She pulled a disbelieving face.
“Well, only a little.” He made a so-so motion with his hand. “At one time, I cared too much, but I have become resigned to my unfruitful state. But I did know how Nacia wanted children. She talked about them, longed for them, planned for them.”
Incredulous, she asked, “How would producing a baby elsewhere help your marriage?”
“If I could have fathered a child with another woman, Nacia and I would have had hope for a baby of our own. Or perhaps, if Nacia had never conceived, my consort would have been amenable to letting us raise the little one.” He shrugged sheepishly. “Stupid, I suppose, but I had to know if there was hope. I was afraid Nacia would leave me.”
“Where do you think she would go? Back to live with her parents?”
Her scorn faded beneath his sad dignity. “When she chose, Nacia had a way of leaving me even when we were in the same room. I didn’t want the dutiful wife. I wanted Nacia’s heart and soul, forever.”
Indignant for Nacia, she said, “So you did everything in your power to drive her away.”
“Just because spiteful people call me a bastard doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“A masterful justification.”
He continued hastily, “Nevertheless, you’re right. I couldn’t stand to see Nacia so unhappy. I didn’t stop trying to prove my manhood with every whore down the coast, but I couldn’t stand Nacia’s unhappiness and the way she supported me against every attack. I made plans to convince her to stay with me.”
“As if she needed persuasion,” she scoffed.
A smarmy expression of satisfaction softened his face. “She is wonderful, isn’t she?”
She enjoyed seeing the cynical Julio moved to adoration by his own wife. “Very.”
“I thought to persuade Nacia with my own land. I thought if we could go and build our own house, one that wasn’t part of her inheritance, perhaps she could forgive me for depriving her of children. So I played a game of cards with the governor, and won a grant of land in the Sacramento Valley. Hmm, the food’s ready.” He cut chunks off the beef and handed her his knife, threaded with beef.
The odor of the meat made her mouth water; her first greedy taste burned her tongue. “So why did you kiss me? Why did you fight with Damian? It seems you had destiny in your command.”
Rubbing his face, he left a streak of charcoal on his nose. “One day I was in the Sacramento Valley, working like a dog, when I thought—what is Nacia doing while I break my back building a rancho?”
“Pining for you?”
“That didn’t occur to me.” With wry self-mockery, he said, “I just knew how hurt she’d been about my women. What if she took a leaf out of my book and took a lover? Or several lovers?”
“Nacia wouldn’t want revenge.”
“No, I know that now. I knew that then, too, but if it was so clear to me that I was without seed, it could be clear to her, too. She did want a child, and she could have one with another man. I told myself it wouldn’t matter. If she had a child, I would raise it as my own.”
“Noble.”
Solemn, he said, “I would raise it as my own. I’m the last man to cavil about a child’s background. It was the thought of Nacia beneath another man’s hands that drove me to drink.”
“Literally.”
“Yes, and when I’m drinking, I see things with a warped logic. Damian had loved Nacia before I had. He would be her choice to become the father of her child.” He handed her a rag. “Damian had everything. He’d always had everything. Anyone else would have killed me for insulting him as I did.”
She wiped her hands and handed his knife back.” A healthy dose of cowardice, too. You’re a sensible man.”
“A high compliment coming from you, indeed.”
“Didn’t it occur to you it could be Nacia’s fault that you had no children? That you’d simply been unlucky in your timing and your choice of women?”
“I wish that were the truth, but I’m afraid it’s not. Nacia’s parents had nagged us to produce an heir, not unfairly, I thought, and we tried. And tried and tried.” He closed his eyes in retrospection. “We’ve been making regular and passionate attempts our whole married life. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes, I understand what you mean,” she snapped.
“It’s hard to know,” he drawled. “You lack the sensuality and emotional good sense our women have.”
She turned her face away from the firelight, afraid her own sensuous memories would show in her face.
The sly, amused voice of her companion proved she hadn’t concealed her expression. “I have always thought you considered Californio men to be useless. Perhaps Damian has proved we are good at something?”
