Chapter 12 Isabel #2
The first few minutes were easy enough. Dishes were passed hand to hand around the table.
Plates were filled with more food than I could possibly eat.
The conversation resembled small talk—how the weather was already turning warmer, how our drive down from the Russian River Valley was, how beautiful the Stonehouse looked with all the winter roses Eberly had coaxed into blooming.
“I can’t take much credit,” Eberly demurred when I complimented the gardens. “The bones were already here. I just gave them some attention.”
“Don’t let her fool you,” Alex said from across the table. “This place was a wreck before she got her hands on it. Slated for demolition.”
“It just needed someone to see what it could be.”
The parallel wasn’t lost on me. A ruined building transformed into something beautiful through patience and care. I wondered if they saw me as a similar project—the Van Orr disaster, salvageable with enough effort.
Ainsley shifted closer, her plate untouched in front of her. “Isabel, can I ask you something?”
My shoulders tensed. “Of course.”
“What trimester were you in when the morning sickness stopped? I’m still fighting it, and I’m desperate for hope.”
The question was so normal, so mundane, that it took me a moment to respond. “Just recently, but it got better gradually.”
She groaned. “I wish mine was.”
“Small meals help,” Alex offered. “I basically grazed for three months straight.” She smiled at Lucia. “Despite Ma’s best effort to get me to eat my weight in food on a daily basis.”
“Crackers before I got out of bed helped,” Addison added. “That was my lifesaver with Reagan.”
The conversation stayed firmly in pregnancy territory—cravings and aversions, nursery plans, the best prenatal vitamins. Ainsley and I became the center of attention, two women at different stages of the same journey.
“Have you thought about names?” Ainsley asked me.
“Not really. It still feels…” I searched for how to best explain. “Unreal, I guess. Like it’s happening to someone else.”
“I feel that way too.” Her hand drifted to her stomach.
“Have you felt the baby move yet?” Lucia asked, her dark eyes bright with interest.
“A little. Flutters, mostly. She is usually most active when I’m trying to sleep.” I half laughed.
“She?” Alex raised a brow.
“We don’t know for sure. I just kind of felt like it is.” I shrugged. “That probably sounds silly.”
Alex shook her head. “Not silly at all. I knew with both of mine. Maddox didn’t believe me the first time around, but when I was adamant our second baby was a boy—the minute I took the test, by the way—he went along with it.”
“Kick’s convinced it’s a girl too. He, um, talks to her.”
“Alfonso was the same way,” Lucia said softly. “He knew. With every single one of my pregnancies, he knew. He was never wrong.”
The table went quiet for several seconds, honoring the memory of the man who had shaped this family. I hadn’t known Alfonso Avila—he’d died years ago when I was a child—but his presence lingered in this room, in the way his wife and children spoke of him.
“Tell me about him,” I heard myself say. “Alfonso. What was he like?”
Lucia’s face transformed. The grief was still there, would probably always be there, but it shared space with something luminous.
“He was stubborn,” she said. “Hardheaded as a mule when he thought he was right. Which was most of the time.” The other women laughed knowingly. “But he loved with his whole heart. His children, his vines, me. He never did anything halfway.”
“Kick is like that,” I said softly, immediately wishing I hadn’t shared so much.
“Yes.” Lucia reached across and covered my hand with hers. “He is. More than any of my other children, Kick has his father’s heart.”
My throat constricted at the simple touch, at the warmth flowing from her palm into mine.
Lunch stretched on.
The conversation flowed around me like water, and I let myself be carried by it.
The women talked about their children, their work, and their husbands.
They shared stories about Kick as a child—how he’d followed Snapper everywhere, copying his older brother’s walk and way of talking until they were nearly indistinguishable.
How his first “official” rodeo event was mutton busting, and how he’d ended up face-first in the mud.
How he’d cried for a week when his first dog died, sleeping in the barn with the other animals because he didn’t want them to feel lonely.
They included me without making a production of it.
Someone would mention a family tradition, and Alex would pause to explain it for my benefit.
