He pulled his rifle from its scabbard, his heart in his throat with fear that the tejano who had fired at the other man would turn his gun on Sloan.
Cruz didn’t offer the tejano mercy; he wouldn’t have offered a mad dog mercy. He raised his rifle and fired on the run. The bullet hit the tejano’s chest and shoved him backward off his horse, his hands outflung, his dying cry a sound of sheer terror and pain that reminded Cruz he was not a mad dog but a man.
Yet Cruz felt no pity, for at that instant he saw Sloan’s twisted body on the ground, curled around the little girl. A bellow of rage and pain erupted from his throat.
He was on the ground beside Sloan in a moment, unaware of his vaqueros, who had followed him down the hill. He gently turned Sloan over and tried to pry her fingers loose from the child, but he met with little success. He contented himself with searching Sloan’s body with his hands for signs of injury.
When he found no broken bones, he lifted her into his lap, along with the child in her arms, carefully cradling Sloan’s head on his shoulder. He felt savage and could easily have killed the tejano again. His lips brushed Sloan’s forehead before he laid his cheek next to hers.
She belonged to him. He felt no remorse for killing the man who had threatened her life.
Sloan’s first thought when she awoke was how protected she felt. She heard a voice murmuring and recognized it as Cruz’s. His rough-whiskered cheek felt good next to hers. Her eyes fluttered open to the sight of the pulse beating heavily at his throat beneath his ear.
She started as she remembered Betsy, but at the feel of the child lying in her arms, she relaxed. She looked down and Betsy met her gaze with solemn eyes.
Sloan smiled down at the little girl and said, “Everything is going to be fine now, Betsy.”
She looked up at Cruz, and saw that everything was not fine. Instead of the comforting look she had expected, she found the thunderous expression of an angry man.
“I told you to stay at the hacienda,” he said, his voice cold with fury. “If I had not arrived when I did-”
“I never asked you to come looking for me,” Sloan retorted, stung by his harsh welcome. “I don’t have to depend on any man-”
“I am not just any man,” Cruz snarled, his eyes blazing. “I am your husband!” He saw that Sloan was ready with another argument and cut her off. “Do not argue with me!”
Sloan opened her mouth to do exactly that and caught sight of Cruz’s vaqueros heaving Ramón’s body onto his horse. Her breath caught in her chest.
She shook her head in disbelief at what had happened. “He was only a boy. How could he have murdered Felipe in cold blood like that? When he turned to me afterward, his eyes… his eyes were filled with… pleasure.”
Cruz’s arms tightened suddenly, desperately, around her and the child. “Cebellina, querida, I thought I had lost you.”
Sloan reached an awkward hand up to his bristly cheek to comfort him. She did not know what to say. Her fingers lightly caressed his face, smoothing his brow and then his lips, where she felt his kiss against the pads of her fingers.
She waited, unmoving, as he lowered his head and found her mouth with his. His tongue came searching… And she gave freely what he sought.
Pressed uncomfortably between them, Betsy stretched restlessly, finally pushing them apart.
Sloan couldn’t meet Cruz’s eyes, even though she felt his gaze upon her. Instead, she concentrated on brushing the fine blond hair back from Betsy’s forehead. She knew she should get up, get away from Cruz, but she had no will to leave his comforting embrace.
At last, some buried shred of her independent spirit finally asserted itself.
“Let me up,” she said. She struggled to sit upright, but immediately felt dizzy and disoriented. She closed her eyes in an attempt to stop the whirling landscape. “Cruz… I think I’m going to…”
Sloan fainted.
“Cebellina!”
Cruz caught her head against his shoulder and searched her again with a frightened hand at this newest sign that she had suffered some injury in her fall. Again, he found nothing.
He met Betsy’s wide-eyed, fearful gaze but could think of no words to reassure the child. So he pulled them both tight against his breast and simply held them there.
“Cebellina, mi vida,” he whispered in her ear. “You must be all right. I cannot live without you.”
