From Barcelona, with Love (35 page)

“I knew you would come back for me,” Paloma murmured into Bibi's comforting bosom. “I
knew
you would never leave me for good. Moms just don't do that. Ever.”

“Never,” Bibi agreed. “And I'll never do it again.” There were no tears, only happiness. “It's all so clear now, what has to be done,” she said.

Paloma lifted her head, and leaned back to look at her. “It's all because of Mac Reilly,” she said, still gripping Bibi tight. “I knew that day on Malibu beach, if anybody could find you, it would be him.”

 

Chapter 55

What Bruno Peretti
was thinking on the plane to Barcelona was that he'd lost his cool. For once, he had acted on pure impulse instead of a well-thought-out plan. He should have come directly to Barcelona, gotten the kid, and gotten out. He could have done it so easily, because he was still her legal stepfather, and so far the Ravel family had not taken out any court orders against him. They'd had no need, he'd simply disappeared into the woodwork, out of their hair, out of Paloma's life, out of Bibi's life, wherever the hell she was, because if anybody had ever done the perfect disappearing act it was Bibi.

Dead or alive, though, he would get her, eventually. Bibi would end up in that jail, along with the killers and other criminals. His life would begin all over again, and this time he would be on top.
He
would run those de Ravel vineyards, make an international name for himself. He'd send the kid to boarding school in Switzerland, or England, or somewhere; away from Hollywood, that's for sure. This time he would be the star.

First, though, he had to find out where the kid was. He'd already checked and knew she was no longer with Jassy. He guessed Lorenza de Ravel had taken over the responsibility. He would head first for the Ramblas house. Then, the bodega.

He was quite surprised, therefore, when the plane taxied to the gate and two plainclothes detectives came on board and arrested him for the murder in Turin. He was handcuffed and accompanied off the plane flanked by a pair of Guardia, the Spanish cops.

It could, he guessed, be called “a new beginning.” He laughed to himself as he walked across to the police van and got in. He told himself he'd get Bibi yet.

 

Chapter 56

Malibu

A couple of months later,
sitting on Mac's deck watching the ocean, with Tesoro snuggled so deeply into her lap she might never be able to remove her, Sunny thought it seemed as though Barcelona had simply transferred itself to Malibu for the wedding.

Mac was sitting next to her, feet propped, as usual, on the deck rail, hands behind his head and a smile on his face. Pirate leaned his gruff, ugly face adoringly on Mac's knee.

“How did we ever manage in Barcelona without the dogs?” he asked, lazily scratching Pirate's head.

“You mean you could have coped with Tesoro as well as Peretti?”

Sunny was laughing at him, but Mac didn't care. “Laugh all you want, future wife,” he said, not moving an inch, even to grab her and kiss her.

“Not much time left to be a bachelor,” she agreed, sticking her bare feet on the rail next to her fiancé's.

“Jeez,” he said. “Blue toenails.”

“That's the ‘something blue.'” Sunny stared admiringly at her perfectly pedicured feet. “Y'know, the ‘something borrowed, something blue' they always say you must have at weddings.”

“Especially your own wedding.” He gave her a mocking glance out the corner of his eye.

“Oh, my God, it's now!” she said.

Mac groaned and put a lazy hand over her mouth.

“I know, I know, sorry. I'll never say oh my God again, but oh my God, Mac, it is just a few hours away, and we'll be married.”

“Man and wife,” he agreed. “Do you have a dress yet?”

“Do I have a dress!” In fact Sunny had quite a few dresses, at least two of which she'd bought expecting to get married a couple of times previously. Always to Mac, of course. But now it was about to come true.

The wedding was to take place at 6
P.M.
Right here on the beach in front of the house. Bridal planners were busy setting up chairs adorned with fronds of wildflowers and grasses, arranging rows of votive candles in sea-blue glass jars, smoothing the sand where a small gazebo was set up, draped in pale blue chiffon and tied with white roses. Two stakes were being driven into the ground near the gazebo where Pirate and Tesoro would be tethered for safety's sake, so there'd be no jumping up and ruining the bride's dress, which waited, pristine in its blue plastic garment bag, in Mac's bedroom. A mere column of cream silk-satin, soft on the body as the summer breeze. Of course Sunny would go barefoot.

