[Santa Olivia 02] - Saints Astray Read online

  “Ow!”

  “I wanna keep you around, baby.”

  Christophe smiled. “I think maybe your Santitos were as bad as a pack of loup-garous, prima.”

  They drove for hours and hours, then turned off the big toll highway onto a smaller road that wound into mountains. Unlike the big highways, this one wasn’t well maintained. Up and up and up, dodging potholes, until they reached the highest peaks.

  “Holy shit!” Pilar’s nails dug into Loup’s arm. “Look at it!”

  “The ocean,” Christophe said softly.

  Far, far below them it stretched out forever, a shining expanse of water with no end, reaching to the horizon and beyond, gleaming gold in the late-afternoon sunlight. It held all the promise of infinity, and it was beautiful.

  “Wow,” Loup murmured. “I hope Mig got to see it. He really wanted to see the ocean.”

  Pilar shook her head. “You and Miguel Garza.”

  “Not like that.”

  “He wanted to.”

  “Only when he was drunk,” Loup said. “And I didn’t. He turned out to be a pretty good guy in the end, okay?”

  “Yeah, he did,” Pilar admitted.

  “Anyway.” Christophe pointed to a building with the word hotel painted on its roof, slowing the car as they approached. “This is a good place. We will stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we will finish the drive.”

  It was a simple, rustic place, but the view was amazing and the rooms had porches overlooking the gorge. After they were settled, Christophe joined Loup on her porch. “Okay.” He sat cross-legged opposite her, hands loose on his knees. “Close your eyes if you like. Sit without moving, and think of slow things. I like to think of trees growing, big trees, so slow you cannot see it. Or maybe a mountain wearing down to sand.”

  “Okay.”

  “Breathe slow and deep. Think slow thoughts. Think of your body growing slower and slower, almost stopping. Every cell, stopping for a moment. Resting. Still.”

  It was a peaceful feeling. Christophe’s voice fell silent.

  Loup sat, motionless.

  Still.

  “Jesus!” Pilar said. “It’s like watching a couple of statues.”

  “You are not helping, bonita.”

  “I get the idea.” Loup opened her eyes. “So that’s it? Slow?”

  “Yes.” Christophe nodded. “But you must do it every day. I do it in the morning before anything else.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll be quiet,” Pilar promised.

  They ate at the little hotel’s restaurant where all the tables and chairs were painted bright colors. Christophe flirted with their waitress, who spoke no English and giggled uncontrollably at the amount of food he and Loup ate.

  “One in a hundred?” Pilar guessed.

  “No.” He shook his head. A hint of melancholy shadowed his face. “Just a nice girl. She would not like it so much if she touched me.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Pilar glanced at Loup. “I remember what that was like for you, baby.”

  “It still is with most people,” Loup said. “Sorry, Christophe. It’s pretty awful, I know.”

  The shadow passed. “I told you, I’ll live.”

  Afterward they watched the sun set over the ocean. Pilar let out a sigh as the last curve of the orange disc vanished beneath the distant horizon. “Wow. I never thought I’d see anything like that.”

  “No,” Loup agreed.

  When the dusk deepened to blue, they retreated to their rooms.

  “Mmm.” Pilar, lying on the bed in her new sexy lingerie, smiled. “Baby, you make me shiver inside when you look at me that way.” She beckoned. “C’mere.”

  Loup slid into bed beside her, kissed her.

  “Jesus.” Pilar shuddered against her. “Hey, Loup?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you really think I could do it?” Her hazel eyes searched Loup’s face. “That secret agent bodyguard training thing?”

  She blinked, surprised. “Of course.”

  “I like me with you,” Pilar said softly. She ran her fingers through Loup’s unruly hair, traced the line of her full lips. “A lot. I like who I am. No one else ever believed in me that way before.”

  Loup gazed at her. “They should have.”

  “Yeah, but you do.”

  “Yep.” She kissed her again. “A lot.”

  SIX

  They arrived in Huatulco by midafternoon.

  The place was actually a collection of small towns, all very close together. “You will stay in Santa Cruz, at my mother’s hotel,” Christophe informed them. “She insists. And tonight there will be a party.”

