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“Let’s not go over that again,” she begged wearily. “Please, don’t let him pay.”
The clerk laughed. “Whenever a man is in a generous mood, you should simply say, ‘Thank you.’”
“That’s undoubtedly sound advice for others, but not for me.”
The clerk shrugged. “I tried.”
Rafael walked up to the register to wait for Maggie, and as soon as she’d paid, the clerk brought out a digital camera. “Would you mind if I took your photo for our customer wall? We don’t have famous people in here every day.”
Maggie looked up at Rafael. “Are we famous?”
“I’m on my way,” he assured her. He pulled her close, and they smiled for the clerk’s photo. He whisked Maggie out of the shop before the clerk could take a second shot. “We look good tog
ether. Where do you suppose that photo will end up?”
“I really don’t care.” Not ready to discover whether or not the dress wouldn’t wrinkle, she laid it carefully in the backseat. They were already packed and Rafael drove toward the freeway. “Thank you again for offering, but I never let men pay for my clothes.”
“So you won’t owe them?”
“No, it’s… You’re not like anyone else, but I didn’t want to take advantage of other men.”
“You can’t take advantage of me,” he assured her. “I don’t expect anything in return. What do you expect from me?”
Her mind went completely blank. “Give me a minute.”
He laughed. “You’re not used to having deep conversations with men, are you?”
Maggie thought she’d probably had too many. “No, I am, but I don’t usually answer.” When Craig had pushed her, she’d only dug deeper into silence.
She reached for his arm. “I love being with you. That’s more than enough for me.”
“Thank you, but you’ve got to want more.”
“Why?”
The traffic was heavy for midmorning on a weekday, and Rafael kept his attention focused on the freeway. “Because women always want more than a good time.”
“There’s a lot more to you than a good time,” she argued. “We don’t know each other well yet. Tell me something about yourself I don’t know. Where did you go to school?” She held her breath and hoped he wouldn’t notice how deftly she’d shifted the attention to him.
“I told you I could match Santos in pathetic stories. Are you sure you want to hear them?”
“Positive.”
“All right. I’ve never been to school. I taught myself to read by the time I was four. I picked up numbers on the street. I learned to speak English from tourists and TV. You can learn a lot from TV on how to act or how to dress. I saw a poster for a bullfight and sneaked in when your father was on the bill. It was the most exciting thing I’d ever seen. I swear he glowed in the afternoon light.”
“I’m sure he did. How old were you?”
“Seven or eight, probably too young to make serious career choices, but I decided that very afternoon to become a matador.”
Clearly, he’d needed a father figure, but she wished he’d been impressed by someone with a less dangerous line of work. But then they’d never have met. “Didn’t your grandmother want you to go to school?”
“Not when it would have cut into the time my sister and I could beg on street corners. The more pitiful we looked, the better we did. Most tourists have plenty of cash in their pockets and don’t mind giving a few bills to cute little kids. Or at least they did then. When we got older, we’d do odd jobs for shopkeepers, whatever we could to earn money. I found a book with the answers for Jeopardy, and even though I’d never seen the show, I learned all the questions for fun. I taught my sister everything I knew, so no one could call us ignorant. I missed reading the Harry Potter books, but I’ll get through them all soon.”
“You’re a remarkable man.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“I’ll convince you later.”
