Forever Loved (The Forever Series) Page 7

  She’d changed. I remembered that now, puzzle pieces falling together. Softer around the middle. Sadder, too. When she looked up at me, she wasn’t joyful the way she’d been before, but shocked. She glanced anxiously behind her at the man, as if worried he would guess who I was. I didn’t say anything but bought a bottle of perfume, letting my hand linger when she handed me the change. Then I hung out at a bar down the street until the hour came for her to lock up.

  Rosa was reluctant to see me then and wouldn’t go to her apartment. But when we got to the old hotel room, she forced a smile and put on the face that I would grow used to over the years that followed, a pretend sort of happy.

  If she’d had a baby in that time I was gone, I wouldn’t have even known.

  If it had been mine, she would have had no way to contact me about it until I showed back up again.

  Damn it. Why hadn’t she told me when I came back? We could have sorted this out.

  The phone felt cold in my hands. When I got back to Bud’s, I didn’t bother going inside. I knew exactly where I had to go.

  I fired up the Harley and headed for Interstate 5 and the border.

  10: Corabelle

  My father never missed a thing.

  “You were expecting him, weren’t you?” he said, stretched out in Gavin’s chair in the corner.

  Mom sorted through their bags from the museum purchases. “Never mind that, dear. Look, I got you some things to set around the room.” She unpacked a handblown glass bowl swirled with blue and yellow and set it on the side table with the flowers. “That’s better.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Thank you.”

  Dad yawned. “Did the doctor say if you were leaving today?”

  I glanced at the clock. Two in the afternoon. “He hasn’t been by. Another staff member came in and seemed to indicate I wouldn’t be here much longer.” I picked at the sheet across my lap. Gavin’s last two texts were cryptic and short, just “At work” and “I’ll get there when I can.”

  “Was it a nurse?” Mom asked.

  My hackles rose. “No, just somebody from the hospital.”

  “Maybe we could page the doctor.” She arranged herself on a chair, tugging her knitting from a bag. Great, she was going to settle in. Maybe I could walk the halls a bit and try to place a call. Except I didn’t have anything but this breezy hospital gown. And Gavin had my keys. I was stuck.

  “He’s probably got more pressing patients than me,” I said.

  “Then they should give up your bed, send you home,” Dad said.

  The gray-mop-headed nurse popped in. “Time for a temperature check.”

  Mom stood up. “Do we know when Corabelle gets to go home?”

  The woman clicked on her iPad. “The doctor should be by soon. He’ll decide.” She sheathed a thermometer and slid it into my mouth.

  We all waited for it to beep, as if it would be anything but normal. I felt fine.

  She peered at it. “Hmm. Up again a bit. You been out of bed a lot?”

  I shook my head. “I feel fine. I was walking earlier. Maybe I just did too much.” It was a lie. My chest felt like it was being crushed. But I wanted to go home.

  She tapped the temperature into her iPad. “Let’s take it a little bit easier, just to be sure.”

  “I will.” God, I could not jeopardize going home. I was already going crazy.

  Dad locked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “Sure you don’t want to come back with us? I don’t know why you couldn’t finish up in New Mexico like you planned.”

  I had to keep all my stories straight about why I had transferred. “I have a better shot at grad school here.”

  “Sure was nice having you closer to home.”

  “It’s nice here. I can see why Corabelle would like it,” Mom said, diplomatic as always.

  My phone beeped and I practically lunged for it. Surely Gavin would be off work soon, or at least have a moment to let me know when he could bring my clothes.

  But the number was unfamiliar.

  Hey — a hospital just called to schedule an interview. Said you gave them my name. Thanks. Tina.

  I smiled. I hoped she got the job, if she wanted it. I pictured Sabrina in her paint-splattered dress and stifled a laugh.

  “Good to see you happy,” Dad said. “You haven’t smiled enough lately.”

  I would have said it was Gavin, and new friends, but I let it go. The last thing I wanted was to invite Dad to start bashing him again.

