Joan Johnston - Texas Woman

“I… I think I’m more tired than hurt,” Sloan admitted. “And maybe a little dizzy from the fall.”

“Then rest, Cebellina, adorada, querida.”

As he murmured love words, Sloan felt a blush rising from her throat to tint her cheeks a rosy pink. She cleared her throat and interrupted, “Uh… how did you find me?”

“Paco led me to the wagons. Can you tell me more about what happened there?”

“I don’t really know. I got there after the Comanches… Betsy’s cousins, Franklin and Jeremiah, were taken captive. We have to go after them, Cruz. We have to-”

“I have already sent my vaqueros to look for them,” Cruz said in a soothing voice. “If they can be found, my men will find them.”

He left unsaid that if the Comanches had escaped to the northern plains, there was little or no chance of the two boys ever being seen again-except as Comanche raiders themselves.

“Once the niña has had a chance to rest,” he said, “I will have my vaqueros take her to San Antonio so that she can be returned to her family.”

“No! I mean, her parents are dead.”

“Perhaps there is yet some family living who will want to claim her.”

“She has an aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania,” Sloan conceded. “But until they can be contacted, I’ll take care of her. She needs me.”

Cruz felt his neck hairs bristling. “You have a child of your own to care for at Dolorosa-whom you ignore. Will you give more time to a stranger’s child than you give to your own son?”

“Cisco doesn’t need-” She bit her lip on the denial of her son’s need for a mother’s love. She saw how neatly she had been trapped. “If that’s the price you ask for my keeping Betsy, then I’ll pay it. I agree to spend time equally with both children.”

“I did not mean to put a price-”

“There’s a price for everything,” she said. “I’m not so heartless as you think, Cruz. I have not denied my son a mother’s love and felt nothing.”

He looked down into her deep brown eyes and saw the suffering in their depths. “Tonio is dead. The past is past.”

“The past is always with us,” she countered. “But I promise to spend more time with Cisco. So long as you understand I will not open my heart to him, knowing that I won’t be staying long.”

Cruz’s features hardened at the same time as his grasp on her tightened. “You are mine now, Cebellina. I do not intend to let you leave Dolorosa.”

“You won’t dare to hold me there against my will!”

“Try running off again and see what I am willing to do,” he retorted. “Leaving the hacienda as you did was dangerous.”

“What I did I’ve done a thousand times before. If you want a wife who’s docile and obedient, one who’ll sit at home and wait for you to return and handle every little problem that comes up, you’d be better off with Tomasita.”

“I do not want Tomasita. I want you!”

Betsy’s whimper caused them both to stop and take stock of where they were. Although Sloan didn’t want to drop the subject, in deference to the child, she didn’t raise it again. Words wouldn’t change his mind.

“Will you help me to stand, please?” she asked.

It was a small step for her to ask him for his help, but in such ways were long journeys traveled. Cruz nodded before he set her down on the grass and stood up himself. Then he reached out his arms and said, “Hand the child to me.”

“I can carry her,” Sloan protested.

“She is too heavy for you. I will take her.”

Sloan sighed. “All right.”

Cruz caught himself before he smiled. Yes, just so were long journeys begun.

Sloan had expected the child to protest being shifted to Cruz’s arms, but Betsy just looked up at him and was silent.

“Can you mount by yourself?” Cruz asked Sloan.

“Of course,” she replied, although she wasn’t at all sure she had the strength. One of the vaqueros brought her horse to her and held it while she pulled herself into the saddle. As Sloan watched, Cruz easily bore Betsy’s weight with one arm as he mounted his bayo.

As they rode, Sloan was aware of Cruz’s piercing gaze on her and turned away from him to escape it. The sight of the two bandidos slung over their horses reminded her of something important she had forgotten to mention to Cruz.

She turned back to him and was startled by the longing she found in his eyes. It took her a moment to regain her train of thought.

“There’s something I forgot to tell you,” she said. “After the bandidos captured me, they took me with them to a meeting they had with an Englishman. I overheard the Englishman say that he planned to rendezvous with a man named Alejandro and someone called the Hawk tomorrow night. This man called Alejandro they were talking about… I think it’s the same Alejandro who murdered Tonio.”

“That is not possible,” Cruz said. “I saw Alejandro Sanchez hang with my own eyes.”

“They said something about it being someone else who was hanged-not Alejandro. Is that possible?”

She watched Cruz and thought for a moment she saw doubt flicker in his eyes.

“Alejandro is dead.”

“But we should contact the Rangers, don’t you think, and tell them about all this.”

He said only, “Perhaps.”

“Aren’t you even a little bit curious about what’s going on?” she persisted.

“I am not my brother. I do not concern myself with political intrigue.”

He watched the pain come and go on her face, and it tore away at something inside him to speak so harshly-and falsely-to her. But he had no choice. He called to one of his vaqueros.

“Patrón?”

“Take those two bodies to the pueblo and see if anyone can identify them. Tell Doña Lucia that the señorita and I will not return until tomorrow.”

“Sí, Patrón.”

A moment later, he and the other vaqueros were gone in a cloud of dust.

“We aren’t going back to Dolorosa?”

“Not right away.”

Sloan waited for Cruz to explain himself, but when he didn’t, she asked, “Where are we going?”

“We are going to Gonzales to be married by a priest.”

“YOU’RE CRAZY IF YOU THINK I’M GOING TO agree to bind myself more closely to you,” Sloan said.

“I was not asking for your permission.”

Cruz spurred his horse into a trot, and Sloan quickly kneed her mount to catch up to him.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.

“We made a bargain. Tonio has been avenged. It is time you kept the promise you made to me four years ago.”

“There’s no need to say vows before a priest,” Sloan argued.

“I want no question in your mind that we are truly man and wife-that we belong to one another body and soul.”

Sloan was desperate to avoid saying marriage vows before a priest, because once Cruz married her in a church, he would never let her out of their bargain. “What if Alejandro isn’t dead?”

“He is.”

“What about Three Oaks?”

“What about it? Our agreement never depended on your inheriting Three Oaks. Even if it did, have you had word that Rip has changed his mind?”

Sloan was silent. Over the past four years, she had denied to herself that she was Cruz’s wife. He was forcing her to remove the blinders she had worn and accept the fact she was the wife of a Spanish hacendado.

She wasn’t sure which distressed her more, the fear of dealing with Cruz woman to man or the fear that she would be ceding him control of her life. At last she said, “I don’t understand why you want me for your wife.”

“It is enough that I do.”

She met his eyes and saw they blazed hot with desire. But was desire enough on which to base a marriage? She was afraid he would make her feel… things… she didn’t want to feel ever again.

There was always, lingering at the back of her mind, the thought that he was Tonio’s brother. She had given herself fully, freely to Tonio. She doubted she could ever do so with another man.

Cruz pulled his horse to a stop next to Sloan and reached over with his free hand to gently brush back an errant strand of sable hair from her face. “Do not look so troubled, Cebellina. You have been mine for four years. The words of the priest will only bless our union.”