From Barcelona, with Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

Uggs, and an old green cashmere sweater of Mac’s, a particular favorite because she loved the way it smelled of him.
    â€œKiss me, my hero,” she said dramatically, throwing her arms wide. But she meant it. “After all you did just actually save a child’s life,” she added.
    â€œWhat about Pirate? He got to her first.”
    Sunny kissed the still-wet dog. “Braveheart,” she said and the dog gazed adoringly up at her, until the Chihuahua, fresh from sleeping on Mac’s warm bed, hurled herself at him, bared teeth gleaming. Sunny caught her mid-leap.
    â€œLittle bastard,” Mac said mildly. “Attacking the hero of the hour.”
    â€œOh, just pour me some more champagne, will you,” Sunny said, “and tell me what you think of our Paloma.”
    He got fresh chilled flutes from the refrigerator, filled them, and handed her one. “A toast to Paloma,” he said, “who, I suspect, is in some kind of trouble.”
    â€œWhat? A little girl like that? In trouble?” Then Sunny remembered the look in Paloma’s wide chestnut eyes. She recalled uneasily how some girls had looked like that, when she was at school. It was the look of an outsider, of someone who wasn’t quite in touch with her life … a loner.
    Mac said, “You realize she’s Bibi Fortunata’s daughter.”
    Sunny gaped at him, the glass halfway to her mouth. “No!” she said. Then she remembered Paloma’s red hair, her freckles, her long delicate body. “ Oh my God, of course she is,” she said. “The long-lost Bibi.”
    â€œWho simply disappeared,” Mac said. “Gone forever, I guess. Though how she could leave her child behind I don’t know.”
    â€œI do,” Sunny said. “Bibi was in such a mess, condemned as a killer by the media and the public, even though she never had a trial. How could she bring up a child? How could she be a normal mom, picking her up at school, going to all the school activities? Who would want to know Bibi’s little girl? It’s tragic, but I believe Bibi did the right thing.”
    Mac went and sat next to her on the garden swing with the striped awning he’d inherited when he bought the house, all those years ago. Arm around her, swinging gently back and forth, he looked out at the darkening band where the ocean met the night sky, and said, “I got the feeling she wanted to talk to me.”
    â€œSo what are you going to do?”
    He shrugged. “Nothing I can do. If Bibi wants to hide from the world and her family, that’s up to her.”
    â€œMaybe you’re wrong and Paloma was just starstruck,” Sunny said, because after all Mac was by way of being a “star.”
    Still, Mac wondered what was up.
    â€œI wonder why she lives—basically—in Barcelona?” he said, looking thoughtful.

 
    Part Two

 
    Chapter 4
    Barcelona
    There’s a tall stone house, tucked away from all the traffic and the noise, the cafés and the crowds at the end of an alley in the historic area of Barcelona known as Las Ramblas, a kaleidoscope of narrow streets crammed with shops and churches, bars and clubs and small hotels.
    The house has a high shabby wall and a pair of iron gates, painted blue. An old man holds guard over these gates, sitting day by day in his small stone guardhouse, a bright blue beret over his white hair. The beret matches his eyes, blue and still young, though the rest of him is falling apart. A dog sits beside him. A sleek little black-and-white dog, a would-be Jack Russell but with Spanish ancestors.
    The old man speaks only Catalan, the language of Catalonia, which is where Barcelona is located, and if you attempt to talk to him through the gates wanting to know if this is a museum and can you see round, you will be given a growl by the dog and a glare from the old man and told the Catalan equivalent of fuck off.
    The now