Rescuing The Runaway Bride

She shook off her musings and focused on the room. She took in the door at the far end of the wall. There was open shelving built into the wall above the waist-high counter, and more shelving down below that ran the length of the wall. A dry sink sat in the corner closest to the fireplace that took up most of the side wall.

What would she find if she made the trek to the dry sink? What kind of ingredients did the Americano and Nana Rut have on hand? Itching to get out of bed and do something, Vicky slowly slid her legs off the bed, letting them hang down as she caught her breath. She pushed off the covers, revealing the long chambray shirt that hung on her like a tent. Even with all her binding around her ribs and the shirt, she still felt exposed. As she swiveled around to look for a dressing robe or something else to put on, the room turned black and she felt lightheaded. Holding completely still until the sensation ebbed away, she gritted her teeth and swallowed hard.

Turning only her head this time, she spied behind her, under the top pillow, what looked like piled-up shirts. After two attempts, she finally came within reach without twisting. Snagging one, the pillow fell to the floor. She followed its progress with her eyes. The distance from the bed to the floor seemed like miles. The shirt she had unearthed had a large tear in one elbow and stains down the front, although it smelled clean. It would have to do.

Struggling into it caused more pain than she had expected, and she sat panting, waiting for the black spots dancing in front of her eyes to go away. Reason argued that she should stay in bed and let the Americano wait on her hand and foot like the hacienda princesa she was, but how long would any man put up with a woman who did not see to the cleaning and cooking? No man would complain on the hacienda since the servants would see to it all, but here, the man was doing all the work, and she doubted that even in his culture it would be expected of him. If she could only stand and get to the kitchen area, maybe she could find something to make for breakfast. Or at least some water to drink for her parched throat.

Head clear, she stood, forcing a breath out. The room spun twice before it righted itself. With her left hand bracing her right rib, she shuffled one step, then another, away from the edge of the bed. A cool draft raced across the floor and skimmed over her bare toes and up her legs. The shirts were long but only reached past her knees. Scandalous! If Mamá ever found out, she’d swoon right on the spot. Three more steps brought her within reach of the table. Her left leg collided with it, and suddenly she couldn’t see anything between the tears of pain and the dancing black spots. A draft of colder air hit her about the same time as she registered the sound of a door opening, then slamming closed.

Seconds later cold arms still smelling of the crisp air outside caught her at the knees and around her back and settled her back in her cocoon. The blankets she had thrown off with such pain were gently tucked back around her, and only then did the room start to reappear, first in the center of her vision and then completely.

“Vicky? Did you need something?” Chris stood hovering above her. He retrieved the pillow from the floor with a frown. “Are you sick? In pain? Dolor?”

Panting let the air in without drawing on the muscles that screamed in agony in her middle. “I...agua.” He shifted the pile of his old shirts, topped it with the pillow and then, with a gentle hand, leaned her back to rest.

“I will get you water.” He said the words slowly, pointing to himself, the water bucket on the floor by the door that hadn’t been there moments ago, and then to her. Nodding, she closed her eyes and waited, afraid to move even the slightest bit and bring on the blinding fire again.

“Here.” His breath brushed across her forehead and stirred her hair. He held the cup in front of her and once again would not let her gulp it down like she wanted but rationed it sip by sip until she finished. Then he poured more from a pitcher he had placed on the chair next to her bed. This time he let her take longer sips. Thirst quenched, she sighed.

“Gracias, thank you.”

“You are welcome.” His deep voice drew her eyes to his. In the light of day his eyes shone like a cloudless summer sky with flecks of gold like sunlight. His skin, even with the kiss of sun, looked shades lighter than hers. Glancing down at her hand, she saw just how dark her skin was compared with his.

You’re a mix between the glorious lords from Europe and the filthy, heathen Indians, Mamá quoted often, reminding her of her father’s own mixed parentage. Vicky’s grandfather, Don Ruiz, had been a lord from Spain while her grandmother was an Indian who had worked as a housekeeper for Don Ruiz before they fell in love and married. Mamá constantly reminded her that blue-blooded Spaniards like her own family would never look twice at Vicky’s Indian skin. What must the Americano think of her? Yet he did not treat Nana Ruth as if she were less human than he. Rather, he had served her a bowl of soup and helped her with the chores.

