Chapter Four

      In all her eighteen years, Vicky never stayed indoors, much less in bed, for more than a day or two—even her mother’s disapproval hadn’t kept her from helping in the kitchen with Magda or heading out to the stables to visit Tesoro. She’d now been confined to bed in the small cabin for five days, and she thought she’d go mad. The sun peeked in the windows as if trying to coax her to come out and play. Her right arm was no longer tied to her body, but movement still remained so painful that she didn’t dare try to get up on her own.

      “Now, you stop...” Nana Ruth’s words were harder to understand than Chris’s, but her tone was kind and soothing, and she rattled on as if Vicky understood her every word. Today the woman sat on the edge of her bed, though she’d spent most of the last three days in it.

      “Nana Ruth?” Vicky interrupted. “You make dress for Chris?”

      “Dress for Chris?” The woman’s voice rose in pitch and then she chuckled. “Master Chris is a man, child. Our menfolk don’t wear dresses.”

      “You no make?” Vicky pulled one of the shirts from the pile behind her and waved it.

      “Yes, I did. But that was—” Nana rubbed her arthritic joints, which explained enough.

      “You have for make?” Pantomiming sewing, Vicky waited.

      “Sure do.” She hobbled across the room and lifted the lid on one of the chests. The wonders that lay inside almost had Vicky hopping off the bed, pain or no pain. To think she had been lying idly by for the last five days while there were sewing and knitting supplies just a few steps away.

      Vicky hated the needlepoint and counted cross-stitch her mother demanded she concentrate on for hours at a time. However, Magda, their housekeeper, had taught her how to knit and mend men’s work clothing. Somehow, that kind of sewing had purpose. Vicky loved to sit with Magda, mending José Luis or Berto’s clothes for hours. She admired the marriage that Berto and Magda had, and even allowed herself to pretend she could be a normal wife with a family to care for and a husband who loved her like Berto loved Magda. But she knew that she would never be loved like that.

      Being born of noble blood, even if only half, she would be doomed to marry for money and political arrangements between her father and some other nobleman. But after seeing what that kind of marriage had done to her parents, she would rather live the rest of her life alone, dependent on one of her younger brothers but not trapped in a loveless marriage where husband and wife at best avoided each other and at worst wounded each other.

      She could earn her own keep by helping on the hacienda either with the care of the houses or keeping the books. She had learned bookkeeping when she helped Papá from time to time. It would be better than marrying one of the noblemen she didn’t know who had come courting soon after her Quinceañera, or Don Joaquín, who began his courting last year, only a month after his last wife had been laid to rest. Vicky suspected Mamá had encouraged the man despite the many times Vicky had told everyone she would never, ever marry, especially Don Joaquín. He was known for his drinking, cigars and unkempt appearance, but his hacienda had been one of the most extensive of the area, and he had cultivated favor with Mexican officials—mostly by way of extortion and bribery.

      The next few hours passed by much more quickly than any since she’d been in the cabin. Once all the worn shirts in the pile were repaired, Nana Ruth arranged some knitting so that Vicky could work without moving her right arm very much while she cast on stitches for a sock for Chris.

      “Nana Ruth? You have husband?”

      Nana Ruth looked up from her chair at the table, and emotions ran across her ebony features.

      “Yes, honey child. I had a good man. His name was Jeb.”

      Already worried she’d asked more than she should have, Vicky concentrated on her knitting even though she wanted to ask more.

      “We be slaves on Master Chris’s father’s plantation since we were born. We had a good life for slaves. We had four babies. Two die young, before they could even walk. Another one, Daniel, was sold when he reached eighteen. And our Samson, he grew up to be a good man, just like his father. He married but then died a year before Master Chris freed us.”

      Vicky glanced up and saw the woman swipe a tear away from her cheek even as she continued her story, a smile brightening her face.

      “When Master Chris told us he was gonna move all the way over to Mexico ’cause they had outlawed having slaves, well, Jeb said to me, ‘We gotta go with that boy. He’s gonna get hisself killed out there on his own alone.’ So we came. And Master Chris has been more like a son than a master to us from the day he was born.”

      “Where Jeb now?”

      “He got killed last summer. Some men attacked him and Master Chris in the field.” Her breath caught, and she cleared her throat before she went on. “Master Chris got hit in the arm, but my poor Jeb didn’t suffer more than a few minutes. Now Master Chris feels like it’s all his fault, but it ain’t, no sir. The Good Lord just needed my Jeb, and his time was done here. But when my day comes, I worry about Master Chris havin’ no one left here to care for him. I do declare that the Good Lord must have sent you for that purpose.”

      She couldn’t claim to understand everything that Nana Ruth had said. Did she mean to hint at Vicky staying longer than a few more days? As soon as she was able to ride, she’d be headed back to the hacienda to face her father’s wrath and the arranged marriage that she dreaded more than death.

      As Nana Ruth added ingredients to the pot Chris had left over the fire earlier, Vicky found herself thinking about Magda and Berto once again. She wondered what it would be like to look after a husband who hadn’t been forced on her by circumstance, a man she truly loved. Even though she knew it would never be possible for her, some part of her couldn’t help but wonder...

      * * *

      Chris could tell from the smells coming from the cauldron hanging over the fire that Nana Ruth was up and about and had added dumplings and seasonings, at least. Setting the milk pail on the counter, he shrugged off his coat. “Good evening, ladies.” He bent down and tugged off his boots, setting them below where he’d hung his coat. He stood, rubbed his hands together to get the blood flowing again. The snow had melted, but the temperatures were cool.

      “Evening, Master Chris,” Nana Ruth called out.

      As he turned around, his attention snagged on Vicky. Her hands seemed to fly as the needles clicked, her concentration keeping her from looking up at him. She was sitting up without the use of the pillows. Closer inspection proved that her cheeks were dusty rose in color, and her dark eyes glittered in the waning sunlight shining through the windows. Delightfully unaware of his scrutiny, her tongue peeked out from a corner of her mouth, and he couldn’t hold back his grin.

      “I see you have found