Franny slipped into the barn, pausing as her vision adjusted to the dimness within. The scents of hay and horses and leather crept into her nose. Motes danced in the sunbeams as the light pushed its way into the dark interior.
She found her father sitting on a hay bale, his head in his hands and his shoulders slumped. Something moved in her gut at the sight, wiggling and sharp. She didn’t think she could convince him of the wisdom in Juan’s leaving—she wasn’t certain it was wise herself—but she could bring him round on the idea of marriage.
Her and Felipe’s marriage.
Didn’t that make her heart dance like a spooked horse? What had happened last night—it had been…
Well, there wasn’t a word in her memory to encompass the whole. She couldn’t think of any words that began to get at its parts.
She frowned and shook her head. Now was not the time to be thinking on what marriage would or would not be like—she had to make the union come about first.
She knelt next to her father, taking one of his hands in her own. She could draw from memory the scars laced along the backs of them.
“Papa?” She sent his name out tentatively, uncertain of her reception.
“Ah, Francisca.” He squeezed her hand and the callouses scraped across her skin like a caress from sandpaper.
He wasn’t angry then—simply resigned. And sad.
They sat in silence, the rustling of the horses in their boxes the only sign that the world kept moving. With her papa’s head bent low and her kneeling before him, anyone coming across them might think her father was giving her his blessing.
She would have his blessing. She had only to convince him, and if there was one thing in this world she was accomplished at, it was convincing her father.
“I want to marry him, you know.” Her words were soft, meant to be swallowed by the gloom of the barn just after they passed her father’s ears.
“Your mother is correct.” Ah, her father’s favorite phrase. “I coddled you too much. But from the first moment you were laid in my arms, you were so like myself. Stubborn, determined.”
She smiled. Of course she was so like the person she loved most in this world. “Some say I’m too stubborn. That my mulishness gets me into trouble.”
Felipe said that exact thing, quite often.
But not her father.
“I couldn’t say no to you.” He raised his head, his gaze soft with recollections. “You wanted to ride as soon as you could walk, so I taught you. You wanted to follow at my heels as I ran the rancho, so I let you.”
“You allowed me freedoms other young ladies could only dream of.” She squeezed his hands with the force of her gratitude. “It was the finest gift you could have given me.” No matter what he said about the marriage, she would always love him for that.
“You might think so, but young ladies do not work as cowhands. They keep house.”
Her throat went tight. He knew she couldn’t keep house. “If I lock myself in that house, I will surely die. I know this, Papa, I do. This marriage with Felipe will save me from that.”
“How?”
“He…” Admitting their full bargain would be impossible, but she had to tell him some of it. “I’ll be the foreman. We’ll work out the housekeeping somehow.”
“Francisca.” A note of warning. “A woman as a foreman?”
“You know I can.” She rose, pulling her hands from his. Lord, all those years of working alongside him, and still he questioned her abilities. How could he be so like her, yet not immediately understand her?
He tilted his head to look up at her. “It isn’t a question of what you can do, but what is appropriate.”
He’d never fretted over appropriate with her before. “Just say yes and let Felipe and me worry about that.”
“Why Felipe? You two have only ever fought. How do you feel for him, truly?”
How to answer that? Desire, yearning, need—those were not things she could speak of with her father.
It was easier to think of how he felt about her: irritated, frustrated, angry.
“I’m satisfied with him.” True enough. “I bring my one hundred head and I’ll be foreman of his ranch. Together, we will rebuild the Rancho Ortega. What other man would allow such a thing?”
“You speak of cattle, foremen, and ranchos. Nothing of affection. This is what I feared.”
“How could I not feel affection for Felipe? He’s always been by my side.” And he always would be, once they were married. Something beyond affection or satisfaction or desire moved within her at the thought.
Her father watched her for a few moments more. Perhaps that emotion showed on her face, because he eventually gave a sigh of capitulation. “If this is what you wish, then I agree. But it seems too soon for you to leave us.”
She laughed. Too soon? She was two and twenty—her friends and schoolmates were long married. “We’ll only be down the road. And we will be happy together, I swear it.”
Oh, she’d done it—she’d convinced her father. The marriage business would be easy after all this. Just wait until she found Felipe and told him. And Juan too…
She sobered. “Papa? You don’t think Juan will be gone for always, do you?”
“No.” But it was slow, uncertain. “I thought it was a fine gift, to give him the running of the ranch. A father doesn’t like to have such things thrown back in his face.”
