Burned-red Saltillo tile graced the entryway and ran the length of the expansive living room. Thick, plush, handwoven carpets broke up the austerity in front of sofas, small sitting arrangements and the large kiva-style fireplace. The Taos furniture with its pine arms and legs and lush, overstuffed cushions of brown brushed leather complemented the exquisite landscapes and wooden artifacts on the living room walls.
The flanking dining room seemed an extension of the main room, a huge pine planked table taking up the center of the room with enough chairs around it to seat an army. A matching sideboard was the only adornment to the wall except for a smallish drawing taped over the sideboard.
The little boy who had been on the front porch earlier let them in and gave both of them a shy smile before gesturing them into the dining room. He dashed around the massive table and pointed at the drawing on the wall.
Chance and Pablo walked closer and peered across the table at the sketch.
“Did you draw that?” Chance asked.
The boy shook his head emphatically. He screwed up his face to a mean scowl and pinched the side of his nose.
Chance had to chuckle. The boy had pantomimed the wildly dressed and painted girl to near perfection. He wondered if the boy was deaf as well as mute. He obviously understood English so he could at least read lips. He grinned at the boy. “Ah, that girl did.”
A voice behind him said, “That girl’s name is Miss Quiñones to you, cowboy.”
He turned to find the girl inside the archway to the dining room, her wildly painted face set and hard, her eyes glittering with challenge.
“Well, Miss Quiñones to you, you certainly can draw.”
She gave him a suspicious look. “Like you know anything about art.”
Chance decided valor called for not replying to that gambit. He picked up the drawing on the table. It was the worst drawing he’d ever seen, and it was hard not to smile. “This is interesting,” he said politely. “Yours?” he asked the boy.
The boy giggled softly and shook his head. He pointed at the girl.
“Puh-lease!” The girl made gagging sounds. Her eyes brightened in amusement as Jeannie came in from the swinging kitchen door and stopped in seeming shock. “It’s hers.”
Chance felt as though a lung decided to stop working. His breath caught and warred for escape from his chest. He’d seen her on the sunny Carlsbad street, curly red hair pulled in a ponytail, neat and trim as picture from an L.L. Bean catalog. He’d seen her furiously hefting a shovel straight for his head, her eyes filled with murder. He’d seen her bedraggled and sooty and triumphant. And he’d seen her dewy-eyed soft in the bunkhouse, her hair sweaty and her face smudged and her inner thoughts on her very skin.
The woman standing in the doorway with an exaggerated look of chagrin on her face was another person altogether. She’d showered and changed into a silky summer dress that nearly touched the floor, but that transformation was the least of the differences. This Jeannie had curling tendrils of auburn red hair trailing down the sides of her face, amused, confident eyes fixed on the group of them and such an obvious well of hope for the children, and maybe even Chance and Pablo, that he couldn’t begin to think what to say to her.
He was certain the smile she wore was genuine, just as the smile she’d given him earlier had been. But he was equally sure that the smile hid a deep sorrow over something, that her gentle eyes hid a veritable torrent of tears. He didn’t think it would take a whole lot to make those tears start to flow, and he told himself that, like most men, he sure didn’t want to be around when they did.
“That’s my work,” Jeannie said, pointing at the ludicrous sketch in his limp grasp. She stepped forward and snatched it, turning away to fold it sloppily and shove it in a drawer in the sideboard.
To his wonder, she gave him the briefest of winks before saying, “We only put the best work on the wall of our new art gallery.” She gestured at the single drawing on the sideboard wall. “Dulce’s sketch holds the sole place of honor for the moment.”
Chance had always thought himself lucky. He’d been born into a fairly wealthy ranching family in the Carlsbad area. As a result of that and good parents, he’d never really had to scrounge for affection or basic needs. He saw what Jeannie was trying to do for Dulce Quiñones to you. In all her life, the girl had probably never been truly recognized, let alone praised.
Jeannie’s doing so somehow managed to include not just Dulce, but Pablo, José and Chance. Without a hint of sexual overture, she’d winked at him, drawing him into a family environment, encouraging him to share a rare moment with them. The fact that at that moment she reminded him vaguely of his mother made him acutely uncomfortable.
