Return to Mariposa

Chapter 18

Ifroze in disbelief. She looked magnificent, of course. White silk pants and jacket, a brilliant flash of color for a top. There was a smudge of dirt along her arm, and a disgruntled expression on her beautiful face, but I still couldn’t imagine how I’d managed to fool anyone into thinking I was this dazzling creature.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

She ignored the question. “Tell me about the will—I know they were reading it this morning. How did I make out?”

I didn’t bother to ask how she knew. “Penniless,” I said briefly.

She stared at me in shock, and she no longer looked so stunning. “Don’t be ridiculous—Granda adored me. He never would have cut me out of his will!”

“He cut everyone out. He left Mariposa and everything else to Katherine Whitehead.”

I’d seen Bella look sunny and charming, I’d seen her frustrated and angry, but I never once suspected that I’d see her looking murderous. “You bitch!” she spat.

The change in her was unnerving, and I shook myself. “I had nothing to do with it. He thought I was you. Believe it or not, I’ve managed to fool everyone.” And then I suddenly realized what her reappearance meant. “What are you going to tell everyone?”

She was still looking at me with hatred in her eyes. “I’m not going to tell anyone anything. Do you think I can just waltz back in after you’ve been passing yourself off as me? The resemblance is surface—side by side, anyone would know the difference. And it looks like I have no reason to come back, now does it? You’re engaged to my boyfriend, you’ve taken all the money...”

“I’m not engaged to anyone!” I shot back. “I agreed to a fake engagement to make Granda happy, that’s all. And as far as Granda knew, he was leaving his money to someone he hadn’t seen in over twelve years.”

“I’d like to believe you, Podge, but I’m not as gullible as everyone else.” She ran her eyes up and down my rumpled appearance. “I don’t know that you fooled anyone. You don’t really look that much like me.”

Facing her, I had to agree. Even in one of her rages, she looked angelic, and she was right, I was just poor old Podge, a little thinner, a little older, but always a pale copy.

“What I want to know,” she said in a biting tone, “is what you intend to do about this debacle. You’ll refuse the money, of course.”

“Of course.” There had never been any question of it. I wasn’t going to take Mariposa from Ian, and I certainly wasn’t going to take a fortune based on a lie. I’d long ago given up the idea that Granda was going to leave me anything—I wouldn’t be any worse off than I had been when I’d started this mess.

“And just how are you going to do that?” Bella’s tone was icy.

I looked at her, at beautiful, charming Bella who was eying me like a skunk, and something finally snapped. “I’ll manage,” I said in an equally cold voice. “In the meantime, you’d better make up your mind. Someone’s going to see you and then you’ll have no choice but to explain yourself. You’re right—side by side we’re not that much alike. But no one’s going to believe I came up with such a ridiculous idea in the first place.”

“I don’t think you’d want me coming clean, Podge. After all, that would out you as the heiress, and then no one would have your back. I believe you when you say you didn’t manipulate Granda, but the others might not be so kind.”

“Then go away,” I said wearily. “I’ll figure out a way to get us out of this mess.” This mess she had instigated, but I wasn’t going to deny my responsibility. I’d been fool enough to say yes.

It was odd how such perfect features could look almost ugly. Her eyes were narrowed, her full mouth twisted in distrust. “You should go back home.”

“I’ve been trying to, ever since I’ve arrived!”

“Try harder,” she said coldly.

I’d never been the object of Bella’s rage and scorn before, and it was deeply unnerving. I’d been an even bigger idiot than I’d realized, letting myself be manipulated by her sugary sweetness. The sense of betrayal overruled everything, and I wanted to scream at her. Instead, I bit my lip.

“Granda left a letter for you,” I said, abruptly remembering. “You’re the only one he did.” I dug in my pocket and handed it to her, and she snatched it, ripping it open.

