“Oh!” Nora gasped. “She did! I mean she tried to tell me one time how babies are made but I covered my ears and ran outside. It sounded nasty.”
Vittorio’s frown lifted into a broad grin. “I would not call it nasty, pequeña, but it surely is not something for a young señorita to do.”
She considered his words for a moment, working up her courage to ask, “So you’ve paid some of those bad women to pleasure you?”
He scowled again. “This we will not discuss,” he said firmly. gripping her elbow. “Come, let us walk a little farther before we turn back.”
Nora didn’t press him for an answer, already certain of what it would be. They strolled on in companionable silence for a few minutes until coming to a place that made her blood run cold. She stopped and stared, hugging herself, causing Vittorio to pause and gaze at her worriedly. “What is it? Are you not feeling well?”
She shook her head. “That’s where I was trapped when I was small.” She pointed at a rocky, filled in depression in the side of the high embankment that towered over the creek in this area. There had once been a hidden cave there. “Daddy brought me out here once and showed it to me when I was old enough to understand and remember. Seeing it gives me goose flesh.” She rubbed her pebbled arms vigorously.
Vittorio turned to eye the hated spot. “Ah, sí. How could I not recognize the place? When we returned from visiting mi madre’s family, your padre told mine what had happened to you. Popi and I walked out here to see where you were trapped, where you almost . . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Where I almost died,” she finished for him. “I would have smothered in there after the cave-in if not for uncle Tye.” She’d heard the story so many times about how Tye had found her using his secret mental gift that she knew it by heart. “He nearly got killed himself and he’d be blind today if Mama hadn’t written to Auntie Rose in Chicago and begged her to come heal him.”
Nodding, Vittorio faced her. “It all happened because I was not here to watch over you. Madrecita had not visited her family in San Antonio for years and she wanted to see my abuela – my grandmother – again before it was too late. But I did not want to go. You were so little back then and I was afraid something would happen to you while I was gone. And it did. You crawled into that cave and it collapsed around you, all because you wandered off looking for me. Mi padre told me later that was what your folks believed.”
“They shouldn’t have told him that!” Nora said indignantly. “I was just a dumb little kid back then. Maybe I roamed off chasing a butterfly or a grasshopper. There’s no telling. And then I saw the bitty opening to the cave and curiosity made me go snooping inside. That sure wasn’t your fault.”
“But it was my duty to watch over you,” he insisted. “Your folks trusted me to protect you. I should have been here” His voice had taken on a pained note laced with guilt.
Nora closed the short distance between them. Slipping her arms around him, she leaned her head on his chest. “Stop blaming yourself. You were a little boy yourself then. You had no say in whether to go or stay, anymore than you had a hand in me busting that durn old angel today. It was my doing both times, not yours, do you hear?”
His arms enfolded her and a low laugh vibrated through him beneath her ear. “Sí, señorita! You win. I am wrong, you are right.”
She looked up, giggling. “I’m always right, boyo,” she teased, using one of her grandda’s favorite Irish words. She punched him lightly on his shoulder for good measure.
Laughing again, he bent and kissed her nose. Nora caught her breath and gazed at him adoringly when he lifted his head. Acting purely on impulse, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed him back, on his mouth.
The touch of her lips caught Vittorio completely off guard. Her kiss was only a chaste young girl’s pressing of lips to lips, but it jolted him clear down to his booted toes. Instinctively, without thinking, he kissed her back, softly at first then more ardently as his arms tightened around her. She was tall for her age and starting to fill out in womanly places. His body noticed these things and reacted. Recognizing the sudden hardening in his groin, he broke off their kiss and pushed her back, gripping her shoulders.
“No! We cannot do this. It is wrong!” he burst out, aghast at what might so easily have happened if he’d lost control.
“It’s not wrong, Vito.” She twisted out of his grip and tried to launch herself at him again, but he caught her arms and held her at bay, giving her a quick shake.
“Stop! You are too young for such things.”
“I am not!” She clutched his forearms and argued, “I’ll be thirteen next July. I’ve heard tell of girls who get married at my age.”
