Four Winds (River of Time California, Book 2)

by Lisa T. Bergren

  ALSO BY LISA T. BERGREN

  The River of Time (original series, set in Italy):

  Waterfall

  Cascade

  Torrent

  Bourne & Tributary

  Deluge

  The River of Time, California:

  Three Wishes (Book 1)

  Homeward Trilogy (1880s Colorado):

  Breathe

  Sing

  Claim

  The Gifted Series (medieval spiritual suspense):

  The Begotten

  The Betrayed

  The Blessed

  The Grand Tour Series (1913 Europe):

  Glamorous Illusions

  Grave Consequences

  Glittering Promises

  The Remnants Series (dystopian):

  Season of Wonder

  Season of Fire

  Season of Glory

  FOUR WINDS

  Published by Bergren Creative Group, Inc.

  Colorado Springs, CO, USA

  All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

  © 2016 Lisa T. Bergren

  Cover design: Bergren Creative Group, Inc.

  Cover images: Jennifer Ilene Photography

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedicated to Ashley,

  who was so captivated by the original series,

  that she read it forty-two times (and then “lost count after that”),

  and is now a medieval and Renaissance major in college.

  It’s readers like you that convinced me to keep writing time-slip romances—even in other eras.

  Thank you for your passion!

  CHAPTER 1

  ZARA

  Javier laughed and shook his head as we reached the top of the sand dune, Centinela loping in a wide circle around us. “I do not know if I can court a girl from the future and have a pet wolf,” he said in Spanish. “That is a lot to ask of one man.”

  I gave him a half-smile, not yet ready to admit it—that I might be his girlfriend, that I might be here to stay—still trying to accept that it seemed I didn’t really have another option. I was relieved and yet still pulled by my own time, all at once.

  He reached for the reins of his hobbled mare and peered toward the setting sun, barely visible behind a dark, gray cloud bank. “We best hasten to the harbor. It looks like that storm might be upon us soon.”

  I studied it and lifted my cheek to the breeze, closed my eyes and took stock of the moisture in the air. The cloud bank appeared to be building in intensity, not moving. I had a thing for weather; in my own time I had wanted to study meteorology in college. “I’d wager it’s all for show; the real storm is behind it. This one will not even make landfall.”

  Javier put his hands on my waist and gave me a sly look. “¿Deseas apostar sobre el clima, chica? Con el Don de la Ventura?” You wish to gamble on the weather, girl? With the Don de la Ventura?

  “I fear no don,” I replied saucily, lifting my chin, sliding my arms around his neck and smiling as his warm hands pressed me closer to him. “What shall the stakes be?”

  He bent down to hover his lips near mine. “A kiss,” he whispered huskily, his breath practically a kiss of its own. “If I win, I get to kiss you. If you win, you get to kiss me.”

  I giggled and lifted my chin, inviting him with my eyes. “Shall we not kiss now and make certain that’s a wise wager?”

  “Clearly you have much to learn if you are ever to be a true gambler,” he said, leaning away from me and pretending to scoff at my suggestion. “Does one pay his opponent before the cards are played?”

  I grinned and pulled him closer again. “No, but does not one put the potential winnings on the table so it’s clear what the stakes are?”

  “But it is, my darling girl,” he whispered. He lifted an index finger to stroke his bottom lip slowly as he studied mine. “Here are our lips, between us, simply waiting for the prize to be claimed when the hand is played.” He gestured back to the storm, still brewing, making the sea beneath it a charcoal gray.

  I hit his arm and grinned, half delighted by his teasing, half completely frustrated. I’d make him beg for a kiss when I won. He’d see it wasn’t wise to mess with this particular señorita!

  Still laughing under his breath, he tucked my bundle of things in the saddlebag. Then he lifted me to the back of his mare and mounted in front of me. Gleeful, I wrapped my arms around him, inhaling his scent of leather and oranges and salty, clean sweat as we set off.

  “How come you have never named your horse, Javier?” I asked.

  He shrugged a little. “When I was a boy, my father bought me a beautiful filly. Her name was Valentina, and she was very dear to me. She was not as big as this one,” he said, leaning forward to pat his mount’s neck with affection, “but she was sturdy and fast. We grew up together, in a way,” he said, sounding a little shy over this admission. “But then my father’s heart failed him, and the same day we buried him, Valentina came down with the colic. She died three days later. Ever since, I’ve never named my horses. But you may name yours, Zara. Given that you’ve named your wolf-dog, it seems appropriate to name your gelding.”

  I thought about that. When I was given the horse to ride, I’d been thinking of it as a temporary thing. Now, the idea of staying here long enough to name him struck me, like it was foundational somehow. Something that would ground me here…in a good way. We climbed the hills that surrounded Tainter Cove and reached the road, moving north to join Javier’s family on the Heron, where we were to have dinner with a visiting sea captain, Alistair Craig.

  I remembered the odd exchange between Craig and Javier the night before—the veiled meanings, the subtle warnings. Javier seemed both drawn to the man and agitated by him.

  “What is it about Captain Craig, Javier?” I asked. “What must I know about the man?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at me, then back to the setting sun—now illuminating the bottom edges of the clouds in a brilliant, brief rim of orange—but he remained silent.

