His heart raced faster than a barrage of bullets seeking a target.He kissed her sweet lips.Her taste, her touch, her scent.She was his.All his.“My wife, my brave woman.I love you, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
That night, Enriquearrived home late.
After dropping his wife off at the apartment, he’d met with Ibarra and set Lourdes’s plan into motion.
To Enrique’s relief, Alonzo Sanchez wasn’t squeaky clean.With the bribery allegation added on top of pending sexual assault charges, Ibarra had confirmed that the police chief would quietly shelve the internal investigation and let the matter drop.
Sanchez got what he deserved.No man called Lourdes a whore.
With his SUV now back in the parking garage, he relinquished the key fob into the bowl where Lourdes had taken it earlier.Shadows cloaked the dimly lit combined living and dining area as though in hushed anticipation of his return.His stomach rumbled.The scent of roasted tomatoes and mouthwatering jalapeños lingered from the half-eaten tamale casserole on the dining table.The now-cold casserole.
Carajo.Lourdes had cooked their first meal as a married couple, and he missed it.
He headed down the dark hall to her new studio.The tingle of awareness sparked life in his veins as he neared the shaft of golden light that spilled out from the open doorway.
In the room, Lourdes faced away from him in her swivel chair and flipped through the sketchpad on her lap.Tension permeated the air around her as though she carried the weight of the world upon her rigid shoulders.
A vivid painting of a smiling boy, still in his toddler years, holding an infant girl swaddled in pink greeted Enrique from an easel.Two other colorful paintings rested on the floor, one on each front leg of the wooden structure—a newborn boy in blue who closely resembled the cherub-faced toddler, and another of the sleeping girl.
Lourdes closed the pad and turned.Her eyes widened.“I didn’t hear you come in.Been there long?”She stood and reached out her hand.
He took it, moving before he could think about it.“No, just got here.Sorry I’m late.Thank you for dinner.”
“Busy day.I’m only grateful to have been a part of it.”A half-smile curved her mouth.“We had a relationship breakthrough today.”
“Very true, princess.”He brushed his lips across hers and moaned from her delicious peach-flavored lip gloss.He nodded back at the paintings.“Who are the children?”
Lourdes averted her gaze.“They’re mine.What I imagined they would have looked like.”
“I don’t understand.”He frowned as she pulled back from him.Unease settled like a stone in his gut.
“I had two miscarriages.”
He snapped upright.Of all the things she could’ve said, he hadn’t expected that.
