Franny pondered the past week—her first as a wife—while she put away the breakfast dishes Sunday before Mass. She was enjoying a rare moment alone while Felipe fed the stock.
They worked side by side during the day in perfect harmony. And slept alone, two rooms apart, every night.
After only one night with him, her own bed was too lonely, too cold. It got lonelier and colder with each new day. But she never once went to him.
Yet he woke early each morning to watch as she schooled her horses in the chill of the dawn. In complete silence, his arms braced against the fence rail, he would stand there, Trixie propped up on the fence next to him.
When she was done, he’d disappear into the house, preparing breakfast while she put up her horses. She still wasn’t quite over her astonishment that he cooked.
Then they would carry on their day with hardly a word between them.
Every day had passed like that.
Today they would meet the family at Mass before attending Sunday dinner at the rancho.
Tomorrow, before the sun rose, Juan would leave.
Franny hadn’t tried to convince him to stay, although she thought it foolish of him to leave. No, Catarina had been the one doing the cajoling and nagging. Not that any of it had changed Juan’s mind.
For once, he was resolved on something. If only the resolution hadn’t been to abandon the family and the rancho.
All Franny could do was plan how she could help keep her husband’s and her father’s rancho running properly. She hadn’t quite figured out how yet. But she wasn’t done thinking.
The last plate clinked against its neighbors as she set it in the cupboard. She yawned widely, only just catching it behind her hand. Sometimes she felt so tired these days, as if she could lie down and sleep for an entire week. They were working hard during the day, yes, but not that hard. Perhaps she had a head cold coming on.
Her husband came in as she was taking off her apron and pondering her strange attacks of exhaustion.
“I’ll change and then we’ll leave,” he said. “You look nice.” His eyes ran up and down her, just long enough to taunt, but not long enough to be lingering.
Her skin warmed under his gaze. “Thank you.”
He took one last look, a longer, more encompassing one, then disappeared down the hall.
She ran shaky hands down her torso, trying to quell the tremors he’d set off.
In many ways, the fact that he didn’t touch her was more tantalizing, more lust-inducing, than if he’d been pinning her to the wall every night. Because he gave her those looks, and she took them back to her lonely bed and imagined.
Imagined all kinds of things, as her hands, in a poor imitation of his, ran along her body.
She pushed her palms hard into her belly, the muscle yielding only so far. If she just pushed hard enough, this need for him, this unreciprocated yearning, would go away. It had to. She would make it go away.
He came back, dressed in his wedding suit, looking just as fine as he had on their wedding day. The ache of her yearning twisted into a gentler affection.
His tie was a little crooked, and without thinking she reached up to straighten it. A queer look crossed his face as she did, the same one he’d worn when they were dancing at the wedding. Something deep waited on his tongue, but his lips wouldn’t allow it to pass.
“What?” she asked softly.
“Thank you,” he said just as softly. He offered her his arm, the first time he’d ever done such a thing for her. “Shall we go?”
She slowly set her hand on his forearm—the fabric of his suit refinement itself under her fingertips. “Yes.”
When they arrived at the church, the entire family was subdued. They remained that way throughout Mass and Sunday dinner, all of them looking more often than usual at Juan.
When dinner was finished and the table cleared, they left the children with their grandparents, and all the siblings and their spouses went for a walk by the creek.
Isabel and Sebastian would be leaving tomorrow as well, having done their duty of attending the wedding and seeing Juan off.
The sun was making its way to its bed behind the mountains, tipping everything in gold. The birds sang a little more softly, the branches of the redshank nodded a little more gently, and their little knot of glumness walked with slow, shuffling feet.
Catarina was sniffing into a handkerchief as she leaned on her husband’s arm. “Juan, surely you don’t have to leave,” she was saying. “You could do something here, or in the valley, besides running the rancho.”
“Let the man be,” Jace said gruffly.
