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.
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?”