“You’re a pig, Julio.” She wet the rag again and laid it on Damian’s brow. “What good will such knowledge do me, if fate takes him from me? I’d be better if I’d never met him and lived in ignorance all my life.”
He leaned over her and knocked her hand away from Damian. “Never say that. To live without ever having loved? Without the pain and the effort and the kind of physical pleasure that brings tears of delight to your eyes?”
“I was happy before.”
“You were not even living before,” he said. “Katherine, listen to me. We’re alike, you and I. We’re the outcasts. I’m Spanish, I’m Californio, I’m a man, but none of that cancels the fact that I’m a bastard, and there’s no way to change that.” He waited.
She waited. She didn’t want to ask, but he wouldn’t continue until she signified her curiosity, so she answered with a grudging, “I agree.”
“You’re an Americana. You’re educated, you’re cultured, you’re a lady, but none of that cancels the fact you’re an Americana. More than that, I think, you’ve been an outcast your whole life, simply because of the mean-spiritedness of your family.”
“Yes.”
“We’re both married to people who are the epitome of California society, and we will never, ever, measure up to that society’s expectations of a mate for Nacia, a mate for Damian.”
“True.”
A little smile quirked his mouth at her monosyllabic answers, but they satisfied him. “No matter what we do, no matter how properly we act, for the whole rest of our lives we will hear the occasional hiss of a narrow-minded person. Nacia doesn’t care what they say about me. She never did. Only I care.”
“You’re a good man,” she offered.
“I know. But still I hurt when they whisper ‘bastard’ just loud enough so I can hear. Only with Nacia, I forget the hurt.” He tapped his chest above his heart. “Damian loves you.”
“He hates Americans.”
“But he loves you. I’ve known Damian my whole life. He’ll grow with California, adjust to the invasion. The only thing that would ever harm him is if you don’t trust him enough to give him a chance.”
She stared at him, unmoved by his vehemence.
“Katherine. My mother-in-law married at thirteen. She hasn’t changed an opinion or shared an emotion in all that time. Nacia was sixteen when she married me, yet she could teach her mother everything about life, about kindness, about joy. Nacia makes me whole. I make Nacia whole.” His palms joined, fingers twining. “If Nacia vanished from this earth at this moment, I would still be more than I was before. Has Damian taught you nothing?”
She looked down at her own hands as they stroked Damian’s head. She thought about the things that Damian had taught her. About passion, and tenderness. About the impatience of a man ignored, and his sweet revenge. About adventure and treasure—real treasure, the kind she’d seen in his eyes.
Whatever she had been shifted. A new person emerged, forged of the old Katherine and the strands of Damian.
Like a newborn, angry at being thrust from the safety of her previous being, she cried through the long night until she slept, exhausted, at Damian’s side.
“What will she do when he dies?” Nacia whispered, her gaze res
ting on the two still figures in the sickroom.
“I don’t think it has even occurred to her,” Julio answered solemnly. “She’s kept him alive this last week with her sheer strength of will.”
“The fever burns him and I can’t stand to watch her hover over him.” She touched his hand. “Night after night, she stays and strokes him with cool cloths and talks to him. She naps only for a few morning hours, when his fever’s down. This is the first time I’ve seen her asleep at night.”
“Poor woman. She’s exhausted.” Julio held the door for his wife as they looked in on the sickroom. “If anyone can save him, just from pure determination, it’s Doña Catriona.”
Nacia acknowledged the use of Katherine’s pet name with the scrape of her fingernails lightly across his stubbled chin. “You admire her?”
He caught her hand and kissed the palm. “Almost more than any other woman in the world. Almost.”
She leaned against him and his arm went around her, their own love all the sweeter as they realized how near the long parting was for their friends. Quietly they crept away, leaving Katherine in the big easy chair they’d placed for her comfort.
