Hill Country Secret Read online

  Just a detour...

  Or the home she needs?

  Lauren Longwood’s freewheeling existence has hit a bump—in more ways than one. Pregnant by her ex, she retreats to Texas and meets charismatic Alex Reyes, as tied to the land as Lauren is to the road. Once, all he wanted was to save his ancestral ranch. Now he wants to offer Lauren the steadfast love that’s eluded her, if she’ll trust him enough to stay.

  “You never expected to live out of a van forever.

  “That’s the whole reason you came here in the first place when you found out about the baby. You wanted a place to belong. You wanted good people around you, and a regular roof over your head, and so you came here, to this place. That’s no accident. That’s why you started working on the bunkhouse. You wanted a community, a real live flesh-and-blood community that stays in one place.”

  “Stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Talking about me like you know me. Boxing me in.”

  “Boxing you in? How? By putting a roof over your head? That’s bull. You drive away now, you still live in a box. It’s just a box on wheels, whose transmission could go out a hundred miles from nowhere.”

  “That’s my problem, not yours or anybody else’s.”

  Dear Reader,

  Family land. There’s a lot of emotional content packed into those two words. It’s not easy in today’s world to keep land in the family, much less make a living off it. Still, modern-day farmers and ranchers find a way, as farmers and ranchers always have. I’m privileged to live on a farm that’s been in continuous operation by the same family since 1852. I’m a homebody by nature, and I love living deeply in a place that has a story to every pasture, fence post and tree.

  At the same time, I’m intrigued by the modern van-life movement, and impressed by the dedication, clarity of vision and genius contrivances of those who live it. I wouldn’t want to do it myself, but I like looking at the pictures.

  So what would it be like if a seventh-generation Texas rancher and a van-dwelling free spirit fell in love?

  This is my first book with Harlequin Heartwarming, a line that affirms things I hold dear, like family, community, hard work, friendship and triumphant love.

  I hope you enjoy Alex and Lauren’s story.

  Kit

  Hill Country Secret

  Kit Hawthorne

  Kit Hawthorne makes her home in south-central Texas on her husband’s ancestral farm, where seven generations of his family have lived, worked and loved. When not writing, she can be found reading, drawing, sewing, quilting, reupholstering furniture, playing Irish pennywhistle, refinishing old wood, cooking huge amounts of food for the pressure canner, or wrangling various dogs, cats, goats and people.

  To Mary and Cheryl, with gratitude, and in hopes of another twenty years of road trips, Cheez-Its, brainstorming, laughter and patient pauses in the conversation as we write down each other’s book and movie recommendations. I treasure your friendship as much as your critiquing skills, and that’s saying something.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my husband, Greg, for making it possible for me to stay home and write; my daughter Grace, for being such an excellent sounding board and encourager; my mom, for not balking at how many titles I used to circle on the Scholastic book catalog in elementary school; and for all the family and friends who have encouraged me and made my life richer over the years.

  Thanks also to Isaac Dehoyos for making the Spanish language passages sound right.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EXCERPT FROM ALL THEY WANT FOR CHRISTMAS BY M. K. STELMACK

  CHAPTER ONE

  A LOUD CRASH jolted Lauren Longwood awake. The October sunshine, so warm and bright when she’d settled into the porch swing earlier in the afternoon, had faded to an eerie twilight. A hard, straight wind cut through her thin T-shirt and rumbled over the metal roof.

  She sat up and pulled the quilt around her shoulders, upsetting the gray barn cat nestled in its folds. Cushions tumbled to the floor, along with a worn copy of Ghost Stories of the Texas Hill Country.

  She’d fallen asleep reading the sad tale of Alejandro Ramirez: husband, ranchero and soldier in the Texas Revolution. Now that was a man. Fearless, faithful, unstoppable. Not even death at the hands of Santa Anna’s army could keep him from protecting the woman he loved.

  “Durango!”

  The wind swallowed her voice. She tried again, louder. This time the sleek black-and-white border collie came racing up the walkway. He cleared the porch steps with an easy bound and nuzzled Lauren with his pointy snout.

  A clenched fist of tension inside her relaxed a tiny bit as she rubbed Durango behind the ears. Dogs made everything better, and these days she was humbly grateful for any shred of comfort.

  She’d been hurting long enough to grow used to the pain. Cling to it, even, like a ratty old blanket. She could function well enough, go through the motions of work and meals and personal hygiene, but not much more.

  Durango followed her into the house. The LED displays on the electronics and kitchen appliances were blank. Wind must have taken out some power lines. So much for streaming something light and frothy on TV.

  She fell to the sofa with a groan, still cocooned in the quilt. She’d been glad, sort of, to have the entire ranch to herself this weekend—as glad as she was about anything these days. Dalia was a good friend, but even her easy company was a burden at present. Lauren needed to get her head on straight, and La Escarpa had quiet and solitude to spare, with nothing to remind her of Evan.

