Читать книгу Marry A Man Who Will Dance - Ann Major - Страница 12

It had been a hellish hour. Ritz had pranced back and forth in front of the gate astride Buttercup, torn between abandoning the mare and staying with her. All her grand dreams of ending the feud were as nothing.

Oh, why couldn’t Mother or Ramón drive by and rescue her?

Ritz was hot and tired and thirsty. So was Buttercup.

Maybe just maybe, Ritz could get out of this trap if she rode all the way down to the beach.

Maybe. The beach was five miles away. Probably another fence would cut her off before she got there.

A red sun hung low in a rosy horizon. With a frown, she pushed her glasses up her nose and studied the caliche road and the oak mott atop the ancient dunes. Tangles of thick, thorny brush—mesquite, huisache and oak and prickly pear trailed down the sides of the dunes. Her gaze wandered over the greenery twisting across the flat pasture following the course of Keller Creek.

Surely Roque wouldn’t still be naked at that pond on the other side of those trees. Not that she’d risk going that far. She’d only go as far as the oak mott, to the edge of the creek, in the hopes that it might still be running even this late in the year.

She nudged Buttercup. Even if it was dry, at least she and Buttercup could rest and cool off in the shade.

As they made their way toward the trees, she couldn’t help remembering less anxious outings when she’d come here with her cousins and Uncle Buster, who had always said this was the prettiest pasture on the Triple K Ranch.

Blackstone Ranch now.

Oh, how she’d loved Uncle Buster. He’d been a lot like her daddy except way more fun.

A yowl from the brush pierced the silence. A little brown rabbit sprang up underfoot. Buttercup reared. Clenching her legs tight and seizing fistfuls of black mane, Ritz held on as the rabbit made a wild dash for it.

Letting out a war whoop, Ritz and Buttercup raced after it.

Crazed with fear, the rabbit dived into a hole.

Buttercup circled, pawing and snorting.

Then Ritz remembered where she was and glanced nervously toward the oak mott.

No sign of a cat…. Nor a tall, dark naked man-boy.

Pressing her calves tighter, she and Buttercup were soon inside the shade of the oak trees. The creek was no more than a narrow trickle of water spilling over rocks and sand and damp brown leaves. Four yellow birds fluttered in the sand near a clump of Spanish dagger, chirping.

The banks were stony, littered with sticks, and thorny with yellow-berried Granjeno, which made for dangerous riding, so Ritz dismounted Buttercup, because she was too precious to her to risk a leg injury.

Quietly, so as not to startle the birds, Ritz grounded the mare. The birds fluttered to the high green branches that arched above like a natural cathedral. Buttercup sunk her muzzle and guzzled sloppily from a little pool. Ritz knelt on the bank, dabbing cool water onto her red face and sunburned arms. She kept thinking about Roque Blackstone and wondering how she’d ever get out.

When she’d cooled off a bit, she just sat there, mesmerized by the guppies flashing in the dark waters. Wishing she had jars to catch them with, she forgot she was trapped in the forbidden kingdom with a naked boy.

Scooping up a handful of water and two guppies, she smiled as they wriggled their tails spraying wet pearls of sunlight. Releasing them, she saw Buttercup a good ways downstream nibbling mesquite beans.

Buttercup was not to be trusted, so Ritz got up to go after her. Then she spied a darling black spider curled up in a white flower. When she peeled back the petals, the spider curled up as small as a pill bug.

“Don’t be afraid, little spider.”

Little legs tickled her ankle. When she brushed at the bug, she saw an amber colored army of ants racing along a miniature highway in the tall brown grasses. Every ant returning to the mound carried a leaf bigger than it was. She fell to her knees to watch them. Every ant coming out of the mound bumped into every ant carrying a leaf.

“Why?” she wondered aloud, spellbound. “Do you have a secret language?”

For a long time, she was aware of nothing but the ants. Then a large animal sneezed. She jumped to her feet.

“Buttercup?”

