Forever Hearts Page 16

  Baudilio.

  That philandering, slick skunk who had tried to sweet talk me so long ago arrived at camp declaring he was ready to fight for his country and be a hero. I, of course, rolled my eyes at his exaggerated assertions of dedication to the cause. Both Leonardo and I knew the truth about him. He wanted to be the hero without actually doing anything to earn it. He wanted the accolades, the admiration, and the applause. Leonardo and I ignored him, but he wouldn’t do the same with the three of us being at the same camp.

  “That woman is dangerous,” he said about me.

  “What do you mean?” asked the pretty soldadera he was speaking to.

  “She hit me with a bucket,” he chortled. “Of course, I couldn’t fight back. I’m a gentleman.”

  “Why did she hit you?”

  He swallowed nervously. “She hit me for no reason.”

  “There had to be a reason. People don’t just smack one another for no reason.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I might’ve wanted a little kiss from her.”

  “Were you her boyfriend?”

  “No, but she liked me. I could tell.”

  “If she liked you she wouldn’t have hit you.”

  After that conversation, my reputation as a tiger solidified. Between what had happened with Gregoria and Baudilio’s assertions about me, I was considered an aggressive defender. Women would visit me for advice. I kept telling them I wasn’t in the least bit qualified to meddle in their lives, but they still kept coming to me.

  When several young women asked me what I thought about Baudilio’s attempts to romance them, I told them exactly what I thought. No restraining of my tongue whatsoever. “A muddy hog would make a better boyfriend than him—even a scorpion would be less lethal.”

  “But, Valentina, he tells me such beautiful things. Maybe he means them.”

  “Do you want to be charmed out of your underclothes?” I asked bluntly and coarsely. Sometimes a person had to speak without elegance to make a point. “Or do you want a man who loves you and respects you?”

  Baudilio became so infuriated with the way I had spoiled his dreams of being the great lover boy of the camp that he furiously confronted me when Leonardo was away of course.

  “I don’t appreciate you sticking your big nose in my business!”

  “People ask me things, and I tell them how I feel,” I stated nonchalantly.

  “You should keep your big mouth shut!”

  “Why should I?”

  “I’m telling you,” he menaced.

  It just so happened that I had a bucket next to me with the dirty clothes I was just about to wash at the river. I was tempted, really tempted, to repeat what I had done to him at the Sevilla Hacienda. I told myself to control my temper. It was already at scorching level.

  “If you don’t stay out of my business,” he growled as he grabbed my shoulder with his claw and squeezed tightly, my skin throbbing with pain, “I’ll make sure you regret it.”

  That did it.

  My hand grabbed the bucket, and it landed on his head with a huge ‘THUNK!!’ He immediately collapsed to the ground unconscious. He gained consciousness a few minutes later and by that time all the women at camp were with me. They had seen me hit him and had rushed over. I calmly explained what happened.

  “If I were you, I’d leave before all of us beat you!” retorted one of the ladies.

  “Or before Leonardo kills you—whichever comes first,” another woman snapped.

  Baudilio scampered away—never to return to our camp.

  Chapter 52: Valentina

  In taking over an abandoned Hacienda, our camp went through the main house with awe. It was even more grandiose than the Sevilla home had been. The owners had just fled to the United States when they knew we were on our way to their town. Leonardo grimaced as he saw the place, remembering a past he hated as he absentmindedly touched his back. These owners were famous for having been especially cruel to their workers.

  “Look at how they lived on the backs of the poor,” Leonardo snapped. “They were just like my uncle. People like them deserve no mercy.”

  It was then that I realized the depth of Leonardo’s fury towards his uncle. The horrible death of Mr. Velasquez hadn’t alleviated Leonardo’s bitterness towards him very much. It was probably because Leonardo hadn’t had the chance to tell his uncle what he wanted to say. Unfortunately, Leonardo carried with him all the sharp words he had wanted to throw at his uncle, and they stabbed at him. The open wounds only served to infuriate him further. I didn’t doubt that it was with these wounds that he found the fortitude to wound others. This cycle of hurt, though, didn’t stay hidden inside of him.

  During Leonardo’s sleep, some of the mortal wounds he caused in others came back to haunt him, and it didn’t matter who the victims were. It didn’t matter if he considered those federales to be enemies. Death wasn’t any less tragic. He’d have horrible nightmares, and I would wake him, putting him close to my breast and caressing his hair.

  That night, at the hacienda, I was hoping his dreams would be nightmare free. He hadn’t been in a battle for a few days, and he seemed calm—unlike the wound up clock he usually was when he was focused on war. While everybody else stayed in the main house, Leonardo refused its seductive charms. He said a place like that with all the ghosts of the poor stuck in the walls only served to contaminate the soul. Instead, we stayed outside in the stables.

  While in a deep sleep, I soon heard the familiar cries of Leonardo, and I immediately took to waking him.

  “Leonardo! Leonardo!” I called out as he thrashed about.

  His face was drenched in sweat and his hands were clenched in hard knots. He finally opened his eyes and sat up. I sat up with him and put my arms around him.

