Loe raamatut: «The Prodigal Valentine»

The Prodigal Valentine
Karen Templeton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Acknowledgments

With many thanks to Mary Jaramillo,

whose contributions to this book

have hopefully kept this gringa

from sounding like a complete pendeja (dumbass)

As always, to Jack, my Valentine

for twenty-eight years and counting

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“How hard can it be,” Mercedes Zamora muttered through chattering teeth as she elbowed her way into the mammoth juniper bush bordering her sidewalk to retrieve her Sunday paper, “to hit the frickin’ driveway? Crap!” A flattened branch slapped her in the face; on a growl, she dove back in, thinking she had maybe three seconds before her bare feet fused to the frosty driveway, only to let out a shriek when something furry streaked past her calves and up to the house.

The cat plastered himself to her front door, meowing piteously.

“Hey. Nobody told you to stay out last night,” she said as she yanked the paper out of the greenery, swearing again when she discovered her long, morning-ravaged curls and the bush had bonded. She grabbed her hair and tugged. “I feel for you but I can’t…quite…reach you!”

The bush let go, sending her stumbling backwards onto the cement, at which point a low, male, far-too-full-of-himself chuckle from across the street brought the blood chugging through her veins to a grinding halt. Frozen tootsies forgotten, Mercy spun around, wincing from the retina-searing glare of thousands of icicle lights sparkling in the legendary New Mexican sunshine.

Oh, no. No, no, no…this was not happening.

Ten years it had been since she’d laid eyes on Benicio Vargas. And seared retinas notwithstanding, it was way too easy to see that those ten years had taken the shoulders, the grin, the cockiness that had been the twenty-five-year-old Ben to a whole ’nother level.

Well, hell.

What effect those years might have had Mercy, however—stunning, she was sure, in her rattiest robe, her hair all juniper-mangled—she wasn’t sure she wanted to contemplate too hard. Not that she was ready to be put down just yet—her skin was still wrinkle-free, her hair the same dark, gleaming brown it had always been, and she could still get into her size five jeans, thanks for asking. But the last time Ben had seen these breasts, they hadn’t had their thirtieth birthday yet. Quite.

Not that he’d be seeing them now. She was just sayin’.

Ben flashed a smile at her, immediately putting her father’s glittering Christmas display to shame. Not to mention his own parents’, right next door.

Mercy wasn’t sure which was worse—that once upon a time she’d had a brief, ill-advised, but otherwise highly satisfactory fling with the boy next door, or that here she was, rapidly closing in on forty and still living across the street from the lot of them in one of her folks’ rental houses. But hey—as long as she was leading her own life, on her own terms, what was the harm in keeping the old nest firmly in her sights?

As opposed to Mr. Hunky across the street, who’d booked it out of the nest and never looked back. Until, apparently, now.

“Lookin’ good over there, Mercy,” Ben called out, hauling a duffle out of his truck bed, making all sorts of muscles ripple and such. Aiyiyi, could the man fill out a pair of blue jeans or what?

“Thanks,” she said, hugging the plastic-wrapped paper to the afore-mentioned breasts. “So. Where the hell have you been all this time?”

Okay, so nuance wasn’t her strong suit.

“Yeah, about that,” Ben said, doing more of the smile-flashing thing. If she’d rattled him, he wasn’t letting on. Behind her, the cat launched into an aria about how he was starving to death. “I don’t suppose this is a good time to apologize for just up and leaving the way I did, huh?”

Huh. Somebody had been spending time in cowboy country. Texas, maybe. Or Oklahoma. “Actually,” she called back, “considering you’ve just confirmed what half the neighborhood probably suspected anyway…” She shrugged. “Go ahead, knock yourself out.”

His expression suddenly turned serious. Not what she’d expected. Especially since the seriousness completely vanquished the happy-go-lucky Ben she remembered, leaving in its place this…this I-can-take-anything-you-dish-out specimen of masculinity that made her think, Yeah, I need this like I need Lyme disease.

