by Sarah Price
“He has hired a nurse to help. He needs you in New York,” Carlos said, his voice matter-of-fact. “I have arranged for a car to arrive Tuesday at eight in the morning.”
“I . . .” She didn’t know what to say. If she was to leave on Tuesday morning, her sister would be there later to help her parents. Although Anna and her husband were not to arrive until dinnertime, surely her mamm could handle Daed for a day alone. And Harvey would be there in case of an emergency.
Her heart fluttered inside her chest. Part of her worried about the family’s reaction to her leaving just before Anna arrived, but the other part longed to see him. “For how long?” she heard herself ask.
“A week,” Carlos responded. “For the holiday.”
After she ended the call, she took a minute to collect her thoughts. Was it possible that Alejandro missed her half as much as she missed him? Her thoughts turned back to the way she had been treated at church, more a stranger than a former member of their g’may. After so many weeks apart, she felt relief at the realization that in less than forty-eight hours, she would be reunited with her husband.
“Wie gehts?” her mamm asked.
“Hmm?” Amanda turned around and tried to smile. “Oh, that was Alejandro’s assistant.”
Lizzie made a face but did not speak her thoughts. She didn’t have to. Amanda could read her expression loud and clear.
“He’s busy, Mamm,” Amanda said defensively.
“I see,” was Lizzie’s only reply.
She walked into the room and sat down on the sofa, her eyes drifting out the window. The fields were empty, the sky gray. With bare trees and a light breeze blowing dried leaves across the grass, it looked barren and unfriendly out there. Her mind returned to New York City, the bright lights and constant noise. She imagined that, even in winter, it was still an amazing place.
“He wants me to join him for the holiday,” she finally admitted. Shifting her weight, she tore her eyes from the window and looked at her parents. “Tuesday.”
Lizzie pursed her lips and glanced at Elias. He was tired, and when he was tired, it was harder for him to talk. Lizzie spoke for both of them. “Anna is due home on Tuesday night, Amanda,” she said slowly. “Do you think that it is the right thing to do, then?”
“It’s only for a week,” Amanda offered. “She’s home for two weeks, ja?”
Lizzie didn’t respond, obviously disappointed with Amanda’s answer.
“I miss him, Mamm,” she continued. “It’s been weeks.”
“I understand that,” Lizzie said, her eyes betraying her true feelings. “But Anna—”
“Nee, Mamm,” Amanda interrupted her. “I came home in order to help Anna as well as to be here for you and Daed. But he is my husband, and I want to be with him. And it’s clear from how I’ve been treated that I don’t belong here anymore.”
Her mamm’s eyes widened at the tone in Amanda’s voice. “Amanda!”
“Ach, Mamm,” Amanda said, a frown on her face. “I was all but shunned today at worship service.”
Taking a deep breath, Lizzie pressed her lips together and averted her eyes. Clearly, she wanted to speak more but, in true Amish fashion, kept her words to herself. “We’ll be sorry to see you miss the holiday, then,” was all her mamm could muster.
“As am I,” Amanda admitted truthfully. She had never spent a holiday apart from her family. Missing them was only natural. Still, she longed to be with Alejandro again, even if only for a week.
It was the following afternoon when she was sitting on the sofa and crocheting a blanket when her mamm approached her, a folded paper in her hands. The weather outside was frigid, and Amanda was already dreading having to venture outside for the evening chores. The cold air just seemed to whip across those empty fields, chilling her to the bone.
Lizzie stood before Amanda for a few seconds, hesitating as though something was on her mind that she didn’t want to share. When Amanda realized that this was certainly the case, she set the afghan on her lap and looked up.
“What is it, Mamm?”
There was no verbal response. Instead, Lizzie handed over the papers that she was holding to Amanda. There was a concerned look on her face as she did so.
Frowning, Amanda slid her crochet needle into the ball of yarn that was next to her on the sofa before she reached out and took the papers from her mamm. As she looked at them, a quick moment of panic washed over her: tabloids. She could only imagine what horrible things they said.
There were at least four of them, each with a different date. One headline screamed “Viper Sends Amish Girl Back to Farm.” Her eyes quickly scanned the story, a story that speculated about a recent Viper sighting in Los Angeles without his new bride at his side. The article claimed that it was because of marital problems already, that Viper had sent his Amish wife away so that he could continue his lifestyle of clubbing hard and womanizing.
The other articles were similar, some even posting photos of Alejandro dancing with other women. That caught her by surprise, but upon closer inspection, Amanda realized that it was an old photo of Viper at a club in Miami. He hadn’t been to Miami since they had left together and flown to Philadelphia.
Wondering where her mamm would have gotten such trashy newspapers, Amanda quickly handed them back to her, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Ridiculous,” she mumbled, as her mamm put the tabloids onto the table.
“That’s all you have to say about this?” Her mother sounded genuinely surprised.
Amanda looked at her mother and shrugged her shoulders. “It’s predictable, I suppose. He’s out there without me. They are going to gossip.” She paused. Gossip was, apparently, not unknown to the Amish, too, she thought wryly, for certainly her mamm didn’t purchase these newspapers. And wasn’t the Amish grapevine as potent as any tabloid? “They live for gossip,” she added, not entirely certain to whom she was actually referring.
