“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Wobbly. I think maybe the beer I was drinking had something in it. I didn’t drink much …” She swayed.
“Someone might have been following you,” he said softly, motioning towards his companion, who had stopped several yards away.
The woman who had been with him came up, and nodded at Esmeralda, though she looked annoyed. “I feel dizzy,” Esme explained, “but …”
“Let’s get out of the sun. I’m Reyna.” She supported Esme as they climbed up a sloping walk and stopped under an awning.
Behind them, PJ had disappeared, and came out minutes later walking beside Beto.
“He says he’s your brother,” he told Esme, and she shook her head. “No. He’s my cousin.”
“We’re family,” Beto whined. “You owe me—tell the officer the truth. You’re my sister!”
“Please,” Esme said softly. “Please—can you make him leave? I don’t want to drive yet.” She knew she sounded shrill. Panicked. But she couldn’t help herself. “If I have to be here with him … no. I won’t.” She tried to move away, but stumbled and stopped.
“Didn’t your husband pay for a bus ticket for him?” PJ asked.
When Esme looked surprised, he chuckled.
“Yes, I know,” she agreed, weakly and without humor. “This is Truth.” She took another faltering step before turning back. PJ and Reyna flanked Beto, effectively keeping him there. She wouldn’t run. “What were you and Doug planning, Beto?” she demanded, her dry throat making her voice hoarse. “Were you going after me or Rafa?”
Beto’s hate-filled face twisted in a leer. “Prove we were doing anything, cuz. You were working on a little affair with the man your husband hates most in the world. I was just walking down the sidewalk. Stopped to take a leak, and this gorilla grabbed me for no reason. I’ll sue,” he spat.
She’d never felt so sick, but it wasn’t the drink. Her head pounded, but most of the dizziness was gone. The nausea and the weakness threatening to swamp her like a tidal wave, dragging her under and away forever, came from Beto’s hatred and contempt.
“Thanks, PJ and Reyna. Everything’s gone but a headache.” She waved a hand at Beto. “I—I don’t know what you can do with him, but I can’t be here. I need to go.”
“Don’t worry about him. You shouldn’t drive. Maybe Doc Roberts is in.”
“No need.” Esmeralda brushed at her hair with her fingers and took a few experimental steps. “See? I can walk again. I have to leave, PJ. I don’t want to see him again. Ever.”
In the end, she didn’t drive home. PJ called Rafael, who insisted on taking her to the clinic to have blood drawn. PJ alerted the sheriff’s office, who went off to the Silver Dollar. Everywhere eyes watched her, and conversation buzzed around her. She’d never manage to be free of scandal, even when she was supposed to be the hero. Not only hadn’t she talked Doug out of pursuing Justin, she’d bet money someone had overheard the exchange about being Beto’s cousin, not sister. Soon her sorry story would be all over town. The mother who didn’t want her, but claimed a stranger as a daughter. The woman who’d married for money and couldn’t even succeed at that for two months. The one thing Rafael had asked her to do was stay away from Doug, and she’d blown it.
Dejected, she moved one foot after another, doing what she was told. That was easier than thinking. PJ’s friend offered to drive Esme’s truck home, and Rafael insisted she ride with him.
“Why, Esmeralda? How could you have done the only thing I asked you not to do? Sitting at a bar drinking with that—that bastard.” He shook his head. “I expected more of you.”
After that, neither of them spoke until they got home.
“There’ll be cell phone pictures and gossip,” he said, stopping her when she moved to unfasten the seat belt. “There’s no getting away from it.”
“If there’s no getting away from it, then there’s no need to talk about it.” She pushed his hand away and unbuckled the seat belt. “I’m sorry, though, Rafael. Believe it or not, I thought just once I’d be the good guy.” She smiled faintly. “I’m not up to dinner.” She slid out and made her escape, still on unsteady legs.
