Carla Kelly - [Spanish Brand 01]

by The Double Cross

  “You knew more than I,” he replied.

  “You’ve been more restless lately, little brother. Santa Maria’s matchmaker will be disappointed, but probably no one else. Tell me about her. How did this happen?”

  For the next hour, Luisa listened as he told their story. She laughed at his description of the Holy Church’s meddling priests, and wiped her eyes, along with him, as he told of his wife’s courage to return a dog.

  “She was prepared to walk to Valle del Sol, even after she understood how far it was. And now you know her great fear of Comanches, or as much as she has told me.”

  A shadow crossed his dear sister’s face. “We have all suffered.”

  “Andrés will be here tomorrow with the teamsters and wagons,” he concluded, happy to move along from a subject so painful. “You can see Trece for yourself then, that ball of fluff I paid one peso for.” He touched Luisa’s cheek, running his finger down the track of her tears. “How will my servants react to their new mistress? Especially those servants who came with Felicia.”

  “She will have to prove herself,” Luisa said after much thought.

  “She will,” he said simply. “Paloma loves me. They’ll see it.”

  Paloma woke up when her husband finally came to bed. Her eyes half open, she heard his clothes drop beside the bed and then let him draw her close, her warm sleepiness infusing him until he could sleep, too. She roused him before morning, her lips on his back, and he obliged her.

  Afterwards he held her, silent, until she returned to sleep. When she woke up later, he was gone. Paloma sat up, seeing daylight through the closed and barred shutters. She scrambled out of bed, unsure of herself, certain it was late and knowing she should be up and doing. There was warm water in a brass can by the washstand, so she used it before she dressed in her own clothes, which had been freshly laundered.

  Since Marco had done such a fine job on her hair, she only needed to comb it quickly and tie it back with the same leather strip she had been using since San Pedro. Barefoot, she padded quietly toward the kitchen odors.

  There they were, brother and sister, talking at the kitchen table. When she hesitated in the doorway, Marco held out his hand to her. She came closer and let herself be absorbed into his generous orbit. In another moment, she was seated at his side and eating chorizo, followed by eggs and tortillas. And drinking milk, a luxury she could not even remember.

  “The sun is up and it is time for us to continue our journey,” he told her.

  Paloma couldn’t help her small sigh, and her husband interpreted it correctly. “It’s but a short way now, Paloma,” he assured her. “We’ll be home soon.”

  Will they like me? she wanted to ask.

  With a kiss on the top of her head and a nod to his sister, Marco left the kitchen. Paloma half-rose to follow, then sat down again, shy in the presence of the silent woman who was watching her so closely. The scrutiny made Paloma shiver a little; whenever Tia Moreno had given her such a look, the back of her hand usually followed.

  She chose her words carefully, but did not mince them; after all, she was a wife now, whatever her new sister-in-law thought of the matter. “I will take very good care of your brother, Señora Gutierrez,” Paloma said. “He will have all my obedience. Please don’t think he has made a mistake in me.”

  “You are a surprise,” Luisa Maria admitted, “and yet …” She shrugged. “Time will tell, my dear.” She tentatively covered Paloma’s hand with her own. “It is probably a good thing that you are used to hard times.” She tightened her grip around Paloma’s wrist, not strong enough to hurt, but firm. “Just don’t ever break his heart.”

  You don’t know me, Paloma thought. She turned her hand over suddenly and grasped Luisa Maria’s. “I don’t have it in me to break your brother’s heart, Señora, but only time will reassure you.”

  “Then that is where we will leave it.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  In Which the Mondragóns Avoid Other Relatives

  One of the doors from the kitchen opened onto the family garden, fallow now and dried up. Whatever had remained in bloom before last week’s cold and snow drooped and withered. Someone had cleaned and brushed her moccasins and left them by the back door. Paloma laced them tight and continued down the garden path, which she thought would lead eventually to the stable.

