Someone Like You (Night Riders) Read Free

he rode sitting in his father’s lap and holding on tight.” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth.
    “Papa never took me in his lap. He didn’t teach me how to ride.”
    Maria had been grateful to Warren Jerry for giving her a home, but she would never forgive him for the way he’d treated Luis.
    “Your papa was older when you were growing up, and he was sick a long time before he died. I’m sure he would have taught you to ride if he had been younger and in good health.” She knew that wasn’t true and suspected Luis knewit as well. The picture Warren had kept by his bedside, and his will, confirmed Maria’s belief that he’d spent his last years regretting his separation from Rafe.
    “Will he send me away to school?”
    The question caught Maria off guard. “What do you mean?”
    “Juan says all boys are sent away to military school when they’re ten or eleven. He says it turns them into men. He says it’s a Spanish tradition.”
    “Your father was not Spanish.”
    “Both my grandmothers were.”
    Maria deplored the pattern of Spanish fathers marrying their daughters to Anglo men, even though it had proved to be the best way to hold on to Spanish land grants after California became part of the United States. She rested her hand on his shoulder. “I promise I won’t let him do anything to make you unhappy.”
    “Maybe I should go to military school. All the boys on the ranch ride better than I do.”
    “Only because riding is part of their work.”
    “I wish I could ride well. I wish I could do
something
well.”
    Maria had done all she could to give Luis confidence in himself, to make him feel loved and valued, but that was next to impossible when neither his mother nor his father showed any interest in him.
    “You do lots of things very well,” Maria assured him. “You’re a brilliant scholar, you—”
    “No one cares about that.” He sounded dismissive of his own achievements. “They only care about how many tricks you can perform on horse back or how well you can shoot.”
    Maria had always enjoyed the contests the local men indulged in during festivals, but she disliked that they used such stunts as a mea sure of manhood and character.
    “Is that my brother?” Luis pointed at two men approaching the house along the lane from town. The darker one was leading a pony.
    “I’ve never seen him. The lawyer didn’t say anything about someone being with him.”
    “He looks like the man in the picture Papa had next to his bed.”
    Maria didn’t know when Luis had been in his father’s room, but she couldn’t deny that even at a distance, the rider looked like Rafe. “You go on downstairs. You don’t have to meet him by yourself,” Maria said when the boy looked stricken. “I’ll be down as soon as I tell your mother he’s here.”
    Maria wasn’t surprised to find Dolores sitting in front of her mirror, inspecting her makeup. “Rafe is here.”
    Dolores didn’t take her gaze off her reflection. “Do you think I have too much color? I hear Southern women often use buttermilk to keep their perfectly white complexions.”
    “You look beautiful, as always. Now come on downstairs. He’ll be at the door any minute.”
    “I need to put on more powder. I swear, this California sun can penetrate the walls.”
    “Stop imagining faults that aren’t there and come downstairs.”
    “I’ll be down soon.”
    Maria knew her sister wouldn’t stir from her room until she was satisfied with her appearance. Since that might take five minutes or half an hour, there was nothing to do but go down and meet Rafe Jerry by herself. It annoyed her that Dolores would neglect her role as hostess, but her sister had always left the unpleasant and uncomfortable duties to Maria. Maria figured it was part of the price she had to pay for being rescued from poverty. “Come down as soon as you can. You’re the only one he knows.”
    Dolores was too absorbed with her reflection to answer.