“I can watch out for myself, Cruz.”

“Do this for me, querida,” he coaxed. “You have your hands full with so many other things. Let me worry about you.”

He kissed her ear, slipping the tip of his tongue along the shell-shaped rim, heating her skin with his breath. She felt herself melting against him, defenseless against his onslaught.

“Say you will.”

“I will,” she said as she sought out his throat with her mouth. She loved the salty taste of his skin, the man-smell of him. When her hands curved around to grip his buttocks, she heard him laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I am hoping I will be one of the things that keeps your hands full.”

She laughed and playfully squeezed his buttocks. “Me too.”

Sloan awoke in the middle of the night with a lazy stretch, feeling loved, sated, and satisfied. She turned over and reached for Cruz, only to discover his side of the bed was empty.

At that moment a streak of lightning slashed across the sky, followed by a horrendous blast of thunder. She supposed Cruz must have been awakened earlier by the storm. She slipped a robe on over her nakedness and set out in search of him, lantern in hand.

She stopped by the room now shared by Cisco and Betsy to see whether the storm had woken either of them. Cisco was sound asleep, but she found Betsy whimpering in her bed.

She set the lantern down on the bedside table, then sat down next to Betsy and lifted the little girl into her lap. “Are you afraid of the storm, sweetheart?”

Betsy trembled in her arms. “Yes.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Sloan crooned. “It’s just a lot of light and noise.”

“The lightning killed Jenny,” Betsy said.

“Who was Jenny?”

“My sister. She didn’t come in the house when Mama called her. The lightning hit Jenny, and I saw her catch fire. Mama said God came and struck Jenny dead for disobeying her. I’ve been good, haven’t I, Sloan? God won’t strike me dead, too, will he?”

“Oh, sweetheart, you’ve been very, very good.” Inside, Sloan raged at the mother who had been so heartless as to suggest that God punished disobedient little girls by striking them dead with lightning bolts.

How could she possibly assuage the little girl’s fear? She started by saying, “You know, if you stay inside during a storm, the lightning can’t reach you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure.” She felt Betsy relax slightly in her arms.

“Mama said-”

“I know what your mama said,” Sloan interrupted. “But it wasn’t true. Your mama was feeling bad because your sister died and she put those unhappy feelings into words. God isn’t going to strike you dead with lightning if you misbehave, Betsy. If that was the case,” she said with a reassuring smile, “think of all the thunderstorms we should have had here at Dolorosa by now.”

Betsy smiled back tremulously. “I guess you’re right.”

Sloan brushed the bangs back from Betsy’s forehead, never more aware that Betsy was going to live with her aunt and uncle-strangers who might tell her equally terrifying stories.

She hugged Betsy hard, then forced herself to lay the child back in her bed. “You should try to go back to sleep. Any day now your Uncle Louis will be coming to get you, and you want to be well rested when he arrives.”

“I like Uncle Louis,” Betsy volunteered. “He lets me ride on Ben.”

“I trust Ben is a horse,” Sloan said, dropping a smacking kiss on Betsy’s nose.

“Oh no, Ben is a mule. He pulls Uncle Louis’s plow.”

“Riding Ben sounds like fun.” She tucked the quilt snugly around Betsy. “Do you think you can sleep now, sweetheart?”

Another bolt of lightning flashed, followed brief seconds later by a deafening rumble of thunder.

Sloan felt Betsy trembling, but the little girl gave her a brave smile.

“That’s my girl. Remember, you’re safe as can be, snug in your bed.”

She kissed Betsy once more on the forehead before she rose to leave the room. She had reached the door when Betsy called, “Sloan?”

Sloan stopped and turned back to her. “Yes, Betsy?”

“Could you tuck Cisco in real snug, too? Just in case.”

Sloan stood stunned for a moment before she followed the little girl’s bidding. She set the lantern back down on the bedside table and sat down beside her son.

Bay had been right in her letter. How much like Cruz he looked! She ran her fingertips across his baby cheek, then leaned over and kissed him on the brow. So soft. So sweet. Her child and not her child.

His hands were thrown above his head in abandon, and one leg lay crooked outside the covers. She made no effort to rearrange him, simply tucked the covers in at shoulders, waist, and hips, knowing she was being watched from across the room.

“I want to love you, sweetheart,” she whispered to her sleeping son. “I do want to love you. But I’m so afraid. I know it’s as foolish for me to fear that you’ll be taken away from me as it is for Betsy to fear the lightning. But oh, my son, how real the fear feels!”

She kissed her son again, picked up the lantern, and crossed to the door. Without looking back she said, “Good night, Betsy. Sleep tight.”

Sloan desperately wanted to be held by Cruz. She hurried to the sala and almost wept when she found it empty. She went back to their room, but the bed was still empty. Where was he? Had he been called out into the storm by one of his vaqueros?

What she had told Betsy hadn’t been a lie-the little girl was safe inside the house. But outside in the storm, there was great danger. As flat as the surrounding terrain was, a man on horseback provided a tantalizing target for lightning.

Sloan had already dressed herself in pants, shirt, and boots to go in search of Cruz when she admitted the folly of such a gesture. It would be far better if she went back to bed and tried to sleep. However, she wasn’t the least bit tired, and she knew she would never be able to sleep so long as the storm was lashing the adobe house with its fury.

She was having a glass of brandy in the sala when she heard voices at the front door. She rose from her chair before the fireplace, a smile widening on her face because she knew it had to be Cruz, home safe at last. She had only taken two steps toward the front door, however, when she heard another voice-a voice she recognized all too well.

“I expect you to do your part, Hawk.”

“I always have, have I not?” Cruz answered.

“Well, good-bye then. Damn and blast this storm!”

“Never come here again, Englishman.”

Sloan sagged back against the adobe wall as she heard the front door close and the sound of Cruz’s boots on the tile floor as he walked toward the sala.

For an instant she thought of hiding. But what purpose would that serve? She already knew more than she wanted to know. Hiding wouldn’t change the facts.

Cruz Guerrero was as much of a liar and a traitor to Texas as his brother had been.