Milagro For Miranda (Book Three Oregon In Love) Read online

  He raised his hand to knock again. The door cracked open. Miranda peered out with red, puffy eyes. Her gaze widened and she opened the door all the way, her hands outstretched.

  “Mi madre,” she cried. “Ella es muerte! She is dead!”

  Seven

  Spencer blinked in shock at Miranda’s words. Tears poured from her eyes. He reached out to her, guiding her into the house, shelving his angst-ridden emotions for another time.

  When he shut the door behind them, he drew Miranda toward the couch. She staggered and went limp in his arms. Spencer tightened his hold on her. The movement jostled her out of her faint. Before she could pass out again, he got her seated on the couch.

  Sitting down next to her, he noticed the cushions were spotless of any blood, and smelled fresh and clean. He took Miranda’s icy hands between his own, alarmed at the burning color on her cheeks and glazed look in her eyes.

  “Where is she?” he asked softly.

  Miranda took a distracted breath. “In her bedroom. This morning, after I returned home from an errand, I went to check on her. It was then I…realized she had passed away.” Tears dripped off her chin. “I brought her here for a better life.”

  Spencer searched his weary brain for words of comfort and came up empty. He released her hands and stood, sending up a silent prayer for wisdom—one of many in the last several days. Bracing himself for what he might find, he went to the bedroom and stopped at the side of the bed. Miranda’s mother looked like she was sleeping. Touching her hand, he found it cool on contact.

  His gaze fell to the nightstand. On it was a small wooden crucifix with a sorrowful figure of Christ, surrounded by votive candles. He decided it must be an altar of some sort. A tiny silver charm dangled from the crucifix. It was shaped like a baby.

  Spencer glanced at the form on the bed. Poor Miranda. He rubbed his face, trying to organize his thoughts and think through to the next step.

  When he returned to the living room, Miranda was gone.

  “Miranda!”

  “I’m in here.”

  Following the direction of her voice, he found her in the kitchen with an opened bottle of tequíla. Her eyes glowed with a feral light and the skin over her cheekbones was stretched taut, giving her a hunted look.

  Before he could stop her, she took a drink from the bottle, then spent the next minute choking and gasping. Spencer schooled his expression to a careful blank. He patted her back until she caught her breath. With gentle fingers, he pried her hand from the bottle and turned it upside down in the sink, allowing the contents to flow down the drain.

  “Now is not the time,” he said in an even tone, inwardly appalled by her behavior. Is she a raging alcoholic on top of everything else?

  “Now is the perfect time!” Miranda cried. She gazed up at him with a lost expression that went straight to his heart. Despite every reason to avoid her, Spencer couldn’t resist her desperate appeal. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She wept against his chest until he felt moisture in his own eyes.

  Her hair smelled musky and exotic, and she felt warm in his arms. Spencer experienced a sharp pull of attraction. Then his father’s poisonous words insinuated into his brain. Was this some kind of victim ploy? Some kind of manipulation she perpetrated against males? Spencer held her closer, chastising himself for his thoughts. She can’t fake the fact that her mother is gone.

  Miranda shuddered and sniffed, raising her tear-stained face to him. “I don’t know what to do…with her, who to call.”

  Spencer felt the strength of his will weaken under her gaze. He blew out a breath. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you go lie down in your own room and get some rest.”

  She nodded and eased from his arms. When she’d gone, Spencer picked up the phone and began the arrangements.

  ***

  Miranda passed several days in a thick fog. Indistinct shapes and sounds flickered through the gloom of her grief. From time to time Spencer materialized, his gaze fervent and worried. From a long way off she heard him urging her to eat or to rest. She leaned on him, allowed him to handle all the details, but she couldn’t bring herself to trust him. She just had no one else by her side at the moment.

  After the abbreviated memorial service attended only by herself and Spencer, the funeral director handed her an urn containing the ashes of her mother’s cremated remains. She hugged it to her chest and looked up at Spencer. His lips moved as he walked her to his car. She roused herself to understand his words. “What?”

  “Do you plan to scatter the ashes?”

  Miranda clutched the urn, hating the cold, hard feel of the metal, so unlike the warmth and softness of her mother’s calloused hands. She touched the tiny pendant on her necklace, the silver figure she’d taken from the altar in her mother’s room, and nodded. “I took her to the beach shortly after she arrived in Oregon. She’d never seen the ocean before and she loved it.”

  “Would you like to go there now? I’d be glad to drive you.”

  Miranda sagged under the weight of yet another decision. She had so much to think about. Discerning Spencer’s motives took more energy than she had right now. “Why? I have my own car.”

  He unlocked the door of his Lexus and ushered her into the passenger seat. Miranda acquiesced. It was so much easier at the moment. All the fight that carried her through the last several weeks had been depleted in a tidal wave of heartache and misery.

  After closing the door, Spencer walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side. Miranda thought his elegant charcoal suit made him look haughty and remote. Despite his help in the last few days, she still considered him a stranger. Why is he helping me?

  Thank God he is.

