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CHAPTER TWELVE
SONIA
It takesus another hour to get back. An hour in which Santos tells me about our life together, our wedding, our plans.
We were married in the chapel here at Las Cruzes with only trusted families in attendance. He was afraid word that I’d survived the attack on Villanueva would get out and put me in danger.
“So we’re not legally married?” I ask when he says there was no marriage certificate.
“You and I made our vows before God. That’s all that matters,” he tells me in a tone that leaves no room for argument.
When we arrive at the stables, one of the workers slides the wide door open and lets us in. I guide Nieves to his stall, then follow Santos to the water station at the far end of the building.
“Thank you for today. I needed it.”
He smiles as he hands me a pail for my horse. “You’re welcome.”
I’m walking back to the stall when, out of my peripheral, I spot something shiny. I cup my mouth with my hand and set the bucket down, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
“Is that…” I trail off as I approach the short stall door with a plaque I’m all too familiar with. It’s one that doesn’t match any of the others, because it doesn’t belong here. It belongs at Villanueva.
I trace the letters with my trembling finger. “Luna,” I whisper. “But how?”
Santos comes to stand behind me. “After the fire, I went back to see if anything could be salvaged. I found this in the ruins and knew you’d want it back.”
Tears roll down my face unheeded as I recall the pain of losing Luna. Of waking up to discover she’d been put down during the night because of a snake bite on her leg. I’d been inconsolable. Nothing my family did could bring me back from the depths of depression I’d fallen into when Santos left, and this only helped to bury me more.
“I begged my father to let me keep the stall empty.” He didn’t want to at first, saying it was unhealthy to love an animal like that. It was my mother who finally convinced him to let me have that one thing. “I can’t believe it survived the fire.”
“Not much else did.”
Wiping another errant tear, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing I could release the pain too. Because even though this happened years ago, for me, the loss is new. “How could anyone be so heartless? They destroyed everything.” I touch the plaque again.
“They wanted to get something from your father.”
“What could they have wanted so badly that they took what little he had left?” In fact, all that remained were vestiges of his sanity and me.
“I don’t know,” Santos tells me, reaching over to cover my hand with his, guiding my fingers over Luna’s name. “I’ve asked you this before, but maybe with the way things have changed with your memory, you can think of something. Did Fernando ever mention Padilla?”
“No. Never.”
“Did he say anything about debts? Or secrets?”
This is the second time he’s suggested my father had something to do with Padilla, and I don’t like it one bit. “Santos, my father may have been ruthless in business, but he was a good man, not someone who was involved with criminals.”
“Even good men do bad things, Sonia.” He says it for my benefit. I recall all too well how much he hated my father and why. “After the accident, I got word that Padilla was still searching Villanueva for something. That’s why I’ve kept you hidden.”
“You don’t think he ever found it?”
“He went back several times, so I don’t think he did. Was there anywhere else your father would have taken something or someone to hide?”
“Someone?” I turn to him, my brow furrowed. “You think he was hiding someone?”
“Anything is possible. The question is, where? Because whatever Padilla was after wasn’t at Villanueva.”
I try to imagine who my father would have protected to the point of risking everything. His family is all that comes to mind. “I was the only one left alive,” I whisper.
After my sister hid her pregnancy and died of a complication during childbirth, something that could have been prevented if she hadn’t been completely alone at Rancho Lozano, and my mother died of an aggressive brain tumor a year later, we thought the family was cursed. But it wasn’t until my brother died from a drug overdose that my father truly held tightly to that belief, saying he’d brought the wrath of God upon us.
