Summer Chaparral: Chapter One

In just two weeks, Summer Chaparral, the first book in my Las Morenas series, will be released! Here’s a glimpse of the first chapter, to whet your appetite.

Preorder Summer Chaparral at: Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | ARe

(Nook buy links are coming!)

Find it on Goodreads here. And if you’re a reviewer/blogger and would like an ARC, you can find it on NetGalley or sign up for a copy here.

(And remember to sign up for my new release alerts if you want the buy links delivered right to your inbox.)

 

Chapter One

San Jacinto Mountains, Southern California

Late summer, 1898

When the farmers down in the valley had warned him of that twisted mountain road, Jace Merrill hadn’t believed them.

He did now.

Endless switchbacks, crazies—or drunks—coming full speed at him from the other way, and the sun a cudgel against his back—the only thing keeping him moving upward was the possibility of what he’d find at the top.

Jace dipped his hand into the common trough and splashed his face, trying to wash away the heat and the memories of the journey. But the heat stayed hard against him, heavy as a horse collar round his shoulders. And that road…

That road had led to this.

He curled his lip at the place. The little town of Cabrillo was a scattering of buildings along the road twisting through the mountain valley, the valley itself a stretch of green floor supported by a ring of rolling granite peaks. It hadn’t been on the map he’d consulted before leaving Bakersfield, and he could see why. No rail line, just a mercantile, a blacksmith, and a post office—the place was likely only of interest to those who already lived here.

And now him.

His gelding, Spot, splashed at his elbow, water dashing onto Jace’s forearm. Likely Spot was sore Jace had taken him on a road fit only for a mule. For all that Spot was pure cow horse, he sure could hold a grudge like a mule.

Jace shook out his sleeve, water droplets glittering as they fell to earth, then set his hand against the warm silk of the gelding’s neck. “Well, we’re here, Spot,” he announced. “Now what?”

The horse gave him a look that said, You’re the one who dragged us up here. You puzzle it out, idiot.

“You’re lucky you’re such a fine horse, or else I wouldn’t take such sass.”

Spot snorted and tossed his head. Right.

Right. Time to decide the first order of business.

A fair number of townsfolk milled about for a Saturday afternoon, dressed in likely their second best, no doubt here for their weekly rations of dry goods and gossip. Every so often one would send him a curious glance, but none approached him. If he looked half as sunbaked as he felt, he was a frightening sight indeed.

The faces were the usual range of hues found in California. They went from marble pale, protected by wide sunbonnets, all the way to deepest ebony made darker by the bright flash of a smile.

But people could be found anywhere. Here in these mountains, there was red shank, and chamise, and buckwheat, stretching across the valley, crawling up the mountains, until it disappeared into the dark green of endless pines. Chaparral—nothing at all like the flat, open grassland of Bakersfield.

Certainly nothing like the close crowding of the Los Angeles of his youth.

The valley had enough space to let a man breathe, while the ranges encircling it were close enough to give the impression of protecting what lay below. Freedom and comfort, all in the same place.

Odd, that a landscape could be so reassuring. Perhaps the march up that road had been worth it.

A lace curtain twitched in a window near the rear of Kemper’s Dry Goods and Mercantile—some busybody taking a surreptitious peep at him.

He’d have to become accustomed to others poking in his business if he meant to settle here. Jace tipped his hat back on his head, letting the breeze give a cool kiss to his forehead. First thing to do: find a beer to wash away the dust coating his throat and the exhaustion the heat had set on him. Second thing: find a job, so he and Spot could eat.

And third…

Home.

He shook that off, much as he’d thrown the water from his arm. That word was as foreign to him as it had been two months ago in Bakersfield. Then, he’d looked out over a thousand head of cattle, all carrying the brand of the Circle T, the ground trampled to dust under their feet, and remembered a different stretch of land, scraped bare, leveled to unnatural flatness, hundreds of houses rising from it. And he’d thought, I’d like to go home.

That phrase popping into his mind was as unsettling as if he’d suddenly become fluent in Spanish. He hadn’t used the word home in the thirteen years before that—the word was as useless as the Latin his tutor had drummed into him. The Circle T was the ranch, the place he slept was the bunkhouse—none of it needed home as a description.

Third thing to do: find a ranch of his own.

He took one last gulp of water before gathering up the reins. “Come on, Spot. Let’s find us a beer.”

Spot nickered in approval.

On the back porch of Kemper’s Mercantile, a door cracked open. A woman came out, swiveling back toward the door too quickly for him to see her face. But the swells of her bosom and hips were evident. Mouthwateringly evident.

