His full lips pulled to one side, and he reached up and cradled his bruised cheek. “Believe me, beautiful Zara,” he whispered slowly, ever so slowly, not letting his stare leave my eyes. “I’ll remember.”
I knew he meant to make me falter, unnerve me. Instead I leaned closer and took hold of his arm. “Please do,” I hissed. “Because if you forget, I promise it shall come back to bite you.”
And then I made myself stride out. It pleased me that I’d felt his arm tighten beneath my hold, seen his jaw muscle clench. He’s a little scared of me, I thought with pleasure.
But the man still held my Golden Ticket out of this place.
It was he who held power over me. Really, it was he who seemed to hold all kinds of weird power over me.
And I had to find some way, somehow, to get it back.
CHAPTER 5
Francesca and Estrella Ventura waited for me back at the villa, practically wringing their hands in worry.
“Ah, Señorita Ruiz,” Estrella began, “I’m so glad to see you. Mamá was about to send the boys to fetch you.”
I turned halfway toward her, still partially lost in my fury over her eldest brother’s decisions. “I’m capable of making my own way.”
Francesca stiffened, coming up to my shoulder in height. “Clearly,” she said, and suddenly seeming far more mature in tone. “But it is our duty to see to you, a woman alone in a land not her own.”
I blinked at her, thinking over her words. She wasn’t a part of whatever was making me feel trapped. Not like Javier. These girls were just trying to make me feel at home. “Thank you for that,” I said abruptly. “Your brother…I’m not certain he feels the same way.”
Francesca’s dark chocolate eyes, so much like her brother’s, stared into mine. “He’s like that, you know. He likes to keep us guessing. All of us, including Mamá.”
I let out a swift snort through my nostrils, all the pieces finally settling into place. Figured. A player. On all levels. Well, Javier, let me introduce you to Miss Zara Ruiz, a girl like no other you’ve yet met…and I know your game.
I was used to guys like him coming into the restaurant. Handsome, with money in their pockets. Thinking they could do whatever they wanted with me, because of course I’d be drooling over them. Telling their mamas what they wanted to hear, pretending to be someone they weren’t, and then following whatever whim that came their way when their mama’s head was turned.
But that has come to an end, Javier, I vowed. He could have his way with whomever he wished. But with me?
With me, it would be different.
So different.
Little Estrella showed me to my room, a spare ten-by-ten with ivory adobe walls, a narrow bed, a small table and an oil lamp. The floor was of wide pine planks. On another side table was a pitcher and basin, for washing up. At the base of the bed was a chest. Estrella went to it and opened it. “Mamá found a couple more dresses for you,” she said, her dark eyes slipping down my fine, green gown. “You’ll want to save that one for special occasions. There’s a shift in here too, as well as more underthings.”
I smiled at her in gratitude. But I had more pressing matters at the moment. “Where is the bathroom?” I asked, shifting.
She frowned in confusion. “You shall take your bath in here, once a week. Usually Saturdays, so you’re fresh for Sunday mass.”
“No, I, uh…” I shifted again until understanding dawned and she lifted her brows.
“The privy is outside,” she said slowly, as if I was a child in need of some basic explanations. “Or if you prefer, there’s the chamber pot,” she added, gesturing to a wide-brimmed copper pot in the corner of the room, a sponge in a bowl beside it. “The servants will see to it twice a day, midmorning and evening, before you go to sleep.”
I looked back at her in alarm. She wasn’t serious… But then I managed to get a grip and pretend this was no surprise at all.
“Do you need anything else before morning?” she asked, politely preparing to take her leave so I could see to my business.
“No—no, I’ll be fine,” I said, walking her to the door. “Gracias, Estrella.”
“Sleep well, Señorita Ruiz,” she said with a short curtsy.
I didn’t have time to think of it much. When a girl has to go, she has to go. And with some relief, I used a chamber pot for the first time ever, trying not to miss as I squatted. I’d hate it if I messed up my dress peeing, of all things.
