Four Winds (River of Time California, Book 2)

by Lisa T. Bergren

Adalia covered my hand with his. “Most likely. But it can only be brief pangs of regret that they are not here to experience the best day of his life alongside him. You should have seen him this morning, Zara. He couldn’t stop smiling! He danced around the library with Alvaro in his arms!”

  “Danced? My Javier?” I knew he was a good dancer, but he usually was pretty formal around the house.

  “Danced,” she confirmed with delight. “I’ve never seen him so happy. You have brought him, and this family, much joy in agreeing to be his bride.”

  “No more than they have brought me.” I reached over and grabbed Alvaro as he stood up and toddled recklessly toward the edge. “Now if only you two returned to the rancho, all would be perfect.” I kissed Alvaro in the soft folds of fat at his neck and he laughed—and we laughed with him. Was there any better sound than a little one giggling like crazy? It was pure delight to my ears.

  “It has been good for me to be at home, with my own family,” Adalia said carefully. “But it is grand to be with you here too. It is difficult, being pulled in two different directions, is it not?”

  I glanced at her, wondering for a moment if she knew. Knew exactly what this decision meant for me. But she only peered back at me, all innocence. “More than you know,” I said. “It took me a long while to decide if I could promise Javier—and this family—my forever.”

  “I’m glad you took that time. It was wise. And I’m very glad that we are to be sisters.”

  I kissed Alvaro’s neck one more time, eliciting one last giggle, and then handed him to his mother as she rose to go.

  “Time to get your nephew in his finest for the ceremony,” Adalia said with a wink.

  Your nephew, echoed in my mind, as she quietly shut the door behind her. Not only had I gained sisters and brothers, but there would be children too. It hadn’t struck me before, but my wish for a family—with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews—was about to finally come true. Forever.

  The stately Doña Elena arrived at the end of the day, as Francesca unwound my curls from the rags, still a bit damp. Elena was dressed in her finest green gown, her own hair in curls and pinned high on her head, with a tiny green hat atop. She carried a comb covered in fresh flowers—roses and more from the garden—that she’d attached to it. It looked a little wilted, but it was beautiful. A gift.

  I lifted it to my face and inhaled the sweet scent. “Doña Elena, it is so pretty,” I said. “Gracias.”

  “Not Doña Elena any longer,” she returned, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Only Elena. Or…” she paused, as if wondering if she could really dare, “Mama Elena, if it pleases you.”

  I swallowed hard. I knew that Adalia called her Mama Elena. All my life, I’d never had a mother. An abuela—a dear, wonderful woman, for sure. But never a mama.

  “I think I shall call you Mama Elena, if that is well with you,” I said.

  She smiled, and I counted all the wrinkles as joy. She was glad I was here, truly glad, no matter what troublesome reality I’d brought with me.

  “It is time, my dear,” she said, nodding past the table full of uneaten food the maids had brought to me throughout the day by the window, to the sinking sun, then back to me. “Today you become a Ventura, and forever will be a part of us.”

  I laid my hand on hers—still on my shoulder—and looked up at her. “I think…I think there’s a part of me that thinks I’ve always been a part of your family.”

  Her brown eyes settled on mine, and she gave me a single, firm nod, understanding as only a fellow time-traveler could. “I know this feeling. To be so out of place, and yet home at the same time.” She squeezed my shoulder. “It eases, in time. I promise.”

  I gave her hand a final squeeze, and then she left me to finish dressing.

  I arrived in Adalia’s rented carriage, and I really did feel like a Disney princess at times—when, you know, I wasn’t getting choked by dust or bounced out of my seat by road bumps. By the time we reached Tainter Cove, Centinela making wide, loping loops about us, my head buzzed with excitement.

  This is happening, I thought. It’s real. Not a dream. I’m getting married. Married! I pictured the word in my mind. Eighteen years old and married? Yeah, that wasn’t what I’d imagined. Ever. I was supposed to be off to college, chasing down the study of clouds and rain.

  But as I lifted my skirts and climbed down the two steps of the carriage, staring into the sun, low above the water, I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Rafael, also dressed in his finest, bowed and offered me his hand, as well as a grin of appraising approval, looking me over from head to foot. “You, my dear,” he said, “look ravishing.”

  “As do you,” I murmured, grinning as I moved past him, knowing I’d shocked him.

  He hurried forward to catch up to me, blocking my view of the rest of the beach—and anyone from seeing me. “My friend thought you might like to begin your approach here, where he first found you?”

