Defender

“Sashay?” she teased.

He wrinkled his nose. “You’re a bad influence on me,” he mused, his eyes still on the computer screen. “That’s one of your favorite words.”

“It’s just a useful one. Snit is my favorite one.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“And lately you’re in a snit more than you’re not,” she pointed out.

He managed a smile. “Bad memories. Anniversaries hit hard.”

She bit her tongue. She’d never discussed really personal things with him. She’d tried once and he’d closed up immediately. So she smiled impersonally. “So they say,” she said instead of posing the question she was dying to.

He admired her tact. He didn’t say so, of course. She couldn’t know the memories that tormented him, that had him up walking the floor late at night. She couldn’t know the guilt that ate at him night and day because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when it really mattered.

“Are you okay?” she asked suddenly.

His dark eyebrows went up. “What?”

She shrugged. “You looked wounded just then.”

She was more perceptive than he’d realized. He scrolled down the story he was reading online. “Wounded. Odd choice of words there, Isabel.”

“You’re the only person who ever called me that.”

“What? Isabel?” He looked up, studying her softly rounded face, her lovely complexion, her blue, blue eyes. “You look like an Isabel.”

“Is that a compliment or something else?”

“Definitely a compliment.” He looked back at the computer screen. “I used to love to read about your namesake. She was queen of Spain in the fifteenth century. She and her husband led a crusade to push foreigners out of their country. They succeeded in 1492.”

Her lips parted. “Isabella la Catolica.”

His chiseled lips pursed. “My God. You know your history.”

She laughed softly. “I’m a history major,” she reminded him. “Also a Spanish scholar. I’m doing a semester of Spanish immersion. English isn’t spoken in the classroom, ever. And we read some of the classic novels in Spanish.”

He chuckled softly. “My favorite was Pio Baroja. He was Basque, something of a legend in the early twentieth century.”

“Mine was Sangre y Arena.”

“Blasco Ibáñez,” he shot back. “Blood and Sand. Bullfighting?” he added in a surprised tone.

She laughed. “Yes, well, I didn’t realize what the book would be about until I got into it, and then I couldn’t put it down.”

“They made a movie about it back in the forties, I think it was,” he told her. “It starred Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth. Painful, bittersweet story. He ran around on his saintly wife with a woman who was little more than a prostitute.”

“I suppose saintly women weren’t much in demand in some circles in those days. And especially not today,” she added with a wistful little sigh. “Men want experienced women.”

“Not all of them,” he said, looking away from her.

“Really?”

He forced himself to keep his eyes on the computer screen. “Think about it. A man would have to be crazy to risk STDs or HIV for an hour’s pleasure with a woman who knew her way around bedrooms.”

She fought a blush and lost.

He saw it and laughed. “Honey, you aren’t worldly at all, are you?”

“I’m alternately backward or unliberated, to hear my classmates tell it. But mostly they tolerate my odd point of view. I think one of them actually feels sorry for me.”

“Twenty years down the road, they may wish they’d had your sterling morals,” he replied. He looked up, into her eyes, and for a few endless seconds, he didn’t look away. She felt her body glowing, burning with sensations she’d never felt before. But just when she thought she’d go crazy if she didn’t do something, footsteps sounded in the hall.

“So there you are,” Mandy exclaimed. “I’ve looked everywhere.” She stared at them.

Paul made a face. “Do I look like a suicidal man looking for the unemployment line to you?” he asked sourly.

Both women laughed.

“All the same, don’t do that when your dad’s home,” she told Sari firmly.

“I never would, you know that,” Sari said gently. “Why were you looking for me?”

“That girl at college who can’t ever find her history notes wants to talk to you about tomorrow’s test.”

“Nancy,” she groaned. “Honestly, I don’t know how she passed anything until I came along! She actually called up one of our professors at night and asked if he could give her the high points of his lecture. He hung up on her.”

“I’m not surprised,” Paul said. “Better go answer the questions, tidbit,” he added to Sari.

“I guess so,” she said. She got off the bed, reluctantly. The way he’d looked at her had made her feel shaky inside. She wanted him to do it again. But he was already buried in his computer screen.

“There was an attempted horse heist just two days ago up near San Antonio,” he was muttering. “I think I’ll call the DA up there and see if he’s made any arrests.”

