Worth the Drive (45 page)

She took a deep breath. “And I hope you are about to become part of a family.” That wasn’t how she’d meant to say it, and she could tell by the confused look on his face that he hadn’t understood her meaning.

“
Sî
, Miguel and I
made plans. We’
ll stay in touch. He is even going to see my mother in San Barria, to explain to her.”

“That’s good. That’s great in fact. But that’s not what I meant.”

Again his brow shot up in question.

“I meant
our
family. You. Me. And the baby.”

He said nothing. The room was silent. The sudden whir of the hotel room’s air
conditioner
made her jump. It seemed a thousand years to Katie, but finally
Darío
cleared his throat and said, “And what role do you see me playing in our family,
Gata
?”

Katie stood up and walked to the bureau, to her laptop case and got out the envelope she’d brought with her. She turned to
Darío
and saw his suspicious glance at the legal-looking papers.

“It’s not what you think. It’s not like Memphis and these aren’t papers asking you to give up rights to your child.”

“Some sort of custody settlement, then?” His voice was resigned.

He was getting the wrong idea. She’d botched this up. She quickly took the papers and put them down, away from them.

“They have nothing to do with the baby. It’s my final divorce decr
ee. I am officially divorced from
Ron.”

His head shot up, his eyes narrowed at her. “Surely he is not staying with Amber after what he has found out?”

“No, he’s not.”

“Katie, he wants to be your husband. I know this. Maybe he just hasn’t found the way to – ”

She cut him off. “He told me. He came to see me. To talk about a reconciliation.”

“And yet you
can’t
forgive him?”

“I forgive Ron. He wasn’t the only one to blame for our marriage falling apart. I forgive him, but I don’t love him. And a marriage without love is not one I want.”

She heard the whoosh of breath leave his body and it gave her the will to forge on. She walked to him and knelt on one knee in front of him. His hands instinctively sprang out to help her, but she waved them away. “I love you,
Darío
Luna
. With all my heart. You and no other.”

She took his hand in hers and met his warm gaze. “Will you marry me?”

He didn’t say anything.

Defeated, humiliated, she started to get up, but she caught her foot in the leg of her shorts and tumbled headfirst into
Darío
, causing him to sprawl backward on the bed, Katie draped on top of him.

“Are you okay?” His hands instinctively went out to protect the baby, but the fall was a short one and with a very soft landing –
Darío
.

“I’m fine. Fine. I’m so sorry.” She tried to get up, get away from him, but he gently clasped her arms and held her to him.

“I said many months ago that making love with you would be
muy
dangerous,
Gata
. I
now amend that to a
life
with you will be
muy
dangerous.”

Her head sprung up. Did he mean it? “Do you mean it?”

He rolled them so that Katie was on her back. He propped himself up on an elbow looking down on her. “
Sî
,” he said.

“
Sî
to what?” she asked.

He smiled, that warm, crooked, she’d never get tired of looking at, smile.

“Sî to all of it. Meaning what I said. And
sî
to your proposal. Most definitely
sî
to that.”

He kissed her. He tasted just as she remembered. Exotic. Warm. Hungry. She kissed him back, their tongues tangling. He moved over her just as she put her arms out to reach for him and
she
punched him in the chin. “Oh, I’m so sor – ”

“Shhh,” he whispered in her ear, sending a chill through her. His hands were on her belly now, measuring, soothing, feeling. He looked up at Katie. “She is such a miracle,” he said, mirroring her thoughts.

“She?” she teased.

“
Si
. Peaches,” he said, gently kissing her belly. Then he returned to her mouth with less gentleness and Katie’s urgency matched his.

He began whispering Spanish in her ear and her body went taut.

“
Te amo, Gata
,” he said. “
Te amo
.”

Katie’s body relaxed, and she held him close. She thought back
to
the Spanish woman in the airport telling her about the difference of words. The woman was right.
Te amo
w
as the phrase
Katie longed to hear.

She cradled
Darío
’s face in her hands, meeting the gaze of the man she’d raise her child with. The man who’d given her this miracle that was growing inside her. The man she’d spend the rest of her life with.

The man she loved.

“
Te amo
,” she whispered, raising her lips to his.

The End

Read a sneak peek from a new romantic mystery series from Mara Jacobs

Chapter
One

I stare into the eyes of the man who killed my father.

Maybe.

I mean, maybe he’s the man who killed my father, not the staring part. Although, to be honest, I’m not really staring
into
his eyes, because I’m looking at a photo of him on a computer screen.

Okay. Let me start over.

I stare
at
the eyes of a man who
maybe
killed my father.

I only knew him for a few weeks before witnessing him murder my father, twenty-two years ago. And, I was only a five-year-old girl, not the most reliable witness.

But yeah, it’s him.

I try to calm down. This isn’t the first time I thought I saw someone from my past. I’ve quickly left grocery stores, abandoning my cart mid-aisle, when seeing the flash of a handsome man with dark hair. Only to be embarrassed as I hid in the parking lot and saw a complete stranger walk out later.

