Badlands

“The clinic offered me a part-time position,” she said. “I’m going to be their new community health educator.”

He looked impressed. “Congratulations.”

She thanked him with a nod. Although she’d done a lot of volunteer work during her final semester of college, this would be her first paid job. She was freshly graduated, ready to make a difference.

“They’re asking for you backstage,” he said, touching the microphone at his ear.

Her stomach exploded with butterflies. She had the terrifying premonition that she’d trip over her dress, hyperventilate at the podium, or faint from an attack of nerves. “I can’t do this,” she said in a rush.

“You’ll be great.”

“Do I look like a clown?”

He examined her face, smiling. “No.”

“You look good, Mama,” Cruz said, gazing up at her. “As pretty as the ladies on Telemundo.”

Owen laughed at this compliment. Perhaps he was familiar with the scantily clad female performers on the popular Spanish-language channel. When he saw her worried expression, he sobered, letting security know they were on the way.

An event organizer escorted the three of them through a maze of passageways until they reached the backstage area. Penny found her mark and stood there, taking deep breaths. She would enter on one side while her mother waited on the other. She didn’t dare peek around the curtain to gaze at the crowd.

Cruz was supposed to sit with Leslie and Raven in the family balcony. When her grandmother came to retrieve him, he hid behind Penny’s skirt and refused to let go.

“You can’t walk out on stage with me,” she told Cruz.

“I’ll stay behind the curtain with Abuelita.”

Penny’s grandmother agreed to this suggestion; she rarely said no to Cruz. He stomped toward her, purposefully noisy in his shiny new shoes. She held his hand and let him wander around backstage.

Penny was too nervous to argue. She hoped he wouldn’t cause a scene during the introduction. Cruz didn’t throw temper tantrums as often as he used to, but he had a lot of energy and got into his share of mischief.

“He’ll be fine,” Owen said.

She practiced her lines, heart racing.

“Can I get you anything?”

For some reason, his polite offer bothered her. She didn’t want a bodyguard or a servant. She wanted a friend. A man. “Do I really look okay?”

“You’ve never looked better.”

“The dress isn’t...too much?”

His eyes traveled down the bodice and back up. “Not quite enough, I’d say.”

The words held no judgment, only mild admiration. He was making a joke to put her at ease, not giving her his sincere opinion.

“I feel like a fraud,” she whispered. “Or a whore.”

This sparked an honest reaction in him: anger. “Why?”

“They’re using me for sex appeal. Selling my image, my...tasteful cleavage.”

He said nothing, unable to deny the truth.

“Do you think it works?”

“Yes.”

“Are votes so cheaply had?”

“Some are.”

“What about yours?”

His lips quirked into a smile. “I’d vote for you, if you were running.”

She assumed he supported the opposition, but she didn’t ask. He respected her father too much to admit it. Which was kind of ironic, considering the circumstances. It was no coincidence that her father had offered Owen a job as soon as he’d come to L.A. Jorge Sandoval expected his daughters to marry wealthy Latinos. He’d hired Owen to keep him under his thumb—and off-limits to Penny.

She was annoyed with her father for manipulating Owen, and with Owen for letting him. Most of all, she was frustrated with herself. She’d always felt stifled by her family’s strict religious beliefs. If not for Cruz, she’d have left home long ago. She’d traded stability for independence, suppressing her own desires.

“People say I don’t know who Cruz’s father is.”

“Fuck them,” he said succinctly.

Her worst critics were members of the Freedom Party, an ultra-conservative group her father had courted and abandoned after winning the primaries. Now that he needed to focus on gaining ground with undecided voters, he could no longer afford to be affiliated with extremists. In recent weeks, his social media accounts had been inundated with suggestive comments about Penny, ethnic slurs and anonymous threats.

Maybe she’d spoken her mind during the interview in an attempt to break free from her family chains. But the move had backfired. Here she was, at another campaign event against her will. She didn’t want to be put on display, or to help her father win. What she longed for was right in front of her. She wished she had the nerve to tell Owen how she felt. To shed her inhibitions and offer herself to him.

“What if they boo me?” she asked.

“They won’t.”

Penny pressed a palm to her stomach. If she choked, the media would have a field day. If she tripped and fell, the video clip would go viral.

“Try to picture the audience naked,” he said. “I’ve heard it helps.”

She started with him, her eyes trailing down his body. Years ago, she’d seen him bare-chested. He was lean and strong, built more like a runner than a weight lifter. She knew he’d had some of his tattoos removed. She remembered one on his shoulder, a three-leaf clover. It wasn’t quite as offensive as the rest.

“Kiss me,” she said, meeting his gaze. “For luck.”

He stared at her in disbelief. She crossed her fingers and waited, pulse racing. When he realized she was serious, he glanced around to see who was watching. Her grandmother and Cruz were nearby, their backs turned. Her mother studied her cue cards on the other end of the stage, more than a hundred feet away.

She didn’t know if he did it because she asked, or because he wanted to. But he stepped forward and lifted his hand to her face, indulging her request. His fingertips skimmed the side of her neck as he leaned in. She held her breath, longing for a tongue-tangling kiss. At the last second, he moved to the left, brushing his lips over her cheek.

Chaste. Respectful. Distant.

But when he retreated, she saw the heat in his eyes. The want.