Three Wishes (21 page)

He leaned toward me. “You look beautiful, Zara,” he said. “Will you do me the pleasure of accompanying me to the dance?”

“Yes,” I breathed. We turned to walk down the dusty path, picking our way around bigger rocks. “Javier, I…I cannot dance tonight.”

“No?” he said, sounding so disappointed it surprised me. The only guys I’d ever known who were into dancing were a couple at school who had learned that getting good at salsa meant insta-access to a girl’s heart. Players. Maybe that was his game… “Why not?” he asked.

“Well, I’m terribly sore from the ride,” I said ruefully. “And I fear I’ve forgotten. I don’t remember dancing.”

He rested his gloved fingers on top of mine. “There is no reason to fear. I taught my sisters. I shall simply teach you. It will all come back to you soon after we begin.” We were close to the others, and the music and conversation began to envelop us. Others must have arrived in the last hours of the day; there were more than a hundred people now as I looked around, maybe a hundred and fifty.

“People come from town and farther for our rodeo,” Javier explained. “They like the dancing, the roping, the horsemanship.”

“The roping?” I inquired.

“Tomorrow. Every man will be on his horse while the women and children watch from up there,” he said, gesturing toward the rocks above. “We find our own cattle that have mixed with others over the last month, separate them from the rest, rope them and get them to our corral. The first rancho to gather all its lost cattle is honored, of course.”

“So it is a game, of sorts.”

“Of sorts.” His dark eyes narrowed as he stared at an obviously wealthy family across the relatively flat area of the makeshift dance floor. “But I can tell you already that we’re missing at least fifty head. And I would wager they’re not lost among the hills, as the Vargases might claim.”

I followed his gaze to the family, clearly friendly with Lieutenant de Leon and his men. Two young women hung on the arms of two of the soldiers, while the lieutenant lifted a mug in a toast with the gray-bearded man in the fine black coat. A younger man, just a little older than Javier, looked over at him in sly, subtle challenge and then at me. He said something out of the corner of his mouth to the lieutenant, and that man, in turn, looked to me and answered him. They laughed, and I felt Javier stiffen beside me.

“They took my cattle,” he said. “The vaqueros had them on land along our southern border. Come morning, they’d disappeared from the valley.”

“How do you steal fifty head of cattle?” I asked, thinking it was pretty hard to hide that many cows.

“You steal them and slaughter them before your neighbors can come looking. Especially when the
Guadiana
is anchored off the coast.”

“That was why you gambled with those men that night? Because you were bent on getting back at them?”

He gave me a little smile, half-victorious, half-bitter. “She and her sister ship had plenty of fresh meat that night. I was only intent on obtaining a portion of the payment I was due.”

“But you couldn’t prove anything? Go to the authorities?” I knew the folly of what I’d just asked even before he looked my way.

“No. In many ways, we have to see to our own justice in Alta California. Because those who are here to ‘protect’ us fail, utterly. It kindles no love for the mother country, or those who remain true.”

Those who remain true
…Was he no longer a loyalist? I said nothing more, because he seemed eager to put it behind him and adopt the festive mood of the party ahead. But, as he led me deeper into the mingling crowd, I wondered if we were to divide all who attended into two parties—those loyal to Mexico and those looking to the States—where exactly the line would fall.

The children were running around, carrying what looked like bits of honeycomb in handkerchiefs, their faces glistening with honey around their mouths. Patricio arrived, carrying six mugs—three in each hand—and gladly passed them out to other men, and one to me.

Thirsty, I took a tentative sip and discovered it was a sort of ginger beer.

That was when the music began, and my heart lurched. I was only so-so at dancing in my own day. I had no idea how these 1840s peeps did it. Was it square dancing? We’d done a bit of that at school…

But as the players in the band—two guitars, two trumpets and a
vihuela
—came together in their first song, I smiled a little in recognition. They weren’t great, but they were decent, and it sounded a bit like really old mariachi music.

