Bride of the Baja (39 page)

She heard him draw in his breath and felt the passion mount in him. He drew her closer until she felt the charm stone press against her breasts. She pulled away, stepping back.

"What is it, my Alitha?"

"I—I thought I heard a sound in the garden near the tall cactus. It's probably just another lizard."

"I do not see—" he began, lifting an arm of the prickly pear with his boot. All at once he stomped the ground with his heel. "A snake," he told her. "A small coral snake. A lovely creature, but deadly. Do not fear, I have killed him."

She almost said, "I always thought of coral snakes as female rather than male." Instead she turned from him, her hand touching the charm stone through the cloth of her dress. As she looked out over the sea, Esteban came up behind her and circled her waist with his arms.

"Will you marry me, my Alitha?" he asked softly, his lips to her hair.

"Do you want me to sail with you to Santa Barbara, to live in your rancho as Maria does, to have your children, to make my life there? Do you expect me to adopt your ways, the customs of the Californios?"

"Yes, of course I do. As I said, I want you to be my wife."

Alitha felt tears sting her eyes, for she knew Don Esteban Mendoza was offering her the most he could offer any woman. She turned in his arms and looked into his brown eyes.

"Why do you cry, my Alitha?" he asked. "You know I cannot bear to see you cry."

"Oh, Esteban. I'm crying because I did love you, I was a girl when you found me at the rancheria, and you made me a woman, for better or for worse. I'll never, never forget you or how much you meant to me. But marry you? I can't, Esteban, I can't marry you. I wouldn't be happy as a senora. I'd be lying to you if I said I would. The fault's not yours or mine. It's what we are, all that's happened to us in all the years of our lives, everything that's made us the way we are."

He stared at her in disbelief. "You cannot be serious," he said. "Perhaps you need time to consider. Perhaps I have been too impetuous."

"I've never been more serious.
I don't need time to consider." Alitha went to him and clasped his hand in both of hers. "I can't marry you, Don Esteban," she said, ignoring the tears coursing down her cheeks. "I loved you once. I no longer love you."

Esteban frowned and walked away from Alitha to stare at the ground. Finally he turned to face her, a wan smile on his face. He bowed, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. "
Hasta luego, mi amor
," he said.

"Until we meet again, Esteban," she said, knowing she would never see him again. Never.

He turned, retrieved his hat and swung effortlessly into the saddle. Spurring the stallion, he galloped down the slope in front of the house, across the valley and up the hill toward the presidio. At the hill's crest he stopped and swung his horse about so he faced her. He swept his hat from his head and bowed. And then he was gone.

Alitha removed the hibiscus from her hair and held the flower cupped in her palm, remembering the rose Esteban had given her when she lay ill in Santa Barbara. The hibiscus was so beautiful. And so fragile. She knew the bloom, once picked, soon withered, just as she would have withered if she had journeyed north with Esteban. As her love for him, once so vibrant and so beautiful, had withered long ago.

There was no book here in which to press the hibiscus as she had pressed Esteban's rose between the pages of Pilgrim's Progress. Would Ines one day find that faded flower and wonder who had placed it there? As for me, Alitha told herself, like Christian, I've dallied in Vanity Fair, journeyed over the Enchanted Ground, and I've been forced through the Valley of Humiliation. Now at last I should be able to see the Celestial City in the distance. But will I ever, she wondered. And will I recognize it if I do?

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Alitha picked up a stone with a pointed end and scratched at the hard-packed earth. Gently she laid the already shriveling hibiscus blossom in the small hole and buried the flower. Rising from her knees, she brushed at her skirt and walked slowly toward her adobe house. How she longed for Thomas's return! Thomas, kind and thoughtful, would comfort her.

He'd told her of the Sandwich Islands these past weeks while she recovered her strength, about the customs of the people and of the problems the missionaries faced. Thomas seemed to assume that she'd return to the islands with him, Although he hadn't spoken of it directly. Now a ship was due tomorrow. Thomas would certainly plan to sail on that ship.

Alitha knew that they wouldn't marry until they reached the islands. Thomas wouldn't accept a Mexican priest, even if the priest could be persuaded to marry them. Nor a ship's captain. And, of course, Thomas would insist on their sleeping in separate berths on the way. His manner toward her in Loreto had been entirely proper—he hadn't even taken the minor liberties allowed a fiance.

She entered the house and looked about at her meager belongings. There'd be little packing to do. Why did she feel such reluctance at the thought of leaving on that ship? Thomas had always been her friend. He still was and always would be. Didn't she want to marry him?

She'd once planned to be a missionary's wife, looked forward to traveling to foreign climes. If she didn't now feel a wild thrust of passion for Thomas, at least she was fond of him. They'd grown up knowing one another and had a way of life in common. Passion wasn't the only possible bond between a man and a woman. Passion was all she and Esteban had shared, and it hadn't been enough. As for Jordan . . . But, no, she couldn't bear to think of how it had been with Jordan.

She heard two quick taps on the door and turned to open it. Thomas was back.

"I didn't expect to find you still here," he said, placing a fish wrapped in leaves on the crude table.

"I made my trip to the village earlier today," she said.

"That's not what I meant. I thought you'd leave with Esteban. I knew he was coming to see you, and you did leave with him once before. In Santa Barbara."

"Is that why you spent the whole day on the fishing boats? Must you be so noble?"

"I didn't think I was being noble." He drew in his breath and took her by the hands.

Alitha pulled away. "And must you always hold my hands as though you were a minister and I one of your parishioners?"

