31. Miguel
31
MIGUEL
T hree weeks later…
Christmas on the beach wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. After everything settled down following Louis’s and Graciella’s deaths, I flew Isabel to Cancun for a change of scenery.
She’d come to Mexico for a holiday vacation, and I told her there wasn’t any reason we couldn’t wrap it up and ring in the New Year there.
Choosing somewhere further from Acapulco, where the crime scenes with our involvement were too many, we relocated to Cancun.
Where another tropical storm came through and knocked out the power at our resort. Being in the dark was fine. We passed the time… creatively and in bed. But the lack of AC wasn’t so fun.
Then we tried to make love on the beach again, where I got bitten by sand ticks and she got sand in some not so great places for grit.
Sex on the beach could be fun, but the reality of it was that it could sting. Literally.
Giving up on a vacation, we moved to San Diego so we could start preparing her apartment for the market.
A house was necessary if we wanted a lot of kids. A lot was open for negotiation, but we would start with the one we had coming right now.
Her timing had been off—or perfect, if anyone were to ask me. We’d only known each other for such a short time, and we’d only had sex a couple of times, but once was all it took.
She was pregnant. And excited and optimistic and in love. We both were.
Once we got some headway on preparing her apartment for sale, we traveled to visit Esmeralda at the rehab facility.
With all the news about Isabel being one of two twins, and the deaths of Esme’s husband and other daughter, we agreed that some closure would help. With the assistance of a staff member at Bayshore Residences, she explained about all that had happened. The older woman was too far gone, though, too lost in her mind to really understand that Louis and Graciella were dead. Isabel didn’t go into too many actual details, obviously, but she’d conveyed the news and hoped that it would reach her.
It didn’t. Esmeralda was locked in her mind, unable to process it all.
Understandably, Isabel was sad for quite a while. She receded into her mind a lot, just wanting space or time to think. I wouldn’t push her. I didn’t push her. Because I knew how it was. I recalled that numbing state of shock at losing a family.
When the corrupt military official had my parents killed, I was distant and aloof like that too, needing the emptiness to zone out and think. To process it all and compartmentalize that my life, my existence, would forever be different now.
Taking a pregnancy test and learning that she would be a mother was the change that made all the difference. Happy and thrilled, she focused on the fact that she’d be bringing a baby into the world instead of the sadness that she’d never have her family back, with all of them either dead or dying.
Having another job to move on to also seemed to help her adjust to the loss.
“What is that?” I asked as I walked up to where she’d set up her materials for a new mural. This one was the eccentric art gallery owner in Tampa. The older woman had been so happy that Isabel could start on it sooner than she’d estimated. We’d come together for her to start, and I had to say that I was looking forward to this.
No jobs of my own to stress about. No worries about traveling or having the right intel to pull off a hit. All I had to do was love her and protect her, both of which I planned to do until the end of my life.
“You can’t tell?” She stepped back from the wall where she’d drawn… something on it. Up on a crane, she paused in the middle of the platform.
In overalls, her hair piled up in a messy bun atop her head, and a paint-splattered orange tank top barely concealing her huge tits, she beamed down at me. Brushing a bit of hair out of her eyes, she turned to gaze at the rough sketch that she’d fill in.
“No.” I shook my head slowly as I climbed the small lift that she’d rented to reach up high on the wall. “I can’t tell what it is.”
“Miguel, you’re not supposed to climb that like that!” She laughed, though, not really worried about my climbing the outside rungs of the crane.
I reached her on the platform, wrapping my arms around her as I stood behind her. Together, we faced the brick wall she’d fill in with color.
“That’s the neck, and those are the shoulders.” She lifted her arm, pointing and describing as she leaned back against me.
“Okay… but the neck and shoulders of what?” I asked, lowering my head until I rested my chin on top of hers. Addicted to her scent, I lowered my face to sniff her jasmine-scented hair.
“A flamingo!” She laughed lightly.
“A flamingo has shoulders?”
“This one does.” She continued describing the drawing. “That’s the bottom of the head. Over there is the tip of a wing. The sun there and the moon right here.” Still aiming her finger and lifting her arm to gesture, she grew more animated and excited. She really was passionate about art.
“Did you pick the design?”
“Nope. The owner insisted on it. She drew it herself.” She shrugged, sighing as she relaxed against me. “Because between you and me, it doesn’t look like a damn flamingo.”
“Hmmm. It’ll look good, anyway,” I said, hugging her close.
“How did that call go?” she asked, knowing full well that I had planned to drive around in Acapulco to speak with Rueben about the gossip that circulated after that day in the office where her family tried to use her and have her killed. I’d been gone in Mexico the whole day, following up with former contacts and people I knew from my hit jobs, just to make sure there were no loose threads that had to be tied up or dealt with.
“Good. News has been spreading far and fast.” I rested my cheek on the top of her head, still staring at the drawing she’d fill in with paint.
“And what’s the consensus?”
“The consensus of everyone who’d dealt with the Flores family is good riddance .”
“Whew.” She sagged against me. “Good. And what about your retirement?”
I smiled. “Also good riddance. Some people seem to think I’ll get bored and want back in, but that won’t happen.”
She lowered my hand to rest it over her stomach. “No, it won’t.”
I threaded my fingers with hers. “I can’t see how it could ever be boring with babies on board.”
“Miguel!” She laughed.
“What? You were a twin. Maybe we’ll have twins.”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “Nope.”
I raised my brows, looking at her. “Did the doctor confirm that?”
She licked her lips. “Well, since my HGC levels were so high, they wondered if I would be having twins…”
“Okay…” I smiled.
“They did an ultrasound because the levels were really high. And we should, um, count on triplets.”
My jaw dropped.
She shrugged. “Surprise!”
I laughed, overwhelmed but in the best way possible. “This is unbelievable!”
“Are you scared?” she asked.
“Not at all. But I'd better hurry up and do this.” I turned her to face me, then lowered to one knee.
She beamed at me, gorgeous and patient.
“We’ll need to get married sooner than later, sweetheart.” I raised my brows as I opened a ring box and revealed the diamond ring I’d spent three hours debating over earlier. “What do you say? Me and you? Partners forever?”
“Yes, Miguel. A million times, yes.” She lowered into my arms, kissing me soundly.
As I slid the ring onto her finger, I gazed into her warm brown eyes, thrilled about what this new year would bring.
No more loneliness. No more being lost.
Just love from the woman and family I feared I would never find.
But I had, and I would never lose her.