“Then I’m sorry, Mercy,” he said, the words rumbling over to her on the winter breeze. “I truly am.”

She shivered, and he waved, and he turned and went inside his parents’ house, and she drifted back up to her own front door, her head ringing as though she’d been clobbered with a cast-iron skillet. And, she realized, in her zeal to get her digs in first, she had no idea why he was back.

Not that she cared.

The cat, who couldn’t have cared less, shoved his way inside before she got the door all the way open. Her phone was ringing. Of course. She squinted outside to see her mother standing at the two-story house’s kitchen window, her own phone clamped to her ear, gesticulating for Mercy to pick up. There was something seriously wrong with this picture, but she’d have to amass a few more brain cells before she could figure it out.

“Yes, Ma,” she said as soon as she picked up her phone. “I know. He’s back. Opening a can of cat food right now, in fact. Sliced grill, yum, yum.”

After an appropriate pause, Mary Zamora sighed loudly into the phone. “Not your stupid cat, Mercy. Ben.”

“Oh, Ben. Yeah, I saw him just now, in fact. Talk about a shock. Got any idea why he’s here?”

“To help his father, why else? Because his brother broke his foot the day after Christmas on that skiing trip?” she added, rather than waiting for Mercy to connect the dots. “Yes, I know Tony’s not exactly your favorite person—”

“Did I say anything?”

“—but since the man is married to your sister, I really wish you’d try a little harder to like him. For ’Nita’s sake, at least. Did she tell you, they’re adding to the back of the house? And that new wide-screen TV they bought themselves for Christmas…not bad, huh?”

Mercy rolled her eyes. Tony did okay, she supposed, but her mother knew damn well that if it weren’t for Anita’s second income as a labor and delivery nurse, most of that extra “stuff” wouldn’t happen.

“But anyway,” Mary Zamora said, “now that Tony can’t drive for at least a month, and God knows Luis couldn’t possibly handle all those contracts on his own, Ben’s come home to fill in.”

Something about this wasn’t adding up. Three or four years back, Tony had been down with mono for nearly six weeks, and Ben hadn’t come home then. So why now? However, having developed a highly tuned survival skill where her mother was concerned, Mercy knew better than to mention her suspicions.

Just as she knew better than to mention her hunch that all was not well in Tony-and-Anita land. Seriously not well. But her parents would be crushed if Anita’s marriage went pffft, especially since they hadn’t completely recovered from Mercy’s oldest sister Carmen’s divorce two years ago. The two families had been tighter’n’ticks for more than thirty-five years, from practically the moment the Zamoras had moved next door. Two of their children marrying had only further cemented an already insoluble bond.

Since Anita hadn’t confided in Mercy, all she had was that hunch. Still, the Zamora women, of which there were many, all shared a finely-honed instinct for zeroing in on problems of the heart. And right now, Mercy’s instinct was saying yet another fairy-tale ending bites the dust.

“He looks pretty good, don’t you think?”

Mercy jerked. Okay, so one check mark in the why-living-across-from-the-parentals-is-a-bad-idea box. Clearly, four weddings (and one messy, nasty divorce) hadn’t been enough to put her mother off the scent. Until Mercy was married as well, the world—and all the unattached, straight males who roamed its surface in blissful ignorance that they were marked men—was not a safe place.

“Don’t suppose there’s much point in denying it.”

“No, there isn’t. And you’re not seeing anyone at the moment, are you?”

“Ma, I’ve been working nearly nonstop at the store, you know that. I’ve barely seen myself in the past two years. But to head you off at the pass—fuggedaboutit. Me and Ben…not gonna happen.”

No need to mention that she and Ben had already happened. Not that she had any complaints on that score. In fact, if she remembered correctly…

And she would open the rusty gate to that path, why?

“Mercedes,” her mother said. “You may have been able to stave off the ravages of time up until now—”

“Gee, thanks.”

