Texas Homecoming Read Online Free Page B

grandfather had been killed in the Texas war for independence. Her father had died ten years later. The other men in herfamily had been too lazy—too cowardly according to Laveau—to mount an effective counterattack against the Wheelers’ depredations.
    “Changing sides during a war is treason,” Cade explained. “The usual punishment is death by a firing squad.”
    “But you wouldn’t—”
    “He would have received a trial before being shot.”
    “That doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “The Confederacy is no more, and the Union Army considers him a hero. He wrote about officers he knew, even generals.”
    “I know nothing about what he did after he left us.”
    “You don’t believe he knows those people,” she said. “You think he’s lying. Why?”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “You’re trying to hide it, but I see it in your face.”
    “It really doesn’t matter what I believe. We’ll find out for sure when he gets home. Which could be any day. I expect you’ll leave as soon as he returns, so I’d better start looking around for a replacement.”
    It surprised Pilar that she didn’t feel quite so desperate to leave as she had an hour before. Despite the family enmity, a small part of her had always liked Cade. She guessed it was the female tendency to like an outlaw or renegade, the man who would make the worst possible husband. Not that she’d ever thought of marrying Cade. But he was handsome, daring.
    He used to be full of laughter.
    He’d kidnapped her once and taken her for a wild ride across their ranch, outracing the ranch hands who had followed. She had been terrified—and thrilled. He hadn’t hurt her. Or threatened her virtue.
    She remembered his strong arms, the youthful exuberance that had caught her up despite her efforts to remainindignant, the feeling that as long as she was with him, she was safe. Which, of course, just went to show how silly a fifteen-year-old girl could be when it came to a handsome, nineteen-year-old daredevil.
    “We’ll leave as soon as he comes back,” Pilar said. “We’re anxious to return to our home.”
    “How many squatters are on your land?”
    Far more than Laveau could handle alone. “I’m sure the Army will take care of them for us.”
    “Let me know if you find out when he’s coming back. Maybe we can work together. I probably have squatters stealing my cows, too.”
    “Your grandfather and uncle drove out the ones who tried to settle here. That’s how your uncle got hurt.”
    “Who took care of him?”
    “My grandmother,” she said, glad that Wheelers finally owed something to the diVieres.
    “I thought she wanted us all dead.”
    “She said she wanted him alive when the army threw you off this land. She wanted him to experience the humiliation she has lived with for so long.” The anger was back. “I’ll have supper ready as soon as I can.”
    “We’ll eat whenever you have it ready.”
    “I prayed a Yankee bullet would kill him,” her grandmother said to Pilar the minute she entered the room that her grandmother hadn’t left since she’d arrived at the ranch two years ago.
    “Who?”
    “The young one. Kill off the young, and their tribe will wither and die.”
    Pilar didn’t like the Wheelers, but she’d never prayed for Cade’s death. Except for youthful high spirits and generalworthlessness, she hadn’t seen anything wrong with him, though she thought it was a shame for such good looks to be wasted on a Wheeler. There were times when she had difficulty remembering she wasn’t supposed to like him. “He’ll be a lot nicer to work for than his grandfather.”
    “Men like him want only one thing. Keep away from him.”
    Pilar had never been able to convince her grandmother that Cade’s kidnapping her had been nothing more than a prank. Her grandmother remained convinced that only the pursuit of the ranch hands had prevented his despoiling Pilar among the cactus and catclaw.
    “I can’t hide in this room