Blood in the Valencian Soil (Secrets of Spain) (20 page)

“W
hat? The mother-fucker!”

“Don’t even go there. I want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“I’m afraid my fist won’t feel the same if I ever run into this guy.”

“After we fought, I just thought ‘why not just go to Madrid?’ I want to be with you, and I don’t want to be in my apartment feeling bad about any of this. I don’t have to do anything for anyone.”

“Do you need me to punch him for you?”

“No thanks, I can punch on my own.”

“I have no doubt.”

“I’m not with
Darren. I never was. There is only one man I have ever loved before, and he died. All this is just complicated and stupid.”

“I will never hurt you,” Cayetano said in a quiet voice. His eyes were soft as they gazed upon her. “I don’t want you to feel as if you have to do more than you can cope with.”

“I can cope. I’m ready to move on… because of you. Not because I am ready for a relationship… I’m only ready for you. A year ago I wouldn’t have even looked at you, but now… now I’m happy… I’m ready. But I can’t imagine the future, I can only deal with right now.”

“We live our lives on our terms. No one e
xists here, other than the boys.”

“They determine the decisions I make. It has to be that way.”

“I know.”

“When you get married, it’s forever. I thought it would be. I’m in uncharted territory, and I’ve been second guessing every move I make these last few months. It’s killing me.”

“I knew, the day I married María, that we wouldn’t last. I was too gutless to do anything about it. I thought a divorce would release me and everyone around me from my mistakes. But it didn’t. You do that. I love you, Luna. More than I have ever loved anyone ever before. A moment like this should have a grand gesture, but…”

“I don’t like grand gestures. I do love you, though.”

Cayetano rubbed his cheek against hers. “Do you?” he whispered in her ear.

“Yes… and it scares the shit out of me.”

Cayetano couldn’t help but laugh. “You have no need to worry.”

“I know.” Luna looked right at him; his eyes sparkled like his smile. “We just need to keep doing what we’re doing.”

“Maybe just a little more often? A phone call every day and a meet-up every few weeks just isn’t enough anymore.”

“Maybe we could see each other more often. I
thought I would sell my apartment. I need to start over, and a new place will help.”

“You could move much, much closer to me.”

“To Madrid? And leave Valencia? No way, my blood is in the soil. I don’t know why, but I’m drawn to the place.”

“I’m drawn to you.”

“Then I guess we will just have to see how we go.” She gathered his lips with hers, and could feel every ounce of how he felt for her.

“You could just move in here.”

“Please tell me that you’re kidding.”

“I am. Are you sure you want to move? It’s not just because you had an argument with
Darren is it?”

“No. I have wanted to for a long time. Fabrizio and I always planned to move out of the city, and there’s no reason why I can’t do it on my own. I stayed in the apartment because it was a part of my marriage that I still had. I could feel him around me when I was there. But he isn’t there anymore. I don’t feel the pull anymore. I need to move and cope with it. Rip it off like a Band-Aid.”

“You can talk about him, and anything you want with me. I promise.”

“Are you sure?” she asked sceptically.

“It’s Darren who wants to be a replacement, not me.”

“What do you want to be?”

Cayetano shrugged. “I don’t know. A new start? Both of us need one. Like you said, we just need to keep doing what we’re doing. There’s no rush to do anything.”

“Not a rush to go to bed? I know it’s very early by Madrid standards.”

“Either you’re very tired or are being very suggestive.”

“I guess that depends on where I’m sleeping tonight.”

“Well, the children are in the spare room. I converted the other two rooms into my dressing room a few years ago, so that only leaves my bedroom.”

Luna raised her eyebrows. “You have a giant dressing room?”

“Yes, for my performances. I get dressed in there, relax in there, I have my home office in there. I keep all my gear in there.”

“It’s a man cave.”

Cayetano chuckled at the title. “Yeah, it is. No one can go inside but me. It’s my private space.”

“Not even María?”

“Never. When I prepare for a fight, I am alone. She never even asked to go inside. Hop up, I’ll show you.”

Luna crawled off his lap and helped him up from his seat. “You just said no one goes in there.”

“I’ll open the door for you,” he said and took her hand. They headed out of the living room and down the silent hallway.

