Yes, and she’d given her heart totally to Cordero. Now her love for him was producing a baby. With a helpless groan, Anne-Marie stepped around Audra and began to pace restlessly around the small office.
“You don’t understand, Audra. It’s more than just falling in love with a man who doesn’t want me. I’m —” Pausing, she looked across the room to where her cousin was watching her with a concerned frown. “I’m going to have Cordero’s baby.”
Chapter Twelve
An expression of total shock swept over Audra’s face and then she ran to Anne-Marie’s side, grabbing her by the shoulders.
“A baby!” she said with a gasp. “Are you sure? Maybe your cycle is just out of whack.”
Shaking her head, Anne-Marie said, “I’m very certain. I just came from Dr. Layton’s office less than an hour ago. He confirmed what my body was already telling me. I’m two months pregnant.”
“Come here.” Audra tugged on her arm until the two of them had taken seats on the metal chairs.
Anne-Marie shot the woman an amused look. “I’m not sick, Audra. I don’t need to sit down. I just need to know what I’m going to do.”
Audra’s dark eyes widened with disbelief. “What do you mean? You’re going to have the baby, aren’t you?”
Frowning with equal astonishment, Anne-Marie said, “Of course! I can’t believe you would even ask that question. It’s just that I don’t know what to do about Cordero.”
Audra shot her a droll look. “I don’t see any question there. You’ll tell him that he’s going to be a daddy. That’s the only way I see it.”
Anne-Marie raked a hand through her long red hair. “Me, too,” she said glumly. “And I don’t think it would be right to do it over the telephone.”
Audra’s gaze became calculating as she studied her cousin’s miserable expression. “No. You definitely need to give this sort of news in person. The man will thank you for it later.”
With an unladylike snort, Anne-Marie shot up from the chair and began to pace again. “He’s not going to thank me for any of this, Audra. He has a full life. One that doesn’t include a child.” She slanted a glance at Audra. “I’m just going to have to reassure him that I won’t hold him responsible for the child.”
“What?”
The one word was flung with outrage at Anne-Marie, who passed a weary hand across her forehead and returned to the metal chair facing her cousin.
“You heard me right, Audra. Cordero didn’t ask for a child. I’m not going to force one on him.”
“He might not have asked for it. But he took on the consequences when he — when you two —” She broke off with a wave of her hand. “By the way, you two are grown adults. What happened to birth control?”
Scarlet color swept across Anne-Marie’s cheeks as she recalled the way they’d made love under the willow on the riverbank. “We, uh, didn’t have any available — but only one time.”
“Apparently that was enough,” Audra said wryly. “But that’s beside the point. Cordero is the father. He has rights and responsibilities whether you want to deal with them or not.”
Anne-Marie chewed worriedly at her bottom lip. “Yes. You’re right. I have to tell him about this baby. He’s the kind of man who would want to know.”
Audra didn’t make any sort of reply and Anne-Marie glanced over to see the other woman looking at her through misty eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Anne-Marie asked. “Isn’t that what you wanted to hear me say?”
Nodding, Audra gave her a wistful smile. “I was just thinking how envious I am of you. You’re going to have the child of the man you love. I can’t get — I can’t get Jonas to even look at me.”
Anne-Marie’s head swung back and forth in total dismay. “Envious? You must be losing your mind, Audra. I’ve made a mess of my life. And I —” Her expression turned grave. “Well, I’m just glad Mama isn’t alive to see it. She would be so disappointed in me.”
Frowning now, Audra scolded, “Anne-Marie, once and for all I want you to quit trying to be as ‘good’ as your mother. She wasn’t an angel or a saint. She’d be the first person to tell you that.”
“No. But she wanted me to be,” Anne-Marie said sadly. “And I let her down.”
Audra grabbed Anne-Marie’s hands and squeezed them with affection. “My sweet cousin, you were never meant to be a Sister. This is just God’s way of telling you. One of these days you’ll realize that.”
