Four Winds (River of Time California, Book 2)

by Lisa T. Bergren

  I looked down the beach and wanted to cry. The four men had set down their heavy load and were returning to us, all drawing weapons. I dropped my knife.

  “You should have stayed where we had left you,” said one of the pirates to the Ventura guard. And then he drew his sword, whirled, and practically cut the man’s head from his body.

  I gasped as blood sprayed across my face and chest, nauseatingly warm at first, then quickly chilled by the breeze. I turned and vomited, and as I did so, I heard them murder the second Ventura guard. I threw up again, not daring to look.

  My stomach empty, I rose and looked at my captor for the first time—and by the way the other men gave him sway, I assumed he was the captain. He had long, straight black hair and creamy skin the color of café con leche, not as dark as the rest of his crew. Pointing the gun at my chest, he lackadaisically looked me over from head to toe and back again, a slow smile lifting the corners of his mouth—as if he’d just captured a rival’s trophy. I supposed he was handsome, in a way, nearly as big as Javier and with sculpted cheeks, a long, straight nose, and full lips. There was a dimple in the cleft of his chin. But in that moment, I thought I’d never seen anyone uglier in my life.

  “You…murderer,” I seethed, hands clenched. I was aware of the others, moving in on me from all sides, just waiting for their boss’s order to grab me.

  “Me han llamado peor,” he continued in perfect Spanish. They’ve called me worse. “And I tried to leave two alive, to demonstrate that I am not a complete villain. Did you not—?”

  I used his momentary distraction to shove upward, grabbing hold of the gun with one hand and ramming my fist into his throat with the other, hard enough to make him let go. The gun went off, and the other men hesitated, as if stunned that a girl could do such a thing. As the captain staggered backward, clutching his throat and gasping for breath, I swung my body, lifted my skirts and roundhouse-kicked the nearest man, my boot connecting with his jaw and sending him reeling. I cocked the heavy gun again—one bullet left—and fired at the man barreling toward me.

  I turned my head before I saw the bullet’s results, confident that it had to be a crippling blow, if not lethal. Another man grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms against my chest as he pulled me toward him. I managed to wriggle my left arm free, reached behind me, and grabbed his nose, tearing away the soft flesh at his nostrils. He screamed and flung me away.

  But the next man tackled me, driving the breath from my lungs. I was just thinking about a move in which I might be able to get my leg up and in front of his neck—if it weren’t for my cursed skirts—when he lifted a fist and belted me across the cheek.

  I felt the blow as if I were outside my body. I recognized the pain, but it was distant. And my last thought as I lost consciousness was this: I’m sorry, Javier. Mateo. So, so sorry.

  I felt the rise and fall of waves before my other senses finally helped me figure out where I might be. Slowly I lifted my head. It was throbbing so hard, I could barely open my eyes.

  I was at sea. As in, on-board-a-ship at sea.

  “Ahh, there you are, my dear. At last,” said the captain, stroking my cheek, making me wince from the pain there, even though his touch was light.

  I forced my eyes open. Or one eye, actually. The other refused to open—because it was swollen shut? I struggled to remember what had happened. But as I blinked, I saw that I faced an enraged, red-faced, and gagged Javier, bound in a chair across the table from me. And to my side was Mateo, similarly bound but unconscious.

  Slowly, I took stock of my situation. I was in a chair, bound heavily around the chest, wrists, waist, and feet. Totally immobile. My head began to throb at twice its previous beat.

  I struggled against the scratchy ropes for a sec, which seemed to amuse the captain. Then I tried to yell at him and realized I was gagged, a filthy rag held in my mouth by a band around my head.

  Recognizing the disgusting, salty taste of someone’s sweat, I began to choke. The captain watched me a moment, waited until Javier began to rock his chair in agitation and fury, until he casually reached forward and untied my gag. I spit out the wad in my mouth, retching for a moment, dizzy. I gasped, regained my composure, and sat up straight, closing my eyes and forcing myself to breathe slowly. Get a grip, Zara. Think. Think!

