After escaping from the terrace to her room, Maria lay on her bed, listening to the sultry music broadcasting from her tabletop radio on her large waterfall dresser. “I hope that he turns out to be someone to watch over me,” the singer crooned. Maria thumped her pillow and tried to get comfortable. Did Benjamin Carver carry the key to her heart?
Despite the stress of being caught by her father, Maria kept reliving highlights from the terrace, like a preview at the movie theater showcasing the romantic clutch. Those kisses. She didn’t know why she wanted to kiss Benjamin. Again. Of course, she’d thought about the kisses they’d shared before she left for Europe, but time and distance had convinced her she’d misremembered their power, their effect on her.
What was it about the engineer that captivated her? When she’d returned home, after four months away, the first thing she’d done was to ask if Benjamin was staying on the estate. Learning that he was out riding Galtero land, checking the rising creeks, had set her heart clamoring. She’d spent the afternoon soaking in the bath, then primping and having her hair done. She’d asked to have one of her new Parisian gowns pressed for the night’s dinner. The pink dress flattered her olive skin and dark hair, while the cut showed off her hour-glass figure and small waist. The layers of diaphanous material, like gossamer, shimmered over a rose-colored silk sheath, and floated around her legs as she moved. She felt like a beautiful movie star wearing it. She couldn’t wait for Benjamin to see her. Surely, he’d be star-struck, realize how glamorous and grown-up she was.
Instead, he’d acted like they’d never kissed. He’d placed her in a box: Domingo Galtero’s off-limits daughter. Flirting with her mother’s older friend during dinner, the woman probably the same age as Benjamin, she reflected grumpily.
She might only be twenty, but Maria felt more mature than her cousins. She liked to read and to paint. Traveling to Europe hadn’t been about being young and free; it had been an opportunity to further her passion for art. In fact, Pierre was the only young person she’d spent any time with, and most of their interactions focused on art. Pierre hoped to segue his interest into opening an elite auction house. She wanted to develop her skills as a painter. They talked nonstop about art.
Older than most of the men who sought Maria’s company, Benjamin preferred work to social gatherings. Several times in the past, she’d see him alone in the library, bent over his maps and notes, oblivious to activities in the house. Whenever they met, he seemed intent on proving he considered her too young and frivolous. But he also liked to kiss her. She’d goaded him into losing control more than once before she left for Europe, resulting in those unsettling, unforgettable kisses.
But kisses didn’t amount to anything if a man’s intentions weren’t serious. Although Maria considered never marrying, what she really thought about was never marrying unless she fell in love. Her fascination for Benjamin, persisting as she traipsed across Europe, suggested she’d fallen for him. What she didn’t know was whether he’d also fallen for her. And more importantly, would he support her art?
The song on the radio transitioned to “Love for Sale” by Connie Russell prompting Maria to wonder what her father was offering Benjamin to coerce him into marrying his daughter. Ridiculous. It was 1938, not 1838! The storm raged outside. Rain pummeled the roof and pounded the ground outside her bedroom window, blending with the raspy recording on the airwaves, so she let herself cry a little.
From the corner of her room, the painting she’d left unfinished and draped taunted her. Under the sheet lurked the beginnings of a portrait of a man on a horse. Now she wanted to paint Benjamin on a beach, nude, with the sea behind him. But it wouldn’t be gentle like the Henry Luke Scott painting. It would be like her seascapes, wild and tumultuous, because he made her feel wild when he kissed her.
Oh! She wanted him to feel wild about her as well.
The clock on her dresser clicked over to one in the morning. She imagined her father talking to Benjamin. Domingo was old-fashioned in his attitudes towards women, evidenced by his displeasure over the painting she’d purchased. She loved her papa, but she also felt repressed by his ideas about what she could and couldn’t know or do. As much as her father had expectations about a man who kissed his daughter, he was also a ruthless landowner who kept the family wealthy through savvy land sales and management. He counted on the state and county buying tracts of land along the creeks to bolster the family fortunes.
Contrary to Benjamin’s ideas, the Galteros experienced the consequences of the depression in collapsed stocks and bonds. Right now, her father would be weighing the advantages of having the upper hand over Benjamin. He had incentive to cement their relationship. Would Benjamin think her father’s authoritative demands another sign of their privilege? Before she’d left for Europe, her parents had told her they expected her to make marriage a priority when she returned. She realized she wanted Benjamin to want to marry her.
Her heart ached at the new awareness.
Someone knocked on her door. Sighing, she rose and crossed the room to unlock and open it, not surprised to find her mother on the other side, despite the late hour.
