Private Passions

by Rochelle Alers

  “Lo siento mucho,” Sonia exclaimed. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  Emily took the basket from her loose grip, examining its contents, flowers she had never seen before. “These are beautiful.”

  “Alejandro is very fortunate. He has the most talented gardener in Puerto Escondido tend his prize flowers.”

  “The hacienda is magnificent. Everything is magnificent.”

  Sonia nodded. “That it is,” she confirmed without a hint of modesty. “Do you ever watch the Spanish novelas on television in your country?”

  “Hardly ever,” Emily confessed. She rarely watched television at all, and if she did it was the news segments.

  “Well, if you had, then you probably would have recognized this house. Before Alejandro went away, he finalized a deal with a television producer to use the hacienda and the surrounding property as the setting for his novelas. They paid my brother well, while maintaining and protecting the property from vandals.”

  “You don’t live here?”

  “No, child. I haven’t lived here in forty-three years. I married when I was twenty-one, then moved to Oaxaca with my husband. I’m here because my brother needs me.” She peered closely at Emily. “Have you met with Alejandro?”

  “Not yet.”

  “The nurse said it did not go well between Cristobal and Alejandro. What they don’t realize is that they are too much alike—in looks and in temperament.”

  “Are you saying that there will never be peace between them?”

  “That all depends,” Sonia said cryptically.

  “On what?”

  She gave Emily a direct stare. “On you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You must become the peacemaker, sobrina. If you love your novio, then you must get him to soften his heart toward his father.”

  Shaking her head, Emily took a few steps, stopped, then turned to face Chris’s aunt. “You’re asking the impossible. You can’t expect me to undo what has taken more than thirty years to fester.”

  “You love my nephew, and I love my brother. The two of them are all I have left of my family, and Alejandro has suffered enough. I will not let him go to his grave with enmity between him and his seed.”

  Emily replayed the older woman’s words, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “It was you,” she whispered. “You were the one who informed on Chris to his political opponent.”

  Her expression hardened. “I would, as you say, ‘inform on him’ to the devil himself if it meant ending the breach in my family. Yes, I was the one,” she stated arrogantly. “Before Alejandro left Mexico he paid someone to report to him on his son, and I made certain he knew everything that had happened in Cristobal’s life. You were the only surprise. We didn’t know the two of you planned to marry.”

  Staring at Sonia in stunned silence, Emily could not believe what she’d just heard. “You paid someone to spy on him.”

  “Alejandro paid.”

  “Same difference,” she countered. “You’re a meddler.”

  A slight smile softened Sonia’s mouth and deepened the lines around her eyes as her gaze lingered on the flowers in the basket. “Call me names, Emelia, but one day you will thank me for meddling. I forwarded the information on Cristobal to someone in South America, who then made certain the letters were personally delivered to Alejandro. The couriers were well paid for their services. What I’ve just told you should remain between us. Will you give me your word that it will?”

  Emily wanted to expose Sonia to Chris but knew she couldn’t. Sonia had sought to heal the rift between father and son, while embracing her only surviving sibling. She had to give them a chance to become a family before Alejandro passed from this life to the next.

  “You have my word,” she said grudgingly.

  Closing the space between them, Sonia kissed Emily’s cheek. “Gracias, sobrina.”

  “De nada, Tía Sonia,” she replied.

  “Can you cook, Emelia?”

  Emily’s left eyebrow rose a fraction. “Yes, I can.”

  “Are you familiar with Mexican cooking? Not those vile concoctions the Anglos tout in your fast-food restaurants.”

  She forced back a grin. “There are quite a few authentic Mexican restaurants in New Mexico.”

  “Does Cristobal like Mexican cooking?”

  Emily nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good. Come help me prepare dinner. I’m going to show you a few secrets that the women in my family have known for centuries, and before you leave Mexico I’m going to give you a book filled with recipes that only Delgado women have been privy to. After all, you will become a Delgado when you marry my sobrino.”

