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  He’d have to force his way instead.

  “Mrs. Moreno, I am very sorry to impose upon you, but I must remain here. With Miss Moreno under my guard. A man has already been sent to guard Sheriff Obregon.”

  Miss Moreno turned to face him, pale tension gripping her expression.

  Oh yes, she was hiding something from him. His resolve to remain doubled.

  “I’m certain you’ll be more comfortable at my daughter’s,” Mrs. Moreno said, without a hint of give.

  He pondered his next course of action. The best thing would be to expose who he truly was. Having people assume he was a full-blooded Anglo usually made things easier—but the Morenos wouldn’t be impressed by his father’s name.

  They would be by his mother’s.

  Smoothly, in his best Spanish, he said, “Señoras, Señorita, I know how distressing this has been to your entire family.” He placed a hand on his heart. “I promise you, I will apprehend this cholo, and he will face justice. I wish to keep the Señorita safe in the meantime.”

  Oh, that set them on their heels, their mouths dropping to shape identically incredulous expressions. He let a bit of pleasure rise within him at this small victory. He’d repent for it tonight.

  “You’re not American. You’re Spanish.” Señorita Moreno’s expression might be surprised, but her words were accusing—and also in Spanish.

  Let her be suspicious—he didn’t owe her any explanations.

  “My mother is a Vasquez.” He tapped the badge on his chest. “I am, of course, also an American.”

  “A Vasquez?” The Señora raised an elegant eyebrow. “I am an Alvarado, myself. Perhaps I know your mother?”

  The Alvarado connection certainly explained the haughtiness. The family may have lost the Rancho Alvarado decades ago—to Judge Bannister’s father, no less—but they had held on to their oversized arrogance.

  “My mother is Señora Maria Carmen Vasquez Calderon de Espencer.” As it normally did whenever he spoke his mother’s language, Spencer came out in the Spanish fashion. He didn’t bother to keep the reverence he felt for his mother from his voice; it was the truest emotion he could summon these days. It had been the hard-fought achievement of years to eradicate every other one—including the hatred of his father.

  “She’s a cousin to Raul Calderon, is she not?” the Señora inquired. “Don Raul is married to one of my cousins on my mother’s side.”

  Of course they would be related. As decimated as the old Spanish families were, the pool of marriageable people shrank each year.

  Which was why his Spanish mother had found herself married to an American.

  “I believe my cousin, Don Enrique Jaramillo, knows your mother,” the Señora went on. “He’s mentioned her in his letters.” She paused. “But he’s never mentioned her son.”

  Don Enrique wouldn’t. His mother was an occasional visitor to the Jaramillo house—Sebastian had visited only once. He’d felt like a bear on a chain, Don Enrique’s daughters watching him in appalled fascination. Silly girls often did that, when faced with a man of his size and wearing the scars that he did.

  Sebastian disliked such social occasions.

  “I’ve only had the pleasure of meeting Don Enrique once,” he replied. “My duties keep me busy.”

  “Of course,” the Señora allowed. “Well, then, you must stay here with us. You’ll want to rest before dinner. Isabel can show you your room. We dine at six.”

  A firm dismissal.

  He rose. “Yes, I am tired after all my traveling. I thank you for your hospitality, Señora.”

  He nodded to each lady in turn, leaving Señorita Moreno for last.

  Her mother’s nod was short, correct—polite, but nothing more. Mrs. Merrill’s nod was more uncertain—and a touch relieved. He unnerved that lady. Too bad her sister wasn’t similarly affected by him.

  For her part, Señorita Moreno gave him nothing but chilled arrogance. Yet, even in the midst of such pinched pride, he saw a glimmer of something. Not prettiness, for a lady as sharp as she could never be pretty. Pretty was for the flowers that didn’t survive the storm.

  Certainly not beauty. Beauty never had such a keen edge.

  He kept looking, trying to put a name to what he’d seen. Slowly, he realized she was gazing at him as hard as he was at her, the fierceness of her gaze quite beyond intriguing. It was almost… captivating.

