“Almost everybody. Cruz’s mother was killed.”
“That’s too bad,” Rip said.
“I thought you’d be heading downstairs for supper tonight,” Sloan said, unwilling to speak further of the tragedy.
“That was my plan, but I’m still feeling poorly, so I decided to eat up here.”
Sloan walked over and stood beside the bed. He looked tired, his gray eyes dull, without the sparkle that had once lit them. He coughed, and Sloan noticed it hurt him to breathe. “Are you sure you don’t want me to send for a doctor?”
“Won’t hear of it. Now, get on downstairs and take care of our company.”
Sloan left him with a feeling of foreboding. She had never known Rip to stay in bed if he could be out of it. Even the time a mule had stepped on his foot and broken it, he hadn’t been down long.
If he wasn’t up tomorrow, she would arrange for a doctor to come and see him whether he wanted one or not. She determined not to bring up the subject of Three Oaks until he was in fine enough fettle to fight back.
Sloan descended the staircase slowly, not sure what she would find below. She followed the voices to the dining room, located beyond the parlor at the back of the house. There she found Angelique holding court at the supper table like a queen with three very attentive male subjects, and one very irritated lady- in-waiting.
When Cruz saw Sloan, he rose from the table and came to greet her. He took her in his arms and whispered in her ear, “I did not want to wake you. I thought you would need your rest for later tonight.”
Sloan blushed at the implication of his words, but they made her feel warm inside. After she filled her plate from the array of dishes set out on the sideboard, she sat down in the chair Cruz had saved for her next to him. It didn’t take long to realize she had arrived just in time to see the sparks fly.
Apparently, after having no success with Cruz, Angelique had turned her attentions to Luke. Sloan saw that Tomasita was highly agitated by the situation. It was equally obvious that the young woman could hardly act jealous of Luke without revealing to Cruz that she and the Ranger knew more about each other than their names.
Luke wasn’t helping matters. He was paying close attention to Angelique, leaning toward her and hanging on every word.
“Sounds like you had a pretty good time, Angel,” Luke said. “Wish I’d been there.”
“I wish you had been there, too,” Angelique said, laying her hand on Luke’s arm. “I know you would have been able to help me with my gown.”
“I’m sure I’d have figured out something,” Luke said with a grin.
Perhaps if Sloan had gotten downstairs a few minutes sooner, she could have steered the conversation away from danger, but it was too late now to do anything but watch helplessly as Tomasita rose from her seat, picked up her glass of wine, and dumped it on Luke’s head.
He bolted out of his chair, shouting, “What the hell did you do that for?”
“You know why I did it,” she shouted back. “
She turned and raced out of the room and up the stairs, leaving Luke standing stunned behind her.
“Aren’t you going after her?” Sloan demanded.
Luke wiped his face with his napkin and threw it down on the table. “You’re damn right I am!”
He sprinted after Tomasita, and Sloan had to grab Cruz’s arm to keep him from following him.
“I cannot leave them alone,” Cruz said.
“He won’t hurt her,” Sloan replied. “She’s carrying his child.”
She heard Angelique’s gasp and watched as Cruz’s face darkened with anger.
“How could he dare to dishonor her? How could she dare to act the whore for him?”
Sloan’s face lost all color as the greater implications of Cruz’s tirade became clear. Any woman who bedded a man without benefit of marriage was a whore. By virtue of her actions with his brother, she must also be a whore.
Cruz caught sight of Sloan’s shocked face and said “Cebellina, I did not mean-”
“Excuse me. I think I’ll go take a walk.”
Cruz quickly followed her, leaving a stunned Angelique alone at the table.
Cruz caught Sloan in the central hallway and grasped her by the arms to keep her from escaping. “You will listen-”
“There is no need to explain, Cruz,” she said. “You only said what you honestly believe.”
“I spoke in anger,” he said. “And I spoke in haste. I never meant to suggest that your relationship with Tonio was the same thing as-”
“But it was. Exactly the same. If Tomasita is a whore, then so am I.”
Cruz flushed. He met Sloan’s eyes, his gaze serious and steady. “I do not care. It does not matter. I have only one name I want to call you, and that is
Her love for him was still a fragile thing. Should she take the chance that he might change his mind? Should she take the chance that someday, in a fit of anger, he might call up the past in equally ugly words and put it between them?
They were distracted by a shout and the sound of Tomasita racing down the stairs with Luke running full tilt behind her.
Sloan and Cruz turned in time to see Tomasita lose her footing and tumble down the last few steps. When she reached the oak floor at the bottom, she lay still, her right foot twisted at an odd angle.
Everyone stood frozen for a moment, the only sound Luke’s harsh, “Oh God, no!”
Then they were all running to reach her. Luke got there first and gently cradled her face in his hands. “Tomasita?”
Her eyes fluttered open and she moaned. “The baby…” Her hands grasped her womb and she curled into herself.
Sloan quickly checked Tomasita’s ankle for broken bones. Discovering none, she said to Luke, “Nothing’s broken, but her ankle is badly sprained. I… I don’t know about the baby. Take her upstairs and I’ll send for the doctor.”
“Do not touch me,” Tomasita hissed at Luke.
He ignored her, lifting her into his arms and moving as quickly as he could without harming her further.
Sloan sent Stephen for the doctor, and then followed Luke upstairs to Tomasita’s room.
“You should leave, Luke, so I can undress her for the doctor,” Sloan said.
“I’ll do it.”
“Luke, she doesn’t want-”
“I’ll do it!”
Sloan stepped back from the bed and watched as he gently began undressing Tomasita.
Tomasita watched Luke with pain-filled eyes, but she said nothing as he bared her body to his suffering gaze. Her teeth bit into her lower lip as she held her womb tight against the twinges she felt inside.
“I’m sorry,” Luke said, his voice broken.
Tomasita did not answer, just turned her face away from him.
Luke found a chambray wrapper in a nearby chest and slipped it over Tomasita’s head.
“The doctor will be a while coming,” Sloan said. She met Luke’s eyes and saw the agony there. If she’d had any doubts that he loved Tomasita, they were answered.
“Isn’t there something I can do?” he pleaded.
“Hold her. Love her,” Sloan said softly.
Luke sat beside Tomasita and took her unresisting hand in his. “Tomasita, I’m sorry. Please say you forgive me. Say you’ll marry me.”
Sloan held her breath to see how Tomasita would respond to Luke’s plea. When she turned to face Luke, she only shook her head sadly.
“You do not have to marry me, Luke. Our baby… My baby…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “Go away. Please, go away. I cannot bear to look at you.”
Luke avoided Sloan’s eyes as he stood up and left the room.
As soon as he was gone, Tomasita burst into tears.
Sloan sat down beside the young woman and awkwardly patted her shoulder. She couldn’t bring herself to say, “Everything will be all right,” because this was all wrong. So very wrong.
She had been so sure that Luke and Tomasita belonged together. So what had thwarted their happily-ever-after ending?
Sloan’s eyes widened in shock as she identified the thieves that had robbed Luke and Tomasita of their happiness. She recognized them because she knew them so intimately: the fear of loving, the fear of losing, and an unwillingness to trust.
Chapter 20
WHEN THE DOCTOR FINALLY ARRIVED, SLOAN kept vigil with him until they were certain the baby was all right and there was no danger Tomasita would miscarry.
Luke asked to see Tomasita again, but was refused with the explanation that Tomasita was very tired and anything that might upset her, including a visit from him, wasn’t good for her right now.
When the worst of the danger was past, Sloan walked downstairs to the parlor and found Luke and Cruz sitting on opposite sides of the room. She could have cut the tension in the room with a knife.
