“Uncles,” she inserted firmly. “We may as well take the time to get to know them.” Her voice softened. “They do look a lot like Dad.” And Rafael was gone. From her sight. Gone. Her body ached, was sore in places she hadn’t known about, reminding her continually of his possession. Her heart pounded a drumbeat in her ears, in her throat. Grief welled up, a tight pressure in her chest. She wanted to believe it was grief over the burned stable, over the loss of an animal, but she feared it was her separation from Rafael De La Cruz.
7
P
aul rubbed a
hand over his face and looked at the black streaks left behind on his fingers. “I’m going to shower first. If I’m going to spend time with relatives, I’d rather do it looking halfway decent. You know how Dad was about details.”
“Never forget the little things.” They both repeated the creed together, then laughed. The sound was astonishing in the midst of the smoky smell of their ruined stable. “Don’t worry so much.” Paul leaned down and unexpectedly gave her a kiss on the top of her head. “We’ll beat this just like we do everything.”
Colby watched him disappear into the house, her heart filled with love for him. He didn’t realize the implications of both incidents on the ranch. All the small annoying things like disappearing tools could be put down to petty larceny or misplaced implements. The broken gate and downed fences might have been because they were old. She could write things off as coincidence. But Pete’s murder and someone burning their stable to the ground could not be written off that easily. Somehow they were connected. And that meant that Paul and Ginny could be in danger.
She moved down the steps, her gaze on the brothers from Brazil. They were talking quietly to each other, still some
distance away. Without Rafael’s protection she could hear them clearly and she unashamedly eavesdropped. These men had come thousands of miles to claim Paul and Ginny, to take possession of the ranch. They did not believe a woman should be running such a business. She knew nothing about them, and only God knew whether they were capable of the terrible atrocities committed on her property. Both spoke in Portuguese, but Colby had learned the language from her stepfather.
It was the one called Juan who spoke. “I have never seen him like this before. Not with anyone else. Nicolas and Rafael never tolerate being away from our homeland long. And he thanked me for my help. He put his arm around my shoulders. I do not recall a single instance when he did such a thing in my lifetime.”
“He did the same to me,” Julio answered. “Something is different here and I think it is Colby. It is not right, Juan. They need the freedom of the rain forest, away from so many people. Nicolas has gone to the hacienda to be alone, but Rafael will not leave now.” Julio’s voice betrayed his worry.
“I do not know what is happening, but he is different here. He is not so cold, yet he is more dangerous. And I think it is Colby also. There will be blood and death if this is not resolved. We must be vigilant day and night now,” Juan added.
Colby paused on the steps, her fingers wrapped tightly around the railing until her knuckles turned white. Blood and death? Were they referring to Rafael? Was he so capable of bringing about blood and death that they were obviously worried? She let her breath out slowly. Rafael was cursed with unexpected talents just as she had been. The special gifts weren’t always easy to control, especially when surrounded by too many people. Emotions played a tremendous part. She had “done things” before, when she was much younger. She had been upset and started fires more than once just by staring angrily at something too long. She had been responsible for the terrible landslide that had blocked the entrance to the mine and trapped her for so many hours. There had been accidents, mistakes, and they were truly frightening.
Colby could understand why Rafael didn’t want to be around people and why he preferred the freedom of the wilds.
The continual bombardment of smells and sounds on heightened senses was difficult and wearing. She loved the mountains and needed the solace of them. His brother, Nicolas, must have the same talents. Both of them seemed remarkably cold and ruthless when she’d first met them. She didn’t like Nicolas, yet Rafael . . . She walked over to inspect the horses. Her heart did a funny little flip. Heat moved through her body. She wouldn’t make up her mind about him yet.
She thought of the way his eyes looked at her with such intense hunger. He hadn’t seemed cold then. And there was the way he had been with Ginny. Gentle and caring. Protective even. Rafael had healing abilities. He had worked on the animals after she had. His hands had been quick and sure, the horses calm around him as he whispered to them. But then again, Rafael could look as cold as ice, as intimidating as a jungle cat stalking prey.
