Magic and the Texan (3 page)

The minutes ticked by, one after another. Bethany fidgeted on the wagon seat. Why was it taking this long to tell that Miguel fellow to douse the candles?

“I can't let anything go wrong,” she whispered to her wringing fingers. “Just can't.”

She sprang from the wagon and started toward the church, but hesitated. This was a Catholic place of worship. Such had been the final ruin of her drunken father, when he'd broken into one in the Red River town of Liberal, thought it wasn't liberal at all, despite its watering hole, the Long Lick Saloon.

Bethany didn't want to think about Pa or how he'd broken her heart. Why she'd accepted his sole possession of worth, a gold timepiece, was another thing she'd best not mull.

“Señorita?” a small voice asked, causing Bethany to glance down to the right. “Are you the bride?”

The question came from an olive-skinned girl of about eight with hair the color of tea, her eyes every bit as hazel as Bethany's. She held an orange in her grubby hand.

Bethany had no problem understanding the child. She'd learned Spanish from the other hired girl at the Long Lick, before Hortensia gave up cooking and dishwashing chores to move to the upstairs section. Where bedsprings sang, day and night.

Bethany bent at the knees to get closer to this child. “Good afternoon, little one. Yes, I am the bride. Who are you?”

“I am Sabrina.” Frays at her sleeves, she offered the orange. “This is for you, pretty bride. For your wedding. Padre Miguel says I must give something for your special day.”

Although Bethany hadn't eaten for two days, nervousness having brought that about, she searched for a way to honor and nourish Sabrina. She thanked the child, then began to peel the fruit. Tearing a section open, she took one bite and offered a large portion to the giver. “We will share this.”

Sabrina beamed. “Thank you, señorita.”

The child devoured the rest of the orange. A smile on her streaked face, she rubbed her tummy. “I am glad you have a special day. That was very good.”

“Where did you find such a lovely piece of fruit?”

“Señor Hoot brought it from Mexico. He gave it to my mother. Terecita is his friend. At the cantina.”

Hoot Todd gave oranges to his “friend”? How sweet, Bethany thought snidely. “I don't see a cantina around here.”

“It's not far up the river.” Sabrina pointed northwest. “Señor Juan Marc won't allow a cantina near his land.”

Good for Jon Marc. The farther Bethany was from saloons, the better.

“Where do you live?” she asked, not liking the idea of this child being exposed to a tavern.

“I live here. At Santa Maria. Padre Miguel watches over me and the orphans, Ramón and Manuel. He is very nice, the padre. He lets us take care of his pigs.”

That was a relief, knowing Sabrina had been spared what Bethany knew too much of.

“I must go now. It is time to take care of the little ones. Jacinta, she has many babies.” Before she took off, Sabrina said, “My mother would like to marry your
novio.
She told me so. But Señor Juan Marc will not marry her.”

That so? Hmm. Jon Marc banished the cantina to the far side of Fort Ewell, but Bethany figured he knew a lot about the inside of it, as well as Terecita herself. That he had baldly asked Miss Buchanan about morality spoke volumes. He was typical of men. He expected chastity but hadn't practiced celibacy.

If worse came to worst in the marriage bed—should they get there—Bethany could counter his arguments with that Bible quote, so popular with Mrs. Agatha Persat, about “thou who art without sin, cast the first stone.”

Albeit, Mrs. Persat had led the pack, chasing Bethany out of Liberal. So be it.

Bethany smoothed her skirts and entered the church. Dark, it was dark in here. Several moments slipped by, time in which she heard muffled male voices, before her eyes adjusted to the low light. Not only from those cloaked, unearthly sounding speakers—one a tenor, the other a baritone that had to belong to Jon Marc—she felt out of place, as well she should, in this peculiar place, banked by an altar lit with candles and a statue of a woman holding a baby.

Where was the church organ, or its piano?

Surely no one had stolen their keyboard, like Pa did the poor box at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

Her experience being limited to a few Protestant services that Mrs. Persat had taken her to, Bethany wondered how to bluff her way through religion. They had all sorts of odd rituals in the Catholic faith, she knew from Miss Buchanan.

What she couldn't remember, she'd simply have to invent as best she could, and try not to stumble.