“You’d better get your girl out on that floor,” Patricio said, nudging Javier forward, “before someone else does.”

It took me a sec to realize he meant me. So I was Javier’s “girl” now? When did that happen? And I was just trying to phrase the right way to turn him down when he took my hand, bowed with his other arm behind his back, and looked up at me through those luscious, black lashes… “Trust me, Zara,” he said softly. “I will show you the steps.”

We were one of many couples who swirled into the clearing. Patricio escorted Doña Elena—who barely hid her distaste—and a woman I didn’t know was on tall, elegant Rafael’s arm. Francesca came too, looking flustered but pleased beside a boy a little older than she. More entered around them. Apparently, this wasn’t like the high school dances of my day; everyone seemed eager to take part. Even little kids stood around, holding hands, watching and mimicking the adults’ actions.

It was a lot of action. But on the edge of all of it, Javier and I stood, and I felt like he saw or heard none of it. Only me. My entire body felt electrified, so close to him. “You could teach them some of your music,” he said, giving me a smile as he gestured with his head toward the band.

“I don’t know,” I said shyly. “I think they’re doing well enough.”

“Well enough to dance,” he said, seeming to remember why we were there. “Now…you don’t remember anything at all?”

I shook my head.

“Well, all right,” he said, straightening a bit, even as he set his feet slightly apart and squared his hips. “Place your left hand here, on my shoulder, and your right here, in my hand.”

I did as he asked, and we were instantly closer than before. I stared at the pearl button at his throat, not daring to look up as he put his wide, warm hand against my lower back.

“I will use this hand,” he said, pressing inward and then from one side to the other, “to help guide you. If you give in to following my lead,” he said, leaning a little closer to my ear, “you’ll find it rather simple.” He then moved on to show me the basic square pattern of the steps. “That’s it,” he said, as the song came to an end. “Do you wish to try now?”

“I, uh…I suppose, yes.”

He didn’t wait for a firmer reply but just moved me gently out and into the center of the dancing couples. He was quietly counting with me in time to the music, half as fast as the others were moving, not caring about their wondering glances, only caring about me. I felt that tender, thoughtful care from my toes to my scalp and back again. I had a hard time thinking about anything but how we seemed to fit together—how his hand felt beneath mine, how his shoulder was so wide and strong, how his other hand guided me. Never had a first dance been easier for me. But it didn’t seem to matter that it was new. In Javier’s arms, I simply melded into his lifelong knowledge, his lead, his steps.

I relaxed as the next song began, and Javier smiled, feeling my joy lap my fear. “Trust me,” he said, suddenly pulling away and twirling me under his arm and bringing me back against his chest. We both laughed when I came in a little hard, but he had me back in place and back in step in seconds.

“May I cut in, Señor Ventura?” asked a voice behind me.

Javier’s smile disappeared into defiance. “I think not. Señorita Ruiz is just learning our steps. Her amnesia has made her forget.”

“And yet under your tutelage, she appears to have remembered quite well,” Lieutenant de Leon said, as I turned slightly toward him.

I could feel the line etching in the dust between the men and didn’t want it to build into something that would ruin the high mood of the party. “Just one dance,” I said, more to Javier than the lieutenant.

Jaw clenched, Javier bowed. “As you wish, Señorita. I’ll be back at the end of the song.”

“Just one song? So miserly, Ventura,” Leon chided as he took me in his arms, pulling me a bit too close. “You’d think letting me dance with this girl was as painful as paying your taxes!”

He smiled at his own joke and then lurched me through the steps of the dance. He was tall and strong, and he was a skilled dancer, just not quite as graceful and intuitive as Javier. Trying to follow his lead felt more like a guessing game—always a second behind—than what it had been with Javier. It was as if he decided and pushed and pulled me on, rather than anticipating the next steps and leading me.

At one point, I stepped on his toe, and he frowned a little. “You truly do not know this dance?” he asked, turning me in a tight circle, bringing me closer to him.