  “Ohmigod!” Pilar caught her breath when they entered the town. “It’s so cute!”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  The hotel was located beside the small marina. Christophe parked the car and glanced toward the water. “Come. We will see if Raimundo and Nacio’s boat is here. Fishing,” he explained to Loup. “They used their money to buy out the rest of us.”

  They walked down the docks under the hot sun. Palm fronds waved languidly. Small boats bobbed on the water. Pilar looked dazed. “Jesus!” she murmured. “It really is like being in a movie.”

  “Yeah, kinda,” Loup agreed.

  “Hey!” Christophe grinned and pointed to a boat with a couple of figures lounging under the awning. He cupped his mouth and shouted something in Spanish. One of the figures shouted back, then both bounded over with exuberant, inhuman speed.

  “Whoa!” Pilar exclaimed.

  Loup fought the urge to tell them to slow down.

  Both were young men, brown-skinned and shirtless, lithe with dense muscle. They fell on Christophe like eager puppies, hugging him with rough affection, then turned swiftly to Loup, pouring out questions in Spanish.

  “Um… Ingles, por favor?” Loup tried out one of the phrases Christophe had taught them.

  “Despacio,” Christophe said, laughing. “Slow down! Okay. This is Nacio.” He nodded at the taller of the two. “And Raimundo.”

  “Hola, prima.” Nacio shook her hand, grinning widely.

  The other hugged her. “Hey, Lupita!”

  “This is Pilar,” Christophe said. “Su novia.”

  The cousins looked at Pilar and gave slow, identical blinks, pondering the information. “Good job, prima,” Raimundo said to Loup. “So, you want to go fishing?”

  “Uh… maybe later?”

  “Idiotas,” Christophe said to his cousins with affection. “You and your fish. No, we are going to meet my mother. We will see you tonight, okay?”

  “Okay!” They went back to the boat, laughing and scuffling and tussling.

  “They’re very… lively,” Pilar observed.

  “Yes.”

  Christophe led them to the hotel, where his mother, Marcela, met them in the lobby. She was a tall, elegant woman with kind, intelligent eyes. She gazed at Loup for a long, long time, then embraced her, pressing her cheek against Loup’s.

  “Welcome, mija,” she said in a gentle voice. “We are so very, very glad to have you here.”

  No one had hugged her like that since her mother died, with such tenderness and none of the slight flinch of withdrawal that most people felt. Loup’s throat tightened. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am!” Marcela laughed. “No, no. You can call me Tía Marcela.” She turned to Pilar. “And you too. Pilar, yes? Christophe spoke of you on the telephone.” She smiled. “Welcome.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Come.” She beckoned. “I have a very nice room for you, and you will stay as long as you wish. Christophe, be a nice boy and bring their suitcases.”

  “Sí, Mami.”

  The room was clean and bright and airy, looking out at the sparkling water of the little marina.

  “Wow.” Pilar gazed around. “This is so nice. You’re so… nice!”

  “I do this in memory of Martin,” Marcela murmured. “It was his great sorrow that he never knew his child. T
hat she grew up in a place where she could not be free. And you, bonita, do not have such an easy path, either. It is wonderful and maddening loving one of them, but it is not easy.” She glanced at Christophe and smiled wryly. “Though it is easier than being a mother to one of them. So. Enjoy.”

  Christophe eyed the bed. “Trust me, Mami, they will.”

  “Bad boy!” she scolded him. “So, Christophe will fetch you in a couple of hours for the party. If you need anything, call the front desk. Ask for Ana Maria if she does not answer; she speaks good English.”

  “Okay,” Loup agreed. “Gracias, Tía Marcela.”

  “Martin’s daughter.” Her gaze lingered on Loup. “He would have been so proud. So very, very proud.”

  They left.

  Pilar looked apprehensive. “God, she’s so nice. It makes me feel kinda guilty. I don’t think she’d be so nice to me if she knew what I’d done. How bad I hurt you when I left you for Rory.”

  Loup sat on the bed. “I do. I think she’d understand it better than anyone. Didn’t you hear her? She said it wasn’t easy loving one of us. And she did lose Tío Henri. I bet there were times she thought about giving up.”

