Dolores favored her sister with a self satisfied smile. “I’ll be down early. I don’t intend to compete with Rafe’s dinner for his attention.”
Broc looked his friend up and down when they met in the hall outside their rooms. “I thought you weren’t going to dress for dinner.”
Rafe hadn’t brought evening clothes because he didn’t have any. It had been Juan’s suggestion that he see if he could wear any of his father’s suits. Rafe was surprised to find his scrawny teenage body had filled out and now his father’s clothes fit as if they’d been made for him. He was reluctant to wear them at first, but what the lawyer had told him, what Rosana and Juan had said, encouraged him to believe his father had changed his mind before his death and held Dolores responsible for the breakup of his family rather than Rafe.
“I think I’d have wounded Juan beyond hope of recovery if I’d come down in Levi’s and a clean shirt.”
Broc laughed. “He insisted I wear some of your old clothes.” Broc twisted his body to show that the pants were tight about the hips and the coat snug across the shoulders. “It’s a good thing I’m a skinny son of a bitch, or I’d never have managed to wiggle into these. Don’t they ever throw anything away in your house?”
“It’s not my house and apparently not.”
Broc patted his stomach. “I can’t eat too much or I’ll pop a button.”
“Mama used to say I ate as if I had a hollow leg.” The memory cut through him like a sharp pain. His mother had been a semi invalid most of her life. He’d loved her for her kindness and her boundless pride in him. Many times in the past ten years he’d wished he’d been mature enough to have spent more time with her.
“Let’s go down and dazzle the ladies,” Broc said.
“Nobody ever dazzled Dolores except herself.”
“She seems willing to be dazzled by you now, but you’d better stay clear of her sister. I think she’d be happy to stick a knife into you.”
“That’s not surprising considering what Dolores has probably told her.”
Rafe was surprised by how familiar the house felt. Little had changed since he’d left. The rugs on the floor, the pictures on the walls…even the squeak in the stairs was like an old friend welcoming him back. He cautioned himself against getting too comfortable, against letting himself become attached. He wasn’t going to stay.
Broc held back to allow Rafe to go down the stairs ahead of him. “That’s a pity. She’s a very pretty young woman. I think she likes you.”
Rafe turned when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “A minute ago you said she looked like she wanted to put a knife in me. That’s not my notion of liking somebody.”
“She’s conflicted.”
“You’re crazy.”
Broc turned Rafe around and gave him a push toward the parlor. “You’re too involved to be objective.”
Rafe didn’t get a chance to respond. The moment he reached the parlor, Dolores rose gracefully to her feet and crossed the room toward him, her face wreathed in a smile so brilliant it almost deflected his attention from her dress. Remembering that dress, and how it had affected him nine years ago, caused him a pang of remorse at his lost innocence.
“You’re a naughty boy for teasing me about not dressing for dinner. You look so handsome I could believe only ten minutes rather than ten years have passed.”
“These are my father’s clothes. I wore them only to please Juan and Rosana.” He glanced at Maria, who had remained seated, but her gaze was directed toward Broc. Why did that irritate him? Maybe because he didn’t want Broc falling for Maria as he had Dolores. She wasn’t beautiful like her sister, but she was very attractive, more appealing than Dolores in a way he couldn’t yet define.
Dolores used straightening his tie as an excuse to put her hand on his chest. “You’re better-looking than your father. You’ve got your mother’s eyes and nose.” She looked thoughtful. “Maybe her mouth, too.”
Rafe removed her hand from his chest more roughly than necessary. “Don’t speak my mother’s name. You aren’t worthy to have it pass your lips.”
Dolores’s hand was back in an instant. “She thought I was worthy to be her companion, to entrust me with her secrets.”
Rafe had never been naive enough to believe his mother would entrust her secrets to the ambitious daughter of a first cousin. “You’re lying. Now get your hands off me.”
Dolores appeared unmoved by his accusation. She reached for a glass of red wine, took a large swallow, and turned to Rafe with her familiar smile. He was beginning to feel like the victim of a snake, wrapped in its coils and unable to escape. He picked up a glass of whiskey and took it to Broc, who was standing close to Maria. “I don’t want anything now,” he said to Maria, “and I’d prefer water at dinner rather than wine.”
“I’ve arranged for that.”
Rafe was surprised by her thoughtfulness.
“You used to like whiskey and wine.” Dolores’s disbelief was apparent. “A little too much, as I remember.”
“One time when I had too much to drink, I said things to my father I’ve spent years regretting. I won’t take a chance on doing that again.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Your father is dead.”
He had to control an impulse to close his fingers around her lovely white throat and slowly squeeze the self satisfaction out of her huge, mesmerizing eyes.
“I’m sure Rafe is aware of that, Dolores. It wasn’t kind of you to mention it,” Maria chided.
Maria hadn’t left her seat, but she sat forward in her chair.
“I don’t see why.” Dolores didn’t take the reproof well. “It’s not as if he caused Warren’s death.”
Maybe he hadn’t caused it, but he’d contributed to it.
“I think it’s human nature to look back after the death of a loved one and regret you didn’t do some things differently.” Broc’s angry look appeared to have little effect on Dolores.
