Chasing the Sun (24 page)

“That’s why I’m after you,” he said in a strained voice. “It’s still there, what we had. You felt it too. Admit it.”

“Titty too.” Kate thrust her kitty in Jack’s face. “Kiss Titty.”

“W-What? Ah ... sure.” Befuddlement fading into amusement, he kissed the bedraggled toy, then Kate, then went for Daisy again.

“No.” She brushed a shaking hand over her face, as if that might rid her of the feelings still coursing through her. Thank God Kate had interrupted them. Daisy was still shaking inside. “I won’t let you do that to me again, Jack.”

His smoky eyes seemed to darken. A slow smile split his face. “Oh, I’ll definitely do it to you again, Daisy,” he said in a voice caught somewhere between desire and menace. “I’ll do it until your eyes roll up in your head, then I’ll rest up and do it again. Count on it.”

“I MUST GO,
QUERIDO
.”

Brady looked up from his breeder’s journal to see Elena standing in the doorway of his office. Immediately he rose and crossed to her. Waving aside her protests, he took her arm and led her to one of the chairs in front of his desk.

She felt brittle in his grip. Her face looked tired and drawn, but against the severe black of her habit, it still seemed too beautiful to be real. Almost unearthly, like one of those religious paintings he had seen when Jessica had dragged him to a museum in England.

“Go where?” he asked, once he’d helped her into the chair.

“Where I belong. Back to my sisters in the abbey.”

He wanted to argue with her, tell her she belonged here too. But he no longer believed that. Even though he still saw in her a shadow of the little girl he had rescued from Sancho’s whip all those years ago, the Elena he had protected for the last quarter century was in other hands now, hands more powerful than his.

Moving back behind his desk, he settled once more in his chair. “Because of Jack. That’s why you’re leaving, isn’t it?”

“I leave because it is time to begin the work God has given me to do.”

He hated all this pious talk. It stifled logic and argument and half his vocabulary. But he didn’t say anything, since they’d been through this already. Twice. And he’d lost both times. For such a gentle, meek woman, Elena could be as unyielding as stone. “When?”

“Soon. But before I go, I must speak to you of my concerns.”

“About Jack.” Conversations with Elena always came around to Jack.

“And about you. You must mend this rift between you.”

Brady blinked in surprise. “What rift? There’s no rift.”

Elena gave him a look of exasperation he was sure she never let loose in the abbey. “For as long as I have known the two of you, there has been anger between you. If you do not end it,
querido,
it will cost you this brother too.”

“Anger about what?” Brady thought he’d done a good job of keeping his temper in check. He’d barely berated Jack for his long absence and failure to write. He hadn’t asked his brother for money, although admittedly, he hadn’t told him about the money he and Hank had set aside for him out of the mine profits either. Other than the one time, he hadn’t called him to accounts over Daisy and Kate, and had been careful not to badger Jack about how long he’d be staying. He figured he’d been damn near saintly about the whole thing.

“You are too hard on him,” Elena said. “You are pushing him away.”

“If he leaves, it’ll be by his decision, not mine.”

“But you have taught him to do so. You make him think he is not important, that he has no place in your life, so why should he stay?”

“Of course he’s important, Elena. He’s my little brother.”

“
Ves
? That is what I mean.” She sighed and shook her head. “You speak of him as if he is not yet a man. As your
little
brother. Has he not earned the right to be more to you than that?”

“But he
is
my little brother.” Brady spread his hands in an encompassing gesture. “And all this—the ranch, the house, the mines, the years of endless work to carve something out of nothing—it’s for him and Hank, our wives and kids, for you and even those souls resting in the graveyard on the hill. I don’t know what else to do, Elena. So tell me. What other proof do you need that each of you, including Jack, is important to me?”

He didn’t mean to lose his temper, but he was weary of trying to justify the way he lived his life and the hard choices he’d had to make. But indignation died when he saw tears fill her eyes. Jesus, he hated it when women cried.

