Summer Chaparral

by Genevieve Turner

  “A hundred head of cattle?”

  Something in his voice caught her, froze her in place. It sounded mercenary—covetous, really.

  “Yes,” she said, picking her way forward. Perhaps she ought not to speak of this, given the monetary note in his voice. “We all have a hundred head of cattle as our dowry—Isabel, Franny, and I. Juan will get the ranch.”

  The moonlight provided just enough illumination to see his furrowed brow, but not enough to perceive the full depths of his expression, to discover if it trended toward thoughtful. Or grasping.

  Moonlight was lovely, but it could only do so much.

  “A hundred head of cattle,” he repeated.

  This time, with his voice as cold and calculating as a banker’s, Catarina felt truly afraid.

  She was alone with this man, hidden in the hollows of the rose arbor. If they were caught… if they were caught her one hundred head of cattle would be his.

  And she’d be no better than Teresa Obregon Whitman.

  She snapped off the bench, sending him canting backward. “I have to go see to my friend,” she muttered, though Laura’s husband had long ago taken her home.

  Home.

  She wanted to be there, safe in her room.

  Stumbling for the shelter of the barn doors, light and gaiety pouring from them, she wished she’d obeyed her better impulses and avoided that arbor.

  A hundred head of cattle.

  A hundred head of cattle.

  What couldn’t he do with a hundred head of cattle?

  Jace swayed in his saddle to the rhythm of Spot’s steps, each hoofbeat drumming out that song, a hundred head of cattle. Felipe and several of the other hands were riding back with him, but he hardly noticed them, his head full of the idea of a hundred head of cattle, all his, with no cash spent for them.

  All he had to do was marry the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

  He’d been worried for her, finding her alone outdoors like that. No, no, it was the whiskey that made him worried. He couldn’t afford to worry about her.

  But worry hadn’t made him drag her off to the arbor—that had been his foolish fingers, deciding for him again. When she’d left him among the roses, his fingers had reached out for her before his better sense had reminded him of her words by the creek:

  This can’t happen again.

  And yet these encounters happened over and over again, the both of them equally at fault. He’d let her flee back to the barn without following, instead allowing his whiskey-tinged mind to spin with plans for a hundred head of cattle.

  His thoughts had ceased to spin in the cool night air, but those cattle remained a fixed point within his mind. Thank God he was riding back with Felipe and the boys, or he might have ended up in the desert on the eastern side of the mountains, still dreaming of those cattle.

  He could have that herd, on his new claim, carrying his brand. All he had to do was marry a woman who knew how to cook, how to tend a garden, and had been raised on a ranch. In short, the perfect cattleman’s wife.

  A woman who’d make a home.

  His home.

  Of course, most of the girls he’d met tonight at the dance also fit that description. Some of them might also come to the wedding with cattle of their own.

  But would any of them describe home as beautifully as Catarina did?

  Would any of them tease as deliciously as Catarina did?

  Would any of them kiss like Catarina did?

  That kiss… It was as cool and refreshing as spring thaw water while being as hot as noon in July, all at the same time. Tasting her had been exactly like tasting that peach she’d given him. He wanted to try it again, to see if he remembered that intoxicating mix of hot and cool correctly.

  He gave himself a hard shake. One hundred head or no, he couldn’t do that. That whiskey needed to stop putting such thoughts in his head.

  “You all right there?”

  Felipe’s voice cut into his imaginings of cattle and kisses.

  “I’m just fine.” A little too hearty, his tongue trying for insouciance but getting tangled in the aftereffects of the liquor.

  Felipe’s expression was skeptical. “You didn’t have too much to drink, did you?”

  “He didn’t drink too much whiskey,” Jacinto said. “He drank too much of the ladies’ affections.”

  The rest of the hands guffawed.

  “You do know English!” Jace accused.

  The men roared as Jacinto sent him a sly smile. “You think I’m stupid?” He shook his head. “You might be, though. I think you drank too much of one particular lady’s affection.”

