Burn for Me: A Rancho Del Cielo Romance

by Dee Tenorio

  “Yeah, that’s a nice one.” Cara sent Penelope a confused look, one Pen tried to smile at, but it felt wobbly on her face.

  “Hey, Mom?” Chloe’s tone was too high. Too…sweet. For the span of a heartbeat, Penelope knew her child was about to do something terrible, but no matter how long that beat lasted, it wouldn’t last long enough. “Would it be hard to get my last name changed to Montenga? I really think I should have my Dad’s name, like Danny does, don’t you?”

  The collective gasp in the office should have imploded the room, but you’d never know it from the self-satisfied expression on Chloe’s face. Penelope stuffed her into her office, but the damage had been done. Half her patients suddenly had things to do and couldn’t wait. Translation: they were racing to set the grapevine on fire and, boy, did they.

  So started a day full of improbable walk-ins, appointment cancellations and less than subtly probing questions. What had once been simply furtive glances morphed into head shakes and obvious disapproval. Thankfully, no one out-and-out demanded details about her “longstanding affair” with Raul, but it was clear everyone believed they’d been having one. Now, instead of being the girl who’d risen to her responsibilities, she was the pathetic schlep who had allowed herself to be Raul’s plaything whenever he’d deigned to come to town. So what if she’d managed to be out of town and had never been seen with him once in all that time. Who needed facts when fiction was so much more titillating? Then Julia arrived out of the blue, with Danny and at least three other kids near his age, asking if Chloe could go to the movies with them.

  Penelope looked wonderingly at the woman she’d kept at arms length as Julia smiled brightly. Too brightly, instant proof that things were getting around the town like a flash flood. Next thing she knew, Julia was hugging her, patting her back consolingly.

  “Don’t worry, Raul’s taking care of everything. It’ll all blow over soon.” Then she scooped Chloe away, explaining she’d treat all the kids to dinner afterward and they’d be home by nine. They disappeared before Pen even realized she hadn’t agreed.

  By six-thirty, the office doors were closed, the appalled townspeople were out of the way and all she’d had to do was make it home and up the stairs to her bathtub. She would have been able to, too, if it weren’t for the redhead and the brunette standing on her front porch, idly swinging baby carriers as if they were axes to be ground.

  Too late to pull out and drive away.

  Trapped and aware of it, Penelope shut off the engine and slid out of the car. She was in front of the porch step before Miranda and Trisha unpursed their lips to say anything. Even then, they all stared at each other for a solid minute of silence.

  Trisha broke first. “All I’m gonna say is that you better cough up some details about the nookie.”

  Penelope almost laughed with relief. But there was still Miranda to deal with. Miranda, who had a little too much experience being in love with a man who didn’t love her enough. Or so she’d thought until Josh saved her life and married her. She’d been the one who came closest to understanding how Penelope could love a man who didn’t love her at all. Would she understand why Pen couldn’t share when her situation hadn’t turned out as well as her friend’s?

  “You might as well let us in. We’re not leaving until you tell us everything.”

  “Everything?” Penelope grimaced. She didn’t have a clue what she was doing. Her best friends weren’t going to be able to figure it out either and, unlike her, they would get loud about it.

  “Everything from how you got knocked up to how Raul Montenga ended up on top of the bar at Shaky Jake’s.”

  Penelope blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Trisha pointed with her whole head at the front door. “Unlock. You spill, we spill.”

  Pen rushed between them, shifting the keys in her hand until she had the right one for the door. “You just mean at the bar, right? Not on it?”

  “On it,” Trisha confirmed with a grunt as she lifted the carrier up to her chest. The baby inside, one of Miranda’s twin daughters, threw dimpled hands up in surprise, but for once didn’t make much noise. Trisha hustled past Penelope through the doorway, making kissy-faces at her niece, her dollopy black curls swaying back and forth. “What I would have paid to see that man do a strip tease up there.”

  “Trisha.” Miranda shook her head when Penelope spun in shock. “He wasn’t stripping.”