Isabel was on Sebastian’s arm. Both of her sisters were as close to their husbands as could be. Felipe walked a few paces behind Franny, clearly uninterested in being any closer to her.
She didn’t need him by her side. But it might have been nice if he’d wanted to be there.
Juan stared off at the horizon. He hadn’t looked this thoughtful in… well, in forever. Maybe leaving the ranch would be good for him.
Too bad he’d leave behind more work for their father.
“Where are you headed first?” Felipe asked.
“San Francisco,” Juan answered. “I’ll stay with Isabel and Sebastian for a bit, see the city. From there, I can catch a boat anywhere. Probably Mexico first, maybe see some of Baja California. I’ve always wanted to visit Argentina too. See the gauchos.”
Franny might like to see some gauchos herself. But not enough to leave Cabrillo.
“Not Europe?” Sebastian asked.
Juan shook his head, his smile rueful. “I’m not the kind to appreciate Europe.”
“I can’t believe the three of you will drive that hired car down the hill,” Franny said. It was hard enough driving a team and wagon down the mountain, but a car?
“We drove it up,” Sebastian said, “and that’s the only way to get it down.”
Sometimes Franny wasn’t sure if Sebastian was making a joke or not. He was so dry. With him being in San Francisco, she’d never had the opportunity to figure him out.
“When will you be back?” Catarina asked, her sniffles slowing. Perhaps she’d finally used up all her tears.
“Not for at least a year, likely longer. There’s quite a bit I want to see, and I’m not returning until I’ve have my fill.”
Everyone fell silent. Years with her brother gone God only knew where. It was a frightening prospect. And what would happen to the rancho?
She’d have to speak with Felipe about it. No doubt he was as worried as she was.
“Will you write?” Franny asked.
“Of course,” Juan answered. “Although you can’t read.”
She punched him playfully on the arm. “I can so. I just don’t do it very often.” She’d miss this easy teasing with her brother.
“Don’t worry,” Juan said, “I’ll write care of Felipe, and he’ll read them out loud to you. Won’t tax your brain so much that way.”
She knew Juan meant it as a joke, but she didn’t find it amusing. Would Felipe even want to read the letters to her?
“I’ll read every one to her.”
Her heart skittered at the sound of her husband’s voice.
“You be sure to take care of her,” Juan said.
“Of course I will,” Felipe replied, as if he couldn’t do anything but.
He’d married her, promised to always catch her, promised to care for her… but wouldn’t walk next to her.
“That goes for you two as well,” her brother said to her sisters’ husbands.
Sebastian gave the impression of rolling his eyes without actually moving them. “Don’t worry about us,” he said. “You try not to do anything stupid. Like an extralegal hanging.”
“Or punching a stranger for speaking with your sister,” Jace added.
Juan had the grace to blush. “I’ve done some pretty foolish things in the past. And that’s part of the reason why I’m leaving. I need that distance for everyone to see me as I am now. So that I can see myself as I am now. Or as I will be once I return.”
Franny frowned. That didn’t make a lick of sense. How could a person be anything than what they already were?
“That’s smart of you,” said Isabel.
“Well, if you think it’s smart, than it must be,” Juan replied.
Everyone laughed softly at that, but they were sad laughs. Franny certainly had to force hers past the lump in her throat.
“Come back to us,” Franny found herself whispering fiercely. The rancho needed him. Their family needed him.
“I will,” Juan promised.
They walked along in silence for a time after that. The mustard plants lining the trail nodded sleepily in the breeze, while the jimsonweeds silently blew the white trumpets of their flowers.
No matter how the others drew near or moved away from her in the natural rhythms of an easy Sunday walk, Felipe never got closer than ten feet.
She told herself that she liked walking by herself, setting her own pace, never knocking into someone else. But for all her admonishments, her arm tingled with the memory from this morning, their arms entwined, their bodies nudging each other as they’d walked together.
While she was indulging in silly daydreams about her husband, her sisters somehow maneuvered the three of them to the tail end of the group.
