“When you are happy, you are even more lovely, menina,” he said in a soft voice close to her face.
“Stop calling me that!” she retorted. “I don’t even know what it means.”
He laughed heartily, and she noted again how handsome he was. His face was smooth and clean-shaven. Lights danced in his gray eyes. Though he was an outlaw, he didn’t seem a cruel man.
“How did you know those were my jewels, or where to put the coin?” Angela asked.
“The gold rings with the other jewelry were perfect settings for this coin you treasure so much,” he answered smoothly. His eyes held hers as he continued, “I decided one meeting was not enough for you and me.”
“Well, now that you have seen me again and you have returned my jewels, would you please leave? You were crazy to come here in the first place.”
He looked like a little boy, his brow wrinkled in disappointment. “Is this the gratitude I get?”
“I thank you for returning my jewels, but it was because of you that I was forced to seek employment and end my journey. Should I thank you for that, too?”
“Ah, such bitterness from one so lovely.” He ran one finger along the side of her cheek. “But you would have had to seek employment eventually, when your money and jewels were exhausted. Am I right?”
“What makes you think that?” she asked, surprise showing on her features.
“If there were anyone to help you, menina, then you would not be here now,” he replied. “No, I think you have no one.”
“Well, you are wrong, señor, for I have very powerful friends,” she retorted. “Only I do not wish to impose on them.”
“Perhaps you speak the truth, perhaps not,” he speculated, lowering his face even closer to hers. “But what does it matter? Now you will continue your journey. Tell me where you go, menina, so I can find you again.”
Her reply was cut off as his lips covered hers. Though outraged, she found herself caught up by his passion. His hands on her shoulders were like steel, pressing her against him. His kiss was molten fire. She did not think. She yielded.
She didn’t know when he carried her to the bed, but she soon found herself there with the dark-haired stranger. By then, nothing mattered but being born again in his touch. And when his hands began to unlace her bodice and his lips followed the trail of his fingers, she could not contain herself any longer.
“Bradford!” she cried out. “Bradford! I love you.”
She opened her eyes and found a cold, enraged face above her. His eyes were frightening.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. It was the only thing she could think to say.
“For what?” he asked sharply. “Sorry that you led me to believe something that is not so? Or sorry that I am not Bradford?”
“You don’t understand—”
“Yes I do,” he said, cutting off her explanation. He leaned over her, his fingers digging into her shoulders. “I could still take you, menina. Even though you want someone else, I can make you forget him.”
“Don’t!” Angela implored, tears brimming. “Please!”
“Why?” he demanded. “Why? You let me think you were willing. And I still want you.”
Angela was sobbing now, but whether it was fear or regret, she didn’t know. “But I do love another—or did! He was the only... Even though it can never be, he must be the only one.”
The man swore violently in Spanish and left the bed. Standing beside it, he looked down at her tear-streaked face and said harshly, “You were right, señorita. I do not understand.” He took her derringer from his pocket and tossed it on the bed beside her. “When I love a woman, she must be with me, not with a man from her memories. So I leave you to your memories, and I wish you whatever pleasure you can find in them. Adios.”
Chapter 38
IT didn’t take Angela long to pack. Soon, wearing a light blue traveling dress and matching brocaded jacket, she sat waiting at the stage depot. There were three others waiting, men in dark suits and derby hats—comically out of place in this barely civilized land.
When the tall, dark-haired man walked in and sat down beside her, Angela stood up immediately, but he rose at the same time and took hold of her elbow. He leaned close.
“If I believed you could get used to a different way of life, I would take you with me to Mexico, to the land I will have back one day, the land that was stolen from my family.”
“I wouldn’t go with you!” she said firmly.
“I did not say I would ask your permission, menina,” he replied just as firmly.
Before she could answer, his arms encircled her waist. She tried to move away from him, but he held her too hard. Their battle joined, both were startled by the voice behind Angela.
“Do you give your favors away so freely now, Angela?”
“Grant!” she gasped, whirling to face the angry green eyes. “What—are you doing here?”
“I just arrived on the stage. But maybe you’d rather I hadn’t,” he said, staring coldly at the bandit.
“Stop being so presumptuous!” Angela snapped. “This is—a friend of mine. We were just saying good-bye.”
The bandit laughed softly. “Yes,” he agreed, and brought Angela’s hand slowly to his lips. “I hope we will meet again one day. Till then, adios.”
He walked away quickly. Angela turned to face Grant, ready for the lecture she was sure he would give her. She was shocked when he said, “I’ve missed you.”
What could she say?
“Is that why you came?”
“No,” Grant replied, his voice growing somber. “Jim McLaughlin came to the ranch looking for you and asked if I’d help.”
“What does he want with me?”
Grant looked down at the floor, his face solemn. “He has some matters to discuss with you. Angela... Jacob Maitland is dead.”
He helped the stricken young woman out of the stage depot. In their preoccupation, neither of them noticed the man hiding in the corner behind a newspaper. He had just arrived, and Angela had not seen him.
