Lauraine Snelling (19 page)

After a stroll through the soaked pastures, she tied him in the alleyway and found a wheelbarrow and fork. Cleaning the stall made her wonder about the women still at Los Lomas. They’d given her a good send off. Thank you cards and hugs. She’d never dreamed that leaving would be so hard. Hard because while she was being given the gift of a lifetime, fear ate at her insides. What if she couldn’t do it? And now that she realized how far away from a town they lived, other questions arose. What if Gil Winters changed his mind and asked her to drive? She tossed more of the manure into the wheelbarrow. She’d never drive again.

NINETEEN

B
ut why, Dad, why didn’t you invite Maggie to come for dinner?”

Gil shook his head for the third time. No matter how he worded his excuses, that’s exactly what they sounded like—excuses.

Eddie ignored Bonnie’s vociferous greeting and concentrated on his father. “You tell me not to be rude.” He stroked Bonnie’s head with one hand. “And to always think of the other person.”

“That’s enough. Just leave it, okay?” The snap in his voice was nothing compared to the fire in his brain.

“Get washed for dinner, chico.” Maria’s soft voice was also more command than request.

Eddie glared from one adult to the other, spun his chair, and if he’d been able, would have laid tire tracks.

“Eddie, he is upset?”

“Yeah well, join the club.” Gil raked stiff fingers through his hair.

“Dinner in five minutes. I make pulled pork tacos.”

I don’t want dinner, I don’t want more discussion with Eddie, and I don’t want that woman on my property
. “Fine, I’ll go wash.” Taking out his irritation on Maria would not benefit anyone. Maybe he should call Ben and see if he’d meet for a game of racquet ball. Surely if he slammed that hard little ball enough, he would feel more in control of things. He and Eddie returned to the table at the same time.

“Owner of the pool company call today. He say come by tonight, unless you say no.” Maria set the steaming platter in front of him so he could begin serving.

“That’s fine. Any idea what he wanted?”

She shook her head and returned to open the stainless steel door of the refrigerator to take out the salad. “Eddie, I made your favorite for tonight—sopapillas.”

“Gracias.” He sat stiffly, his voice matching his body. He had yet to look at his father.

Gil recognized the punishment but refused to succumb. If his son wanted to mete out the silent treatment, so be it.

Dinner was not a pleasant interlude.

Eddie laid his napkin on the table. “Sorry, Maria, I’m not very hungry. May I please be excused?”

Maria glanced at Gil, caught his nod, and agreed. “Do you have homework?”

“No, I did it already.”

Gil watched his son roll his chair down the hallway to his room. Maybe swimming laps would be a substitute for racquet ball. Should he ask Eddie?

“More iced tea?” Maria held the pitcher.

“Thanks.” He waited until the glass was full. “I’ll be in the pool for a while. Call me fifteen minutes before my appointment arrives. We’ll talk out by the pool.”

A few minutes later Gil dove in the water and thrashed his way from one end to the other, flipping like he used to do on the swim team in college and pounding his way back. After four laps he settled into a steady crawl that after a mile or so left his heart hammering and his body limp. He hung on the edge of the pool with his arms crossed and let his breathing catch up with him. By swimming by himself, he’d not had to do the polite conversation gig a racquet ball match would have required. Ben would have wanted to know why he was killing the ball or who he wanted to destroy.

“Fifteen minutes,” Maria called.

“Gracias.” He hauled himself out of the pool, showered under the outside shower, and headed inside to dress. Knowing he should stop by Eddie’s room was not the same as doing.

Coming back down the hall, he heard the doorbell and Maria hurrying to open the door. What caught him by surprise was the spate of Spanish and a squeal of delight with more rapid-fire words and laughter, both masculine and feminine. He met Maria, arm locked in that of a short man with a slight paunch, his hair shot with silver and a smile as wide as hers.

“You meet my friend, Enrico Jose Estrada.” He’d never heard the giggle that followed.

Gil extended his hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Estrada.”

“No, no, Enrico. I know Maria when she was little, back home in Guatemala. We live next door to her mama and papa. She my, what you say, dog love.”

