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  “It’s too damn late for either of us to be sorry.”

  “What is this about Hank?” Adrien finally spoke up. “What have you done to him?”

  Samantha started to laugh hysterically. “Oh, God, it’s just like you to think I’m the villain.”

  Adrien pivoted around and stalked away, and at that moment Samantha didn’t know which of the two men she hated more.

  “Samantha—” Jeannette tried again.

  “No!” Samantha snapped, and headed for her horse, throwing back at her friend, “There’s nothing you can say that will help now, Jeannette. I’m returning to town, and I sincerely hope I don’t see either you or your brother again before I leave here.”

  Samantha rode off then, her anger and bitterness burning hotter than ever. When she reached town, she changed hotels, moving to the best Elizabethtown offered.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon brooding. What could she do about Hank Chavez? She had quickly understood that she hated him more than she hated Adrien. She couldn’t let Hank get away with what he’d done, get away with seducing her and then mocking her. No matter how much she might have hurt him, he had had no right to hurt her so badly.

  It was not the loss of her virginity that was eating at her, keeping her anger aflame. That had been his revenge, simple and over with. Hank had felt she deserved it for having hurt him, and perhaps she could even forgive him for that. After all, she knew what hurt was. And though she wished it had not happened, she shamefully admitted that she had found pleasure in their union. Somehow, her body had responded.

  But Hank’s parting taunts had truly shamed her. She could not stand his knowing what a fool she was. Hank knew that she would never have the man she loved.

  Had loved. Samantha felt only pity for Adrien now. She was disgusted with herself. That she could be so stupid! That she had belittled herself, always thinking that it was her fault if Adrien didn’t notice her.

  All that ate at her. That was why she wanted so desperately to get even with Hank. Only she didn’t know how. She didn’t know the first thing about tracking a man. She could hire someone else to do it, but she didn’t even know how to find the sort of man who would hunt another down.

  There was nothing she could do except hope that she would meet up with Hank again one day. And there was a way to make that a possibility—by posting a reward. Wanted, alive. And she did want him alive, so that she could see him horsewhipped for the despicable bastard he was.

  In order to post a reward, she would have to have a reason. Robbery would be the easiest to explain. If the law ever caught up with him, they would hold him until she could identify him. Then she would have him released and take the law into her own hands. A few of her father’s vaqueros would help her.

  She felt better just thinking about her revenge. She had a plan, something she could act on first thing in the morning, so she went to sleep easily…only to dream about Hank Chavez.

  Chapter 12

  FOUR days later, Samantha and her six-man escort rode out of Elizabethtown in a cloud of dust. She was quite a dramatic sight, a wide-brimmed brown hat perched daringly atop her tightly wound red hair. In a brown leather skirt split down the middle and a matching vest over her white silk shirt she made a stunning picture. She looked just like a female cowboy, right down to her spurred boots and the gun holster clinging to her thigh. Her skirt had been made in order to accommodate it, and to make riding astride easy.

  She had thanked Manuel profusely for bringing her riding outfit along with him, and she was just as pleased with the horse he had brought her. A frisky black stallion, El Cid had been just a colt when she left home three years before. Now he was powerful and sleek, and she would learn to love him as she had loved Princesa, her spirited white mustang who had died just before she left for the East.

  That first week, Samantha insisted on putting as much distance as possible between her and what she thought of as the place of her shame. But soon Manuel did some insisting of his own and slowed their pace, explaining that he would not bring home el patrón’s niña exhausted and bottom-sore from hard riding.

  They rode only about twenty miles a day after that first week, a pace the horses could keep to easily. They stopped in every town, and Samantha checked each to see if her wanted posters on Hank had been put up. They usually had.

  She became jumpy and irritable around strangers. Every time she saw a tall, black-haired man in dark clothing, her pulse raced and her hand moved to her gun. The frequent reminders of Hank didn’t help her to forget him. And she had meant to forget him. It wasn’t fair! He was supposed to be haunted by her, not the other way around.

