She had only meant to rest for a moment, but she must have fallen asleep. She realized that the bed was no place from which to conduct the arguments she had formulated, but Rip didn’t give her a chance to get up before he began speaking.
“Well, well, well. The prodigal daughter has returned.”
Sloan bristled at his smug tone. She rose from the bed and stood beside it, tucking her gingham shirt into her trousers.
“It’s about time someone showed some common sense around here,” he said.
She leaned down and tugged on a Wellington, then had to search before she found the other boot under the bed. While she was pulling it on she asked, “Where’s Luke?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
Sloan’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “That’s a new tune you’re singing. I must say I like the sound of it, though.”
Rip chuckled. “Don’t get your hopes up. He’ll be back.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“That boy hates my guts.” Rip took his time getting to the ladder-back chair in the corner of Sloan’s room. After he had settled himself in it, he leaned his hands on the handle of his cane and said, “Don’t look so surprised. Surely you guessed everything wasn’t honey and roses between me and my son.”
“No. No, I hadn’t… exactly.” Sloan hopped up on the foot of the bed and let her heels dangle over the bedstead. “Why does he hate you?”
“It’s a long story, and not a very pleasant one. I’d as soon not repeat it. Suffice it to say, there are things that happened that I’m not proud of. Things that hurt Luke’s mother.”
“Is there anything you can do to mend fences?”
“No. Luke’s mother Charity died a few years ago.”
A look of such great longing, mixed with pain, came across Rip’s face that Sloan nearly got up to go to him. In another instant, the strained look was gone and he was in control again.
“There’s nothing I can do to help her now,” he said with a sigh of regret. “And Luke isn’t going to let me forget it.”
“But there’s something you can do to help him. Is that it?” Sloan said. “Is that why you want to give him Three Oaks?”
“Something like that,” Rip admitted. “It isn’t that I wouldn’t have wanted to help him anyway. After all, he is my son.”
“How do you know he’s actually your son?”
To her surprise Rip grinned. “Charity made sure he knew about my birthmark. Luke has the same one.”
“I never knew-”
“It isn’t in a place that shows.”
Sloan had never thought of her father as an ordinary person with ordinary flaws. He had always been someone larger than life, the bedrock of Three Oaks, the stubborn, opinionated head of the household.
Now she realized he was only a man, one who had made a terrible mistake once upon a time. It was a mistake he clearly regretted and one that would likely haunt him the rest of his life.
It was also a mistake for which she was being forced to pay the consequences.
Sloan scooted off the bed and walked the few steps necessary to lay a hand on Rip’s shoulder, offering the comfort she hadn’t dared to offer before.
Rip’s head came up with a jerk, and his gray eyes turned dark as he perused her face. “I assume you’ve come back to be my overseer.”
“I’ve come back to claim what’s mine.”
Rip chuffed out a breath of air. “What about Cruz?”
“What about him?”
“The man seemed pretty certain he wanted you for his wife. Do you mean to tell me he’s changed his mind?”
“Not exactly.”
Rip cocked a brow and waited.
“No, dammit, he hasn’t changed his mind,” Sloan admitted in a rush.
“Seems to me your marrying Cruz would be the perfect answer to all our problems,” Rip said. “You would be mistress of Dolorosa, and I could leave Three Oaks to Luke. Everything would be even all around.”
“Except I don’t want Dolorosa. I want Three Oaks,” Sloan retorted.
“We don’t always get everything we want.”
A silence descended between them as they both digested the bitter truth of Rip’s statement.
“Why are you so determined to disinherit me?” Sloan asked.
“Maybe I’m just trying to do what’s best for you,” Rip said, his brow furrowed.
“I’ll be the judge of what’s best for me.”
Rip took a good look at his eldest daughter, who defied him with shoulders back, chin up, and arms crossed aggressively under her breasts. He had trained her well, molded her in his image. Perhaps he had done too good a job. Perhaps she was going to plow bullheadedly forward in the wrong direction just to get her own way.
He had learned a few hard lessons over the past few years. The hardest of them was that he wasn’t as smart as he had thought he was. He had dreamed of having three sons, of creating an empire that would begin with Three Oaks.
Now he realized that he hadn’t counted on the vast opportunities Texas would offer his children. He hadn’t counted on their wanting to take off, like eaglets leaving their aerie, in search of their own domain.
He hadn’t counted on the choices being taken out of his hands.
Rip had watched his two younger daughters leave Three Oaks and start fulfilling new lives with their husbands. He couldn’t help wanting that same kind of happiness for Sloan, the child with whom he had shared so much of the burden of Three Oaks, the one on whom he had been hardest because she must be best.
She had always been independent, and determined to do everything her own way. Now she was going to throw away the chance of a life with Cruz in order to possess Three Oaks.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what to do. So he said, “I guess I’ll let you and Luke fight it out.”
Sloan could hardly believe her ears. “You have no objection to my claiming Three Oaks?”
“You’ll have to settle the matter with Luke. He makes the decisions about Three Oaks now.” Rip rose from the chair and walked across the room, not stopping until he reached the door. “If you want to wait, Luke said he would be back along about sundown. It’s good to see you, Sloan.”