“I do not. My head injury…it’s left me with few memories.”

“Hmm,” he said. “The mysterious castaway, who can remember songs on the guitar but not steps to a simple dance. The thing that troubles me, Señorita, is that women do not wash up on shores in these parts without someone looking for them. Being the officer in charge in Santa Barbara, I would hear of such a matter. Unless…someone did not wish it to be known.”

“What do you mean, Lieutenant?” I asked, frowning up at him.

He lifted a brow. “I mean that there could be two explanations. One, you are more than an acquaintance to that vile traitor, Patricio Casales,” he hissed, eying the man as he went by, a cute girl in his arms. “And you are joining forces with him to woo Javier into his treasonous cause for the Union.”

I bit back a retort. “Or?”

“Or you were the mistress of a sea captain who found you on the streets of Mexico, convinced you to come along on his voyage, grew tired of you, and thought the most expedient way to end it was to toss you overboard.” He grinned at that and pulled me a bit closer even as I tried to squirm away. “If
that
is the truth, Señorita, there are other ways for you to find room and board…when your host discovers it too. Do not fear, pretty girl. As either a spy or whore, there is always a dollar to be made. You only need take care where you make your bed.”

Mercifully, the song came to an end, and he finally allowed me to step away. I stared at the lieutenant as I felt Javier join me on one side, Rafael on the other. This Leon was nothing but a bully. A snake, trying to get under my skin. Making guesses in an era when women really didn’t have many options other than what he’d laid out.

“Or Lieutenant, there is a third option. I am a lady, lost at sea, innocent of either of your charges,” I said, my fingernails digging into my palms. I longed to ram my hand up and into that big, bulbous nose…

“Of course, of course,” he said, as if he and I were sharing a private joke. “Thank you for the dance, Señorita,” he said and turned on his heel, heading directly toward another woman and asking her to dance next.

“What did he say to you?” Javier growled, offering his arm. “Were you trying to get away from him?” He shook his head at a vaquero coming in our direction, visibly hoping for a dance but backing away when Javier’s expression made it clear that the next was his and his alone.

“It was nothing,” I said, gratefully taking Javier’s arm, forcing myself to breathe, hoping he wouldn’t feel me trembling. I was angry, and that made me want to cry. “He is making idle guesses about me. Trying to figure out my story—as everyone else is,” I added wearily. “Including me.”

He lifted my chin as I blinked away tears. “It will come back to you, Zara, in time. I know it will.”

And as he swept me into the next dance, I thought about his turn of phrase.
It will come back to you in time.

Sí, claro. Sure it would.
If I bopped on back to the twenty-first-century sort of time, all would slip back in place.

Except I’d be without Javier…and his family…

CHAPTER 15

The next morning, as we stood on the knoll, a man shot a gun into the air, and all the rest scattered into motion around the massive herd of mixed cattle. I gaped in admiration. Most of them appeared to guide their mounts with their feet and legs more than with the reins—leaving them more ready to divide and chase cattle to their respective corrals. In minutes, the hillside below us was a dusty mass of activity, but I had a hard time looking away from Javier.

Women and children were clapping and cheering, each for their own rancho, but I could see the Ventura crew was pulling ahead. Javier led a fourth cow into the corral, a vaquero quickly opening and closing the gate behind her. Fifteen others were moving at a similar rate, including young Mateo. Jacinto was up with us, clearly itching to take part but far too young to risk in the crazy mosh pit below us.

Carried away by the excitement, I cheered too, knowing that Javier couldn’t hear me, not over all the bellowing of the cattle. Their bovine complaints made me think they were all seriously stressed. And no wonder…there were so many vaqueros moving around them, identifying brands, dividing their own from the rest, that it was pure chaos. But within twenty minutes, Javier was waving his hat to the judge, up with us, along with the rest of the crew from Rancho Ventura, all surrounding the corral as others continued to cut and drag their own cattle “home.”