  Without warning, she turned away, leaving only the shell of her ear for him to peruse.

  She could try to hide from him—but tomorrow he’d study her all he liked.

  Isabel’s head throbbed in time with her heartbeat, each pulse sending an agonizing echo through her skull.

  A dull hum before the interview, the headache was a piercing screech by the time the marshal asked the only question anyone wanted to know.

  Were you violated?

  She knew what questions lurked behind that one.

  Did he force open your legs, hammer between them, spill your virgin blood?

  He had violated her—he’d taken her fiancé, her teaching position, the privacy she’d so carefully cultivated behind her imposing reserve. He’d taken it all and left her with nothing but the paralytic fear and the headaches.

  With each hammer blow to her head, she wanted to fall to the floor. But she kept dragging herself up the stairs—if only to get away from the man at her back.

  His footsteps fell as steady as a metronome. If she glanced behind her, he’d blend into the shadowed stairwell.

  His suit was spotlessly black, the same shade of darkness as his immaculately combed hair. The white of his shirt was the only light.

  The length and breadth of him was at odds with the cold intelligence in his gray eyes, since such brawn rarely traveled with such brains. He looked as she imagined St. Ignatius might have: the hard power of a warrior’s body joined to the crystalline eyes of a saint.

  But the marshal was no saint.

  He was stone, as unyielding as granite as he’d attempted to grind her story from her. She’d given him the details he’d needed, but he wanted more. The gleam in his eyes when he’d spoken of taking her to the attack site told her that.

  One step and then another. Ten more to go.

  His step—heavy, inhumanly steady—behind her.

  “Señorita? Are you all right?”

  His voice was the only thing not still and dark and menacing about him. It was—

  A spike of pain had her stomach twisting. She couldn’t think what his voice was, could only note that it did not sound as if it should belong to him.

  “Quite.” Soon enough, she would be. A few more moments and she’d be alone behind her own bedroom door, could let the nausea rattle her joints, could let the pain drag her down.

  And her collar buttons. She could undo those. She reached for the first button and twisted it between her fingers.

  Not yet.

  She’d survived an actual strangulation. She could manage an imaginary one.

  Finally. There was the top step, firm below her foot, more real than whatever she might imagine was at her throat. Only seven steps down the hall and she could be free of him, could shake loose the sensation of him behind her.

  “Your room.” She flicked a hand toward the open door of it, keeping the motion curt so that her stomach didn’t cast up its contents. “I hope it is to your liking. If there’s anything you require, please let us know.”

  Too monotonously recited to be polite, but in a few moments she’d be incapable of speech anyway.

  “Thank you.”

  He moved past her into the room, and she took a step back to avoid him. Too quick—the pain swirled dizzily in her skull and she had to close her eyes to reclaim her equilibrium.

  “Are you certain you’re all right?”

  It took a moment for her poor, pain-battered brain to translate. “Yes.” Two more steps back, away from him and toward the safety of her room. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  She didn’t wa
it for his response, hurrying to hide in her bedroom. She sagged against the door as she tore open her collar, one of the buttons clattering angrily to the floor.

  She’d survived the first interview with this marshal. He’d given no indication he knew who her mother was, no indication he suspected that Señora Moreno had once been Judge Bannister’s sister-in-law—her mother was safe for the moment.

  Isabel would survive the trip with him tomorrow, would survive telling her story one more time.

  No one had ever died from telling a story.

  No one had ever died from being too afraid.

  She took a steady breath, pulling the air into her lungs to push away this headache.

  Finally, she was alone.

  Except for her mother and sister downstairs, no doubt hashing over the entire interview. And the marshal, one wall away, no doubt mulling over his own impressions of her. Or the townspeople, discussing the appearance of the marshal—and telling the story of her attack, over and over and over again.

  And McCade, somewhere outside, waiting to grab her by the throat once more.