  The knowing chuckles echoing around him made Jace pause. “Which lady do you mean?” he asked, almost afraid to know.

  “Saints preserve us,” Felipe groaned. “Not her.”

  “Oh yes,” Ignacio crowed, slanting a conspiratorial grin towards Jacinto. “Another foolish young vaquero has fallen under the spell of Señorita Catarina.”

  “I can’t blame him,” Jacinto said. “If I were still young and stupid, I’d want to steal some time under the arbor with her myself.”

  Hell, who else had seen them in the rose arbor? Normally he’d say something flippant—a comment making it clear he’d kept company with the lady in question, but wouldn’t cast aspersions on her character. But even hinting at what had happened could be dangerous. Not only for his job, but also for his life and limbs.

  Jacinto glanced at him and laughed reassuringly. “Don’t feel bad, vaquero. Every man in town’s been infatuated with her at one time or another.”

  Jealousy pricked at him with its sharp claws.

  “I thought you were going to stay away from her,” Felipe said, his usual mildness replaced by severity.

  “I—” Jace’s throat closed on all his convenient excuses. “Is she really getting a hundred head of cattle when she gets married?”

  If they were going to talk about her, then maybe he could get some answers. And deflect everyone from what had happened in the rose arbor.

  “She is,” Jacinto said cautiously.

  “And everyone knows this? It’s not a secret?”

  “The Señor has never tried to hide it, as far as I know,” Jacinto said.

  Felipe threw a dark, questioning look at Jace, which he didn’t bother acknowledging. If Felipe wanted to be suspicious, let him be suspicious. Catarina herself had told him about the cattle. He was only curious—if he’d wanted to attempt something nefarious, the arbor had given him the perfect opportunity.

  “If she’s the prettiest lady in town and gets a hundred head of cattle when she marries, why isn’t she married, then?” Such a simple question, yet as he asked it, he knew the answer would be complicated. A lady like her didn’t remain unmarried without some tangled reason behind it.

  Silence reigned as each man waited for someone, anyone, else to be the first to answer. Finally, Felipe shifted uneasily in his saddle and opened his mouth. “Every man who asks to court Catarina is told no.”

  “Why?”

  If Felipe was uneasy before, now he looked downright dyspeptic. “The Señor and Señora—they want their girls to marry one of them.”

  “A Mexican?” Jace clarified.

  “Someone from one of the old families, yes.”

  “Like Obregon?”

  “Miss Isabel got to him first,” Jacinto put in.

  This can’t happen again. If his name had been Obregon, she wouldn’t have said such a thing. Or if his name had been…

  “What about you?” Jace asked Felipe.

  He shook his head. “Not me.”

  “But…” Jace frowned as he tried to puzzle that out. Jace might never be able to change the star under which he’d been born, could never make his name—either of them—acceptable to the Morenos, but Felipe had no such handicap.

  “My grandmother is an Indian,” Felipe explained.

  “You’re a Cahuilla?” It would explain why he spoke the language.

>   “Not one of us,” Ignacio said indignantly. “A Luiseño, from down in the valley.”

  Jace still didn’t quite understand.

  Felipe sighed. “The Alvarados are much too proud of their pure blood to marry one of their daughters to me. Not that I want to marry Catarina.”

  “Alvarado? But they’re Morenos.” Jace could not have heard Felipe properly, not through the whiskey sloshing in his ears.

  “The Señora is an Alvarado.”

  Jace was instantly, crashingly sober as a stone.

  “That Alvarado girl murdered your Uncle Tommy. Shot him right through the heart.”

  Of all the ranches in California for him to stumble onto…

  Of all the women in California for him to find…

  He stared up at the moon, hanging high above him. Even if he were tempted into villainy in order to have her, were she and one hundred head of cattle worth marrying an Alvarado? Worth perhaps catching a bullet in his own heart?

