The Double Cross by Carla Kelly

Author:Carla Kelly [Kelly, Carla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781603819459
Google: O4GRnAEACAAJ
Amazon: 1603819452
Goodreads: 17885799
Publisher: Camel Press
Published: 2013-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

How did I feel? Marco asked himself as Paloma slept beside him. Funny how this woman he now called his own had asked a question no one ever dared to ask. In truth he had felt hollow. He was no soldier. All he wanted was to raise his cattle and sheep in peace. Still, de Anza had commended his efforts, and Marco knew he could fight.

He could have slept, too, and then wakened his wife after he was able again, but he got up instead. He washed himself with warm water that practical Paloma must have brought from the kitchen, probably under the scrutiny of Sancha. He wasn’t sure he would have been so daring, considering that no one usually needed warm water in the middle of the afternoon, except a man and woman newly married. You’re braver than I am, he thought, thankful that he was master of his house and his servants would not dare give him knowing glances.

He dressed quietly and unlocked the door, then tiptoed down the hall to the outside door, thankfully seeing no one. He stood on the porch as he always did, looking at the order around him, then went to his office by the horse barn. In a few minutes he was deep in the latest documents he had brought from Santa Fe, chafing at new regulations he would probably have to ignore, because the government of Spain hadn’t a clue what he needed on the frontier.

Shadows were lengthening across his desk and he was thinking about lighting a lamp when the door opened and Paloma came in. Her hair was neatly twisted into a bun low on her head, a far cry from the tangle on his pillow only a few hours earlier. She wasn’t a tall woman, but he knew how long her legs were and how good they felt around his body.

She looked at him, her expression quizzical. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I am thinking I should have remarried years ago, then I am grateful I didn’t, because where would you and I be then?”

Paloma crossed herself, and he knew she felt the same way. He smiled and returned his attention to the last of the recent cédulas, laws three years old at least, while she looked around his office. She pulled out a brand book, one of three volumes in the bookcase close by. She looked around, then naturally sat in the chair beside his desk where Felicia used to sit.

“If I am not interrupting you …”

He folded the useless law and gave her his attention.

“What is your jurisdiction?”

“North and south of us, then west nearly to Taos. No one is farther east than we are.”

“Are you often gone?”

“Not in winter. You’ll have to put up with me, Paloma. That’s all there is to say.”

She eyed him so long that he wondered if he could move everything off his desk and accommodate such a glance. She looked at the book again, and closed it.

“I have only a fleeting memory of my father’s brand,” she said, folding her hands on his brand book.

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