by Ava Winters
By the time they arrived at the edge of the ranch, the sky was almost completely black, except for the light the full moon gave off and the twinkling of the millions of stars.
A few minutes later, Jed dropped both of them off in front of Amanda’s large house. After Luisa made sure Amanda made it inside without any problems, though still slightly swaying because of the spiked punch, Luisa walked to her the home she shared with her father. It was located behind Amanda’s house, about a quarter of a mile away.
With the full moon, Luisa could easily see the dirt path that led from Amanda’s home to her own. It was a path that she had taken almost daily for the last ten years. She knew it so well that she could probably walk it in her sleep.
Now, she found herself enjoying the clear night sky. This was her favorite time of day in the summer months. Texas was quite hot and humid during the day, but it cooled down nicely when the sun went down.
She allowed the beautiful sight to calm her soul. She passed a field of horses and one of them gave a neigh in greeting. The horses in this particular field were work animals. The champion horses Mr.
Wright owned always spent their nights safe in a warm dry stall in the nearby barn.
When she reached the house that she shared with her father, she let herself inside, making sure that the door was locked behind her. Their house was much smaller than Amanda’s, but adequate for just the two of them.
It consisted of two bedrooms, a kitchen and dining area, and a parlor. It was in this parlor where Amanda found her father, sitting in a large comfortable chair and reading a book. The chair was close to the fireplace, although it wasn’t lit since it was already June.
Luisa absolutely loved this room. It was where she had spent many happy hours in her childhood listening to her father read stories aloud to her.
“How was the dance?” he asked when she walked in and kissed his cheek in greeting. His whiskers scratched her own cheek. She stepped away and looked at her father, glad to see that he seemed content to have spent the evening alone and without her presence.
“It was alright.” She shrugged.
“You are home early.”
“Yes, Amanda needed to come home,” she said simply.
She knew she didn’t need to explain to her father what had happened at the dance. Her father was very aware of Amanda’s traits.
He sometimes grew concerned when Luisa had to continually help Amanda out of bad situations in which she’d put herself. He was worried that one day, Amanda’s antics were going to backfire and get both girls in deep trouble. Luisa understood her father’s concern, but she wasn’t as worried.
After all, she had been able to keep Amanda out of many scrapes in the past. She didn’t think that would ever change.
Luisa glanced at the book that he had laid in his lap and saw that he was reading The Last of the Mohicans. It was his favorite and he had read it multiple times.
He was an excellent horse trainer and spent most of his waking hours working with Mr. Wright’s champion racehorses. But when he wasn’t working, he always had a book in his hands. Luisa had inherited his love of reading and was slowly growing her own library of favorite books.
“Sit down and talk to me,” he invited, patting the chair beside him. After she sat, he touched her hand. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
She smiled. He somehow always knew when something was bothering her. She gave a small sigh. “I just wonder what’s going to happen to me when Amanda finally marries.”
“Is she being courted by someone?” he asked curiously.
Luisa shook her head. “But she did say that she thinks her father wants her to marry soon.”
She knew without saying anything that her father understood what she meant. What Mr. Wright wanted, usually happened.
“You are the same age she is,” her father commented. “Are you starting to think of marriage for yourself?”
Luisa shook her head. She knew that she wouldn’t marry until Amanda did. Besides, she didn’t think she should marry until Amanda had. Once Amanda married, it would be her husband’s job to keep her out of trouble. Maybe if Amanda did marry, she would settle down and become the proper lady her father wanted her to be.
But Luisa knew that Amanda would most likely do whatever she could to not marry, at least for the near future.
Luisa hardly ever let herself think about marriage for herself. Besides, she wasn’t interested in any of the young men in town, and they didn’t seem to want to court her either.
She had promised herself years ago that she would never marry unless she met a young man who loved her for who she really was. Not as Amanda’s quiet friend, but as her own person. Since that was unlikely to happen, she knew that it would take a very special young man to make her change her mind about marrying any time soon.
“You two have been friends for a long time. You know her very well. What do you think will happen?” her father asked.
Luisa shrugged. “I know that Amanda isn’t ready to marry yet. It is the furthest thing from her mind. She’s having too much fun flirting with any young man who shows the least bit of interest in her.”
“Then at least for now, there is little to worry about,” he stated.