I hoped it’d be the last time I’d have to use it. I’d sleep, find something to tell Javier that would convince him to give me my golden lamp back, then ride for the beach and exit this nightmare, stage left.
Okay, so I’ll probably have to use it one more time in the morning, I admitted to myself. But then…
I pulled off the dress and laid it across the foot of my bed, then untied the petticoat beneath. My black cami was bundled at my waist, and I pulled that and my maxiskirt off too, then donned the shift that Estrella had mentioned. It was not the butter-soft nightgown I had at home, but it was something, and it felt good to be in something shapeless and roomy, out of all those…skirts. That’s a lot of skirt for any girl, I thought, gazing from the green silk to my maxi. People of this time, this place, all wore so many clothes. Layer upon layer. And without the aid of washing machines…It all seemed like a lot of work to me.
I moved over to my window, which faced west. The sun was setting, and a pang of panic rang through me as I thought of John and his crew preparing to leave come morning. How was I going to find my way out too? I was so dreadfully tired, I thought, my eyelids feeling like a hundred pounds each. Maybe all I had to do was sleep, and I’d wake come morning in my own bed, in my own abuela’s apartment, and this whole, weird, wild adventure would be over.
I pulled back the heavy woolen blanket and climbed into the bed. It smelled of hay—is this what they called a straw tick?—and I had a flashback to reading Little House on the Prairie. I thought, That’s it. I’ve morphed into Laura Ingalls Wilder. A Latina Lara. In Old California rather than the Old Midwest.
The sheet beneath me was scratchy, but it was clean, and I let my eyelids fall at last. I’d dream of Pa and Mary and that evil Nellie. That was a story I could handle this night, something familiar, rather than this new story spinning out of control before me. And when I woke, everything would be right…
But when I woke the next morning, all was the same. The chamber pot, the pitcher and basin on the nightstand, the view out my window—miles and miles of grassy hills and cattle, stretching toward the sea, not a suburban home with the familiar tile roofs and stucco walls to be seen.
I groaned in dismay.
It seemed that I wasn’t going to wake my way outta here. I’d have to find the secret doorway and open it again myself.
And when I went to change into one of the other dresses that Doña Elena had found for me, I really did start to feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder. One was a plain, drab brown, with poufy sleeves and a white apron-like overlay, and the other was a deep, dark blue with a high neck and long sleeves. At the bottom of the chest were a couple pair of worn boots, and woolen socks. It all looked hot—as in heat-hot, not style-hot—and I groaned. I’d always been a flip-flop and shorts kind of girl, six months out of the year. But here on the ranch, there was no way I’d get away with that. Not that there were any flip-flops or shorts within reach.
I tried one pair of the lace-up boots, but they were too small. Then the other, which were a bit big…I stuffed some handkerchiefs into the toes, then pulled on the woolen socks and the boots. I chose the brown dress, thinking it was a bit softer and lighter than the other, and managed to slip it over my head, leaving only two buttons at the upper-center of my back in need of fastening. Then I ran my hands over my wild hair and wondered if I should braid it, like Laura would have.
A small knock sounded at my door, and I moved over to answer it. “Buenos días, Señorita Ruiz,” twelve-year-old Estrella said, grinning up at me. “Fr
ani wondered if you might need help with your hair before breakfast, and Captain Worthington left this for you.” She lifted the big-toothed bone comb I’d used on the beach yesterday.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Thank you.” I gestured for her to come in, and I sat down on the corner of the bed. “Would you do it for me? I’d be so grateful.”
“Of course,” she said, flashing a gap-toothed grin at me. It was just like her little brother Jacinto’s smile, only more seldom seen. Maybe she hid it because of the gap? Her own hair, black and straight, was tied into a neat, thick knot at the nape of her neck. I didn’t know what she was going to do with mine, without aid of a hair product, a straightener, and elastic bands, but she seemed game to try.
As Estrella worked, I unwound the bandage from my hand and asked her question after question, realizing this was a rare opportunity to do some research and get some sort of grip on this place, this family.
“How long have you lived here, Estrella?” I said, wincing a bit as she tugged through a knot in my hair.