  “You’re right,” Emily said, choosing her words carefully. She would become a Delgado if she and Chris married. What his aunt did not know was that the ring she’d removed from her finger and hidden in a drawer under her lingerie belonged to another man.

  Chapter 15

  It had gone badly, and Chris knew he was to blame. He had allowed his emotions to override his common sense. He had willfully attacked a sick man—a man whose face was uncannily like his own, a man whose genes he shared, a man he’d hated until now.

  His loathing of his biological father had come from Eve Blackwell-Sterling’s pain. Whenever Chris asked Eve about her first husband her tears flowed unchecked. When he was a young boy he thought she cried because she was still in love with Alejandro and that she missed him, even though she had married Matthew Sterling. But as he grew older he had come to understand the terror his mother had experienced when Alejandro abducted her firstborn, a fear it had taken years for her to overcome. Even after more than three decades Eve could not purchase a carton of milk with a missing child’s picture on it.

  He did not want to start a war with Alejandro—he just wanted and needed answers. Crucial answers, so that he’d be able to respond to and counter Savoy’s attack on his personal life.

  Three days. Emily had promised to remain in Mexico with him for three more days, then she would return to New Mexico. He hoped to get the answers he needed from Alejandro within that time, but if it didn’t happen, he would remain behind.

  The sound of Alejandro’s voice raised in anger resounded in the hallway. He was screaming at his nurse. Taking long, determined strides, Chris walked out of his bedroom, crossed the hall and entered Alejandro’s. The older man stood beside the bed, waving his arms wildly while the nurse tried to restrain him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Alejandro and the nurse went completely still, staring at Chris as if he were an apparition. “He’s not permitted to leave the bed,” the nurse said quickly.

  “Has the doctor confined him to the bed, señorita?” Chris asked gently.

  “No.” The nurse and Alejandro had answered in unison.

  Closing the space between them, Chris eased his father from the woman’s grasp, picked him up as if he were a child, and placed him on a chair beside the bed. He was appalled at the frailty of the body concealed by the pair of pajamas, doubting whether Alejandro weighed more than 120 pounds.

  Alejandro offered his son an appreciative smile. “Gracias. I hate that damn bed.”

  The pretty nurse glared at her patient. “The doctor says you’re not to get out of bed after he gives you the sedative.”

  Alejandro waved his hand, dismissing her. “Leave me. I want to talk to my son.”

  The woman stared at Chris. He nodded. “It’s all right. I’ll look after him, señorita.”

  Closing his eyes, Alejandro compressed his lips tightly against a spasm of excruciating pain. “Go home, Señorita Rodriguez.”

  She glanced at her watch. “It is not time for me to leave, Don Alejandro. I’ll leave after I feed you your dinner.”


  Alejandro opened his eyes, giving her a lethal stare. “My son will take care of me.” There was a cold finality in the statement.

  Again she looked at Chris for assistance, and he relieved her anxiety when he smiled. “Have a good evening.”

  Benita Rodriguez returned Cristobal Delgado’s smile, her dark eyes sparkling. She worked twelve-hour shifts caring for Alejandro Delgado and was well paid for her nursing expertise. Most times there was little for her to do after the doctor came to medicate his patient. Her duties included changing the bed, helping Alejandro out of bed and assisting him with his personal hygiene, and she was also responsible for his IV feedings whenever he was too weak to chew and swallow food. He was normally an exemplary patient, except when he screamed at her. Señora Medina paid her well to care for her brother, and she did not want to lose her job. At least not before she lost her patient to the illness stealing his strength minute by minute.

  “Buenas noches.”

  Waiting until the nurse walked out of the room, he glared down at the frail man slumped on the chair. “Was it necessary for you to shout at her?”

  Alejandro stared at his bare feet resting on the highly polished wood floor. “She’s being paid well for me to shout at her.”

