by Martha Hix
Reece, Reece, I’m so sorry. I should’ve listened to your wise counsel.
Erasmo pulled his pistol, pointing it at the space between her eyes. The cold, cold barrel bit into her skin. Her eyes closed as she waited for death. It was then she heard a whirring noise. Erasmo jerked, screamed. Her eyes flew open as the gun dropped, striking her chin. Blood spurted across her chest. She eyed Erasmo’s arm. A knife was stuck through his wrist!
With a ferocious cry, Reece rushed forward. Thank God—Reece! He grabbed Erasmo by the shoulders, hauling him off Alejandra. She scrambled for the pistol as Erasmo grappled to stand. Blood spurted from his wound. He lunged at Reece, but Reece plowed his fist into Erasmo’s face.
“Get to my horse,” Reece shouted to her.
“I have my own—”
“Get to my horse!”
She ran toward the road. Reece was behind her. But Erasmo was giving chase. Slowed by his weight and by his bleeding wrist, he staggered. Just as Alejandra and Reece reached Rayo, they heard a horrendous bellow. Then the sound of Erasmo falling.
She turned to the sound. Ten feet behind them, in the roadside culvert, Erasmo lay crumpled. She rushed back to him. Face down on the ground, he didn’t move. Blood poured from his head. He had struck it on a sharp rock. Reece crouching on his heels beside her, she leaned to touch poor, poor Erasmo. A quiver went through him.
Undone by the inequities of his life and the measures he had taken to compensate for them, he died.
She turned to Reece . . . and cried for the man Erasmo used to be.
Reece folded an arm around her shoulders. He dried her cheek with his thumb. She looked up into his unreadable blue eyes. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“My intention was to kidnap you to safety. That’s all. Once we reach Vera Cruz, you’ve seen the last of me.”
Fearing he was lost to her forever, she said, “I changed my mind about stealing the casket. That was why ’Rasmo attacked me, because I refused to help him.”
“Hindsight is always clear sight.”
“There’s something else you should know, Reece. I have searched my soul, and I no longer want vengeance on Santa Anna. He is to be pitied. And I was foolish. Very, very foolish not to understand this long ago.”
Reece stepped back to pat Rayo’s neck, and she railed against the emotional gulf separating her from the man she loved.
“My beloved, my adored Reece, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and the biggest ones were with you. I am truly remorseful for the gambles I’ve taken, especially the last one, but I want you to know something.” Her heart raced, both in apprehension and in great emotion. She stepped over to him, and leaning her cheek against his rigid back, she wound her arms around his waist. “I love you with all my heart. You above anything or anyone. Please give us another chance.”
“Excuse me if I’m wary of your words.”
“I made a mistake. And if you’ve never made one, then maybe we should be parting ways.” She didn’t mean the last part, but she had to try to shock him into another chance. “Have you never been guilty of going against your word?”
“Beyond with you? Yes.” Grimacing, he rubbed his brow. “I’ve been guilty of bending my principles, too. If I had been thinking clearly, I wouldn’t have had that boy arrested.”
“You thought your decision right at the time. That’s all anyone can do.”
“Then you and I both need to work on giving more thought to our decisions before we act on them.”
Perhaps a quarter mile away on the horizon, down the highway leading from Vera Cruz to the capital, horses approached. Horses and what looked to be a hearse.
“That’s the honor guard,” Reece said, his voice as unreadable as his eyes had been. “You have two choices, Alejandra. You can get on Rayo with me and we can cut through the woods for Vera Cruz before the soldiers see us. Or you can go on with your plans to hijack that cortege. Which do you choose?” he asked, needing reassurance.
“There’s no need to think on my decision, I assure you. The only plans I have are with you, Reece Montgomery.”
A slow smile spread across his rugged face as he turned to face her. “I hope I heard you right.”
“I didn’t stutter,” Alejandra replied, elevating her chin.
He grabbed her into his arms, lifting her from the ground, as his lips descended in a long and toe-tingling kiss. “Don’t ever forget that.”
And she didn’t.
Epilogue
He had gone full circle. The son of a bourgeois mortgage broker devoid of ambitions for his son, Antonio López de Santa Anna de Lebron had come into this world unimportant. And he—the great Santa Anna himself!—would leave life unimportant. And reviled. He stood at the ship’s bow, his fingers clamping the rail as his beloved Mexico faded from sight . . . and he cried.
Trade winds puffed the schooner’s sails, ruffled the passenger’s white-streaked black hair, but the gusts couldn’t dry his tears. The ship swayed to port, nearly knocking him from his single foot.
A hand reached to steady him.
He turned his swollen face. “It’s you. Why? Why are you here? Have you come to mock me?”
“No. I am on this schooner as your friend.”
“You are not my friend.”
“Antonio, my wife and I have worried over you.”
“But the last night I saw her, I would have had my way with her.”
“No one has their way with my Jandra, unless she grants it. And she understands more about you, Antonio, than you probably know yourself.” A half grin had lifted one corner of the Tejano’s mouth, but he turned serious again. “When word reached San Antonio that you fled the capital and were in dire straits, we decided that I must come to you. I will see you safely to Havana.”
“Why would you do that, Cazador?”
The Tejano reached into his coat and extracted a handkerchief. “Dry your eyes, Antonio. Then let’s go into a cabin for a talk.”
