Page 11 of A Baby to Make Her His Bride

The shower cut off.

She frantically swiped through her photos, trying to find something to distract her. There. Her neighbor’s cocker spaniel. She forced herself to concentrate on rendering the rippled hair of his square ears and his adorable head tilt of curiosity.

It was so challenging to set those small curved strokes of caramel fur that she lost track of where she was. When the door into the house rolled open beside her, she was startled into gasping and sitting up straight, disoriented by her surroundings.

“I’m starting dinner,” he said. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

“You’re cooking?” His words didn’t make sense. Neither did his impassive expression. Wasn’t he going to laugh at her with his eyes and make her feel small for overreacting?

“Unless you prefer raw fish, but I’m no sushi chef. I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.” The corner of his mouth tilted with self-deprecation.

“No...um. Thank you. Yes, please, to the wine.”

She was so taken aback that she had barely gathered her thoughts, let alone her supplies, before he returned with straw-colored wine in a stemless glass. He set it on the table within her reach and turned away to start the barbecue.

“Would you like help?” she offered.

“No. You’re busy.”

She glanced at her sketch, catching herself before she dismissed it as unimportant. If it was important toher, then it was important. Or so her therapist had stressed.

Her page and pencils held little interest for her when she could watch him move with economical efficiency, though.

“What do you do while you’re here?” she asked when he came back out to set the fish on the grill. “I don’t mean that as a criticism,” she hurried to add. “I saw your laptop, so I assume some kind of remote work?”

“That depends on how you define work.” He closed the lid on the barbecue and twisted off the cap of the bottle of beer he’d brought outside for himself. “Some of it is research and reports that will serve me once I’ve cleared my name and can resume my life. I’ve been compiling evidence and putting other things in place toward that goal. Mostly I’m waiting for a certain someone to come home from international waters, so he can be arrested and held accountable.”

“Who?”

“Orlin Caulfield. President of REM-Ex. If he catches wind that I’m out of Chile and coming after him, he’ll stay where he can’t be touched.”

“What did he do?” She hadn’t liked asking Amelia too many questions about Jasper since it had always been such a painful topic for her.

He took a pull off his beer and stared into the trees, his profile like granite. The silence went on so long she decided he wasn’t going to answer and looked down to her work again.

“He started by hiring me under false pretenses. Then he got my interpreter killed and has been trying to hold me responsible for it.” His features flexed with anguish.

“In Chile? I’m so sorry. Was—” He? She? Did it matter if his interpreter was a man or a woman? A lover or a friend? It was obviously very painful for him. “That’s tragic.”

“It is.” The lines of grief in his face made her hurt for him. Did he blame himself, even though he wasn’t responsible? “Saqui was helping me work with the Mapuche. That’s how I learned how much environmental damage was already being done by REM-Ex. I had been hired to ride point on a new project, but I raised concerns over what I’d heard and went to see the valley for myself. That’s why they claim I walked away from my job site, but I was trying to help the company get ahead of a crisis. I was writing a plan for cleaning up their mess, but their response was ‘What mess?’”

“The corruption was coming from inside the house?”

“Exactly. The landslide that killed Saqui was deliberate. Someone set off a charge. I want to believe they were only trying to hide their crime, not commit murder, but either way Saqui was killed.” He ran his hand down his face, clearly still tortured by it.

She wanted to get up and walk over to hug him; she felt his pain so deeply, but there was an invisible wall around him, firmly holding her off.

“I was supposed to be there with him.” The lines in his face flexed with fresh anguish. “I’d gone into town to email photographs and a report on what I’d seen. Saqui wanted to stay and make more notes. The site was miles away from town, but I know what it sounds like when dynamite drops half a mountain. Emergency crews went out, but they blocked the road and wouldn’t let me see it for myself. I went to Saqui’s family, hoping he’d turn up there.”

He hadn’t, obviously. Vienna felt so sick for him. So very sorry.

“REM-Ex called to tell them Saqui had been caught in the rubble and said I was responsible. They said if I wasn’t buried with him, I would be arrested for negligence and manslaughter. They didn’t realize I was sitting in their kitchen.”

“You didn’t set off the charge!” she cried.

“No. And I don’t run away from my problems,” he asserted tightly. “But if that’s how they were playing, I couldn’t risk arrest. How the hell could I clear my name from a jail cell?”

“So you pretended you had died, too?”

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