Clearly, Lizzie was stunned by Amanda’s nonchalance. Taking back the papers, she folded them neatly. It was obvious that they were not going to make it into the garbage bin, the place where they belonged. “And you have joined the Englische world without reservation? A world of gossip and speculation about your private life?”
The irony of the situation was not lost on Amanda, but she remained respectful to her mamm. “Oh, there’s always plenty of reservation about their world,” Amanda admitted. “But not about Alejandro.”
Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps not about Alejandro, but what about Viper?”
The question stung Amanda, the words as well as the tone of voice from her mother. In all of her years growing up, Amanda could not remember her mother ever speaking in such a manner. Rather than respond, Amanda lifted her chin and walked out of the kitchen.
The truth was that Amanda was worried about Alejandro. But for different reasons. They hadn’t been able to connect via the telephone for several days. Oh, he sent her a text whenever he could, but he was busy and moving from city to city. She knew that his time in Los Angeles had been spent in meetings with advertisers, endorsers, and the recording studio. While he managed to send her texts, the phone calls had become less frequent.
A small piece of her constantly worried that he had forgotten about her, perhaps even slipped back into his old lifestyle. So the call from Carlos had come at the exact moment when, after a terrible day with grave disappointment in the people she used to consider part of her extended family, she desperately needed to hear from her husband.
Despite not having talked directly to him, she could tell that he missed her. She could tell that he longed for her to join him on the road. And tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough to satisfy her intense longing to be with him once again.
Chapter Ten
I am waiting for you.
The minutes seem like hours.
Text me when the car passes through the tunnel.
V.
He stood at the window, staring down at the street below. Cars were b
acked up, waiting for the morning traffic to dissipate. November in New York City marked the beginning of maddening rush-hour traffic from commuters and tourists alike. With Thanksgiving around the corner, people were flocking to the Big Apple to window-shop, skate at Rockefeller Center, and gaze at the huge holiday tree with its thousands of lights.
But Alejandro wasn’t concerned with any of that. He had cleared his schedule until later in the afternoon because today was the day that Amanda was arriving. It had been over three weeks. Three long, painful weeks for him. He had traveled to so many cities that he had lost count. Performances, interviews, appearances at clubs. He had even managed to start recording a new song, one that he wrote just for Amanda. But none of it meant much anymore. The luster and the glory had disappeared. Without Amanda by his side, his enthusiasm was simply not there.
Oh, he had seen the tabloids. He hated those photos of Amanda with the hired man. But he had learned to compartmentalize his emotions, for he knew that his Amanda would never be anything but true to him. If the tabloids wanted to sell their papers by telling lie after lie, so be it. The truth was that Amanda was on her way into the city, a car and bodyguard having left at three in the morning to pick her up so that she would be with him before lunchtime.
He glanced around the suite. White roses were everywhere. His assistant had done wonders in following his instructions to have bouquets of gorgeous flowers, all white, in every room of the suite. There was a bottle of champagne chilling in the silver ice bucket by the cream-colored sofa. Despite it being daytime, the lights of the eighteen-armed chandelier cast a soft glow that sent mini-sparkles through the French-cut Swarovski crystals that hung from each of its curved arms.
With his hands behind his back, he turned his attention to the window again. He wore freshly pressed black slacks and a silk black shirt. He was waiting and would not move until he saw the black SUV pull down the street and stop in front of the hotel.
The week was going to be busy, no two ways about it. But facing the constant demands on his time would be so much easier with Amanda by his side. He had already instructed Carlos to work with Lucinda on outfits for Amanda to be coordinated with his based on the next week’s schedule. With satisfaction, Alejandro had noticed just last evening that the closet was filled with outfits, each one with a note tag on it, instructing Amanda when to wear it and with which accessories.
But now he was staring out the window, his heart pounding inside his chest. At the realization that he felt like a schoolboy anxiously waiting for his date to arrive, he chuckled to himself and shook his head. Never in his life had he felt so overwhelmed by a woman. She was all-consuming to him, and he regretted having left her behind on the farm. Yet he was also aware of the fact that, had he not left her there, he would not be so cognizant of how dependent he had become on Amanda’s presence in every aspect of his life.
It was an odd feeling, Alejandro realized. He had never depended on anyone except himself. From the days that he struggled for survival on the streets of Miami to fighting in the clubs just to sing a song onstage, it had only been himself in charge of his success. He wasn’t proud of everything that he had done in order to survive, but he was proud that he made it out alive and with enough decency to try to help others escape the world of gangs, drugs, and crime to which he had nearly succumbed. Unfortunately, Alejandro had learned the importance of self-preservation in a world where people, including himself, often focused more on what they could get rather than on what they could give. His success only exacerbated that problem.
And then came Amanda.
He shut his eyes and, for a moment, leaned his head against the cool glass of the window.
