Desperado (33 page)

“In the car? But it's cold out there. Bring them in.”

So, Helen soon had five children crowded around her kitchen table eating cookies and milk, and Rafe's mother and sister sitting in her living room chit-chatting about trivialities.

Mrs. Santiago soon got down to business, though. “Why are you making my Rafael so unhappy?”

“Me?” she squeaked out.

“
Sí
. He won't eat. He won't answer his telephone. He punched Ramon.”

“Mrs. Santiago, I don't think you understand. I'm engaged to marry another man on—”

“Engaged? How can that be?” She and her daughter exchanged
puzzled frowns. When Mrs. Santiago turned back to her, she said, “But Rafael said you were married to him.”

Helen cradled her face in her two hands.

“Did you marry him?” Luisa asked. “Rafael never lies. I do not understand.”

“Yes, we were married, but it wasn't legal.”

Mrs. Santiago tilted her head. “Rafael said you were married by a priest.”

“Well, a padre did marry us, but—”

“A padre is a priest, and that makes it legal in God's eyes.” She took both of Helen's hands in hers as if welcoming her to the family. “
Mi hija
. . . my daughter.”

Helen closed her eyes. How could she explain an unexplainable situation?

Meanwhile the five children, ranging in age from two to eight, were leapfrogging down her hallways. Their screeching laughter filled the house. Helen could barely think. She began to understand Rafe's feeling of being crushed by his family.

After an hour of arguing fruitlessly over her involvement, or lack of involvement, with Rafe. Mrs. Santiago and her brood left. At the doorway, Rafe's mother patted her hand. “Don't you be worrying none. Rafael loves you. You love him.”

“But I don't love—”

“Shhh. A mother knows.”

Helen closed the door and went to bed for the rest of the day.

The next day, Helen opened her door to the persistent ringing of the doorbell, and her mouth dropped to the floor. She had another visitor. Rather, two visitors. Leaning against either doorjamb were two Hispanic men. One looked like Adam Levine with a long pony tail, wearing a leather jacket and dark sunglasses. The other, younger one, wore faded,
very tight blue jeans with a pristine white T-shirt, sporting the logo, “Firemen Have Big Hoses.”

Oh, God! Antonio and Eduardo Santiago
.

“We came for the Christmas cookies,” Tony said, strutting in without an invitation. “Mama says you bake a mean cookie.”

“And I like milk,” Eddie said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

They both took after Rafe. Tall, dark, and exceedingly, dangerously handsome.

“So, when are you going to put Rafe out of his misery?” Antonio asked later, as he sprawled in an easy chair, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. He did resemble Adam Levine. Women must go nuts over him. “He's driving everyone loco. He won't even dance with Carmen, and he always dances with Carmen at Christmas.”

“Dance?” She blinked with bafflement.
I'm in Bedlam, and my roommates are two studmuffins
.

“Yeah, didn't he tell you? Rafe's usually so blinkin' serious, but—”

“Rafe? Serious? Are you kidding me? The guy who jokes while falling out of an airplane? The guy who claims he can have tongue hard-ons? The guy who teases till he drops? The guy who can ride a horse with a blister on his butt and laugh? The guy who thinks he's the happy gunslinger? The guy who—”

“A tongue hard-on?” Tony and Eddie exclaimed at the same time. Then they both burst out laughing.

Eddie was standing near her Christmas tree, playing with the ornaments. Wasn't he the firefighter, the one Rafe said had once posed as a centerfold? Yep, he was the one, she decided, looking at his tight buns.

When they finally stopped laughing, Tony commented, “Damn, I haven't laughed so hard since Carmen talked all of us into being the Village People in a talent show.”

“Yeah, but you got to be a sexy construction worker. I had to be an Indian,” Eddie grumbled.

Helen wondered which one Rafe had been, but before she could ask, Tony continued talking to his brother, “And how 'bout the time Carmen talked Rafe into being her tap dance partner at the church Christmas recital?” At Helen's raised brows, he explained, “He was sixteen, and Carmen was about five. Her partner got the measles, and Rafe got recruited. Every Christmas since then, Carmen makes him tap dance with her at the church recital. It's a tradition.”

Yep, I'm in Bedlam. And visions of Rafe tap dancing are pushing me over the edge
.

“That Carmen could talk a dog into doing the hula. Hell, I remember the time she taught me to moon walk.”

“You can moon walk?” Tony said. “I didn't know that. Show me.”

“NO!” Helen cried, and they both looked at her. Her nerves were shot.
Good Lord! First tap dancing. Then moon walking. Next, it would be dipping
. More softly, she said, “Did you guys come here for some particular reason? Other than my cookies?”