  When Spencer settled into the seat and started the engine, he regarded her for a moment. Miranda met his gaze. He had his father’s eyes; the same shape and color. Spencer’s gaze appeared gentle and satiny gray, unlike the razor-sharp, metallic eyes of his father. But what did that mean? Nothing. George Meyers had seemed kind and considerate—almost fatherly—when she began working for him. Before he went in for the kill.

  Spencer turned away and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel. “I want to help you, Miranda. Especially now that you don’t have a job to go back to.”

  Miranda pressed her head against the seat. “He knows.”

  “Yes, at least most of it.”

  She wondered what Spencer meant by that. What part had he left out? Miranda felt her face flame at the memory. She’d been stupid to hope he’d keep that night a secret. “You had no right to tell him. It was none of your business.”

  “You made it my business when you shot me.”

  Miranda pressed her lips together. She’d nearly forgotten about that little detail. She cleared her throat. “Is the wound healing okay?”

  He nodded, his gaze flat. “It was a hatchet stitching job and I’ll have a wicked scar for life, but I’ll live.”

  She turned to look out the window. Just one more failure to add to my mushrooming pile. Her thoughts returned to George Meyers. It was inevitable that Spencer would tell him. She wondered if she’d ever receive her final paycheck.

  Miranda straightened. Her boss no longer had any hold over her. No files. No illegal alien. Nothing. But relief seemed a long way off. She sagged, clutching the urn in her lap. After dreaming of the moment she’d confront him and watch him shrivel into the shell of a man he was, she no longer had the opportunity. Spencer had stolen her moment of triumph.

  Her frustration was short-lived. She no longer had time to fret over his father and the trouble he intended for her. She had bigger issues to grapple with. Miranda shoved George Meyers and all he represented from her mind. She glanced down at the urn, longing to set her mother free from its unyielding confines.

  “Seaside. Do you know the way?”

  Spencer nodded and pulled away from the curb.

  At the beach, she tossed the ashes into the air, watching as the wind carried th
em out over the sea, until she could no longer see them. It was as if they disappeared into the mist. She remembered a verse from the Bible. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

  Miranda squeezed her eyes shut against a fresh wave of pain. It was too difficult saying goodbye to her mother when she’d so recently said hello. She felt as empty as the urn.

  ***

  Spencer watched the play of sad emotions over Miranda’s face as they arrived at her house. He longed to be a comfort to her, to somehow atone for his father’s perfidy toward her.

  He felt almost responsible for her joblessness. But it seemed as if she refused to be comforted. She’d acted restless and edgy all the way home from the beach, flinching from his attempts at consolation. At least I’ve made the effort. I’ve done all I can for her.

  As he followed her through the front door of her house, Spencer experienced a slackening of the stress he’d endured since her intrusion into his home and world. While he had to admit he found Miranda attractive, he had no desire to become involved with her a moment longer than necessary. Miranda and her problems were a little too untamed for his ordered lifestyle.

  At least his father no longer had any hold over her. She was free to move on with her life without interference from his family. Miranda Adams will be just a figment of my memory, the sooner forgotten, the better. As he watched her pace the room like a caged animal, he wondered why the thought brought no real sense of relief.

  Miranda picked up what he guessed was her mother’s sweater. Her eyes welled up with tears as she held it up to her face. Unable to help himself, Spencer reached out to her, touching her shoulder. She turned away from him.

  Spencer exhaled a pent-up breath. At least he could make sure Miranda had a fresh start, away from his father and his disgusting plans for her; away from fear of discovery and endless worry. He planned to give her money to tide her over until she found another job. Once he accomplished that, his life would return to a semblance of normalcy—the scar notwithstanding.

  He blew out a breath when he realized his own life wasn’t in the best shape. At least he could bury himself in work, but after several months in England working long hours to please a fickle client, even that prospect failed to give him encouragement.

  Miranda turned back and gave him a wan smile. “I haven’t thanked you for everything—”

  “No thanks needed,” he said, knowing he sounded rigid and unnatural.

  She took a deep breath. “Well, this is goodbye then.”

  He compressed his lips into a semblance of a smile and took her outstretched hand, unwilling to examine the contradictory thoughts churning within him. “What will you do now?” he asked, forcing his voice to sound conversational. “Will you stay in Portland?” His gaze strayed toward the door before coming back to rest on her. A moment more and I’ll never have to see Miranda Adams again.

  Miranda met his gaze with an unflinching stare. He noticed her eyes glowed like a blue flame in the darkening room. She released his hand and lifted her chin.

  “I’m going back to Mexico. To get my sister.”

  Eight

  Spencer blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “I said I’m going back to Mexico.” Miranda spoke over her shoulder as she strode away.

  Feeling as though jerked along by invisible wires, he followed her through the house, into her bedroom. Her bed was a snarl of sheets and blankets, books littered the small nightstand, and clothes hung from the back of a chair. His eyes widened as she pulled a large suitcase from the closet. She crammed clothes from the dresser to the suitcase, unwittingly echoing his own recent actions.

  Spencer pawed his hand through his hair, resisting the urge to tug it hard. “Um, I don’t understand. What sister are you talking about? I assumed you were an only child.”

