Chapter Sixteen #3
A muscle jerked in his cheek. “Nevertheless, you will travel with me,” he said tersely.
“If del Robles is your wish, I will see that you get there.” His mouth curved grimly.
“Perhaps things have worked out exactly as you planned all along. If you can find a way, you can have your annulment, as you wished from the start. I am sure there are any number of men willing to pleasure you as I have, some of them in ways far beyond what I had only begun to teach you.”
Her hand lashed out, slapped him hard across the face.
For a moment she thought he might drag her down from the horse, the rage in his face was so great.
Then it was gone, replaced by a look of sadness and utter despair.
Against her will, she found herself drawn to that look, wanting desperately to ease it away.
“I didn’t do the things your cousin said. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth.”
A cold, ruthless smile twisted his lips. “You chose the wrong man … mi amor … when you tried to seduce a de la Guerra. Angel and I, we were raised together as children. He is more like a brother than a cousin.”
“He is also a liar, but maybe that doesn’t matter.”
Ramon’s head came up.
“I trapped you into this marriage. You wanted a Spanish woman, instead you got me. Perhaps I did it on purpose—to tell you the truth, I’m no longer sure.
Maybe I loved you so much I would have done anything to have you.
I only know that if I did, I’m sorry.” The little mare danced sideways, and Carly drew back on the reins.
“Now you have a second chance. Perhaps this time you’ll find a woman who can make you happy.
” She dug her heels into the horse’s ribs and the animal leapt forward, carrying her away from him up the trail.
For long slow seconds, Ramon stared after her. Then he swung up on Rey del Sol’s back and thundered up the path in her wake. His jaw was set, his expression grim. Inside his chest, his heart beat dully, numb with pain and an ache so fierce his hands shook where they held the reins.
He had known this would happen. He had seen it time and again. He knew she was an Anglo, knew better than to trust her. He knew she would only break his heart.
And yet he had let it happen. Against all his warnings, all his vows not to let her get too close. Had he loved her so much then? Had he been willing to risk the pain he knew a woman like Caralee would surely bring?
The answer came swift and hard, scorchingly bitter in his mouth. Yes, he had loved her. More than his own life. Even now he risked himself, knowing she might well go to her uncle. She very likely would, since she had been discarded.
He did not care.
Nothing mattered anymore, not since the moment he had walked into that room and seen her lying half naked in the arms of his cousin.
If he hadn’t changed his plans, if he hadn’t rented an extra horse on the chance he might be able to return to her, if he hadn’t ridden like a madman, wanting to see her so badly, he wouldn’t have caught her with Angel.
He would have been duped as easily as he had been before.
Por Dios, he was a fool.
And he was paying for his foolishness with every aching beat of his heart.
They rode throughout the day, stopping only briefly to rest and water the horses. By late afternoon, they had reached the fork in the trail, one path leading to Rancho del Robles, the other to Las Almas and the lands beyond. Carly reined up at the fork.
“Is—is this the way to my uncle’s?”
“Si. It is only a mile to the north. I will take you there.”
She only shook her head. “No. I want to go alone.” She turned a little and a ray of sunlight, shafting through the branches of an oak, lit her hair. The beauty of her face seemed to burn into his mind and the trembling of her lips made his own heart tremble.
Ramon said nothing, just watched her sitting so proudly astride her horse.
Inside his chest, his heart was splitting, trying to twist in two.
He shouldn’t be feeling like this, he shouldn’t be thinking of the way she had cried all night, of the soft, soul-wrenching sobs that had drifted across the camp, of the will it had taken not to go to her, to forgive her and beg her not to leave him.
He shouldn’t be recalling the look of hurt and disbelief he had seen on her face when he had called her his whore, the pain in her eyes when she had said that she loved him.
It wasn’t the truth. If she loved him, she wouldn’t have betrayed him.
“Ramon?”
“Si, Cara?”
“We were friends once, maybe more. Remember the way it was then, will you? Pretend that Monterey never happened. Remember the things we did, the pleasure we shared, remember the good times, not the bad. Will you do that for me?”
His throat constricted. “Si, Cara, I will try.” His leather-gloved hands were shaking, and his chest squeezed with each of the breaths he forced from his lungs. He started to rein the stallion away.
“One more thing.”
He turned toward her, saw the tears that sparkled on her cheeks. “You mustn’t feel too badly about what has happened. If you had loved me, you would have recognized the truth even if your eyes said it was a lie. Find a woman you can love, Ramon. Don’t settle for anything less.”
His heart clenched, seemed to crumble inside him. His throat burned and he could not swallow past the hot ache that rode there. “Cara, please … I cannot…”
He didn’t say more and neither did she, but her eyes remained on his face, as if she were memorizing each of his features.
Moments passed. Long, immeasurable seconds that marked the end of all that had been between them, the shifting winds that altered each of their lives.
The oneness they had shared was a thing of the past. They would never do the things he had hoped for, the things he had begun to let himself dream.
There would be no future for the two of them, no children they would raise to be proud and strong.
His mind fought a surging wave of pain. Carly spun the little mare, quirted its rump and began to gallop up the trail.
If you loved me, she had said, but she was wrong.
He did love her. So much that losing her was the most painful thing he had ever suffered.
Watching her ride away was like seeing the light go out of his life, leaving him in darkness.
His hand shook against the pommel of his saddle, his insides felt leaden. How could he love her and at the same time hate her so much? How could he hate her and still want her?
Ramon closed his eyes, trying not to see the image of his cousin’s naked body, his slim dark fingers roaming over his wife’s bare breast. If another man had touched her, by now he would be dead. But Angel was family. He was a de la Guerra. He had been duped just as Ramon had been.
He reined the stallion away, the saddle horse trailing behind. At the top of the hill, he paused, watching to be certain Caralee made it safely to the rancho. She was crying, he thought, but he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps in her own way, she had loved him after all.
Her horse picked its way down into the valley, Caralee sitting straight in the saddle, her chin held high and her shoulders squared.
He wondered what she was thinking, wondered if she regretted what she had done.
He wondered if she wished she were returning to Las Almas as much as he wished he were taking her home.
He watched her for several more moments, ignoring the dull ache in his chest, his desire to turn back time until the days before their journey to Monterey. If only he could do things over, perhaps she could have come to love him enough that she never would have strayed.
He watched till her small figure dropped over the rise, then sat back in his saddle and wheeled the stallion away. Several yards up the canyon, he paused, listening to the fading sound of her little mare’s footfalls on the rocky trail as she rode farther away.
When the hoofbeats had thinned to silence and the only sound left was the wind soughing softly through the trees, he steeled himself against his aching loss and resigned himself to accepting what must be.
The past was over and done. Like his brother Andreas, Caralee was dead to him, no longer a part of his life.
Yesterday he had spoken to Padre Renaldo, the old man he had ridden so far to see.
The priest had told him the documents he needed were probably in a vault at the mission in Santa Barbara.
Once he had retrieved them, there was a chance he could finally win back his family’s land.
For the first time since the deaths of his father and brother, Ramon did not care.