  I felt his finger along my jawline. “She is lovely, is she not, Don Javier? Pity my man had to punch her to bring her down. She is rather…feisty.” He began to circle us, arms folded. “It shall be something of a challenge to keep her from further harm unless she chooses to be more docile. How much is she worth to you, Don Javier, if I return her to you unharmed?”

  I blinked and stared up and over at him as he moved to Mateo, trying to pull four images into one. “Or how much is your little brother’s life worth?” he asked, waving to Mateo’s inert form. He was still unconscious, his head lolling down against his chest. “It must eat at you, thoughts of your elder brother, dead and gone, and now this one, so near to his own death…”

  “What did you do to Mateo?” I spat out, my voice raspy and dry, wanting nothing more than to end his taunting of Javier.

  The pirate captain glanced back at me before studying Mateo again, as if appraising artwork in a museum. A curiosity. “The boy thought he might be a hero,” he said, glancing back at me over his shoulder as he continued to pace in a circle around us. “Let’s just say he’s young yet.”

  My eyes met Javier’s.

  I’m sorry. So sorry, I said to him silently. If I had done what he’d asked—gone home, rather than stay and try to fight—well, he and Mateo might have still been captured, but I would likely not have been a part of the stakes.

  He frowned, but his whole expression was protective rage. Love. Worry.

  Which encompassed me, warmed me, in a way.

  “And you—Señorita Zara Ruiz, I take it? You, my dear, have cost me. Two men dead. Injuries to two others.” He refused to admit that I’d hurt him, too, but I saw him lift a hand to his collar and pull the starched edge away from a purpling bruise.

  I wanted to laugh.

  “Who are you?” I said, my voice still raspy.

  “I am Captain Santiago Mendoza,” he said, waving a small circle in the air as he gave me a courtly bow. “I’d kiss your hand,” he added, rising, a wry look in his dark eyes, “but well, you recognize my difficulty in that.”

  My skin crawled as he slowly perused me again, one inch at a time. I knew it was a scare tactic. Menacing, a threat somehow, to Javier, more than me. When his eyes returned to mine, I was staring straight at Javier. It will be okay. Somehow, some way, it will be okay, I willed him to know.

  Because something in me, in spite of these crazy odds, told me it was so.

  Had God brought me back a couple of centuries to fall in love with a man and his family, only to die at the hands of a pirate?

  No way.

  The knowledge of it sent a surge of adrenaline through me and I lifted my chin.

  But Javier stared back at me with nothing but fear and righteous, impotent rage.

  Which made me feel the same, of course.

  “What is it that you want, Captain Mendoza?” I rasped out.

  Wordlessly, he poured a cup of wine and brought it to me, obviously recognizing that my throat was killing me.

  I accepted a sip, desperate to ease the pain in my throat, but I soon felt the tart wine fill my mouth to the full and slop out the corners of my mouth and down my cheeks, chin, and neck. He laughed. I gulped, trying to stay ahead of the flow, feeling the wine continuing to flow down my neck and drench the bodice of my gown.

  Captain Mendoza pulled the empty cup away at last as I panted for breath and glared up at him. His expression of delight didn’t change in the face of my anger.

  Javier was rocking again, infuriated, wrenching at his bonds.

  Captain Mendoza looked…thoughtful. As if he were testing me, trying to figure me out.

  I swallowed hard and wished I coul
d get free and teach him what came of such disrespect. I hated him with an intensity that made me tremble. How could someone be so horrible?

  Then he turned his thoughtful gaze upon Javier and resumed his circuit around the three of us, hands clasped behind his back. “You asked what I want, Señorita,” he said, as if still trying to figure out his demands, when it was more than clear that he’d long since determined them. “As near as I can fathom it, the vast reach of Rancho de la Ventura is at my fingertips,” he said, pausing to lift my chin and look over at Javier for a long moment. Then he moved on to Mateo, grabbed hold of his dark curls, and roughly raised his head.

  Mateo stirred, squinted, and squirmed, starting to rise to consciousness.

  “Free Javier’s gag,” I said to the captain. “This is his deal to make, not mine.”