She would have never refused such a thing. She would have held it as close to her as—well, as close as she had ever held anything. Juan would be a fool to leave the rancho forever.
Trouble was, Juan played the fool quite well at times.
“I think he’ll return,” she said, with a confidence she only half felt.
Her father patted her arm. “You’re likely correct.” He braced his hands on his knees and hoisted himself off the hay bale, nearly groaning as he did so. It pained her to see.
“So this is the young man whom you choose?” He took her arm. “I must admit it is strange to me.”
“Yes. Strange or not, I choose him.” After all, this marriage had been her idea.
“Let’s go find Felipe and inform him that his suit is accepted. And then we must find your mother and tell her all that’s passed this morning.”
Her muscles tensed, pulling her back ever so slightly.
Telling her mother she’d been intimate with Felipe before the wedding was not something she wished to do.
Selfish. Headstrong. What Franny had done last night was all of that and more. She didn’t regret it—but she didn’t want to tell her mother about it.
Her mother would know, though. She saw everything.
Her father caught her hesitation. “Don’t fret—we won’t give your mother all the particulars,” he assured her. “And let’s find Felipe.”
She squared her shoulders. It didn’t matter what her mother said—she was to be married.
She was going to be free.
Felipe sat idly in the saddle, his horse on a slack rein and picking its own way down the road. He was passing the orchard his mother had planted years ago, now cared for by Catarina. The trees were heavy with blooms and a few already had fruit.
The bit jangled as the horse played with it, the birds chattering and the brush in the full green rush of spring. The scent of flowers was strong enough to make him light-headed at times, the atmosphere more scent than air.
Or perhaps it was his hours-old engagement that was making him light-headed.
Franny had wanted to come with him this afternoon to see the house, but her mother had kept her back. To plan the wedding, the Señora had said. Franny’s sour expression told him what she thought of that.
For half a moment he’d thought to stay behind, to be by her side as she dealt with her mother. But that was foolishness. The Señora had accepted the news as calmly as she did everything else, congratulating them both on the news.
There was nothing to defend Franny from there.
She was going to be his foreman, not a true wife. If they stuck to a mercantile marriage, he’d be perfectly safe from any deeper, more entangling emotions.
He turned down the drive and the house came into sight.
He wasn’t safe at all.
It was weathered and sagging and looked about how his soul felt these days. Once in loving, sparkling repair, it had been given over to rot for lack of anyone’s care.
Lack of his care, to be exact.
He tied his gelding to the porch rail, knowing the barn was no fit place for the horse. His dogs sat solemnly next to the gelding without prompting, almost disappearing in the riot of mustard weed that was climbing over the porch.
A properly cared-for yard would have none of those weeds.
He started up the front steps. As he climbed, the steps bowed sickeningly under his feet, but held by some miracle.
He walked into a tomb.
Empty, echoing, strung with cobwebs like a kind of macabre bunting—his skin tried to crawl from his bones at the sight of all the barrenness. Once it had been filled with furniture, furnishings, a family.
Now it held nothing.
His footsteps echoed along the bare walls as he walked past the front room and the kitchen. He was the only living thing there, even the insects turned to dried, dead husks.
He continued on down the hallway to the bedrooms, knowing they would be empty, but needing to see anyway.
When he reached his sisters’ room, he set his hand on the door handle. And waited.
Their room had always been a riot of color, thank to the clothes and paper dolls and books scattered everywhere.
It would be empty now, and gray. Nothing of them behind that door.
He released the handle. Seeing that room without any of his sisters’ presence remaining—he couldn’t handle the memories. Not yet.
He went on toward his room, hastily added on when he’d appeared and announced himself as the only male among three sisters. No need to try the handle—the door opened with a slight push of his fingers.
Paint peeled from the walls, as if trying to escape the room. The windowpane was shattered, glass littering the floor. The frame itself was warped and cracked, from water damage and neglect.
His mother had hung curtains as blue as a jay’s wing in that window. Those curtains had danced on warm days. He could remember her sewing them, her foot working the pedal, her mouth tipped in a gentle smile.
He spun and shut the door hard behind him.
Only his parents’ room left to see now.
He stared at the door, hung half off the hinges as if drunk on melancholy.
He couldn’t open that door either. He peered through the crack instead.