The yellow birds weren’t singing anymore. The last of the red-gold sunlight flickered in the twisted, wind-skewered branches. An owl went, “whoo, whoo, whoo.”

Where was Buttercup?

Ritz ran in the direction where she’d last seen her. When she stopped to get her breath, she was in a part of the oak mott she’d never been in before. Shrouded eerily with mistletoe, the trees were like dancers frozen in some dark spell.

The owl hooted again.

Sometimes witches took the shape of owls and changed little girls into birds…at least, in one of Ritz’s favorite fairy tales. Ritz shivered.

The trees, the creek—all that had seemed so familiar and wondrous were suddenly strange and terrifying. She was all alone. Without the wind to rattle the palmetto fronds and stir the brown leaves that littered the ground, it was too quiet.

She stared up into the branches looking for cats. Then she remembered the No Trespassing signs, and a pulsebeat pounded in her temple.

This was Blackstone land. Why hadn’t she climbed the gate and run home? She had to get home—fast—really fast, before something really bad happened. She would have to end the feud some other day when she was bigger and braver.

“Buttercup? Where are you—”

There was no answering snicker. The sun went behind a cloud and the glade darkened. Branches moaned in the wind. Leaves rained down and scuttled at her feet.

Then a twig crackled behind her.

Sobbing with fury and terror, she whirled. Sunlight and shadows played across the grass. Alert, triangular, gold ears above the waving brown tips pointed straight at her.

A cat!

Her heart slammed against her rib cage.

Another gust of wind sent more leaves flying. The grass waved. The big ears disappeared.

Oh, my God! Where was he? Her eyes glued to the spot where those ears had been, she pushed her glasses up. Then she stealthily tiptoed backward, moving robotically, one careful little half step at a time because she knew she wasn’t supposed to run. Not from a cat—they liked to chase things.

To a big cat, she’d be no more than a mouse was to Molly, Mother’s gray Persian that was forever catching birds…just to play with them and kill them. A big cat would bite her neck, crunch her bones, toss her around like a rag doll, paralyze her and then drag her off to some tree or hole—

Last year she’d seen a dead little filly over near the beach house that a cat had gotten. There’d been nothing left but bones and strips of hide and a few strands of black mane and tail blowing in the wind.

She conjured this image so vividly, she forgot not to run. With a panicky yell, Ritz twisted and sprinted full out toward the sunny pasture and pond.

Her sneakers flew across fallen branches, logs and rocks, splashing sloppily through the mud and water. When her foot got stuck between two rocks in the slippery ooze, a rattler hissed from the bank. At the sight of those brown coils, she yanked at her ankle with the frenzy of a coyote chewing its leg off to get out of a trap.

Then she was free, sobbing but running wildly. Thorns scratched her legs. Cutoffs weren’t right for such dense brush. Cowboys wore leather leggings and jackets and gauntlet-type gloves.

Her right toe hit a rock wrong, and she pitched forward, hitting the ground so hard, it knocked the breath out of her. Her bleeding palms burned from skidding across gravel and sticker burrs, but she was too stunned and too terrified by what she saw beyond the trees to even whimper.

There he was!

Not naked!

Worse!

Bold as brass, Roque Blackstone stared straight at her, unzipped his fly and shook his big thingy out.

Just like last night, she covered her eyes with her fingers and crouched as still as a mouse and prayed, hoping he hadn’t heard her, hoping he hadn’t really seen her.

Finally her terrible curiosity got the best of her and she peeked through her slitted fingers.

“Oh, my God!”

His skin was as brown as mahogany. He had it pointed at her now and was deliberately spraying a rock not five feet in front of her with a stream of yellow pee.

Adrenaline. Sweat. Sheer terror.

Slowly, when nothing happened, her dreadful curiosity took the ascendancy of her common sense.

She squinted and tried not to see that part of his anatomy. Only somehow that was all she saw. It was big and long and purple-pink. It stuck straight out. At her!

Don’t look at it!

She couldn’t seem to stop.

