Comanche Woman (47 page)

Long Quiet followed after them and arrived in the bedroom doorway in time to see Bay open the folds and shake the colorful quilt out across the huge bed.

“How beautiful! And it fits,” Bay said, running around the bed straightening wrinkles.

Sloan grinned. “I had to stay up late the past three nights adding more squares. I couldn’t believe the size of this bed when I saw it.”

“Yes, well, it is big all right,” Bay agreed with a grin. She met Long Quiet’s eyes and flushed at the amusement she saw in them. “I have a few things I need to finish up for supper. Want to help?”

“Sure.”

Bay led Sloan out the front door, not giving her a chance to focus on the table in the front room set for five, not three. They were in the lean-to when Cruz arrived in the carriage.

“Were you expecting more company?” Sloan asked.

“Actually, Walker invited Cruz for dinner, too,” Bay said. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“I . . . I suppose not. I owe a lot to Cruz Guerrero.” Sloan self-consciously pushed a stray hair behind her ear. She’d tied her sable hair with a ribbon at her nape, as she usually did, but wisps were constantly flying free. It had become a habit to reach up and smooth her hair when she was nervous.

“I didn’t realize you were indebted to Cruz,” Bay said to make conversation. She wanted Cruz to have time to get inside with Cisco before they left the lean-to and joined the others in the house.

“Cruz was the one who arranged for me to see Antonio one last time before he was buried. And when I decided not to keep Antonio’s child, it was Cruz . . .” Sloan’s voice was shaking, but she managed to finish, “. . . Cruz who made the arrangements for his family to take the baby.”

Bay used a pair of mitts to lift the heavy dutch oven off the fire. “I guess we can bring the plates out to serve this up whenever we’re ready to eat.”

Sloan followed Bay into the house but stopped square in the doorway at the sight that greeted her. Sitting in Cruz’s lap was a small child, a little boy with dark brown hair and sky blue eyes who looked amazingly like the man who held him. The child looked up at her and grinned, a wide smile that, together with the sparkling blue eyes and the cleft in his chin, made him look even more like Cruz.

Of course, the two Guerrero brothers had looked alike, but there was nothing of Antonio’s dark, betraying eyes in this innocent child.

“
Hola! Como esta usted?
” Cisco said.

“Speak in English,” Cruz corrected.

Agreeably, Cisco repeated his greeting to Sloan in English.

“Hello,” was all Sloan could manage in reply.

Seeing her sister’s distress, Bay urged the men to take their places at the table while she and Sloan carried plates back and forth until everyone had a serving of the hearty stew she’d prepared. Sloan took the only seat left to her, which was directly across from Cisco, whose seat had been elevated with a small stool.

Bay noticed that Cruz hadn’t taken his eyes off Sloan since she’d arrived. And if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a great deal of admiration for her sister in his piercing blue eyes. But how was that possible? Sloan had been his brother’s lover.

As the meal progressed, it became clear to Bay that not only was Cruz attracted to Sloan, but the feeling, whether Sloan knew it or not, was reciprocated. Bay found the relationship between Sloan and Cruz intriguing, since it had never occurred to her she’d be matchmaking, only that she’d be bringing Sloan together with the child she had given away. However, every attempt she made to involve Sloan and Cruz in a conversation seemed doomed to failure. At last she decided to take the bull by the horns.

“Sloan tells me you were the one who made the arrangements to provide a home for Cisco with your family,” Bay said to Cruz.

“
Sí
. Sloan and I came to an agreement that made everyone happy.”

Bay watched the blush rise on Sloan’s cheeks and wondered what exactly had been involved in that agreement.

At that moment, Cisco begged to be let down. At first Cruz tried to keep him at the table, but it soon became obvious that the rambunctious boy had ideas of his own.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Cruz said, finally standing to leave the table. “I’m afraid Cisco doesn’t ever sit still for very long.”

Bay could see what was coming. Cruz would use Cisco’s activity as an excuse to leave. She wasn’t about to let that happen, especially when Sloan hadn’t even touched the child yet. “Why don’t you and Sloan take Cisco for a walk while Walker and I clean up here? Then we can all have some dessert,” Bay said.

“You’re asking for trouble,” Long Quiet murmured in her ear.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” she whispered back.

There was nothing Sloan or Cruz could do to avoid taking the walk together without admitting they didn’t want to be alone with one another.

Sloan looked one last time at Bay but found no mercy in her sister’s determined gaze. “All right,” Sloan agreed reluctantly. “We’ll be back shortly.”

Sloan followed slightly behind Cruz, who trailed a foot or two behind Cisco, whose chubby legs were churning as he headed straight for the corral that held Golden Lady.

“
Caballo!
” Cisco yelled gleefully, dropping to his knees to wriggle under the bars of the corral.

Cruz grabbed Cisco by the waist and hauled the little boy up into his arms. “In English!” he chided.

“Why do you make him speak English?” Sloan asked when she saw the woeful look on Cisco’s face as Cruz chastised him.

“Because his mother speaks English,” Cruz replied.

Sloan met his steady gaze for a moment before she turned away, flushed because she was pleased and didn’t want to be.

Cruz put Cisco down with a warning to stay outside the corral, and when the little boy had drifted out of hearing toward a patch of wildflowers, he turned back to say, “I want to be sure that when he is old enough to make the choice himself, he can speak to his mother if he wishes to do so.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“I think there is.”