Lucia would reference an inside joke, then backtrack to give me context.
Every time I felt lost in the current of their shared history, someone threw me a lifeline.
It was kind. Thoughtful. Deliberate.
And I hated how much I didn’t trust it.
“The bachelor auction is coming up in a few months,” Alex said during a lull in conversation. “We’re always looking for volunteers to help with planning.”
I stiffened, waiting for a dig. The reminder of my years of embarrassing behavior.
It didn’t come.
“No pressure,” Alex continued, her tone neutral. “But if you’re interested, we could use someone with marketing experience. Kick mentioned you’re doing incredible work at Whitmore.”
“I—yes. Maybe. I’d like that.”
She smiled, and it seemed genuine. “Great. I’ll send you the details.”
Saffron caught my eye from across the table and gave me an encouraging nod. I tried to return it, but my face felt frozen.
Little Coco wandered over a few minutes later, her dark eyes curious beneath a fringe of bangs that needed trimming. She was seven, I remembered—Alex and Maddox’s daughter. The one Lucia said reminded her of herself. Precocious and inquisitive, with a gap-toothed smile that made my chest ache.
“Are you Uncle Kick’s girlfriend?” she asked, climbing uninvited into the empty chair on my other side.
“Coco,” Alex warned from down the table. “Don’t bother Isabel.”
“She’s not bothering me.” I turned to face the little girl, grateful for the interruption despite myself. Children were easier than adults. They said what they meant without hidden agendas. “And yes, I am Uncle Kick’s girlfriend.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“Coco!” Alex stood, but I waved her off.
“It’s okay.” I managed a smile that felt almost natural. “We haven’t talked about that yet.”
“But you’re having a baby.” The little girl’s brow furrowed with the serious logic of childhood. “Mommy and Daddy got married before they had me. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“Sometimes things happen in a different order,” I said. “That doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Just different.”
“My teacher says different is good. It makes the world interesting.”
“Your teacher sounds smart.”
Coco beamed at the compliment. Then her expression turned thoughtful, and she crept closer as if sharing a secret.
“Do you love Uncle Kick?”
The question was so simple. So direct. No adult would have asked it—not this early, not with everyone listening.
“Yes,” I heard myself say. “I love him very much.”
Coco’s whole face lit up. “Then, you’ll definitely get married. And you’ll live here forever, and your baby will be my cousin, and she’ll play with me, and we’ll all be one big family. That’s what Grandma says. Family is forever.”
The chair felt unsteady beneath me. The walls seemed to press closer.
“Coco, sweetheart, why don’t you go check on your brother?” Alex stood and crossed to us, scooping up her daughter with the ease of long practice. “I think Alfonso needs help with his puzzle.”
Coco protested but allowed herself to be carried away. Alex shot me an apologetic look over her shoulder. I tried to return it, but my face had gone numb.
One big family. Forever.
What she’d said echoed in my skull like a warning bell.
Saffron rested her hand on my arm. “You okay?”
I nodded because I didn’t trust myself to speak.
After lunch, we moved to the comfortable chairs arranged near the fireplace, where the flames cast dancing shadows across the stone walls.
The twinkling lights overhead seemed softer now, less festive and more intimate.
The children had gone outside to run off their energy, but their laughter drifted in through the French doors.
Lucia settled into the chair beside mine, close enough that our knees almost touched.
“You’re quiet,” she observed. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. Just…taking it all in.”
“It’s a lot, I know. This family.” She gestured around the room at the women whose conversations branched and merged like streams. “When I married Alfonso, I only had one sister. My twin. Our house was quiet. Our whole life was. Even though he only had one brother, Tryst, the rest of their family was so big, so loud. I didn’t know how I’d ever fit in. ”
“What did you do?”
“I stopped trying to fit in.” Her dark eyes crinkled with her smile, deepening the lines carved into her face by grief and joy over the years.
“I decided to just be myself, and if they didn’t like me, too bad.
