Laurie McBain

by Tears of Gold

  “Well,” Brendan speculated, “if worse comes to worse I suppose we could always take him into our confidence, even offer to pay him to keep his silence. He’s blackguard enough to accept.”

  “No!” Mara cried out in dismay. “You mustn’t tell him the truth. You see he has little respect for the O’Flynns and would relish the chance to expose us, even see us prosecuted.”

  Brendan frowned thoughtfully. “Damned if I remember him. We’ve never met him, have we? Why should he hate us? To be sure I’m a friendly fellow, and no one’s bearing a grudge against Brendan O’Flynn.” He pondered the disturbing thought, then shot an accusing look at Mara’s flushed face. “Or is it Mara O’Flynn, not ‘the O’Flynns,’ that he’s no liking for, mavournin? He just wouldn’t happen to be one of your discarded swains? No,” Brendan answered his own question as he laughed harshly, “I can’t see the Creole letting a woman get the best of him, so it’s got to be…let me see…a friend of a friend, out to even the score?” Brendan took a lucky guess, not realizing how close he came to the truth.

  “I can truthfully swear that I’ve never met him until now, and I really don’t know why he bears a grudge against me,” Mara lied, unwilling to have Brendan know the whole truth. “But you can see why I’m uneasy and do not care to be around should he discover I really am Mara O’Flynn.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry unduly about it, because Don Luís should be here anytime now. Then we’ll be gone from here. And while we are still here, what can he do? Don Andres would hardly take kindly to slurs cast upon his adored Amaya. Why, he’d probably have the Creole thrown off the rancho!” Brendan declared, a gleam of anticipation in his eyes. Mara nodded in agreement, looking away from Brendan. How could she possibly tell him that she had fallen in love with Nicholas? He would laugh in her face, be stingingly contemptuous of her weakness, amused that the proud and disdainful Mara had finally succumbed. Brendan could be merciless in ridicule if he wanted to be. She wouldn’t have her love for Nicholas subjected to that.

  “I just hope you’re right and we do have the time,” Mara finally murmured as she urged her horse back toward the hacienda.

  “Now, now, you’re not to be worrying. The O’Flynn luck is riding with us, I can feel it,” Brendan promised with a laugh as he rode along beside her.

  In fact, for the rest of the evening Brendan stayed close to Mara’s side, giving Nicholas no chance to move up closer for conversation. The one time he tried, Brendan acted the consummate bore, monopolizing the conversation and rudely interrupting. Finally Nicholas had turned away with a slight shrug, and for the remainder of the evening Mara was presented with a view of his wide-shouldered back, while her fingers itched to run through the dark curls that just touched his collar.

  Mara didn’t know if she had expected a knock on her door after midnight or not, and so she wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved when it never came. She ignored the fact that she had sat for over an hour brushing her long hair until it crackled and shone in the candlelight, or that she had touched more of her favorite scent between her breasts and on the inside of her wrists where the pulse beat erratically. Finally she gave up waiting and snuffed out all the candles but the one flickering beside her bed. As Mara climbed into bed she noticed for the first time something tucked just beneath the edge of the cover of her pillow. Curiously, she pulled back the spread and stared down at a single rose.

  How? How had he planted this in her bed? As she slid beneath the covers, she heard a rustling, and feeling down lower, her hand encountered a piece of paper. Her lips curved in a smile as she read the carelessly scrawled message:

  I thought your watchdog might be guarding your bed as well, so this lonely but very fortunate rose shall have to take my place. Bon nuit, ma petite, and dream of me.

  N.

  The arrogance of the man, Mara thought with a grin as she held the fragrant rosebud to her nose and breathed deeply of it. She blew out the flame and settled down under the covers. She kissed the soft petals of the rose, and pressing it between her breasts, she curled up and fell to sleep, dreaming of Nicholas.

  The following morning, Mara was dressing when she heard loud voices from the courtyard. Her curiosity urged her to the door of her room. It might be Don Luís returning.

  Brendan had come from his room as well and was already standing on the edge of the patio, an interested onlooker to what was happening in the center of the courtyard.

