The Last Chance Ranch (2 page)

She had not prepared herself to deal with a man who wore an aura of sex appeal like a second skin.

Had he always looked like this and she’d just been too much in love with Victor to notice? A pair of glasses might have hidden the stoked passion in his eyes, or covered the clean beauty of his bone structure, but nothing could have concealed a mouth so richly formed, so dangerously seductive.

Staring at him from the greatly mature age of thirty-three, Tanya thought—not for the first time—that she had been one of the most foolish young girls ever to inhabit the planet.

Another woman might have sighed in pleasure at the prospect of living in close quarters with such a man for the next few months. Another woman might have allowed the dark wash of desire to flow through her in anticipation of kindling the banked passion in that face
.
Another woman might have let her gaze wander over that lean, long-limbed body and wondered how it would feel against her own.

Tanya did not have the luxury.

For one long moment of panic, she considered just staying on the bus, letting it carry her to the next stop. From there, she’d call the ranch and tell Ramón she’d changed her mind.

On the platform, he glanced around with a frown, and Tanya knew she couldn’t walk away. He’d done a lot for her, even more for her son Antonio.

And if she didn’t get off the bus now, her chances of ever seeing her son again were next to nothing.

Clutching her bag to her chest, Tanya stood up. Around her, the last passengers murmured in a musical mingling of Spanish and English. She took in a long breath and squared her shoulders, then marched down the aisle.

Outside on the platform, Tanya lost sight of Ramón. People surged around her—grandmothers gathering children, sweethearts hugging each other—and Tanya was struck unexpectedly with a sharp arrow of joy. She was free! Not as she had been at the halfway house, but truly and honestly free. Free to smell diesel fuel and hear ordinary swearing, free to touch people and be bumped. Through the garage door, she caught a glimpse of dark clouds rolling in from the west, and it occurred to her that she was free to stand in the rain if she chose. For as long as she wanted to…

A male voice sounded at her elbow, “Annie?”

The pet name was uttered in a voice almost too familiar—slightly accented and beautifully sonorous. A bolt of terror replaced her joy, and she squeezed her eyes tight. It was just a nightmare, she told herself, a nightmare like all the others she had suffered the past eleven years, dreams of Victor coming after her again. Cold sweat broke out on her body.

The man at her side touched her arm, as if to steady her, and Tanya yanked away violently, nearly stumbling in her haste to get away.

Reason belatedly waded into her terror. It wasn’t Victor, because Victor was dead. Tanya halted, then turned very slowly.

Ramón stood there, even more overwhelmingly attractive at close range. He kept his distance a little warily; his hands lifted, palms out, to show her he wouldn’t hurt her. She was sure he was wondering what kind of basket case he’d saddled himself with.

“Please don’t call me Annie,” she said in a tone as even as she could muster. “It was Victor’s name for me. No one else ever called me that.”

“I’m sorry.” There was genuine regret in his voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Ramón reached for the duffel bag that contained all her earthly goods. “Let’s put this in the truck, all right?”

Mutely, Tanya followed him into the dark autumn day. A sharp wind blew from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, slicing viciously through her thin cloth coat. With a small shiver, she clutched it closer to her body, bending her head into the burst of bitter wind.

Ramón caught the movement. “Not much of a coat for this kind of weather.” Reaching into the cab, he brought forth a down parka and held it out to her. “It’s a nasty day, but Indian summer will be back tomorrow.”

Tanya was unaccustomed to simple kindness, and for a minute, she hesitated. A gust of wind blasted them, tossing hair over Ramón’s solemn face. With a dark, long-fingered hand, he brushed it away.

“Thank you,” she said. Shyly, she traded coats, giving him the old one, which he tossed into the truck.

Buttoning his own jacket, he asked, “What would you like for lunch—American or Mexican? The Blue Swan has great green chili, and Yolanda’s has good fried chicken.”

Tanya shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“Me, either,” he said. “You choose.”

She didn’t want to choose. She’d used up all her reserves of emotional energy, and there was still Antonio to think about. For herself, she’d like the green chili, but maybe Ramón would like hamburgers. She said nothing.

