She had never questioned her attraction to Cruz. But she had done everything in her power not to fall in love with him.
First, she knew the power that would give him: He would not have to command—she would be more than willing to obey. She did not think she could ever learn to trust him enough to give him such a hold on her.
And second, as irrational as she knew it was—and that was what really galled her—she could not help fearing that if she let herself love him, he would die and leave her alone.
So where did that leave her? Unsettled. Unsure. And undecided.
Cruz returned to find the three women had packed away the picnic supplies and were ready to return home. Sloan refused to meet Cruz’s eyes, and merely agreed with him when he suggested they should leave.
“We must do this again sometime soon,” Cruz said, with forced cheerfulness.
Sloan answered with the ambivalence she had been feeling since the game of tag. “If I’m still at Dolorosa, it might be fun.”
Cruz’s lips pressed together in disapproval, but Sloan noticed he didn’t contradict her. Too bad, she thought. She was itching for a good fight.
S
LOAN NORMALLY ROSE WITH THE COCK
’
S CROW
and was out in the fields by first light. So she felt chagrined when she awoke on her second day at the Guerrero hacienda and realized daybreak had found her abed. She wasn’t sure what had finally awakened her until she saw the shadowy form sitting beside her on the bed.
She jerked at the sheets to cover herself as she hurriedly sat up. “What are you doing here?”
“I have duties I must see to, and I did not want to leave without speaking with you.”
Sloan had never been more aware of Cruz’s claim on her than now, when he made no apology for observing her in her sleep. “You’re here now. Talk.”
She was startled when he grasped her shoulders and forced her to lie back down. She met his eyes, then let her gaze drop to the long, tanned fingers that touched her skin. Her gaze rose again to meet his, the demand for release there for him to read. He ignored it.
Cruz couldn’t believe the seductive picture she made with her glorious sable hair scattered in abandon on the pillow. She had never looked more like his heart’s desire.
Sloan tensed when Cruz braced his palms on either side of her head, effectively imprisoning her without even laying a hand on her. Her flesh shimmered in excitement. Her blood went streaking through her veins. She felt as though he had taken ropes and spread-eagled her helplessly before him. Her whole body tautened, struggling against invisible bonds, waiting with delicious urgency for what was to come.
“I have made arrangements for you to rest today,” he said, his voice rich and deep.
“I’m not tired.”
“The dark circles under your eyes say otherwise.”
She turned her face away to escape his piercing gaze.
“Look at me.” When she didn’t respond, he reached out to cup her chin with his hand and gently turned her face toward him.
“Humor me. Rest today.”
“And tomorrow?”
“We will speak of that tomorrow.”
“What will you be doing today?” Sloan asked.
“The fall roundup has begun. I ride with my vaqueros.”
“I want to come along.”
“It is not done.” At Sloan’s frown, he added, “A lady does not ride with the vaqueros on Dolorosa.”
Sloan heard the censure in his voice. It was exactly the kind of rein she had expected him to exert on her behavior, but it distressed her to feel its tug so soon. She had trouble keeping the asperity from her voice. “With whom does a lady ride?”
“With her brother or her father . . . or her husband.”
“So you’re saying that unless you’re my . . . husband . . . I can’t ride with you?”
He smiled gently. “That is the way of it.”
“That’s an old-fashioned attitude that doesn’t belong in Texas.”
“In Texas, as elsewhere, a woman obeys her man—as she should.”
“You’re not my man!” Sloan snapped.
“Ah, Cebellina, and whose fault is that?”
The tension crackled between them. She denied his sensual challenge by refusing to acknowledge it. “I need something to keep me busy. I’m used to working. I can’t simply lie abed all day and do nothing. I want to come with you on the roundup.”
“No.”
Sloan looked into Cruz’s deep blue eyes and saw that on this, he would not compromise. Her chin jutted mulishly. “You can’t stop me.”
Before she could react, his fingers had laced with hers above her head, and he had covered her with his body. She stiffened, fighting her body’s riotous reaction to his—tender breasts swollen against a hard chest, a concave belly arching to male hips, slender thighs pressed to corded muscles of steel.
