Doña Lucia was livid.

After they had finished eating, Sloan followed Tomasita, planning to offer whatever solace she could. To her surprise, the young woman did not go directly to her room. Instead, she walked out of the hacienda, through the fortress gates, and down toward the river.

Sloan traced the younger woman’s steps to a spot along the river bank where the grass grew tall and thick cypress trees allowed only scattered rays of late-evening sun to reach the ground.

When Tomasita realized she was being followed she froze and demanded, “Who is there?”

“It’s me. Sloan.”

Tomasita slowly turned to face her. “Oh. I thought… I wished… never mind.”

“Did you think it might be the baby’s father?”

Tomasita gasped.

Sloan took another step closer to Tomasita. “I know you’re pregnant, Tomasita.”

“How could you? I only found out… Holy Mary. Who else knows?” she said as she grabbed Sloan’s forearms, her voice frantic.

Sloan turned her hands and grasped Tomasita’s arms, wanting to comfort the other woman. “It appears no one else knows. Although all the signs are there for anyone to see.”

When Sloan heard the first sob, she opened her arms and the young woman threw herself into her consoling embrace. For a few minutes Sloan did nothing but hold Tomasita while she cried. She had been in this position herself, and hearing Tomasita’s hopeless sobs brought back memories.

“Oh, Sloan, what am I going to do?” Tomasita wailed through her tears. “I cannot marry Don Ambrosio. I cannot! I am in love with another man.”

“The father of your child?”

“Yes.”

Sloan grasped Tomasita by the shoulders, looked into the other woman’s tear-streaked face and demanded, “Who is he, Tomasita? What bastard got you pregnant and then disappeared?”

Tomasita stared at Sloan wide-eyed but remained silent.

Sloan’s heart began to race and her stomach turned over as she had a horrifying thought. “Please… not Cruz…”

“No! Oh no. It is Luke. Luke Summers!”

“Luke?” Sloan asked, her voice sharp with relief, her mind not fully grasping what had been said.

“Sí. Your brother, Luke.”

Sloan was stunned. “He couldn’t do such a thing!” But she realized that of course he could.

Luke was adept at seducing women. A rake. A rogue. A bastard in name, and now in deed. But she had never believed he would stoop so low as to steal an innocent’s virtue. “When? How?”

“Do you remember the day you went home to Three Oaks? Luke came here to find you, but you were gone. He asked me to meet him later, here at the river. I was not going to do it…”

“But you did,” Sloan said flatly.

Tomasita covered her face with her hands. “Holy Mary. What a mess I have made of everything.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not too late to straighten things out,” Sloan said soothingly, her arms once again surrounding Tomasita in comfort. “We’ll simply go to Cruz and explain what’s happened. He’ll talk with Luke and arrange for Luke to marry you instead of Don Ambrosio.”

Tomasita jerked out of Sloan’s embrace. “No! Don Cruz must not speak to Luke. I do not want Luke to know about the baby. Promise me you will not say anything to Don Cruz!”

Sloan realized that Tomasita was on the verge of hysteria and calmed her by agreeing to keep her secret. “This isn’t something you can keep hidden for long,” she warned. “And you certainly can’t marry Don Ambrosio without telling him about the baby.”

“I know.”

“Tomasita, why don’t you want Luke to know about the child? I can’t believe he wouldn’t want to know you’ll bear his son or daughter.”

“Luke has already made his wishes known. He does not want to marry me.”

“But if Cruz spoke to him-”

Tomasita cut Sloan off with a bark of bitter laughter. “Sí, Don Cruz may very well be able to convince Luke to marry me. But do you think I want him for my husband on those terms? At least if I marry Don Ambrosio, there is hope that someday he will learn to love me.”

“Are you so sure Luke doesn’t have any feelings for you?”

Tomasita turned to face Sloan, her mouth drawn in harsh lines. “Would he have left me as he did and stayed away this long if he cared?”

Sloan’s voice was soft when she asked, “Why did you make love with him, Tomasita, if you weren’t sure he loved you?”

Tomasita dropped her chin to her chest and twined her hands together in front of her. “Because I love him. I think I have loved him from the first moment I saw him. Even before I discovered you had married Don Cruz, I wanted to meet Luke at the river. Finding you with Don Cruz only gave me the excuse I needed to do what I had wanted to do all along.

“If that was all I could ever have, I was willing to take the risk to have it. When I gave myself to him, I thought he wanted to marry me. I did not understand that he did not feel the same way about me as I did about him.”

“What about the child? Will you keep it?”

Sloan watched as serenity bathed Tomasita’s features. “Oh yes, I will keep the child. And I will love it with all my heart.”

Sloan desperately hoped that Tomasita’s feelings didn’t change. For so, too, had she begun her pregnancy, with vows of everlasting love for her unborn child. “Let’s go back to the hacienda. It isn’t safe to be out here alone.”

The two women made the trip back to the hacienda arm in arm, separating at the rear of the house to quietly make their way to their respective rooms.

“Where have you been?”

Sloan hadn’t been expecting Cruz to confront her the instant she walked into their bedroom. She settled for the truth. “I went for a walk.”

“Alone?”

“Am I not allowed to be alone?” she asked to avoid the need to lie.

She felt Cruz’s arms surround her, felt him almost crush her with his strength as he pulled her close and nuzzled her ear. “I was worried about you, Cebellina.”

“I can watch out for myself, Cruz.”

“Do this for me, querida,” he coaxed. “You have your hands full with so many other things. Let me worry about you.”

He kissed her ear, slipping the tip of his tongue along the shell-shaped rim, heating her skin with his breath. She felt herself melting against him, defenseless against his onslaught.

“Say you will.”

“I will,” she said as she sought out his throat with her mouth. She loved the salty taste of his skin, the man-smell of him. When her hands curved around to grip his buttocks, she heard him laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I am hoping I will be one of the things that keeps your hands full.”

She laughed and playfully squeezed his buttocks. “Me too.”

Sloan awoke in the middle of the night with a lazy stretch, feeling loved, sated, and satisfied. She turned over and reached for Cruz, only to discover his side of the bed was empty.

At that moment a streak of lightning slashed across the sky, followed by a horrendous blast of thunder. She supposed Cruz must have been awakened earlier by the storm. She slipped a robe on over her nakedness and set out in search of him, lantern in hand.

She stopped by the room now shared by Cisco and Betsy to see whether the storm had woken either of them. Cisco was sound asleep, but she found Betsy whimpering in her bed.

She set the lantern down on the bedside table, then sat down next to Betsy and lifted the little girl into her lap. “Are you afraid of the storm, sweetheart?”

Betsy trembled in her arms. “Yes.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Sloan crooned. “It’s just a lot of light and noise.”

“The lightning killed Jenny,” Betsy said.

“Who was Jenny?”

“My sister. She didn’t come in the house when Mama called her. The lightning hit Jenny, and I saw her catch fire. Mama said God came and struck Jenny dead for disobeying her. I’ve been good, haven’t I, Sloan? God won’t strike me dead, too, will he?”

“Oh, sweetheart, you’ve been very, very good.” Inside, Sloan raged at the mother who had been so heartless as to suggest that God punished disobedient little girls by striking them dead with lightning bolts.

How could she possibly assuage the little girl’s fear? She started by saying, “You know, if you stay inside during a storm, the lightning can’t reach you.”