“Not even a little?”
He shook his head, lifting his shoulders apologetically.
“Dâyou take the oath, man?” Jonah asked. “I got four friends in AA right now.”
He gave Molly a bewildered look. “Alcoholics Anonymous,” she explained.
“Oh.” He smiled. “No, no. I have never liked it...um, the spinning? Even a little makes me uncomfortable.”
Molly wondered if he minded that she drank some, and hesitated, thinking she ought to put down the glass. Then she realized she didn't have to change anything about herself for him. He wasn't really her husband.
And if he were?
Sipping the wine, which was excellent, she listened to the light, cheerful conversation around her and thought about that. About changing for someone else. Had she changed for Tim?
“Molly, would you like some of these pears?” Katje asked. “We're experimenting with Bosc varieties.”
Molly accepted the offering. Together with the wine, the tastes were like two notes of harmonizing music. “Yes, those are wonderful. Especially with the wine.”
From her right, Alejandro suddenly leaned close. “May I taste?”
“Sure.” She reached for another slice of pear, but he laughed, the sound low and wicked.
“No,
querida.
Like this,” he said, and kissed her.
It was a bold kiss, the hungry kiss of a bridegroom. Molly had to give him credit for superior talent in the timing and acting departments, because she was as nonplussed as a new bride by the richness of that luscious mouth, and before she could think coherently enough to stop herself, had opened her mouth in invitation.
One he took. His tongue swirled in, wicked and probing, then quickly retreated, and he was raising his head, those long-lashed eyes dancing as he tasted her taste on his lips. “Mmm. Very nice.”
Molly blushed to the roots of her hair, and looked away, trying desperately to recover her equilibrium. Jonah laughed happily, and Katje slapped his arm. But then she took Molly's hand and one of Alejandro's. “We see many couples. But not very many have that light about them the way you two do.” She tightened her fingers. “May God bless your union with all things,” she said poetically. “And let yours be an example of those who wish to love all their lives.”
Molly looked at Alejandro, feeling guilt at the seriousness of the blessing. This was not what they had planned, not at all. In his eyes, she saw the same disturbance, and he gave her a subtle nod.
Soon, they would take their leave and end this mockery.
Chapter 9
T
hey were subdued on the way back to Molly's house, and without speaking, moved to different parts of the house to give each other time to absorb this new status between them.
From the phone in the bedroom, Molly called Lynette, needing to touch base with some kind of normality. “Hey, girl,” she said lightly when Lynette answered.
“Molly! I'm so glad you called right now. I can talk for a little since Josh went to the grocery store for me.”
Molly's heart plummeted. “I guess that means he's still very angry with me.”
“Oh, don't worry, honey. You know how he is. He sees the world in black and white.” She giggled. “You fell to the dark side.”
Molly chuckled.
“Oh, that sounded bad, didn't it?” Lynette fussed. “I didn't mean it that way, like dark person. I meant like Darth Vader.”
“I knew what you meant.” She frowned. “You don't have to be politically correct with me, Lynette.”
“I know. Or I mean, I think I do.” She sighed. “Never mind. Josh is mad right now, but he'll miss you and decide maybe he can overlook your sins.”
Sins. Molly wondered if that was Lynette's feeling, too. “Well, he'll have to, because we got married today.”
“You did? Howâ”
“How did I do it when Josh managed to turn all the judges against it? I went to Jonah Micklenburg.” The thought of the ceremony, so warm and colorful for all that it had been staged, warmed the hollow places in her. “It was beautiful. I wish you could have been there.”
“Moll, are you sure about this? He's very cute, and I liked how nice he was with my kids, but reallyâwhat can he offer you?”
“He makes me laugh, Lynette, and he knows all kinds of things I don't know. He can teach me to speak Spanish, and maybe I'll plant my fields, finally. It was what Tim wanted.”
“Well, I hope you aren't setting yourself up for heartbreak. I hate to think he's just using you to get a green card.”
Molly's temper snapped. “Honestly, Lynette, you act like I'm fifteen, thinking about sleeping with the local bad boy.” She shook her head. “Alejandro's not like that. He has...honor.”
“Mmm.” The word was skeptical.
Stung, Molly simply said, “You'll see.”
“I hope so, Molly. I want you to be happy.” Urgently she said, “Josh is home. I gotta go.”
