Summer Chaparral Page 4

  She never swooned. She induced swooning in others.

  “Pleasure. Behind that sheet”—Franny pointed as her chest heaved with suppressed laughter—“is my sister, Catarina. You two already know one another.”

  Catarina’s mouth pursed. Franny.

  Nothing for it now.

  She took a deep breath, smoothed her hair as best she could, and stepped out to meet her fate.

  He sat his spotted pony with easy grace, the reins slack in one hand, the other resting on the saddle horn. Sometime between yesterday and today his clothes had met with a laundry tub, but the essentials were the same. Eyes the color of the sky at noon laughed at her from a tanned face with a fine, thick mustache. Catarina had spent her entire life around cowboys and on the whole, they tended toward weather-beaten rather than romantic—much to the chagrin of her female cousins from Los Angeles.

  Her cousins would find no fault with this particular cowboy.

  She gave him a sidelong look from under her lashes, halfway between shy and seductive, preparing to put every bit of her powers of entrancement into her voice. She wasn’t entirely without her tools.

  And not entirely without power of her own.

  “Señor.” She set her hands at her waist just so, the better to illustrate the slimness there. “What brings you here?”

  The perfect opening there for him to say, Why, you, of course.

  He gave her a slow perusal of his own. “Mr. Ortega spoke with me yesterday. After we’d… met.”

  Heat prickled in her face at the reminder of that incident. But he continued on. “He offered to help me find a job here.”

  “Here?” As usual, Franny said the word in a tone just short of deafening.

  “Well, not here as in the Rancho.” His attention shifted to Franny, which irritated Catarina more than it should have. “Here as in Cabrillo.”

  “How kind of Felipe,” she cut in, regaining his regard.

  She realized her mistake then. She ought to be sending him on his way. There was nothing pleasant about her for him to linger on at the moment.

  “It was kind,” he said. “I—I wasn’t expecting that.” As if he never expected that anyone would be kind to him.

  How terribly sad.

  “One must be hospitable. It is our way.” Her mother’s words coming from her mouth, but Catarina believed them as well. She might disdain her parents’ reverence for the old California, but never that bit of it.

  “Hospitable?” One eyebrow quirked up.

  Her own mouth quirked into a smile. “Yes. We’re famed for our hospitality here.”

  “I can see why.” His voice scooped up a bit of the heat, put it into those low words.

  “Are you enjoying our hospitality so far?” She was a sweaty, wind-blown mess—more wilted than her destroyed tomato plants, yet she couldn’t prevent her slip into this game of flirtation. Couldn’t resist the pull of him into it.

  “I haven’t seen anything to complain of.”

  Oh, he meant her—the way his gaze slid down her length proved it. “And how much have you seen?”

  “If you’re looking for it, the overseer’s cottage is that way.” Franny’s voice was drier than the weedy stubble beneath Catarina’s boots. She pointed out the drive behind him, her mouth twisted with wry amusement.

  Franny. She had to interrupt just when things had become interesting.

  “Thank you, miss, I appreciate it.” Cool, clipped syllables, so different from the liquid heat of before. “Miss Franny.” A tip of his hat. “Miss Catarina.” A more leisurely tip, a longer look.

  “Señor.” She rolled it languorously off her tongue, one last little lob in their game, a reward for that last appreciative stare of his.

  He only glanced back once as he went down the drive, much too quickly for her to read what was written on his face.

  “What was that?”

  “What?” Catarina blinked and forced her attention back to her sister.

  “That.”

  “Oh, you know me.” She tossed off a casual wave. “I’m just…” She sighed.

  Playing at being the vixen?

  It hadn’t entirely been a game. Not when he’d been so surprised that someone had helped him. Was he all alone in the world, then?

  Franny’s mare shifted, the creak of the saddle leather keen in the stillness.

  The noise snapped Catarina out of her reverie. She’d no business feeling sorry for a man she hardly knew. Or flirting with him, for all that she couldn’t seem to help it. “That was nothing,” she said sharply, more as warning to herself than to Franny.

