Fierce Love (3 page)

She wondered if Miguel betrayed every woman he met. She had to force herself to ask, “What happened to her?”

Santos waved as they passed two pretty young women in a convertible Porsche. “When our grandmother told her that her beloved Miguel had married an American girl, she hanged herself in the stable.”

“Dear God,” Maggie cried. “It’s no wonder you don’t like me. I’m surprised you agreed to meet me at the airport.”

He replied with a softly voiced curse. “I wasn’t given a choice, Magdalena. You’ll soon learn how Miguel Aragon runs his household or how our grandmother runs it for him. I despise the bitch. She’ll tolerate your presence rather than welcome you to our home. Our Aunt Cirilda is equally vicious. She’s a viper in high heels and blood red lipstick.”

Even if snakes lacked feet and lips, it was a convincing mental image. His hostility echoed her own so loudly she felt an unexpected kinship with him. Another woman would have reached out to touch his arm in silent sympathy, but her hands reminded tightly wound in her shoulder bag’s long strap.

“Thank you for the warning. I haven’t kept up with the Aragon family tree. How many brothers and sisters do we have, and will they all be clustered around our father’s bedside?”

“He refuses to stay in bed, and I doubt he even knows how many children he’s sired, but the others you’ll meet are all legitimate. Vida Ramos was his second wife, and she gave him a daughter and son. Maria Luisa is twenty, and as silly and conceited as her friends. Enrique is seventeen and too wild to care that his father’s dying.”

Maggie nodded thoughtfully. Clearly he could provide a ready reason for disliking everyone he mentioned, and while his opinions would undoubtedly prove valuable, she thought it would be wise to keep an eye on him too.
And how does that make you feel?
Craig’s voice whispered in her ear.

She glanced toward the clear blue of the Mediterranean. They were driving along the Costa Daurada, or Golden Coast, and she realized Santos hadn’t told her where they were bound. “Is Father in a hospital?”

“No, he’s at the house near Tarragona. It’s not nearly as large as the ranch, but it’s easier for everyone to reach, and he loves the sea. The twins are there, Esperanza and Concepcion. They’re the daughters from Father’s third marriage to the opera diva Marina Nuñez. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”

“Sorry, no. I’m not much of an opera fan.”

“There’s no cause for sorrow there. The shrew can barely carry a tune. The twins are thirteen and so thin they are no more than hangers for their designer clothes. They hope to become super models like Heidi Klum and marry rock stars. They wear so much makeup they look like circus clowns. After Father divorced Marina, he wed an Englishwoman, Margaret Hyde-Fox. She died in a plane crash, and Father adopted her son, David, but he refuses to use the Aragon name. He’s also seventeen. Everyone calls him Hide the Fox, or just Fox. He hates us all, but I prefer him to Enrique.”

Santos was so relentlessly negative she wished she could overhear his description of her, but decided she’d rather not. “So, there was your mother, then mine, followed by a woman named Vida, then Marina the opera singer, and Margaret was Father’s last wife?”

Santos sent her a quick scowl. “You can’t count my mother among the wives, and he may marry again. His nurses are all young, pretty blondes, just what he likes.”

Her curiosity piqued, she turned toward him. “What sort of woman appeals to you?”

Santos flexed his hands on the wheel. “The same kind, but I’ll never marry.”

“You’re awfully young to make that decision.”

“I’m not swearing myself to celibacy,” he exclaimed with a deep chuckle. “I’ll just avoid marriage. I’m the only one Father raised. He always expected me to embrace whatever woman occupied his bed, and there were a great many he didn’t bother to marry.”

“Santos,” she sympathized softly.

“Did you imagine Miguel Aragon was a saint? Now, let me finish without interrupting me again,” he scolded. “I don’t recall how many times I came downstairs for breakfast and found a new woman seated at the table. They were all beautiful redheads or blondes. Father has an absolutely pathetic weakness for blondes.”

Now positive her father would be disappointed to find her hair as black as his own, Maggie slumped down in her seat and cautiously kept quiet.