“So have I but that is not for you, pequeña,” he said adamantly. “You are too fine to give yourself so foolishly before you are even full grown. And what would your parents say? Your father is the patrón, the boss. He wants better for you, so does your mother and so do I.”
“What about what I want?” she cried shrilly. “Doesn’t that matter?”
“Of course it does, but you are too young to know what you want.”
“Stop saying that! I’m not too young! I know what I want. I want you, Vittorio Medina! I love you!” Voice breaking, she started to cry again, her slim body shaking with the force of her weeping. His own eyes burned. He felt like the cruelest creature to walk the earth, even though he only thought of what was best for her.
“I love you too. That is why I will not hurt you.”
She shook her head wildly, causing strands of long black hair to come loose from the bun at the back of her head. “Y-you don’t love me! N-not like I love you!”
Seeing she was beyond listening to reason, he moved close, seeking simply to comfort her. She resisted at first, swatting his hands away and yelling at him to leave her alone, but he persisted and she finally allowed him to hold her.
“Don’t cry, chica. All will be well, wait and see,” he murmured next to her ear, drinking in her sweet flowery scent. The way she clung to him tempted him to tip her face up and kiss her again, but he resisted the urge, knowing full well where that might lead. He would not be able to live with himself if he sullied her, and she would end up hating him. She already thought lovemaking sounded nasty, for Dios sake!
Regaining control of herself, she pushed at his chest and stepped back. She scrubbed tears from her reddened face and threw back her shoulders. “I need to get back or Daddy will have my hide,” she said in a raspy voice, without looking at him.
“Sí, let us go.” He offered his hand but she ignored it, shoving her hands into her pockets and staring straight ahead. Sighing, he walked in silence beside her, wishing he could ease her wounded feelings. Ha! How was he to do that when he could hardly hold his own urges toward her in check?
But you must! She is not for you, she never will be. You are only a poor cowboy of Mexican blood. She is white and the patron’s daughter. Even if she was old enough, he would never allow you to marry her. You must not give your heart to her!
He knew all these things, but he hated this cold silence between them. When they reached the main house he paused at the foot of the steps, reached out and clasped her elbow. “Niña, do not be angry with me, please.”
She hesitated then met his anxious gaze. “I’m not angry, Vito, I’m sad because you don’t love me.”
“I told you I do love you, but I cannot –”
She held up her hand, stopping him. “You love me like a friend or a little sister, not the way a man loves a woman. Isn’t that true?”
Thinking of his physical reaction to her kiss, he knew that was not completely true, but she had to see there could not be anything more than friendship between them. So he lied. “Yes, that is true. I cannot love you that way. You don’t like to hear it, I know, but you are too young for that kind of love. You must give yourself time to grow up.”
Her blue eyes drilled into him. Taking a deep breath, she said, “All right, fine. Will you
wait for me, Vito?”
Dios! She never gave up! Left with little choice, he resorted to harsh honesty. “Do not ask that of me,” he said sharply. “Do you truly think your padre would let me have you? No, never! Look at me and look at you. We are too different, too far apart.” He grasped her hands, desperate to make her understand. “You will be expected to marry one of your own kind, a rich white man who can give you a good life. You must see and accept this, pequeña.”
“No! I won’t accept that. I’ll never marry anyone but you!” Wrenching her hands from his, she whirled and ran up the steps.
Vittorio opened his mouth to call after her but stopped himself. Better to let her go, better she should come to hate him with the passage of time. The thought twisted his insides and choked him with unshed tears as he turned and trudged despondently away.
Chapter Six
Nora was in no mood for opening Christmas gifts. A tight knot lodged somewhere between her heart and her throat. She would rather hide in her room and cry, but she refused to let her family know how much Vittorio’s rejection had crushed her heart. So she pasted a smile on her face and sat with her brothers and cousins in a semicircle on the floor in the middle of the parlor. The fact that she was not allotted a chair among the grownups rubbed salt in her already injured pride. She wasn’t a child!
