Chapter 24

Pilar and Noah rose at dawn, along with Alanza to see the relatives off. After their departure, all three want back to bed. When they all gathered later for breakfast they learned that one of the relatives had stayed behind. His name was Cristopher Vallejo, the only son of one of Alanza’s cousins. He wanted to spend some time with Doneta and had apparently received Desa’s permission at the party. When he joined them at breakfast he only had eyes for Doneta and Pilar could tell that Doneta was quietly ecstatic about his presence. Pilar didn’t know anything about him, but apparently Noah and his brothers knew him quite well.

As they began eating, Logan started things off: “So, Christopher, you’ll be with us for a few days.”

“Yes.”

Noah asked, “How old are you now?”

“Twenty-four.”

Pilar caught Doneta’s smile.

Drew added, “You do realize that before you formally court Doneta we’ll have to approve.”

Pilar hid her smile at Doneta’s surprise.

Noah said, “We are her brothers-in-law and because her father is deceased, we stand in the gap with her mother.”

Desa beamed.

Christopher didn’t and neither did Doneta.

Noah forked up some eggs. “Just wanted you to be clear on how this will work.”

“Thank you,” Christopher said.

Doneta shot Pilar a look of misery. Pilar shrugged in reply.

So, for the rest of the day, wherever Doneta and her potential beau went, Noah or one of brothers followed. When they went riding, Logan did, too. When they had lunch on the patio, Drew joined them. When they went walking, Noah trailed them like a six-foot-plus duenna.

As the women of the family relaxed together in the parlor, Desa remarked, “I had no idea they would be so protective.”

Alanza replied, “Christopher is a fine young man but he has a reputation as somewhat of a heartbreaker. The boys are just reminding him to treat Doneta with respect.”

Mariah cracked, “And Logan is practicing for when Maria comes of age.”

Billie shook her head. “All I have to say is Drew has a lot of damn nerve.”

The room erupted with laughter.

That evening, after dinner, Pilar went up to spend some time with Doneta and their mother in their suite.

Doneta complained, “Can you please do something about Noah and his brothers? With them around I’ll never get married.”

Pilar took a seat. “Weren’t you the one who said you didn’t want Noah to be any girl’s brother-in-law but yours?”

“I was obviously delusional.”

Desa said, “You’re a member of their family now, ’Neta, and they’re taking their job seriously. I’m very pleased.”

“I’m not.”

“How long will Christopher be staying?”

“The way the day went, I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t sneak away as soon as it gets dark.”

“If he does, then he isn’t the one,” Desa pointed out.

Doneta fell into a chair. “I suppose.”

“He is quite handsome,” Pilar added.

Doneta smiled. “He is indeed.”

That night as Pilar lay in bed cuddled next to Noah he asked, “How mad is Doneta?”

“Pretty mad.”

“We aren’t going to let her be courted by just anyone; she’s family now.”

“Mama explained that to her. She thinks Christopher is going to sneak away under the cover of darkness.”

Noah chuckled. “If he does then he isn’t as serious about her as he claims to be.”

“I agree.”

“I’m serious about you.”

Pilar turned to him. “Actions speak louder than words, Americano.”

“Come here,” he growled playfully.

For the next hour, he treated her to more action than words and she decided he was very serious indeed.

Monday morning, the family resumed their normal routine. With the construction in town all but completed, Max went to the sawmill to pick up some lumber for a new home he’d been asked to build. Logan rode off to meet Eli to mend fences. Billie wasn’t feeling well so Drew stayed home to help with Antonio while she rested. Doneta and Christopher sat in the parlor under the watchful eyes of Alanza and Desa. Pilar headed out to spend the day with Titan and Noah set off for town alone to retrieve his package from Walt.

On the ride to town he thought about how perfect his life seemed. He had a wife he adored, a new business enterprise, and a family filled with love and laughter. He was also pleased that Christopher hadn’t snuck off and hoped that his cousin would be all that Doneta wanted him to be.

Suddenly, he heard the crack of gunfire and pain erupted in his back. A second bullet rocked him, lower this time and he lost his grip on the reins and fell to the ground in agony. Clawing for the gun in his holster all the while trying to locate the shooter and manage the increasing pain, he managed to draw, only to have a another bullet explode in his arm and send the weapon flying. Lying there in the road, growing woozy from pain and all the blood he knew he was losing, he sucked in air and fought to get to his feet. Wobbling, he felt himself tottering on the edge of blacking out. Determined not to succumb, he willed his legs to move. He was no more than a mile from home. If he could just focus he might make it back. He took one step but the second one was his undoing and he fell face-first on the road. As he slid into the blackness, the last thing he saw was a man wearing a black hood standing over him.