He should tell this traitor to leave him be, but so much he had missed Cazador! And Alejandra. Santa Anna had trusted them with his friendship and confidences. They had betrayed him. But Cazador, with his wife’s blessing, had returned. At least to see him out of the country that had exiled him. For the second time.
Santa Anna needed a friend.
He nodded, then allowed Cazador to help him down the swaying deck.
“I do not want you to see my cabin,” Santa Anna said. “Its modesty shames me. And Doloras will be there. She is my new wife,” he explained. “Did you know Doña Ines passed on?”
“We keep up with you and yours—and your activities—through the newspapers,” Cazador replied, nodding, and opened the hatchway to his spacious accommodations. “You have my deepest condolences. I know the doña Ines was a devoted wife and mother.”
Santa Anna eased onto a chair before bending to rub his painful stump. “Yes, the children and I miss her. Little Doloras has helped ease my pain, though.”
Cazador poured drinks, then handed one over. “Frankly speaking, Antonio, your young wife was the last straw for the Mexican people. Didn’t you marry her less than thirty days after Doña Ines expired?”
“Poor dear. So young and innocent.” Santa Anna had never been fallacious with the Tejano, so why start now? “Of course my troubles started way before I married Dolaras.” It felt good to talk. It had been so long since he had had someone to talk with. “Burying my leg with full military honors probably wasn’t a smart idea. Not so much as a president or a prince attended. It was just paupers. Thousands and thousands of paupers. And some of them laughed at me. The newspapers even called me imbalanced.” Even now, after all these months, that pained him as deeply as his maimed limb. “When I married Doloras, it outraged the people. They stormed Santa Paula Cemetery and—” Again tears ran down his cheeks. “They destroyed the casket and dragged my leg bone through the streets!”
Cazador imparted a look of something that resembled sympathy. “And you were impeached from off
ice.”
“Yes.” Santa Anna swirled his drink, then downed it. It burned to his stomach. “Do you know what happened after that?”
“You spent four months in Perote Prison before being exiled from the country.”
The schooner wobbled a starboard, and Santa Anna clutched at the chair arms before saying, “That wasn’t the worst of it. During my journey to Vera Cruz, I was abducted in the village of Coatlpoala. The natives threatened to boil me—they intended to prepare me as a giant tamale to be presented to the people of Mexico! They even went so far as to gather banana leaves for the husk!”
“Now that would’ve made a sight to behold,” Cazador came back with a chuckle.
“Maybe I can laugh about it, someday.” But he doubted it. “I would have been a tamale if not for the intercession of the kindly priest Ximinez.”
“I have heard of this godly—”
Santa Anna interrupted. “I don’t want to talk about my troubles anymore. Tell me about you and Alejandra, Cazador,” he requested with genuine interest. His eyes took in the well-cut waistcoat, the expensive beaver hat, the gold watch chain. “You’ve done well for yourself in Tejas, I see.”
“Yes. Jandra and I have a ranch close to San Antonio.”
“Isn’t that dangerous country?”
“Only when you Mexicans raid it,” Cazador replied with irony.
“Well, that could be so.” Santa Anna lifted his palm and laughed. “But what about the beautiful Alejandra? How is she?”
“Healthy and happy. Busy. Our home teems with life. We have a son. He’s just beginning to walk, and he finds much satisfaction in grabbing the tail of a certain limping poodle. We expect another child this winter.” A grin. “I’m hoping for a girl.”
“No doubt you’ll have several chances for one. You were always the lusty sort.”
“It takes a lusty sort to recognize another.”
“I suppose,” Santa Anna said and shrugged companionably. “By the way, I understand the lady Mercedes and her husband are quite well and living in New York City.”
“Quite well. Their adopted son, though they refuse to have anyone refer to the boy as anything but their own, brings them much happiness.”
“What about you, Cazador? Are you really, truly happy?”
A smile of contentment broke across the angular, Nordic features. “There is no way that I could be happier. ”
Sometimes it wasn’t so heinous to be . . . unimportant. Perhaps the life awaiting Santa Anna, inconsequential to be sure, would bring gratification. Maychance I am luckier than I imagined, Santa Anna decided.
He looked at the happiest man he had ever known. “Tell me, Cazador, what about the beauteous Alejandra? Is she too tired from the bustle of family to enjoy her life?”
“She is as happy as I am.” Decanter in hand, Cazador walked across the rolling cabin deck. “I said she was busy, not tired. We have ample servants to see to her needs. Why do you think I work so hard at my success? With a woman like Jandra, I must make sure of her comforts. I damned sure can’t trust her in the kitchen.” Cazador inhaled a big breath of air, blowing it out as he shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare trust her in the kitchen.”
“She’s that bad, eh?”
“Worse than bad. The woman burned everything before I put a stop to her efforts!”
Santa Anna laughed, and it was a good belly roll. He felt better, better than he had felt in a long, long time. Rejuvenated, perhaps. ¡Maldicíon! If he could have Cazador back at his side, he could conquer the world. But his friend had another life, and Santa Anna wouldn’t begrudge it.
But he did think about one of the reasons the Tejano had courted favor in the first place.
A forefinger going to his upper lip, Santa Anna said, “You haven’t mentioned Señor Colby. What happened to him?”
Cazador’s eyes went sad. He turned his back to refill the drinks, then said, “He is another story.”
ZEBRA BOOKS
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Copyright © 1991 by Martha Hix
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-8217-3535-0