Page 117 of Native Hawk
“Xongqot,Cat, what does it say?”
She translated it for Drew. “To my daughter Catalina, to say I am displeased does not begin to describe my emotions. When I discovered you had run away, my heart was broken. Your dear mother, with her dying breath, demanded I find you a good husband. To my sorrow, you left before I could fulfill her wishes. I am sorry you found life here so unbearable. But now that you have found a husband, I hope you find pleasure in your new country. I am pleased that you have found your way and married a person of noble blood who will—”
“Wait. What? Noble blood? Where did he get that idea?”
She shrugged. “I may have told him your grandfather was a lord.”
He winced at her lie and then reconsidered. “Well, thatistrue…sorta.”
She scanned the letter, looking for where she left off. “…a person of noble blood who will provide for you and give you many children.”
“Many?” Drew asked. “How many?”
She ignored him and kept translating. “But what I am most displeased about is that I was not invited to the wedding.” Her voice caught on the touching words.
Drew put his arm around her, and she felt her eyes filling with tears. She didn’t know why, but lately she got teary all the time.
She cleared her throat, sniffed, and continued. “I hope I am not too late to give you a wedding gift, a gift so you will never forget your home. One day I will come to California. I hope I will be welcome at your husband’s estate. With loving regards…”
“Estate?”
That did make her laugh just a little through her tears.
Drew let out a low whistle. “I’m gonna have to work a lot harder if I’m gonna have that estate built by the time he comes to visit.”
Catalina grinned up at him. He winked back. She didn’t need an estate, and he knew it.
“What’s in the package?” he asked.
She removed a crumpled wad of papers, noting with amusement that they were pages from her old fashion magazines. Then she looked at the bundle below, wrapped in parchment and tied with twine. She snipped the string and peeled back the parchment.
Beneath it was a bundle of gauze.
She gasped. She knew what it was.
Carefully, she loosened the parchment to uncover at least a dozen black lumps the size of a baby’s fist.
“Coal?” Drew guessed.
“Tartufi!”she cried.
She burst into tears then—ridiculous, howling sobs of joy that startled Drew and made her wonder at her own sanity.
Of course, her weeping was about more than thetartufi.It was about making peace with her father, keeping her ties with the place of her birth while finding a new home in a new country.
Drew folded her in his arms, catching her sobs and letting her drench his shirt with her tears. She wept also for being blessed with an incredible husband who had given her a baby and bought her a beautiful sewing machine so she could do what she loved best.
When she ran out of tears, she pulled away to wipe her face with her hands. Sniffling, she told Drew, “You must try one.”
“I don’t know. The way you’re carryin’ on,” he said with a wink, “I’m beginnin’ to think they might be as dangerous as opium.”
She smiled. “You have a knife?”
He pulled out his Bowie knife and handed it to her, handle first.
She picked up one of the black lumps and carried it on a piece of parchment to the marble-top dresser. Then she carefully cut two slices no thicker than a coin.
“You sure about this?” he asked as he took the slice, eyeing it as if it might contain poison.