It was long, two pages worth in Granda’s spidery script, and she glanced through it before folding it back up and pushing it into the white Hermès handbag she’d brought with her. For some reason, the sight of that priceless accessory was the final straw, the last veil falling from my eyes as I looked at my selfish, venal cousin.

“What did he say?” I asked, knowing full well she wasn’t going to tell me.

“Just a pile of excuses,” she said briefly. “But that’s not going to matter, is it, Podge? You’re going to do the right thing, aren’t you?” Just like that, her cold anger vanished, and she smiled at me, that sweet, wheedling smile that used to feel like sunshine on an icy day.

But I was still frozen. “Yes,” I said. “Ian’s wanting me to stay for the funeral, but I’m trying to leave sooner.”

“Stay for the service,” she said suddenly. “It’s only two days away, and it would look odd if you just disappeared. It’ll be easy enough to deal with things once you get back to the States.” She shoved her perfect mane of curls back away from her face. “Everything will be just fine, Podge,” she said. “It’ll be easy enough to fix. In fact, I’ll come and help you. Of course there’d be no way you’d want to keep all that money—you’ve always been the fairest of us.”

I gave her a tight-lipped smile in return, saying nothing, but Bella was oblivious. “You’re right, I’d better get out of here before someone sees us and all our hard work is in vain.” At that moment, I couldn’t think of her particular share of the hard work of the masquerade, but I didn’t point that out. I was feeling wretched and guilty enough.

She started past me, smelling of some fresh and innocent perfume, and then halted. “Tell me, how has Ian been? Has he given you any trouble?”

Nothing but, I thought as I shook my head. “I haven’t seen much of him.” A straight-out lie, to go with her lies.

“I suppose I should have told you, but he and I had a bit of a fling a while past. You know he’s always been in love with me, and he’s been desperately jealous of Marcus. I hope that didn’t make things uncomfortable. It was long enough ago that he wouldn’t be any more likely to notice the difference between us.”

Another piece of information I could have happily done without. “He’s been busy—if he was in love with you, I’d guess he’s finally over it.”

An ugly look crossed her face for just a moment, and then she had her sunny smile once more. “Let’s hope so. It was tremendously tiresome.” Before I could realize what she was doing, she pulled me into her scented embrace. “You’ve been a better friend than I deserve, Podge,” she murmured in my ear. “I won’t forget it.” A moment later she was gone.

I looked down and saw that my hands were shaking. My sense of betrayal was overwhelming—I’d loved and admired Bella my entire life, holding her up as a vision of what a Whitehead ought to be. When idols fall, they fall hard, but oddly enough, my anger wasn’t for her, it was for me, for being so goddamned vulnerable, for believing in those years of sugared sweetness. She was the one who’d given me that hated nickname that still made me feel fat and clumsy.

I shoved my hair away from my face, Bella’s hair, and realized my face was wet with tears. Of course, it was. All I seemed to do was cry nowadays, over Granda, over Bella, over Ian.

No, not over Ian. Never over Ian. He hadn’t made love to me, he’d made love to the ghost of Bella, and even that he’d regretted. I was the outsider, the one who didn’t belong. I couldn’t even begin to fathom why Granda had changed his will—maybe his letter to Bella had explained his decision, but she hadn’t bothered to share any of it.

I stiffened my spine. Enough was enough. I’d been kept prisoner here for the last few days, despite my half-hearted efforts to escape. No more. Leaving everything to me was just one more of Granda’s manipulations, and while I loved him, missed him already, I wasn’t going to jump to his tune any longer. I was going home, refusing the inheritance, and getting on with my life.

But first, I was going to tell Ian exactly who I was.

My walk back to the house was uneventful, the only uncomfortable moment when I saw my watcher once more, loitering near the cleft in the rock that led to Pinnacle Point. He wasn’t close enough to speak to, and I was half tempted to march over to him and demand to know why he was following me, but there was no one else in sight on this perversely sunny day, and I wasn’t a complete idiot, even if I’d been acting like one. I gave him a friendly nod and started down across the fields. He didn’t nod back.