  And there he was, talking so casually to his sister’s horse servants, which told her much about his ties to Hacienda Gutierrez. She came no closer than the door, because there were two other young men with him. She drew back a little farther when one of them turned around. When he regarded her with that same measuring stare as Señora Gutierrez, Paloma knew this must be one of her sister-in-law’s sons. Was everyone so protective of Don Marco Mondragón that they saw her as a threat?

  Marco turned, too, and gestured her closer. “My dear, here are Juan and Antonio Gutierrez, my nephews, and now yours, too.”

  They bowed to her. She curtsied.

  She returned to the house, hand in hand with her husband, to collect her few belongings and bundle up in a warm, knitted sacque that Luisa Maria insisted she take. With her cloak on, she was ready to ride.

  “I promise to provide your own horse for you, when we get home,” Marco said after he waved goodbye to his sister as the gates opened.

  “I like this,” she whispered to him. Her husband answered by pulling down her hood, kissing the top of her head, and putting it back up, his arms tight around her as they rode into the brilliant blue of a Valle del Sol morning.

  With their guard of riflemen from the wagon train, they soon came to Santa Maria, a town with buildings as well-fortified as the hacienda they had just left. People walked in the square with a purposeful air, the cold making them intent upon business. The small square featured a fortress of a church that faced what Marco called a presidio. She heard the scorn in his voice.

  “A presidio means protection, husband,” she reminded him.

  “Hardly,” he said. “Ten drunkards and one corporal afraid of the dark.” He tightened his grip on her. “And there is rumor that even these worthless men will be withdrawn next year.”

  “Why?”

  “Spain is poor. I heard in Santa Fe that our king is contemplating an alliance with the American colonies in revolt, so far to the east of us. He may decide to pull all his troops to La Florida, as a buffer against England.” He kissed her ear. “We are small tortillas in Valle del Sol.”

  “But the Comanches …” she began, trying to sound offhand, unconcerned and probably failing. He already knew her too well.

  He chuckled. “They keep us on our toes. I’ll tell you more about them tonight.”

  The cold had either begun to loosen its grip on Valle del Sol or Paloma had good reason to be grateful for Luisa’s loan of the wool sacque. Or it may have been Marco’s warmth. In another mile, Paloma pulled back the hood and looked around with interest. Mountains soared around them to the west, those passes through which they had traveled, but they also curved protectively around Valle del Sol. She had lived a long time in Santa Fe, but as she looked at her new home, this Valle, she remembered the vast meadows around El Paso, drier than this and not nearly as prosperous.

  “What is this river we follow?” she asked.

  “The Santa Maria, named by my grandfather,” Marco replied. “It comes from the mountains and is never dry.” He crossed himself. “In summer you will see more cattle and sheep than now.” He rose up slightly in the saddle, alert and measuring the land in that way of ranchers. “This land belongs to Alonso Castellano and now your cousin, Maria Teresa, too, or at least, her dowry. Alonso should have moved his livestock closer to his home place by now. Well, it is not my concern, at least until his cattle go missing and he comes crying to me to help him check brands. O dios mio, we have company.”

  Please don’t let it be Comanches, Paloma thought in panic as she closed her eyes and tried to burrow inside her husband’s chest.

  “No, no, Palom
a. Don’t be afraid,” he said, his free hand across her chest now and pulling her tight to him. “It’s Don Alonso himself. I know from Father Damiano that they came through San Pedro a few days before you.”

  Marco spoke to his men, who waited at a discreet distance as his neighbor approached. “Alonso rides like a sack of meal,” Marco whispered in her ear. “Do I sound too proud?”

  “You know you do,” she said crisply.

  “All shame on me for my sins,” he replied, unrepentant. “Don Alonso, may I introduce my wife, Paloma?”

  Alonso stared, his mouth open, and then he began to laugh, as though he did not believe his eyes. Humiliated, Paloma looked down at her hands.

  “You really did it,” Alonso said, moving closer. “We heard rumors.”

  With no visible command, Marco backed up his horse. Or perhaps Buciro wanted more distance of his own volition. Who could tell about horses?