Pilar was with Titan when Alanza ran up. “Noah’s horse came back without him. There’s blood all over his saddle. I’ve sent hands after Logan and Drew, but I’m going to look for him, now. I already spoke with your mother and sister.”

Her heart stopped. “I’m coming, too.”

“We’ll take the wagon, let’s go!”

They ran to the stable. A hand had the horses hitched and the wagon ready to go, so Alanza slapped down the reins and they were off.

The wagon wasn’t moving fast enough for Pilar, but rather than be upset about that, she prayed and kept her eyes peeled so they didn’t roar past him if he was lying in the vegetation lining the road.

When they found him, he was so motionless Pilar just knew he was dead. She jumped down while an equally distraught Alanza did the same and they ran to his side.

“Noah!” Pilar called. He didn’t move. “Noah!”

She glanced in horror at the blood pooled on the back of his denim shirt. “Oh my God. How many times was he shot?”

“Noah!” Alanza cried. The bloodstain was spreading. He groaned faintly, but the sound put tears of joy in their eyes.

Drew came thundering up and dismounted in a flash. “What happened!”

“He’s been shot,” Pilar said.

A grim Alanza told Drew, “Help us get him in the wagon and then ride for Dr. Lloyd. Have her meet us at the house.”

Between the three of them they managed to get him to his feet. His head hung forward and he was like dead weight. Pilar said encouragingly, “Querido, move your legs. Help us please. Just to the wagon.”

His eyes fluttered open. “Pilar?” he questioned in a ragged voice. She bit her lip, determined not to cry. His glassy eyes found Alanza. “Hurt so bad, Mama,” he whispered.

“I know, but you must walk, son,” she urged. “We have to get you home.”

Where he found the will, Pilar didn’t know, but he somehow managed to propel himself forward a tiny step at a time. He was breathing so harshly by the time they reached the wagon, she wasn’t sure he had the strength to climb in. He did, with aid from Drew, but not without crying out. A tear slid down her cheek and she dashed it away.

“We’ll find out who did this, believe that,” Drew pledged angrily. He’d found Noah’s gun, and after passing it to Pilar, he ran to his mount and rode like hell up the road towards town.

“We have to slow this bleeding,” the worried Pilar said to Alanza. Seeing nothing in the bed that could be used, Pilar stripped off her shirt waist, tore it in half, and stuffed the pieces against the wounds before easing him back down. “Okay, Alanza, go!”

With her unconscious husband’s head cradled in her lap, Pilar held on while a tight-lipped Alanza turned the wagon around and drove for home.

Dr. Renee Lloyd, who’d trained back east in Pennsylvania and had recently moved to the area, was blunt about his chances for survival. “He’s lost a significant amount of blood,” she told the assembled family. “I removed three bullets and cleaned and stitched the wounds. All we can do now is wait. Those of you who have God’s ear should start your prayers.”

Alanza offered her a room so she could stay with them and she accepted.

Logan and Eli, who’d set out to see if they could track down the person responsible, returned that afternoon with a man in the bed of the wagon.

“We found nothing but a Spanish man. Said he was thrown by his horse. I think his leg’s broken.”

“Spanish?” Pilar asked.

Dr. Lloyd asked Alanza, “Would you mind if he was brought into the house?”

“No.”

Eli and Logan had the hobbling man held up between them as they helped him inside. As soon as Pilar saw his face, she picked up Noah’s gun she’d laid on a table, and before anyone realized what she was about, she stuck the gun hard beneath the man’s chin. “So, we meet again.”

Everyone stilled and stared.

She told the wide-eyed man in a cold and deadly voice, “If you even blink I will blow your head off. Put him in a chair, Logan.”

“Pilar, I—”

“Do it, Logan! Now!” She drew the gun back but she watched the man with hate-filled eyes.

As he was helped to a chair, the room went quiet as a tomb and he viewed Pilar warily. “I don’t know who you think I am—”

“Oh I know who you are.” And to prove it, she said to him in her crone’s voice, “Who’s your master?”

It took him a moment to remember meeting her on the docks that morning so many months ago, but when he did, he began shaking.

“You remember now. I was in disguise the day we met, but you weren’t. And now, I’m going to ask you once. Did Gordonez send you to kill Noah Yates?”

She heard gasps behind her but ignored them.

“And don’t lie to me. Noah is my husband and this is his mother’s house. The men you see are his brothers.”

“I—don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She shot him in his broken leg. His scream filled the house.