Like last night, he had the same chiseled face of a prince out of one of her favorite storybooks. Just the sight of his wind-whipped black hair, along with his awe-inspiring muscular chest, his broad shoulders, and his lean, brown, rangy body sent funny little darts zinging through her stomach. And she hadn’t even looked…not really down there. At least not on purpose.

But she had because, truth to tell, she was as fascinated by him as Jet was. Maybe more so.

He shook it after he finished, and then it got hung up in his jeans and he couldn’t zip his fly. She forgot all modesty and observed his deft brown fingers that yanked up and down at the zipper. Suddenly he stopped fiddling with his zipper and stared straight at her.

Hot color scorched her cheeks. Not that she closed her eyes or even blinked. But her glasses fogged. She took them off and wiped them with the grubby tail of her shirt. Then she shoved them onto her nose.

He was big, way bigger than her brother, Steve, but not nearly as big as Cameron. Which was such a relief she hugged herself. Still, he was wild and bad, and it showed somehow on his face. It was like he was a prince under a witch’s spell, or maybe he was a pirate who had walked out of a legend into real life. Or maybe somehow she’d plopped herself inside a storybook and was about to be a princess or a maiden and have a big adventure.

He was a Blackstone. The bad Blackstone brother, who did bad things to girls. He was old—eighteen or so.

He’d even flunked a year.

Holding her breath, Ritz slithered backward, away from him, keeping to her awkward crouch until the trees completely hid her and she could run for home. Then she ran, just like she’d run last night. Even as she felt some weird pull not to.

No sooner had Roque finished unsnarling the blue-white threads from his zipper than a horse snickered in the distance, somewhere off to the south. The sound brought a strange peace to him, especially this evening.

He loved horses. A lot more than he loved people. They connected him somehow to a larger, truer, and very ancient world.

His dark fury returned. Why couldn’t people just leave him the hell alone? Caleb? His father? Most of all, his father!

Something stirred in the thick foliage of the oak mott. A branch bent gently. Shadows danced.

Dios, he’d forgotten about her. Was she hiding in the mogotes (thick patches) and cejas (thickets) like before? Like last night?

Yesterday she’d stolen his clothes and laughed when he’d run. Then she’d snuck up on him when he’d lit a fire on the beach and danced. Sucking in a fierce breath, Roque jerked his dick inside his pants and zipped his fly.

Had she seen him? Shyness made him flush.

If she had seen him, he hoped it hadn’t turned her off. He wanted to kiss her, to see how far she’d go. Maybe she’d have some pot or booze. She was the kind who would. He wanted to forget about his father. He had to forget.

The air was cool and breezy after the long, hot afternoon. The glassy pond with the ducks and willows and the taller oaks along the southern bank was a place Roque often came to sit and watch the grass blow and the clouds sail in the utter silence and stillness. Not that it was all that pretty really with the water so low and so much muddy shoreline exposed. But it had a wild, lovely aspect that had grown on him.

Sometimes he sunbathed on a rock. Sometimes he walked in the woods or swam in the raw. Sometimes he just felt homesick for his mother and his sisters who spoiled him, for all his boisterous Moya aunts and uncles and cousins, for Mexico, its art, its music, its people, its passion. Not that he really belonged down there, either.

He had a gringo father, who’d divorced his mother and broken her heart. Mamacita never let him forget it, either. Neither did his uncles. Still…nobody up here knew how to cook like his mother. Nobody made him tamales Yucatán or did anything special for him. Nobody except Caleb.

Sometimes Roque just daydreamed. About horses sometimes. About girls mostly. About white girls when he was up here.

Not tonight.

Not when his father had just beat the shit out of him at the corral.

For nothing.

Not for nothing. ’Cause he was a Mexican. ’Cause he was scared he’d hurt his precious Caleb.

As if he’d ever hurt Caleb.

The only reason Roque had started coming to Texas a few years back was that when Caleb had found out he had an older brother, he’d begged to meet him. Their father couldn’t deny Caleb anything.

