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Daniel didn’t mind learning his mother had been nothing more than a housemaid for the Martinez family, one who’d tried to trap José Martinez into marriage by getting pregnant with Rafael, but he’d minded very much when he learned that she’d lied to him all his life about owning the ranch herself. Worse yet, she’d killed his father, terrified Rafael and tried to poison Anna. He could never forgive his mother for that.
Rafael moved to sign enlistment papers with a recruitment officer who would take him back east to serve.
What if this was the wrong decision for Rafael? After all, if he was still trying to get himself killed, letting him join the army to fight in the war dividing the country may have been the worst thing.
“Will he get himself killed, do you think?” whispered Daniel.
“No, and the war can’t go on much longer.” Anna leaned into him to reassure him. The news had reached them of one of the bloodiest battles of the war at Gettysburg, but it was one that might have turned the tide. “Let’s go get your brother. I’d like to be home before dark.”
She popped up and darted forward. For a second he just watched his wife move. She never liked to be still long, except perhaps in the moments following making love when she could chase the world away with a kiss and a smile.
He hadn’t exactly been prepared to run the ranch without Rafael’s help, but Anna had written to her family and enlisted their help. Her brothers Patrick and Sean were running the ranch in their absence. Her sister Elizabeth was watching their baby boy. More family members were on their way, and her good friend Olivia and her husband, Jack, had stayed with them most of the summer. Jack had been an immense help as he learned as much as he could about ranching.
They would be leaving soon and taking the hundred head of cattle they’d bought from him, driving them back to Colorado before the weather turned.
Anna stretched up on her tiptoes, whispering in Rafael’s ear as she hugged him. At one time he would have feared that he’d lose her to Rafael, but he knew that in spite of her efforts to bring Rafael home-cooked food at least once a month that she never looked at his brother that way. The special glow in her eyes was reserved for him and was what he looked forward to every evening when he returned home after working with the cattle or with his crops.
Her love had never ceased to amaze him. The fear of disappointing her made him work that much harder, even when he’d thought there was no way he could manage it all. He loved her so much more than he had a year ago, and he’d loved her enough then that he would have done anything to keep her.
Rafael frowned at Anna, then cast an uncertain look past her. Daniel shook hands with the prosecutor and Rafael’s lawyer before joining them.
“You must come,” Anna said. “Don’t you wish to see your nephew before you go? And we have a fiesta planned.” She turned to the man in the blue uniform. “You must come, too.”
Daniel wasn’t certain that a fiesta when Rafael was released was in good taste. But it was a celebration that could encompass many events—the christening of their son, sending Olivia and Jack Trudeau off with a fond memory and welcoming Anna’s friend Selina back from her long trip. He hadn’t dared ask if John Bench would be there, too. He had enough troubles of his own without delving too deeply into the tribulations of Anna’s friends.
Rafael shook his head. He seemed far too subdued, as if the year in prison awaiting trial had taken something out of him.
Anna smiled at the officer and set to work persuading him that a trip to Werner Ranch wasn’t out of his way. The young man didn’t have a chance of resisting. When Anna was determined, not much could stop her.
“Was this your idea?” Rafael asked.
Daniel shook his head. “Not just mine. Anna wants you to know there are no hard feelings.”
“It’s not my home any longer.” Rafael’s head dipped. “And I need to report for duty.”
Daniel’s throat tightened.
“Nonsense. The ranch will always be your home, too.” Anna came up beside Daniel and threaded her arm in his as if she’d known he needed her. “And when you are ready, we’ll figure out which part of the ranch land is to be yours. That is what Daniel’s father wanted. That is what we want. You’re family.”
Rafael’s eyes flickered, but there was more to that statement than he knew or could possibly understand.
Daniel had never known what a real family was like. Anna was teaching him what it was to have the unconditional love of family by sharing her family with him. He and Rafael had always been a unit, but until the O’Malleys started showing up, he’d never known what it was like to have family to count on, family to laugh with, sing with and work with. They were people who were happy to see him when he came in at night and never made him feel as if they wished he wasn’t there. They trusted his judgment and consulted him, which still felt a little awkward.
Daniel reached out and caught his brother’s arm. “Come home with us. Juanita would like to see you. And God knows how much I’ve missed you. I know you can’t stay, but at least come for a night.”
“Have you heard from Madre?” Rafael asked in a whisper, as if he couldn’t help himself.
Daniel shook his head. “I know she made it to relatives in Mexico, but she didn’t stay there. They think she might have gone to Bolivia.”
At first, he’d been angry that she’d escaped justice when she took off, but then he’d just been glad none of them had to testify against her. The farther away Madre went, the better he felt.
Anna pressed against his side. “I won’t take no for an answer.” She nodded toward the recruitment officer. “And your commanding officer has agreed to come, too.”
Rafael glanced over his shoulder at the uniformed man.
“Private Werner, come with me to retrieve your things,” the officer said. “We can meet your family outside.”
“Think I’ve just received my first order,” said Rafael.
“Step lively, then. We’ll see you in a bit,” Daniel said. He led Anna through the doors and out of the courthouse.
“I will be glad to sleep tonight in our own bed,” Anna said.
Her words conjured wicked images of her naked, tangled in the sheets, her fiery hair spilling across the pillow, even though she probably hadn’t meant it that way. Still, he sucked in a deep breath.
Her eyelids flickered lower over her green eyes, and her pink lips curled at the edges. “That, too. But I’m afraid the party may last well into the night.”
“We could sneak away for an hour or two.”
She shook her head. “No, you should spend as much time with Rafael as you can. Who knows when we will see him again?”
“What did you say to him?” Certainly whatever she’d said had startled Rafael and made him frown.
Her head tilted to the side, and she reached up a finger to his nose. “I’d rather not say.”
He could press her, and she would tell him. They had agreed to be totally honest with each other. But he trusted her. He caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingers. “Very well, love.”
Lowering her hand, he tucked it back into the crook of his arm. “Jack will likely want to ask Rafe ranching questions while he can.”
“I doubt there is anything he could ask that you have not already told him.”
Daniel snorted. “I don’t know how I’m going to manage the next five years without him. He is the best rancher I know.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” said Anna. “I can certainly think of another of equal or higher caliber.”
Daniel frowned and cast through her opinions of other ranchers they knew. “Who?”
She cuffed him on the shoulder. “You. Can you not see how the vaqueros look up to you, other ranchers consult you and the ranch has not suffered in Rafael’s absence?” She pulled out her gloves from her reticule and drew them on. “You and I are too much alike in that we don’t see our own value. When I came here, I thought no one would love me if I allowed them to see the real me, but you disliked the person I pretended to be in my letters and it was as if I could never hide who I really was from you.”
“And I loved you anyway.” He smiled. “I am damn lucky to have you, Anna Werner. I can’t image how I would have made it through the past year without you believing in me.”
“Believing, is it? I should not trust what I see, should I?”
“Well, I have to make the ranch work, because that is why you married me,” he teased.
She grew pensive instead of responding with laughter. “I would have married you even if you only had a single grape seed to your name, because you would make it work. You are stronger than you know, Daniel.”
“And you are more beautiful than you know. Both inside and out.” What woman would turn her good fortune into a way to collect and mend her scattered family the way she had? What woman would insist her convicted brother-in-law come home? What woman would marry a man whose mother had tried to kill her? Or, for that matter, defend a group of passengers against a man she thought was intent on murder? “And fierce. In a good way.”