Caterers were barbecuing shrimp and grilling soft-shell crabs; yellowtail sushi was ready to be sliced; buffalo chicken wings—Mac's personal request—would be broiled later. There would be ribs and salads and corn on the cob, and everything beachy and simple they had been able to dream up. And lots of champagne, of course. Sunny's favorite.

She would have one bridesmaid. Paloma, in an ice-blue cotton sundress, and with her now slightly longer hair brushed into a neat buzz cut. And two maids of honor. Allie and Bibi. Ron was to be Mac's best man. All was in order.

Sunny glanced at Mac. She squeezed his hand. “Hey,” she whispered, leaning closer and disturbing Tesoro, who grumbled through her teeth. “There's nothing for us to do.”

Mac turned and smiled. “I know it.” He got up and removed Tesoro from Sunny's lap, then took her hand.

“Come with me, future wife,” he said, leading her, smiling, to the bedroom.

*   *   *

Four hours later,
the barefoot bride walked down the scratchy wooden steps to the beach, a bunch of wilting peonies clutched in her hands and a smile of such joy on her face, people commented it looked as though she was lit from within with some special radiance. Her slender satin dress slid smoothly over her long golden legs, and she wore a gardenia in her long black hair. Paloma preceded her, scattering rose petals with one hand and holding Tesoro on the leash in the other. The dog had a large pink bow tied round his neck—Mac's assistant Roddy's touch—that it was trying desperately to scratch off. Paloma tied the dog to the stake by the gazebo, where Mac waited for his bride.

Bibi walked behind Sunny. Her hair was back to its glorious natural red—natural, that is, with a little help from her hairdresser friends until it grew back in completely, and she wore a short dress, simple and pink because Sunny said pink clashed so beautifully with her hair.

Of course people turned to stare; everybody knew the story of Bibi's redemption and was curious, but she no longer cared. Bibi had found out how to be her own woman. Her song “Just Be” had broken the spell that seemed to hang over her all her life, and Jacinto, who was sitting in the front row, turning now to smile at her as she walked down the sandy path, had not only made her dreams come true, he had made new dreams for her. At this moment, she was happy. She had learned the hard way that it was rare anything lasted forever. She hoped it would but she would take what happiness she could, while she had it, and enjoy it.

Allie followed, long blond hair smooth as silk, her strapless turquoise cotton dress matching her eyes, eyes that were brimming anyway, because she was just so happy for Sunny and Mac, her dearest friends. And happy that Ron, her husband, was there standing up for Mac, the man who'd saved their lives. This was one of the best days of
all
their lives.

Mac watched his love, his woman, his life, stepping barefoot with her blue toenails across the sand toward him. He had never seen her look so beautiful, except maybe a few hours ago when she had lain naked and passionate in his arms, love and lust and promise in her eyes.

Mac had refused to tie Pirate up, and the dog was sitting next to him. He gave Mac's hand a loving little nudge. He was wearing a blue eye patch over the dead eye socket, and a blue satin bow held back his scraggy gray fur. Mac thought his dog had never looked more handsome. But that's love for you.

Jacinto, cool and rock-star sexy, sat next to Jassy in the front row. She was in what Galliano had described to her as “beach wedding couture,” which meant clouds of fine gray silk exactly the color of the mist hanging over the ocean and with a scrap of red net and a feather on her upswept blond hair. She had never looked lovelier.

Rodolfo and his partner William sat on her other side, both handsome and cool, along with Floradelisa, trim in a white linen pantsuit. Only Antonio was missing. And Lorenza, of course, though Sunny had been careful to invite her.

“I think you will be the most beautiful bride,” Lorenza replied, sending a gift of an antique Spanish silver bowl. “And a wonderful wife and darling companion for Mac. I wish you both well, and hope I will always remain your long-distance friend.”

Both Mac and Sunny hoped that too.

Then there was Lev, ugly-attractive, and for once not in a Tommy Bahama tropical shirt, but in plain dark blue, still with the aviators, of course. His shaved head gleamed under the cool gray evening light and there was more than one woman in the audience giving him an appreciative eye.

