Page 95 of In a Far-Off Land
She pulled back and looked into his face. Waiting.
Oscar didn’t move, but he also didn’t draw back. He had no inkling what to say.
But Lupita did. Almost as if she’d planned this whole scene. “Now do you understand?”
He shook his head, his mind still fuzzy from the kiss. “I don’t think so.”
She smiled like he was a child trying to understand a lesson in school. “I don’t want to beamericanaor any other thing that I am not. Yes, I cut my hair and I have a new dress. I am a woman and we do those things. But, Oscar—” here she looked up at him until his eyes met hers—“I am not my sister.”
No. She was surely not. She was something else. “If you don’t want to beamericana, then what do you want?”
“I want to live here, with you. To make a good life here but not to forget where we come from and who we are.”
“With me?” He understood that part. That she wanted to stay with him. Here, in thecolonia. “Even if I am a stupid man, as you say?” He meant it. He was far from perfect. She knew that—she’d known it before he did.
She let out a small laugh. “Yes, with you. You have a good heart, Oscar.” She placed her hand on his chest where that heart was beating like a drum. “And that is why I love you. That, and you aren’t as stupid as you sometimes act.”
She loved him? Lupita really loved him? Even if he hadn’t understood until now what she meant to him? He unhooked his hands from his pockets and raised one to her hair, smoothing the short waves. It was all he could think of to do. He felt a smile breaking out and couldn’t stop it.
She smiled back and looped her hands around his neck. “Now.You will tell me that you love me—if that is true, and I think it is. And then you will kiss me and ask me to marry you.”
She was right, of course. And so he did.
MAX
All through California, I talked to Mina as if she were right beside me, her hair blowing, giving me the sidelong look like she did, that mysterious half smile. I told her she was stubborn, misguided, mistaken.
For once, she didn’t talk back.
The road beneath my tires took up the rhythm.Gone for good. Gone for good.
“You should have trusted me,” I whispered to the photo on the seat next to me. She looked back at me, and this time I saw reproach in her gaze. She had trusted me, that night at the beach. And what had I done?
My hands tightened on the steering wheel until my knuckles were white.
I’d taken advantage of her.
I hadn’t meant to make love to her. I’d tried not to think of her that way since the day I met her. Sure, I’d been lonely, but I could have called any of the girls I knew—those pretty birds had seemed like what I wanted until I met Mina. I should have kept my distance.
Should have.Words that came with a mental kick in the backside.
With Mina, keeping my distance was impossible. It wasn’t the aquamarine eyes, that laughing mouth, or her smarts. Don’t get me wrong. Those were all terrific. But it was something else. Underneath that beauty, that moxie and quick wit, there wasanother woman. I saw her in flashes, like when we waltzed and her face went all soft, like she was in another world. Or when she pretended she wasn’t crying at sappy films, when she laughed until she snorted at Chaplin.
And the humming. She didn’t even know she did it.
I had seen just enough of that woman to know I wanted more. Who was she, really? And what was she hiding? She was hiding a past. Just like the rest of us.
The thing was, I wrote the book on hiding your past, on trying to change who you are and how people see you. I had kept the boy from thecoloniaunder wraps since the day Dusty Clark took me. Until that day at the beach, when I’d shown Mina a part of myself I hadn’t shown anyone. The boy who never fit in. The bastard kid who’d lost his mother and loved a father who couldn’t love him back.
I’d wanted Mina to love me, that night at the beach house. I won’t deny it. But I’d gone about it all wrong and before I knew it, we were in too far. And then... finding out she felt she owed me, that she was paying a debt. That hurt. It still hurt. I’ll tell her that, too.
The sun went down over the desert in a kaleidoscope of pink and orange, and the wind cooled my fevered thoughts. I’d let her down, and not only at the beach house. The more I fell in love with her, the less I wanted to share her. She’d been right when she’d accused me that night at Lester’s. By then, I didn’t want her to make it in Hollywood. It was too tough, too dangerous. Every audition brought her closer to what she wanted and took her further away from me. I couldn’t lose her to that town like I’d lost Maria Carmen.
I couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother me, what she’d done at theRose. But I knew a thing or two about how women were treated and what they had to do to survive. And I knew plenty about regret. But I hoped I knew something else about Mina. Mina wouldn’t harm our baby. She might have done a lot of things, but she wouldn’t do that. I knew that, at least, didn’t I?
Darkness fell, but I kept driving.Please, God, let me be right about that.
My eyes were heavy as the moon rose and I told her how I really felt. “I’ll take care of you, Mina,” I said to the black sky as I crossed into Nevada. “I’ll take care of both of you.” I’d find work. I’d make her happy. And maybe, if I was luckier than I deserved to be, I could make her love me. “Just give me a chance.”