Luna could see his bedroom at the end of the hall, but they stopped
at another door. He opened the door without a sound and walked into the dark room. She waited while Cayetano turned on a lamp that sat on a big oak desk in the corner of the room, and she looked around. Underneath the huge arch window, there was the biggest white couch she had ever seen. One wall of the room was a gigantic wardrobe closed up tight. On the other wall was a mirror, floor to ceiling in size. On a hook, next to the mirror was one of his traje de luces, his bullfighting costume. “Oh my God,” she said. “There are blood splatters all over your suit.”

“That was the one I
wore when I got hurt,” he said, quite casual about the fact. “I hung it up in here and wasn’t sure what to do with it. It’s one of the best I have had made.”

Luna fingered the red fabric of the
chaquetilla, the jacket. Blood had stained the fine and detailed golden embroidery. The pants, the taleguillas, were torn, a huge hole punctured through the pliable and strong fabric. Even though the fabric was deep red, the gush of blood that had come from his leg was still visible. Even the tirantes, his braces to hold up the pants, were bloody, as was his corbatin, his tie. That showed how far the blood had splattered after the accident. “Oh, Cayetano,” she sighed. “This makes the accident real. I…”

“You don’t need to say anything,” he said. He took the
montera, his torero’s hat, from the hook and placed it on her head. “Very nice,” he said.

“Do you get a kick out of dressing girls up in your gear, do you?” she joked.

He slid his arms around her waist and laughed. “I haven’t let anyone touch my suits before, so not really.”

“So why am I in here, wearing your hat?”

“Those lips look beautiful when they’re smiling,” he whispered. “They entice me into letting you into my life more than anyone else.”

“I might kiss you with them, since you make me feel so special, even in your silly little hat.”

With a quiet yet deep, sensual tone, he murmured in her ear, “a la luna de Madrid, me robaste el corazon.”

She watched him take the hat off her head, and put it back on the hook with care. “I stole you
r heart under the Madrid moon?”

“Can I steal your heart again?”

“You always had it.”

“I hope so. There’s a fire
in you. I should call you ‘la chispa’.”

“I am ‘the spark’?”

“Sí, and let it be that you need that fire stoked,” he chuckled, and swamped her lips with his. They lost the playful game the moment they kissed; the power that shot through them was very serious, very deep, and very real. Her entire body was behind the force that wanted him. A passionate kiss from her had felt as if she was searching for something, but that had now changed. It had become a window into a private world that only Cayetano got to see. She had no fear in showing how passionate she was, nothing held her back, and those moments only existed because she was with him.

Luna ran her hands across his shoulders and rested around his arms,
and felt the tautness in the muscles. She relished every moment, every flick of his hot tongue in her mouth when he teased her senses with his kiss. Her little hands couldn’t stay on his arms for very long; they began their natural wander over the rest of his body. They felt the muscles in his back, before they curved around to the front of his pants, and nimbly undid the button of his jeans. She did it just to hear the naughty laugh escape his lips. The childish snigger disappeared the second she slipped her thumbs into the sides of his pants and pulled them from his hips. Now her hands could have every ounce of his body, and the desperate way he began to inhale told her what he felt was something adult.

Cayetano could hardly breathe; the arousal she continued to stimulate made him feel as if he would burst at any moment. His lips left hers only long enough for him to pull her skin-tight dress from her body, and his own shirt so he could feel her against him. He
trailed his lips down her neck while he fumbled to get her bra off, before his hands arched around her to her breasts, unable to resist a not-so gentle caress of a nipple. He would have smiled at his success of building the fire that grew in her, but he was much too dizzy in his own desires. He barely had Luna on her back on the couch below the window before his hands continued their journey. They trailed down to her underwear and pushed past them in a heartbeat.  She cried out the moment his fingers grazed her sensitive skin, and he brought his lips back up to hers. “Shh…” he muttered. “This is our little secret.”

“I don’t think I can keep it a secret for much longer,” she panted, and clutched at his lips with hers.
Her hands had fallen from him, her body unable to perform any task now. Her fists grabbed at the couch cushions beneath her; her toes curled while she tried to silence her cries as he tantalised her. “Poor innocent me, seduced by some hot Spanish guy,” she whispered.

“You’re a woman who needs an awakening, but the desire is already in y
ou.” Just that thought sent the familiar tremble in his veins she elicited every time they came together, their naked flesh pressed hard against each other. His eyes were dark with the desire to give her a dose of the potency and vigour inside him. “Of course I wouldn’t want to be anything less than a gentleman with the lady.”