“May I come in?” Mama asked. She didn’t seem to be angry, but Maria sensed an undercurrent of disapproval. She stepped back.
Bernice took a seat on the bench at the vanity and gestured for Maria to sit on the bed. Once she’d done so, Bernice clasped her hands and leaned forward, in a posture she assumed whenever she wanted her son’s or daughter’s confession. Maria’s brother Alonzo, who was away visiting relatives in Mexico, referred to it as a Bless me, Mother, for I have sinned moment.
“What are your feelings toward Mr. Carver?”
Maria started in surprise. She’d expected declarations and commands, not questions.
“I…I’m not sure.”
“Your father discovered you in a compromising situation. Was Mr. Carver forcing himself on you, or was the embrace mutual?”
She flushed. Her mother never talked about relations between a man and a woman.
Picking at the ruffle on her peignoir, she answered, “I kissed him.”
Her mother nodded. “I’m glad to know the man was not mistreating you.”
“You’re glad?”
The older woman smiled a bit mischievously. “Relationships between men and women are better if the man both respects and desires the woman. Especially if the man is under her spell.”
“You think Ben—Mr. Carver is under my spell?”
Her mother tilted her head thoughtfully.
“I have watched him watching you. When you are in the room, he can’t help himself. He’s enthralled.”
Pinpricks of pleasure skated over Maria’s skin at the idea of Benjamin being entranced.
“And you light up like a bare bulb when he’s around you,” her mother teased.
“Because he’s always saying something insufferable and making me so angry I could explode.”
“Insufferable? That polite, quiet man?” Bernice teased her. “You listen to me, Maria. Any suffering going on is because of what the two of you haven’t been saying.”
“Can a person be bothered by someone saying nothing? Besides, Mr. Carver isn’t quiet around me,” Maria insisted.
“No. He isn’t. Curious, for a man so taciturn.” Her mother looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Plus,” Maria complained. “I annoy him so much he can’t help himself but correct me about everything.” She wasn’t being completely fair, since Benjamin sometimes acknowledged when she made a better point than he did.
“It’s good to be around someone who challenges our ideas,” her mother said. “It makes us reconsider what we believe.”
“Like you and Papa?”
Her mother grinned. “I did talk your father into letting you go to Europe with Tia Paloma, didn’t I?”
Despite their tendency to see the world differently, Maria felt drawn to Benjamin. When he was near, she felt more alive, more inspired. After one of their past disagreements, she’d come to her bedroom and painted with a renewed sense of energy. What she intended to be a calm seascape became a frenzy of waves and looming storm clouds, shot through with the bright gold of a setting sun.
“Do you have an understanding with Pierre?” Her mother interrupted her musings.
“Pierre has hinted that I’d make a good wife for him, but he doesn’t love me,” she acknowledged, feeling relieved that it was true. “Not the way Papa loves you. As much as I enjoyed touring Europe with him—he loves art as much as I do—I don’t want to live there.” She wrinkled her nose. “You can’t tell anyone, but he’s afraid of horses.”
“God forbid!” her mother whispered in mock horror, an impish grin lighting up her eyes. Domingo prided himself on his horsemanship skills and ranching legacy. Maria knew Benjamin grew up on a ranch in Montana and rode Galtero horses while on the estate. Her father admired a man who spent the day in the saddle but dressed formally for dinner. A man like Benjamin.
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Your father has arranged your marriage to Mr. Carver, and I do not think I’ll be able to change Domingo’s mind on the matter.”
Maria nodded morosely. “I suppose he didn’t give Benjamin any choice.”
Her mother came to sit next to Maria, pulling her in for a hug.
“You father might have sped up the timeline, but I suspect you were already on the road to making a match with Mr. Carver. If we filmed your interactions and replayed them on the screen, you’d see for yourself what the rest of us do. Goodness, the chemistry between you! Why, you and Benjamin could play Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in the movies.”
Maria smiled wryly, remembering the film Possessed. “If only Benjamin adored me the way Mark did Marian.”
“Give it a little time, dear, and he will, if he doesn’t already. I might be a little biased, but you have many charms and attractions I suspect he finds impossible to resist.”
Maria hoped so. She’d withhold her judgement to see how he treated her in the morning. If he came to her right away to declare his love and affection, then she’d agree to her parents’ desires. If he avoided her, then she’d know he wasn’t as enthralled with Maria as her mother claimed, and she’d do everything possible to release them both from her father’s matrimonial plans.