Sunny's mom and dad were there of course; the handsome Mexican, who ran his ranch near Santa Fe, and his hippie flower-child wife, still with those bangs like a seventies model, wide blue eyes and a matching blue voile caftan, hung around with a dozen shell necklaces in honor of the beach occasion. More family, more friends, all close, all connected, all loving.

It was, Mac thought, looking at his bride as he slid the plain gold ring on her finger, a perfect wedding.

“Finally,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.

“Finally,” Sunny said.

And then Tesoro broke free from her bonds, galloped into the gazebo, and bit Mac on the ankle.

 

Chapter 57

Bibi finally took
the advice Rodolfo had given her that night in Barcelona, and talked to Paloma about her father. First, though, she talked to her friend, Sunny.

It was a couple of weeks after the wedding and Mrs. Sunny Alvarez Reilly had just returned from a honeymoon in Mauritius, where the brochures had proven correct, and the Indian Ocean was blue and transparent and soft as chiffon on the skin, and the sand was white and the snorkeling filled with fishes of every shape and wondrous color imaginable. There were daiquiris with little paper umbrellas in them, and grilled fish for dinner, and a wide, wide bed, hung with soft white muslin to protect them from the night breeze that lifted her hair as she clasped her lover in her arms.

“It was everything a honeymoon could be,” she told Bibi.

They were in Malibu, sitting on the deck, huddled in sweaters because the ocean mist had come in. Still, they loved the salty smell of it, and the way it clung to their hair and their cheeks.

“Homemade moisturizer,” Sunny said, with a grin.

“The best,” Bibi agreed.

Mac and Paloma had taken the dogs and gone to pick up pizzas and also a bottle of Pimm's, the British drink that, mixed with Vernors ginger ale, and with cucumber and a sprig of mint, had become Sunny's current favorite.

“Though maybe it's more of a red wine night,” she said with a slight shiver.

They were both on the old porch swing, swinging lazily back and forth, but Bibi leaned closer to her. “Sunny?” she said. “I have to tell you something. Actually, I want to
ask
you something.”

She was absolutely serious and Sunny stopped swinging.

“What's up?” she asked, suddenly alarmed. “It's not about Paloma?”

“Well, in a way, yes, it is. But it's really about her father.”

This was out of left field. Sunny sat up straighter and listened.

“I never talked to Paloma about him, not because he's bad, like Peretti, but because … well, you see it's because he had his own life. He was happy in that life, and I … we … what happened between us was not a great romance, a falling in love, a ‘live or die' affair of the heart. Oh, it
was
love. I loved him so much, but then you see, I always had. And he's always loved me. Since I was a child.”

“Then he's an older man?”

“To me, he was. And now he is. You see I knew him all my life. He was a friend of Juan Pedro's, a good friend, younger than my father of course, but to a child he was old. He was always there for me, he followed my career, gave me financial advice, advised me about the wrong turns my life was taking, always remembered my birthday.…

“And then Juan Pedro died. I hadn't seen that much of him in those last years, I was busy and Juan Pedro had married again. Our separation made no difference when it came to his death. I was devastated. I couldn't function. All I wanted, after that funeral that Lorenza tried so hard to make a joyous celebration of his life, was comfort. I needed love. And Rodolfo gave that.”

Bibi leaned back in the porch swing, waiting for her reaction, but her friend simply stared out at the ocean, saying nothing, waiting for her to go on.

Bibi said, “It was so gentle, so simple, so warm, so
necessary,
so real; the most loving experience of my life. It was over before it even began. A tender moment between two people who had always loved each other, and always would. Rodolfo had his life partner, and his own life. And I had my work, my talent, my hectic other-worldly ridiculous way of life that I thought so important. Until I found I was pregnant.

“I didn't tell Rodolfo. I couldn't interrupt his life, and he loved William so much, they were a team, partners for life. I wanted him to think it was somebody else's child. And I wanted the baby so badly, I wanted to keep the memory of our night together. Had it been a boy I would have named him for Juan Pedro, but I got my dear little girl, and that's when I finally told Rodolfo.