  “What could he possibly have needed to do on top of the bar?” Pen closed the door, dumped her bag next to the coat rack and followed the women into her living room.

  “Announce to the whole world that he did you wrong.” Trisha settled into the chair by the fireplace.

  Penelope froze two steps from the couch, her stomach feeling as if someone had just kicked it in. She brought her hand up to it, surprised to find her blouse smooth and untouched.

  Miranda put her daughter’s carrier down and sent Trisha a dark look before grabbing Penelope’s arm to forcibly sit her on the couch. She pulled Penelope’s now-freezing hands together between them, meeting her gaze with a steady green stare. “Now, we’re going to let the girls out of the carriers before they start screaming, and you’re going to explain why you haven’t been returning our calls.”

  Trisha made a noise. “But I want—”

  Miranda got her bulldog expression, eyes narrowing, abundant freckles brightening and her full mouth turning into an unhappy rainbow. She turned slowly, glaring over her shoulder at their wide-eyed friend across the room.

  Trisha smirked. “I hate it when you get like that. I swear, you and my brother were made for each other. Stubborn and pushy as hell.”

  Penelope couldn’t argue with that one. Especially when Miranda turned back to her with a firm, “Talk.”

  “I just…I didn’t know what to say.”

  “‘I’m boinking Raul’ would be a good place to start,” Trisha inserted helpfully.

  “I wasn’t.” Yet. Penelope could feel her face heating, not from the qualification so much as the memories. Unlike the incident in the linen closet, the night in her bed was still alive in her mind, painted in vivid color, sound and sensation. At the strangest times, she’d swear she could still feel his mouth on her, his tongue inside her, caressing her as if he’d been thirsting for a taste—

  “Damn, look at her,” Trisha cackled, shattering the blistering memory. “Guess I don’t have to ask if it was good or not.”

  “Shut up, Trish.” Pen tried to grumble, but it came out more as a laugh. She rubbed at her cheeks, knowing they had to be red as tomatoes now.

  “Oh, come on. The guy is freakin’ legendary around here. I just wanted to know if he was everything he’s rumored to be. Guess I got my answer.”

  “Aren’t you married?”

  “And a mother of three, one of whom still won’t sleep through the night, which means I’m horny as hell, thank you very much.” Trish unbuckled the baby from the seat, pulling the carrot-topped little girl out and plopping her on her lap. Miranda did the same, opening the snaps at the neck of the baby’s sleeper so she wouldn’t overheat. Wide blue eyes, the Whittaker blue, bright as a summer day, blinked over at Penelope curiously. She’d delivered these two, having gotten Miranda to the hospital by the skin of their teeth, but God help her try to tell them apart.

  “Is this one Billie or Marie?” Penelope reached out for the baby. A small grin, complete with a new little tooth poking out from the bottom gum, and the baby was leaning her way.

  “That’s Billie,” Miranda said, pleased as always when talking about her children. Some people thought she’d be out of her mind with two infants to care for, particularly with Josh on duty half the week, but Miranda had surprised them. So far, everyone in the Whittaker house was not only surviving, but thriving. Josh was actually accused of being happy at times.

  Penelope snuggled the seven-month-old, rubbing her face on the fuzzy belly to the sound of a husky little chortle.

  “Illegal use of an infant,”
Trisha declared. “Not only is she trying to change the subject, she’s blocking her face.”

  Penelope sighed. “I didn’t want to talk about it, okay? I knew you guys were going to ask questions I didn’t have answers to and I didn’t want to deal with it, that’s all.”

  “What about now?” Miranda crossed her arms. “Obviously, someone has some answers or word wouldn’t be out all over town that Chloe is Raul’s daughter.”

  “Which you’re going to explain,” Trish added.

  “There’s not a lot to explain, you can guess what happened.”

  “Honey, I’ve been guessing for twelve years. I want to know.” Trisha raised her fingers, ticking the tips off one at a time. “How, when, where and why the fuck you didn’t tell us?” Trisha always resorted to the F-bomb when Penelope wasn’t being compliant.