Nor did he. The silence between them stretched to a strained, awkward length. Tanya stuffed her hands in her pockets and waited.

At last he prodded her. “What would you like—Tanya? Can I call you Tanya?”

“Tanya is fine.” She took a breath and chose, watching his face carefully for subtle signs of disapproval. “I guess green chili sounds good.”

He smiled. The expression transformed his face, giving a twinkle to the depthless eyes, adding emphasis to the high slant of cheekbones. Tanya’s chest, tight with anxiety, eased with an abruptness that made her almost dizzy. She’d made the right choice.

* * *

Ramón stirred sugar into his coffee and watched Tanya carefully tear the wrapping from a straw. From the speakers in the ceiling came a soft Spanish ballad, mournful with strummed guitars and flutes. For a moment, he was transported to another day, another time, when he’d danced with this woman, when she had been a sweet, pretty young girl…and he’d fallen in love.

In those days, he’d often fallen in love. More often than not, his passion had gone unrequited. Upon meeting Tanya for the first time, so many years ago, he’d thought his infatuation was like all the others.

But in Tanya’s beautiful dark blue eyes there had been an almost painful yearning for things unnamable and unattainable. It had struck him deeply. As he’d held her loosely, her blond hair spilling over her shoulders, her youthful eighteen-year-old body swelling just slightly with the baby in her tummy, she’d told him about a book she was reading,
Tortilla Flat.
She’d said the name as if it were new, as if no one had ever discovered it before, and there had been magic and wonder in her tone, in her sweet innocence.

That she had reached the age of eighteen without knowing such a work existed, that she could find it on her own and love it with such passion, had touched Ramón in some quiet place. Until that day, he’d been too enmeshed in his anger to see what was plain if only he looked around him—a person didn’t have to be brown or black or red to suffer the indignities of ignorance and poverty. The realization that social class, not race, was the great deciding factor in American society had changed his life.

They had talked all afternoon, while Victor—Tanya’s husband and Ramón’s cousin—drank in the bar with the wedding party. They talked about books and movies, about ideas and hopes and plans. As he listened to her sweet, soft voice, and watched her eyes shine with excitement, Ramón had fallen in love.

And when Victor, drunk and evil-tempered, broke Ramón’s cheekbone, Ramón had almost felt it was deserved. Tanya was Victor’s wife, after all.

Ramón had gone back to Albuquerque, to his Latin American studies, and had tried to wipe the beautiful young girl from his mind. He hadn’t known until almost a year later that Tanya, too, had paid for that golden afternoon. Victor had beaten her senseless and she’d landed in the hospital with seven broken bones, including ribs and wrist. By some miracle, the baby had survived. Tanya briefly left her husband after the hospital had released her, but Victor promised to give up drinking. Tanya had returned to him, and Victor kept his promise.

For a little while, anyway.

Looking now at the woman the girl had become, Ramón felt a little dizzy with lost chances and lost hopes and ruined dreams. She was not the softly round girl he’d been smitten with that day so long ago. Her hair was not curled and wispy, but cut straight across so it hung like a gleaming golden brown curtain at her shoulders. Her face and body were thinner and harder, lean as a coyote’s. She had a long, ropy kind of muscle in her upper arms, the kind that came from sustained hard work.

Her exotically beautiful blue eyes were wary as they met his. “Do I have something on my chin?” she asked.

He shook his head, smiling. “Sorry. I was just remembering the last time I saw you.”

The faintest hint of a smile curved her pretty mouth. “Boy, that was forever ago. Another lifetime.”

“It was.” He took a breath, trying to think of a way to pick his way through the minefield of memories. He opted for flattery. “You were so pretty I couldn’t believe you danced with me.”

A small wash of rose touched her cheeks. She glanced out the window, then back to him. “What I remember is how smart you were. You talked to me like I was smart, too. It meant a lot to me.”

Ramón smiled at her, feeling a warmth he’d thought far beyond his reach. “Me, too.”

At that moment, the waitress brought their food. Ramón leaned back and let go of a breath as the waitress put his plate down. Things would be all right. He hadn’t been sure.