Margarita entered the parlor to announce it was time for dinner.
“You will sit at the head of the table,” Dolores told Rafe when they entered the dining room. “I’m seated on your right and Maria on your left. Your friend can sit at the other end.”
Rafe suspected Dolores had deliberately placed Broc as far out of her line of vision as possible, but the steam was taken out of his burgeoning anger when he saw that all the extra leaves had been taken out of the table to reduce it to a size suitable for four people. Dolores’s irritation told him that had been Maria’s doing. He glanced in her direction, but her attention was on Broc, who was holding her chair. Rafe refused to hold Dolores’s chair. She could sit on the floor for all he cared.
Dolores plopped into her chair with ill grace.
“Where’s Luis?” Rafe hadn’t expected to see him in the parlor, but he had expected him to be at the dinner table.
“He’s too young to eat dinner with us.” A second glass of wine had helped Dolores get over her pique. “We can’t be expected to put up with childish prattle.”
“Seven thirty is too late for a nine year old child to wait to eat,” Maria said. “Rosana supervised his dinner, and I put him to bed before I came down.”
Maria had looked at Rafe when she spoke, then dropped her gaze. He wondered if she was afraid he would criticize her choices. It wasn’t that he thought the boy ought to be at the table. He’d just wondered where Luis was.
“That means he’ll be up at the crack of dawn.” Broc grinned at Rafe. “I’m going to leave a note on his door telling him to go straight to your room.” He turned to Maria. “Rafe is the morning person on our crew. I like to sleep late.”
“Maria is just like him. I don’t understand how we can be so different.” Dolores’s glorious smile was back in place. Rafe could understand how his younger self had been dazzled by it. He might be just as dazzled now if he didn’t know her character.
The rest of the meal passed without Dolores doing anything more annoying than talking to him while ig
noring everyone else at the table. Rafe turned to Maria several times during the meal, but she was usually talking to Broc. He tried to listen to their conversation, but they spoke in low tones. When Broc laughed, Rafe was annoyed he didn’t know what she’d said that was so funny. When Broc smiled and replied to her with enthusiasm, he resented that he was forced to listen to Dolores reminisce about times he’d rather forget. By the time the meal was over, he was out of patience. When the dessert plates had been removed, he pushed his chair back without ceremony.
“I’m going for a walk.”
Dolores jumped up. “I’ll go with you.”
“You will not. Maria, would you accompany me?”
Chapter Four
If Maria hadn’t been positive she had no hearing problem, she wouldn’t have trusted her ears. “Me?” It sounded more like a squeak than a word.
“Yes, you.”
His response was clear enough. It was his purpose that was obscure. “What could we have to speak about?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
She wasn’t afraid of him, but nor did she feel comfortable being alone with him. His behavior toward her was cool but correct. “I doubt we have anything to talk about that we can’t discuss in the parlor.”
“Maybe not, but I’d rather do it while I walk. As I remember, the nights here can be extremely fine on occasion.”
The nights could be spectacularly beautiful, but she didn’t see why that should be a consideration. “I’m sure you would enjoy the evening more in Broc’s company.”
“He’s already spent too many nights in the saddle with only me and cows for company.”
There didn’t seem to be any polite way to continue to resist, so Maria slid her chair back and stood. She hadn’t expected Rafe to hold it for her, but apparently he had been brought up to be a gentleman.
“What am I supposed to do?” Dolores asked.
“You could talk to Broc about living on a ranch in California. It must be quite different from Tennessee.”
Broc hadn’t let Dolores’s temper spoil his mood. “California doesn’t look much different from my home. It has mountains, valleys, and rivers. It just takes a lot longer to get here than to Tennessee.”
Maria hated to leave Broc with Dolores, but she had the feeling he could handle himself around women even more difficult than her sister.
She left the dining room ahead of Rafe and turned down the hall toward the front door. Rafe went ahead to hold the door open. She was disinclined to take his hand when he offered to help her down the steps, but it was dark and she couldn’t see the steps because her dress had a wide skirt. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the strength of his hand or its roughness, but she hadn’t really believed he worked as a cowhand. She wished she didn’t find him so attractive and was angry with herself for feeling that way.
“I can’t walk far without ruining my dress. We can use the gazebo.” Maria had enjoyed sitting in the gazebo when Luis was a baby. It had been her refuge when the challenges she faced became too overwhelming. It had fallen into disrepair after the garden dried up, but she still loved to sit there in the early evening when it was cool. Now she seated herself on a bench that creaked under her weight. Rafe followed her into the dim interior. His shadow was imposing, his outline so close to what her ideal of a man should be that she had to remind herself he’d committed an unpardonable sin.
“What happened to my mother’s garden?”
“Dolores didn’t care for it.”
“Probably because it reminded her of my mother. I’d say it gave her a guilty conscience, but Dolores doesn’t have a conscience.”
Maria decided it was best to ignore that comment. “It burned up during a particularly hot, dry summer.”