  “You know, I ran into Alaina the other day,” Mom said.

  I stiffened at the mention of Gavin’s mother. “Oh?”

  “She got a little flustered. We haven’t really spoken for a while.”

  Since the funeral, probably. Gavin’s departure had pretty much ended the friendship between his mother and mine. “Where was she?”

  “At the grocery store. I think she must have started going to Wal-Mart since I never see her at Peppers.”

  “You think she’s avoiding you?”

  My dad snorted. “She ought to be.”

  “Arthur,” my mom said. “She’s not responsible for how Gavin acted.”

  “She’s responsible for how she raised him.” He sat up. “No-account fool.”

  “Dad!”

  “I’m not going to sit here and let that self-centered jackass jerk my daughter around again!”

  I threw the sheets off and held the back of my gown closed as I snatched my phone from the side table. “I need to take a walk.” I stalked to the door.

  “Corabelle! You heard the nurse!” My mother’s voice hit a rare fever pitch.

  I turned back around and went into the bathroom instead, slamming the door shut. I sat on the floor by the toilet and dialed Gavin’s number. I knew he was working, but hoped he could get away for just a second. He’d been so available the last few days. I didn’t understand why suddenly I could barely get him to respond to a text. Maybe he was up to his elbows in a car motor.

  The connection rang continuously until his voice-mail message came on. I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes as I listened to the recording, picturing him saying the words, his lips, the scruffy jaw. When it beeped, I said as quietly as I could, “Hey. Having a tough time up here with my parents. Hope you’re okay.”

  The cold floor seeped through the cotton gown and I shivered. Crying was not an option. I had to get well. But I was frozen in time, waiting for Gavin, just like I’d waited four years ago.

  I wanted to go home. I’d do whatever it took. But the cold and the need to cry triggered another moment of panic as I couldn’t take in a breath. I sucked in, triggering a coughing fit. I moved to my knees and snatched a towel from a rack, pressing it to my face to keep as quiet as possible. Terror flashed through me as my abdomen heaved and pushed, refusing to settle back down. I forced myself to breathe, to relax, to slow down. After what felt like forever, it settled again and I gulped in air. I spread the towel on the floor so I wouldn’t be up against the freezing tile. If only I could go home, sleep in my bed. Be warm. Be with Gavin.

  He wasn’t going to leave me again. I knew that, believed it with all my heart. Today was just one day. There couldn’t be anything special about it.

  11: Gavin

  I’d traveled the road into Tijuana a hundred times, but today it felt different.

  The air whipped my face as the Harley roared along a strip of highway with the US border fence to my right and a tight line of dilapidated buildings on the left. I hadn’t warned Rosa I was coming. She might not even be home.

  A couple kids looked up from kicking a ball in the streets as I turned off the highway and into the city. I had to concentrate on the asphalt, the crumbling edges of the road, and not think that any of these boys could belong to Rosa.

  Or to me.

  My fingers tightened on the bars. Couldn’t be. I wouldn’t let it be. I just had to see him. I’d know. Surely I would know. You knew your own kid, right?

  I had to
force Corabelle out of my mind, what she would think or do. This might be the final blow. She’d leave me. I couldn’t blame her. Another boy, not hers. Shit.

  I slowed down as we started approaching streets with traffic, banging my palm against the rubber grip. We could not catch a break anywhere.

  Maybe it wasn’t true.

  I had to cling to the hope that all this would turn out to be some trick, a way to bleed me for money. I knew Rosa was poor, and maybe all that fear she’d always shown that her boss would find out what she was doing on the side had come back to bite her in the ass. She thought I had something, and she could get it. Ha. I was lucky to pay rent every month.

  If he was mine, hell, what would I do? Quit school for sure. I’d need that money for child support.

  No. It wasn’t true. I was not going to let it be true. I’d see the kid, and he would clearly belong to somebody else. We could test him, I guess. Surely somebody did that here.

  Stop. Stop thinking about it until you have more facts.

