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Maggie took the delicious vegetable soup offered for lunch, while her male companions went on outside with a promise to return later for the thick roast beef sandwiches Refugio, the cook, would have waiting. She sipped the soup slowly to savor the vegetables freshly picked from the garden. The bread was still warm from the oven and tasted awfully good too. Once finished, she sat back and hoped her earlier black mood had been due at least partly to hunger. Now fortified, she asked Mrs. Lujan where she might find whatever materials Augustín had gathered for his memoir.
“Do you have your grandmother’s permission?” the housekeeper asked.
Her heart fell. “I didn’t think to ask her.”
“Good.” Anita led her into the den at the end of the house. Bookshelves lined the walls, but windows on three sides flooded the room with light.
Maggie would rather not have had a view of the bullring, but there were no draperies to draw. “I won’t take anything,” she promised. “I’d just like to get a sense of the man.”
The housekeeper pulled open the deep lower drawer on the desk and took out a tin box. “He kept it all in here. He’d take out everything, sit here all day doing little or nothing and then put it all away. He must have thought he’d have more time to work on his memories.”
“Thank you. I won’t make a mess.”
“I trust you,” Anita replied. “Would you like coffee or tea, something more to eat?”
“No, thank you, I’m fine.”
“So is your young man,” the housekeeper answered with a wink. She closed the door on her way out.
Maggie laughed in spite of herself, but Rafael was most definitely fine, from any angle. She opened the box and found not a collection of letters and notes, but three journals. She checked the dates and sat down to skim through the first. Augustín had written in Spanish rather than Catalan and the bold downward strokes of his handwriting were easy to read.
Unfortunately, the book contained only a list of bullfights and who’d been on the bill with him. He’d written a brief assessment of each man’s performance, including his own. There were photographs tucked be
tween the pages, and all had the subject’s names and the date neatly printed, but they were of other matadors and men who’d worked with him rather than family.
Augustín had apparently been the meticulous sort, but there was no other hint to the man’s personality. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been the one to send Miguel to the University of Arizona, or if Carmen had been behind the effort to separate their son from the sweetly innocent Rosa Sanchez.
She opened the second journal expecting more of the same, but Augustín’s first sentence stunned her. “Live in the center of your life.” She repeated it several times wondering if it was his philosophy or an affirmation he’d read somewhere. There was a drawing of a man standing in a circle that could have been a bullring. It was a carefully made sketch rather than a stick figure, and she flipped through the journal looking for more of his artwork.
The drawing of the woman was at the end of the book. She was dancing, spreading a full skirt and looking over her shoulder. She was smiling as though gazing at the man she loved, but the name Augustín had written was Simone rather than Carmen.
A loud shout from outside drew her to the window, but the ranch hands gathered around the bullring were in high spirits, not calling for help. She had to stand on the desk chair to get a better view. Rafael was taunting a russet-colored bull with a flying swirl of his cape, and ranch hands shouted, “Olé!” She climbed down from the chair and pulled it back to the desk.
The man definitely had the balls to be a matador, but she’d seen more than enough. She’d watch the video later when he would surely brag about it. She opened the third journal and found Augustín had begun recording Miguel’s fights with the same intensity to detail he’d shown in his own. There were no more drawings, and the photos slipped into the book were all of Miguel.
Her father had been so young when she’d been born, and the photos showed him before his fights, before his glistening costume became splattered with a bull’s blood. She thought Santos would be able to appreciate his grandfather’s commentaries, but if her brother had learned to stay out of their grandfather’s way, probably not. Maybe there was a history museum that would want Augustín’s journals. She doubted Carmen would deign to discuss the subject. Maggie carefully replaced the journals in the tin box and put it away.
Mrs. Lujan’s description of Augustín’s memoirs had sounded as though he’d been working on an assortment of materials rather than simply journals. If so, what had become of his personal papers and reflections? Had Carmen taken them or destroyed them? Hoping to find personal albums on the shelves, she began searching close to the desk. When she heard Santos and Rafael come through the front door, she walked out into the hall. They were all sweaty and dusted with dirt and still so handsome she thought it awfully unfair women had to go to so much trouble to look good.
“Have you ever read Augustín’s journals?” she asked Santos. “They’re carefully detailed descriptions of bullfights and might be of interest to you.”
Santos looked down at his clothes. “I need to shower first, but I’d like to see them.”
Rafael folded the cape he’d brought for practice and waited while Santos started up the stairs. “You’ve been reading Augustín’s journals?”
“Yes, that’s why I came here. I was hoping to discover something about him and the family. They’re all strangers to me.”
He moved close to brush her lips with a light kiss. “I thought you’d come to be with me.”
She’d hoped to get away from him for a few days rather than overdose on his charm. She attempted to look contrite. “I’m so sorry to disappoint you.”
He flashed a quick smile. “No, not at all. Tonight you won’t have to go home.”
He ran up the stairs, and Maggie leaned back against the den’s doorjamb. Fox came in and pulled the front door closed. “You should have come out to see them. They argued over which one is the best, but they’re both good. Different, but equally good.”
“How are they different?”
“If Santos shows the video later, you’ll see. They just worked the bull with their capes. They didn’t kill him. They’ll choose a fresh bull tomorrow.”