A second woman came out after her, half a head shorter, looking tired. No doubt because of the belly full of baby on the front of her. The two embraced awkwardly, trying to make space for that belly. When they were finished with their farewells, the pregnant one went back inside.

No one had hugged him farewell when he’d left the Circle T. A handshake, a slap on the back, and that was his thanks for thirteen years of work.

The other woman went for the porch steps, the sunlight finally stealing under her hat. Full lips and high cheekbones were all he caught before her face fell into shadow again. Her hips set her violet skirts to swishing as she descended, her gaze catching on his when she scanned her surroundings.

Dark eyes went wide, then honed in on him. As she came forward, he got a good view of her face and—

Goddamn.

She had the kind of beauty men had been warring over since Helen had first winked at Paris all those millennia ago. The kind that made men dumb, that drove all thought from their minds except… I want.

Breathe, Merrill. A man of the ripe age of twenty-eight ought not to be dumbfounded by a pretty face—even if it was the prettiest he’d ever seen.

Her expression twisted for half a heartbeat before smoothing into placidity. She stopped just short of the trough, her lips curving into a vixen’s smile as she cocked her head. That waist of hers cried out for his hands to measure it. Not that he should, but Lord, he wanted to.

“Hola, Señor.”

Sugar and spice in that voice of hers. It put him in mind of the sweet bread Mexicans were so fond of.

He touched his hat. “Miss.”

She trailed a finger along the trough’s edge, cinnamon eyes peeping at him from under dark lashes. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.” Innocently playful. As if she might invite him to a church social next.

“No, ma’am.” As polite as if they were at that church social. “Just rode up today.”

He wouldn’t have ridden up at all if what he’d sought had been in the valley. But when he’d come off the train, looking for ranches that were hiring, he found only citrus groves and fields of potatoes, onions, and alfalfa, bounded by gray-green irrigation ditches. It seemed that when a water company set up business and ran irrigation to a place, everyone took up farming. The men in the valley had told him that if he wanted to brave the road, there were ranches in the mountains.

“And how did you find the road?” Her lips twitched, trying to break into a smile, and the breeze brought her scent to him—cinnamon, just like her eyes.

“Road?” he scoffed. “I’d call that the Devil’s own trail, myself.”

Her bosom gave a short bounce, as if a laugh were trying to hop out. And God, what a bosom. “Our mountain roads aren’t for the faint of heart.” A pinch of sass added to that.

“Well, now, I can’t complain anymore or else I’ll be branded a coward.” He grinned at her, catching himself before he dropped his eyelid in a wink. He might desperately want to, but a man looking to settle in a place had to be mindful of propriety.

Her smile deepened, two dimples peeping from her cheeks. “No, I’d never say such a thing. You made it up the road, didn’t you?”

“I did. And here I am.” He spread his hands wide, a magician conjuring himself for her.

“Here you are.” She set a hand to her heart, between the two places he’d like to set his own hands. “I am Catarina Moreno. And you are?”

His smile froze. After leaving Bakersfield, he’d intended on reclaiming his given name, if only to ensure his legal claims were airtight. What harm could come from taking up the Bannister name now?

But he’d been Jace Merrill for thirteen years, and he found it difficult to disown a name that had served him so well. Besides, she was obviously Mexican, and he’d heard how Mexicans spoke the name Bannister—with a hiss and a spit, as if warding off Lucifer himself.

“Jace Merrill, ma’am.” He set aside the thorny issue of legalities, to be wrestled with later. “I must say, that road was worth it when it has a lady like yourself at the end.”

Her answering smile was knowing. She knew how she looked, knew such appreciation was only her due. He liked that. A lady this fine ought not to have any false modesty. “You flatter me, sir.”

Catarina. If he settled here, took this woman to wife, he could whisper that name into the soft skin of her neck, low and sultry.

At least, he could if she weren’t a Mexican. And he weren’t a Bannister. He was already playing with fire, considering how protective Mexican fathers were of their daughters. Yet he was still drawn to the flame.

“Flattery?” He shook his head. “I’m only speaking the simple truth.”

One elegant eyebrow rose. “Of course. There’s no artifice there, nothing practiced. Right?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. Here were the two of them playing at seduction in public, and she’d called them both on it. A minx and a gambler. “No more artifice than in you. So none at all.”

Her eyes sparkled with silent laughter. “What brings you to our town?”

“I’m looking for a job as a ranch hand.” Easy to say that. “And then perhaps a ranch of my own.” Harder to confess that, so deeply held was the desire.

“You’re a cowboy, then?”

He’d been a cowboy these last thirteen years. He was ready to be a rancher. “Yes, ma’am.”