She followed those voices, walking down the aisle past empty pews. An odd-looking wooden box sat off to the side, the voices coming from there. Jon Marc was in that box with the preacher?
Did Miss Buchanan teach you nothing? They aren't called preachers, and you know it.
Why was he talking with a priest in a box?

“We confess our sins in a confessional,” she recalled the serene brunette saying.

Was that a confessional?

What sins did Jon Marc have to confess, beyond Terecita?

Whatever they were, they couldn't be as bad as Bethany's.

If she were to confess her schemes and sins, would Jon Marc have it in his heart to understand her reasons? He might accept her “as is.” Might even give her a chance to become his wife, somewhere down the line.

Never happen, the voice of reason screamed.

Bethany, having retreated to the buckboard already, breathed in relief when Jon Marc stepped out of Santa Maria and approached with a smile. The wedding wasn't off. Of course, it also wasn't on.

They drove down the trail gauges that led to his ranch headquarters, Bethany on the seat next to him. Neither spoke, until she said, “I met a little girl. Sabrina.”

“She's a sweet child. Padre Miguel took her in, with the orphan boys, when her mother left a house of ill repute in Laredo to be with the child's father.”

“I thought Terecita worked at the cantina.”

“She dances there. Hoot Todd never saw fit to shelter the mother of his child, or the child.”

Hoot Todd, Sabrina's father? That made her Bethany's niece. Didn't relations carry responsibilities? What did she owe that child? At least an occasional orange, if not more.

“I so like children.” Beth hoped for a dozen of her own, be they from her body, or small children who simply needed a loving mother. She would never forget Mrs. Persat's many kindnesses, before her charge proved a disappointment. “I hope you don't mind if I invite Sabrina to drop in from time to time.”

“Fine by me.”

“Shall I ask Terecita to come along?” Bethany goaded, unable to stop herself. “Sabrina did mention that her mother had designs on you.”

Jon Marc gave a snort of laughter, one that carried his trademark click of tongue and arresting blink. “Designs on me?” he echoed. “That's rich. She'd cut my throat, given the chance. In the words of Congreve, she's 'a woman scorned.' ”

“Broken many hearts, sir?”

“I never encouraged Terecita. Never even shared a drink with her. She looked for a rock to sun on, better than what she's got with Todd. She thought my rocks were better than his.”

Bethany bit her tongue to keep from howling.
Do not, under any circumstances, make something of that rocks remark.

She concentrated on the countryside.

Cactus, cactus, everywhere cactus. Cactus and chaparral. Mesquite. Oaks, along the river. And cattle—cows with wide, wide horns sprouting above powerful spotted bodies of several colors such as white, rust, and black. Lots of cattle to drive to market . . . with no clear path to it.

The entirety of unremarkable little hills and cattle-cluttered dales had turned summer green, as everything had a tendency to do all over Texas in late April. But this was not the Texas Bethany knew. This was a scary place.

But she'd made up her mind to love Rancho Caliente. Love it, she would. From this land, from this man, she would gain respectability, husband, children.

Yet, having come from the windswept prairie, Bethany couldn't imagine cowpokes wrangling cattle in thickets of brambles, terrain cut by fingers of the Nueces River. But water ran in abundance, a luxury in Texas. It could be worse.

“Sir, why don't you burn off some of this scrub?”

He shook his head. “Start a fire on dry land? Never. No way could livestock get to safety, not with the river branching this way and that. They'd be trapped. Or would drown. Disaster, that's fire.”

Put in her place, Bethany tried different conversation. “Pardon me, sir. Didn't I read you employ but twenty cowboys?”

“You did.”

“How can you manage thirty thousand acres with so few cowboys?”

He flashed good strong teeth. “Skill.”

“So many cows . . .” No one had that much skill.

“More cows than a rancher oughta even wish for.”

The Buchanan miss, Bethany had learned, checked into the O'Brien family, finding they were richlings from the Mississippi River delta.
If he's rich, why doesn't he employ more than twenty cowpokes?

Jon Marc changed the mare's reins to one hand, placing his other palm on a knee. “Remember, I told you how the herd increased during the War, when there weren't any roundups? 'Course, they were partnership cows at the time. But now the Caliente belongs to me alone. To us. It's ours.”

