by Kaki Warner
“I’ve loved Elena since I was seven years old.”
She looked up to find Jack leaning against a boulder several feet away, staring down at them with a pensive look. She didn’t respond. She didn’t want to talk about Elena. Jack owed her no explanations, and she certainly didn’t want to hear any.
But he continued, unmindful of her pain, his gaze focused inward, his voice flat and distant.
And she listened.
“She was six and her brother Sancho was using a whip on her. Brady stopped him. No one had ever stood up for her before, not even her own father, and from that moment on, Brady was her hero.” He smiled ruefully. “I wanted her to look at me like that. I wanted to be the one to save her. But Brady was there first. He always was. In everything.”
Daisy didn’t want to hear this. But she didn’t ask him to stop. She sensed Jack was revealing a part of himself he had probably never shown anyone else, and perhaps if she had the courage to listen, she might understand the hold Elena had on him.
Bending over, he picked up a pinyon cone. With his folding knife, he dug out a seed and set it on the boulder near his shoulder, then dug for another. “For years I thought there was something special between them. There was—there still is. But not in the way I thought. I didn’t realize that until Jessica came.”
Motion caught her eye, and Daisy watched a small striped ground squirrel inch across the top of the boulder toward the seed.
“At first I figured Brady was using them both,” Jack went on. “We almost came to blows over it. But he denied there had ever been anything between him and Elena, that she was like a sister.”
The squirrel grabbed the seed and skittered out of sight.
Jack put another in its place. “I didn’t believe him at first. I thought maybe Elena wouldn’t have him and he was just making excuses. Then I saw the way he looked at Jessica. It was different from the way he looked at Elena. And I thought, ‘Here’s my chance.’ I could take her to San Francisco to get her hip fixed, care for her during her operation and recovery, and be her hero at last. I could win what Brady couldn’t.”
Daisy frowned, trying to understand. Was this about Elena, or a rivalry with his brother?
Having dug out all the seeds, he tossed the pinecone away, scooped the seeds into his hand, and rested his upturned palm on the rock.
“Hank said something to me the other night. It didn’t make sense at first, like most of what Hank says, but I’ve thought about it a lot and I think I understand what he meant.”
The squirrel appeared again, saw Jack’s outstretched hand, and froze.
“He said if a man has feelings for a woman, he should know why. So I’ve been asking myself... do I want Elena because I love her? Or to prove to Brady I’m the better man?”
Daisy wondered the same thing but said nothing.
The squirrel inched forward, its tail flicking, its nose twitching. Moving in fits and starts, it skittered to Jack’s hand, grabbed a seed, then scampered out of sight. Another poor creature charmed by Jack Wilkins.
“And your answer?” she asked, trying not to hope.
He dumped the remaining seeds onto the rock then dusted his hands. His gaze met Daisy’s and in his eyes she saw doubt and confusion, and maybe sadness. “I’ve loved her since I was seven,” he said again. “But I never slept with her and I hardly ever kissed her. I’m not sure why.”
Disappointment left a bitter taste on her tongue. “And you think marrying me will provide an answer?”
For a long time Jack didn’t reply. “I think we suit, Daisy,” he finally said. “I think Kate needs us both. And I think we can make this work.”
And what of love?
Beside her, Kate began to stir. Reaching out, Daisy gently stroked her daughter’s cheek to reassure her as she awoke. Anger and resentment seeped out in a long sigh. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever would. Elena would forever be the perfect, unattainable, unrequited love, and Daisy would be ... what? Jack’s consolation prize? The woman who waved him off on his adventures and patiently waited for his return? Was she to give up her dream of singing for so little?
“I know you mean well, Jack. You always do. And I know you care for Kate. But a child is a forever thing, not something you can lavish attention on one moment then ignore the next. She needs an everyday father, and you’re not suited to that. You want to travel the world. So do it.” Picking up Kate, she rose, shook out the shawl, and threw it over her shoulder. She turned to face him so he could see the determination in her eyes. “Gamble, drink, pine over Elena, or chase after women to your heart’s content. Do what you do, Jack. We’ll be fine without you.”