A spark of intrigue passed from her gaze to him. He wanted to give her that spark back as he pulled her into him, covered the cupid’s bow of her mouth with his own.

Don’t be a fool.

As enjoyable as this conversation was, it was also dangerous. He opened his mouth to bid her farewell, tightening his fist around the reins, and… just kept staring at her. If he did settle here and had to see her in town, he hoped his self-control was up to it.

She came around the trough. “I’m glad to hear you might be staying.” Again, with that long, slow look from under those thick lashes.

His mouth went dry, his skin prickling.

“Catarina!”

Their heads snapped around as a young woman, all thin, sharp angles, marched toward them, the anger in her eyes visible through her spectacles. As her hands fisted in the dull gray of her skirt, she let loose a torrent of Spanish at Catarina, none of which Jace would have understood, even if she had gone slow.

Catarina spat some Spanish back. The other woman released another volley of furiously fast syllables, the violet and gray of their skirts sweeping against each other as they quarreled.

A language he didn’t speak, an argument he wanted no part of, a woman he ought not to be flirting with—time to escape.

“Don’t be rude, Isabel,” Catarina returned. “Speak English.”

Jace held up his hands. “Don’t fret on my account. In fact, I think it’s time—”

“English?” The other woman—Isabel—curled her lip high enough for him to see her teeth. “Very well. You’re causing a scene. Stop it now.”

The two exchanged identical pugnacious looks.

Oh Lord, they were sisters. This was a family argument.

He had to get the hell away from these two and fast. Family entanglements were not something he ever wanted to be caught in again.

“I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I am not.”

The crowd began to slow and stare, caught by the stickiness of the anger flowing between them. If they weren’t causing a scene before, they certainly were now. He crept backwards, stopping only when he hit Spot’s bulk.

“I’ll just be off, then,” he called as they continued sniping. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Isabel raked him with a look, a schoolmarm dismissing a thick-witted pupil. His indignation rose at her sneer, pushing him toward them again.

To do what? Fate couldn’t have hit him with a stronger nudge—time to clear out. But first, his idiot eyes insisted on having one last glance at Catarina. The two of them had slowed their verbal slapping, Catarina merely glaring at her younger sister with arms firmly crossed and lip stuck out farther than a mule’s.

And still her face made his heart kick.

Isabel laid a hand on her sister’s forearm, her shoulders bowing in on themselves beseechingly. “Catarina, please.”

So pleading was her voice, even he almost softened.

Catarina’s throat worked. “I’m not doing anything wrong.” Her arms pulled tighter around her waist. “I’m not.”

The quaver in her voice made his gut clench as if her arms were wrapped round his midsection. He’d been just as teasing as she’d been, but there was no sister to scold him.

“Is that what Mother would say?” Isabel asked.

Catarina gave her a keen glare. “Don’t presume to order me about by invoking Mother,” she said, with an imperial lift of her chin.

Jace’s skin went clammy beneath the honest sweat the heat had put on him. He knew all about family obligations and the weight they placed on a person’s behavior. The way that weight could flatten a person’s very self. Or at least he had thirteen years ago.

Like the word home, he’d no use for the word family on the Circle T. There was no such thing there.

Isabel turned from her sister, letting her hand fall from Catarina’s forearm. As she gazed past them all, her eyebrow hooked upward as if beckoning someone.

Jace didn’t want to meet whomever Isabel was summoning. He gathered up the reins, gripped his saddle horn, set his foot in the stirrup—

And was pulled back by a large hand clamped on his shoulder. The hand spun him around as easily as the wind spun the blade of a windmill. Jace found himself dizzily looking up at one very angry man, a full head taller than Jace, although about the same age. The man’s brows formed thunderclouds above brown eyes quite like Catarina’s.

The frown was quite like Isabel’s.

“What did you do to my sister?” The words were punctuated by a shake that rattled Jace’s teeth.

A brother. Of course she would have a protective brother—why would this family entanglement of theirs be simple?

“Nothing.” Jace lifted his hands, knowing he must seem a coward to what appeared to be the entire town assembled around them. A few of the ladies were pointing and whispering behind their hands. But if the choice was between seeming a coward or getting the piss knocked out of him, he’d take the cowardice. He jerked his chin toward the two sisters. “Ask Catarina; she’ll tell you.”

Shit. He only just kept the hiss of that behind his teeth. Of all the stupid things for him to do…

“You called her by name?” The brother’s hand went vise-tight on his shoulder, Jace’s arm going numb with it. “She’s crying! You call that nothing?”

Goddamn, but this day was getting worse and worse. He had only his own dumb tongue to blame for this bad turn.