  All of their attention on her and the most terrible moment of her life, the weight of it forcing her to the floor to pant like a dying dog, praying that the next breath would be easier, or the one after, or the one after that.

  The pain pulled her into darkness before her prayers were answered.

  Chapter Three

  While Sebastian did not enjoy social occasions, he had to admit that a family dinner provided the perfect opportunity to study the Moreno family.

  The warm smell of tortillas filled the air as he pushed beans around his plate, trying to give the impression of having eaten some without any actually passing his lips.

  He didn’t care for beans.

  “You and Sheriff Williams made it to Pine Ridge and back all right, then?” Mr. Merrill asked from across the table.

  “Yes.” He hated idle conversation; of course he’d made it safely back from Pine Ridge, otherwise why would he be sitting at this table?

  Señorita Moreno, seated at his left elbow, had not engaged in idle chitchat. He couldn’t tell if she too loathed it, or if his mere presence inspired her to keep quiet.

  Given the difficulties of their earlier interview, he certainly didn’t inspire her to speak.

  “How was Joaquin?” That from the youngest sister, Francisca, whose hands and eyes flashed with the speed of her gestures. She moved quick enough at times to make him want to flinch. All that dynamism made him anxious.

  “The nurse said he was having a poor day.” Better to lay that impression at the nurse’s feet rather than admit what he really thought—that Obregon looked as if one bad turn would have him in the grave.

  That pushed Señorita Moreno to speak. “I hope your questioning didn’t unduly distress Señor Obregon.”

  “Sheriff Obregon understood the need for it.” Or at least Sebastian assumed he had. Not that he had to explain himself to her.

  Her only response was the slide of her knife across her plate.

  “It really is too awful about Joaquin,” Mrs. Merrill put in.

  “He is alive.” Low and tight, that response from Señorita Moreno.

  Interesting, this defense of him from her. Sebastian wondered how the engagement had ended. Unless Obregon’s good days were much better than what he’d seen today, the wounded sheriff was in no state to break off an engagement.

  Which meant she must have.

  And yet, she defended him.

  Most people’s motives were easy enough to read. Greed, power, fear—rarely was something more complicated at the heart of a crime.

  But Señorita Moreno’s motives eluded him.

  He couldn’t say he enjoyed being puzzled by her, though the tangle of her motives compelled him to unwind the skein of them.

  “Well of course I’m glad he’s alive,” Mrs. Merrill snapped. “That wasn’t what I meant and you know it.”

  Señorita Moreno pressed two fingers hard to her temple before dropping her hand back into her lap. The headache must still be upon her. He’d seen the signs of it as she’d led him up the stairs—the too-quick flickers of her gaze, the tight lines of her shoulders as she tried to hold the pain within.

  “Yes, of course,” Señorita Moreno replied.

  “Sheriff Obregon is quite lucky,” Sebastian said to Mrs. Merrill, trying to draw her attention from her sister, to give Señorita Moreno some space to allow her headache to recede. “And resilient. Few men would have survived.”

  While he’d intentionally inflicted distress upon Señorita Moreno earlier—and intended to inflict more tomorrow—he found it… unsettling, watching another do the same.

  Every head at the table nodded solemnly at his words. Except for Señorita Moreno’s. She turned to him, their gazes meeting for a moment. The gratitude in her eyes made his heart twitch.

  He dropped his gaze back to his plate, grabbing for his knife and fork to saw at his meat.

  “Yes, well, let us hope Marshal Espencer apprehends this outlaw soon.” Señor Moreno placed his weather-scarred hands flat on the table, as if to declare the subject closed.

  The Señor was a thick mustached vaquero who clearly spent more time in the saddle than in a drawing room. The Señora was more refined, the dignified ruler of the household and family.

  Both he and the Señora were as Sebastian had expected: specimens of an earlier time, when California had been the furthest outreach of first Spain, then Mexico. They were the living embodiments of the culture of sprawling ranchos, openhanded hospitality, and genteel living. Old California—rather than the glittering, golden promise of the American West it was now.