“—but it’s all going to catch up with you, believe me. A woman your age…how can I put this? You can’t afford to be too particular.”

Because obviously a woman of Mercy’s advanced years should be rapidly approaching desperate. Brother.

“Actually,” Mercy said, “I can’t afford not to be. And believe me, some thirty-five-year-old guy who’s still blowing where the breeze takes him, who hasn’t even been home since the last millennium, doesn’t even make the running.” The odd stirring of the old blood notwithstanding.

“So what are you saying? You’re just going to give up, be an old maid?”

Mercy laughed. “Honestly, Ma—that term went out with poodle skirts. Besides, you know I’m happy with things the way they are. Business is great, a dozen nieces and nephews more than feed my kid fix, and I actually like living alone. Well, as alone as I can be with you guys across the street and Anita and them two blocks away. There’s no big empty hole in my life I need to fill up.”

“But think how much more financially stable you’d be, married.”

Mercy pinched the bridge of her nose. “Which I suppose is your way of saying you could be getting twice as much for this house as I’m paying you.”

“Now you know your father and I are only too happy to help out where we can. But, honey, it has been six years….”

Yeah, Mercy’s teeter on the edge of poverty while she and her two partners got their business up and running hadn’t exactly left her parents feeling too secure about her ability to take care of herself.

“I know it’s been a struggle,” she said quietly. “But we’re doing okay now. In fact, I can start paying you more for the house, if you want. So I’m over the worst. And it was my struggle. You should be proud, you know?”

“I am, mija. I am. ’Nita with her nursing degree, and Carmen getting that good job with the state. And now you, with your own business…No mother could be prouder of her girls, believe me. It’s just that it kills me seeing you alone. And I worry that…well, you know. That if you wait too long, you’ll lose out.”

“Geez, Ma…did Papito sneak something into your coffee this morning? Look, for the last time—” Although she seriously doubted it would be “—I like being alone. And I’m not lonely. Okay?” At her mother’s obviously uncomprehending silence, she added, more gently, “So, yes, maybe back in the day, when everybody else was falling in love and getting married and having babies, I felt a little left out that it wasn’t happening for me. But I’m not that person anymore. And at this point, if I were to consider marriage, it would have to be to somebody who’s going to bring something pretty major to the table, you know? Somebody…well, perfect.”

“Nobody’s perfect, Mercy,” her mother said shortly. “God knows your father’s not. But I love him anyway. And I thank God every day for sending him to me.”

“But don’t you see, Ma? Pa is perfect. For you. Okay, so maybe you had to whip him into shape a bit,” she said with a laugh, and her mother snorted, “but the basics were already all in place. And besides, you were both so young, you had the time and energy and patience on your side. I don’t. I’d rather stay single than expend all that energy on either ignoring a man’s faults or trying to fix them. So the older I get, the less I’m willing to settle for anything less than the best. And I can tell you right now, Ben Vargas doesn’t even make the short list.”

And at that moment, the man himself came back outside to get something out of his truck, and Mercy let out a heartfelt sigh at the unfairness of it all.

“Well,” her mother said, clearly watching Ben as well, “when you put it that way…no, I don’t suppose he does.”

“Thank you. So does that mean you’re off my case?”

“For now. But damn, the man’s got a great backside.”

Mercy hooted with laughter. “No arguments there,” she said as the clear winter sun highlighted a jawline much more defined than she remembered. And since when did she have a thing for wind-scrambled hair? And—she leaned over to get a better look—beard haze? “But butt or no butt,” she said, still staring, “as soon as Tony’s back in the saddle, so’s Ben. Riding off into the sunset.”

Her mother chuckled.

“What?”

“You’re watching him, too, aren’t you?”

Mercy jerked back upright. “Of course not, don’t be silly.”

“Uh-huh. So maybe you’re the one who needs to remember he’s not going to be around long.”

With her luck, Mercy thought after she hung up, her mother would live to a hundred. Which meant she had another forty years of this to go.

