“I never implied you were,” he said as his voice softened. “I think you’re one sophisticated lady. Now, why don’t you go change while I keep an eye on Tina? Just don’t count the cookies after that.” He grinned.
Elena rolled her eyes. “Make sure you leave some for the other guys.” She turned to head for her bedroom.
Behind her, she heard Camden mumble as he walked to the kitchen, “‘Other guys’ are the last two words I wanna hear you say.” Before she could think of a response, Tina asked Camden where Toby was, and he was telling her the dog was spending the night with Kyle.
* * *
Elena shut the bedroom door behind her and scrubbed her face with her hands. When she stopped, her gaze landed on the photo on her bedside table. She, Tina, and Antonio posed together under a cottonwood tree dominating a small park. Baby Tina had just turned her face up to her dad when the photographer took the picture. What sat outside the frame was the children’s hospital adjacent to the park, where they’d just spent the better part of a month first trying to determine why their shaky, feverish little girl couldn’t keep anything down, then coming to terms with her diagnosis of type I diabetes. The hospital volunteer taking the photo captured both the bone-deep fatigue she and her husband felt, and their relief at Tina’s release. Not for the first time, everything in Elena’s life changed after that day, but she had one constant—Antonio’s love and devotion. Right up to the day of the accident.
Elena blinked back tears. How could any man ever compare to her Antonio? Ever love her and Tina as much and as fiercely as he had?
She turned to her closet and picked out fresh clothes. Growing up, Antonio had been soft-spoken, a pacifist shaped by long hours alone riding horses and herding cattle on the New Mexico ranch where his father worked as a third-generation cowboy. She’d first seen him on horseback when she was sixteen years old during an overnight field trip with the rest of her group home. He was only seventeen but looked older from the way he carried himself with quiet dignity, and the muscular body he’d developed working the ranch. Elena couldn’t look away, and when she caught the first shy glance he sent her direction over supper, she felt the earth move.
Elena stripped off her office clothes and carried a red tank dress with yellow flowers into the adjacent bathroom as she remembered how she’d spent that night lying awake in the bunkhouse, acutely aware she was sharing the same roof with her future husband—there was no doubt in her mind she was going to marry the handsome, stoic cowboy.Mrs. Elena Martinez, she’d whispered to herself,wife of Antonio Martinez. She’d pictured herself working in the ranch house kitchen beside the other women, laughing and joking as they prepared the big mid-day meal for the hands. How Antonio would come in dusty and sweaty—yet still smelling good, of course—from herding steers or breaking horses. The jingle of his spurs as he crossed the room and took her in his arms for a quick kiss before their meal. With these fantasies still filling her head at breakfast, she’d slipped Antonio the number to her contraband burner phone before piling into the van that would take her back to the drab group home in Albuquerque where she’d lived for six years.
Texts followed. Each time her secret phone vibrated in her pocket, Elena’s heart buzzed with it. Antonio wouldn’t call her, wouldn’t answer when she called him, texting that he’d just get tongue-tied and waste her minutes.
Elena smiled into her apartment’s bathroom mirror as she plugged in her iron and freshened her make-up, remembering how frustrated she’d been that he didn’t even record his name on his generic voicemail message, leaving her to try and remember what his voice had sounded like from the half-dozen words he’d spoken at supper. But he did text her several times a day. She’d sneak a peek during class or at her food service job and let his words sink in. He told her little things about his day, about how the clouds looked as they gathered on the horizon, the smell of rain in the distance. To her, his texts read like poetry.
He surprised her on her seventeenth birthday by driving to Albuquerque and showing up at the group home. She called in sick to work for the first time ever and they walked hand-in-hand to a nearby park. He stayed quiet until they sat on a park bench and he slipped down to one knee, opened a black velvet box, and asked her to marry him when she turned eighteen.
Their wedding night—two virgins sweetly fumbling. But they’d still given each other what they needed, and as time went on, they perfected the ways of pleasure. Elena was happy down to her bones for the first time in her chaotic life, living on the ranch away from the city. They planned on staying there forever.
Life had other plans.
Elena took a deep breath as she came back to the present. She appraised herself in the mirror and realized she’d put on a little extra makeup, done her hair fancier than she normally wore it. Was it because she was thinking of Antonio, wishing they were going out one last time? Or did she want to impress Camden? Guilt stabbed at her heart with the last thought.
Too late to undo it. Elena fluffed her hair one more time and headed for the kitchen.
Five
“So, what do you think?” Camden asked Elena as she took another bite of her vampiro taco. They sat at a picnic bench beside the food truck in a parking lot on a hill, the early evening sun still hanging over the Pacific. The rose-colored light flamed the gold highlights in Elena’s dark brown curls. Camden tried not to stare but lost that battle pretty quickly.
Elena fanned her hand in front of her mouth as she chewed and then stuck her index finger up—one second. “Steaming hot. Spicy. Amazing.” She pointed to Tina. “And I think I know why they call them vampiros.” Two lines of red juice streaked from the corners of Tina’s mouth down to her chin and dripped onto her plate.
Camden laughed and handed the grinning little girl a napkin. “Mystery solved. Once we’re done, we can walk down to the beach to watch the sunset.” He bit into his taco, which he’d asked for with double the carne asada and minus the finely chopped cabbage.
“Really? The view from here’s spectacular.” Elena gazed out at the shining water past the buildings clinging to the steep hill.
“Sure is,” Camden said, gazing at her face.
She looked away from the view to him. “You’re not even looking at…oh.” She stared down at her plate while her cheeks turned pink.Damn, she’s just so charming and sweet, Camden thought.
“So, yeah,” he continued. “View’s great here, but there’s a neat little magic trick I want to show Tina, and it only works on the beach.”
“What is it?” Tina wiped her chin and took another bite.
“Nope. You’ll just have to see when we get there. And you have to do exactly as I say or it doesn’t work.”
Tina’s eyes went to her mom.As they should,Camden thought. I’m still a bit of a stranger. When Elena nodded, the little girl looked back at Camden with a smile that opened his heart right up. “Okay. Can we go now?”
“Let the grown-ups finish their meal first,” Elena said, running her hand over her daughter’s hair.
Tina looked squarely at Camden. “Eat faster.”
“Pepita!” Elena exclaimed. “Don’t be rude. Say sorry.”
“Sorry.”