“Sometimes, I don’t want to be a lady,” she replied when he ran his thumb over her bottom lip. She felt his hand drift down her neck, curve down between her breasts, over her stomach, and softly part
ed her weak thighs again. They were unable to resist him. She took a deep, shuddering breath when he touched her again. “Sometimes I just want to be a woman. One that can’t wait any longer.”

Cayetano leaned over her,
and brought his body to claim her. He loved the helpless cries he could coax from Luna when he made love to her. They added to the erotic sensitivity that ran between them. But the game of having to remain silent only heightened everything, the power that surged through them continued to intensify while they fought to internalise it all. Every nerve Luna had shattered when she felt the familiar shudder of satisfaction in Cayetano, and she let herself go, to let the flood of pleasure and indulgence pour through her. They both slumped back on the couch, desperate to catch their breath, the only sound in the silent apartment.

“Having to be silent is a fun game,” she giggled through her laboured breath.

“Yeah,” Cayetano replied, the sound of satisfaction in his voice. “That experiment makes it pretty…”

“Wow.”

“Wow!”

“Thanks for letting me into your secret room.”

Cayetano lifted his head and looked into her eyes that sparkled in the dim light of the room. “Thanks for letting me in.”

“Let you in
to what?”

“Your heart. Time spent in love with you is time very well spent.”

18

Cuenca, España ~ marzo de 1939

Scarlett shivered. She had no idea what to do and felt very out of place. The light had begun to creep in the window at the Beltrán house. Daylight made the situation seem more real. A new day
had dawned, but the world wouldn’t look the same again. How she wished these days would stop dawning.

Alejandro sat across the tiny room at the table. For some time, his head had slumped down on the table top. He was blind drunk. Both Scarlett and Cayetano had also drunk a lot over the last few hours, but Alejandro was close to comatose, and no one
would stop him drinking himself to sleep.

Scarlett had scrubbed her hands so many times, but she couldn’t get Sofía’s blood out from under her nails. She had gone home and ripped off her bloodied clothes and tossed them, and tried to wash herself clean with a bucket of water. The cold water stung like knives on her skin, and she didn’t care. Her so
ul would never be clean.

Cayetano glanced up from the seat beside Alejandro and looked at Scarlett. “Do you want to go home for a while?” he asked her.

Alejandro jolted upright at the sound and looked at his friend. “Please don’t leave me!” he cried.

“We aren’t leaving you,” Scarlett said. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“How could you do this to me?” he mumbled. His eyes began to fill with tears again. “How could you let my wife die? My beautiful Sofía is dead.”

Scarlett bit her lip in an effort to steady her emotions. He was right; she had betrayed them all. She had let Sofía slip away. The moment she had managed to get the baby out, the onslaught of blood just poured from her friend. Her
haemorrhage had been horrific, and Scarlett and Luna had been helpless. The baby had the cord wrapped around its little neck, its body as lifeless as its beautiful mother. Scarlett had wiped a heavy veil of tears from Luna’s face before she had handed the baby boy to her, and sent her off in the direction of the back entrance to the hospital with the precious bundle. When Cayetano had come in search of Scarlett through the hallways, he had found her on the floor, covered in the blood of her best friend, weeping uncontrollably. There was nothing she could do. She had failed them all.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Alejandro… I’m so sorry.”

“What do we have left to fight for now?” he asked. “Everything I have ever wanted is gone. In my bed is the body of my wife. Sofía is gone, and there is no reason to go on now.” He had witnessed Scarlett and Cayetano carry Sofía’s limp body out of the back of the hospital to take her home. He didn’t know why they needed to move her out of the hospital, and didn’t care.

“Why don’t you go and sit with Sofía for a while, mi amigo,” Cayetano suggested with caution.  “Lie down with her.”

“Lie next to her cold body?” Alejandro cried. He was inconsolable. “You don’t understand what it’s like, Caya! She is not some woman you play with, she’s my wife. She was the mother of my son! She’s dead!”

“Scarlett put a bullet in each of the people who are responsible,” Cayetano replied.

“That helps me in no way at all.” He took another drink from the bottle on the bare table and banged it back down, not in control of his own hands with inebriation. “I want to die. Now I have no need to save my country.”

Cayetano and Scarle
tt shared a look while they listened to their friend slur his words. “You do,” Cayetano said. “You have many reasons.”

