Rio Grande Wedding by Ruth Wind Page A

is like this.” He spread his hands toward the door. “But then it gets better. Where I lived, the land is rich. We grow many things, and sell them to the exporters—you know, who make frozen vegetables?”
    â€œAnd what made it a good life?”
    He inclined his head, making that hair fall a little to one side. Light caught on the glossiness, and Molly knew she was only talking to keep him there. But when he lifted his eyes, frankly, to hers, she decided he talked in order to stay. “It’s a simple world. The days are the same. It’s good, knowing you will wake up in your bed and the fields will be waiting, and then at night, we will sit in the back with the dogs, and maybe some children, and somebody plays guitar.” He smiled. “Boring, no?”
    â€œNot at all.” In fact, she thought his description said a lot about his character. It reinforced her feeling that he was a man of the land, truly born of it, with the rhythms carved in his soul. “It sounds peaceful.”
    â€œPeaceful. Yes, that’s a good word.” Absently, he touched his ribs.
    â€œAre you in pain?”
    â€œNo. Not so much.” He laughed a little, as if in surprise. “I was thinking this is a peaceful place, too.”
    Molly laughed. “No, this is really boring. I had to get Leo, the cat, to have some entertainment.” Apologetically, she lifted a shoulder. “I don’t always like living so far out. I hved in town all my life.”
    â€œSo you want the cars in the streets, those lights shining in your window?”
    â€œNot exactly—but I like kids walking by after school. And talking with my neighbors. Having somebody over the back fence.”
    The large dark eyes fixed on her face, strangely sober. “You are lonely. That is why you wanted me to stay.”
    Molly ducked her head instantly, but it wasn’t quick enough to hide her humiliation. It burned along her ears, and she was grateful for the hair that would cover it.
    He touched her hand on the table and said gently, “I know about lonely, too.”
    She couldn’t quite bear to look at his face, but his fingertips rested lightly on her fingernails, the lightest possible touch, and she could look there. “Loneliness,” she said absently, and raised her head. “It’s lonely and loneliness. One is an adjective, the other a noun.”
    â€œAh.” He nodded, but did not take his hand away. “Same in Spanish. Solitario and soledad.” He tapped her forefinger with his own. “And one more, too. If a place is lonely, it is aislado.”
    â€œAislado.” The word made her think of a desert beneath a full moon, a lone rider crossing in danger. “I like that.”
    â€œYou are lonely,” he said. “I know about loneliness. And this—” he gestured to the door “—is, for you, aislado. Can you say that word in English?”
    She thought. Shook her head. “No. I don’t think there is a word.” She lifted a shoulder. “Haunted, maybe.”
    â€œIs your land haunted, Molly?”
    She thought of the nights when she lay alone in her bed and heard coyotes howling in the distance—and sometimes not so distant. She thought of the emptiness of the fields when they were blanketed in snow, and not a single footstep showed on it for days and days. “No,” she said. “Aislado is better.”
    His smile shifted every line, every angle in his face into a new light, putting mischief in his faintly tilted eyes. Molly wondered why it felt so amazingly good to have that zillion-watt grin turned on her.
    And at the answer, she was appalled. Loneliness. She had been terribly, terribly lonely out here, and he broke the sameness. He made her smile, and gave her someone to take care of and someone to talk to.
    Stiffly, she stood. “You should go back to bed.”
    Perplexed, he inclined his head. “I offended