Leigh
Greenwood
Someone Like You
A Night Riders Romance
LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY
For Irma Vinson. Great teachers
make all the difference.
A Whole New Woman
Maria allowed herself to kiss him back the way she’d been wanting to kiss him since the first time he’d kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her body against his, and covered his mouth with a needy eagerness.
This new Maria wasn’t afraid to acknowledge what she wanted, wasn’t reluctant to demand that she get it. She didn’t wait for Rafe to deepen their kiss, ratchet up its intensity, or decide its length. Nor did she wait for him to pull her firmly against him so she could feel the hardness of his muscles, the breadth of his chest, the strength in his arms.
She tried to reason with this new Maria, to tell her that Rafe loved her, wanted to marry her, that they would have years to explore what it meant to be together as man and wife, but the new Maria wouldn’t listen. She wanted everything, and she wanted it now.
For a moment, she could feel Rafe hesitate, but she didn’t mean to let him pull away. With slow deliberation, she dropped her arms from around his waist, reached up and placed one hand on each side of his head. She brought his face toward her and let her tongue invade his mouth.
All hesitation on Rafe’s part stopped there.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
A Whole New Woman
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Praise
Other books by Leigh Greenwood
Copyright
Chapter One
Rancho los Alamitos, California
Dolores Jerry tossed aside the embroidery frame and surged to her feet. “I can’t believe Warren made Rafe his executor,” she complained for the thousandth time in the seven months since her husband’s death. She kicked at the small dog huddled against her skirts. “I thought he hated Rafe.”
“I don’t think Warren ever hated his son.” Maria de la Guerra didn’t look up from the piece of delicate lace she’d been working on for the last five weeks. “He never said so, but I think he regretted sending Rafe away.”
“You only think that because you didn’t hear what Rafe said to him before he left,” Dolores told her sister.
Maria knew what had been said. The servants had recounted the argument to her many times over the last nine years. But Warren’s actions of the last several years caused her to believe he’d regretted throwing Rafe out of the house. He’d never mentioned Rafe’s name when Dolores was present, but Maria had often come upon him staring at a miniature of Rafe taken when he was a young boy astride his first horse. It had appeared on Warren’s bedside table after years of being hidden in a cabinet with other reminders of Rafe.
“If the letter Rafe sent the lawyer is a reflection of his present feelings, I doubt he will come home,” Maria observed.
“He’s got to come home.” Dolores threw herself down on a velvet-covered daybed. The little dog huddled against her feet. “Soon we won’t have any money to buy food.”
“It won’t come to that. The lawyer is empowered to make necessary decisions until Rafe returns.”
“That lawyer hates me. I swear it hurts him to give me my pitiful allowance. Do you know he had the nerve to suggest I use it to buy food? I barely have enough to dress myself.”
Dolores and Maria had been born into the wealthy and historically important de la Guerra family, but when their father lost his land to an upstart American who had successfully disputed the legality of their land grant, Dolores’s fiancé backed out of the engagement. The humiliation was compounded when Mrs. Jerry invited Dolores to be her companion. For a woman who’d been brought up to believe she deserved to be waited on hand and foot, being forced to become a glorified servant was the ultimate humiliation. After Mrs. Jerry’s death and Dolores’s subsequent marriage to Warren Jerry, Dolores had invited her sister to live at the ranch.
“I can use my allowance for food if necessary,” Maria volunteered.
“You don’t need to. You have control of the house hold accounts.”
Dolores had been happy to turn over the accounts and the house hold duties to her fifteen-year-old sister soon after Maria arrived, but she was furious when the lawyer wouldn’t return control of them to her after her husband’s death. I’m only following the instructions in Mr. Jerry’s will, Henry Fielder had told her.
Dolores lay back on the daybed, her arm over her eyes. “Rafe was so in love with me, he went crazy when I told him I was going to marry his father. Do you think I should marry him now that I’m free?”
Maria was used to her sister’s capriciousness, but this was a step beyond what she could accept. “After what happened, I think you should keep as far away from him as possible.”
“He’s much younger than his father and a lot better-looking.” Dolores smiled, petting the little dog who had jumped up on the daybed with her. “Besides, I like being Mrs. Jerry a lot more than the widow Jerry.”
Rafe brought his horse to a stop on a ridge overlooking the big Cíbola Creek where it dropped into the valley below. He had never forgotten this view because it was one of his favorites. Unfortunately, it brought back a bitter memory as well. It was on this spot that he’d first told Dolores he loved her.
The letter in his pocket burned like a hot coal. He wished he had never responded to the newspaper ad requesting that anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of Rafe Jerry, son of Warren Jerry, contact the law offices of Henry Fielder in Cíbola, California. He hadn’t spoken to his father since he’d walked out of his house ten years ago, yet his father had made him sole executor of a ranch he’d inherited jointly with a half brother he’d never seen. He was a thirty-year-old bachelor. What could he have in common with a nine-year-old child?