“Here? On Rancho Ventura? All my life,” she said.
Well, duh, I chided myself. Way to go, Captain Obvious. “Do you go to school?”
“No. We had a tutor one year, and a governess for three, when I was little. I know how to do arithmetic,” she said proudly, “and I read quite well. It’s only that I tire of our books. I’m always begging Javier to trade for new books when he goes to the harbor. He gets me one every Christmas. Novels are my favorite.”
“Mine too,” I said.
“My papá used to buy me a novel every time he could.”
“What happened to your papá?”
“He died five years ago. It was his heart. Then Dante, our oldest brother, last year…” Her voice cracked and I turned to take her hand for a moment.
“My abuela died…recently,” I said, tearing up. “She was dear to me. Losing her has been the hardest thing. Were you close to Dante?”
“Close to him?” she asked in confusion over my phrasing.
I took a breath. “Was he…dear to you?”
She nodded, blinking back tears in her beautiful dark eyes. Then she resumed her combing of my hair. “Javier had to come back from Mexico when Dante died.”
A college boy, I thought. No, probably more like a frat boy. Forced to return home. Maybe that’s why he’s a little rebellious. I thought back to the men chasing him on the beach yesterday and the secret he’d convinced me to keep.
“Where are your neighbors, Estrella? Do you ever see them?”
“Oh yes,” she said enthusiastically. “Every few months at the charreada, near town. The Vargases and Fuenteses and Herreras are always there. They are our nearest neighbors. But many others come too.”
The charreada, I repeated silently. An old Mexican rodeo sort of event, if I remembered right. “And how far away is your nearest neighbor?”
“Oh, it’s no more than twenty miles south or so to the Vargases, but we don’t get along with them very well. Javier thinks they have stolen some of our cattle.”
I took a moment to absorb that. The nearest neighbors were twenty miles away. “And…to your north?”
She paused. “There is no one up there other than Indians, I think. For a while, the Losas ran a rancho up there, but they grew old and had no children. So they returned to Mexico.” She shoved a last pin in my hair and stepped back. I glanced at her pleased face. “There. Muy bonita. Javier will not be able to keep his eyes from you. But Adalia says you need no help when it comes to him. He’s already smitten.”
Smitten? My eyes widened in surprise. “I’m sure I’m the last thing on your brother’s mind today.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, her brows lowering in confusion. “A pretty girl like you? Arriving in such a mysterious way? And stealing his horse out from under him? Frani says she doubts he’s thought of anything but you ever since. No girl we’ve ever known would ever dare to strike him.”
“He deserved it,” I put in, eager for the family not to blame me. “He scared me.”
“I don’t doubt it. Adalia thought that must be the case. But he didn’t do it on purpose. Javier would never scare a girl on purpose.”
I wasn’t so sure she was right about that. Clearly, she had a sort of hero-worship thing going on with her Big Bro.
“But Frani thinks that that just helped pique his interest,” she yammered on, making it clear that the girls had had quite the gab-fest about me, which came as a surprise. While Estrella was a chatterbox, the older two girls were fairly quiet, especially Adalia. I’d decided she was still grieving, as well as shy. “Just like Frani said, he likes to keep us guessing,” Estrella was saying. “The girls who fall all over him never keep his interest. And every girl in the last year has done everything she could to try and catch his eye. You,” she said, leaning forward excitedly, “are the first to make him stare.”
“You’ve read too many novels, my young friend,” I said, quickly rising and straightening my skirts. I didn’t like how her words made my heart pound. Worse, how I liked hearing them.
“Never,” she grinned happily, her round cheeks betraying two deep dimples. The thought finally got her off the subject of Javier. “I don’t suppose you brought any books with you…”
“I’m afraid not. I only arrived with that dress, and a special treasure, in hand.” I bent to fold my nightshirt on the bed and then placed it in my chest. “Javier said he’s keeping my treasure for me in his safe. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, pouring water from the pitcher into the basin. “In the library.”
“Is it quite secure?” I asked, picturing big old black safes in the spaghetti Westerns my abuela had loved. “Can anyone open it for me, other than him?”