By the time I returned to the house, everyone was at lunch—I could hear Mary Alice’s strident voice and Marcus’s deep one from the dining room. I almost headed straight upstairs until I remembered I had vowed to talk to Ian. Once he knew the truth, I would be out of there so fast my head would spin.

All conversation stopped as I walked in the room, but Ian wasn’t there, just the cousins and Marcus. Marcus had traded in his pale pink jacket for something more somber, and the sisters were both in over-the-top funereal black. Clearly, they’d arrived here ready for mourning.

“Where have you been?” Mary Alice demanded.

“Walking,” I said briefly.

“Well, you can’t expect us to hold lunch for you if you go wandering off. And really, it’s most inconsiderate of you. There are things that have to be decided, plans to be made...”

“I thought Ian was taking care of all that,” I said. “Where is he, by the way?”

“God knows,” Marcus said. “Probably doing what we’ve been doing. Trying to track down Podge.”

God, I hated that name! “And did you?” I asked innocently.

“You’re the only one who’s been in touch with her over the last few years. Apparently, she’d been living in New Hampshire but she’s disappeared without a trace. You must have her phone number somewhere.”

Bella had my phone—it would serve her right if I gave them that number. I shook my head. “I haven’t talked to her in ages.”

“Someone has to tell her Granda died,” Marcus said.

“And that she’s managed to end up with everything,” Mary Alice added in an acid voice.

I could have told them all the truth—after all, Ian would have that opportunity, but for some reason, it was important to me to tell him first. “Does Mr. Fergell have contact information?”

“He has nothing,” Mary Alice snapped. “Clearly, we need a new lawyer—he’s been completely inadequate. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was working with Podge and splitting the money.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said wearily. “Kitty hasn’t been here in over twelve years—Granda banished her. The idea that she could manipulate him into leaving her money is absurd.”

“Did you see your car?” Marcus said eagerly, changing the subject.

The new Alfa had been sitting in the courtyard, a gleaming red. I’d barely glanced at it. “It looks very nice,” I said lamely.

“No one cares about the goddamned car,” Mary Alice snapped. “We’ve got more important things to worry about.”

“I’ll go upstairs and see if I have any information on getting in touch with Kitty,” I said, unable to bear their company a moment longer. “Would you tell Ian I need to talk to him?”

“What about?” Marcus demanded suspiciously.

“About my leaving,” I said truthfully.

“You can’t go until after the service,” Valerie spoke up.

“Watch me.”

At least no one tried to follow and reason with me.

Mary Alice’s voice trailed after me. “Typical. She was only here for the money and now that she’s lost that, she has no time for anyone.”

“Except Ian,” Marcus voice followed, and there was an odd note in it.

Fuck. Them. All. Particularly Ian.

It wasn’t until I reached my room that I remembered Bella’s conversation. She knew about the fake engagement, she knew the will was being read. How? Was someone in on our ridiculous charade? Who could have possibly told her—these things weren’t public knowledge.

Someone in this house, or anywhere on Mariposa, was a spy, and my bet was on the mysterious man who seemed to follow me wherever I went. But why would Bella do it? She’d always treated the workers as beneath her notice, including Maldonado. The idea of her setting up an informant was both unlikely and extremely creepy.

The truth of the matter was that my disenchantment with Bella ran deep, and I didn’t trust a word she said. Whatever had been in that letter might have explained a great deal, and she’d done nothing but shove it in her handbag.

I was steeling myself to face Ian—at some point, I expected I was going to have to confront Bella herself. That, or maybe I could just fade away. Bella had always had a habit of showing up when she wanted something, and once I got rid of the bequest, I wouldn’t have anything she needed. She’d take care of the ghosting.

I picked up the state-of-the-art iPhone Bella had given me, with its ridiculous numbers of cameras and its facial recognition, and resisted the impulse to hurl it against the wall. There was still no signal down here, but there must be internet access somewhere. There’d be no way for Ian to do business without it, and Mary Alice had said they’d been searching for any trace of me—where else but on the internet?

