She might appear just so on a porch of her own, waiting for a husband to return from their pastures, her fond smile widening when he appeared over the horizon.
Perhaps she might even have a handful of cherries waiting to welcome home such a man.
You’re not that man.
And you never will be.
“I hear you’re sweet on your new cowhand, Catarina.”
Catarina dropped her embroidery and fixed a steely glare on a smirking Ines Obregon. Teresa Whitman, Ines’s sister, tittered behind her sewing.
Being related to these two once Isabel and Joaquin finally married was going to be a trial. But she had to keep the peace, for Isabel’s sake. Besides, they weren’t all bad—Laura liked them, although her best friend liked most people, being of a sweeter disposition than Catarina.
The five of them—Catarina, Ines, Teresa, Laura, and Isabel—were arranged in the Obregons’ sitting room, all stealing a morning away from their usual chores. If Isabel weren’t here, Laura and Catarina would have met at the Gries’s—without asking the Obregon sisters along.
“I am not,” she bit out in response to Ines’s tease.
Yes, you are.
She ignored that snipe from her conscience and stabbed her needle into the sampler she was stitching. The pink rose puckered as she pulled the floss through.
Keeping her toes hard against the floor, Catarina tried not to slip off the horsehair chair, her thighs tight with her efforts. The chair was like the Obregons themselves: pretty to look at from a distance, but quite uncomfortable after a close and prolonged acquaintance.
She knew her denial wouldn’t put those two off. The Obregon sisters had already heard the story of her meeting with Mr. Merrill by the trough—they’d passed it on to more than a few ears themselves, she would guess.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Teresa open her mouth, no doubt to continue her sister’s inquiries—only with less teasing and more vitriol.
“I hear he’s very handsome,” Laura said mildly as she set her sewing on the round shelf of her belly, interrupting whatever Teresa had been about to get out.
“If you like uncouth, weather-worn cowboys,” Isabel sniffed.
“We know you don’t,” Catarina muttered. One would be hard pressed to find a man more invested in his manners and appearance than Joaquin Obregon.
“Well, what girl would want a dusty cow hand when she could have Joaquin?” Ines asked.
Laura sent Catarina a secretly amused glance, and Catarina wiggled her eyebrows in reply. The adoration the female Obregons showered on Joaquin explained his vanity, but the excuse for his excessive pride didn’t make it any less tolerable. At least she could laugh silently about it with Laura. And not so silently when they were alone.
Teresa flicked a fatuous glance toward the portrait of Joaquin on the sideboard—in his fine suit, his badge shining and a smirk in his eyes. A vase of white roses set to one side completed the shrine-like atmosphere.
Catarina wondered if Isabel would set up a similar shrine when she married Joaquin—usually the Obregon sisters followed Isabel’s lead, but perhaps her sister might take an example from them for once.
“I don’t see what’s so special about this new cowboy,” Isabel said, her needle whipping out her stitches. “He’s the same as any of them: dirt poor and thirsting for a drink.”
Teresa and Ines nodded together. Being Isabel’s loyal lieutenants in the Ladies’ Temperance League, they shared her view that every man was a drunkard in the making, just waiting to fall into a bottle. They’d shut down the saloon last year and remained ever vigilant against the scourge of liquor.
“I imagine people are excited because he’s something new to talk about,” Laura said. “Nothing more.”
“Exactly,” Catarina agreed forcefully. “There’s nothing more remarkable about him than simple novelty.”
Liar.
She prayed that thought hadn’t flitted across her face—Laura had a great deal of practice at seeing past Catarina’s masks and might have caught it.
“I heard that he finally caught Red King,” Teresa said, something serrated lurking beneath the ridges of it.
Every face turned to Catarina when she didn’t answer. “He did,” she said indifferently.
But when he’d come up the drive, that famed bull coming along behind him, she’d been anything but indifferent. The bright blue of his eyes under his hat, the curve of his mustache above the gleam of his smile, and the rocking of his hips as he’d moved with the horse…
Oh no, not indifferent at all.