Colby examined the horses again. The burns looked better and the horses were less restless. All of them still showed signs of trauma, shaking, sweating even, but none of them showed signs of smoke inhalation. She spent an hour with them, seeing to the wounds and soothing them. The danger of infection was high and she made a mental note to call the vet out a second time just to make certain they were all doing well. The animals were used to her and trusted her. It was obvious they were comforted by her presence.
Colby was aware of the Chevez brothers working at feeding and watering the animals. They were hard workers, not sitting on the porch sullenly because they had been ordered to stay and watch over the children. They seemed powerful in their own right, yet they did what Rafael commanded. Why would they choose to do what he said? Was it of their own free will? Were they afraid of him?
Colby went to the corral to saddle one of her working horses. She did it with the ease of long practice, but she was so tired, she would have used telekinesis if the Chevez brothers hadn’t been so closely observing her. Juan wandered over to lean his weight casually against the gate. Up close he looked so much like Armando she was afraid if she looked at him she might cry. She was becoming altogether too emotional. It wasn’t safe.
“What can I do for you?” She didn’t let her eyes meet his.
“Which horse shall I use?” He asked it gently.
His accent and voice were very like her stepfather’s. She looked away from him over the back of her horse to the shadowy foothills. They were dark even with the sun shining. “Are you planning on following me?”
“
Sim, senhorita—
yes. It might not be safe to go riding. Don Rafael has said you are under his protection. This is no small thing. In any case, my brother’s
família
is my
família.
I wish to see to your safety.”
Colby thought about arguing but one glance at his set features told her it wouldn’t make any difference, he would simply follow her. Besides, she was curious. She gestured toward a paint. “He’s a steady horse, and there’s a saddle in the barn you can use.” It had been her father’s saddle, but she didn’t tell him that. She hadn’t thought about all the tack they had lost, including Ginny’s custom-made saddle. Ginny hadn’t said a word. How would Colby ever replace that saddle?
Colby pushed away the need to explode with pain and sorrow.
Who had done this?
Rafael had been in the tack room with her. And King, Ginny’s dog. Why hadn’t he barked? She had sent him to the barn to sleep. She had seen him earlier in the morning watching the firefighters.
He hadn’t barked when Rafael had come to visit her.
She distinctly remembered that. Cautiously she pulled her hat lower over her eyes and took a quick look at Julio. Presumably he was staying to look after the children. Did she trust him?
While Juan was saddling the paint, she swung down and hurried across the yard back into the house. Paul and Ginny had gone back to bed and were asleep, King curled up on Ginny’s bed. Colby issued a firm command to the dog to guard them. The border collie was well trained and she knew it would alert them should Julio come near the house. At the last minute she strapped on the holster she often used when riding the fences. Sometimes cattle stepped in ground squirrel holes and broke a leg, other times rattlesnakes bit them. She needed to carry the gun for emergencies. Catching up her rifle she hurried back to her horse. This time Juan was ready and in the saddle. He looked born to ride, easy, natural, a fluid rider. He raised his eyebrow when he saw her rifle but said nothing.
“My brother was an excellent horseman,” he said, easily reading the sorrow in her eyes when she watched the way he moved in the saddle. “Even as a young man he could outride most of us.”
Colby looked away from him quickly, swallowing the lump in her throat. “He used to put me in front of him when I was just a toddler and we’d ride all over the ranch together. He taught me to ride.”
“You perform the same ritual as he always did before mounting your horse.” Juan smiled in memory. “We used to tease him over it. He always patted the horse’s neck and ran his hand along the chest and front legs, patted a second time, then swung on, most of the time without even using the stirrups.”
Colby felt the memory rising, vivid and painful. Armando had been an amazing horseman and he loved the animals. He’d instilled that same love in Colby. “He was incredible with the horses,” she said. “I’ve never seen anyone better.”