“You have no right to make assumptions about what’s important to me.”

“I have
every
right,” he retorted, “and you know it.”

Sloan stood steadfast at his censure, unable to deny his words. They had an agreement. And if the terms were not exactly to her liking, she was still bound by it. “I spoke out of turn. He speaks English very well,” she said by way of apology.

“Will you speak to your son, Sloan? Will you hold him in your arms as a mother should?”

She was trembling when she said, “You know I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would only lead to pain for me and the child.”

“The child! The child! Can you not call him by his name? He is Francisco, or Cisco if you will.”

“I . . . I thought he would look more like Antonio. But he doesn’t. He looks like you.”

Sloan met Cruz’s blue eyes and saw the desire that never failed to frighten her. He wanted her. But they had an agreement, so she was safe.

Cisco interrupted the moment of awareness between them when he called, “Come see!
Bayo!
” The little boy had lost interest in the flowers and was headed back to the corral.

“Shall we join him?” Cruz said. He reached out to take Sloan’s arm, but she flinched away. He started toward his nephew with Sloan at his side.

They walked up behind Cisco, who’d climbed up onto the lowest rail of the corral and stood stretched out with his fingers barely reaching the top rail. In his excitement at their arrival, he turned too quickly and would have fallen if Sloan hadn’t been there to rescue him.

As he tumbled backward, she caught him at the shoulders and knees so she was holding him like an infant. It was the first time she’d touched her son since the day she’d given him away, over two years before. He lay there for a moment staring into her eyes before he began struggling for a more upright, less babyish position.

Sloan accommodated him, and once she did, he seemed content to stay in her embrace. When Cruz would have taken Cisco from her, she held on. Sloan closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of her child’s arms and legs wrapped around her, the feel of his baby-soft cheek against hers, the fine curly black hair on his head tickling her chin.

She felt her throat closing in anguish and tried to squeeze back the tears forming in her eyes. She’d never forgotten or forgiven Antonio’s betrayal. Would it have been any worse to have kept this living reminder of his perfidy? The child didn’t even look like Antonio! Oh, dear God, it felt so good to hold her baby. Had she made the worst mistake of her life giving him up?

Cisco got impatient being held, and Sloan put him down to run again. This time when she met Cruz’s eyes, she found a different emotion there.

“I don’t need your pity,” she cried.

“You deserve more than my pity, Cebellina, that is true.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Sloan said. But she did want to see Cisco again. And she wasn’t sure how she could ask such a thing without giving Cruz any more encouragement to address her by intimate names like Cebellina, which he’d given her because of the sable color of her hair.

And there was the agreement. Always the agreement.

She turned to face Cruz, unaware that she’d squared her shoulders, which made her seem taller than her slight, five-foot-four-inch height. “I want to see Cisco again.”

“Of course, Cebellina. I would never keep you from your son. Do you wish to come see him at Rancho Dolorosa?”

“No, no. I can’t come to your hacienda.” Memories of the awful confrontation there with Cruz’s mother three years ago flooded her. The regal woman had stood beside Antonio’s casket and casually offered to take Sloan’s bastard child. Sloan could smell the incense burning in the dimly lit bedroom, could feel the stiffness of Antonio’s dead flesh, could taste the bile rising in her throat at the humiliating offer.

Raising stark, pain-filled eyes, she asked, “Couldn’t we meet somewhere else?”

Ready to do anything to ease her pain, Cruz offered, “Do you want me to bring him to Three Oaks?”

“No. Not at my home, either. What about here, at my sister’s home?”

“You don’t think Bay would mind?”

For the first time, a smile broke through Sloan’s strained features. “She’s the one who plotted all this in the first place. Somehow I don’t think she’ll be upset if we want to meet here.”

They stood awkwardly, both aware of the momentousness of the occasion, but neither willing to be the first to comment on it. Finally, Sloan said, “I guess we should fetch Cisco and get back to the house.”

Sloan made no move to touch Cisco when Cruz picked him up, and she was careful to keep her distance when they stepped inside the house. She shook her head ruefully at the clearly disappointed look on Bay’s face. When they sat down for dessert, she said casually, “I have a favor to ask, Bay.”

“Of course,” Bay replied. “What can I do?”

“I’d like to come visit again next Sunday.”

“You know you’re welcome anytime, Sloan.”

“Does that invitation extend to Cruz and Cisco as well?”

Bay’s eyes narrowed as she looked from Sloan to Cruz and back again. “Of course, they’re both welcome.”

Sloan burst out laughing. “You’ll be happy to know your devious little plan worked. I would like to see Cisco again, but we need a place to get together. How would you like having company for Sunday dinners for a while? I’ll be glad to help out with the cooking.”

Bay turned to Long Quiet and smiled serenely. “I’d love it.”

Everything had turned out even better than she’d hoped. It wouldn’t be long before Sloan had her child back in her arms for good.

Now, if she could only convince Long Quiet that she loved him. . . .

Chapter 24

A
FTER THEIR COMPANY LEFT
, L
ONG
Q
UIET ENCIRCLED BAY’S
waist with his arms from behind and rested his hands on her belly. “That was a good thing you did for Sloan.”