The men who’d gathered were pointing, no doubt taking bets on who’d come out the winner in this fight. A smart man would be betting on the brother.

Catarina marched up behind her brother, all sisterly exasperation as she grabbed at the arm attached to the hand trying to tear off Jace’s shoulder. “Juan, please, for once, use your brain and not your temper. I’m hardly crying. And not because of him.”

Juan glanced at her, still pulling at him. “Looks like you’re crying to me.”

“It’s the sunlight stinging my eyes,” she snapped.

Isabel tossed something off in Spanish. Like a trained bear, the brother turned to glare at him. Catarina loosed her own bit of Spanish and the brother started jabbering as well—this was becoming a farce, one with jokes Jace couldn’t understand.

The crowd, who wore identical expressions of pop-eyed, open-mouthed incredulity, began to part as a slight, dark-haired man—about the same age as Juan, if quite a bit shorter and several dozen pounds lighter—fought his way through.

“Juan,” he said tiredly, “let him go.”

Wonder of wonders, Juan’s hand unclamped from Jace’s shoulder. Jace’s fingers tingled as the blood rushed back in. Juan kept glaring and Jace glared right back.

He might not be willing to start a fight, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to lose a staring contest.

The mystery man turned to the sisters. “You all need to leave now. If your parents hear of this, and likely they will”—he flicked a hand toward the crowd—“you’ll all regret it.”

Isabel sniffed. “We were just about to do that.”

“Oh, were we?” Catarina sniped.

The man sighed. “Please. Just go home. Come on, Juan, you know I’m right.” He gave the brother’s shoulder a push.

Juan sent Jace one last dark look—Jace returned the favor—then headed off, his sisters in tow.

Catarina glanced back as she trotted away, her gaze part apologetic, part searching. All of it made his heart kick.

Idiot.

Time to figure out what came next. He scrubbed at his face, all of him sagging. Beer. That had been the first order of business.

He went to catch up Spot, only to find the entire town still staring.

“Show’s over,” he drawled. “Next performance at five.”

The crowd dissolved with a sharp crack of laughter, everyone fading off to carry on their own business.

Jace sighed as they left, thinking on that last glance of Catarina’s. And her first one as well, the one that had twisted her expression into something green and bitter.

He knew that green, bitter something. It had run through him on the Circle T when he’d thought I’d like to go home. But as far north as a man could see would be nothing but the Circle T. The same if one looked south, too.

That green bitterness had coiled in his gut, driven him to find a map the next day and decide where he was leaving to. His finger had found Bakersfield, traveled through the Tehachapi Pass to Los Angeles. He’d pressed hard on the A of the name, as if he could squash his father under his finger.

But of course his father was still there, still waiting.

No, Los Angeles was out. Orange County had plenty of cattle, but was too close to Los Angeles. His finger had gone on to San Diego.

San Diego was filled with ranches. And was far enough from Los Angeles. But his finger kept going, traveling east, before stopping on a little valley at the foot of the San Jacintos. On a rail line to the packing plants in Colton—he could ship his beef all over California. The green bitterness had faded the longer his finger sat on that little valley.

The green bitterness had first bloomed when his father had torn young Jace away from the rancho and tried to transplant him into Los Angeles. It had grown and grown, until the moment when he was fifteen, when he knew he had to flee or be consumed by it.

But the seed of that canker had been planted when Jace was five, sitting with his grandfather on the porch, looking over the Rancho Alvarado, as the old man had promised, “Someday, all of this will be yours.”

Like most of the old man’s pronouncements, it had been a lie.

There was a name for that green bitterness—covetousness.

And look at where covetousness and his wandering finger had led him to.

He turned to mount up, only to find that the man who’d called off the brother had stuck around. What the hell could he want?

Jace squared his shoulders, trying to throw off the exhaustion settled on him. “Something you need?” He was out of politeness, all of it having melted away under the heat and his near beating.

An apologetic smile deepened the creases at the man’s eyes. “Are you all right?”

Jace nodded warily.

“I’m sorry for that… incident.” He sounded sincere—not that Jace would be lured into trusting him with only an apology. “Juan can be hotheaded sometimes.”

“You don’t say?”

The man stuck his hand out. “Felipe Ortega. I’m foreman at the Rancho Moreno.”

“Jace Merrill.” The other man’s clasp was tight enough to say friendly—not challenging. “Formerly of the Circle T.”

Felipe’s eyebrows shot up. “Big spread, that place. What brings you here?”

Home.

Jace gave himself a hard inward shake. “I thought I’d strike out on my own. I tried in the valley first, but…”

“Ah.” Felipe nodded. “And now you’re here. There’s land for certain, and plenty of grazing in the high country.”

