Dancing in the Moonlight

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Enough self-pity, she told herself sternly, and went off in search of her mother.

  She walked through the ranch house, surprised by how warm and comfortable the place seemed. A family lived here, she thought. Not the den of vipers she’d always wanted to imagine. A family that loved each other, at least judging by the photos lining the walls of the hallway from the kitchen to the main living area of the house.

  She moved slowly past the gallery, seeing Daltons in all kinds of situations.

  She saw Seth in one, handsome and compelling, with one arm slung around Marjorie and the other around Quinn Montgomery.

  In another, she saw Wade and Caroline caught in a candid pose as they leaned on a fence railing overlooking some of the ranch horses. She paused at that one, struck by the tenderness in Wade’s harsh features as he looked at his lovely wife.

  The one that had her stop stock-still was of Jake roughhousing with three children who must be Wade’s from his first marriage. He had one little boy on his shoulders, another younger one in one arm and a pretty little dark-haired girl hanging on the other arm, and he was grinning as if he would rather be right there with those children than anywhere else on earth.

  She gazed at it for a long time, unable to tear her gaze away as an odd, terrifying sensation tugged at her insides.

  She reached a hand out to touch that smiling face that had become so impossibly dear to her, then jerked her hand back when she realized what she was about to do.

  Breathing hard, her thoughts twirling with dismay, she forced herself to move away as fast as she dared toward the front door.

  Even though it was rude, she decided she would find her mother quickly, then do anything she could to escape, to deal with the wild shock of discovering she had feelings for Jake she couldn’t even bear to acknowledge.

  Her pulse pounding, she yanked open the door, then had her second shock in as many moments.

  Her mother was there, all right.

  Wrapped tightly in the arms of Guillermo, Viviana was sharing a passionate kiss with the man she had thrown off her ranch.

  Chapter Twelve

  With every single fiber of her soul, she wanted to be With every single fiber of her soul, she wanted to be able to slip away and leave them to it, if only so she could start the effort of purging this image from her mind, as well as the one she had just seen of Jake finding such joy in his niece and nephews.

  She started to ease back into the house, but the door squeaked as she tried to close it, and the two figures on the porch jerked apart as if spring-loaded.

  Her mother—usually so perfectly groomed—looked as if her lipstick had been devoured, and her hair was as tousled and disheveled as if she’d been standing in a wind tunnel.

  Tío Guillermo wasn’t much better. Most of her mother’s lipstick appeared to be smeared on him, and even though they were standing several feet apart now, he still couldn’t seem to look away from Viviana, his eyes hot and hungry.

  Her mother raised trembling hands to her cheeks and looked miserably horrified. “Lena! Oh, Lena.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she mumbled. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of anything else to say, and for a few seconds the three of them stood there in a painfully awkward tableau.

  “We were just, um, just…” Viviana’s voice trailed off.

  “I think it’s safe to say I can figure out what you were doing, Mama,” she said quickly.

  Guillermo wore a stiff kind of dignity that seemed a little out of place on a man with lipstick on his jaw and a collar that looked as though it had been twisted in a hundred different directions.

  “You are not to think less of your mother for this. I alone am responsible,” her beloved uncle said, his voice stern, then he bowed slightly and headed down the steps with one last heated look at Viviana.

  Maggie drew a breath, feeling as if she were the one caught in a wind tunnel, as if one of the last few solid things she had to hang on to had just been tossed to the heavens.

  In that single look, her calm, easygoing uncle appeared tormented, wretched. A man thoroughly, miserably in love.

  After he left, her mother dropped her hands from her cheeks and faced Maggie, her eyes just as miserable.

  “I am sorry you saw that.” Her mother spoke in agitated Spanish. “I do not know what to say. It was…we were…”

  “Mama, is that what you and Tío Guillermo have been fighting about?” she asked gently. She didn’t want to think about how much compassion she had for her mother’s turmoil or how closely it paralleled her own.

  “He is so stubborn.” Her mother sank down into one of the rocking chairs on the porch that overlooked the ranch.

  Maggie sat in the chair next to her and waited for the words she could see forming in her mother’s dark eyes.

  “I did not mean for this to happen. I did not! I wanted things to go on as they have since Abel died. But things have changed. I did not expect it but somehow they have.

  “Guillermo wants to marry me, he says he has wanted it forever. Never did he say anything until…until the last few months, when I started to see I cared for him.”

  She let out a breath, gazing out at the ranch. “Before you came home, he tells me I must make a decision or he will quit. I tell him it is not fair to press me on this now, and ask him to wait a while longer, but he said he tires of waiting. He does not want to go on as we have, he says. I would not bend on this just because Guillermo he tells me I must.”

  “So he quit.”

  “No, I fire him,” she insisted.

  “He seems miserable, Mama,” she observed quietly. “So do you. What’s the big conflict?”

  Her mother said nothing for a long moment, gazing out at the night. “I loved your father so much. And I have grieved for him every day since his death.”

  “I know that, Mama. But isn’t there room in your heart for another love?”

