Certainly! Here is the English translation of the story you provided:

 

They called her the useless fat girl of high society.

But when her own father gave her to an Apache warrior as punishment, no one imagined she would find the purest love that had ever existed.

In the golden halls of the Vázquez de Coronado mansion, where crystal chandeliers reflected the opulence of one of Mexico’s most powerful families in 1847, lived Jimena, a 24-year-old woman whose name cruelly contrasted with the Shimena that filled her days.

Her robust figure, round cheeks, and honey-colored eyes had been a source of family shame since she turned 15 and failed to find a suitor at her debutante ball.

“Look at her stuffing herself with sweets again,” whispered her mother, Doña Guadalupe, as she watched Jimena from the marble balcony overlooking the main garden.

“A lady of her position should have more self-control.”

The words fell like drops of poison on the already wounded heart of the young woman, who had learned to find comfort in her grandmother’s books and the sweets she stole from the pantry when no one was looking.

Don Patricio Vázquez de Coronado, a 60-year-old man whose gray hair spoke of decades building the family empire, watched his daughter from the window of his office with a mixture of disappointment and cold calculation.

His other five children had made advantageous marriages that expanded both the family fortune and political influence.

But Jimena, his only daughter, had become a burden that grew with each passing year she remained unmarried.

The night of the grand ball of the social season arrived as a last desperate opportunity.

Doña Guadalupe had commissioned the most expensive dress money could buy, royal blue silk embroidered with gold thread, hoping the opulence of the outfit would distract from her daughter’s corpulent figure.

But when Jimena descended the marble staircase into the main hall, the murmurs and pitying looks were like daggers piercing her soul.

“Who would want to dance with such a whale?” murmured the young Count of Salvatierra, not bothering to lower his voice.

His words were met with nervous giggles from other young members of high society, who saw Jimena’s humiliation as cruel entertainment.

The young woman felt as if the marble floor opened beneath her feet, but she maintained the composure that years of aristocratic education had taught her.

Throughout the evening, Jimena sat beside the elder matrons, watching other young women her age dance elegantly with suitors who would never approach her.

Her mother-of-pearl fan trembled slightly in her hands as she tried to keep a dignified smile, but inside she was falling apart piece by piece.

When the ball ended and the family returned home in their golden carriage, the silence was more eloquent than any reproach.

The next day, Don Patricio summoned his daughter to his office.

The walls lined with law books and maps of his vast properties bore silent witness to the conversation that would forever change Jimena’s fate.

The man paced back and forth, his mahogany cane rhythmically tapping the wooden floor as he searched for the right words to express his frustration.

“Chimena,” he finally began, without looking her in the eyes.

“You are 24 years old.

At your age, your mother had already given birth to three children and consolidated alliances that greatly benefited this family, but you,” he gestured vaguely toward her, “have proven to be a failed investment, a disgrace to the Vázquez de Coronado name.”

The words hit Jimena like hammer blows.

She had heard variations of that speech for years but never expressed so bluntly.

Her hands clenched into fists on her lap as she struggled to maintain composure.

“I have decided,” her father continued, “that it is time to find a definitive solution to your situation.

Tomorrow, an Apache prisoner will arrive at the military fort, a warrior captured during the latest skirmishes on the border.

The authorities have agreed to my proposal.

You will be given to this savage as his companion.

 

At least you will serve some useful purpose: to keep a dangerous prisoner under control.”

Jimena’s world wobbled.

For a few seconds, she thought she had misheard.

“Father,” she murmured, her voice trembling.

“Are you serious? Completely serious,” he replied with icy coldness.

“I can no longer support a daughter who contributes nothing to this family.

At least this way, your existence will have some purpose.

We will avoid having to execute the Pache, and you will finally have a husband, even if he is a savage.”

Jimena stood slowly, feeling as if she were floating outside her own body.

“Are you selling me to a prisoner of war?” her voice barely a whisper.

“I am giving you a chance to be useful for the first time in your life,” Don Patricio replied without a trace of compassion.

“The Apache’s name is Tlacael.

Tomorrow you will be taken to the territory assigned to him as a reservation.

