After his apparent confusion at the turn of events had worn off, Ricardo was almost giddy with joy. He wanted to call his best friends and tell them, who Rebekah found out were the ones who had introduced him to Rafael’s past as La Sombra. One of the boys was a couple of years older than Ricardo, and he was the one who had shared Rafael’s wrestling persona with him.
Then he wanted to know if Rafael could come to school with him in the fall, so he could show him off to his entire class. Overall, he took it very well.
When he asked why his father hadn’t come to see him before, Rafael took charge of the answer. Without really explaining, he told Ricardo that would change and he would be in his life from now on.
“What should I call you?”
“What do you want to call me?” Rafael countered. His jaw became rigid with tension.
Ricardo dipped his head shyly. “Can I call you Dad?”
Rafael swallowed, and then he ran his hand over his son’s curls. “I would love it if you called me Dad,” he whispered in a thick voice.
Rebekah turned away briefly, tears momentarily clouding her vision.
“Are you moving here?” Ricardo asked.
Rafael shook his head. “No, I won’t be. I live in California.”
“Can I come visit?”
“Of course you can,” Rafael replied. His eyes found hers over the top of Ricardo’s head. “I was just talking to your mother about a visit to California.”
Ricardo’s head swung toward her, and Rebekah summoned a smile, hoping it appeared more genuine than it felt. “That’s true, Ricky. Your father and I were just talking about that. Maybe you could spend some time with him later this summer.”
“Cool!” His eyes lit up. “Do you live on a beach?”
“Not on a beach, but near it.”
“Yes!” Ricardo pumped his fist. “Last summer, we went to visit Uncle Adam in Miami, and me and Mom built a sand castle. We can do that again, Mom. It’ll be fun!”
“Ricardo, your mom won’t be coming. It will just be you and me, so we can get to know each other.”
Ricardo’s enthusiasm took a nosedive. He leaned closer to his mother, resting his small hand on her thigh. “I don’t wanna go without my mom,” he said in a small voice.
“Sweetie, it’s okay. You should spend some time with your dad. It’ll be difficult for me to leave everything behind here.”
His pitiful eyes pulled at her heart. “But you don’t work in the summer, Mom. You can come with us.” He turned to face his father. “Can my mom come?”
Rafael’s eyes found hers again. “Yes, your mom is welcome to come, if she would like.”
They both turned to Rebekah to get her answer. Her mouth fell open, but nothing came out. Flying to California to spend time in Rafael’s company was a disturbing thought, but how could she back out of it when Ricardo so clearly wanted her there? And if she did say no, it would affect her son’s decision to take the trip with his father.
She smiled down at her son. “I’d love to come,” she said.
“Good.” Rafael rose from the bed. “So you’ll both spend the rest of the summer with me.”
“Wait a minute…”
“Yeah!” Ricardo shouted.
“…the whole summer is a bit much.”
The entire situation had gotten out of control. There was no way she could spend the entire summer in Rafael’s company. There was still a twinge of attraction there, despite her rapid-fire reaction earlier to dispel any such thought in his mind. Besides, what would she do out in California for the next seven and a half weeks?
“It’ll be fun, like Ricardo said.” Rafael looked rather pleased with himself. He’d gotten his wish after all. “I’ll show you both around L.A., and we can build sand castles every day.”
“Yeah!”
If she could have shot daggers at him with her eyes, she would have. “I have things to do here in Atlanta.”
“But you’re on summer break,” Ricardo reminded her helpfully. He was always helpful at the wrong times. Why couldn’t he have provided this kind of unasked assistance when she was working in the garden earlier?
“I volunteer at a local women’s charity called Second Chance Closet every summer. They need me.” Her reason was weak, but surely there was some way out of spending the entire summer with her ex—no, estranged—husband?
“I’m sure they can find someone else to help them this time,” Rafael said calmly.
He opened his mouth to say something else when Ricardo sprang to his feet and started doing a little dance. Head and knees bent, hands in the air, he wiggled his body to his own silent beat. A bewildered expression came over Rafael’s face, and Rebekah covered her mouth to stop from laughing.
“That’s his happy dance,” she explained. “He does it whenever he’s very excited about something.”
“Oh.”
Their gazes met and they smiled at each other over his head. It was the first time she’d seen a smile since his arrival. It revealed the twin dimples, one slashed into each cheek. In that brief moment, there was a connection, and her heart did an odd little flip-flop.
Not good.
Chapter Four
Rafael left soon after the conversation with Ricardo. Before his departure, he informed Rebekah he would be in New York for the next couple of days. On his way back, he would stop by so they could make plans to leave for California and decide how to proceed with the divorce.
She made a mental note to contact Buchanan, Rothstein, and Hoyt to set an appointment for a consultation on Friday. Sterling Buchanan, one of her brother’s best friends, was a respected attorney with a young, energetic firm in Atlanta. She trusted him to give her good advice.
Rebekah finished up in the garden while Ricardo went across the street to the neighbor’s house to share his exciting news with his friends. It was just as well. He couldn’t make it any more obvious he had no interest in mucking about in the dirt unless it was under his terms.
