Ghosts of the Past Ch. 13

Larry Wilson did his best to forget New Year's Eve. But dreams of his partner's wife started to affect his ability to sleep and to think straight. Even more confusing was the fact that during some of those dreams, Dawn Estevez's face would blur into the face of another woman he didn't recognize at first. But the look in her eyes was what he had wished to see in Dawn's...

The other woman looked similar to Dawn; she was petite and they both had beautiful dark brown hair, but her skin was darker and her eyes were a deep, dark brown... like Rick's. The more Larry concentrated on trying to recall the woman's face from his dreams, the more he started to remember that she was a young Hispanic woman that he and Rick had met one night just a few weeks before Rick had met Dawn last July.

She had originally come on to Rick in the little cantina they had visited that hot June night. She had excused herself to go to the restroom for a moment and Larry had suggested to his partner that he would like to get a piece of her as well. She had also looked familiar to him somehow...

When Rick had asked her if she'd be interested in having the both of them take her to bed, she had immediately spun around to look up at Larry. She had stared intensely into his eyes as she'd whispered, "Yesss..." They had gone to Larry's apartment since he lived closer.

Larry had been the first one she kissed and he had kissed her the way he did every woman that turned him on... hotly, deeply and passionately. And she had kissed him back just as fiercely. He recalled the way his dick had throbbed when she'd moaned desperately as he'd kissed her. He could tell she was a very passionate woman and that she would be a very hot lay for him and Rick to share. And that she was...

He frowned as he recalled that she had wanted to be face to face with him instead of Rick each time they took her. And she had spent the majority of the time kissing him. Rick had been the delegated ass man that night, even though most of the women they'd double-teamed had wanted Rick's thick cock in their pussy and Larry's slender shaft in their ass!

Larry closed his eyes as he recalled that night. She had been a very passionate lover... begging Larry to fuck her just one more time before she left. He'd had one more condom, so Rick had dressed and slapped his shoulder as he left and told him, "Try not to let Santa Maria wear you out completely! We're on duty early tomorrow."

Maria Delgado... that was her name... Santa Maria they had dubbed her because she had invoked the Sainted Virgin's name every time they made her come. Most women moaned to God during orgasm, but Maria had called to her namesake in the throes of ecstasy! Except for that last time Larry had taken her...

But Maria had taken him first... She had rolled him over to straddle his cock and ridden him with more wild abandon than Larry had ever experienced from a woman. He remembered how hot it was to watch her so totally lose herself to the moment while riding his dick. The sexy way her slim, creamy caramel-colored body had writhed on top of his... the erotic looks of pure pleasure on her face... her loud groans and wails of passion as she came twice while impaled on him.

Larry smiled and laughed sexily as he recalled how difficult it was to keep from coming each time her pussy had squeezed his dick... even though he'd already come several times that night. Then his smile faded as he suddenly realized why she'd been invading his dreams about Dawn.

When Larry had pulled her down to his chest to roll her over and take her more forcefully, she had looked up at him with tears shimmering in her eyes. She'd whispered in her sexy Hispanic accent, giving the "a" in his name a longer vowel sound and rolling the "r's" softly, "Do you think you could pretend, Larry... just once... pretend that you love me?" It was the same request he'd made of Dawn New Year's Eve.

He had paused to stare at Maria for a moment. Something he'd seen in her eyes had suddenly made him nervous... he'd felt a strange fluttering in the pit of his stomach. And he'd felt he had to do as she'd pleaded. So he'd kissed her tenderly and softly stroked her body as he slowly fucked her. That's when he'd had the thought that had startled him...She'd be so easy to love...

Her body had continued to respond more and more ardently to him and he hadn't been able to hold back. He'd ended up driving into her forcefully again as she clung to him and wailed passionately as she came with him.

She'd said something in Spanish at the height of her climax that he hadn't paid attention to or understood until he heard Dawn say it to Rick New Year's Eve while they were both making love to her. He'd been stunned when he asked her what she said. "Te quiero, mi amor! Siempre..." The literal translation was, "I want you, my love! Always..." but in Spanish, "te quiero" was the same as saying, "I love you."