Molly hung up, frowning.
I want you to be happy,
Lynette said. But if that were true, wouldn't she be rejoicing? Wouldn't she have stood up for Molly instead of repeating all Josh's words?
Vaguely disturbed, she moved to the bureau and began taking out the things that had belonged to Tim. Some of them would fit Alejandro, and she stacked them in a chair for him to try on, leaving the drawers empty for him to store things as he wished. It was a necessary stepâshe didn't think for one minute that they'd escape without an official inquiry, and it was best to be ready. His things should be in her bedroom.
But the work was for her hands, so her mind could mull over the disturbing new thoughts that had surfaced today. She thought about her brother, so intent on making her do what he considered in her best interest that he'd get her in trouble rather than let her choose her own way.
She scowled, the stirrings making her very uncomfortable. She'd lived in this town her entire life, and her parents had been here for ten years before that. Except for the brief time she'd spent at nursing school, she'd lived right here for almost thirty years. In Vallejos, she was safe, secure. She knew everyone and they all knew her.
And until now, she'd lived an exemplary life by town standards. Even in her grief, when she'd wanted to scream and cry and become so hysterical someone had to carry her away, she'd behaved with calm dignity, burying her pain where none could see it or be upset by it.
Her heart beat a little too fast. Didn't she want their good opinion? Didn't she want to belong to her community?
Of course. But something else had surfaced when she found Alejandro, bleeding and distraught, on her land that day. She had acted from no prompting but her own. How many times in her life had that really happened? How often had she listened only to herself?
She sank onto the bed. While she loved nursing, she had been nudged into it by her mother's friends, who had wanted Molly to follow in her mother's footsteps. She'd mounted a token protest about art school, but the point was made that Molly, alone in the world, needed to be practical.
Which was true. Where would she be now if she'd studied art in Colorado instead of nursing in Albuquerque?
And then there was Tim. He had been her high-school beau. They had met in eighth grade and started going together the following year. She'd loved him, but in college, had hoped to date others. The request had wounded him so much that she'd backed off. And wasn't she glad now? She had not wasted their very short time together.
The traitorous thoughts, let free for the first time, suddenly spilled out in a rush, and she thought of a hundred tiny choices she'd wanted to make for herself, but had allowed someone else to talk her out of.
Usually Tim.
Holding one of his shirts in her hands, she remembered the three-story Victorian house in town that she'd hoped to buy instead of this land. The house of her heart.
It stood a few blocks from the house in town where she'd grown up. For years, Molly had walked past it on her way to school or the market; she'd spun stories of it; she'd drawn it many times, in many weathers. Locals said it was haunted by the ghost of a wronged woman. When it had come on the market just before she and Tim got married, she'd gone to him full of excitement, knowing he had the skills to put the house to rights, that they could have a huge brood of children to fill it.
He'd agreed to go look at the place, but while Molly ran from room to room, imagining wallpaper and the pleasure of refinishing the old cherry-wood paneling, he'd muttered and scowled all the way through. He didn't hate it, he said. He just didn't love it. And then he took her to this house, to this land.
To her credit, she'd not given up easily on that one. She'd wanted that house with her whole heartâno, more than that, she felt as though it belonged to her, that it was meant to be her house. She'd argued that Tim could still have his farm and landâfor the same price of this hundred acres and the house, they could have had the Victorian and an equally rich, but slightly smaller, plot of land just outside of town.
But she lost. And three years later, when the house had been condemned for the wiring, Molly had wept bitterly.
It still stood, barely. Neglected and haunted and lonely, waiting for her. She still drew it sometimes. When Tim died, leaving a large insurance settlement, she'd almost taken a portion of the money to the real estate broker and asked to buy it. But that time, Lynette had talked her out of itâpointing out that Molly had enough on her plate without adding a white elephant like an abandoned Victorian.
And now the pattern was repeating itself. She'd made a choice to help a man in need, and she'd done it from her heart, because it felt like the right thing to do. By acting, she'd also saved a little girl, who might have died out there in those fields waiting for her deported uncle to come back to her. She'd taken a drastic step this afternoon, it was true. Maybe some would even say it was wrong.
But Molly, for once in her life, was acting on her gut instincts, and this time, by damn, she wasn't going to let the pressure of the group make her back down.
