Cathy rounded the desk to accompany them, and as they walked down the hall to the little girl"s room, she said, "The labs will take a few days, but based on theX rays, it"s undoubtedly TB."
No surprise, but Molly squeezed Alejandro"s hand, sparing a look at him. His mouth was set in a line.
Outside the room, Cathy provided them with face masks. "Standard procedure," she explained to Alejandro.
He nodded and tied the mask around his face. Cathy pushed open the door, and Alejandro winked at Molly. "Do I look like a desperado?"
She grinned. "Dangerous."
Josefina turned her head as they came in, and when she saw who it was, she cried out in almost painful recognition, "Tio!"
Alejandro was across the room and hugging her before Molly could blink. Until now, the connection between these two had been purely academic, a fact without substance. Now, the girl wept in sobbing hiccups, and Alejandro hugged her gently, kissing her head, murmuring to her in Spanish. The words were unclear to Molly, but the gist was clear,Everythingis okay .
It took a few minutes but at last Alejandro settled his niece on the pillows, tugged the blankets over her and parked his hand on her forehead. "You are very sick,hija .
Did they tell you?"
"Molly told me." The child pointed to her and Molly went around to the other side of the bed, taking her hand. "Last night."
"Right." Their eyes met. "We talked."
"Tio," she said, and spoke quickly, excitedly, in Spanish. Alejandro stopped her after a moment, saying, "We must speak English, so our Molly can hear, too." He looked at Molly. "She told me she spent her money well. Made it last for threemeals, and she found a way to get a blanket so she would not be cold at night." With a gentle smile, he turned to Josefina and added, "I am very proud of you."
Cathy waved at Molly, and exited. Molly let go of a sigh of relief. "So far, so good."
Alejandro glanced over his shoulder. "Keep watch while I tell Josefina what we"re going to do."
They went shopping at a brightly lit department store when they left the hospital.
Alejandro was conscious of the money he was spending, and chose only two pairs of jeans that fit him, and three shirts, all long-sleeved. One had snaps on the pointed pockets, but Molly"s amused expression made him hesitate. "Is this not right?"
"If you want it to be. Only old men wear those shirts now, though."
"Ah." He grinned and gestured toward the rack. "Then you choose for me. Proper American clothes."
She flipped through the multicolored cottons on their hangers, using that brisk, decisive gesture women employed.Clack, clack, clack as the colors or patterns were dismissed. She pulled one out, a dark shade of blue, and held it up to him, then rejected it.Clack. Clack, clack . Another, this one of some soft fabric he didn"t know how to name, in a shade of deep turquoise. She held it up and smiled. "They"ll really swoon over you in this."
They?he wondered, smiling as she narrowed her eyes. Or her? He put on the shirt in the men"s room before they left, and was pleased at the sudden deepening of the silver in her eyes.
All day, he had been trying to keep his thoughts away from the kiss that had lingered on his nerves for hours afterward, away from the way she had felt in his arms when she wept for her lost husband ah, so deep a love she"d found! away from that swift, fierce wish to make love to her.
She did not make it easy. He liked the feel of her hand in his, small and strong. He liked her throaty laughter and the flash of her eyes. As they moved toward the car to go to see her brother, he liked the way her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounced slightly beneath her shirt.
And he was shamed by his desire. What did he have to offer her? In his own country, he had been modestly successful, enough that he had been considering the possibility of marriage when his sister died.
Here, he had nothing. Less than nothing no home, no family ties, no money or way of procuring it legally. On this bright October day, those facts stung his pride, but also reminded him that he could not allow himself the indulgence of desire.
It was wrong for another reason. She was not ready for a man yet. Not any man who was not her husband. Though he sometimes saw appreciation in her pale eyes, her heart belonged still to her lost husband.
One day Alejandro would repay her extraordinary kindness. He vowed it to himself, a sacred promise. In the meantime, he would do what he could to ease her worry over the trouble she might face over this situation.
As they drove through a settled town neighborhood of small, well-tended houses, her nervousness increased. He saw it in the way she tightened her hands on the steering wheel, leaning forward as if by peering through the windshield hard enough she would be able to tell the future.
"You are worried about your brother, no?"
She glanced at him. "Yes."
"Tell me what I should know of him."
"Josh is a good man," she said. "But we lost our parents in a car accident when he was sixteen, and it affected him badly. He wants to make sure nothing bad ever happens again, and he thinks he can make that happen by controlling everything."
Alejandro nodded. "I see."
"That"s not all of it." She took a breath. "Don"t ask me where this came from, but he sees it as his sacred duty to scour the country free of "aliens"." She pulled the car up in front of a tiny yellow house with an even smaller square of lawn. Everything about the place was almost painfully meticulous, from the swept walk to the garden hoses rolled up on a caddy. "If he even suspects that we"re not really in love, he"ll make it his personal quest to deport you."
He frowned. "Is this wise, then, Molly?"
She turned off the engine, staring at the house for a long moment. "No. It really isn"t. But it"s the only chance you have."
A wave of grat.i.tude washed over him, and he bent close, putting a hand on her face. "He will never doubt, not for one moment, that I am in love with you."
"There he is," she whispered urgently. "Kiss me like you really mean it."
That he could do. He closed the small s.p.a.ce between them and cupped her chin, lifting her face to his, and kissed her. In this, he could use his desire. And in his desire, he was not so careful, so restrained as he"d been last night. He coaxed her lips apart with his tongue, and felt a burst of heat when their tongues touched, danced, circled.
Her hands came around his neck, her fingers sliding into his hair, and then she tilted her head, as if in genuine heat, to urge him closer. Alejandro met the deepening with a shock of pleasure. Their tongues touched, tip to tip, then skittered away, and came back again to slide together, slide apart,meet again.
He felt his breath come more quickly, felt the small, eager leaps of his s.e.x as it wakened, and he told himself it was enough, this kiss looked good enough for her brother.
But she showed no sign of wishing to stop, and Alejandro let himself go entirely, swirling, tasting, plucking. He suckled her lower lip for a brief second and heard her cry out in surprise and pleasure, so he did it again, putting his tongue into it. She softened in reaction, and one breast pressed lightly into his chest.
A rap at the car door made them break apart, but neither turned immediately toward the sound. She gazed up at him, her silvery eyes almost too bright to look upon. With his thumb, he brushed moisture from her lip, still holding her gaze.
Then, as if they could speak without speaking, they turned together toward the man
standing outside the car in a khaki sheriff"s uniform, hands on his hips.
"For the love of Mike, Molly, get out of there and stop making out like a teenager."
Molly gave Alejandro a wicked little grin over her shoulder and pushed open her door.
Alejandro stepped out on the pa.s.senger side, leaning heavily on his cane. The man in uniform planted his lean but st.u.r.dy body in the path and glared at him, his gaze flickering with distaste from the top of his head to his feet. "Who is this?"
"Alejandro Sosa." She paused to let that sink in, then, "He is my fiance." Molly joined Alejandro and slid her hand into his. "Alejandro, this is my brother, Josh."
Alejandro held out his hand, knowing it would be ignored. "How do you do?"
"What the h.e.l.l is this, Molly?"
"Let"s go inside, Josh. I want Lynette to meet him, too, and there"s no point in your standing out here yelling at me for all the neighbors to hear."
Josh glared at Alejandro. Alejandro had seen the look before, a hundred times, a thousand. It was an expression that said the wearer knew all there was to know of his kind. In most cases, the gaze was one of distaste, and perhaps a little fear. But in Molly"s brother"s eyes, Alejandro glimpsed a much more dangerous emotion than distaste.
It was hate.