  Catarina didn’t seem the type to shoot a man. No, she held his hand and kissed him like a siren and offered him peaches and cherries—and gave him back the word home.

  But if she learned he was a Bannister…

  He didn’t want to see her face if she learned the truth. He might not ever be able to take her to wife—one hundred head or no—but he didn’t think he could bear her reaction if she discovered his true name.

  And her family… Someday he might be one of those men come to call at the Señor’s court, needing the Señor’s influence or experience to resolve some matter he couldn’t handle on his own. He couldn’t make an enemy of the old man, not if he meant to settle here.

  She was beautiful.

  She’s an Alvarado.

  She’d held his hand in the dark.

  Her family hates yours.

  She wanted more, just as he did.

  One of her relatives killed your uncle.

  When he finally found his bed that night, he dreamed of a faceless woman driving a hundred head before her. She scattered the herd to the wind, just before raising a pistol from the folds of her skirt to shoot him right in the heart.

  Chapter Nine

  Pain snapped at her lower back as Catarina straightened, looking down at the endless rows of squash. Squash, squash, and more squash, and none of it magically picking and storing itself for winter.

  She blew her breath out hard and set her fists on her hips. She’d resolved to pick for as long as it took, but now that the sun was coming into its full power, she regretted it. She was sweaty and irritable, and half the field was left. But standing here staring obviously wasn’t working. With a sigh, she grabbed her shears, bent down, and cut free another, tossing it into the growing pile in her wheelbarrow.

  Her intention to use work to beat away the memory of his kiss was failing. The rhythms of harvesting couldn’t drive away the sound of his voice as he’d said one hundred head of cattle.

  The way he’d said it, that greedy edge to his voice, had sent a chill throughout her, making what had passed beforehand almost obscene. Each time she went over the kiss in her head yet again, those ugly words came with it… Along with her father’s warnings about Americans and their greedy natures. Her body would flush and shiver, but the taste in her mouth would be bitter.

  The feel of him under her hands, the intimate dance of their mouths together… Her blood sang simply thinking of it. Her dreams had been filled with a tall, dark, shadow of a man whose hands claimed her body and made her shudder with delight. She’d woken with shame-flushed cheeks.

  In the two days since the barn dance, she’d spent hours reliving that kiss and the conversation after, over and over and over again. Even, to her eternal shame, during Mass yesterday when the priest had begun to drone on about… what, she couldn’t remember now. Like one of Juan’s dogs chasing its own tail, her mind whirled and whirled around the two same things endlessly.

  His kiss and his final words.

  Perhaps her father was correct—perhaps most Americans were driven only by greed. Avarice had certainly been hard behind his voice that night.

  But not when he’d told her he wanted the same as she did: More. Yearning had been hard behind his voice then, the same yearning hard in her own breast.

  Where was the line between yearning and avarice? Or the line between want and need?

  Wrestling with such philosophical notions was giving her a headache. She straightened as she reached the end of the row, letting the last squash roll from her hand into the wheelbarrow. She worked her jaw as she surveyed the rest of the field, trying to decide if she should keep on until it was done, or if she could escape for a few moments.

  She tossed her shears into the wheelbarrow. A short break couldn’t make much of a difference at this point.

  She headed toward the Big House, the shade of the porch calling to her. Perhaps she could take a nap, like her mother did most afternoons, as had been done in the olden days.

  Before she made it to the shelter of the porch, she spied the water trough—the one behind the Big House, the same one Juan’s hounds loved to splash in. At the sight of all that cool, sparkling water, a naughty idea entered her head.

  She placed a hand on the cold metal side of the trough, the water tickling the tips of her fingers, and glanced about, making quite sure she was alone. If anyone saw what she was about to do, she’d be scolded thoroughly. Even Franny, that little hoyden, might be shocked.

  But knowing her sister, once she got over her shock, she’d join right in.