Luisa smiled at her father’s words. She knew that, at least in his mind, if there wasn’t a reason to worry about something, the best thing to do was put it on a shelf and move on with life. Things usually worked out the way they were supposed to anyway, no matter how much a person worried over something.
“We’ve been friends for so long. It’s strange to think that someday she won’t need me.” With those words, Luisa knew that she had just voiced out loud what she really feared deep inside. When Amanda did marry, and she would eventually, she wouldn’t need Luisa’s friendship anymore.
“I think that she will always need you, Luisa. It might not be to get her out of trouble, but maybe to just be her friend.”
Luisa knew that her father never really understood her friendship with Amanda. He sometimes felt that Amanda almost used her and there was very little give and take. But Luisa knew that there was more to their friendship that what most saw, including her own father.
“Thanks, Pa,” she said as she gave him another kiss on his cheek. “I think I’ll go to bed. Amanda wants to go shopping tomorrow in Dallas, and I’ve been invited to go with her.”
“Okay, Luisa,” her father said with a nod. “Good night, my dear.”
It didn’t take very long to wash her face, brush out her dark brown hair and re-braid it for the night, and slip into her favorite but worn nightgown.
She got into bed and rolled onto her right side, her most comfortable position to sleep in. It always took a while for her mind to stop thinking about the days’ events before she could fall asleep, and this night was no different.
Her mind filtered through everything that had happened at the dance, her talk with Amanda, and then her conversation with her father. She decided she was going to try to take her father’s advice. She wasn’t going to worry about when Amanda married, at least for the near future. It was clear that settling down was the furthest thing from her friend’s mind.
But she also knew that eventually, the great event would happen. She wondered if she should start to make plans for what she could do with the rest of her life.
Then, when Amanda was married and starting her own life with whomever she chose to be her husband, Luisa could also be ready for the changes. But it still hurt her heart to think that she might not be needed anymore.
***
Amanda groaned as she climbed into bed, her stomach churning with painful cramps. She knew she wasn’t feeling well because of all the punch she’d drunk at the dance that evening. She wished she had known that it had been spiked. She hated the effect that alcohol had on her. She couldn’t even drink one glass before she began to feel tipsy.
Once she lay down, she was careful to not move a muscle and eventually the room stopped spinning.
She began to think about the events of the evening, and she couldn’t help but smile, even in her misery.
It had been a fun dance. She had enjoyed being on the floor for every song that was played, usually with a different man each time. She liked how the men seemed to swarm around her whenever she went anywhere in public. It made her feel powerful.
She enjoyed flirting and toying with the young men. Knowing that she wasn’t interested in any of them made it more fun.
She was aware that since she had just turned twenty the month before, her father wanted her to start thinking seriously about marriage, but she wasn’t ready to make that decision yet. She liked living on her father’s horse ranch. She liked the freedom she had. She wasn’t ready to give it up just to be under some other man’s thumb.
She turned her head on her pillow and groaned again at the sudden movement. Her stomach was definitely rebelling at the punch she’d drunk. Suddenly she jumped up and ran to the bureau where a white empty ceramic bowl sat.
She grabbed it and proceeded to empty her stomach. When she was done, she used a handkerchief to wipe her face before groaning again. This was one of the reasons why she hated drinking alcohol. It always made her sick.
She grimaced at the mess in the bowl, wondering what she should do with it. She wasn’t sure that she was up to making a trip to the outhouse to empty it right then. Just then there was a knock on her bedroom door.
“Miss Amanda, may I come in?”
She recognized her childhood nanny’s voice and breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, Hannah.”
The door opened and Hannah Porter stepped inside. Her plump face looked at Amanda with concern. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m afraid they spiked the punch at the dance this evening,” Amanda replied with another groan.
Hannah nodded knowingly. She was very aware of how alcohol made Amanda so sick. In fact, Amanda sometimes felt that the older woman knew her better than she knew herself.
“Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll take care of the bowl.”
“Thank you,” she said with relief as she slipped back into her bed. Hannah removed the bowl from the room and returned a few minutes later with it cleaned and fresh water in it. She placed it on the bureau and then took a seat in a chair that was near Amanda’s bed.
“I’m so sorry that you don’t feel well.”
“I’m doing better,” Amanda murmured.
“I can sit here for a while, if you’d like,” Hannah offered.