Was it different where he came from? Did people treat each other without prejudice or concern for their heritage? Slavery had been outlawed about the time she had been born yet not one of the former slaves whom she had met was ever treated as anything other than servant and underling, just like the Indians who also served the noble and not-so-noble-born Spanish. Mestizos were looked upon as more Indian than Spanish because of their mixed bloodlines, and they earned the same disdain from the nobles.

“Are you...?” The next word Chris used was unfamiliar to her. He smiled when she gave him a puzzled look. As he pantomimed eating and then rubbing his stomach, she cocked her head to one side.

“Do you want food?” he asked. This time the words were all familiar. Nodding, she patted her stomach with her left hand, and he grinned. His eyes brightened, and she found herself smiling in return. His grin caused tiny laugh lines around his eyes and a dimple in his left cheek. The dimple looked the right size to poke her index finger into. Silly girl, you’ll never touch his face, much less when he is smiling, she scolded herself silently. After all, as soon as she could stand on her own without blacking out, she needed to find her own clothes and head back to the hacienda. Of course, she’d have to tie herself on Tesoro’s pummel to stay in the saddle but regardless, she couldn’t stay away from the hacienda too much longer.

“I’ll make food,” Chris said as he set the tin cup down on the chair and headed to the sink.

“I make food,” Vicky offered, unwilling to sit still and do nothing, especially if it meant that she would have to choke down more of the insipid soup she had the night before.

“You can’t cook. You can’t even stand.” He shook his head at her. Turning his back, he set a small cauldron onto the counter and then poured water in, adding eggs. He slid the caldron’s handle onto a hook that swung over the fire in the hearth. Then he took a metal bowl out and added ingredients from metal tins he had under the dry sink, and he added water and an egg before rolling the mixture out on the counter and pressing it flat as Vicky would have done with her tortillas. He formed balls with the dough and set them inside a greased frying pan that he covered with a lid and set directly onto the fire.

Bread and boiled eggs would be a bland but filling breakfast. If they had some salt, pepper, tomatoes and chilies, she could make a salsa and give the meal some life. But the thing was, this man was cooking for her. He was taking care of her, when he didn’t owe her anything. He was clearly a kind person, a person of character. He was...different.

* * *

He glanced over his shoulder. Vicky was watching him with obvious skepticism as he made breakfast. Admittedly, he wasn’t the best of cooks, but even he could do biscuits and boiled eggs. He wondered what she usually ate for breakfast. Was she thinking he was crazy for making her such simple fare? He gave her a quick smile. She did not smile back.

From the paleness of her face when he’d entered the cabin a few minutes before, he could tell she had been about to pass out. Questions he still had no answers to circled around in his head like a herd of horses unsettled by something lurking just beyond the corral fence. Perhaps he’d see if he could get some answers.

“So, Miss Vicky, how did you end up here?” he asked.

Her cute nose bunched up as she bit her lip in concentration. “I look for Papá. No want...casar to Don Joaquín.”

“You didn’t want to walk?”

“No, casar to Don Joaquín,” she stated. Her chin and shoulders lifted in an air of defiance, but her little gasp of pain revealed how much even the slightest move still hurt.

“No house? Casar house?”

“No, casa is house. Casar is when man make woman...take to house and live. Have family. Bebe?”

She waited while he poured himself a cup of tea, trying to decipher her last statement. “Casar...is to marry?”

“Sí! Casar is to marry.”

“And you were going to get married walking?”

“No, no want marry Don Joaquín de la Vega. Bad man.”

He still didn’t know what she was talking about, but there was something vaguely familiar about her words. “So you were looking for your papá, and then what happened? How did you end up here, away from Hacienda Ruiz land?”

As he quizzed her, he checked the biscuits, feeling more and more uncertain by the minute about this breakfast. He decided the biscuits needed just a few more minutes.

“I look for Papá on hacienda for one day.” She lifted one finger on her left hand to clarify. “He not there. Nieve, white and cold? Come from—” She pointed to the ceiling and wiggled her fingers in a downward movement and cocked an eyebrow as if to test Chris’s ability to play pantomime games.