  “Maybe.” Pilar was quiet a moment. “I still wish I hadn’t done it.”

  She glanced up. “I know. I know you do. But you’re here now, and that’s all that matters.” Her voice softened. “I know I can’t understand it the way normal people do, but believe me, I know what you did to get here was pretty damn terrifying. You gave up everything! I won’t ever forget it.”

  “Thanks.” Pilar’s expression eased. “It’s not, you know.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hard.” She smiled ruefully. “Loving you. I mean, it’s kind of scary, yeah, but otherwise it’s pretty spectacularly easy.”

  Loup smiled back at her. “I think the scary part was what she meant.”

  “Yeah,” Pilar agreed. “But I can live with it. Thinking of losing you again…” She shuddered. “That’s scarier.”

  Two hours later, Christophe came to collect them. He regarded the disheveled bedspread without comment. “You ready, bonitas?”

  “Almost!” Loup called from the bathroom.

  “Look up,” Pilar suggested, wielding a mascara brush.

  “Ow.”

  “Sorry.” She dabbed at the outer corner of Loup’s left eye with a tissue. “There. Perfect. You can do it yourself next time.”

  “I could have done it myself this time,” Loup observed.

  Pilar surveyed her handiwork. “Yeah, but I do a better job, and you’re meeting your whole family for the first time.” She tapped Loup lightly on the nose. “Just so you know, normal people would be nervous. Excited, but nervous.”

  “Oh. Are you?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “But at least we look nice.”

  “You both look very lovely,” Christophe commented. “Shall we go?”

  The party was held on a hotel garden terrace strung with lights and festive paper decorations. Most of the guests had already arrived, and they let out a heartfelt cheer when Christophe entered with Loup and Pilar on his arms. It was an odd assortment: Marcela and five other women of middle years, all beaming, and seven boys and young men ranging in age and size from a pair of identical twins who looked to be about eight to Christophe, the oldest. The boys descended on Loup in a swarm, chattering at her in a mixture of Spanish and English.

  “Back, back!” Christophe swatted at them, laughing. “Easy!”

  They ignored him or cuffed him back, roughhousing with the careless ease of long practice. Although they varied in height and hue, all of them had the same familiar wide, dark eyes and uncanny sense of physical presence.

  Not a one of them made the slightest attempt to hide what they were. It evoked the sensation of nothingness where uneasiness should be, and made her feel strangely alone in the midst of the throng.

  “Okay, okay.” Christophe began naming them, pointing at the twins. “Marcel and Daniel, and this one we call Paco. Raimundo and Nacio from the boat, and this is Alejandro. Oh, and the shy girl hiding behind the palm tree is his sweetheart, Amaya.”

  “Venga, venga!” The twins dragged Loup away to meet their mother, who pressed Loup’s hands between hers and spoke warmly to her in Spanish. Paco, a couple years older, tugged at a fold of her dress and clamored to go next.

  “It is a little overwhelming, I think.” Marcela joined them.

  “A little, yeah.” Loup glanced over her shoulder and saw Pilar held captive to the crowded attention of Nacio and Raimundo, looking half-delighted and half-alarmed.

  “Don’t worry.” Marcela followed her gaze. “They’re all good-hearted boys, and they know to be respectful. They are excited, though.” She smiled sadly. “And they no longer have fathers to help them behave.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Loup said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Of course.” She put a hand on her shoulder. “Come, meet the others.”

  The women were gentler, easier. By the end of the evening, Loup had them sorted out. Dolores, the twins’ mother, sold embroidered clothing in the market. Paco’s mother, Cruz, was a hairdresser and the most talkative of the lot. Alejandro and Nacio’s mothers both worked for one of the big hotels in the next town, and Raimundo’s mother, Consuelo, worked for an agency specializing in rental properties.

  All of them shared a shadow of loss and sorrow, as well as an exasperated sense of sisterhood born of the difficulties of raising boisterous, fearless boys. And all of them welcomed Loup with the utmost warmth.

  It made her feel good, but it made her feel bad, too. It made her miss home.

  Hotel staff began to circulate with platters of hors d’oeuvres. The boys surrounded them. Pilar escaped and made her way to Loup’s side.