Ours. She loved the sound of that, even if this place wasn't a princedom with excellent amenities. As she eyed his land a second time, she saw challenge. Bethany liked challenge.

“You did mention how you'd bought out a partner.” Between her departed friend's death and today, Bethany had read those passages several times. “I'd like to hear about your life here in Texas, from your voice. You left holes here and there.”

Her interest pleased him. “I came to brush country in '60, to work for Drake Wilson. We made a deal. If the Caliente turned a profit that year, he'd sign over half the title. We turned a profit.”

“You never said why Mr. Wilson sold his half to you.”

It took a moment for Jon Marc to reply. “His, uh, his wife never thought too much of this area. When their house burned down last fall, she insisted they move to Laredo. He brokers cattle there, like your father did in Wichita.”

Bethany knew how Jon Marc had come to know Aaron Buchanan. Three years ago he trailed cattle to Wichita, sold them to Buchanan. The men struck a fast friendship. When the cattle broker was in his last decline, his daughter, newly returned to Kansas after leaving a convent, had written to tell Jon Marc of her father's illness. Thus had begun a courtship.

“It bothers you, doesn't it, Beth honey? Don't let it.”

What would Miss Buchanan say now? The dear girl had been plain-spoken, to the point, although kind and nice. “I think Mrs. Wilson should have asked her husband to build another house.”

“You'll do fine, just fine in brush country.”

“I long to become part of it. I can't wait to meet your men.” Gracious! The last sounded rather come-hither, much like general conversation in the Long Lick drinkery.

“My men are away, except for Luis de la Garza and Diego Novio, and a few other vaqueros,” Jon Marc answered. “Driving cattle to market.”

Good. A cattle drive to Kansas was underway. Kansas, where cattle brought up to forty dollars a head. Forty dollars times thousands—lots of money for a secure future.

“I intend to carry my weight at Rancho Caliente,” she said truthfully. “I won't be layabout. I can cook, clean, and sew.”

She'd learned homemaking talents through the guidance of painted ladies gone West to seek fortunes, but had stalled at the Long Lick. Those same ladies shied from taking up for her, when her conduct was exposed as loose. But that was the past.

This was the present.

Thankfully, Miss Buchanan—her charm having radiated from gentility, grace, and a pioneer spirit as it related to her upcoming role as a rancher's wife—hadn't been the sort to sit around studying her fingernails and barking at servants. Bethany would have found those even more difficult shoes to fill.

“I'm eager to learn ranching, too,” she tacked on, filled with her own pioneering fortitude.

“No need to work your fingers to the bone.”

To someone who'd rubbed lanolin into calluses three times a day, and had shaved the worst, lest her hands not match those of a refined young lady from Kansas, those were lovely words.

Bethany, nevertheless, wouldn't accept such coddling. “I should imagine you can use all the help you can get, sir.”

“I'm capable of taking care of a wife.”

Bethany knew she'd bruised his pride.

Catching sight of a dilapidated, obviously vacant cluster of adobe buildings, she tried to steer conversation from a touchy subject. “Good gracious, what's that over there?”

“The ruins of Hacienda del Sol.”

As she knew
caliente
meant hot to the touch, she translated this ranch's name to Estate of the Sun. “It was once a grand place. Does it belong to you?”

“Yep. The
hacendado
abandoned the property, years ago.”

Bethany found herself unable to keep her tongue in her mouth, as good sense cautioned, since she couldn't ascertain just how strong had been Miss Buchanan's opinions. “I should imagine the owner found it difficult to manage, far from civilization.”

“He was forced out, once this stretch of Mexico became Texas. López gave food and supplies to Santa Ana, when the Mexican Army was on its march to the Alamo, in '36. Texans don't forgive folks who sided with that old rascal—remember the Alamo. Don Tomás López left in '48. The roof caved in after that.”

Bethany's gaze settled on Jon Marc anew, catching a tightness in the jaw of his exceptional profile.

His voice as tight as his jaw, he then said, “I'll grant it's solitary and isolated out here, but I've loved this place since I first saw it, at eighteen.”

Had she insulted Jon Marc by association?
Don't do it again.
“Meant no rudeness, sir. Honestly.”

“Beth honey, I want you to think kindly toward the Caliente. Guess I'm kinda touchy.”