“Oh, Brady. Forgive me for making you think we are not grateful. You have been the rock of this family for so long. But we cannot all be like you—so strong and sure and steady. Some of us have to take a different path. But that does not mean we reject you or the life you have built for us.”

Maybe not, but sometimes it sure felt that way. “I know I may seem hard on Jack.” He gave a rueful smile. “Truth be told, I often envy him. It’s all so simple for him. So uncomplicated. And even if sometimes I want to beat the sass out of him, I admire his hardheaded independence.”

“Have you told him that?”

Brady smirked at the idea. Admitting such a thing to Jack would be like giving his wild little brother free rein to get himself into all sorts of mischief. “I know I seem a little heavy-handed at times, but I walk a thin line here, Elena, trying to keep the ranch going and my brothers safe. And believe me, it takes its toll. So much so, that sometimes I find myself wondering what it would be like to ride past those mountains and never come back. But then I realize this is the work I’ve been given to do. This is what I am, and this is where I belong. I won’t apologize for that.”

“
Por supuesto que no
. Of course not. But let Jack seek his place, too,
querido
. Maybe he will find it in some faraway place, or maybe he will realize it is here at RosaRoja. But let him choose.” A stern look came over her face. “And let him choose what to do about Daisy and Kate as well. You must not force that issue either.”

Brady would make no promises on that score. He’d give Jack time to do the right thing, but if he didn’t, Brady would step in. Little Kate was part of his family now. And he looked after his family.

“And finally,
hermano
, you must forgive yourself.”

An unseen hand seemed to grab at his chest. He didn’t want to talk about Sam. It was old history. Almost fourteen years old. He’d learned to live with it and didn’t want it dragged out again.

“Sancho killed him, Brady. Not you.”

“Elena—”

“You gave him peace,” she cut in. “Now allow yourself that same grace.”

He sat frozen, waiting for the pain to roll over him, for that cloying guilt that never seemed to go away to rise in his throat like bile.

“Sancho killed him,” she said again.

“Let it rest, Elena. Please.”

He saw worry in her eyes, but she said no more. “Then I will pray for you, my brother. And I will never forget all that you have done for me.”

He watched tears roll down her cheeks and felt an answering sting in his own eyes. “I’ll never see you again, will I?”

“
Si Dios quiere
.” She gave him a watery smile. “If God wills it.”

Brady thought of the little girl with the bloody legs who had run across the courtyard and into his heart. Letting go of her, he realized, was going to be much harder than he’d ever imagined.

Fourteen

THE DAY AFTER JACK KISSED HER—
KISSED
HER, FOR heaven’s sake—and she
let
him—what was she thinking?—Daisy stepped out onto the front porch and into another beautiful day. Cloudless. Pleasantly warm. Perfect.

Then why did she feel like running from this place as fast as she could?

Because of Jack, of course. Because he had kissed her. And because she had let him and it had been every bit as wonderful as she remembered.
Ninny.

Setting Kate and her basket of toys in a sunny spot near the rockers, Daisy stretched onto her toes and filled her lungs with sage-scented air. A refreshing change from San Francisco.

For one thing, the air she drew in here was so clean she couldn’t see or taste it—no coal soot or fish smell here, and no gray clouds hanging so low the world seemed wrapped in cotton batting.

The sounds were different too. Birdsong instead of foghorns, cattle lowing instead of people shouting, nights so quiet she could hear crickets chirping, and mornings so hushed that without the clatter of wagon wheels on cobblestones, she could even hear distant voices throughout the house.

Happy voices. Children laughing. The occasional song.

It didn’t feel right to her. Something was missing. Instead of calming her, all this peace and quiet only reminded her of those long, long days on the farm when she would pause in her chores to look down the road stretching away from her and wonder if she would ever know what lay at the end of it.

She missed the city. An awful thing to admit, but there it was. Despite the danger and hardship of her life in San Francisco, she missed it—the rush and bustle, the unpredictability, the vitality of so many people crowded into so many buildings doing so many different things. And the longer she stayed removed from it, the more her energy waned. But what troubled her most was that with each passing day in this calm and peaceful place, Jack took over a little more of her heart and the dream took up a little less.