Gil stalled for a moment. “Oh, you mean puppy love. Like for kids. Come, let’s go out on the patio and enjoy the sunset. What is it that brought you here?”

“Fate.” He broke into a torrent of Spanish again, and Maria reached over and kissed his cheek.

She turned to Gil. “He say his wife died one year ago. They were happy together, now he is no longer sad.”

Worry raised its ugly head. As far as he knew, Maria had never dated or had men friends since she came to his house. In fact, she had few friends outside of him and Eddie. She’d been back to visit her family only two or three times in all the years she’d worked for him. She and Enrico might have been puppy loves at one time, but who knew what had happened with him in the years since. He gestured for his guest to take a chair and pulled out another.

“Now, Mr. . . .”

“Enrico.”

“Ah, yes, Enrico, what can I do for you?”

“This make me the most happiest man.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” He waited while the man took a paper from his pocket.

“Here, I have the figures for next year. I am so sorry to have to be raising my rates. You are a longtime good customer, so I want to tell you this in person. Not just on phone. My men do good job, yes?”

“Very good.” Gil thought back all these years he had dealt with the foreman who sometimes checked on his crew. So strange he had never met Enrico before.

Enrico’s smile slashed his tanned face. “This is God, eh? All these years Maria is working for you, and I not know it.”

Maria returned with a tray of cookies and her famous lemonade. The two swapped more rapid-fire Spanish as she handed out the glasses and passed the plate of cookies. While Gil spoke Spanish, there was no way he could keep up with them, instead resigning himself to wait for them to finish. After he agreed to the new pricing schedule and Enrico left, he rose and headed for his office just in time to catch the ringing phone. Maria was singing in the kitchen.

“Hey, Ben, good to hear from you. Actually, about time.”

“All right, old friend, what’s wrong?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I just know.”

Gil thought a moment, then threw caution in the wastebasket and told him the saga of getting Breaking Free. “But mostly I . . .” He paused, trying to find a way to say how he felt without sounding like a whiner.

“Just spit it out.”

“I have never liked being manipulated.”

“And that’s how you’re feeling about . . . ?”

“Being forced to take the girl, er woman, along with the horse.” There, he’d said it. “I now have an ex-con living on my place to supposedly train my son and his horse.”

“I see.”

“And don’t even suggest I can send the horse back because I refuse to break my Eddie’s heart.”

“I assume you’ve put all the safeguards in place.”

“Of course. It’s the drinking, Ben. Sandra is an alcoholic and here I am, saddled with another one.”

“Wait a minute. Who’s to say she’s an alcoholic? Doesn’t she deserve a second chance?”

“Now you sound like the do-gooders at Los Lomas.”

“Gil Winters, I’m surprised at you.”

“Me too, Ben, me too. But you made the mistake of asking, and I told you. Now, what did you call for?”

“You’re not going to like this any better than hiring your new horse trainer, but I think you should see Sandra, Gil.”

Gil held the phone away from his ear and stared at it. “Did you just say what I think you said?”
And I’m paying you for this kind of advice?

“I know. But we were discussing the situation here at the office and the consensus is that if she takes this to court and can prove she is now a fit mother, well, you know they often decide in the mother’s favor.”

“Ben, she left. Walked out. Demanded money. All that is duly recorded. How can she have a leg to stand on?”

“What makes you so sure she hasn’t changed? People do, you know. Look at yourself.”

Gil was forced to admit the truth in that statement. Through his speeches and coaching he had helped people change pieces of their lives all the time. That was what he did. When he came right down to it, Sandra’s leaving had forced him to change, to seek help to make growth happen—her leaving and the fact he needed money to give his poor little baby some kind of life. Lots of money since the insurance company fought against some of the surgeries and medical care Eddie needed, claiming they were experimental treatments.

He’d put the principles he learned to practice and now here he was, arguing about letting the mother of his son see her boy. Would a judge say she had the right to that?

“Have you posed this situation to any of your judge friends, hypothetically of course?”

“No, but I can. You know they’ll say circumstances vary and without having all the facts will give lukewarm advice.”

