way to the front desk, which is run by someone different than last time. They are very welcoming and nice, and though everything looks the same, the hotel has families and couples staying there and that gives it all a very different vibe.
It’s familiar but changed, just like us.
We put our bags away in our room and I fight the urge to throw Vera on the bed and have my way with her. It would definitely help with my mounting nerves but there is something else that must happen first.
“Would you like to go for a walk?” I ask her after she’s freshened up. I hold my arm out for her and she takes it with a jaunty smile.
“Why, that would be lovely,” she says. She looks absolutely radiant which only makes my heart speed up by a few beats.
We walk arm in arm outside the hotel. The spring air is warm but fresh, bringing in the fragrant smell of flowers from the fields. I breathe in deeply, filling my lungs with clarity and strength, and bring her down the hill to the road.
“Are we going where I think we are going?” she asks me, her eyes twinkling.
I only rub the small of her back and lead her off the road and toward the field. There, behind the fence, is a wide stretch of golden grass against blue sky, and in the middle of it all the tree where we first made love.
We walk through the grass, hand in hand, my grip on hers becoming tighter as my breath becomes shorter. Butterflies rise from the field and scatter in the air around us, and I feel like nature is conspiring with me.
We stand beneath the tree. The green canopy of leaves stretches out over our heads like an umbrella, and the area at our feet is as wild and overgrown as before. All around us is that wonderfully blue sky and the rolling golden hills dotted with old stone houses and square plots of farm. Birds call to each other from the grass, cicadas click in the distance.
I turn so that I’m facing Vera, staring down at her, and I feel like I’m about to pass out. She’s so beautiful and good, I can’t possibly deserve her. But if I have the chance to make her mine forever, I am going to take it.
Again.
I clear my throat and put my hand at her cheek, looking at her intently. “Vera,” I say. “Two years ago I saw you on the bus . . . and you changed my whole life. Two years ago your gorgeous smile, your wonderful spirit, your raw, beautiful soul, took me on a journey that I never thought I’d go on. You shook me up, over and over again, until I didn’t know what way was up, but I knew the way out was you. Out of the cold, black and white, empty world I was living in and into yours—ours—one of heat and color. You’ve opened my eyes and my heart. You’ve made me a better man, a better person. You’ve made me realize that while sometimes love can’t conquer all, it can conquer you. You’ve conquered me, Vera, and I am forever yours.” I take in a shaky breath, squeeze her hand, and drop to one knee. “Will you be forever mine?”
Her eyes widen then blink rapidly as I take out a small velvet box from my jacket pocket. With my hand slightly trembling, I flip it open to reveal the silver amethyst and diamond ring that Lucia helped me pick out a few weeks ago. It’s sparkling, shining, rare and precious just like Vera.
“Vera, will you marry me?” I ask, and hold my breath because if she says no, I am not sure I want to breathe again.
She seems stunned, speechless for a few moments, and I fear I might die. But then she nods quickly, and her eyes water, and she breaks out into a smile so beautiful it takes my breath away anyway.
“Si,” she says, and then giggles. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
My heart is bursting as I fumble for the ring and manage to slip it on her finger. We both admire it on her slender hand for a moment—it looks like it was meant for her—before I pull her down to the grass beside me.
I grab her face in my hands and let out a cry of delight. I kiss her mouth, her nose, her cheek, her forehead, and pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her. I am laughing; I am joy and so is she.
“You are going to be my wife,” I tell her, nuzzling her neck.
“You will be my husband,” she says, laughing too. “Oh, I was so afraid I had lost my chance, that you would never ask me again.”
I pull back and kiss a tear that has rolled down her cheek. “I would never stop asking,” I tell her. “We belong with each other. I would never stop until it was made right.”
“It is more than right now,” she says. “It’s fucking everything. I’m going to be Mrs. Mateo Casalles.” Her face turns down for a moment. “I hope I can make you proud.”
“You will always make me proud, just by being you,” I tell her, kissing her long and deep on the lips, feeling the urge to physically make her mine as well. “And if you want to be a wife who makes drunken lemonade while wearing sexy little dresses, that will make me proud too.”
She grins. “You wouldn’t even be able to stop me.”
“I don’t ever want to stop you,” I say, and gently lower her back so that she’s lying in the grass. “Wherever you go, I follow.”
And now, I will follow her to the very end.
I quickly look around to make sure no lone farmer is wandering nearby and remove my pants.
Vera lies in the grass, grinning saucily, and hikes her dress up around her waist. She’s not wearing underwear. Neither am I. Match made in heaven.
I pin her arms above her head, her hair pooling around her, and slowly push myself into her. She’s wet and wanting, and I can’t believe I’m going to marry her, marry this, this perfect place where I finally feel at home. I fit inside her like I belong there, and she wraps her legs around the small of my back, driving me in, keeping me close to her. We move as one—we are one.
We make love, fast and slow and frantic and controlled. Our bodies take us through every emotion, every feeling, every desire. There in the field, under that tree, beneath the Spanish sun, we have come full circle. When I pour myself into her, I feel like I’m giving her every essence of me, and as she comes around me, I feel like she’s trying to keep me inside her forever.
I stay inside for as long as I can. Then I put my arms around her and she nestles into my chest, and we stare up at the rustling leaves, at the sky and space and stars hidden behind the sun.
I can feel her smile against my skin.
I smile back.
Our love is permanent and she is stardust in my hands.
I could never want for anything more.
THE END
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