by Diana Palmer
“Did he really know all about it?” she fished.
“He lost the cattle in the first six months to disease because he didn’t believe in preventative medicine, and he lost the land two months after that in a poker game with two supposed friends. No ranch, no job, so I came north looking for work.”
She frowned. Jason Pendleton wasn’t the sort of man who socialized with day laborers, she thought, even though he wasn’t a snob. “How did you meet Jason…I mean, Mr. Pendleton?” she corrected.
He caught the slip, but let it pass. “We were both acquainted with a man who was opening a new restaurant in San Antonio. He introduced us. Jason said that he needed someone to ramrod a truck farm in a little Texas town, and I was looking for work.”
Actually he’d approached Jason, with the help of a mutual friend, and explained that he needed the job temporarily to provide his cover while he tried to shut down Fuentes and his operation. Jason had agreed to go along with it.
Their next conversation, the day Glory arrived, had been about Glory going to work on the truck farm. Jason had told him nothing about Glory, least of all that she was his stepsister, but he hadn’t liked Rodrigo’s remark about Glory being crippled and it was evident. Rodrigo had the feeling that Jason was overly fond of Glory—perhaps they were even lovers. It had been a taut conversation.
Rodrigo was tempted to ask Glory about her relationship with Jason, but he didn’t want to rock the boat.
“Well, your English is a hundred times better than my Spanish,” she sighed, breaking into his thoughts.
“I work hard at it.”
Consuelo was stirring cake batter. She glanced at Rodrigo curiously. “That Castillo man is going to be trouble, you mark my words.”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at her. “We’ve been over this twice already,” he said quietly. “You want your son to work here and take his place. But Marco doesn’t know how to manage people.” He said it in an odd tone, as if he was holding something back.
She glowered at him. “He can so manage people. He’s smart, too. Not book smart, but street smart.”
Rodrigo looked thoughtful. His eyes narrowed. “All right, then. Have him come and talk to me tomorrow.”
Consuelo’s dark eyes lit up. “You mean it?”
“I mean it.”
“I’ll call him right now!” She put down the bowl of unfinished batter and left the room, wiping her hands on her apron as she went.
“Is he as nice as she is? Her son, I mean?” Glory asked.
Rodrigo seemed distracted. “He’s a hard worker,” he replied. “But he has some friends I don’t like.”
“I’ll bet I have some friends you wouldn’t like,” she retorted. “It’s the boy who’ll be working here, not his friends.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Outspoken, aren’t you?”
“From time to time,” she confessed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he replied, finishing his coffee. “I like to know where I stand with people. Honesty is a rare commodity these days.”
She could have written a check on that. She was lied to day by day on the job, by criminals who swore innocence. It was always somebody else’s fault, not theirs. They were framed. The witnesses were blind. The arresting officers were brutal. They weren’t getting a fair trial. And on and on it went.
“I said,” Rodrigo repeated, “will you and Consuelo have enough jars and lids, or should we get more?”
She started. She’d been lost in thought. “Sorry. I really don’t know. Consuelo brings them out. I haven’t really paid attention to how many we’ve got.”
“I’ll ask her on the way out. If Castillo gives you any more lip, tell me,” he said, pausing in the doorway. “We don’t allow harassment here.”
“I will,” she promised.
She watched him go into the other room, heard the murmur of his deep voice as he spoke to Consuelo. He really was a handsome man, she thought. If she hadn’t been carrying so many emotional scars, she might have looked for a way to worm herself into his life. It was odd that a man like that would still be single at his age, which she judged to be mid-thirties. It was none of her business, she reminded herself. She only worked here.
TWO DAYS LATER, A late model SUV pulled up in the driveway. A slender, pretty blonde woman got out and darted up the steps. She was wearing blue jeans and a pink tank top. She looked young and carefree and happy.
Consuelo was busy washing jars and lids before they started on the next batch of peaches when there came a knock at the door. Glory went to answer it, leaning heavily on the cane. She’d had a bad night.
The young woman grinned at her. “Hi,” she said in a friendly tone. “Is Rodrigo around?”
For some inexplicable reason, Glory felt her heart drop. “Yes,” she said. “He’s at the warehouse overseeing the packing. We’re stocking it with fruit preserves and jellies for the Internet business.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”
If it had been anyone else, Glory would have gone back to the kitchen. But the woman fit the description Consuelo had mentioned, and she was curious. She watched as the other woman approached the big warehouse out back. Rodrigo spotted her and his whole face became radiant. He held out his arms and she ran into them, to be swung around and kissed heartily on the cheek.
If Glory had needed reminding that Rodrigo was handsome enough to attract almost any woman he wanted, that proved it. She turned and went back into the house. It hurt her that Rodrigo wanted someone else. She didn’t dare question why.
He didn’t bring the visitor into the house. They stood together under a big mesquite tree, very close, and spoke for a long time. Glory wasn’t spying. But she was looking out the window. She couldn’t help it. That those two had shared a close relationship was impossible not to notice.
Finally Rodrigo took the blonde’s hand in his and led her back to the SUV, helping her up into her seat. She smiled and waved as she drove away. Rodrigo stood looking after the truck, his smile gone into eclipse. His hands dug into his jean pockets and the misery he felt was evident even at a distance. He looked like a man who’d lost everything he loved.