Catarina was on her left, Isabel on her right—surrounded on all sides. They shared that older-sister look of theirs, and Franny groaned.
Wonderful—another lecture on marriage was coming.
“Is everything all right so far?” Catarina asked.
No. “Yes.” The word was as tightly clenched as her fists were against her thighs. It was none of Catarina’s business, anyway.
Her sisters shared another arch look. If they kept this up, Franny was going to tell the both of them where they could go, concerned or not.
“Well, then, that’s good.” Catarina sounded unconvinced. “And how is the housekeeping going? Do you need any help? I can show you—”
“No, I don’t need any help.” No need to mention that she hadn’t done any housekeeping yet.
“Are you letting the dogs inside?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t do that.” Here it was—Catarina’s need to manage everything. “They’ll track fur and dirt everywhere.”
Franny pushed out her lower lip. “It’s my house and I’ll do as I like.”
“I hope your cooking has been improving.”
“I haven’t been cooking.”
“Then how have you been eating?” Catarina made it sound as if they were starving.
“We manage.”
“Well, you’ll have to start managing better. Have you done any baking? Mending? Laundry?”
Franny sighed. “No.” She’d gone into this marriage to get away from all that. She didn’t need Catarina shoving it all back into her face.
“You’ll have to start doing all of that.” Lord, but Catarina’s bossy tone grated on a person’s ears.
“Maybe I’ll hire someone.”
Catarina gasped as if Franny had suggested something perverse. “You can’t!”
“Why not? Isabel has three maids. And a cook.”
Isabel hid a smile behind her hand.
“That’s San Francisco,” Catarina said. “This is Cabrillo. It’s different here.”
“Let her do as she likes,” Isabel finally put in. “Franny, if you say you’re happy, I believe you.”
“Thank you, Isabel,” Franny said, giving Catarina a pointed look. “And we’re—” She stopped. She couldn’t quite say happy. That was too much of a lie.
She looked at the back of her husband as he walked ahead, that insistent pressure rising in her belly in time with the roll of his hips.
No, happy wasn’t right at all.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Jace asked Felipe as he craned his head around to peep at the women behind them.
“Likely my marriage.” Felipe hoped her sisters weren’t putting any more ideas in Franny’s head about preventatives. He’d barely survived their last conversation about them.
Jace rubbed the back of his neck. “How, uh, how are things going?”
How to answer that? Felipe could try the truth: I spend all day working beside her and all night awake thinking of her. I’ll likely die of thwarted lust before the year is out.
“Fine.”
Or he could lie through his teeth.
“Franny’s not irritating you too much?” Jace’s smile was one of obvious relief. No doubt he thought Felipe and Franny were settling nicely into marriage and soon enough would be as content as he and Catarina were.
Felipe didn’t feel like disabusing him. No need to draw his friend into his tangled emotions.
“No,” he answered. His feelings for her went quite beyond irritation and straight into unending compulsion.
“Well, that’s good.” Jace snuck another look behind them. “Although your wife is going to irritate you sometimes. That’s a fact of life.”
“My wife never irritates me,” Sebastian offered, as dryly as he might have commented on the weather. Not that Felipe had ever heard him comment on the weather. In the few times Sebastian had visited from San Francisco, he’d been fairly closed-mouthed.
“Good for you,” Jace said, giving Sebastian a disbelieving glance the other man missed.
The women caught up with them then, Isabel taking Sebastian’s arm and Franny and Jace heading off with Juan. Felipe saw his chance to speak with Catarina alone and thank her for caring for his family’s plot.
But before he could begin, she started in. “Franny told me she isn’t doing any of the housekeeping.” She frowned. “What does she do all day then?”
He hesitated. How much had Franny told her sister of their marriage? “Franny is going to be the overseer at our place. Did she tell you that?”
“What? No, she never said any such thing. How odd.” She made it sound as if he’d suggested his dogs could speak. “Was that her idea? It must have been.”
