Page 80 of Deadly Evidence
“Not if I can help it.” After rapping loudly on the door, she led Mia through the kitchen and into the small living room.
Startled out of his deep concentration, Vicente scowled at them both.
“You play beautifully,” Mia ventured in a small voice. “I could never do so well.”
His scowl darkened as he studied her.
“I think you two need to talk, Vicente. Jonah told me about Consuelo...and about Mia’s mother. It’s unfair to send this child away without telling her the truth.”
“I...” His voice faded and he shrugged helplessly. “The words...I cannot.”
“Mia, your grandfather had wonderful dreams as a young man,” Anna said softly. She looked over at Vicente. “Do you mind if I tell her?”
The old man nodded slowly.
“Vicente’s musical talent led him to perform in many places. He saved that money for a down payment on a ranch for his bride, because that was the dream he loved the most.”
Anna rested her hand on Mia’s shoulder. “He and Consuelo had a beautiful little daughter. But when she was very young, she was diagnosed with leukemia.”
Vicente leaned the guitar against the wall and sat back in his chair, his gaze riveted to the floor.
“They spent every cent they had trying to save her. He drank far too much one night trying to drown his sorrows, and spent that night with another woman. Nine months later, your mother Paulina was born.”
“God forgive me, I’d never been unfaithful...til that day,” Vicente whispered brokenly. “And in all the years since, I’ve...I’ve never been unfaithful to her memory.”
Mia stared at him as everything started to fall into place.
Anna’s eyes filled with sympathy. “Vicente and Consuelo’s daughter died, and he and Consuelo never had any more children.”
“How sad,” she whispered.
“Blanca...your biological grandmother...received child support from Vicente over the years, plus far more on the promise that she wouldn’t hurt Conseulo by telling her about the baby.
“But when Vicente lost his ranch, he had no more money to give her. She apparently took vengeance by telling Consuelo everything.”
“It broke her heart,” Vicente said in a voice almost too low to hear. “My beautiful Consuelo, mourning her only child—andthen she heard that I’d had another. She did not deserve such pain.”
“She died of a heart attack less than a month later,” Anna murmured. “Vicente has always blamed himself for that. We’ll never know if Blanca acted out of bitterness, jealousy, or spite, but she made sure your mother thought only the worst about him. So any hope of a relationship with her—and you—was lost to him as well.”
Vicente lifted his gaze to Mia’s, his eyes glittering with unshed tears. “All these years I thought Blanca had lied—saying her baby was mine when it was not. I could not prove it, not before DNA tests. But today—”
He broke off. Cleared his throat.
“I heard you playing your violin. It was like I was hearing my own mother—because she, too, had the gift of the angels. Her music touched the heart...and that gift is yours. You even have her beautiful eyes. Why did I not see it?”
He held out a shaking hand. “All these years,” he said sadly. “So much lost. Can you forgive an old man?”
She thought about the heartbreak he’d endured—the sorrow over the loss of his little girl. The grief and guilt over his wife’s death.
Mia ignored his hand. Instead, she moved forward and wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. “I love you, Grandpa...I’m so glad I came.”
Anna strode back to the house, whistling an offkey version of the song Vicente had been playing.At least they’ve come together.
Something moved in the shadows by the barn and she nearly stumbled, her heart in her throat and her pulse racing.
“It’s just me,señora,” Dante called out. He moved a few steps forward, still silhouetted by the security light overhead.
Curious, she stopped. “What’s up?”
