Eli guided me to a patio made of elaborate hand-painted tile, and he pointed off to the distance. I shielded my eyes with my hands and saw miles and miles of green rolling hills. My eyes kept going and I saw the ocean.
"The Caribbean," Eli said.
I said something clever like "ooh" or "ahh."
Beyond the hills, I saw a turquoise sea that sparkled in the sunlight. The ocean lapped against white beaches, a sandy buffer between sea and jungle. The view was mesmerizing. I could have stared at it for hours, but I felt Eli's hand at my elbow.
"Come on," he said. "Let me show you inside."
We passed a front door and entered a modestly-sized courtyard with a stone fountain that gurgled in the center. The walls were covered with ancient vines sprouting waxy green leaves and red and yellow flowers, which were shaped like trumpets. Our presence startled a pair of brightly colored parrots. They flew away.
Strutting at the edge of the fountain was a large peacock. It fanned its long tail feathers, displaying a pattern of intricate markings.
"He's flirting with you," Eli said.
Everything was so beautiful it left me speechless. This tropical paradise was my new home. Eli tapped my elbow again, and I followed him inside. The home kept getting better. The rooms were bright and airy, a delectable mountain breeze drifting through open windows.
"What do you think of your new home?" Eli asked.
"Oh, Eli. I love it," I said. "It's the most beautiful place I've ever been."
"You know what I like best about this place?" he asked.
"What?"
"That you're here."
"Oh, Eli," I said, my heart fluttering with love and gratitude. "That's the sappiest thing anyone's ever said to me."
Eli smirked. "You're still a goddamn brat," he said.
Eli grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, smacking my ass as he carried me up the stairs to our new bedroom.
///
That night we released the passion that had been building between us since we got off the plane. The next day, and during subsequent days, Eli took me on little trips throughout the Rutherford property in an old jeep that had been abandoned by the U.S. military after the Cuban revolution. We rumbled through the jungles and fields, inevitably down to our private beach that we liked the best. There, we swam and picnicked and lay in the sand and made love until sunburn drove us back into the shade.
Late one afternoon Eli and I were walking along the water's edge when he stopped. He turned to face me and took both my hands in his. He said beautiful words that made me cry, and he dropped to one knee as I began to cry even harder, and he placed a ring on my finger. I could hear the waves crashing all around us. I said yes, and he laughed and leaped to his feet, throwing me into the air and twirling me in his arms.
It was here at our beach, only a few weeks later, when it was my turn to stop Eli during our stroll along the surf. Water lapped at our toes, and I couldn't suppress a smile as I took Eli's hands in mine.
"Thank you for being such a wonderful father, Eli."
He grinned and shrugged. "Oh, that was nothing," he replied. "You practically raised yourself."
"I'm not talking about me, silly," I said.
"No?"
I watched as a range of emotions washed over Eli's face. His expression changed from puzzlement to realization to astonishment. He gently placed his hand on my tummy and looked at me with searching eyes.
I nodded and smiled.
"Congratulations, Eli," I said.
Elation flickered in my husband's eyes. Unable to contain his joy and excitement, he began to laugh, the same way he laughed when I had accepted his marriage proposal. Eli took me in his arms and kissed me with such ardor I thought we might topple into the ocean.
Then he scooped me in his arms, and he took me home.
16.
Eli sent a stack of cash and an anonymous note to the couple who had "loaned" us their farm truck the night after his prison escape. A second stack of money went to the trucking company who had provided our big rig.
Maurice, however, was not compensated for the damage to his SUV.
Eli and I remain fugitives from the law in the United States. The Cuban government refused the United States' request to extradite us, as Eli predicted. We are safe, but it also means we can never go home.
Sometimes, early in the morning, I think of my old home in Virginia. I wonder how our lives would have been different if Mama had not killed herself out of spite, and Eli had not been convicted of her murder. I like to think that Eli would have eventually married me anyway-that true love would find a way.
But I don't know that. No one really knows for sure. A close-minded society has a way of constricting people, of obscuring their innermost feelings for one other.
I've been thinking some. And maybe this nothing more than a way for me to assuage my own guilt for the mistakes I made when I was younger, but maybe the awful things that happened to Eli were blessings in disguise. After all, they brought us to a foreign country where no one seems to realize that Eli was once my stepfather, and I was once his stepdaughter. If anyone knows about our past, they don't seem to care. Or they don't care to find themselves on Eli's bad side.
It's true that money can't buy happiness. But money does have a way of solving those kinds of problems.
Nearly nine months after we arrived in Cuba, I gave Eli a little girl. And then a boy a year later. And then another girl.
The girls favor me, but the boy is a spitting image of Eli. When I look at my beautiful boy and my precious little girls-whenever I look at Eli, the man I always wanted and who is mine forever-I am so grateful my life turned out the way it did.
And maybe someday, when our children are older, Eli and I will sit them down and tell them a story. The ocean breeze will cool us, and the parrots will chatter as we explain to our children how they came to live on the highest mountain on the island of Cuba, raised by a man and woman who love each other so much, not even prison walls could keep them apart.
His Tight Little Brat
Zoe is a sweet and innocent little lady celebrating her graduation night. When Zoe's supposed boyfriend ditches her outside a seedy motel room, however, she must call on the man of the house to come and rescue her.
Zoe is so grateful, but she's confused by her mixed-up feelings for the man who raised her. He wants little Zoe all for himself, hard and deep, but he's fighting against his forbidden desires. When he gives in, he will take what he wants, whether it fits or not, giving little Zoe a graduation night she will never forget.
///
I.
"Zoe," my stepfather said over the phone, "are you crying?"
Yes, in fact, I was. Not to sound overly dramatic, but it was the middle of the night, and I was sobbing like a baby in a parking lot of a seedy motel on the edge of town. A series of mistakes had led me to this place. Now I was alone, and scared.
"Daddy, I need you to come get me," I said.
"Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine," I mustered. "I just really could use a ride home."
"Stay put," he said. "I'll be right there."
The confidence in my stepfather's voice calmed me, and my tears began to dry. It was reassuring to know that he would still take care of his little girl, like always. For almost all of my life, my stepdad had been more of a father to me than my real dad ever was. That guy was such a deadbeat. When Mom died, he didn't even show up to the custody hearing. The judge let me stay with my stepfather because, you know, he actually wanted me, and he had more than enough means to secure my upbringing.
One of my earliest memories is from a time when I was seven years old and a snarling neighbor dog cornered me and was about to bite when my stepfather heard my screams and scooped me into his arms. Now that I was eighteen years old, he was saving me yet again. Instead of a mean dog, this time I needed rescuing from a bad boyfriend.
Now I was standing in a shadowy parking lot of a run-down motel called the Kozy Kumfort Inn. While being leered at by hairy truck drivers, I tried to remember why I had ever thought it was a good idea to let Richard take me here in the first place.
After our high school graduation ceremony, we had begun the night at a party at my friend Tiffany's house. Her parents were out of town, and I was drinking champagne for the first time. I liked it. I remember sitting in Richard's lap at the party, slurping from a red plastic cup and running my hands through his shaggy hair.