  “I really did it,” Marco said, and Paloma heard the frost in his words. “Mark you, Alonso, I am content. Good day to you, neighbor.”

  Paloma raised her eyes to Alonso’s face, suddenly afraid for her husband and wondering what rumors about her the Castellanos had already started. What she saw moved her more to pity. The man’s face was troubled now, as though Marco had scored a real hit.

  “But I have a dowry,” Alonso said. Even in her humiliation, Paloma heard the disappointment. She also heard something else, the pout of a little boy unhappy with the way matters had turned out, but bragging all the same. “Gold, cattle!”

  “So do I have a dowry, neighbor,” Marco said. “One far better than gold or cattle. And now good day again.”

  A word to his men and the barest dig of his spurs, and they moved past Don Alonso. “I hope he and I do not have trouble sharing this valley now,” Marco said to her. “Could you hear his disappointment, or am I imagining it?”

  “I heard it, too, husband,” she said quietly. “I know my cousin. Poor man.”

  “But he is rich now! Didn’t you hear him? Paloma, you’re a generous soul,” he told her. “All the same, let us give them a wide berth for a while.”

  “We can give them a wide berth forever,” Paloma said fervently.

  “No, no. We don’t do that in Valle.”

  “I could.”

  “No, you can’t, not as the juez de campo’s wife. Your cousin might actually need you some day. Or you might need her.” He kissed her head, as she sat, remarkably stiff now, in front of him on the saddle. “Trust me here.” He peered around at her face. “Paloma, trust me. Let’s go home now.”

  She nodded, daring only to glance in Alonso’s direction and look away. He still sat where the road from his hacienda met the highway, looking a little forlorn, almost as if he had wanted Marco to invite him to dinner, to spare him from Maria Teresa.

  Maybe her heart was kinder now, because Marco was right: she did feel sorry for Alonso Castellano. Still, it would take a miracle for her to ever love her cousin, and up to now, her life had been remarkably lacking in miracles.

  Another hour’s ride and they had crossed the broad valley, moving toward the foothills. “My land—our land—is all around you now,” Marco said, correctly interpreting the way she looked from side to side. “And you are wondering where on earth we live. Like moles in the ground? Birds in the trees?”

  Her stomach growled, which made him chuckle. “As long as it has a kitchen, eh, wife?”

  “And a bed for you, husband?” she shot back, wondering if she was being too forward.

  “Not you? Paloma, I must have been interpreting your little sighs and moans the wrong way then. My apology.”

  “Hush,” she whispered, her face fiery now. She kept looking. “Where have you hidden your hacienda?”

  “You’re precisely right, and I can take no credit, since it was my grandfather’s doing. He took the crown’s land grant to settle in the most dangerous place in the whole colony, because he was hungry for lots of land. Here we are.”

  Paloma gazed at the sheer cliff in the near distance, with a grove of trees still clinging to their leaves in this sheltered area. She looked back at her husband, a question in her eyes. There was a rancho to find, and she couldn’t.

  “Let me give you a clue, lovely wife. Francisco Mondragón was a humble stone mason in Spain, and a shrewd man—Valle’s first juez de campo, and a smarter man than I. Look again, really look.”

  She looked again, seeing a grove of trees and a stream or an acequia flowing close by. Then she saw it, a hacienda unlike any in the valley they had crossed, with its ranchos made of the red adobe of New Mexico.

  “Clever man,” she murmured, taking in the wall built of the same stone as the nearby cliffs, a fortress. She leaned forward, making out a stout gate that had weathered to a gray that matched the stone. She could see no signs of life, at first, but she looked closer and saw the guards on top of the wall, watching them, dressed in gray cloaks. “It would not be easy to sneak up on the Double Cross,” she murmured.

  “I never think that, and you shouldn’t, either, because it makes a person complacent,” he said promptly, raising his arm and getting an answering salute from the guards. “I live here, always aware that someone could do just that.”