“He would want his children to know his
família,
” Juan said, his voice gentle.
Colby leaned down to open a gate. “What did you expect, that I would just turn my brother and sister over to you? Perfect strangers? Is it so wrong of me not to allow strangers to drag my family off to a foreign country? Tell me, would you have done so?”
Juan pushed his hat further back on his head. “No,
senhorita,
I would never give my
família
over to those I did not know. Armando wrote to us on his deathbed to come for his children.
All
of his children. It was his dying wish that you would come to us. My brother made it abundantly clear that he considered you his daughter and his heir. We came for all of you.”
“You came five years too late. I wrote to your family when the accident occurred and no one responded. And three years ago I wrote the letter again when he was on his deathbed. There wasn’t a single sentence in it about me.” Her green eyes touched his face, skittered away. She wished there had been something in the letter, but she had written it word for word as Armando had dictated it to her. She didn’t want Juan to see her disappointment over not being adopted by Armando, or the anger she felt at Juan’s lying, reflected on her transparent face.
The sun was beginning to make its way through the thick bank of clouds shrouding the mountains and, for some reason, Colby’s eyes were ultrasensitive. The light stabbed at her so that she pulled the brim of her hat lower to shadow her face. Even so, her eyes hurt, burning in the morning sun.
Juan swung the gate closed after them. “Armando must have added to the letter. His hand was shaky and we would not have known but for his crest.”
“He couldn’t have. He could hardly move at the end.” Colby said it stiffly, not looking at him. Her stepfather had asked her to leave the letter on his nightstand so he could look it over in case there was something more to be said. The next morning, the letter was folded neatly and Colby had inserted it into the envelope and sent it off. She wanted Juan to be telling the truth, but she was afraid if Armando hadn’t included her it would break her heart, and if he had, she might cry a river of tears.
“Did you ever know Armando to tell you a lie?” Juan asked it quietly while the leather of their saddles creaked and the horses’ hooves chinked against rock. A melody she found soothing, one she remembered from her childhood with her stepfather.
Colby shook her head mutely.
“I would not dishonor my brother’s memory by telling you a lie either.”
Colby rode for a few minutes in silence, turning the information over in her mind. “That’s why your grandfather refused to answer him, isn’t it?” she guessed shrewdly. “He didn’t have me put it in the letter myself, because he didn’t want me to know your family rejected him because of me.”
“Do not mistake that it was
a família.
”
She looked at him then, her green eyes alive with a fierce pride. “The De La Cruz family, then? They didn’t want me to ruin their spotless reputation with my lack of a name?”
Juan sighed softly. “The De La Cruz brothers are not interested in such things. They do not concern themselves with the lives of others. This is solely the responsibility of my
avô.
He did not tell my father or any of us of Armando’s letters. Had he done so, we would have come at once. I cannot tell you how much sorrow this has caused our
família.
”
“Armando was happy with my mother,” Colby told him, leading the way through a narrow canyon that emptied out into the flats where most of her cattle were spread out. She rode straight to the small barn where the hay was stored and urged her mount inside. The sun was really bothering her eyes now, and the shadows of the barn provided some relief. She must have suffered some damage in the fire without realizing it. Even her skin seemed ultrasensitive, burning fiercely wherever the sunlight touched her.
Juan followed her, silently cursing his grandfather’s snobbery. “I am certain it is so. He would never have stayed in another country away from his
família
had he not found something better.”
Colby dismounted, the movement swift and fluid despite the fact that she was short. She moved efficiently, with no wasted motion. Juan had to admire her abilities as she began to toss the flakes of hay. “Where does the De La Cruz family fit into all this?” Colby asked it with studied casualness.
There was a small telling silence. Colby knew the man was choosing his words carefully as he worked beside her. “Their
família
is ancient, as is ours. The two families have been intertwined for hundreds of years. Who knows how far back it goes? We look after their estates, and they look after us. We have existed that way for so long we have become one
família.
”