  “Another nightmare?” I asked gently.

  “It was about the boy,” he said, his eyes filled with liquid.

  “The boy?”

  “I killed a boy—he must’ve been only fifteen years old,” he mumbled, his voice shaking.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” he stammered. “It just happened.”

  “You hadn’t told me about this.”

  “I couldn’t . . . I just couldn’t.”

  “What happened?” I asked, caressing his back where his whip marks were still viciously visible. Why wouldn’t they disappear?

  “The boy came towards me with a machete, and I kept telling him to stop but he wouldn’t,” Leonardo said, taking gulps of air. “Why didn’t he stop?”

  “What happened next?” I questioned quietly, knowing that he had to get it all out.

  “I had to stop him from slicing me open with that sharp machete,” he explained, his voice broken. “I decided to shoot him on the leg—to only wound him, but someone bumped me from the back, and I ended up shooting him in the heart. . . Valentina, he looked straight at me before he died and I just can’t get those terrified, light-green eyes out of my head.” A sob got stuck in his throat. “I see them everywhere.”

  I hugged Leonardo tighter, not knowing what to say.

  “Someone yelled, 'Manuel!' . . . Manuel . . . The enemy is not a monster, Valentina. It’s human beings killing human beings.”

  We held each other for a long time, not doing anything but being close to one another. He snuggled within my wild hair as I took refuge in his strong arms.

  “You’re all I’ve got,” he whispered.

  “Leonardo—“ I started to say but his lips locked onto mine—gently at first but then suddenly with a ferociousness that would bruise my lips for several days afterward. He quickly undressed me and I undressed him because we needed to be inside of one another. It wasn’t just about the ecstasy of the heat of our bodies finding satisfaction. I needed to feel him like he needed to feel me in a world of disconnection and chaos, in a world of loss and confusion. We needed to know we were there for each other.

&nb
sp; As he dug inside me, trying to get all of himself enveloped within my womanhood, I could feel the heat in his skin escalating so much that it almost burned me. I could feel his essence spill inside of me. And in that instant I knew.

  Yes, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it happened then—the miracle of life.

  Weeks after, when I started feeling dizzy and my stomach couldn’t keep anything down, not even the delicious chocolates we were able to procure so rarely, it came of no surprise to me. I already knew way before these symptoms appeared that a child grew inside of me, a new life conceived of love and out of the pain of another child who had tragically died at the hands of my guilt-ridden husband.

  “You’ve got to go to your parents’ home,” Leonardo demanded when I finally told him.

  I had tried to keep it from him because I knew how he would react, but he had noticed the fainting spells and thought I had a serious illness. I had to confess in order to ease him.

  “No,” I said simply.

  “Don’t be stubborn about this! You’re going.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Valentina—“

  “I’m staying.”

  “Please,” he pleaded when he figured that trying to cajole me wouldn’t work.

  “I’m staying.”

  “I don’t want our child born in the middle of a battlefield!”

  “I don’t want our child born without you.”

  “Valentina, you’re going to your parents’ house even if I have to drag you there,” he declared.

  “Just try to get me to do anything against my will,” I smirked.

  He was so angry with me that he didn’t speak to me for three days, but the loneliness got to him. While he had many people to converse with, I was the only one who really understood him. I was the only one that he didn’t need to speak complete sentences to. I was the only one who could sense the deepness of his emotions.

  As the months went by and my womb grew, the pestilence of death that was always close by stopped having such a twisted vice-like grip on me. In the middle of all this chaos, a life was growing—a life that was an extension of Leonardo and myself.

  Chapter 53: Valentina

  “Don’t worry about the birth,” announced Katalina, the wife of the newest soldier. “I’m a midwife. I’ve brought many babies into this world.”

  We soon became close friends. Katalina was an incredible listener, and she always asked questions to get others to talk about themselves instead of monopolizing the conversations. She had her own sad story as most people do. Her good amiga had dressed up as a man and had been killed in the battlefield only a few days before we met. Out of her desolate loneliness, we became friends. I could never replace her friendship with Julia but would help ease her pain of having lost her. Katalina, in turn, helped alleviate my own concerns about having a baby. She had become a midwife when she and her husband were unable to conceive, but they had made a decision to adopt a child after the revolution was over.

  “So many children are left without parents,” she sighed. “Enrique and I can give some of them a good home.”

  Katalina adored her husband—a gentle man who was passionate about justice like my own spouse. She laughed when she told the story of how her parents had practically forced her to accept him. When she had first met him, she wasn’t attracted to Enrique at all. He was solemn while the man she wanted was like a peacock—strutting around and wooing the girls of the village. Because she had so much competition, this peacock paid very little attention to her, and she deeply resented Enrique’s quiet attempts to romance her. Her parents kept trying to reason with her, telling her what a wonderful young man he was, but she wouldn’t listen. She’d spend whole afternoons pinning for the peacock. Finally, Enrique made her face him.

  “Katalina,” he exploded. “I’m getting tired of your attitude towards me. I may not be slick and silver-tongued but I don’t deserve how you treat me, especially since all I want to do is love you.”

