Jet shrugged. I used to be rich, too. Daddy was famous
She was always bragging like that. Maybe because like a lot of people, she felt put down by the Keller name and ranch.
You told me. Lots of times.
We lived in a great big housebigger and newer than yours.
Where?
Jet rushed on. My mother kept our mansion perfect, too. Not dusty like yours.
I dont live in a mansion!
Jet was always talking about her perfect mother. But if she was so perfect, where was she?
Sohow come you came here?
Jet stared at the sky. Are you going to get your dumb horse or not?
Jet didnt talk much about her father or the double-wide mobile home they shared now. Irish was nice, nicer than her own father, but if you saw Irish and Jet together, they never laughed or talked or even looked at each other much.
Jet was her best friend, but Ritz had only been inside her trailer onceto see why Jet hadnt come to school. The living room had been dark and messy with beer cans and dirty dishes and trash everywhere. Irish had come to the door in a dirty T-shirt and stared down at Ritz. Usually he was neat and polite. Not that day. Hed simply said that Jet was sick and for her to go home.
When Ritz had told her mother, shed taken the Taylors homemade soup and offered to clean the place for him. But Irish had kept the screen door closed and refused.
Jet stared at the gate and then down the caliche road. Youd better get Buttercup.
Im not going in there!
Roques brown all overeven down there. And his thingy is big and thick and long! Andand when he saw me, it stuck out.
Ritz blushed as she remembered his tall, male body undulating to that wild, Spanish tempo. Hes disgusting.
Jet laughed. Hes hot.
Ritz turned her back to her friend. What would she do if Buttercup didnt come back?
At least it felt cooler standing in the shade of the gate. The prevailing southeasterly wind from the bay played across the grasses. Ritzs damp blouse ballooned with air and little tendrils of her yellow hair blew against her brow and throat.
She was working hard not to think about last night or Cameron or what Roques tanned, aroused body might look like when a burst of dark fire flew out of the distant trees.
Buttercup tossed her black mane and galloped straight at her.
Ritz sighed in relief. I wont have to go in there after all.
Maybe she saw his big thingy!
Would you shut up?
When Buttercup got near the gate, Ritz held out her hand and called her name. A hinge groaned. Then the gate swung back and forth, causing the mare to snort and dance skittishly.
Hold the gate, Jet, while I go get her.
The wind shifted and a cooling breeze struck Ritz as she ran onto Blackstone land. Buttercup raced off, hoofs thundering, her black tail high and pluming out. Finally she stopped a hundred yards away and watched Ritz, eyes wary, ears pointed. Then she lowered her head to the grass.
Why do you even bother calling her? Jet taunted as she slung a leg over the gate to watch. She never comes to you.
Ritz forgot her friend and concentrated on coaxing the mare closer. Only when she finally got the reins and turned to yell in triumph, Jet was gone.
When she raced over to the gate, it was closed and locked. In a panic, Ritz tugged at the lock and rattled the gate. Then Buttercup pinned her ears back.
A tiny pulse pounded in Ritzs throat. The horse needed water. Oats. There was no telling what the Blackstones might do to her mare if they found her.
Ritz was trapped inside the forbidden kingdom.
If his wide brown shoulders and lean torso had her in to a dither last night, what would happen if she came face-to-face with naked Roque Blackstone?
2
It had been a hellish hour. Ritz had pranced back and forth in front of the gate astride Buttercup, torn between abandoning the mare and staying with her. All her grand dreams of ending the feud were as nothing.
Oh, why couldnt Mother or Ramón drive by and rescue her?
Ritz was hot and tired and thirsty. So was Buttercup.
Maybe just maybe, Ritz could get out of this trap if she rode all the way down to the beach.
Maybe. The beach was five miles away. Probably another fence would cut her off before she got there.
A red sun hung low in a rosy horizon. With a frown, she pushed her glasses up her nose and studied the caliche road and the oak mott atop the ancient dunes. Tangles of thick, thorny brushmesquite, huisache and oak and prickly pear trailed down the sides of the dunes. Her gaze wandered over the greenery twisting across the flat pasture following the course of Keller Creek.
Surely Roque wouldnt still be naked at that pond on the other side of those trees. Not that shed risk going that far. Shed only go as far as the oak mott, to the edge of the creek, in the hopes that it might still be running even this late in the year.
She nudged Buttercup. Even if it was dry, at least she and Buttercup could rest and cool off in the shade.