“Often the new woman would have a child or two, and I was expected to share all my wonderful toys with my new playmates. The few women Father did wed remained awhile longer, of course, but like all the others, the end always came. One morning I would wake to find my new brothers and sisters had vanished during the night, but another set would soon arrive to take their places. A few I had actually grown to love and missed terribly, but there were so many over the years that now I can’t recall all their names.”

Maggie could scarcely imagine the chaos of growing up in a home with a constantly shifting cast of characters, but Santos made it plain he didn’t want sympathy. She offered her own story instead. “I was raised by my mother and stepfather. I have two half sisters but no brothers, and I’m very glad to have met you. Although I can’t stay long, I won’t slip away like the others, but you’ll have to help me stay in touch.”

After a brief hesitation, he dipped his head. “I can’t promise much, but I suppose I could try.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to make a note of everyone’s names or I won’t be able to keep them straight.”

At last a relaxed smile crossed Santos’s lips. “Names will be a challenge, but I’ll help you. Perhaps you’ll stay long enough to hear all of Spain shouting mine.”

He had bragged he was popular, but she hadn’t stopped to consider why. The most obvious reason terrified her. “Dear God, Santos, are you a matador too?”

“Of course,” he responded with a booming laugh. “What else would the eldest son of Miguel Aragon be?”

Maggie just shook her head and shuddered.

Chapter Three

The other lavishly appointed villas hugging the Golden Coast also had whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs, but those were the only features they shared with Miguel Aragon’s imposing estate. Obviously inspired by Barcelona’s visionary genius Antonio Gaudí, the architect had foresworn right angles for undulating curves. Exposed beams, stained glass and bougainvillea bearing a profusion of magenta flowers adorned the exterior, and had Maggie not been so eager to meet her father, she would have insisted upon an immediate tour.

Santos parked the Hispano-Suiza at the front of the garage, and a tall man clad in overalls came out to meet them. “That’s Manuel. He serves as chauffeur for our grandmother and aunt and keeps all our cars running. Let’s hurry. I want to take you up to Father’s room before anyone else notices we’re here.”

Maggie had already stepped out onto the gravel driveway before he reached her car door. Her arrival in Spain hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped, and she feared the strangeness of her father’s beach house did not bode well for her stay. “Does this place have a name?” she asked as they entered through an arched doorway.

“It’s
La Casa Contenta
, the House of Contentment, which makes it ill-named for our family.”

Maggie hadn’t needed the translation, but after Santos had greeted her in English, their conversation had become heated so rapidly she’d failed to mention she was fluent in Spanish. Now concerned her grandmother and aunt might actually be as self-serving as he’d described, she fought a brief twinge of guilt, then decided to keep her linguistic talents a secret awhile longer.

Santos led her through a starkly modern kitchen decorated in arctic white and matte-finished steel without speaking to the chef and his helpers, but an exotic mixture of savory aromas provided convincing proof the man was preparing a culinary masterpiece for supper. Maggie hadn’t eaten on the plane, but despite the rush of enticing scents, she felt more hollow than hungry.

Santos gestured for her to precede him up the narrow rear staircase to the second story, but now that she was just seconds away from meeting her father, her mind went maddeningly blank. She’d been too angry with him to memorize a set speech, which might have been a foolish oversight, but she hadn’t known he was ill. Shaking slightly as she reached the landing, she drew in a deep breath and moved aside for Santos to lead the way. All too quickly, he paused before a door set in a deeply recessed arch and rapped lightly.

Before they heard a welcoming response, Maggie had time to note the door’s wrought-iron hinges were adorned with swirling arabesques and attached to the wood at odd angles. The strange house made her feel as though she were a character in some dream-set play, and she wished she’d had sense enough to freshen her makeup and comb her hair before meeting the star.

“How do I look?” she whispered.

Santos leaned down to brush her cheek with a mere hint of a kiss. “You needn’t worry. Father will be proud,” he breathed out against her ear. He then opened the door, gently propelled her on through it and closed it softly behind her.