  At Mara’s approach he glanced up from the apple he was neatly peeling with his penknife and shrugged a shoulder in the direction of the voices as he asked curiously, “And what do you make of that, mavournin?”

  Mara’s eyes followed his gesture and opened wide as she stared at the small group gathered in the center near the fountain. The most startling person was Jeremiah Davies, for once the center of attention as all eyes focused on his startling change.

  He was dressed in a beautifully cut frock coat with velvet collar and cuffs, and as he pulled out a heavy gold watch from his pocket, Mara could see the expensive satin lining and the fine, striped silk of his waistcoat. An ornate breast pin was stuck in the folds of his cravat. Several rings now adorned his stubby fingers. He was tapping an ebony cane with an agate head against the unmarred leather of his shiny new shoes. His sandy head was now covered beneath a tall silk hat, but as Doña Ysidora joined the group to stand regally beside her son, Jeremiah doffed the hat and bowed.

  “Well, well,” Brendan murmured thoughtfully, “it looks as though Jerry boy has come into an inheritance. I wonder where he discovered this newfound wealth. To be sure, I’d no idea cattle stealin’ was so lucrative.”

  “It would seem as though a lot of people are curious about his finances,” Mara said as she saw the looks of incredulity and confusion mirrored on the Californians’ faces. By now Raoul had sauntered up to the group, as well as Feliciana, Doña Jacinta, and other guests.

  “I can’t say that I think much of his taste,” Brendan remarked as he eyed the two garish females standing behind Jeremiah. They were dressed in gaudy gowns of striped silk adorned with a profusion of ruffles and bows, their faces painted heavily with rouge and powder that didn’t cover their lines of age and dissipation. Each one’s hair had been dyed a different but equally brassy shade of red.

  “Jerry boy has quite an entourage with him,” Brendan remarked as he noticed for the first time the three hulking figures standing warily around Jeremiah Davies and his two female companions. “Lovely trio of ruffians I’d not enjoy the pleasure of meeting,” Brendan commented dryly. He quickly took their measure, noting their broken noses and the pugnacious expressions on their battered faces. They stood menacingly behind the American, their heavily booted feet planted firmly apart, their large-knuckled hands curled into casual fists.

  “They remind me uneasily of the type who come to collect debts,” Brendan added with a look of acute distaste. “Most disagreeable individuals,” he murmured. Then, glancing down the corridor, his eyes narrowing, he added sarcastically, “And speaking of disagreeable people…”

  Mara had been so intent on the group gathered in the courtyard that she hadn’t been aware of Nicholas approaching along the corridor behind her. She jumped nervously as she felt a hand lightly caress her arm, her nerves tightening even more as she stared up into Nicholas’s green eyes.

  Brendan eyed the Creole disdainfully. Then, with a malicious look, he nodded toward the three cutthroats. “Friends of yours?”

  Nicholas grinned thoughtfully. “No, although I do recognize the one with only half an ear. His name’s Patrick O’Casey, Irish, wouldn’t you say?” Nicholas asked softly.

  Brendan stabbed the knife into a thick slice of apple, then bit it off before he could utter the profanities that burned on the tip of his tongue as he glared impotently at Nicholas.

  “¡Madre de Dios! I cannot believe this,” Mara heard Don Andres say, his tanned face paling as he stared at his secretary.

  “You’d better believe
it, Don Andres,” Jeremiah replied easily, his blue eyes glittering. “Now I came here in friendliness. I mean, if we are to be neighbors, I don’t think there should be any hostilities between us. After all, here is the bank note for the sale of the land,” Jeremiah said, a triumphant smile curving his small mouth. “Everything is legal. You have the money, and I have the deed to the land and a receipt.”

  “But this is impossible!” Don Andres said in disbelief. “I never signed such a document. All you had authority to sell was the land in the southeast quarter, not this. What have you done?”

  “Ah, but you did sign the proper documents, and it is all quite legal, I assure you. In fact,” Jeremiah said, his tone patronizing as he smiled sadly at the Californian, I even have a witness to the transaction.” He looked over to Mara. “Amaya Vaughan is my witness.”