Her voice bit like a whip, hard and sharp. “Let me go.”
“You will stay at the hacienda?”
Sloan’s lip curled derisively. “Is this the way you treat all your guests? Am I a prisoner now?” She watched as chagrin altered his stony countenance, then saw a wry smile forming.
“No one else would dare to provoke me the way you do.”
Cruz caressed the calluses on her hands, recognizing them as the signs of a life spent laboring as no woman should have to do. He wanted to cosset her, to treat her like a queen. But she wanted none of it. He could not help admiring her for her spirit, but at the same time he shook his head in dismay at her willfulness. Perhaps it would not be so bad to let her come with him . . . another time.
He released her hands but did not free her completely. He felt her shiver as his hands moved slowly down her upraised arms to her shoulders, until he finally curled one hand around her nape. Absently, his fingers threaded through the dark, silky hair.
“How can I convince you to stay here? Shall I say it would please me if you do? I do not understand what makes you want to do a man’s job. Is it not enough simply to be a beautiful woman?”
“No. And I’m not beautiful.”
His hands framed her face to prevent her from looking away from him. “Oh, but you are. Very beautiful.” His thumb brushed her full lips, then traced the arch of her brow. He caressed her high cheekbone, and admired the softness of her skin.
Sloan fought against the tremors that shook her as Cruz’s hands worked their magic. Tonio had never made her feel like this. She was strung tight as a bow with anticipation. She could not move, could not break the contact between them. Her hands were fisted above her head. It was the only way she could resist touching him back.
“You are very tempting, Cebellina,” he murmured.
When she opened her mouth to speak, his fingertips stopped her. “Also very stubborn.” He smiled at her, his eyes lambent with suppressed desire. “I cannot let you come with me on the roundup, but if you must work, then perhaps Mamá can find something for you to do here at the hacienda. Although you must know, there is no need for you to do anything.”
“All right. Fine. I’ll stay here and work in the house.”
Desperate to escape Cruz’s sensual onslaught before she succumbed to it, Sloan would have agreed to anything. The way Cruz made her feel . . . She could not understand or explain it; she could only fight it. Allowing these feelings to grow could only lead to more pain when she returned to Three Oaks . . . as she would. As she must.
When his eyes locked on her mouth, she thought he was going to kiss her. She held her breath as he hesitated, suddenly afraid he would not.
His hooded eyes focused on her lips, his nostrils flared for the scent of her. And then his mouth covered hers, their lips clinging for too brief a moment.
Slowly, as though he were tearing himself away and it was a painful thing, he released his hold on her and stood up.
“I will see you at supper tonight,” he said. Then he was gone.
Sloan lay still, waiting for the trembling to stop. She tried not to think about what had happened between her and Cruz, but avoiding the truth wouldn’t change it. She had wanted him to kiss her. She had wanted to kiss him back. How traitorous her body was! It refused to acknowledge the danger Cruz represented. She would have to be more careful. She would have to try harder to stay out of his way. And she would have to make it clear he was no longer welcome in her bedroom.
Sloan exhaled as the tension eased from her body and shook her head in disgust. She had actually agreed to do housework! Stephen usually took care of such matters at Three Oaks. Yet housework would be something to do to pass the time until Cruz returned.
Sloan had no wish to approach Doña Lucia, conscious as she was of the woman’s dislike of her, but she knew herself well enough to realize that she would find staying idle all day a worse penance than any chore a vindictive Doña Lucia could find for her.
In deference to where she was, Sloan put on a simple long-sleeved brown calico dress that she had brought with her in her small carpetbag. The dress buttoned all the way to the neck and had a simple white butterfly collar that she adorned with the one piece of jewelry she owned, a cameo brooch that had belonged to her mother.
Sloan so seldom wore a dress that the strangeness of her attire emphasized her predicament. She endured the awkwardness because she had no other choice. She didn’t like being in corners, and she was determined to find a way out of this one.
Sloan had just put on her shoes when she heard a knock on the door. Before she could respond, Doña Lucia stepped inside.
“My son tells me you want something to do to keep you busy today, Señorita Stewart.”
