Her worried eyes flicker over my shoulder. “He’s going to call you later.”
Nodding, I turn my phone to silent. “I’ll text him.”
“You’re going to have to come clean about him. Now that Beto’s back, it’s not going to be so easy to hide.”
“I will… I will.” Timing is everything.
She’s held my hand since the day I arrived in Plano, a sad, scared little orphan. She’s always been by my side, protecting me, taking up for me—not that anybody who knew him would mess with Roberto Treviño’s sister.
“I’m here if you need me.” Lourdes squeezes my hand, and I give her one last hug.
My phone buzzes a few tim
es on the way to the studio, but I don’t take it out of my pocket. Leaning my head against the window, I close my eyes and let the morning wash over me.
After my shift at La Frida Java, I raced to New Hope, desperate to see Deacon, touch him, imagining what it will be to have him here in the city all the time, just a phone call or text away.
It makes me so happy.
Deacon is a decadent luxury I’ve kept close to my heart, a precious secret. My one true love.
When we were young, I’d be on edge every summer until I saw him again. My heart would beat so fast, and my chest would ache. I was sure he’d come to me and say it was over—or perhaps he wouldn’t come at all. He’d simply find some pretty rich girl, some debutante from his world and realize spending his time with a waif on the south side of town was beneath him.
Every year he proved me wrong.
He’d show up at the park or at baseball games or at the fair. He’d buy me snowballs and trace his finger along my cheek, twirling my crazy curls, squeezing my heart with his smiles.
I’d see him riding his motorcycle, caramel hair moving in the breeze. A crooked grin, a deep dimple in his cheek. He was a cocky rich boy, and when he stopped beside me, my body pulled to his like a magnet.
My hands wrapped around his waist, my cheek pressed to his shoulder, my thighs sliding against his with only thin fabric separating our bodies.
Being with him was deep blue and shining cerulean, it was a blanket of shimmering stars curling in the night sky. It was my mother’s portraits of moonshine tipping the edges of the mountains.
Mamá filled me with dreams of a life she hoped I would live. She made me believe I could become anything I wanted, and Deacon swept in like a promise those dreams would come true. He made me laugh, he made me swoon.
He kissed me, and my stomach flew like diving off the tallest cliff into a cloud of wonder and deliciousness. His lips were soft, his taste so sweet. Deacon between my thighs became a drug I couldn’t live without, an addiction I would guard with my life.
With Valeria’s original warning in my ear, the promise she forced me to make, I decided it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, and I did my dead-level best never, never to get caught.
“You’ve changed since the last time I saw you.” Beto’s voice rouses me, and I look over to see him studying me from the driver’s side of his truck. His window is down, and the wind pushes his collar-length hair around his temples.
“It’s been almost four years.”
“Yes. A long time.”
“You hardly ever called… We rarely saw you. Why?” I’m old enough to know.
He tilts his head to the side. “I was working, taking care of business, protecting our interests.”
My eyes fall to the holstered gun on the console.
“Why do you have a gun?”
“Because I live in Texas.”
“Jesus said if you live by the sword, you’ll die by the sword.”
He exhales a chuckle. “I have no intention of dying any time soon, mija.”