Page 20 of Savior

Gloria nodded. “Sí. I will move in and bring you back to health. When I am through with you, you will not wantlas drogasever again.”

I massaged the side of my aching head. “Actually, I think I’ll just take my chances with Jimmy. He seems like he has a little more experience here.”

Gloria’s medical expertise seemed limited to Windex and holy water. There was no way that I’d survive detoxing in the same house as her.

She waved a hand in my direction. “Estas dos tetas pueden llevar más que mil caballos.”

“The fuck does that mean?” I snapped.

Jimmy leaned down and clutched his thighs, eyes streaming with tears. “She just said that her tits have carried more than a thousand horses. Basically, she can handle anything… including you.”

Look everyone, Jimmy’s still a multilingual motherfucker.

Chapter Four

Kate

Ilooked down at the address scrawled on a torn piece of notebook paper and then back up at the boarded-up windows on the farmhouse.

There was no way this was the right place.

Sunlight caught the shards of glass littering the front yard, making it seem as if the dead grass was sparkling. It was the only positive I could find for a house that had either been abandoned or condemned.

I slammed the car door behind me, the sound echoing off the siding, and cautiously made my way up the porch steps. It was like the start to every cheesy horror film ever—the young and naïve therapist who took a wrong turn, ending up alone at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

Any second now, a man wielding a chainsaw was going to come tearing around the side of the house, ready to dismember my body to hang in his shed.

Canceling an entire afternoon of patients to come here had been madness.

If Nate found out…

I shuddered and opened the screen door, quickly rapping my knuckles against the scarred wooden door beneath it before I lost my nerve.

A short Hispanic woman with wavy hair approached, her eyes narrowing as she took me in. “What do you want?” she demanded, pulling the door open several inches. “You think because my granddaughter is not here, you will come and disrespect her in her own home?”

The heel on my shoe chose that moment to snap off, and I fell over on the porch with a decidedly unladylike grunt.

“And drunk?” The older woman clicked her tongue against her teeth before yanking me back to my feet. “He will not be seeing the…cómo es qué se llama esa mierda?”

She waved a hand as if struggling to find the right word. Unfortunately, I knew next to nothing when it came to Spanish and had no way of knowing what she was asking.

“Uh, the word? He will not be seeing…lasprostitutasas long as there is breath in my body. He needs to dry up.”

I winced at the one word that I’d been able to understand and looked down at my modest black blouse and cream-colored dress pants, wondering which part of the outfit screamed prostitute. “Well, I’m his sister… and a therapist.”

I wasn’t here to counsel him, but it seemed essential to throw my profession out there, lest she think I was a lady of the night.

“His sister?” The woman all but shrieked. “Come in, come in. I fix your shoe for you. Are you hungry?” She squeezed my arm as she led me through the dark house. “You are too thin. I make you something. I am Gloria, Lauren’sabuela, but everyone just calls meAbuelita. You can too, okay?”

I nodded, no longer unbalanced from the broken heel, but the complete change in the woman’s personality. If I hadn’t been here to visit my brother, I would’ve wanted to spend my time picking her brain.

“Um, okay. Is Mike—”

“In here. He will be so happy to see you. All day long, nothing but sitting and staring at the wall. I tell him he needs sunshine to get better, and do you know what he says to me?”

“Shut up, Gloria,” Mike grumbled from beneath a pile of quilts on the couch. “Just shut the fuck up.”

“Sí, that is what he says. Maybe he will do better with you. You sit.” She gestured toward a chair that appeared to have bullet holes in it. “I will whip you up something. You are nothing but skin and bones.”

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