Shattered

by Olga Bicos

  She’d spent a lot of time the last week thinking over that inevitable question, “What now?” The first time she’d seen Holly, she’d been afraid. Now those fears centered on Daniel and what he might do to Holly, Nina’s clone. But she was just as scared for herself. Nina represented their hidden past, secrets that, once revealed, would change their lives forever. Emma’s most of all.

  Chinese New Year: the time to settle debts.

  When Harris rang the doorbell an hour later, Emma thought she was ready. She opened the door to find him waiting with one hand behind his back. He had the most amazing eyes. The whole Svengali thing in spades.

  He brought his hand forward, tada! He held a bouquet of wildflowers, the stems wrapped in a scarlet ribbon.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said, smiling up at him. “Are you going to tell me they remind you of me? No pretenses, beautiful in their free form?”

  “Well,” he said taking off his coat. “Not now.”

  She laughed, showing him inside. “Welcome to my world.”

  “Whatever it is,” he said, heading for the kitchen, “it smells amazing.”

  “Sit,” she gestured to the bar stool at the counter. “Watch and learn, Grasshopper.”

  She’d poured them both a drink. He took a sip of the Agave liquor and nodded with approval. He smiled at the branches of pink in their vase where she’d tucked in the wildflowers.

  “Quince?” he asked.

  “I’m impressed.”

  He shrugged. “It’s Chinese New Year.”

  “Even more impressed,” she told him.

  “I can see you’re going to be easy.”

  “Just you wait and see, mister.”

  She loved the banter. As if they had every right to this moment. Just a boy giving a girl flowers because she’d cooked him dinner.

  “So what are you making?” he asked, staring down at the spices she’d set out on the counter.

  “It’s already made, but I left out the magic, the last key ingredients. I’m trying to impress you, if you haven’t guessed. You told me you worked with native botanicals. I imagined this crazy mad scientist laboratory.”

  “Yup. Had one of those.”

  “Test tubes everywhere.”

  “Floor to ceiling. Quite attractive in a Frankenstein meets modern science sort of way. It was a real turn-on for the ladies. If I left off my Poindexter glasses.”

  “Do you even wear glasses?”

  He barely held back a grin. “No.”

  “And the lab?”

  “I was more into fieldwork, actually.”

  He reached for a piece of the chocolate. She slapped his hand away.

  “This is a very special sauce.” She took the chocolate and the black chilies and began grinding the two together in her mortar. “One that will seduce you, then bind you to me forever.”

  “Turning me into your love slave?” He took a thoughtful sip of Agave, his eyes never leaving hers. “Okay, I’m in.”

  “A willing victim. Always a plus.”

  She loved his face. It was masculine in a way that Daniel’s could never be because it had character. There was even a scar, right above his left eye, making part of his eyebrow grow wonky. She imagined that his mysterious fieldwork was responsible.

  “So I’m probably pressing my luck asking, that scientific curiosity really blows at a time like this, but…inviting me here, cooking for me? What exactly changed your mind?”

  But she just smiled, knowing that she wasn’t ready to tell him the truth and he would see through the lie. “Don’t make it so complicated, okay? Just enjoy.”

  He took a long drink of the liquor. “You know, I surprise myself. Because I don’t really like that answer, and I just know I should.”

  She spooned up a taste of the Oaxacan molé sauce simmering in the pot with the chicken she’d cooked earlier.

  “Stop talking. Eat.”

  He looked like he’d just tasted food fit for the gods. “One word. Wow.”

  She went back to the mortar. “This recipe contains twenty-three ingredients. Black and Mulato chilies. Sesame seeds and almonds. Even avocado leaves, which surprisingly taste like licorice. But the most important part…the critical ingredient,” she said, finishing the paste in the mortar, then turning it toward him to see, “is the chocolate.”

  He smiled, looking only at her. “Magic.”

  She nodded. “The Mexican woman who taught me this recipe claimed to be a witch.”

  “You’re not going to pluck out one of my chest hairs or anything like that?”

  “Only if you ask nicely.”

  He smiled again, giving her a sexy look that was a complete turn-on. “Maybe later,” he said.

  She dropped a piece of clove into the mortar. “The Aztecs used to make this drink called xocoatl.”

  “Say that three times fast.”

  “It means ‘bitter water.’ The drink was associated with the goddess of fertility, Xochiquetzal. The Spanish sweetened it with sugar, to take away the bitterness, and kept the drink a secret for almost a hundred years.”

  She dipped her finger into the mixture and held it out for him. He nibbled on her finger, taking his time, making the gesture incredibly erotic.

  “Did you know that chocolate contains over three hundred chemical compounds?” he said. “Stimulants that increase brain activity. I hear there’s even a study that compares it to marijuana.”

  “Are you saying I’m trying to get you high?” She watched his mouth on her finger. He used his tongue, then sucked gently.

  “Mission accomplished,” he said.

  “Are you mine forever, Harris?” she asked, seduced by that look.

  He came around, stepping inside the kitchen. He turned her to face him. “Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “I didn’t invite you here to make love.” But she was so very breathless when she said it. “Not necessarily, I mean.”

