Her Hidden Smile, page 1
Her Hidden Smile
Protector’s of Jasper Creek
Book Two
Caitlyn O’Leary
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Caitlyn O’Leary
© Copyright 2024 Caitlyn O’Leary
All rights reserved.
All cover art and logo © Copyright 2024
By Passionately Kind Publishing Inc.
Cover by Lori Jackson Design
Edited by Sally Keller
Content Edited by Trenda Lundin
* * *
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and places portrayed in this book are entirely products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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To Drue Hoffman. Thank you for always being there for me.
Synopsis
Has Life Ripped Away Her Ability to Love?
* * *
Renzo Drakos’ job has taken him to every corner of the world, and he’s loved every minute of it. The freedom has helped him bury many demons from his past. But as he’s watched his huge family start families of their own, he feels like something is missing. He wonders if his wanderlust will allow him to stop long enough to find a woman who will capture his heart.
* * *
Millie Randolph has struggled all her life. As a child, she barely survived when her family home burned to the ground and she lost her beloved parents to the flames. Her aunt and uncle reluctantly took her into their family where she shut down. Emotionally and physically scarred, she feels flawed and knows she’ll never be loved again. Years later she finds herself at her parents’ farm, trying to fulfill their vision. What others say can’t be done makes her even more determined to achieve what has now become her dream.
* * *
When Renzo meets Millie, he finds the missing piece of his broken soul. Knowing this gentle woman has been through so much, he refuses to be another person who lets her down. Will Renzo be able to see that living in one place is not a cage, but with Millie, it’s a home? And will Millie open her heart to believe that love is possible, or has life taken away her smile forever?
Prologue
Twenty-Five Years Ago – Lima, Peru
“Get up!”
I grunted. That was my first mistake. But I couldn’t help it. Izan’s kick wrenched me out of a dream where my grandmother had made me a little plate of ceviche. It was the first time she gave me grown-up food.
“Ha! You don’t like being kicked, do you, you lazy piece of shit?” He kicked me again; this time it was in my backbone. I was careful not to make a sound. Any time I did, he just kicked me more and harder.
“You are such a slacker. You did nothing yesterday. I don’t know why Luis lets you have any food.”
I scrambled up from the piece of cardboard I’d been sleeping on. The cold bit through my thin shirt, and I shivered. I saw that the old, ratty wool coat that I’d found in the trash was over on Izan’s pallet. It stung when the wind slapped my long hair against my frozen cheeks.
I started toward Luis’ makeshift house. He was our leader, and his cardboard leaned up against the bridge wall and a tarp covered the entrance. If Luis woke up, then Izan would stop hurting me.
Fire shot down my arm as Izan slammed me into one of the concrete pillars that held up the bridge we’d been sleeping under.
“Lay off the kid,” Jorge yelled out. “We need him. He’s no use to us if he’s hobbling around.”
“I don’t know. Won’t they feel more sorry for a cripple?” Izan laughed.
“Shut up, all of you. Renzo, get over here.” Luis had flipped back the tarp and must have seen me cowering away from Izan.
I shot Izan a dirty look as I scurried over to Luis. He’d been my protector ever since we’d escaped from the orphanage. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d probably be working for the gold-toothed pimp who forced everyone to work in Miraflores. Izan was always telling me that one day he would sell me to that man, but I knew Luis wouldn’t let him.
I was shivering when I stood in front of Luis. Lima was cold in the mornings.
“Here.” Luis handed me his jacket. It was his Cristal fútbol club jacket. I couldn’t believe it. “If you do good today, you can keep it.”
“I can?” This was better than any Christmas or birthday with my grandmother. This would be the best thing I’d ever gotten in my whole life. I fingered the blue and gold material.
“Only if you do good,” Luis warned. “Today is Fiesta de Las Cruces. There are going to be a ton of tourists. We’re depending on you to lure the marks. Do you understand? We’re down to our last sols.”
“We are?”
“We only have enough for beans and bread tonight.”
My stomach growled. I was so sick of beans I was going to throw up. I wanted sweet Chançay bread like my grandmother made me, or even better, that pork roll sandwich we once stole from the bakery. That’d be good.
“Are you listening to me, Renzo?”
I wasn’t, but I nodded.
“We got to find Americanos,” Luis said. “They have the most money.”