“Then why are you here, Daisy?” he challenged. “If things were so fine, why did you come begging for money?”
Heat rushed into her face. “I didn’t come begging! I thought you might want to help your daughter.”
Kate whimpered, blinking sleepy eyes against the harsh words and bright sunlight. Clutching her tightly, Daisy started down the path.
Jack fell into step beside her. “I don’t want to fight with you, Daisy,” he said in a low voice so he wouldn’t alarm Kate. “And I don’t know how I feel about Elena right now. But I do know I want you and Kate in my life, so don’t expect me to let you go without a fight.”
“You’re wasting your time. I won’t marry you.”
“I can be pretty persistent.”
She whipped around to face him. “Why? Is it just the chase then?”
His eyes narrowed in confusion. “What chase?”
“Think about it, Jack.” Wrapping both arms around Kate so she wouldn’t give in to the urge to punch some sense into his hard head, Daisy asked, “Why did you want Elena? Because you thought Brady did. Why did you run off to sea? Because after you got what you wanted from me, you lost interest. And now you’re after me again. Why? Because I won’t have you. With you, the chase is everything.”
As she spoke, his face had flushed to an angry red. “You’re wrong. I’m not that kind of man.”
“Aren’t you?” She gave a brittle laugh, all the hurt she had hoarded over the last three years pressing against her throat. “If I said yes, what would you do? Run off on another adventure and leave me and Kate behind, that’s what. Face it, Jack. You’re no more the marrying kind than I’m the waiting-around kind.”
She started to turn away when he grabbed her shoulders. Pulling her toward him, he brought his mouth down on hers.
Daisy froze, hardly aware of Kate wiggling between them. Hurt died as old yearnings arose in a hot, shivery rush. Long-suppressed need flooded her body even as her mind struggled to resist. Not again, she thought in panic as she felt herself sinking into the magic that was Jack Wilkins. Never again. With a gasp, she pulled back, knowing if she didn’t stop this now, she would be lost forever.
“That’s why I’m after you,” he said in a strained voice. “It’s still there, what we had. You felt it too. Admit it.”
“Titty too.” Kate thrust her kitty in Jack’s face. “Kiss Titty.”
“W-What? Ah ... sure.” Befuddlement fading into amusement, he kissed the bedraggled toy, then Kate, then went for Daisy again.
“No.” She brushed a shaking hand over her face, as if that might rid her of the feelings still coursing through her. Thank God Kate had interrupted them. Daisy was still shaking inside. “I won’t let you do that to me again, Jack.”
His smoky eyes seemed to darken. A slow smile split his face. “Oh, I’ll definitely do it to you again, Daisy,” he said in a voice caught somewhere between desire and menace. “I’ll do it until your eyes roll up in your head, then I’ll rest up and do it again. Count on it.”
“I MUST GO, QUERIDO.”
Brady looked up from his breeder’s journal to see Elena standing in the doorway of his office. Immediately he rose and crossed to her. Waving aside her protests, he took her arm and led her to one of the chairs in front of his desk.
She felt brittle in his grip. He
r face looked tired and drawn, but against the severe black of her habit, it still seemed too beautiful to be real. Almost unearthly, like one of those religious paintings he had seen when Jessica had dragged him to a museum in England.
“Go where?” he asked, once he’d helped her into the chair.
“Where I belong. Back to my sisters in the abbey.”
He wanted to argue with her, tell her she belonged here too. But he no longer believed that. Even though he still saw in her a shadow of the little girl he had rescued from Sancho’s whip all those years ago, the Elena he had protected for the last quarter century was in other hands now, hands more powerful than his.
Moving back behind his desk, he settled once more in his chair. “Because of Jack. That’s why you’re leaving, isn’t it?”
“I leave because it is time to begin the work God has given me to do.”