  “Too late to back out now.”

  He kissed her. It was the softest kiss she’d ever had. As if he was just teasing her, wanting her to beg. A butterfly kiss on the mouth that made her step up on her tiptoes, searching for more.

  “The magic won’t work if you don’t eat the molé,” she told him.

  “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  He guided her back into the living room, stopping here and there for a touch, another taste. “What is it with us and couches?” he asked, taking her clothes off, pressing her down onto the cushions. Following her there.

  They weren’t in a hurry this time. They cherished each touch, every kiss, almost as if they both knew it could be their last. She thought she’d never done anything so intimate, making love to him while looking into his eyes, as if neither one of them wanted to miss a moment.

  Afterward, she lay curled up alongside him on the floor, the comforter from the bed now covering them both. She could feel her heart racing in her chest. She heard herself whisper, “Harris?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Have you ever done something really wrong?”

  He was brushing his fingers up and down her arm, stroking her. She tried to remember when anyone had touched her so tenderly.

  “I have, Emma,” he said. “More times than I care to admit.”

  “This is one of those times,” she said, taking the conversation in a different direction. “You and me.”

  “On so many levels, I can’t even count.”

  She had this horrible feeling that he could see right into her soul to all the darkness there. She’d thought she could be strong. Tell him everything. She’d asked him here to do just that. Tell him the truth!

  “Emma, are you in some kind of trouble?” he asked, whispering the words in her ear. “With Daniel, I mean?”

  She pushed him over so that he lay on his back. She rested her head on his chest, pressing her cheek against him.

  “Shh. You should have eaten my food. I can never keep you now.” She was fighting back tears. />
  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Listening to your heart.”

  I won’t let Daniel hurt Holly, she vowed. But she knew it was a promise she couldn’t keep.

  “Emma, tell me what you’re thinking?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m thinking about fatal flaws.”

  “Really? What’s yours?” And when she didn’t answer, he said, “Okay. I’ll start.” He turned on his side to look at her. “You wanted to know about my old job? Those native botanicals? Some people call it bio-prospecting. But there are other names. Not-so-nice ones. Biopiracy. Biocolonialism.”

  She sat up, looking at his face. She knew what he was telling her wasn’t easy for him.

  He swept back the hair from her eyes, slipping her bangs behind her ear. “A company sends a guy like me into the jungle, someone who feels comfortable living in a different setting, maybe has a special ability to establish rapport with the natives—the shaman in particular. You have to have a kind of sixth sense out there. Know when to ask questions, know when to keep your mouth shut and just observe. If you gain their trust, they share their secrets.”

  “I bet you were good at it,” she said.

  But he didn’t take it as a compliment. “Too good. You asked me if I was a spy, and maybe I was. I stole their secrets and handed them over to my company. The lawyers would file a patent on the whole damn thing. The tribe wouldn’t see a dime.”

  She frowned. “Can you do that? Aren’t there laws against that sort of thing?”

  “Damn straight there are. And I guess I got tired of being on the wrong side of them.”

  He leaned up on his elbow, now face-to-face. “I quit. Everything. Then I showed up on Holly’s doorstep, licking my wounds. I let my kid sister pick up the pieces, which is how we got here.”

  She could see that he thought he’d made some horrible confession. “But in the end, you did the right thing. Because you quit. You stopped taking advantage—”

  He pressed his fingers over her mouth, stopping her. “But not before I almost got somebody killed. It was a close call. Scary close. So don’t go thinking I’m one of the good guys, okay?”

  She could see the tale haunted him. He’d come back wounded by his close call, but his story had an “almost” to it. Hers didn’t.

  She took his hand and pressed a kiss into his palm. She lay back down and spooned her back against him, holding his arm around her.

  “Your turn,” he whispered.

  Her turn to confess.

  “Daniel,” she told him. “He’s my weakness.”

  “Then leave him,” he said. “Leave him for me.”

  “And what if you’re the same? Just another bad end?”

  “But I’m on the side of good now, remember? You said so yourself.”

  “But maybe I’m not.”

  She curled up against him, putting an end to the conversation.

  She didn’t know how long they lay on the floor. She might have dozed off. She woke up to the motion of Harris slipping out from under the comforter. He dressed quickly, as if he’d figured out while they lay there in semisleep that she was the enemy, after all.

  “Emma, help me understand. We can’t keep—”

  “Just go,” she said.

  After the door shut behind him, she lay on the floor, trying to shut out that final look of his, filled not with magic but with a very human disappointment.

  Holly heard the key in the door. She barely had time to take the papers she’d been reading and slip them under the plans covering the coffee table before Harris walked in. He looked incredibly tired.

  She hopped to her feet, a preemptive strike. “How about some coffee? It’s decaf. One of those dessert kinds. Amaretto something. I was just going to make myself some.”

  She was busy with the coffee in the kitchen when Harris came in holding the transcript she’d hidden under the as-built plans.

  She turned, hands on hips. “You had to dig through quite a bit of stuff to find those, you know. It’s called snooping.”