Rafael never came upstairs. She waited for him, wanting to explain, wanting him to understand that she hadn’t done it out of pride or stubbornness. She’d really thought maybe there was something to Doug’s claim that the Bentons just couldn’t accept his love for Cody. She couldn’t quit thinking about Beto’s phone call, followed by Doug’s insistence that she drink another beer. What could he have wanted? To spite Rafael, maybe? Be caught in some public display with the enemy’s new bride? Or had Beto been the ringleader, wanting—God knows what he might have wanted.
She glanced at her clock. Almost two in the morning, and she was alone. They hadn’t risked sharing the bed since … since the night they’d risked their hearts and made love. But he’d always been next door. She’d spent hours hoping he’d knock. Or just open the door. He never had, but now, knowing the room next door was empty chilled her.
Early the next morning, she got up and dressed, then went downstairs. The whole family seemed to have disappeared, although Connie greeted her warmly and offered her breakfast.
“Connie, where is everyone?” she asked.
“The Bentons left. They took Justin back to Houston.”
“Why?”
“I wish I knew. Broke Rafael’s heart, and when they left—he took off somewhere. I don’t know where.”
“Thanks, Connie.”
“Do you really want to know what happened?” Marie asked.
“Yes.”
“Your brother tried to press charges against Rafael. He keeps telling the sheriff that Rafael paid to have him beaten up. “
“No one can believe that.”
“No. But it harassed Rafael just enough to make him snap. Your brother started mouthing off about you, and Rafael hit him—in front of the deputy who was just about to let him go. They didn’t arrest him, but you know a lawyer will get him for everything he can.”
“And Justin?”
“The Bentons got worried about all the gossip and talk going around and thought they should take him home.”
“This is Truth. There’s always gossip.”
“Well, not like this. Someone started saying you told Bounty you’d sleep with him if he’d just agree to let the Bentons keep Justin. Said you pretending to be drugged was just part of an act to keep Rafael from going off and killing someone.”
“Nobody can believe garbage like that. There were blood tests.”
“Look,” Marie said with finality. “I don’t think half the folks here believe any of the stuff they hear—but they repeat it and spread it and butter it up. Rafael’s the joke of the day, with a philandering wife a few days after the wedding.
“And to make it worse—someone let slip that you and Rafael married for money.”
“How—who could have known that except you?”
Marie shrugged. “Funny how you can take pictures of documents and share them with a whole town, isn’t it? See you.”
• • •
Esme was packed by the time she heard Rafael come up the stairs. He walked into the room, and her heart broke. He looked so tired. And so broken. Losing Justin must be destroying him. Maybe he’d go home to Houston. Nothing could hold him here in this town of lies and bitterness.
“What …?” He looked at her neat piles of suitcases and boxes.
“I can’t stay, Rafael. How can I? I did the one thing you asked me not to do, and Justin’s gone. My aunt and brother will keep trying to use me against you until … they won’t stop.”
“I can deal with that, Esmeralda.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” She walked over and laid her palm on his cheek. “You kept me from falling apart when I found out who I really am. Thank you.” She stepped away, picking up one of the boxes. “I need to leave Domatrix for a while. I don’t know where I’m going. But I
can’t stay here where all the lies will destroy us, Rafael. Marie told me a photo of our contract came out.”
“No one but Marie could have done that. That’s easy to fix.”
“For you, maybe. You fire her, and everything’s fine. What do I do the next time I face your parents, Rafa? What? Whether you called it a job or a marriage, I didn’t love you when I agreed to marry you. What does that make me?”
“The woman I love.”
She blinked away tears.
“No.” She shook her head and caught his hands, trying to make him understand. “Rafael, we haven’t been together long enough to love each other. And even if we had, I can’t let my family harass and push and poke until they break us.”
“Toby didn’t break, Esmeralda. He went off to find a way to be with you—to be with you always. I want the chance he didn’t have.”
Esmeralda’s throat constricted and she couldn’t answer. She just turned again to pick up a bag, but he pulled it out of her hands and tossed it aside.
