Sloan let him run until his chest heaved like a bellows and foamy sweat lathered his chest and flanks. Her eyes teared at the whip of the wind, and the smell of leather and sweat stung her nostrils.
The more tired the stallion became, the harder she pushed him. How far could he run? How long could he last? How soon before the pain became too awful for his great heart to bear?
At last she pulled him to a stop. She slipped from the saddle and, finding her knees weak, clung to the animal’s thick black mane. His nostrils flared as he sucked air. He stomped a hoof in agitation. She ran a hand down his foam-flecked, sweat-slick shoulder in an attempt to calm him.
Her eyes felt painfully dry. Rip had beaten the tears out of her long ago. Her chest hurt from the pressure inside as she offered soft words of solace to her horse.
“Take it easy, boy.” Sloan took a deep breath and slowly let it out again as she regained a measure of calm. Her face was pinched as she admitted, “I’ve got a bit too much of Rip in me, I guess, taking my pain out on you.”
She spoke in a soothing tone of all she had lost and all she feared to lose. How she felt trapped and saw no escape. How she could no more bear the stinging bit of restraint she expected Cruz to apply if she became his wife than the raking spur of sharing Three Oaks with Luke if she stayed with her father. How her helplessness galled her like a wrinkled blanket under the saddle.
There was no way she could have explained her feelings to Rip. He did not expect it; he would not have approved of it. A Stewart never explained, because a Stewart was never wrong. A Stewart never felt pain, or at least never admitted to it. A Stewart wasn’t vulnerable like ordinary human beings.
Only Sloan felt awfully, terribly fragile.
The blasphemous thought of sharing her troubles with someone-with Cruz-had tremendous appeal. But could she really expect the arrogant Spaniard to understand her feelings? More important, would he care enough to try?
The stallion’s breathing gradually slowed, and he snorted once or twice before his head came up a bit from the ground. Sloan’s stiff muscles protested as she stepped into the saddle again. She had indulged in more than enough self-pity, more than enough groaning and gnashing of teeth. Gripping the reins in a white-knuckled fist, she turned her mount back toward the fields, where the slaves were at work.
She spent the rest of the afternoon concentrating on the cotton harvest as though her life depended on it-her tenuous peace of mind certainly did.
For the first time in three years, the cotton hadn’t been attacked by either cut worms or army worms, and heavy rain hadn’t driven the surviving cotton bolls into the mud to stain and mold. The harvest was bountiful, a reminder of all she stood to lose.
Sloan was grateful for the deep, melodic voices of the field hands singing as they snatched cotton. There could be no more soothing balm for her jumbled emotions than the old familiar hymns.
By suppertime, as the sun set in vivid pinks across an expansive Texas sky, Sloan was exhausted, her face and neck streaked where sweat had turned dust to mud. She had pledged to Rip that the snatching would get done in time to beat the rainy season even if she had to get down off her horse and pick cotton herself. She would leave her father no opening to say she could not handle the responsibility she had been given. But no more could be done today.
Sloan turned the stallion toward the row of cotton where Uncle Billy worked. “It’s getting dark, Uncle Billy. Pass the word.”
“Shore ’nuff, Miz Sloan.”
Sloan waited as men in shades from caramel-brown to coal-black brought their bags of cotton to be emptied in the baskets at the end of each row.
“You looks tuckered out,” Uncle Billy remarked. “You needs to rest some, Miz Sloan.”
Sloan gave the burly Negro a wan smile as she lifted her flat-brimmed hat and used a kerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow. “When we get the cotton snatched, we’ll all take a rest.” Sloan turned the stallion and headed for the house.
“Sun be rising early, Miz Sloan. See you gets those eyes closed ’fore the moon be up, hear?”
Sloan didn’t answer. Her thoughts had already leaped ahead to the coming confrontation with Luke Summers. If Rip insisted on her sharing Three Oaks with Luke, she would… Well, that was putting the harvest before the planting. It remained to be seen what Luke Summers would have to say about Rip’s offer.
