Someone Like You (Night Riders) (22 page)

“All of her clothes, jewelry, and some furniture will be packed up and sent to her as soon as she has a place to live.”

“What about visits with the boy?” the lawyer asked.

“She won’t be allowed to see Luis.”

“She’s got to see Luis,” Maria said. “She’s his mother. She needs to see her child.”

“I don’t care about Dolores’s needs. Luis will be better off without her.”

“Maybe better off but not happier. He loves me and he
idolizes you, but neither of us is his mother or father. Those are two roles that don’t allow for substitution.”

“I agree with Maria,” Broc said. “Find some place that’s safe, make sure she’s not alone with him, and let her see him for an hour once a week.”

“It’ll be more like once a month once she realizes he’s no use to her,” Rafe growled.

“What ever.” Losing interest in the conversation, Broc turned his attention to two attractive women walking down the street outside the lawyer’s office.

“The meetings will prevent her from claiming that you’re keeping him from her to damage their relationship and denying her rights as a mother,” the lawyer pointed out.

“I’ll stay with Luis whenever they’re together,” Maria offered. “Require her to see Luis for only a few hours and only when I am present.” She could see his resistance collapsing and waited. He would make an unpleasant decision if he had to.

Rafe turned to the lawyer. “Set up the visits as Maria suggested. If anybody is with Dolores, they have to wait outside. I’ll send one of the men with Maria to be sure there are no more kidnapping attempts.”

Maria thought his strictures were unnecessary, but she didn’t object. “I think it would be a good idea for you to give me a specific amount of money for Luis so you can track exactly how much I’ve spent on him and where it has gone.”

“Why?” Rafe asked. “I don’t think you’ll steal from him or deprive him of anything.”

Rafe’s obvious surprise pleased her. “It was different when Warren was alive and even afterward when Dolores was still living at the ranch. Now it’s just Luis. I’d feel more comfortable if I had a specific amount for running the house and a specific amount for Luis. That way it would be easier for you and Mr. Fielder to see where the money goes.”

“Okay. What about a salary for you?”

She’d never thought of being paid. “I don’t need a salary.
Dolores gives me her clothes when she’s tired of them. Everything else is taken care of out of the house hold money.”

“Taking care of the house and Luis is a big job and a serious responsibility. Anybody I might hire to do that would expect a substantial salary. There’s no reason you shouldn’t get exactly what I would have to pay a stranger. More, in fact, because you’re much more than a stranger to Luis.”

Maria was so overcome with emotion, she couldn’t speak. Not even Warren had thanked her. Most of the time she felt more like a servant with privileges than a poor relation. She’d always tried to do a good job for Dolores and Luis. After she got to know Warren, she’d grown fond of him as well. They had become her family. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask for pay for taking care of her family. That Rafe thought she deserved it was one of the nicest things that had ever happened to her.

“How much do you want to be paid?” Rafe asked her.

“Not much. I have nothing to spend money on.”

The figure they settled on was so large, Maria felt like an heiress. She also felt uneasy about her relationship with Rafe. Now she would be an employee like Rosana and Juan. Would she be obliged to do what he said just because he paid her salary, or would he still listen to her when she disagreed with him?

She was tempted to tell Rafe she didn’t want a salary, but for the first time in her life, she would have money of her own. She would have some mea sure of control over her life. Her future wouldn’t be entirely dependent on the whim of someone else.

“Are you ready to go?”

Maria hadn’t realized Rafe and Mr. Fielder had finished their business. Embarrassed, she got to her feet. “Where’s Broc?”

“He got bored so he went to see about the horses. Broc could charm a wolf out of its teeth, but he hates being inactive.”

“What are you going to tell the boy?”

Maria and Rafe turned back at the lawyer’s question.

“The truth,” Rafe answered.

The man paced back and forth in the confines of the small room, a thin smile on his face. Rafe had driven Dolores from the ranch, and she had retaliated by broadcasting her mistreatment to anyone who would listen. When she’d got that young fool drunk enough to try to kidnap her son, she’d made herself the obvious suspect should anything happen to Rafe
.

The man rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Something was going to happen to Rafe. He just hadn’t decided what it was going to be
.