“It was.” Catarina’s disbelief grated on him. It wasn’t so odd, Franny being an overseer.
“I wish you wouldn’t let her have her way like Papa always did. You’re the only one who ever spoke sense to Franny, and I hope that won’t change.”
It sounded so reasonable—exactly what he might have said himself, before his marriage. Yet his temper flared at the words.
“Was I speaking sense to her?” It came out harsher than he’d meant. “Or was it just plain meanness?”
Catarina frowned at him. “It was mean to let her run wild for so long,” she said. “Now she’s not fit for anything.”
Catarina was wrong. And where was her loyalty to her sister? “She’s fit to be a rancher.”
“A rancher? She’s a woman. I presume you’ve discovered that by now?”
Twin splotches of heat hit his cheeks. “She’s done a good job so far.”
“If she’s out riding with the cattle, who will keep the house? Or will you put on an apron and do it?”
“We haven’t figured that out yet.” He’d never had the full force of Catarina’s managing tendencies turned on him before, but he’d heard Juan and Franny complain about it often enough. It was more annoying than he would have suspected.
“What have the two of you been eating?”
She wanted an accounting of their meals? “Leftover food from the wedding and whatever I can cook from a tin.”
“And the laundry?” Catarina ticked off. “And the mending? And the gardening?”
“We’ll manage,” he said grimly. Please let her have run out of complaints about the housekeeping.
“It’s your house, so I suppose you can run it as you see fit,” she sniffed. “Or not run it, as it were.”
Lord, if this was the kind of bossiness Franny had to deal with in the house, no wonder she wanted to spend all her time out of doors.
But Catarina had done him a kindness and he still needed to thank her for it.
“Catarina,” he said, trying to steer her away from her sister’s housekeeping, or lack of it, “I wanted to say thank you for tending the graves. I know I ought to have done it, and I appreciate what you did.”
“Me?” She blinked. “But I never tended your family plot. It was Franny.”
“Franny?” In his shock, he made it sound as if her name was wholly unfamiliar. As if he hadn’t been saying it almost his entire life.
“Yes, she’s been doing it for… years now, I suppose. You’ll have to ask her how long. You never noticed?”
“No,” he said. “I never did.” Hollowness began to spread throughout him.
He’d assumed for so long that she was thoughtless, that she did as she pleased—and only as she’d pleased.
But she’d been tending those graves. For years.
“I’m surprised, since you two spend so much time together,” Catarina said.
“Yes, just the two of us.” His throat went tight. “Together all the time.” He looked over at Franny, standing close to her brother and laughing at something he’d said. She was in her Sunday best, and even in her finery—her hair tamed, her figure subdued by a corset—she looked beautiful enough to hurt his eyes.
Or his heart.
He watched her the entire way home, her back strong and her gait easy. Watched her as she said her final goodbyes to Juan and Isabel, and noted the tears in her eyes. Tears that she never let fall. God forbid anyone caught her crying.
Watched her as the two of them rode side by side back to their home, her mien subdued, pensive.
When they arrived, he paused in the front doorway, watching her move through the living room as she lit the lamps with easy familiarity.
This was her home now. She knew the shape of it, the contours, almost as well as he did.
The ghosts who’d lived here had grown dimmer over the past week, chased away by Franny bringing light to every corner of the house.
Instead of seeing his mother standing in that very corner, washing the windows, he saw Franny as well, laughing out the window at the antics of her dog.
Instead of his sisters playing with their dolls in the kitchen, Franny was there too, eating cherries with gusto.
And instead of his father sitting in that rocker, whittling in the evening hours with his mother beside him, it was also him in that chair, Franny’s chair next to his.
His family was still there, but they were no longer the only presence. Franny had come in as well.
She raised an eyebrow when she saw him in the doorway. “Aren’t you coming in?”
He stepped inside, never looking away from her as he shut the door behind him, the snap of it echoing throughout the room.