On top of that, there had to be goddamned telephones in the office and the kitchen, and I’d never even thought of that. Escape had always been closer at hand than I’d imagined, and I’d been a total idiot.

No, I hadn’t. For all my complaints, I hadn’t really wanted to leave. I hadn’t wanted to leave Granda, I hadn’t wanted to leave Mariposa, the only constant home in my life. And damn it, I hadn’t wanted to leave Ian.

I was more than ready to go now. The mess was so bad that the only way I could make sense of it was with an ocean’s distance between us. I had no intention of taking Bella’s money and heading to Paris—I wanted someplace to curl up and lick my wounds. I had no idea where that was, but New England was a start.

There was no sign of anyone when I went down to the kitchen—even Maldonado had disappeared. The telephone hung on the wall, but there was nothing useful like a telephone book. I tried my luck with information and my decent Spanish, but got nowhere in my search for a car, and I ended up slamming down the phone in frustration.

I wasn’t happy with the idea of broaching Ian’s office, but if I was looking for internet, that was where I’d find it. I knew he’d taken over Granda’s old library, but I’d kept strictly away, not wanting to run into him and the way he looked at me. Not anymore.

The graceful room was a travesty of what it had once been. The rows of leather-bound books were gone, replaced by file boxes and electronic equipment. His desk was littered with papers—odd, I would have thought he would be almost compulsively neat. Most control freaks were, and there was no question that Ian had been trying to control my presence here since I first arrived. The desktop computer was turned on, but of course it had password protection up the wazoo, and God knew I couldn’t begin to guess what he would use. The phone by his desk had three lines, none of which were lit up, and I opened the top drawer of the desk, hoping to find an internet password conveniently stuck there.

Instead, I found a gun. I stared at it in numb disbelief, then slammed the drawer shut again. I shouldn’t be surprised—rabbits were both a constant problem and a national delicacy, and hunting them was an expected part of farm life. But who would hunt them with a handgun? I didn’t want to think about it.

I looked around me nervously. At any moment, I expected Ian to appear, cold and contemptuous as he had been the last time I’d seen him. He had no reason to direct all that anger at me—as far as he knew, I had nothing to do with the contents of the will. In truth, I hadn’t. For some reason, Granda had dispossessed all his relatives for a virtual stranger, and I had no idea why. All I could figure was that rather than a gift to me, it was more about the slap to everyone else. I couldn’t even take hope from a long-lost gesture in my favor.

I was half-tempted to take the gun with me. The man who lurked in the shadows unnerved me, the memory of the man on the dance floor still upset me. I didn’t feel safe, but I knew I was being ridiculous. The man at the taberna had been a crude drunk, the man who followed me was simply one of the many workers. And I had no idea how to shoot a gun, if by any chance I felt I needed to. No, Ian the Wretch could keep it safe to take potshots at rabbits nibbling on the grapevines.

The first person I ran into when I left the office was the last person I wanted to see. Marcus was there, and I wondered if he’d been lying in wait for me.

“Bella, darling!” he crooned from behind me as I closed the office door. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

“Why?” I said briefly, in no particular mood to deal with him.

“We need to talk. You know we do.”

“Why?” I said again, keeping my voice clipped.

“Our engagement...”

“We’re not engaged,” I said wearily. “We never were—you know it was just a charade to make Granda happy. Now that he’s gone, there’s no need for any more pretense.”

“It wasn’t just pretense on my part. I love you,” he said earnestly. “I still want to marry you.”

I just looked at him for a long moment, wondering what I had ever seen in him. He was very handsome—there was no doubt on that score. But there was something...empty about him, all that surface charm and nothing beneath it.

Whereas his brother was his complete opposite. No charm at all, but emotion and torment and anger seething beneath him, and all that anger was directed at me.