Roque had felt so angry and out of place on that first visit, he hadn’t known what to do with himself. One afternoon when Pablo and his men had been working cattle, Roque had gotten so bored, he’d set off a string of firecrackers and thrown them into the pen. When the livestock stampeded, he’d dived into the pen with them. What a thrill that had been—whooping and yelling and running with those bulls while their hooves pounded the earth. He hadn’t cared whether he’d lived or died. Then Caleb’s thin, fearful cry had rent the air.

Through a blur of horn and red flank, he’d watched Caleb’s bright head bob and then disappear. Roque had grabbed onto the biggest bull’s horns and hung while the beast pushed through the others. Miraculously Roque had reached Caleb before he was trampled. All Caleb suffered was a broken wrist and a bad case of hero worship, but to this day, their father still believed Roque had deliberately stampeded the bulls because he was so jealous of Caleb that he wanted to kill him.

All of a sudden Roque wanted to be as bad as his father always told everybody he was. He wanted to screw and drink and get wasted with a pretty, wild girl—to forget, to go dead on the inside, to lose the hate, or at least some of its edge…just for a little while. He was too Mexican to ever fit in up here.

Where the hell was she?

Suddenly the hair on the back of Roque Moya’s neck stood on end. Good, he wasn’t wrong about her. He stared at the woods and felt her eyes on his fly. He was about to call her bluff and go after her when he heard flying footsteps and shouts right behind him.

“Roque—”

His father? Roque felt a surge of panic and despised himself. His daddy’s eyes had gone colder than a rattler’s right before he’d lifted that chain a while ago. Roque leaned down, his hand closing around a rock. If his father so much as raised a hand to him ever again…

Whirling, staring over his shoulder, he caught a whiff of cow dung and fresh grass. Then he saw that familiar, beloved, bright head bobbing against the pink sky.

Caleb. His slim, lithe form dashed through the waist-high grasses toward him. Caleb, who followed him everywhere.

Fury mingled with jealousy. Then his heart swelled with love. Damn, you Caleb! Damn you for being so smart and sweet…and brave…and perfect. For being the easy kind of kid fathers were proud of. He made straight A’s. He liked books. He could read better than most college kids, which was galling to Roque, who practiced reading secretly every night.

Roque was good at math like his Moya uncles, who were engineers, but math bored him. He preferred liberal arts. Not that he did well in them. Whenever he tried to read, words got all mixed up on the page. Spelling was even harder, but at night before they went to bed, Caleb often tried to teach him. If alone, Roque would struggle over the words for hours.

When Caleb saw him look his way, his warm white grin spread from ear to ear the way it always did. Involuntarily Roque smiled back. Caleb, not the money his rich daddy bribed Mamacita with, was the only reason Roque ever came to Texas.

Roque dropped the rock and stared from his little brother to the green line of oaks where he knew she was waiting for him. Since last night he’d hoped she was a real puta in heat. Not that he’d ever had a puta. Still, he told himself he hoped she wanted a bellyful as much as she’d wanted an eyeful.

Gringas. He hoped his macho tíos were right when they said that gringas were even hornier than most men. Even the pretty, young ones. His uncles were always telling him that a real man screwed every pretty girl he could. Once, anyway. This girl had black curls and big boobs and the whitest, softest skin he’d ever seen on any girl, even a guera.

He had to ditch Caleb—and fast.

With seeming casualness, Roque began unbuttoning his loose white shirt. When Caleb was within earshot, Roque said, “Didn’t I tell you not to follow me unless I invited you along?”

“Can I…”

“Daddy said I wasn’t supposed to go near you! So—no!”

The sparkle went out of Caleb’s face and he looked down. “It’s a free country,” he said sullenly, kicking rocks. “Since when do you care what Daddy says?”

“Since this!”

Roque peeled his bloodstained cotton shirt off, and Caleb winced at the blood-crusted wounds crisscrossing Roque’s already scarred brown back.