“Snow?”

“Sí, snow. Snow make stay in cabin two day, no go home.” Two fingers were added to the first. With Chris’s nod of understanding, she continued. “I no know way home. I stop by rio, water run. Puma want eat Master Chris.”

“Puma?” She must mean the cougar. So she remembered saving him. And she was calling him “Master Chris.” She’d picked up Nana’s speech.

The smell of biscuits pulled his attention away. Wrapping a towel around his hand, he pulled the pan off the hot coals and set it down on the counter. He poured some cool water on the eggs and set them aside for a moment.

“I need to thank you, Miss Vicky. You saved my life.” He tried to forget the sight of her small body half submerged under the cougar’s large frame as he pulled three plates and tin cups down from the cabinet. Once the table was set and the image was out of his mind, he turned his attention back to the small slip of a woman. “I was amazed by your shot. Who taught you how to shoot?”

It was clear that most of what he said was lost on her.

“You poor child,” Nana Ruth interjected from her bed. She shook her head. “I thank the Good Lord that He done made your shot true like David and that giant in the Bible.”

Nana Ruth struggled to sit up, and Chris left breakfast at the counter to help her. Once she waved him away, assuring him that she could manage on her own, he turned his back, knowing she would take a few minutes to dress.

“Who David? And who Good Lord, Master Chris?” The girl’s questions froze him in his spot.

“Why, David, the shepherd boy who grew up to be King o’ Israel,” Nana Ruth answered for him, “and the Good Lord, why He be God, honey child. Don’t you know ’bout God?”

“God? Sí, I hear Padre Pedro, um, Father Pedro talk about God when visit hacienda. He have big book. Biblia.”

“I have a feeling she’s talking about the priest who comes through here a couple times a year,” Chris called over his shoulder to help Nana.

“I think our little visitor needs to learn ’bout the Good Lord, and He sent her to us so we can tell her,” Nana Ruth mumbled as she walked past him on her way out the door to see to her most basic needs.

“Master Chris?”

Turning back to his visitor, he found her once again trying to climb out of bed.

“Miss Vicky, stay there, don’t move! You’re going to hurt yourself again!” Tossing down the last of the eggs, he strode across the room and leaned over her, pushing her legs once more under the covers and pulling the sheets up to her chin. She turned her head to the side, her left hand coming up in a defensive move to protect her face. Something in his gut twisted. Did she expect him to hit her?

“Miss Vicky.” He forced his voice to be gentle even as he fought not to get angry with himself. Of course she would be fearful of him. She had never seen him before, and who knows what was expected or allowed in her family? Stepping back so as to not crowd her, he waited for her to open her eyes and turn her head to face him.

She didn’t. She looked toward the door where Nana had left, a deep blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks. “I need—” Suddenly he understood what she needed, but there was no way to get her all the way out to the outhouse.

“Wait, let Nana help you.” With a nod, she settled back against the pillows, though she still wouldn’t look at him. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. He stepped back and studied her from a few feet away. Maybe if he removed the formality in their address. “And Miss Vicky, I’m Chris, just plain Chris. Nana calls me ‘Master’ because she was my parents’ slave and she won’t drop it, but I will never be master to anyone ever again.”

“No master?” Her gaze finally lifted to his, and he wondered what she must think of him and Nana Ruth out here.

“No, no more master. Only Chris.”

“Bien, Chris.”

He turned to go, but she called, “Chris?”

“Yes, Miss Vicky?”

“I no Miss Vicky. Mi amigos, friends, say Vicky.”

“Very well, my friend. I’ll call you Vicky.” With a nod, he forced himself to go back to preparing breakfast.

As soon as Nana returned, he handed her the bedpan and left the cabin without a backward glance. What had happened back there? Why had she flinched as if he were going to raise his hand to her? Did he seem like that kind of man?

His mind busy, his feet took him to the corral. Goldenrod and all the rest of the horses came close, nudging each other out of the way to get some attention and affection from him. If only he could reassure Vicky that she was safe with him, too.

He hated to think that he’d scared her. She was already worried about this “bad man” whom her father wanted her to marry. Actually, it seemed like maybe she didn’t want to marry at all. And if she expected the man she married to hit her, he couldn’t blame her for her lack of interest.

