Royce (45 page)

Ernestine rushed him to the hospital where he was stitched up and given a pain killer and sent home and unlike at Parkland Hospital doctors didn’t have to report an old man beaten up, so they patched him up and sent him home.

Joy and Royce lived their life almost forgetting they were on the run.  They loved Spain, the children were growing up and loved Spain and Royce after running the horse ranch so long decided this was where he'd stay and bought the ranch.  Now they’d been in Spain three years and spoke Spanish like they were born to it.  They knew the search was still going on Jameson often reminded them of that, but today Joy wasn’t thinking about why they were here, today her period was two weeks late.

Jameson saw her standing by the sink a smile on her face and he thought she was beautiful, she seemed to glow today.  He was happy to be here with them but as time went on he hoped they were getting closer to the end, but instead they were becoming closer to the family.  

When Joy discovered Valerie couldn’t cook she insisted they come over for their meals, and at first he couldn’t go, but Valerie would bring him a plate and say, “Mrs. Harrington sent this,” and she’d look at him, “Just join us Jameson,” and it was so hard.  Mrs. Harrington unnerved him, she was so beautiful and seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, and eating her food,
God that woman could cook and the smells from that house were always wonderful. 
He was just so enraptured with her and wanted her so bad.  It only became easier to be around her when he found Lita.

She was twenty-three and he’d kiss her lips and suck her nipple piercing and hold onto her voluptuous curves and drive her crazy while pouring his love out to Joy, “Oh Joy, amor, te amo oh,” Oh Joy I love you and Lita never knew it was a woman he was talking about, she thought it was the emotion of the word.  But after months, gradually slowly he started joining them at their table and now it felt like family.

But he never forgot why they were here, he was consumed with this case and he wanted nothing more than to solve it.  His only thought was to keep them safe and while they were living their lives hanging out on the beach, buying horses and running the ranch he was no closer to solving it than when he started.  After three years he had nothing.  At first he thought they were on to something when Tommy called, “The word on the street is there’s a search for the two guys, they were from Chicago and a couple of their buddies are here looking for them.”

“Ah alright, this is heating up.  Keep listening and let Reggie know,” he told him.  Reggie called next, “They’ve been to Rhodes and Abrams asking questions, both men took a beating and they’ve staked out the house a few times. 
Fuck! This is getting warmer, so the thugs partners are trying to find them, we made sure that’ll never happen.  Okay let em keep looking, burn up some time
, “And the undercover on Tammy anything new?” 

“No nothing she’s not talking.”  And that had been the story, the Chicagoans came and went.  They’d come looking and when they found nothing they’d disappear back to Chicago, and he’d switched undercovers at the prison many times from guards to inmates trying to get close to Tammy but so far they’d turned up nothing, all saying the same thing, “She’s not talking.”

Then Reggie called, “Mr. Harrington’s father hired a private investigator,” and that was understandable, his son was missing, a wealthy man isn’t going to let his son disappear and not spend some of his millions to find him.  And that made him nervous, he knew the guy, Thomas Gibeau, he was good and he’d made visits to Rhodes, Abrams and to Philadelphia.  He knew he’d talked to Lanie and that worried the hell out of him, that sister of hers, her and that boyfriend knew too damn much, his stomach flipped.  All Gibeau had to do was get fixated on them, dig deep and he’d stumble across the yacht trip.  But somehow Gibeau had gotten tripped up and went searching all over the Midwest, Nebraska and Kansas and now he was up in Canada.  He’d been thrown a bone and he hoped it wasn’t Lanie.  Jameson knew that wasn’t wise, because once the bone was thrown the dog always came back.

Although he wished the family lived a little more secretly they were happy and busy living their lives, so he couldn’t fault them, but he wished they’d decided to just lie out on the beach.  But the change in Mr. Harrington was well worth this lifestyle.  He was the man in the portrait, he had an easy way about him and he smiled all the time and Jameson wanted to keep him that way.  He’d only asked one thing, for his safety he’d asked him to go by a different name, and Royce chose Rojas, it sounded as close to Royce as he could get even though it meant “red,” and there was nothing red about him, to Jameson he was clear blue sky eyes, an easy smile and a casual way about him, and Jameson went by Jackson and now they’d been here three years. 