  “If I am to remain here,” I urged, “to be a part of life at Rancho Ventura, doesn’t it make sense for me to understand what concerns you and your mother about him? What your secret is?”

  “He is a nationalist,” Javier said at last, as we reached the far end of the cove. “A lobbyist, bent on making Alta California the newest of the United States. And he does not fear a potential war with Mexico in order to accomplish what he wishes.”

  “I gathered that much from your mother’s clear distaste.”

  “Refusing to receive him…” Javier spoke over his shoulder, as I shifted my arms around his waist. His big, broad hand covered my own, and he seemed to forget what he was about to say as he peeked again at me. “Zara, the feel of your arms around me…” He swallowed hard. “Coming here this day, I feared I’d never experience that again.”

  I gave him a gentle smile and leaned my cheek against the center of his back. “But God had other plans.”

  “And I will forever praise Him for that.”

  I grinned and gave him a squeeze. “You were saying…Refusing to receive him….”

  “Honestly? You wish to keep talking when you are holding me so close?”

  I giggled. “We have ridden this closely before.”

  He shook his head, and even with just a glimpse of his profile, I could see the wonder and
joy in his expression. “But now…with the thought of you with me forever…” He said no more.

  A shiver ran down my back as I thought of the hope and promise in his tone, and then I blinked, forcing myself to concentrate. I felt a sense of urgency, a deep need to know. What was it? “All right. No more hugs to distract you,” I said, easing slightly away. “Tell me of the captain.”

  Javier sighed. “The issue is this: Craig’s hinted that if I refuse to support his cause, he will convince other Americans to stop trading with us. Upset all we have built. As a ranchero, I must keep good relations on both sides of this political wall, regardless of what my mother wants. You’ve seen that the soldiers of the presidio do little to intervene, other than collect what they deem to be their due. And yet I trade with Spanish and Mexican ships too. So if they learned that I’d turned traitor—regardless of the disarray of our mother country in the hands of General Santa Anna—we would be swiftly cut off by both sides. Therefore I continue to gamble, playing my cards on both tables.”

  “But what do you want, Javier? For Alta California to remain a territory of Mexico or for it to become the newest state in the Union?”

  He thought on that a moment, and absently stroked my hand with his free one as he looked along the beach and then to the hills. “I think it is only a matter of time before the United States turns her eyes upon this beautiful land. Our trade in tallow and hides has already caught her interest. And Mexico has all but abandoned us, seemingly lost in her constant uprisings and poorly managed wars. Her treasury is empty, so they gladly take our taxes, but do they send patrols to help keep cattle rustlers in check? Do they sail our coast, keeping alert to those—like Captain Craig—who might block our trade, holding us captive? No,” he said bitterly. “They think they can occupy this territory, but at no cost. They do not realize that the power is slipping from their grasp.”

  He pulled up on the reins suddenly and glanced over his shoulder at me again, eyes alight. “But you…you know what transpires here. You know!” he cried, his face splitting into a beatific grin, his dark brows arcing in wonder. He squeezed my arm. “Tell me, Zara. In your time, is it Mexican or American rule? Or perhaps Russian? They have some holdings in the north, but seem mostly interested in pelts.”

  I stared at him. Was I supposed to tell him such things? Would it interrupt the space-time continuum or something? Might I…change the future? And yet my heart wanted to help him, to protect him and his family.

  “I…I need to think about that, Javier. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you what happens. Maybe what is meant to happen will unfold because you make the decisions you’re supposed to make, without my interference.”

  His brow furrowed. “But you will tell me, if I choose wrongly?” he asked. “Can you not do that?”

  I studied his handsome, earnest face, regretting that I couldn’t immediately say yes. “I don’t know, Javier. Let me think about it, all right? I need to decide what’s wise.”

  Centinela whined then, her ears pricking forward as she trotted beside us. I thought her sound spooked Javier’s mount, making the mare shy and whinny.

  Javier yanked the horse’s reins back and stroked her neck. “Whoa, whoa.”

  But a second later, we heard what had upset both animals. A low boom reached our ears, and then another, identical to the first.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Javier was already gathering the reins tighter in his fist. “Cannon fire,” he said grimly. “And from the sound of it, coming from Bonita Harbor. Hold on.”

  I clung to Javier all the way to the harbor, about a mile and a half distant from Tainter Cove. By the time we reached it, my arms and legs were trembling from the effort to hold on, even with Javier’s firm grip on my hands in a knot at his sternum. I’d forced him to pause so that I could switch to riding astride, at least—not caring how it might chafe or how it might look, only wishing not to get bounced right off the horse’s rump.

  We reached the harbor and saw a newly arrived three-masted ship, right beside Captain Craig’s damaged, listing Heron. The Heron’s deck was crowded with men, all in hand-to-hand combat with their attackers. We could see smoke rising from a fire belowdecks through two massive holes in her side, visible even from the beach.

  “Who…what…?” I stammered.