His last memory in this house was of this room, of being carried to his parents’ bed when his fever had come on. The children had been collected in there, to make it easier for his poor mother to nurse them. As youthfully self-absorbed as he’d been, he’d never realized how sick his parents had been.
Now, in his memories, he could see the signs. The flush in his mother’s face, the glassiness of his father’s eyes, their breaths labored and harsh.
He breathed just as harshly now, the hall seeming to shrink in on him. There was nothing behind that door, he knew… And yet, there was everything behind that door. Everything he couldn’t bear to face.
He turned, went for the front door. His limbs were cold, sluggish, and he feared if he didn’t escape, he might never be able to leave.
He’d wanted this first viewing to be by himself, but now there was no one to save him from the memories closing in.
A shadow moved through front room. His heart sounded loud in his ears and for one mad moment, he imagined it to be a specter. This house held so many, he wouldn’t be surprised if one did appear.
But specters didn’t have boot heels that thumped like a military march, nor penny-bright eyes that snagged on his.
A warm gladness poured through him as she moved through that empty front room.
You don’t have to do this alone; she’ll be here with you.
He took a moment to watch her and to collect himself. “It’s a little run-down,” he said by way of a greeting.
She laughed as she went round the living room, just as he’d wanted her to. That laugh warmed him. “It’s got four walls and a roof. What more does a house need?”
“More than this.”
“When was the last time you were here?” The keenness of her gaze had his skin prickling. “Actually here in the house, not just passing by?”
“About… two years ago.” He didn’t want to talk about how long the house had sat like this. “How did you escape the wedding planning?”
She set her hand on the dusty mantel, and he wished he could take that hand in his. “You know me.” Her smile sparkled in the gloom of the house. “I’m good at running off.”
Her limbs were loose, her movements easy—as if she hadn’t a care in the world. He couldn’t be as easy as she, not in this house. And not after last night’s events.
“Are you sore today?” As if that wasn’t the most excruciating question he’d ever had to ask. But he had to know.
“What?” She blinked in confusion. “Oh.” Her face flushed. “Um, no. Well, a tiny bit.”
Wonderful. He’d hurt her. Sourness rose in his belly. And there was another delicate matter to deal with from that incident. “You, uh, you might be… expecting after that.”
“Oh, no, my courses came this morning.”
Heat splashed over his face. “That might have been from… from last night.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? I don’t think so.”
He wished he could be half as certain as she was.
“But you could use preventatives,” she went on. “Not that we should do that again. But it’s always wise to be prepared.”
His mouth fell open.
“We should have used one last night,” she said, “but I wasn’t expecting that.” She peered at his face. “Don’t worry, I know you’re squeamish about these things.”
“These things?” His voice was harsh as it scraped along his throat. What things did she know about?
“I’ll ask Catarina about it, just in case.”
“Catarina?” Lord above, if she mentioned this to her sister…
“You’re right, I’d better ask Isabel.” As if she could simply bring it up over tea. “Catarina has gotten funny about things like that ever since she got married. And Isabel, being in San Francisco, probably knows about all the latest things.”
Oh yes, he could see Isabel walking through the Barbary Coast, asking the working girls about all the latest on preventatives.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Hard. “Please. Stop. Talking.” How was a man supposed to remain sane under this onslaught?
“All right,” she said, soft and wobbly as dish of gelatin.
“Let’s go look at the barn.” Anything to get away from this conversation.
He went for the door without waiting for her. But she was right behind, her boots loud and almost joyous in the echoing room.
While she’d been talking with him, distracting him with all that preventative business, being in this house had almost been bearable. Almost.
He walked out to find Trixie racing in mad circles round the house, nothing more than a black streak of insanity. His own dogs watched with resignation.
Franny came out, set two fingers to her tongue, and whistled louder and longer than he’d ever managed. Instantly, Trixie was by her side, tongue lolling.
“You ought to sell some of your dogs to Papa,” Franny said as she looked out over the yard.
“Or I could gift him a few dogs in thanks for not shooting me this morning.”
“Papa came around, just like I said he would. What objections could he really have to me marrying you? Why, you’re just as fine as Jace or Sebastian. Finer even!”
He jerked in surprise, as if she’d taken her spurs to his side. “Finer than those two? How so?” It might be vanity on his part, but he did want to know. Specifically, how she thought he was better than them.