  To her dismay, her mother buried her face in her hands, her shoulders trembling. “Yes. Oh yes. I have somehow made room for Guillermo, too. But I am so afraid. What if I lose him, too? I could not bear it.”

  “You’re losing him now,” Maggie pointed out. “You’re pushing him away. Tío Guillermo is a proud man, just like Papa was. How long do you expect him to wait for you to make up your mind?”

  Her mother dropped her hands to look at her, and Maggie pressed her point.

  “It seems to me that you should consider yourself one lucky woman, Mama. How many women have been blessed to be able to say they have been loved by two such good, decent men? Instead of worrying about some distant future pain that may never come, you should take your chance for happiness now while you still can.”

  Viviana gave her a searching look. “You do not mind this?”

  Maggie thought of her first instant of shock at finding them together then pushed it away. In the few moments she’d had to adjust to the idea, the thought of her mother and Guillermo as a couple seemed so natural she couldn’t believe she hadn’t picked up on it earlier.

  “Why would you think I mind? I love you both and can’t imagine two people better suited for each other. You’ve been working the ranch together for years. That certainly seems like a long enough courtship to me.”

  Viviana sat for another moment absorbing her words, then a bright hope leaped into her gaze, though she still looked as if she were afraid to trust in it. “You do not think people will talk if I…if I were to marry the other Cruz brother?”

  “Who cares? Let them talk. You’re Viviana Cruz of Rancho de la Luna. They should envy you! You have nothing to be ashamed about for loving a good, honorable man.”

  Her mother let out a laugh that sounded like a half sob, then she stood and rushed to Maggie, hugging her hard. “How did a foolish woman like me raise such a smart daughter?”

  She almost snorted. Wrong, Mama. If I were smart, I would have hobbled as fast as my gimpy leg would take me away from Jake Dalton that first night he showed up to change my flat tire.


  “What are you waiting for?” she asked, to distract herself from pointless thoughts of Jake. “Don’t you think you should go after Guillermo and put the poor man out of his misery?”

  “I will but not now, during my daughter’s party. I will find him later.” Her mother’s gaze sharpened suddenly. “Now, why are you out here with me instead of talking to all the people who have come to see you?”

  “I was looking for you. And I needed a little break.”

  “It is too much for you, then? I worried you would be angry. Jacob said you might not want a big crowd.”

  How had he possibly come to know her so well in such a short time? She wasn’t sure she wanted him to have the ability of seeing so deeply into her psyche.

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t angry. A little uncomfortable but not mad.”

  “Everyone wanted to come, to show you of their concern and support, and Marjorie and I could not say no. I did not want to say no. I wanted everyone to know how proud I am of my daughter.”

  She shifted her leg, searching around for another topic. With the ranch spread out before them, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “It was…surprising of the Daltons to open up the Cold Creek for the party.”

  “Marjorie insisted and so did Wade,” Viviana said. “It is a good place for a fiesta, yes?”

  Maggie had no ready answer to that so she didn’t even try. Instead, something about the night and the setting prompted her to ask some of the questions that had haunted her for years.

  “Mama.”

  She chewed her lip, not sure where to start, then she blurted the rest out. “How could you…that is, why did you remain on good terms with Marjorie and her sons. Why did you never blame them?”

  Her mother’s lovely, serene features shifted into a frown. “Oh, Magdalena.”

  “Hank Dalton was a bastard! He was the one who stole our water rights. He cheated Papa out of all his hard work—he stole the ranch’s future. If not for him, Papa would never have had to work that second job in Idaho Falls. Hank was to blame for that, but the rest of them…” She clenched her hands together. “After Hank died, they never tried to make things right. They’re just as responsible.”

  Viviana shook her head, her eyes full of sorrow. “There is much you do not know, Lena. I should have explained things to you long ago. I am sorry I did not.”

  “Explained what?”

  “I suppose I hoped you would come to see the truth on your own, that you would put aside this foolish anger. And I suppose I did not want you to ever think less of your father.”

  Her mother touched her arm. “And with a mother’s folly, I did not want to see how strongly you have held on to your anger all these years.”

  “I miss him, Mama.”

  “As do I, niña. As do I. But Marjorie and her sons are not to blame for the foolishness of Abel Cruz.”

  She thought of her strong, beloved father. He had been gone from her life for so long, much longer than just the years since his death. He had worked so hard those last few years trying to save the ranch he loved that she had only a handful of good memories from her adolescence, a time when she had dearly needed a father.

  “Why?” she asked her mother again.

  Viviana gave a heavy sigh. “Your father was a good man. A strong, honorable man. But he was stubborn and had much of pride.”

  She remembered a man who had loved his ranch, what he had built with his own hands, who had adored his wife and daughter, and who had always been proud of his heritage, that he was descended from Spanish nobles who had migrated to Argentina.

  “Hank Dalton died when you were young, only twelve, no?” Viviana went on.

  Maggie nodded.

  “The week after he was buried, Marjorie and Wade came to see your father. With them, they carried all the loan papers between our two ranches and wanted to return them to Abel.”

  She stared, trying to comprehend what her mother was telling her. “They tried to forgive the loan?”