“I would rather be busy than not,” Sloan replied honestly.
“I have servants to do the work in the house.”
It was plain to Sloan that Doña Lucia not only didn’t want her help, she didn’t want her in the house. She bit her tongue on a sharp reply and said, “I’ll be glad to do anything.”
“Very well. I have asked Josefa to take the rugs outside today and beat them clean. If you would like to help her, you are welcome to do so.”
“Thanks.” Sloan thought she saw a smile appear on Doña Lucia’s face, but if it had been there, it was gone too quickly to comment upon.
Doña Lucia started to leave the room but suddenly stopped and angled her head back toward Sloan. “Stay away from Cisco. Seeing you, talking with you, will only confuse him.”
Sloan, who had fostered no intention of seeking out her son, retorted, “I’ll see him if I please.”
Doña Lucia’s face contorted with fury. As suddenly as she had lost control, she regained it and her features resumed their regal mien. The mellifluous voice gave no evidence of anger when the Spanish woman spoke.
“It is respect for my son that makes me hold my tongue when I wish to speak plainly to you. I do not understand why Cruz has invited you to stay in this house. But he has asked me to extend my courtesy to you. As I honored his father’s wishes when he was patrón, so do I honor my son’s.
“But do not mistake me. I will do what I must to protect Cisco and to see that Señorita Hidalgo is not embarrassed by your presence here.”
The woman was gone before Sloan could respond. What could she have said? Doña Lucia’s animosity was something she would have to bear for however long she stayed at Dolorosa—which she hoped wouldn’t be more than a couple of weeks.
She had been thinking a lot about how she could change Rip’s mind, and the solution that seemed simplest was to stay away from Three Oaks and let him try to manage the harvest on his own. Whether Rip realized it or not, for the past few years she had taken a great deal of the responsibility for Three Oaks on her shoulders. Since his stroke, she had carried it all.
Of course, he could hire an overseer to replace her. But Three Oaks had suffered financial losses for two years in a row, and Rip could ill afford the expense. No. If she just stayed away for a couple of weeks, Rip was bound to discover that he needed her far more than he had ever realized.
He wouldn’t like admitting he had been wrong, but she would make it easier by resisting whatever urge she felt to say “I told you so” when he asked her to come home.
The only thing wrong with such a plan was that it meant she would have to find a way to survive the scorpions and rattlers at Dolorosa until Rip became suitably enlightened. As Sloan was discovering, that wasn’t turning out to be as easy as it might sound.
Sloan convinced Josefa that she wanted to work alone and took advantage of the chore Doña Lucia had given her to beat out her frustration. The job was a dirty one, and before long, her hair and clothing were covered with a fine layer of dust.
Even though it was fall, the sun was warm, and she felt rivulets of sweat trickling between her breasts and down the small of her back. It occurred to her that this work would have been better done in trousers and a shirt. So much for maintaining the facade of femininity.
She was nearly finished when Josefa sought her out. “It is time for the noon meal, señorita.”
“Can you bring me something out here?”
“Oh no, señorita. You are a guest. You must eat at the big table.”
Sloan sighed and did her best to repair the damages. She rinsed her hands and face in the cool water of the tile fountain in the courtyard, then brushed off her dress and hair as best she could. There was nothing she could do about the rings of sweat beneath her arms.
“Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered.
She bit back an even stronger epithet when she saw Tomasita sitting quietly at the table, her shiny, blue-black hair in a neat bun, her pastel green dress an immaculate confection of layered silk and almond lace that fitted her like a glove through the bodice and then flared in gathers at the waist.
Tomasita smiled brightly at Sloan when she saw her. “I looked for you this morning after breakfast, but Doña Lucia told me you had decided to work outside.”
“Uh, yes. I did.” Sloan avoided looking at Doña Lucia, knowing she couldn’t keep a straight face if she did. Before Sloan got a chance to sit down, there was an interruption.
One of Cruz’s vaqueros, a short man with a leathery face that matched the chaparejos he wore to protect his legs from brush, stood with his sombrero in hand at the door to the dining room. He spoke in rapid Spanish to Doña Lucia.