  Mara’s mouth parted in surprise as Don Andres and every other person stared at her. She began to shake her head in disbelief, returning Andres’s stare in puzzlement.

  “Don’t you remember, Miss Vaughan? You were in the study the other day when Don Andres signed several papers for me,” Jeremiah reminded her, “and he told me to sell the land to get money to pay his taxes.”

  “I-I do remember being there,” Mara admitted reluctantly, “but I didn’t see what you signed.”

  “There, you see!” Jeremiah cried. “She would have to swear in court that you signed it over to me of your own free will, that I exerted no force against you.”

  Jeremiah Davies looked around at the stunned faces and with an expansive smile declared, “I am therefore, the undisputed owner of over half of the next valley and of the hacienda that sits there, the Casa Quintero. Now I shall have to think of a more American name for it,” he said with a derisive look at Raoul Quintero, who was standing as if turned to stone by the words just uttered by Jeremiah Davies.

  Doña Jacinta gave a small moan of despair and fainted, her plump body falling almost soundlessly to the ground. Doña Ysidora called out for her servants, while several men carried the prostrate form of Doña Jacinta to a long bench. They rested her prone body along its length. Raoul remained where he was, oblivious to all but the gloating face of his traitorous friend as the implications of his own perfidy began to sink in.

  Mara felt Brendan’s look even before she turned to stare into his dismayed eyes, their expressions simultaneously mirroring the direction of their thoughts.

  “Jaysus,” Brendan whispered, his face paling slightly as his mind quickly traveled over the outcome of all this. Don Luís would soon return and find his land sold out from under him.

  Mara began to feel some of Brendan’s panic, especially as she became aware of Nicholas standing close beside her. Mara glanced up at him, but he was unaware of Brendan and Mara’s agitation.

  “And so you see, Don Andres,” Jeremiah was saying in a hatefully self-satisfied voice, his chest puffed out bravely with the support of his hirelings, “there is nothing you can do. Indeed, it would be most unwise of you to challenge me on this. In fact, you should really be grateful to me.”

  “Grateful to you?” Andres asked incredulously, his usually gentle face hardened in anger. “You are insane! How did you imagine you could get away with this act of thievery?”

  Jeremiah sneered openly, his obsequious manner gone completely now that he believed himself to be a landowner. “You’re the one who’s the fool. Anything can happen in California today. Come out of your golden valley and look around you. The state is wide open, with thousands coming to stake a claim on what is rightfully theirs. Your days are numbered, Spaniard. You can take me to court and try to prove I cheated you, but we’d be tied up in a legal battle for years. It would become very expensive as you hired your lawyers and I hired mine. How would you pay their expensive legal fees? You could only pay them by giving them some of your land, and little by little it would be eaten away. The outcome would be the same, only you’d be losing more land than you are now,” Jeremiah reasoned smoothly. “Besides, I don’t think you need the government questioning your right to this land. They will hardly look favorably on your claim to land you won in a bet, especially when the land is now owned by a true American. They might even begin to wonder about the validity of the Rancho Villareale. I think you’ll have enough worries in the future, trying to pay your taxes on all this land, and even more worry in trying to keep it,” Jeremiah warned.

  “Dios, but I am stunned,” Don Andres mumbled. Then looking directly into Jeremiah’s blue eyes, he questioned, “How could you do this to me? What did I ever do to harm you, Jeremiah, that you would hate us so much?” he said, shaking his dark head. A sudden thought struck him and he demanded with narrowed eyes, “Where did you get the money? How could you afford to buy land? You are not a rich man. And these clothes, these women?” he asked, gesturing disdainfully at Jeremiah’s female friends. “How?”

  Jeremiah smiled, his eyes sliding over to Raoul. “We all have our secrets.”

  Raoul apparently could stand no more. His own guilty conscience forced him out of control and he cried out.

  “Dog! You tricked me! Used me to steal my own land! You will never live at the Casa Quintero,” Raoul cried, glancing around him for support. As his eyes clashed with Don Andres’s, he forgot his own part in the cattle rustling and confessed, “He steals your cattle, Don Andres. That is how he becomes rich. He is a thief. He should be hanged!”