“Don’t you think it’s great?” Jeannie asked, prompting him with her adjective.
He turned as if to consider the drawing again. “You’ve really got a good idea here. An art gallery. And that drawing. It’s terrific. You know, Pablo knows how to make frames. What about a frame for it?”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Jeannie said. Her gaze shifted to Pablo. “I noticed you only spoke in Spanish to Chance before. Do you speak English?”
Chance had to withhold a glance in his cousin’s direction when the man blithely said—in Spanish—that he didn’t speak a word of English. It was only when Jeannie turned her eyes to his that, out of habit, he translated the negative. The lie. Another lie.
Surprising him, Jeannie didn’t talk to him, but turned her clear sky-blue gaze to Pablo as she haltingly said in terrible clipped Spanish that she couldn’t speak much of the language but hoped he would be buried at Rancho Milagro.
Chance would have chuckled aloud, but his cousin’s reaction choked the laugh right out of him. The little man he would have sworn could never have been courtly in his life nodded solemnly and lifted Jeannie’s hand to his lips in as archaic a gesture as Chance had ever seen outside a movie theater and answered her in Spanish. “For you, señora, and because my cousin is an imbecile, I would walk through the coals of hell.”
Chance edged a little closer to Pablo and managed to press his boot onto Pablo’s toe. His cousin never flinched, continued to smile. Through a dry throat, Chance mistranslated for Pablo, “He hopes so, too.” Pablo pushed him off his foot and gave him a poke in the ribs. Chance proffered English words. “For you, señora, he says he’ll do anything.”
José gave them a curious look, and Dulce’s black lips twitched, but, if they knew the language, neither of them corrected his translation. Jeannie smiled at Pablo as if all were well and life was pleasant.
While Chance couldn’t figure out why Pablo had decided their stay at Rancho Milagro might be better for the marshal to be permanent translator, he’d already made the plunge and had gone along with the ruse. He supposed Pablo had decided that people might say things in front of him that they would withhold if they thought he spoke English. It was movie logic, Chance thought, and all too likely to backfire. Pablo obviously hadn’t considered the ramifications of someone—Jeannie, in particular—finding out that he did speak English, and rather well at that. On the one hand, Pablo was giving him grief to tell Jeannie why they were really at the ranch, and on the other, he was lying through his slightly crooked teeth.
“I would pay him for it, of course. Extra, I mean,” Jeannie said. “Oh, that reminds me…we didn’t even talk about salary earlier.”
“Later,” Chance said quickly. He gave a glance toward the kids as if they were the reason he felt uncomfortable. The truth was, he couldn’t, in all conscience, take money from this woman when he and Pablo were being paid fairly well by the federal government—contrary to his friend Jack’s complaints. Even if she had money to burn, it wouldn’t be acceptable. He’d have to come up with some salary, however, as she’d be suspicious if he refused payment—and El Patron would find about it and immediately smell a rat. The famous layabout Chance Salazar working free? He’d just have to stick her money in some fund for the ranch’s later use.
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br /> “Right,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “Later. After dinner. Okay. Kiddos, if you’ll go into the kitchen, Juanita has the plates and silverware ready to set out on the sideboard, and I think she could probably use some help bringing in the food.” As the kids left the room, she turned to Pablo and Chance and said, “I hope you like chicken. Juanita’s a marvelous cook as well as the housekeeper. But unfortunately, pollo is about the only Spanish word I recognize on her list of possible dinners, so until I learn more, we’ll probably be having it often.”
“Chicken’s great,” Chance said. What had possessed the woman to buy a ranch so close to the border if she didn’t speak Spanish?
“You hate chicken,” Pablo murmured in Spanish. “Too many times mucking the henhouse.”
“Oh,” Jeannie said, focusing her too-blue eyes on Pablo, “you like chicken, too? That’s wonderful.”
“Can we do anything to help?” Chance asked to forestall Pablo as much as to take his mind off Jeannie’s raw vulnerability. He told himself he was like the housekeeper who proclaimed she wouldn’t do windows—he was the marshal who couldn’t do vulnerable.