And wasn’t that a comforting thought?

Seated at the tiny table wedged into one corner of his parents’ kitchen, Ben tried to drum up the requisite enthusiasm for the heavy ceramic plate heaped with spicy chorizo, golden hash browns and steaming scrambled eggs laced with green chile his mother clunked in front of him.

“If you’ve been driving most of the night,” Juanita Vargas said over the whimpering of a trio of overfed, quivering Chihuahuas at her feet, “you should take a nap after you eat. I’ll make sure your father keeps the volume down on the TV when he gets back from his golf game.”

Still trying to wrap his head around the odd sensation of having never left—he could swear even the orange, red and yellow rooster-patterned potholders were the same ones he remembered—Ben smiled, picked up his fork. “That’s okay, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You look like somebody who hasn’t had a decent meal in far too long. Did I give you enough eggs? Because I’ve got plenty more in the pan…here,” his mother said, reaching for his plate, “I might as well give them to you now, save me the trouble later—”

“No, Mama, really, this is plenty,” he said, shoving a huge bite of eggs into his mouth. “Thanks.”

The phone mercifully rang. The minute the wisp of a woman and her canine entourage shuffled and clickety-clicked to the other side of the kitchen, Ben quickly wrapped half of his breakfast in his paper napkin to sneak into the garbage later. He’d die before he hurt her feelings, but he’d also die if he ate all this food.

Why, again, had he expected this trip home to provide him with the peace he so sorely needed? Not only was his mother fussing over him like he was a kindergartner, but the minute he got out of his truck he could feel all the old issues between him and his father rush out to greet him, as bug-eyed and overeager as the damn dogs. And then, to top it all off, there was Mercy.

Oh, boy, was there Mercy.

Ben took a swallow of his coffee, wondering how a ten-second interaction could instantly erase an entire decade. For one brief, shining moment, as he’d watched her battling that bush—he chuckled, remembering—he was twenty-whatever and about to combust with need for the hottest tamale of a woman he’d ever known. Who, physically at least, seemed to be in the same time warp as his mother’s house. Except he was glad, and surprised, to see she’d finally given up on trying to tame her insanely curly hair. Not much bigger than one of the Chihuahuas—although a helluva lot cuter, thank God, he thought as the biggest one of the lot returned to cautiously sniff his ankles—Mercedes packed a whole lot of punch in that thimble-sized body of hers.

Except, her appearance aside, he doubted she was the same woman she’d been then. God knows, he wasn’t the same man. Why he’d thought—

Stupid.

Yeah, his mother had wasted no time in telling him Mercy was still single, but Ben somehow doubted his abrupt departure all those years ago had anything to do with that. Mercy as a torch-carrier? No damn way. A grudge-nurser, however…now that, he could see.

Not that he’d broken any promises. After all, she’d been the one who’d made it clear right from the start that it had only been about itch-scratching. Because he knew she wanted what her sisters had—marriage, babies, stability. And she knew the very thought made him ill. So there’d never been any illusions about permanent. Still, that didn’t excuse Ben’s taking off without giving her at least a heads-up. She’d deserved better than that.

She’d also deserved better than a pointless affair with some pendejo who’d been convinced that running away was the only way to solve a problem he didn’t fully understand.

Too long it had taken him to realize what a dumb move that had been.

“You’re finished already?” his mother said at his side, going for his plate again. “You want some more—?”

“No! Really,” Ben said with a smile, carefully tucking the full napkin by his plate. “I’m fine. It was delicious, thank you.”

She beamed. “You want more coffee?”

“I can get it—”

“No, sit, I’m already up.”

After handing Ben his coffee, Juanita sat at a right angle to him, briefly touching his hand. Although her stiff, still-black hair did nothing to soften the hard angles of her face, her wide smile shaved years off her appearance. “It means a lot to your father,” she said softly in Spanish, “that you came back. He’s missed you so much.”

