Rescuing the Runaway Bride

by Bonnie Navarro

  She bit her lip and frowned. “You stay for fiesta?” Her words were softly spoken, as if she were almost afraid to voice them.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” He crouched closer. The breeze feathered a strand of her long dark hair that had rebelled against its pins. It danced across his face. He reached up and tucked it back behind her ear, savoring the silky feel of it.

  “You stay for fiesta. My birthday?” She didn’t look up at his touch, but she didn’t back away either.

  “I don’t know if your family will want me to stay. I haven’t been invited,” he stated simply.

  “I invite you. My party. You stay,” she stated emphatically, her hand slipping around his lower arm. “Please. I no want go home, but—” she paused and he waited for her words “—if I go, I want you be at party. I want dance at party with Chris. I want say thank-you for save me.”

  “I wouldn’t have had to save you had you not killed the cougar and gotten injured. It was my fault that I wasn’t paying enough attention to my surroundings.”

  She shook her head fiercely and argued. “You not see puma. It want eat you for lunch. I no let puma eat any man.”

  “No, you didn’t let the puma eat me for lunch. Thank you. I owe you my life, Vicky.” He sat back and pressed his hands to the ground to fight off the urge to push her sombrero off her head and sample her beautiful lips.

  A moment later—just in time—Padre Pedro returned. It should have been a relief to no longer be alone with his temptation, but the feeling that he might never have another opportunity to kiss her ate a hole in his chest bigger than any cougar’s claws could ever rip open. He might never see her again after the following day, but he would do anything and everything he could to help her. If that meant staying a day or two extra to go to her birthday party, it was a small price to pay. Especially if it meant he had an opportunity to hold her in his arms once again, even under the guise of dancing in a crowded room.

  “I will stay for your birthday as long as Padre Pedro thinks that Brother Sebastian and Brother Francisco are all right staying a few more days at my cabin.”

  “I ask him now, but I know he say yes.” She smiled at him as if he had promised her the moon and stars, not just to stay for her party. “Brother Sebastian no walk for six or seven days,” she added as if still trying to convince him.

  Then it dawned on him. Vicky seemed to think that her birthday would also be her wedding day. Would she be married before the dancing? Surely that would be the logical way to do things.

  “But I would ask just one thing, Vicky.”

  “What you ask?” she questioned when the silence dragged out.

  “Do not ask me to stay if you get married before your birthday party.”

  “I trust God no marry Joaquín. I not animal to give to animal.”

  “No, you are no animal nor should anyone treat you like one. We will pray that God will work everything out.”

  The closer they rode to the hacienda, the more he prayed that God would give him a solution and a way to approach Don Ruiz. The wad of bills he had in his saddlebag from the sale of his father’s plantation gave him some hope. In a moment of desperation, he had dug it up from its hiding place and brought it along. Maybe he could match whatever bride’s price her intended had agreed to with her father... But he didn’t even know if that was their custom or not. While Mexico outlawed slavery, the act of wedding an unwilling lady to a man twice her age if not more was just as wrong.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “There is the cabin,” Vicky called out as they entered a clearing. She sounded out of breath even though they had slowed their pace in the last few hours to just short of a crawl.

  Sure enough, up ahead, a small, weathered structure squatted in the late afternoon sun. It looked like a stiff breeze might knock it over. The size of it made his cabin look like a mansion. Even with the small roofed area off to the side of the main shack, used for stabling the horses, it would be a tight fit for all three of them.

  Vicky took her time climbing down, and her disjointed movements caught his attention. Something was wrong. He hurried over to her side just as her legs buckled. “Vicky!” He caught her before she hit the ground.

  “I no feel legs,” she whispered, already trying to stand on her own power. “Hard to take air.”

  “You’re having trouble breathing?” Panic seized his heart, and he lifted her into his arms as he had that first day.

  “No trouble. It hurt. Ribs still not like ride so long.”

  In the haze of fear, it took a minute to decipher her meaning. “Oh, your ribs don’t like the long ride?”

  “Sí, rib no like long ride.”

  “So let’s get you inside and lying down.” Padre Pedro signaled to the cabin, and Chris nodded in agreement. After the priest had opened the door and checked inside, Chris carried Vicky in. Musty air met them at the door. As soon as he could get Vicky settled, he’d see to airing out the cramped room containing only two cots and a small, rough table. “Can you ask Padre Pedro to bring in my bedroll? The bed is covered in dust.”

  “I no bebe, Chris. I stand.”

  “No, you might not be a baby, but I’ll hold you until he comes back. Just ask the priest to bring in my bedroll. I’ve brought you this far, I don’t want to have to explain to your family how you rode all the way to the hacienda and got sick again on their lands.”

  She grumbled something in Spanish before turning and talking to the priest. Chris could only guess what else she might have said, but setting her down on something fairly clean was his biggest concern for the moment. Padre Pedro returned a few minutes later, having brought the bedroll attached to Vicky’s saddle. As Chris set her down, she cried out in pain. Tears cascaded down her ashen cheeks as she tried to straighten her legs. Why hadn’t she told him her legs had been cramping in the saddle?

