The old man shook his head. “No one knows. No one knows.” He blinked the moisture from his eyes. “After the ship sank with the gold, Papa’s life just went to hell. He’d dreamed of a ranch the size of the Briscoe or even the King. Instead he had to settle for a few measly acres and a lifetime of ridicule.”
“Ridicule?” She hadn’t meant to ask him anything that would encourage him to continue with something that obviously upset him, but the word just popped out.
“No one would believe Papa when he told them how he’d mined a fortune of gold but lost it in a hurricane. They ridiculed him, and Papa…well, he was a proud man, way too proud, Mama always said. But knowing that people felt he was nothin’ but a joke sliced him up all inside.” He paused and wiped his eyes.
“Don’t overdo, Grandpa.” Nick’s soft voice revealed concern.
Ben didn’t appear to hear him. “Somehow Mama was able to get through to him and show him what real kindness and love were all about. And at least he had the good sense to marry her. Of course, her parents were mad as hornets about it, but Mama was every bit as determined as Papa was proud, and she got her way. Still, as the years went on, he just got worse and worse, all locked up inside himself.”
“Grandpa, take it easy. Getting upset is not going to do you any good.”
Ben waved him away. “Didn’t I tell you to go someplace?”
Nick settled into his chair as Alma walked in carrying two glasses of tea. She handed one to Tess and the other to Nick. “The mint came from my own garden, Tess.”
Alma waited expectantly while Tess took a sip. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”
Alma’s smile lit up her face.
“Where’s mine?” Ben asked hoarsely.
“I only have two hands, now, don’t I? I’ll be bringing yours next.”
Ben looked at Tess, and she was surprised to see a twinkle in his eyes. “Another way you know you’re old is when you have to drink decaffeinated tea without much sugar.”
“Don’t listen to him, honey,” Alma said. “He only knows it’s decaffeinated with just a pinch of sugar because I told him. The truth is, the way I fix it, he can’t tell the difference.”
“So she says.” When Alma left the room, Ben winked at Tess. “I let her think I can’t, but the truth is, I really can.”
Tess couldn’t help but smile. “How long have you two been married?”
“Nearly sixty years.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said sincerely. What was especially wonderful to her was the obvious and deep love they still had for each other. She’d never before had the chance to witness that type of durable love that had lasted through good times and bad.
“Now, let’s see, where was I?”
“You were telling me about your father.”
“Oh, yes, Papa.” Ben’s gaze drifted toward the window, as if it were a movie screen and he was seeing scenes from long ago. “Well, you know how it is, Tess. Kids can be so cruel. They’d hear their papas talking about mine, and they’d say the same things to me. They’d throw stuff at me, rocks and such. To them, we were both crazy, but when it came down to fightin’, I gave ‘bout as good as I got. Still, they made it so that I could never belong. They had a baseball team that I really wanted to play on, but…”
With a shrug, he focused on her. “A lot of those kids are still alive today, and now that Nick has found the ship and the gold, I swear I’m going to live long enough for him to bring up a sizable amount. I want him to stack the bullion in the middle of town, so those men who used to throw rocks at me can see it and know how wrong they were. I want them to know that my papa didn’t lie and that I didn’t deserve the way they treated me.”
The tears that sprang into her eyes surprised her. She quickly brushed them away. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well, now, there’s nothing for you to be sorry about.” He gazed at her for several seconds. “Nick tells me you might stop your drilling for us.”
For the first time, she looked at Nick, but his expression remained impassive. “Mm, yes, I’m considering it.” What else could she say?
Ben nodded. “I’m very grateful to you for that. I know I don’t have long to live. I also know I don’t understand the ins and outs of the world anymore or what you young people have to face in your business lives. But if you could see your way clear to do this for us, it would mean the earth to both Alma and me.”
Frantically she searched her mind for a noncommittal reply. A glance at Nick told her that he wasn’t going to help her out. But Alma saved her by appearing with Ben’s tea. “Here you are, sweetheart. Just how you like it.”
“Thank you, honey. Now sit down and get acquainted with Tess. She’s not only pretty as a picture, she’s an awful nice girl.”
Alma laughed. “I never doubted that for a minute. After all, Nick’s taken quite a fancy to her, and we both know what good taste he has.”
Tess glanced at Nick, but he wasn’t giving anything away.
Alma looked at her husband and apparently didn’t like what she saw. “I’ve got an idea. Tess, why don’t you come out to the garden with me? We’ll pick some flowers so that I can send you home with a lovely bouquet.”
Ben’s brows rose slightly. “Don’t overdo it, Alma.”
Nick stood. “I’ll take Tess.”
Alma waved her hand. “Sit down, Nick, and, Ben, relax. I’m taking her out to the garden, and that’s that.” She turned toward her. “Come on, sweetheart.”
With a grin, Nick sat down. “You might as well go, Tess. No one can change my grandmother’s mind once she gets an idea.”
Tess rose and followed Alma.