“You don’t,” I said. How could he look at a stranger and think it was the woman he loved? Because he never looked beneath the surface. Anyone who looked like Bella would do.

But Marcus wasn’t easily cowed. “Come for a drive with me. You haven’t even tested your new car. We could drive along the cliffs, watch the birds.”

“I don’t want the car.” My, I was being selfless nowadays, considering I was basically penniless. Not only was I giving up a fortune, I was tossing aside a car worth...God, I didn’t even know what an Alfa cost, but it was certainly more than an aging Subaru.

“Just come for a drive with me,” he insisted. “We can talk...”

“No. I’m going for a walk. Alone.” I decided it on the spur of the moment.

“I’ll come with you.”

“Alone,” I repeated. A walk in the wood would do me good, away from bickering relatives and Ian, who’d simply disappeared.

He looked crestfallen, like a child deprived of a treat. “At least tell me where you’re going. Someone needs to keep track of you, so we can find you if you don’t come back.”

“Why wouldn’t I come back?” I demanded uneasily.

He shrugged his massive shoulders in the perfectly-tailored dark gray jacket. “You could get lost. Twist your ankle in one of the rabbit holes that litter the place. Remember when you fell in the cave?”

I remembered all too well. I remembered who had abandoned me and who had rescued me. “I’m not going anywhere near the caves.”

There was a sudden odd expression on his face. “Keep away from Pinnacle Point. No one would see you or hear you if you got into trouble. It’s too wild out there. Promise me.”

“I’m just going for a walk,” I said wearily. “I need time to think.”

“Ian wouldn’t want you to go off on your own.”

He couldn’t have said anything more likely to get me going. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Ian does or does not want.” I was losing what little calm I had. I needed to go somewhere and cry, somewhere no one would find me.

“Bella,” he said with long-suffering patience, and I wanted to scream at him. I’m not Bella, I’m Kitty!

“Just leave me alone!” Without another word, I stomped away from him, down the hallway and through the deserted kitchen to head straight back toward Pinnacle Point. I was going to cry again, and I was damned if I was going to let anyone see me.

The olive groves were empty—no workers in sight. I glanced around to see whether my watcher was anywhere around, but I didn’t see him, and I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I could have an afternoon of peace, away from everyone, to figure out what I was going to do next.

I reached the narrow trail that led up to the point, moving into the deeper forest as I tossed solutions around in my brain. Maybe I should just go to the lawyer and explain the situation. The ugliness of that conversation made me cringe, but there was no way getting around it. I was going to have to come clean to everyone, and I dreaded it.

Unless I could simply disappear and send word through lawyers that I was relinquishing the bequest, turn myself back into Kitty. Back into Podge.

I no longer knew who I was. Was I vain, beautiful Bella with the charm and trustworthiness of a snake, was I plump and awkward Podge, or was I a failed academic hopelessly in love with her wretched cousin-by-marriage? Or some miserable combination of all three?

I needed to step out from the trap I’d willingly walked into, I needed to find myself first, before I began to deal with losing Ian.

Not that I’d ever had him. Heightened emotions and sorrow had thrown us into bed, and that wasn’t going to happen again. We were all learning to deal with the loss of Granda, each in our own way, and we’d be very careful to avoid such mistakes.

And then I heard it. The snap of a branch, the shuffle of leaves. I wasn’t alone in the woods.

I froze, looking around me, but the trees and shrubbery were so dense I couldn’t see anyone. Nevertheless, I knew. Someone was watching me. Someone who meant me harm.

I shook myself. I was getting paranoid in my old age—no one was out to get me. I was perfectly fine...

Something sped past me, so fast I couldn’t see it, and there was a solid thwack into the tree trunk up ahead. I was staring at it stupidly when I heard the crashing sound of something large moving through the woods, fast, coming straight at me.

I turned to run, blind panic slicing through me, but it was too late. The man who’d been watching me burst through the woods and flung himself at me, hitting me with the full force of his huge body and taking me down to the ground.

