Ty hesitated, then nodded. “Agreed.” The two men shook hands again.
“Give Graciela a chance,Señor,” Jenny said softly. “She wants to love you.” She suspected Graciela’s self-proclaimed charm had begun to dent his resistance. If he gave the child half a chance—and she saw now that he would—Graciela would have him wrapped around her little finger in no time flat.
“The child will dine tonight at the hacienda,” he announced abruptly. “One of my men will return her to the ranch before darkness.”
“Bueno, Señor,”she whispered. Before he sipped his after-dinner coffee or lit his cigar, he would belong to Graciela. Lowering her head to hide a smile, she noticed the blood dripping down her arm and off her fingertips. “Well, damn.” Glaring, she scowled into Ty’s eyes. “I have to say, cowboy, as husband material, you aren’t working out too well so far. You didn’t send me a telegram like you should have, and it’s going to be a long time before I stop being pissed about that, and now you’re standing here talking while any fool can see that I’m bleeding to death right in front of your sorry eyes. I just might have to rethink hitching up with you.”
Laughing, he lifted her in his arms and grinned down at her. “Too late. You promised to marry me, and I never saw a woman hang on a promise like you do. So, you’re stuck with me, no-good that I am.”
Smiling, she rested her head against his shoulder while he carried her to the horses. “Well, I guess I am. Course, you’re stuck with me, too. And maybe I like that a lot.”
Cradled in his arms, bleeding all over his chest, she decided this was the happiest day of her life.
Uneasy undercurrents flowed beneath the party his mother gave to celebrate Ty’s homecoming and his engagement to the woman he had thought of every minute of every day during his long difficult recovery in the Mexican village and then his journey north.
The Barrancas men and the Sanders men stayed on opposite sides of the barbecue pit, eyeing each other with suspicion and mistrust. His mother and Don Antonio exchanged guarded pleasantries and treated each other with frigidly exaggerated courtesy. Only the presence of other guests prevented the discomfort between the two families from flaring openly.
But today marked a beginning. Time would bring other gatherings and eventually pleasant encounters would outweigh the memory of past hostilities. Graciela, who ran happily from one group to the other, would draw both families toward a shared future.
When the women stole Jenny away from his side, Ty walked to the pasture fence to join Robert and looked back at all he loved best. The land, the home where he had grown to manhood. And now the woman who would soon be his wife, standing in the twilight holding the hand of a child. This precious woman and child had opened his mind, had changed his attitudes and finally his life. His chest tightened when he looked at them, and he had to swallow hard.
“She’s a fine woman,” Robert said quietly. “You’re a lucky man.”
He nodded, pride squaring his shoulders. “I’ve never known another like her.”
She looked beautiful tonight, flushed with happiness, her eyes shining when she waved to him. Her hair, below her ears now, captured the flaming light of sunset and reminded him of the feathery fire between her strong thighs. The dress she wore molded her magnificent breasts and flared over hips meant to bear a man’s babies. Someone, probably Graciela, had pinned a bouquet to the sling that cradled her wounded arm close to her body. God a’mighty, but he loved her. He couldn’t believe his good fortune that he’d found her and that she loved him.
By the end of the week she would be healed enough to travel, and he intended to take her to San Francisco, away from his mother’s watchful eyes and insistence on separate bedrooms until the wedding. He would make love to her until she was dizzy with laughter and desire and weak with satisfaction, then he would buy her a trousseau and an apricot-colored wedding gown.
“I should have gone with Marguarita to Mexico,” Robert said softly. He, too, watched Jenny. “I’ll never forgive myself that I didn’t. And the ranch—it should have been yours.”
“I’m happy with my three hundred acres.” He lit two cigars, handed one to his brother.
“I don’t love the land like you do. I never did.” Robert smoked in silence for a moment. “That’s what I can’t live with. I let her go to please Pa, maybe because I didn’t want you to have what I thought was rightfully mine.” Disgust and self-loathing twisted his mouth. “I didn’t even have the backbone to go fetch my own wife and daughter. I asked you to do it because I was ashamed to face Marguarita. And, God forgive me, a part of me is glad that I didn’t have to. How does a man live with that?”
There was no answer he could give. Robert was his brother, and he loved him. But they had never understood each other, had never walked in the same set of boots.
“You have your daughter,” he said finally. “Give her a chance, Robert. I’ve only been home three days, but I can see that you aren’t letting Graciela be part of your life. She deserves better.”
“Yes. She does,” he said, his gaze fixed on Jenny and Graciela. “I’ve done a lot of thinking in the last few days. I’ve concluded that one of the things I can do to atone for the mistakes I’ve made is give my daughter a loving family and the happiness she deserves.” He exhaled slowly, watching a curl of cigar smoke drift toward the pasture. “I’m leaving, Ty. I’m going to Mexico to say good-bye to my wife. Afterward, I think I’ll go to South America. Maybe I’ll end up in Mexico City, who knows?” He shrugged. “All I can say for sure is that I’m never coming back here.”
“And Graciela?” Ty asked sharply.
“It won’t surprise you when I ask you once again to take on my responsibilities and make them your own.”
For a moment Ty didn’t speak. He could guess what was coming, and sadly, Robert was right. It didn’t surprise him.
“The ranch should always have been yours. Now it will be. As for my daughter… you and Jenny can give her a real home. I can’t. Every time I look at her, I see Marguarita and my failure as a husband, as a father, as a man. That’s not fair to her, and it’s not something I can live with. Will you do these last things for me? If Jenny agrees, will the two of you take the ranch and my daughter and make them your own?”
“You know the answer.” He didn’t have to discuss it with Jenny. He knew how she felt.
“You found something in Mexico that changed you,” Robert said, studying Ty’s face. “Maybe I’ll find something there, too.”
Ty smoked in silence, watching Jenny across the yard, and remembering the weeks of healing in the Mexican village on the edge of the desert. By then he was a changed man, but he hadn’t yet examined those changes. With time to think, he’d realized that Mexico had birthed his father’s prejudices but had buried his own. He owed his life to the good people in that desert village. Without their kindness and generosity, without their compassion for a stranger, he would be dead. Mexico had given him his life. Mexico had given him Jenny and Graciela.
“What will you tell Graciela?”
“That I’m going away for a long time. When you judge the moment is right, tell her that I’m dead. It’s better that way.”