AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The urgency in his voice surprised her. “Yes, I’ll be here.” If her grandmother hadn’t thrown her out. They waited for Dr. Moreno to leave, and then Rafael spent twenty minutes with her father. She sat on the top step to wait and walked down the stairs with him.
“Did you mention Augustín’s journals?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t want him to believe his advice isn’t enough. He talks to me about his fights and mistakes he doesn’t want me to repeat.”
“It sounds as though he ought to write his own journal. Is there a museum that collects bullfighting memorabilia? Maybe Augustín’s journals ought to go there.”
“There is such a place, the Museo Taurino in Madrid. They have Manolete’s last traje de luces.”
Manolete, one of Spain’s greatest matadors, had been gored and died when he was only thirty. “Is it drenched in blood?”
He opened the front door, and they walked out holding hands. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“Then it is. No one will ever forget Manolete, but why would anyone want to see such a gruesome relic?”
“After all this time, he is still loved. As for Augustín’s journals, I’m glad you found them. They were a real help to me, but they’re too important to share outside the Aragon family.” He kissed her one last time and drove away.
She checked her watch. With so much left of the day, she needed something to do. Thinking her wardrobe could use a bit of color, she walked along the shore until she reached the boutiques they’d driven by on the way to the freeway. Resort clothes were always expensive, but she hadn’t treated herself to anything new in a long while. She had plenty of dark tops; maybe a colorful skirt was all she needed.
The first shop she entered had prices so high she turned around and walked out, but farther down, she found a sale at a much more inviting shop. They had long skirts with embroidered hems in pale shades of blue and greens, but she was drawn to a skirt in sunset colors with godets and gores that would swing with every step. She tried it on and turned in front of the full-length mirror.
“That’s very beautiful on you,” the clerk said. “These ballerina tees go well with our full skirts. The aqua will catch the green in your eyes.”
The tees had V necklines and three-quarter sleeves, and after trying on the aqua, she agreed. The colorful clothes were perfect for the glorious weather in Barcelona, and she could dance in the outfit back home. She slipped back into her clothes and handed the clerk her credit card.
The young woman’s eyes widened as she read the name. She reached for the tabloid Maggie had seen that morning and laid it on the counter. “Isn’t this you?”
There had to be hundreds of women named Magdalena Aragon in Spain, but she was too easily recognized to escape further notice with lies. “Yes, but you mustn’t believe anything you read with our photos. There probably isn’t a true word in the whole issue.”
“Maybe not, but it’s plain you’re dancing with El Gitano while Santos Aragon looks ready to kill. Everyone can see that.”
“It’s a bad angle,” Maggie insisted. She signed the bill, pocketed her receipt and card, and left carrying her new clothes in the shop’s lime green bag. She enjoyed walking along the beach and stopped at another small shop to purchase a straw hat. The proprietor flirted with her but didn’t notice her name when he handed her the bill. Grateful for his inattention, she donned the hat at a saucy angle and walked back toward her father’s home.
She’d forgotten to ask him about the reservation for her flight home. She wondered if the return trip to the airport rated the Hispano-Suiza, or if Rafael would take her rather than Santos. She’d been on trips where she’d been eager to return home. This time, an empty condo held no appeal. The thought of remaining with a matador was terrifying, however. She didn’t care about the notoriety the tabloids created, but the constant worry would surely kill whatever feelings she had for Rafael and probably his for her. She could concentrate on him as a man when they were together; when they were apart, however, her common sense took over with a desperate wail.
At dinner that night, Carmen took one look at Maggie in her colorful new outfit and shook her head. “Don’t come to my table again dressed as a Gypsy.”
Cirilda regarded Maggie with a condescending smile as though she expected no better than outlandish garb from her niece. Fox sent her a beseeching glance, and unwilling to abandon him at their opinionated grandmother’s table, she took her seat.
“I regard them as resort clothes, and this trip is a vacation for me,” she responded with forced sweetness. “Full skirts are also perfect for dancing flamenco, which I love.”
“You’re beautiful as always,” Santos interjected, but he was unusually subdued and offered few comments to warm the frosty mood.
As they ate raspberry sherbet for dessert, Cirilda mentioned an artist who was extending his modern artwork into a clothing line, and Carmen promptly denounced it as a certain failure. “Why is that?” Maggie asked, just to be perverse.
“He is known for using huge splotches of bright colors. One of his paintings is a striking accent in an office foyer. On a woman, it will look like she’s crazy and wrapped in an old awning.”
“I suppose it would depend on the style,” Maggie added.
“He has no background in fashion design,” Carmen insisted.
Maggie was sorely tempted to comment until her grandmother finally ran out of criticism for the artist, but Santos changed the subject before she could speak.
“What should I wear on Sunday, the red traje de luces, or the green?”
“Red,” Carmen replied with her usual fervor.
“I rather like the green,” Cirilda posed.
