Читать книгу The Stronghold - Lisa Carter - Страница 11

Chapter 3

3

Before

Abuela’s grandson was the handsomest boy—Anglo, Latino, or Apache—twelve-year-old Pilar To-Clanny had ever met.

Okay—she’d actually not met him. Yet.

She peered between the blinds in the darkened interior of the ranch foreman’s house she called home. She watched her brother put Abuela’s grandson through his paces. Never one to trust much, Byron wouldn’t be satisfied until he determined what this skinny kid with the too-new boots from L.A. was made of.

A cowboy wannabe. Byron hated wannabes. He’d soon show the big-city Latino teenager how things were done in Indian country. Show him how Apaches did things.

Her fifteen-year-old brother demonstrated once more how to lasso a fence post. This Alex Torres person made a joke about fence-post bovine. Pilar’s stocky brother stared at the taller, also fifteen-year-old, boy. Letting the rope fall into the red dust of the Arizona ranchland, Byron’s brow wrinkled.

“Bovine,” she whispered into the windowpane. “A cow, Byron. He’s talking about cows.” She clutched the library book to her chest.

School wasn’t Byron’s strong suit. Helping out the real cowboys on Abuela’s off-rez ranch was—roping steers, riding the range, fixing wire-strung fences. Byron, unlike this big-mouth grandson, was the real deal. That and he was training for a spot on the high school football team come August.

Abuela—as she’d encouraged Pilar and Byron to call her—was this big-mouthed kid’s grandmother. Big Mouth had gotten into trouble with the law in California. So his parents shipped him to Abuela’s ranch for safekeeping and straightening out.

The aristocratic old woman with her iron silver hair made everything work out and everyone—including Pilar and Byron—feel safe. Her goal to learn a new vocabulary word each day, Pilar mouthed imperious. Imperiousness was Abuela’s superpower. Pilar and Byron had spent the spring between chores watching Marvel comic movies.

“Bovine?” Perhaps fearing his intelligence was being mocked, Byron clenched his hands into fists on his hips. “What did you call me?”

The Torres boy’s eyebrows rose. “Bovine. You know, cows. I was making a joke about cows, man, not you.”

Not sure he should believe him, Byron’s eyes squinted in the bright noonday sun. “You joke too much, dude.”

Ain’t that the truth.

Everything was a joke to Abuela’s grandson. He called his grandmother his “get out of jail free card.” To her face . . .

And his charm was such, the mighty Abuela—who could cow (not the bovine kind) hardened cowboys with a look—melted at the twinkle in her grandson’s black-brown eyes.

Pilar sighed. Her breath billowed the curtain. Those eyes . . .

Torres was the real deal when it came to gorgeous. Confidence oozed out of every lanky pore. He might not be a real cowboy yet, but something about him made her heart flutter like butterfly wings.

An unsettling feeling.

She vaguely resented him for the sensations he stirred inside her. For making Pilar, who liked to be in control of her emotions if not her circumstances, anxious. On edge.

Prince Charming jerked his thumb at the window where she hid. “Who’s that inside your house?”

Her breath hitching, she shrank into the shadows.

“Nobody.” Byron regathered his rope. “Just my baby sister.”

Pilar narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t a baby.

“What’s she waiting for? She going to come out or what?” Prince Charming took a step toward the porch.

She backpedaled further.

“Too shy?”

Byron snorted. “Hardly. She’s probably trying to decide if you’re worth the effort. Come on.” Her brother headed for the barn. “Let’s see if your biceps are as big as your mouth. We’ve got stalls to clean.”

Prince Charming made a face. “This is so not L.A.” But he followed Byron.

Abandoning her book, she crept out of the house and headed toward the hayloft. She spent the afternoon observing the prince pitch hay and scoop poop. Lying prone, she discovered a knothole in the planks above the boys’ heads perfect from which to spy upon this too-handsome-to-be-real cowboy wannabe.

She shifted her weight, and the floorboards creaked. The prince’s head shot up. She held her breath.

A smile quivered at the edges of those full, beautiful lips of his.

Pilar bit off another sigh—beautiful in every soon-to-be manly bit of him. Problem was, she suspected he knew it.

God’s Gift to Women put his back into scooping another shovelful of horse dung and spoke to the rafters. “That sister of yours. What’s wrong with her, Byron?”

She went still.

Byron dumped a shovelful into the wheelbarrow. “Ain’t nothing wrong with her.”

God’s Gift snickered and darted a significant look toward the ceiling. “How come she’s hiding?”

Byron shrugged. “She’s funny that way. Only people she talks to are me and your abuela.”

“So ugly she scares small children or something, huh?” God’s Gift hitched his thumb through a belt loop on his jeans. “Makes dogs howl?”

Pilar gnashed her teeth. She ought to go down there and make him howl.

God’s Gift cut his eyes skyward. “Looks like the hunchback of Notre Dame?”

That cocky wannabe . . .

Byron’s brow scrunched. “Hunchback of who?”

She scrambled down the ladder.