“Considering how long that bull’s been running wild,” Laura said, picking up her sewing, “that’s certainly impressive.”
The remark was directed mostly at Catarina—Laura was suspicious of her continuing denials.
“I, for one, am tired of hearing about him. That’s all we hear of at dinner from Franny,” Isabel grumbled. “Him and his horse. ‘He did this today, and that.’”
“Him or the horse?” Laura asked.
“The horse,” Catarina and Isabel said together, a rare moment of agreement.
Catarina would never admit it aloud, but she enjoyed hearing of his exploits. According to Franny, he was the most perfect cowboy ever set upon this earth. Remembering him with that bull, Catarina could almost believe it. And his chaps… sometimes the image of them would slip unawares into her thoughts and heat would crawl up her throat.
Laura sighed and fanned her face, the sheen of moisture sprinkled across her forehead a testament to her discomfort. Strands of her light brown hair waved with the motion of her hand, catching and clinging to her cheeks.
Down in the deepest, blackest part of her heart, the place where her vanity lived, Catarina admitted she was jealous of Laura. Married, with a baby on the way—Catarina ought to be happy for her friend to have such things, rather than feeling this gnawing envy. She only hoped that Laura couldn’t see to that black part of her heart and discover the rottenness that lived within.
“I can’t wait for winter to be here,” Laura said wearily.
“When winter’s here and snow’s on the ground, you’ll be wishing for summer,” Catarina replied.
“Yes, but I won’t be huge with child then,” Laura said. “I can’t begin to describe how much warmer it feels with this belly.”
Catarina swallowed hard. She mustn’t be envious, she mustn’t.
“You’ll never cool off that way,” Teresa said, rising to find a fan for Laura. “Here, use this. And you should fan harder than that.”
“If I fan any harder, I’ll warm myself from exertion, which would defeat the whole purpose,” Laura said. “But thank you, this helps.”
Eddies of air from Laura’s fan reached Catarina’s face, small laps of coolness that were only enough to tantalize. She concentrated on her sewing—not the heat, not her jealousy—only her sewing.
“I remember how it was with my two,” Teresa said, her needle flashing as she whipped out her stitches. “I thank the Virgin every day that Hugh has his boy and I don’t have to suffer his attentions any longer.”
Laura sent her a quick glance, no doubt to remind Teresa there were unmarried ladies present.
She needn’t have bothered—everyone knew Teresa had barred Hugh from her bed the moment she’d known the second child was on its way. One couldn’t hide loathing like that—the curled lips, the averted gazes, the stiffness in every gesture between husband and wife—not even from unmarried girls.
A lifetime of such tension was too high a price to pay for even a home and family of her own. Better to stay under her mother’s rule than to have such a marriage.
Teresa’s tendency toward a sharp tongue was understandable in light of such a marriage—but Catarina would still rather avoid Teresa’s razor-edged asides if she could.
The boy who’d heralded Hugh’s exile from the bedroom let out an ear-splitting shriek from outside, presumably after his older sister thumped him for one reason or
another. Teresa simply kept on with her sewing.
“I can’t believe you’re willing to watch all those little devils at the barn dance,” Teresa said to Isabel. “After teaching all this time, aren’t you tired of them?”
“No,” Isabel said, “I don’t mind. I’m betrothed, so I don’t dance any longer.”
Catarina stared hard at her sewing to keep from rolling her eyes. Isabel never had liked dancing. As for herself, Catarina expected she’d be out on that floor when she was eighty.
“Will Felipe be at the dance?” Ines asked Catarina. “He didn’t stop by on Sunday, so I never had a chance to ask him.”
Ines and Felipe had an “agreement,” or at least Ines thought they did. He didn’t appear to hold a grand passion for Ines, nor had he ever hinted he might marry her. Catarina privately thought Felipe wanted a pretty girl to walk with on Sundays simply because it was expected of a man of his age—and Ines fit the bill as well as any other.