  Miranda blew a curl from her face, keeping her gaze averted. “I thought so, too. But the night before Lupe died, she confessed she’d had another child; my half-sister.”

  Spencer experienced a now-familiar feeling of dread settling over him. He gulped in a lungful of air. “And this sister is in Mexico?”

  “You catch on quick.”

  Spencer realized she was packing intimate underclothes in the bag, and felt his face heat. He cleared his throat and fastened his gaze on a framed print of a desert vista by Georgia O’Keefe hanging on the wall. “Why do you have to go get her? Maybe…maybe she likes it there.”

  Miranda snorted. “She’s in an orphanage, so I doubt that. Apparently my mother fell victim to another disgraceful American man who left her high and dry.”

  He turned to her, raising his brow. “You think she would’ve learned her less—”

  Miranda held up a hairbrush in his face, her eyes shooting sparks. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence!” She looked away and sighed. “Besides, I think it’s time you left.”

  Spencer put up his hands in a gesture of surrender, wanting nothing more than to take her advice. His feet, however, refused to move. “My apologies. But I don’t feel comfortable leaving until I know your plans.”

  Miranda lobbed the hairbrush onto the bed and turned to him. “Why?”

  He took a deep breath. “I feel responsible for you now that my father has brought you so much trouble.” He flinched when the words came out sounding pompous.

  Miranda went into the bathroom and returned with a bag of toiletries, pushing them down deep into the corner of the suitcase. She zipped the suitcase with a violent motion, lugged it off the bed, and stumbled past him and out into the living room.

  Spencer followed her from her room and gently disengaged her hand from the handle of the suitcase. “Let me get this straight. You think you’re going to march into a Mexican orphanage, take your sister by the hand, walk out, and live happily ever after? What about documentation? Have you thought of the legalities involved?”

  Miranda shrugged and reached for the suitcase. Her attitude infuriated him. He pushed her hand away from the handle and swallowed his anger, deciding to try a different tact. “I take it you already have flight reservations.”

  She shook her head and apparently gave up on the suitcase. Instead, she began to tidy the room in obvious preparation of leaving. “I only just found out about my sister. I haven’t had a chance to plan anything out yet.”

  Spencer set down the suitcase. “Then how do you intend to get there?”

  “I’m driving.”

  “Driving! Do you have any idea how long a trip like that is?”

  She lifted her chin. “As a matter of fact, I do. I’ve done this before.”

  Spencer felt sweat break out on his brow. “You don’t mean to tell me you plan to smuggle your sister into the country?” He cleared his throat, hoping to eradicate the desperate tone in his voice. “That’s how you got your mother here, if I understand correctly.”

  Miranda went to the kitchen. He followed. There, she emptied out the contents of the refrigerator into the trashcan. He watched as she took the garbage bag out onto the tiny back stoop and dropped it into a metal can.

  “Miranda,” he croaked.

  She stopped her frenetic movements and looked up at him. “What?”

  “I can’t let you do this.”

  “You can’t let me do what?” she asked, her gaze weary.

  Ire swelled within him. “I’m not going to let you take that kind of risk again. Look at what your life was like with Lupe.”

  “Is your mother living?” she asked, curling her hands into balls.

  He raised his brows. “Yes.”

  Her gaze impaled him. “Then I can’t imagine why you would say such a thing.”

  Spencer felt lessened by her furious stance. “What I meant was the fear of being discovered. The worry she could be deported.”

  She turned her back on him and strode into the living room. “La Migra doesn’t scare me. Only your father did.”

  “La huh?” He went after her and stood in front of the d
oor.

  “Immigration officials. I’ve learned a few tricks along the way. My sister and I will do just fine. But I thank you for your concern.”

  Her sarcasm annoyed him more than he wanted to admit. While helping her with her mother’s funeral arrangements, he felt he was somehow erasing his father’s influence in her life. But to get her out of one scrape just so she could enter another!

  When she yanked at the handle of her suitcase and approached the front door, he blocked her efforts.

  She stared up at him as if he was just another irritant in her life. “Please move. I want to get on the road tonight.”

  “I can’t let you.”

  “You have no right to interfere!”

  Temper, temper, he thought, momentarily compelled to appreciate the flush of her cheeks and dangerous glint in her eyes. “I may have no legal right, but I have every intention of stopping you from ending up in jail.”

  “I won’t end up in jail.”

  “If you’re caught, your sister will be deported, and you’ll go to jail.”

  “Then, I’ll wait until I get out and go get her again. And again, and again. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Spencer felt his life tilting out of control, felt like the floor was slipping out from under him.

  He glared at Miranda, angry that the carefully cultivated management of his life was sliding from his grasp.

  What good did all that management do? Julia is with someone else and your ‘close’ family unit is fiction. Before Miranda…

  He shook his head. He couldn’t blame Miranda for everything that had gone wrong in the past week. But her presence in his life exacerbated the situation. If he didn’t keep a rein on her, her decisions would undoubtedly have a ripple effect on him. The scar on his leg panged him as if in agreement.