  “Holy shit!” she murmured. “They’re a little wild.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Pilar smiled. “So far Nacio’s promised to teach me to swim, fish, and scuba dive, and I think one of the little ones, Paco, said he was gonna marry me when he grew up.” She ruffled Loup’s hair. “You having a nice time, baby?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “It’s a lot to take in, but yeah.”

  “I’m glad.”

  They ate and mingled. Alejandro brought over his shy, pretty girlfriend and introduced her. She gazed at them with awe, as though they’d come from someplace exotic, and kept a tight grip on Alejandro’s hand. He was sixteen or seventeen, and less excitable than the rest of his cousins.

  “Know why?” Pilar whispered in Loup’s ear. She shook her head. “ ’Cause he’s the only one getting laid a lot.”

  She laughed. “Pilar!”

  “What? I bet it’s true.”

  Then there was more food, dinner served at a long table. Platter after platter of food, served by amused, indulgent hotel staff, vanishing at incredible rates into the mouths of seven not-quite-human boys and young men. The sun set in the west, making the lights illuminating the terrace twinkle brightly.

  “Hey!” Christophe called down the table when most of the plates had been scraped clean. “We’re going to have music and dancing, but they want to hear your story, prima. About the big fight and escaping.”

  “Okay, but you can’t go around telling other people,” she warned them. “Remember, it’s still supposed to be a secret.”

  Christophe looked offended. “Yes, of course. Everyone understands.”

  Loup told it with myriad interruptions for translation. The women listened with horrified fascination, and the boys with gleeful excitement and a multitude of questions, all wanting to know how she’d beaten a bigger, stronger opponent.

  “Enough!” Marcela shuddered when Loup described letting Miguel Garza hit her with buckshot-weighted gloves to get used to the sensation. “Don’t translate that, mijo,” she said to Christophe. “You’ll only give them ideas.”

  “Sí, Mami.”

  She clapped her hands. “Anyway, time for music!”

  A t
hree-piece band that had been quietly setting up began to play. Everyone danced without reservation, trading partners freely, even shy Amaya taking turns with the younger boys. From time to time, someone would call out for the band to play fast, fast, fast and the band would oblige for a time. Everyone would drop out but whatever delighted cousin was dancing with Loup.

  “Fun,” Pilar commented when the band took a break. She was flushed and her eyes were sparkling.

  Loup smiled. “Yeah.”

  “Hey, Lupita!” Raimundo approached her. He put up his fists. “Show me, huh?”

  She shook her head. “Not here.”

  “Aw, c’mon!” He shuffled his feet and essayed a couple of lightning-swift jabs at her. She slipped them without thinking. He beckoned. “Just a little.”

  “It’s a party. I’m wearing a dress, Raimundo.”

  “C’mon!” He flashed an engaging grin, then turned like a shot and grabbed a startled Pilar, slinging her effortlessly over his shoulder and holding her in place with one arm. “I give her back when you show me!”

  On the far side of him, Pilar let out a stifled squeak. “Put me down, you asshole!”

  “When she shows me!”

  Consuelo stormed over, railing at her son in Spanish. He defended himself in the same language, sounding aggrieved, heedless of Pilar dangling over his shoulder, heels kicking. Loup watched them uncertainly, not wanting to do anything that would result in Pilar being dropped on her head.

  “Show him,” Christophe suggested behind Loup.

  “You serious?”

  He nodded. “Hard.”

  She glanced at his mother. Marcela nodded, resigned. “Sometimes it is the only way.”

  “Okay!” Loup called. “Put her the fuck down, Raimundo. I’ll do it.” He obliged, beaming. “You okay?” she asked Pilar.

  “Yeah.” She adjusted her dress, disgruntled. “Mostly.”

  Loup beckoned to Raimundo. He came at her, swinging happily. She ducked and slipped his first two punches, caught and deflected another, then feinted and took him down with a combination—two quick shots to the body, then a right hook that clouted his left ear and knocked him off his feet.

  “Ow, ow, ow!” He rolled on the terrace, clutching his ear.

  The other cousins yelled and hooted, laughing at him. Their mothers exchanged glances and shook their heads.