Billy Anderson’s eyes were gleaming. He had succeeded! He had followed Jim McLaughlin all the way from Mobile, knowing the lawyer had business with Angela, sure he would lead Billy to her. The time was not right for what he had in mind, but Billy could be patient. After years of waiting, a little longer wouldn’t matter.
An hour later, Angela and Jim McLaughlin sat in a small office at the bank while he read to her from a long document. She tried to listen but the words didn’t register. She sat very still in a hardback chair, staring blankly at the paper in Jim’s hands. But what she saw was Jacob, sitting in his study, his eyes lighting up when she arrived to help him with the books. And Jacob in the dining room, Jacob with his slightly graying hair, leaning sideways to whisper something to her. Jacob.
Jacob dead? No, he would still be at Golden Oaks, giving orders. Jacob was too real to be dead. So why was Jim McLaughlin sitting here reading Jacob’s will?
“Did you understand all I’ve read, Angela?” Jim McLaughlin asked kindly.
“What?”
She glanced up, her eyes blank.
“I realize this has been quite a shock to you, Angela,” Jim said.
“Let me sum it up for you,” he continued. “You will have twelve thousand dollars a year, which you may draw on any bank. And two residences now belong solely to you—a comfortable town house in Massachusetts, and a small estate in England. Aside from these, you may use any residence from the bulk of the estate at your convenience. Should anyone deny you welcome—I assume this to mean Bradford, since he owns these properties now—they will be disinherited. This was a harsh stipulation, but Jacob insisted on it. Beyond all of that, you now own half interest in the JB Ranch, the other half belonging to Bradford. The ranch is quite large, consisting of thousands of acres, and I believe it is now being restored. Once it becomes productive, you will be a very wealthy woman, even more than you already are.”
Angela listened in as
tonishment. Jacob had been extraordinarily generous. She no longer had to worry about money.
“If you’ll let me advise you, Angela, it might be a good idea to retire to your ranch for a while. Grant Marlowe will be going back there, so he can escort you. It will give you time to get over the shock of Jacob’s death, and to decide what you want to do. There are limitless possibilities. Travel is one, and you won’t even have to stay in hotels, because there are Maitland properties all over the world.”
“Yes, well, maybe I will go to the ranch for a while,” Angela replied.
She would no longer have to travel this wild land in search of her mother. She could hire someone else to do the searching for her.
“Have you understood everything?” Jim asked.
“Yes.”
“Well then, there is nothing left for me to do but give you a copy of the will and this letter from Jacob,” Jim said, handing the articles to her.
Angela took the letter without surprise, for she had been expecting it, or something like it. She knew what would be in it—Jacob explaining that she was his daughter and how it had all happened. Holding the letter, she suddenly felt Jacob’s presence. She shook off the feeling, knowing it was absurd. Jim McLaughlin quietly left the room as she opened the envelope.
My dearest Angela, I will be dead when you read this letter, and I hope with all my heart that you will not grieve for me. You were a blessing to me in my last years, the daughter I always wanted, and I could not bear it if I caused you any unhappiness.
That is one reason why I could not bring myself to tell you about your mother. I regret having to tell you now that she is dead, and buried on my ranch in Texas.
Angela sat immobile, the letter in her hand. She did not move for a long time.
Her mother was dead, and Jacob had known all along. The tears began. Angela cried hard for her mother. And then, finally, she cried for Jacob.
At last, she continued reading:
I blame myself for her death. It was so tragic—she was so young.
You see, I loved your mother with all my heart. And she loved me. But we realized our love too late, after I was married and had children to care for.
I would have left my wife, but Charissa wouldn’t permit it. She would have become my mistress, but I respected her too much to allow that. I regret my decision now, for we argued over it, and Charissa vowed she would go away and marry the first man who asked her.
Your mother was a stubborn woman and she did exactly as she said. I tried desperately to find her after she left Massachusetts, but didn’t succeed until a year later. She was married to your father then, and expecting you. I bought Golden Oaks then, for even though we were both married, I couldn’t bear to be far from her.
Then, after you were a year old, I had to go to my ranch in Texas. Bradford was staying there and I wanted him at home. Your mother begged me to take her with me. She was unable to bear marriage to a man she hardly knew, and life on a farm was so different from what she knew.
The biggest mistake of my life was to refuse to take Charissa to Texas with me. But the West was no place for a woman in those years, especially a woman of your mother’s gentle breeding.
Believe me, Angela, when I say that I never dreamed she would follow me. She came West unescorted, on a wagon train that was attacked by Indians. She was wounded in the attack, and she died when she reached my ranch.
Her dying wish was that I look after you, though I would have done that without being asked.
Forgive me, Angela, for not telling you this before. I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. I was afraid you would blame me for your mother’s death, as I have blamed myself.
My fondest dream has always been that you marry my older son. I have seen that you love him, and that he loves you. The two of you will have the life that Charissa and I were denied.
You are so like your mother, Angela. She lives again in you. Be happy, my dear, and don’t grieve for us. If there is a heaven, then I am with your mother now.
