Chris.
Apparently, her heart hadn’t finished breaking.
14.
The risk of following Valeria on horseback to the cliffs was high, but Chris weighed it before he left. Given he was already out on a horse, one he took out around noon when the guards were doing their shift change, nobody saw him leave, and so they wouldn’t expect him to be returning soon, either.
Chris often came and went on the property. After a spread of time on the ranch, it almost seemed like the guards and the family had become accustomed to Chris doing his own thing, and as he didn’t interrupt their business, they didn’t bother his.
That worked in his favor.
Like now.
It wasn’t seeing Valeria on a horse that concerned Chris, as she often took the animals out to ride, but rather, the look on her face. If sadness had a picture in the dictionary next to the word, it would have been of Valeria. A deep ache settled in his heart at the sight, and before he knew what was happening, he had turned his horse around in the field as he had been approaching the ranch, and followed behind.
He’d noticed Maria, too, but the girl didn’t seem to be in the same state her mother was, and she rode on her own horse whenever she took one out. Not today, though. This time, she was riding with her mother.
Chris’s anxiety spiked when he realized Valeria was heading for the cliffs. Since his arrival, he had only visited the cliffs once on a ride. Their proximity to the water, and the obvious danger, kept him from taking the horses out that way. He didn’t need to be urging his fears on more than he already did whenever he felt the need to test himself.
He did his best to ignore that Valeria was sitting on the edge, overlooking the water, when he approached. She glanced back at him, dark eyes filled with a line of water that had his chest clenching.
Something was wrong.
But what?
“Chris!”
“Hey, bambina,” he said to Maria, slowing the horse to a stop before jumping down to the ground. The animals were well-trained and didn’t wander off as he learned, so he dropped the horse’s reins and didn’t give it a second thought. Maria peered up at him from her spot in a patch of wildflowers where her kitten napped in her lap. “Out for a ride?”
The girl shrugged. “Mamá wanted to.”
Chris nodded. “Stay away from the edge of the cliffs, okay?”
“I will.” Then, Maria held up a white wildflower, offering it to him with a brilliant smile. “Here, a gift.”
How could he refuse that?
Chris took the flower from the girl, twirling the fragile stem between his fingers as he looked it over before putting it in the breast pocket of his jacket for safekeeping. “It’s beautiful—like you, hmm? Thank you.”
Maria’s cheeks pinked, but when she looked back at her mother who stared out across the cliffs and not paying them attention, her happiness faded. “Mamá is sad.”
He was quick to bend down, reaching out to soothe the girl because he wondered how many people thought to stop and do that for her. She was still a child—small, and young. He bet she faced adult issues far more than she should.
Next to her mother, Maria was one of the few people on the ranch that Chris found himself drawn to, and she was just a child. Her smile lit up a room, and the way she cared about things—from her mother to the kitten in her lap—was as sweet as could be.
This job had turned out to be far more than what he expected, but Chris would not complain about it. How could he when he met these two wonderful souls because of it? He no longer wondered why Valeria’s friend was so willing to approach an organization like The League to get her home where she belonged.
He wanted them home, too.
Chris wondered if home might be with him.
“Let’s see if I can make your ma happy, okay?” he told the girl.
Maria grinned. “Okay.”
He gave her a quick pat on the top of her black curls before standing. Valeria said nothing as Chris came to sit next to her on the edge of the cliffs. He swallowed back the discomfort the position caused and kept his gaze on her instead of the water down below. She spoke before he did, giving him the exact reason for her sadness.
It was not what he expected.
“You’re leaving,” she whispered.
Yeah.
He didn’t bother to ask how she knew that. It didn’t matter.
“The business side of things have run their course here,” he explained, although it wouldn’t help her feelings on the matter. “I can’t stay just because I want to. Jorge has wanted me gone since I arrived.”
“Right.”
“Val.”
She refused to look at him.
Chris tried not to let that hurt.
“Val.
“What?” she asked.
“Hey,” he murmured, reaching for her.
The second his palm came in contact with her cheek, Valeria blinked, and the tears she had been holding back tracked lines down from the corners of her eyes. He could handle a lot of things from this woman, but crying did not seem to be one. When the tears started, all he wanted to do was make them stop.
Now.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” he said, his arm snaking around her waist to pull her into his lap. He wiped the tears from her face, and met her gaze. Although, when that didn’t work to make her stop crying, he did the next best thing. Kissed her. His lips touched to hers, he tasted the salt from her tears, and the rest of the world faded away. Still, he breathed against her mouth, “Please, don’t cry. It’s not over, I promise.”
Somewhere behind him, he heard Maria’s little gasp.
Then, her giggle.
Kids.
Valeria pushed away from him, but not very far. She couldn’t get away when he was holding her locked in his arms. “Maria might tell—”
“She won’t.”
That, he was most sure of.
All little Maria wanted was for her mother to be happy. She was tired of seeing her mother sad and hurting. That’s all Valeria ever was here.
Chris used the pad of his thumb to wipe away the last bit of wetness from under Valeria’s eye. “Hey, look at me.”
Valeria did, but he wasn’t sure he liked what he found staring back. “I was never going to be free. I never will be. Hope was a lie.”
“What?”
“I can’t even protect my daughter because she is the sacrifice he’s willing to use to punish me. And now you’re leaving. What am I going to do?”
Those tears had started again.
Her voice climbed higher.
Chris kissed her quiet. Her fingers tightened into the collar of his jacket as their lips moved in a familiar rhythm. Soft, and sweet. A heat spreading between the two of them he had never known existed before this woman.
Against her lips, he said, “I didn’t want to leave until I had a clear way out for you—that won’t happen with the way he has this place run, but I know that now. Which means as soon as I am out of here, I will gather a team, and they’ll come in to get you out. Do you understand?”
“That’s not poss—”
“It is, and that’s what will happen. I don’t want you to stay here a second longer than you need to, but this is my only way to make it work.”