She had been so different, so pure and good in thoughts and deeds. She had wanted nothing from him and that had taken him by surprise. For the first time in many years, he had let his guard down only to find out that the danger in that was love. But he regretted nothing. She was, after all, his true soul mate.
“Alejandro?”
He paused, collecting himself before he glanced over his shoulder at Carlos. “¿Sí?”
“She’s here.”
That surprised Alejandro. With such bad traffic, the driver must have taken back roads and side streets. “Is she coming up?”
Carlos nodded.
“Send her to freshen up, then bring her to me,” he commanded, dreading even the smallest delay but savoring the anticipation. It was a quality that he had taught himself long ago. The best things in life were always worth working for as well as waiting for. He returned his gaze to the window, his arms behind his back, as he continued to watch the cars moving ever so slightly beneath him on the street.
It was almost twenty minutes later when he heard the door between the rooms of the suite open. It was quiet, the only noise being the sound of the door swooshing open, the bottom of it scraping across the top of the plush white carpet. He refused to turn around, savoring each moment, as his heart pounded inside his chest. He could hear her as she took a few steps into the room, her feet padding across the carpet. But then she stopped and he waited. It seemed like an eternity.
“Alejandro?”
Her voice was soft but full of questions, perhaps even a bit of concern, as to why he kept his back to her. With a deep breath, he shut his eyes and quickly counted to ten in Spanish. Then, he turned around, his eyes taking in the sight of his beautiful wife, who stood fewer than ten feet away from him.
A chill ran up his spine as he felt emotion well up in his throat. He had to calm himself as his blue eyes stared at her, drinking in the vision of Amanda, dressed in a simple navy dress with a belt around her waist. Her hair was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. His eyes moved over her body, pausing just for a moment at the sparkling ring on her finger.
And then he could take no more.
He crossed the room with long, easy strides and stood before her. He met her eyes and stared as deeply into her soul as he could. Her eyes were dark and beautiful, full of curiosity at his reaction to her presence. But as he reached out for her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing her skin ever so sweetly, he noticed that her eyes changed. They softened with emotion and a blush crossed her cheeks.
“Princesa,” he murmured as he gently pulled her toward him. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close, leaving his head resting on her head as he shut his eyes and breathed in deeply. She smelled like lavender, a flashback to the farm. “Oh, what you do to me,” he said, his lips against her hair. He held her tight, feeling her heart beat against his chest. She was so small, so petite. He had forgotten how neatly she fit against his body.
“Alejandro,” she whispered, and he realized that she was trembling.
He pulled back, just enough so that he could look down into her face. With one hand, he tilted her chin so that she was staring up and into his face. His eyes sought hers before he lowered his mouth onto hers, kissing her with all of the built-up passion that he had kept bottled up since the day he had left her at her parents’ farm.
He moved his hand to the back of her neck, gently holding it as he kissed her. Without stopping, he slowly moved away from the sitting room of the suite and pulled her with him toward the bedroom. He felt her trepidation and that added to his desire to reclaim the only person who mattered in his life: his wife.
And as he stepped back to undress her, his eyes never leaving hers, he realized that he had stopped living the moment his car had driven away from the Beiler farm. For three weeks, he had merely gone through the motions, for his life had been on hold until this minute, this very second, as Amanda stood before him, a blush on her cheeks.
He reached up and unpinned her hair. He loved the feeling of the bobby pins sliding out from the bun. Collecting them in his hand, he waited for the cascade of brown hair to fall down her back before he leaned over and placed the pins on the nightstand by the bed. Then he returned his attention to Amanda, lifting his hands to run his fingers through her silky hair that hung down
to her waist. He pulled it forward, and with his eyes shut, he inhaled the lavender scent.
Once again, she whispered his name. “Alejandro?”
He caught his breath and opened his eyes. Staring at her, he choked back the emotion that was building in his throat. He lifted a finger and pressed it to her lips. “Shh,” he replied, his voice low and an all-too-familiar look in his eyes. “I need you, Princesa,” he murmured, reaching up to unbutton his shirt. “I need to remember you in every way, to know that you are mine once again.”
She lowered her eyes, but he caught the hint of a shy smile on her lips. It maddened him, and he tossed his shirt aside, letting it fall over the back of a chair.
“I saw that,” he teased gently, taking her hand once again.
She lifted her eyes and silently questioned him with a simple look.
“Ay, Dios mío,” he groaned and pulled her toward him, crushing her against his body as he embraced her, his lips on her neck and one hand entwined in her hair. “No more words for you, Princesa. Only this,” he whispered into her ear as he lowered her to the bed and reclaimed his wife in complete silence.
It was close to three in the afternoon when they sat in the sitting room of the suite, Amanda wearing a soft white robe, her legs bare. She sat next to Alejandro on the sofa, leaning against him as though afraid to be apart from him. With her legs tucked under her, she let her head fall onto his shoulder as she savored the memory of his love.
The room was silent, save for the muffled noise of the street traffic. It was a comfortable silence, as though words were not necessary. He kept one arm around her, holding her tight as he scrolled through the messages on his phone. She didn’t mind. As long as she was next to him, touching him, smelling him, she didn’t care what he was doing.