“I hope you don’t mind that we came out here,” Alma said as soon as she shut the door of the house behind her. “I could tell Ben was overdoing it and needed a little rest.”
“I don’t mind at all.” She remembered that Ben had told his wife not to overdo. What would it be like, she wondered, to have a husband who loved you so much that he worried about your well-being even after sixty years?
She could think of no one who worried about her wellbeing in that way, though Des had been ready to come get her when he thought she was in danger. Des. Something was bothering her about her decision to turn down his offer, an offer that only a few days ago she would have moved heaven and earth to get. Later, she reminded herself. Later she would think about it.
“I had a much larger garden out at our home,” Alma said as they walked toward the relatively small but nevertheless pretty beds of blooming perennials and annuals.
“I stayed at your home last night. It’s a wonderful place.”
Once again Alma beamed. “We’ve always thought so. I also had a large vegetable garden there, but I just can’t seem to work like I used to. Kathie does most of the work for me here.”
“I don’t see why you should have to work hard at this stage of your life,” Tess said, instinctively responding to the touch of sadness she heard in the older woman’s voice. “After all, your retirement years are to enjoy.”
Alma abruptly stopped and looked at her. “But you see, it’s never been work for me. Taking care of my family and making gardens for them to both appreciate and to eat from has always been a joy for me. Someday, when you have your own family, you’ll understand.”
Tess couldn’t think of a thing to say. She couldn’t even begin to imagine herself with a family such as Alma was talking about, much less a garden to tend.
“Start with those roses there.” Alma handed a pair of garden scissors to her. “You’re a very sweet girl, Tess, but the truth is, Ben and I are past retirement. We’re at the end of our lives, and we know it.”
It was all the pictures, she supposed. She’d seen Alma and Ben from the beginning of their life together until now, which was nearly the end. But she found she really cared for this woman and her husband. Once again, she rushed to reassure her. “You don’t know that for sure. None of us knows what’s going to happen tomorrow.” She bent t
o cut several white roses, then straightened to place them in the basket Alma carried.
This time Alma didn’t bother correcting her. “I’m so glad we’ve had this opportunity to meet you, Tess. I always knew it would take an extraordinary girl to make Nick give up his wandering ways, and I can tell right off that you are that girl.”
She shook her head, unwilling in this instance to let Alma get her hopes raised. “You may be reading too much into our, uh, relationship. Nick and I have really only just met.” Then again, time, in the normal sense, didn’t seem to apply to them.
“Nonsense. I know my Nick.” She pointed to a grouping of irises. “Take some of those. Particularly the purple ones. They’re very special. I brought cuttings of them from our home. They’re from the original bunch that my mother-inlaw started years ago.”
“Really? I saw them this morning, and they’re still beautiful.”
Alma nodded. “It’s a good feeling to know that they’ve survived through the generations. Kathie has them at her house, too. And before you leave, I’m going to have Nick shovel you a start of them. It will make me feel good to know that they’ll be passing into your hands, so that your children and your grandchildren will be able to enjoy them as much as the previous generations.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind of you.” A multitude of emotions nearly overwhelmed Tess. To her surprise, she was close to breaking into tears. But she couldn’t allow herself to show any of what she was feeling. She didn’t want to distress Alma in any way.
Obviously Alma thought she and Nick would be getting married and establishing their own home, and Tess couldn’t find it in her heart to tell her that she was wrong. More than likely she would find out soon enough.
“Over there.” Once again Alma pointed, this time to a grouping of creamy yellow flowers. “Those are spring bells. They’ll look nice in your bouquet.”
Nodding compliantly, Tess cut several stalks of the delicate-looking flower.
“Have you had a chance yet to see much of the land around our home?”
“Only a little.”
“When you go back, look around if you can. When Nick was a little boy, he learned every inch of those cliffs, hills and arroyos. And not just ours. He’d explore our neighbors’ land as well. Fences of any kind never much bothered him. Cut yourself a few snapdragons, too.”
“Okay, but this is the last. Your basket is full, and what I’ve already cut will give me a beautiful bouquet.”
Even though Alma was looking right at her, Tess wasn’t sure she’d heard what she’d said.
“It seems to me that Nick has been searching for something his entire life. He’s always been a restless, serious boy. When he was young, he’d go off on his own for hours at a time. By late afternoon, I’d always start to worry about him, but along about sundown, here he’d come, his pockets and hands filled with the treasure he’d found.” Alma smiled. “Rocks, mostly, but he’d stick them in his pockets because he thought they were pretty, or shiny, or had a nice shape. I had big baskets of his rocks everywhere, but I never dared throw one of them out. Eventually I got the idea of placing them in prominent places in my garden, which made him happy. And I can’t tell you how many arrow heads he found, plus agates of Apache tears, tiger’s eyes and snowflakes. He had boxes of each of them.”
Lost in reverie, Alma smiled. “Then, as he grew older, his interests changed, but he was as restless and solemn as he’d been as a boy. Sports and girls became important to him, but they didn’t satisfy him. Every chance he got, he’d go out walking, still searching for something, still looking for treasure, I suppose. Our son never cared one way or the other about the Águila or its treasure, but Nick…that boy was born with his grandpa’s dreams in his soul.”