  Pulling over a chair, Chris sat less than a foot away from his father. “She’s being paid well to take care of you, not to be intimidated.”

  Alejandro’s head came up slowly to meet his son’s angry gaze. “I’m old—”

  “You’re not that old,” Chris interrupted. “You’re only sixty-eight—”

  “And I’m dying,” he continued, cutting off Chris.

  “We’re all dying,” his son countered. “The moment we draw our first breath we’re terminal. So don’t use your age or your illness as an excuse to act like a son of a bitch.”

  Shaking his head slowly, Alejandro’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. “You really think I’m a son of a bitch? I thought I was a sniveling bastard.”

  Chris affected a humorless smirk. “You’re both.”

  They stared at each other, recognizing a common trait: willfulness. Not only did they share physical characteristics, but it was apparent they also shared personality traits.

  Studying the younger man leisurely, feature by feature, a feeling of pride filled Alejandro’s chest. His son radiated an air of authority that was evident the moment he entered a room. The last time he saw Chris it had been Christmas Eve—a day before the child celebrated his third birthday. He had abducted the boy and kept him for fifty-five days—nearly two months. And for more than half that time his son had cried himself to sleep every night because he missed his mother.

  “There was a time when I would have agreed with you,” he murmured softly. “But not now, Christopher.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Living in exile for thirty-two years was the same as being imprisoned. I counted every day of every year I spent in that isolated jungle village. I’d lived there for more than a month before I realized the village wasn’t in Bolivia, but Peru.”

  A scowl crossed Chris’s face. Liar! How could he not know where he was going? Didn’t he know in which country his plane was to touch down?

  “A military transport plane took me from Mexico City to Caracas, Venezuela,” Alejandro continued, switching smoothly to English. “From there I was driven southward. We arrived in Brazil, and after that I lost track of time and place. I’d come down with a fever during the trip down the Rio Orinoco, and it wasn’t until after we’d crossed over the Andes that my fever broke. I looked into the mirror two weeks after I’d left Mexico and didn’t recognize myself. I’d lost twenty pounds, my hair had begun to turn gray, and everyone I met spoke an Indian dialect that was impossible for me to understand.”

  “You mentioned a ‘we.’ Who were they?”

  Alejandro closed his eyes, as if he could will away the memories, isolation and alienation. “The United States Government.” Opening his eyes, he stared at the stunned expression on Chris’s face. “The man responsible for seeing that I left Mexico with my head intact was your great-uncle, Harry Blackwell.”

  Chris remembered Uncle Harry, who had retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation as an associate director after twenty-five years of service. Uncle Harry and Aunt Dorothy had lived in a Washington, D.C., suburb, and they visited Las Cruces once a year until they passed away. Harry Blackwell had died in his sleep the year Chris turned ten, and his wife joined her husband in death two years later.

  “Why would Uncle Harry help you?”

  “He didn’t have a choice. I was his Mexican informant. I gathered information for your FBI uncle on Mexican drug traffickers, and he had promised to protect me. But he double-crossed me.” A frown deepened the lines in his creased forehead.

  “How did he double-cross you?”

  Alejandro raised his right hand. “I’m tired, Christopher. We’ll talk later.”

  Chris wanted to tell him that he didn’t want to wait until later but knew he didn’t have a choice. Rising to his feet, he leaned down, gathered the frail man off the chair, placed him on the bed and covered him with a sheet. His expression was impassive as he stared down at the older man. Within minutes he registered the soft sounds of snoring. Alejandro had fallen asleep.

  He would wait. After all, he had been waiting thirty-two years.

  * * *

  Emily helped the elderly housekeeper spread a linen tablecloth over a large oval table on the loggia, admiring the exquisite hand-embroidered stitching. Sonia had revealed that Wilma had come to work for the Delgados as a young girl. Never married, Wilma Vasquez had remained at the hacienda even during Alejandro’s exile.