“Where is your ranch?” asked Rafe’s closest friend, Broc Kincaid. During the Civil War, Broc had served with Rafe in a cavalry unit that conducted night raids on shipments of supplies, munitions, and gold. He’d come to California with Rafe in hopes of finding Laveau di Viere, the man who’d betrayed their unit to the Yankees.
“Down there.” Rancho los Alamitos land stretched as far as Rafe could see. “Everywhere. All of it.”
Broc’s eyes grew wide. “I can see thousands of acres from here.”
“My father owned more than two hundred thousand acres.”
Broc stared dumbfounded at the fertile acres stretching into the distance until they merged with the horizon. “How could you leave all this? It’s almost as beautiful as Tennessee.”
How could he explain that he didn’t want to be heir to a ranch worth millions, that he didn’t want to be the guardian of a half brother he didn’t know, that he wanted nothing to
do with a woman who decided she’d rather be his stepmother than his wife? He’d been happy ranching in Texas with some of the other men from his cavalry unit. The work was hard, but the bunk house was comfortable, the food good, and the friendship the kind that couldn’t be bought. Why would he give that up for the responsibility of a huge ranch, an undoubtedly spoiled child, and the conniving bitch who’d broken his heart?
Rafe hadn’t told anyone that Dolores—the woman he’d once loved—had seduced his father while he was grieving over the death of his wife, or that Rafe had been thrown out of the house because he couldn’t treat his stepmother with respect. As he gazed out over the lush acres, some of the anger inside him eased. He loved this place, and that was a large part of the reason he’d come back to California. To see the ranch again. “I didn’t leave the land.”
Broc shook his head. “Must have been something really bad to make you give up this.”
“I thought so at the time.” He hadn’t changed his mind, so why had he come back? Why had he needed to come back?
“You going down there, or are we going to see if we can find any trace of Laveau?”
They had traveled up the coast of California, following the line of the old Spanish missions. They had found reports of Laveau in Monterey and San Francisco, but the traitor was always one step ahead of them.
“We’re going into town to see the lawyer first,” Rafe told Broc. “I hope he can explain why my father wrote that infernal will. When I walked out of here, I told him I never wanted to see this place again.”
“You’re his son,” Broc reminded him. “Naturally he’d want you to have your inheritance.”
Rafe had lost all desire for his inheritance ten years ago—his half brother could have it all. Rage burned hot within him. He could feel the life he’d spent ten years building for himself slipping away. He was being drawn back into a quagmire of blighted love and shattered idealism, of lust, avarice, lies…and hate.
“He has another son, one he wanted more than me.” Rafe reminded himself he wasn’t angry at the boy. Even though his creation was the source of the enmity between Rafe and his father, the child was innocent. He would not judge this child until he’d seen him. It was possible he didn’t take after his mother. “The last words my father spoke to me were to order me out of the house.”
Broc turned his horse away from the cliff overlooking the ravine. “Apparently he changed his mind. Let’s head into town.”
Henry Fielder was middle-aged, gaunt, and inhabited a law office as small and cluttered as an old maid’s closet. Clean shaven and nearly bald, he looked at Rafe out of clear, piercing blue eyes. “You can’t turn everything over to me,” he said. “The will specifically states that you, and you alone, must be executor of the estate.”
Rafe had nothing against Henry Fielder, but he had never liked lawyers. They lived in a world of their own, creating rules no one else could understand. They said these laws benefitted the average citizen, but as often as not, a man discovered what he wanted to do was the one thing he couldn’t do.
“That may be what my father wanted, but I can turn around and go back to Texas. I’m sure Dolores will pay you anything you want if you can figure out some way to get around the will.”
“First, the will states that the present Mrs. Jerry is never to have control of any portion of the ranch or its management. She has her allowance and nothing else.”
Rafe found it hard to believe that his father would make such a provision. He had loved his first wife, but Dolores had captivated him with her youth and beauty when he was grieving and vulnerable.
“If you reject the provisions of the will,” the lawyer continued, “I’m directed to sell the ranch. A portion will be set aside to increase your stepmother’s allowance tenfold. She will retain that allowance even if she should remarry. The remainder of the proceeds will be used to create a park in honor of your stepmother. You will, in essence, disinherit your brother and yourself.”
Rafe’s fury at the net his father had woven around him was so hot, he was sure his temperature had risen ten degrees. He had no doubt his father had added that provision to make sure he didn’t ignore the will and just disappear. Rafe wouldn’t care whether he lost his half of the ranch and he might not care whether he was disinheriting his brother, but his father knew Rafe would do what ever was necessary to prevent the creation of anything that honored the whore who’d become his stepmother.