  The red-light district was quiet midafternoon, dirty and ugly in the light of day. Not that it was pretty at night, but the colored neon and dark spaces kept the grit out of immediate view.

  A woman sat against a crumbling wall, a blanket covering her legs. A little kid clung to her side and peeped out with big solemn eyes.

  Jesus. I imagined Rosa there with her son. Maybe my son.

  Hell. Even if it wasn’t mine, I couldn’t let that happen to her. I needed to know what sort of trouble she was in. Maybe I could bring her stateside. If the boy was mine, I could do that, right? Without marrying her?

  Despite the chill, a bead of sweat slid from my temple. I cornered the last turn to her place. She wouldn’t have called from work. She had to be off today, but I’d go to the farmacia next if I couldn’t find her here.

  I killed the bike next to the space that divided the two halves of her building. All the doors to the outside were locked and someone from inside always had to let you in. I had to call her and wait.

  No one was around, but I felt wary. The spot where I shoved that dealer into a car and took his gun wasn’t twenty feet away. I hadn’t planned on ever coming back. Hopefully that asshole was still sleeping off whatever debauchery had occurred the night before.

  I rolled the Harley into the covered walkway and jerked my phone from the pocket of my leather jacket. Be there, I ordered. Let’s finish this.

  She picked up quickly. “Gavin?”

  “Yeah. I’m downstairs.”

  “Here?”

  “By the door.”

  Through the phone I could hear the squeal of hinges and the echo of steps, so I figured she must be coming down. I stuck the phone back in my pocket.

  A voice from behind me snarled, “So lookit who’s back on my streets. Been waiting.”

  Bloody hell.

  I turned to see Sideburns, looking a little roughed up but as short, squat, and fiery as before, in white pants and a red jacket. He still had the brass knuckles on his left hand.

  “That’s a pansy-ass outfit,” I said. Last time I’d been anxious and in a hurry. Today, I had nothing to lose.

  “I want my gun.”

  I held up my hands. “Sorry, not on me.”

  He grinned beneath a heavy mustache. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  And that’s when he pulled out a beat-up black Glock.

  Rosa would come out any second. I had to shut this down. “You sure have a lot of those lying around.” I leaned against the wall as if I couldn’t give a shit about anything.

  Sideburns passed the gun from hand to hand. “I ought to plug you, but I tell you what. Hand over that ride, and we’ll call it square.”

  The fact that he hadn’t shot me already meant that either he wasn’t locked and loaded, or else he had a reason to believe he couldn’t get away with it at this moment. Maybe too many cops around, not that I had any faith in the law enforcement in Zona Norte.

  “Let’s take a look at it, see if it meets your high standards.” I pushed away from the wall and backed up to the bike.

  Sideburns narrowed his eyes, and I gave him reason to be very nervous as I ran my hand along the leather saddlebag. He was assuming the gun was in there, and now I was close to it.

  Still, he didn’t pop me when he could. Something was holding him back.

  “Built it myself,” I said.

  He took only one step when I charged. How stupid could he be, when I shut him down so handily a couple weeks ago? I brought him to the ground, and a sharp crack of my elbow against his wrist forced him to drop the Glock.

  Rosa stepped out right then and screamed.

  This made Sideburns go manic, kicking and punching at me like a tornado. The boy definitely had something to hide.

  I delivered a bone-crushing blow to his jaw to slow him down and pinned his chest with my knee. Rosa, to her credit, calmed down instantly and went for the gun. I could see she knew her way around a weapon, so I jumped off Sideburns and let him stand as she aimed the Glock at his head.

  “Puta,” he spat at her.

  “Su madre es puta,” she said.

  “Ay yi yi.” Sideburns held out his hand to receive his gun back.

  “Don’t give it to him,” I told Rosa. “It has your prints.”

  She shook her head at me as she pushed the release and deftly snatched the magazine in her left hand. She tossed it my direction, and I caught it.

  I was about to remind her of the round in the chamber when she jerked the slide and cupped the last bullet in her hand. She threw the gun at Sideburns’s face.