R
afe and Maria were sitting with Luis in his room. His lower lip quivered when he turned to Rafe. “Mama wanted that man to hurt me, didn’t she?”

Maria yearned to say something that would take that hurt and fear from his eyes, but he’d asked Rafe, the person who had most reason to give him the bitter truth.

“Nobody wants to hurt you,” Rafe told Luis. “Especially not your mother.”

“But she asked that man to take me away from you.”

Maria marveled that Luis hadn’t said
take me away from here
or
take me away from Maria
. He’d said take me away from
you
. In his mind, Rafe was the one to turn to when there was trouble or danger.

She shouldn’t be surprised. She felt the same.

“Billy was a little drunk. When he heard her say how much she missed you and wanted to see you, he decided to kidnap you and take you to her.”

Luis looked like he was digesting that information.

“I know it was frightening, but it just shows how much your mother loves you. She would never have been so upset if she didn’t love you very much.”

Maria knew Rafe wouldn’t say anything to hurt Luis, but it did surprise her that he would make Dolores’s actions sound like those of a grieving mother. She’d been racking her brain for a way to keep Luis from knowing Dolores wanted him only as a way to get more money.

“Will I get to see her?”

“Yes, she’ll visit you once a week at the ranch,” Maria said.

She had mixed feelings about these visits. She felt Dolores should be able to see her son just as she felt Luis ought to be able to see his mother. But she worried that Dolores would have no idea what to do with Luis when they were together. She had ignored Luis when he was a baby, when he cried, wanted to be fed, or needed a fresh diaper. She was no better able to understand him now that he was older.

“When can I see her?” Luis asked.

“As soon as she gets a place to live. She’s staying at the hotel now.”

“I can go there. That’s where we ate lunch the day that man came over with Mama.”

Laveau’s presence in the hotel was the main reason Maria didn’t want Luis to meet his mother there.

“Is there something else you’d like to do when you’re in town?” Rafe asked Luis.

“Can we go to the festival?” Luis’s eyes grew bright with excitement. “Mama says all the young men race, ride bucking horses, and perform tricks for the ladies. Did you do that when you were a boy?”

“I was too busy working on the ranch.”

Luis’s face fell. “It’s okay. You don’t have to know how to do tricks.”

A smile slowly spread across Rafe’s face. “I didn’t say I didn’t
know how to
do tricks. I just said I was too busy working.”

Luis’s interest perked up. “Can you grab a hat off the ground while riding a horse?”

“Maybe.”

“Can you throw a lasso?”

“Definitely.”

“Can you ride without a saddle?”

“We’re cowboys,” Broc said. “They’d chase us out of Texas if we couldn’t do all that stuff.”

Luis was practically bouncing in his seat. “Mama says ladies go crazy for the men who win. I heard Juan tell Rosana that some of the young girls even gave up their honor.”

Maria was sure she turned scarlet. She wanted to hit Broc for laughing. She had a feeling Rafe wanted to laugh as well, but his expression didn’t reveal it.

“I expect Juan means they smile and throw their handkerchiefs at the young men.”

“The young men dress up in fancy clothes,” Maria said, trying to support Rafe’s explanation. “When I was a young girl, I thought some of them looked very handsome.”

“Did you throw your handkerchief at any of them?”

“At one or two,” she confessed. “Festival is very exciting for a young girl.”

“Can we go?” Luis asked Rafe.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Will you win something?”

“I don’t plan to enter.”

For a moment, Luis looked disappointed, but then an idea must have occurred to him. “Would you enter if Maria promised to throw her handkerchief at you?”

Maria felt herself blush; heat flooded her cheeks. She didn’t dare look at Rafe, but looking at Broc wasn’t any better. His eyes danced with amusement.

Rafe turned to Maria. “Would you like me to enter the contests?”

“That’s not for me to say,” she stammered. “I don’t know what you can do.”

“That’s not what I asked. Would you
like
for me to enter the contests?”

“It would make Luis happy.”

Rafe favored her with a lazy smile. “I don’t know when I’ve have so much trouble making my meaning clear. Would
you
like me to enter the contests?”