At the same time, hundreds of miles south of Cane’s Landing, Cordero was having lunch at the Cattle Call Café. Since he was a child too young to remember, he’d been eating at the little diner in downtown Goliad with his parents and siblings. It was a place where cattle buyers and horse traders gathered for coffee and blue-plate specials, even when the county livestock auction wasn’t going on.
Normally Cordero loved the food and the atmosphere, but today he wasn’t in the mood to listen to Chrissy Yarbrough’s silly prattle. As he looked across the table at the young blonde he wondered what had ever possessed him to date her. She was like a bowl of Corn Flakes without any milk, hard to swallow.
Which wasn’t saying very much for his past taste in women, he thought grimly. What had he seen in her? What had he seen in any of the girlfriends he’d had in the past few years?
Until he’d met Anne-Marie, Cordero had never asked himself such questions. He’d be the first to admit that he’d enjoyed women just for the female connection, to ease a sexual itch. Now, as he tried to tune out Chrissy’s chatter, he could plainly see how shallow those brief relationships had been and he hated the fact that he’d ever had them.
He sighed and Chrissy must have picked up on his boredom because she stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “What’s the matter, honey? You look all bummed out.”
Cordero had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that she’d butted in and invited herself to his lunch table.
“Nothing, Chrissy. We’ve just had a lot of things going on at the ranch, that’s all.”
Twirling her finger around a strand of blond hair, she leaned toward him, exposing an ample portion of cleavage. “You never let that stop you from having fun before.”
He frowned. “Is that all you think about? Don’t you have anything productive to do?”
Since the woman had never worked a day in her life, she looked at him in comical confusion. “Why would I want to do that when Daddy has more money than I could ever spend?” Laughing, she wagged a finger at him. “Besides, what woman would want to work whenever she could play instead?”
A woman like Anne-Marie, he thought. A woman who cared for others much, much more than she cared for herself, a woman who would travel to a poor country and teach a child to read or speak English.
“Yeah, why would you?” he asked mockingly.
Chrissy scowled at him. “Cordero, you’re just not acting like yourself at all. I think you need a break. Why don’t you get away from the ranch this weekend?” she coyly suggested. “A bunch of us are driving down to Corpus Friday evening. I’ve already rented a motel room on the beach. I’d be glad to share with you.”
Cordero couldn’t stomach any more. Tossing his fork onto his plate, he rose to his feet. “Sorry, Chrissy. I’m not interested. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to the ranch.”
As he walked away, he could feel her throwing daggers at his back, but he was past the point of caring. She was a user.
Just like you, Cordero.
Even though he didn’t want to hear the voice in his head, he couldn’t ignore it. Nor could he deny it. He had used women for his own entertainment. But that was before he’d met Anne-Marie, he mentally argued as he left the Cattle Call and drove toward the Sandbur.
But you used Anne-Marie, too. You took her goodness and sweetness and left her with nothing but a goodbye.
For the remaining fifteen miles home, he tried not to think about Anne-Marie or the morning he’d told her goodbye. The memory twisted his heart to the br
eaking point.
He’d thought time would dim everything, even the image of her beautiful face and pale sexy body. But, if anything, the pictures in his mind seemed to grow more vivid with each passing day.
He missed her. It was that simple. And though everything inside of him wanted to call her, even drive to Louisiana and see her again, he wouldn’t let himself pick up the phone, much less plan another trip to Cane’s Landing. She was dangerous to his heart, his peace of mind, to everything he’d ever believed was right for himself.
It didn’t matter if he was miserable without her. At least, he would never have to go through the agony of losing her as Matt had lost Erica, as his father had lost his mother.
In the dusty ranch yard at the Sandbur he pulled the truck to a stop in front of a pen used to halter-train yearlings. He’d just climbed to the ground and was about to join one of the wranglers inside the pen, when Matt’s truck skidded to a dusty stop next to his. Pausing, Cordero waited for his brother to climb to the ground.