  But she didn’t need reminders. Evan filled her thoughts no matter where she went or what she did. She felt beat up inside, and all she really wanted was sleep.

  She was on the verge of dropping off again when something creaked.

  She opened her eyes. The old wooden cradle that stood before the fireplace was rocking.

  Suddenly Lauren was wide-awake. She could feel the stiff spine of the ghost story book in her hand, and she remembered Alejandro’s story vividly. Just before leaving to fight for Texas independence, he’d told his pregnant wife, Romelia, that he’d be back in time to place a spray of yellow esperanza blossoms in the cradle beside their child.

  But Alejandro had been killed by a Mexican musket ball at the Siege of Béxar and buried in a hasty grave far from home. He’d never seen his only son, or returned to the young bride he’d left behind just months after their wedding.

  Years later, during a bad drought, wildfires raged through the pastures of the rancho. As Romelia and the vaqueros fought to save the buildings and livestock, she’d seen a shadowy form moving through the smoke, fighting the fire—her husband’s form. The house and outbuildings were saved, and not a single life was lost, human or animal.

  And ever after, it was said, whenever danger threatened, Alejandro returned to sav
e his family and their rancho.

  This rancho. La Escarpa.

  Cold prickles ran up Lauren’s spine. Could this be the very cradle Alejandro had built with his own hands before leaving home to defend his country?

  Durango lifted his head, fixed his ice-blue eyes on the cradle and growled.

  In a flash, Lauren freed herself from the quilt and bolted out the door.

  An esperanza bush stood near the porch steps. Its branches tossed in the wind, scattering leaves and yellow petals as Lauren ran past. She hurried down the walkway, through the gate and onto the long winding driveway. Durango kept pace, stretched out low and sleek at her side. She could feel the crunch of gravel beneath the soles of her boots, but couldn’t hear her own footsteps over the wind’s hollow roar.

  The adrenaline rush lasted about a quarter mile before leaving her to crash and burn. She slowed to a walk, forcing herself to keep moving, keep putting one shaky limb in front of the other. She felt like she was going to throw up.

  She laced her fingers behind her head and looked back toward the house. Had the cradle really rocked? She’d been half-asleep; maybe she’d dreamed the whole thing.

  Of course she had.

  In any event, ghost or no ghost, she couldn’t keep running forever. She had to go back sometime.

  Vincent Van-Go was parked close to the machine shed, his silver paint looking dim in the twilight. She’d sleep there tonight instead of in Dalia’s guest room. Surely no self-respecting ghost of a nineteenth-century ranchero would bother to haunt a Ford Transit cargo van.

  “Well, Durango, I guess we might as well go check the stock. Come on, boy.”

  Durango’s ears perked, but he wasn’t listening to Lauren. He was staring away from her, away from the house, with that weird fixed look in his eyes. Then he took off like a shot, without so much as a bark.

  Lauren called him, but she knew it was hopeless. Within seconds he’d disappeared around a bend in the drive.

  Great. Now I’ve lost Dalia’s dog.

  There was no point in chasing him. He had to be making thirty miles an hour. Lauren was a good runner, but not that good.

  Well, he’d come back when he came back. No doubt he’d be fine, with his border-collie intellect and his mad sprinting skills.

  On the way to the barnyard, she passed a long, low building, overgrown with brush. Jagged shards of glass edged the broken windows, and she thought she saw something moving inside. A varmint, or a ghost? At this point, she was too tired to care.

  The barnyard complex offered some protection from the cold. The various outbuildings and enclosures formed an organic cluster that harmonized with the lay of the land. Over in the paddock north of the house, the horses had taken refuge in a little hollow backed by a natural windbreak of dense cedar trees. She couldn’t see the cattle, but they’d surely found shelter, as well, somewhere in their pasture. The chickens had wisely gone into their coop; they looked fluffed and surprised, but healthy. She checked their water and gave them some feed. Dulcinea, the Jersey cow, was on a once-a-day milking schedule and wouldn’t need any attention until morning, but she was so sweet and pretty with her big black eyes and long eyelashes that Lauren stood a long time scratching the shaggy mop of golden-brown hair on the top of her head.

  Last of all, she headed to the enclosure that held the Angora goats.

  The Angoras brought in good money for La Escarpa. Their long, silky mohair coats were sheared twice a year and sold to be spun into yarn. Already the cream-colored wool was growing in thick and curly since their fall shearing.

  Lauren stopped in her tracks. Just outside the goat pen there was an ancient mesquite, with heavy, sprawling limbs as thick as the trunks of mature trees. One of these had split off at the fork, flattening the fence wire and snapping one of the posts.

  Straddling the massive mesquite limb was a man.

  And what a man he was.

  Her first thought was that he was dressed like a mariachi, but plainer, in his short jacket, ankle boots and dark neckcloth tied in a soft bow. But the suit was a rich butternut color, not black, and the embroidery running along the jackets’ wrists and rounded lapels, and down the sides of the tight trousers, was made of plain floss, without any spangly bits. And he didn’t have a hat. In an intuitive flash, Lauren knew this must be the sort of clothing that had inspired mariachi costumes to begin with.