He hated all this pious talk. It stifled logic and argument and half his vocabulary. But he didn’t say anything, since they’d been through this already. Twice. And he’d lost both times. For such a gentle, meek woman, Elena could be as unyielding as stone. “When?”
“Soon. But before I go, I must speak to you of my concerns.”
“About Jack.” Conversations with Elena always came around to Jack.
“And about you. You must mend this rift between you.”
Brady blinked in surprise. “What rift? There’s no rift.”
Elena gave him a look of exasperation he was sure she never let loose in the abbey. “For as long as I have known the two of you, there has been anger between you. If you do not end it, querido, it will cost you this brother too.”
“Anger about what?” Brady thought he’d done a good job of keeping his temper in check. He’d barely berated Jack for his long absence and failure to write. He hadn’t asked his brother for money, although admittedly, he hadn’t told him about the money he and Hank had set aside for him out of the mine profits either. Other than the one time, he hadn’t called him to accounts over Daisy and Kate, and had been careful not to badger Jack about how long he’d be staying. He figured he’d been damn near saintly about the whole thing.
“You are too hard on him,” Elena said. “You are pushing him away.”
“If he leaves, it’ll be by his decision, not mine.”
“But you have taught him to do so. You make him think he is not important, that he has no place in your life, so why should he stay?”
“Of course he’s important, Elena. He’s my little brother.”
“Ves? That is what I mean.” She sighed and shook her head. “You speak of him as if he is not yet a man. As your little brother. Has he not earned the right to be more to you than that?”
“But he is my little brother.” Brady spread his hands in an encompassing gesture. “And all this—the ranch, the house, the mines, the years of endless work to carve something out of nothing—it’s for him and Hank, our wives and kids, for you and even those souls resting in the graveyard on the hill. I don’t know what else to do, Elena. So tell me. What other proof do you need that each of you, including Jack, is important to me?”
He didn’t mean to lose his temper, but he was weary of trying to justify the way he lived his life and the hard choices he’d had to make. But indignation died when he saw tears fill her eyes. Jesus, he hated it when women cried.
“Oh, Brady. Forgive me for making you think we are not grateful. You have been the rock of this family for so long. But we cannot all be like you—so strong and sure and steady. Some of us have to take a different path. But that does not mean we reject you or the life you have built for us.”
Maybe not, but sometimes it sure felt that way. “I know I may seem hard on Jack.” He gave a rueful smile. “Truth be told, I often envy him. It’s all so simple for him. So uncomplicated. And even if sometimes I want to beat the sass out of him, I admire his hardheaded independence.”
“Have you told him that?”
Brady smirked at the idea. Admitting such a thing to Jack would be like giving his wild little brother free rein to get himself into all sorts of mischief. “I know I seem a little heavy-handed at times, but I walk a thin line here, Elena, trying to keep the ranch going and my brothers safe. And believe me, it takes its toll. So much so, that sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like to ride past those mountains and never come back. But then I realize this is the work I’ve been given to do. This is what I am, and this is where I belong. I won’t apologize for that.”
“Por supuesto que no. Of course not. But let Jack seek his place, too, querido. Maybe he will find it in some faraway place, or maybe he will realize it is here at RosaRoja. But let him choose.” A stern look came over her face. “And let him choose what to do about Daisy and Kate as well. You must not force that issue either.”
Brady would make no promises on that score. He’d give Jack time to do the right thing, but if he didn’t, Brady would step in. Little Kate was part of his family now. And he looked after his family.
“And finally, hermano, you must forgive yourself.”
An unseen hand seemed to grab at his chest. He didn’t want to talk about Sam. It was old history. Almost fourteen years old. He’d learned to live with it and didn’t want it dragged out again.
“Sancho killed him, Brady. Not you.”
“Elena—”
“You gave him peace,” she cut in. “Now allow yourself that same grace.”
He sat frozen, waiting for the pain to roll over him, for that cloying guilt that never seemed to go away to rise in his throat like bile.
“Sancho killed him,” she said again.