“Sit with me for a bit?” he asked. Perhaps they might again attempt an easy evening together.
“Certainly.” She sat, then reached for the book of mythology sitting next to his chair, idly flipping through it.
She stopped at Orpheus and Eurydice, but only stared blankly at the page.
“Don’t you want to read it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I already know this story.”
They rocked together as she stared out at nothing, the book open on her lap and her face remarkably clear. Almost statuelike in its stillness.
She was thinking on something. The story, perhaps. He wanted to know what thoughts made her look so.
“I never understood,” he said, “why he looked. If it were me, I’d never look back.”
She rocked in silence for a few moments more, moving to the same rhythm of the clock as it counted off the passing seconds. “I wouldn’t have gone in the first place,” she said.
“What?” To not have gone, to not even try to save your beloved… He couldn’t fathom it.
“I wouldn’t have gone to retrieve her.” Clear and firm. No doubt at all. “Let the dead be dead.”
His chest ached as if she’d rung him like a bell, grief resonating through his bones. He rubbed at his breastbone in an attempt to silence that terrible vibration. “How—” He swallowed, tried again. “How long have you been tending to them?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “About five years now. I went out with Catarina to the orchard one day and saw they needed some attention. So I gave it to them.”
He pressed his lips hard together. “Because of my mother?”
“Oh, I didn’t do it for her. I think she’s past caring about that, don’t you?” As she turned to him, her gaze flashed bright as a blade aimed straight for his heart. “I did it for you.”
All of him shuddered under that, his heart most of all. All this time, he’d thought she hadn’t cared.
She’d cared more than he’d ever known. More than then he deserved, given how he’d treated her.
He blinked and blinked and blinked, but the sting wouldn’t leave his eyes. “Thank you.” The words were small and strained, the same as his soul felt. “I ought to have been doing it. But thank you.”
She ran her fingers along the spine of the book, head bent as if she couldn’t meet his gaze. “You can take over now, if you like.” A quaver threaded the words. “If not, I’ll keep on.”
“I can do it.” And he would. It was his duty, not hers.
“As you like.” She rose, keeping her face averted. “Goodnight, then. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Wait.”
She turned to him, a question in her expression. As if he might be proposing something mundane—something mercantile.
But what he felt for her was far from mundane. Or mercantile. He was afraid to put a name to these feelings—he only knew that he couldn’t be alone in that bed tonight.
Couldn’t be without her by his side.
“Go put on your nightgown,” he said gently.
Her face screwed up with puzzlement. “All right,” she said, but she didn’t move to obey him.
“Go,” he nudged.
She turned and disappeared down the hall.
He was waiting outside her room when she came out, covered from collar to toe in the white cotton of her nightgown. He had yet to see her fully unclothed, had yet to linger over every inch of her.
Did he want that?
The base part of him said yes—demanded that it happen right this very moment.
The fear within him said no, never.
But he couldn’t let himself be ruled by baseness or fear. He held out a hand to her.
She took it with perfect trust, the weight of her hand in his more potent than a fist to the gut. He did not deserve this trust from her. Even so, he tugged her toward his room. Without releasing her hand, he turned down the sheets of his bed.
“Go lie down,” he said.
She did it without hesitation. Lord, what wouldn’t she do for him?
He shucked himself down to his smalls, then lay beside her, wrapping her in his arms, savoring the scent of her—sun and dust and work, more seductive on her than any perfume from France. She was solid and wiry in his arms—no excess flesh on her. Only bone and muscle and sinew, wrapped around a ball of energy.
“Felipe?” The quaver in her voice had returned. “Are you certain?”
Certain? God, no, he was on the far side of certain with this. This was standing on a temblor, never knowing when you were about to be knocked to the ground.
“Yes,” he whispered against her hair. “Now go to sleep.”
With a wriggle of her hips, she nestled closer to him. He tightened his arm, bringing every inch of them flush against each other.
They fell asleep joined like that. Together.