* * *

Once she got some hot food inside her hollow stomach, Tanya felt stronger. The stamina and common strength she’d worked to build for eleven years seeped back, and with it, a sense of normalcy.

With a sigh, she leaned back in the turquoise vinyl booth. “Much better.”

“Good.”

The waitress came by with a steel coffeepot, topped their cups, and whisked away Tanya’s empty bowl. “I’m sorry I seemed so strange back at the station,” Tanya said. “It’s just a little overwhelming.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m sorry I startled you.” He finished the last bites of an enormous smothered burrito and pushed the plate to one side. “Let’s start fresh.”

“Okay.” She attempted a smile, and felt the unused muscles in her face creak only a little. “Didn’t you wear glasses?”

“Yeah.” His grin was wry. “I’m blind as a bat, but glasses aren’t real practical on a ranch.” He touched his lips with his napkin. “Weren’t you blonde?”

“Sort of,” she said with a shrug. “Victor liked my hair light, so I dyed it for him. This is the natural color.”

“I like it.” His gaze lingered, and Tanya saw a shimmer of sexual approval in those unrelentingly black irises.

An answering spark lit somewhere deep and cold within her, and Tanya found herself noticing again his mouth—full-lipped and sensual. On another man, it would have seemed too lush, but amid the savagely beautiful planes and angles of his face, it seemed only to promise pleasure beyond all imagining.

The cinders of burned-out feelings within her flared a little brighter, stirring a soft, tiny flame of awareness she’d not known in a long, long time.

Abruptly she quenched it, stamping hard at the spark to kill it. She tore her gaze away and poked her soda with the straw. “Why don’t you tell me about my job?”

As if he understood the reason for the abrupt change of subject, Ramón replied in an impersonal tone. “You’ll be cooking. Desmary has needed someone for quite some time, but it’s hard to find someone with institutional experience in such an underpopulated area.”

Tanya couldn’t resist a small, wry dig at her own background. “If it’s institutional food you want, I’m a master.”

He chuckled. “Good. Desmary, the head cook, can’t move around as well as she used to, but there’s no place else for her to go. You’re going to be her feet and her helper.” He paused to dip a chip in salsa. “She’s pretty independent, so if you can be discreet about helping her, I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

“We’ve got a full house at the moment, twenty-five boys. They all have KP, so basically you’re in charge of just getting them fed, and they clean up. Anybody who wants to cook can sign up to help, and you’ll usually have a couple of boys every day.”

“How old are the kids?”

“The youngest right now is eight. They don’t often get into serious trouble much earlier than that. The oldest is seventeen. Most of them are twelve to fifteen.”

Tanya half smiled. “It’s going to be quite a switch for me to go from an almost completely female environment to one dominated by males.”

“And teenage boys are more male than they’ll ever be again.” Ramón shook his head. “There are few women out there. I’m trying to change that, so the boys can learn to treat women with respect.” He lifted one shoulder. “You may not always get it.”

“I can handle that.”

“You’ll have to.”

That sounded a little intimidating. Tanya lifted her eyebrows in question.

“There are rules to create discipline and order, to teach the boys how to behave themselves. If one of them is disrespectful, you’ll be expected to manage the situation.”

Tanya frowned. “What constitutes disrespectful?”

He grinned. “If it wouldn’t have gone over in 1920, it won’t go over now.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all.” His face was sober, but the dark eyes shone with intense passion. “Some of these boys are like animals when they come to me. They don’t know how to eat at the table, or how to dress for regular society. They treat women and girls like sluts or possessions, like a pair of shoes.”

Like a possession. Tanya felt the tightness in her chest again. That was the way Victor had treated her. And she’d allowed it for a long time. She looked away to the calm scene beyond the windows.

“I’m trying to give them dignity, Tanya,” he said. “I think you can help me.”

Dignity. What dignity had she had all these years? Had she ever known it? “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I ask of anyone,” he said, and picked up the check. “Are you ready?”

A swift wave of nerves and anticipation washed through her. “Yes.”

Dear Antonio,

You must be starting kindergarten this year. I wish I could see you. I’d tell you to be sure to stand up straight and make sure your hands are clean before you go. If you want people to respect you, you have to hold your head high.