Joy was in the kitchen with Rosa, she was humming a Spanish tune a smile on her lips.  They were preparing la comida, this was her favorite part of the day.  They were making paella today, a seafood stew, being by the ocean seafood was big in Spain.  The paella was simmering and they had moved on to the side dishes, she was preparing grilled esparragos con alioli (asparagus with alioli) and then she would move on to make red and yellow peppers stuffed with goat cheese.  A suckling pig was roasting in the oven and Rosa was basting it.  They would eat some of it for dinner and then Rosa would pull it apart to make pulled pork and then she’d stuff it in empanadas for tomorrow.  Joy hummed and prepared, Rosa closed the oven, “I go get Christopher,” Joy nodded.

Rosa loved Christopher, she treated him like he was her son, “I’ll take him to school, you go to ranch,” she said all the time, and Christopher loved her too and Joy understood.  Christopher was a baby and needed looking after more when they first came and he went to Rosa for everything, for food, for comfort, for everything when she wasn’t around and Rosa loved it.  Rosa was the one who gave him goat’s milk when the box of powdered milk she’d brought from the yacht ran out.  Rosa would put Christopher on the back of her vesper in his child safety seat, strap his little helmet on and drive him to school.   Through the window she saw Rosa ride away on her vesper, Christopher’s little helmet attached to the side.

She knew in a moment she’d see the school children walking down the street and Royce crossing the street.  And sure enough as Rosa sped around the bend she saw a group of children heading home, and behind that group she saw Deon with his friends and Lindsey with hers.  They were older now, Deon was a fourteen year old handsome teenager and Lindsey was right behind him at twelve and they were in secondary school.  And right behind the older kids were the little ones, she saw Justin in the middle of the pack.  He was in primary school, or
preescolar
, a first grader and even though she wanted to pick him up for lunch he wailed, “No mamita, please no,” and begged her not too. 

Then she saw Rosa with Christopher strapped behind her speeding up the road on her vesper.  Joy heard laughter and saw Royce and his ranch hands laughing as they parted ways and she watched as he turned towards home a smile on his face and she smiled too.

A few moments later she looked up and saw him standing in the doorway a soft sparkle in his blue eyes.  She smiled at him, no matter what he wore she loved him, but cowboy attire suited him, she liked his casual ease in his squared toed boots, jeans and shirt untucked, he just looked so at home and comfortable.

“Hey baby,” Royce said as he came up behind her, “Hey amor,” he put his arms around her and kissed her neck and caressed her stomach.  He knew this woman, knew everything about her and he had consciously made an effort to do so, he knew her from head to toe.  How her hair felt when it was curly and wet, when it was dry and soft, how her mouth tasted, how many fillings she had, how her armpits smelt, how she liked the back of her neck kissed, he knew her breast, the feel, the weight, he knew how she tasted when her sex was on her, how her ass smelt, yes he’d put his nose back there and taken a whiff, he wanted to know everything of her and he noticed this morning her breast were slightly heavier, and her nipples went soft instead of springing forward and her hips had spread a little, these were sure signs of one thing, and he’d seen these signs before. 

“Ummm smells good in here,” he nuzzled her a little more. “Gracias baby,” they said in Spanish, neither hardly used English anymore. 

Everyone gathered at the table, Jameson and Valerie had come in through the front door when Royce was nuzzling at her neck.  The case had gone cold, cold, cold, Gibeau wasn’t even close he was up in Canada snooping around and had been for at least two years, and once the search had gone cold Valerie was no longer her shadow and Joy could come and go as she pleased.  

Joy hadn’t told Royce what she suspected.  She had a doctor’s appointment after la comida and sure enough the doctor confirmed she was two months pregnant and that night, “Hey amor, I need to talk to you,” and he laid down beside her and looked at her smiling, “Okay, what is it babe?”  She smiled she was so happy and had held on to the news for just this moment when they were alone, “I’m going to have another baby,” and his smile was bright, “I knew that I was just wondering when you were going to tell me,” and she laughed, “You did not!  How did you know?”  He shrugged, “I know everything about you baby, I just knew that’s all,” he said smiling and he took her in his arms, “And I hope it’s a little girl just like you,” and he kissed her softly on the lips.

