Dancing in a Hurricane (51 page)

Opening her door, she smelled coffee. He was up already, she found him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a mug in his hand, his head bowed.

She padded in. "Hi."

He lurched and almost dropped the mug. "Hi. Jeez, I think I fell asleep."

"Standing?" She went to the cupboard, but he beat her to it.

He handed her favorite cup to her. "Didn't sleep well last night."

She nodded, spooned in sugar, and filled her mug with coffee. "I can understand."

Sipping her coffee, she looked up into his beautiful, hopeful eyes. But she couldn't say the words that would ease his pain. "Can I make you some eggs?"

He stared. "Bree, I need to know you're not leaving me."

She sighed and turned away. "I don't know what I'm doing." She touched a shaky hand to her cheek.

"Sit down,
cariña
, I'll make breakfast. You talk."

She shuffled to a barstool and sat, slumping over her cup.

He banged a few pans around and hauled out half the refrigerator's contents.

"I put myself in your situation," she began.

He paused and looked at her then went back to laying bacon slabs in a hot pan. "And?"

"And I still couldn't see myself keeping something that important from you."

He nodded, cracked an egg into a pan, and froze, staring at the stove. "I've been searching for the right woman for a long time." His voice sounded shaky. "When I found her, here in my own house, I was already lying to her. I thought maybe if I ignored it, I wouldn't have to hurt her with the truth—that I failed to live up to her image of me as an honest man."

Another slice of anger fell away as she could almost feel his disappointment in himself. "If I hadn't found the password…" She hadn't told him that the address book she claimed was Cloe's was actually her physical therapy client appointment book. She'd told a lie to catch a liar. "When would you have told me?"

"When it was too late for you to leave me."

"When would that be?"

He turned and smiled at her. "After four kids and a minivan."

Shocked, she looked down into her coffee cup.

He walked toward her. "You're The One, Bree. You're my soul mate. There's nothing I won't do to keep you."

She hefted a sigh. "Sixto—" Her cell phone rang in her purse in her room.

"Ignore it," he commanded.

She nodded. "What should I do about you?"

"My professional opinion? Give it a couple days. We'll talk it out, or we can see a relationship counselor if you want." He blinked rapidly. "Don't run away."

He was right. Running wouldn't solve this, and she needed to battle this out with him as well as within herself. She opened her mouth to agree to stay—temporarily, when the house phone rang.

The answering machine picked up. "Hey, it's Rico. Marisa thinks she left some antibiotics from the clinic in your purse, Bree. I'm about a minute away. I'm going to stop by and see if you're home."

Sixto looked at the machine, wrinkled his brow, and looked at her.

The panic and guilt on her face had to give her away. "There's something you need to talk to Marisa about." The words shot like BBs out of a bullet.

Through gritted teeth, his voice held a thick accent. "Tell me what clinic?"

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Sixto watched Bree's face. Her eyes shifted around the room.

"Let me check my purse before he gets here." She stood.

What the hell had she done? He heard a knock on the door. Bree came out of her room with a small box in her hand. "Come in."

Rico barged through the door, spotted her, and hugged her. "Thanks for being there for Marisa." He looked up as Sixto walked out of the kitchen. "You too,
socio
. I should have been there for her, but knowing that you two were…"

Bree shook her head at Rico, he looked between the two of them, and said, "I'm interrupting something, huh?" He grabbed the box and opened the garage door. "Later."

Bree stood staring at door for a minute before turning to face Sixto. Fear shimmered in her eyes.

Antibiotics. Clinic. Rico saying he should have been there. Oh, God. "What. Clinic?" he asked again.-

She held up a hand. "I promised to let Marisa tell you."

He walked toward her, his blood ringing through his ears.

She crossed her arms over her stomach and wouldn't meet his eye. Her body shook.

"An abortion clinic?" His voice was loud, strong with his accent. "You took her to an abortion clinic." Standing in front of her, he prayed she would deny it, would miraculously have another reason for helping Marisa.

She swallowed. "She had an appointment for an abortion, but—"

"And you drove her?" His hands fisted, his blood pressure shot skyward, heating his whole body.

"She asked me and I—"

"You didn't talk to me about this?"

She reached for him, put her hand on his arm, and he steeled himself not to flinch. "Because she asked me not to." Her voice choked.

"She wasn't in her right mind, Bree. You had to have known that."

She pulled her hand back. "It was her choice," she said quietly.

"No. I don't believe that. And I know you don't." He breathed a few times, searching for control. "Marisa just needed someone to talk to her about her options."

Bree nodded. "We did talk—"

"Not you!" He looked away, and when he looked back, a red tinge clouded his vision. "You don't know her. You had nothing to offer her." He turned his back on Bree to keep himself from grabbing and shaking her. "You should have told me, we should have talked to her together."

"Sixto, she didn't want anyone to know."

He swung around. "Did she think I'd just forget she was pregnant? Am I that stupid?"

She pressed her fingers to her temple, her face paled. "Of course not. I asked her to tell you—"

"You said that already. If she wouldn't, you should have. My God, do you realize what she's done? What you've enabled her to do?"

She shook her head quickly. "If it matters at all, she didn't—"

"No. It doesn't matter." He made a fist. "What matters is that you kept something from me that I needed to know to help my sister. You went along with Marisa's plans even though you knew she was emotionally distraught."

"It's an emotional issue." She sighed, her body deflating. "I thought I was helping her out of a bad situation."

