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The office didn’t contain a place for a grown man to conceal himself. Her shoulders falling, she sighed. Rafael probably had eluded her again this morning, although she’d been trying to keep one ear open.
Looking for anything to focus on to hide her disappointment, she skimmed down the various columns in the ledger. Birth, sex, disposition of the animal—they kept a lot of detail on the individual livestock in a large herd. She flipped a page, seeing lots more records. Something niggled at her brain.
Daniel stepped closer. “Are you looking for something specific?”
Suddenly the air seemed charged. Her skin tingled as if she expected him to brush against her again. She turned toward the shelves lest he realize she’d gone a little weak in the knees.
Her gaze landed on the music box, and their dance, their nearness, the feel of his hand on her back swarmed in her brain and she could think of nothing else. Heavens, she had to stop thinking about him. She couldn’t be falling for the wrong brother.
Only she was, which was all the more reason she had to marry Rafael soon.
“Just looking around,” she managed to say. She averted her gaze from the music box.
An odd tripod with a box on it sat in the corner along with several poles linked with chains.
Daniel closed the open books. “That’s my father’s surveyor’s equipment. Back in thirty-five, after the Mexican government took over California, they required landowners to document and mark their land. He liked California so much he decided to stay. So he married my mother and took over running her ranch.”
She couldn’t quite put a finger on what bothered her about the ledgers. “I very much get the feeling you are trying to hide something, Mr. Werner.”
He folded his arms. “And here I was offering to show you anything you wanted to see.”
“Anything?” she asked.
“What would you like to see, Miss O’Malley?”
She tried to read the expression in his dark eyes. “I want to see the rest of the house.”
“This way, then.” He opened the next door, one of a pair off the courtyard, and she discovered it led to a wide hallway. Beyond the open doors at the far end was grass. He opened a second door to Rafael’s room.
Odd that it was so much larger than Daniel’s, but then it was his ranch.
That seemed far too easy. “Then I want to see Rafael.”
He raised his eyebrows. “He’ll be back in a few days.”
“I can’t wait a few days. I need to speak with him. Alone. Today.”
He ducked his head.
Her nose stung, and she blinked back possible tears. She’d never been a crier. She wasn’t going to start now. She whirled out of the doorway and opened the door opposite. Branding irons, tongs and all manner of equipment hung on the walls, marking it as a storage room. Boxes, barrels and sacks were stacked and piled about, barely leaving room to get through. She didn’t see any place where a person could hide.
Daniel’s dark eyes followed her.
“So showing me anything doesn’t include Rafael,” she said.
Daniel’s steps faltered.
If Rafael wasn’t on a drunken spree and keeping to his bed, why was he avoiding her? “Is your brother disappointed in me?”
“No.” Daniel slid his hand over the door frame and looked away. “Not that I know.”
“I know I’m not as pretty as Selina or my friend Olivia, but I am thought presentable.” She’d never thought of herself as ugly, although perhaps only a notch above plain.
Daniel’s eyes met hers. “You’re beautiful.”
Her cheeks heated as she realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t fishing for compliments, and you don’t have to say that.”
“If Rafael doesn’t think you’re pretty, he needs spectacles.”
In spite of her confusion, a warm shaft of appreciation slanted across the dark muddle of her mind. “Thank you.”
His lips twitched. For a second she wished it were Daniel she was to marry. She shook off the thought. He didn’t own the ranch, and she never wanted to risk being poor again. It seemed as though all her life had been a struggle to know where the next meal would come from. Even when she had thought she was secure in her job at the mill, the lack of cotton shipments had closed it, leaving her without a job through no fault of her own. She couldn’t marry a man who had nothing in his own name. Not only were there future children to consider, but she hoped that Rafael might be able to employ some of her family members on the ranch or in the house, that one day she might be able to reunite her scattered family.
“Madre’s room is next, but she is cooking by now.”
“Is your brother having second thoughts about marriage? If he is, you can tell me.” She caught Daniel’s arm, wanting him to be honest with her, but touching him set off alarm bells. “If something has changed since I set out from Connecticut...” Her voice trailed away.
“Nothing has changed. But really, you should let me show you more of the ranch today.”
She should pull her hand back, but the firm feel of his forearm was like a magnet to her palm.
“If you come with me to the vineyard and orchards, this afternoon we’ll see if we can spot the herd,” said Daniel.
The last thing she should do was spend more time alone with Daniel, but if that was the only way she’d find Rafael, then she had to go with him.
Chapter Ten
You asked a great many questions, and I will attempt to answer them in what is likely to be a haphazard fashion. It will likely take a novel or two, so I will answer over the course of several letters. You need not reply to every letter, but if you could manage to write once a fortnight, I will be content.
Daniel looked at the hand on his arm and resisted the urge to fold his over the top of it. Anna didn’t mean anything by it, and the riot of sensation going off in his body was more than inappropriate when she was trying to learn when Rafael would marry her. “He’s not avoiding you. It’s just that everything has been loco around here since the horses came up missing.”
Even he’d gone loco, telling her they could try and spot Rafael with the herd this afternoon, but he had to get her out of the house or she’d end up following one of them straight to Rafael.
“Loco?” her mouth formed the word, but her eyes turned distant.
“Crazy. Plumb crazy. I’m sure in few days...” How long did it take a gunshot wound to heal enough to not appear so fresh that Rafe could marry her? “Rafael will spend more time courting you. He’s already frustrated he’s spent so much time trying to track the thieves and has nothing to show for it.”
She slid her hand off his forearm, and spikes of desire slammed him.
“Couldn’t you have gone to check the herd and question the cowboys instead of Rafael?” she asked.
A wave of guilt swept over Daniel. Anna was trying desperately to sort out the seeming rejection by her beau, and he couldn’t explain it had nothing to do with her—or everything to do with her, given that she’d shot Rafael. “I could have, except he knew I needed to see to my produce. I tracked yesterday, too.”
Her mouth flattened.
He didn’t know what to say, so he walked ahead of her and tapped on his mother’s bedroom door. When there was no answer, he opened it.
Anna came up beside him and looked in. He tried to imagine how she saw the ornately carved headboard, the brightly colored rugs on the floor. This chamber was the only bedroom with a fireplace, which was only needed on the coldest of winter nights.
Anna’s brow knit.
“Seen enough?”
She shook her head and walked into the room. He wanted to grab her and pull her out. He’d seldom been in this room, hadn’t wanted to be in there since his father died. The space reminded him too much of the morning his poppy had been stiff and cold and the parent who had loved him was gone.
He’d been half-afraid of Rafael then. Rafe had been bigger, tougher and not always kind in the way of an older brother to a pesky brother five years younger. But that night Rafe had crawled into bed with Daniel and held him as he wept. His brother had shielded him from Madre’s rage when he’d spilled or broken things and had loved him when he most needed it. Last night Daniel had sat by Rafe’s bed long after everyone else slept, giving him water when he woke and watching over his brother until Rafe told him to go to his own bed before he fell over.
Anna headed toward the large wardrobe and threw back the doors. Inside were dozens of dresses that Madre hadn’t fit into in ages. Anna shifted them as if she expected to find something behind them. Good Lord, was she expecting to find Rafael hiding behind their mother’s skirts?
“He’s not here.”
She backed out of the wardrobe and shut it.
He frowned at her. “We should leave. Madre won’t like finding us rifling through her things.”