Why had Maria said she loved him? He couldn't remember if he'd ever seen her before that night and she had ignored him the next time he ran into her at the cantina a few months later when he'd gone looking for her. She had done more than just ignore him... she'd looked scared to death and had immediately left.

He remembered feeling somewhat relieved then. He was not looking for love and he had been afraid that he'd given her the wrong impression that last time he'd taken her. He'd held her tightly as he came and moaned her name over and over, "Ohhhh, Maria... Maria... Santa Maria!"

She had kissed him passionately one last time before he fell asleep. When he woke up again a few hours later, she was gone. She had simply disappeared from his life as quickly as she had appeared. And that had been fine with him... until a few weeks later when he found one of her shoes under his bed. He'd struggled with the urge to find her again for several weeks. That was why he'd gone back to the cantina that one night, hoping to see her and return her shoe, and maybe...

Now, all of a sudden, she was invading his dreams... dreams that had started out plaguing him with the knowledge that he felt he'd given his heart to a woman who could never love him. So... why was his mind now bringing up the images of a woman he'd spent one night of passion with months ago and substituting her for the woman he thought he'd fallen in love with... a woman he could never have?

Larry squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his hand over his forehead. He simply couldn't think straight any more. He was too tired at the moment. The only thing he knew he had to do was to try to find Maria again and ask her why she'd said she loved him...

**********

Toward the end of February 1957, Larry went back to the cantina. He asked everyone there if anyone knew Maria Delgado. He felt an inexplicable surge of anger when one man behind the bar replied, "Maria Delgado? Why would you be looking for that whore, gringo? Can't you find any nice white girls in your own neighborhood?"

Rick stalked over to the man. "Don't say anything else like that to me. I just want to know if you can tell me where to find Maria. Can you?"

"Yeah, sure... she lives a few miles away on Rialto, number one thirty-five. Good luck trying to see her, though. She doesn't set foot out of her house these days and she only answers the door for people she knows. And it's no wonder... the mess she's gotten herself into, the stupid whore!"

Larry grabbed the front of the man's shirt and pulled him across the bar. "Listen, mister... I told you to stop talking about her like that! Why do you keep calling her that?"

The man snorted a short laugh. "If you see her... you'll figure out what that means!"

Larry pushed the man away from him and walked out. He got into his car and drove the few miles over to where her house was located. He parked out front and walked up to the door. He used the brass door ornament and knocked three times. He heard her voice call from inside. "Who is it?" She still had that soft, sexy accent.

Larry was afraid if he told her it was he, she'd just refuse to see him and send him away. He deepened his voice to the way he spoke when on duty. "This is the L.A.P.D. Miss Delgado. We need to ask you a few questions."

"About what? I haven't been anywhere or done anything that I should be in trouble for!"

He could hear fear in her voice. "Oh, no, Miss Delgado... you're not in any kind of trouble. We need to ask you some questions about... a personal item that was found that we think belongs to you. Could you please come to the door and identify it for us?"

He heard her approach the door. He stood to one side so she couldn't see him by just cracking the door open. She opened it just far enough so she could peek her head around from behind the door and peered out. She looked around. "Where are you? And what item are you talking about?"

Larry stepped in front of her door and braced his foot and his hand on it, so she couldn't slam it in his face. She stared up at him with a mixture of fear and... longing. He frowned sadly at the look on her face. "Hello, Maria. Why do you look so frightened of me? What did I do to scare you?"

She looked down. "I'm not frightened of you, Larry... I just... don't want to see you! Please... go away!" She looked back up at him with desperate pleading in her eyes.

He frowned harder and swallowed a lump that was trying to form in his throat from the look on her face. "All right, Maria... I'll go away if you answer one question for me." She raised her eyebrows slightly as if in question. "Why did you say you loved me that night?"

Her face contorted and she couldn't stop the tears that sprang into her eyes. "Aye, Dios! I didn't say I loved you! Where did you get that idea?"

