And what about me, Father? Sloan thought bitterly. What about all the promises you made to me?

But she knew the futility of arguing. Rip was stubborn, and there was no changing his mind. By now she should be used to it-betrayal from those she loved most. She glanced sideways at Cruz.

Was it any wonder she didn’t want to put her life in his hands? Someday he would betray her too.


Doña Lucia stared at her son in disbelief. “That is not possible!”

“I assure you Sloan is my wife.”

“But…” Doña Lucia paused as she saw the implacable look on Cruz’s face. That woman had done it-insinuated herself in Cruz’s life until he was bewitched-just as that witch had put Tonio under her spell.

Well, she would not have it! She would find a way to quickly and permanently remove Sloan Stewart from her son’s life. “What about Tomasita?”

“My marriage to Sloan does not concern Tomasita.”

Doña Lucia’s lips pursed. “How could you let your lust for that woman-”

Cruz slammed his fist down on the table with such force it collapsed, sending a leg spinning wildly across the floor. “Enough! You will speak of my wife with respect, or you will leave my house.”

“But that woman-”

Cruz rose up from his chair like an avenging God. “Enough!”

Doña Lucia’s jaw snapped shut like a steel trap, and she dropped warily into a nearby chair.

Cruz rolled his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation before he strode angrily from the room.

He found Sloan standing beyond the doorway, white-faced. He grabbed her elbow and ushered her out the back door to the arbored patio. The night hid her face, but he could feel her shivering beneath his touch.

“She’s right, you know,” Sloan said. “It is lust.”

“She is wrong.”

“What else could it be?” Sloan challenged.

He met her gaze in the starlit shadows and said, “I love you. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

“When I was your brother’s woman? You loved me then?” she demanded.

“Even then.” The heat rose in his face, and he was grateful for the darkness. “I hated my brother for what he did to you.” He brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “We will put the past behind us and start-”

“Even if I agreed to such a thing, there’s no guarantee I could ever come to love you. Are you willing to take that kind of chance with your future, Cruz?”

“I can envision no future that does not include you,” he said, his jaw taut. He stepped closer, until their bodies were facing one another, bare inches apart.

Sloan could feel the heat of him, smell the tobacco and tangy male scent that she had come to associate with him.

“Everything will come in time, Cebellina. We have a lifetime to learn to live together.”

“I only promised you six months,” Sloan contradicted.

“I need you in my life.”

“I can’t promise you anything. I may not be able to give you what you want.”

“I will take my chances.” He gathered her into his embrace, bringing them together from breast to thigh. His hands stroked down her back until they reached her buttocks, and he gently coaxed her against him.

She sucked in a breath of air when she felt his arousal hard and hot against her.

“Relax, querida.”

“I can’t!”

One of his hands kept their hips pressed together while the other tangled in her hair, drawing her head back. He closed her eyes with soft kisses, grazed her cheekbone with his mouth, teased the edges of her lips with his teeth, and finally bit down gently on her lower lip, tugging on it until Sloan opened her mouth to him.

“This is madness,” she whispered.

“Then we are both mad.”

He took her mouth with passion, his tongue claiming her, ravaging, demanding. Sloan’s hands balled into fists as she fought the urge to return in full measure what Cruz gave to her.

A sharp gasp from the nearby darkness broke them abruptly apart.

Sloan’s eyes slowly focused on the confused, wide-eyed gaze of Tomasita Hidalgo. Sloan turned equally stricken eyes on Cruz, who swore vociferously under his breath as he stared back at Tomasita.

Nobody spoke for a moment, and Sloan looked back to Cruz to see how he planned to explain their behavior to the impressionable young woman.

“I intended to speak with you, Tomasita, to tell you that Sloan and I…”

“You do not owe me an explanation,” Tomasita said, her voice brittle. “I have eyes. I can see for myself what has happened here.”

“There is nothing wrong with what you saw, Tomasita. Sloan and I are married. We have been married for four years,” he said.

That statement prompted a gasp of horror from Tomasita. “But my father… your father… they promised… We are betrothed!”

“How can you know of that?” Cruz exclaimed. “If Mamá has said anything to you-”

“Doña Lucia said nothing. I overheard Mother María speaking of it at the convent.”

“All this time you thought…” Cruz thrust a hand through his hair. “I had hoped you need never know,” he said.

He ground his teeth at the tragic expression on Tomasita’s face. “I did not mean… it is nothing to do with you,” he said, groping for words to lessen the hurt he could see in her pain-filled eyes.

“You are a lovely young woman,” he said. “But my father made the promise to your father without my knowledge. By the time I found out about it, I had long since committed myself to Sloan.”

“Then you never intended to marry me?”

“No.”

“Why did you not just leave me in the convent?”

“I promised my father I would see that you were well wed.”

“That is not necessary,” she said, her spine stiffened by pride. “I do not choose to marry at all.”

“That choice is not yours to make,” Cruz said. “You are under my protection. I will decide what is best for you.”

Tomasita looked from Sloan to Cruz and then backed away. “I think I will go to my room now.”

Sloan watched in dismay as the young girl made what, under the circumstances, was a surprisingly graceful exit. “She would have made you a much better wife than I,” Sloan murmured sadly.

“I do not love her.”

Sloan turned, and her heart rose to her throat at the fierce look of possession she found in Cruz’s deep blue eyes. “I’m not like Tomasita, Cruz. I could never let you make my choices for me. I make my own decisions. I always will.”

“Perhaps, Cebellina. We will see.”

Sloan’s eyes narrowed. “There is no perhaps about it, Cruz.”

“We will see how you feel in the spring, shall we?” he said. “Maybe you will change your mind.”

Sloan frowned. He could wait all he wanted. She wasn’t going to change her mind.


Until the incident in the courtyard, Tomasita had not intended to meet Luke Summers. But when Saturday came, she still had not stopped feeling angry with Don Cruz.

It had been embarrassing, of course, to find her supposed fiancé in another woman’s arms. But it had been humiliating to discover that she had been kept ignorant of the truth about their betrothal, like a spoiled child who might cry if she cannot have her candy.

Meeting Luke Summers alone seemed a dangerous enough adventure to prove she was a grown woman and not the green girl that Don Cruz had apparently considered her.

After supper, Tomasita told everyone she was going to her room to bed. Instead, she sneaked out beyond the walls that surrounded the hacienda and made her way to the river in the failing light. Her heart was beating crazily in her breast, and her breath was coming in short spurts because she ran practically the whole way. When she finally got where she was going, she realized what an unbelievably childish thing she had done.

The only sounds she heard were the water burbling lazily over stones and the wind rustling through the cypress trees along the banks. Otherwise it was deathly quiet.

She had worn a dark wool skirt and a white camisa, but had covered her head and shoulders with a dark crepe de chine shawl with fringe so long it reached her ankles. She stood shivering in the darkness, waiting for a man to arrive whom she had met only twice and who had taken liberties with her both times.