Fierce Love Read Free

of a happy one. She might have stubbornly refused to admit she had unfinished business with Miguel Aragon, but didn’t she owe it to herself to at least meet him in person? She laughed as she thought while he’d faced many a ferocious bull, he wouldn’t be ready for her.
    There were only a couple of weeks left in the spring semester and if she cited a family emergency, she could arrange for a substitute to cover her classes and leave early. She owed Craig an apology, but knowing he’d much rather hear the whole story, she’d wait until she returned home.
    “Home,” she whispered softly, for it had never been her father’s luxurious estate. Once made, the decision seemed to have come easily, but the trip could be the most difficult of her life. She looked out toward the night where the sky had darkened to a deep mysterious blue and the mountains were no more than serrated shadows.

Chapter Two
    Magdalena’s flight landed at Barcelona’s El Prat airport on Saturday afternoon. She’d sent her father her flight information, but with the harried effort to end the school year early and write lesson plans for her sub, there’d been no time to consider her arrival before boarding the plane. Now as she left customs to enter the passenger arrival lounge, she paused and surveyed the waiting crowd with an anxious glance.
    A couple of men were in the right age range, but neither even remotely resembled Miguel Aragon. That she’d foolishly assumed he would be there to meet her struck her as not merely naïve but unbelievably stupid. A mist of anguished tears had already begun to blur her vision before she noticed a chauffeur in a muted gray uniform making his way toward her.
    Her fellow passengers surged forward, but Maggie hung back and agilely shifted her balance to avoid being jostled aside. Just ahead, a young woman leapt into a waiting man’s arms. Her husband, Maggie thought, or a lover ecstatic to see her again. A laughing family surrounded a dear little grandmother. A businessman’s burly friend reached out to relieve him of his bulging briefcase. The pair then strode off, talking and gesturing excitedly.
    Standing alone, Maggie waited for the chauffeur, who had stumbled over a student’s backpack and come perilously close to falling. He was tall, several inches above six feet, and caught his balance with surprising grace. An infant carried in her father’s arms made a passing grab for the silky ends of Maggie’s hair, and just as she pulled free, the chauffeur reached her side.
    His cap was angled low to shade his face, and his sunglasses reflected Maggie’s troubled frown, but his features were unmistakably familiar. It was in the set of his mouth perhaps, or the firmly chiseled chin, but she recognized him instantly as more than a man in Miguel’s employ. She’d known her father had other children, if not exactly how many, but that he’d sent one of her brothers to meet her filled her with an awestruck wonder. The young man whispered her name, and she nodded numbly.
    “We can’t talk here,” he cautioned in softly accented English. He grabbed the handle of her carry-on bag. “Is this all you have?”
    Maggie glanced at him in amazement. The young man’s hair was as dark and straight as her own, and she was sure his eyes would be as rich and warm a brown as their father’s. “Yes,” she managed rather hoarsely. “I’m not planning on staying long.”
    A sly smile curved his well-shaped mouth. “Really?”
    Clearly he didn’t believe her, but before Maggie could argue that she always said exactly what she meant, he started back through the rapidly thinning crowd, and she had to quicken her step to keep up. As a dancer, she had considerable endurance, but by the time they crossed the airport lobby and burst out into the bright afternoon sun, she was gasping for breath.
    “If it’s much farther, I’d rather wait right here while you bring the car.”
    Indifferent to her breathless plea, the