Larry closed his eyes as he heard her voice inside his head from that night. "Yes... you did, Maria. You said 'Te quiero!' I don't know Spanish so I didn't know what that meant until recently. By the way, the other man with us that night was my partner, Rick Estevez, and we are L.A.P.D. officers..." He paused and frowned in confusion.

She had closed her eyes and nodded quickly. "Yes... I know! So...?"

Then he continued. "And you know damn well that, in Spanish, te quiero means 'I love you!' So... why did you say that to me the last time I made love to you?"

She hung her head down as she said, "I don't know! It was stupid! I... I didn't mean it!"

He put his hand on her chin and lifted her face to him again. "Yes, you did, Maria... I could see it in your eyes. I didn't want to see it... but I did. And now I can't forget it... that look in your eyes. And it's still there... even through your fear and your tears I can see it!"

He pushed her front door open further and stepped inside. She turned away from him, crying softly as he shut the door. He moved behind her and put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. "Maria... why are you so upset to see me again and why did you run in fear that night I saw you a few months later at the cantina?"

She backed away from him and ran her right arm over her protruding abdomen. "THIS IS WHY!" she exclaimed with a sob. "I'm pregnant! I'm an unmarried woman and I'm pregnant!"

Larry's eyes widened slightly. "Oh. Do you know who the father is?"

Maria frowned painfully. "Yes... I know who he is."

"Does he know?" Larry asked curiously.

"No. I never told him," she said quietly.

"Why?" he asked in confusion.

"Because he didn't love me. And I didn't want to burden him. It was an accident. I didn't mean for it to happen and neither did he. But I want this baby."

He asked her gently, "When are you due?"

"In a few weeks," she said softly.

Larry frowned as he did some quick calculating in his head. "Maria... do you think this baby is mine?" She nodded reluctantly. "How could that be? I used condoms that night!"

"I know!" she cried painfully. "But there had been no one else for months before that night and no one else since! Like I said... it was an accident. I didn't want you to know... I never wanted you to know. Why have you come looking for me now... after all this time?"

"Because I've been dreaming about you lately. I don't know why... but you've invaded my dreams! I keep seeing that look in your eyes... you love me... and I have no idea why! How could you love me when we shared only one night together?"

Maria stared into his eyes. "I've loved you from the moment I saw you three years ago... the night you and your partner came to tell me that my parents were dead! You held me when I broke down and I felt so safe in your arms..."

Larry frowned as he suddenly recalled that night. He realized she was the beautiful young woman that he'd felt such sympathy for and so protective toward... she had seemed so young and vulnerable... and lonely. She'd had no other relatives to comfort her.

Maria continued. "I started following you just to see you. And I would go into the cantina to watch you. But I could tell from the way you and your partner left with different women each time you were there... and sometimes with just one woman... that neither of you were looking for love. I finally decided that even if I couldn't get you to love me, that I at least wanted to share my body with you... even if I had to share it with your partner as well.

"I was afraid to approach you... I didn't know how you felt about Hispanic women... so I approached your partner first, hoping he would offer to share me with you... if you'd wanted me..." She blushed and looked down.

Larry put his hand on her cheek. "It was my idea, Maria. When you went to the restroom, I asked Rick to see if you'd be interested in being with me as well. If I'd known I was the one you really wanted, I'd have taken you for myself that night. You were the most passionate lover I've ever had! I came back to the cantina that night a few months later hoping to see you and hoping you'd want to share another night with just me... But you took off... looking scared to death and I took that to mean you never wanted to see me again! Now I realize why..." He dropped his hand from her cheek and started to pace in front of her.

"Oh, Maria... if you had told me then... I probably would've been angry and blamed you or outright denied that I could be the father! But now... something's changed with me. I never believed that people could really fall in love and that it would last. I never wanted to risk having my heart broken the way my mother broke my Dad's! But I stupidly fell in love with another woman that I can never have... because she's in love with someone else...

"Then the dreams I'd been having about her suddenly started turning into dreams about you... and I have no idea why!?! Maybe... maybe I did fall in love with you in some way, but... I had no idea how to recognize it then. I didn't want it then! But I want it now..." He stopped pacing and stared at her again. "And I can still see that look in your eyes... Do you still love me, Maria?"