One candle burned low at Katherine’s elbow. Her unresisting mind had at last sunk into the slumber she so desperately needed. Exhaustion had worn her down like the drip of water on cave rock. Sleep nourished her like sunshine on a mountain evergreen.
And like a journey she couldn’t resist, she followed the sunshine up the mountain and into the cave. She sought something, although she didn’t know what. There was something in that cave to help her, to help Damian, and she sought it with dream recklessness.
Baffled, she turned and looked down the mountain and she could see all the way to Julio’s house.
That something was in the room with Damian.
Abruptly, she was back in the chair, pressed against the cushions and staring towards the bed. He was there, leaning over Damian. She’d never seen him as more than a fog, or a diaphanous form seeking human shape, but she recognized him. Tall and powerful, he exuded the kind of aura only men with a mission displayed. Clad in a brown wool cowl pulled close around his face, he laid a hand on Damian’s chest.
Stiff with dread, she tried to move. She tried to speak.
She was paralyzed. That’s because I’m asleep, she told herself with dream logic. I can’t move because I’m asleep, and that cowled figure isn’t really here.
But he looked so real. She had to help Damian.
When she heard the deep and painful breaths that shook Damian’s chest, it released her paralysis. Leaping to her feet, she screamed, “Leave him alone. He’s mine.”
That woke her. That released her from the nightmare, only she was standing up and her eyes were open.
She could still see him. The priest. The priest from the cave. He looked up at her, and deep inside the cowl she saw the gleam of two eyes. He lifted the candle he held and cast a light on her and on Damian.
Then he disappeared.
She blinked, but the candle left a little blot on her vision, sensitized by the darkness.
Julio and Nacia burst through the door with three servants on their heels. “What happened?” Julio shouted.
On the bed, Damian jumped and groaned, and Julio ran to his side.
Nacia grabbed Katherine’s arm and shook it. “What’s wrong? Why did you shout?”
Still caught by the dream, Katherine asked, “Did you see him?”
“See him?” Nacia’s hair swirled around her shoulders as she glanced around. Her eyes fixed on the bed. “He’s there. Damian’s there. See?”
Crouched over the still figure, Julio muttered, “Hail Mary, full of grace.”
In a tremulous voice, Nacia asked, “Have we lost him?”
Julio lifted his head, strong emotion twisting his features. “The fever has left him. He’ll live.”
Nacia ran to the bedside and laid her hands flat on Damian’s face. “It’s a miracle. A miracle. Katherina!” Sharply, she scrutinized the stunned woman by the armchair and bounded over to her. “Come here. Feel him. He’s going to be all right.” Dragging Katherine by the arm, Nacia thrust Julio aside and placed one of Katherine’s palms on each of Damian’s cheeks.
“He’s going to be all right,” Katherine repeated. Joy burgeoned in her, pushing aside the fog of sleep and the magic of the dream. Looking at Julio and Nacia and their stunned, blissful smiles, she laughed a little and stroked the beloved, bearded face.
“You did it,” Julio told her. “You pulled him through, with your prayers and your attention.”
“Maybe.” She nodded, her eyes unfocused once more. “Maybe my prayers did bring that priest to save him.”
“What priest?” Julio asked. “There hasn’t been a priest in the room.”
“Later,” Nacia interrupted him. Hurrying to the window, she scolded, “Why did you open this? The draft is too much for a sick man.”
Chapter 24
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Julio asked as he walked along the path beside Damian.
“Whatever do you mean?” Damian asked right back.
“This.” Julio waved his hand. “Being carried home to Rancho Donoso on a sumptuous litter by four vaqueros. Having your father ride back and forth to check on your progress. Having Fray Pedro de Jesus leave San Juan Bautista and go to your home to perform the wedding ceremony. Having Katherine hover over you like a brooding hen.”
“Especially having Katherine hover.” Damian grinned, relaxed in the sunshine.
“How do you feel?”
“I enjoy having Julio hover, too.” Damian gave a crack of laughter at his friend’s grimace. He pressed his side with his palm. “I feel tired and sore.” He looked sideways at Julio and caught Julio looking sideways at him.
