Sloan had kept the secret from everyone for so long, it was hard to speak of it aloud. “Four years ago…” She cleared her throat and began again. “Four years ago I went to Cruz and asked for his help. I wanted him to take Tonio’s child when it was born. As you know, he agreed, and the Guerreros have raised my son. But Cruz demanded something in return, something that’s been a secret between the two of us.”
When Sloan paused, Luke said, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Sloan met Luke’s sympathetic gaze and suddenly knew why both her sisters had befriended him. She felt an affinity to the young Ranger she simply couldn’t explain. Luke’s encouraging smile made it easier for her to continue. “I guess I need to talk with someone, and you’re here.”
She took a deep breath and said, “Cruz asked that I marry him to legitimize Cisco, so he would bear the Guerrero name.”
Sloan glanced at Luke to see if she had shocked him, but Luke’s expression was more somber than anything else.
“So Cruz took your son… but you never married him?”
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
Sloan found it hard to meet Luke’s inquiring gaze. She fidgeted with her Colt Patterson as she spoke, splitting it into three parts and then putting it back together again.
She continued, “We signed legal papers naming us man and wife. But we didn’t say any vows before a priest. And I made him agree that the marriage wouldn’t be…” Sloan swallowed. “… that he wouldn’t touch me until Tonio’s murder had been avenged.
“You know the rest. I once told Cruz that if he ever wanted out of the marriage, he could have it annulled. But he never did.”
“Why not?”
“How should I know?” Sloan answered irritably. She had never questioned Cruz’s motives. She had never understood his demand that she marry him. But she would have done anything to get him to take her unborn child.
Now, years later, she was seeing the fruit of her folly.
“So what’s the problem with Cruz that has your father upset?” Luke asked.
Sloan took a deep breath and let it out again. “Now that Alejandro is dead, Cruz wants to make the marriage real. He wants me to live with him at Rancho Dolorosa.”
“That sounds fair. But I can see how Rip would be a little upset.” Luke snorted, then laughed aloud.
Sloan frowned. She hadn’t expected Luke to take Cruz’s side in the matter, and she certainly hadn’t expected him to laugh at her situation. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m sorry, Sloan. I didn’t mean to suggest your problem isn’t a real one. But it just occurred to me that your father has made all these grandiose plans for his daughters to carry on at Three Oaks after he’s gone, and one by one you’re all getting married and leaving. What’s he going to do once you’re gone?”
“I haven’t agreed to go with Cruz,” Sloan snapped. “And it’s doubtful I will-for precisely the reason you’ve named. I’ve spent a lifetime learning to manage Three Oaks. It’s my birthright. I’ve been bred to it. Besides, what would I do as the wife of Don Cruz Almicar Guerrero?”
Luke grinned, revealing strong white teeth that overlapped slightly in front. “I can think of a few things, but I’m not sure you want me to mention them.”
Sloan flushed. “No, I don’t.”
“Don’t you want to have a husband and children?”
“I have a husband and a child already.”
“Not a real husband. And when was the last time you saw your son?”
Sloan paled. “What good is having a husband if I have to give up Three Oaks?”
“The land isn’t everything, Sloan.”
“To me it is,” she replied quietly. “It’s the only thing I can count on.”
Luke looked into Sloan’s chocolate-brown eyes and saw a kindred soul. She knew the bitterness of betrayal as he did. She trusted no one; nor did he. She was alone, as he was.
The big difference was that she now had a chance to move beyond the tragedy that had scarred her life. Cruz Guerrero was nothing like his brother Antonio.
“I think you’re making a big mistake if you don’t think twice about fulfilling your bargain with Cruz,” Luke said.
“I have been thinking. I’ve done nothing but think for the past five days, since he showed up at Three Oaks and gave me an ultimatum-come to Dolorosa or he’d be back with his vaqueros to get me.” Sloan brushed a wisp of sable hair from her cheekbone.
“How do you feel about Cruz… as a man?” Luke asked.