How could she answer that question without betraying her feelings for a man who would soon ride out of her life forever? Well, since he
was
going to ride out of her life, it didn’t matter what he thought about what she said. She would like to see him win some event.

“Yes, I would like for you to enter a contest.”

Rafe turned to Luis. “I think that might be sufficient reason to change my mind.”

Rafe was looking just as amused as Broc. She wanted to smack both of them, but she stayed glued to her chair. When Luis turned to her, a question in his eyes, she wished she’d gotten up and gone to do something. Even the laundry.

“Will you throw your handkerchief at Rafe if he wins?”

“I would be happy to do that, but you must not be disappointed if Rafe doesn’t win anything. He’s not as young as he used to be.”

She heard Broc whistle under his breath. She thought she could hear Rafe’s sharp intake of breath.

“Are you old?” Luis asked Rafe.

Broc’s crack of laughter earned him a dirty look. “I may be old in spirit, but I’m still young enough in body to take on your young men. What events do you think I ought to enter?”

Luis beamed. “Everything!”

“His body’s not
that
young,” Broc suggested. “Nobody’s is,” he added when Rafe shot him a nasty look.

“Suppose Broc and I enter everything between the two of us.”

“Wait a minute,” Broc protested. “I doubt I know half the things you people get up to out here.”

“You said Texas cowboys could do anything,” Luis reminded him.

“So he did,” Rafe said, grinning in a way that made Maria’s stomach flutter.

Broc groaned. “Wait until I tell Cade what you had me doing. It’ll be the last time he sends you to take care of business.”

Maria didn’t know what Broc was talking about, but his comment brought a very different look to Rafe’s face.

“I haven’t forgotten. I just haven’t seen an opportunity to do anything about it.”

“You haven’t given it much time.”

“Not yet, but I will.”

Luis appeared as confused by this conversation as Maria felt. She’d always wondered why Broc had come with Rafe. Maria didn’t know what the reason might be, but seeing the look that passed between the two men convinced her it was very serious.

“How soon can we go?” Luis asked.

Rafe turned to Maria, a question in his expression.

“Festival starts in ten days.”

Broc swallowed the last of his wine and got up. “I’d better start practicing. I can’t let the state of Texas down.”

“May I watch?” Luis asked.

“You’d better. You’re the reason I’m risking my neck.”

“I’ll ask Maria to throw her handkerchief at you, too.”

Broc gave a shout of laughter. “Maybe you’d better not ask Maria to throw her handkerchief at me. I want to get back to Texas alive.”

“Why doesn’t he want Maria to throw her handkerchief at him?” Luis asked Rafe.

“Broc is a flirt. He wants all the women to throw their handkerchiefs at him.”

“What would he do with so many handkerchiefs?”

Now it was Rafe’s turn to laugh. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”

Maria had never been more impressed with Rafe than when he made Dolores’s actions look like those of a mother who loved her son and wanted to be with him. Now he had agreed to take part in the festival to please Luis. She knew the events weren’t easy. Some of them were dangerous. From the time he had arrived, he’d been doing things for other people. How could Dolores not have married him instead of Warren?
She
would have.

That thought caused her to blush furiously. When Rafe looked at her, a question in his eyes, she felt unable to remain there with her guilty thoughts practically plastered over her face. She rose. “I need to see about dinner.”

She was going to have to watch herself more carefully. If she had gone so far as to admit in her mind that she wanted to marry Rafe, there was no telling what she might do in a moment of indiscretion.

“See,” Luis said, drawing Rafe’s attention to the gaily dressed young men who rode past them on their way to Cíbola. “Everybody dresses up for festival.”

They had spent a whole evening two nights ago discussing what Broc and Rafe would wear at festival. They had ransacked every closet in the house for appropriate clothing. Rafe wanted to wear his own clothes, but Luis had insisted that they had to look as handsome as the other young men. Rafe ended up wearing a red shirt with a scarlet serape over his shoulders. Blue pants with gold embroidery from the knees to the cuffs made a striking contrast to his black saddle with its heavy silver ornamentation. A black felt hat with a red band and black feather completed his ensemble.