But she had backed herself into a corner. She had no choice now except to seek him out.
It was Luke who broke the vibrating silence that had fallen on the room. “If anyone leaves Three Oaks, it should be me.”
Rip tore his eyes from Sloan’s white face to meet Luke’s troubled eyes. “You’re my son. You’ll stay here and take care of your birthright.”
“What about me?” Sloan whispered. “What about my birthright?”
A flicker of guilt crossed Rip’s face before his blunt features hardened. “There’s no reason why you can’t continue here as before. You’re an excellent overseer.”
Sloan’s incredulous laughter echoed off the high ceiling. It was the first time Rip had admitted she was doing a good job, but somehow this wasn’t the way she had expected to hear it. The grating, angry voice sounded nothing like her own. “When you come to your senses, you’ll find me at the Guerrero hacienda.”
She fled before Rip could say anything more.
Rip’s eyes glittered as he stared at the empty doorway. He turned to face his newfound son. “You have no choice except to stay now, Luke. With Sloan gone, I have no one else to oversee the harvest.”
“You can do it yourself.”
Rip gripped the cane that was keeping him on his feet. “I’m a cripple, son.”
Luke flinched at Rip’s offhanded claim of paternity. “You’re healthy as a bull.”
“A crippled bull,” Rip agreed. “I can’t carry the burden of Three Oaks alone. It’s likely to take some time for Sloan to come to terms with my decision… and with what she finds waiting for her at Dolorosa.” He rubbed his temple as though it pained him. “I need your help, son.”
Luke hissed in a breath of air and let it out. “I’ll stay, you manipulating son of a bitch. But only until Sloan makes up her mind whether or not she wants to remain with Cruz.”
Before Luke could leave, Rip reached out a hand and caught his sleeve. “Wait…”
“What for? I think everything’s been said.”
“Your mother… will you tell her… I’m sorry?”
Luke sneered. “Little good that will do her now. She’s dead.”
Rip’s face blanched. “I loved your mother, Luke… but she wouldn’t marry me without her father’s approval… and he refused to give it.”
“You deserted her when she needed you most.”
“I never knew she was pregnant!”
“When her family turned away from her, my mother sold her body to support me.”
“Why didn’t she just ask me for help?” Rip asked in an agonized voice.
“You had already married another woman.”
Rip released Luke’s sleeve to rub his temple again.
“My mother died a penniless, diseased whore. But you have a son, Rip. You have a goddamn son!”
Luke was gone from the room before Rip had a chance to reply.
Chapter 5
OF ALL THE GREAT MISTAKES SLOAN HAD MADE in her lifetime-loving Antonio, giving up her son, the bargain with Cruz-this was among the worst. She should never have left Three Oaks. After all, possession was nine-tenths of the law.
She had walked out with her pride intact, but she had given up everything she had worked for all her life. If she had stayed at Three Oaks, she would have been in a much better position to defend her claim.
She had no excuse for her flight except that she had been too shocked, too angry, too bruised in heart and soul to behave with her typical rationality. Her hindsight was clear as a spring-fed pool, but in a frontier as merciless as Texas, a body seldom got a second chance.
The hell of it was, she was sitting on her horse in the middle of the Atascosito Road without the vaguest idea which direction she should take. She had told Rip she would be at the Guerrero hacienda, yet she really didn’t want to go there. Rancho Dolorosa held too many reminders of the painful past.
But she didn’t have many alternatives. She could never impose on her sister Bay. Her relationship with her middle sister, which had only become something more than tolerance in the past year or so as they had each matured, was too fragile to handle the stress of such close quarters. Besides, the two-room adobe ranch house Bay shared with Long Quiet and their son, Whipp, was too small to house a guest.
She knew Cricket would welcome her with open arms at Lion’s Dare, and it was tempting to accept her youngest sister’s hospitality. Cricket’s sense of humor would no doubt provide a ready salve for her battered feelings.
But Sloan could not bear the thought of admitting to Cricket how badly she had botched things. Running to her youngest sister for sympathy would make her feel like a whipped dog slinking home with its tail between its legs. She would never get over the humiliation of it.