“Yes. You've got to get back together with Rafe. He's really hurting,” Tony said.

“Man, I've never seen him care so much for a woman, and it's obvious you've got the hots for him, too,” Eddie added.

“I do not,” she protested.

“You are so crude, Eddie,” Tony criticized his brother. “Hots? Geez, didn't I teach you any finesse?”

“Hah! You wouldn't know finesse if it hit you in that ugly face.”

“Ugly? You're just jealous because women mistake me for Adam Levine. Don't you think I look like Adam Levine?” The latter question was addressed to Helen.

“A little,” she said, and a headache the size of Tony's ego bloomed behind her eyeballs.

Eventually, she walked them to the door, getting more harangues on why she should be with Rafe. She heard Eddie comment to Tony as they walked to their car, “What the hell's a tongue hard-on?”

“Damned if I know. But you can be sure I'm gonna ask our big brother. He's been holding out on us.”

“Oh, brother!” Helen mumbled, and went to bed for the day.

The next morning she went Christmas shopping, early, just in case any more of Rafe's family showed up. She didn't get home until late afternoon. As she parked her car, she glanced up and groaned. Four Hispanic women were sitting on her doorstep, chattering to beat the band. She wondered how any of them could get a word in edgewise. Three children were racing across the lawn and stopped abruptly in front of her. “Where's the cookies,
Tía
Helen?” one of them asked.

Tía? Doesn't that mean aunt? Oh, my goodness!

She assumed these three kids belonged to Juanita, Rafe's oldest sister. There were only eight nieces and nephews total.

This time she served wine and Christmas cookies to the adults—she would have to bake another batch—and cookies and diet soda to the kids—she was out of milk. She listened to Rafe's four sisters tell her in a chaotic hodgepodge of Spanish and English why she should knock some sense into their brother and take him back.

“Take him back? I never had him,” she said, but no one paid any attention to her. They were too busy spouting their own opinions.

“
Carámba!
You should have seen him when I picked him up at the prison,” Inez related, rolling her eyes. She was the L.A. policewoman, the person in the newspaper clipping with Rafe. “He didn't ask about Mama, or his office, or anything. All he wanted to know was, ‘Where's the telephone number?' He had everyone in the world searching for your phone number and address. I wouldn't be surprised if he called
the FBI. Of course, that was before they locked him up. Then they wouldn't let him talk to anybody.”

“Well, I think Rafe is ill,” Jacinta interrupted. Jacinta, Helen remembered, was a nurse and had just started graduate school.

“Ill? Rafe? What do you mean?”

Everyone turned at the anxiety in Helen's voice, and they smiled knowingly. She flushed and tried to backtrack. “I mean, he was thin when I saw him, but not ill.”
He didn't kiss like a man on his death bed, that's for sure
.

“Oh, not that kind of ill,” Jacinta said, waving a hand in the air. “He's heartsick. No, no, don't look at me like that. People can make themselves physically ill when their hearts are broken. It's a scientific fact.”

Oh, Lord!

“Well, I don't care about that. I want to know how I can plan the church Christmas party if Rafe won't dance with me.” Carmen—the youngest, the dancer, Rafe's favorite—tossed her mane of curly black hair over a shoulder and cast an accusing eye at Helen, as if Rafe's refusal to dance was the biggest tragedy in the world.

Helen had to smile. Carmen was a spoiled brat, and adorable. “Listen, I've enjoyed talking to all of you, but there's been a big misunderstanding. I'm being married in three weeks, and—” she inhaled for courage—“and I'm pregnant.”

A loud silence followed her words.

“Please understand, I've always wanted children, and Rafe doesn't want any children, and it was always a big problem between us,” she rambled. “So, I guess you understand why—”

“Rafe doesn't know what he wants,” Juanita scoffed.

“I think he would have twenty children with you if you would take him back,” Inez added. “He would even love another man's child. Yes, he would.”

“Beg him and he will do anything for you,” Carmen advised.

Juanita took her time before answering, “Having children isn't everything, you know, but—”

Her three sisters groaned.

“Juanita, you think you know everything,” Carmen whined. “Don't give us a lecture.”

“—but this is something you and Rafe can work out if you love each other,” Jacinta went on, ignoring her sisters. “I'm sure after you are married, Rafe will come to his senses.”

Helen gritted her teeth. “That will never happen. Rafe had a vasectomy.”
I don't believe I just said that to four virtual strangers. I need an aspirin. I need sleep. I need sanity
.

Everyone stared at her as if she'd just said Rafe had grown two heads.

