Fierce Love (26 page)

They sat on the pale woolen rug to tackle the project. He handed her the first section of the file, and he began with the second. “These pages are dated from different years.” She arranged them in order and wished her grandfather had used a yellow legal pad throughout, but there were also sheets of fine linen stationery with the Aragon crest, and even some thoughts written on the back of receipts. She picked up the earliest sheet and began to read.

“Can you read Spanish?” Santos asked.

“Yes, I teach Spanish in high school. It’s a useful language in Arizona and all the southwest.”

“So we could have been speaking Spanish the whole time you’ve been here?”

“Your English is perfect, but I didn’t mean to deceive you.”

“All women deceive men. It’s part of the species,” he replied with a careless shrug.

Guilty of a monstrous deception when it came to Miguel’s death, she couldn’t argue. She was relieved to hear a knock at the door and got up to answer. “I didn’t expect Rafael to be back so soon.”

Her wide smile faded. Clearly disappointed Santos hadn’t opened the door, Ana Santillan stared past Maggie to him. “Have you moved in, Magdalena? He’s tossed me out.”

“I assume you’ve come by to offer your sympathies,” Santos said as he struggled to his feet. “Thank you, we appreciate them.”

“I was worried about you too. Rafael didn’t have to carry you out of the ring yesterday, but you leaned on him and were limping.”

His jeans hid his bandage, and he admitted nothing. “It was just a scratch. I won’t keep you.”

Fox heard Ana’s voice and rushed into the living room wearing a happy grin. “Were you there yesterday?”

“Yes, I was seated not too far from you. Did you enjoy the bullfights?”

“It’s like watching car wrecks,” he replied. “I’ve had enough.”

“There are many people in Spain who agree with you and want to see them come to an end.”

Maggie stepped out of Santos’s way as he reached for the doorknob. “I haven’t the time to debate the issue now. Good-bye.”

As he swung the door closed, Ana peered through the narrowing gap. “I’ll see you on Wednesday, Fox.”

Santos jerked the door open. “And just where do you plan to see him?”

“At the funeral in Zaragoza. Thousands of your father’s fans will be there.”

“Good-bye.” Santos cursed under his breath, closed and locked the door. “She’s probably told a thousand of those fans herself.”

Fox looked down at the papers littering the floor. “May I help?”

“Shall we trust him?” Santos asked Maggie.

“Probably not,” she replied. “But there’s a lot to sort here.”

Fox took that as a yes and sat down closer to Santos than her. He didn’t speak Spanish and soon grew bored ordering papers by dates and went back to watch an English station on the kitchen television.

“I’m worried about him,” Maggie whispered.

“So am I. He and the twins are close, and they should be here this afternoon.”

“That worries me too,” she added.

“Our family is a twisted mess, except for you and me, but I doubt they’d form a ménage a trois.”

“I don’t. They’re not related, which he points out often. The girls are too sophisticated for their own good, so anything might happen between them.”

He shuffled the last of his section of the papers into place. “Let’s say you and I met and didn’t know we shared a father. Would I appeal to you?”

Ana had warned her he liked her more than a brother should, but he’d never led her to suspect it, unless she counted his immense dislike for Rafael. Still, she was better off with the truth when she could tell it. “Yes. You’re a handsome man and fun too.”

“Thank you, but I’m fond of blondes, and that would have saved us.”

Because the odds of them meeting as strangers were so slim, she kept a light-hearted tone. “I would have been crushed. Now this first page has Augustín’s concerns about remodeling the ranch house. I hope this isn’t all as dry.”

“There has to be a scandal in here somewhere.” Santos handed her another handful of papers and they kept sorting. He soon leaned back and sighed. “I’m trying to ignore my leg, but it hurts too badly for me to concentrate. I’m going to stretch out on the couch.” He yanked off his shoes before he lay down.

“Do you want some aspirin?”

“Thank you. It’s in the bathroom cabinet.”