  I dropped my hand from his arm when we reached firm, damp sand and made a slow circle on the far side of the big boulders. The rocks blocked me from the rest of the beach, where I knew the others—and Javier—awaited me. “Yes, yes, this is perfect.” I could feel the prick of tears behind my eyes. It was almost like standing in the back of a church, waiting for that moment when you saw your groom at last…and he saw you.

  “Now,” he said, voice low in soft, comforting, mock-chastisement. “None of that.” He straightened. “All is well?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled, wiping my nose as I did another slow turn among the rocks, thinking about how far I’d come, what I’d experienced, what I’d learned.

  And how much there was to come.

  He left me, and then there was Mateo, looking like a fine young man in his starched shirt, long, dark coat, and breeches tucked into polished boots. His hands were behind him. “Javier thought…” he began uncertainly. “In light of the fact that your own father is not here to attend you…” He turned his head away and stroked the nape of his neck, before straightening, settling his mouth in determination. “That is…Zara, may I have the honor of escorting you to your groom?”

  His mouth quirked in a grin as he glanced over his shoulder to the corner of the boulder. “Are you ready?”

  I nodded, my heart pounding, suddenly not feeling ready at all. But then we rounded the rocks and I looked across the expanse of sand…to the center where Javier, his friends and family, and a small, homely priest stood waiting. I knew the guy had to be thinking of the church in Santa Barbara, or the Ventura villa and grounds, but me? To me, this was perfection.

  I focused on Javier, looking like something out of a magazine, with his shoulders back, chin up, dark curls waving in the wind. He was in a crisp white shirt, cropped black jacket, new breeches that disappeared into polished black boots.

  “Yes, Mateo,” I breathed. “I think I’m ready to get married.” To be with Javier.

  Ready to get married, was what echoed through my brain, as I wrapped my hand around his arm.

  We began the walk along the sand, skirting the incoming waves by a few feet. At one point, I paused, bent, unlaced and pulled off my boots, ignoring Doña Elena’s chagrined face, concentrating only on Javier’s. But I could tell he knew how much I wanted to feel the cold, wet grains between my toes, to remind myself of the first day I’d met him, but also that this, today, right now, was real too.

  I reached him at last and he offered his wide, warm palms to me. I settled my own in his, and looked into his eyes, and beyond to his family and friends, and then over my shoulder to the setting sun…knowing that I promised him not only my heart, but also my present, my future, my forever.

  And for the first time, that thought didn’t make my heart beat twice as fast.

  Instead, all I felt was peace.

  EPILOGUE

  MODERN DAY

  Dante passed the public-access parking lot and then got down to unlock the chain while Gramps silently wait
ed on his horse, wrists crossed on the saddle horn. When it was open, Gramps urged his mare through the gap, pulling Dante’s horse along too by the reins, then waited for the boy to chain up the passage again. It was after visiting hours to the site, but Gramps was strict about such things.

  Dante used a big rock to climb back atop his horse and followed Gramps farther into the narrow canyon, entering the area of the fossil-covered cliffs that were usually out-of-bounds to the general public. It was their favorite place to ride.

  Gramps took a big breath as they moved into the cool shadows of the canyon, the nearby freeway noise fading away, the deeper they got. Dante looked up, watching swallows dart back and forth above. It was nice and cool in here too, a break from the intense California heat that seemed to hold even after sunset.

  Dante expected to take their usual path that wound up and up, until you came out on top, where you could see all of Rancho de la Ventura, the nearby cities, all the way to the beach. But instead, Gramps pulled up and wearily dismounted.

  “Gramps?”

  The old man just gave him a small smile and motioned for him to dismount with his paw-like hands, weathered and thick with arthritis. Obediently, Dante followed after him. Gramps was already ducking under another chain, climbing up and among the rocks, then squeezing through such a narrow passage that his grandson worried he’d get stuck. But he didn’t.

  There were more fossils. Everywhere. Curlicues and clams and fish skeletons and crabs…

  Dante’s hands grazed past both flat rock—blasted smooth by wave and wind, he supposed—and rough, newly exposed rock. Gramps paused across from a small cave, and placing a hand on the edge, bent down and gestured to it to his grandson.

  The boy squatted and looked, checking out a section where fossils had obviously been removed, the lines square. He hunched there, in the shade, looking at the expanse, wondering what had been there, and who had taken them. Then, in the top right, he saw something.

  He edged closer, trying to make out the letters scratched into the rock.