Ignoring his sobs of pain and terror, she promised, “The next one will be between your legs. Did Gordonez send you to kill my husband?”

He looked around and pleaded, “Someone help me!”

No one moved.

Pilar pointed the gun at his thighs and he froze, took in her deadly purpose and spat out through his tears, “Yes, you bitch, he did! He and the Douglas woman! Don’t shoot me again, please!”

Eli said, “I’ll go for the sheriff.”

Pilar put the gun on the table and left the room to go sit with her husband.

The next few days were a living nightmare for Pilar and his family. Because of Noah’s perilous condition, the doctor didn’t want him carried all the way upstairs, so he was put in a spare bedroom on the first floor. Pilar asked to have a cot added so she wouldn’t have to sleep away from him and one was brought in. Family members took turns sitting vigil with her, including her mother and Doneta. She apologized for not being able to make the rest of their visit the merry time they’d all envisioned, but they understood and vowed to stay with her until the crisis passed. Alanza spent most of the time sitting by his bed, too, leaving only to go to her chapel to light candles and pray.

Logan sat with her for a while during the third day. Because she hadn’t left Noah’s side, she had no idea what happened after Gordonez’s man confessed, so she asked him to tell her.

“Doc Lloyd removed the bullet and set his leg. The sheriff arrived a bit after that and took him away. I checked with him yesterday. Lavinia has been arrested for attempted murder and the U.S. Marshals grabbed Gordonez just as he was boarding a ship to leave the country. He’s been charged as well.”

“May they all rot.”

“You stood up for Noah in a way that scared the hell out of everybody in the room, Pilar. Thank you for your fearlessness.” He kissed her cheek.

“You’re welcome.”

As three days turned into four, Reverend Paul Dennis from the local church stopped by to offer prayers of comfort, as did Tom and Amanda Foster, and longtime family friends Lucy Redwood and her daughter Green Feather, who’d be leaving in a few days for her second year at Hampton in Virginia. Even Felicity Deeb and her husband Jim came over—although most believed it was just Felicity’s attempt to get back into Alanza’s good graces after not being invited to the wedding or Noah and Pilar’s party due to her rudeness to Billie when they were initially introduced last year. Naomi Pearl arrived to sit, too, and to assist Bonnie with the food. Pilar and the family were grateful for the shows of support.

Noah made it through the first four nights, but Pilar worried. When he wasn’t lying as still as a corpse, he was moaning, crying out, and thrashing around. During one of the violent episodes, Drew, in an effort to keep him calm, took a fist in the jaw.

“I think he’s having one of his nightmares,” she said as Drew tenderly worked his jaw to make certain it hadn’t been broken.

“What nightmares?”

“I don’t know what they are about, but he wakes up shaking.” And angry, she reminded herself.

Drew eyed his now calm but still fretfully sleeping brother. “Has he told you he was shanghaied?”

She nodded. “But only that it happened. He hasn’t offered any details.”

“I wonder if the nightmares have anything to do with that time. Something terrible must have happened, because he was so different when he finally returned to us.”

Pilar couldn’t say.

“Let me get some ice for my jaw. I’ll owe him one for this when he’s up and around again.”

“I refuse to believe he won’t recover.”

“He will. Noah’s too ornery to die.”

She smiled for what seemed the first time since finding him facedown in the road.

“You love him, don’t you?” Drew asked her quietly.

She didn’t hesitate. “I do with my every breath.”

“He loves you, too. It’ll take more than a couple of bullets to keep a Yates man from his wife.” Drew gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Hang on. And by the way, if anything like this ever happens to me, I want you standing right next to my Billie.”

“I promise.”

“Good.” And he left her sitting by Noah’s bedside.

Drew’s prediction was right. On the morning of the fifth day, Noah opened his eyes. Pilar wanted to shout with joy but held it in so as not to scare him into a relapse. “Good morning.”

“Where am I?” he asked groggily.

“In a bedroom downstairs. You were shot by one of Gordonez’s men.” She placed her hand on his forehead. It was still feverish but not as skillet hot as it had been.

“I remember you and Mama, but not much else.” Then as if his mind finally allowed the memory to form, he went still. “I remember the pain in my back. I was shot, wasn’t I?” He looked to her as if seeking verification.

“Yes. One high, the other lower, and one in your arm.”

“Where’s the man, now?”

“In jail, along with Gordonez and Miss Lavinia Douglas. She was in on the plot as well.”

“Good, then I won’t have to hunt them down. Poor Walt must be devastated by her complicity.”

Pilar was sure he was, but she was happy. The family prayers had been answered. Noah would live.