  He backed up and trapped it against his chest before it could fall and hit the ground.

  “Vamanos,” Rosa said and pushed me toward the Harley.

  I swung my leg over and waited for her to settle behind me, shoving the magazine in my jacket. The engine noise was deafening in the covered space. I turned around and passed Sideburns. I’d had just about enough of Tijuana.

  We only went a few blocks before Rosa leaned forward and shouted, “Turn aqui,” and pointed down another, larger street. We followed it for a long while, then she tapped my shoulder. “Stop.”

  I pulled up beside a rundown pickup parked by a line of cinder-block buildings that looked occupied. My heart hammered since this might be where the boy lived, beating harder than it had during the fight. Rosa jumped off the back, came around, and punched me in the chest.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You cabron! You idiot!” She was hysterical now, crying and screaming.

  I grabbed her and pulled her against my chest. “Hey, hey, we’re okay. We’re fine.”

  Rosa kept hitting me, the blows getting less and less energetic, until she finally settled down.

  “Do you know that guy?” I asked.

  “¡Por supuesto! Of course! Everybody knows Antonio. Big jerk. Big asshole.”

  I’d never heard Rosa curse or even be upset. I guess in the context of how we saw each other, it didn’t come up. “Will he bother you?”

  “No. He will not admit a woman hold his gun.”

  “I had a fight with him before.”

  She pulled away and looked up at me. “Everybody fights with Antonio. It is his way. He thinks he owns our street.”

  I let go of her. “Rosa, what is going on?”

  She looked past me at the houses, and I felt certain he had to be in one of them.

  “Is the boy here?”

  Rosa looked at me questioningly, then shook her head. “No, Manuelito is with my cousin in Ensenada. This is where I used to live.”

  I turned back to the crumbling facades. Gray blocks kept the dirt from cascading down the slopes that the structures seemed to spring from like caves. Scattered cars were parked half on the road, half in the dirt and debris. Rambling steps thrown together with wood scraps led to doors.

  “Are we going to see your family?”

  Rosa kicked at the dirt. “No. No family here. I just know what is safe
here and what is not.”

  I got off the bike and pulled her over to the pickup so we could sit on the edge of the rusted-out bed. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

  Rosa ran her hands up and down the legs of her jeans. I had never seen her dressed so simply, a plain blue T-shirt and worn-out windbreaker. Her hair was pulled back in a long black ponytail. She seemed younger in this outfit than in the getups she usually wore for me — lacy skirts and cinched-up tops.

  “Where I live is my brother’s,” she said.

  “You mentioned that.”

  “He not come there much now that he has wife, but he has the key. He watches me.”

  “Does he know what you do?”

  She twisted the corner of her jacket. “The farmacia — it is his.”

  That’s not what I meant, but I let it go for the moment. “Is he the man who works there, in the back?”

  She nodded.

  “So does he know the other things you do?”

  She shook her head. “He know nothing about you.”

  “But the others. How do you keep it a secret?”

  She stared at her hands, working the zipper up and down at the bottom of her jacket. “Gavin, I not say truth to you.”

  There it was. Now she would tell me the boy wasn’t mine. I could already feel the relief relaxing my chest. “So what is the truth?”

  Rosa inhaled deeply. She sat up and looked right at me. “I am not what you think. I do not do sex for money. I am not a bad woman.”

  I couldn’t quite grasp what she was saying. “But you have sex with me. For money.”

  She held my gaze, steady and certain. “You are the only one.”

  “But I saw you, that first time, on the corner.”

  She slumped down again. “I try it. I try every night for a week, but no one come for me. No one want to pay for me.”

  Well, that explained how innocent and uncomfortable she was that first night. “Why wouldn’t anyone want to pay for you? You are beautiful and kind.”

  “I am not.”

  In any other circumstance I might have done more, hold her or kiss her or convince her she was wrong, but not now, not with Corabelle back. I just sat there numbly, waiting for her to explain why I had been her only customer.