“Why the hell are you in such a hurry?” Cordero asked as dust boiled around their heads.
“I’ve got to get Tator saddled. Lex and I are going to ride over to pasture five to look over a herd of heifers we’re thinking about selling. I’m not keen on the idea, but Lex has a buyer willing to give top dollar.”
“What good is money if you don’t have mama cows to produce?” Cordero retorted.
Lifting his hat from his head, Matt wiped a hand through his dark hair as he gazed thoughtfully at the western horizon. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking. I’ll talk it over with Lex.” He looked back at his brother, then reached inside his shirt pocket and drug out a small, velvet box. “Before I go, take a look at this. You know what women like so tell me if you think Juliet will like this. I just got back from picking it up at a jewelers in Victoria.”
He popped open the box and a cluster of generous-sized diamonds winked brightly in the afternoon sunlight. The stones were fashioned in the shape of a dragonfly and Cordero suddenly wasn’t seeing a piece of jewelry. He was seeing the insects swooping across the surface of the water; the riverbank where he’d first made love to Anne-Marie.
Realizing Matt was waiting for him to speak, he whistled under his breath. “You dropped a pocket of change for that bauble, big brother. Unless those diamonds are fake.”
“Like hell,” Matt shot back at him. “I wouldn’t give Juliet fake anything.”
No, Matt adored his wife and spoiled her accordingly. “What’s the occasion, anyway?”
“Our second wedding anniversary,” he said with a proud grin. “So what do you think? Will she like this thing? It’s a pin. She’s always wearing them. Up here.”
He touched a spot over his left breast and Cordero was suddenly seeing his brother in a new light. Oh, it had always been clear that Matt loved his new wife, but Cordero had never really understood just what that meant or how much a woman could change a man’s life. Until now. Now that Anne-Marie was living in his heart like a throbbing ember just waiting, wanting to burst into flame.
Did that mean he loved her? Maybe it did. But even admitting that didn’t give him the urge to leap into marriage. Besides, Anne-Marie didn’t want to be a wife. She wanted to be a missionary.
Trying to shove that dismal thought away, Cordero slapped his brother on the shoulder. “Take my word for it, you’ve done good.”
Grinning, Matt took off in a long stride toward the barn. Halfway there, he tossed over his shoulder. “Oh, I almost forgot. Geraldine is throwing a barbecue for us on Friday night. So don’t plan on going anywhere.”
Cordero gave his brother a thumbs-up sign, then turned and headed inside the yearling pen.
What the hell was Matt thinking? Was his brother blind? Cordero didn’t make plans anymore. He didn’t go out and have fun with his buddies anymore. He didn’t do anything except brood and wonder why he didn’t have the courage to take himself back to Louisiana.
Chapter Thirteen
Two days later, Anne-Marie stood outside, near the front entrance of the airport terminal with Jules at her side. In a matter of minutes she would board a flight that would take her from New Orleans to Houston. At Bush Intercontinental she would have to take a smaller commercial charter into Victoria and, from that point, rent a car to carry her on to the Sandbur.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Jules asked for the fifth time since they’d entered the terminal. “I doubt the flight is full. I could still get a ticket.”
Giving her father a grateful smile, she shook her head. “Thank you for offering, Father. But I need to do this alone.”
He nodded that he understood, but Anne-Marie could see shadows of concern in his eyes. After the doctor had confirmed her condition, she’d gone home later that day and told her father about the baby.
He’d been surprised and concerned, but never once had he shown her a flicker of condemnation. She even had the feeling that he was proud of the fact that he was going to be a grandfather. Yet she could also see that he wanted things to be different for her.
“I guess you do need to do this alone,” he agreed. “But I feel — well, I feel like it’s my fault that you’re going through all this.”
“Oh, Father! You shouldn’t be thinking that way. Why would you?”
Grimacing, he wiped a hand over his face. “Because I prayed to God that you and Cordero would hit it off. That you’d find the love you deserve with him.”