“You needn't be. Although I must admit I feel daunted by the sheer size of your spread.”

Wickedly, her gaze dropped to his lap. Yes, there was sheer size to his spread!
Bethany, behave.
“I was thinking how favorably you compare to that lapsed owner. You, sir, aren't the type to pull up stakes. Or to fraternize with enemies of the state.”

A quick glance at his face told her she'd made him smile.

He said, “You got that right, honey.”

She didn't smile, having been tripped by her own tongue.
Enemies of the state. Enemies of the state.
“Your letters never mentioned local Indians. I've heard they're about.”

“Comanches camp by the Rio Grande. I give 'em free range. And trade supplies, when they ask. They don't give headaches.”

“Aren't you fortunate?” An awful chill went through Bethany. At four, she'd watched Kiowas in the Indian Territory give her mother more than a headache. They scalped her. Bethany would never forget the horror of it.

“Tell me they don't come around often,” she pleaded.

“Haven't seen one in years.”

The buckboard topped a rise; Jon Marc set the brake. He hitched a bootheel to the front rail and leaned into a relaxed pose, a forearm resting on his knee, as he gazed at his property. “I call this Harmony Hill. It's my favorite spot on the Caliente. Here, I see beauty.”

The ranch's beauty lay in the flora that livestock grazed upon and the river they drank from, to Bethany's way of thinking. Fat cows and healthy horses brought in cash. No cow would go hungry on the Caliente.

He said, “Wish I were a ‘painter of the soul,' to quote Mr. Disraeli. I'd love to put my own words to what's in my heart. Alas, I'm just a plain ole brush popper.”

Bethany Todd hated poetry. The traditional sort, anyway. Lengthy versification on sunsets and birds and the sort of romance that surely no one west of the Mississippi had ever experienced didn't hold her attention.

Jon Marc's written quotes from the bards had given her a taste of the fruits of boredom, her sole reservation about spending the remainder of her life with him.

Bethany took a gander downward at the panorama. To the left ran the river. Ahead, civilization. Pecan and oak trees grew around an outcropping of buildings, all adobe. A small home built in an L shape, a red roof, probably of clay, above it; three chimneys bespoke three rooms. As well, there was an outhouse, a cistern, a smokehouse, and what looked to be stables, but . . . “What is that?”

Jon Marc frowned as he followed the direction of her pointed finger, to half-collapsed fireplaces and blackened rubble. “It's what's left of the Wilson house.”

What a shame, that fire. Bethany's attention turned to a mockingbird perched on a mesquite branch. “Don't you have a bunkhouse for your cowboys?” she asked for conversation's sake.

“My men live in their own houses, scattered around the ranch. The nearest is the Marins'. Isabel Marin cooks and cleans for me. Her husband, Guillermo, is one of my vaqueros.”

Bethany took note, not wanting to mistake anyone's name.

She studied the area between the burnt-out house and Jon Marc's home. “Could that be a flower garden?”

“It's Trudy Wilson's rose garden. It thrives despite neglect. All I know is raising cattle.”

“I love roses, especially red ones.” Bethany now knew where he got blooms for the wagon. How could she couch appreciation without speaking lavishly, too much herself? She couldn't.

“I see you like red,” he commented, “from your shoes.”

Instinctively, she tucked the toes of these dratted shoes beneath her hems. “Yes, it's my favorite color. When I saw these shoes, I simply had to have them,” she lied. Then held her breath after asking, “Do you think me terribly brazen?”

He slanted a grin at her. “I'd say you're unique.”

She puffed out pent-up air.

“Beth honey . . .”

She sensed Jon Marc had something to say that didn't much appeal to him; she sensed correctly, for he wouldn't look her in the eye, and say, “It wasn't just a fire that destroyed the Wilson home. It was set. By Hoot Todd and his
bandidos.
But don't worry. They won't burn another Caliente building.”

Jon Marc had bragged about his word being law. Few ranch hands about, no law nearby, how could he protect his home and run a ranch at the same time?

Goose pimples tightened Bethany's arms, but not in fear. If not for being forewarned, if not for changing places with dear Miss Buchanan, she'd have arrived at Fort Ewell, expecting a home with a criminal.

If she were to be honest, which she could not, she would admit something. She'd formed a dislike for the half brother not seen in seventeen years.