Chapter Eighteen #4
“Was it a lie?” Pedro’s eyes held his. “Or would your wife have been another helpless victim if you had not arrived when you did?”
Ramon sank down on a bale of straw next to the fence, his long legs no longer steady. “Dios mio, what you are saying cannot be true.”
“Your wife has proven her honor, Ramon, not once but again and again. She knows who you are and yet she says nothing. Perhaps she could even find the stronghold, if that was her wish.” His veined hand reached for Ramon’s broad shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“Can you not see your wife keeps her silence because she loves you? That she is Anglo is not reason enough to disregard her word.”
“You must be wrong. It cannot be true.”
“You have not seen your cousin in five long years, Ramon. Even if he was an honest man before—which I have come to doubt—you cannot know what so many years in prison might do to a man like him.” Ramon said nothing.
“Your loyalty to your cousin is commendable, my friend, but I do not believe he feels that same loyalty to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is jealous of you, Ramon. It is there in his face whenever he speaks of you. If you had spent the least amount of time with him, you would have seen he is not the man you believe.”
Ramon raked a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “You are telling me I am wrong. That my wife has not done this terrible thing. How can you expect me to believe that when I saw them with my own eyes?”
“Sometimes what you think you see is not what you see at all. Just like the trail leading into Llano Mirada. If your wife says she is innocent then I believe her. I would believe Caralee McConnell long before I would accept the word of a man like Angel de la Guerra.”
Ramon ran his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. Inside his chest his heart throbbed dully. “What if you are wrong?”
“There is a way to know for sure.”
“How? Tell me, I beg you.”
“Look inside your heart, Ramon. The truth lies there. I believe you know what it is. I think you have known for some time. You are afraid to believe, that is all.”
If you loved me, you would recognize the truth even when your eyes say it is a lie. “Are my prejudices really so strong, Pedro? Is it possible I have let my hatred of the Anglos blind me to what is real?”
“What do you think, Ramon? Only you can know for sure.”
And suddenly he did know. So clearly the air around him rang with it. He stared out over the valley and the truth sweeping through him made the towering oaks seem taller, the golden grass more abundant, the sky a deeper blue.
“Por Dios,” he whispered, Carly’s beautiful tear-ravaged face rising up in the eye of his mind. I love you, Ramon. I love you so much. “She was fighting to save herself, not welcoming Angel to her bed.”
“Si, that is what I believe.”
“Santo de Christo, how could I not have seen?” In the back of his mind, he remembered Yolanda, the woman his cousin meant to marry.
She had rejected Angel’s suit because she had wanted Ramon.
It was Ramon, not Angel, who had always attracted women.
Beautiful, desirable women. Women his cousin must have wanted. Women like Caralee.
“He must have known she was my wife. If he saw me ride out, he could have waited, approached her in the dining room. He could have followed her up to our room and somehow broken in. He must have meant to rape her. He believed she would be too ashamed to tell me. He might even have believed I would take his word over hers.”
When Ramon looked up, the world appeared blurred and something burned at the back of his eyes. “And I did, Pedro. I behaved exactly as Angel knew I would.” Slowly he came to his feet. “I will kill him, I swear it.”
Pedro gripped his shoulders. “Listen to me, Ramon. It is your wife you must think of now. You are certain about your beliefs? You must be, if you are to succeed. What you have done will not be easy to undo. There can be no doubts about her ever again.”
Ramon swallowed against the tightness that had risen in his throat. “I cannot believe I did not see it before.”
“For so many years you have hated the Anglos. But there is good and bad in all people. In your heart you know this. The loss of your brother has made you forget for a while.”
Ramon just nodded. “I have made so many mistakes. Where my wife is concerned, I cannot seem to think clearly.”
“You love her, my friend. Love can blind a man worse than the blackest night.”
“I must go to her. Bring her home to Las Almas.”
“It could be dangerous. You will not be welcome on del Robles land.”
“I do not care. I will wait for darkness, then go in. Somehow I will convince her to forgive me.” Perhaps one day you will discover the truth … by then it will be too late.
Ramon’s stomach knotted. Too late. Too late.
Too late. As much as he prayed it wouldn’t be so, if it was, he could not blame her.
Never had he brought her anything but grief.
Silently he vowed that if she would forgive him, he would spend the rest of his life making up for the pain she had suffered since the day that she had first met him.