"You're not entitled to make that kind of decision. She's an acquaintance of yours, she's my family. My sister."

"I see your point, Sixto, but I just wanted to be there for her. I'm sorry."

He stared at her. Did she think that was enough? She took his sister to have an abortion. That and child abuse—unforgivable. Saying she was sorry didn't make it okay.

"I can't accept your apology."

Her eyes went wide. "What?"

"You have no idea the enormity of what you've done. I've lost my faith in you, Bree. I have no trust left. I feel…" Sick? Hollow? Disgusted? "I think you should go."

He walked around her to her room. She followed. Her suitcase sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, still packed but open. He slammed it shut and zipped it. Picking it up, he looked at her tearful eyes. "Get your purse, I'll call you a taxi. You can make your flight."

He walked past her, out of her room.

"Sixto, wait." She trotted after him. "Can't we take a few days, talk about this?"

He carried her suitcase to the front door. Swinging the door open wide, he said, "Go home, Bree." He set the bag outside.

She swayed as he walked by her. "You aren't serious. You just told me to give
you
a few days, talk it out…"

He went into her room and picked up her purse, stormed to the rug by the garage door and grabbed her sandals. Passing by her again at the front door, he set it all next to her suitcase and stepped back inside.

"This is not something small, like a lie. This is a life, it could have been two lives if anything went wrong and Marisa died."

Her breath squeezed in and out, her hand clutched her chest. "Please, rethink this. Give me a chance. I'm truly sorry—"

He pointed a finger in her face. "This is my family you fucked with. I can't forgive you." He walked into his bedroom and stopped just inside, out of her view. He waited to hear what she would do. His head throbbed with each heartbeat, and his stomach threatened to disgorge. What kind of interfering, lying, heartless bitch…

The front door closed. He walked out of his room.

Through the sidelite, he saw her sitting on the front step, putting on her sandals.

He picked up the phone and dialed a friend who owned a cab company and called in a favor. "I need a taxi as soon as possible."

When he finished, he stood by the couches. He could see her outside. Suddenly, her head dropped onto her arms, crossed on her knees. Her whole body shook and he could hear her sobs. He should be moved to pity, but he was indifferent. What she did to his sister was not just physical. It would leave an emotional scar.

He looked at the phone in his hand. He should call Marisa, find out how she was, if she needed to talk. But right now, he had no comforting words for her. He was pissed at both women. As long as he kept the anger stoked at maximum, he wouldn't have to deal with his sister's emotional needs. Or his own.

***

In an amazingly short time, a taxi pulled up and an older gentleman helped Bree with her bag, got her into the back seat, and handed her a tissue.

"Thanks. The airport, please."

"Right away."

She glanced at her house as they backed out of the driveway. The front door where she planned to hang a wreath at Christmas. The yard lights that she'd helped save from the hurricane. The home she shared with Sixto. A hard man, cold. One mistake and she was out of his life.

Closing her eyes, she took stock of her condition. Her head hurt terribly, her throat burned raw and her eyes were dry and scratchy. Fifteen minutes of bawling her eyes out was enough for one day. She'd be home in eleven hours, and she could start crying again. For now, she needed to concentrate on what she could do, what she could say, to fix this.

She bit her lips together. The moment Marisa had asked her, Bree knew this wouldn't turn out well, but her argument had been so convincing. Her brother would run to defend her and end up in jail, or dead. She could have told him that just now, but he would brush aside her concern. Sixto thought the world should revolve around what he considered right and just.

That's why she sat in a taxi on the way to a flight to Washington while he stomped around their house not knowing what to do with his anger.

Fine. She'd give him a few days. Maybe even a week. But she would talk this out with him and if he still wanted her gone, she'd sell him her half of the house and to hell with him. A tear skittered down her cheek. She had a bad feeling he would never let her back in his life.

A half hour later, she checked her bag at the ticket counter where the airline employee, staring at her puffy, bloodshot eyes, asked if she knew she was four hours early.

Bree smiled at her. "I wanted to do some shopping."

The woman made a disbelieving face and handed her drivers' license back. "Have a great time."

Bree found a corner table in a dark restaurant and ate a huge breakfast. She shopped for her girlfriend's children, guesstimating their sizes based on age. T-shirts with palm trees screen-printed on them, dolphin teething toys for the infants and Marlins shirts for the boys.

"Well, that killed an hour." She browsed the bookstore for relationship help books, but ended up buying a couple romance novels and a Cosmopolitan magazine. Food for the heart.

By the time her flight started boarding, she was nodding off. She would sleep all the way home. Her eyes popped open. Home? When did Port Angeles become home again? It took only weeks for Miami to feel like home and now she was being forced to leave. The last call for her flight sounded and she scrambled to gather all her packages. Four hours early and she was the last one to board.

"Miss! You left these." A gentleman held her sandals.

She looked down at her bare feet. Lord, how would she make it even a week without Sixto when she could barely dress herself?

***

Three days later, Marisa walked into Sixto's house. For days, she'd called his cell, leaving messages asking to talk to him. He didn't return her calls, so she did what any needy woman would do. Storm right in.

"Are you kids decent?" she yelled.

The smell hit her first, and then the darkness. It was noon, but all the shades were drawn. Fish? Fish and beer. Did they have a party last night?

She flipped on the dining room light. The place was a disaster area

From the couch, he yelled, "Damn it, Riss! Turn that light off."