  “Prove it,” Jeremiah snarled. “Who will take the word of a drunken mama’s boy who can’t even stand up straight?” he jeered.

  Raoul gave a bellow of pure rage and charged the amazed American like one of the bulls in the corral. He fumbled for his knife as he staggered forward, but before Raoul could come within arm’s reach of his victim, the bunched fist of one of the American’s brawlers had connected with Raoul’s smooth face, sending the stunned Californian forcibly backward with such power that Raoul’s head hit one of the posts of the corridor with a sickening impact. It sounded like a pistol shot. Raoul crumpled to the ground, senseless, dark red blood beginning to seep from the back of his head and trickle from his nose.

  “¡Madre de Dios!” Don Andres exclaimed as he rushed over to the fallen Raoul and knelt beside him. He placed a tentative hand over Raoul’s chest as he gazed worriedly into the still face. Don Andres slowly struggled to his feet, his knees wobbling slightly as he turned to face the others. “He is dead.”

  His startling words hung in the strained silence of the courtyard as many shocked glances were sent to the still-unconscious Doña Jacinta. She had been spared the agony of witnessing her only son’s death. Don Andres was the first to shake off the numbness. He took a threatening step toward the American but found his path blocked by Doña Ysidora who flung herself in front of him.

  “Andres, my son,” she cried, “nothing can be done now. Let it be. What good will you be if you are maimed or killed by these brutes?”

  “Listen to your madre, Don Andres,” Jeremiah warned nervously as he glanced around the ring of angry faces surrounding him and his bodyguards. “It was self-defense. He was going to knife me. You all saw it,” Jeremiah blustered.

  Don Andres continued to glare at the American. The other Californians grumbled threateningly, willing to back him up in whatever move he made as they crowded closer around him, the ladies moving back to safety within the corridor.

  The three huge men hired for protection by Jeremiah Davies prepared to earn their wages as they closed ranks around him, their faces showing a mixture of ugliness and anticipation.

  Suddenly the loud report of a pistol rang through the courtyard, echoing like the ringing of a chapel bell calling people to mass. Mara and Brendan jumped in alarm at the sound, for it had nearly deafened them by its closeness. Turning in surprise and fear, they stared at the smoking pistol held negligently in Nicholas’s hand.

  “You’ll forgive me for interfering in what is not my business,” Nicholas apologized, “but there has already been one death and I don’t think
you wish the ladies to become involved in this.”

  One of the hired thugs made a reach for the gun strapped to his hip. Before his thick fingers could even close over the butt of the pistol, Nicholas fired again. This time his well-aimed shot stung the man’s fingers. It left a bloody trail to mark its passage.

  “I think it’s time you three and the little man said your farewells and left,” Nicholas advised in a cold voice. “And the ladies too,” he added, a cruel smile curving his lips as they loudly protested their outrage.

  “¡Sí!” Don Andres agreed as he saw the wisdom of Nicholas’s words. “You will leave my land at once!” Don Andres ordered, promising himself that he and his friends would seek retribution in their own good time.

  “A pleasure, Don Andres,” Jeremiah agreed, casting a malevolent look at the tall Creole and the wrathful faces of the Californians. He turned with his disreputable party and left the courtyard.

  Brendan coughed, attracting Mara’s attention. He signaled her to follow him. As Mara started to follow, Nicholas turned his attention to her, his green eyes stopping her as effectively as if he’d caught her arm.

  “I’d like to talk to you, somewhere private,” Nicholas suggested softly.

  Mara swallowed nervously. “I must check on my nephew. He was probably frightened by the gunshot,” Mara stalled. “Later?”

  “Very well. Later,” Nicholas acquiesced, his eyes softening as they rested on her flushed cheeks.

  But Mara didn’t see the gentle tenderness in his gaze. She only remembered the murderous look in those green eyes as they had stared piercingly at the man he’d shot. He had dealt swiftly and ruthlessly with the troublemaker, showing no pity. If that was the way he reacted when he wasn’t even personally involved, how would he react should he find out who she really was? Mara trembled on a wave of desperation and fear.