She gave him a piercing look as if she could hear his thoughts, then suggested they wander about the place. “To familiarize yourselves, you know. I think dinner will be about fifteen minutes, so why not just look around?”
She finished her words with a shooing gesture and turned away before he could think of a reply. He realized that by signing on as one of the cowboys she’d asked for in the paper, and by telling her he rode the rodeo circuit, he’d inadvertently relegated himself to the same status as the children she housed on the ranch. He was someone who needed looking after. The notion was somewhat daunting.
Watching her disappear into the kitchen and feeling like an idiot, he turned to Pablo. “What the hell was all that translation business?”
In Spanish, Pablo said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And besides which, didn’t I recommend you tell her the truth? If you can lie to her, so can I. Anyway, I like her Spanish. And you can tell her for me that I said I hope you’re going to be buried here, too.” Pablo cackled.
“You gonna stand here all night cracking wise or are we gonna check out the place?”
Jeannie thought dinner at Rancho Milagro that night was a miracle in itself. If pressed to find a word, she’d have called it a boisterous affair. José remained non-verbal but giggled often. Dulce stuck to recalcitrance but showed a knack for one-liners. Pablo remained resolutely linguistically challenged, but something he said made both Dulce and José giggle, letting Jeannie know for the first time that both of them must speak Spanish.
And then there was Chance.
Chance dominated the table like some roving troubadour with tall tales and outrageous feats of glory. He lowered or raised his scratchy baritone in telling stories he’d heard, thought or once upon a time dreamed of. He controlled the assembly like a tent revivalist at a bilingual Easter Sunday service. They laughed or were horrified, shocked or satisfied by each and every yarn he spun.
Only Juanita and Tomás didn’t hear the stories. As per their preferred agreement, they took their meals separately in the kitchen. And given Juanita’s surprise when she saw Pablo and Chance at the table and the narrow look of suspicion—or fear—on the housekeeper’s features, Jeannie thought their absence might be for the best.
She didn’t know if the secret to the evening lay in the simple fact that she’d been so long without adult companionship. She thought of the times she’d laughed and bonded with her dearest friends Leeza and Corrie and how much they would have enjoyed the stories.
But even with Leeza and Corrie, she hadn’t laughed so hard or so freely in the two long years without David and Angela as she did on this rare evening. Maybe some of that came from Chance’s ignorance about her circumstances. With Leeza and Corrie, Jeannie always had the feeling they were waiting for her to finally break down. And here was a stranger who knew nothing of David or Angela, didn’t know about her tear-stained pillows or the dark moments over the last two years when she’d craved joining her lost family.
Feeling as if she’d been neglecting the children in the rollicky aftermath of the meal, guilty that she could have such a good time in the company of two new cowhands—one of whom didn’t even speak English—she looked across the table and saw a sleepy but smiling José and an equally tired but reluctant to admit it Dulce. Relieved, she realized the children had enjoyed the company every bit as much as she had.
She wryly tried telling herself that the sole cause for the enjoyment was novelty. For obvious reasons, she didn’t object to being caught out in her own lie.
“Kiddos?” she asked at the first lull in the conversation and long after Juanita’s excellent caramel flan—so far she’d been grateful she wasn’t able to decipher desserts on Juanita’s proposed menus, as every night proved a taste delight—had been removed. “Don’t you think it’s about time for bed?”
“Give me a break. I’m not a little baby,” Dulce said, but pushed her chair back from the table anyway.
To Jeannie’s consternation, the girl delivered a slow, would-like-to-be sultry look to Chance, who luckily—or wisely—ignored whatever message the teenager had in mind. After a couple of seconds, Dulce sighed and instead of clomping from the room in a huff, the girl gently nudged José into awareness, hefted him from his chair into a walking position, then held his shoulders as they started to leave the room. She turned at the archway and said, “I’ll put him to bed. Okay?”
Jeannie felt as if the world turned sideways on its axis. Her heart skipped a full beat or two. “T-thank you, Dulce. That would be wonderful.”
