“They not shoot you, Chris,” Vicky whispered as the whole group made their way toward the hacienda.
“I would hope not, but I’ve got the hacienda princess on my horse and only your word and Padre Pedro’s to defend me. How do we know that the minute I put you down, they won’t string me up for kidnapping?”
“What kidanappting?”
“Stealing a person.”
“Steel, like metal?”
“No, steal, s-t-e-a-l, to take something that does not belong to you.”
“Oh, robar.”
“Yeah, to rob or steal. They might think that I stole you from them.”
No doubt about it. The burning of Don Ruiz’s gaze was prickling his skin even as they rode along. The man may have let Chris carry his daughter, but he wouldn’t let them out of his sight. Probably a good thing, since Chris still fought the temptation to wheel Comet around and head for the hills with her in his arms.
* * *
Seeing how tired Berto, Papá and even José Luis looked caused Vicky a twinge of guilt. They had been worried about her. Enough to search off hacienda lands. And they’d been saddened when they had found her rifle and necklace in the creek. They’d brought her things back to show her family. It must have been the day they went hunting. Nana had told Chris some men had come to the cabin once they came home from the hunt.
Her thoughts came to a halt. Home. The grand, cold stone palace awaiting her with open arms after almost two months’ absence no longer felt like home. A small, cozy, one-room cabin in the woods to the west of her father’s hacienda now was the home of her heart.
Would she ever be able to forget Chris once he rode away as if nothing had happened between them? Had he not felt anything? Even now, as he supported her in his arms, she felt his every breath through the strong solid chest that supported and protected her hurt ribs. Each time he looked down on her with concern, she wanted to beg him to take off, help her escape. She would rather go back with him to his home. Maybe she could convince Padre Pedro that he should marry them instead. That way, her father couldn’t protest and she would be free. Free to live at Chris’s cabin and cook his food, ride his horses, and maybe someday, he might come to care for her and they could have a family of their own.
But her fear kept her silent. She knew he cared about her well-being, but maybe he saw her as just a girl. Or worse yet, a sister. He had told her many stories about his own sister and their escapades growing up. He might see her as a sister, but she could never confuse him for a brother.
No, if she were to be completely honest with herself, she’d have to admit that she had finally learned what Maritza had giggled about when she had said how she had fallen in love with José Luis. Or why Magda, even after all these years, paced the kitchen floor when Berto was late coming in from the fields or a hunt. Hadn’t she begun to do the same thing at the cabin in the last few days? Keeping an eye out the window for his return and not feeling settled until he had retired to the safety of the other cabin for the night?
Ever since she could remember, her parents barely managed to be civil to each other and looked for ways to avoid contact, but she had seen other couples in love on the hacienda. She just hadn’t believed that she would ever feel that way for anyone. She had believed that because she was of noble blood, mixed with indigenous, she would never know the strength of emotions like that. Love seemed to be reserved for the poor while the ruling nobility had to be content with their position in life and the relative ease that brought without ever experiencing the grand feeling of loving and being loved.
Maybe love was only for the poor, but she had somehow managed to sample it in passing. Surely she could never have such emotions for Don Joaquín.
At the thought of the dreaded man, she cast another look around the outbuildings. While the yard was designed for carriages and wagons to pull up around it, most of the lands surrounding theirs were too densely forested or too wild to have navigable roads. Even the main road around the mountains and out to the port where the Franciscan mission had been was more a horse trail that the cattle trampled down on their way to the coast once each year.
Had Don Joaquín arrived for what he had declared to be their marriage only to be informed she had been killed by a puma? Had he already left the hacienda, or had he stayed to pay respects at the service to be held on her birthday? She didn’t see any sign of him in the barnyard or on the veranda where her brothers now vied for the best view.
“Vicky! Vicky!” they both cried out as they saw her coming. Juanito, at age nine, should have already been helping in the stables, but Mamá had not wanted to take any chances with her remaining boys after having lost her two other children.
“Your brothers?” Chris questioned in his stilted Spanish. She nodded, her heart climbing into her throat at the sight of them and keeping her from getting any words past it. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed them until she saw them again.
“Juanito is big?”
Again she nodded. “They are happy to see you.” He had switched back to English.
“Sí, they are happy.” She repeated the words in Spanish so he would learn a new term and then looked up into his eyes, the light blue like a cloudless day in summer, and saw concern and understanding.
“I’m happy you home, Vicky. I not happy you not at my home,” he whispered in Spanish, but before she could ask what he meant or even if he knew what he had just implied, they were at the gate. Papá slid out of his saddle and pulled her into his arms, still as strong as ever for a man of forty-eight.
“Mi’ja.” His use of the Mejican term of endearment Berto and Magda used for her and their own children touched her heart and brought on the tears she had held back for the last few minutes. “We thought you were gone forever! You don’t know how much we all missed you.” He held her close and then let her feet sink to the ground. “I trust the Americano treated you well.” He kept her close but sent a look over her shoulder to Chris. The creaking of his saddle and then the sound of his boots landing on the cobblestones gave her a sense of where he was even with her back to him.