Tomorrow was the weekly Thursday night dinner with her parents. She would wait until then to tell them in person that not only was Rafael back in her life, but she was still married to him. She had a pretty good idea how they would react—especially her father. She could only imagine what the dinner conversation would be like as he issued warnings to her, while also trying to refrain from badmouthing Rafael in the presence of his grandson.
She focused on the task at hand, not allowing the incredible truth that she and Rafael were still married to distract her from her gardening.
That night, Rebekah sat in bed in one of her nightshirts. A pillow protected her bare legs from the warmth of the laptop resting on her outstretched legs. She was checking her email when she heard the door click open.
“Mom?”
Ricardo’s little round face poked into the room.
“What’s wrong? Can’t sleep?” Without responding, he came all the way in and stood beside her bed. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“Do you think my dad will come back?” he asked quietly.
“Of course he will. Why would you ask that?” Rebekah placed the pillow and laptop into the middle of the bed to give him her undivided attention.
Ricardo shrugged, turning his eyes downward.
“Ricky, why did you ask me that?” She swung her legs over the side of the bed.
Ricardo looked up at her again, his gray eyes wide in his face. “I never met him before because he was gone a long time. I want him to come back. I don’t want to do anything to upset him.”
As if the guilt couldn’t get any worse.
Rebekah clasped her son’s face in both her hands. “Your father loves you, and there is nothing you could do to upset him so that he won’t come back. The reason he wasn’t around before was because—well, sometimes grownups do stupid things, and me and your father did something stupid when we were younger, and that’s why he wasn’t able to see you before. But it had absolutely nothing to do with you. Understood?”
He nodded, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth.
“He told you he would take you to California, didn’t he?” Ricardo nodded. “Well, then, that’s what he’ll do. Okay?”
“Okay.” A slow smile brightened his face.
Rebekah took him back to his room and made sure he was settled before she returned to hers. She didn’t doubt Rafael would keep his promise, but she already knew what she would do if he didn’t. She would hunt him down and put her hands around his thick neck and strangle him. She would not let him break any promises to their son the way he had with her.
She found it difficult to concentrate on responding to her email messages. Her vision became obscured with memories.
Her parents had never approved of Rafael. He was too rough around the edges. It didn’t help she was still in high school, with a curfew. He worked at a local auto parts store, which was where they had met. She had gone in to get new windshield wipers for the car she had been gifted with from her parents her senior year. Rafael had come out to the parking lot to help her install them.
The attraction had been instantaneous. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking. He had made her laugh, too, so by the time he asked for her phone number, she had been completely at ease with him and didn’t think twice about giving it to him.
Over the next couple of months, her feelings blossomed. She helped him with his English, and he helped her with her Spanish. She learned he had moved to the United States from Mexico City the year before after his grandfather, who had raised him, had passed away.
Initially, their relationship remained a secret from her family. Rebekah’s father was the pastor of a mega church in Atlanta, and he had certain expectations where his children were concerned. They did not include sneaking around with a young man who didn’t have a college education, had hardly any money, and didn’t attend church on a regular basis.
During the week, they talked on the phone late into the night. On the weekends, their clandestine meetings were orchestrated with the help of her friends. She would say she was going to the movies or over to a friend’s house, when in fact, she met secretly with Rafael.
When her father found out, he grounded her and insisted on meeting Rafael. She thought the meeting had gone well until her father informed her she was not to see him ever again.
Unfortunately for him, his refusal to approve of Rafael only made Rebekah want to see him more. Their times apart were torture, their moments together precious. She distinctly remembered when everything changed…
* * * *
Rebekah and Rafael were in the back seat of her car, parked up at Stone Mountain Park. The windows were fogged from the heat of their heavy petting clashing with the low temperature of the cool fall night.
She sat astride him, topless, as he kissed and touched her.
With reluctance, Rafael tore his mouth away from hers. “It’s time to go,” he said, his voice thick and rough. “If we keep this up, I won’t be able to stop.”
“No.” She clung to him, burying her face in his neck, wrapping her arms tight around him.
“Rebekah, we already talked about this. If you do not get home at a reasonable hour, your father will be suspicious and we will never get to see each other because he will never let you out of his sight.”
“I don’t want to go,” she said, her voice muffled against his neck. It got harder and harder to leave him after each stolen moment together.
“Ángel,” he said, tilting her head up with gentle fingers, “we leave now, okay? And I will see you next week.”
Reluctantly, she sat up. “I hate this,” Rebekah said tremulously after she had slipped her shirt over her head.
“Rebekah, please, do not do this. You know this is hard for me too, but it is not forever. It is only for a short time.”
“I don’t want to keep hiding.”
“I know, mi amor. Me, either. But you must obey your father.”
“I just want to be with you.” On the verge of tears, her lower lip quivered. “I love you.” She blurted the words without thinking.
“Rebekah—”
“I do!”
“You do not know what you are saying. You are still very young. How could you love a man like me? I have nothing—I cannot give you the life your father has.”