The adults had already given each other gifts. In her parents’ case, Daddy wore the shirt and scarf Mama had made for him, and she wore a lovely cameo he had given her. Pinned just below the neck of her blue gown, between the rounded corners of her ivory colored lace collar, the broach matched Mama’s creamy complexion.
“All right, let’s find out who all these presents are for,” Daddy said, motioning for Uncle Tye to give him a hand. The two of them crouched to pull packages out from under the Christmas tree. Reading the attached labels, they handed them out to the right person. Some were plainly wrapped in brown paper tied with string or ribbon, others in scraps of pretty fabric, and a few in brightly colored papers. Those were from her mother, Nora knew because she’d gone with Mama to the general store in Clifton the day she purchased those fancy papers.
She and the four boys each ended up with several gifts each, some large, some small. Like every year, they all received sturdy new scarves and mittens from the Crawfords, hand knitted by Granny Rebecca. She wasn’t really Nora’s and her brothers’ granny, but since both of their grandmothers had passed away long before they were born, she’d said she would be their granny the same as she was for their younger cousins, Patrick and Nicholas. Nora was very fond of her
“Thank you, Granny Rebecca. I love the pretty red color of my mittens and scarf,” Nora told the older woman, who nodded and gave a quiet smile as the boys chimed in with their thanks.
After that they tore into the rest of their gifts. The boys each received a ball and jax, a bag of marbles and a windup toy of one kind or another. Most exciting for them was a wooden train set carved by Grandda Seamus. He gave each boy one train car, meaning they could only make a complete train by getting together.
“Ye’ll be after yer folks ta visit often now, won’t ye, me lads,” he said with a wink and a grin at their parents.
“You bet, Grandda!” Nora’s brother Reece declared.
“Grandda, we’ll make Mam and Da bring us over here all the time,” six-year-old Patrick chirped.
“Oh ye will, will ye? D’ye think perhaps Reece and Seamus might come to visit ye at our place now and then, young man?” Uncle Tye asked, lifting his eyebrows.
Patrick nodded and grinned, revealing a gap where his top two front teeth were missing. “Yeah, that’s all right too, Da,” he said.
All of the adults laughed.
“You’re a conniving old coot, Seamus Devlin,” Daddy said jokingly.
“Indeed I am.” Grandda chuckled. “A man must do what he can ta ensure he sees his grandchildren.”
In between the boys’ noisy gift opening, Nora marveled at the ornately decorated kaleidoscope Auntie Lil and Uncle Tye gave her. The intricate patterns created when she looked through the end and turned the barrel of the toy were fantastic. She also admired the beautifully gowned doll Mama and Daddy gave her. With its delicately painted china head, it was not a plaything but purely for display, which was fine with her because she was much too old to play with dolls in her opinion.
Nora waited for the excitement over the boys’ toy train to quiet down before she opened her last gift. Having no idea what the long, narrow package from her grandfather contained, she caught her breath when she unwrapped it and found a lady’s fan. She gently spread it out, revealing a shimmering crescent of pale blue silk with dainty flowers painted upon it. A white tassel dangled from the end.
“Oh, Grandda, it’s wonderful!” she said in awe.
“’Tis glad I am to see the pretty thing pleases ye, colleen,” he replied. “I carved and varnished the wee sticks and wired them together at the end, but yer mam cut the silk and glued it on the sticks. She thought ye’d be needin’ such a piece before long.”
Nora sent her smiling mother a delighted grin. “Thank you, Mama!” Then she jumped up and went to her grandfather’s chair, bending down to give him in a hug. “Thank you, Grandda! I love you.”
“I love ye too, granddaughter,” he said gruffly, patting her back.
She and the boys also each received an orange and a small bag of nuts and sweets, but these were to be saved for later. Right now, it was dessert time. Drafted to help deliver plates of pie and cake to the ranch hands who lounged out back, Nora made several trips back and forth, laughing when the men teased her, saying this pretty waitress couldn’t be the little girl who used to play in the ranch yard and hang around the corral watching them break mustangs.