  The senior Morenos and his mother would get on famously—not that they would ever meet.

  “We shall pray for his swift and safe capture this evening,” the Señora said.

  Everyone fell silent as the soft clinks of silver on china floated through the room.

  “Tell us, Marshal Spencer,” Mrs. Merrill asked with strained joviality, “how is Los Angeles these days? We have cousins there, but it has been too long since we visited them.” Her smile was a fishhook, designed to snag in a man’s cheek and pull him along in her wake. But then he saw a faint sheen of tears—the smile was purely reflexive. She meant nothing by it.

  “Los Angeles grows every day,” he said, putting in his own effort at politeness, “with trainloads of refugees from the East coming to escape their drudgery and retire to the indolence and sunshine promised by the boosters.”

  He perceived, rather than saw, Señorita Moreno’s attention turn toward him. Whether she had slightly turned, or if it was only his imagination, he could not say, but her regard was a physical thing, more real than the scrub of his clothes against his skin.

  He felt as if he’d caught a rare bird in his hand, soft and still, with darting eyes and fast beating heart. One had to be careful with such a thing. He continued on, watching Mrs. Merrill, but addressing her sister. “Indeed, if you have not visited in a year, you would not recognize the place. Streetcars, rail yards, the work on the port.” He sketched something rising higher and higher. “And more people. Always more people.”

  She was listening, he could tell. Some urge, something he’d thought was no longer within him, wanted to lure her, to have her soften and bend toward him. He let his voice drop half a note, gentled it so that she must bring herself closer to hear.

  “There are electric streetcars to take you to any part of the city you wish.” The rest of the table would take that you as a general one, but he meant her and only her. “A line is likely to be completed to Pasadena soon. There are public parks, theaters, universities—anything an intelligent person might wish for.”

  That hit its mark. She wasn’t looking at him—but she was hardly breathing, all of her still as she absorbed his words, her ear tilted ever so slightly toward him.

  “You know, Isabel wanted to live in Los Angeles.” Franny nodded toward her sister. �
��I suppose that won’t be happening now Joaquin is gone.”

  Señorita Moreno turned to her sister, allowing him to see the snarl curling her lip and the color highlighting her cheek. “It’s Señor Obregon to you. And Marshal Spencer isn’t interested in matters of no import.”

  He didn’t allow himself to regret that the moment between them had been shattered.

  “You wish to reside in Los Angeles, Señorita Moreno?” he asked. He wasn’t ready to release her regard from his cupped palms just yet.

  “Señor Obregon and I had plans to move there once we were married.” He heard it then, deep under the ice she’d encased her words in—a frisson of pain.

  Perhaps that was why the engagement had ended—Obregon could no longer carry her away from here. But such cold calculation was at odds with the hurt in her words.

  He’d no assurances to offer her in order to assuage her hurt—he shouldn’t wish to assuage it in the first place. But her sadness pricked at him and he could not ignore the sensation. He couldn’t promise the renewal of her engagement or that she might make it to Los Angeles regardless—but he could tell her more of the city.

  So he did.

  “There’s a railway that will take you to the top of Mount Lowe,” he went on. “It’s very popular…”

  He was talking only to her.

  Oh, he was looking at her sister, with that practiced smile pasted on her face, but he was talking to her. Somehow he managed to bend his voice, to have his words arc straight for her.

  For a man of his size, Isabel would have expected his voice to be deep enough to make the earth tremble, but it wasn’t. It was golden, mellow, the kind of voice that slipped along and insinuated itself into the small spaces of a person. A pleasant surprise, that voice.

  All of him was proving to be a surprise. Now that her headache had faded to a dull throb—and he wasn’t interrogating her—she could notice details she’d overlooked earlier.

  He was as tailored as a dandy in a novel, his cheeks and upper lip smooth, without a hint of a shadow, in stark contrast to the rest of the men at the table. Every aspect of him seemed specially designed to offset his brutish size.