Sloan shivered. She had been carefully avoiding this subject because the truth was that she found Cruz tantalizing in a way his younger brother never had been. But she wasn’t about to admit that to Luke.
“What do you want me to say? He’s strong and well formed. He has eyes as blue as the Texas sky and crow-wing black hair.” She shrugged dismissively. “He’s an attractive man. There’s no denying it.
“But he’s also arrogant and demanding. He’s used to giving orders and having them obeyed. And he doesn’t know the meaning of the word compromise!”
That last accusation wasn’t exactly precise, Sloan admitted, but it was true enough to mean problems if she found herself living with Cruz.
“Have you imagined what it would be like to-”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“How can you choose Three Oaks over a flesh-and-blood man when you won’t let yourself consider what the man has to offer you?”
“I’ve had a man between my legs,” Sloan said crudely, hoping to end the conversation. “I can’t imagine one is much different from another.”
Luke didn’t contradict her. She would have to find out the truth for herself. “You could give it a try. Things might work out. Did you ever think maybe you could use someone to lean on once in a while, someone to share your troubles and lighten the load?”
“That’s the last thing I need.” But Sloan knew the vehemence of her objection was directly related to the immense appeal of Luke’s suggestion.
Luke stood up and brushed the grass and dirt from the seat of his pants. “Sounds like you have your mind made up.”
Sloan rubbed her palms on the knees of her trousers, then looked up to meet Luke’s penetrating gaze. “I guess I do.”
“I’ll be going, then.” He wasn’t going to try to change Sloan’s mind. But he wasn’t going to approve of her decision, either. He swung into the saddle and kneed his chestnut gelding away from the river at a walk.
“Luke…”
He reined in his horse and looked back at Sloan over his shoulder, waiting for her to speak.
“You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
“Thanks for listening. I… needed… someone.” It was a hard thing to admit aloud.
“You’re welcome, Sloan. Anytime.” He nudged his horse with his heels and soon left her behind him.
Luke felt a well of anger rising inside him and struggled to subdue it. He shouldn’t care what Sloan Stewart did with her life, but he couldn’t seem to distance himself from any woman in distress. A legacy from his childhood, he thought with disgust, when his mother had needed someone to rescue her from the mire and he had been too young to help. He had grown up as fast as he could, but it had still been too slow to make a difference.
He wanted to help Sloan, but he debated the wisdom of interfering. Maybe he would only make things worse. He had no way of predicting how Rip would react to the message he planned to deliver.
Aw, hell! All Rip Stewart had ever wanted was a son. Knowing he had one-even if he was a bastard-was bound to make a difference.
Luke turned his mount toward the plantation house. There was no time like the present for digging up bitter, long-buried secrets.
Chapter 4
SLOAN SQUARED HER SHOULDERS AND LIFTED her chin to confront her father. “I don’t care how many of your bastard sons turn up on the doorste
p. Three Oaks is mine! And I don’t intend to share it!”
Rip quivered with repressed wrath. He had raised his eldest daughter to know her own mind, and he had never been sorry for it. But it was past time she understood that despite the recent stroke that forced him to lean on a cane for support, he was still the master of Three Oaks.
“Until I’m planted six feet underground, Three Oaks is mine,” he thundered. “It will be yours when, and if, I say it is.”
“You promised-”
“Whatever promises I made to you came before I found out I had a son.”
“You’d give Three Oaks to a bastard son you didn’t even know about until this morning, when I’ve worked my fingers to the bone all my life for this land? You wouldn’t dare! This plantation belongs to me. I’ve earned it!”
“Bastard or not, Luke Summers is my son. If I choose to divide Three Oaks between the two of you, I will.”
“You can’t! You wouldn’t! I would never allow-”
“You don’t allow anything. I make the decisions here,” he bellowed.