“You don’t seem to be able to live with me, either,” came the muffled response.
Cruz turned Sloan so her face was no longer hidden against his shirt and saw a wry smile form on her dust-streaked face.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked.
“I… I think I’m more tired than hurt,” Sloan admitted. “And maybe a little dizzy from the fall.”
“Then rest, Cebellina, adorada, querida.”
As he murmured love words, Sloan felt a blush rising from her throat to tint her cheeks a rosy pink. She cleared her throat and interrupted, “Uh… how did you find me?”
“Paco led me to the wagons. Can you tell me more about what happened there?”
“I don’t really know. I got there after the Comanches… Betsy’s cousins, Franklin and Jeremiah, were taken captive. We have to go after them, Cruz. We have to-”
“I have already sent my vaqueros to look for them,” Cruz said in a soothing voice. “If they can be found, my men will find them.”
He left unsaid that if the Comanches had escaped to the northern plains, there was little or no chance of the two boys ever being seen again-except as Comanche raiders themselves.
“Once the niña has had a chance to rest,” he said, “I will have my vaqueros take her to San Antonio so that she can be returned to her family.”
“No! I mean, her parents are dead.”
“Perhaps there is yet some family living who will want to claim her.”
“She has an aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania,” Sloan conceded. “But until they can be contacted, I’ll take care of her. She needs me.”
Cruz felt his neck hairs bristling. “You have a child of your own to care for at Dolorosa-whom you ignore. Will you give more time to a stranger’s child than you give to your own son?”
“Cisco doesn’t need-” She bit her lip on the denial of her son’s need for a mother’s love. She saw how neatly she had been trapped. “If that’s the price you ask for my keeping Betsy, then I’ll pay it. I agree to spend time equally with both children.”
“I did not mean to put a price-”
“There’s a price for everything,” she said. “I’m not so heartless as you think, Cruz. I have not denied my son a mother’s love and felt nothing.”
He looked down into her deep brown eyes and saw the suffering in their depths. “Tonio is dead. The past is past.”
“The past is always with us,” she countered. “But I promise to spend more time with Cisco. So long as you understand I will not open my heart to him, knowing that I won’t be staying long.”
Cruz’s features hardened at the same time as his grasp on her tightened. “You are mine now, Cebellina. I do not intend to let you leave Dolorosa.”
“You won’t dare to hold me there against my will!”
“Try running off again and see what I am willing to do,” he retorted. “Leaving the hacienda as you did was dangerous.”
“What I did I’ve done a thousand times before. If you want a wife who’s docile and obedient, one who’ll sit at home and wait for you to return and handle every little problem that comes up, you’d be better off with Tomasita.”
“I do not want Tomasita. I want you!”
Betsy’s whimper caused them both to stop and take stock of where they were. Although Sloan didn’t want to drop the subject, in deference to the child, she didn’t raise it again. Words wouldn’t change his mind.
“Will you help me to stand, please?” she asked.
It was a small step for her to ask him for his help, but in such ways were long journeys traveled. Cruz nodd
ed before he set her down on the grass and stood up himself. Then he reached out his arms and said, “Hand the child to me.”
“I can carry her,” Sloan protested.
“She is too heavy for you. I will take her.”
Sloan sighed. “All right.”
Cruz caught himself before he smiled. Yes, just so were long journeys begun.
Sloan had expected the child to protest being shifted to Cruz’s arms, but Betsy just looked up at him and was silent.
“Can you mount by yourself?” Cruz asked Sloan.
“Of course,” she replied, although she wasn’t at all sure she had the strength. One of the vaqueros brought her horse to her and held it while she pulled herself into the saddle. As Sloan watched, Cruz easily bore Betsy’s weight with one arm as he mounted his bayo.
As they rode, Sloan was aware of Cruz’s piercing gaze on her and turned away from him to escape it. The sight of the two bandidos slung over their horses reminded her of something important she had forgotten to mention to Cruz.