  “I’ve watched you with men before. This was different.”

  She hauled another sheet from the basket, arms and back straining. “You’re only seventeen. You don’t know anything about anything.” There was nothing different about Mr. Merrill. Nothing at all.

  “Fine, be stubborn then.”

  That was rich, coming from the most stubborn person she knew. “I will,” she said mulishly. “You get to the house and clean yourself up.”

  Franny shook her head. “No, I’m going to see what that cowboy is up to. And what Felipe’s up to with him.”

  “Franny! You need to get ready for supper.”

  Her baby sister simply ignored her and turned her horse toward the barns, leaving Catarina to stew in her impotence among their mother’s linens.

  Chapter Three

  The Rancho Moreno was exactly the kind of spread Jace dreamed of possessing one day.

  The drive was level and showed marks of recent raking, the fences were in excellent repair, and the few cattle he’d seen had been fatly glossy—prime for either beef or breeding.

  Jace would be viciously proud to bring his father to a ranch like this, swing his arm across all of it and declare, “See what I accomplished! And all without a lick of help from you.”

  His grandfather had always said that a man should build a thing on his own; that way he knew it was his.

  His father had never spoken of what a man should do—only what a gentleman should do. Judge Bannister would turn his nose up at a ranch like this. At any ranch, really.

  The Big House came into view, a two-story structure painted pearl gray and trimmed in dark purple, a veranda hugging the house on all sides. Lace curtains hung at the windows, the kind that concealed as much as they revealed.

  He could imagine the lady he’d flirted with yesterday sitting in a parlor behind those lace curtains, head tilted just so as she studied a man with those cinnamon eyes. The man sitting across from her might be trussed up in a proper suit, hair pomaded, clean shaven—a man who used his mind to earn money, rather than his hands. He might be exactly like the man Judge Bannister had hoped to mold his son into.

  Jace wasn’t that man.

  But the woman he’d seen today by the clothesline… He could better imagine her—hair freed by the wind, thin dress clinging damply to her curves—in one of the smaller, one-story affairs he’d seen today. Something more like the Harper house.

  The Harper house… That had been a home. Even in his limited experience with the word, Jace had recognized that.

  When Dan had led him into the house, his sister Mary, a handsome woman of middling age, had welcomed Jace warmly. As had the rest of the Harpers. Jace couldn’t quite shake off the oddness of the whole situation—complete strangers taking him in and making him welcome—but he enjoyed the hospitality.

  James Harper, the head of the family, had invited him to the table as if he were an old friend back from a long journey.

  There were prayers before supper, which made a sinner like himself a little uneasy, but he’d bowed his head all the same. Supper was a juicy roast, the conversation mostly concerned people he’d never met, but he’d been… content.

  No formal dress, no stiff backs, no sullen silences. He’d never experienced a family dinner quite like it.

  He did note there were only four boys at table, and he clearly remembered Dan saying there
were five sons. But when he came across a portrait of a man wearing a sheriff’s badge set in a corner of the living room, a lock of dark hair preserved under the glass, a vase of red roses before it, he suspected that memorial told the story of the missing son.

  After supper there were more prayers, then a reading from the Bible. As the sun had set—painting the horizon in shades of pink and orange, the mountains going purple as the light faded—Jace had sat on the porch with the elder Mr. Harper. Mr. Harper told him of growing up in Mississippi as another man’s property, described his escape from bondage, and how he’d run all the way to California to secure his freedom.

  “Why not Canada?” Jace had asked.

  “Too cold,” Mr. Harper had chuckled.

  Sitting on the porch there and hearing the older man’s stories had reminded Jace of times with his grandfather all those years ago, watching the sunset as the old man told Jace of ranching and of how to be a man.

  Of course, if his grandfather had heard that his grandson was staying in a Negro household, eating at their table…

  Just another thing the old man had been wrong about.