As they made their way toward the trees, she couldnt help remembering less anxious outings when shed come here with her cousins and Uncle Buster, who had always said this was the prettiest pasture on the Triple K Ranch.
Blackstone Ranch now.
Oh, how shed loved Uncle Buster. Hed been a lot like her daddy except way more fun.
A yowl from the brush pierced the silence. A little brown rabbit sprang up underfoot. Buttercup reared. Clenching her legs tight and seizing fistfuls of black mane, Ritz held on as the rabbit made a wild dash for it.
Letting out a war whoop, Ritz and Buttercup raced after it.
Crazed with fear, the rabbit dived into a hole.
Buttercup circled, pawing and snorting.
Then Ritz remembered where she was and glanced nervously toward the oak mott.
No sign of a cat. Nor a tall, dark naked man-boy.
Pressing her calves tighter, she and Buttercup were soon inside the shade of the oak trees. The creek was no more than a narrow trickle of water spilling over rocks and sand and damp brown leaves. Four yellow birds fluttered in the sand near a clump of Spanish dagger, chirping.
The banks were stony, littered with sticks, and thorny with yellow-berried Granjeno, which made for dangerous riding, so Ritz dismounted Buttercup, because she was too precious to her to risk a leg injury.
Quietly, so as not to startle the birds, Ritz grounded the mare. The birds fluttered to the high green branches that arched above like a natural cathedral. Buttercup sunk her muzzle and guzzled sloppily from a little pool. Ritz knelt on the bank, dabbing cool water onto her red face and sunburned arms. She kept thinking about Roque Blackstone and wondering how shed ever get out.
When shed cooled off a bit, she just sat there, mesmerized by the guppies flashing in the dark waters. Wishing she had jars to catch them with, she forgot she was trapped in the forbidden kingdom with a naked boy.
Scooping up a handful of water and two guppies, she smiled as they wriggled their tails spraying wet pearls of sunlight. Releasing them, she saw Buttercup a good ways downstream nibbling mesquite beans.
Buttercup was not to be trusted, so Ritz got up to go after her. Then she spied a darling black spider curled up in a white flower. When she peeled back the petals, the spider curled up as small as a pill bug.
Dont be afraid, little spider.
Little legs tickled her ankle. When she brushed at the bug, she saw an amber colored army of ants racing along a miniature highway in the tall brown grasses. Every ant returning to the mound carried a leaf bigger than it was. She fell to her knees to watch them. Every ant coming out of the mound bumped into every ant carrying a leaf.
Why? she wondered aloud, spellbound. Do you have a secret language?
For a long time, she was aware of nothing but the ants. Then a large animal sneezed. She jumped to her feet.
Buttercup?
The yellow birds werent singing anymore. The last of the red-gold sunlight flickered in the twisted, wind-skewered branches. An owl went, whoo, whoo, whoo.
Where was Buttercup?
Ritz ran in the direction where shed last seen her. When she stopped to get her breath, she was in a part of the oak mott shed never been in before. Shrouded eerily with mistletoe, the trees were like dancers frozen in some dark spell.
The owl hooted again.
Sometimes witches took the shape of owls and changed little girls into birdsat least, in one of Ritzs favorite fairy tales. Ritz shivered.
The trees, the creekall that had seemed so familiar and wondrous were suddenly strange and terrifying. She was all alone. Without the wind to rattle the palmetto fronds and stir the brown leaves that littered the ground, it was too quiet.
She stared up into the branches looking for cats. Then she remembered the No Trespassing signs, and a pulsebeat pounded in her temple.
This was Blackstone land. Why hadnt she climbed the gate and run home? She had to get homefastreally fast, before something really bad happened. She would have to end the feud some other day when she was bigger and braver.
Buttercup? Where are you
There was no answering snicker. The sun went behind a cloud and the glade darkened. Branches moaned in the wind. Leaves rained down and scuttled at her feet.
Then a twig crackled behind her.
Sobbing with fury and terror, she whirled. Sunlight and shadows played across the grass. Alert, triangular, gold ears above the waving brown tips pointed straight at her.
A cat!
Her heart slammed against her rib cage.
Another gust of wind sent more leaves flying. The grass waved. The big ears disappeared.