“You sat with me in Laredo, and I told you about the little girl I lost—the girl who was like my sister. There was this huge hole inside me after I lost Pioja. And then I had Cody, and I lost her. Don’t walk away, Esme. Don’t be the wife I love and lose.”
“I’m not sure I’m worth the risk you’d be taking,” she whispered.
“Could you love me?”
“I do.”
“Then that’s worth everything,” he murmured and let her pull him close.
About the Author
Leslie P. García grew up here and there, spending much of her childhood in rural Georgia, and virtually all her adult life in deep South Texas. Married and surrounded by children and grandchildren, much of her writing touches on family. A passion for animals, a twenty-year teaching career, and the strange twists and turns that life can take have provided more stories than time to write.
His Temporary Wife is the second in the Texas Heart and Soul series. Watch for Jade Brockton’s story in the future.
Leslie loves to hear from readers, and can be reached at all the electronic haunts:
E-mail: [email protected]
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Twitter: @LesliePGarcia
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More from This Author
(From Wildflower Redemption by Leslie P. García)
Aaron Estes stood at the window, one hand pulling back the drapes to clear his view. Outside, clouds hovered along the horizon, but he doubted it would rain.
Someone from town— Ross something? —had stopped by earlier and offered to do work. The handyman had scoffed at the chance of rain. “Always cloudy,” he’d grumbled. “Never rains.”
Aaron had shrugged and told the man politely that he didn’t need help. And he didn’t—at least, not physical help. Spiritual help, maybe, mental health—the kind of health that comes with peace and contentment. The kind of health he’d probably never find again. He closed his eyes and listened for any sound of six-year-old Chloe waking, but heard only silence. Unwelcome memories tried to push in, and he pressed his lids tighter against his face, unwilling to give in again to the pain.
The memories came anyway: the loud, angry words of a marriage shattering. The cheery morning greeting from the one thing he and Stella still shared—a tiny, precious miracle of motion and light.
Chloe’s loud kiss and plaintive complaint when her mother tried to leave without kissing Aaron goodbye hovered near the surface. He could still feel Chloe’s huge kiss on his cheeks, hear the petulance in her voice when her mother tried to step around them.
“Mommy, you forgot Daddy’s kiss.” Stella pecked him on the cheek, and Chloe tugged on her mom’s blouse.
“Mommy, don’t be silly. Mommies kiss daddies on the mouth.”
With lips so tight he could feel her anger, Stella stood on tiptoe and touched her mouth to his. Then he watched as Chloe grabbed her mother’s hand, delighted that she was playing mom today, not cop. To Chloe, the world was a game, and everyone in it, players.
He closed his eyes, but the burning didn’t go away, so he went back to staring blindly outside. There were no daffodils here, as there were in Alabama, but he heard that just miles north spring came in on carpets of bluebonnets and waves of flaming Indian paintbrush. All the locals raved about the Texas wildflowers. They said he should go see them, but he knew he couldn’t.
The scene he’d rushed to just over a year ago crowded in: the hysteria, the cop cars with their flashing red and blue lights; the crumpled body of a child, an injured teacher being wheeled toward an ambulance; and an officer who knew Stella pulling him aside. She’d taken a bullet for a kid, the officer told him. Unfaithful, maybe, arrogant often—but nobody doubted Stella Estes’s courage.
The tears rolled down his cheeks and he wiped them away with the back of his hand, trying not to remember that there’d been blood on the daffodils the day the world ended.
• • •
Luz Wilkinson tugged on the girth again and nudged Pompom’s belly with a knee. “Let it out, girl,” she urged. The little pinto sighed heavily and turned around to nose Luz just as the cell phone in her pocket went off. Her horses would have shied at the sudden blast of sound, and the other ponies would have lifted their heads and pricked their ears. Pompom stood there with that complete lack of interest that indicated absolute lack of intelligence.
