Be Mine at Christmas (18 page)

“No second thoughts?” Brent pressed.

Ken had a million of them. Not just about Isolde but about football. He preferred to leave the game while he was still at his best, to go out on top and with both knees functioning properly. But every once in a while, he wondered if he’d acted prematurely. Did he have another year or two left in him?

He’d watched quarterback Roger Liggett writhe on the field a year ago while the medics came running from the sidelines, only to learn Roger would never be able to play ball again. Maybe he’d let that spook him into quitting too soon.

“No second thoughts,” he lied.

C
IERRA’S FINGERS BURNED
.
So did her toes. When she was first carried into the cabin, she hadn’t cared what happened to her as long as she was able to get warm. But once her body temperature began to rise, so did her ability to think. Now she realized she’d put herself in a very tenuous, and potentially dangerous, situation. There didn’t seem to be anyone at the cabin except these two men….

“
Gracias
, I— We can get up now. I am…better,” she said, but
better
was a relative term. She’d walked for hours in the cold, following the ribbon of road that was supposed to lead to the address on that paper. And she hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning. Arlene had said her brother would provide work but Cierra had to make her own way to Dundee. She’d done that; in the process, she’d lost the little she had left of what Charlie had given her before his death and was down to…nothing.

The men shifted and sat up, allowing her to do the same. Hoping they might recognize the address she’d been looking for, so she could beat the worse of the storm that was already starting to batter the cabin walls, she dug through her pockets for the slip of paper that’d brought her this far. But she couldn’t find it.

“
Mi papel
…my paper. Is gone!”

The older of the two, the man with brown hair and brown eyes, reminded Cierra of a cowboy she’d seen in a western Charlie had played for her one night. But not because of his clothes. Dressed in a sweatshirt and tattered blue jeans, he wasn’t wearing cowboy boots or a hat. It was the way his hair lifted off his forehead and fell to the side, long on top but short everywhere else, and the
contours of his lean face and body that suggested he could’ve stepped right out of
High Noon
—at least, she thought that was the name of the film. The movies she’d seen since coming to the States were beginning to run together. Charlie had played lots of them for her. He’d said they’d help with her English, reinforce what the tutor taught her during the day. But she knew he resorted to his movie collection when he didn’t want the burden of entertaining her.

“That’s what you tried to hand me, isn’t it?” he said, and climbed off the bed as if he knew where it was and planned to get it.

Seemingly eager to reassure her, the man who remained in the bedroom smiled. “Where you from?”

Afraid to reveal the truth for fear it would result in a trip to the closest immigration office, she stuck with what she’d been telling everyone who’d given her a ride. “Las Vegas.”

“That’s pretty far from here,” he said with a whistle. “How’d you get all the way to Idaho?”

“It is a…very long story. You do not want to hear,” she added with a dismissive air meant to imply that it would only bore him.

He opened his mouth to argue, but she interrupted him with a question of her own. “You two—” she waved to indicate the man who’d left the room “—you are brothers, yes?”

“That’s right. I’m Brent. He’s Ken. What’s your name?”

With strawberry blond hair and hazel eyes, Brent wasn’t quite as handsome as his darker sibling. But since she rarely saw light-colored hair in Guatemala, she liked it a lot. “Cierra Romero.”

The man he’d called Ken returned with the corners of his mouth tugged into a frown, but the memory of the tautly muscled stomach and chest she’d touched as she warmed her hands made Cierra feel a bit jittery inside—a sensation she’d never experienced before. Perhaps it was the hunger and the cold.

“I’m sorry. I can’t find it,” he said. “It must’ve blown away when you fainted.”

But…she’d put all her faith in that note, which included a
personal note for her new employer, as well as the address where she was to go.

In an effort to sustain this latest blow with some dignity, she covered her face but was simply too hungry and exhausted to stem the tears.

An uneasy silence fell as she cried. She understood that these Americans had no idea how to react to so much negative emotion. The poorest person she’d met in this country would’ve been rich as a king in her village, so she felt quite confident that these two men had never been through anything remotely similar to what she had. They’d never been unwanted visitors in a foreign country, had never slept in the street or begged ride after ride with strangers. And they certainly had no idea what it was like to go without food for days at a time. They probably thought she was crazy. Or a lowly beggar, trying to swindle them by playing on their sympathy.

But everything that had gone wrong since her parents died was her brother’s fault. If he’d kept the family in Todos Santos, where they’d been raised, they might have had a chance of subsisting off the land, like everyone else. But no… He’d believed he could get rich by moving to the city.