  Mr. Harper had taken him early the next morning to meet a few of the other ranchers and ask about jobs. Jace had filled his lungs with air thick with the bright green scent of the sagebrush, tempered by a hint of pine, and thought, I could just breathe this all day.

  If he settled here, he would.

  They’d visited the Crivellis and the Whitmans and made a stop at the Larsens’, though they barely had a hundred head. All of them greeted Jace kindly and encouraged him to stay—but none had jobs.

  Which left the Rancho Moreno. As they’d headed out to deliver Jace over to Felipe, Jace had asked the question plaguing him all day, although it was rude.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  Mr. Harper had flashed a smile. “When I first came to California, a complete stranger gave me a helping hand. Set me on my feet, that hand did. When I arrived here in Cabrillo, Thomas Whitman gave me another helping hand. Without those hands… I don’t know what would have happened to me and mine. So I try to return the favor when I can. We’ve got the land here for more people.” He threw Jace a wink. “We only need fine young men to start families on it.”

  Mr. Harper had left him at the gate of the Rancho Moreno, telling him he had business in town. Felipe was expecting Jace, so there’d be no trouble there.

  But he’d found trouble by that wash line. And then had gone and flirted with that bit of trouble. When she’d given him that look, he’d wanted to lean in until he found her ear and whisper all the things he’d like to do to her.

  If he were a smart man, he’d head to San Diego after proving to himself he’d have the devil of a time resisting her. But instead he kept on toward the overseer’s place, because he wasn’t a smart man. He was the kind of man who let his finger decide his path and couldn’t keep from flirting with a woman even after her brother had threatened him.

  Not smart at all.

  As he and Spot passed the house, a pack of hounds came boiling off the porch, tails wagging and tongues lolling. Spot didn’t bother shying at their approach, being much too dignified to acknowledge some smelly hounds. The hounds escorted them past a few smaller corrals and two large barns, until they came to the main arena, men hanging off the fence as they watched something happening within.

  Jace nudged Spot forward to get a better view, the hounds melting away as they approached.

  Felipe sat on a buckskin horse, watching a small herd huddled at the far corner. He gave a whistle, then barked something in Spanish. A dog trotted out from beside him, headed toward the cattle.

  The dog was smaller, lower to the ground than those long-legged hounds, ears pricked forward and eyes intent. He came in slowly—so as not to spook the cattle—his concentration on the task a thing of wonder.

  Felipe called out something different and the dog moved into the herd, the cattle scattering at his approach. Another command from Felipe had the dog increasing his speed, arrowing toward the cow he was trying to separate from the herd, until… he tripped over his own feet, cows leaping into the air as he tumbled past them.

  A groan rose from along the fence, and Felipe turned with a smile to toss something off at them in a language even Jace could tell wasn’t Spanish. The men laughed at whatever he’d said.

  “Mr. Merrill!” Felipe greeted him with a wave. He whistled again to the dog, who was back by his side in a flash.

  The men clustered on the fence turned to look him over. Every face was smoothed to impassiveness, every eye as hard and dark as a chip of obsidian. Not one mouth gave the barest hint of a smile.

  Well, he couldn’t expect everyone in this town to be friendly.

  “Any luck with Mr. Harper this morning?” Felipe asked.

  “No. I only came to thank you for your help before I head out to San Diego.” He could read the expressions the men trained on him: You’re not welcome here. With no hope of a job on the rancho, he’d be moving on.

  “You said you worked on the Circle T?” Felipe imbued Circle T with all the respect such a large operation deserved.

  “For thirteen years, yes. Last five of those, I was a foreman.”

  He caught the intrigued glances the men exchanged.

  “Well,” Felipe said slowly, “if you’re determined to go, best of luck to you.”

  Trouble was, Jace wasn’t determined to go. He liked this place and most of the people he’d met.

  He shrugged. “A man has to eat.” Spot stomped a hoof. “And his horse, too.”