“Two months is a very long recovery for someone of your robust health.”
“You’re a suspicious soul.”
“Suspicious? Suspicious isn’t the right word.” Julio tapped his lip. “Incredulous is a better word. Disbelieving. Skeptical.”
“What would make you—” Damian hesitated “—skeptical?”
“Many things can make a man skeptical. Things as simple as walking past the window of the sickroom and seeing the invalid trotting across the room. Things like watching him stretch and turn.”
“Julio—”
“Things like standing out there and feeling like a fool.”
“Now Julio—”
“What in the hell have you been hoaxing us for?”
“Shh.” Damian glanced at the vaqueros that carried his litter and ordered, “You never heard this.” Their smiles flashed in reply. “I have my reasons for playing the convalescent. For one thing, it’s kept Katherine close.”
“Oh, it’s done that,” Julio snapped. “The girl is pale from lack of sun.”
“I know and I’m sorry, but I’m not in any condition to go chasing after her should she decide to travel to snowy Boston or sunny Los Angeles.”
Julio grunted.
“For another thing, I recovered so rapidly that I felt a fraud. I can’t remember when I’ve felt so good.”
“Surely an exaggeration.”
Damian rolled his neck on the pillows.” A little achy, perhaps, but good. Katherine and I aren’t as fortunate as Nacia and you. There are still things that need to be settled between us. With Katherine, I prefer to have the upper hand. The element of surprise.”
“All right,” Julio said, the grudge fading from his voice. “That’s what I thought. My first instinct was to come in and punch you in the nose, but I decided I’d done enough of that.”
Damian covered his nose with one protective hand. “Please, no. I couldn’t take any more weeks of recuperation.”
“Amen to that,” Julio agreed fervently. “You’re a dreadful invalid.”
“Yes, well . . . at last I’ve been cured of my craving for cigars.”
“Totally cured?” Julio started laughing at the irony that s
lanted Damian’s mouth.
“I came too close to smelling the fires of hell to wish for a flaming leaf in my mouth.”
Julio laughed until the ladies turned around and smiled at the sound of mirth, until the vaqueros joined in out of sympathy.
Damian punched Julio’s arm. “If I don’t get a chance later, I want to thank you.”
Julio waved a dismissing hand. “Think nothing of it. I liked it when you were cranky and lucid.”
“As a contrast to unconscious? I’m flattered. But Julio, I will not allow you to deflect my gratitude. Katherine told me about your rescue that night and Nacia’s efforts the next morning to revive me.”
“It was all Katherine,” Julio answered. “I’ve never seen anyone so determined.”
“She’s lost weight.”
“She would hardly eat. I tell you the truth, Damian, Nacia and I had given up on you. That last night when you were so sick, I didn’t expect you to see the morning. When Katherine screamed—”
“She screamed?”
“I don’t know that I should tell even yet. It was odd.” Julio observed his friend. Damian smiled at him reassuringly, and he confided, “She screamed, ‘Get out.’ When Nacia and I ran into the room, she was staring at you as if she were insane. The window was open. Your fever had broken.”
“It’s very confusing,” Damian murmured. “And probably meant to stay that way.”
“Look.” Julio put his hand on Damian’s shoulder. “There’s the hacienda.”
“Rancho Donoso.” Damian told the vaqueros, “Stop and let me look.”
Before them, the Salinas Valley rolled out, fertile and green with the flush of June. The hacienda stood decorated with the colorful banners of his homecoming. The servants waved white handkerchiefs from the porch. It had been over two months since he’d ridden away from it. More than once he’d thought he would never see it again.
“I must be weaker than I thought,” he murmured, wiping away the salt water he found on his cheeks.
Propped up on the bed pillows like an Arabian potentate, Damian complained, “I could have washed away on a river of tears.”
Katherine smiled as she progressed around the attic bedroom, settling her belongings once more.
Treasure of the Sun Page 37