“Then he should be happy now, because he’s found the treasure.”
Slowly Alma focused on her. “Yes, he’s found the Aguila’s treasure, but he’s more restless than I’ve ever seen him—oh, not on the outside, but on the inside. He tries to hide it from us, but I know him too well. Before Ben dies, Nick wants more than anything in the world to be able to give his grandpa his life’s dream. He wants to stack that gold in the middle of town so that everyone will know how wrong they were about his grandpa and his great-grandpa. In a way, it’s a passion he shares with Ben, except with Ben, the passion goes deeper. He’s the one who had to watch helplessly as his papa was constantly humiliated and eventually became a broken man. And Ben’s the one who was made to suffer so by other kids. I firmly believe that showing people the proof of that gold is what’s keeping Ben alive.”
Alma took Tess’s breath away. She’d never met any woman like her. “And do you think if Nick is able to do that for his grandfather that Nick will at last be satisfied and his restlessness will finally go away?”
“I think the answer to your question lies in you.”
“Me?” she asked, surprised.
“Nick is in love with you, child. Nothing could be plainer to me. But what’s not plain is whether you love him in return. I hope you do. Nick’s trying so hard to please his grandpa, but I don’t want his dreams to get lost in the process.”
“His dreams?”
“Why, child, ultimately what everyone wants is a deep and abiding love, now isn’t it?”
She was at a loss for words. Alma’s life was so different than hers. The way in which she’d been brought up had left little time for dreaming.
Alma glanced around her garden. “We should go inside now. I’ll wrap the flowers for you so they’ll stay nice and fresh until you can get them in water.”
“Thank you.” What else could she say? She couldn’t reassure Alma about any of the things that were concerning her. She couldn’t tell her that she would stop drilling. She couldn’t tell her love was going to smooth the rocky path she and Nick were on, because there was no love. And for them, at the end, there would be no happily-ever-after love story. Nick had a restless soul that more than likely could never be soothed by love. As for her, she had never even been taught how to love.
While Nick straightened the house in preparation for leaving, Tess placed a call to Ron and asked that he meet her at the airport with an overnight bag and a briefcase filled with work. She also asked that he charter a plane and have it ready to go when she landed.
The flight to Corpus Christi was relatively silent. As soon as the plane taxied to a stop, Tess was out of her seat and heading toward the cabin door.
“Wait, Tess.”
“I’ll wait by the bottom of the stairs.”
She opened the door, then reached for her bouquet of flowers and the brown paper bag that held her start of irises. At the bottom of the stairs, she found Ron. “Were you able to do everything I asked?”
Ron nodded. “The plane’s close. Everything you requested is already on board, including the pilot.”
“Excellent. Thank you.”
“No problem. Listen, Tess. I’m so sorry I didn’t get your message last night. I was—”
“Never mind. It’s over, and I’m sure I’ll never find myself in that situation again. But just in case, make sure that the next time you spend the night away from home, you call in for messages.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Good. Will you please take these flowers to the house and put them in a vase for me?” She thought for a second. “Then put them in my bedroom. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She handed the flowers and the paper bag to him. “Put the irises in the pantry for now. We’ll plant them in a pot tomorrow.”
“Sure. Oh, there’s just one thing he said to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“He said he may not be able to stay awake until you get there.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
Nick came down the stairs. He saw Ron, then cut his gaze to her. “Why is he here?”
“Ron, can you give me a minute?”
“Certainly. I’ll be waiting by the terminal door.”
She tilted her head and looked at him. “Why did you tell your grandparents that I might stop the drilling?”
“Because under the circumstances they wouldn’t have understood a flat no. This way, if you say no, they’ll think you did your best.”
“Would the truth be so hard for them to understand?” Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer because she’d met them, seen their life through pictures, seen Alma’s garden and been given a start of her cherished irises. “You know, Nick, it all basically boils down to one thing. You’re asking me to give up millions so that you can make millions. What’s so hard to understand about that?” Once again, she knew the answer. The Águila’s gold didn’t represent money to Ben and Alma. It represented vindication.
He regarded her calmly. “You sound upset.”
She laughed. “Yeah, as a matter of fact I am. By introducing me to your grandparents, you once again attempted to stack the deck in your favor.”
“Did it work?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. Without knowing it, he’d put her in an untenable position. If she did what was best for him and his grandparents, it would put her in a far more desperate position than she was in now. In fact, it would end a large part of her life that was as vital to her as air.
On the other hand, if she did what was best for her, it would be the end of the light and hope in Nick’s grandfather’s eyes, which for Nick, would be unforgivable. Not only that, it would crush him, his grandfather and his grandmother, and no doubt bring an early death to his grandfather. Plus, she would never see Nick again.
She opened her eyes. “I’ll try.”
The Barons of Texas: Tess Page 10