Page 12 of Outside the Veil
She threw a handful of herbs in the water. “Tell me again what you believe after you do.”
“If they’re burned, it’s from frostbite. It was eight degrees last night.”
“Ay, Diego. So stubborn.” She raised her eyes to the ceiling as if help might be found there.
“They are. And it wasn’t the cold.” Finn leaned in the doorway, white as milk. Diego leaped up to catch him before he could fall and eased him into a chair.
“Hush now, my hero, I’m well enough.” Finn gave him a tired smile when Diego pulled over a second chair to prop up his feet. “Don’t fuss so.”
Red lines crisscrossed the soles of his feet where they had touched the frigid fire escape. “I should get you some slippers,” Diego murmured.
“Are you hungry,caro?” Tia Carmen crossed the room to kiss the top of Finn’s head.
Finn beamed at her, adoration in his eyes. “For your cooking, dear lady, I will always be hungry.”
If those eyes looked at me that way…Diego cut the thought short.Don’t be an idiot.
She had brought chicken and stuffed poblanos, red beans and rice. The heavenly scents filled the kitchen and Finn leaned back in the chair, nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath. His forehead crinkled when she put a steaming mug of the herb brew from the stove in front of him instead of food.
“For the fever,” she informed him. “Drink it down.”
“Must I?” Finn sniffed at the concoction dubiously, sounding closer to ten years old than the several hundred he claimed.
“You want to eat? You take your medicine first.”
Why this half-feral man obeyed Tia Carmen so meekly, Diego couldn’t fathom, but every last drop of the herb tea disappeared in short order.
“When did you come here?” Diego asked while they ate. Not that he wanted to knock holes in Finn’s story, but he wanted to make some sense of it all.
Deeply engrossed in making a disaster area of his poblano, Finn looked up and licked the cheese from his fingers. “The day before you found me.”
“No luggage? No clothes? No passport?”
Finn turned to speaksotto voceto Tia Carmen. “I do believe our Diego thinks I’m a liar.”
“Aren’t you?” She nudged him.
“When it suits me.” Finn’s smile faded into a puzzled frown. “Though it’s difficult to lie about things you’ve no inkling of.”
“I’m not calling you a liar,” Diego protested softly. “I’m just confused. You seem so homesick. Why did you come here?”
“For the food,” Finn answered with a straight face.
Later on, when Diego saw Tia Carmen to the door, she whispered to him, “He can’t stay here. You know that.”
Diego stared at her in shock and then ducked his head, a flush of shame creeping up his throat. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t be taking in strange men, endangering your other tenants. I’ll…I’ll find him someplace as soon as possible.”
She patted his arm. “I should be very angry with you for thinking me so heartless. I didn’t mean he should leave your place. He may stay with you as long as he likes. But he must not stay in the city. He will never be truly well again if he does.”
“You mean I can’t keep him because he needs trees and grass and room to roam?” Diego forced both the smile and the joke.
“Si, precisamente.”
Chapter five
Persuasive Evidence
“Dizziness, GI upset, anemia…” Diego read as he tipped out his pills for the day. The carbamazepine controlled the seizures when he remembered to take it, but it killed his appetite and forced him to take iron supplements for the anemia. No cure, his doctor said, and warned him the episodes could become more frequent, perhaps preceded by hallucinations someday. Wonderful.