It was all the welcome she was going to get, Sloan knew, and yet it was more of a statement of caring than he had ever made in the past. Still, her sense of betrayal ran deep. Luke hated Rip; she loved her father; yet Rip had given control of Three Oaks to his son.
Damn right she planned to wait and talk to Luke!
She was sitting in Rip’s office when she heard footsteps in the central hallway. She waited for Luke to come in, belatedly realizing that she had heard the steps of two men.
“Howdy, Sloan,” Luke said.
She turned her head to greet him and was stunned by the sight of Cruz standing next to him. “What are you doing here?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. I came home and found you gone. I thought we had an understanding.”
Sloan rose to confront Cruz. “I understood what you wanted. But I don’t think you have an inkling of what I want.” She turned to Luke. “Rip told me he’s given control of Three Oaks to you.”
“If that’s what he said, it must be so,” Luke said.
“I want it back.”
“Why?” Luke asked. “You’re married to Cruz. Or so he just told me. You’ll be living at Dolorosa.”
“I… we…” She looked into Cruz’s eyes and saw him dare her to deny it. “This has nothing to do with whether I’m married to Cruz or not.”
“I’m afraid I have to differ with you,” Luke said. “A woman belongs with her husband.”
Sloan didn’t know what argument to use against that reasoning.
“But that’s not why I went to Dolorosa looking for you today,” Luke said.
“You went to Dolorosa?”
“I’ve just come from there. That’s where Cruz and I hooked up. What I wanted to tell you is that I’m sorry
about the way things turned out. I never wanted to be a cotton farmer. I never wanted Three Oaks. I just wanted… Aw, hell.”
He stuck his thumbs in the front of his pants and said, “The bulk of the harvest is finished, so I’m going to take care of some Ranger business in San Antonio that needs tending.”
“Is it something to do with Alejandro and the Hawk?” Sloan watched as Cruz and Luke exchanged guilty glances. “It is, isn’t it?”
Sloan felt a frisson of excitement when Luke’s frown seemed to confirm her speculation. “Alejandro’s alive, isn’t he? And working with a spy called the Hawk?”
“Stay out of this, Sloan,” Luke said.
“Do not worry, amigo,” Cruz said. “I will keep her out of trouble.”
“The hell you will!” Sloan said.
“Listen, Sloan,” Luke cajoled. “Those bandido spies mean business. They-”
“Spies?”
All eyes turned to find Rip silhouetted in the doorway to his office. Luke groaned in disgust.
“What’s all this talk about bandido spies?” Rip demanded.
“It’s nothing,” Luke said.
“Don’t give me that bullshit, son. It’s something, all right, and I want to hear what!”
Luke had stiffened when Rip called him son, and Sloan was certain he wasn’t about to explain anything to Rip.
Luke proved her wrong when he said, “You know how it is. There’s plenty of intrigue where politics and money are concerned. The English aren’t too happy about Texas becoming the next state. Seems there’s a bunch of British investors who’ll lose money if Texas joins the Union, so there’s some manipulation going on to try and stall annexation. That’s all there is to it. Nothing the Rangers can’t handle.”
“So that’s why you had to leave Three Oaks?”
Luke pursed his lips. “Part of it.”
“And the rest of it?”
“I explained that once. I don’t see any need to go over it again.”
“I do.”
“I’ve done all the talking I plan to do.”
Sloan felt the animosity flash between the two men like heat lightning. She should have been glad to have them at odds, but it distressed her to see father and son bristling at one another like two wildcats. And she didn’t see any easy solutions to the problems that plagued them.
But Luke’s declaration had offered her the first hope she’d had since he had shown up at her father’s doorstep that she would regain possession of Three Oaks.
That possibility created its own set of problems. Suppose she did become heir to Three Oaks again. How was she going to manage the plantation until the six months she had promised Cruz were up?
She decided she could figure that out later. Right now, she needed to make sure that Rip understood she wanted Three Oaks no matter what.
“Why waste your time trying to convince Luke to take Three Oaks?” she said, breaking the silence that had descended. “If he doesn’t want the responsibility, I’ll take it.”
This time, all three men turned to stare at her. She found them in various states of discomfort. Luke was flushed with embarrassment; Rip’s face was a picture of frustration; and Cruz’s features were taut with fury.
“That is an offer you are not free to make,” Cruz said, his voice menacingly soft.
Rip’s brow furrowed as he looked from his stiff-backed daughter to the towering Spaniard. “Something else going on here I don’t know about?”
“Sloan is my wife.”
“That true, Sloan?” Rip asked, his bushy brows lowering even more.
Sloan swallowed the pool of saliva that had gathered in her mouth. “I might have promised-”
“You are mine!” Cruz said in a hard voice.
Sloan took two steps to put them toe to toe. “Like hell I am! I don’t-I won’t-belong to anyone. Least of all some arrogant-”
Cruz grabbed her shoulders and jerked her forward against his broad chest. He gathered a handful of her hair in his fist and tilted her face up to his. His lips claimed ownership as surely as if she had been branded. His mouth slanted across hers, his tongue thrusting beyond her lips and ravishing her mouth, seeking the honey she had guarded so closely, and compelling her to share it with him.