  The day they crossed the border into Mexico was a day of rejoicing, though they still had a week of riding before reaching Kingsley land. But the days did not seem so long anymore. They were riding on familiar terrain—the flat plains, the rolling hills—and always there were the beautiful Sierra mountains in the distance.

  How she loved that mountain range. It was framed outside her bedroom window at home and was the first thing she saw every morning. Seeing it each day now made her feel as if she were home already, and just out riding the range with the vaqueros as she used to do. They had often spent nights out on the range, and went off on her own for whole days, exploring caves and gullies and finding narrow mountain paths traveled for centuries by the Indians, magnificent hidden valleys, old village ruins. It had been a fascinating life.

  Samantha sighed. She wasn’t so young anymore, and she no longer felt quite so adventurous. She had grown up a lot in her three years away from home. And, she thought ruefully, she had done most of her growing up in the last month.

  They arrived at the ranch in the middle of the afternoon, halfway through the second week in April. It was a sunny, warm day. The sprawling one-storied house of stuccoed adobe and stone welcomed Samantha, but her father, standing by the front door impatiently waiting for her to dismount, made her heart leap with joy. She ran to Hamilton Kingsley, throwing herself into his arms.

  For several moments, she couldn’t let go of him. Here was safety. No one could hurt her when these arms were around her. This man spoiled her, pampered her, loved her. Oh, it was wonderful to be home!

  At last she leaned back to get a good, long look at him. He looked the same, and she found herself terribly pleased by that. Her father was still the broad-shouldered, robust man she had fought so hard at first, yet had come to love so well.

  He laughed, but his eyes were filled with tears. “Well, daughter, do I pass inspection?”

  She laughed, too. “You haven’t changed.”

  “But you certainly have. You’re no longer my little girl. I never should have sent you to school. Damn, but it’s been too long, much too long to have you away. I’ve missed you, niña.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.” Samantha knew she was going to cry. “I’m sorry I stayed away longer than I really had to. I regret not coming home sooner. I regret it more than you could ever know.”

  “Here now,” he said gruffly. “Let’s not have tears in those pretty eyes. Come inside.” He led her inside to the enclosed patio at the center of the house. “Maria! Our little girl’s home!” he bellowed. “Come see how she has grown!”

  The kitchen, off the patio, which was planted with flowering shrubs and vines, was where Maria could usually be found. The plump Mexican woman came running from that direction, and Samantha met her halfway, under the large arched hallway entrance. Maria had changed just a little. There was a little more gray in her coal-black hair. But when she folded Samantha in her pudgy arms, she felt just as soft and cushiony as she always had.

  “Look at you. Look!” Maria scolded. “You have grown too much, muchacha. You come home a woman.”

  “Prettier?” Samantha grinned, teasing.

  “Ah, now I know you have not changed at all. You still try to tease compliments from me, eh?”

  “And you still won’t give them.”

  “Not so!” Mar
ia gasped with indignation. “How this girl lies. Is this what they teach you in that fine school?”

  Samantha suppressed a grin, as did her father. “Now, now, Maria, you know she’s only teasing you,” he said.

  “She knows, father,” Samantha added. “She just has to make a big to-do about it.”

  “Ay! I will not listen to insolence from one so young,” Maria said with mock severity.

  “So young? And here I thought you said I had come home a woman. Make up your mind, Maria.”

  Maria threw her plump arms into the air, conceding in frustration. “I am too old for your antics, mi niña. Leave an old woman alone.”

  “I will do so only if you promise to make arroz con pollo for dinner,” Samantha replied, her eyes twinkling merrily.

  Maria looked at Hamilton sharply. “Did I not tell you she would ask for el pollo? It is her homecoming, and I cannot even give her her favorite dish—because of that devil,” she spat in very real disgust.

  “Maria!” Hamilton said in a warning voice.