"I can't help but be the way I am. Noble, though? I don't think so. I just want to do what's best for you."

"Did you really expect me to go off with Esteban, Thomas? To leave you without a word?"

He bowed his head momentarily, then looked at her again. His appearance was a far cry from the Thomas she'd known in Boston. In his rough peasant shirt and pants, with his blond hair curling below his neck, no one would take him for a man of the cloth.

"When I suspected that Esteban might have forced you in some way to go with him," he told her, "I followed you two thousand miles from Santa Barbara to Mexico. But I came to believe you wanted him. So this morning when he came for you, I stood aside."

Alitha shook her head. Inside, he was still the same Boston Thomas no matter how his appearance might have changed. Why, when Thomas wasn't with her, did she always forget how he really acted? He'd said himself he couldn't help being what he was.

"You've been so good to me," she said. "So kind. All the visits you made when I was sick. Delores said you often sat all day by my bed during the time she cared for me. And now staying on in Loreto until I recovered. I can never repay you."

"There you're mistaken. You can repay me by keeping your promise to me."

"What promise, Thomas?"

"To be my wife."

Alitha took a deep breath. As Thomas's wife she'd be loved and protected. And she loved Thomas in her way. But she was no longer the Boston girl he'd asked to be his wife--she could never be that girl again.

"I'm afraid you wouldn't be happy married to me," she said, "and I'm certain the bishop wouldn't consider me an ideal wife for one of his missionaries."

"I'm not required to petition for the bishop's approval before I wed," Thomas said stiffly.

"I realize that. Don't be so literal—I know you've always been your own man." She smiled at him, and after a moment he smiled, too.

"Oh, Thomas, you'll be my friend forever," she said. "I don't imagine I'll ever meet another man with such true nobility of character as yours. I certainly have very little nobility in mine. Why, if I loved a man I wouldn't stand aside and let another woman claim him. I'd fight
for him!"

"But I love you, Alitha." He tried to take her hands again, but she put them behind her back.

"In Boston," she said, "do you remember the night by the Charles when we almost made love? I've thought of that night many times. I believed then that you thought I was sinful. Do you want to live with a sinful woman, Thomas?"

"It was myself I was ashamed of, not you." Thomas lowered his head again. "A man has an obligation to keep from arousing a woman's passion. It wasn't your fault."

"My fault! You still don't understand how far apart we are. My passion is my own to control or not."

"The Bible tells us the woman is the weaker vessel. Don't upset yourself, Alitha, over a matter beyond your nature to ..."

"Thomas, let's not quarrel. I can't marry you, dear as you'll always be to me. We've grown away from each other since those days in Boston. I'm not suited to be a minister's wife, nor would I be happy as one." She reached up to brush his hair back from his forehead. "Do you realize you've never called me Leeta since then?"

"But you know I'll sail on the next ship to the islands. The fishermen say one is expected tomorrow. How can I leave you here in this barren land, alone and unprotected?"

"I imagine
Coronel
Morales will see to my safety," she said drily.

"Come with me, Alitha—sail with me on that ship to the islands. We'll be married there. You know the bishop prefers missionaries to be married men. He'll not jibe at you because of what you've been through. He'll realize you were an innocent victim."

Alitha shook her head. "No, I'm not as innocent as you make me out. Don't keep trying to convince me how it was. I know how it was."

"Your mother would have been anguished to think of you left alone in a foreign land. And your father ..."

"My parents are dead. My mother, God rest her soul, was a different kind of woman than I, Thomas. And my father ..." She paused, then went on. "I rather believe my father would understand."

"My dear." He captured her hands at last. "I wish there was a way to convince you that marriage to me is the best future for you."

Alitha let him keep her hands in his warm grasp. Warm but somehow impersonal. He doesn't really see me as I am any more than Esteban did, she thought. Thomas has built an image of his Alitha that he'll never relinquish. If I married him I'd have to spend a lifetime trying to live up to that image, and I could never do that.

Tears came to her eyes at the thought of losing him. They had known each other for so long and she liked him so much. And if the truth be told, she admonished herself, she also felt a flicker of disappointment at rejecting a journey to the islands. She withdrew her hands gently, standing on tiptoe to kiss Thomas on the cheek. "You've honored me by asking me to be your wife," she told him. "I do love you, but not in the way a wife must love a husband." She sighed. "Good-bye, Thomas," she said.

For a long moment he held her against him, and she realized what he had said was true. He did love her. But she could never make him happy, and Thomas deserved to be happy.

She managed to smile as she saw him to the door, but as she closed it behind him, she felt as though everything familiar to her had left with Thomas. Now she was truly alone among strangers.

What was there to do but return to Boston? She owned the small house that had belonged to her parents, and eventually there'd be money from the insurance on the
Flying Yankee
. She'd still be alone, but she had to begin to sort out her life somewhere.

If she never found a man to love, she could still find contentment in doing what she felt was right for her. Was it possible that somewhere there were boys like Chia, or like the mestizo children in Loreto, who needed to be taught to read and write? Weren't there children right in Boston who would never have a chance at schooling unless someone sought them out?

I'd be happy doing that, she told herself. But an image of Jordan laughing down at her, his eyes lit by candlelight, made her throat ache with grief.

CHAPTER
TWENTY SEVEN

Coronel
Manuel Morales laid aside his trowel, brushed the dirt from his blue uniform and smiled almost apologetically at Alitha.

"You must think I spend too much time with my garden," he said. "After all, I am supposed to be a soldier, not a horticulturist."

"I only wish I had your love for plants."