The Alvares Bride

“I’m…” She hesitated. “I’m fine.”

The doctor smiled. “You’re one tough cookie, that’s for sure. But we think you’ve been at this long enough.”

Somehow, she managed a weak grin. “Try telling that to this baby.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. We’ve decided to take you down the hall and get this kid into the world. How’s that sound?”

“Will it hurt my—”

Another contraction gripped her body. Carin groaned and the doctor squeezed her hand. “No. On the contrary. It’ll conserve energy for the two of you. It’s the best thing to do, I promise.”

The doctor rose to his feet and moved aside as two white-coated attendants came towards the bed.

“Don’t you worry, missus,” one of them said. “You’ll be holding that baby of yours before you know it.”

I’m not a missus, Carin thought, but everything was happening quickly now. Gentle hands lifted her; Amanda hurried alongside as she was rolled down the long corridor, her eyes fixed on the endless lights that shone from the ceiling. A pair of doors swooshed open just ahead, and her sister bent down and kissed her damp forehead.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey,” Carin said softly.

“I love you, Sis.”

“Me, too,” Carin said, and then she was through the door and in a room with white tile walls, staring up at a light as bright as the sun.

“Just relax, Ms. Brewster,” a voice told her, and there was a sudden burning sensation in her arm, where an IV needle already snaked under her skin.

“Here we go,” her doctor said, and Carin spun away.

Minutes passed, or maybe an hour; she couldn’t tell. She was drifting on a sea of soft clouds as she waited for the sound of her baby’s cry, but the doctor saying something in a sharp tone and then other voices joined in, calling out numbers, demanding five units of blood, stat.

Carin forced her eyes open. The light was blinding now. A nurse bent over her and she tried to speak because suddenly she wanted someone to know what had happened, that her child had a father, that she could not forget him or the hour she had spent in his arms…

And then everything faded to black, she was tumbling down a deep, deep tunnel, and suddenly, it was a hot August night instead of a warm Spring morning. She was at Espada, not in a hospital, and her life was about to change, forever…

He was tall and good-looking, and he’d been watching her ever since she’d entered the room.

His name, Carin figured, had to be Raphael Alvares.

“The Latin Lover,” she’d dubbed him, when Amanda had done everything but handstands to convince her she just had to meet the man.

“He’s a friend of Nick’s, and he’s here to buy horses from Jonas,” Amanda had confided as she sat in the guest room, watching Carin brush out her long, dark hair. “And, of course, Mother invited him to stay for the weekend.” She grinned. “Matchmaker, matchmaker,” she began singing, and Carin covered her ears.

“Stop!” She sighed with resignation. Well, it wasn’t a surprise. She should have known her mother wouldn’t give up the idea of marrying off her remaining two daughters. Samantha was safely out of range, flitting around Europe somewhere, which left Marta free to concentrate all her efforts on Carin, even though she’d vowed never to get involved with a man again. Marta had no way of knowing that but even if she had, it wouldn’t have stopped her.

“He’s gorgeous,” Amanda gushed, “and rich, and incredibly yummy. Well, not quite as yummy as my Nicholas, of course, but he’s really something special.”

“How nice for him,” Carin said politely.

“His name is Raphael Alvares. Isn’t that sexy?”

“Actually,” Carin said, even more politely, “I think it’s Spanish.”

Amanda had giggled. “Brazilian,” she’d replied, in an exaggerated accent, “wheech, my ’usband says, means zat he is zee Senhor Alvares, and not zee señor.”

She’d laughed, and Carin had grinned, and that had been that.

Carin had half expected her sister to drag her off to meet the man right there and then, but Amanda had apparently decided on a more subtle approach.

Instead of pointing Carin at Raphael Alvares, she’d pointed him at Carin.

At least, she must have, because the man who had to be the senhor from Brazil kept staring at her. Once in a while he smiled, as he was doing now. She smiled back, because it was the polite thing to do, but he wasn’t her type. No man was her type, anymore. To put it more accurately, she wasn’t the type for any man. Not now, maybe not for the rest of her life.

She lifted her wine goblet to her lips and took a drink so that she wouldn’t have to go on smiling when smiling was the last thing she felt like doing, and turned her back on the senhor.

The wine went down smoothly, maybe because it was her second, or was it her third, glass. She didn’t drink red wine, as a rule, not even one like this which had, undoubtedly, come from the Espada wine cellar and probably cost almost as much as she’d paid in rent on her first apartment in New York six years ago, but the first waiter she’d seen had been carrying a tray filled with glasses of red wine.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she’d quipped, and snatched one from him.

It was for false courage, she knew, but then, this was a weekend that called for it. Screamed for it, she thought, and drank more of the wine.

Her mother thought she was here because of the anniversary party for Tyler and Caitlin. At least, she was pretending she thought that was the reason, which was sweet of her.

“I can’t come, Mother,” Carin had said, when Marta phoned.

She’d been genuinely regretful, too. The gathering of the clan, all the Barons and Kincaids and al Rashids, was always a noisy, impossible, exciting event, and then there were all those adorable babies her stepbrothers’ wives and her very own sister were popping out, as if “fecundity” were their middle names.

“I wish I could,” she’d added, “but I’ll be at a wedding that weekend.”

That, of course, had all changed.

Latin Lover was staring again. She could almost feel his eyes on the exposed nape of her neck.

“Wear your hair up,” Amanda had urged, and she’d done it, except now her neck felt naked, which was dumb, but there was something about the way Raphael Alvares kept looking at her that made her feel uncomfortable. She thought about turning around and staring back but that might give him the wrong idea, which would be stupid. And she’d had quite enough of being stupid for a while.

Instead, she took another sip of the wine. It didn’t taste as bad as it had, at first. Well, who knew? Maybe red wine had to grow on a person, the way extended families did.

The idea was so silly it made her giggle. A woman standing nearby looked around.

“Nothing,” Carin said, when the woman smiled and raised her eyebrows questioningly. “I just thought of something, and…”

The woman nodded and turned away. Carin buried her face in her glass again and drank more deeply.

Yes, even if she wasn’t mingling, as Amanda had urged her to do, maybe it was a good idea that she’d come tonight, even if the reason sounded too ridiculous for words.

The man she’d been seeing for almost six months had been seeing one of her best friends at the same time he’d been dating her. It was such a clichéd, sad little tale that it would have been quite unremarkable—except for a minor deviation.

He wasn’t just dating Iris, he’d become engaged to her. The wedding date was set, the arrangements all made…and Carin was to be one of the bridesmaids.