The tense silence broke with the faintest sound, the soft and desperate cry of the baby. T
he sound was enough to pierce the broken hearts around the room. The door through to Alejandro and Sofía’s bedroom opened, and there stood Luna with the crying child. She had been sitting with Sofía, to allow the child to lie next to his mother, if only for a little while.

“I don’t want to see the baby,” Alejandro said at his sister. He didn’t even look in her direction.

“You have to,” Luna said. She had no idea how to care for a child herself. The baby had fussed for hours, and surely he would be hungry, but his mother would never be able to feed him. “He’s your son.”

“The child has no mother,” Alejandro snapped. “How am I supposed to be what he needs? There’s no place for a baby here.”

Scarlett stepped forward and took the infant from Luna. When she looked at the squirming boy, Scarlett could see his mother in him. The child would never even be held by Sofía. “Luna, I need your help. I have some tinned milk in my bag. We need to feed the baby.”

“Good idea,” Cayetano commented, and watched Luna rummage through Scarlett’s backpack that sat on the third chair at the table. “It was lucky that we got hold of that tinned milk in Barcelona. People thought those supplies the Russians sent weren’t going to come in handy.  I’m glad I took it when I got the chance. Lucky that shipment had been food and not weapons.”

“It’s been a while since we have been able to get milk,” Luna commented and looked at the blank tin in her hands.

Scarlett was still fixated on the baby in her arms. This poor innocent child, born into a world like this. The baby meant so much to her, and it wasn’t even her son. To see his face blue when she freed him from his mother’s body was terrifying.
She had never performed mouth-to-mouth on a baby until last night. In a matter of minutes, she had murdered two women, watched her friend die and saved a life. It was all too much. “All babies are conceived out of love, or lust,” she said, and ran her fingers through the baby’s black hair. “All babies are born out of pain. All babies should be raised in joy, not grief.”

Luna couldn’t hold back her tears. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

“You are going to hold this hungry baby for me,” Scarlett said and handed the wriggling infant to his aunt. Just holding the baby sent a deep ache through her belly, and she couldn’t take another ounce of pain. Death lived at number 15 San Martín, and this child didn’t belong there.

“We need to think of what we’re going to do now,” Cayetano said, and watched Scarlett pour the milk into a little glass bottle. It looked to be no more than a few mouthfuls of milk that she had for him. “
It’s time to get out of Cuenca. It’s a miracle we weren’t discovered at the hospital!”

“What’s the point?”
Alejandro spat at him. He still couldn’t turn in his seat and face the women who stood behind him by the stove.

“There is every point,” Scarlett said and shook the bottle. “Who’s going to feed the baby his first drink?” she asked.

“Don’t look at me,” Alejandro grumbled. “That’s a job that belongs to his mother.”

Scarlett shared a look with Cayetano. Alejandro was in such a deep pit of despair, and rightly so, but so much hung in the balance now. “Luna,” she said and turned to her. “You feed the baby.”

“I don’t know how,” she said. She could barely hold the grizzling baby that squirmed in her arms.

“Time to learn.” She handed her the little bottle. “Put the edge to his lips and let him taste the milk. He won’t know that it doesn’t come from his mother. Hold the bottle close to your breast, to comfort him.”

Luna held the bottle to the child’s mouth, and her hand shook. The shock of everything that had gone on ran through her, and only adrenalin kept her awake. She had taken the baby out of the hospital to her brother and just cried. He knew in a second that his wife was dead. The baby had begun to cry in her arms out in the cold. Not a word needed to be said. Luna had barely spoken since then, not when Scarlett and Cayetano brought Sofía’s body home, not when she sat with her sister-in-law on her bed, nothing. Her life was shattered. Now the baby was in her arms, and he grunted furiously while he searched for sustenance from the bottle. He didn’t need to be shown what it was; he latched on and began to suckle, much to Luna’s relief.

“Don’t force him,” Scarlett said quietly and ran her hands through his little curls again. “He won’t need much.”

“Ale,” Luna said. “Please, come to your son.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I can’t.”

Cayetano just looked at his destroyed friend. Things needed to be sorted out, and he needed to take over. Scarlett could only cope with so much, and Luna had more or less just become a mother. “We need to arrange a burial for Sofía, as soon as possible. Then, we are all leaving Cuenca for Valencia. Tomorrow, if we can.”

“How will we arrange a funeral in that time?” Luna asked.