Consider this your arranged marriage, only with someone of your level.”

That night, as she packed her few personal belongings into a leather trunk, Jimena cried for the first time in years.

But amid the tears of pain and humiliation, an unexpected feeling began to grow—a strange sense of liberation.

For the first time in her life, she would be far from the scornful looks, cruel comments, and constant feeling of being a living disappointment.

At dawn the next day, as the carriage left the family mansion taking her toward the unknown, Jimena did not look back.

She did not know she was heading toward an encounter that would transform her life in ways she never imagined possible.

The Apache territory stretched under the relentless sun like a land forgotten by God, where red rocks contrasted with the intense blue sky and the wind carried stories of freedom and resistance.

Tlacael had been brought to this place not as punishment but as part of a Mexican government experiment.

They established reservations where captured warriors could live in controlled peace rather than be executed.

The experiment included providing them Mexican wives to civilize them and create mixed offspring easier to control.

When the dusty carriage stopped in front of the adobe cabin that would be her new home, Yena descended with trembling legs and a heart beating like a war drum.

The desert air was unlike anything she had known—dry, hot, charged with a wild energy that made her feel strangely alive.

Her silk skirts, so appropriate for city salons, looked ridiculously out of place in this arid landscape.

Tlacael emerged from the cabin’s shadow like a figure from legend.

He was a 30-year-old man, tall and strong, with skin bronzed by desert sun and black hair falling to his shoulders.

His dark eyes held the depth of one who had seen both glory and tragedy.

And when he fixed his gaze on Jimena, she felt as if she were being judged by a judge who saw beyond superficial appearances.

“Is this the woman you send me?” he asked in clear Spanish but with a marked accent, addressing the captain who had escorted Jimena.

His voice held disbelief that made the young woman’s cheeks flush with shame.

“Do you think I will accept someone you throw to me like a dog with a bone?”

The captain, an older man used to dealing with rebellious prisoners, hardened his expression.

“You have no choice, Apache.

This woman is part of the deal.

Will you treat her with respect or return to the military prison?”

His words hung in the air like a threat both prisoners understood perfectly.

Jimena found her voice for the first time since arriving.

“I didn’t ask to be here either,” she declared with a dignity that surprised everyone present, even herself.

“But here we are both, so we will have to find a way to make this work.”

Her words were direct, without self-pity.

And Tlacael looked at her with new attention.

After the captain left, raising a cloud of dust, Jimena and Tlacael were left alone in front of the cabin, two strangers united by circumstances neither had chosen.

Silence stretched between them like the desert itself—vast, uncomfortable, but full of unexplored possibilities.

“I won’t pretend this is a real marriage,” Tlacael finally said, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

“You are a Mexican government imposition, a way to humiliate me more than they already have.”

His words were harsh but not cruel, as if setting basic rules for their forced coexistence.

“I understand,” Jimena replied, surprised by her own calm.

“I didn’t choose this either.

My family sent me here to get rid of me.

I guess we are both prisoners in different ways.”

It was the first time she had verbalized the truth of her situation so clearly, and she felt a strange release in doing so.

The first days were a careful dance of avoiding conflict.

Tlacael left early to hunt and work the small crops he had established while Jimena stayed in the cabin exploring her new home and trying to adapt to a life completely different from anything she had known.

The cabin was simple but functional.

Two separate rooms, a kitchen with a stone hearth, and handmade furniture showing the warrior’s craftsmanship.

It was when Jimena found medicinal herbs drying in the kitchen that she discovered the first point of connection with her forced companion.

She immediately recognized several plants her grandmother had taught her to identify in the family mansion’s gardens.

Chamomile to calm nerves, comfrey to heal wounds, willow to relieve pain.

Without thinking, she began reorganizing the herbs according to their healing properties.

When Tlacael returned that afternoon and saw what she had done, he stopped in his tracks.

“How do you know about herbal medicine?” he asked, approaching to examine her work.

His voice had lost the hostile tone of previous days.

“My grandmother was a healer before marrying my grandfather,” Jimena explained, gently touching the dried leaves.