His little brother loved him…so much. In his own way, every bit as much as Mamacita did.

Caleb—the favorite son. The perfect son. The white white son.

“Why don’t you ever just tell him you’re sorry, Roque, so he’ll stop?” Caleb demanded in a soft, worried voice.

“’Cause I’m not. ’Cause I hate him for always thinking I want to hurt you.”

Caleb gasped. “You’re dumb. If—”

“Don’t say that!”

“So dumb, your dumb zipper’s half open! If you hadn’t mouthed off, I could’ve explained and your back wouldn’t look like hamburger meat.”

Roque fumbled with his fly until he got the zipper up.

His father had grown angrier at each stroke. Caleb was the one who had run forward and risked the chain himself by grabbing their father’s hand. Not the cowboys. Not even Pablo, the ranch manager…Pablo, his friend. They’d just stood there, their boots planted in the thick dirt, their black heads hung low, some of them snickering nervously.

“I told you to get lost. I came here to be by myself so I can think.”

“I won’t say anything. Think away.” Caleb circled him, his green eyes almost popping out of his freckled face as he edged closer to get a better look at his brother’s bloody back.

Roque wadded his shirt into a ball and pitched it angrily into the pond. Nothing was working out. He glanced toward the trees. No sign of the brazen girl, who had stolen his clothes yesterday.

Caleb squatted down and rocked back on his heels. “He beat you even worse than last time….”

“I said scram.”

“You didn’t have to smart off.”

“Git—Daddy’s pet.”

Caleb, who was fourteen, rubbed his glistening eyes in shame. Then he shook his head proudly making his blond bangs fly.

Suddenly hoofbeats rumbled. Both boys swiveled when the strange, sorrel horse shot out of the forest, interrupting their standoff. The mare stopped when she heard them, her chest heaving. Her ears were pointed straight at them.

“That’s the Keller girl’s horse,” Caleb said.

La princesa. Roque had seen her once or twice. She was very white, plain, and ever so haughty.

“Not anymore. Be quiet and watch this.” Roque whistled to the mare.

Her friend must’ve ridden over. He’d steal her horse to pay her back for stealing his clothes.

The mare tore a mouthful of grass out of the ground. Watching him, she began to munch warily.

In long graceful strides, Roque moved through the grass toward her.

“What are you going to do?”

“Get lost, kid. You’ll only get in my way.” He paused. “If Daddy catches you with me, he’ll beat me. Is that what you want?”

Caleb went so white every freckle stood out. His thin shoulders sagged. Roque was stunned when his own dark heart twisted with remorse.

“Get,” he said.

“Who wants to catch a dumb old horse anyway,” Caleb said.

Roque really felt chagrined when Caleb turned his back on him and started walking home.

“Caleb…”

Roque forced himself to let it go. “I’m a real jerk, kid,” he muttered to himself. “Just like Daddy! The sooner you get that, the better for all three of us. When I go home this time, I’ll stay there. I’ll forget I ever had a gringo brother. I will! If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will!”

Catching her horse soon distracted him from his guilt trip. It wasn’t long before Roque had the reins and was stroking the mare’s dark nose with the flat of his hand. She was leaning her head into his every touch, nuzzling his open palm.

“Friends?” he whispered when he mounted her.

A dazzling white smile crept across Roque’s lean, tanned face. He made a clicking noise. “Where’s your sexy mistress, girl?”

If only she would be as easy to seduce as her horse.

Ritz was running down the caliche road when she heard the violent thunder of hooves thudding behind her.

She turned. Roque Blackstone was galloping Buttercup straight for her, stirring up thick clouds of white dust. His hair streamed like wet black ink back from his dark face. His wet shirt was plastered against his lean body. His eyes flamed a savage, incandescent green.

With a yell, she tried to run faster. Just when she thought he’d surely trample her or grab her up by the hair and scalp her, the furious pounding stopped. Then Ritz was enveloped in dust so thick, she had to put her hands up over her tear-filled eyes as she began to cough.