Glory went back to her canning, pensively. She wondered what had gone wrong for Rodrigo that he and the blonde woman weren’t together.
She asked Consuelo, against her better judgment.
“Who is that blonde woman who comes to visit Rodrigo?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
Consuelo gave her a stealthy look. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s obvious that she means something to Rodrigo.”
“I noticed,” Glory replied. “She seems very nice.”
“He’s fond of her, you can tell.” She set the timer on the pressure cooker. “But if you look close,” she added gently, “you can tell that it’s only fondness on her part. She likes him, but she isn’t in love.”
“He is,” Glory blurted out.
Consuelo glanced at her curiously. “You’re perceptive.”
Glory smiled. “He seems like a good person.”
“He’s the best. We all like him.”
“I noticed that he seems…”
Before she could finish the sentence, the back door opened and a tall, handsome young man with wavy black hair, dark eyes and an olive complexion came in through the back door without knocking. He was wearing jeans and a pullover shirt, and broadcasting gang colors and tattoos.
Glory didn’t dare voice that summary. She wasn’t supposed to know about gang symbols. But she did. This young man belonged to the infamous Los Serpientes gang of Houston. She wondered what in the world he was doing in the kitchen.
Before she could ask, he grinned and hugged Consuelo, swinging her around in a circle and laughing the whole time.
“Hi, Mom!” he said in greeting.
Consuelo hugged him back and gave him a big kiss on both cheeks. She turned, her arm around his muscular waist. “Glory, this is my son, Marco!” she announced.
> 4
CONSUELO’S SON? GLORY had to hide her consternation. The young man was good-looking and personable, but he was unmistakably a gang member. She was worried that Rodrigo might not know. He came from Mexico, from a ranch in a rural area that probably didn’t have any gang activity.
“This is Glory.” Consuelo introduced her son to the younger woman.
“Hi,” he said, smiling. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same here,” Glory replied, and tried to smile normally.
“Where’s the boss?” he asked Consuelo.
“Out in the warehouse,” she told him. “You be nice,” she added firmly.
“I’m always nice,” he scoffed. “He’ll love me. You just wait and see!”
He winked at his mother, gave Glory a brief glance and went out the back door whistling.
“Isn’t he handsome?” Consuelo asked. “He looks just as his father did, at that age.”
Glory had been curious about Consuelo’s husband. She never mentioned him.
“Is his father still alive?” she asked delicately.
Consuelo grimaced. “He’s in prison,” she said bluntly, watching for Glory’s reaction. “They said he was smuggling drugs across the border. It was all lies, but we had no money for a good defense attorney, so he went to prison. I write to him, but he’s in California. It’s a long way, and expensive even to take the bus there.” She sighed. “He’s a good man. He said the police had him mixed up with a man he knew, but he got arrested and charged just the same.”
Glory sympathized, but she wasn’t convinced. The state had to have a certain level of evidence before it proceeded to charge anyone. No prosecutor wanted to waste taxpayer money pursuing a case he couldn’t win.
“Marco looks just like him,” Consuelo continued, smiling as she washed more canning jars and lids. “But he trusts people too much. He was arrested last month in Houston and charged with trespassing,” she added curtly. “Stupid cops! He was just lost, driving around a strange neighborhood, and they assumed he was involved in a drive-by shooting, can you imagine?”
Drive-by shootings and gang wars over drug turf were commonplace in Glory’s world, but she didn’t dare mention it. As for the police mistaking a lost motorist for a drive-by shooter, that was unlikely. It was obvious that Consuelo thought her son was the center of the universe. It would do no good to point out that an innocent boy wouldn’t be likely to sport gang paraphernalia and tattoos. It was fairly obvious that Consuelo didn’t have a clue as to her son’s true nature.
“He’s very good-looking,” Glory said, feigning innocence.
“Yes,” Consuelo said, smiling absently. “Just like his father.”
Glory had lost track of the good-looking muscular boys who’d passed through her office on their way to prison. The whole culture of low-income teens seemed to glorify doing time, as if it were a status symbol for young men. She recalled a social crusader who went into the poor sections of town trying to convince gang members to give up their lives of crime and become useful members of society. In other words, give up the thousands of dollars they made running drugs or manufacturing them to work behind a counter in a fast-food store for minimum wage.
Someone who had never seen the agonizing poverty that produced criminals had no idea how difficult it was to break out of the mold. She’d lost track of the number of poor mothers with absent husbands trying to raise multiple children alone on a minimum wage salary, often with health problems as well. The older children had to help take care of the younger ones. Frustrated by their home lives, when they lacked attention there, they found it in a gang. There were so many gangs. Many were international. Each had its own colors, tattoos, hand signals and methods of wearing clothing to express their particular affiliations publicly. Most police departments had at least one officer whose specialty was the gang culture. Glory knew the basics, because she’d had to prosecute gang members for drug peddling, homicides, burglaries and other felonies. She never stopped feeling rage at the conditions that produced the crime.
She glanced at Consuelo. “Is Marco your only child?” she asked suddenly.