Sloan was lost. She wasn’t conscious of her hands tunneling into his silky hair to pull his head down and keep his mouth where it was. She wasn’t aware of her lithe body arching into his male hardness, of her hips seeking a haven between his outspread legs, or of her tongue dueling with his and demanding equal sway.
The sound of Rip clearing his throat brought Sloan abruptly back to her senses. She opened her eyes to find Cruz’s hooded gaze intent on her face. She was shocked to see her hands threaded through his hair, her body aligned with his. She stepped back with a kind of half sob, the back of her hand covering her mouth.
Sloan couldn’t speak. She simply stared at Cruz, unable to believe how easily he had made her forget who and where she was.
“That tells me all I need to know,” Rip said.
Sloan whirled on her father. “That tells you nothing!”
Rip chuckled. “Loving your husband is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“But I don’t love him.” Sloan stiffened as she felt Cruz step up behind her.
“Enough words have been spoken, Cebellina. They change nothing. You will come back to Dolorosa with me.”
“But-”
“You are my wife.”
He didn’t say any more, but then he didn’t need to. Sloan had never been so frustrated in her life. To protest further would be useless. How could she deny the way she had melted in his arms? But it wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love!
Sloan stalked away from Cruz to the desk from which she had run Three Oaks for the past nine months and ran her hands along its grainy surface. Nothing in her life was going the way she had thought it would.
After she had given her child to the Guerrero family, she had thought that would be the end of it, that she would be able to forget what had happened with Tonio and get on with her life. She had never expected a brother to show up on her doorstep. She had never expected Cruz to hold her to her promise. She had never expected to feel the things that Cruz made her feel.
Cruz might want her. He might desire her. But what kind of life would she have married to him? He had already forbidden her to leave Dolorosa once and come after her when she had disobeyed him. What would happen if she stayed with him? She had to make him understand before it was too late how important it was to her to make her own decisions.
“We must leave if we are to reach Dolorosa before nightfall,” Cruz said, interrupting her thoughts.
“I don’t want to go.”
“You can go on your own two feet or over my shoulder,” Cruz said. “But you are going.”
Sloan had always been a rational being. Faced with those two choices, she chose her own two feet. She was still in a daze as Rip escorted her, Luke, and Cruz to the front porch. She turned to her father, wondering what he would do now that he was left without either his eldest daughter or his bastard son to manage Three Oaks.
“Good-bye, Sloan,” Rip said.
Her father didn’t reach out to her. Sloan told herself it didn’t matter. She had never received the outward signs of affection from her father that Cruz now showered upon her.
She felt her throat constrict when Rip laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder-which Luke stepped away from-and said, “There’s work to be done, son.”
“I’m leaving, too,” Luke said.
“What’s that?”
“I said I’m leaving.”
“What’s this? Three Oaks needs you, son. With Sloan married and gone-”
“Three Oaks will manage fine without me,” Luke interrupted. “I’ve done what I came here to do. There’s no reason for me to come back here again.”
Rip leaned heavily on his cane, his face impassive as Luke stepped into the saddle.
Luke turned to Sloan and Cruz.
“So long. I’ll visit when I can.”
“Adiós, amigo,” Cruz replied.
Cruz had kept his hand at Sloan’s back as he stepped off the porch, moving her toward their horses. They had mounted up before Rip spoke again.
“You’ll see this will all work out fine,” he said. “Luke will be back. He won’t give up everything I’ve offered him.”
And what about me, Father? Sloan thought bitterly. What about all the promises you made to me?
But she knew the futility of arguing. Rip was stubborn, and there was no changing his mind. By now she should be used to it-betrayal from those she loved most. She glanced sideways at Cruz.
Was it any wonder she didn’t want to put her life in his hands? Someday he would betray her too.
Doña Lucia stared at her son in disbelief. “That is not possible!”
“I assure you Sloan is my wife.”
“But…” Doña Lucia paused as she saw the implacable look on Cruz’s face. That woman had done it-insinuated herself in Cruz’s life until he was bewitched-just as that witch had put Tonio under her spell.
Well, she would not have it! She would find a way to quickly and permanently remove Sloan Stewart from her son’s life. “What about Tomasita?”
“My marriage to Sloan does not concern Tomasita.”
Doña Lucia’s lips pursed. “How could you let your lust for that woman-”
Cruz slammed his fist down on the table with such force it collapsed, sending a leg spinning wildly across the floor. “Enough! You will speak of my wife with respect, or you will leave my house.”
“But that woman-”
Cruz rose up from his chair like an avenging God. “Enough!”
Doña Lucia’s jaw snapped shut like a steel trap, and she dropped warily into a nearby chair.
Cruz rolled his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation before he strode angrily from the room.
He found Sloan standing beyond the doorway, white-faced. He grabbed her elbow and ushered her out the back door to the arbored patio. The night hid her face, but he could feel her shivering beneath his touch.
“She’s right, you know,” Sloan said. “It is lust.”
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