I fought him like a wild woman, scratching and hitting at him. I opened my mouth to scream for help when his large hand clamped down on it, muffling any sound.

“Colar!” he said in a low, tight voice. “Collarse la boca.” Shut up. Shut your mouth.

I wasn’t about to do any such thing, and I sank my teeth into his hand as hard as I could, hoping to draw blood, but he didn’t even flinch. “They have a gun,” he whispered urgently in my ear. “Do not move.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in, and I stopped moving, holding very still. And then I heard it, the sound of someone else moving through the woods, stealthy, like a hunter stalking his prey. And I was the prey.

I don’t know how long we lay there, silent, barely breathing. He was heavy, but he made no move to get off me, and I shifted uncomfortably, a rock digging into my back. “Stay still,” he whispered sharply, and I did so.

I have no idea how much time passed—it seemed endless—until the man finally rolled off me. “I think they are gone,” he said in heavily accented English.

I answered him in Spanish. “Who? Who’s gone, who are you, what the hell is happening?” My voice was rising in incipient hysteria.

“I am Salvador. I’ve been watching out for you.”

I stared at him in amazement. “But why?”

“Because he thought you might be in danger.”

“Who did?” I demanded, but I knew the answer.

“Se?or Ian. He told me to keep you in sight at all times. I thought maybe he was crazy—men get that way over a woman.” He shrugged. “I was supposed to keep out of the way, but then someone took a shot at you and I could not hide any longer.”

“Someone took a shot at me?” I repeated stupidly.

“Idiota,” he muttered under his breath. “What did you think that was back there—a bumblebee?”

I shivered in the hot afternoon sun. “But who would want to kill me? I haven’t done anything to anyone.” Not strictly true, but hardly worth killing for.

“I do not know, I only know what Se?or Ian asked me to do.” The huge man scrambled to his feet, looking around him, and then held out a hand to me.

I rose, brushing myself off. I felt like I was in some sort of alternate reality, one where people wanted to kill me and nothing was as it seemed. “We should tell the police,” I said.

“That is up to Se?or Ian,” Salvador said darkly. “I will bring you back to him.”

“No.” My reaction was immediate, and I wasn’t quite sure why. Part of me wanted to throw myself into Ian’s arms and weep. He was strength, he was safety.

He was also someone with a gun. He had no reason to take a potshot at me—if he wanted to get rid of me, he could have made that happen at any time, instead of consistently foiling my attempts to escape. Nor would he have set up a bodyguard. Whoever was a threat to me, it couldn’t be Ian.

Salvador grabbed my arm ungently. “We will tell Se?or Ian,” he said again, his voice brooking no objections, and I went along with him, down the rocky trail, all the time feeling that I had a target on my back.

I felt a little better by the time we reached the olive groves, and Salvador released his death grip on my arm. He must have sensed my acquiescence, and he strode down the rutted road to Mariposa, standing majestic in the bright Spanish sun.

But Ian was nowhere to be found. It was the hour of the siesta and I assumed the rest of my so-called family were resting. I doubted if Ian bothered with it.

Any of them could have been in the woods leading to Pinnacle Point. It was absurd—no one had a reason to want to harm me, but they were the only ones here.

Unless they knew who I really was. If any of them had an inkling that I was Granda’s unexpected heiress, they had many millions of reasons for wanting me dead. But so far, everyone had taken me at face value, a far cry from the days when I was a plainer, paler version of Bella.

“Stay here,” Salvador ordered me once we stepped into the empty kitchen, and he started off into the rest of the house. Not being the obedient sort, I followed right after him, straight to Ian’s office. It was still empty.

Salvador made a sound of annoyance. “I will find him. In the meantime, you should go to your room and stay in there. Don’t let anybody in.”

I just stared at him. “You think someone here wanted to hurt me?”