  Chris signaled the priest, and in tandem they each slipped off one of her boots. “I’m going to help you move your leg, Vicky. It might hurt at first, but it will feel better in a minute,” he promised. He covered her legs with the edge of the blanket he’d set her on, even though she wore her peasant pants. Grasping her right leg gently, he started to rub her foot and then slowly flex it at the ankle. Her gasp of breath and the trail of tears down her face caused his stomach to clench, and he wished he could endure the pain for her.

  How brave she had been. Thrust in a situation where she understood very little of what was being said around her, she had insisted on learning the language and helping instead of being waited on hand and foot. She didn’t complain about the food or his humble home but looked for ways to help. So much that Chris had begun to see how she fit into his life... Even now, with pain so strong she lost all color and turned a pale gray, she let him manipulate her foot without question. She trusted him. But did he deserve her trust? After all, she wouldn’t be in so much pain if he had been doing his job and paying attention to her.

  Padre Pedro took up her left leg. Once they had worked with her feet for a few minutes, he moved to her calf. Finally she was able to bend her legs on her own power without shuddering with the agony.

  “I have to go see to the horses and look for some wood for the fire, Vicky. Do you think you’ll be all right with Padre Pedro for a little while?” He fought to keep from catching her up in his arms against his chest and pressing kisses to her face until the pain subsided completely.

  Yes, outside was the best place for him to be for a while.

  * * *

  Three hours later, the sun was setting as Chris and Padre Pedro headed out to the lean-to where they had stowed their bedrolls. As much as it bothered him to see the elder man lie down on the hard-packed earth instead of the cot indoors, he knew it was better that they give Vicky her privacy. Soon the priest’s steady breathing told him the older man was resting, but Chris couldn
’t settle. He’d tossed and turned, as much from the cold, uncomfortable floor and the stench of animals housed there in the past as from his mind refusing to accept that in a few days he’d be heading back home without Vicky at his side and she’d be marrying Don de la Vega.

  Strange that only two months ago he’d never imagined ever wanting to share his homestead with anyone other than Nana Ruth. Now he found himself second-guessing that. But as soon as a spark of hope would light in his heart about somehow convincing Vicky to come back with him, he’d remember she had already been promised to another who could give her all Chris didn’t have.

  And if her betrothal wasn’t enough of a deterrent, an angry voice whispered all of his failings, starting with Ezequiel’s death and the mess he’d made with the plantation and then Jeb. No, Vicky was much safer far away from his ranch.

  “Please, Father God, let me see her home safely. She deserves to be married to someone wonderful. She deserves to be happy and loved. Help me to do my job and get her home and then give me the strength to walk away.”

  He must have just started to drift off when the first scream from the cabin broke the dark night. Instantly he came fully awake and started toward the door, a few steps ahead of the priest, who moved surprisingly quickly for a man who had passed sixty. He burst into the cabin only to find Vicky alone, thrashing around on the cot.

  “Vicky. Vicky, sweetheart.” He stopped just short of touching her, unsure if his contact would calm her or agitate her even more. “It’s all right. You’re safe.” He crooned other words, words that poured out of his heart. Slowly she calmed.

  Padre Pedro spoke in Spanish in the same low tone and soothing cadence. Her eyes fluttered open, and she gaped at them standing by her bed. “Why you here? Why you stand and look at me?” She turned her gaze on the priest, and he quietly spoke to her again, this time resting his hand on her shoulder and helping her to settle back down.

  Chris had never been one for jealousy, so the feelings stirring in his chest took a few minutes to sort out. Only after he had laid his head back down on the saddle he was using for a pillow did he figure it all out. He’d been jealous of the priest’s ability to soothe Vicky while Chris had to return outside. He knew it was to protect her reputation, but he hated feeling so useless when all he wanted to do was to hold her close and help her get through the night without any more nightmares.

  His frustration only grew as the night dragged on and her nightmares continued. By the time the sun had started to climb over the ridge to the east of them, he knew no one had gotten more than an hour or two of sleep all night. Staying outside and calling through the rough logs and poorly chinked walls was worse than any flaying anyone could have meted out on him. He would have preferred to take some kind of physical punishment instead of having to listen to the terror lacing Vicky’s cries.

  At first he dismissed her dreams as the product of the long ride, but as the night wore on, he kept hearing the words no Joaquín just as she had first called out in her sleep as she battled the fever and delirium after her arrival at the ranch.

  By the morning he was beside himself. How could he possibly turn her over to a father who considered giving her away in marriage to someone who terrorized her so? And yet what could he do? He didn’t even speak the language, much less understand the customs. And he hadn’t been able to take care of a single one of the people God had put in his care yet. He couldn’t risk her. Because as he fought with his thoughts, one thing became crystal clear. He loved Vicky. If something happened to her...the idea was unbearable beyond words.