She turned back to him and was startled by the longing she found in his eyes. It took her a moment to regain her train of thought.
“There’s something I forgot to tell you,” she said. “After the bandidos captured me, they took me with them to a meeting they had with an Englishman. I overheard the Englishman say that he planned to rendezvous with a man named Alejandro and someone called the Hawk tomorrow night. This man called Alejandro they were talking about… I think it’s the same Alejandro who murdered Tonio.”
“That is not possible,” Cruz said. “I saw Alejandro Sanchez hang with my own eyes.”
“They said something about it being someone else who was hanged-not Alejandro. Is that possible?”
She watched Cruz and thought for a moment she saw doubt flicker in his eyes.
“Alejandro is dead.”
“But we should contact the Rangers, don’t you think, and tell them about all this.”
He said only, “Perhaps.”
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious about what’s going on?” she persisted.
“I am not my brother. I do not concern myself with political intrigue.”
He watched the pain come and go on her face, and it tore away at something inside him to speak so harshly-and falsely-to her. But he had no choice. He called to one of his vaqueros.
“Patrón?”
“Take those two bodies to the pueblo and see if anyone can identify them. Tell Doña Lucia that the señorita and I will not return until tomorrow.”
“Sí, Patrón.”
A moment later, he and the other vaqueros were gone in a cloud of dust.
“We aren’t going back to Dolorosa?”
“Not right away.”
Sloan waited for Cruz to explain himself, but when he didn’t, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“We are going to Gonzales to be married by a priest.”
Chapter 10
“YOU’RE CRAZY IF YOU THINK I’M GOING TO agree to bind myself more closely to you,” Sloan said.
“I was not asking for your permission.”
Cruz spurred his horse into a trot, and Sloan quickly kneed her mount to catch up to him.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.
“We made a bargain. Tonio has been avenged. It is time you kept the promise you made to me four years ago.”
“There’s no need to say vows before a priest,” Sloan argued.
“I want no question in your mind that we are truly man and wife-that we belong to one another body and soul.”
Sloan was desperate to avoid saying marriage vows before a priest, because once Cruz married her in a church, he would never let her out of their bargain. “What if Alejandro isn’t dead?”
“He is.”
“What about Three Oaks?”
“What about it? Our agreement never depended on your inheriting Three Oaks. Even if it did, have you had word that Rip has changed his mind?”
Sloan was silent. Over the past four years, she had denied to herself that she was Cruz’s wife. He was forcing her to remove the blinders she had worn and accept the fact she was the wife of a Spanish hacendado.
She wasn’t sure which distressed her more, the fear of dealing with Cruz woman to man or the fear that she would be ceding him control of her life. At last she said, “I don’t understand why you want me for your wife.”
“It is enough that I do.”
She met his eyes and saw they blazed hot with desire. But was desire enough on which to base a marriage? She was afraid he would make her feel… things… she didn’t want to feel ever again.
There was always, lingering at the back of her mind, the thought that he was Tonio’s brother. She had given herself fully, freely to Tonio. She doubted she could ever do so with another man.
Cruz pulled his horse to a stop next to Sloan and reached over with his free hand to gently brush back an errant strand of sable hair from her face. “Do not look so troubled, Cebellina. You have been mine for four years. The words of the priest will only bless our union.”
“Cruz, this marriage was a bad idea. It was conceived in desperation and born in haste. I… I’ve changed my mind. I want an annulment.”
“No.”
“No? Just like that? No?”
“Just like that. No.”
“Can’t you see this isn’t going to work? I can’t be what you want in a wife.”
“You are exactly what I want. I admire your courage, your strength of will, your intelligence.” He paused and grinned. “And, of course, your beauty.”
“I’m a terrible mother,” she said.
“No, Cebellina, you are not. You gave up your child because of a great hurt. Your heart is full of love for-”
“I don’t love you!”