“Someone here did try to hurt you,” he said oppressively. “They had to come from somewhere. Do as I say.”

Ah, Spanish men and their lordly ways! Though his bossiness was reasonable, given the situation. “Tell Ian to come talk to me when you find him,” I said in answer. “If he doesn’t, I’ll come looking for him.”

Salvador looked disapproving but he said nothing, and for a moment, it was a stand-off in the hallway by the stairs, as he waited for me to obey his orders. With a low, decidedly American curse under my breath, I climbed the stairs, still with that uncanny feeling of a target on my back.

Dutifully, I locked the door to my bedroom, then kicked off my shoes and lay down on the bed. Siestas had never been my thing, and after the events of the day I was even less likely to sleep, but I’d misjudged just how exhausting a near-death experience could be. I was asleep within minutes.

The pounding on my door woke me up in the early dusk, and I stumbled out of bed, woozy and disoriented. At least Ian and I would finally talk, but without thinking, I opened the door. It was Marcus standing there, filling the frame, an unsuitably cheerful expression on his face. “There you are, sleepy-head. The cousins and I are going out to the Constanzas for dinner, and I knew you’d want to come.”

“Is Ian coming?” I temporized.

“Ian?” he echoed. “I doubt it. No one’s seen him all day, and besides, he hates the Constanzas.”

If he hated them, it was good enough for me. “I think I’ll skip it.” I hesitated, considering it, before I said, “I had a bit of an adventure today.”

His placidly cheerful face didn’t change. “You did?”

“Someone took a shot at me as I was climbing toward Pinnacle Point,” I said flatly.

He frowned. “You must have imagined it. Why would anyone want to shoot you? Everybody loves you!”

Now that was a complete lie, but Marcus might be blinded by whatever it was he called love. “The bullet went into a tree, but it was definitely a close call.”

“If it happened, and I’m saying if, then it must have been an accident. People shoot rabbits all over that area—you must have run afoul of a poacher. Did you call out? Warn people you were there?”

I wasn’t about to tell him about Salvador or Ian’s concern. Concern that didn’t help much if the damned man was going to disappear for days on end, I added to myself.

“I didn’t,” I answered him. “I was too shaken.”

“Well, there you go! You got in the way of a hunter, and you’re just lucky you weren’t hurt. You’ve got to pay better attention, Bella. We don’t want anything to happen to you!” He sounded so sincere.

“Maybe,” I said. “Do you know where Ian is?”

“You don’t want to bother him with this,” Marcus said. “He’s got enough on his plate right now, trying to find Podge.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Why?” Was Marcus being particularly dense, or was he somehow jealous? He had no reason to be, as Ian had made abundantly clear.

“I just do.” I replied stubbornly. “Where is he?”

Marcus shrugged his massive shoulders. “Beats me. I haven’t seen him all day.”

So it wasn’t just me he was ghosting. What in God’s name was he doing?

“I think you should come with us tonight. You know the Constanzas would love to see you.”

“No.” My voice grated a bit, and I managed to summon a faint smile. “But give them my best.”

Marcus beamed. “That’s my girl. Let me know if you change your mind.”

That wasn’t happening. I wasn’t going anywhere until I saw Ian and confessed my sins. He needed to know that Mariposa, the olive groves, and the vineyards were still his. I didn’t want them.

But why did he think I was in danger, enough that he had someone watch over me? I hadn’t told him the details of my encounter on the dance floor, that the man had threatened to kill me. Was he the one who had shot at me? He’d frightened me, but I hadn’t for one moment thought he was serious. Unless...hadn’t Granda mentioned Bella’s drug-dealing ex-lover? Surely she wouldn’t have set me up as a patsy if a criminal was after her. Would she?

I shook myself, mentally and physically, but it did no good. I was seriously afraid. Too much had happened in the last few days for me to just shrug it off. If someone truly was trying to hurt the person they thought was Bella, then I needed to get out of here. Telling Ian the truth would finally make him let me go.