A question gradually penetrated his rage, a question he’d asked before, but which now assumed added significance: What had happened to cause his father to make such a will? As much as he wanted nothing to do with Dolores or his half brother, he needed to know what had changed.
“Why?”
A veil dropped over the lawyer’s eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t fence with me. This is the opposite of what I expected. You’ve got to have some idea what caused him to change his mind.”
The lawyer lost all signs of affability. “I was your father’s lawyer, not his confessor.”
The man had to know, or at least suspect, what had happened, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Rafe would much rather be chasing Laveau, but Laveau would have to wait until he solved the puzzle of what had happened at Rancho los Alamitos.
Damn. How did a small ad in a Chicago newspaper find its way to Texas? Five more months, and I could have been richer than I’d ever imagined. I can’t give up now. I’m too close.
“Rafe is coming to the ranch. That horrible lawyer said he’ll be here sometime today.”
Maria couldn’t understand her sister’s excitement. Dolores had been running around the house giving instructions to every servant she saw. She’d changed the dinner menu three times, discussed and discarded a half dozen ideas for which dress to wear, and had driven poor Luis into a nervous state with a string of instructions about how to behave so he wouldn’t upset his brother.
“Did he say anything about the will?” If anyone had consulted her—and Dolores rarely did—Maria would have suggested meeting Rafe in the lawyer’s office. The decision as to whether he would be the executor was more important than any impression they might make on a single visit.
“He said Rafe had agreed to be the executor.” Dolores looked at the dress she was holding up with disfavor. “I’ve got to get him to increase my allowance. I can’t keep going around in this rag.”
The rag she was talking about had been worn only once. The black velvet glittered with hundreds of tiny glass beads in swirling designs that made the gown seem alive when Dolores moved.
“If you want to convince him you need an increase in your allowance, don’t wear that dress,” Maria advised. “Not only does it look expensive, but it makes you look especially young and beautiful.”
Maria had never envied her sister’s beauty nor her need to be the focus of attention. Managing the house hold and overseeing Luis’s education was a big job, but she enjoyed the responsibility. The servants were hardworking and loyal, and she loved Luis like her own son.
Dolores paused before her mirror, critically studying her reflection. “I can’t welcome him home looking like a faded old woman.”
“You look neither faded nor old.”
“He last saw me when I was nineteen. That was ten years, one husband, and one child ago.” She made a face. “His father kept telling him I was his stepmother. I’ll die if he still thinks of me like that.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t. And if he did, one look at you would change his mind.” Maria smiled at her sister’s pleased reaction to her comment. “Now get dressed. I’m going to see about Luis.”
“Rafe never liked children. Maybe Luis had better stay in his room.”
“I’m sure Rafe will expect to see his brother.” Maria hated to use that word to describe the relationship between Luis and Rafe. She’d promised herself she would be cordial because this meeting was important to Dolores and Luis, but she wasn’t sure how she could be pleasant to a man sh
e despised. She wasn’t a good actress like her sister. It had always been easy for people to guess her feelings.
“Very well, but don’t let him stay more than a few minutes.”
“I’ll take care of that. Now get dressed. You’ve got to be downstairs when he arrives. You’re the only one he knows.”
Maria left her sister’s room and tried to put Dolores and Rafe out of her mind. His mother’s strictures had upset Luis so much that he couldn’t eat his lunch. He was well grown for his age, but he was so shy, his sunny temperament and natural inquisitiveness could disappear at a moment’s notice. He wasn’t so young that he didn’t know his father had wanted little or nothing to do with him. Maria could understand that, but she couldn’t forgive it. Unfortunately it was impossible to explain the reason to Luis. She knocked on the door to his room before entering.
Luis was seated next to a window with a view of the road leading up to the house. He looked so darling in his formal clothes, Maria was tempted to hug him. He never stinted in his show of affection for his aunt, but recently he had become uncomfortable with the hugs and caresses he’d enjoyed so much when he was younger. At nine he was already showing signs of the young man he would grow up to be.
Luis turned when Maria entered the room. “Do you think Rafe will like me?”
“Of course he’ll like you. You’re his brother.” Maria tried to sound reassuring, but she didn’t know Rafe, so she could only guess how he might respond.
“Maybe he doesn’t want a brother he’s never seen. Mama says he hates children.”
“I don’t know what he was like when he was growing up, but I’m sure he must be fond of children by now. He’ll surely be happy to know he has a brother as smart and handsome as you.”
“Rosana says he’s so handsome, every signorina from here to Sacramento will be sighing over him. Juan says he can outride and outshoot anybody in California. I can’t do anything like that.”
Someone Like You (Night Riders) Page 1