Instead, he’d gotten into trouble and been sent to prison.

She wasn’t her brother. So why was she humiliating herself in front of these Americans? Where was her pride? She would not represent her country or her family this way!

Wiping her cheeks, she blinked to keep more tears from spilling over her lashes and looked up at their stricken faces. “I—I apologize for interrupting your afternoon.” She formed the words as precisely as she could, and got off the bed so she could put on her soaking shoes.

The two brothers exchanged a glance that seemed to say,
What do we do now?
Then the older one, the one she found attractive, came toward her. “What was so important about that note?”

“Nothing. Please, do not worry. I— It was my fault.” If she hadn’t gotten lost, this never would’ve happened. The last person she’d asked for directions had said to take a right at the fork in the
road, but she’d never come across a fork, and she’d been walking all day. She must have missed it and needed to go back.

“A storm’s moving in,” Brent said as she tied her shoes. “I don’t think you want to go back out, not without warmer clothes. How did you get here?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “I walked.”

“From where?”

She looked up at him. “Dundee.”

“No kidding? That’s a
hike!
”

“If you could tell us where you’re trying to go, we could take you,” Ken volunteered. “I’ve got a four-wheel drive.”

Of course he did. He had everything. Like every other American.

But that was her brother and his anger talking. Cierra didn’t want to let Ricardo poison her mind, too. She was just so…scared. Since her parents died, nothing had been right.

“That was on the note,” she said with a wry smile.

The one called Ken blew out a sigh and scratched his neck. “I see. And you can’t remember the address?”

She told them as much as she could recall, but it didn’t help.

“That fork you mentioned—that could be anywhere between here and Dundee,” Ken said. “We’d need more information in order to find it.”

Cierra couldn’t give them more information. She remembered some of the numbers on the note but not the words. They were too foreign to her. The English tutor Charlie had hired had focused on teaching her to speak. Writing was supposed to come later.

No one knew there’d never be a later….

“Do you have any other options?” Brent asked. Other
options?
She wasn’t familiar with that particular word but the context helped her understand. She’d been right about these two. They had no sense of what it was like to live with no safety net. She was tempted to tell them her only other “option” was to go back to Guatemala City and sell herself on the streets. But she wasn’t sure they’d believe her. And if they did, they’d pity her—or think she was a whore they could use themselves.
Maybe she was breaking the law by staying in this country, but she’d come here legally. She hadn’t
wanted
Charlie to die.

She had a right to survival, didn’t she? She also had the right to protect her sisters from what they’d become if she couldn’t send money….

Even if she didn’t have that right, she would answer to God. Or the immigration office, if they caught her. Not these strangers who, by virtue of where they’d been born, were so much luckier than she.

“Yes, I do have another…option,” she lied. “Thank you. I will go.”

Ken and Brent followed her out of the room. “Can’t we take you?” Ken asked.

She didn’t have the strength to walk back to Dundee. And yet it was her best hope of finding an alternative position. Maybe she could be a maid, or a dishwasher, or a cook for one of the businesses she’d seen. Despite all the anti-immigration sentiment, Americans still hired illegals because they worked so cheap. And no one could cook as well as she could. Her brother had told her that a million times. “Yes,
por favor
. If you would be so kind. I will go to Dundee.”

The good looking one, Ken, seemed vastly relieved that they’d found a solution. “No problem. Take this.” Grabbing a heavy coat from where it had been tossed over a stack of boxes, he shoved it at her.

She hesitated. “This belongs to you, no?”

“Yes, but I’m fine. I won’t need it.”

When she still made no move to accept the coat, he took her hand and insisted she grab hold. “We’re not leaving until you put it on.”

Thinking she could give it back when she got out of the truck, she did as he said. It hung on her, came almost to her knees, but she was so grateful for the added warmth she ducked her head to zip it up just so they wouldn’t see the depth of her relief.

“Let’s go before the storm gets any worse,” Brent said, and she hitched her purse over one shoulder as Ken led them out through a garage that, like the cabin, was stuffed with boxes.

“You are moving away?” If so, he had a lot of belongings. What could possibly be inside so many boxes? “Moving
in
. I just bought this place from my stepfather,” Ken explained. “I’ll be staying here until I decide where I really want to live.”