“He was wonderful and kind and generous and always a gentleman,” she rushed to reassure her father, only to have him hold her out at arm’s length and study her with a knowing look.
“Don Ruiz. Good to see you again.” Papá turned her toward Chris but kept her tucked under his arm. Chris shook her father’s hand, keeping his gaze on him. “Vicky have long ride and need sleep.” Chris spoke in a soft, respectful voice. He motioned to the house as if wanting to herd them in like the cattle in the fields.
“What happened?” Papá kept a protective arm around her shoulder as he guided her up the steps and into the shade of the veranda.
“I’ll tell everyone once we’re inside, but please invite Señor Samuels in. If not for him, I would be dead. You owe much to that man, and I told him that he would be welcomed into your home.” She had never dared to tell her father what to do before now, but she would not abandon Chris to the vaqueros while she went inside.
“Of course, we have many questions for him, daughter,” Papá responded but didn’t turn to invite Chris. She stopped walking. Papá stutter-stepped before bending down toward her. “Are you hurt? Do I need to carry...”
“I asked you to invite Señor Samuels inside, and yet he stands by the gate. Your men won’t let him come any closer,” Vicky accused her father and then turned, looking past Padre Pedro to the men blocking Chris’s progress. “Let him past, men,” she called out in the voice she used to break up her brother’s fights.
Berto and José Luis gave a quick look at her father before stepping aside and motioning Chris ahead. It didn’t escape her attention that they followed at only two steps behind him. The stable boys had already started to collect the horses and take them to the barn.
“We need to talk, hija.”
Papá’s voice held a warning in it, but before she could question him, Juanito and Diegito threw themselves at her, hugging her around the waist and almost knocking her down in their excitement.
“With care.” Chris stepped closer, creating a barrier between them while he shifted down into a crouch to eye level with her brothers. “She need care. Got hurt. But she miss you much when not here.” His words slowed her brothers down but didn’t keep them from asking a million questions at the same time.
“We will talk inside,” she insisted. Papá held the door open as Chris and her brothers followed her, and they headed toward Papá’s office. She had just crossed the threshold of the room when she came face-to-face with her worst nightmare.
Don Joaquín slouched in one of Papá’s horsehair chairs, his cigar dropping black ash on the polished wooden floor and his shot glass empty on the walnut side table. He didn’t stand when they entered but grunted like a stuffed pig.
“About time you came back!” he huffed out, his eyes sweeping down her form from her head to her feet, lingering too long on places no gentleman would stare. She turned, ready to flee the room, but her escape was blocked by the others entering behind her. “Don’t you turn your back on me, girlie. We had an arrangement with your father. Did you think I wouldn’t find out about your little trick?” The man had come up behind her, his heavy breathing sending shivers of fear racing up her back. His odor of unwashed male, stale cigar smoke and alcohol, wafted over her. Her knees turned to liquid and she almost collapsed, but Chris caught her elbow and kept her upright.
“Look at me, woman, when I’m talking to you!” the foul man yelled as he spun her around. “I’ll teach you never to try to escape...”
An arm flew past her and caught Don Joaquín’s wrist as he swung to slap her across the face. Chris’s grip tightened on Joaquín’s arm, and she saw a grimace of pain flash in his eyes, then anger and hatred like she had never seen before. Fear, no longer for her own safety but now for Chris’s, froze her in her place.
“We no touch woman like man.” Chris’s voice came out low, clear and menacing.
“Let me go!” Don Joaquín yelled, but Chris didn’t flinch. Instead he stepped closer, putting himself between Vicky and her tormentor. At the same time, Papá stepped around her on the other side.
“Go have a seat, Vicky,” Papá whispered before turning his attention to his guests.
José Luis and Berto linked arms with her and helped her cross the floor on shaky knees. She sat and her brothers came around, hugging her from both sides and watching with wide eyes as their father and Chris walked Don Joaquín out of the room.
Chris paused only long enough to glance back and catch her eye. His gaze swept over her, but instead of making her feel dirty, she saw only concern for her well-being. He nodded to José Luis and Berto, who came to stand at the door.
“You have overstepped your place here, Don Joaquín,” her father growled in a tone she had never heard before. His growl continued, but as they moved away from the room, his words were too low to hear. Her heart beat in her chest with panic. She couldn’t stand to be in the same room with the beast for more than a few minutes—surely Papá would see that a marriage between them would be torture, for if he dared hit her while her father stood there...
Magda appeared, tears streaming down her face as she sniffed and placed a tray with glasses and a crystal pitcher on the side table. She enveloped Vicky in a hug that calmed her racing heart. While Don Joaquín might have much power outside the hacienda, he wouldn’t be able to reach her again with Berto and José Luis now standing guard at the door and Magda fiercely protecting her.
And Chris. While her father had not physically intervened for her, Chris had. If only she could count on his protection for the rest of her life instead of only a few more days. But even as the warmth of security filled her at the idea that he had stepped in, the memory of hatred on Don Joaquín’s face caused her blood to freeze in fear. What would he do to Chris in retaliation?