“No,” she said, turning to take a towel from her waistband and offer it to me. “Don’t fret, Señorita Ruiz. It is the best safe in all of Alta California. Papá had it brought to us, special, from the East. Your treasure will be safe.”
“Good, good,” I said, pretending relief. I obediently bent over the makeshift sink and washed my face, then took the small towel from her hands to dry it. Then I used the damp towel to rub over the back of my neck and hands. I guess sponge-baths are the way to go around here…
“Can you show me around the rancho after breakfast, Estrella?”
“Of course. But it’s pretty much like every rancho you’ve ever been on. Just bigger and nicer.” She sounded kind of bored, like most kids in their own homes.
“I’ve never been on a rancho before. At least, that I can remember.”
She glanced back at me in confusion, but I didn’t try and explain.
I followed her along the hall and down a tiled staircase that turned at a forty-five-degree angle halfway down, widening and spilling into the front receiving foyer. The walls of the hallway and main rooms of the house were a brick-red rough adobe, with white plaster on the high ceiling between exposed beams that looked hand-cut. Well, duh, Zara, I told myself. Of course they’re hand-cut. Everything about this part of the world, in this time, was the product of hard manual labor. Only the fabric of our gowns was made somewhere back East or in Mexico, I assumed, and imported by ship.
It was as if I could really see it all this morning, whereas last night my head was spinning so much, I could barely take in the basics. In the main sitting room at the bottom of the stairs—the library—there were men talking and laughing, and as we passed, I saw Javier and two young men leaning over what looked like a yellowed map spread across a table, its edges curling.
One looked up at me. He was tall and thin and angular, everything about him elegant, I registered, in a clean, black coat, crisp white shirt, and tie. How did anyone stay that clean here, in this land of dust, without showers and washers?
“Who is that with Javier?” I whispered to Estrella, as we paused a moment.
“Oh, that is his friend, Rafael Vasquez, the youngest son on Rancho Vasquez, near Santa Barbara. He
’s always up here, trading on behalf of his family.” She gave me an impish grin. “He’s taken notice of you, too.”
“I don’t need any more notice,” I grumbled as Javier straightened and followed Rafael’s gaze to give me a piercing, searching, curious look that made my pulse immediately pick up speed. I hurriedly pushed Estrella onward. We moved down the hall, and I checked out the tall, substantial doors of each room, carved in simple but pleasing patterns, but my head was frustratingly back on Javier.
He’s just another obstacle in your path, Zara, I told myself sternly.
I was used to Obstacles in my own neighborhood looking my way, trying to flirt with me at school. Or in the restaurant, after I played my guitar or served them a particularly delicious meal. More handsome Obstacles at the beach, when I went swimming. But I’d never had time for any of them. They were just boys. And I was a girl with a dream. Of college. Of studying science and the weather. Of finding my way toward a full, adventurous life. To love. A family of my own. I’d seen more than enough teen girls, saddled with a baby, the result of being with boys they thought they loved…boys who disappeared as soon as it Got Serious. No, I was waiting for love, the man who would help me accomplish my dreams, not become an Obstacle, keeping me from them.
It would take true love, forever love, before any guy was getting anywhere close to my heart.
And this place? It was temporary. No forever for me here.
I just had to find my way home.
CHAPTER 6
I noted a music room, a small chapel and a closed door on our way to the dining hall. A fire crackled merrily in the fireplace at the far end, chasing away the morning’s chill. As much as I wanted to go to it, it was clear we were to wait by our chairs for the men to join us for breakfast. Doña Elena stood across from me in another immaculate black dress—how long would she and Adalia wear mourning gowns?—and Estrella and Mateo on either side of her. I hadn’t really talked to fifteen-year-old Mateo yet; he seemed very quiet and subdued, but he gave me a brief, shy smile along with a gentle “Buenos días.” Adalia and her baby sat at the head of the table, where she had more room to feed him. Francesca and Jacinto flanked me, leaving the end of the table for Javier and his visitors, I assumed.
Three Wishes Page 6
