In their rodeo days, Max Harper and Clyde had frequented every good Mexican cafe between Portland and San Diego, and inland to the Nevada border. Both could describe in detail the specific virtues of an excellent chili relleno or an enchilada ranchero, both would turn up their noses at ground beef as a filling; both could name the painstaking steps in the proper preparation of tamales, a process that, when correctly done, took three days, from the soaking and roasting of the corn to the drying of the husks and the final rolling of the tamales.

Garza and his niece sat with their backs to the wall, unaware of the three cats hidden in the vines above them. The cats' view of Ryan was the top of her head, her dark curly hair tousled and windblown. She was dressed in jeans and a pale blue T-shirt with no cutesy logos emblazoned on it. Was she reading Garza off, or only laying out her troubles? Whichever, this lady had a hot temper.

"This is not a simple quarrel! I'm not going back to him. I'm not staying with a man I don't trust or respect." She shifted in her chair, looking at Dallas more directly, her green eyes blazing beneath thick black lashes.

Garza was grinning. "Don't lay your anger on me-I couldn't be happier. You should have done this years ago."

"I have an appointment tomorrow morning with the attorney Max Harper recommended. Thanks for talking to him." She sipped her beer. "I want to get the divorce started, get my contractor's license-and my half of the value of the business. In a few months, I'll be running my new company. R. Flannery Construction." She laid her hand on his. "I want to get into a place of my own, lick my wounds alone. Does that disappoint you?"

"Of course it doesn't. You're in the village, we can have dinner, run the dogs when I bring them down-go hunting this fall without Rupert pitching a fit." He patted her hand. "Just glad to have you near, honey. Glad to see you free of him."

"An apartment with good storage space," Ryan said. "Have to buy all new equipment, power tools, ladders, wheelbarrows, you name it. Have to do some advertising-to say nothing of hiring. Besides the job in San Anselmo, I have a couple of other nibbles, contacts from San Francisco. One of our-of Rupert's-clients wants me to build a small vacation cottage down here. They bought a lot last year, a teardown."

"So you're not only going to fight Rupert for your half of the business, you're going to steal the firm's clients."

"I don't consider it stealing, if they come to me. None of them was happy with Rupert, with his attitude."

"I have to say, you came away armed. Armed for what, time will tell."

"Don't be a cop, Dallas. I'll work it out."

Garza stood up as Clyde and Charlie and Harper approached. Harper pulled out a chair for Charlie; but as the three were seated, Joe nudged Dulcie. She followed his gaze across the patio, where Vivi and Elliott Traynor had just appeared, waiting for a table.

Vivi looked incredibly small and thin next to Elliott, who seemed twice her size. He was a handsome man, with well-styled silver hair, dressed in a suede leather sport coat and pale slacks, a man who looked used to living well. Vivi, in her black tights and black sweater and wildly frizzy hair, looked like something he might have picked up south of town.

Glancing around the patio, Vivi began to fidget as if she should not have to wait to be seated. When she spotted their table she did a comic double take, turned her back to the party, and grabbed Elliott's arm, dragging him toward the door. Looking surprised, Traynor followed her. When the maitre d' turned back to them, they were gone.

Ryan sat very still, staring after them. "Why did they turn away? She spotted us, and spun around like she'd been scalded."

"I told you the Traynors were here," Garza said. "She was looking straight at you." He studied his niece. "Something happen in San Francisco? I thought you hardly knew them, that you'd met them only once. Some business dinner?"

"Rupert and I had dinner with them one evening, with friends. Then Rupert insisted we take them out. We did, but I didn't especially enjoy it. Though I can't think of anything that would make them avoid me.

"Unless…" Ryan colored. "Unless she and Rupert…"

Garza's expression didn't change.

"Dinner was-well, both evenings were pleasant enough, really. But Rupert was fidgety and rude because he had to listen to details about Elliott's play. He thought Elliott was totally egocentric. I didn't think so, I liked him, he's a charming man. He'd been making arrangements with Molena Point Players, someone down here was doing the music and lyrics. Mark King?"

"Yes," Charlie said. "Mark King."

"He talked about his historical trilogy, too," Ryan said. "It was interesting. But Rupert… Well," she said slowly, "Rupert did spend a good deal of time talking with Vivi." She went a shade paler, lowering her gaze.

Charlie looked across at Ryan. "Elliott Traynor's play-isn't it based on the same historical material as his last three novels?" Under the table, Charlie and Harper were holding hands. Only the cats could see them, from the angle of the wall. The kit's tail twitched with merriment.

"Yes," Ryan said. "He seems totally caught up in early California history. But the material of the novels is different. The play centers around Catalina Ortega-Diaz and her love story."

"My aunt Wilma supplied some of the research for the books," Charlie said, "as well as for the play, from the library's local history collection and from the records kept at the mission."

"I haven't read the trilogy," Ryan said. "But Traynor told us the true story of the play. Catalina was the daughter of a wealthy Spanish ranchero-this would be somewhere in the eighteen fifties, when the rancheros began to mortgage parcels of their land to buy luxuries-silks, crystal, golden goblets brought over by ship from Europe. Apparently they and their families lived pretty high, enjoyed life day to day and really didn't take the mortgages seriously. Didn't think the notes would ever be called in.

"The heart of the play is the effect of this on Catalina's life. When the notes were foreclosed and the merchants started taking over the land, some of the rancheros went bankrupt, Catalina's father included. Well, I didn't mean to lay out the whole story."

"Go on," Charlie said. "Don't leave us hanging."

Ryan smiled. "Along comes a wealthy American named Stanton, offering to pay off Ortega-Diaz's debts in exchange for his land-and for Catalina's hand. Keep the ranch in the family. He promised Diaz that he could stay there in his own home and live well. It was the answer to the ranchero's prayer.

"But Catalina was in love with someone else," Ryan said. "When she refused to marry Stanton, her father locked her in her room, fed her on bread and water. According to Traynor, she finally gave in. Though she married Stanton and bore his children and made a respectable life, she wrote letters to her lost love until she died.

"No one knows how many of the letters she sent. According to Traynor, she hid many of them in her chambers-rather like a secret journal. The way Traynor described it, the whole thrust of the play is on the letters between Catalina and Marcos Romero- her songs are the letters. Traynor tells the story so beautifully. I was fascinated. But Vivi seemed annoyed that he talked so much about the play; she seemed as bored as Rupert."

Charlie laughed. "I know how she is. I work for them, I do their cleaning. Vivi can be… off-putting."

"I liked Elliott," Ryan said. "He's a fiery man, but he seemed kind. I think he could be kind-without Vivi."

From atop the brick wall, Dulcie watched the two women, thinking that they hit it off very well. They seemed about the same age, and certainly they agreed about Vivi-but then, who wouldn't?