  “Pirates,” Javier ground out. He was off the horse before we’d completely reached a stop and thrust the reins into my hands. But my eyes were on the new ship, flying a black Jolly Roger flag. Crescent Moon was painted on her back end. “Move forward to the saddle, Zara!” Javier demanded. “Now!”

  I did what he asked without thinking. I tried to shove my boots in the stirrups, but they were too long for me.

  “Go now, Zara!” he said, running his fingers over the grip of his pistol and reaching to pull his sword free. “Ride to the villa! You will be safest there!”

  “But Javier, I—”

  With a quick touch behind her withers, Javier turned the mare in the direction of the villa and then slapped her hard on the rump, sending her skittering ahead. Obviously surprised by his rash action, she surged from a canter into a mad gallop. I rode up and over several hills before I felt I had control again, and cresting the last rise, I pulled up on the reins in horror.

  Because there I found Mateo’s mare and two villa guards lying on the ground, all of them deadly still. Mateo—Javier’s younger brother—was not with them. I leaped from my mount and quickly felt for a pulse at each of the men’s necks, but they were clearly gone. And his horse—unlike Javier, Mateo had doted on his pretty Palamino, named Justina. If she was gone…I swallowed hard and looked back to Craig’s burning ship again, only her topmast and the Crescent Moon’s visible above the dunes and hills between us.

  “No, no, no….” Mateo had surely been taken captive. I glanced toward the rancho, thinking that the men there must have heard the cannon fire, as we had. How long until reinforcements arrived?

  Too long?

  I circled around, and then again, slowly beginning to understand what I must do.

  If Javier de la Ventura was wading into that fight, a fight that might save his brother’s life, I was determined to be by his side.

  CHAPTER 2

  I left Javier’s mare on the landward side of the dunes, hobbling her just out of sight from the shore. I grabbed the long, curved knife he’d left in the saddlebag. Then I crouched over and scurried to the edge to peer down at the storehouse. There were no guards in sight, no sounds of bullets fired or men fighting. I could hear only the crash of waves, swollen by the approaching storm.

  Along the shore, pirates were launching one rowboat after another, loaded with crates and barrels and bundles, systematically removing the rancho’s treasured exports that had been stored here. Stacks and stacks of hides—which I’d learned the sailors called “California dollars”—two freshly butchered sides of beef, coils of tanned leather and rope, barrels full of tallow, giant spools of wool, and crates of oranges. In addition, I glimpsed bolts of cotton fabric in several patterns, casks of wine, an elegant mahogany rocking chair, rounds of cheese, and other barrels labeled sugar and salt, all of these presumably just obtained in trade from Captain Craig.

  So they were not only pillaging the Heron; they were also raiding our stores.

  Fury washed through me. I thought of how hard the people of the rancho worked for all of those products…how they depended on the rest arriving on a timely basis to supply the villa and feed the rancho’s hundred or more people. And these pirates had killed some of the kind guards who had protected Mateo—please, God, let their lives have at least protected Mateo—and perhaps others.

  I gathered up my skirts and hurried over the dune and to the sidewall of the storehouse. I was standing with my back against it, holding Javier’s dagger, when I saw Mateo lifted from one of the first boats to reach the pirate ship. He struggled against his bonds as he was picked up and bodily hauled aboard like nothing more than a wriggling sack of grain. “Oh
no,” I whispered. This can’t be happening.

  Did Javier know they had his brother? Was he already finding his way out there? Where was he?

  I peeked around the corner and saw four men struggling to lift a massive, heavy safe, one of the last things in the storehouse—something that I dimly remembered Javier’s dear friend, Rafael Vasquez, asked him to obtain. But my mind was trying to cope with the idea that two more dead guards were on the ground, with blood pooling around them. Four men…dead! Dead, dead, dead….

  I whipped my head back, swallowing the bile that rose in my throat, and took several breaths, fighting my tunneling vision. There were still at least two other Ventura guards that lived. I’d seen them sitting, bound and gagged, backs against a pillar. If I could free them, could we, together, overtake the four remaining pirates and use that last boat to come to Mateo’s aid—and Javier’s?

  The men counted together and then heaved the crate upward. With grunts and straining sounds, they began to move together, out from under the rooftop and down through the soft sands to the last rowboat. When they were twenty paces away, fully focused on their task and gaining momentum, I eased around the corner and went to the two young Indian guards, where I used my knife to cut away their bonds.

  The first staggered to his feet and reached for me, looking anxiously about. “You must be away from here, Señorita!” he whispered frantically. The other rose more slowly, and I saw that he had blood trickling down the other side of his head.

  “No,” I whispered back. “They have Mateo! We must go after them!”

  The first guard reached for the nearest dead man, rolled him over, and grabbed the sword from his still-clenched hand. “We will go. You go to the villa!”

  “I can help,” I insisted, frowning in frustration as they both just stood there, staring at me with wide eyes. Too late, I realized they weren’t looking at me, but rather past me—

  “Oh, that you can, Señorita,” said a low voice behind me, in tandem with the cocking of a pistol. I felt the smooth, round circle of the gun at the base of my skull. “You will most certainly be a great deal of help in future negotiations with Don Javier, if you are who I think you are. Now drop that dagger,” he demanded gruffly.