“The horses did not head for home?”
“The bayo’s reins got caught on a mesquite. We can ride home as soon as I get you free.”
Cruz wondered if Sloan realized what she had said. We can ride home. Did she consider Dolorosa home? Did this mean she was coming back to stay with him despite what she now believed about him? He could not bring himself to ask, so instead he said, “What can I do to help?”
“Just lie still. I can handle this.”
It turned out that Sloan had been slightly optimistic when she had spoken. The ax was small and the limbs were thick. Also, her hip bothered her, and she had to rest frequently to take her weight off it. That soon became apparent to Cruz, who exclaimed, “You are hurt!”
“My hip got bruised when the bayo struck me with his hooves,” she said, dismissing his concern. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Neither of them spoke as Sloan continued hacking away at the branches of the live oak, but a conversation was taking place, nevertheless, in both their minds.
Why did he agree to work with the Englishman?
I should never have agreed to do it. I knew the chance I was taking that she would find out.
I don’t understand how this could have happened to me twice in one lifetime.
Do I dare tell her the rest of it?
Oh God! I can’t turn him in to the Rangers. But how can I stay silent about what I know?
I will tell Sir Giles I am out of it. I will quit.
And I can never trust him again.
I love her, but I cannot explain all of this to her yet. She will simply have to trust me.
“I’ve about hacked through this branch,” Sloan said at last. “I should have you free in a minute.”
She had been lifting away branches as she chopped them off and had cleared an area around Cruz’s head and shoulders. As soon as there was space, he had tried to sit up, but had felt a searing pain in his head when he tried to lift it.
Sloan had finally threatened she would make it hurt a lot worse if he didn’t lie still until she was finished. She had seen the dried blood on his temple, and that, coupled with his pain, made her worry that he was more seriously injured than he was letting on.
The sheer size and weight of the limb pinning Cruz’s legs made it difficult for Sloan to move it, even though she had freed it from the rest of the tree. At last she managed to drag the branch out of the way. She stooped down and laid her hand on Cruz’s shoulder. “Can you turn over by yourself?”
He moaned. “I thought you said you never wanted to see my ugly face again.”
Sloan drew in a sharp breath. “This is no time for jokes.”
“No, I guess it is not.” He hissed with the pain as he hugged his arms to his body and slowly rolled over. Once he was flat on his back, he groaned again.
“How do you feel?”
“I do not think anything is broken, but I have one hell of a headache.”
Sloan knelt beside him and ran her hand impersonally over his rain-damp clothes, checking to make sure he was telling the truth. She felt the muscle and sinew that lay beneath the cloth and wondered if she would ever be able to give herself freely to him again.
She forced her thoughts away from the future to the here and now. When she was done with her examination, she confirmed, “Nothing’s broken as far as I can tell, unless you’ve cracked your skull.”
“I do not think it is that bad,” he said with a wry grin.
She had to accept his word. She expressed her tremendous relief by easing her aching body down onto the grass, crossing her arms, and raising them to cover her face as she leaned her head back against a fallen branch.
Cruz dragged himself up onto one elbow and reached out a hand to comfort her by softly stroking her hair. “Please do not cry. I could not bear it.”
Sloan sat up, eyes dry, and said, “I wasn’t crying. I was thinking.”
“Oh? What have you decided?”
“If we can get ourselves up on that big palomino stallion, we can be home by dinnertime.”
There it was again. The reference to Dolorosa as home. Cruz let himself hope. It was all he had left.
Sloan struggled upright, then leaned over so Cruz could hook his arm around her shoulder.
Cruz’s head spun once he was upright, and he had to stand still for a minute before he regained enough balance to move. “That was some bump on the head,” he muttered.
Together, they made their way to the bayo. Sloan helped Cruz drink a sip of water from the canteen, then drank some herself. She dampened the bandanna with some water and washed the blood from his face as best she could. She tied the bandanna around his forehead to keep the dust out of the cut until they could get home and stitch it up.
