Her Inheritance Forever Page 5

  Both Benito and Fernando glared at her. Benito growled, “We will not submit to having guards at the doors of our bedrooms. We are guests, your family, not common criminals.”

  Alandra had already considered this objection. But she would not have these strangers prowling through her house while she slept. “You have not convinced me that we are related.” They started to object and she raised a hand. She did not have the energy for a skirmish. “I have another reason for exercising caution. Earlier this week I was kidnapped by Comanches.”

  Isabella gasped. The father and son exchanged horrified glances. “Señorita, you have been compromised,” Isabella whispered.

  Alandra flushed. She held her anger on a tight rein and forced herself to say with disdain, “Your attitude shows that you do not understand living in Texas. Tío Quinn,” she said, emphasizing the only family tie she did acknowledge, “rescued me in less than a day and brought me safely home.”

  “But if people find out,” Isabella said, still looking and sounding aghast, “your reputation would be ruined.”

  Bristling at this insult, Alandra glared at the woman. “My reputation is my business. If I say nothing happened to ‘compromise’ me, the ranchers around will believe me. The only reason I have brought this up is that having been kidnapped just a few days before you appeared on my land has made me suspicious of strangers. You understand then why I must be cautious.”

  “No, I don’t understand,” Fernando said vehemently. “What do Comanches have to do with us?”

  “Because a captured Comanche said that a Mexican with gray hair”—Alandra glanced at Benito’s graying hair—“had promised them guns and powder if they kidnapped me and delivered me south of the Nueces River.”

  “And you are accusing me of doing that?” Benito demanded, his face flushing in anger.

  “No,” Alandra said coolly, “I am merely explaining why I am very cautious about strangers—”

  “We are your family,” Fernando insisted.

  “You are strangers. You have shown me no proof of relationship. So if being guarded is unpalatable to you, you may leave. If you stay, you will suffer a guard at your door and window. The choice is yours.” She stared at them, waiting for their decision. She knew what it would be. But she wished, so wished, that they would instead leave in a huff.

  After a brief staring contest, the three of them turned and entered the two guest rooms, Isabella to one and the men to the other.

  “Buenos noches,” Alandra bid them. None of them returned her farewell, but shut the doors in the faces of the guards.

  Alandra was drained, flattened. After instructing Ramirez, who had followed her to post guards on her door and windows too, she turned toward her own bedroom on the other side of the darkened casa. And behind her, at her own request, walked her own guard. She could hardly believe that in her own home she couldn’t feel safe without an armed guard at both her door and window. She had thought she would feel better, safer, coming home. But to the threat of further danger from a mysterious Mexican with gray hair was now added peril and uncertainty from inside her own hacienda.

  She bid the guard a polite good-night, went into her room and closed the door behind her. She walked to the window and opening the shutters slightly glanced outside. Her guard there touched his hat brim in deference to her. She nodded her thanks and pulled the shutters tight against the cool night air. Though she wondered if she would get any sleep, she let her maid come in and help her dress for the night.

  When the girl left, Alandra sat on the side of her bed, listening to the sounds of the night. In equal amounts, fatigue and a nervous restlessness tugged at her. Though feeling exhausted, she could not lie down and rest. Instead, she rose and, barefoot, paced the cool tiled floor.

  Why had Scully gone scouting around when new trouble might have come right to her front door? But though she wished that he were there, she decided against sending for him. Her vaqueros were sufficient to protect her. And what could he do that they could not? Still, she longed for someone to back her up. Though she felt this was a weakness, she couldn’t deny it.

  The next morning, Alandra found the three visitors already at the breakfast table overlooking the courtyard. She longed for the coming spring and the warm days of taking breakfast in the courtyard. Maria, the housekeeper, poured her coffee as Alandra helped herself to the covered plates on the sideboard and then sat at the head of the table. “I hope that you passed a quiet restful night.”

  Fernando pulled back his lips in a dismal attempt at a smile. “Except for the guards at the window and door, our night passed comfortably.”

  Alandra merely nodded and began eating.

  “I do not know how you bear living in a place where savages still roam free,” the lady said with a shudder.

  “Usually the Comanches do not bother me or my nearest neighbors, the Quinns. These were renegades, and my friends came after me and brought me home.” Alandra shrugged.

  Benito smiled in a way that made her even more cautious than she already was. “We are hoping that you will show us around your prosperous ranch today.”

  Alandra paused, her fork suspended in midair. “Really? I thought you were on your way to San Antonio to take care of some business. I do not want to keep you.”

  “We have been traveling for over a week, mi prima,” Fernando replied. “We are much fatigued and wish to rest a day. And as my father said, we would like to tour your rancho.”

  Alandra eyed them. Something was going on here beyond what was being stated. If they thought they were being subtle and putting her at ease, they were quite mistaken. All her inner alarm bells were ringing in warning.

  She nodded. “If you wish to stay another day, of course, you may. As long as you realize that you will be accompanied wherever you go and will be guarded at night.”

  Benito shook his head at the other two, who smiled as if she were amusingly eccentric. “As you wish,” her uncle agreed.

