“Why do you defend him?”
Her features morphed in understanding, her goodness pouring out. “I’m not defending him, Violeta. Not at all. But I saw what was between you two. Something real and instant. An instinct you both possessed that recognized the other. There was no mistaking it.”
“Then maybe I should have known he would leave me.”
Her face pinched.
“What?” I asked.
“I just never believed the reason he gave.”
All those questions spiraled and blazed. I shoved them down. “The reason doesn’t matter. He left me, Mama. He walked away. For six years.”
“And now he’s here.”
I exhaled a heavy sound. “And now he’s here.”
“And in trouble.”
I huffed out a heavy sigh through my nose. “I think he’s always been trouble.”
“Yes, he has. The best kind of trouble.” Her eyes danced.
“Mama,” I chastised, not sure if I wanted to laugh or cry.
She reached out and took my hand, squeezed it tight. “I just want my baby to be happy. To know her heart is free. With Richard or without him.”
She didn’t need to say it, the rest of what she’d thought.
Before I go.
I squeezed her hand fiercely, sorrow a thousand bricks piled on my chest. “I will be fine, Mama. I promise you.”
“I know you will be fine, my angel. But I want you to fly. To soar. For your joy to blossom with more color and beauty than every flower in the field.”
My voice hitched in desperation. “I love you. Love you with all of that.”
“And I love you,” she whispered. “I’ve had it, Violet. That true joy. My family.”
Heartbreak blanketed her ashen face, hopeful desperation in her quieted voice. “Have you had any news on Liliana?”
My heart clanged against my ribs, but I forced a wary smile that I hoped came across as positive when just thinking about it made me want to spiral. “The private investigator said it would take time, but he felt confident he would find her.”
But would she be dead or alive?
Would she come?
Would she steal away that joy my mama was talking about?
Staggering fear slammed me, my lungs squeezing in a fist.
“I’ll bring her here, Mama. If there is any way possible, I will bring her here.”
She nodded through the streaks of moisture that dripped out of the corners of her eyes and rushed into her hair. I crawled over to her, laid down on my side, and wrapped my arms around her.
A silent promise.
And a wish that I didn’t have to let her go.TwentyRichardAwareness panged in my chest, heart giving an extra beat at the sight of her.
Eyes eating up the girl who stepped out the front door and clicked it shut behind her.
She was wearing a sundress.
The sexiest sundress I’d ever seen.
Red.
Thin straps and a ruffle that ran across the straight neckline, exposing the gorgeous skin of her chest and shoulders, arms thin but built from working out in the fields. A mess of black hair was tied up high on her head in a ponytail and wrapped in a ribbon.
A few tendrils got free and kissed along her collarbones that I could barely glimpse over the top of the billowy fabric.
The dress landed just above her knees.
Black cowgirl boots on her feet.
My insides tightened.
She looked like a picture of home.
Wanting to get to her faster, I stepped out of my truck, rushed anew with the sense of standing on even ground when I’d been clawing through desolation for the last six years. That I was there, right in the place where I’d been purposed. Where I would have belonged if I hadn’t been condemned.
I shoved those thoughts down. Wanted to savor this moment. To give myself over to the fantasy of what this could have been if I hadn’t made that one mistake that had sent me toppling into a black hole.
One that just got darker and uglier and vaster the farther I fell.
If I hadn’t thirsted for success so desperately.
She edged across the porch while I took a couple steps her direction. A cool breeze blew through, whipping those strands around her gorgeous face, that mouth covered in a shiny gloss, her eyes luminous and mysterious and overflowing with every question that I’d left her with.
That stunning body written in nerves.
Toiling and shivering.
I was wracked with a bout of longing, so intense and fierce, it almost dropped me to my knees.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I said, leaning against the front of my truck and waiting for her to come my direction.
“Hi,” she whispered. Wariness bled from her demeanor. But beneath it was something more.
Something that had been us.
That relentless energy that had staked its claim on who we were.
A connection unending even when it should have been ripped up at the root.
It banged and lashed and heaved through the dense air.
Girl’s eyes flashed and those lips parted.
Affected.
I pushed off the truck and strolled her way. Hands stuffed in my pockets to keep from doing something stupid like reaching out and touching.