Consuelo hesitated, just for a heartbeat, before she turned. “Yes,” she replied. She noted Glory’s curiosity. “I had health problems,” she added quickly.
Glory smiled convincingly. “He’s a very nice young man,” she replied. “He doesn’t seem the least bit spoiled by being an only child.”
Consuelo relaxed and returned the smile. “No. He certainly wasn’t spoiled.” She went back to her canning.
Glory filed the conversation away. She didn’t know of one single family among the immigrants who had less than three children. Many deplored contraception. Perhaps it was true that Consuelo had health problems. But it was curious that she had only one child, and that she seemed so intelligent when she was working at a job that didn’t require much education.
That went double for Rodrigo, the educated bit. Glory couldn’t figure him out. He seemed the least likely person to be working as a manual laborer. It disturbed her that he’d given jobs to men like Castillo and Marco. Neither of the young men looked like farm hands. They were too savvy.
What if, she asked herself, Rodrigo was himself on the wrong side of the law? The question shocked her. He seemed so honest. But, she recalled, she’d prosecuted at least two people whose integrity was attested to by a veritable parade of character witnesses. But the criminals were only adept at putting on an act. A very convincing act, at that. Very often, people could be the exact opposites of their assumed roles.
Rodrigo might even be an illegal himself. Glory’s stepbrother, Jason Pendleton, was sympathetic to all sorts of people. He might have felt sorry for Rodrigo and given him the job out of sympathy.
What if Rodrigo was illegal, and mixed up in drug trafficking? She felt sick inside. What would she do? Her duty would be to turn him in and make sure he was prosecuted. She, of all people, knew the anguish drug dealers could cause parents. She knew the source of the drug money as well—upstanding, greedy businessmen who wanted to make a fortune fast, without putting too much effort into it. They didn’t see the families whose lives were torn apart by the effects of crystal meth or cocaine or methodone. They didn’t have to bury promising children, or watch their loved ones suffer through rehabilitation. They didn’t have to visit those children in prison. The money men didn’t care about all that. They just cared about their profit.
Could Rodrigo be one of those businessmen? Could he be a drug dealer, using the farm as a cover?
Her heart sank. Surely not. He was kind. He was intelligent and caring. He couldn’t be mixed up in that terrible business. But what, her conscience asked, if he was? If she knew, if she had proof, could she live with herself if she didn’t turn him in? Could she do that?
“My, what a long face!” Consuelo chided.
Glory caught herself and laughed self-consciously. “Is that how I look? Sorry. I was thinking about all that fruit waiting for us in the warehouse.”
Consuelo rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it the truth!”
They returned to casual conversation, and Glory put away her suspicions.
THAT EVENING, SHE SAT in the porch swing listening to the musical sound of crickets nearby. It was a sultry night, but not too hot. She closed her eyes and smelled jasmine on the night air. It had been a while since she’d been in a porch swing. She tried not to remember sitting beside her father on long summer nights and asking him about days past, when he was a little boy going to local rodeos. He knew all the famous bull riders and bronc riders, and often had invited them to the house for coffee and cake. Her mother hadn’t liked that. She considered such people beneath her station in life and deliberately absented herself when they came to the house. She felt her father’s sadness even now, years later…
The screen door opened and Rodrigo came outside. He paused to light a thin cigar before he turned toward Glory.
“The mosquitoes will eat you alive,” he cautioned.
>
She’d already killed two of the pesky things. “If they’re willing to sacrifice their lives to suck my blood, let them.”
He chuckled. He walked toward her and paused at the porch rail, looking out over the flat landscape in the distance. “It’s been a long time since I had time to worry about mosquitoes,” he mused. “Do you mind?” he indicated the empty place beside her.
She shook her head and he sat down, jostling the swing for a few seconds before he kicked it back into a smooth rhythm.
“Have you always worked on the land?” she asked him conversationally.
“In a sense,” he replied. He blew out a puff of smoke. “My father had a ranch, when I was a boy. I grew up with cowboys.”
She smiled. “So did I. My father took me to the rodeos and introduced me to the stars.” She grimaced. “My mother hated such people. She gave my father a bad time when he invited them to come and have coffee. But he did all the cooking, so she couldn’t complain that he was making work for her.”
He glanced at her. “What did your mother do?”
“Nothing,” she said coldly. “She wanted to be a rich man’s wife. She thought my father was going to stay in rodeo and bring home all that nice prize money, but he hurt his back and quit. She was furious when he bought a little farm with his savings.”
She didn’t mention that it was this house where they lived, or that the land which now produced vegetables and fruits had produced only vegetables for her father.
“Were her people well-to-do?”
“I have no idea who her people were,” she admitted. “I used to wonder. But it doesn’t make any difference now.”
He frowned. “Family is the most important thing in the world. Especially children.”
“You don’t have any,” she said without thinking.
His face set into hard lines and he didn’t look at her. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t want them,” he said harshly.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I don’t know why I said that.”
He smoked his cigar in a tense silence. “I was on the verge of marrying,” he said after a minute. “She had a little girl. They were my life. I lost them to another man. He was the child’s biological father.”