His eyes met hers and he said simply, “But I love you.”
Cruz would have said more except Betsy began wriggling in his arms. “Easy, niña.”
Betsy reached out for Sloan, speaking with her eyes and her hands rather than her voice.
Sloan angled her horse closer to Cruz’s and opened her arms for the little girl. Betsy launched herself from Cruz’s lap, and Sloan caught her in mid-air, pulling her close. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. Rest now.” Betsy quickly settled in Sloan’s lap.
“If she gets too heavy for you, I will take her again,” Cruz said. “A child looks good in your arms, Cebellina. I look forward to seeing you growing round with a child of ours.”
“I don’t know whether I want more children.”
Cruz said nothing, but Sloan watched his hands tighten on the reins until his knuckles were white. She hadn’t even come to terms with the possibility of lying beneath him as his wife, let alone bearing his child.
“Could we discuss this marriage business?” Sloan asked.
“What did you have in mind?”
“We could forget about the priest and-”
“I won’t compromise on that,” Cruz said flatly. “If you want to suggest ways we can be happier married to one another, then I am willing to listen.”
“Very well,” Sloan said. “To start with, I’m used to doing as I please.”
“Your days are yours to fill,” Cruz said. “The nights belong to me.”
Sloan felt her cheeks pinken. She cleared her throat and said, “And exactly how am I to fill my days? All I know is cotton. Dolorosa caters to cattle.”
“That is entirely up to you. There are many things that must be done on a ranch the size of Dolorosa. Of course, you will have the house-”
“Your mother takes care of the house,” Sloan interrupted.
“You can spend time with your son.”
“At Three Oaks I was responsible for managing an entire plantation. While the needs of one small boy must surely be great, they can’t begin to compare with what I’m used to doing.”
“Then you can spend some time with me learning to run Dolorosa.”
Cruz was surprised at
the words he had spoken. Yet he was not sorry he had said them. His friends would have found the idea of including their wives in their ranching business repugnant.
Yet because of the way Sloan had been raised, she would be able to understand and share both his worries and his triumphs in a way no ordinary woman could.
Sloan was appalled at how enticing she found Cruz’s suggestion. To spend the days with him, to share his burdens and his successes… It almost sounded too good to be true.
Yet even if it were, she had ties to Three Oaks that couldn’t be so easily dismissed. Would she feel the same sense of satisfaction from watching Dolorosa grow and prosper?
“I admit your idea sounds good,” Sloan conceded. “And I’m willing to give it a try. But I have another suggestion.”
“I am listening.”
“I will be your wife.” Sloan licked her lips nervously and continued, “But I want your promise that after, say, six months or so, if it doesn’t look like it’s working out, I can leave.”
Cruz was silent for so long Sloan wondered if he had heard what she’d said. Then she noticed the furrows on his brow and the rigidity of his body. He had heard, all right. He just didn’t like what he’d heard.
Cruz knew that Sloan fully expected to be unhappy at Dolorosa. In essense, she was offering him six months of marriage in exchange for the favor he had done for her four years ago. He could refuse. After all, it was not part of the bargain they had made.
But he was willing to gamble that her feelings for him, and for her son, ran deeper than she thought. He was willing to gamble that in six months she would not want to leave.
“I will agree to your suggestion,” Cruz said, “with one condition.”
“Which is?”
“That you will give yourself to me as openly and honestly as you gave yourself to my brother.”
Sloan gasped. “I can’t! I won’t take the risk-”
“The risk of what? That you might fall in love again?” Cruz challenged. “I want the same chance my brother had. If you will not give it to me, I will have to take what I can get. And that means marriage on my terms.”
Sloan was upset and didn’t try to hide it. “You’re asking me to do something I swore I would never do again. I can’t promise you I’ll be totally open and honest with you because I’m not sure I can be. You can’t wipe the slate clean, Cruz. You can’t be first. I can’t give my innocence twice!”
Texas Woman Page 13