She knew it was lunacy to let mere pride stand in the way of help, but there it was, and she found it an insurmountable barrier.
It was a waste of time to consider seeking work as an overseer for someone else’s plantation. Rip was right. No Texan would hire a woman to fill such a role.
There was no other acceptable choice. She would have to go to the Guerrero hacienda.
She told herself it was only a temporary measure while she figured out how to convince Rip he had been a harebrained idiot to disinherit her. All she needed was a place to stay for a while.
Despite her reluctance to confront the ghosts of the past, and her reluctance to spend time near her son, she rode steadily all day and on into the dark toward the one sanctuary that promised solace.
Sloan groaned in dismay when she reached the fortress-like walls that surrounded the Guerrero hacienda and discovered a celebration in progress. She hadn’t paid much attention to the parchment Rip had thrust at her, but she had apparently arrived in the middle of the
Gay lanterns strung across the central courtyard reflected off the water sparkling in the tile fountain. Ladies in elaborate satin dresses dotted the courtyard like a colorful flock of birds, but their amiable chatter grated on her ears like the raucous cawing of jays and crows. The aroma of beef roasting over a fire reminded her she hadn’t eaten since noon.
She searched for someone she recognized who would allow her access to the hacienda so she wouldn’t have to be seen dressed as she was, in her travel-worn planter’s garb. Her body went rigid as her eyes lit on the tall, raven-haired Spaniard who wanted her for his wife.
Cruz wore a waist-length sapphire-blue jacket that strained over muscular shoulders and snug black velvet pants that hugged him like a second skin, emphasizing his flat belly, his maleness, and the length of his legs. His ruffled white shirt was the only hint of softness to break the hard, proud lines of his body.
But it wasn’t his blatant masculinity that made her pause. It was the way his hawklike features focused on the vision of loveliness dancing in his arms.
They moved slowly, their bodies separated by the appropriate distance but seeming intimate nonetheless. The senorita smiled shyly at Cruz and he smiled warmly back at her, his white teeth flashing in the lantern light.
Sloan could find nothing to fault in the looks of the young woman dancing with Cruz. She was dressed elegantly, her sky-blue silk gown cupping full breasts and showing off a tiny waist before it belled over legs that had to be nearly as long as Cruz’s. It had to be the Hidalgo girl. No wonder Cruz had brought her back from Spain. They fit together so well.
The hard, quick stab of jealousy surprised her.
The only thing binding her to Cruz was an agreement, words on paper to give his nephew the proud Guerrero name. So why did she feel as though she had just been pressed through the baling screw?
Sloan grunted in disgust at her thoughts. She had followed her feelings with one Guerrero brother, and look where they had gotten her-pregnant and widowed before she was a wife. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
She shunted aside the unaccustomed feeling of jealousy. She had told Cruz she did not want him. This was no time to be having second thoughts.
But she couldn’t help worrying what Cruz would say when she told him she wanted to stay for a while at Rancho Dolorosa-but not as his wife. Would he turn her away?
“What are you doing here tonight, Senorita Stewart? Your father said you were busy with the harvest and could not come.”
Sloan summoned her dignity and turned to face Cruz’s mother. Before she could deny that she had come to attend the celebration, Dona Lucia was speaking again.
“I suppose you could not resist coming to meet Cruz’s
Sloan stiffened. “Cruz’s fiancee?”
“My husband arranged her betrothal to Cruz years ago. Is she not beautiful? Such milk-white skin, not a bit browned by the sun. Such beautiful blue eyes, such a winsome smile. And as tall as my son. See how he does not need to bend at all to speak with her?”
Sloan turned and saw very well that the senorita was a better match for Cruz’s height than was her own five feet four inches. She watched as Cruz flashed a smile and lifted the senorita’s hand to his lips.
“It will be a most proper match. She is a distant cousin, far removed, but she bears the same royal Castilian blood that flows in my son’s veins. Would you like to meet her?”