“Until she got too ill to leave her room, my mother used to spend hours sitting in the garden, planning which flowers to plant, what trees or shrubs she wanted. One time the hands had to move a tree three times before they got it exactly where she wanted. She diverted the creek to flow through a rock garden. Sometimes she would sit next to it for hours. She said the sound of the water tumbling over the rocks was so soothing, it helped her forget the pain and the weakness.”
It was impossible to be untouched by the sadness in Rafe’s voice. She wished the shadows didn’t obscure his face. She had a feeling he’d outgrown the lack of control that had caused him to attack Dolores. That didn’t absolve him of the responsibility for his act, but it promised to make working with him less distasteful. If she could think of him as having reformed, she wouldn’t be ashamed of herself for not hating him.
“You didn’t bring me out here to talk about your mother’s garden.”
“Why do you want to hurry back? Luis is in bed, and dinner is over. Rosana can take care of the kitchen, and Margarita can take care of Broc and Dolores.”
“There’s always a lot to do in a house this size.”
“Let Dolores take care of the house for a half hour, or don’t you trust her?”
Dolores had never taken care of anything as long as Maria could remember. She had probably forgotten how to find the kitchen. On several occasions, Maria had been so upset by Dolores’s selfishness that she’d been tempted to leave, but she owed her sister too much to desert her, no matter how difficult she might sometimes be.
Their father had been a member of an important Spanish family whose fortune was based on an old land grant. He’d never had to work or worry about where the money came from to support his extravagant lifestyle until an upstart Anglo named Solomon Grunge had decided to challenge the land grant in court. Knowing that many such grants had been overturned in the newly established American courts, her father had offered Solomon Grunge a portion of his land and Maria’s hand in marriage if he would withdraw his challenge.
A shy and unworldly thirteen year old, Maria had been as much afraid of Solomon as she was repelled by him. He was more than three times her age, ill dressed, ill spoken, and given to staring at her while licking his lips. Maria had begged and pleaded, but her father said she had to marry Solomon to save the family. Dolores had told her father she wouldn’t allow him to force Maria into such a marriage and had driven Solomon from the house. Dolores had placated their father by saying she would have more than enough money for everybody after she married Vicente Bandini.
It hadn’t worked out that way.
Solomon pursued his case in court and won. The culminating blow came when Bandini broke his engagement to Dolores. Maria’s father had never let her forget that her refusal to marry Solomon had beggared her family and destroyed Dolores’s future. The invitation to live with Dolores had spared her poverty and daily recriminations. It had also given her a chance to compensate for what she’d done to Dolores.
She’d also stayed because of Luis.
“The only reason I’m here is to take care of Luis and manage the house.” She wasn’t just taking care of Luis until something better came along. She loved him. It would break her heart to lose him.
“As executor and heir to half the ranch, I think it’s within my rights to request a small amount of your time.”
She couldn’t argue with that. He had the power to relieve her of her duties and order her to leave the house. She wondered if that was why he’d brought her outside. She had never considered living at the ranch to be a permanent situation, but over the last nine years it had become her home. Luis and Dolores were her family. As long as Warren had been alive, as long as she thought Dolores would inherit the ranch, there had been a clear expectation that she would remain. Warren must have intended for her to stay after his death, or he wouldn’t have made her joint guardian of Luis. She shouldn’t let her distrust of Rafe cause her to jump to conclusions. “You’re quite right. I’m used to being the one to make decisions. It’ll probably take me a while to change.”
Rafe regarded her in silence for a moment. “I haven’t said I want to make a change. I know nothing about taking care of a young boy, but
I intend to learn.”
Terror that she might lose Luis raced through her. “Are you saying you want me to stay on until you can find someone to replace me?” When she’d first learned about the will, everything Dolores had said about Rafe had led her to expect they’d both have to leave. But when months went by without the lawyer being able to locate Rafe, she’d started to believe he’d never be found and she would be allowed to stay.
“I don’t know. I don’t think you’re like Dolores, but she’s your sister so I don’t know if I can trust you. You appear to have done a good job with Luis’s education, but it seems he never leaves the house. How is that going to help him know what to do with a ranch?”
Rafe’s criticism stung. She was aware Luis needed a much broader education than she could give him, but she’d done the best she knew how with the boy.
“I was only fifteen when Dolores invited me to live with her, so you might say Luis and I have grown up together. I knew nothing of horses, ranch management, or any of the sports and activities men find so necessary. I repeatedly urged your father to take an interest in the boy, but he refused.”
“I can’t understand that. My father put me up in the saddle with him before I could walk.”
How could she tell him that Warren wouldn’t see the child because looking at him reminded him of the son he’d lost, the son he apparently loved even after ordering him to leave the house? Despite what he’d done, Rosana insisted Rafe’s leaving had broken his father’s heart. She wondered if she’d feel the same about Luis. He was practically like her own son.
“I asked your father for his reason, but he never gave it. He became very reclusive after you left. During the last two years of his life, he rarely left his room.”
“No doubt that was Dolores’s doing.”
It was hard for her to accept his deep dislike of her sister without throwing his own errors in his face. She’d never been in love, so she could only imagine how devastating it must have been to learn that the woman he loved planned to marry his father. But that had happened ten years ago. It was time to move beyond those past injuries.
Someone Like You (Night Riders) Page 4