Amanda shook her head. “No, I’m okay.” She didn’t want to keep Hannah from getting her own sleep.
Hannah hesitated before standing. She tucked the blankets up around Amanda’s chin. “I’ll let you get some rest then. I’m sure that you will feel better in the morning.”
After Hannah left, Amanda snuggled under the covers. She felt bad that Hannah had needed to take care of her, again. She hadn’t needed the services of a nanny for quite a few years, but her father kept Hannah around mainly for nostalgic reasons. Besides, the older woman didn’t have any family, so she didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Hannah continued to care for Amanda when she would let her, but most of the time she helped the cook in the kitchen or the housekeeper with odd jobs that needed to be done around the house.
“I’m waiting for you to marry and have a child of your own,” Hannah had told her a few years ago when Amanda had asked her why she hadn’t moved on to another job. She then realized that Hannah was looked forward to being able to help raise her own children. At the time she had rolled her eyes at the very idea of becoming a mother.
“I’m not ready to get married,” she said now, out loud in the darkness. “Why do people think that I should marry, just because I’m getting older? Just because I’ve turned twenty years old doesn’t mean that I’m an old maid.”
She was grateful that she had so many people around her that cared about her. Especially her dear friend, Luisa. She could still remember the day they had first met. Her father had just hired Mr.
Lopez to work with his prized racehorses on the ranch. Mr. Lopez had a great reputation with training horses and her father had felt lucky that he’d been able to hire him. Mr.
Lopez also acted as a foreman over the other men who worked with the horses and around the ranch.
Her father had always given his foremen a small house to live in. When Amanda first met Luisa, she didn’t think much of the event. Not until Luisa’s mother died a few months later from a long illness.
Amanda had felt sorry for Luisa, but she had also felt like they had something in common. Amanda also didn’t have a mother, although hers had died a few hours after she had given birth to her.
Amanda began to befriend Luisa soon after her mother’s funeral. She had always looked so sad and lost. It took a few months, but they soon became good friends and started to spend every spare minute together. They played with their dolls under the large oak tree near Amanda’s home. They studied their schoolwork together and both of them enjoyed riding horses almost daily.
They also liked the idea that they looked very similar, with the same color of dark, chestnut hair, light brown eyes, and fair skin. Sometimes they enjoyed trying to trick others by switching identities, although it had been a few years since they had tried that. People that knew them really well were never tricked, but those that didn’t know them well always got them mixed up.
Luisa was a sensible, cool-headed young woman. She never took risks and always tried to do what everyone expected her to do. Amanda was the complete opposite. She liked to take risks and enjoyed having excitement in her life.
When life became too boring, she always felt like she needed to do something to spice things up. Luisa almost always accompanied her on her excursions, not because she enjoyed being adventurous, but to help keep her from making rash decisions.
She was glad that Luisa had been with her that evening. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but it had actually scared her when the two men began fighting over her.
She was aware that Harry was interested in her, more than just to dance with. He made her nervous, and she had decided to do her best to keep her distance from him. Peter, on the other hand, she enjoyed being around. He made her laugh and was a very good dancer.
She enjoyed flirting and having fun with all the young men who had wanted to give her attention that evening, but she didn’t like the idea of two of them fighting over her.
Amanda began to feel drowsy and was glad that her stomach felt a bit better. As she fell asleep, she remembered that her father had asked her to be on time for breakfast the next morning. He had something important he wanted to talk to her about. She could only hope that when she woke up, she wouldn’t be feeling so sick.
Chapter 3
The next morning, Amanda was able to make it to breakfast on time as her father had requested, but only with Hannah’s help. The older woman woke her up in her usual way by opening the heavy blue curtains that hung on the two large windows in her bedroom.
“Mr. Wright will be waiting for you,” Hannah reminded her when she tried to cover her eyes with her pillow. The brightness of the sun made her head hurt.
Hannah pulled the pillow away from Amanda’s hands and then handed her a cup of hot coffee. “This should help your headache.”
“Thank you, Hannah,” Amanda said gratefully as she sat up and took a sip of the hot brew.
After drinking half the beverage, she felt more awake. She left her bed and proceeded to prepare for the day. Whenever her father requested her presence, she always tried to obey, for he rarely asked her to do anything that wasn’t important. Hannah had left after she gave Amanda the coffee.