She bit back a moan when he gave her a push to help her into the saddle. He moaned when he stepped up onto the stallion behind her.
They traveled at a walk, since anything more than that would have been painful. Cruz slipped his arm around Sloan’s waist and pulled her back against him. “We must talk, Cebellina.”
Sloan sighed.
“I am sorry you found out the way you did that I have been working with the Englishman.”
Sloan closed her eyes and bit her lower lip to keep from crying. Until now, there had been some faint hope she might have been mistaken. But Cruz had just confirmed her worst suspicions.
“I can only tell you I have my reasons for what I am doing.”
Sloan searched Cruz’s face for the answers he hadn’t offered and found only the aristocratic pride that demanded her trust. She wanted so much to be able to give it. But too much had happened in the past for her to remain silent.
“Did you know Alejandro Sanchez was still alive when you married me?” she asked.
“No, not until later. A bandit named Jorge Gutierrez was hanged in Alejandro’s place. His face was covered with a black bag. I saw Alejandro’s turquoise and silver bracelet and assumed it was him.”
Sloan grunted. So he hadn’t lied about that, at least.
“Are you all right?”
“I jostled my hip. I’ll be fine.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“I’m not sure I can ever trust you again, Cruz. And I don’t think I could bear a lifetime of doubt and suspicion. Maybe it’s time I went home to Three Oaks.”
Sloan felt Cruz’s arm tighten around her and the swift exhalation of his warm breath on the back of her neck.
“Dolorosa is your home,” he said fiercely. “You cannot go back to Three Oaks now. You still owe me two more months-”
“Surely you can’t expect me to abide by that agreement after everything that’s happened.”
“Oh, but I do. I have told you this other business has nothing to do with us.”
“It does if it means you have to lie to me.”
Cruz swore under his breath. “I cannot explain myself now. You will have to trust me.”
“You ask the impossible,” she whispered.
Cruz’s hacienda should have been a welcome sight, but there was too much left unsaid that they knew would never be spoken once they reached their destination. Yet neither of them slowed the bayo when he picked up his pace as they neared the fortress gates.
Sloan didn’t mention leaving again, but she had made up her mind to return to Three Oaks as soon as her hip was mended enough that she could sit a horse comfortably.
They rode through the fortress gates to exclamations of relief from the pobres, who had been told to be on the lookout for Señora Sloan. Tomasita had discovered her missing early that morning, and Cruz’s vaqueros were out even now searching for her. Runners were quickly sent to carry word that Don Cruz’s wife was safe.
“Patrón! Patrón! You have found the señora. Gracias a Dios!” Josefa cried, running out of the house to greet them with Cisco and Betsy clinging to her skirt.
Tomasita followed close behind her exclaiming, “You are hurt, Don Cruz. What happened?”
D
oña Lucia remained on the veranda, her lips twisted in disgust as she realized that once more an opportunity had come and gone to be rid of her son’s gringa wife. “Come inside, Josefa, and bring the children. Tomasita, your presence is not needed here. Go to your room.”
Once satisfied that Josefa and Tomasita had responded to her commands, Doña Lucia turned to the mestizo servant beside her and ordered, “Sancho, send for the curandera, María. We have need of her.”
Cruz carefully eased his aching body off the stallion, then reached up to help Sloan down. He put his arm around her and pulled her close, walking with her up the steps of the veranda to greet his mother.
“Good morning, Mamá.”
“I will not ask why you thought it necessary to go riding in a thunderstorm,” Doña Lucia said to Sloan with icy hauteur, “but when you risk my son’s life with your childish games-”
“That is enough, Mamá. Please excuse us. We are both hungry and tired and need to avail ourselves of María’s healing hands.”
Cruz tightened his grip on Sloan and stepped around his mother, unaware of Doña Lucia’s whitened knuckles fisted in the folds of her satin skirt or her eyes that stabbed Sloan’s back.
“Thank you,” Sloan said once they were inside the adobe hacienda.
“For what?”
“For defending me.”