  Viviana nodded tightly. “Marjorie wanted to tear them up right there, but Abel would not allow it. He threw them back at them. ‘I will not take Dalton charity’ he said in a cold, proud voice. He said he would continue to pay as he had been until the debt was cleared.”

  “He insisted?”

  “Marjorie, she tried to change the loan to a better, more honest rate than Hank charged. Many times she tried. But Abel and his pride would not allow it, even as he had to work harder and harder to pay the interest.”

  Her mother’s delicate features tightened with sorrow and no small amount of anger. “He did not have to work those two jobs, niña. He chose the road he traveled. No one else did that. Not Hank Dalton, not Marjorie or her sons. Only your father.”

  Maggie’s head whirled, and she couldn’t seem to take it in. Everything she had believed for twenty years was evaporating like a heat mirage in front of her eyes. She was glad to be sitting down because she was fairly certain the shock would have knocked her on her rear end.

  “After Abel died,” Viviana went on, “Marjorie and Wade, they came to me with a check for all the money your father paid them over the years, keeping out only enough to cover the original debt.”

  “And you took it?”

  Her mother lifted her chin. “Yes. I used it to help pay for my beautiful daughter to attend college and become the nurse she had dreamed of for many years.”

  She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling shaky and almost nauseous. During all those years of hatred, the Daltons had been paying to support her. They had put her through nursing school. Everything she had, everything she had become, she owed to Jake and his family, a family she had treated with nothing but scorn and anger.

  No, she thought. Her father had given his life to pay that debt. Perhaps she shouldn’t look at it as blood money from the Daltons but as her one enduring legacy from her father.

  “You should have told me, Mama.”

  Viviana sighed. “Perhaps. But I did not wish you to think poorly of your father. He was a good man who acted as he thought best for his family and for his conscience.”

  “All for nothing! He should have let them make things right.”

  “I think by then he was so angry he couldn’t see what was right.” Viviana paused. “But while he hated their father, Abel never blamed Hank Dalton’s sons for their father’s actions. He knew, as I know, that those three boys suffered much from growing up with a cold, harsh man. Even with a father such as that, they grew into good, decent men who love their families and this town. None of them deserves your anger, Lena.”

  Everything she believed, everything she thought she had known, had just been shaken and tossed into the air like a handful of dry leaves, and she didn’t know what to think.

  Her mother touched a warm hand to her cheek. “Jacob, he is a good man and he has much caring for you.”

  Maggie shook her head. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

  Viviana made a sound of dismissal in her throat. “A mother can see these things. You care for him, as well. Do not be so stubborn and foolish and full of pride as your father. And your mother, come to that.”

  She had been, she realized. She had let her anger for the past and her fears for the future interfere in something that could be wonderful. Perhaps it was time to live in the present for a moment.

  “I should not be keeping you out here so long when many people are wanting to talk to you,” Viviana said. “Come, you will return to the party while I find somewhere to fix my face again.”

  Do I have to? she wanted to whine, but she knew her obligations. Everyone at this party had come to see her, and she couldn’t hide out on the front porch all night.

  Viviana rose and held out her arm and Maggie took it. The two of them walked arm in arm back through the Cold Creek ranch house. This time when she passed the picture of Jake on the wall, she smiled, feeling a lightness of heart that hadn’t been there in a long time.

  At the door Vi
viana paused, then reached on her toes and pressed her cheek to Maggie’s. “I could not ask for a better daughter. You are the joy of my life, niña, and I praise God every day for bringing you home safe to me.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes as she hugged her mama, and for the first time in six months, she thought perhaps there was a chance her life could go forward.

  When she parted with her mother and walked outside, the whole world seemed brighter, everything sharp and in focus. She stood for a moment looking at the members of this community who had opened their arms to embrace her.

  They didn’t see her as broken, as forever shattered by the blast that had taken part of her leg. She had seen compassion on most faces here but not pity. Instead, when the hardworking people of Pine Gulch talked to her, their eyes glowed with pride, with approval, with support.

  To them she was Lieutenant Magdalena Cruz, someone willing to serve her country even at great sacrifice.

  She knew she was no great heroine. But perhaps she could live with being a loyal soldier, a loving daughter and a pretty good person.

  Jake wondered if anyone else noticed he hadn’t taken his eyes off Maggie all night.

  He had seen her leave earlier and had started to follow her, but then Caroline had come out of the kitchen and informed him Maggie had gone in search of her mother.

  When she came out sometime later, she looked different somehow. He couldn’t put a finger on it but her smile seemed more genuine, her eyes brighter, her shoulders held a little higher.

  She had been back nearly an hour and in that time he had watched her hold babies and kiss cheeks and talk at some length with Darwin Anderson, a neighboring rancher who wore his World War II Veteran baseball cap with pride.

  She was starting to sag, though. As he moved around the dance floor with his niece Natalie, he watched as she shifted positions several times during one song as if she couldn’t quite get comfortable, and though she smiled with delight at something Marilyn Summers was telling her, her eyes looked tired.

  His love for her was a fierce ache inside him and he didn’t know what in the hell he was going to do about it.