When the children had departed the main living area, surely feeling the adult eyes on their slender backs, she heard Chance say softly, “You’re wonderful.”
She dragged her gaze from the empty hallway to the man across the table from her. “What?”
Their eyes locked. Perhaps it was the wine or the glow from the candles that made his cheeks seem to redden. “You’re doing a wonderful thing here,” he said, and though she was certain it wasn’t what he’d already said, it warmed her nonetheless.
“She’s putting José to bed,” she said, and felt inane.
“Or she might be throwing him in the well for the sheer spite of it,” he said. But he said it softly and with a smile on his lips.
Jeannie chuckled and shook her head. The fact that she knew it wasn’t true was a milestone of major proportions. She’d spent many an uneasy moment wondering just what the angry girl might do.
Pablo said something in Spanish that Chance didn’t bother to translate. Chance said something, and the two men laughed with easy camaraderie. Jeannie smiled at the deep rumbling sound. It was odd to discover how much she’d missed the bass notes. Surrounded by the soprano and alto voices of her friends, the descant of the children, she hadn’t realized how much richer the world felt with bass harmony.
Sitting at the table with these two men, listening to Chance’s outlandish tales and laughing with him and Pablo, she’d felt as though some kind of bizarre magic had infected them all. And, having watched the bristly Dulce perform a true act of unsolicited kindness, she was sure of it.
Somehow, between the chicken and the flan, they’d become a unit of sorts. Not a family in the sense of the strong bonds that only time and commitment could produce, but a cohesive group nevertheless.
Pablo pushed back his chair, hiding a yawn. He blushed and bowed. He begged so many excuses Jeannie couldn’t begin to follow his Spanish.
Chance stood up to go, as well, and Jeannie found herself asking him to stay. “We still have to talk about your salaries,” she said. And what he thought of the sheriff, the sheriff’s men, the children, the fire they’d fought that afternoon, the dream of Rancho Milagro and why he smelled of sunshine and soap after a candlelit dinner.
Yet, when Pablo had made his farewells and she’d checked on the children—José w
as fast asleep in his bed, Dulce glowering at her from her desk where she was busy drawing—she found she couldn’t conjure up the words she wanted to say to Chance. They were strangers, the rodeo cowboy, now her hired hand, and she, the uncertain lady of the hacienda.
They stood on the veranda of the main house. The desert air was redolent with the scent of second-blooming Spanish broom and cool with a soft breeze from the north. In Maryland, outside the city, she was often able to find three or four constellations. Here, in the middle of the black desert, so many stars jeweled the sky she couldn’t even pick out the most well known of them. If David had been here, she would have moved to stand in front of him and he would have wrapped his arms around her like a shawl. She would have drawn his warmth to her, basked in his love.
But this wasn’t David she stood beside, and she couldn’t ask Chance to simply hold her. She needed to say something, if only to show she still could. “I hate to admit this, but I’ve no idea what to pay you.”
“You just say whatever comes into your head, don’t you?” he asked.
She was glad of the darkened veranda, for he couldn’t see her blush. David had often said the same thing of her. And her friends Leeza and Corrie teased her about her non sequiturs and notebook truths on a constant basis.
“Not always,” she said finally. And starkly honestly.
He made the sound that men issue when their minds seem elsewhere, a cross between a grunt and a hum.
“It almost feels like you can see the whole Milky Way from here,” she said.
“So beautiful,” he murmured.
A shooting star streaked across the sky.
“We can’t see those in D.C.,” she said. “Except during once-in-a-lifetime meteor storms.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and, at his next words, she realized he wasn’t being sympathetic for her lack. “I wasn’t looking at the sky.”
His tone, even more than his words, made her all too aware that he’d been staring at her and that, unlike her, he could see clearly in the dark. She looked at her hands, grasping the wooden railing that lined the veranda. They appeared bleached in the starlight, with fingers that belonged to someone else, someone who had loved too dearly once and didn’t dare allow that kind of pain in her life again. Yet they ached to lift from the railing to simply touch the man standing beside her in the night. To touch.
Cowboy Under Cover Page 6