“Well, you raise the best cattle dogs. You’re a damn fine foreman. And you’re the kindest person I know. Even if you’re not always kind to me.” Her eyes shimmered like coins at the bottom of a fountain, his heart sparking in time with that light. “That’s why I came to you last night. I couldn’t be stuck in the house with my mother, doing ordinary things. I would die from the inside out. I knew you would help me. No matter how much you dislike me.”
“I don’t dislike you.” She frustrated him, she infuriated him, but it wasn’t dislike. It was quite far from dislike.
His breath caught in his throat. God help him.
She raised an eyebrow, oblivious to his panic. “Well, you certainly act like you do.”
“Would I be marrying you if I disliked you?” His voice was rougher, lower than he’d expected. “Would I have done what we did last night if I disliked you?”
She took a step toward him, coming near enough for him to reach out and catch her. His fingers itched to do just that. Along with other, more indecent parts of himself.
Just when that itch grew too terrible to bear, just when he raised his hands to clasp her waist and draw her to him, she stepped back. And another step back, as if trying to put distance between herself and a coiled rattler.
Perhaps it was for the best. Because if she looked at him like she had a moment ago, if she’d pressed her lips to his like she had last night…he’d have been lost all over again.
“Come on. Let’s go to the barn.” He didn’t mean to sound so angry, but he was too tied up to control his voice any better.
He didn’t bother to see if she followed him—he knew she was behind him, the fall of her feet, the rustle of her breath, the shiver of her vitality in the air all pressed against him, radiating those things onto him as surely as if she were the sun. Even with his eyes closed he knew where the sun was in the sky—and so he sensed her.
The barn was in worse shape than the house, but it was certainly less painful to walk through—less choked with grief and memories. He could at least breathe here.
“Do you think my father will let me keep my horses?”
He turned to find her looking at the stalls with an uncertain expression. “Didn’t you ask him?”
She shook her head. “I suppose I have to ask your permission now as well.” Her jaw set as she stared back at him.
Of course she would turn mulish. “How many horses do you have now?”
“Six. Two of the mares are in foal.”
“So, eight, really.” Why couldn’t she just have said that to begin with?
“You know I’ll make decent cow horses out of them.” Her tone took on a familiar razor edge.
“Yes, several years from now.” And now his had a familiar edge as well.
“Fine,” she sniped. “I’ll pay their feed bill. Or cut hay myself.”
He rubbed at his brow. Here they were again, snarling at each other. Rather, she was snarling at him—he didn’t think he’d said anything he that could be construed as mean. “Franny, of course you can keep all your horses. And you don’t have to feed them yourself. We’ll be married, even if it won’t be that kind of married. We’re partners in this.”
She tilted her head. “Partners?”
“Exactly so.”
She lifted her chin. “Does that mean no more complaining I can’t do this or that? No more ordering me to the house? Does it mean you’ll actually trust me to do the same things you can?”
Steel bands wrapped around his chest. She’d trapped him with his own words, like the fine huntress she was.
“Well?” she demanded. “You wouldn’t say such things to a male foreman.”
She was correct; he wouldn’t have said any of those things to a man. But it wasn’t a man he was—
He squashed the rest of that thought like a centipede under his boot heel.
Danger. That way lies danger.
“Fine.” She wanted him to stop worrying over her? Well, then, he would. “I’ll treat you the same as any man I might hire for the job.”
He refrained from pointing out that he never would have done with a man what he’d done with her last night.
Or any other woman, for that matter.
She strode over to him, every line of her a study in determination. “Will you shake on it?” She shoved her hand at him, bold as a man.
He stared at it. Her hand in his, his thumb rubbing across those knuckles.
He wrapped his fingers around hers. Her palm was nearly as rough as his, calloused by the same work he did each day, her skin warm.
He shook her hand, once, twice—as hard as he would have a man’s—then dropped it.
“Partners,” she said, firm, defiant.
“Partners,” he answered, softer than her. Almost as soft as that little bit of her where her jaw met her ear—
He turned from her, looking through the double doors that were open to all of creation on this spring day. “Let’s start figuring what work the barn will need, and I’ll get supplies tomorrow.”
“And the house?”
“I’ll do that with your brother and Jace. I don’t need your help.”
“If that’s what you want.”
It was what he wanted. No matter how it gladdened him to see her there today, how she made it easy to be there—he couldn’t have her there as he came back to this house. Not at first.
She made him feel things he couldn’t suppress. Things he couldn’t always control.
He’d need all his control to be back in that house.