Catarina had never been for a Sunday walk with any young man.
Oh, she’d imagined for years what a proper courtship would be like—how fine she would appear in a buggy next to her handsome young man, secure in the knowledge she was desired and would be the mistress of her own house soon. Had slavered at the image of herself ruling over a table as regally as her mother did. But they were only ever imaginings.
“Catarina?”
Ines was watching her strangely; her dip into self-pity must have shown on her face. She realized then she’d never answered the other girl’s question.
What had been her question? Ah, yes, was Felipe going to the dance.
“I would think so,” Catarina said, assuming a neutral expression. “But he doesn’t tell me about his comings and goings.”
“So you don’t know why he didn’t come on Sunday?”
The hopeful pleading in Ines’s tone set Catarina’s teeth on edge. Felipe went walking with her most Sundays; did she need every single Sunday?
“Are you quite all right, Catarina?” Laura asked. She teasingly waved the fan near Catarina’s face. “You seem overheated.”
She forced herself to laugh lightly. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? How are you feeling? Do you think you’ll make it to the dance?”
“I’ll try. I’m so fatigued at the end of the day, and Marcus is insistent I rest more. But someone has to take care of the house, so…” She shrugged.
“Do you need me to come by in the evening to help with supper?” Teresa asked.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Isabel demanded.
“Is there anything I can do?” Catarina offered.
“You don’t have to do it all by yourself,” Ines insisted.
Laura waved her hands to shush them. “Marcus helps me when he can, which is quite a bit. The rest of you have your own chores.”
“If you’re certain,” Catarina said. Perhaps she ought to simply arrive at the house unannounced and help Laura for a few hours each week. Yes, that was exactly what she’d do.
“I am,” Laura said, her head bent to her sewing.
A contemplative silence fell, the soft rustling of Isabel picking through her sewing basket only heightening it. Such silences were Catarina’s favorite part of a sewing circle, everyone intent on their work. The presence of the others somehow made each stitch more meaningful, more pleasurable, than if it had been done in solitude.
But apparently not everyone found the silence as restful as she did.
“What did happen at the common trough that afternoon?” Teresa asked the question as if it were no more innocuous than asking what they were having for supper.
Catarina knew what she was really about.
“Not much of anything,” she replied just as blandly.
“Really? Because I heard some very interesting things.” Which she’d no doubt repeated in that same prurient tone.
Catarina let her eyes go wide. “I couldn’t imagine what those would be, since nothing of interest occurred.”
“He was much too forward,” Isabel snapped. “And you encouraged him.”
“Isabel, that’s not fair!” The hot words burst from her lips before she could stop them, flames licking up her cheeks.
Isabel knew she’d done nothing wrong, she knew the Obregon sisters were terrible gossips—why had she said such a thing?
Teresa found her opening. “I thought you weren’t sweet on him?”
“I’m not.” And she wasn’t. Thinking on a man’s smile and the twinkle in his blue eyes and the way his chaps hugged his hips wasn’t being sweet on him.
Teresa’s smile dripped poison. “Really? Because you’ve been sweet on every other man you’ve met.”
Catarina stabbed her needle into the heart of the rose she was embroidering. “Flirting is harmless.” She gave an airy wave, as if she and Teresa were simply jesting with each other. “Just because a girl flirts with a man, doesn’t mean she has to marry him.”
“You would know,” Teresa replied in a cloying voice.
The eye of her needle skidded along her thimble, jumping through a hole to bite deep into the pad of her thumb. Her jaw clamped down on her shocked cry of surprise and she took a steadying breath before carefully pulling the needle free. Somehow, it hurt worse after she removed it. But she held her face still. If she had learned anything from her mother, it was that a lady was always calm, cool, and composed.
Never let them see you flinch.
She held Teresa’s blandly innocent gaze. “At least I haven’t been caught in the hayloft with any of them.”
An alarming shade of puce spread throughout the other woman’s face as her words landed.