  She concentrated on eating breakfast. And since she added nothing to the conversation other than assent or dissent, they soon rose from the table. “With your permission—” Fernando bowed to her with blatant mockery. “—we will go outside and take a look at your fine horses.”

  Alandra nodded. Two of her vaqueros stood at the door, waited for the Mexicans to pass them, then followed the three out through the courtyard. Alandra sipped her strong sweet coffee and nibbled at her eggs with green chilies. Her so-called relatives mocked her even as they tried to impress her. And with his pomaded hair and starched white neck cloth, Fernando had branded himself as a dandy. She disdained men who wanted to be “pretty.”

  Ramirez appeared at the door. She nodded to him to enter.

  “Señorita, I have been waiting to speak to you since dawn.” He kept his voice low, as if not wanting to be overheard.

  Alandra’s uneasiness surged. She waved him to come and sit beside her at the table. He did so, holding his hat in front of him and leaning close to her. “Señorita, the guards I posted at the door of the caballeros speak English as well as Spanish. I thought these strangers might speak in English, thinking that none of us speak it. So I told the vaqueros to listen at the door and window to hear if they could discover anything about why they have come here. And why now, right after you had been kidnapped.”

  Alandra stared at Ramirez.

  He looked stricken and began to apologize, “I am sorry if I did wrong—”

  “What did they hear?”

  Ramirez’s expression became set and grim. “The two talked about what they planned to do when this rancho was theirs.”

  Alandra’s mouth opened as she looked at Ramirez. How could these strangers take her land? Suddenly she could not sit still. She swept out the front door toward the corrale. Ramirez followed her at a trot. When she reached the corrale fence, she turned to him.

  “What do you want me to do, señorita?” her foreman asked, looking troubled.

  She did not want to admit that she
had no clear plan. Her shock still simmered. “How can I know if these people are really my relatives from Mexico City?”

  Ramirez shrugged.

  She stared at the paddock where a vaquero was training a colt. Unless these three planned to murder her and inherit the rancho, they must have some other way to gain the property, some document or legality she did not know about—yet. She realized then that while Ramirez could run the day-to-day operation of the cattle ranch for her, he could be no help in a legal dispute. So she made the only request she could think of for real help, more than even Scully could give. “Please send someone to the Quinns’ rancho to tell them what has happened here. Ask them to come here and help me.”

  Ramirez nodded and hurried away. Alandra leaned against the fence, watching the vaquero teach the colt to accept a halter. She longed for Scully to return soon. Why had she let him leave her to scout her property? Part of her irritation with him was not his fault. She did not like having to ask for help. A young woman running a rancho by herself with only a foreman to help was unheard of. No one in San Antonio had believed a woman planned to run her rancho herself.

  Dorritt and Quinn had never made her feel less competent because she was a female. But she knew they were the exception rather than the rule. And though Señor Scully, an Anglo, was not happy to have come to protect her, he had never shown disdain for her. Again, an exception.

  Even her own people, Tejanos who lived nearby, were guilty of discounting her ability to run this rancho without a man. When she’d turned fifteen and became old enough to enter San Antonio society, the fact that she intended to run the rancho herself had been dismissed as immature and improbable by both Tejano and Anglo males. The women had been no better.

  She had resisted them as the colt was now resisting the vaquero who flicked his whip and spoke sternly to the horse. Many worthy San Antonio señoras had tried to match her with eligible bachelors capable of running Rancho Sandoval. Many suitors had traveled from as far away as Santa Fe. But she had been raised by Dorritt Quinn, who taught her that she was capable of anything if she worked hard enough.

  The colt tried to pull away from the vaquero, veering toward her. Just as she had eluded all the offers of marriage. She wanted to be the dueña, the doña of Rancho Sandoval, for several years to show them all she could handle her inheritance. And then when she chose to marry, she would marry for love, as her parents had, marry a man who respected her as Quinn respected Dorritt. She had decided years ago she would marry without consideration of making a good “match.”

  The vaquero smiled as the horse whickered near Alandra, seeking her attention, trying to evade the lesson. She stroked the colt’s black nose and murmured to him.

  She wondered again about the two events in less than a week that had destroyed her peace and put her in jeopardy. Could these people, professing to be her relatives, really be behind her kidnapping? Did that make sense? If so, why?

  She scolded the colt and ordered him to obey the vaquero, who led him back to the center of the paddock. After the colt tried many more maneuvers to escape, the vaquero succeeded in getting it to wear the halter. Smiling, Alandra turned toward the hacienda she loved.

  This vague threat against her and her land might prove to be more dangerous, more desperate, than being carried away by Comanche renegades. For years the wicked had just been a word in the Bible and the distant memory of her cousin. Now, over the past week, she’d begun to understand what wicked and evil truly were.

  “Señorita.”

  “Miss Alandra.”

  The two voices roused Alandra in her bedroom, sitting in the chair by the window where she’d finally dozed off. A day spent trying to smile at her oh-so-proud-and-elegant relatives and at the same time discover why they had come had exhausted her. She sat up and blinked. Who had called? More danger?

  She rose and opened the shutters. She looked out into the chilly night lit by the bright nearly full moon. She saw Emilio Ramirez and his father. And then she glimpsed a tall form. “Señor Scully?” she whispered.