Jace heard an unspoken but at the end. “Jobs?”

Felipe’s eyes drooped regretfully, but before he could answer a dark-skinned man interrupted.

“I heard I missed a fight?” he asked eagerly.

Felipe laughed as he shook the man’s hand. “Hardly. Juan was only giving this one here”—he pointed to Jace—“a rather aggressive welcome.”

“Dan Harper.” The man held out a hand to Jace. “So you met Juan, did you?”

Harper’s grip was firm, reassuring. “Jace Merrill. Yes, I met him. He didn’t take a shine to me.”

Dan shrugged. “Juan gets a head full of steam at times. When it boils off, he’ll be all right again.”

“He’s looking for a job,” Felipe said. “Know if anyone’s hiring?”

“The Whitmans don’t need anyone.” Harper pulled on his chin thoughtfully. “The Crivellis might be, but I doubt it. And with five sons, my father isn’t looking for help.”

A dead end. His hand tightened on Spot’s reins, the hard leather cutting into his palm. He ought to have gone to San Diego instead. Foolish to let his finger do the deciding.

He didn’t bother to ask Felipe if the Rancho Moreno was hiring. He had some skill at mathematics—three squabbling siblings with the last name Moreno added up to him not getting a job there.

His grandfather’s words came to him from long ago on that porch. “Mexicans only hire Indians. Never hire Indians, son. They’re lazy and get dead drunk as soon as they get their wages.” The rocker had creaked as he took another swig from his flask. “Of course, Mexicans are lazy too. That’s why this land was meant to be ours.”

One of Jace’s first lessons on the Circle T had been that laziness knew no hue and one couldn’t predict a man’s appetite for indolence by the color of his skin. Another thing his grandfather had gotten wrong.

But the old man might have been right about Mexicans only hiring Indians. Jace wasn’t going to ask to find out.

“No jobs.” He filled his lungs with the sage-scented air. “Is there a saloon?” He could attend to one order of business before he headed back down that road.

Dan and Felipe exchanged wry glances.

“We have a very active chapter of the Ladies’ Temperance League,” Felipe explained, his words as dry as the town must be.

“Of course.” Jace snorted. “And Miss Isabel is no doubt the president.”

Dan burst out laughing, the sound ringing off the siding of the mercantile. “I see you met her, too.”

Jace set his hand against Spot’s neck and the gelding pushed his muzzle against Jace’s belly, the whiskers slipping through the fabric of his shirt to tickle his bare skin. This might have been a wasted trip, but he had his horse. And there was always San Diego.

“Well,” he announced to the other two, “I appreciate the help—”

“Wait.” Felipe held up a hand. “You’re not headed down the hill now? You don’t want to be out on that road at night.”

“I don’t see much of a reason to stay.”

Felipe’s brows pinched with worry. “Have you got a place to sleep tonight? If not… Well, I can’t put you up with me, not after—” He gestured to the water trough. “But maybe I could…” His mustache twitched as he chewed at his lower lip.

“He can stay with me,” Dan offered. “My sister will be happy to have another mouth to feed. She says we don’t compliment her cooking enough.”

Jace frowned as leaned into his horse, Spot’s withers firm against his back as the familiar warmth and scent of his companion of many years enveloped him. He’d only just arrived in town, nearly been in a fistfight, and these two were offering him a place to stay?

It didn’t make sense.

“Where will you go after?” Felipe asked. As if it were foregone that Jace would stay with Harper.

“San Diego,” he said shortly.

“Which rancho?”

“Don’t know yet.”

Felipe’s frown deepened. “That’s a fair way to go with no real hope of a job.”

Same for coming up that mountain.

“Listen,” Felipe continued, looking fretful, “you come out to the Rancho tomorrow and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

This was too much. There had to be something hidden here, something Jace couldn’t sniff out. No one was this nice. At least, no one he’d ever known. “Why help me? You only just met me.”

Perhaps the man meant to entangle Jace in obligations—his mouth twisted at the thought.

“Why not?” Felipe’s shrug held something sad, even as his smile never slipped. “You could use the help.”

Why not? A simple enough question. Perhaps the man did only want to help.

“I suppose I could,” Jace muttered, half to himself. Perhaps his finger had chosen wisely after all. “I suppose I could.”

 

Want more? It’s coming Thursday, October 23rd!

Preorder Summer Chaparral at: Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | ARe

Sign up for my new release alerts to have the buy links delivered right to your inbox when it releases.

And don’t forget about the giveaway on Goodreads for a print copy.

---

(Please note that Amazon.com links are affiliate links.)