“It is nice,” she said, but her response was absentminded. She was no longer thinking about the cabin or the boxes. She was thinking about Ken’s scent on the coat and how it made her pulse race. But that was childish. He wasn’t the movie star from
High Noon
she admired so much. He lived in a completely different world and, after he dropped her off, wouldn’t give her a second thought. He didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what she’d find once she reached Dundee.

It was getting late, almost dinnertime. The valley was already buried in snow. And—she looked up in the sky—more was on the way….

W
ITH SO MUCH SNOW
hurtling down, it wasn’t easy to get off the mountain, even in an SUV. Had Cierra attempted her walk from Dundee any later in the day, she would’ve frozen to death—and wouldn’t have been found until the snow began to melt. Ken couldn’t believe she’d survived so long as it was.

While he drove, she sat rigidly in the passenger seat.

Sensing his attention when he glanced at her, she offered him another of her formal smiles, the kind that hid every thought behind it. He and Brent had both tried to talk to her, but she either pretended not to understand the question or she answered in vague terms. After an hour in the car, time spent creeping around each hairpin turn, they knew no more about her than they had at the cabin.

“Where do you want me to drop you off?” he asked as they finally rolled into town. He’d decided he wouldn’t worry about her. He had his hands full with Russ and the changes going on in his own life. And she wasn’t his problem. They didn’t even know her.

Nibbling at her lip, she eyed the buildings they passed until she noticed the drugstore. When she pointed halfheartedly, he had the impression that she’d picked a totally random location, which was crazy. Something or someone had brought her, or coaxed her, to Dundee. Surely she couldn’t be as friendless and destitute as she seemed. As soon as her friend, or whoever she’d been hoping to see, realized she hadn’t shown up, they’d come looking for her, and all would end well, right?

“Here?” He pulled to the curb.

“Sí. Gracias.”

When she unzipped his coat, apparently to return it, he caught her arm. “No. Keep it. I insist.”

“But…I have no…” Blushing furiously, she raised her hands as if to say she couldn’t compensate him for it, but no way would he let her take off that coat. He wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he did.

“I don’t want it. Really. It’s extra. I was going to throw it away.”

She stared at him.
“In the garbage?”

The shock in her voice told him how wasteful she found that, but if it made her accept the damn coat, he didn’t care about her opinion of him. “Right, in the garbage. You might as well take it.”

With a brief nod, and a determined tilt of her chin, she got out and waved. When he didn’t drive off as she expected, she lost some of her false confidence and stepped into the drugstore.

“What do you think?” Brent asked above the steady swish of the windshield wipers.

Letting the engine idle, Ken watched the entrance to the drugstore. “I don’t think she knows a soul at the store or anywhere else in town.”

“I don’t, either. She’s trying to make us believe she belongs here, but she doesn’t. What’s going on?”

Ken shoved a hand through his hair. “I wish I knew.”

“Should we have offered her some money?”

He’d already considered that. “She wouldn’t take it. She’s nothing if not proud. Didn’t you see how she reacted when I gave her the coat? She didn’t even want to
borrow
it, let alone keep it.”

Brent got out and climbed into the passenger seat. “So what can we do? It’s not like we can tell her we were about to throw away our boots.”

The thought of her feet in those wet shoes bothered Ken. So did the memory of that brief moment when she’d slipped her hands up his shirt and burrowed into him. She’d only been hoping for a few minutes of warmth, but a woman didn’t take that kind of liberty with a strange man unless she was too young
or naive to know better—or too desperate to care. And Cierra wasn’t naive. Although he doubted she was quite as old as he was, she’d seen a lot of hard living. That much showed in her large, stunning eyes.

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said, trying to convince himself.

“And if we don’t leave now, the roads could become impassable,” Brent reminded him.

Giving the Land Rover some gas, he eased into the street. But he didn’t get very far before his conscience dictated that he go back and do some more research.

When he drove around the block instead of heading up the canyon, Brent glanced over at him. “What are you doing?”

“I just want to see what she does next.” Parking the Land Rover where she wouldn’t be able to spot it should she emerge from the store, he got out.

Brent climbed out, too, and jogged to catch up with him.

With Christmas lights adorning almost every building in town, from city hall to the bowling alley to Jerry’s Diner, and a Salvation Army bell ringer outside Finley’s Grocery down the street, Dundee hadn’t changed much over the thirty Christmases Ken had been alive. His ex-girlfriend had found his hometown the epitome of dull and boring. She hated the close-knit community, hated the feeling that everyone was a little too eager to get involved in their business. But Dundee’s Norman Rockwell charm appealed to Ken. This was home to him. He wanted to raise his children where they could see his mother, stepfather and brother. His real father wasn’t as much of a draw but, with his heavy drinking, Russ would need someone to look out for him in a few years. He was already having liver problems. Ken figured that, as the eldest, caring for Russ would fall to him.