Oh, my God! Where was he? Her eyes glued to the spot where those ears had been, she pushed her glasses up. Then she stealthily tiptoed backward, moving robotically, one careful little half step at a time because she knew she wasnt supposed to run. Not from a catthey liked to chase things.
To a big cat, shed be no more than a mouse was to Molly, Mothers gray Persian that was forever catching birdsjust to play with them and kill them. A big cat would bite her neck, crunch her bones, toss her around like a rag doll, paralyze her and then drag her off to some tree or hole
Last year shed seen a dead little filly over near the beach house that a cat had gotten. Thered been nothing left but bones and strips of hide and a few strands of black mane and tail blowing in the wind.
She conjured this image so vividly, she forgot not to run. With a panicky yell, Ritz twisted and sprinted full out toward the sunny pasture and pond.
Her sneakers flew across fallen branches, logs and rocks, splashing sloppily through the mud and water. When her foot got stuck between two rocks in the slippery ooze, a rattler hissed from the bank. At the sight of those brown coils, she yanked at her ankle with the frenzy of a coyote chewing its leg off to get out of a trap.
Then she was free, sobbing but running wildly. Thorns scratched her legs. Cutoffs werent right for such dense brush. Cowboys wore leather leggings and jackets and gauntlet-type gloves.
Her right toe hit a rock wrong, and she pitched forward, hitting the ground so hard, it knocked the breath out of her. Her bleeding palms burned from skidding across gravel and sticker burrs, but she was too stunned and too terrified by what she saw beyond the trees to even whimper.
There he was!
Not naked!
Worse!
Bold as brass, Roque Blackstone stared straight at her, unzipped his fly and shook his big thingy out.
Just like last night, she covered her eyes with her fingers and crouched as still as a mouse and prayed, hoping he hadnt heard her, hoping he hadnt really seen her.
Finally her terrible curiosity got the best of her and she peeked through her slitted fingers.
Oh, my God!
His skin was as brown as mahogany. He had it pointed at her now and was deliberately spraying a rock not five feet in front of her with a stream of yellow pee.
Adrenaline. Sweat. Sheer terror.
Slowly, when nothing happened, her dreadful curiosity took the ascendancy of her common sense.
She squinted and tried not to see that part of his anatomy. Only somehow that was all she saw. It was big and long and purple-pink. It stuck straight out. At her!
Dont look at it!
She couldnt seem to stop.
Like last night, he had the same chiseled face of a prince out of one of her favorite storybooks. Just the sight of his wind-whipped black hair, along with his awe-inspiring muscular chest, his broad shoulders, and his lean, brown, rangy body sent funny little darts zinging through her stomach. And she hadnt even lookednot really down there. At least not on purpose.
But she had because, truth to tell, she was as fascinated by him as Jet was. Maybe more so.
He shook it after he finished, and then it got hung up in his jeans and he couldnt zip his fly. She forgot all modesty and observed his deft brown fingers that yanked up and down at the zipper. Suddenly he stopped fiddling with his zipper and stared straight at her.
Hot color scorched her cheeks. Not that she closed her eyes or even blinked. But her glasses fogged. She took them off and wiped them with the grubby tail of her shirt. Then she shoved them onto her nose.
He was big, way bigger than her brother, Steve, but not nearly as big as Cameron. Which was such a relief she hugged herself. Still, he was wild and bad, and it showed somehow on his face. It was like he was a prince under a witchs spell, or maybe he was a pirate who had walked out of a legend into real life. Or maybe somehow shed plopped herself inside a storybook and was about to be a princess or a maiden and have a big adventure.
He was a Blackstone. The bad Blackstone brother, who did bad things to girls. He was oldeighteen or so.
Hed even flunked a year.
Holding her breath, Ritz slithered backward, away from him, keeping to her awkward crouch until the trees completely hid her and she could run for home. Then she ran, just like shed run last night. Even as she felt some weird pull not to.
No sooner had Roque finished unsnarling the blue-white threads from his zipper than a horse snickered in the distance, somewhere off to the south. The sound brought a strange peace to him, especially this evening.
He loved horses. A lot more than he loved people. They connected him somehow to a larger, truer, and very ancient world.
His dark fury returned. Why couldnt people just leave him the hell alone? Caleb? His father? Most of all, his father!
Something stirred in the thick foliage of the oak mott. A branch bent gently. Shadows danced.
Dios, hed forgotten about her. Was she hiding in the mogotes (thick patches) and cejas (thickets) like before? Like last night?