AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Humor me, Mrs. Vasquez. We have an especially fine dinner planned for tonight, and I wanted to make certain you’d be there.”
“Are you always this enthusiastic?”
“I’m happy to be of service to you, but general enthusiasm is part of my job. We’ll be passing through a storm later and my presence tonight will reassure everyone they’re in no danger.”
“Is it the truth?”
“
Yes, it is. The Mediterranean Siren is a beautifully engineered and constructed ship, all the Ortiz ships are. I’m sorry our dinner company isn’t more exciting.”
They were the last to be seated at his table. Linda Suarez looked between them and frowned, but Ana had no romantic interest in the captain, and obviously, Linda did. Ana smiled and greeted everyone. The table linens last night had been a near eye-blistering white. Tonight, they were the heavenly blue of the Ortiz Line logo and the centerpieces were filled with bouquets of fragrant white carnations with accents of blue.
“How pretty everything is,” Ana exclaimed.
The dentists nodded and smiled. The Lopezes agreed and hugged each other. “Where is your husband?” Joseph Lopez asked.
“He was called away,” Ana replied. “I spent most of the day in the library reading. What did everyone else do?” She was relieved when the others recounted their day. They were served a delicious sherried onion soup with saffron topped with sliced almonds and parsley, and she concentrated on swallowing with silent sips.
Memo Talleda looked up from his bowl. “How could your husband have been called away? Isn’t he still on board?”
The captain answered before Ana could. “We arranged for a helicopter. Now tell me if the lamb isn’t the best you’d ever tasted.”
Linda thought the roasted lamb with red onion salsa looked incredibly good and took note as Ana was served menestra, a dish of spring vegetables. “Is the vegetarian food good?”
“Scrumptious,” Ana replied, but by the time everyone finished the sorbete de limon for dessert, she was thoroughly tired of her dinner companions.
The captain rolled her chair away from the table, but when the others had left, he turned her wheelchair around and pulled up to the closest chair. “Give me a minute please, Mrs. Vasquez. Your husband told me he wanted the wedding we’d planned for tomorrow to be a legal ceremony he could register, because you couldn’t recall your first wedding.”
“Without a groom, there won’t be any need for one tomorrow.”
“I realize that.” He looked away briefly. “I don’t want to make trouble for you or Alejandro. Please believe me. He said you’d been married in a civil ceremony. Do you know when and where?”
“Some courthouse in Barcelona, I suppose. It had to have been last week, Thursday or Friday, but I’m not sure of the date. Why do you ask?”
“After couples marry, there’s a legal requirement to register the wedding at the Civil Registry. It was just curiosity that made me go online to search for the details of your wedding so you’d know them, but I couldn’t find any record of a marriage between you and Alejandro Ortiz y Vasquez.”
His expression was dead serious, lacking any hint of his usual charm. “Maybe there’s a backlog, and our wedding hasn’t been posted yet,” she suggested.
“This week’s are already posted and those from last week are readily available. Yours simply isn’t among them.”
After the speed with which Alejandro had left her that morning, discussing their marriage held no appeal, and she laced her fingers in her lap. “What are you suggesting, that we aren’t married?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just remarking on the fact there’s no record of your wedding. Alejandro may have told you you’d married him, but do you have another source, or any evidence that you actually did?”
His shocking question forced her to wonder. Last Sunday, she’d woken from surgery with the world a blur and found she had a husband. Wasn’t it true? The possibility it had been a convenient lie, or a cruel hoax, sent her heart tumbling. “I’d like to go to my cabin, please.”
He rose to his feet. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Of course you did. Don’t tell yourself otherwise. I’ll ask my husband for the details. You needn’t bother to search elsewhere. His word will be enough for me.”
“He’s a very lucky man.”
Ana told him good night as she rolled through her door, and he behaved as a gentleman and left her to her own thoughts. She sat in the middle of the cabin, staring out at the night, too confused to move to a chair or the bed. She could only dimly recall last Sunday but thought Alejandro had said something about telling the hospital he was a relative—not a brother, but her husband. Was that how it had started? He’d said it, and she’d been loopy with drugs and believed it?
When her cell phone chimed, she feared she’d be too upset to make sense, but she sucked in a deep breath and said hello. “How is your father?”
“There’s been no change from this morning. He’s alive, but just barely. I miss you. What did you do all day?”
