Page 94 of Reckless Woman
“Then you assumed wrong,” she says, lifting her brows in mild censor at me. “He drags himself away from here every morning to attend to cartel business, but not before leaving strict instructions for your care and security. There are more men guarding this estate than there was in Señor Emilio’s time.”
She watches in more wordless disapproval as I crawl back into bed.
“You’re going to have to rejoin the world, sooner or later,” she chides gently
“Later. Always later,” I say with a sigh, pulling the loose white sheet up to my chin despite the heat and humidity. I close my eyes, my hand still tightly wrapped around the stone.
“Do you remember what I told you a few months ago about this estate?” I hear her ask, sitting down next to me to stroke my hair.
“That this is where women come to be saved and to heal,” I mutter.
“Do youwantto heal,señora?”
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I couldn’t stop thinking about this place in the hospital, though. It reminds me of a green field I saw in a book on the Second World War in Europe. During the fighting, it was thick with mud and strewn with razor wire. Nothing grew until the war ended, and then Spring arrived, and everything came back to life.”
“You willalwaysbe welcome here, but you cannot hope to find your Spring within the same four walls,” she says firmly. “There are more black clouds in your life, but it’s time to force the sunshine through again.”
The mattress swells as she rises to her feet. “I will let you have this one last sleep,señora,and then I will be returning later. I would very much like to see you washed and dressed when we take a walk around these unruly and unweeded gardens before dinner. Señor Grayson told me how you were exercising every day in the hospital. There is no reason why we cannot continue that here.”
My heart sinks. “Do I have a choice in this?”
“No, you do not.”
“You remind me of my mother,” I say grumpily.
She laughs. “Then your mother must have been a wonderful woman.”
* * *
I’m woken much laterby a scratchy, scuffling sound.
I glance at the clock on the nightstand. It’s two in the afternoon. There’s a fresh tray of food laid out next to it. Lunchtime has come and gone. I don’t know if it’s delayed shock or depression that keeps my chained to this room, but it’s a time stealer, too.
The noise starts up again, and I track it all the way to the windowsill.
Oh God, please don’t let it be a rat…
Sitting up slowly, I come face to face with the unblinking brown eyes of a boy with scruffy black hair and a smudge of dirt on his cheek. One dirty tan arm is hooked over the sill and the other is out of sight, no doubt wrapped around whatever he’s shimmied up to reach my first-floor bedroom window.
We stare at each other in surprise.
“Hi,” I whisper.
He finally blinks, and then he’s gone again. Just like that.
“Hey!” I call out. “Wait!”
By the time I reach the window, he’s nothing but a blur of skinny tan limbs streaking across the grass.
Glancing down, I see that there’s a new stone sitting on the sill. This one has a bright golden sun painted in yellows and gold. Some of it is still wet, and it’s smudging the tips of my fingers.
I carry the rock over to the nightstand and lay it out to dry. For some reason, I can’t stop staring at it.Who knew such fierce and beautiful colors could transform something so dull and lifeless?
* * *
By the time Gabriela returns,I’ve had a bath and washed my hair. I’m still separating out my wet, blonde strands with my fingers when she enters the room.
She nods her head in approval at my outfit—a pale blue sundress that seems to have magically appeared in my wardrobe. “Much better,señora.You look like a human being now, instead of a sloth.”