This time, she would fight to the very end for what she believed.
Â
After a couple of hours spent reading, Molly came into the kitchen, where Alejandro sat, sketching something on a big tablet of paper. He was left-handed, which she had not noticed till now.
He looked up, pushing hair from his face. “Ah. There you are. Feeling better?”
Molly nodded. “You?”
“Yes. This makes me feel better, always. Come see.”
“What is it?” Molly stood to one side, looking over his shoulder. “It looks like a map.”
“In a way.” He turned it for her, and the view made sense. “It is an idea of things to do for your land, so it will give back to you, very easily, with hardly any work from you.”
Unsettled, Molly sank into a chair at the head of the table and accepted the sketch. “I'm not sure I really want to do anything, really. I like the land the way it is.”
He dismissed that with one hand. “You want to keep some sage and cactus, you could have some. No problem.” Clearly caught in his own vision, he gave her another sketch, this one illustrating a fenced area with a chicken coop. A rooster sat on a fence post
“You're very good,” she said in surprise. The lines were strong, clear, clean, drawn with a kind of power that seemed to always elude Molly. In comparison, her paintings were very timid indeed. “Have you done this work professionally?”
“A long time ago they taught me art.”
“In school?”
“Yeah. I did not finish.” He shuffled through the stackâhe must have been sketching since they'd returnedâand pulled out another. “Bees.”
A tight sensation drew up her back. “Alejandro, stop.”
He looked at her, wariness replacing enthusiasm. “I did something wrong, no?”
“Not wrong. I just...don't know if I'm ready for all this. So much change.”
“Ah.” With calm dignity, he gathered the drawings. “I am sorry. I did not think.” With a smile, he said, “My mind...sometimes I think I know what is right for everything, and do not listen.”
“I appreciate the gesture.”
He nodded, and Molly saw that now it was he who was moving a little stiffly. “I've offended you,” she said.
“No.” As if to emphasize that, he also shook his head. “No. I only wish to do something to give back to you what you have given me. I am a man, and too proud.” He shrugged. “I will think of something.”
“You don't have to hurry, Alejandro. We're stuck with this for a year at least.”
“SÃ.
You are right. Plenty of time.” He lifted his chin, and she found herself noticing the impossible broadness of his shoulders beneath the shirt she had chosen for him. “But, Josefina and me, we are not stuck. We are rescued.”
“I didn't mean it like that.”
“I know.” He stood and picked up the materials. “Another day, huh?”
“Sure.” She nodded. “I remember why I came in here. You need to move your things into my room. In case.”
“Ah. I'm glad you thought of that.” He nodded. “Do you wish for me to do it now?”
“Yes. I think I'm going to go to bed.”
“It has been a long day.”
The conversation was beginning to sound like an entry-level language practice.
“SÃ, señor,”
she said impulsively.
“Yo soy muy.
..
tiredo.”
The rigidness in his posture eased the slightest bit and he smiled.
“Cansado.”
She repeated it and stood. “Let me show you where to put your things. You can settle everything while I take a shower.”
As they walked up the hallway, Alejandro, limping rather pronouncedly tonight, said, “Not even chickens, Molly? They are very cheap.”
“What would I do with them? I don't know how to even kill a chicken.”
“Oh, you would not kill one for a long time. Not till she was old and gave no more eggs. Someone could do it for you.” He halted to let her go into the room first. “Josefina is very good. It was her job once. She can pluck them, too. So fast.”
“Josefina can kill and pluck a chicken?” Molly made a face. “And she's eight. Boy, do I feel dumb.”
“No!” he laughed. “She is a working child. I have not liked that she had to work so much, but it was what we had to do. The chickens, she would like feeding them better. Getting the eggs.” He warmed again. “The eggs are why the chickens, Saint Molly. Fresh eggs. Your own.”
She laughed. “You don't get it. I have land, and this house but I don't know anything. I don't even know if I would like having chickens!”
He held up his hands, smiling. “Okay. No more. I won't bother you anymore. Here?” He pointed to the bureau and closet, and then halted, looking around himself. “This is beautiful!” He glanced at Molly. “Your husband again?”
She nodded, crossing her arms against the feeling of intimacy brought on by his presence in this room. He seemed so much larger here. “He made everything in hereâpaneled the walls, made the bureau and bed to match.”