  Katalina’s mouth opened wide with the surprise of how he had expressed himself. “I’m sorry if I’ve been rude to you.”

  “You’d better listen because I’m only saying this once. I’m not playing any more games with you. I may not be your idea of the perfect man but let me tell you what I am—I'm hardworking, honest, and respectful. If you let me into your life, I promise that you’ll never lack for love from me. I’ll cherish you always.”

  “You will?” Katalina’s interest was fully piqued. She was at the end of her rope with the peacock ignoring her.

  “Yes, and I mean it. Another thing you’ll learn about me is that I don’t say anything I don’t mean. “

  When I had asked Katalina if Enrique had delivered on his promise, she had smiled and said that he had turned out to be exactly who he said he’d be. Then she told me some very private secrets she trusted me with. Enrique had had a broken heart before meeting Katalina. A woman he was deeply in love with had left him all of the sudden, and he had promised he’d never fall in love. When he saw Katalina for the first time, he fell for her. It was love at first sight. He finally asked her to marry him after he realized she wasn’t anything like the woman who had abandoned him.

  Even though he hadn’t been wealthy, it didn’t matter to her parents who were moderately well-to-do. They saw him for what he was—an extraordinary man. Now she saw it too. What Katalina didn’t have a way of knowing was that fate was about to deal her a devastating blow—a blow she would never recover from.

  Chapter 54

  Dr. O’Leary couldn’t help staring at Leonel. He had come to the office to pick Valeria up since she had loaned her vehicle to her mother. Dr. O’Leary felt as enthralled as a fan meeting her favorite movie star. It was as if she was reading an engrossing romantic novel , and the hero had come to life. She smiled brightly at Leonel’s handsome good looks.

  “What are your plans for tonight?” asked Dr. O’Leary.

  “We’re going to an office party at my work,” he said, smiling.

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a stockbroker.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve never been very good with numbers.”

  “Neither am I,” stated Valeria.

  “We’re celebrating an expansion. My firm is growing by leaps and bounds.”

  Dr. O’Leary nodded. “An office party—that’ll be fun.”

  Valeria scrunched her face. “I don’t like parties very much.”

  “She’s being a good sport about going,” Leonel said, smiling adoringly at her.

  “It wouldn’t look good for Leonel if we didn’t show up,” Valeria stated, chuckling.

  After they left, Dr. O’Leary stood at her wall sized window and sighed as she saw the busy beehive below. She wouldn’t have another appointment for another hour. Why am I becoming more dissatisfied with my life?

  The rest of the afternoon was clear of patients, so Kate decided to go home. When she arrived at her house, Enzo was already there, busily checking paperwork.

  “Hi, Katie,” he said, looking up from his work. “How was your day?”

  “Fine, and yours?”

  “School let out early. My students were thrilled,” he said, chuckling.

  “You should’ve told me you were off,” Kate rushed.

  “It didn’t occur to me.”

  “I would’ve closed my office early,” she expressed. “I could’ve kept you company.”

  “Katie, I needed time to myself,” he said lightly.

  “Why do you always exclude me?” she asked sadly, the rawness that had been left when her skin was stripped of its top layer by Lindsey’s death stung her painfully.

  “I don’t.”

  “You do,” Kate stated, sighing.

  “I don’t always exclude you. There’s a lot we do together.”

  “You keep me at arm’s length.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yes, y
ou do.”

  “Katie,” he said, exasperated. “How many times can we go over the same stuff?”

  Hot tears stung her eyes. “Do you have to be so much to yourself?”

  He rubbed her tears with his fingers. “That’s who I am, Katie.”

  She nodded disconcertedly. The woman who had left him high and dry a few days before their wedding had thoroughly shredded his heart. After devastating him, he had shown up at the woman’s doorstep, full of shocked disbelief and wanting an explanation over the Dear John message on his answering machine. Refusing to leave until she opened the door, he had waited impatiently yelling and pounding on the door until she finally opened it. Unbeknownst to him, she had hidden a knife behind her back, worried at how crazy Enzo seemed to have gotten. When he had lunged towards her, she had plunged the knife in. Enzo had never pressed charges and refused to talk about it. In fact, Kate had learned about the incident from an old friend of Enzo. It had explained a great deal about Enzo's commitment issues.

  “Yes, it’s who you are,” Kate murmured.

  He nodded. “I wish you’d understand.”

  “I’m sorry. I know I keep saying this, but I just feel so lost right now.”

  “I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry, Katie. I know what a bad time you’re going through, but I just need some space.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. After five years together, she knew who he was.

  At the very start of their relationship, he had made himself very clear about what he wanted out of life.

  “I want you to understand something very important about me,” he had stated, his eyes firmly on her.

  “What is it?”

  “I want you to understand that I never want to get married or have children.”

  “You don’t?” she had asked, shocked.

  “No.”

  “But, sweetheart—“

  “It’s got to be clear to you that I won’t change my mind. I don’t want you to have any false hopes.”

  “Why don’t you want to have a family?”

  “I just don’t,” he had stated.

  “But how do feel about me?”