No matter what the trouble turned out to be, Kincaid was going to be royally pissed when he found out Jake was the one Maria had called. And he would find out. Nothing stayed secret from the boss for long, and by now, his antennae were assuredly twitching.
What are you getting me into, Maria?
Thank God Jake agreed to come.
Maria pulled the sliver of glass out of her arm and pressed a square of gauze over the trickle of blood. How had she gotten into this mess?
She snorted. Wrong question. Why was more like it. Damn her and her curiosity. Why did she have to know everything? Hadn’t some long-dead poet once claimed ignorance was bliss? She should’ve listened.
Holding her arm under the faucet, she let cold water wash over it, and then patted it dry. After pouring peroxide over the wound, she dried it again before applying a Band-Aid. The bottle of Advil was next, and she shook out two—thought about whether it was enough—and added one more.
Maria rummaged through the bag of supplies she’d hurriedly grabbed at Wal-Mart and found the liquid foundation. The cut lip she couldn’t do anything about, but maybe she could hide the bruise emerging on her face. One glance at it and Jake would want to kill someone.
The very reason she hadn’t called Logan. At least Jake would only contemplate murder. Her brother would commit one. Not to mention the fact that he wouldn’t understand why she’d gone searching for a father she’d never met. That one of the men in Lovey Dovey’s stud book, Hernando Fortunada, lived near Tallahassee had seemed an omen and was impossible to resist investigating.
Three of her mother’s johns during the year Maria had been conceived had Spanish names. Using her knack for digging up information, she had found current addresses for two of them: Hernando Fortunada and Miguel Garcia who was now living in San Diego. For Jauquine Cruz, she’d found a death certificate. She’d rather liked that name.
She prayed Fortunada wasn’t her father because, if so, daddy was a rapist. At least that was the conclusion she’d come to after barely managing to escape from the man. Had he raped Lovey Dovey? Maria gave a snort at that ridiculous thought. Her mother had spread her legs for any man with five dollars in his pocket.
And who in her right mind legally changed her name to Lovey Dovey, anyway? Much less insisted her two children call her by the ridiculous name? Visions of grandeur had filled Lovey Dovey’s head after watching a movie about the famous stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee. She’d pranced around for months—a feathery pink boa wrapped around her neck—telling anyone who would listen that she was going to be a bigger name than Gypsy Rose Lee.
“Hollywood’s gonna come calling, just you wait and see,” she’d often bragged to Logan and Maria.
“Like they’re going to want a two-bit, drunk whore,” her brother had once whispered.
Maria had been too young at the time to understand what her mother did for a living. All she knew was she didn’t like the tequila bottle always in Lovey Dovey’s hand because her mama turned mean when she drank from it.
Worse were the men Lovey Dovey brought home. Even as a young child, Maria didn’t like the way they looked at her with a strange light in their eyes. It wasn’t until she was older that she understood the only thing standing between her and her mother’s johns was Logan.
Couldn’t get worse, could it? A whore for a mother and a rapist for a father. Her hysterical laugh echoed off the bathroom walls, and she put her hands over her ears. She was seriously losing it. Please hurry, Jake.
The torn clothes had to go. She peeled them off and put on the jeans and long-sleeve T-shirt she’d bought. Thankfully, she had forgotten to take her credit card out of her pocket when she’d stopped for gas before going to Fortunada’s house.
There had been an awkward moment at the store when she’d handed it to the cashier. The girl had eyed her torn, bloodstained blouse and bruised face, and Maria had been sure she was going to be asked for her driver’s license. As Fortunada had her purse and wallet, that wouldn’t have been possible to produce.
“I had a fight with my boyfriend. No problem, I dumped the jerk.” She’d glanced around. “I’d really like to get out of here, though, before he comes looking for me.” Turned out the girl could relate and had taken pity on her.
The foundation she’d bought covered most of the bruising but did nothing to hide the swelling. She grabbed the brush out of the plastic bag. After covering as much of her face as possible with her hair, she studied the results in the cracked mirror.