  He glanced at the coffee. “Better add something with a kick.”

  She brought out the steaming cups, now laced with brandy, to the table. Her brother was flipping through the contents of the folder she’d brought home, reading the police reports and transcripts of taped interviews. If possible, he looked even more worried than when he’d first walked through the door.

  “So,” she said, putting down his cup. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “To what?”

  “I’m ready for the speech. ‘Obviously, he killed her. It’s time to get the hell out of Dodge, Hol. Before he comes after you.’ All that stuff.”

  “I’m not saying it would be a bad idea. Where did you get this?” He held up one of the transcripts.

  “A little birdie left it for me.”

  He nodded, needing no further elaboration. “Someone is trying to scare you off the project.”

  “Apparently.”

  “But, you, oh wise one, are not frightened.”

  She thought about that. “Not enough.”

  Harris stood. He left the stapled pages on the table and carried his cup into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she heard him heading for the hall.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To bed.”

  “You’re not going to try and talk me out of this?”

  He peered at her from the hallway entrance. Very few times in her life had she seen that expression on his face—complete and utter defeat.

  “Talk you out of what, Hol?”

  She watched her brother leave. For the first time in her life, she had that psychic experience that so charmed her brother.

  Harris was leaving something out.

  24

  “The caves, I suppose, are as good a place as any for a man to hide.”

  Ryan turned to find Gil at the cave entrance. Ryan stood in front of a specially-built wooden rack, bottle necks down. The punt of the bottles, the dip in the glass bottom so important to sparkling wines, faced him. He was riddling by hand, a process that worked the yeast sediment toward the temporary crown cap by shaking and turning.

  At the vineyard, most of the riddling was done by machine, but in a nod to tradition, Gil insisted Ryan keep a part of the tirage to do by hand. Ryan had been working his way through the rows with his vineyard manager, turning the bottles an eighth of a turn, two at a time, slipping them deeper into their wooden sleeves to create a steeper angle.

  He stepped away from the rack, letting the other riddler finish the job. He’d been at the caves most of the morning. He wondered if Gil wasn’t right. He’d come here to hide.

  He glanced around the cave. “Apparently, not so good a hiding place, after all. For example—and don’t take offense here—you found me.”

  “As in the tired old man?” When Gil smiled, only half his face responded. “It’s long past time for you to hide things from me.”

  He stopped alongside Ryan, the cane almost a part of him these days. Ryan could tell Gil had something on his mind, and he was pretty sure he knew what was coming. He’d been a little surprised it had taken Gil this long.

  “And speaking of which,” Gil said, starting in, “I was going to give you more time, wait for you to bring up the subject, let you ask the questions. But then it occurred to me that you might think the same. That you were waiting for me to bring up the topic. Let Gil decide, that sort of thing.”

  “Well, sure,” Ryan said, turning to look at his partner. “Because that’s how we do things here. Let Gil decide.”

  Gil’s response was a short grunt, because he and Ryan were known for their drawn-out battles. Gil, always talking about tradition, the spirit of the vines, his muse. Ryan pushing to update, technology and marketing numbers his allies. They could go on, raised voices and all.

  Gil made a show of taking out one of the bottles and giving it a look. “So, why haven’t we talked about this girl? You’re seeing her, of co
urse. The one who looks like my Nina.”

  “I see her, yes.” Not bothering to explain any more than that.

  “Who is she?”

  Ryan thought about the past few days, about how many times he’d almost driven over to see Holly. He’d held back because he absolutely knew their meeting would end with him taking her into his arms, completing the bad circle of pushing her away, then coaxing her to stay. The idea of trying to talk some sense into her had become an issue of being damned if you do—and damned if you don’t.

  He gave Gil his best assessment. “Who is she? A clever trap.”

  “Ah. Well, now I’m even more intrigued.” Gil lowered himself to the bench at the cave entrance. The cave was next to the tasting room, a later addition to the vineyard. Tours came through twice a day, three times a week. There were more benches just outside. He signaled for Ryan to join him.

  “The resemblance is quite…startling,” Gil said.

  He remembered their kiss. “At first, yes.”

  Gil nodded. “Like wine, then. The subtle nuances that come from the soil and the weather can make a world of difference.”

  Clear green bottles lay stacked upon each other along the cave walls, making the room look like an enormous beehive. Ryan had come to like the image, thinking that the bottles housed the grape’s nectar. After the disgorgement, when the plug of frozen sediment was removed and replaced by a dosage—a special syrup of brandy and sugar—the bottles were sealed again to finish the second fermentation process. The methode champanois was expensive but well worth the cost. It made the difference between a quality sparkling wine and a grocery-store brand.

  He thought about what Gil had said. It was amazing how the little changes could make all the difference.

  “How is Marta doing with all of this?” Ryan asked.

  Gil waved his hand in dismissal. “I don’t even know why you ask. That woman is steel. The Catalan blood. It’s me that is the weak one,” he said, indicating the ravages of the stroke.

  “I should have told you about Holly,” Ryan said. “I would have if I’d thought there was a chance she’d show up here unannounced.”