Santa Fe Fortune & How to Marry a Matador

branch?” she asked the helpful brother, still loitering close by.
    “In the mouth of a dove,” he answered. “It’s a symbol of God’s eternal love, and peace.”
    “And hopefulness?” Jess inquired, thinking she’d heard that somewhere.
    “In La Esperanza del Corazón, one always finds hope,” the brother said with a warming smile.
    “A bookmark? That’s all?” Brother Emilio asked, slipping the object into a bag.
    “I think it’s very fine, don’t you?” she asked Fernando.
    “I find it…fitting, in many ways,” he agreed.
    “Well, good. Just as long it makes you happy.” Brother Emilio pursed his lips for a pronounced beat. “Are you sure you won’t take two? One bookmark is awfully hard to share.”
    “But a husband and wife should share everything, don’t you agree?” Fernando said, taking Jess’s hand. “Perhaps we’ll place it in the books we read to each other, like poetry.”
    “Or the Bible!” Jess interposed, believing that sounded right. No harm in earning a few extra points. She hadn’t set foot in a church in a decade, but she was sure to have made up for a couple of years at least—just in one afternoon.
    “What a lovely, romantic couple you make,” Brother Emilio said with a jolly grin. “Here, señora,” he said, handing Jess the bag. “Live long and enjoy.”
    “Jessica,” Fernando said as they paused outside. “Would you mind waiting here while I stop in the men’s room?”
    “Oh no, that’s fine,” she said, thinking she’d better go as well. “I’ll stop in the ladies too, then meet you back here.
    Fernando stepped around the corner; then, when he was certain she’d gone, he slipped back into the gift shop to ask Brother Tomás to point out the piece of jewelry Jessica had found so marvelous.

    “Fernando,” Jess said when he parked his car in the main plaza abutting the towering structure. “You can’t just walk up to the door of a castle, knock and say ‘hello, may we come in?’”
    “No?” he asked, playing his best poker face.
    “Well, you said yourself the place is private. Owned by some family.”
    “Yes,” he answered evenly. “Mine.”
    Jessica gulped back her surprise. “You mean…?”
    “My great aunt’s, really. My grandfather took pity on her status as a young widow, so he built her this marvelous place here.”
    Jessica suspiciously narrowed her eyes at his emphasis on the word.
    “She’s expecting us, I think,” he said, leading her up the broad stone steps. Fernando delighted in Jessica’s gaze, filled with wonderment and expectation. She’d probably never been in a real castle before, at least not one that was personally owned.
    He pulled back the enormous bronze knocker boasting an openmouthed lion head and pounded it three times against the twelve-foot door. After a few moments, the large plank creaked open.
    “Don Fernando,” a rail-thin woman said, kissing him on both cheeks and pinching one extra hard.
    “This is Antonia,” he told Jess with a sideways glance. “She always likes to hurt me.”
    “Ha ha!” the old woman said, soundly swatting his arm. Fernando winced. “This caballero is such a joker!”
    “Is she your aunt?” Jessica whispered to him.
    “Oh no,” he whispered back. “Antonia enjoys her jazzercise. Tía Margarita does not.”
    As if on cue, an ancient woman toddled forth on sturdy ankles, followed by a yapping dog.
    “Ah, the happy couple has arrived!” she cried, sweeping Fernando and Jess into her arms and pressing each one to an ample breast. She smelled of sweat and rosemary perfume, a bit heavier on the rosemary side each passing year, Fernando noted.
    “Tía Margarita, Antonia,” Fernando said, deftly extracting himself from his tía’s embrace. “May I introduce you to my new wife, Jessica…” Who was still, he saw, plastered to Tía Margarita’s chest, a hint of desperation in her eyes. Fernando pried her loose, tucking her under a protective arm. “Isn’t she lovely?”
    Tía Margarita lifted the glasses on the chain around her neck to her eyes in order to survey her nephew’s prize. “Oh sí, ” she said enthusiastically. “Quite!”
    Jessica withdrew a tissue from her purse to dab her neck and brow as Tía Margarita’s mutt darted furiously at her feet, baring its teeth between barks.
    “Does he bite?” she asked, attempting to sound nonchalant.
    “Never more than a little,” Tía Margarita said. “And there’s so little of you to take,