“Oh, my God! Mama will have a heart attack,” Juanita said, making the sign of the cross over her chest.

“You can't tell her,” Helen insisted.

It was as if she was invisible. They talked right over her.

“Vasectomies can be reversed,” Jacinta said, and her sisters asked her to explain. On and on the four women went until Helen began to think Rafe had the right idea about his family being a big pain in the behind.

When they finally left, helping her clean up the empty wine bottles and offering to send her some of their own Christmas goodies to replenish her stock, Helen sank into bed with a cup of herbal tea.

She refused to answer the doorbell the next day. There was only one more family member left, and Helen didn't need to peek through the peephole to know that her visitor—a younger, more sensitive version of Rafe—was Ramon. His eyes were a luminous blue, tearful with misery.

“Helen? Are you in there? I can hear your Christmas music. Your car is parked out front. Please, I have to talk to you.”

Helen pressed her forehead against the door. She really, really couldn't handle any more stress.

“It's all my fault that you and Rafe broke up. Please, you gotta take him back. He won't even talk to me. He punched me. He's making Mama cry.”

He waited for her response. When she didn't answer or open the door, he continued, “Man, he loves you. Doesn't that count for something?”

Again, the poignant silence. Helen bit her lip to stifle a sob.

“I had to listen to him talk about you for three months in that damn jail. Sometimes I thought I'd puke if I heard the name Helen again. He's got it real bad. Don't you even care?”

Tears were streaming down Helen's face.

Finally, she heard Ramon walk away, muttering, “Women!”

That day, Helen collapsed in bed, not even trying to find the blessed numbness of sleep. She loved Rafe's family. Despite all his griping about his clinging mother and siblings, when they saw him in pain, they all united to help him. That was what families were all about. She hoped he would see that someday.

Helen would love to be enfolded in the warmth of his family, but there were two people she had to consider here, two people she loved very much. Rafe and her baby.

No matter what everyone said, Rafe did not want children. It would make him miserable in the end to be saddled with a baby.

And what kind of life would it be for a child with a father who had not wanted him or her?

Helen placed her hand over her stomach, and her baby moved for the first time, as if reassuring her that she was making the right decision.

But it was so hard.

T
he fool came to his senses . . .

“I
'm a gold-plated fool.”

Rafe made the declaration aloud on December fifteenth, more than a week after his confrontation with Helen.

“I'm a thick-headed, gold-plated fool,” he immediately amended, because only a thick-headed jackass would take so long to come to his senses.

Hmmm. A gold-plated fool. That gives me an idea
.

He headed for the shower with a determined step, ready to set his life to order.

Hallelujah!
a voice in his head said.

Why had it taken him until now to realize that he and Helen had been given a special gift in their time-travel experience? A celestial nudge had sent them to the past to discover the meaning of love. What he needed now was a celestial kick in the ass for his stupidity in almost losing it.

Hallelujah!
the voice said again.

For days, he'd walked around like a zombie, feeling sorry for himself, barely living. He'd gone to work, carried out his legal practice like a robot, and come home to an empty apartment, refusing to talk to anyone—even his mother who kept leaving messages on his answering machine. All her little sermons harped on the same topic; “Rafa-el San-ti-ago, you are going to hell for having that vistorectomy operation. You better go to confession. Do you hear me, Rafael?”

Rafe couldn't dwell on the explanation he'd have to give his mother now. He looked at the wedding band on his finger. He had a mission, and its name was Helen.

Damn, he loved her, and she loved him. He knew that, no matter what she said. So what did anything else matter?

He didn't even care about her being pregnant with another man's child. Well, actually, he cared, but he could live with it. The baby would be Helen's child, and he would love him, or her, like his own.

The important thing was that he was miserable without Helen. He couldn't face a life without her. He was sure—at least, he hoped—she was miserable, too.

How could he have been so dumb?

He called her right away, before he lost his nerve, but got no answer. The same thing occurred throughout the day, and the next morning. He even drove over, but there was no response to his repeated knocks on the door.

A neighbor came out and informed him that Helen had moved out temporarily, and her mail was being forwarded. Rafe's eyes narrowed with resolve. She couldn't hide from him. He'd set Antonio and Inez to work sniffing out her whereabouts. In the meantime, the U.S. mail would forward any messages. Or packages, if he paid the forwarding postage in advance.

Rafe grinned. He had some serious shopping to do.

H
elen was staying at her father's home in San Clemente until the wedding. Her father and Elliott had been right to talk her into moving. The visits from Rafe's family had distressed her terribly, turned her into a virtual basket case. She needed some calm before she started her new life, both as a wife and mother.

Then the packages started to arrive.