Gil left his chair and paced the room. “So, what are you suggesting? We just give in?”

“No, but I don’t know what’s best either.”

“You could put a tail on her. Find out if she’s clean and sober. That would tell us a lot right there. First she’ll ask just to see him. Then she’ll want him to come visit her.”

“Perhaps.”

No she won’t. She’ll be so put off by his wheelchair and the extra help he needs that she’ll have built his hopes up and abandon him again. “Ben, get all the facts that you can. Until I know more, I can’t make a decision.”

Gil stared out the window to see the lights were still on at the trailer. “What did you say?”

“I said I will find out what I can. She’s played a real low profile. Been married twice I think.”

“Twice besides to me?”

“That’s what has made her hard to trace.”

“Let me know what you find. In the meantime if she calls here again, I will give her your number.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“That’s what I pay you big bucks for.” Gil heard Bonnie greeting Maria. “I gotta go. Talk with you soon.”

A bit later Maria brought him the contract he’d signed with Enrico. “Something wrong?”

Gil shook his head, working his bottom lip with his teeth. “Sandra.”

“She call?”

“No, I talked with Ben. He says I should see her.”

Maria paused, staring out the window. “She no change. She want something.”

“But what?”

“Money.”

“But I pay her every month. I’ve always paid her.”

Maria motioned to include the house and everything. “She want more.”

Gil stared at her. “Of course.” Of course Sandra wanted more. Obviously she had kept track of him, even though he’d not kept track of her. He’d sent the check to the same bank all these years and figured since he’d kept his part of the bargain, she’d keep hers. How stupid could he get? What would ever be enough for her?

The bottom line: was she still drinking or using? The thought of her meeting with Eddie when she was either drunk or stoned made him leave his desk and pace the room. From his conversation with Ben, a court order might be the only deterrent, and there was no proof that Sandra was still up to her old habits.

Just because you teach people tools for change, you expect that everyone will change. You didn’t know this stuff when you were married to her. But why did she turn to alcohol?
He knew the question was rhetorical. She’d always liked her cocktail in the evening and wasn’t willing to give that up even when she knew she was pregnant. Short of locking her in a room, he’d not known what to do. When she’d realized her baby had a hole in his spine and would need many surgeries and might never be normal, she’d asked the doctor for antidepressants. Then for sleeping pills and . . . the list went on and on, and he’d not been able to stop her. Thank God for Maria.

The more he thought about it, the more he paced; the more he paced, the more furious he grew.

TWENTY

M
aggie stared at the door handle of the travel trailer. Her hand refused to reach for it. She sucked in a deep breath and, scolding herself for being a coward, concentrated on lifting her hand, inserting her fingers behind the lever, and pulling. The door swung open inviting her in. She inhaled, not quite a new car smell but close. Mounting the steps she stopped in the doorway and looked around. Kitchen with stove, sink, and refrigerator, a nook with two benches for dining, bedroom to the front, and bathroom to the back, all done in milk-washed wood tones and neutral sands and creams with a touch of turquoise in the bedspread and valances. Turquoise throw pillows colored the bed and sofa.

It looked huge.

When she stepped inside, she inhaled again. So much loveliness, it was hard to believe it was for her. She sat down on the queen-sized bed and then flopped back, spreading arms and legs wide, reveling in the silky feel of the fabric. Would she get lost in a bed this size? Her clothes—two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, and a cotton jacket—wouldn’t begin to fill the closet. Staring at the ceiling, she inhaled deeply again, letting her air out on a gentle whoosh. How long would it take to get all the oxygen cells of the prison out of her body? The memories would most likely remain forever.

She sat up and took six steps to the kitchen. A list on the refrigerator door informed her what was hidden within. Homemade chicken rice soup, salad fixings, fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. She opened the door to see all the condiments she might desire plus milk, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, and sliced ham and beef for sandwiches. Picking up speed she checked the cupboards, all stocked, including a coffee pot, pots and pans, a microwave, toaster. Towels in the bathroom along with shampoo and a hair dryer. She stared in the mirror. As if her prison shag needed drying. Toothpaste and soap in the cabinet, toilet paper underneath.