“Yeah, they’re rich and stupid,” Izan sneered. He yanked at my jacket and glared at Luis. “You’re too soft to lead. Renzo doesn’t deserve this jacket. He’s just a baby. We should get rid of him.”
“Shut it,” Jorge barked. He came up behind Izan and slapped him upside his head. Jorge looked more like fourteen, but he was only ten. He could crush Izan like a bug, and Izan knew it. But Izan had a knife. Last month when I saw it, Izan threatened to slice me up if I told the others. I worried he would use it on Jorge one day if Jorge kept hitting him.
Luis shook his head at Izan. “Renzo isn’t a baby. He’s almost seven, and he’s smart. He’s perfect at distracting the tourists. We need him.”
Izan gave an ugly laugh. “That’s bullshit. I can lure the tourists better than he can.”
Luis and Jorge laughed in his face. “Nobody would trust you. Just thank the saints that you run fast,” Jorge scoffed.
“Enough. I have a little food left over; we need to eat. It’s going to be a long day.” Luis pulled some bread out of his pack, along with the dreaded can of beans.
“Them,” Luis pointed at the man and lady coming out of the toy store. “Just look at them, Renzo. They act like they own the world. Shitty Americanos who buy everything and don’t even think about the homeless and hungry.”
They look happy.
“Is Izan going to steal her purse?” I asked.
Luis looked down at me and stared. “Does it matter?”
It mattered. Izan didn’t just take the ladies’ purses, he made sure that he pushed them down. He liked it when he hurt them. There was something wrong with Izan.
“Look, Jorge is at the parade. He’s picking pockets, so yeah, Izan is going to grab her purse while you distract her. It’ll be easy because the man is carrying all those shopping bags.”
I eyed the lady and the man. I watched as they came out of another shop with another bag of stuff they didn’t need. The pretty lady was laughing up at the man. He had his arm around her waist.
Did they like each other?
My grandmother said that my mama and papa had loved each other very much. Did these two Americanos love each other?
“Go!” Luis shoved me so hard I fell forward, but I caught myself before my face hit the cobblestones. There had been little to share for breakfast, so we were all hungry. That made even Luis angry. I knew my job. I had to distract the yellow-haired lady while Izan came by and grabbed her purse. But still, I had to protest. The lady wasn’t just holding her purse, it was over her shoulder. Every time Izan grabbed a lady’s bag from her shoulder, she was for sure getting hurt.
“Can’t we choose someone else?” I begged. “Look at her purse. Izan’s going to hurt her for sure.”
Luis grabbed me by my shoulders. I winced as he squeezed the bruise I got from Izan this morning. “Lo
I could see by the look in his eyes, he meant it.
I twisted out of his grip. “I’ll do it,” I promised.
“Wait,” Luis muttered. “Give me the jacket. You look too good wearing it.” He grabbed the collar and yanked it off me.
I didn’t flinch, even though it really hurt my shoulder again.
“Now get going.”
I saw the man and lady were heading toward the cathedral. That was good. There were some beggars already there. I would be just one more. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Izan. He was near the far edge of the cathedral stairs. All I had to do was get them talking to me, then Izan could come up behind the lady and take her purse. It’s what we always did. We’d been doing it since I was five, after we escaped from the orphanage.
I walked a little funny as I rushed up to them. The last kick in the back that Izan had given me had really hurt, and now I couldn’t walk straight, but at least I hadn’t made a sound. When I was almost to the lady and man, one of the older beggars tripped me. I slammed to the ground, my chin scraping against the cobblestones.
“That wasn’t nice,” the pretty lady said in Spanish. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Who was she talking to? How did she know how to speak in Spanish?
Soft hands helped lift me up. I saw that she’d put her purse on the ground.
Good. Izan wouldn’t hurt her now.
“What’s your name?”
Her eyes were really pretty. I’d never seen somebody in real life with blue eyes.
“Honey, can you talk to me? Can you tell me your name?”
I eyed her purse again, then scanned the plaza to see where Izan was, but I couldn’t see him. I was finally standing, and she was trying to brush the dirt off my clothes, but that would never work. I’d been wearing the same clothes for over a month.
“Sharon, honey,” the man interrupted, “we need to go.”
“He looks hungry.” She turned back to look at me. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
Where was Izan? He never waited this long.
I looked up into her pretty eyes. “Renzo. My name is Renzo,” I mumbled.
I needed to get away from them.
“Renzo what, honey?”