  Mendoza considered me. Behind him, I saw the swing of the light on a chain, moving in an arc with the waves. All at once, I became aware of the creak of the timbers all around us, the thrum and energy of sails unfurled. The washing sound of water moving past, surging with each wave, deep enough to make us all lean one way and then the other.

  We weren’t simply at sea; we were on the move. Away from Rancho Ventura. Farther with each wave.

  How long had we been at sea? How far were we from home?

  Home, I acknowledged internally. Rancho de la Ventura.

  The captain moved to free Javier’s gag, and he spit out the rag from his mouth.

  He turned away when Mendoza offered him a cup of wine, sneering in his direction. “When I am free—”

  “When you are free,” the captain easily interjected, resuming his pacing around us, “you and I shall sup on occasion as good friends. Perhaps even accept a friendly wager? I hear of your fondness for a hand of cards. But for now, Don Javier, you are not free, and these are the terms of my demands…”

  We waited, the three of us—the gradually rousing Mateo, Javier, and me. Surrounded by four burly, armed guards in the shadows—my brain finally took them in—beyond the pacing captain.

  “I am going to set you free, in a rowboat, to make your way to shore and back to the rancho to collect the same sum you handed to the presidio scum. That is my price for your precious little brother,” he said, miming an arc across Mateo’s throat with Javier’s own dagger. “And as for this sweet, intriguing creature…” He lifted my chin with the cool flat of the blade.

  I stared only at Javier.

  “I take it she has stolen your heart? This girl, whom no one knows?”

  “Verda deramente,” Javier whispered, staring back at me, pledging his love with those two words in a way that I didn’t think any other might ever match. Indeed.

  He hadn’t had to say it, admit it. But he had.

  “Be wary of women without roots,” Mendoza said with a humorless laugh. “There is a reason that our mothers wanted to know those who might lure our hearts—and their kin.”

  “I know all that I need to know,” Javier said softly, still looking only at me. As if…as if he might never get the chance to say it again. My heart lurched.

  “Well then,” Mendoza said wryly, “her freedom shall cost you another chest of gold.”

  Javier’s eyes moved to Mendoza, deadly still a moment. “I shall not give you two chests of gold for these two, Mendoza. I shall give you four.”

  “Javier!” I gasped.

  “Four,” he repeated. “But you shall deliver them to me in Monterey. Unharmed. Unmolested,” he emphasized, looking to Mendoza with a deadly intensity that sent a shiver down my back. “And I shall never see you or your crew again. Ever. We shall not sup together or play cards. The next time I see you shall be the last time.”

  The captain cast him a wry grin, brows lifting. “Four chests of gold when I asked for but two? Clearly, you are not the gambler that others said you were,” he scoffed.

  “You, Captain,” Javier said, staring at him with a sneer, “have no idea who I am and what threat I might be. Harm either of these two, and I shall hunt you down. Destroy you. No, kill you…in a slow, exacting measure,” he growled.

  “Such grand talk!” Captain Mendoza scoffed. “May I remind you that it is I who hold your loved ones’ lives in the balance? To say nothing of what might transpire for your widowed mother, sisters, and brother, far behind us? Ahh, yes, Señor Ventura, I am well aware of all who hold your heart. We dropped anchor and took much of what you had. What would keep us from taking the rest?”

  I closed my eyes again, unable to combat the fear of what I might have brought down on those I loved, by not doing what Javier had asked me to do. But only part of that thought turned in my head and heart.

  Those I loved.

  I loved them.

  Not just Javier. But Estie. Francesca. Jacinto. Mateo. Doña Elena.

  I loved them as my own.

  My own family.

  And Javier?

  As I stared at him, I couldn’t imagine him gone. Away from me. It baffled me that I had ever been ready to leave him for my own time. What had I been thinking?

  It came to mind, then, my third wish. Adventure.

  My blood was pulsing at a faster rate than I could ever remember. Okay, God, maybe this is a bit too much adventure.

  Somehow we had to get out of this. Some way.

  Because this love that I felt for Javier, for his family, couldn’t end here or now.

  And I didn’t want to leave his side. Not ever again.