The large master bedroom faced the sea and was aglow with the radiant light reflected off the water. Momentarily blinded, Maggie looked down at the bare hardwood floor, then toward the massive bed. The four posts had been carved to resemble gracefully twisting tree trunks topped with delicate branches sprouting upwards to form a lacy canopy. A forest green duvet covered the matching sheets and tumble of pillows, but the rumpled bed was empty.

“Magdalena,” Miguel called, his voice low and deep.

Maggie turned toward the sound and was startled to find the opposite end of the room completely open to the balcony overlooking the shore. Leaning back against the rail, her father stood out as a dark silhouette against the brilliant sea. She could make out only a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in dark pajamas and a matching robe, but his face was hidden in shadow.

“It was good of you to come,” he murmured softly. “How was your flight?”

He had posed the casual question without the slightest effort at dramatic effect, as though good manners required it. Because her mother spoke no Spanish, Maggie had expected him to speak English well, but the rich timbre of his voice was a surprise. It was a deep, seductive baritone an actor would kill to possess, and it carried easily over the low roiling rumble of the sea. The sound played on her senses, coaxing her near while wary instincts held her back.

“I’ve never enjoyed flying,” she replied, hesitantly moving closer, still unable to make out her father’s face clearly.

“Neither have I, but my work required it.”

Maggie took another cautious step. Did he actually regard bullfighting as work? she wondered, as though it were merely a way to earn a living, as long as he survived. “That makes it no easier,” she replied.

She felt the cool, salt-scented breeze against her face and dug her nails into her palms. She hadn’t expected a welcoming hug and kiss from the man who’d forgotten all her birthdays, but this sterile exchange troubled her.

“Oh, but it does,” Miguel argued, “because I had no say in the matter. But then I have a regrettable tendency to make foolish choices whenever I do.”

Maggie’s voice rose as she lost all hope of controlling her temper. “Are you referring to your marriage to my mother?”

Miguel’s response was a low, self-deprecating chuckle. “No,
querida.
She was an excellent choice. Marrying her was one of my few good decisions.”

“Then why did you leave us?” Instantly ashamed of the pathetic question, Maggie swung her gaze past him to the sea. Sailboats glided by in the distance, their colorful pennants a reminder of all the childhood parties he’d missed.

Unfazed by her bitter accusation, Miguel tightened his loosely belted robe, then folded his arms across his chest. “Is that what your mother told you, that I left her? I’m surprised. I believed Linda incapable of deceit.”

Maggie remained aloof, but her traitorous body took another step toward him. “She never speaks of you, but I’ve always assumed…” Her voice faded to an uncertain hush.

“That I was the one to end our marriage? No. Your dear mother left me, but I cheated on her within weeks of our wedding. I’m not proud of it, but then, I’ve cheated on all of my wives.”

Maggie was amazed by his candor while at the same time positive a father ought not to admit such a failing to his daughter. “How can you be so nonchalant? Santos’s mother took her own life because you’d left her.” She cursed silently, then bit her lower lip. This wasn’t the conversation she’d longed to have either.

Miguel glanced away, and his profile stood out in sharp relief against the orange-tinted sky. His trim build had changed little since he’d posed for Maggie’s cherished photographs, but his posture wasn’t nearly as proud.

“I didn’t leave Rosa; I was sent away. There’s an enormous difference in the two. She was lovely but lacked your mother’s strength. As I said, I’ve made many poor choices, although the sad affair with Rosa could easily be blamed on our youth.”

With that flippant response, he shrugged off Rosa Sanchez’s suicide as though it had been a thoughtless prank. Maggie felt sick. “Santos said the two of you had grown up together. Didn’t you have any deep feelings for her?”

Indignant, she’d moved closer without realizing it, and when Miguel turned toward her, she saw his face clearly. He was nearing fifty but aging well, and the fine lines at the corners of his dark eyes barely marred his extraordinary good looks. The hint of gray at his temples was a flattering accent. As with the photographs, she saw so much of herself in him her anger lost focus. There was nothing feminine in his features and nothing masculine in hers, and yet they were unmistakably kin.