The first day, she got a small parcel, forwarded from her address. It had no return address. Opening it hesitantly, she found a Rolex box. A Post-It was attached with only one word, “Remember.”

Rafe
.

But why would he send her a Rolex watch? She flipped the lid, but didn't find a watch. Inside was a black felt-tipped marker.

And she remembered Rafe saying that one of the first things he would buy on their return to the future was a marker. To connect the “dots” across her body. A sexual fantasy.

She tried to be angry, but she had to smile at his creativity. No romantic roses or boxes of candy from this rogue. He knew just how to shake her heart.

The next day, she got a letter. It contained a copy of a receipt from the House of Transcendentalism. Oh, my heavens! Rafe had signed up for meditation classes.

That made her smile, too, because she knew how wretched he would be.

The third day, another parcel came. This one contained a book.
A book?
Rafe had sent her a coffee-table edition of Alberto Vargas paintings. A Post-It note stuck out of one page on which he'd written, “See what I mean?” Helen blushed when she saw the gorgeous, redheaded nude pinup Rafe had circled.

Is that really the way he sees me? My goodness!

The fourth day, a florist delivered a houseplant, with no card attached. It was an
Anthurium
, better known as “little boy plant.” Her father walked by just as the delivery boy left, and he remarked, with a shiver of distaste, “Who sent you the plant? God, I've always hated those things—looks like a bunch of hard red tongues.”

Indeed!

The fifth day, she thought Rafe had given up. No such luck. It was just that the package was so small and had been buried under a pile of mail. When she peeled back the expensive foil paper, she saw Tiffany imprinted on the box.

Tiffany? What could Rafe possibly afford at Tiffany's?

She soon found out. Inside was a silverplated corkscrew, and a notecard. “You still owe me.” The only signature was a smiley face.

The rascal!

The following day, a mailer came with a CD. Helen didn't want to play it. In fact, she set it aside while she prepared dinner and wrapped Christmas presents and went out to a movie with Elliott. But she thought about it. Too much. And, in the end, she played it while she sat in bed that night. When she pressed the button on the small CD player, Rafe's voice came out, deep and masculine. She trembled as she listened.

“Helen, I love you,” he said. “Please don't turn this off. Just listen to me. We love each other, you can't deny that. Your being pregnant isn't a problem for me . . . anymore. Really. I'll love your baby like it's my own. But I don't want to tell you all this stuff on a CD. I want to tell you in person. In the meantime—don't laugh—I have a song to sing for you. Your favorite.” Then he launched into an off-key version of “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Helen cried over that gift. A lot.

She stayed in her room the next day when the mailman came, but her father handed her a stack of correspondence
when she came down stairs, including one envelope with no return address. She opened it tentatively, and began to weep openly.

“Honey, what is it?” her father asked, but Helen couldn't tell him. How could she explain what a wonderful, hopeless dolt Rafe was? And why he was so wrong for her.

The letter contained a medical form. A reverse vasectomy had been performed on Rafe yesterday. His Post-It this time said, “Well, I did it. I went under the knife today.
Again!
The doctor doesn't guarantee the procedure will work. No promises. I love you. Rafe.” Then there was a P.S., “Ouch!”

“Helen,” her father said, puzzled by her anguish over Rafe. He'd been trying to talk to her for weeks. “Are you sure this marriage to Elliott is the right thing?”

She gaped at him in astonishment.

“Maybe . . . well, maybe, if you love Rafe,” he practically choked on his name, “. . . well, maybe that's who you should be with. I know I've pushed you sometimes in the past, sweetie, but, really, just follow your heart.”

She couldn't believe her ears. Her father actually encouraging her to consider Rafe?

“Thank you, Daddy, for caring. But, really, for many reasons, marrying Elliott is the best thing.”

H
elen's wedding was going to take place in three days, and Rafe was frantic. None of his plans had worked out. Even when he'd located Helen and called on the phone, her father had informed him in a surprisingly gentle voice that Helen wouldn't talk to him. “Perhaps,” General Prescott advised, “it's time for you to give up.”

“Would you?” Rafe asked.

“Hell, no!”

“Same here, then. Hell, no!”

He thought he heard General Prescott laugh and mutter, “Good luck” before he hung up, but he was probably mistaken.

Okay, three more days. Time to call in some markers with his family. And make some big plans.

It was a gamble, but he was betting that he would win.

He had to.

H
elen was standing at the altar of a small chapel outside Sacramento three days later, wearing her mother's ivory satin wedding gown and a simple veil on her head. Elliott was at her side, handsome in his dress blues, along with her father, a few witnesses, and friends.