Chapter Four

In all her eighteen years, Vicky never stayed indoors, much less in bed, for more than a day or two—even her mother’s disapproval hadn’t kept her from helping in the kitchen with Magda or heading out to the stables to visit Tesoro. She’d now been confined to bed in the small cabin for five days, and she thought she’d go mad. The sun peeked in the windows as if trying to coax her to come out and play. Her right arm was no longer tied to her body, but movement still remained so painful that she didn’t dare try to get up on her own.

“Now, you stop...” Nana Ruth’s words were harder to understand than Chris’s, but her tone was kind and soothing, and she rattled on as if Vicky understood her every word. Today the woman sat on the edge of her bed, though she’d spent most of the last three days in it.

“Nana Ruth?” Vicky interrupted. “You make dress for Chris?”

“Dress for Chris?” The woman’s voice rose in pitch and then she chuckled. “Master Chris is a man, child. Our menfolk don’t wear dresses.”

“You no make?” Vicky pulled one of the shirts from the pile behind her and waved it.

“Yes, I did. But that was—” Nana rubbed her arthritic joints, which explained enough.

“You have for make?” Pantomiming sewing, Vicky waited.

“Sure do.” She hobbled across the room and lifted the lid on one of the chests. The wonders that lay inside almost had Vicky hopping off the bed, pain or no pain. To think she had been lying idly by for the last five days while there were sewing and knitting supplies just a few steps away.

Vicky hated the needlepoint and counted cross-stitch her mother demanded she concentrate on for hours at a time. However, Magda, their housekeeper, had taught her how to knit and mend men’s work clothing. Somehow, that kind of sewing had purpose. Vicky loved to sit with Magda, mending José Luis or Berto’s clothes for hours. She admired the marriage that Berto and Magda had, and even allowed herself to pretend she could be a normal wife with a family to care for and a husband who loved her like Berto loved Magda. But she knew that she would never be loved like that.

Being born of noble blood, even if only half, she would be doomed to marry for money and political arrangements between her father and some other nobleman. But after seeing what that kind of marriage had done to her parents, she would rather live the rest of her life alone, dependent on one of her younger brothers but not trapped in a loveless marriage where husband and wife at best avoided each other and at worst wounded each other.

She could earn her own keep by helping on the hacienda either with the care of the houses or keeping the books. She had learned bookkeeping when she helped Papá from time to time. It would be better than marrying one of the noblemen she didn’t know who had come courting soon after her Quinceañera, or Don Joaquín, who began his courting last year, only a month after his last wife had been laid to rest. Vicky suspected Mamá had encouraged the man despite the many times Vicky had told everyone she would never, ever marry, especially Don Joaquín. He was known for his drinking, cigars and unkempt appearance, but his hacienda had been one of the most extensive of the area, and he had cultivated favor with Mexican officials—mostly by way of extortion and bribery.

The next few hours passed by much more quickly than any since she’d been in the cabin. Once all the worn shirts in the pile were repaired, Nana Ruth arranged some knitting so that Vicky could work without moving her right arm very much while she cast on stitches for a sock for Chris.

“Nana Ruth? You have husband?”

Nana Ruth looked up from her chair at the table, and emotions ran across her ebony features.

“Yes, honey child. I had a good man. His name was Jeb.”

Already worried she’d asked more than she should have, Vicky concentrated on her knitting even though she wanted to ask more.

“We be slaves on Master Chris’s father’s plantation since we were born. We had a good life for slaves. We had four babies. Two die young, before they could even walk. Another one, Daniel, was sold when he reached eighteen. And our Samson, he grew up to be a good man, just like his father. He married but then died a year before Master Chris freed us.”

Vicky glanced up and saw the woman swipe a tear away from her cheek even as she continued her story, a smile brightening her face.

“When Master Chris told us he was gonna move all the way over to Mexico ’cause they had outlawed having slaves, well, Jeb said to me, ‘We gotta go with that boy. He’s gonna get hisself killed out there on his own alone.’ So we came. And Master Chris has been more like a son than a master to us from the day he was born.”

“Where Jeb now?”