A taut silence filled the space between the five of them as every hand stilled, needles clenched tightly.
Perhaps she’d gone too far with that reminder of how Teresa had ended up married. No one would look at her except for Laura, who waggled her eyebrows as if to say, She did deserve it—but you went too far for politeness.
“You want to know about him?” The room remained quiet as Catarina tossed out that challenge. She ought to apologize, ought to steer the conversation toward mere pleasantries—but she had done nothing wrong. “He’s here looking for a ranch. His horse is named Spot.” She flung each into the silence. “And that is all I know. Ask Franny if you want to know more. I’m done talking about him.”
She crossed her arms, her embroidery sliding to the floor. Well, let it. She cared as much for it right now as she did for this conversation.
Teresa remained a dangerous shade of red, while Ines looked abashed.
Isabel assumed a blank expression very like their mother’s. Heaven forbid she ever unbend toward anything like chagrin.
As for Laura, her narrowed eyes and considering expression meant she smelled a rat. She would go hunting for it, too.
“Spot?” Ines finally said. “He named his horse Spot? That’s a dog’s name.”
With that, the tension in the room broke as they all began laughing.
“So, he’s staying in Cabrillo?” Laura mused. “With his horse named Spot.”
The women giggled again.
“He’s looking for a ranch,” Catarina said. “Why wouldn’t he want one here?”
Laura’s gaze met hers and held, her mouth tipping into something quite like pity.
She knew. But of course she did—Catarina never had any hope of hiding her interest in Mr. Merrill from the one woman who saw through Catarina’s masks. And Laura knew too why that interest was doomed—Caterina had confided her suspicions about her parents’ attitudes toward her suitors to Laura on several occasions. Hence the sympathetic twist of her friend’s lips.
“Well, if he’s settling here, I’m certain we’ll have the opportunity to learn more of him in the future,” Laura announced decisively. “Those peaches you sent us last week were delicious,” she said to Catarina, closing off any further discussion of Mr. Merrill. “I don’t think I’ve had finer peaches.”
Catarina se
nt her friend a grateful smile. “Thank you. Those were from the tree Marcus’s mother gave me. It doesn’t give as much fruit as the others and I had to thin it unmercifully, but even those few peaches were worth it.”
“Oh, my, the time,” Isabel fretted, peering at the watch pinned to her shirtwaist. “Come along. We need to be heading home.”
Catarina bristled at the command, but she caught herself before she snapped at her sister. It wasn’t worth a fight.
“We’ll see you all at the dance in a week, then?” she asked as she stood and gathered up her sewing.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” promised Teresa with false sweetness.
Catarina gave her a smile as sweetly false in return.
As they made their way out the door to the donkey cart, Catarina held Laura back for a moment.
“I meant to give this to you last week,” she said as she pressed the package into Laura’s hands, “but it wasn’t quite finished.”
“A present?” Laura carefully unfolded and shook out the square of fabric. “Oh. It’s…” She pressed a hand to her mouth, the other holding up the christening gown. “It’s almost too beautiful to use.”
Catarina blinked away her own tears. It was a beautiful gown, and Laura’s gratitude made the hours spent on it all worthwhile. “Well, the baby will only be wearing it for a few hours. And if he musses it, I’ll make you another.”
Laura pulled her in for an embrace and whispered in her ear, “I so wish I were sewing one for you.”
Catarina bit her lip hard and had to pull away. She couldn’t burst into tears, not in the Obregons’ entryway.
“I’m sorry,” Laura said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, no, it’s all right.” Catarina fit a composed expression to her face as best she could.
“I—” Laura swallowed, tried again. “I would only ever admit this to you, but… but I’m worried about what will happen when the baby comes. Will you be there with me when it’s time?”
Oh Lord. Catarina could imagine it now, Laura cuddling a newborn to her breast, Marcus smiling indulgently, proudly, down on the scene. A perfectly complete family on the happiest of days.
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