It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
But they already loved me. Just like Alfonso assured me they would. ”
My throat constricted. “How did you know it was real?” I said barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t. Not at first.” She turned her hand over and laced her fingers through mine. Her grip was warm and steady, her skin soft but strong. “But Alfonso kept showing me. Every day, in small ways and big ones. And eventually, I believed him.”
She squeezed my hand.
“When an Avila man loves, he loves with everything he has. Rascon won’t let you down, mija.”
Mija.
My daughter.
Calling me that was like a key turning in a lock I hadn’t known existed.
My mother had called me Isabel, always Isabel, in that cool, distant way that kept everyone at arm’s length.
Even in her final months, when the cancer had stripped away her beauty and her strength, she’d maintained that distance.
I’d sat beside her hospital bed and held her hand, and she’d looked at me like I was a stranger she was too polite to dismiss.
And my father—he’d never had a pet name for me, either. Nothing that suggested warmth or belonging or love. I was Isabel when he was pleased with me, which was rare, and I was “my daughter” when he spoke of me to others, as if ownership absolved him of affection.
“I can see it, you know.” Lucia was gentle, pulling me back from the dark place my thoughts had wandered. “The fear. You’re waiting for something bad to happen. For someone to say the wrong thing, or look at you wrong, or remind you that you don’t belong here.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“But that’s not going to happen, Isabel. Not in this family. We don’t work that way.” Her eyes shined with fierce tenderness. “You’re carrying my grandchild. You’ve captured my youngest son’s heart. That makes you mine too. Do you understand? You’re mine now. You’re ours.”
Something cracked inside my chest.
The pressure that had been building all afternoon—through the announcement and the congratulations, through lunch and the stories and Coco’s innocent questions—all of it crashed through me at once. A wave I couldn’t outrun.
I stood up so fast my chair scraped against the stone floor.
“Isabel?” Lucia’s face creased with concern. “What’s wrong?”
Everything. Nothing. I couldn’t describe the panic clawing up my throat, for the grief and longing and terror tangled together until I couldn’t tell them apart.
“I need air. I’m sorry. I just—I need—”
I didn’t finish the sentence.
I ran.
The Stonehouse door banged shut behind me, but I didn’t slow down.
My feet carried me across the garden path, past the winter roses and the ivy-covered walls, toward the parking area where the trucks and cars waited.
I didn’t think about where I was going. I didn’t think about anything except the desperate need to escape, to get away from all that warmth before it suffocated me.
Kick’s truck was where he’d left it, parked with the other family vehicles. The keys still sat on the center console, where he’d left them.
I climbed inside and slammed the door.
For a moment, I just sat there. My hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t grip the steering wheel. My breath came in ragged gasps that sounded like sobs.
Because they were sobs. The tears had started without my permission, and I couldn’t make them stop.
You’re mine now. You’re ours.
Lucia’s words chased me, refusing to let go.
I didn’t know how to be someone’s. I didn’t know how to belong to a family that hugged instead of negotiated, that welcomed instead of weighed and measured.
I’d spent twenty-seven years trying to earn love from a man incapable of giving it, and now, this woman—this stranger who should have been suspicious of me, who had every reason to question my motives and my past—was offering it freely, unconditionally.
She was everything my mother should have been. Everything I’d spent my whole life aching for without knowing how to name it.
And I couldn’t bear it.
The engine turned over on the first try. I put the truck in gear and drove out of the parking area, navigating by instinct toward the main road. The gate opened when I got close as if I could come and go as I pleased. As if I belonged here. As if I was part of the family.
Except I wasn’t. And no amount of kindness could change the fundamental truth that I didn’t know how to accept what they were offering.
The tears blurred my vision as the Los Caballeros estate disappeared in the rearview mirror. I wiped at them with the back of my hand, trying to see the road, trying to breathe through the pressure crushing my chest.
I’d done it again. The one thing I swore I wouldn’t do. The pattern I’d been trying so hard to break.
I’d run.
And this time, I had no idea if I could find my way back.