“She taught me in secret because my mother thought it was not appropriate for a lady of society, but I was always fascinated by the idea of helping to heal people.”

For the first time since his arrival, Tlacael looked at her with something like respect.

“I use these plants to treat household wounds and minor illnesses, but there are some I don’t know how to prepare properly.”

He paused, as if carefully considering his next words.

“Could you teach me?”

That simple question marked the beginning of a subtle but profound transformation in their relationship.

Over the following weeks, Shimena and Tlacael spent afternoons working together with medicinal plants.

He taught her about the specific properties of desert herbs while she shared preparation techniques learned from her grandmother.

Their hands sometimes brushed while preparing ointments and tinctures, creating moments of accidental intimacy neither knew how to interpret.

One afternoon, while preparing an ointment for sunburns, Jimena dared to ask a personal question.

“Did you have a family before being captured?” she asked softly, without looking up from her work.

Tlacael remained still for a long moment.

“I had a wife,” he finally said, his voice heavy with sadness that made Jimena’s heart ache.

“Her name was Itzayana.

She died during a Mexican army attack on our village.

That’s why I became so reckless in battle.

I had nothing left to lose.”

Jimena looked up and saw the raw pain in the warrior’s eyes.

Without thinking, she reached out and gently touched his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

“She must have been a very special woman to inspire such love.”

“She was,” he replied, not withdrawing his hand.

“She was small, delicate, always smiling.

The complete opposite of—”

He stopped abruptly, realizing what he was about to say.

“The complete opposite of me,” Jimena finished with a sad but unbitter smile.

“Don’t worry.

I know exactly what kind of woman I am and what kind I’m not.

I’ve lived with that reality all my life.”

Tlacael studied her with new intensity.

“Did your family treat you badly?” he asked directly.

“They treated me like a constant disappointment,” Jimena answered with brutal honesty.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the fat daughter who is good for nothing.

My only value was the surname I carried, and even that wasn’t enough to get me a husband.”

She shrugged with an acceptance that had taken years of pain to develop.

That night, as each retired to their separate rooms as they had since arriving, both carried with them a new understanding.

They had begun to see each other not as strangers forced to coexist, but as two wounded people who might find comfort in each other’s company.

The following months brought subtle but deep changes, both to the desert and to the hearts of its inhabitants.

Jimena had established a small medicinal garden behind the cabin, where she grew herbs best suited to the arid climate.

Her hands, once soft and cared for as befitted a lady of society, were now calloused from work and stained with soil, but they had never felt more useful.

Jimena’s physical transformation was evident to anyone who had known her in her previous life.

The constant work under the desert sun had tanned her skin and strengthened her body.

She had lost weight naturally, not from the strict diets her mother had imposed, but from active living and simple, nutritious food.

But more important than any physical change was the new light in her eyes.

For the first time in her life, she felt truly useful.

Apache warriors from nearby tribes had begun to come to her when they had wounds or illnesses that traditional healers could not treat.

Jimena had developed a reputation as a healer who combined ancestral knowledge with Mexican medicinal techniques, creating treatments more effective than either tradition alone.

“The white woman of the desert can heal what others cannot,” the warriors said when they returned to their tribes.

And although some elders distrusted a Mexican woman, the results spoke for themselves.

Children with dangerous fevers fully recovered under her care.

Warriors with infected wounds returned to battle.

Women with chronic pain found relief for the first time in years.

Tlacael watched these changes with a mixture of pride and something deeper he dared not name.

The woman who had arrived months ago as a government imposition had become an indispensable presence, not only in his life but in the entire community.

Each passing day he found new reasons to admire her strength, compassion, and adaptability.

One full moon night, while Jimena prepared a tincture to treat arthritis in an elderly Apache woman, Tlacael approached carrying two cups of herbal tea he had learned to prepare under her tutelage.

The ritual of sharing tea at day’s end had become their favorite moment, when they talked about everything and nothing while the desert dressed itself in silver under the moonlight.

“Do you miss your old life?” he asked, sitting on the wooden bench he had built especially for these moments.

It was a question he had wanted to ask for weeks but never found the right moment.

