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“Yes, I am. What’s that have to do with anything?”
“So, you should have the summer off. It’s still July.”
“I’m going back to Venezuela.” It took all her strength to say the words in a kind voice. “To getmyson.”
His jaw dropped. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Why would I make a joke about something so important?”
She watched with interest as a V-shaped vein appeared on his forehead.
“After everything my men and I did to get you out? Are you out of your mind?”
Since he’d abandoned his civilized voice, she, too, gave up trying to sound civilized. “I never asked to be taken out. But I did ask you to let me bring my son home.” Physically and emotionally exhausted, with very little food in her system, she wasn’t surprised to hear a quaver in her voice.
Astonishingly, his expression softened. “And I’m sorry for that, but my orders were to get you out—you and only you.”
“I realize that. But now I’m forced to go back.” She didn’t add that she also had to run up her credit card to do so.
Simon, clearly sensitive to the tension between them, had slinked away to hover by the porch rail. Amos stepped closer, assaulting her with the scent of soap and lumber and man.
“Have you listened to the news? A civil war is breaking out between Maduro and Guaidó’s factions. It isn’t safe to go back.”
She sent him a tight smile. “Well, I’m going.”
Frustration made his eyes flash. He raised a hand abruptly, causing her to flinch, but all he did was dip his fingers into the pocket on his shirt, coming away with an expensive-looking pen and a slim notepad. He scrawled his name and then an address in his peculiar, antique script. She didn’t know a single man who wrote like that.
“Here.” He pulled off the note and thrust it at her. “If you change your mind, this is where you can find us. Simon, say goodbye to Miss Garrett.”
“G’bye, Mith Garrett.”
She had to smile at his lisp. Gosh, he was cute.
His father was another story. Yet, watching him usher Simon back to the big, black Silverado parked at the curb, she couldn’t help but notice how muscular his legs were beneath the hem of his cargo shorts. He was built like a bull without an ounce of fat on him. Hefting Simon into the passenger’s side, he held Grace’s eyes captive as he rounded the truck to get into the driver’s seat.
“Do you not have a booster seat for him?”
Her words drew him up short.
“He needs a booster seat until he’s eight years old or eighty pounds. And he can’t sit in the front seat unless that airbag’s turned off.”
Amos’s jaw clenched. “See. That’s why I need you, Grace. I didn’t know that.”
With those surprisingly humble words, he shut himself inside his cab, sending Simon into the back seat and leaving her feeling torn. The little boy waved at her through the window, catching her eye, before dropping out of sight onto the rear seat. Grace returned her attention to Amos. His hard stare said,find me,as he pulled from her curb and roared away.
With a wave of loss, Grace thought about Mateo. He needed her more than Amos did. That man had caused her so much grief. She owed him nothing.
* * *
From one of the dozens of lounge chairs framing the children’s play area at Ocean Breeze Water Park, Grace watched her niece, Olivia, frolic in water that went up to her hips. Grayson and Cameron were off tackling the adult-sized water slides, and Faith was enjoying a day to herself at the ranch.
Ensconced on a lounge chair in the only patch of shade in the water park, Grace, who was waiting for a phone call from her travel agent, had declined to play with Olivia. Like the mushroom fountain sluicing over Olivia’s slender frame as she stood beneath it, memories of Mateo played over and over in Grace’s mind.
Sensing someone staring at her, she turned her head, searching for the source. For just a second, she saw him in the crowd of parents on the opposite side of the pool—a swarthy soldier dressed in a jungle-green uniform. She jackknifed in her chair, thinking Maduro was still hunting her, but he vanished in an instant. There was only a navy-blue umbrella where he’d been standing. Grace’s heart thudded.
I’m losing my mind.
The sudden jangle of her cell phone startled her. With a grimace for her overwrought nerves, she pulled her phone from her pool bag.