“Not since your stroke, you haven’t,” Sloan countered, her voice choked with frustration and fury. “For the past nine months, I’ve made the decisions. I’ve run Three Oaks and you’ve leaned back in your rocker and watched me do it. I have no intention of letting you take it away from me now.”
“That’s enough!”
“No, it’s not enough. I haven’t begun-”
Rip’s hand streaked out to silence Sloan. He could not bear to hear the truth she spoke, and fear-fear that he was growing older, fear that he was no longer in control-had brought the back of his hand across his daughter’s proud face.
He saw the growing red mark on her cheek and knew it would soon be a dark bruise. He felt ashamed, but he offered no apology. He’d had no practice at it in the past and now…
He could not explain to her the fears that had prompted his violence. His recent close brush with death had created a fierce need in him to ensure the continuity of Three Oaks. He had counted it nothing short of a miracle when Luke Summers had arrived on his doorstep that morning and announced, “I’m your son.”
Even knowledge of Luke’s bastardy had not forestalled the surge of emotion Rip had experienced at this devil-inspired answer to the fervent prayers of his youth. He could not help his reaction to the knowledge he had a son. He wanted to give Luke a part of himself. And that meant giving Luke a part of Three Oaks.
Rip knew he was being a tomfool, knew he was acting like a ridiculous old man. None of that mattered.
He had a son.
Sloan’s eyes never left Rip’s face, so she saw the fleeting confusion and remorse, followed by tight-lipped obstinance. His mind was made up. She closed her eyes to shut out the hopelessness she felt. Her cheek burned as the blood rushed to the spot where Rip had backhanded her.
She hadn’t expected her father to strike her-not because it hadn’t happened in the past, but because it hadn’t happened in so long. Rip had learned years ago that he couldn’t intimidate her by using force, so he had stopped trying.
She resisted lifting her hand to her cheek to touch the fiery skin. There was no way to soothe the hurt she felt. What he wanted to do was wrong. She opened her eyes again and saw a giant of a man whose hand trembled on his cane. She knew she should feel sorry for him, but her feelings of betrayal trod hard on her sympathy.
She watched as Rip spread his legs for balance and placed the gnarled oak handle of his cane squarely in front of him, leaning heavily upon it.
“I’ve asked Luke to come for supper tonight,” he said. “I told him we had some talking to do. I plan to offer him an interest in Three Oaks.”
“The hell you will!”
“The hell I will!”
As furious as she was with her father, Sloan was even more angry at Luke. How could he have listened to her problems so sympathetically when all the time he had planned to steal Three Oaks right out from under her nose? She placed her balled fists on her hips. “I won’t share Three Oaks.”
“You don’t have any choice.”
“Oh, I have a choice, all right.” Her lips thinned in determination that equalled Rip’s. “If you’re so hell-bent on giving Three Oaks to Luke Summers, go right ahead. Just don’t expect me to stick around and be grateful for leftovers.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you go through with this absurd plan of yours, I’ll leave Three Oaks and never look back.”
“Don’t threaten me, Sloan. You’ve already made it clear you’ll have nothing to do with Cruz Guerrero. Where else would you go? What else would you do?”
“I’m well trained as an overseer. There’s bound to be someone with a cotton plantation along the Brazos River who’ll want to hire me.”
“There’s not a gentleman planter in Texas who’ll have anything to do with you,” Rip said. “In case you’ve forgotten, you’re a woman. Not one of them would hire a woman to do a man’s job.”
Sloan was choked silent by the truth of his words. Rip had made her what she was-a woman with a man’s dreams and capabilities-and there was nowhere she could be herself except here at Three Oaks.
Which only made what he proposed to do all the more cruel.
“And don’t think you can run away and hide with Cricket and Creed at Lion’s Dare or with Bay and Long Quiet at Golden Valley,” he continued. “Your sisters have their own lives to lead. You belong here at Three Oaks.”
“For how long? Until another bastard of yours shows up to take the rest of what’s mine?”