  “What is this?” Samantha asked, frowning. This exchange was unusual. “Aren’t there any chickens?”

  Maria ignored Hamilton’s warning look and answered angrily, “Not a one, niña.” She clicked her fingers. “Like that, they are gone.”

  “Disappeared? You’re saying they just vanished?”

  Maria shook her head. “Your papacito, he gives me dirty looks,” she said huffily. “I am saying no more.”

  Samantha watched her walk back toward the kitchen and then turned to her father. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing, Sammy,” Hamilton said smoothly. “You know how dramatic Maria is.”

  “But how could the chickens disappear—unless they were stolen? And our workers wouldn’t steal from us. Do you know who did it?”

  He shook his head. His tone was evasive. “I have only suspicions. But it’s certainly nothing to concern yourself with. Jorge will be back any day now with a crate full of new chickens, so you will get your arroz con pollo yet. Why don’t you go and rest before dinner? You must be tired. We can talk later.”

  Samantha grinned. In her happiness at being home, the chickens were forgotten. “It’s not a nap I want, father, but a bath. I have had so many cramped, uncomfortable baths, that I’ve been dreaming for months about that heavenly bathtub you bought me.”

  “It’s nice to know one of my gifts is so deeply appreciated.” He chuckled.

  She laughed. “That one is so deeply appreciated that I can’t wait to get into it. I’ll see you later, father.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Oh, it’s so good to be home.”

  Samantha’s high-ceilinged, whitewashed room cheered her, as it always had. It was just as she had left it, roomy, neat, furnished sparingly. The clothes she had left behind in her wardrobe would still fit her if she let out the hems a little. Even so, she had brought a new wardrobe from the East and would probably give the old clothes away, all except her riding habits.

  The narrow bed was still covered in the old plaid blanket she liked so well. There was no vanity, just a large uncluttered oak dresser. The tables by her bed held no feminine knickknacks. There was really nothing in the room that identified it as belonging to a young girl, for that girl had been a tomboy, disdaining feminine frills.

  Now she would have a vanity put in, and perhaps lacy curtains at the windows, as well as a full-length mirror and even some doilies for the tables. She hadn’t changed all that much, but she no longer denied being a lady. She couldn’t go on forever reacting against the childhood spent with an overly strict grandmother. Then again, she wouldn’t give up her freedom, either.

  Dinner was a delight. Maria had outdone herself. There was Spanish rice with thick steaks and peppers, and frijoles, the delicious beans mashed and fried in bacon drippings. Maria served enchiladas and quesadillas, as well, and Samantha stuffed herself on the different tortilla dishes. She had so missed Maria’s Mexican cooking, and she quickly decided that if she ever left home again, she would take Maria along with her.

  After dinner they retired to the comfortable living room off the central patio, Samantha insisting that Maria join them. The old woman was family to Samantha, never mind that she had her own children and Manuel, her husband.

  Samantha talked only briefly about school, for she had already written home about so much of it. Maria and her father were more interested in her journey home, and in the Allstons. But Samantha could not speak enthusiastically about her journey, and she gave only a general account of Jeannette and Adrien. Her father asked many questions about them, but she never once let on that her feelings for Adrien had run deep, or that those feelings had been sorely wounded. She spoke of Elizabethtown with distaste, but her father attributed that to the primitive atmosphere of a boom town.

  Samantha didn’t mention the dark, handsome stranger of her journey. She would never speak of him or of her shame, not unless he was found and she had to explain why she would be identifying him.

  Then it was her turn to ask questions, to find out what had been going on at home. There had been a marriage and four births among the vaqueros and their families. One of the copper mines was shut down because there had been too many accidents. There had been some cattle missing on the range recently, nothing serious, and only because the ranch had gone short-handed while Samantha’s escort was away. There had been building and repairs, minor things, of no concern.

  Her father changed the subject.

  “Don Ignacio’s son has been here often, asking after you, Sammy.”

  “Ramón?”