God’s Gift leaned his weight against the shovel handle with an amused glint in his melt-in-your-mouth chocolate eyes.

Byron smirked. “She could beat your butt with one hand tied around her Apache back, I’ll bet.”

As Pilar strode forward, her hand-me-down boots from Goodwill clanked across the barn floor. She extended her hand, businesslike. “I’m Maria Caterina Pilar To-Clanny.”

“What kind of name is To-Clanny?”

She raised her lip. “It means ‘lots of water.’ But I think, Brother,” she flung a look at Byron. “This one’s all gas, no beans.”

Mr. Gorgeous stroked his chin. “That Arizona-speak for all talk, no action? Plenty of action here, Sister.” He broadened his chest.

She jutted her hip. “I ain’t your sister.”

“No, you’re not.” He gazed at her from the top of her long black hair to the ragged hem of her cut-off jeans. “But you are short.”

She cocked her head. “I’m tall enough to beat you in a race any day of the week.” Running was her superpower.

Handsome stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Maria Caterina Pilar To-Clanny. I’m Alejandro Roberto Torres y Gonzalez. But my friends call me Alex.”

She crinkled her nose. “Who says we’re going to be friends?”

He threw back his head and laughed.

Tingles went up and down her arms. Alejandro Roberto Torres y Gonzalez even laughed handsome. She fought the inexplicable urge to fall into a puddle at his too-new cowboy boots.

“I think we’re going to be friends, good friends.” His eyes flickered to Byron. “Maybe the best of friends. Like the Three Musketeers.”

Byron blinked. “The who?”

“Never mind.” She crossed her arms over her yet-to-develop chest. “You want to race or what, Torres?”

Alex threw down the shovel. “Any time. Any place.”

“There.” She pointed with her lips to the mesa towering behind the Torres hacienda. “To the top. Whoever gets there first, wins.”

Alex swaggered alongside to peer at the gigantic outcropping.

Her nerve endings zinged as his shirtsleeve brushed against the bare skin of her arm. He smelled like leather and sandalwood.

“Wins what, Cater-Pilar?”

Byron frowned. “Why did you call her Cater-Pilar?”

Alex grinned. “Like a caterpillar. ’Cause when I leave her to eat my dust, she’s going to look a whole lot like her name.”

She tossed her head. “When I win, I get to knock you down a peg or two.”

Alex passed his hand over his dark, short-cropped curls. “And what happens if I win?”

She pursed her lips. “Trust me, you won’t.”

He didn’t.

Feet pounding, she soon pulled ahead on the trail fit only for mountain goats. Jumping over rocky boulders, zigzagging along the switchbacks, she quickly outdistanced this sea-level grandson unused to the altitude.

Groaning, Alex bent over, hands on his knees in a vain attempt to breathe. His pace more sedate, Byron caught up to them.

Pilar let out a whoop and gyrated. “I win. I win. I win. Alex Torres runs like a boy.” She reached her hands over her head and did something Abuela once described as the Watusi.

“Seriously?” Alex glared. “An Apache war dance?”

Byron laughed. “Not tribal. Her version of a victory dance.” He flicked a glance at the struggling-to-inhale Latino. “Not bad for a first-timer. You interested in playing football this year at high school?”

Alex nodded. “Love to, though I’m more into basketball. And next time, I’ll beat her.”

Byron’s barrel chest rumbled. “Next time, I bet you still won’t. Not Sister. She’s like the wind.”

She smiled. Byron’s superpower was loyalty.

“Who’s the caterpillar now?” She sauntered over to the drop-your-jaw-handsome—but winded—young man. “I’m a butterfly, and I flew right past you, Alejandro Roberto Torres. I win. Time to pay up.”

He straightened. “Pay wha—?”

She socked him in the gut. He doubled over.

“All gas, no beans.” She moved toward the trail. “Like I said, Byron. You’ve got training to do with this one if you want him on the team. I didn’t even hit him hard. He’s soft.”

“I’ll show you soft, Mia Pia.”

She skidded to a halt. “What did you call me?”

“Maria Pilar. And mia in Spanish means mine.” He gave her a crooked smile that set Pilar’s sturdy knees aquiver. “Because someday soon, I’ll demand a rematch and victory will be mine.”

She stretched on her tiptoes into his face. “Any time. Any place.”

But before that, as Alex Torres predicted, he and Byron became best friends.

She tagged along everywhere to Byron’s disgust and Alex’s quiet tolerance. Alex, in fact, often urged Byron to just let her come along to save them the hassle of sending her home to Abuela.

Then Pilar’s cat went missing.

It was Alex who helped her search the sprawling ranch. Alex who spotted the tabby in an arroyo, killed by a wild desert creature. Alex who dug a hole and held a funeral for Calico. Alex who brought another stray kitten from Saguaro Gulch for Pilar.

Alex who became her hero and champion. Until he and Byron started high school at summer’s end. Until she and Byron uncovered Alex’s other not-so-hidden talent—a way with the female gender.

’Cause Alex’s superpower was his charm.