[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

paused in the doorway to watch them for a few seconds, his eyes growing tender as they traced the
graceful lines of Melissa's body and then went to Matt, becoming puzzled and disturbed as he really
looked at the child for the first time.
Yes, it could be so. Matthew could be his child. He had to admit it now. The boy had his coloring, his
eyes. Matt had his nose and chin, but he had the shape of his mother's eyes, and his hair was only a
little darker than hers.
Except that the years were wrong Matt would have to be over four years old if he was truly Diego's
son. Melissa had said that he was just past three. But Diego knew so little about children of any age,
and there was always the possibility that she hadn't told the exact truth. Little things she'd said, slips
she'd made, could reveal a monumental deception.
She didn't lie as a rule, but this was an extraordinary situation. After all, she'd had more than enough
reason to want to pay him back for his cruelty. And was she the kind of woman who could go from
him to another man so easily? Had she? Or had she only been afraid, as Dutch had hinted afraid of
losing her son to his real father?
She might think Diego capable of taking Matt away from her and turning her out of their lives. His
jaw tautened as he remembered his treatment of her and exactly why she had good reason to see him
that way. If he didn't know Melissa, then she certainly didn't know him. He'd never let her close
enough to know him. What if he did let her come close? He turned away from the door, tempted for
the first time to think of pulling down the barriers he'd built between them. He was alone, and so was
she. Was there any hope for them now?
Melissa hobbled to the supper table with Matt's help. She looked worried, and Diego wondered what
had upset her.
He didn't have to wait long. Halfway through the first course, she got up enough nerve to ask him a
question that had plagued her all day.
"Do you think I might get a job when the doctor gives me the all-clear?" Melissa asked cautiously.
He put down his coffee cup and stared at her. "You have a job already, do you not?" he asked, nodding
toward a contented Matthew, who was obviously enjoying his chicken dish.
"Of course, and I love looking after him and having time to spend with him for a change," she
confessed. "But..."
She sighed heavily. "I feel as if I'm not pulling my weight," she said finally. "It doesn't seem fair to
make you support us."
He looked, and was, surprised at the remark. He leaned back in his chair, looking very Latin and
faintly arrogant.
"Melissa, you surely remember that I was a wealthy man in Guatemala. I work because I enjoy it, not
because I need to. I have more than enough in Swiss banks to support all of us into old age and
beyond."
"I didn't realize that." She toyed with her fork. "Still, I don't like feeling obligated to you."
His eyes flashed. "I am your husband. It is my duty, my obligation, my responsibility, to take care
of you."
"And that's an archaic attitude," Melissa muttered, her own temper roused. "In the modern
world, married people are partners."
"Josh's mama and papa used to fight all the time,"
Matthew observed with a wary glance at his mother.
"And Jose's papa went away."
Diego drew in a sharp breath. "Ninito," he said gently,
"your mama and I will inevitably disagree from time to time. Married people do, comprende?"
Matthew moved a dumpling around on his plate with his fork. "Yo no se," he murmured miserably,
but in perfect Spanish.
Diego frowned. He got up gracefully to kneel beside Matthew's chair. "Hablas espanol?" he asked
gently, using the familiar tense.
"Si," Matthew said, and burst into half a dozen in-complete fears and worries in that language
before Diego interrupted him by placing a long finger over his small mouth. His voice, when he
spoke, was more tender than Melissa had ever heard it.
"Nino" he said, his deep voice soothing, "we are a family.
It will not be easy for any of us, but if we try, we can learn to get along with each other. Would it
not please you, little one, to have time to spend with Mama, and a nice place to live, and toys to
play with?"
Matt looked worried. "You don't like Matt," he mumbled.
Diego took a slow breath and ran his hand gently over the small head. "I have been alone for a
long tune," he said hesitantly. "I have had no one to show me how to be a father. It must be
taught, you see, and only a small boy can teach it."
"Oh," Matt said, nodding his head. He shifted restlessly, and his dark eyes met Diego's. "Well.. .I
guess I could."
His brows knitted. "And we can go to the zoo and to the park and see baseball games and
things?"
Diego nodded. "That, too."
"You don't have a little boy?"
Diego hated the lump in his throat. It was as if the years of feeling nothing at all had caught up
with him at last. He felt as if a butterfly's wings had touched his heart and brought it to life for
the first time. He looked at the small face, so much like his own, and was surprised at the hunger
he felt to be this child's father, his real father. The loneliness was suddenly unbearable. "No," he
said huskily. "I have.. .no little boy."
Melissa felt tears running hot down her shocked face. It was more than she'd dared hope for
that Diego might be able to accept Matt, to want him, even though he believed he was another
man's child. It was the first step in a new direction for all of them.
"I guess so," Matthew said with the simple acceptance of childhood. "And Mama and I would live
with you?"
"Si."
"I always wanted a papa of my own," Matthew confessed.
"Mama said my own papa was a very brave man. He went away, but Mama used to say he might
come back."
That broke the spell. Diego's face tautened as it turned to Melissa, his black eyes accusing, all the
tenderness gone out of him at once as he considered that his whole line of thought might have been a
fabrication, created out of his own loneliness and need and guilt.
"Did she?" he asked tersely.
Melissa fought for control, dabbing at the tears. "Matt, wouldn't you like to go and play with your
bear?"
"Okay." He jumped down from his chair with a shy grin at Diego and ran off to his room. Except for
the first night, he'd given them no trouble about sleeping alone. He seemed to enjoy having a room of
his very own.
Diego's face was without a trace of emotion when he turned to her. "His father is still alive?" he said
tersely.
She dropped her eyes to the table while her heartbeat shook her. "Yes."
"Where is he?"
She shook her head, unable to speak, to tell any more lies.
He took an angry breath. "Until you can trust me, how can we have a marriage?"
She looked up. "And that works both ways. You never trusted me. How can you expect me to trust you,
Diego?"
"I was not aware that he spoke such excellent Spanish,"
he remarked after a minute, lessening the tension. "It seemed to come naturally to him," she said. "It
isn't bad for a child to be bilingual, especially in Tucson, where so many people speak Spanish
anyway. Most of his friends did."
He leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes sliding carelessly over Melissa's body. "You grow more
lovely with each passing day," he said unexpectedly.
She flushed. "I didn't think you ever looked at me long enough to form an opinion."
He lit a cheroot, puffing on it quietly. "Things are not so simple anymore, are they? The boy is
insecure."
"I'm sorry I argued with you," she said sadly. "I made everything worse."
"No. You and I are both responsible for that." He shrugged. "It is not easy, is it, pequena, to forget the
past we share?"
"Guatemala seems very far away sometimes, though." She leaned back. "What about the finca,
Diego?"
"I have given that more thought than you realize, Melissa," he replied. He studied his cheroot. "It is
growing more dangerous by the day to try to hold the estate, to provide adequate protection for my
workers. I loathe the very thought of giving it up, but it is becoming too much of a financial risk. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]