  Heartfelt relief swirled through her, very similar to the relief she’d felt when she heard Quinn’s voice in the renegade camp. She was not standing alone against this new danger. She could not stop herself from saying, “Thank God, you have come.”

  “Ramirez here thought we should wake you at your window and not take the chance of anyone knowing I’m back till you want it known.”

  “I did not expect you to return till tomorrow.”

  “Emilio’s horse came up lame so we turned back early. What’s this about strangers coming saying they’re family? And why didn’t you call us back early?” Señor Scully asked.

  Alandra decided not to take offense at his questioning her. Ignoring it, she shuddered, pulling her wool rebozo around her against the cool air coming in through the open window. “Meet me in the courtyard,” she said. She hurried to slip on her sandals and then crept out her door and through the hallways.

  Scully was waiting for her, standing in the moonlight.

  She waved him to a chair near the clay stove, where she stirred the embers to flame. She then sat down across from him, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. She plunged into her explanation but kept her voice low. She did not want to be overheard. “These strangers came the day you left, and Ramirez says they want to take my land.” Each phrase she spoke made her spirits drop. Scully said nothing, merely took off his hat.

  She gazed at the moonlight highlighting his reddish blond hair. What would he say?

  “How do you want this handled, miss?”

  Alandra imagined tomorrow morning, Scully with rifle raised, ordering the three strangers off her land. But if they had some legal way to take what was hers, it was not that easy. This problem could not be settled with force, as the Comanches had been. “I will have to find out how they think they can take my land. And if they are who they say they are.”

  “How will you do that?”

  Ramirez came in, probably delayed by stabling the horses. He took off his hat and stood near them.

  Alandra rubbed her taut forehead. Scully’s questions irritated her. Yet she could not fault him for them. He was doing just what he must, getting the information he needed. And he was listening to her, not discounting her fears. Or treating her like a frail, weak woman. “They may know of some legal peculiarity. This war complicates everything, now that the Anglo rebels control San Antonio. I do not know if the Mexican government officials are still there or still able to act legally.”

  “Maybe I should let these strangers know you’re not alone,” Scully offered. “I’m here to protect you and your rancho. And added to Quinn and his lady, you have other powerful friends, the other Tejano landowners in Bexar. Maybe once these strangers realize that, they will give up and go home.”

  Even in the midst of this horrible conversation, it surprised Alandra to hear so many words pouring from Scully. He rarely said more than three words at a time. And the words he spoke were most welcome. “You must come in and stay in the house, Señor Scully. You will sleep in the room across from mine. And take your meals in the house. Then you will take the measure of these strangers yourself.”

  Silence greeted her request. Finally, Scully asked, “Would that be proper?”

  Irritation lashed her. “I do not want these strangers to deem you a hired hand and show you no respect. You must be seen as someone who can stand up to them.”

  “But I am just a hired hand.”

  His statement goaded her. “No, you are not. Quinn would not have sent ‘just a hired hand’ to protect me.” Instinctively she sensed that Scully was more to the Quinns, perhaps more to her. She shut her mouth, letting this truth sink in. Was the distante vaquero Scully a friend to her too? Or was she just so afraid she’d turn to anyone?

  Ramirez finally spoke up. “It is too bad that you have not a husband, señorita. They would not treat you with no respeto if you had a husband to fight for you.”

  The n
eed for comfort nearly overwhelmed her. Scully was there in front of her, strong and male, a fighter. She nearly reached for his hands. No. She stiffened, pulling herself together. She looked to Ramirez. “Help him move into my late brother’s room. Good night.”

  Scully rose. The men nodded politely, wishing her good-night also.

  Alandra went back into her room, closed the door and then the shutters. She fell into bed. Help had come. Just let them try to outfight and outfox both her and Scully. She pulled up the quilt and in a moment was asleep.

  At the end of the midday meal in the courtyard, with gloomy clouds overhead, Scully sat silently beside Alandra. He stared at the three intruders. “Do I have to keep repeating myself? You have overstayed your welcome. Two nights free lodging is enough. Now the señorita doesn’t want you here any longer. I can’t put it plainer than that.”

  Alandra had tried the polite, subtle approach at breakfast but was met with evasion. The three had ignored every inquiry meant to move them back onto their journey. So she had asked Scully to tell them to leave.

  “We have documents we can show you,” Benito said finally, reluctantly, “if one of your servants would go out to the carriage and bring in the ornate box under the driver’s seat?”

  Documents? Wondering what they could have brought with them that might prove a family connection, Alandra nodded and one of the vaqueros left. She sipped more coffee and said nothing. Documents. Uncertainty rumbled back to life in her stomach. She pinched off a piece of a sweetmeat and nibbled it.

  The vaquero returned with the box and gave it to Benito, who unlocked it with a key attached by a fine gold chain to his waistcoat. He opened it and drew out a sheaf of parchment. “This is the will that your father drew up before he left Mexico City with his mixed blood bride.” He paused, looking into her eyes. “In it, you will find the reason that we are here.” As he handed her the many-paged document, the man almost smirked.