But it was the truth. The wound that festered deepest wasn’t that of loneliness. She could stomach being alone. She could build calluses against it and grow strong.
It was that by leaving, he had robbed her of him. She was left without the one person who listened to her, the one person who made her feel like the heavens spun around no other point but her.
“Like hell we had a future,” he said sharply. “You made that perfectly clear last night.”
Shame flushed through Nena’s chest. It was a cruel thing to say. Even if it was true.
“What was I supposed to do?” he said, color rising dark in his cheeks. “Be happy to be indebted to your father all my life? Be grateful that I got what little time I had with you? Then stand by and watch as he married you off to whichever wealthy ranchero he chose?”
Nena narrowed her eyes at him. He struck her, but she knew how to strike back. She could brawl just as well as he could.
“Isn’t that going to happen anyway?” she shot back.
For a heartbeat, he said nothing, his mouth hung slightly open.
She had drawn blood.
“That’s it.” He thrust himself to his feet, hissing with pain as he did so. He seized the water he had used to shave and turned on his heel toward the river. “I am done trying to talk to you.”
But the taste of a fight only left her wanting more.
“Don’t walk away from me,” she said, casting his mirror aside as she stood. “I’m not finished.”
“I take orders from no one,” he said hotly, casting the words haughtily over his shoulder. “You should try it sometime, if you ever grow the spine.”
The words hung on the air as he walked away. She watched his retreating back, how it gleamed brown and muscular in the sunlight.
There was nothing but her opponent’s turned back and the molten desire to prove him wrong. That he was wrong to turn his back on her.
She followed him. She lengthened her strides to catch up with him, then seized the wrist of his good arm.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me,” she said hotly. She dug in her heels and yanked him to a stop.
He whirled to face her, thunder on his brow. He opened his mouth to speak—angry words, no doubt—but she never gave him the chance.
She slipped her right hand up the back of his neck, brought his face roughly down to hers, and kissed him.
Néstor inhaled sharply through his nose; Nena felt his surprise brush against her skin. For half a heartbeat, she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake—then, with a bright, metallic clatter, the bowl and razor fell to the ground.
He took her face in his good hand and kissed her back, his urgency stealing a gasp from her. Any kisses she had received from suitors over the years were prim and chaste, cold as an empty bed. Never what she imagined a kiss should feel like. This thought was fleeting as mist burned away by summer’s heat. No inkling of anything else could survive when her world had narrowed to this: Néstor’s skin warm under her palms, Néstor’s voice murmuring Nena, mi nena, mi nena, as his teeth raked gently against her neck. Néstor’s mouth on hers again, so hard she was sure it would bruise, yet somehow not hard enough. Néstor’s strong hand on her waist, backing her up into the shade and pressing her hips tightly against him. So tightly that she felt every lean, muscled curve of him, felt the hardness of him against her thigh. She was bare embers roaring to life, heat sweeping through her body, fanned by his touch.
There was a part of her that had always wanted this, ever since he returned, from the moment she saw him enter the courtyard of la casa mayor dressed in black and gleaming like polished silver. How could she not? He walked back into her life like a man who knew who he was, shoulders square and chin held at a haughty angle. It was as if he had stepped out of a dream: her first kiss, the first boy she loved so much she felt as if her chest was caving in on itself when he left. He was back. He was more than back: he was running his good hand over her back and waist and lower, grabbing her and pulling her roughly against him.
A soft groan escaped her throat; it broke against his lips.
Néstor pulled away suddenly and rested his forehead against hers. His chest rose and fell sharply, driven by ragged breathing. His eyes were the one part of his face that was unchanged by time and maturity: their color was warm, so dark they were almost black. In the past, when he looked at her like this, his eyes brimmed with adoration, with a trust so whole and perfect she felt she could walk on water if she tried.
Now, there was a reserve. He was retreating. No—that was the last thing she wanted. She stole a light kiss from his lips, her smile inviting him to steal it back. To go back to what they were doing before.
He didn’t.
“Nena, stop,” he murmured.
“Why?” she asked, noticing for the first time that her breathing was just as uneven as his. Enough with the talking. She rubbed her nose playfully against his. His eyes fluttered shut.
Though his forehead was still pressed tenderly against hers, though he still held her close, a sinking feeling had opened in her stomach. A fear that if they kept speaking, something bad might happen.
“What are you doing?” he asked, voice low and husky.
The question caught her off guard. Wasn’t this what he wanted? She was certain it was. She wore Néstor’s regard like a raiment from the moment he returned—if she was present, she knew he was aware of it. She knew he snuck glances at her every opportunity he could. She was sure he tried to be discreet, but he was imperfect. How could he not be? Something fierce and alive bound them, taut as ropes, so palpable Nena felt as if she could reach out and hold it.
What did he think she was doing? She was giving in. She was tightening that rope between them, drawing him close. But how could she put that into so many words?
“Showing some spine,” she said. Teasing was easy. It came naturally. It always had, with him.
But no smile tugged at his mouth.
“Nena,” he said softly. “I won’t be used to prove a point.” He loosened his arm and took a half step back. His hand trembled slightly as he pushed strands of hair out of her face, his touch featherlight. “What do you want?”
She wanted the world to disappear around them. No war, no Papá, no marriage to a stranger waiting for her at the end of their journey. Because this was right. Because even when they were children, when they spent long, lazy afternoons watching the sheep, they knew they grew from the same roots. Their branches tangled through each other’s as they reached toward the sky, and forever would.
But the world crept in. It curled over her shoulder like a nosy tía, prodding at her softest, most exposed parts. What would Mamá or Papá say, if they knew she had behaved this way? The brush of a suitor’s lips over her knuckles was one thing; this was another situation entirely. Néstor Duarte had a reputation of his own.
And he was a vaquero.
Once the chorus rose, she could not drown out its cacophony. She could no longer hear herself think, much less speak.
Something akin to grief flickered over Néstor’s face. He brushed a thumb gently over her cheek.
“I thought not,” he murmured, his voice so low it was almost as if he spoke to himself. Its rough edge struck her in that tender spot, deep in her sternum, right where she was the most bruised.
He dropped his hand. Cleared his throat as he took a full step back from her. He turned and picked up the bowl and razor he had dropped, then walked down the path to the riverbank.
Nena watched his retreating back. This time, she did not follow. She stood, silent and unmoving, watching him go. It took all of her willpower to catch her breath when each inhale threatened to slip into a sob.
She had not been thinking when she kissed him. She rode impulse like a half-broken horse until it threw her to the dirt. Now she lay there, curled into a ball, the flood of competing emotions washing over her honing into a single current, a single note. A single truth:
It was not supposed to end like this.
22
NENA