Rio Grande Wedding (18 page)

Read Rio Grande Wedding Online

Authors: Ruth Wind

BOOK: Rio Grande Wedding
10.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Turning back to her coffee, Molly had the sense she'd broken some code she'd barely been aware existed.
Behind her, someone laughed, and Molly found herself cringing a little, wondering what they were saying about her. It wasn't that hard to imagine. No doubt Alejandro's good looks had been discussed in detail, and there were bound to be comments about an irascible charmer using the gullible widow to get a green card.
Not all of it would be mean-spirited. They were not, in general, a mean-spirited bunch. They were ruggedly individualistic, as well, forged in the live-and-let-live world of the West. In no time, they would begin to sympathize with the plight of a man who needed to care for a little girl who depended on him—all of them could relate to that, and because extended families were often so large and so common, there would be little distinction made between a niece and a daughter. Soon, everyone would forget that he had come to them an outsider. His charm, his good looks, his devotion to his duty would all win approval for him. The women would lead it.
How well she knew them! And in that moment of honesty, she could admit that she had not broken some vague community code she'd known nothing about. She had known, right from the beginning, that she was risking their censure if they discovered what she'd done. More, she'd done it willfully, and everyone knew it now.
Her crime was not one of passion. They would have forgiven passion. No, her crime was much more basic: she'd lied.
She'd lied when she found him—lied to her brother about Josefina visiting her, lied to her doctor and the pharmacist about a nonexistent sore throat, lied to her boss about being sick. And lied some more by saying she was in love with a man only so he could get a green card.
Lied, and they all knew it. Her punishment would be a form of banishment, an exclusion from their ranks that would last until she had had time to win back their trust. In some cases, it was likely gone forever. With the rest, it would take quite a while.
Maureen sailed by with the coffeepot and topped off Molly's coffee and bolted away before Molly could say anything. Which, now that she understood the lay of the land, she would not.
She had known what consequences she had risked by undertaking this business, and thinking of Alejandro, lying almost dead on her land that morning, she knew she would do exactly the same thing all over again. Her actions had saved a little girl's life, and even if she could, she wouldn't do anything to change that
Still, it was with a vague sense of loss that she took two one-dollar bills from her purse and put them on the counter for the coffee and a tip and left, as an outsider would, without stopping to chat with anyone.
On the sidewalk, the wind sailed around the corner of the building and slammed into her body, ice-cold. Surprised, she lifted her head and scented moisture in the air, and to the west was a line of dark gray clouds, low and heavy. There would be snow before morning—and right on time.
She still needed to find her brother. But just now, she had lost heart.
 
Alejandro sat with Josefina until she was calm again, and fell asleep, then remembered he had promised to keep his strength up, and went to the cafeteria for a meal.
As he sat there, the pretty nurse from Molly's floor came in. Spying Alejandro, she made a beeline to him. “Hi. Are you okay?”
He nodded, and glanced around, unwilling to give the wrong impression. “Yes, thank you.” He went back to his food.
“Do you mind if I sit down for a minute?”
He had no wish to be rude, but he had not missed her flirtatious glances before, and perhaps someone would think the wrong thing. As he tried to think how to answer her, she smiled. “Don't worry. It's not the same here. No one will think anything if I sit with you.” She smiled at his hesitation. “Promise.”
With a gesture, he indicated the place across from him.
“I couldn't help overhearing what happened in the hallway this afternoon,” she said. “And, uh, I want to tell you that they're lying.”
He raised his head. “Who is lying?”
“The sheriff. And Molly's brother.” Her large eyes were grave. “I don't know what the law is exactly, but my cousin married a guy from Mexico and he has a green card, not trouble.” She shrugged. “They're just trying to scare you guys.”
Alejandro put down his fork, narrowing his eyes. “So they cannot make me go.”
The woman sighed, tapping her nail against the table. “I'm not sure, exactly. They could cook something up, trying to hurt you. If they actually deport you, it might be really hard to get back.”
“Ah.” He tore a section of tortilla. “What happens to Molly if I do not let them deport me? Can she be in trouble?”
“Not really.” She made a sad little face. “No more than she's in already.”
“She is in trouble now?”
“Not law trouble,” she said matter-of-factly. “Just town trouble. Nobody is talking to her.”
He made a face. “They are making her the outsider.”
“Right. It would be easier for her if she wasn't an Anglo. If her brother wasn't a deputy sheriff, if her husband wasn't a guy—” She broke off. “Sorry. I sound like I'm trying to make trouble between you, and although I think she's a very lucky woman, I'm really not like that.” She started to stand up. “Sorry.”
“Annie, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Please, stay a little.” He frowned, gesturing her into place. She settled uneasily, her palms flat on the table. “I did not know all these things,” he said. “I understand about her brother. And if she were Latina, like you, there would be a place for us, no?”
She nodded.
“But I do not know about her husband. Why does he make it harder for her?”
Annie took a breath, let it go. “Because everybody loved him. He was good people. He was handsome, and real strong, and nice to everybody. If you had trouble, he'd give you the shirt off his back.” She warmed to the story, leaned forward. “One time? My grandpa's roof caved in on one side in the snow, and it was Tim who went there and fixed it for nothing.”
“I thought,” Alejandro said slowly, “that he must have been a very good man to have won Molly.”
“Oh my God!” She put a hand over her mouth. “This is a green card wedding! I should have guessed! It's just like her to do something like this, and really, it seemed kinda weird that she was just all of a sudden in love so fast—!” She winced. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “I do not wish to cause her problems. She has been very kind to me. To us. My niece would have died if Molly...” He took a breath and blinked at the stab in his side. “I must let her go. There must be something. Some way?”
“Are you sure that's what she wants?”
“No.” He raised his head, very sure. “She will wish to continue this marriage, because she thinks it is the best thing for us. But she will lose her brother. Her community. The price is too high.”
Troubled, Annie frowned. “Do you want me to see what I can find out?”
“Please. And please do not tell Molly that her brother lied to her. There is enough trouble between them. She does not need to know.”
 