“I apologize for the fact that I should need to defend you. Mamá is set in her ways. It is not easy for her to accept the fact that I have chosen my own wife.”
Sloan’s limp was worse because her bruised muscles had stiffened in the saddle. Cruz simply picked her up, his eyes daring her to protest, and carried her to the bedroom, where he laid her on their bed. He removed her boots and sat down beside her while they waited for the curandera to arrive.
Doña Lucia arrived in the doorway moments later with a tray containing two silver goblets and a bottle of brandy. “I thought you might need something to fortify yourselves until María arrives.”
Cruz had to admit a brandy sounded good. His mother turned slightly away to fill one goblet with the golden liquid and offered it to Sloan, who had inched herself upright with the pillow supporting her back. Then she filled a second goblet for Cruz.
Doña Lucia waited to see Cruz take a sip of brandy from the goblet she had handed to him-she wanted no chance of a deadly mistake. This time she would be rid of that woman for good, and her death could be blamed on some injury she had acquired in the storm.
Satisfied that she had accomplished what she had come to do, Doña Lucia left the room, saying, “I will go see what is keeping María.”
Cruz sat back down on the bed beside Sloan and touched his goblet to hers, offering a toast, “To long life. To happiness. To love.” He lifted the goblet and took another sip of the fine brandy.
Sloan lifted the goblet to her lips and held it there for a moment, as she contemplated whether she could honestly drink to such a toast. But in her mind’s eyes she saw nothing of happiness and love, and despaired of a long life spent without them. Distraught by the shattered images his words had conjured, she felt the goblet slip from her hand, soaking the sheets in brandy.
“Oh no!” She stared at the brown stain, thinking how quickly what had once been pure was now unclean. “I don’t know what happened. I thought I could handle-oh, Cruz!”
All the pain she had held in abeyance during the crisis just past came flooding across her. “I can’t bear it. How could you do it? How could you lie to me just like Tonio?”
Her head fell back against the pillow, and she turned her face away from him, squeezing her eyes shut to hold back the tears, gritting her teeth to contain the sobs.
Cruz slipped farther onto the bed next to her and laid his head on the pillow beside her. He gently eased his arm across her waist and felt her flinch beneath his touch. “I am sorry for your pain, Cebellina. You will never know how sorry.”
He lay beside Sloan, holding her, until he felt the tension ease from her body. She was asleep when Cruz realized how drowsy he felt himself. He closed his eyes, just to rest a moment until María arrived.
The curandera, María, was a wizened old woman, who wore ragged clothes and generally smelled of the poultices she devised. When she entered the room, she found Sloan and Cruz both asleep on the bed.
She checked Cruz first, clucking her tongue and shaking her head as she pried open his eyelids and peered into his eyes. She rinsed the blood from the wound at his temple and decided that it would not need stitching if she pulled it together and bound it that way. With quick, sure hands she checked to make sure he was otherwise uninjured before turning her attention to the woman.
She remembered Señora Sloan well. She had first met the señora a year ago when Cisco had been knifed by a Comanche, and Don Cruz had defended the señora’s right to stay with her son when the curandera had demanded that the room must be cleared of those who had no need to be there. Doña Lucia had left. Señora Sloan had remained and efficiently assisted María as she had stitched the wound closed.
The curandera had seen the adoration for this woman in Don Cruz’s eyes when he had thought no one was looking, and she had thought then that Señora Sloan would make a worthy wife for her patrón. She wondered, as she gently woke the señora, whether the young woman had learned to return Don Cruz’s affections. If so, she would need all her courage to face the news that María had to impart.
“Señora, wake up,” the curandera said, gently slapping Sloan’s cheeks.
Sloan blinked her eyes open. “Is Cruz-”
“I have done what I can for El Patrón. Now it is time to take care of you.”
“I’m only a little bruised-”
María shook her head and clucked her tongue as though chiding a small child as she helped Sloan strip off her clothes and put on a chambray wrapper. “That is a bad bruise on your thigh, señora, and needs something to reduce the swelling.”