As she approached the main house, Sloan saw Luke’s chestnut gelding tied in the shade of the live oaks. She shrugged her shoulders in an attempt to loosen the sweat-dampened gingham shirt from the places where it stuck to her skin. She wanted a bath. Her lips twisted wryly as the smell of her own sweat rose up to greet her. She also needed a bath. Stephen would have already placed the tub in her room and filled it with steaming water. There was no reason why she couldn’t take time to rinse off the grime of the day before she fought any more battles.
Sloan heard the murmur of voices in the study on the left as she quietly ascended the stairs in the central hallway that divided the house.
Coward!
The voice shouting inside her head stopped her halfway up the stairs. She was not avoiding a confrontation, merely delaying it, she reasoned in response. She took another step.
Coward! the voice shrieked again.
If there was one thing Rip had instilled in her from the day she was born, it was courage. She was his brave girl. She was his strong one. She must never be afraid. She must face her fears and conquer them. To show vulnerability was to be weak. To show weakness was to lose everything. She knew what she was. And she was no coward. She took another step.
Coward!
Sloan gripped the polished oak banister with a strength that left her hand aching. Then she turned and walked back down to Rip’s office, pushed the door open and entered the room. When she did, Luke Summers rose and turned to face her.
He stiffened as soon as he saw her face. “Where’d you get that bruise?”
“None of your business!” she snapped.
Rip flushed as Luke’s steely gaze shifted to him. But Sloan offered no further explanation, nor did Luke ask for one.
Somehow Luke looked even taller, Sloan thought, even more intimidating, in Rip’s masculine office. This man was her father’s son, her half-brother. Yet she noticed Luke and Rip were not much alike, physically.
Luke was whipcord lean, while Rip was a massive, barrel-chested man. She looked for traces of Rip in Luke’s features but found little of her father. Only the strong, square jaw was the same. Luke must have taken after his mother. Sloan had to concede she must have been a beautiful woman.
Because she and Luke were of a similar age, Sloan had figured out that her mother must have been pregnant with her at about the same time Luke’s mother had been pregnant with him. It appeared Rip had not been a faithful husband. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
She had never thought about it much, but in all these years she had never seen her father with a woman. Oh, she knew he must have sought out women for his needs, away from the plantation.
But suddenly she wondered why he had never married again-especially if once upon a time there had been another woman besides Amelia in his life.
Sloan nodded briefly to Luke. His eyes seemed to reach out to her, to ask her to take his side. She couldn’t afford to do that. She hardened her expression and turned away, afraid she would succumb to whatever it was about her half-brother that had caused her to befriend and confide in him. She paled at the thought that he might not keep her secret as he had promised.
“Sit down and join us,” Rip commanded.
Sloan headed for the other vacant chair across from her father. She met Luke’s eyes briefly as the two of them sat down and saw a measure of distress that surprised her. She leaned back in the rawhide chair and rested one ankle against the opposite knee, giving a casual appearance at odds with the tension rippling inside her.
Rip took a sip of brandy from the crystal snifter he had been rolling with unc
haracteristic nervousness between his palms. “I’ve been telling Luke that I’d like him to think about staying on at Three Oaks for a while.”
“And what did he have to say to that?” Sloan asked.
“I said I’d think about it.”
Sloan realized that Luke wasn’t about to let her pretend he wasn’t there. Yet she directed her next comment to Rip alone. “Just what, exactly, did you have in mind for Luke to do here at Three Oaks?”
“Whatever needs doing. The harvest is backbreaking work for anyone, and you’ve had more than your share of problems this year.”
“I haven’t complained,” Sloan replied, carefully controlling her voice to keep out the irritation she felt.
Rip flashed a look at Sloan’s pale, bruised face and grimaced. “Of course you haven’t. That doesn’t mean you haven’t had problems.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she persisted.
“I don’t want to take Sloan’s place at Three Oaks,” Luke said. “I don’t have the experience-”
Rip cleared his throat, interrupting Luke’s speech. “What you don’t know, you’ll learn. I’ll teach you myself.”