“Let it rest, Elena. Please.”
He saw worry in her eyes, but she said no more. “Then I will pray for you, my brother. And I will never forget all that you have done for me.”
He watched tears roll down her cheeks and felt an answering sting in his own eyes. “I’ll never see you again, will I?”
“Si Dios quiere.” She gave him a watery smile. “If God wills it.”
Brady thought of the little girl with the bloody legs who had run across the courtyard and into his heart. Letting go of her, he realized, was going to be much harder than he’d ever imagined.
Fourteen
THE DAY AFTER JACK KISSED HER—KISSED HER, FOR heaven’s sake—and she let him—what was she thinking?—Daisy stepped out onto the front porch and into another beautiful day. Cloudless. Pleasantly warm. Perfect.
Then why did she feel like running from this place as fast as she could?
Because of Jack, of course. Because he had kissed her. And because she had let him and it had been every bit as wonderful as she remembered. Ninny.
Setting Kate and her basket of toys in a sunny spot near the rockers, Daisy stretched onto her toes and filled her lungs with sage-scented air. A refreshing change from San Francisco.
For one thing, the air she drew in here was so clean she couldn’t see or taste it—no coal soot or fish smell here, and no gray clouds hanging so low the world seemed wrapped in cotton batting.
The sounds were different too. Birdsong instead of foghorns, cattle lowing instead of people shouting, nights so quiet she could hear crickets chirping, and mornings so hushed that without the clatter of wagon wheels on cobblestones, she could even hear distant voices throughout the house.
Happy voices. Children laughing. The occasional song.
It didn’t feel right to her. Something was missing. Instead of calming her, all this peace and quiet only reminded her of those long, long days on the farm when she would pause in her chores to look down the road stretching away from her and wonder if she would ever know what lay at the end of it.
She missed the city. An awful thing to admit, but there it was. Despite the danger and hardship of her life in San Francisco, she missed it—the rush and bustle, the unpredictability, the vitality of so many people crowded into so many buildings doing so many different things. And the longer she stayed removed from it, the more
her energy waned. But what troubled her most was that with each passing day in this calm and peaceful place, Jack took over a little more of her heart and the dream took up a little less.
She couldn’t allow that. Singing was like breathing to her, and without it, she would die. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she stifled a sudden urge to laugh. Or cry. She wasn’t sure which and that frightened her. She was becoming an emotional fool, she realized in dismay. She had to gain control of herself, put Jack Wilkins from her mind and concentrate on getting through the next ten days.
“I think this is my favorite time of year,” a voice called.
Startled, Daisy dropped her hand and looked around to see Jessica at the other end of the porch, peering up through the railing. Grateful for the company, she walked toward her. “What are you doing down there?”
As she neared, Daisy realized Jessica was working in the flowerbed, supervising a middle-aged Mexican worker—although judging by the impatient looks he aimed at her, the Englishwoman was mostly getting in his way.
Jessica grinned up at her. “It’s always so exciting to see what has survived the winter. Rather like opening a long-awaited gift, don’t you think?”
Daisy smiled. Her Ladyship, indeed. With her vibrant tavern red hair tumbling about her shoulders, her apron muddied, and dirt smeared across her freckled cheeks, Jessica looked less like the lady of the manor than a happy, dig-in-the-dirt gardener. And Daisy liked her all the more for it.
“Are those roses?” she asked, looking over the railing at the leafless sticks poking through the dirt like grasping fingers.
Jessica beamed at her stick-plants, as proud as a new mother. “They are. Yellow, for the most part—Enrique, don’t forget to trim that one, por favor—although I’ve begun adding a white or pink here and there.”
“No red?”
Jessica pushed back a curl with a dusty glove. “There’s a red in the cemetery that Brady transplanted from this bed when he rebuilt the house.” With a dismissive shrug that was at odds, Daisy thought, with the sad look in her soft brown eyes, she added, “It was the only survivor. There was a dreadful fire, you see, that destroyed the original house and all the lovely roses.”