  Felipe looked from him to the men, then back again. “Would you like to show off that cow pony of yours before you leave?”

  Jace grinned. Now there was an offer he couldn’t turn down.

  When Spot saw the herd, his ears pricked forward and his hooves touched the ground more lightly. That old electricity began to flow between them. This was what they’d been born to do.

  At a nudge of his heels, Spot moved toward the herd. The both of them were intent on choosing a likely looking cow. Jace listened to Spot’s cues as much as his own intuition—the horse knew his business as well as Jace did after all these years together.

  There. That steer with the white face. That was the one. They moved into the herd, peeling the rest away and pushing their chosen steer toward the fence.

  The steer broke into a run. But Spot was right at its shoulder, keeping it hard on the fence.

  As they neared the corner, Spot put on burst of speed, dashing ahead of the steer. The horse sat down at the last second and spun on his heel, neatly turning the steer back into the fence.

  Now again toward the herd, still keeping the steer along the fence. Another turn just before the animal could escape into the herd, pushing him back the way they’d come. And never letting that steer get more than a few feet from the fence.

  After another run down the fence, Jace pulled Spot up, letting the steer rejoin the herd. The steer kicked out with both feet as he did—a futile last gesture, considering Jace and Spot had been fully in control of him the entire time.

  The electricity driving the two of them through their performance drained away, satisfaction following behind. They’d worked the cow as beautifully as anyone could hope for. Spot had done it with only the smallest cues from Jace—and Jace had produced those cues with hardly any thought at all.

  That bit of showmanship was the perfect note to take his leave on. The faces along the fence weren’t quite so hard now, and couple of men wore half smiles. There wasn’t a job to be had here, but he’d won a bit of respect at least.

  A whistle of appreciation split the air. The little sister—Franny—had come to hang on the fence at some point, her eyes wide.

  Felipe turned to her and snarled something in Spanish. She didn’t blink.

  “That’s a nice horse,” she called to Jace. “Where’d you get him?”

  He gave the gelding’s neck a hard rub of reward. “I won him in a
card game. The fellow who’d had him before was using him as plow horse.”

  Spot tossed his head at plow horse. Some words never lost their hurt, even for a horse.

  “Some people just shouldn’t own horses,” Franny said sadly.

  A sharp burst of commanding Spanish rent the air—Jace caught only “aquí” and guessed it was a demand to know what was happening in the arena.

  Every gaze pulled toward the speaker, guilt crossing more than a few faces. An older man, a sun-faded copy of the brother Jace had met yesterday, stood at the fence, but didn’t hang on it—the men near him shuffled away to make room.

  Felipe’s reply was apologetic, deferential.

  “Papa,” Franny cut in, letting loose with some excited Spanish of her own. She was the only one not cowed by the man.

  By all appearances, this was Señor Ramon Moreno. Owner of the Rancho Moreno.

  There was nothing of his eldest daughter in the man, but his son and his youngest daughter clearly carried his stamp. He stared at Jace with a hard gaze and tense jaw, clearly displeased.

  Perhaps the older man had heard of the altercation of yesterday and blamed him. A shame, since Jace wanted to know more about the man who owned a ranch as fine as this.

  But there was always San Diego.

  Moreno and Felipe went back and forth, the Señor’s words growing ever more clipped, Felipe’s expression growing ever more chagrined.

  Jace caught the words “Circle T” a few times, but nothing more than that. He really ought to learn Spanish one of these days.

  “Papa!” Franny put her hands to her heart, all of her imploring. What came next was only Greek to him, but he guessed Miss Franny was pleading his case.

  As she continued to speak, the Señor’s expression softened.

  Melted, really.

  Judge Bannister had never looked at his son so. Of course, his son had never given him cause to.

  The Señor sighed, then gave his daughter a wry smile. One that said, Very well. I give in.

  He spoke again to Felipe, briefly.

  Felipe nodded, his expression easing, and he returned a long response.