She couldn’t allow that. Singing was like breathing to her, and without it, she would die. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she stifled a sudden urge to laugh. Or cry. She wasn’t sure which and that frightened her. She was becoming an emotional fool, she realized in dismay. She had to gain control of herself, put Jack Wilkins from her mind and concentrate on getting through the next ten days.

“I think this is my favorite time of year,” a voice called.

Startled, Daisy dropped her hand and looked around to see Jessica at the other end of the porch, peering up through the railing. Grateful for the company, she walked toward her. “What are you doing down there?”

As she neared, Daisy realized Jessica was working in the flowerbed, supervising a middle-aged Mexican worker—although judging by the impatient looks he aimed at her, the Englishwoman was mostly getting in his way.

Jessica grinned up at her. “It’s always so exciting to see what has survived the winter. Rather like opening a long-awaited gift, don’t you think?”

Daisy smiled.
Her Ladyship, indeed
. With her vibrant tavern red hair tumbling about her shoulders, her apron muddied, and dirt smeared across her freckled cheeks, Jessica looked less like the lady of the manor than a happy, dig-in-the-dirt gardener. And Daisy liked her all the more for it.

“Are those roses?” she asked, looking over the railing at the leafless sticks poking through the dirt like grasping fingers.

Jessica beamed at her stick-plants, as proud as a new mother. “They are. Yellow, for the most part—Enrique, don’t forget to trim that one,
por favor—
although I’ve begun adding a white or pink here and there.”

“No red?”

Jessica pushed back a curl with a dusty glove. “There’s a red in the cemetery that Brady transplanted from this bed when he rebuilt the house.” With a dismissive shrug that was at odds, Daisy thought, with the sad look in her soft brown eyes, she added, “It was the only survivor. There was a dreadful fire, you see, that destroyed the original house and all the lovely roses.”

“How many did you have?”

“A hundred, but they weren’t mine actually. They were originally planted by Elena’s mother. That’s how RosaRoja got its name—Red Rose Ranch.” Her smile seemed forced, but Daisy wasn’t sure why. “They endured for over a quarter century, poor dears, until fire destroyed all but the one Brady found when he began excavations for this house. Since he moved it onto the hill, something about the soil up there has caused the blooms to darken to a deep crimson. Almost a blood red.” She looked up with a wry smile. “A fitting color for a cemetery, don’t you think?”

Unsure how to answer, Daisy moved to a safer subject. “Would you like help? I may not know much about roses, but I’m a farm girl from Quebec, so I definitely know how to dig in dirt.”

Jessica laughed and glanced back at the worker. “I’m not sure Enrique could tolerate more help. But there’s always the vegetable garden. Let me send for the twins, and a blanket for the children to play on, and I’ll show you.”

It was more like a walled fortress than a vegetable plot, Daisy decided later when they walked around the side of the house. Apparently this family had a gift for overbuilding. Once she’d settled Kate beside the twins on a blanket by the fence, Daisy left her to Rosa Ortega’s care and followed her hostess on a tour.

“I know it’s rather much.” Jessica swept a hand in a gesture that encompassed the sprawling acre of garden. “But Brady always says, ‘Why build for today, when a century would be better?’”

At least a century,
Daisy thought, looking around in amazement.

Built in stockade fashion, the fence was constructed of standing ten-foot-tall posts stuck in the ground and lashed together with stout rope. At one end of the enclosure was a heavy gate hung on horseshoe hinges. At the other end stood a log and stone outbuilding next to a railroad-style water tank on stilts. Budding fruit trees, their trunks wrapped to protect them against frost, stood along the fence. Lined up before them like troops awaiting inspection were rows of elevated beds separated by flagstone walkways. The beds were just budding now, showing the merest green tops of emerging seedlings. There was also—if Daisy surmised correctly from the grid of earthen pipes bordering the walkways—an elaborate gravity-fed watering system that linked the water tower to each bed. “How clever,” she remarked, studying it as they walked, not sure how it worked, but admiring the ingenuity. “Did you do this?”