“In January I’ll be eighteen—I’ll be a woman, and I know about love. I love you, Rafe. I don’t care about money and all that stuff.” Sitting back on his thighs, she lifted her tear-filled eyes toward his, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. “Do you love me?” She hated the neediness of the question, but she had to know.
He cupped her face in his big hands. “Si, mi amor. Te amo demasiado. Estoy loco por ti.” He had told her he loved her too much, and that he was crazy about her.
“Promise?” Tears spilled from her eyes. He brushed them away with the pads of his thumbs.
“Para siempre.” Forever.
* * * *
Rafael settled onto the stool at the hotel bar in Manhattan. He’d been fortunate to get a last minute flight from Atlanta. Flying out tonight had been preferable to his original plan to fly out in the morning. It would save him some time, which meant he would be able to get back sooner to spend time with his son.
The corners of his mouth lifted into a bittersweet smile. He already loved him fiercely, as if he had known him all his life.
Both his parents had died an untimely death while in their twenties. They’d been teenagers when Rafael was born, and they’d lived a life of crime that eventually caught up with them when they crossed the drug dealer for whom they had worked. He didn’t want Ricardo to know anything about that kind of life. He would give him everything he never had growing up and teach him to be a man in the same way he had been taught by his grandfather.
If everything went well tomorrow, he would be back in Atlanta by tomorrow night.
“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked, a young man with skin the color of rich mahogany.
“Bourbon. Straight. And a menu.” He could tell by the light of recognition in his eyes, the younger man knew who he was, but he said nothing as he handed him a menu.
“Excuse me,” a sultry voice said. A buxom brunette stood nearby. “Aren’t you a wrestler? Umm…what was it…La Sombra, right?”
He didn’t doubt she knew exactly who he was. Some women had a way of pretending they didn’t know who he was so they wouldn’t seem too zealous in their approach.
“That’s right.” He took in the plunging neckline, which showed off her humungous breasts. She had a narrow waist and wide hips. She wasn’t bad-looking, either, but she smelled like she’d soaked in a barrel of perfume.
“Can I have your autograph?” she practically purred, pouting her ruby-red lips and sticking her chest out even more—as if he couldn’t already see her enormous breasts. Her well-manicured fingers retrieved a little notebook from her tiny beaded purse and placed it in front of him with a pen.
“Who am I writing it to?”
“Connie,” she whispered, pressing her chest against his bicep. He didn’t even have to work for it. It was almost too easy.
Rafael pretended not to notice the pressure on his arm and scribbled the note as quickly as possible. “Here you go.”
Connie took the notebook and pen and slipped both into her purse without taking her eyes from his face. “Are you staying here?” she asked, giving him a come-hither look, which, instead of enticing him, made his flesh crawl.
“No,” he lied.
Connie pouted again and stepped back. “I am,” she said coyly. “Room twelve-eleven, in case you’re interested.” Rafael watched as she sashayed out the door of the bar.
“Must be nice,” the bartender murmured.
“It can be a nuisance sometimes,” Rafael said, flipping open the menu. It was late, and he was starving.
“I’d love to have that kind of problem.”
No, you would not, Rafael thought grimly.
* * * *
> At twenty-two, Rafael was big, strong, and a good fighter. When Marty took him under his wing, he went from no-holds-barred underground fighting to the wrestling amateur league. By this time, he and Rebekah had been married a year. The money he made barely supported them. Rebekah hadn’t liked the violence of underground wrestling, having to deal with all his cuts, bruises, and black eyes after each bout. She liked amateur wrestling even less, because Rafael had to travel often, leaving her behind in the motel room they rented weekly.
She offered to get a job so he wouldn’t have to be gone as much, but Rafael wouldn’t hear about it. No wife of his would work. He would take care of her.
While on one of his trips, he was taken by surprise when she called to tell him she was going to Atlanta. She explained that since he was gone for weeks at a time, she would stay with her parents for awhile.
For Rafael, it indicated her unhappiness, which, in turn, was an embarrassing blow to his ego. Their relationship became more strained. They barely talked, and when they did, it was only to argue. He accused her of leaving him, which she vehemently denied.
He flew back to Atlanta, hoping to convince her to return with him, but he could see she was becoming more entrenched in her life there. He had no doubt her mind was being poisoned against him, and she seemed to enjoy the comfort afforded by her father’s money. They were living separate lives.
When he hit the road again for his bouts in California, he missed her, but their conversations became fewer and far between. The biggest mistake he had ever made happened just a few weeks after he left. He had won his matches, and he called Rebekah to tell her the news, but she wasn’t at home. Hours later, she still hadn’t returned his call, and he had felt dejected.
Marty would sometimes rent a hotel suite so the six wrestlers he managed could celebrate after their matches. Tonight, they’d won a lot of money, so there was more food, more alcohol, and more women. Normally, Rafael would go back to his own room, but tonight, he didn’t want to be alone, and he needed a distraction from his thoughts.
There were at least two groupies—or ring rats, as they were called—for each wrestler. While most of the women were wrestling groupies, a few had a professional air about them.
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