  “Bring them,” the captain grunted to his men over his shoulder with a casual wave of his hand. “Bring all of them to the deck.”

  CHAPTER 3

  ZARA

  Two men, about my height but twice as wide and strong, untied me and hauled me out of the captain’s quarters and onto the deck. Two others brought Mateo. I squinted, trying to see the shoreline as night closed in. They were shoving Javier toward the rail and then worked on his bindings.

  “What? You can’t send him to shore now!” I said, trying to wrench away from the iron grip of my captors. “Not at this hour! Not on these seas!”

  The captain glanced back at me. “If we wait until morn, your man will have even farther to walk once he reaches shore,” he grunted, and waved at his men to continue their task of untying Javier.

  “But he might not make it to shore!” Mateo cried. “Do you not wish for him to get to the rancho and obtain our ransom?”

  The captain shrugged. “It would be nice, but I’ll find other means to make our kidnapping profitable, if Don Ventura fails us. We secured a fine sum from the Ventura storehouse in the harbor.” He moved over to Mateo. “You, my boy, might have the makings of a sailor in you.” He eyed me, arms folded. “And you, my dear…” A wicked grin split his face.

  Mateo, enraged by his disrespect, tore free of the sailors’ hold on him and barreled into the captain. The captain almost lost his footing but then succeeded in turning to the side and sending Mateo sprawling across a heap of rope. The boy fell headlong and then rolled off to the side. The crew erupted in laughter. Mateo gathered himself, as if to spring at the captain again, but two sailors took a firmer grip on both of his arms.

  “You’ll receive ten lashes for that attempt,” the captain growled. “I shall suffer no disrespect upon my own ship.” He gestured to the crew with his chin. “Tie him up.”

  It was Javier’s turn to try and charge him, but he only succeeded in getting one arm free of his captors, and two burly men stood between him and the captain, arms folded. “You promised that you would not harm my brother and Zara,” he grit out, straining toward Mendoza, the veins in his neck bulging.

  The captain let out a scoffing laugh. “You promised me two additional chests of gold if I didn’t. I made no promises of my own. And these two will get no better treatment than anyone else on my ship. If they fail to obey me—or dare to try and attack me again—they will get exactly what my men would get. Punishment. Now, off with you, Don Ventura. Before you are hopelessly lost at sea.”

  Jav
ier was pushed to the rail again. “Do me the decency of allowing me to say farewell.”

  The captain scoffed. “Nonsense. On with it. A lack of farewell shall make your reunion all the sweeter, no?” He lifted his chin to his men. “Now get him down to that rowboat. If he resists any further, toss him overboard.”

  “Captain Mendoza!” Javier shouted.

  But the captain ignored him, turned, and strode to me. He took hold of my arm and wrenched me along, away from Javier. I looked back, desperate to catch one last glimpse of him, but Javier was alternately fighting the men and trying to keep his hold on the rail as he climbed over. I thought about using my self-defense moves—it would be easy enough to escape the captain’s grip—but then what? We were a good mile offshore, and I was in long skirts. Even if I helped Javier and Mateo get free and made it to the edge, I couldn’t swim that far, especially in a dress. And there was no guarantee we could secure a rowboat.

  Mateo was shouting, struggling, but the men were doing as the captain had said—lashing him to the mast. I heard them tear his shirt away, taunting him, as the captain opened his cabin door and thrust me inside. “Stay here, my dear. I shall return to you shortly.”

  Then he slammed the door in my face. I could hear his muffled orders, setting guards outside. I began to pace the small cabin, trying to think, trying to figure out what Mateo and I would do without Javier. Without Javier.

  I scurried to the tiny window, the ancient glass too mottled to see more than odd forms beyond it. Javier. He was going. He might already be gone. Gone. The thought of it made my heart ache. My breath came out in panicked gasps.

  I leaned my forehead against the glass and closed my eyes. What was happening? What on earth had I gotten myself into? This was way over my head. Way beyond anything I’d ever even thought I might have to deal with.

  Gangs on the street at home? Check.

  Boys thinking they were all that and making a play for me? Check.

  Life on my own as an eighteen-year-old? Check.