Jimena stopped grinding herbs and gazed at the stars shining like diamonds in the infinite sky.

“I miss my grandmother,” she answered thoughtfully.

“She was the only person in my family who saw me as more than a disappointment, but the rest,” she paused searching for the right words, “I don’t miss feeling useless every day.

I don’t miss the pitying looks or cruel comments.

Here, for the first time in my life, I feel I have a purpose.”

Tlacael studied her profile in the moonlight.

The months living in the desert had transformed not only her appearance but her entire presence.

Where he had once seen a defeated woman, he now saw a silent warrior who had found her battlefield in the art of healing.

“I do miss my old life,” he admitted.

“I missed the freedom to ride the mountains without restrictions, to hunt where I wanted, to live according to my ancestors’ traditions.”

He paused, his voice softening.

“But I no longer miss the loneliness.

For a long time after losing Itzayana, I thought I would be alone forever, that a part of me had died with her.”

Jimena turned to him, feeling they were approaching emotionally dangerous territory.

“And now?” she asked softly.

“Now I wake up every morning hoping to see you working in your garden,” he answered with brutal honesty.

“I look forward to our nightly conversations.

I look forward to seeing you help heal my people.

You have brought something to my life I thought I had lost forever.”

He stopped, struggling with words he never expected to say.

“You have brought, Jimena.”

The name echoed between them like a revelation.

Jimena felt tears running down her cheeks, but for the first time in years, they were tears of joy.

“Tlacael,” she murmured.

“I—” but he approached slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted.

When she did not, he took her face in his calloused hands and kissed her with a tenderness that surprised her.

The kiss was soft, reverent, charged with months of mutual respect and growing understanding.

When they parted, Jimena trembled not with fear but with an emotion so intense it threatened to overwhelm her.

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

“I am everything your first wife was not.

I am you.”

He interrupted her firmly.

“You are not Itzayana, and I am not trying to replace her.

You are Jimena, the woman who saved my soul when I thought I was lost forever.

The woman who found her strength in the desert and taught me that love can bloom in the most unexpected places.”

The following months were the happiest either had known.

Their relationship deepened naturally, built on a solid foundation of mutual respect, admiration, and shared purpose.

Jimena moved through the cabin with a grace she had never possessed in the ballrooms.

And Tlacael smiled more often than had surprised the warriors who visited him.

They worked together in perfect harmony.

He went out hunting and gathering plants while she tended to the patients who came daily.

In the afternoons, they prepared medicines together, their movements synchronized like a dance perfected by practice.

Nights were spent under the stars, talking, laughing, discovering new facets of each other.

“My tribe needs to establish new trade routes,” Tlacael confided one night as they watched the stars.

“The medicines you prepare could be exchanged for tools and food we need.

You could help not only heal bodies but mend relations between our peoples.”

Jimena felt a deep emotion hearing those words.

The idea that her work could have an impact beyond individual patients gave her a sense of purpose she had never imagined possible.

“Do you think the other tribes would accept me?” she asked with a mix of hope and nervousness.

“They already have,” he replied with a smile.

“The results speak for themselves, but there is something more I must tell you.

I have received messages from my older brother.

He is considering establishing a formal alliance among several Apache tribes and wants me to be part of the negotiations.

That means we would have to travel to territory not controlled by the Mexican government.”

Jimena’s heart raced.

The prospect of greater freedom was exciting but also frightening.

“What does that mean for us?” she asked.

He took her hands in his.

“It means we could have a real marriage according to my people’s traditions.

It means you could officially become my wife.

Not just a government assignment.”

His eyes shone with an intensity that made her tremble.

“It means we could start a family if we wish.”

The word family rang in Jimena’s heart like a bell.

After years of being considered useless for not bearing children in her arranged marriage, the possibility of forming a family based on true love seemed a miracle.

But her happiness was abruptly interrupted when riders appeared on the horizon.

Tlacael immediately went on alert, recognizing the Mexican army uniforms even from a distance.

“Hide in the cabin,” he whispered urgently.

“Something is wrong,” but it was already too late.

The soldiers had seen them, and among them rode a figure that made