Before reaching the entrance to the drugstore, he grabbed Brent’s arm and peered through the window.

Cierra stood in the candy aisle holding something she obviously hoped to purchase—a Snickers bar?—while counting out change in the palm of her hand. But she didn’t seem to have enough money. She searched her purse, checked every pocket,
even the pockets of his coat and the floor, but eventually put the candy bar back.

“Oh, God,” he muttered.

“What’s the matter?” Brent asked.

“Why didn’t we feed her?”

“She’s hungry?”

“Of course she’s hungry.” But he’d been too worried about getting her wherever she needed to go to think about food. Efficiency had taken precedence over humanity.

“It’s not as if we have bags of groceries at the cabin,” Brent was saying. “Just those steaks we were planning to grill tonight. Feeding her would’ve meant asking her to stay for dinner.”

And, had they waited, the storm could’ve made leaving impossible. But…he hated knowing she couldn’t buy
food
. How long was it since she’d eaten? Walking from Dundee to his cabin would take all day. Unless she’d carried a sack lunch, she hadn’t eaten since early morning, if she’d eaten then.

“So…she’s broke?” Brent said.

“That’s my guess.”

Cierra wandered around the aisles, probably hoping they’d be gone by the time she came out. Staying inside, where it was warm, beat wandering the streets, in any case. It wasn’t as if she seemed to have anywhere to go….

Suddenly, her head jerked up and she looked over at the cash register. The clerk must have asked if there was anything he could help her find, and that was enough to drive her into the cold. She gave the candy section one final glance, pulled the hood of Ken’s coat over her head and started for the exit.

“What are we going to do?” Brent asked.

“Feed her,” Ken said, and left the window.

When she stepped outside and saw them coming toward her, she turned the other direction. And when they followed her, she began to walk faster and faster until she broke into a run.

Afraid they were frightening her by chasing her down, Ken slowed and motioned for Brent to do the same. “Cierra!”

She turned. “Did you…did you want your coat?” she yelled above the wind as if she couldn’t imagine any other reason they’d
be following her. If he’d been wearing a jacket, she probably would’ve continued to hurry away.

Ken blinked the snowflakes out of his eyes. “No. We were…heading over to the diner to…get a bite to eat and thought…you might like to join us.” He’d certainly never lacked for female companionship, but thanks to his football career, he’d always had the cards stacked in his favor. He couldn’t remember meeting anyone, at least in Dundee, who didn’t appreciate his background. So he wasn’t sure how to handle this woman, who was so prickly and suspicious and unlikely to be impressed with what he’d achieved in professional sports.

“It has really good food,” Brent added to entice her.

She was tempted. Ken could tell. But just when it seemed she’d agree to join them, she threw back her shoulders. “I am not a prostitute. I will no trade sex for money. Or…or food. Or coat.”

“Oh, we don’t expect that!” Brent said. “We only want to make sure you—”

Ken cut him off before he could put his foot in his mouth. Brent didn’t understand that their help couldn’t come across as a handout any more than it could come across as an attempt to get laid. “We’re not asking for sexual favors. We were actually, ah, wondering if…” What could he have her do that she’d find acceptable? “If you could clean the cabin so I could get settled in.” Now that they’d lost so much time driving her to town, they really could use an extra pair of hands. And it would be a fair trade. She’d work for what he gave her, which would keep her dignity intact. And she’d have food and shelter until he could figure out where the hell she was supposed to go, which would appease his conscience. “What do you say?” he asked.

“You are offering work for me?” she clarified.

The hope in her face put a guilty knot in his stomach. Even when his mother was primarily raising him and Brent on her own, with their father making life a lot more difficult than it needed to be, he’d never lacked the necessities. “Yes. In exchange for food and shelter.”

“I clean. You will see no one speck of dirt,” she assured him.

He managed a smile. He had no doubt she’d take as much pride in her work as everything else. “Great. That’s what I’m looking for. Do we have a deal?”

When her gaze strayed to the diner down the street, he felt a fresh pang of remorse for not giving her a bite to eat at the cabin. “
Sí.
A deal,” she said. Then she thrust out her hand to shake on it.