“That’s a generous offer,” Luke said. “But when I came here this morning, it wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“What did you have in mind?” Sloan asked, her voice sharp with accusation.
Luke met Sloan’s stare without wavering. For an instant he let down his guard and she saw confusion and-? Bitterness? Hate?
Luke’s voice when he spoke was bare of the volatile emotions she had seen flash in his eyes. “I just wanted Rip to know he’s my father.”
Luke turned his gaze back on Rip, and for the first time since she had come into the room, Sloan was aware of a treacherous undercurrent between the two of them. Evidently, more words had passed between them than she had been told about.
Did Luke Summers have some hold over Rip that had forced her father into offering a part of Three Oaks to his bastard son? To Sloan’s knowledge, Rip had never been coerced into anything. What could the young Texas Ranger possibly have said that would have made her father want to keep him here at Three Oaks?
Then she became aware of something else.
They’re both in pain.
It was a startling thought, and an uncomfortable one. Sloan didn’t want to feel sorry for either Luke or Rip. Between them, they were turning her life upside-down.
She clenched her fists against the softness welling up inside that urged her to offer comfort. She had to stop behaving like some simpering female. She had to think about her future-about Three Oaks.
“If Luke says he doesn’t want anything to do with Three Oaks, then I think you ought to respect his wishes,” she said.
“Whether he wants it or not, half of Three Oaks is his,” Rip announced.
“I don’t want half of this place,” Luke replied evenly.
Sloan enjoyed a moment of relief before Rip said, “All right, then, three-quarters.”
Sloan gasped.
“I don’t want three-quarters, either,” Luke said in a steely voice.
Sloan held in the cry of despair that begged for release. Surely Rip could not, would not, offer more.
“All of it, dammit! I’ll make you my heir.”
“No!”
Sloan and Luke had shouted the word together as they bounded to their feet, but in desperation, Rip kept talking. “I would have offered it all in the first place if you’d just said that was what you wanted.”
“Wait!” Sloan cried.
“Wait for what?” Rip slammed down his brandy glass and grasped his cane. “Luke is my son. He’s entitled to Three Oaks.”
“You can’t do this!”
Rip met Sloan’s desperate look with defiant eyes. “Luke will inherit Three Oaks. Of course, you’ll always have a place here for as long as you live.”
Sloan’s heart pounded. Her throat constricted. She blinked to remove the film that kept her eyes from focusing. “A place here…” The words came out in a raspy whisper. She swallowed hard and tried again. “A place here as long as I live?”
“You’ll always have a home here,” Rip corrected. “I wouldn’t take that away from you.”
Sloan felt the fury building inside her. “And you think that’s enough? You think that will satisfy me?” She laughed, a harsh sound. “How little you know about me! I told you I’d have it all or I’d leave. And I meant it!” She headed for the door in a hurry.
With the aid of his cane, Rip struggled to his feet, needing to stop her, frustrated by his unresponsive body. “Hold it right there! We both know you have nowhere to go.”
Sloan whirled and gave her father the full brunt of her wrath. “The hell I don’t!”
“Who’ll take you in? Think, woman!”
“Cruz Guerrero,” Sloan snapped in brash challenge to his will. “Cruz will welcome me with open arms.”
Sloan had turned and taken two more steps when Rip said, “Maybe you won’t be quite so welcome at the Guerrero hacienda as you think.”
Sloan paused, halted by the cat’s cream in Rip’s voice. “Why is that?”
Rip took his time walking to his desk, riffling through papers until he found the one he wanted. He took a limping step or two toward Sloan and held the paper out in his hand.
Sloan stared at the parchment but made no move to take it. “What is that?”
“It’s an invitation to a party. It says that Don Cruz Almicar Guerrero requests the pleasure of your company at a fandango to introduce Señorita Refugia Adela María Tomasita Hidalgo of Madrid, Spain, to his friends and neighbors. It seems she’ll be living at the Guerrero hacienda.” Rip threw the paper back onto the desk.