But I never thought I’d seen Uncle Chazz before. Until now.

The picture is the desktop picture of my newest acquisition, a used Mac IMAC. The man – I knew him as Uncle Chazz though, even at five, I knew he wasn’t really an uncle – stands behind the bar in a bar/restaurant. To the right of him, in front of the bar is a young couple standing with their arms around each other
.
They’re more dressed up than the people in the background of the bar, like maybe they’ve come from somewhere else. They look to be about my age.

The woman is blonde and pretty. The man is handsome with black hair and blue eyes – a combination I used to love on a man. I quickly dismiss them.

I do a couple of quick clicks and realize that the previous owner didn’t wipe the hard drive clean. That’s not as unusual as you might think. In fact, it’s somewhat common. Even after doing this for four years, I’m still amazed at how people can sell their computers without totally obliterating every bit of personal data.

Some don’t know how, I suppose. Some don’t care. And of course, some computers are stolen, but those are mostly laptops.

The shock value of seeing people’s personal things wore off long ago. And there were some shocking things. On one of the first machines I dismantled, I found a folder of the most disgusting pornographic photos I’d ever seen.

I’ve been around the internet a while, and I’ve …stumbled upon...a lot of porn. Some made me laugh, some aroused me, some got no reaction, some made me sick. So when I say this was DISGUSTING…well, you know it was bad. A couple of folders down from the porn folder on this machine were all the letters the owner had sent out…to his parishioners.

Yeah, that’s right, the guy with all the hard core porn was also a minister.

After awhile I became immune to all the personal docs on the computers I refurbished. Now, I simply don’t care enough to look.

I pick up the ebay receipt that was in the box. The seller is an N. Carpenter. There’s a hand-written note that I’d tossed aside when I unpacked the computer.

I hope you like it. It served us well, but time to move on – Nick

Nick Carpenter from Tennessee sold his Mac on ebay and I bought it. He probably joined the PC nation. Or maybe got a laptop with a new job. Or upgraded to a new Mac. I get a lot of Mac sales that way. Mac users love to have the newest version of everything.

I wonder if the bartender – Uncle Chazz, now, to me – is a part of this Nick’s everyday life, or is he just a bartender that happened to be in one of his pictures? The likelihood of him being
my
Uncle Chazz slims in my mind. The bartender has the same basic features that Uncle Chazz had, but that was twenty-two years ago. He would have been in his early thirties then. The bartender looks to be younger than mid-fifties. And hopefully, Uncle Chazz is rotting in prison somewhere. And if he isn’t, then he got away with killing my father, is running free, and I really can’t imagine him – or any of his ilk – in Tennessee.

Those guys don’t leave their home turf unless they have to.

Like I did.

But the more I stare, the more my hand doesn’t move on the mouse. I can only see the desktop picture.

And Uncle Chazz.

My mind races as to how I can confirm this. Or, better yet, to eliminate the possibility that it’s him. My fingers itch to start Googling, but I know better. No search like that can be traced to this IP address. Or anywhere in the vicinity.

I know there are ways around that, proxies and other stuff, but I don’t trust them. I’ve learned not to.

A thought hits me. The bank. My safe deposit box. I look at the clock, I still have a few hours before my branch closes. Thank goodness they have Saturday hours.

How to do this? I think it through. I don’t want the contents of that box in this house. I know it’s overkill, but it’s how I feel. That life, even the remnants of that life, have no place in this house.

I’ve been through too much to make sure I had this one, small, safe haven.

I take a screen shot of the desktop and then open it up. I enlarge the pic as much as I can without totally blowing out the pixels. I crop out the blonde and her good-looking boyfriend – presumably Nick Carpenter. I hook up a printer to the IMac and print out a copy.

As if someone is watching me, I quickly fold the picture several times, image inward, and place it on my work table. I run upstairs and change out of my sweats, baggy turtleneck, Hello Kitty slippers – my basic work uniform – and into slacks, a light-weight sweater set and loafers. I have about three such outfits for the rare times I go to the bank or to some other professional establishment.

At home I just wear sweats or yoga pants. To run out for take out or to the store, I usually wear jeans. Or sometimes I just stay in the yoga pants.

Pretty inexpensive wardrobe needs. It makes for an uncluttered closet. And not a lot to have to pack on a moment’s notice.

I make the thirty-minute drive to the bank in silence, the print out of the picture sitting on the passenger seat, as if Uncle Chazz is coming for a little ride with me.

I feel a moment of panic at the bank when I pull out my two forms of ID. No reason I should, this is my safe identity. No one outside of this town knows me by this name.

At least no one who wants me dead.

The woman looks at both forms of ID for a while. I don’t blame her; they’ve never seen me in the four years since I got the box. I do my financial stuff at a different bank and most of all my
transactions are done online anyway.