“Good night, Paul,” Sari said as she left the room.

“Night, sprout. Sleep well.”

“You, too.”

* * *

Mandy led her into the kitchen and pointed to the phone.

“Hello, Nancy?” Sari said.

“Oh, thank goodness,” the other girl rushed. “I’m in such a mess! I can’t find my notes, and I’ll fail the test…!”

“No worries. Let me get mine and I’ll read them to you.”

“You could fax them…”

“You’d never read my handwriting,” Sari laughed. “Besides, it will help me remember what I need for tomorrow’s test.”

“In that case, thanks,” Nancy said.

“You’re welcome. Give me your number and I’ll call you back. I’ll have to hunt up my own notes.”

Nancy gave it to her and hung up.

Sari came back down with the notes she’d retrieved from her bulky book bag. She phoned Nancy from the kitchen, where Mandy was cleaning up, and read the notes to her. It didn’t take long.

“I’ll see you in class,” Nancy said. “And thanks! You’ve saved my life!” She hung up.

“She says I saved her life,” Sari said, chuckling.

Mandy gave her a glance. “If you want to save two lives, you’ll stay out of Mr. Paul’s bedroom.”

“Mandy, it’s perfectly innocent. The door’s always open when I’m in there.”

“You don’t understand. It’s how it looks, that easy familiarity between you two. It will carry over to other times, in daylight. If your father sees it, even thinks that there might be something going on…”

“I don’t do it when he’s here.”

“I know that. It’s just…” She grimaced. “I don’t know where he put all the cameras.”

Sari’s heart jumped. “What cameras?”

“He had it done while you girls were at school. He had three security cameras installed. He sent me out of the house on an errand while they were put in place. I don’t know where they are.”

“Surely he wouldn’t have them put in our bedrooms,” Sari began worriedly.

“There’s no telling,” Mandy said. “I only know that he didn’t put one in here. I’d have noticed if anything was moved or displaced. Nothing was.”

Sari chewed on a fingernail. “Gosh, now I’ll worry if I talk in my sleep!”

“The cameras are why you should stay out of Mr. Paul’s bedroom. Besides that,” she added under her breath, “you’re tempting fate.”

“I am? How?” Sari asked blankly.

“Honey, Mr. Paul takes a woman out for a sandwich or a quick dinner. He never goes home with them.”

Sari flushed with sudden pleasure.

“My point is,” the older woman went on, “that he’s a man starved of…well…satisfaction,” she faltered. “You might say something or do something to tempt him, is what I’m trying to say.”

Sari sighed and rested her face on her palms, propped on her elbows. “That would be a fine thing,” she mused. “He’s never even touched me except to help me out of a car,” she added on a wistful sigh.

“If he ever did touch you, your father would be sure to hear about it. And I don’t like to think of the consequences. He’s a violent man, Sari,” she added gently.

“I know that.” Her face showed her misery. She was too innocent to hide her responses.

“So, don’t tempt fate,” Mandy said softly. She hugged the younger woman tight. “I know how you feel about him. But if you start something, he’ll be out on his ear. And what your father would do to you…” She drew back with a grimace. “I love Mr. Paul,” she added. “He’s the kindest man I know. You don’t want to get him fired.”

“Of course I don’t,” Sari replied. “I promise I’ll behave.”

“You always have,” Mandy said with a tender smile. “It all ends, you know,” she said suddenly.

“Ends?”

“Misery. Unrequited love. Even life. It all ends. We live in pieces of emotion. Pieces of life. It doesn’t all get put together until we’re old and ready for the long sleep.”

“Okay, when you get philosophical, I know it’s past my bedtime,” Sari teased.

Mandy hugged her one last time. “You’re a sweet child. Go to bed. Sleep well.”

“You, too.” She went to the doorway and paused. She turned. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“Caring about me and Merrie,” Sari said gently. “Nobody else has, since Mama died.”

“It’s because I care that I sometimes say things you don’t want to hear, my darling.”

Sari smiled. “I know.” She turned and left the room.

* * *

Mandy, older and wiser, saw what Sari and Paul really felt for each other, and she worried at the possible consequences if that tsunami of emotion ever turned loose in them.

She went back to her chores, closing the kitchen up for the night.

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