But Valerie thought she was nuts to have another baby, and Rosa said, “I’m not surprised senora you eat right to make babies, the food you eat just right,” and she looked at her to continue, “Si senora, you like eggplant, avocado, yams and liver, all foods good for the body to make baby,” Rosa said.  “Well, I’ll stay away from those”, Valerie laughed and said and Rosa looked away, she didn’t want to say what she was thinking,
you carry yourself like a man and you don’t have good birthing hips like the senora, not even the foods would help you. 
But Joy laughed, “Okay so I made this happen so to speak because I like certain foods?”  And Rosa nodded, “Si senora you make way for baby.”

Royce became a doting husband and she became fearful.  There wasn’t a hospital near Isle de St. Mary’s, the nearest was almost two hours away in Santander.  They had a clinic here run by the Catholic Church.  She didn’t know if they were real nurses, they wore nun’s habits, but at least the doctors were, but no one specialized in obstetrics.  These doctors were general practitioners and handled whatever came their way that day.  “You must go see the midwife senora, she can help you”, Rosa implored of her, she found out that’s what pregnant women did in Isle de St. Mary’s, they went to midwives. 

“Oh god,” she told Royce when she found out, “I don’t know Royce, there are no OB doctors and the hospital is two hours away.  Should I go to Santander, stay there the last month to make sure I’m near a hospital with a maternity ward?” Royce stared at her in disbelief, “Joy you can’t leave us for that long!  A month!  The kids and I would go crazy here without you!”  She laughed that he looked so stricken, “You can’t live without me huh?”  “No Joy, we can’t, look women have babies here all the time.  Find the best midwife and go to her, I’ll pay for whatever you need, but you can’t leave us,” he said. “Okay baby, I was just scared, but you’re right, if all is going well I shouldn’t worry so much,” she said and that’s how she found Sister Anna Maria.

She came highly recommended by Rosa.

“Okay my dear everything is as it should be.  We are anticipating a normal pregnancy.  I will give you a prescription for your prenatal vitamins, take this to the clinic and they will fill it for you.  Now how would you like to set your appointments?  I can come to your home or you can come to mine, which do you prefer?”  And Joy thought
now that’s nice I can get use to that
, “Okay you can come to mine.”  “Okay the other thing you need to think about is where you would like to have your child?  The clinic, it has a nice facility.  I do at home births, I do water births or we can plan to meet at the hospital in Santander, it’s called the Centro Hospitalario Padre Menni, it is very nice and has a maternity ward.  That will require an appointment and arrangements but it can be done," Sister Anna Maria said and now Joy felt better, it wasn’t as primitive as she thought, “Think about it,” she said.

“You said water births is that in the bath or is it something else?” “Yes if you elect to have an in home birth, I will either deliver the child on a birthing bed that I bring or we can deliver in a warm tub.  I prepare the tub with sterilizing liquids and line the tub with clean sterile cloth, it is very soothing to the baby and mother I am told, and the baby comes into the world nice and clean,” she smiled and said. “Oh, that is something to think about.” “Okay dear, here is your prescription and lets set up our next appointment.”  They set up the appointment and she gave Joy her fee and Joy went home feeling better than she had before.

She talked it over with Royce that night, and at her next appointment, “I think I’d like the water birth”, she said,
her children were drinking goat’s milk, all of them could ride a horse like a champ and she let Sister Anna Maria put her fingers inside her without gloves,
she could try a water birth
she reasoned. “That is good, good senora, I think you will be pleased”, she said, and life moved on. 

“The baby is growing and the heart is strong,” Sister Anna Maria said and told her she could go to the hospital in Santander if she wanted to have an ultra sound and know the sex of the baby, “I am not God senora, I can only help you deliver his creation but I can only guess at what he’s created,” she said when Joy was about six months, but Joy never made the appointment.  She didn’t care one way or the other, it was Royce who was stuck on a girl, and it was Royce who loved touching her and making love to her, he loved taking her from behind.  She’d lay on her side and he caressed her, kissing her face, her neck, behind her ear, his hands were everywhere, caressing her nipples, inside her sex and then he’d enter her from behind.  “Oh baby, oh baby,” he loved having her and she loved him riding her so sweet and gentle.  She was always ready and wanting, sometimes even more than when she wasn’t pregnant.  He had her panting and moaning, “I love you baby, I love you,” and she’d feel her body open and get wet as she took him.