Rip had already raised his hand to strike her again when he caught himself. A look bordering on pain etched his blunt features. “Don’t provoke me, Sloan. I’m angry enough with you to do something I might regret. There’s nowhere you can go. You’d best bite leather and endure.”
Sloan stared defiantly at her father. She would have argued further, except it was clear there was nothing more she could say until she found out how Luke Summers felt about Rip’s plans. There was a small chance he wasn’t any more willing to possess an interest in Three Oaks than she was to have him acquire one. But she wasn’t counting on it.
She was still in shock over the revelation that Luke Summers was her half-brother. Although Rip would not tell her exactly what Luke had said, he had convinced her father of the veracity of his claim.
But if Luke was truly Rip’s son, why hadn’t he spoken up four years ago, when he had first come to Three Oaks? Why had he waited until now to reveal the truth? What exactly had he hoped to accomplish by telling Rip now that he had a son?
Sloan wanted some straight answers and she intended to have them.
“I’ve made my stand clear,” she said. “Right now I have plantation business that needs tending. I’ll see you at supper.” She turned on her booted heel and marched from her father’s study.
Sloan’s stomach was knotted in a fist, and the noon meal of salty ham and biscuits she had just eaten with Rip threatened to force its way back up again. She swallowed hard as she left the house. She looked down at her hands and realized they were shaking as badly as Rip’s had been. She grabbed the reins tied to a post in front of the house and stepped quickly into her horse’s saddle. The animal sensed her tension and sidestepped nervously.
Sloan refused to give the stallion his head, holding him to a walk. He fought the bit, dancing under her, heading for the road that led away from Three Oaks, which Sloan used when she took him for a hard run at least once a week.
Rip can’t do this.
Of course he can. If Rip never taught you another thing, he taught you that nothing’s certain in this life.
Sloan shook her head in disgust. She of all people should be aware of that. Hadn’t she learned her lesson from Antonio Guerrero? She remembered vividly the night her sister Cricket had told her Tonio was a traitor, that the Texas Rangers had discovered Tonio’s plot and had set a trap to catch him. She had ridden hard to reach h
im, not believing Cricket’s tale.
But she had arrived too late. Tonio had already been killed and his body sent home to his family. She had followed as quickly as she could.
Sloan would never forget the pain in Cruz’s blue eyes as she had pleaded with him to intercede with his parents to permit her to see Tonio’s body. She heard again his mother’s voice raised in anguish and remembered Cruz’s flushed face as he had returned and said, “Come with me.”
The suffocating smell of incense returned to her, and the feel of Tonio’s cold lips as she had kissed him one last time in the candlelit shadows of his bier. She had felt the tears form behind her eyes. But she had not cried.
She shivered at the memory of Tonio’s mother, Doña Lucia, regal even in her sorrow, dressed in stark black, her eyes red-rimmed as she clutched a wrinkled handkerchief in her hand. Sloan had offered Tonio’s mother the only balm she could.
“In the winter I will bear Tonio’s child.”
“Ah.” There had been a wealth of condemnation in the Spanish woman’s voice. “Do you seek someone to take the bastard child off your hands, Señorita Stewart?”
Sloan had been appalled at Doña Lucia’s words. But to her shame, she had eventually fulfilled their prophecy.
She had buried her pain in work. She had tried not to think of her son, or his father. She had loved and nurtured Three Oaks instead.
Rip simply could not take Three Oaks from her now. Not when it was all she had left.
Caught up in the turmoil of her thoughts, Sloan had paid no attention to the direction the stallion took. Without her being quite aware of it, they had gone beyond the borders of Three Oaks and she found herself surrounded by wilderness.
Nothing except sagebrush and an occasional pin oak stood between her and Comancheria, the vast land to the north claimed by the Comanches. The sudden awareness of her danger brought Sloan from her stupor, and she yanked the stallion to a standstill.
The stallion fought the bit, demanding his head. Instead of quieting him, she turned him toward home and spurred him hard. Startled, the beast bolted away at a gallop.
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