  No one there that she could see. Gathering her courage, she gripped the sides of the trough firmly with both hands, took a deep, steadying breath, and dunked her whole head in.

  The shock of the cold water sent bubbles streaming from her nose, the metal of the trough biting deeper into her hands as she steadied herself. Her mind had room only for the perceptions of her body: the chill of the water surrounding her, the tricky act of balancing, the simple need to keep forcing air from her lungs.

  Coming up, she threw her dripping wet hair behind her, laughing. Heaven above, that had been exactly what she’d needed. Gooseflesh rose on her skin, but the thrill of the water against her overheated body was delicious. With cupped hands, she dropped more down her front and back, thoroughly soaking her faded blue work dress.

  The water turned the thin material transparent in the bright sunlight, her underthings peeping through bold as brass. The knot of her hair tilted soddenly over her left ear, strands draped along her neck. There’d be no fixing her hair in this state, and she’d have to hide out by the creek until her clothes dried, but it did feel so good to be so wet.

  Cupping her hands one last time, she splashed more on herself. She might as well get as much coolness out of this escapade as she could. Pushing away a few persistent strands of hair, she turned for her hiding spot on the creek bank.

  And ran straight into a very large, very hard, very male chest. A chest she knew could only belong to one Jace Merrill.

  She flattened her palms against it to keep herself from falling as his strong hands curved around her elbows to steady her. Being so close to him, she had to crane her neck to see his face, lying in the shadows under his hat.

  His gaze caught hers and held tight—tighter than the breath trapped in her chest.

  Of course he would be the one to catch her like this. Always when she was at her most vulnerable he appeared at her side, as if by removing her masks, she summoned him.

  His eyes were the same blinding blue of the sky at noon, aflame with something she’d never seen before and couldn’t name. The closest she could come was primitive, but even that was weak compared to what was burning there.

  Her damp clothes clung to and cooled the most sensitive parts of her body. She’d left off her corset, so there was no barrier between her breasts and her dress, nothing to constrain her nipples as they peaked at the brush of his chest against hers.

  No darkness now to hide behind, no innocent clasp of hands
between them. Their lengths were pressed fully together, the sunlight leaving nowhere to escape to.

  His powerful hands were clamped down on her arms, not painfully, but with a force that made her head spin in the most delicious way. His gaze held hers, singeing her with its intensity.

  I want more.

  Avarice, yearning, want, need—such dry musings sank under the swell of sensation rising in her.

  He held her for one heartbeat, and then his mouth came down to capture hers.

  This was no tentative brushing of lips like the last time, no asking permission for the trespass. No, he went straight to downright possession, his mouth open on hers and his tongue invading the soft corners.

  She was snared, trapped, but it was somehow exciting, the bowlike curve of her body as it bent to his assault the only natural response to the passion that flared. He tasted of a heady mix of spice, mountain, and summer, with no sharp bite of whiskey this time. He used the kiss to advance and retreat, advance and retreat, and she followed his every retreat with an advance of her own, all stating the same message, over and over again.

  You are mine.

  You are mine.

  You are mine.

  A steady, deep thrumming began in her core and spread throughout her entire frame, in perfect rhythm with the thrusting of his tongue. Her blood began to sing to that rhythm, as she did her best to crowd closer to him, her nerve endings smoking as she began to burn.

  It was frantic, this need to burrow inside him, to crowd the ache of her body closer to the hard succor of his. As she pressed herself against his length, the ache centered in the secret spot between her legs intensified at the contact.

  He finally released her arms, wrapping his fingers around her bottom and bringing her more firmly against him and the driving force of his kiss. The increased friction of his chest against her sensitized nipples sent waves of pleasure crashing through her. Greedily matching the devouring intent of his mouth, she slid her hands up his chest and around to the back of his head, trying against all reason to deepen the kiss they were sharing. She pulled fiercely at the hair she’d stroked so softly before.