Page 56 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

“After three weeks? If even I have heard about Don Antonio’s new stud bull, then you can bet your butt that he’s heard about you. News travels fast around here.”

Graciela gave her the superior schoolmarm look. “I want to meet my grandpa Barrancas. I know the way to his ranch, Jake told me. But I’m afraid to go by myself.”

Jenny considered. She knew Robert and Ellen would disapprove, but…

why not? Maybe it was time Don Antonio met his granddaughter.

Plus, as hardheaded as Graciela could be, the kid would go there sooner or later regardless of instructions to the contrary.

Better that she went with a champion at her side.

Reluctantly, Jenny moved her borrowed horse up beside Graciela’s pony.

“All right, but this goes against my better judgment. And if Don Antonio tosses us out on our butts, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The day was warm, and a light breeze carried a tang of the distant sea and the scent of nearby blossoms. It was the kind of bright spring day that made the heart sing just to be part of it.

“Jenny? Do you still like me?”

“What?” She snapped her head to the right and stared. “Of course I still like you. Why would you ask a dumb fool question like that?”

“You’ve been acting all strange since we came here. First, I thought you were hurting over Uncle Ty. But then I thought—”

Now was the time, there would never be one better. All she had to do was find the courage to announce that soon she would be leaving. “Look, kid,” she said, fixing her gaze straight ahead as her chest tightened. “You’ve got family now. You don’t need—”

But she didn’t finish the speech that she endlessly rehearsed every night. Two men rode out of the brush beside the road and ordered them to halt. “You’re on private property,” one of them said in thickly accented English. “This is Barrancas land. Turn back.”

“We’ve come to call on Don Antonio Barrancas,” Jenny stated coolly. She nodded to the second man and switched to Spanish. “Please inform Don Antonio that his granddaughter wishes to pay her respects.” The men stared at Graciela, then both wheeled and galloped up the road.

Jenny waved at the dust settling atop her hat and shoulders. “Well, we’ll know in a few minutes if we’re welcome or not.”

“Mama said Grandpa Antonio is very strict,” Graciela confided anxiously. “I don’t think he likes little girls.”

“Then you were very brave to come here.”

The Sanders ranch suggested prosperity, but the Barrancas spread shouted wealth.

Jenny sucked in a breath when she spotted the tile-roofed hacienda through a feathery stand of cedar.

If she hadn’t know this was a private residence, she would have assumed it was a government seat.

The outbuildings were easily twice the size of those on the Sanders ranch, and she had never imagined so many stock pens could exist in one place.

Straightening her shirtwaist with an unconscious gesture, she gazed at the hacienda and wished she’d worn a jacket and a better hat. “I’m thinking this wasn’t such a good idea, kid.”

“Stop calling me kid,” Graciela whispered, staring.

“At least they aren’t going to throw us out right away.”

A man, a woman, and a boy stood waiting beneath a porte cochere. The man silently assisted them to the ground, and the boy led away the mare and the pony.

The woman gasped and covered her mouth when she saw Graciela. She cast an anxious glance at Jenny, then returned her stare to the child. “This way, por favor, ” she murmured, leading them inside.

Everything was massive. Huge beams supported the ceiling. A wide staircase led to a shadowy second floor. The furniture was large and gleaming, sitting atop carpets as fine as tapestry.

Graciela edged closer to Jenny and gripped her hand as they followed the woman through the great hall, down a short tiled corridor, and into a cool, beautiful room with cream-colored walls and brightly upholstered furnishings.

“ Café, senorita? the woman murmured, not taking her gaze from Graciela. “Perhaps something cool?”

“Nada, gracias,” Jenny answered, transfixed by the two portraits above the fireplace mantel.

One of the women was Marguarita, young, glowing with health, and breathtakingly beautiful. The other woman, obviously Marguarita’s mother, was older but equally as lovely. Both women had dark eyes; otherwise, Jenny might have been seeing Graciela at age sixteen and again at age forty.

“Hello, Grandpa. I’m Graciela.”

Spinning, Jenny confronted a tall handsome man, younger than she had assumed he would be. Grey streaked Don Antonio’s dark hair at the temples, and an outdoor life had weathered his face, but she doubted he was much older than Ellen Sanders, whom she knew to be forty-six.

He stared at her over Graciela’s head, no trace of welcome in his cold black eyes. “Why have you come here?”

She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. “Senor Barrancas, I am Jenny Jones. I’ve brought your granddaughter from Mexico to California. I have news of your daughter if you wish to hear it.”

He lowered a frown to Graciela and clasped his hands behind his back. “I have no daughter,” he said harshly.

“Yes you do, Grandpa. Don’t you remember?” Graciela whispered. “See? That’s Mama in the portrait. But Mama died and so did Uncle Ty.” She moved a little closer to Jenny. “Cousin Jorje and Tito tried to kill me. So did Cousin Luis and Chulo. Chulo cut Jenny, but I sewed her up.”

Don Antonio’s head snapped up and his black eyes flashed. “What nonsense is this?” Jenny believed she had observed an instant of pain at the mention of Marguarita’s death, but now she saw only fury. “Did you bring this child here to insult my family in my own house?”

Jenny’s gaze narrowed, and her back went ramrod straight. “Apparently your relatives south of the Rio Grande believe they are more entitled to your fortune than your granddaughter. They did their damnedest to kill us both. They did kill Ty Sanders.”

“If I had a granddaughter, no member of my family would dare harm her. If you are referring to Sanders’s bastard”—he flicked Graciela a look of contempt—“your lies become ridiculous. Sanders’s bastard has no claim to Barrancas property.”