Maggie got up to bring it. Santos’s home with as neat as Rafael’s, but he probably had a maid come in and clean. She brought him the bottle of aspirin and a glass of water.

“Did you have stitches?”

He sat up to swallow a couple of aspirin and set the glass on the coffee table. “No, they just bandaged it at the arena infirmary. I was supposed to have a physician look at it. But I got the call Father had been rushed to the hospital and forgot it.”

That didn’t sound good to her. “Did you change the bandage today or apply antibiotic cream?”

He rested his arm over his eyes. “No, but it’ll be fine in a day or two.”

“I think we ought to go to the hospital before the pain gets any worse. It might be infected.”

“I’ll be fine later.”

“Men do a terrible job of taking care of themselves. You can’t stay ahead of the bull if you have to limp around the ring.”

He opened one eye. “It’s just a scratch, not a mortal wound.”

There had been nothing she could do for her father, but she urged him to seek care. “Blood poisoning could kill you.”

“Are you always this pessimistic?”

She pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “I’m a realist. Did the doctor at the arena give you a tetanus shot?”

“No, I had one last year. Keep looking through Augustín’s papers. Cirilda wants them back in her bank by this time next week.”

He didn’t move for more than an hour, and when she got up to bring him another glass of water, perspiration dotted his forehead. She rested the back of her hand on his cheek. “You have a fever. You need to go to the hospital, Santos.”

“Bring me my phone. It’s on the dresser. I’ll call Moreno, and he’ll come here.”

“Fine, but if he can’t, you’re going to the hospital.”

Santos made the call. “He’ll be here as soon as he can,” he told her. He drank the glass of water and went back to sleep.

When she went into the kitchen to get herself a drink, Fox looked up from the soccer match he was watching. “Is he sick?”

“I think so, he doesn’t, but his leg’s bothering him badly.” The thought of Santos becoming seriously ill was too much for her. All she could do yesterday was step out of the paramedics’ way, but she wouldn’t let her brother endanger his life so foolishly when she could insist he seek help.

More than an hour passed before the doorbell rang. Expecting Dr. Moreno, Maggie rushed to open it. Rafael walked in. She grabbed his hand. “You’ve worked on medical emergencies. Will you please look at Santos’s leg? He refuses to go to the hospital, and I think he should.”

Santos sat up and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “If I turn up there again, the press will describe it as a suicide attempt.”

“Who cares what they say?” Maggie argued. “I don’t want to attend two funerals in a week.”

“She’s exaggerating,” Santos complained.

“Prop your leg on the coffee table,” Rafael directed. Santos had on boot-cut jeans and rolled the pant leg up over his calf. “Is this the bandage the doctor put on in the arena infirmary?”

Santos looked down at the blood-stained gauze. “Yeah, I’ve been too busy to have it changed.”

Rafael looked at Maggie and shook his head. “Can you find a pair of scissors?”

“There are some in the kitchen utensil drawer,” Santos offered.

Maggie quickly returned with them, and Fox followed her. She didn’t want to look, but Fox leaned over her shoulder to have a good view. When Rafael cut the gauze and removed the bandage, she felt sick and had to dive for a chair. “That’s no scratch so you’re the one who exaggerates.”

Santos looked down at the bloody wound. “So it’s more of gouge, so what? Moreno will be here soon.”

“Did you really call him?” Maggie asked.

“You think I was pretending?” he answered, clearly insulted.

“When did you call him?” Rafael asked.

Maggie looked at her watch. “It was more than an hour ago. He should have been here by now.”

Rafael picked up the phone from the coffee table and handed it to Santos. “Call him again and tell him we’ll meet him at the hospital.”

Santos leaned back and closed his eyes to rest. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon.”

“He can’t do enough here. Call him and we’ll go. You and Fox stay here, Magdalena.”

Too dizzy to stand, Maggie remained in her chair but still offered a faint objection, “No, I want to go.”