However, her smiles and laughter, even her delight over the beautiful grownup fan Grandda and Mama had made for her, were all a mask hiding the agony caused by Vittorio’s hurtful words. His unwillingness to wait for her, his insistence that they were too different to ever marry, tore at her heart. Was he right about her father? Would Daddy refuse to let her wed Vito? Could he stop her once she was grown? Did it even matter since the one she loved would probably go off and marry someone else?
Struggling to contain her tortured emotions, she accepted a small slice of Granny Rebecca’s apple pie from her mother and carried her plate out to the front porch, wanting to be alone for a while. She’d no more than settled in the wooden swing suspended by chains at one end of the porch when the front door opened and Uncle Tye stepped out.
“Ah, there she is, my favorite niece,” he said, flashing a bright smile. “Might I join ye, Colleen?” He strolled toward her.
Disappointed to have her moment of privacy interrupted, Nora scooted to one side of the swing, saying, “Sure, Uncle Tye.”
He sat on the opposite end. “Thanks. ’Tis good to get away from the hubbub for a wee bit, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I’m kind of tired.” She stabbed her fork at the piece of pie she had yet to taste, wishing she hadn’t taken it. Her stomach roiled at the thought of eating.
“Are ye then? I think perhaps you’re more sad than tired, eh?”
She cut him a surprised glance, meeting his keen blue gaze, then hastily looked away. What an idiot she was! She’d forgotten about her uncle’s ability to feel what others were feeling. Mama called him a sensitive. He’d located Nora using this strange gift when she was trapped in that awful cave as a child. Now, he must be sensing her misery over Vito’s rejection.
“I . . . I had kind of an argument with Vittorio.”
“Indeed? And that causes you such unhappiness?”
She nodded mutely, avoiding his eyes. Why couldn’t he leave her alone?
“D’ye wish to talk about it?”
She shook her head. Talking about what had happened between her and Vito was the last thing she wanted to do. It was too painful.
“Sometimes it helps to share your burdens, colleen,” Uncle Tye coaxed, gently taking a
way her china dessert plate and the fork she’d unwittingly used to mash up her slice of pie. He stuck the fork in the mess, bent over and set the dish on the porch floor. His simple action poked a hole in Nora’s wall of silence.
“H-he doesn’t love me, n-not like I love him,” she stammered, fighting off tears. She’d cried enough.
“Ah, I see.” After a pause, her uncle asked, “Nora darlin’, he hasn’t taken improper liberties, has he? Like put his hands on ye where they don’t belong?”
“No! Vito wouldn’t do that!” She glared at him but then hung her head. “I-I kissed him and he pushed me away.”
Ty coughed and cleared his throat. “Well now, I’m sure that hurt your feelings, sweetling, but he’s a good lad for withstanding temptation. He must have fought hard to restrain himself.”
She looked up in wonder, encountering his sympathetic smile. “Do you really think so, Uncle?”
“Of course I do. What young man wouldn’t find it difficult to resist such a lovely colleen as yourself?” He winked playfully.
Nora smiled and blushed at his compliment then stared off into space. Was he right? Vito had kissed her back and held her close for a fleeting moment before setting her away. He’d said it wasn’t right because she was too young for such things, but had he really wanted to go on kissing her? Oh, how she hoped that might be true. If it was, maybe there was still hope for them despite his insistence that they could never be together. The possibility took root in her heart, lightening her mood.
“Thank you, Uncle Tye. You’ve made me feel so much better.”
“I’m glad to hear that, niece. What are uncles for, after all?” Chuckling, he reached over and lightly tugged a lock of hair that had fallen out of her bun.
The door opened a second later and Daddy stepped out to the porch. Spotting them on the swing, he said, “There you both are. I thought I saw the two of you walk out a while ago.” He sauntered toward them, hands on his hips. When he glanced down Nora knew from his sudden frown that he’d noticed her mangled slice of pie. “You feeling poorly, princess?” he asked, studying her worriedly.
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