  She leaned back, suddenly content, as she remembered his little dicho about the man with the rope bridge. “It is so dangerous that it is safe,” she said softly, more to herself than her husband. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being Marco Mondragón, I suppose,” she said softly.

  They rode forward to the grove of trees, pausing in a small clearing which she saw was highly visible from all points of the stone masterpiece before her. In a few minutes she heard the scrape of wood as a bar was probably lifted from its iron cradle inside. The door opened on surprisingly silent hinges.

  “My clever grandfather,” Marco said in her ear. “The gate only swings out. If some force tried to swing it in, there is a terrible racket. Sounds like cats mating.”

  Marco kneed his horse forward and they rode through the open gates into the world of the Double Cross. Paloma looked around in delight at the activity so hidden from the outside. The compound was high-walled, stone and impervious to fire. Marco pointed to the long, one-story building with a deep porch and hanging baskets that probably held flowers in the summer. “My home is now your home. Welcome, Paloma Vega de Mondragón. May you prosper and be fruitful here.”

  He said it so formally that his words touched her heart. As Father Damiano has taken the role of her father at San Pedro when he told her brand-new husband to cherish and protect her, now her only slightly used husband assumed his own father’s role, inviting her into the Double Cross to become a Mondragón.

  She had not been old enough to learn the ritual, but her heart told her what to do. Without a word, she slid her bare hands under his gloved hands on the reins and turned them palm up, placing herself in his care.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In which Marco Gets New Slippers

  “May I never add to your burden, but only subtract from it,” she whispered, equally formal.

  Marco started to kiss her, but looked around and touched his forehead to hers instead. A group of his retainers had gathered to gape at the strange woman who shared his horse. He gestured, and an older Indian stepped forward, nodding his head and smiling. Marco handed her down to him then dismounted, taking her hand.

  “Emilio, this is my wife, Paloma Vega, come from Santa Fe to make me a happier man,” he said simply. He turned to her. “Paloma, Emilio is my steward. He first served my father, and has probably forgotten more about the Double Cross than I will ever know.”

  Paloma nodded to the steward, who was some combination of Indio and Spaniard, as were so many in the colony. The satisfied look in his eyes told her she had an ally. “I am pleased to meet you, Emilio,” she said, properly deferential to a man who was a valued servant, and enough advanced in years to deserve her respect. “If there is anyt
hing you would wish me to know or do, please tell me, and I will do it.”

  She must have said the right thing, because both men looked at each other and smiled.

  “It was time, wasn’t it?” her husband asked his steward, who put his hand to his heart. “Emilio, would you bring me a hammer and a nail? And my saddlebags?”

  Marco kept her hand in his, holding her close to his side. She wanted to explore the stone compound, but a glance took in the tidy buildings, the guards pacing a wooden catwalk along the stone wall, and the grass and trees inside the enclosure. An acequia flowed through it, and there was a well, too. Even if some enemy managed to stop the irrigation ditch, there would always be water on the Double Cross.

  My husband has thought of everything, she told herself, proud to be part of this careful man’s life.

  “I didn’t notice any ranch as well-protected as yours in this valley,” she said.

  “I said that to my father once. He laughed and told me that his father used to be teased about that, until the Comanches came and everyone gathered here to stay alive. I see no reason to change.” Marco kissed her hand. “Paloma, I can keep you safe from everything except … except disease.”

  There it was. Paloma had wondered how much pain he had endured on each return to his own property, since the death of his family. Now she knew.

  They walked toward the hacienda, a building made of the same gray-flecked stone of the walls, with barred windows, shuttered now from the inside against the cold. Willow baskets hung at intervals from the ceiling of the porch that spanned the front of her new home. They were empty now, but she already imagined spring flowers.

  As Paloma looked toward the entrance, the double door opened and a woman stood there. Her simple dress and apron were impeccable, and she wore a bunch of keys at her waist.

  “Is she the housekeeper?” Paloma whispered to Marco, not taking her eyes from the woman standing so composed in the doorway. Even from a distance, Paloma noted the surprise on her face.