Читать книгу Safe by His Side - Linda Conrad - Страница 9

“You son of a dog!” The witch’s black words rang out in Spanish under a rain-forest canopy on the Veracruz mountainside. “You have murdered my grandchild and banished my child. And your own children dare to join with you on this dark deed. I curse you all!”

The old woman’s words fell like poison darts on the ears of her victims. “Your punishment will match the crime, Brody Ryan.” Black snake eyes watched from treetops and cold stars blinked in the heavens as her voice rang in the night air. “You shall never have the pleasure of seeing a grandchild. From this time forward, each child of yours will be barren. Your family will suffer for the sins of the father. Go to hell!”

The curandera Lupe Ixtepan Delgado slowly climbed down the mountain path from her mother’s house with those hateful words of long ago still ringing loud and clear in her mind. She would do anything to help her grandchildren escape the curses and hexes of her mother, the bruja. For fifteen years Lupe had sought a way of making her mother see reason. She longed to find a way to change the direction of her mother’s blackened soul. The ancient woman neared death, and Lupe didn’t want her to die without seeking God’s forgiveness for the pain she’d wrought.

Yet the reversal of her mother’s curse depended entirely upon another. The man who had committed the original crime must be the one to redeem himself before the curse could be lifted. Lupe had no love for her son-in-law, Brody Ryan. But she loved his children—her grandchildren—beyond measure.

Brody Ryan was the key, and his children’s salvation might still be possible. He’d already managed one good deed and had brought a needy child and its mother to their destiny with Lupe’s eldest grandson, Josh. Two more kind and selfless acts from Brody Ryan, and Lupe’s mother had promised to reverse the curse on the entire Ryan family.

As Lupe wound her way home at the edge of her maternal family’s lake, she swore to keep a careful watch over all the Ryan family. She wished that she could force something good to happen. But when it came to Brody Ryan’s good or bad deeds, he held all the power.