“When were you planning to tell me about this invitation?” Sloan demanded.
“I only got it yesterday.”
Sloan’s blood froze at the implications of such an invitation coming after Cruz had given his ultimatum.
Rip continued, “I didn’t think you had time in the middle of the harvest to attend a party.”
“Well, that’s certainly not a problem any longer, is it?” She smiled in a way that revealed her teeth but didn’t in the least convey pleasantness. Meanwhile, her mind was racing to determine whether Cruz had changed his mind and decided to take the more respectable Spanish señorita as his bride.
But she had backed herself into a corner. She had no choice now except to seek him out.
It was Luke who broke the vibrating silence that had fallen on the room. “If anyone leaves Three Oaks, it should be me.”
Rip tore his eyes from Sloan’s white face to meet Luke’s troubled eyes. “You’re my son. You’ll stay here and take care of your birthright.”
“What about me?” Sloan whispered. “What about my birthright?”
A flicker of guilt crossed Rip’s face before his blunt features hardened. “There’s no reason why you can’t continue here as before. You’re an excellent overseer.”
Sloan’s incredulous laughter echoed off the high ceiling. It was the first time Rip had admitted she was doing a good job, but somehow this wasn’t the way she had expected to hear it. The grating, angry voice sounded nothing like her own. “When you come to your senses, you’ll find me at the Guerrero hacienda.”
She fled before Rip could say anything more.
Rip’s eyes glittered as he stared at the empty doorway. He turned to face his newfound son. “You have no choice except to stay now, Luke. With Sloan gone, I have no one else to oversee the harvest.”
“You can do it yourself.”
Rip gripped the cane that was keeping him on his feet. “I’m a cripple, son.”
Luke flinched at Rip’s offhanded claim of paternity. “You’re healthy as a bull.”
“A crippled bull,” Rip agreed. “I can’t carry the burden of Three Oaks alone. It’s likely to take some time for Sloan to come to terms with my decision… and with what she finds waiting for her at Dolorosa.” He rubbed his temple as though
it pained him. “I need your help, son.”
Luke hissed in a breath of air and let it out. “I’ll stay, you manipulating son of a bitch. But only until Sloan makes up her mind whether or not she wants to remain with Cruz.”
Before Luke could leave, Rip reached out a hand and caught his sleeve. “Wait…”
“What for? I think everything’s been said.”
“Your mother… will you tell her… I’m sorry?”
Luke sneered. “Little good that will do her now. She’s dead.”
Rip’s face blanched. “I loved your mother, Luke… but she wouldn’t marry me without her father’s approval… and he refused to give it.”
“You deserted her when she needed you most.”
“I never knew she was pregnant!”
“When her family turned away from her, my mother sold her body to support me.”
“Why didn’t she just ask me for help?” Rip asked in an agonized voice.
“You had already married another woman.”
Rip released Luke’s sleeve to rub his temple again.
“My mother died a penniless, diseased whore. But you have a son, Rip. You have a goddamn son!”
Luke was gone from the room before Rip had a chance to reply.
Chapter 5
OF ALL THE GREAT MISTAKES SLOAN HAD MADE in her lifetime-loving Antonio, giving up her son, the bargain with Cruz-this was among the worst. She should never have left Three Oaks. After all, possession was nine-tenths of the law.
She had walked out with her pride intact, but she had given up everything she had worked for all her life. If she had stayed at Three Oaks, she would have been in a much better position to defend her claim.
She had no excuse for her flight except that she had been too shocked, too angry, too bruised in heart and soul to behave with her typical rationality. Her hindsight was clear as a spring-fed pool, but in a frontier as merciless as Texas, a body seldom got a second chance.
The hell of it was, she was sitting on her horse in the middle of the Atascosito Road without the vaguest idea which direction she should take. She had told Rip she would be at the Guerrero hacienda, yet she really didn’t want to go there. Rancho Dolorosa held too many reminders of the painful past.
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