I shrugged my shoulders and winced. Where was he? I looked behind her, but all I saw was the big man’s legs behind the lady.
She squatted down, her flowery skirt flowing around her so it was touching the ground.
“Don’t be afraid. Are you lost? Where’s your Mama? Where’s your Papa?”
She brushed back my long, greasy hair from my grimy forehead and I forced myself not to cry. The last time someone touched me so nice had been before I was forced into the orphanage. Back when my grandmother was alive.
She turned her head and looked up at the big man. “I don’t think he’s lost, Christos. I’m worried he doesn’t have anyone.”
I looked up at him, too.
“Sharon, we can’t save everyone,” he said in a kind voice.
“But we need to at least get him something to eat. Maybe a—”
Izan slammed his head into the nice lady’s side, and she actually lifted up before she crashed down onto the cobblestones.
“Sharon!” the big man yelled as he slid on his knees to cradle her in his arms.
I looked over and saw her purse was gone. My job was done. But I couldn’t leave her. She was bleeding. I stood over her.
The man looked up at me. “Get the police. We need an ambulance.”
I nodded my head without thinking.
“Renzo!” It was Luis shouting. “Time to go.”
The big man’s eyes darkened with fury. He realized what I’d done.
“Policia!” he yelled. A couple of tourists stopped, but they would be of no help. I knew where the policia were. I ran like my feet were on fire and found the two men who guarded the other side of the cathedral. I told them what happened. They were talking on their radio for an ambulance as they followed, then passed me by to get to the lady and the man.
When I almost made it to them, I was grabbed so hard by my arm, something popped in my shoulder. I looked up, expecting it to be the man, but it was Izan.
“You rat. You’re going to turn us all in, aren’t you?”
I was so scared, I couldn’t speak. He swung me by my useless arm. I couldn’t stifle my scream. He punched me in my face, still holding me by my arm so I couldn’t fall to the ground. He punched me again. Then he pulled out his knife.
“We don’t have time,” Luis muttered as he pulled me away from Izan. “If you kill him, then they’ll come after us. They won’t pay any attention to a street rat, but a dead street rat they might do something about.”
“I,” Izan dropped me to the ground.
“Don’t,” Izan kicked me in the face.
“Care,” Izan bent down with his knife.
“You better start caring,” a man bellowed. His fist was as big as my head, and it circled Izan’s wrist. He held Izan a foot off the ground.
“Here he is. This is the kid who hurt my wife.” The big man shook Izan like he was a puppy. I couldn’t see Luis or Jorge. One of the policia that I had brought to help came over and grabbed Izan.
“We’re going to need another ambulance for this kid,” the man said as he squatted over me.
“They were probably in it together,” the second policia said, then spit on the ground.
The big man looked at me for a long time. “No, I don’t think so. He was just a beggar who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
I hadn’t cried since the first week I’d been sent to the orphanage. The jailers beat you if you were a crybaby. But my face scrunched up, and I felt tears leaking out of my eyes. It wasn’t the pain of Izan’s beating. It was the fact that this man was being nice to me. Nobody was nice. Nice stopped being a part of my world the day my grandmother died.
I heard a man rumbling in English. I understood a lot of different languages. It helped me to survive. English, French, German, and some Japanese. I tried to listen to what the man was saying, but his voice was too low. I opened my eyes, but then closed them again. The light hurt.
“Christos, lower the blinds. The light is hurting Renzo’s eyes.”
It sounded like the lady near the cathedral.
“Mom, not another brother. There’s already four of us,” a boy whined in English.
“I raised you better than that, Jase.” It was the man talking again. “If you’re not careful I’m going to give him your Big Wheel when he comes home with us. Got it?”
I opened my eyes just a bit. I wanted to see where I was and who the kid was who was talking.
“Got it, Dad.”
“I’d like another brother,” another boy spoke up. He was looking over at me and smiling. He was even darker than I was.
Both of the boys were around my age. Maybe a little older. I really couldn’t tell. I really wanted to know what a big wheel was.
“You’re right, Malik, another brother would be good,” the pretty lady said in English. “His name is Renzo, and according to the police, he doesn’t have anyone, so your father and I are going to ask him if he would like to go home with us.”
“Where did he come from?” the girl asked.
I turned my head and saw a girl who looked just like the lady.
“The police think that he’s one of the homeless children here in Lima. Sometimes their parents have died, and sometimes they just kick their children out of their houses.”
