THE GOLDEN ROSE

Part 7 - Romantic Fantasies

Zacatecas, Mexico - present day

"I don't know about this...."

"You just head home Mama, Shawn and I are just going to have a bit of a holiday here, and work on more music, like the one we did last night."

Sinu looked from one to the other suspiciously.

"What's going on between you two?"

Shawn was wondering the same thing, and how to answer Camila's mother. The making music thing wasn't really getting Camila anywhere with her Mom.  Camila looked at him apologetically before stepping up to him and grabbing his hand.  What was she doing?

"We're not sure Mama, but we need some time alone to find out."

Sinu looked as shocked as he felt, but once that faded, he realised it was the perfect answer.  Her mother was suspicious anyway so this way she knew what was happening, and wanting romantic time alone was a good reason for them to stay.

"Maybe I should stay..." she said.

"No!  I'm twenty-three years old Mama, I can manage on my own!  And I have Shawn here, you know you can trust him, and you can trust me. We just need a couple of weeks and then we'll head home."

She agreed, but it was obviously against her better judgement.  Camila all but hustled her out the door into her taxi to the airport, after organising with the charity who owned the house to lease it for a while longer. The emptiness in the house was deafening when they re-entered after waving her off.  Now they were alone, ostensibly to work on their 'relationship'. 

"Why did you tell your mother that?" he asked.

"Well, it's kind of true."

It was, but they hadn't even discussed it themselves.  And maybe they did need time to do that, but it wasn't the reason they were here.  They were here to solve the mystery of Sebastaio and Clara and the Golden Rose.

"Come on," she said. "Show me those photos I need to translate."

She made them both an iced tea and they sat at the table with his phone between them.

"This one was from a journal at Don Miguel's house.  It was with a photo of Don Miguel, Dona Sofia and Francisco."

He said the last in a voice dripping with disgust.

"Shawn?" Camila asked tentatively. "About the dreams..."

"Yes, what?" he knew what she was going to ask.

"Did you have the dream in the garden? Where Clara told him that..."

"Yes," he said, coming clean on his lie from the day before.

"And did you dream last night about their decision to go on the expedition together?"

"Yes."

"So we're up to date then."

"It appears so."

The doorbell rang to interrupt their exchange and Camila eagerly went to answer it. 

***

Shawn ran his hand through his hair. This whole bizarre situation was getting to them. They were lying to each other, keeping things to themselves, and not being true about their own feelings for each other. How were they going to work together to find the Golden Rose if they couldn't communicate honestly?

"Shawn?" he heard her call, and he joined her at the front door to find a familiar face.

"Diego?"