Molly stopped by the grocery store and found the place crowded as all the other locals stocked up in case of a nasty snowfall. Often they came at this time of year, huge snowfalls that stopped everything in the high valley while it came down, stilling the world with a fuzzy whiteout.
She got the groceries, including one full bag for Lynette, who hated driving in the snow. At her brother's house, she saw the cruiser was parked in front, and she carried the bag of groceries to the door, feeling a strange sense of awkwardness. Unbelonging.
A feeling that was not improved when Josh himself opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, putting on his hat in preparation for returning to work. He looked a little startled when he saw her, then remembered to frown. “We have plenty of groceries, Molly. We're not some charity.”
“You can pay me for them if you think you need to. I wasn't doing it to help you, but your wife.”
“She doesn't need you.”
“And neither do you, right?” Molly said. She'd meant the words to be angry, bitter, but to her horror, they came attached with the edge of tears in her throat.
He bowed his head, and Molly found her eyes on the tender nape of his neck, below the close bristles of blond hair. It was a vulnerable place, one that showed his youth and stubbornness. “Josh, I hate this so much! You're the only family I have, and I can't stand for us to be in a fight.”
For a long minute, he kept his head down, then looked at her, his defenses firmly in place. “We're not in a fight, Moll. We're just on different sides of an issue.”
“So it's going to ruin our relationship if I hold an opinion that differs from yours? Is that what's happening here?”
Lynette pulled open the door, scowling. “You two come in here right now,” she said in a tone of voice that had been ordering around children for years. “You're not gonna stand on my front porch and air your dirty laundry.” When both Josh and Molly hesitated, she put a hand on her hip. “Inside. Now.”
They obeyed. Lynette pushed them to the kitchen, thanked Molly for the groceries and put them on the counter, before she bustled toward the door. At the threshold, she paused. “Thrash it out pretty quick. The kids'll be home in a half hour, and I won't have them see you two fighting.”
Molly leaned on the counter. “The sheriff stopped by the hospital a little while ago.”
Josh sat and took off his hat. A lock of hair stuck up, and Molly ached to smooth it down as she always had. She put her hands in her pockets and waited for him to speak. “I figured,” he said.
“Why did you have to do it like that, Josh?”
“I had to, Molly. You're breaking the law. I know that wedding isn't real.”
She opened her mouth to lie, then closed it. Maybe the time for lying was over. She thought of Alejandro's hands on her body this morning, thought of his mouth, kissing hers and said instead, “My feelings are very complicated right now, but it doesn't matter anyway. A wedding isn't enough to keep him here.” Tears suddenly filled her eyes and she collapsed in the opposite chair. “And it didn't have to come to that. You didn't have to tell them.”
An odd expression crossed his face—guilty and confused. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
She raised her head, dashing tears away. “All I know is what the sheriff told me—he'll let Alejandro stay until Josefina is out of the hospital, but then he has to go back to Mexico and petition to come back as my husband.”
“I'm real sorry, Moll,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “but you're the one who got all noble, not me.”
“Noble? There's a lot involved here, but nobility isn't really a big part of it.”
Josh sighed. “Moll, don't take this wrong, but—maybe you do like him. Maybe you really want somebody in your life. I can understand that. But did you ever consider that he might be using you?”
“No. He wouldn't do that.”
“Cripes, Molly! Listen to yourself! D‘you think all those confidence men out there bilking old ladies of their savings are ugly swines who can't string a sentence together? You think that would work?” His blue eyes threw sparks. “This Sosa is real smooth. You should hear the women, all over town, who've seen him. It's like we have some big-time movie star in town. He could have love slaves from here to Mexico City with the snap of a finger.”
Molly made a sound of exasperation. “So if a man is charming and good-looking, he's automatically running a con?”
“No! But look at it from his side. Here's this lonely widow, with all that land, no man. How hard would it be?”
“It would be easy,” she said, surprisingly calm. “Except that's just not his style.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You aren't going to listen to me, but I'm not going to sit idly by and let you make a fool of yourself with this guy. What happens in six months or a year down the line when he starts sampling the wares of all the women in town?”
“Listen to yourself! You're acting like I'm a sixteen-year-old girl in heat! Like I have no judgment, like I can't make decisions for myself!” She narrowed her eyes. “I don't want to be protected, Josh. I want to live my life on my own terms—and I'll take my chances on making mistakes.”
“Fine, but do you have to start by falling in love with some—”
“What, Josh?”
His mouth hardened. “With a guy whose got nothing to lose by taking you for all you have.”
“No, damn it! Don't you get it? It might not be a mistake at all! Any more than buying that old house I wanted when I married Tim. I would have been happy in that house, and you know what? If you'd stayed out of my way and let me buy it when Tim died, I would never have met Alejandro.”

Other books

On the Wing by Eric Kraft
Mara McBain by McCade's Way
The Billionaire’s Curse by Newsome, Richard
Little Blackbird by Jennifer Moorman