Buttercup snorted and stomped the earth.

When she could breathe again, Ritz sprinted for the gate.

“Whoa, girl! Whoa!” yelped a harsh, male voice. “You can’t outrun me or my horse.”

She stopped. “My horse!”

“Yours?” He laughed, the soft, velvety sound jeering her. “Who the hell are you?” His green eyes raked her skinny body.

He was looking at her, his eyes burning, challenging her the way all those other boys challenged Jet.

Oh, if only I were as gutsy as Jet—

Roque Moya had a peculiar effect on her. Last night she’d felt all grown up and on fire. Suddenly she felt strange, almost gutsy. Almost pretty.

“Ritz Keller! That’s who!” she snapped, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“You really think you’re somebody, don’t you? A real princesa?”

Up close his eyes were so fierce, she felt consumed by their unholy fire. “I’m not scared of you, Roque Blackstone!”

Liar.

“So, you know who I am?”

She almost stopped breathing when he smiled. Jet would have smiled back and said something clever.

“You’re a Blackstone—the worst of a bad bunch. You flunked…”

His face twisted. “If you don’t like us, what the hell are you doing on Blackstone land, Meeez Know-it-all Keller? Where’s your pretty friend?”

“Jet?”

“Are you like her? Did you come to watch a meens swim naked and steal heez clothes?”

“Man?” she corrected, tilting her nose in the air.

He flushed.

Sassily she put her hands on her hips. “You’re no man.”

“Like you’re some expert—”

“You’re just a stupid, mean boy nobody likes. Not even your father!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Last year he sent you home…to Mexico ’cause… ’cause…”

Roque swore violently under his breath, first in Spanish and then in English. “’Cause a bad girl told my father she liked me…too much—Four Eyes.”

“Well, I don’t like you.” Ritz stuck out her tongue.

He laughed. “Most girls do. That gets boring after a while.”

“You are too conceited to believe.”

Another quick burst of his male laughter made her heart skitter.

“I’m not boy-crazy…not like Jet.”

“Jet.” He purred. “So, that’s her name. She is pretty, your boy-crazy friend. Older. She follows me.”

The red sky burned green.

“She’s only a year and a half older!”

“More than that,” he said, peeling clothes from her skinny frame with his indecently bright, emerald eyes. “You’re a baby. She’s a woman. Last night she…”

“Are you going to give me my horse or not?”

He shook his head. “She’s mine now.”

He pranced back and forth. “And you’re on Blackstone land.”

A red sun slanted a kaleidoscope of rays behind him, giving him the devil’s own halo while keeping that pretty face of his in the dark. She had to squint to make out his well-shaped, glossy, black head and that hair that was so long it whipped against his hard, dark jawline and tangled with the ends of the scarlet bandanna he wore at his neck.

With the sun at his back, he was mostly a black figure. Still, she got an eyeful of sleek, brown torso under that wet shirt that seemed made of nothing but ripply muscle. Indeed, even up close, every part of him seemed made of muscle, too—his squared-off shoulders…his arms…his lean waist and…his legs. He looked better by sunlight than by firelight.

Black jeans clung to those powerful legs. Jet said boys who wore jeans that tight were too nasty for nice girls to talk to. And here she was—Ritz Keller, fourteen years old, talking to just such a boy.

She’d watched him dance, seen his thingy. Catching a scared, little breath, she remembered he wasn’t nearly as big as Cameron. And he wasn’t as mean, either, no matter what people said about him.

“Like what you see, squirt?” he whispered.

“You’re a nasty boy.”

“I just like girls. And girls like your friend, Jet, like me back.”

If you only knew.

Buttercup snorted and blew, moving skittishly to one side, thereby changing the angle of the sun, so that Ritz could finally see the conceited brute’s face, or at least three-quarters of it.