  Zara was here, he thought it said. 6-12-1840

  He shook his head and looked to his grandfather. “Whoa,” he said. “1840?”

  Gramps smiled. “1840, yes. And Zara de la Ventura was your great-great-great-great…” He straightened and rubbed his forehead. “Well, just say she was your great-grandmother, times six or seven.”

  Dante looked back to the ancient graffiti. “My great-great-grandmother?”

  “Yes. And mine,” Gramps said, hooking a thumb to his chest. “She was quite a woman. Some said she was born ahead of her time. She was even kidnapped by pirates and survived a shipwreck.”

  “Pirates!” Dante exclaimed, having a hard time believing he’d never heard this story before. “What happened?”

  “Well, the ship went down around Point Ruina, and Mateo—Zara’s brother-in-law—and she survived. Two of only four to do so.”

  “Whoosh,” Dante said, “that was lucky.”

  “Real lucky,” he said, taking a seat on a nearby rock. “Some said that God seemed to smile on her, all her life through. It was because of her that her husband, Javier de la Ventura, was able to preserve as much of the ranch as he could. A lot has been sold over the years, through the generations. But for us to have what we have now today?” He took off his hat and wiped his brow, then shook his head. “That’s a definite miracle.”

  Dante nodded. This was a part of the story he’d heard a hundred times. “What about the pirates? Two survived? What happened to them?”

  Gramps squinted, as if trying to squeeze out the memory. “Well, I’m not quite sure about the one, but the other was the captain. And he was caught and hanged a few years later in Monterey.”

  “Huh,” Dante said, turning back to look at Zara’s inscription. 1840. More than 175 years ago. “Was it her that took these fossils?”

  “Best as I can tell,” Gramps said. He fished in his old vest pocket and brought out a beautiful spiral-shell fossil and handed it to the boy. Dante had never seen one that was so crisply perfect. “These have come down through the family over the generations. They say they came from right here, ‘Zara’s Rock.’ Some have gone missing over the years, and there are just two left, that I know of. I want you to have mine, Dante. If you remember a few things.”

  “Wow, thanks, Gramps,” Dante said, running a finger over each dip of the shell. His little sister was going to be so jealous. Mining for fossils here was off-limits anymore. The canyon was special, and preserving it without further harm was always the rule. So to get one from here…

  “Will you remember, Dante? Me and those who came before me? It’s special what we have here, boy. So much family, within reach. Acres of land to farm and run cattle. Someday, you’ll find a girl to love, and introduce her to it. Discover a little adventure together,” he added with a wink.

  “Gramps,” Dante winced. A girl? Maybe someday. But now? Ewww…

  Gramps laughed under his breath, rose and patted him on the shoulder. “Trust me. Someday you’ll want a girl to love you as much as you love her. And a ranching kind of girl because you like it, right, boy?”

  “Like it? I love it. I never want to be anywhere else.”

  “That’s my boy,” Gramps said, standing straight and tall again. “That’s my boy. Now let’s head home, Dante. I think I can smell dinner on the stove from here.”

  AUTHOR NOTES

  Historically speaking, there really has not been any piracy of note in California waters, other than the mission-raiders mentioned in the text; Mendoza and his crew were entirely a figment of my imagination. I took a little fictional license in getting our characters back and forth between the Central Coast and Monterey—using my best guess in terms of time it would take to travel, but knowing I was stretching here and there for the sake of the story. Ranchos in the time really did sprawl across hundreds of thousands of acres, and many of the original settlers failed to hold on to their property when California entered the Union.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to Paul Hawley, Rachelle Cobb, and Hannah Donor for their editing skills. Also big thanks to my committed-reader/proofers: Staci Murden, Andrew and Debbie Spadzinski, Julie Schmidt, Tawny Moore and Sharon Miles. My husband, Tim, helped me typeset the book, and Kerry Nietz helped me get it into e. I wouldn’t have started this duology (Three Wishes and Four Winds) were it not for my rabid River Tribe readers—I’ll love each of you forever, as well as your passion for time-slip stories! Thank you, thank you to each of you.

  WHAT’S NEXT??

  Beginning to release April 2018 with Bethany House…

  The Sugar Baron’s Daughters, a trilogy set in 1770s West Indies (Caribbean). Revolution, pirates, vast sugar plantations, untold riches, unspeakable hardship and tragedy…it’s what I’m writing now! In the meantime, I hope you’ll look up one of my older books and follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or the web!

  My web site: LisaTBergren.com (you can sign up for my quarterly e-newsletter there too!)

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