Blinking to stem the tears burning the back of her eyes, Anne-Marie kissed his cheek. “Sometimes we’re given different things than what we pray for, Father.”
Jules patted the top of her head. Though he didn’t speak, she could see tears of pride glistening in his eyes.
Behind her she heard people shuffling about and she glanced over her shoulder to see a skycap gathering armloads of luggage. Overhead jet engines roared, reminding Anne-Marie that her flight was near.
Forcing a smile on her face, she looked back at her father. “I’d better go check my bags. I’ll see you this weekend. Audra will be here to pick me up Saturday night.”
He patted her arm. “You’re sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” She kissed her father’s cheek one last time, then turned and hurried to board the plane before he could see the tears rolling down her face.
Three hours later Anne-Marie was driving a rental car over a rough, dusty road and wondering if somewhere along the highway, she’d taken a wrong turn. She’d not expected the drive to the Sandbur to take this long or for the big ranch to be so isolated from a town or community.
Figuring most anyone in the area would be familiar with the huge ranch, she’d stopped at a gas station in Goliad and inquired for directions. The person had given her vague instructions with the assurance that the Sandbur was easy to find. Anne-Marie had tried to follow the mental guide in her head, but so far she’d driven for miles and miles and seen nothing but mesquite trees and some other thorny-looking underbrush. Once in a while she spotted a few white cows grazing among the desert-like vegetation, but those had been the only living things she’d seen in the past fifteen minutes.
She was about to turn around when she finally caught a glimpse of buildings in the far distance. Breathing a sigh of relief, she stepped down on the accelerator. Soon she was passing beneath an entrance made of iron pipe with a swinging weathered plank burned with the brand S/S.
The identifying mark assured Anne-Marie that she was finally on Cordero’s home turf and the realization set her heart into a quick, nervous thud. What would he think when he saw her? Would he be angry that she’d invited herself to his home?
Forget those questions, you ninny, she scolded herself. The real issue would be his reaction when she told him that she was carrying his child. For the past few days she’d tried to envision how he might take her news and none of the scenarios had been good. But she couldn’t let herself think about that now. If she did, she might not
find the courage to face him.
Less than a quarter mile passed after the entrance when a huge, two-story hacienda-style house appeared to the right. From the descriptions her father had given her, she realized the house had to be where Cordero’s aunt, Geraldine, and cousin Lex lived. The Sanchez home would be farther into the ranch on the left.
Even though it was six o’clock in the evening, the ranch appeared to be a busy place. Pickup trucks, stock trailers, tractors and baling equipment were moving about the dusty roads running between barns and feedlots. Cowboys were spreading hay and grain to horses and cattle.
As Anne-Marie’s little car crawled along the dirt-packed road, she searched among the men, hoping for a glance of Cordero. But he didn’t appear to be among them, which might mean he’d quit work for the day.
Moments later, she parked the car in front of a redbrick house that would have looked far more at home in her state than here in South Texas. Large white pillars supported the porch roof, which also served as a balcony for the second floor. White wooden shutters, which could be folded shut for protection from hurricanes, framed the many wide windows overlooking the front yard. Bougainvillea covered with clusters of magenta-colored blooms grew against one pillar and spread its thorny limbs along the balustrade of the balcony. Potted plants of bright yellow hibiscus sat here and there on the long concrete porch, while an iron wind chime cut in shapes of the ranch’s brand tinkled in the breeze.
A stone step walkway led up to the entrance. Anne-Marie followed it until she was standing at the wide double doors. There were two golden horseshoe knockers adorning the top panels of each door, but she chose to push the doorbell to the right.
As she stood waiting for someone to answer, she realized her heart was beating uncontrollably and her palms were sweating. She had just finished wiping them down the sides of her skirt when the door pulled open and a tall, very pregnant blonde woman peered out at her.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
This had to be Juliet, Cordero’s sister-in-law, Anne-Marie thought. He’d told her that she was a beautiful blonde and this woman was that and more.
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