  * * *

  Slowly, the darkness in the cabin gave way to grayish light. The awful night had passed, finally. Terror gripped her heart at the idea of even closing her eyes. Every time she did, Don Joaquín’s face appeared in her mind, wearing his usual sneer as he puffed on his cigar and knocked back shots of some foul-smelling drink. During the night, she dreamed that he had transformed from man to beast, a puma waiting to devour her. He’d come at her, claws outstretched, ready to kill her when Chris would step in the way, defending her but getting clawed instead.

  When she woke from the first dream, Chris had stood there, just out of reach, his eyes sad and full of...something—she’d almost convinced herself it was longing to hold her, but he didn’t reach out, didn’t so much as touch her shoulder. Not like Padre Pedro did, placing a reassuring hand to her shoulder.

  After the first time, Chris stayed outside. She could hear his voice through the cabin’s decrepit walls, but he didn’t come back in. Instead, he left Padre Pedro to take care of her. He might have done so to protect her reputation, but her battered heart felt rejected.

  If only she could be heading home to marry Chris. She’d dream of happily-ever-after, of contented picnics, of sitting on the bench in the yard and watching him work his wonders with his horses... She’d wake to the sight of his dear face. But dreaming would only make her reality that much harsher. Chris could never come to love her, a dark-skinned Indian, and dreaming of it only made things worse.

  Scrounging up what little faith and courage she still possessed, she forced herself to get up and get ready for the day.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Well, it’s time to go, Vicky.” Chris had stalled all he could, taking his time finding firewood and then heating up coffee and tortillas with salsa and beans. Then they had taken a long walk to get the circulation going in her legs, but finally there was nothing else to keep them from the last segment of this journey. He’d never dreaded anything more.

  She nodded without looking him in the eye and then quietly mounted up. Padre Pedro spent most of the morning reading an old, frayed book. Before breakfast, they’d read from Chris’s Bible with Vicky trying to translate the story as they went for the priest.

  After watching Vicky carefully, Chris saw no evidence of her being uncomfortable this morning. He’d be stopping them every half hour or so and making sure she took time to walk, holding her arm tucked around his as they strolled. The last thing he wanted was to have her suffer another bout of those cramps today. Especially if it happened in front of her family.

  He distracted himself from the reality of his destination by admiring the landscape around them. The Hacienda Ruiz had some of the best lands for cattle in the area. Not only had they been blessed with the land, but they had maintained it well, the shack from the night before notwithstanding. Although, Chris knew that many of the huts the slaves back home lived in were no better and sometimes even worse for wear.

  If only they had met back in South Carolina. He would have known how to court Vicky and approach her father for her hand. How could he do it now, with her already promised to another? And yet, he knew after hearing her terror last night he couldn’t walk away without trying to give her another option. She might not love him, but surely she didn’t fear him like she did Don Joaquín.

  “So, Vicky, how do I greet your father?”

  “Mi papá?”

  “Yes, how do I say ‘nice to meet you’ in Spanish?” he prompted, and he waited as she seemed surprised by his request.

  “Chris say, ‘Mucho gusto, Don Ruiz.’” She sat up straight and waited, watching him with a little gleam in her eye. He did the best he could at repeating the sounds and trying to remember what words went in which order.

  The morning sped by too quickly. The priest often corrected his mispronunciations and chuckled at his mangled Spanish, commenting from time to time to Vicky, saying something that made her cheeks glow.

  “What did he say?” Chris finally asked.

  “He say I good teacher but job easy when student like teacher.”

  “He’s right. You’re a good teacher, Vicky. I should have asked you for lessons instead of being content to teach you English. You’re a good student. Much better than I am.”

  “I have good teacher and I like teacher.”
Her blush darkened once she said the words, and they warmed something in Chris’s chest. They had become friends, if nothing else, during her stay. He knew that like was too mild a word for the feelings he had developed for the amazing woman who had crashed into his quiet world, disguised as a peasant boy, saving his very life from a cougar. Only God could have orchestrated something so convoluted. But even as he could see God’s hand at work, he didn’t understand the point.

  Why bring a woman into his life to steal his heart and give him a longing for things that could never be? Why give him a glimpse of what love could look like only to rip it all away and expect Chris to be the gentleman and face the biggest test of his faith by taking her back to where she belonged?

  Abraham’s trip up the mountain with young Isaac couldn’t have been much more heartbreaking than the feelings coursing through Chris’s heart as the sun reached its zenith. He hadn’t even read that story with Vicky. He should have. Truth was, he hadn’t gotten through the Gospels with her. There were too many new things to explain to her. If only they had more time. Temptation to turn the horses around and head for the hills, literally, caught him so hard he could hardly swallow.

  “Let’s take a break,” he announced. “Time to have some lunch.” He tried his new Spanish and got a nod from Vicky and a chuckle from Padre Pedro. If only they knew more of each other’s language, they might have become fast friends.

  Lunch flew too quickly, and once again they were back in the saddle. He’d noticed that Vicky’s movements were slower at lunch, and even though she claimed she was fine, he still feared something was wrong.

  They’d been riding in silence for less than twenty minutes when she almost slipped out of the saddle. He called out to Padre Pedro even as he pulled up alongside her within seconds to see that she had a sleepy look on her face. “You’re too tired to be riding.”