He couldn’t get an actual grip on that. The shock of discovering Mauricio’s existence would only deepen with time.
Almost as shocking had been Mauricio’s and his grandmother’s behavior with him. He couldn’t rationalize, let alone cope with their instant acceptance. No one had ever reacted to him that way. He scared people on sight. At least awed them. He made the most hardened thugs wary, even before they knew who he really was and what he was capable of. So how had they taken to him so immediately?
Then it all happened at once. The sound of china rattling on a tray heralded Marta’s approach. Stampeding feet down the stairs indicated Mauricio’s. And the front door was opening.
Isabella.
The others, so focused on him as they rejoined him, missed her arrival until she entered the room. He held her eyes—her glorious, murderous eyes—as Mauricio foisted his precious load in his hands before hurtling himself at her. Her mother greeted her with as much joy. Isabella had eyes only for him.
If looks could kill, he would be a riddled corpse by now.
Mauricio fell over himself to fill her in on their whole meeting, word for word. Marta scolded her lovingly for never bringing Richard up. And though Isabella had brought her deadly displeasure with him under control and gave them a face he’d never seen—one of vivacious delight at being home—they seemed to realize that wasn’t what she felt about his presence.
Not about to risk her spoiling their dinner plans, as Richard had intimated she might, Marta preempted her by announcing they’d have dinner at once and have tea later.
He had to give it to Isabella. All through what turned out to be an exceptional dinner, crafted to perfection by Marta, she somehow held back from doing what he could feel her seething to do: hurl a fork into his eye.
Along with discovering what superb home-cooked Colombian food tasted like, he found out the answer to a question he’d fume
d over just last night. How a dinner could last four hours.
This one lasted even longer. And not because Isabella’s younger sister, Amelia, and her two children arrived middinner and extended the proceedings. That was the usual leisurely rhythm in this household. Something he was amazed to find he couldn’t only tolerate, but enjoy. The experience was totally alien, but he still navigated it as if he had dinner with a household of women and children every night.
And like Mauricio and Marta, the newcomers immediately treated him as if they’d known him forever. Minutes after their arrival, he learned that Amelia’s husband was finishing a contract in Argentina and would join them in the States next year. Until then, they were staying with big sister Isabella. As they had almost since the children were born.
Having grown up in a subdued household with a military father and a conservative mother, he had no idea how loud and lively a family could be. But it did seem everyone was more gregarious than usual on his account. Probably because an adult male presence was a rarity in their lives. The only other male in the family was Isabella’s younger brother who lived abroad. But no matter how many men they’d been exposed to, they’d never seen anything like him. Everyone was so intrigued and awed by him and thrilled to have him.
Everyone but Isabella, of course. But she ignored him with such ingenuity, no one but him realized she hadn’t given him one word or look all through dinner, even avoiding answering his direct questions without appearing to snub him.
He ate as much as all of them put together, to Marta’s delight, who said she’d finally found someone with an appetite to do her efforts justice. When he said it was only expected, since he could probably house them all in his body, she laughed and was only happy her culinary artwork wouldn’t have to be reduced, again, to the status of shunned leftovers.
After dinner they retired to the family room and he was served his promised Earl Grey. Mauricio solemnly told him he’d have to postpone showing him his drawings. He didn’t trust the younger children to respect his works of art, and they wouldn’t have the peace needed to discuss them anyway.
The evening progressed for another hour with everyone asking him a thousand questions, hanging on every word of his answers, laughing readily at his every witticism.
He sat there feeling like a sprawling lion after a satisfying meal, with a pride of lionesses lounging around him and cubs crawling all over him.
Then Mauricio and the younger children, Diego and Benita, started yawning. Marta and Amelia took them to bed, leaving Richard alone with Isabella for the first time.
Without turning her head toward him, just her baleful gaze, she seethed, “You’ll get up now, and you’ll get the hell out of here. And you will never come back.”
Sighing in satisfaction that she’d finally talked to him, even to slash him before evicting him, he only sat forward to pour himself another cup of tea.
He settled back even more comfortably, slanting her a challenging glance. “Are you going to make me?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.” Her usually velvety voice was a serrated blade. “I got my family out of a country full of thugs like you, and I am never letting one near them again.”
Now, that piqued his interest. But direct questioning now wouldn’t get her to elaborate. He had to get what he wanted indirectly, by giving her more chances to flog him.
“Thugs like me? What kind do you think I am?”
“I can extrapolate well enough.”
“Shoot.”
“If only I could. Right between your snake eyes.”
This took him by such surprise he threw his head back and laughed. “If only you knew.”