Everyone had tried to talk her out of the wedding, urging a postponement because of her distraught state, but she was determined to put some closure on her past life with Rafe.

It was the only way.

The minister was halfway through the ceremony when he got to the part, “Does anyone know just cause why this marriage should not take place?”

“I do,” a husky voice boomed from the back of the church.

Her heart dropped to her toes.
Oh, no! He wouldn't
.

She turned.

He would.

“Holy Hell!” Elliott said at her side. She had to agree when she turned.

The minister frowned his disapproval at Elliott's swearing in church, then cried out, “You can't bring horses in here.”

“Are those real guns?” Elliott's eight-year-old nephew, Darren, exclaimed. “Wow! This wedding is cool!”

“Oh, my God! I think that's Adam Levine back there. Hurry! Get the camera,” Helen's cousin Mary Kay gushed.

“He looks like a Mexican desperado,” her Aunt Irene said, almost swooning with shock.

“Damned if he didn't do it,” her father said admiringly.

She shot her father an inquiring, suspicious glare.

Rafe did look like a desperado. And so did his brothers, Antonio and Eduardo and Ramon, all dressed in nineteenth-century clothing, with ammunition belts crossed over their chests, revolvers in their hip holsters, and sexy, wide-brimmed hats tilted cockily over their faces. And, unbelievably, all riding horses up the aisle of the church.

“Young man, what's the meaning of this?” the minister shouted. “What reason do you have for disrupting this marriage?”

“She's my wife.”

“Wh-what?” the minister stammered, and everyone in the church gasped.

Her father gazed at Rafe oddly. “Is this true?”

“Absolutely.” Rafe held out a piece of parchment for her father to peruse. His thumb was probably planted over the date.

Her father turned on her then. “Helen?”

“Oh, Daddy, it's not legal. Yes, we were married, but—”

She had no opportunity to finish, because Rafe leaned down and swooped her up into the saddle in front of him, imprisoning her with his arms.

“You can't do this.” Elliott rushed forward.

Antonio aimed a revolver at Elliott, muttering, “I could lose my job for this, Rafe. You owe me big time.”

Elliott backed away. “Helen, I'll call the police. Don't worry.”

“No, don't call the police,” she told him in a panic. “I'll straighten this out.” Then, she raised pleading eyes to her father. “Daddy?”

He nodded at her silent supplication. “We won't do anything until we hear from you.”

Rafe ordered Tony, Eddie, and Ramon to stay behind and hold everyone off until they escaped. Then his horse galloped out of the church and down the steps. Some spectators were standing outside—wedding groupies. One of them said, “I've heard of some weird marriages before, but this one takes the cake!”

Helen kicked and squirmed and demanded that Rafe put her down. “Let me go,” she shrieked.

“Not on your life, babe.” He laughed, then groaned as she elbowed him in the ribs.

He rode the horse only to the end of the church parking lot, where he quickly dismounted with her. To her outrage, he tied her up with rope and gagged her before shoving her in the back of a Jeep Cherokee. She was going to kill him for this.

She heard Rafe talk to Tony then. Apparently, Eddie and Ramon were still in the church. Rafe told Tony to return the horses and go reassure General Prescott.

Just before he left, she heard Tony say, “Well, big brother, the oars are in the water, and you're headed upstream. Let's see if you sink or float.”

Rafe said something about being an Olympic-class swimmer.

Then they were off.

Rafe drove for more than an hour, carrying on a continuous one-way conversation with her.

“Don't be mad, Helen. This was the only way.”

Imgfhh!

“I love you, honey. We'll work everything out.”

Yrrflift!

“My mother says I'll go to hell if I don't marry you, and I know you wouldn't want that.”

Flckye!

And most outrageous, “Do you have to pee? I hear pregnant women have to pee a lot. I'll stop along the highway if you want.”

Hhmmflfhbgt!

“I checked out some history books last week. Did you know that there were two outlaws named Pablo and Sancho who supposedly rode with Joaquin Murietta?”

Brrgdll!

“And Rich Bar was just like we saw it. And, honey, there really was an Indiana Girl and Yank and Curtis Bancroft. I'll show you some of the books later. After our honeymoon.”

Arrrggghhh!

Finally they stopped, and Rafe helped her out, releasing her ropes and gag with apologies for having had to restrain her.

“That's a really nice gown, sweetheart. Your mother's? Will you be wearing it for our wedding?”

She sliced him a scorching glare as she stood on wobbly legs and looked around at the secluded cabin. Then she punched him in the stomach.

“Ooomph! I deserved that, honey. Do you want to do that again?”

She did.

“Ooomph! Feel better now?”