“I have your daughter’s marriage papers, Senor.

Graciela, named for your late wife, is not a bastard.

” Dots of color flamed on Jenny’s cheeks, but her voice emerged as steady as rock.

“Your daughter was not the fool that perhaps you believe she was. She confirmed that Graciela is indeed your legal heir, Senor, whether or not you accept her. And you have my word that it’s only luck that prevented your family from killing your granddaughter. ”

Rage stiffened his jaw. “You are not welcome here, Senorita. Take this child, whoever she is, and leave my lands at once.”

Graciela’s chin came up and her posture unconsciously mimicked her grandfather’s.

“Jenny does not lie.” Her shoulders pulled back and indignation burned in her eyes.

“And neither do I! Tito poured snakes on me, and Luis blew up our train and killed Uncle Ty. They did, too, try to hurt your granddaughter. That’s me, Grandpa! ”

He turned on his bootheels and had almost reached the door when a sharp voice called his name.

“Senor Barrancas.”

Jenny turned to see Ellen striding into the room, wearing a hastily donned jacket and hat. She threw Jenny and Graciela an exasperated glance, then walked forward and seated herself on the only piece of furniture that was not upholstered.

“Perhaps some refreshments?” she said in Spanish to the woman hovering in the doorway. “Coffee for the adults, lemonade for Don Antonio’s granddaughter.”

The woman cast a quick glance at Don Antonio’s frosty rage, then hastened away.

Ellen’s smile did not touch her eyes. “Forgive me for assuming the role of hostess, but it appears you have several guests today.”

“ Senora Sanders,” Don Antonio said icily. “Please accept my condolences for the loss of your husband.”

“I have suffered new losses,” Ellen answered softly, beckoning Graciela to come sit beside her. “My son and my daughter-in-law.”

Hardly daring to breathe, Jenny stood beside the fireplace and watched the frigid but carefully polite interplay between the representatives of two families who bitterly hated each other.

And her respect and admiration for Ellen Sanders grew by leaps and bounds.

Ellen had seized upon Mexican courtesy and used it to manipulate Don Antonio.

Moreover, Ellen had guessed Graciela’s destination, had followed, and was bent on holding her own while sitting in the lion’s den.

“I pray you will forgive a blunt observation, but I doubt the loss of your alleged daughter-in-law pains you any more than the loss of a Sanders pains me.”

Ellen met his eyes. “You are wrong. I was deeply sorry to learn of Marguarita’s death. I intended to welcome my son’s wife to my home, and I was prepared to accept and love her. The Barrancas and Sanders women were never part of the feud between you and my husband.”

“I have business to attend,” Don Antonio said stiffly. “When you have finished your coffee, Chala will see you to the door.”

“You have lost a daughter, and I have lost a husband and a son,” Ellen said quietly.

“Let it end, Antonio.” She placed her arm around Graciela.

“Let our beautiful granddaughter serve as a bridge of truce between your family and mine. She came to you of her own free will and against my wishes because she wants to know her mother’s family, too.

I was wrong. She is as much yours as mine.

She was right to come to you. You sent one chid away.

Will you harden your heart against this child, too? ”

When Ellen sent Jenny a glance, she read it at once. Without a word, she moved forward, took Graciela by the hand, and led her out of the room.

For the next hour, she and Graciela wandered the grounds surrounding the hacienda. No one approached them. No one spoke to them. When they spotted the boy leading their horses toward the heavy carved front doors, they hastened to the porte cochere.

Ellen emerged grim-lipped and hard-eyed. She mounted her horse without speaking, waited for Jenny and Graciela, then rode out in front. She didn’t drop back beside them until the horses had trotted off Barrancas lands.

“Will he accept her?” Jenny inquired softly.

“Damned if I know! That is the proudest, stubbornest, most unbending man I ever met outside of Cal Sanders. But at least he knows the whole story now. I don’t think the old jackass believes half of it, but I gave him an earful to think about.

” Her gaze narrowed. “Speaking of jackasses… what the hell were you two thinking of to go busting in there like thieves rushing to a lynching? I ought to whup the both of you for being so dad-burned stupid.”

It was Graciela who began. First she looked astonished, then surprised. “Jenny. Grandma sounds just like you!” She burst into delighted laughter.

Jenny gazed at Ellen and fought to hold her expression steady, struggled to look contrite.

But Graciela’s infectious laughter grabbed the tensions of the last two hours and transformed them into giggles.

Jenny’s mouth twitched. Her shoulders shook.

And then she was roaring helplessly. “We must have lost our minds,” she shouted, laughing so hard she thought for certain she would fall off her horse. “You’ll have to whup us.”

“You sure as hell did lose your minds!”

“Grandma, you can’t cuss. Me and Jenny quit cussing. You have to stop cussing, too!”

And then Ellen was slapping her hat against her thigh and laughing until tears streaked down her cheeks.

Every time they looked at each other throughout the rest of the week, one of them would chuckle, and then they would all burst into laughter until they had to hold their sides and sit down.

And each day of work and laughter, each walk with Robert, each task shared with Ellen and Maria, each trip to sit on the porch of Ty’s house, each time Graciela slipped her small hand in Jenny’s, made it harder for her to think about leaving.

But she had to leave soon while at least part of her heart still belonged to her.

She kept giving chunks of it away, to Ellen, to old Grizzly Bill, to the boarded-up house, and a small slice even went to Robert who held himself aloof in his pain and grief, lost in despair that she understood only too well.

Tomorrow the month she had promised Ty would end. The day after, she would ride away, as hollow and scooped out as a person could be and still claim to be living.