“You want to take me with you?”
“It is not a difficult journey. I thought I could accomplish my business and afterward, we could spend some time together. There is a good hotel in Monterey. A few days to ourselves is not too much to ask for a man and his new bride.”
“Oh, Ramon!” She threw her arms around his neck and he held her tightly against him.
“If I had known you would be so pleased, I would have planned such a journey long ago.”
She laughed with pleasure, then thought of Two Hawks and suddenly felt guilty. “Maybe I should stay… help Two Hawks get settled. He’s suffered a terrible loss.”
“Mariano will see to the boy. It is Two Hawks’s greatest wish to be a vaquero. Your interference will not help him accomplish that goal.”
She mulled that over. She had seen the truth of that earlier in the day. Still, he was bound to be feeling alone. “I-I don’t know. He’s so young and—”
“You will have time to mother the boy before we go. After that your attention belongs to me.”
Carly grinned. “When do we leave?”
“Day after tomorrow. Two Hawks should be settled by then, and this is a matter of some importance.”
“What is it?”
His glance grew a little bit wary, darkening the gold in his eyes. “Nothing to concern yourself about. De la Guerra business, that is all.”
She ignored an unwelcome pang.I’m a de la Guerra now,she wanted to say, but in her husband’s mind, she probably never would be. “I think I’ll go on ahead,” she said, her smile a little less bright. “Blue is makingcarne asadafor supper. I’d like her to show me how to cook it.”
Ramon caught her arm as she turned to leave. “There was a time we had three serving women to prepare each meal. Perhaps that time will come again.”
Carly eased away. “It doesn’t matter to me, Ramon. As long as you are here, that is all I need to make me happy.”
Ramon’s dark head came up, surprise flaring in the ink black pupils of his eyes. Surely he knew how she felt. Then again perhaps he didn’t. If that was so, in a way she was glad. She had seen him with Isabel Montoya and Miranda Aguilar. Both of them were beautiful and obviously in love with him. It was just as obvious he didn’t love them back.
She was Ramon’s wife—but not by choice. Whatever feelings he held for her did not include love.
A soft ache rolled through her, making her heart tilt painfully inside her chest. WhatdidRamon feel for her? He wanted her, there was no doubt of that. But he had wanted other women too.He had always had a number of mistresses. How would she feel if he left her for someone else, or went back to Miranda or Isabel Montoya? Why should she believe there would never be anyone else?
Carly’s stomach knotted. There was a time she might have endured it. Now she knew that part of her would die inside, leave her less than the whole woman she had become since she had met Ramon.
For the first time it occurred to her the terrible risk she had taken in giving Ramon her heart.
The smile on her lips turned falsely bright. “You mustn’t worry about me,” she said. “I don’t mind a little hard work. You treat me well, and sleeping with you is certainly better than sleeping with Vincent Bannister.” With those cool words she left him, her stomach tied in knots, her heart aching with painful uncertainty.
But her smile remained in place. In a single instant, she had come to a decision. As much as she loved Ramon, as much as that love grew deeper every day, she couldn’t let him know. Not until she was certain she could win his love in return. Perhaps in Monterey, they would grow closer.
But in her heart, she wasn’t sure he would ever let that happen. She wasn’t sure any woman could win Ramon’s love.
Especially not a woman who wasn’t of pure Spanish blood.
***
For the next two days, Carly shoved her fears aside and immersed herself in preparing for the journey. She had never been to the old Spanish settlement of Monterey. To be traveling there with Ramon, to be alone with him for almost a week, seemed the height of self-indulgence. She was a little bit worried about Two Hawks, but the boy seemed to be adjusting as well as could be expected and getting along with the men. BlueBlanket hovered over him like a hen with her chick, and there were several other Indians on the rancho; one even worked as a vaquero.
Still, Two Hawks was different here than he had been in his village. He was quiet and withdrawn most of the time. Except for the moments he spent with little Bajito, he wasn’t at all the happy carefree child he had been in the mountains. Though he was just as endearing. He was always there to lend a hand when it was needed—and he was always hungry. She wondered how long he had gone without eating on his journey from the village for it seemed the boy could never get enough to fill him up.
Which was why she wasn’t surprised when one of Tia Teresa’s wild blackberry pies came up missing.
“I cannot imagine what could have happened,” Tia said fretfully to Anna. “One minute it was sitting on the window sill out in thecocina,the next it was gone.”
“What was gone?” Carly asked, carrying one of Ramon’s white shirts into thesala,along with a needle and thread.