“He got killed last summer. Some men attacked him and Master Chris in the field.” Her breath caught, and she cleared her throat before she went on. “Master Chris got hit in the arm, but my poor Jeb didn’t suffer more than a few minutes. Now Master Chris feels like it’s all his fault, but it ain’t, no sir. The Good Lord just needed my Jeb, and his time was done here. But when my day comes, I worry about Master Chris havin’ no one left here to care for him. I do declare that the Good Lord must have sent you for that purpose.”

She couldn’t claim to understand everything that Nana Ruth had said. Did she mean to hint at Vicky staying longer than a few more days? As soon as she was able to ride, she’d be headed back to the hacienda to face her father’s wrath and the arranged marriage that she dreaded more than death.

As Nana Ruth added ingredients to the pot Chris had left over the fire earlier, Vicky found herself thinking about Magda and Berto once again. She wondered what it would be like to look after a husband who hadn’t been forced on her by circumstance, a man she truly loved. Even though she knew it would never be possible for her, some part of her couldn’t help but wonder...

* * *

Chris could tell from the smells coming from the cauldron hanging over the fire that Nana Ruth was up and about and had added dumplings and seasonings, at least. Setting the milk pail on the counter, he shrugged off his coat. “Good evening, ladies.” He bent down and tugged off his boots, setting them below where he’d hung his coat. He stood, rubbed his hands together to get the blood flowing again. The snow had melted, but the temperatures were cool.

“Evening, Master Chris,” Nana Ruth called out.

As he turned around, his attention snagged on Vicky. Her hands seemed to fly as the needles clicked, her concentration keeping her from looking up at him. She was sitting up without the use of the pillows. Closer inspection proved that her cheeks were dusty rose in color, and her dark eyes glittered in the waning sunlight shining through the windows. Delightfully unaware of his scrutiny, her tongue peeked out from a corner of her mouth, and he couldn’t hold back his grin.

“I see you have found a project.” Startled, she dropped the knitting. “Sorry to catch you unawares, Vicky. Looks like you’ve been at it for a while.” A tube about six inches long hung off her needles. Her frown of confusion made him wish once again that he had learned more Spanish on the boat.

Pointing to her hands, he cocked his eyebrow in question. She pointed to his feet where one of his toes poked out of a hole in his sock. Nana had kept up with the darning of socks and mending until the cold weather set in last fall. He’d tried his own hand at it with dismal results. The only reason he had any socks that still held together is he’d sold three horses and a few of the farm goods to the Hacienda Ruiz last spring. In exchange he had brought back sugar, flour, salt and tea as well as some knitted socks for himself, Jeb and Nana.

What would it be like to have a wife who could take care of such things? He had decided to move to Alta California on his own. Completely alone. Admittedly he had been young and unprepared for just how isolated he would find the woods. Their nearest neighbors were a full day’s ride away. But then Nana Ruth and Jeb had needed someone and he had brought them with him, believing they could make it without anyone else. With Jeb gone and Nana feeling the aches and pains of arthritis, the realization hit hard that he was not self-sufficient and there were increasingly more things that he needed that he couldn’t produce for himself.

And what would he do when Nana needed more care? It hadn’t come to that yet, thankfully, but it might sooner than he expected.

“You ’bout ready to eat, Master Chris?” Nana called from the stove.

“Yes, Nana. My belly’s been kissing my backbone for a while now.”

“You always hungry, Master Chris. Been that way since the day you was born.” With a chuckle, she filled bowls with the stew, and he carried them over to the table.

“I eat?” Vicky asked. Chris sent a quick glance at Nana.

“If you could get her to the table, I think she’d be just fine.”

Pulling out a chair so he had a place to set her down, he crossed over to the bedside and took the offered knitting she held out. Setting her handiwork on the chest, he turned away to give her some privacy while she pushed down the covers and straightened out the giant shirt that hung off her slim shoulders.

“Ya.” It was the word he would have used to get a horse to move, but she had just spoken it to him. Seeing as he was to be her beast of burden, at least to the table, it might have been appropriate but a little haughty for a peasant girl. Then again, in the wilds of Alta California, he no longer was the owner of a large plantation and the closest thing to American nobility.