With deepest love,
Jacob
Angela read the letter again and then again. She wasn’t Jacob’s daughter after all. She wasn’t Bradford’s half sister!
But what of the letter Crystal had used to taunt Bradford? Had she invented that letter? Of course! Crystal would have done anything to get Bradford back, or to hurt Angela.
Still, Bradford had been engaged to Candise all the while he professed his love for her. What a bastard he really was!
Just then, Jim McLaughlin knocked on the door and stuck his head in. “Are you ready to leave, Angela?”
Angela and Jim left the small office and met Grant at the hotel. The three of them shared an early dinner and then left the following morning. Jim traveled with them to Dallas, then left them there to return to New York.
Angela had refrained from asking about Bradford and Candise. She didn’t want to know whether they were married yet.
She was relieved to learn that Bradford had returned to New York, and had engulfed himself in business affairs. She was fairly sure that he wouldn’t be coming to the Texas ranch, so there would be no hurry for her to leave it.
The JB Ranch was only twelve miles outside of Dallas. Angela and Grant rode in a small buckboard through the barren land, flat prairie relieved only by low-lying hills and a few sparse trees. The ranch house was just as Bradford had described it, though fairly run-down. There was the long one-story house itself, a large barn and corrals to the left of it, and a bunkhouse opposite the barn. There were a few large old trees by the large house, and on the right was a patch of ground where there had once been a garden.
Grant apologized for the appearance of the place, explaining that he had had only enough time to hire a few men, and that most of them were on the range rounding up the scattered cattle. Two men were repairing the corral and the barn.
The house needed a great deal of work. Windows were broken, paint had peeled, a side railing off the porch was lying in the dirt. Angela saw all of this from the outside, and shuddered to think what the inside looked like. She had her work cut out for her. But then, she had lots of time to do it in. And, she realized, she now had something useful to do, hard work that she would enjoy doing, work to keep her from brooding.
Billy Anderson, hidden behind a nearby hill, turned his horse around. He had seen Angela go inside the ranch house with the large man. Billy knew where to find her now. He rode back to town, sure that he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. His only obstacle now would be finding her alone.
Chapter 39
ANGELA finished the breakfast dishes and sat down at the kitchen table for another cup of strong black coffee. She glanced out of the window above the kitchen sink to see the sun just clearing the mountain range in the far distance. She felt strangely contented, remembering how she used to watch the sun rise on the small farm in Alabama. Her life wasn’t all that different now, except that she didn’t have any fields to plow, or worries about whether the crop this year would be a good one. The small garden she had started a month before was the only crop here.
Grant had warned her that it was ridiculous to start a garden this late in the season, what with the cold ready to set in in a few months. But she had tried anyway. She wanted fresh vegetables, or those she would jar herself, not the canned stuff she had been forced to buy from Mr. Benson’s mercantile store.
The large ranch house looked like a home now. The storeroom was stocked with supplies that would last at least three months, and Angela had started making comforters for the beds. Last week she had ordered the men to scrub down the bunkhouse, which they did only grudgingly. They had flatly refused to let her replace the flour sacks over their windows with curtains.
Most of the hired men were still rounding up cattle out on the range and in the hills. Grant said it would probably be at least another month before the herd was brought in. Then they would be branded and set to graze nearby until it was time to drive them along the Chisholm Trail to Ka
nsas. The drive would take about two months, and the cattle that hadn’t died on the way would be shipped East by rail.
Her only company was Grant, and that was only for dinner and only occasionally. Then he would leave and she would go to bed, alone. Grant had mellowed after Angela became the “boss-lady,” as he teasingly called her. They no longer fought. Nor did he ask her to marry him again. But Angela liked the change, for Grant was a friend now and she enjoyed his company.
Angela got up and walked to the front door when she heard the horse approach. She stepped out on the porch to see a young woman on a black mustang. The woman was dressed in tight breeches and an open-necked white shirt with a short brown vest. The woman looked familiar, with light auburn hair in a short pony tail, and soft blue eyes. And then Angela’s eyes widened.
“Mary Lou?”
The other woman laughed, happily surprised. “Angela, is that really you, honey? Well, I’ll be!”
They both laughed and hugged each other. Angela was thrilled to see the only schoolmate she had ever been friendly with. And Mary Lou was equally delighted. Once they were inside and coffee was poured, a swarm of questions followed.
“I’d heard in town that a woman was living out here on the JB,” Mary Lou began as soon as they were seated on the long couch, covered now in a pattern of red and yellow autumn leaves. “I just couldn’t believe it. There’s never been a woman here before, so I had to come see for myself. And now I find it’s you of all people! What are you doing here? Did you marry Bradford Maitland after all?”
Angela stiffened, humiliated by remembering what a fool she had been for so many years. “No, Bradford’s father died and left half of the ranch to me.”
“You own it? That’s wonderful—I mean, about the ranch, not about Mr. Maitland.”
“You know, I’ve been so busy fixing up the house, I completely forgot that you lived near here.”