A Match Made Under the Mistletoe
Page 33
He cocked his head, and for a few seconds, his pale eyes were less hostile. “You studied it in high school, I suppose?”
“Yes. We had to take a foreign language. I already spoke Spanish, so French was something new.”
“Spanish?”
“My father had several cowboys who were from Mexico. Immigrants,” he began, planning to mention that his grandfather was one.
“Their families were here before the first settlers made it to Texas,” she said, absently defending them.
His pale eyes narrowed. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was going to say that my grandfather was an immigrant.” He cocked his head. “You don’t like even the intimation of prejudice, do you?”
She shifted on her feet. “They were like family to me,” she said. “My father was hard as nails. He wouldn’t even give a man time off to go to a funeral.” She shifted again. “He said work came first, family second.”
“Charming,” he said and it was pure sarcasm.
“So all the affection I ever had was from people who worked for him.” She smiled, reminiscing. “Dolores cooked for the bunkhouse crew. She taught me to cook and sew, and she bought me the first dress I ever owned.” Her face hardened. “My father threw it away. He said it was trashy, like Dolores. I said she was the least trashy person I knew and he…” She swallowed. “The next day, she was gone. Just like that.”
He moved a step closer. “You hesitated. What did your father do?”
She bit her lower lip. “He said I deserved it…”
“What did he do?”
“He drew back his fist and knocked me down,” she said, lowering her face in shame. “Dolores’s husband saw it through the window. He came in to protect me. He knocked my father down. So my father fired Dolores and him. Because of me.”
He didn’t move closer, but she felt the anger emanating from him. “He would have found another reason for doing it,” he said after a minute.
“He didn’t like them being friendly to me.” She sighed. “I felt so bad. They had kids who were in school with me, and the kids had to go to another school where Pablo found work. Dolores tried to write to me, but my father tore up the letter and burned it, so I couldn’t even see the return address.”
“You should have gone with them,” he said flatly.
She smiled sadly. “I tried to. He locked me in my room.” She looked up with soft, sad eyes. “Mamie reminds me of Dolores. She has a kind heart, too.”
There was an odd vibrating sound. She frowned, looking around.
He held up the cell phone he’d kept in his pocket. He glared at it, turned the vibrate function off and put it back in his pocket. “If I answer it, there’s a crisis I have to solve. If I don’t answer it, there will be two crises that cost me a small fortune because I didn’t answer it.”
“I don’t even own a cell phone,” she said absently. It was true—Mamie paid for hers.
How would she pay for one, he almost said out loud. But he didn’t want to hurt her. Life had done a good job of that, from what he’d heard.
He nodded toward the sky. “It will be dark soon,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out alone at night.”
She managed a smile. “That’s what Mamie says. I’m going in.”
She turned, a little reluctantly, because he wasn’t quite the ogre she thought he was.
All the way down the path, she felt his eyes on her. But he didn’t say another word.
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ISBN-13: 9781488086289
A Match Made Under the Mistletoe © 2017 by Harlequin Books S.A
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
If Winter Comes
Copyright © 1990 by Diana Palmer
Ms. Bravo and the Boss
Copyright © 2016 by Christine Rimmer
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