Page 149 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

But she had cho­sen to go for­ward with­out him. He would have to learn to re­spect her de­ci­sion, even though he would never stop lov­ing her.

Loss clawed at his chest.

He wiped the back of his hand across his fore­head to keep the sweat from drip­ping into his eyes. The val­ley was hot, no mat­ter what time of day or year, be­cause a geo­ther­mal vent spewed steam into the air, and the sur­round­ing cliffs trapped the heat. That was one el­e­ment in the unique mi­cro­cli­mate that gave the lilies their medic­i­nal power.

If only he could sweat his feel­ings out of his body.

For a few hours af­ter the au­di­tion, he had felt like he stood atop the cliffs of Acan­ti­lado Alto, rev­el­ing in the ex­pan­sive view and the fresh wind. Be­cause of him, a su­per­star would head­line Cal­eva’s nascent arts fes­ti­val. The world’s pre­mier to­caora wanted to play his orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion. And the ex­tra­or­di­nary woman he loved had been by his side through all of it.

Then he had plum­meted off his high perch to crash onto the jagged rocks be­low.

Maybe he was ask­ing too much of Quinn. He un­der­stood the need to pro­tect her fa­ther, no mat­ter how an­gry she was with him. Bren­dan was flawed, but he loved his daugh­ter. Quinn loved Bren­dan as well, or she wouldn’t have sac­ri­ficed her­self for him. Gabriel ad­mired her even more be­cause she had shielded her fa­ther de­spite his short­com­ings.

A sound of frus­tra­tion and lone­li­ness tore it­self from his throat. He sagged for­ward over his knees.

“I had hoped not to see you here again.” A raspy voice yanked Gabriel out of his cloud of self-pity.

“San­ti­ago!” Gabriel called out. He looked around to find the el­derly man stand­ing two rows over, the tall green lily plants reach­ing nearly to his waist, his white T-shirt cling­ing damply to his stooped shoul­ders. San­ti­ago’s sil­ver hair stood out from his head like a bushy halo, while the wrin­kles in his tanned skin glinted with per­spi­ra­tion. “How are you, viejo?” Gabriel asked as he pushed him­self to his feet.

“Eh, I’m old, as you say, but I am happy to still be here,” San­ti­ago said. “You are not happy, though, mijo, or you would not be pick­ing lily buds.”

Af­ter the kid­nap­ping, the old gar­dener had been the one to teach Gabriel how to work the lilies, a painstak­ing, la­bor-in­ten­sive process that had to be done by hand. In fact, San­ti­ago had told him that he had the fin­gers for it, thanks to his years of play­ing fla­menco gui­tar.

“Not ev­ery­one has the strength and the gen­tle­ness to tend the lilies,” San­ti­ago had said as he had taught Gabriel the tech­nique. “You have a spe­cial tal­ent.”

Back then, Gabriel’s maimed soul had needed those words like the lilies needed the hot va­por.

Gabriel lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his face.

“Good! You are sweat­ing,” San­ti­ago said. “That will wash away your trou­bles.”

San­ti­ago had never asked about the kid­nap­ping, nor would he ask why Gabriel was here now.

“Does the sweat wash away your trou­bles?” Gabriel asked, think­ing of his ear­lier wish.

San­ti­ago shrugged. “Maybe it just cleanses them, like wa­ter flushes a wound, so they don’t fes­ter.”

“Were you al­ways a philoso­pher, or did work­ing with the lilies turn you into one?” Gabriel had once found San­ti­ago’s at­ti­tude of ac­cep­tance sooth­ing.

“This place”—San­ti­ago swept his arm around to en­com­pass the carved gray cliffs, the drifts of steam, and the blan­ket of pale green plants scat­tered with dots of dark ma­roon where some of the lilies had bloomed—“seems never to change, and yet it changes con­stantly. It is out of time, and yet time is of the essence. That will make a philoso­pher out of any­one who has a brain in his head.”

“I must not spend enough time here, then.”

“You are still very young.” Right now, Gabriel felt older than San­ti­ago looked. “Go back to the lilies,” San­ti­ago said, sens­ing Gabriel’s mis­ery. “They will help you. And if they don’t, at least you will have made a con­tri­bu­tion to the cof­fers of Cal­eva.” The old man chor­tled and hob­bled away.

Gabriel sank to his knees, scan­ning the next plant for hid­den buds, spot­ting one emerg­ing from be­hind a leaf and re­mov­ing it with gen­tle care. He shifted to the next plant, blink­ing as the salt from his sweat burned his eyes. Or maybe the salt came from his tears.

Pain lanced through him, and he braced his hands on his thighs while he gulped in air. Quinn’s ab­sence felt like a hole had been drilled into his heart.

“Buenos días, Gabriel.” His fa­ther’s voice sliced through his agony and then rubbed the salt into it. El Duque de Bruma was the last per­son Gabriel wanted to see right now.

“Madre de Dios, why are you here?” Gabriel lifted his head but re­mained kneel­ing in the hope that his fa­ther would go away.

“Are you all right?” Lorenzo ap­proached through the lilies, his blue shirt stained with sweat. He held out the bot­tle of wa­ter he car­ried. “Take this, hijo.”

Gabriel ac­cepted the bot­tle so his fa­ther would have no ex­cuse to stay. “Gra­cias.” He twisted off the cap and took a long swal­low, the cold liq­uid wel­come in the heat. He had stupidly for­got­ten to bring his own wa­ter. He of­fered the bot­tle to his fa­ther, who waved it away.

“I know this is your sanc­tu­ary.” Lorenzo squat­ted on his heels to bring him­self level with Gabriel. “I can­not blame you for com­ing here af­ter what hap­pened in New York.” His fa­ther closed his eyes for a mo­ment. “You came so close to—” His voice broke. “But you are alive.”

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