Up close he looked bad and wild like the rock stars on Jet’s posters that hung all over her bedroom walls. But he was way more handsome. His blatantly masculine face seemed hacked from hot, sun-baked stone. A sheen of perspiration set him aglow and made him seem like a god come to life. He had a high brow, an aquiline nose, and a wide, sexy mouth. Thick, spiky black lashes shaded green eyes so bright and feral, they literally knocked the breath out of her.

For a long moment, she couldn’t move or breathe a word.

He went equally still.

Nervously she pushed her glasses up. For a long second their gazes remained fixed.

“You’re bad,” she said.

“Stupid, too?” he mocked, using those eyes of his to twist her around his little finger.

Ritz stiffened.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated.

She didn’t dare look at him again. “I-I’m here…to get…to get…t-that horse, my horse, Buttercup!”

“My Buttercup now.” His voice deepened and roughened, bringing those little shivers again.

“You have to give her back!”

“Make me, squirt.”

Her hands balled into fists. When she lunged, Buttercup trotted off.

“W-who is she, Roque?” another boy cried out from the tall grasses as he ran toward her.

Ritz whirled so fast, the blond kid nearly fell.

“You!” Roque said. “Caleb, I told you to git.”

Caleb held up his hands. His smile was so engaging, Ritz smiled back, which only made his older brother’s scowl darken.

It wasn’t hard to see why Caleb was more popular than Roque. He was just a boy not much older than she. He had blond hair, green eyes, and sandy eyebrows and lashes. His freckled nose was almost as red and blistered as hers.

He was nice cute; not nasty cute like Roque. Not intimidating cute, either.

“Don’t forget,” Roque jeered. “He’s a hated Blackstone, too.”

“I’m Ritz Keller, that’s who, and if you and your brother will give me my horse…”

“You’re trespassing!” the younger boy whispered to Ritz, grinning at his brother to win his approval.

“Well, Caleb, somebody left your gate open and Buttercup ran inside. I had to come after her. Your big brother here is riding a horse with a Triple K brand. In other words, he’s a horse thief.”

“If she’s yours, why’d she run from you?” Roque demanded.

“Do you know anything? Anything at all about horses?” she demanded, tilting her head as imperiously as a queen.

“I caught yours, didn’t I?”

“Just give her back.”

“If I do that—then you’ll ride away. I want to know more about your pretty friend.”

“Well, she doesn’t like bullies or horse rustlers…or stupid…”

“You have a saying up here in Gringolandia, Señorita Smartie Pants. Finders. Keepers.”

“She said you’re ugly naked!”

“Híjole!” He pulled back a little on the reins and leaned down.

“So, you came to see for yourself!”

“You’re disgusting!”

“Then why the blush?”

She looked down, but she felt his eyes on her face and got hotter.

“Go home, little girl, before you get into real trouble. Tell your friend she can swim in our pond…anytime.” His lilting purr sent a hot shiver through her. “Tell her, I’ll be waiting for her tomorrow.”

“I’m not going without Buttercup.”

“All right.” Holding the reins, Roque sprang lithely off Buttercup, landing so close beside her, she jumped back. Then he slapped Buttercup on the rump and sent her trotting off.

“We’re going to let Buttercup decide,” he said, “who she wants, you…or me.”

“No—”

“Because you know she’ll choose me,” he jeered.

“You’re very sure of yourself,” she said.

“Sí. It’s one of my failings.”

She felt her jaw go slack. Her heart raced. She thrust out her chin anyway. “A Keller’s way is better than a Blackstone’s any day.”

He grinned. “You’re going to be hell on wheels when you grow up,” he murmured. “A while ago you asked me if I knew anything about horses. What if I told you I had a way with horses, same as I do with little girls? Big girls, too?”

It was getting dark. In the queer half-light, with his intense aristocratic features, he was absolutely stunning—tall, muscular, graceful even. Not awkward like the other boys she knew. She remembered him dancing and how she’d longed to dance, too.

“You can’t beat me… ’cause I’m a Keller.”

“Little Killer Keller,” he purred. “I can beat you any day.”

“Wanna bet?”