  Which meant it must be old—really old.

  But the outfit, striking as it was, was nothing to the man himself.

  He was lifting the fallen branch from the fence wire. The broad plains of his thigh and shoulder muscles strained against the butternut-brown fabric. His head was bent deep, chin to chest, and his black hair streamed behind him like a banner.

  He was absolutely magnificent.

  * * *

  “ALEJANDRO.”

  The name came out of her mouth before she knew she was going to say it. She couldn’t help it. The name fit him, belonged to him, like a worn pair of leather work gloves.

  He raised his head, and his eyes—almond-shaped, amber-colored beneath black crescents of eyebrows—met hers. Sinew stood out in his neck, and his lips were drawn back from strong white teeth.

  “Ayudame,” he said in a strained voice. Help me.

  The fallen branch was more or less parallel to the fence. It didn’t just cross the wires at a single point; it was lying over them for several feet. The wires were caught on the branch’s bark and twigs. The mariachi cowboy, or whatever he was, could handle the weight all right, but he couldn’t drag the branch free from its tangle of fencing.

  Lauren hurried over and started breaking twigs and pulling the wire loose. A mesquite thorn pricked her finger.

  The man didn’t say anything. She was close enough to see the actual warp and woof of the cloth he wore. The shoulder seam of his jacket had the slight waviness of hand stitching.

  The goats hadn’t made a break for freedom. Durango had them huddled together in a corner, curly coats ruffled by the wind. He stood a few yards off, facing them with his ice-blue stare, keeping them in place.

  The branch came free. The man released it, sending it crashing to the ground.

  He stood to his full height, brushed off his hands and stepped over the branch toward Lauren. She hadn’t realized how tall he was. He positively towered over her. His face was broad and well-formed, with high cheekbones and a square cleft chin—a hard, stern, severe face.

  “¿Checaste los pollos y la vaca?” Did you check the chickens and the cow?

  “Sí, están bien,” Lauren said.

  He smiled. His lips barely edged up, but somehow the smile reached his cheekbones and eyes right away.

  “Bueno,” he said.

  And then...

  Lauren heard music. Classical guitar. Faint, but unmistakable. She had a quick thought—this ghost has a soundtrack?—before the apparition spoke again.

  “Oh, sorry, I better get this.”

  He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a cell phone.

  “Hey, Tony, I figured you’d call. You been watching the weather, huh?... Yeah, it’s pretty gusty, but everything’s fine. I’m at your place now and... What?... Yeah, Lauren’s fine, too. She’s right here... Yeah, the stock is fine. We’re all fine. Look, we got it covered, okay? So you and Dalia have a good time on the River Walk and don’t worry. All right, then. ’Bye.”

  He put the phone away and gave Lauren another smile. “Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the whole truth. But he doesn’t need to know about the fence just yet. Nothing he can do about it, and Dalia would just worry. Now that we’ve got that tree branch moved, we can rig a temporary fix with some cattle panels and cinder blocks. Tomorrow morning I’ll come back and hitch up the post-hole digger to the tractor, and we’ll replace that broken post and fix things up right. Good thing the tractor’s running again, huh?”


  Lauren found her voice. “I, uh...wait. Who are you?”

  His smile faded. “I’m Alex Reyes, Tony’s brother. We met at the wedding, remember? I was the best man, you were the photographer?” He paused, then added, “We danced?”

  A wave of embarrassment washed over her. Of course this was Alex Reyes. She remembered him perfectly now. He even looked like Tony a little.

  To be fair, it had been over a year since the wedding, and he sure hadn’t been dressed like that. But the fact that she was capable of forgetting, even for a little while, a very attractive man, whose picture she’d taken, whom she’d danced with—her best friend’s brother-in-law—just went to show what a flake she was.

  “Wh-what are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I came by to drop off the tractor. I work at the shop. See, there’s my truck.”

  He pointed down the caliche driveway to a truck hitched to a flatbed trailer. Limestone Springs Auto and Tractor Service was printed on the side of the cab, and on the trailer was a Kubota tractor. Lauren remembered now that Tony had said the tractor might be delivered over the weekend. Alex must have driven up and parked while she was in the barnyard.

  “Um...what’s the story with your clothes?” she asked.

  Alex looked down at himself. “What, these? Oh, I belong to a group of historical reenactors. I just picked up my new outfit today and decided to give it a trial run before my next event. I like my reenactor clothes to have some honest wear on them, so they don’t look too costumey, you know? Plus the pants have to be broken in. They’re made to fit kinda tight.”

  She let her eyes linger on the long contours of his thighs. They sure were.

  The wind picked up. Thunder crashed, and sheet lightning flashed across the sky.

  “We’d better get that fence jury-rigged,” Lauren said. “I guess Durango will stay put?”

  “Oh, yeah. He knows his business, don’t you, boy?”