Chapter Eighteen
Chris didn’t release the grip he had on Don Joaquín until they were well down the hall and the man could no longer insult Vicky. The disgust rose like bile in his stomach at the idea of this man having the opportunity to lay a finger on Vicky. If he openly tried to hit her in the presence of her father and other men while they were only betrothed, what would he do once they were married and in the privacy of their own home? Praying for the strength to keep from killing the man then and there, he pulled air into his lungs and tried to understand the low, menacing words Don Ruiz spoke as they marched through the hallway. The stench of the man didn’t help his swilling emotions.
He had expected to head to the main door and throw the piece of trash out into the yard, but Don Ruiz led them to a staircase, and only then did Chris understand that even after Don de la Vega’s rough handling of Vicky, he was still a visitor in the Ruiz home. As much as it chafed, Chris would need to tread carefully if he wanted to help Vicky. On the heels of that realization came the thought that by manhandling a Spanish nobleman, even to protect Vicky, he might have just signed his own death warrant, or at least his own eviction notice.
Don Ruiz waved upward and seemed to dismiss Don Joaquín. The obscene man, who had to be years older than Vicky’s father, shot Chris one more look of pure hatred before turning and huffing his way up the stairs. As he climbed, his steps became less sure and his pace slower, his breathing labored. The man might be powerful among his peers, but if he ever tried to best Chris, there would be no competition. However, he’d have to watch his back and from now on patrol his ranch more carefully. The hatred he saw in Don Joaquín’s eyes was nothing short of diabolical.
Vicky’s father continued to watch the stairs until the echo of a door slamming cut the tense silence. “Come, we have much to talk about.” His words were soft and slow so Chris could understand. At least he wasn’t showing him the door. As they headed back to the office, Vicky’s father placed his hand on Chris’s shoulder for just a minute, causing him to pause.
“Thank you for bringing Vi-kee-ta back to us. We will always be...” Chris didn’t understand the rest of the words, but the look on the man’s face and the tears in his eyes said enough. His gratitude shone brightly. But if that was his reaction to having his daughter brought back from what he had thought was the grave, why let a man who would hit her still stay under his roof? Was Vicky’s father anything like his own—cold and so self-absorbed he didn’t notice or care about the suffering of those around him? On their first encounter, he had believed Don Ruiz to be a fair, kind gentleman. Had he been fooled?
“I am pleased to be of service.” Chris grimaced at his mispronunciation of the words Vicky had tried so hard to teach him. The older man’s smile proved his message had been understood. Was he truly what he appeared or just a charlatan?
“You didn’t speak Spanish before,” Don Ruiz commented as he began walking again.
“Vicky teach me some. She speak more English,” he admitted.
“She’s a smart girl.” The older man glanced at Chris. Something in his gaze said his comment wasn’t just a flippant remark.
“She is,” Chris confirmed, “more than me.” Her father nodded as if Chris had passed a test and once again patted his shoulder. Hopefully it was a vote of confidence and a step in the right direction toward winning her hand. In the few seconds after he had laid eyes on Don Joaquín, he’d come to the overwhelming realization that he wouldn’t be walking away from Vicky, not for anyone or anything, especially not for a monster like Don de la Vega. How that would play out was anyone’s guess, but he would do all he could to win her heart and her father’s approval. First he needed to determine if her father had made this agreement with de la Vega out of duress or financial trouble or if another option just hadn’t been found.
Chris paused. Should he say something to Don Ruiz? Before
he could form a question, much less try to translate it for Don Ruiz, the other man caught his gaze and held it with his own midnight-black one.
“Señor Samuels, you have questions? Yes?”
“Yes, I have questions. Why Vicky marry bad man?”
The serious look on Don Ruiz’s face did not bode well. Chris tried to swallow past his suddenly dry throat.
“I do not want my daughter married to Don de la Vega.” Don Ruiz did not break eye contact or fidget. Yet they had not removed the man from the house, just the room where Vicky was. It didn’t add up.
“There is much in California that you do not know, Señor Samuels. Watch out for Vicky and keep her safe. Trust only Berto, José Luis and myself.”
With those cryptic words, he entered the office where everyone was gathered around Vicky. Chris took a deep breath and followed.
Did Don Ruiz actually trust him and was looking for a way out of the marriage or just trying to get him to play along until he could somehow separate Vicky and Chris? Would he be shown the door in the near future? And if they did, how would he possibly help Vicky? They found Vicky embraced by an older woman, running a hand down her shoulder and across her cheek as if making sure she was real. Assuming the woman was Vicky’s mother, he smiled and reached out to shake her hand when she turned to acknowledge the men, but Vicky subtly shook her head. Remembering she had said something about giving a kiss in greeting to the women, he stepped closer still and bussed the woman’s weathered cheek. She stepped back in surprise, her eyes taking him in, and then caught him in a warm hug.
“Thank you, thank you, Señor, for bringing our Vi-kee-ta back to us.” Her tears flowed freely again, and he fished out his handkerchief and offered it to her.
Rescuing the Runaway Bride Page 15