Because You're Mine
Page 33
Sabella smiled fondly as she gazed at her stubborn husband. At fifty-three Burt was still an imposing figure, tall and lean, with piercing gunmetal gray eyes and a deep booming voice. He still possessed that special charm, that power to walk into a room and take total possession.
Sabella sighed with sweet contentment. She was surely the happiest woman alive. Her affectionate gaze lingering on her husband’s handsome, suntanned face for a time, she sighed again before she looked away.
Cappy had pushed the fresh cup of coffee aside and fallen back to sleep. Carmelita was busy buttoning his old blue sweater over his frail chest.
The four of them had breakfasted this late Sunday morning on the south patio. There they had remained after the meal had been finished. The broad flagstone terrace had always been one of Sabella’s favorite spots. The grounds surrounding the hacienda grew more beautiful with each passing year.
Improvements had been made regularly on the old place and Sabella looked with pride and pleasure at the tall old oaks, their trunks now pristinely whitewashed and lighted at night. Lush green hedges of seventy-foot-high eucalyptus and sycamores marched eastward from the ocean cliffs to the coast road, concealing the many outbuildings and corrals below the mansion.
Within the sprawling grounds, vast expanses of velvety green grass sloped downhill, dotted with lemon trees and framed by patches of marigolds and plots of larkspur. On one piece of the huge terraced lawn was a tennis court, and beyond it, Cappy’s prized horseshoe pit.
Meandering paths threaded throughout the well-tended property, the flagstone walks lined with the oaks, olive trees, oleanders, and tangles of honey-suckle and jasmine.
Precious life-giving water had made this coastal paradise possible. Burt’s long-ago dreams of plentiful water were a reality—had been for more than a decade.
There was almost a supernal peacefulness about this beautiful place.
That peacefulness was about to be shattered.
A tall, slender rider sat astride a dancing roan mare outside the white-fenced boundaries of the coastal rancho. The rider, squinting into the midmorning sun, was dressed in the unique garb favored by the Mexican charros—leather trousers, white shirt, scarlet butterfly necktie, scuffed ankle boots, and a broad-brimmed straw sombrero.
The rider’s narrowed eyes lifted to the hammered silver sign mounted from the tall crossbars above the rancho’s main front gate. The shimmering silver letters spelled out simply Lindo Vista—a beautiful view.
The rider did not enter the guarded gate, but turned the roan mare about and rode off in the opposite direction.
Then yipping loudly, the rider wheeled the mare about in a tight semicircle and laid the spurs to its flanks. The responsive mount loped down out of the verdant meadow, galloped across the dusty road, and leapt over the high, white border fence as the rider shouted and laughed with joy.
Attracting the immediate attention of those on the south patio, the rider thundered up the palm-lined avenue, came to a plunging, gravel-flinging stop directly before the hacienda, and dismounted, tossing the reins to a waiting groom.
Boot heels clomping, military spurs jingling, the rider hurried around the house, crossed the flagstone patio, stepped up directly behind Sabella’s chair, leaned down and kissed her smooth cheek.
Patting the strong young hands resting atop her shoulders, Sabella said, “Dear, your father says he’s not going. Perhaps you can change his mind.”
“Can’t,” said the glum Burt, gray eyes clinging to the tall, slim rider. “Nobody can.”
The rider simply smiled and rounded the table, running a tanned hand affectionately over the dozing Cappy’s white head and pressing a flushed cheek to Carmelita’s.
“Nobody?” said the rider, laughing and flinging slender arms around Burt’s neck. “Not even me?”
Burt’s scowl quickly turned to a wide grin as the rider plopped down on his lap.
“Your momma has spoiled you rotten,” he said, reaching up and removing the rider’s broad-brimmed sombrero. Smiling with pleasure as an abundance of shimmering blond hair spilled down around his willful daughter’s lovely face, he said, “High time I took a firm hand around here.”
Her musical laughter showed her total lack of concern. Hugging his neck affectionately, she said, “Don’t be hard-headed, Daddy. You have to come to the wedding.” She gave his tanned cheek a kiss. “After all, you’re giving the bride away.”
About the Author
Nan Ryan is an award-winning historical romance author. The daughter of a Texas rancher, she began writing in 1981, inspired by a Newsweek article about women who traded corporate careers for the craft of romantic fiction. She found success with her second novel, Kathleen’s Surrender (1983), a story of a Southern belle’s passionate affair with a mysterious gambler. Ryan continued writing romances, publishing novels such as Silken Bondage (1989), The Scandalous Miss Howard (2002), and The Countess Misbehaves (2000). Her husband, Joe Ryan, is a television executive, and his career has taken them all over the country, with each new town providing fodder for Ryan’s stories.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1995 by Nan Ryan
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4804-6733-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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