“I’d rather watch soccer than spend another minute in a hospital.” Fox went back to the kitchen.

“Stay here with him,” Rafael repeated softly. “They might want to keep Santos overnight, and you look as though you ought to be in bed yourself.”

Maggie wished she could stand up to him and insist she go, but her legs lacked the strength to carry her. Things were going badly all around her. She hated being so helpless. At home, she lived such an orderly life, but here, she could barely keep up with the problems. “Come back as soon as you can.”

He leaned down to kiss her and smoothed her hair. “Always.”

“Wait, will you leave me your phone number? I won’t call unless we have another emergency.”

“Where’s your phone? I’ll put it in for you.”

She rolled off her chair and pulled it out of her purse. His fingers brushed hers as he took it and sent a wild thrill clear up her arm. She wondered where he’d gone and what he would have said if Santos hadn’t needed him so badly.

“There, you have my number and I have yours,” he said. “I should have given it to you earlier. I don’t want you to feel abandoned.”

He looked more resigned than loving, and she didn’t want to believe Fox’s awful comment had turned him against the whole Aragon family. Santos sent Dr. Moreno a message, then limped out the door on his own. Rafael regarded her with a half-smile as he closed it behind them.

She hadn’t said she loved him, and maybe she’d lost the chance. Hoping it wasn’t so, she sank down on the sofa and looked at the papers scattered over the rug. What did it matter what Augustín had thought, when the present posed such difficult challenges?

Fox called from the kitchen, “You want some ice cream?”

“If you’ll bring me some in here.” She didn’t care what flavor it was, but it was an icy-cold, deep, dark chocolate. She’d never cared enough about a man to dive into a pint of Häagen-Dazs when he left her, but after one taste of the sinfully rich chocolate, it suddenly made perfect sense.

Chapter Seventeen

“I should have had you drive my car,” Santos complained.

“Mine will make it there, and you needn’t thank me,” Rafael assured him.

“Thank you, for what? Taking me to the hospital when I don’t want to go? You didn’t save my life yesterday either. I could have walked out of the ring on my own. The bull was already dead.”

“Yes, he was, and I could have kicked your good leg out from under you and left you lying in the dirt beside him.”

Santos had no quick response to that absurd comment, and they rode in silence for the next few minutes. “You know we’re really fighting over Magdalena, don’t you?”

“This isn’t what I’d call a fight.”

“We’ve never liked each other,” Santos declared. “I don’t know how Magdalena stands you.”

“Have you heard her complain?”

Santos snorted. “No, but she will. She’s her father’s daughter after all, and you’re, well, I can’t think of an appropriately repulsive term to describe you.”

Rafael swerved to the curb and parked. He turned toward Santos and rested his arm on the steering wheel. “I’ve been bullied by far worse men than you my whole life, but you keep Magdalena’s name out of this.”

“Or what? You’ll pull a knife on me?”

“No, I’ll haul you out of the car and stomp on your sore leg. How’d that be for a start? You’ll need a steel rod to repair the shattered bone, and you won’t leave the hospital for weeks.”

Santos stared at the threatening gleam in Rafael’s eyes and raised his hands. “Fine, you win, but if you hurt Magdalena, I’ll come after you even if I have to do so on one leg.”

Rafael drove the rest of the way to the hospital without another word, and he let Santos make his way into the emergency room on his own. Just as he’d expected, a nurse rushed forward to usher him into a treatment room without asking him to sign in and wait his turn. Rafael leaned back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. He heard someone whisper his name, but they wisely stayed away.

Maggie washed and dried their ice cream bowls and put them away. She felt marginally better and went back into the living room to retackle Augustín’s papers. More to keep her mind off Rafael and Santos than for concern for her grandfather, she removed all the Aragon-crested sheets. The dates were written in tiny numbers at the bottom she’d missed earlier, and she slid the pages into order now.