Run To You

back of her neck and pulled it over one shoulder. “She wanted something different and answered an ad placed by a nanny agency. Her first placement was on the JH Ranch, in the Texas panhandle.” She thought of the old photograph of her mother that Abuela had taken the day she’d left for Texas. In the faded photo she’d looked so young and pretty, and excitement sparkled in her eyes. “She worked at the ranch for three months when she discovered she was pregnant.” She still couldn’t picture her young mother and grouchy Clive Hollowell knocking boots. “When she told my father, he sent her back to New Mexico and paid her to stay there.”
    Naomi sucked in a breath. “Your mother must have been devastated.”
    “As my grandmother says, Fue por lana y salio trasquilado . She went looking for wool and came back shorn.” Good Lord. The wine was doing more than casting a warm glow if she was really quoting her grandmother. Abuela had a million sayings and wasn’t afraid to use them. A million annoying myths and legends and rules that she wasn’t afraid to share.
    “Sometimes I don’t understand men.” Naomi was clearly appalled. “How could a father do something like that?”
    Stella didn’t know which was worse. That her father had slept with the help, or that her mother had slept with her boss. That her father had slept with a girl thirty-five years younger than he, or that her mother had taken one look at Senor Hollowell and had seen a big house and lots of money. “I didn’t really know him. I only saw him about five times in my life.” While her mother had gone looking for wool, she hadn’t exactly been shorn. She didn’t get the big house, but she got a nicer house in a nicer Las Cruces neighborhood. She didn’t get Clive Hallowell’s millions, but she got enough money to support her and her family. Stella wouldn’t say her mother got pregnant on purpose, but she wouldn’t call it an accident, either.
    “Is that it?” Naomi asked.
    The last time she’d seen her father, she’d been eleven. She’d wanted desperately for him to like her, but he hadn’t. “He brought me porcelain horses once. I played with them until their legs broke off.” That sounded so pathetic that she might have blushed if not for the pinot. She wasn’t that little girl anymore who desperately wanted her father and sister to love her. She hadn’t been that girl for a long time.
    “That’s sad.”
    She shook her head. “No. I . . . ah . . . liked horses more than dolls.” Which was true. She glanced across the table at Beau, who seemed more interested in his plate than in her. Good. “My father might not have wanted to know me, but he made sure my mother had money to support me. I turned out okay. I wasn’t a bad kid.”
    Beau looked up. His face was impassive but his gray eyes stared into her as if he could see into her brain and knew all her secrets. He’d said he knew her work history. Or had that been her arrest record?
    “Well, except for the time I got in trouble for spray painting unicorns on the I–25 overpass,” she babbled before she could stop herself.
    He raised a brow.
    “It was funny,” she defended herself. “And a lot cuter than skulls and stupid gang symbols.” Too bad the police had not seen the humor of a cute little fantasy creature among the hardcore symbols. She’d been fourteen and had been given ten hours of community service. “On paper, my juvenile record might look like I was a troublemaker, but it was tame stuff compared to other kids.” She thought a moment, then confessed because she was sure Beau knew anyway, “Well, okay, except for shoplifting that padded bra from Kmart. That was bad. Real bad, but all the other girls in the seventh grade had boobs and I didn’t. The boys used to call me names like sunken chest.” She glanced at Naomi, who would surely understand. The other woman had her glass poised in front of her mouth, her eyes wide. “I just wanted to fit in and my mom wouldn’t give me money for a padded bra. But that’s the worst thing I ever did.” She returned her gaze to Beau. “Right?”
    One of his brows rose up his tan forehead. “How would I know?”
    She lifted a hand, then let it fall to the table. “Because you’re a spy.” Duh.
    Naomi laughed. “Beau, did you tell Stella you’re CIA?”
    “Of course not.” A familiar scowl creased the corners of his eyes. “We talked about this already. I told you that I’m not a spy.”
    That