Her face contorted as she started to sob. She nodded her head as she squeaked, "Yes! That's why I want this baby! Because it's yours! If I couldn't have you, I'd at least have a part of you! And I won't be alone any more..."

Larry couldn't stand her sobbing. His chest felt tight. He took her in his arms and held her gently. He kissed the top of her head. "Please don't cry, sweet Maria. I don't want you to be alone any more... and I don't want to be alone any more, either. Marry me, Maria. Let me be a part of your life... let me be a father to our child!"

She pushed out of his arms and stared up at him in shock. He looked almost as shocked as she. "What?!! What are you saying? You show up here out of the blue, find out I'm about to give birth to your child and all of a sudden you want to MARRY ME?!! I don't want your pity! I don't need your help to raise this child! I'll be fine on my own! I don't want your charity!" She spun around and stalked away from him to lean on a counter separating the kitchen from the dining area and living room, using her hand to wipe the tears from her face.

Larry had been shocked that the words had just popped out of his mouth without even thinking about it, but the second he'd said them, the idea just fit in his mind. He was meant to be with this woman... he was meant to love her... not Dawn. Then he was shocked at how outraged she was that he'd had the gall to ask her to be his wife, thinking he was only asking her out of obligation. He frowned sadly.I guess it would seem that way to you...

He walked over behind her and put his hands on her shoulders again and she stiffened. He turned her around to face him. She stared straight at his chest. "Maria... Maria, look at me." She closed her eyes briefly and then stared up at him. "I don't pity you. I can tell you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself and our child. And from the looks of your house, you don't need my charity, and that's not what I was offering. What I'm offering you is my love... to share my life with you... to love and raise our child together."

She frowned in disbelief at him. "I want to believe you... I want to believe that you really do love me. And when I asked you to pretend that night... you almost made me believe it! But that last time I kissed you... I could feel you pulling back again. I knew then that you wouldn't let yourself love anyone... I just wish I'd understood why..."

"Kiss me, Maria!" Larry whispered desperately. She looked at him in confusion. "Kiss me and see if you can tell if I really love you..."

They stared at each other for several seconds. Then Maria reached up and put her hands to his face and neck and slowly pulled his head down to hers staring into his eyes as he got closer. His hands went to her lower back. Just before their lips touched, she stopped him. Then she closed her eyes and slowly lifted her lips to his. Larry surrendered to her kiss the same as he had with Dawn. It was every bit as sweet and tender.

At the same moment, they both parted their lips and moaned as the tenderness suddenly gave way to passion. She slid her hands up to grasp his hair as she assaulted his mouth with hers. Larry groaned with restraint as he tried to hold her without crushing her swollen belly too tightly against his solid torso. Which was getting very difficult to do... his desire for her was coming back full force. His cock was straining in his pants. He suddenly broke away from her and stepped back to take a deep breath.

Maria stared at him with a stricken look on her face. "Oh, God... you're not attracted to me any more! How could you be?!! I'm as big as a house now!" Tears filled her eyes again.

Larry immediately moved to her and took her in his arms. "Stop that! You've never looked more beautiful! The reason I stopped is because... I was losing control. I was afraid of hurting you! Because of this..." He took her right hand and pulled it to the crotch of his pants and pressed her palm against the bulge of his hard cock. She gasped and looked up at him. "I want you more than ever, Santa Maria... I love you! Will you marry me?"

Maria laughed and cried at the same time as she nodded her head. "Yes... I will marry you!"

**********

A few days later, Rick and Dawn Estevez happily served as witnesses at their civil ceremony so that their child would legally carry Larry's name when it was born. Three weeks later, on March 21, 1957, the first day of spring, Lily Elena Wilson was born. Her daddy wanted to name her so because he said she was as pretty as a spring lily, and her middle name was the same as her beautiful mother's.

Two months later, Maria Elena Delgado and Lawrence Edward Wilson were united in a Catholic wedding mass celebration. It was attended by all of their new friends that they'd met through Rick and Dawn and Larry's family, save his long-absent mother. A few of Maria's girlfriends came, but she had no family.