“We don’t. We tell everyone that she went into labour last night, here at home, and she died before we could send for a midwife. Neither you, Luna, or Alejandro, had any idea what to do when Sofía began to bleed.”

“Won’t it seem suspicious that we didn’t call for help?” Luna asked.

“There was no help,” Alejandro said and sniffed. He didn’t even bother to wipe his tears from his face. “When I saw Sofía at the hospital after her shift, she said that the midwife on duty had been called away. That’s why Sister Rosa had offered to look her over…”

“Right, in that case, you did send for a midwife, but no one could be found. The hospital was locked up already
, being as short-staffed as it is. By the time you got back to the house, you found Luna had managed to deliver the child, but Sofía had bled out.”

“Can’t we say that Scarlett was here?” Luna asked. She didn’t look up from the baby, who was nuzzling the teat on instinct.

“No, Scarlett had already left for Valencia.” Cayetano looked at Scarlett, who seemed unsure. “Nurse Montgomery had already left to catch a ship, in order to return home to Nueva Zelanda. That way, Scarlett can’t be implicated in the two bodies that have no doubt already been found in the hospital. We arrange for a private burial for Sofía, and we get the hell out of here. All of us. We just get into the truck, and we leave everything behind. It doesn’t matter where we sail for, as long as all of us get out of here.”

“We can’t just leave Sofía like that,” Luna sa
id. Just the thought made hot tears come to her eyes. She just wanted to fall into Cayetano’s arms and sob and couldn’t.

“Don’t bury her here,” Alejandro muttered. “You know the stories of bodies being dug up and paraded to frighten the masses. I don’t want that for Sofía.”

“That happened to nuns bodies, and it happened in Barcelona, not in Cuenca,” Cayetano replied.

“Then
we take her body with us,” Scarlett said. “We will find a safe place to bury her.”

“A quiet place, in the countryside,” Alejandro said and turned in the direction of the bedroom. Maybe he would finally go and see his wife. “Sofía wanted to live in the country. She wanted to be far away from all the suffering she saw. She … she wanted to have lots of babies…” His voice trailed off into sobbing and his head hit the table again.

Scarlett stepped forward and placed her hand on Alejandro’s shoulder. “Save her baby, Ale. A part of Sofía is here, and you can save him.”

“Let’s go to Valencia,” Cayetano said. “Let’s go today, before they start looking for the killers of the nurse and nun. We have nothing here, let’s just run. We can care for the girls and the baby in Valencia, Alejandro. We can find a safe place for Sofía.” His voice was gentle and sympathetic. The red rings around his eyes conveyed the pain that the others felt.
“Soon Franco’s troops will be here. We will be killed and the girls will be raped. We need to get out of here.”

“Scarlett,” Alejandro’s voice croaked. “You take the baby. Take it to Nueva Zelanda with you.”

“Ale, no,” Luna interrupted. The baby had fallen asleep in her arms, and now that he was calm, Luna had regained some of her confidence. “He’s your baby. You can’t be separated from him.”

“Where will be safe for him?” Alejandro replied.

“Francia?” Cayetano offered. “We could try and go there.”

“No, he needs to be far away from thi
s hellhole,” Alejandro replied, his voice full of hate now. “Take him, Scarlett. Tell them that he is yours and that you gave birth to him here. They will let him into the country with you. What’s the inglés name for Alejandro?”

“Um… Alexander… but I can’t do that,” Scarlett said. “I can’t take your son from you.”

“You need to save him!” Alejandro said and took a deep breath. “We’re all going to die. Soon even Valencia will be in the hands of the enemy. Take Luna with you.”

“No!” Luna said. “I’m staying here, and I’m marrying Cayetano.”

Alejandro turned to face his sister and the baby. “What?”

Luna held
out her hand and showed him the Medina diamond. “I’m marrying Cayetano. I will not abandon this country, or my family. We will fight. Papá will come home to us, and we will figure this out. Together.”

“Papá is as good as dead in Madrid!” Alejandro said and stood up from his seat with great haste. “You can’t marry Cayetano!”

“I can, and I will,” she said with defiance.

“You don’t even know who he is! You don’t even
know who his father is, or how he got his hands on a piece of the Medina jewellery collection.”

“Ale,
this isn’t the time…” Cayetano said and stood up. His friend was close to losing control. “You know Sergio Medina is not my real father.”

“But his wife is your mother…”

“I don’t care who Cayetano’s family is. I want to be his wife,” Luna said.