  “Explain Raul first. What do you mean he’s telling people he did me wrong?”

  “That’s his story, apparently.” Trisha shrugged. “He found out people are speculating about your relationship and he went right to the source. Hopped up on the bar and demanded everyone’s attention. The way I heard it, he told people that he took advantage of you and then he left town. That he should have done better by you and that he’s trying to do the right thing now. The kicker is that he asked that everyone help him out by not making it any harder for him to make it all up to you.”

  “That makes it sound completely different than it was.” He was taking the blame. As if either of them had to answer to anyone else in this town. Penelope frowned, her mind replaying the look in his eyes that night in her bed. This is our real first time. Blazing with possession. As if he meant to be with her again…and again…and again. Now he was claiming to make it all up to her? What could possibly be going on in that damn fool head of his?

  “So how was it then?” Miranda’s brows drew together at Trisha’s giggle. “Oh, you know what I meant.”

  “It was a mistake,” Penelope answered firmly. Both times, it shouldn’t have happened. “We were drunk at Trisha’s wedding reception. No, I’m not giving you details,” she added at Trisha’s gasp. “It was more embarrassing than anything else. Then he was gone and I was…well, it doesn’t matter what I was other than incredibly stupid. The truth is I wasn’t sure if Chloe belonged to Raul at all, not until last week. He agreed to the tests and he’s her father, but he was hardly the only one at fault. It took both of us being reckless. He shouldn’t be out there asking for the blame.”

  Miranda’s crooked smile made her eyes look sad. “Come on, Pen. You know him better than any of us. You know what he’s doing.”

  Penelope looked down, letting the wriggling baby in her arms slide down to her unsteady feet on the thick carpet. “No, I don’t. I know the boy he used to be. The one who put up with me and my stupid crush as best he could. I don’t know the man he’s become and I’d be an idiot to assume I did.” An idiot to assume anything at all when it came to Raul.

  Hadn’t her heart been broken enough by her stupid assumptions?

  “Think about it, Pen.” Miranda reached out to grab her hand. “We don’t change that much when we grow up. There’s always that core of us inside, that part of us that makes us who we are, makes us special. That never changes.”

  It had for her. She’d lost what made her special, according to Raul. According to herself, some days. She’d lost something important and the fact that he knew it, that he could look into her and see it, hurt like nothing else. Like proof that he could still reach in and fill her heart…or break it into millions of pieces.

  “I didn’t ask him to do this,” she said, anger a better reaction than the fear knotted in her stomach at what this grand gesture was supposed to mean. Especially since Julia seemed to know already what he’d been up to. The impromptu movie invitation had been his idea, just a part of his plan for damage control. A way to reduce the pressure. Damn him. “I don’t need him trying to shield me and I don’t want it—”

  “He’s shielding more than you,” Trisha interrupted, her tone solemn. Gone was the lascivious light in her eyes. In its place was a fury people didn’t often see there, not even her closest friends. “He’s shielding Chloe. Protecting his child from a wave of gossip and speculation you can’t even begin to imagine.”

  Penelope almost scoffed, but then she thought back to their childhoods. While she’d been soothed and supported by the town when her father died, the Whittakers had faced a whole other kind of attention. Their father had abandoned them and once the initial concern for their wellbeing had passed, people weren’t shy about wondering what had made Jared Whittaker walk away and never look back. Could Chloe handle hearing the cruel thoughts and baseless wonderings about her mother? Without getting violent? The thought was sobering, because she knew the swear jar would be the least of her worries. If things got out of hand, what would that do to their relationship? Would it change how her daughter looked at her?

  She fought the urge to stand and pace because the wobbly baby was clinging to her knees, trying to remain standing. Penelope sighed, remembering when it had been Chloe looking at her like that, her whole body trembling for balance, her eyes filled with triumph at the huge feat of pulling herself to a stand. So long ago now. Chloe didn’t need her that way anymore.

  One by one, Pen had closed the doors around her over the years, even shutting out her friends, isolating herself. It hadn’t been a conscious choice, but once Raul had called her on it, she had to admit, she’d noticed and done nothing to stop it. Because it had seemed so much safer this way.