Ben lifted the mug to his lips, not daring to meet his mother’s gaze. He’d known how much his leaving would hurt Luis, but staying simply hadn’t been an option. Now, however…

“Just doing my duty,” he said, only to nearly choke when his mother spit out a Spanish curse word. Now he looked up, not sure what to make of the combined amusement and concern in her ripe-olive eyes.

“For ten years, you stay away,” she said, still in Spanish. “As if to return would contaminate you, suck you back into something bad—”

“That’s not true,” he said, except it was. In a way, at least.

“Then why didn’t you even come home for holidays, Benicio? To go off and live your life somewhere else is one thing, but to never come home…” Her face crumpled, she shook her head. “What did we do, mijo?” she said softly. “Your father adored you, would have done anything for you—”

“I know that, Mama,” Ben said, ignoring his now churning stomach. He reached across the table and took his mother’s tiny hand in his, taking care not to squeeze the delicate bones. “I was just…restless.”

Not the entire truth, but not a lie, either. In fact, at the time he might even have believed that was the reason he’d left. Because he’d never been able to figure out why, after he’d been discharged from the army, he couldn’t seem to settle back into his old life here. But time blurs memory, and motivations, and reasons, and now, sitting in his mother’s kitchen, he really couldn’t have said when he’d finally realized the real reason for his leaving.

But for damn sure he’d always known exactly what he’d left behind.

His mother smiled and said in English, “Considering how much you moved around inside me before you were born, this is not a surprise.” Then her smile dimmed. “But now I think that restlessness has taken a new form, yes? Something tells me you are not here because of Tony, or your father, but for you.”

A second or two of warring gazes followed, during which Ben braced himself for the inevitable, “So what have you really been doing all this time?”

Except the question didn’t come. Not then, at least. Instead, his mother stood once more, startling the dogs. She took his empty mug, looking down at it for a moment before saying, “Whatever your reason for coming back, it’s good to have you home—”

“Ben!”

At the sound of his father’s voice, Ben swiveled toward the door leading to the garage, where Luis Vargas, his thick, dark hair now heavily webbed with silver, was attempting to haul in a state-of-the-art set of golf clubs without taking out assorted wriggling, excited dogs. Ben quickly stood, tossing his “napkin” into the garbage can under the sink as his father dropped the clubs and extended his arms. A heartbeat later, the slightly shorter man had hauled Ben against his chest in an unabashedly emotional hug.

“I didn’t expect you for another couple of hours, otherwise I would’ve stayed home!” The strong, builder’s hands clamped around Ben’s arms, Luis held him back, moisture glistening in dark brown eyes. Slightly crooked teeth flashed underneath a bristly mustache. “You look good. Doesn’t he look good, Juanita? Dios,” he said, shaking Ben and grinning, “I’ve waited so long for this moment! Did you eat? Juanita, did you feed the kid?”

“Yes, Pop,” Ben said, chuckling. “She fed me.”

His father let go, tucking his hands into his pockets, shaking his head and grinning. A potbelly peeked through the opening of his down vest, stretching the plaid shirt farther than it probably should. “I see you, and now I’m thinking, finally, everything’s back the way it should be, eh?” He slapped Ben’s arm, then pulled him into another hug while his mother fussed a few feet away about how he shouldn’t do that, the boy had just eaten, for heaven’s sake.

Now the house shuddered slightly as the front door opened, followed by “For God’s sake, woman! I’m okay, I don’t need your help!”

Ben stiffened. Damn. Would another hour or two to prepare have been too much to ask?

Apparently not, he thought as, in a cloud of cold that briefly soothed Ben’s heated face, his brother and sister-in-law, along with their two kids, straggled into the kitchen.

“Look, Tony!” Luis swung one arm around Ben’s shoulders, crushing him to his side. “Your brother’s finally come home! Isn’t that great?”

His brother’s answering glare immediately confirmed that nothing had changed on that front, either.