“What is that?” Sloan demanded, her nose wrinkling in disgust as María applied a strong-smelling poultice.
“Something that will have you feeling much better soon,” the curandera assured her. “But I am afraid I must bring you more pain, señora,” María said as she covered Sloan with the sheet.
“What do you mean-more pain?”
“Don Cruz-”
“What’s wrong!” Sloan turned frantically to look at the man who, until now, she thought had been peacefully sleeping. “He’s not dead, is he?”
“No, señora. He sleeps.”
Sloan turned back just as quickly and frowned at the curandera. “If he’s just sleeping, then what’s wrong with him?”
“It is not only his body that sleeps,” María explained, “but his soul as well.”
Sloan all too quickly realized what the curandera was trying to say. “Oh my God. You mean he’s in a coma? He’s not going to wake up?”
“Be calm, señora,” the curandera said. “I do not know how long he will sleep. It may be he will wake in the morning, his body and soul rested. But it may also be that he will take longer to wake.”
Sloan stared at Cruz in horror. “He might die?”
They were interrupted when Doña Lucia appeared at the door and announced, “There is someone here to see you, Sloan.”
“Who is it?” she asked.
“He says his name is Louis Randolph. He says he has come for Betsy.”
Chapter 17
SLOAN FELT THE DISBELIEF GROW, SPINNING HER insides like a tumbleweed in the wind. “It can’t be. He can’t take her right now. I mean… it’s too much…”
She directed all her senses inward in an effort to calm the furor there, so she didn’t notice the astonished look on Doña Lucia’s face when the older woman realized Sloan was not the least bit sick. Nor did she see the look of horror when Cruz’s mother realized that her son lay unmoving on the bed.
“Did he-Did you-?” Doña Lucia gasped.
Sloan stared down at Doña Lucia’s hand, which had curled, like a bird’s
claw, around her forearm. Sloan pulled her hand free and said, “Did he what? Did I what?”
Doña Lucia crossed to the mahogany bedstead in a haze and reached out a hand to touch her son’s pale whiskered cheek, fearing the worst. He simply could not have drunk from the poisoned goblet. She had watched carefully to make sure-and then she saw the wet brown stain on the sheets. That woman must have spilled the poisoned brandy, rather than drinking it. Doña Lucia ground her teeth in fury. She had failed again. And she had barely kept herself from blurting out what she had tried to do.
“Will he recover?” Doña Lucia asked the curandera.
“Only time will tell,” María said.
Sloan followed Doña Lucia and now stood beside her looking down at Cruz.
Doña Lucia stepped back as though Sloan was filth that would soil her gown. “You should be lying there, not my son. The blood of kings runs in his veins. He should never have married his brother’s puta!”
Sloan was in shock. Too much had happened in too brief a time. “I want you to leave this room now,” she said. “I have to dress to greet my guest.”
Doña Lucia didn’t know what to make of Sloan’s calm but firm request. Left without an enemy with whom to do battle, she looked one last time at her unconscious son, turned, and left.
Sloan pulled on a clean shirt and vest, but needed the curandera’s help getting her pants and boots on.
“You should be in bed, señora,” María said.
“I can’t sleep now. I’ll rest later.”
In the sala, Sloan found Betsy perched on one of her Uncle Louis’s knees and Cisco straddling the other. Louis Randolph was a big man. He was dressed like a farmer, in a dark gray homespun shirt, baggy denim overalls, and short, heavy black boots, all of which had seen a great deal of wear. He had shaggy light brown hair and ears that stuck out from his head like handles on a sugar bowl.
“Hello. I’m Sloan Guerrero.”
Louis smiled, his brown eyes sparkling with good humor. “I’d get up, ma’am, but I seem to have two bronc riders here holdin’ me down.”
He briefly released Betsy to reach out his hand, and Sloan bent forward to shake it. His hand was heavily callused, and though Sloan was sure he was quite strong, his grip was gentle.
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