  Now Raul was pushing her boundaries and nothing felt safe. Nothing.

  “Look, I understand that you don’t want to talk about what’s going on between you and Raul,” Miranda said into the silence. “But honey, don’t try to tell us nothing is. You’re not that good a liar.”

  Penelope swallowed, feeling choked. If she blinked, she’d cry, and she wasn’t even sure why. Miranda’s sincerity was unquestionable. They only wanted to help. To support. Why was she so afraid? Of what? Miranda and Trisha would slice their own wrists before hurting her.

  Inherent honesty brought the answer. Letting them in meant lowering her walls, her defenses. And if they could get past her defenses, it would be easy work for Raul, who seemed able to crack them at will as it was. Something she had to make him stop doing.

  Nothing could happen between them, nothing real. A relationship required trust. It required the ability to give yourself wholly to someone and she just couldn’t do that. Not with anyone and especially not with Raul. She’d already given him her soul once. She didn’t have anything left to give to anyone other than Chloe. Not even her closest friends.

  “He’s a wreck, you know.” The back of Miranda’s hand smoothed the loose strands at Penelope’s temple. “Josh says he’s driving everyone crazy at the station, waiting for you to call him. Especially now with the truth about Chloe floating around, the guys think you loved him and left him. Scuttlebutt at the station has it that the whole reason he came home at all was for you.”

  “He did not.” He’d only come because their former captain had died in a fire and the local chief had personally requested him to take the post. “And Josh would never gossip.”

  “Sure he did,” Trisha said with an evil grin, her earlier temper dissipated. “We’ve brought him over to the dark side.”

  Yeah, Penelope would believe that sometime after she’d believe that Trisha’s husband wasn’t sickeningly in love with his wife.

  “Well, the scuttlebutt, no, but the wreck part I got from Josh.” Miranda’s frown of consternation had her shrugging. “He’s taking a sick kind of enjoyment out of that, actually. Something about it being Raul’s turn.”

  Raul? A wreck? Over her? No, that didn’t bear even a moment’s suspended belief. If he were going to care about her, if he were going to love her, he would have done it a long time ago. He just expected something different from what he’d got when he came home. He thought she’d still fal
l all over herself for him, but she’d learned too well from her mistakes. Just like she’d learned from the mistake of sleeping with him Sunday night.

  And Penelope didn’t make the same mistake twice.

  Chapter Eight

  “Aren’t we going to ’Lito’s house for Thanksgiving? Everyone else is.” By everyone, Chloe meant all of her cousins, who in the last month seemed to have become her entire world. Well, second to her father, anyway.

  Penelope quirked her mouth, staring at the frozen turkeys filling the bin in the middle of the meat department in Jimmy’s Market, hoping if she ignored the question long enough, her daughter might infer her own answer. Which was as emphatic a no as she could keep inside.

  “Dad says he can pick us up, if you’re not sure about driving out there alone.”

  Grinding her teeth, Penelope flipped through price tags hanging off the netting surrounding each bird. Each one seemed bigger than the last. Didn’t anyone want a small, single-family-sized bird anymore?

  “Or we can follow him, but I like his truck better.”

  Of course she did. Chloe liked everything about her father. She liked going to the firehouse, which she’d done as a reward when her baseball team had made it to the finals and at least once a week since. She liked the foods he was introducing her to on his off-duty afternoons when Penelope had reluctantly agreed to let him watch her. Apparently he had several tips for throwing a football better and he’d filled her head with all kinds of impossible expectations for the upcoming holiday. Like going to his annual family gathering at his parents’ house.

  Which would happen over her cryogenically frozen dead body.

  “We’re having Thanksgiving at home with your grandmother, Chlo, same as every year.” Holiday dinners she could do. Something about the slow roasting of the turkey appealed in a way day-to-day dinner didn’t.

  “Mo-om, Thanksgiving at our house is boring.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She found something that didn’t look like it would require three months to eat and hefted it into the cart.