Frowning over the pony’s deficiencies, Luz fished the phone out and hit the button to silence it. She didn’t recognize the number. She hoped it wasn’t a bill collector, but knew that it probably was.
“Hello?”
“Uh…hi. Is this Eden Acres?”
“Yes.” Luz scratched Pompom’s ear while she tried to connect a physical image with the deep, masculine voice. She often toyed with visualizing strangers from their phone calls, and almost always was wrong. Silence pricked her into awareness. Perhaps the caller expected someone more enthusiastic, more helpful. Someone who could offer more than one word answers…
“May I help you?” she prodded when he didn’t go on.
Another long pause, then came the abrupt questions: “I heard you have therapy horses? And ponies?”
Luz hesitated. Sometimes children from a group foster home came out to ride, and occasionally a counselor who worked with troubled children recommended exposing them to riding. But therapy? She wouldn’t go that far.
“We have horses and ponies,” she said carefully. “But who told you we have therapy horses?”
“Esmeralda Salinas,” the voice said, no longer hesitant.
Luz wrinkled her nose, picturing the elegant redheaded school guidance counselor with her neat suits and perpetual pep. Living in this tiny community, they’d crossed paths several times. They didn’t much like each other, but Esmeralda loved horses. That was usually a sterling quality, but this time, Luz’s main yardstick for measuring “good folks” didn’t hold water, because the counselor struck her as conceited, plastic, and sneaky. Although they avoided each other as much as possible, she boarded the woman’s pricey Appaloosa. Undoubtedly Esmeralda would have liked finer stomping grounds for the horse and herself, but no one else boarded horses in this arid, dying community. Very few still owned livestock.
Nevertheless, Luz was surprised that the counselor had referred any male new to town. The director of the children’s group home was an elderly woman, and the other referrals were long-time residents, parents in established relationships, but Esmeralda sending a guy her way? He was not single, then, apparently.
“You’re Ms. Wilkinson?” Doubt tinged the deep voice. She’d confused the caller. Didn’t matter. Confusion was a constant companion these days.
“Yes,” she replied. One word again. He could state his business or not. She didn’t care.
“Ms. Wilkinson, I need to talk to you about riding lessons for my little girl, Chloe
. Or maybe—” Another brief pause, as if he wasn’t sure what he wanted. “Maybe even buying a pony. I need advice on what would be best.”
He was a client then. She should be happier than she was. She pasted a smile on her face, hoping it would make her voice warmer, more caring. “Great. Advice is what we do best.” Quick questions confirmed he knew how to find Eden Acres, and she clicked the phone off and returned it to her pocket. She realized, a little late, that asking the man’s name might have been both friendlier and more professional.
“Screw it,” she muttered with unusual ire. “Professional never worked for me, anyway. Come on, old lady. Some kid might actually get a pony ride today.”
Half an hour later Luz was feeding the menagerie when she heard tires on the gravel drive. She called the motley collection of rescued animals her menagerie, because it took too long to go into the species, circumstances, and problems she dealt with trying to feed and shelter them day to day. Candy, the burro, butted her as she turned away, and the kitten with no name left its feeding dish to run away from some unseen menace, almost tripping her. She wiped her hands on the sides of her jeans and shut the door separating the odd animals from the handful of horses that were both her treasures and bread-earners.
By the time she made it outside, a dark-haired, broad-shouldered man was leaning against an SUV, frowning. He wore long sleeves and a tie, hardly south Texas pony-buying attire. But she wasn’t expecting anyone else.
She walked over and held out her hand. “I’m Luz Wilkinson. Welcome to Eden Acres. Are you—?”
“Aaron Estes.” He shook her hand briefly, and then cast another look around the premises. Not disapproving, exactly, she thought. It was more a look of disappointment.
“Why don’t we go into the office?” she suggested. “It’s cooler.” And it was well decorated with new paint and shelves of her mother’s trophies, recently polished.
They walked into the barn. The half-open stall doors caught his attention. He pointed at one of the horses. “Pretty. Yours?”
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