  Working quickly, she set the table with place settings for four while Wilma returned to the house to inform Alejandro and Chris that they would sit down to dinner within half an hour. Emily had to admit that Sonia’s cooking skills were exceptional. They had prepared a modern, simpler version of Alejandro’s favorite dish—pollo en cuñete—chicken in a clay pot. She had watched intently as Sonia cut up several whole chickens, washed and patted them dry, then rubbed the pieces with crushed cloves of garlic, coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Other spices were added after the chicken was sautéed in corn oil in a large skillet. The lightly browned pieces were transferred to a clay casserole and covered with a sealing layer of masa. Small bits of the corn mixture broke off and added a thickening texture to the vessel filled with small new potatoes in a sauce of red wine vinegar and olive oil flavored with bay leaves, thyme, marjoram and chiles serranos.

  Emily’s contribution to the meal was the Caribbean-influenced dish of arroz blanco con plátanos fritos—white rice with sweet, ripe plantains. A flavorful chicken soup and a colorful mixed salad with avocado dressing would also grace the table.

  While working side by side in the kitchen with Sonia, Emily had been content to listen to the older woman extol her family’s distinguished lineage. The first Delgados had come to Mexico with Hernán Cortés in the autumn of 1519. They settled in the Istmo de Tehuantepec for several decades, then received a land grant from Philip II of Spain in 1557 and established a sprawling estate along the Pacific Coast. The Delgados, taking advantage of the magnificent natural harbor, became sea merchants. They commissioned a fleet of galleons that sailed back and forth across the Pacific to the Philippines and the Far East, trading silver bullion and gold doubloons for silks, spices, ivory, perfumes and fine porcelain.

  The New World Delgados quickly set their priorities: a shipping business and marriages to Spanish aristocrats. All marriages were arranged at birth, though there were a few renegades who fell in love with beautiful Indian women and produced scores of mixed-blood Delgados. The family’s enormous wealth dwindled and came to an abrupt halt after the Mexican War for Independence ended in 1821, but they we
re able to salvage their status when a young, dashing Delgado caught the eye of Maria Dolores Quintero of Guanajuato. She was the only child of a man who had owned the largest and most profitable silver mine in Mexico’s high, fertile, mineral-rich plateau.

  New traditions were established once Maria Dolores Delgado-Quintero insisted that her sons learn English. British teachers were paid well to leave England for Mexico to duplicate the lessons the children received from their Spanish-speaking schoolmaster. Their schooling had become a precursor for bilingual education.

  It was apparent that Sonia yearned to rejoin her architect husband, who had recently received a commission from the Mexican government for a municipal hospital to be constructed to replace one damaged by an earthquake. But her devotion to Alejandro was remarkable.

  The door to the house opened, and Emily turned to see Chris supporting the body of a frail man clad in a pair of loose-fitting slacks and matching shirt out to the loggia. She stood, amazed and shaken by the startling resemblance between Alejandro and Christopher Delgado. She had thought it uncanny that her brother and father looked so much alike, but it was as if Chris was a younger version of his father. For the first time Emily realized the perfect symmetry of her lover’s features, which made him almost too handsome. Recovering quickly, she smiled and made her way toward the two men.

  Alejandro studied the tall, graceful young woman. She had selected a sleeveless melon-green sheath that floated over the curves of her slender body. The deep rose-pink color of her toenails were visible in a pair of leather sandals.

  Alejandro’s sister had informed him that his son’s intended had come to Mexico with him. Lowering his chin, he smiled. Like father, like son, he mused. Chris’s novia was beautiful. His head came up and he met Emily’s direct stare for the first time. His admiring gaze took in the raven-black hair and the radiant sheen of good health of her gold-brown face. The brilliant green sparks in her large eyes were mesmerizing. She was almost as beautiful as Eve Blackwell had been the first time he’d entered her elegant gift shop in Washington, D.C., so many years ago. No woman he’d ever met had come close to matching his ex-wife’s exotic beauty.