  “Yes, he’s turned into a fine boy.”

  “You mean man, don’t you?” Samantha pointed out. “Ramón is several years older than I am.”

  Hamilton shrugged. “I’ve watched him grow up, Sammy. It’s the same as with you. You’re still my little girl. It’s hard to think of you as a grown woman.”

  “Well, I still feel like your little girl. So maybe we can forget sometimes that I’m grown.”

  “Agreed.” He chuckled. “But, as I was saying, Ramón Baroja has turned out to be a fine…man, and I think you’ll be surprised at the change. He must have grown six inches since you left.”

  “And how is his family?”

  “Well.”

  Maria grunted. “Very well, considering they have not been troubled as we—”

  Hamilton cleared his throat loudly, cutting her off. “I could use some brandy, Maria.”

  “What trouble?” Samantha asked Maria.

  Her father answered quickly. “It’s nothing. A few drifters killing some stock. Things like this have happened before.”

  Samantha watched Maria shaking her head as the older woman left to get the brandy. What was going on? The chickens…the mine…missing cattle…dead stock. Yet her father shrugged it all off. Or did he? Was it really nothing, or did he not want to worry her?

  “Ramón will probably stop by to see you tomorrow,” Hamilton was saying. He chuckled. “He has been coming every other day. I suppose he doesn’t trust me to send word when you arrive.”

  “Why is he so eager to see me?”

  “Well, he’s missed you. He hasn’t married yet, you know.”

  “You sound like you’re matchmaking, father.” Samantha grinned impishly. “I suppose you wouldn’t mind at all if I married Ramón?”

  “I think he would make a fine husband, yes. But don’t get your dander up, Sam,” he added. “I’m not about to tell you whom you should marry. I expect you will follow your heart.”

  “Marriage is the furthest thing from my mind,” Samantha said. There was just a touch of bitterness in her voice, but not enough for her father to detect.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he replied. “After all, you just came home to me. I wouldn’t want to lose you too soon, querida.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  Hamilton looked up, surprised by her sharp tone. “What?”

  “I said don’t call me that,” she s
napped, and then sighed. “Oh, I’m sorry, father. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

  She was shocked. How she must have sounded. She was letting Hank Chavez affect her homecoming. Her father wouldn’t understand why she never wanted to hear that endearment again, nor did she want to make him understand. He worried too much over her welfare as it was. He would be devastated to know what she had allowed to happen to her. And she had allowed it, she reminded herself cruelly. She had let him fondle her, build her to a feverish pitch. She had allowed all of that—and then it had been too late to stop the rest.

  “I must be tired. I don’t know what I’m saying.” Samantha tried to excuse herself for the outburst. “I didn’t sleep very well last night because I was so excited, knowing I’d be home today.”

  Her father nodded. “And I am keeping you up late. Go on to bed, Sam.”

  “Yes, I think I will.” She bent and kissed him.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.” He squeezed her hand before letting her go. “Good night—Sammy.”

  She walked away, furious with herself instead of happy at being home. She was letting Hank Chavez haunt her. Why, her father had always called her querida when saying good night to her. And now he couldn’t say that—because of Hank Chavez!

  Chapter 13

  FROILANA RAMIREZ woke Samantha, bringing fresh water into her room. Maria’s youngest daughter was twenty-three, and unmarried, though many men had spoken for her. She was waiting for the right man, “the one who sweeps me off my feet and carries me away,” she always told Samantha quite seriously.

  “He must be very strong, very handsome. He must make me swoon for love of him.”

  Samantha had always scoffed at Froilana’s fanciful dreams. She had felt that boys were good only for beating at contests. She always beat Ramón and the boys on the ranch, even the ones much older than she. But now, older, she could understand Froilana’s dreams.

  She lay there listening to Froilana’s frivolous chatter. A vivacious girl, pretty, with silky black hair, wide brown eyes, and golden skin, Froilana’s only fault was incessant chattering.