Carpathian 15 - Dark Secret

curious. She gestured toward a paint. "He's a steady horse, and there's a saddle in the barn you can use." It had been her father's saddle, but she didn't tell him that.
    She hadn't thought about all the tack they had lost, including Ginny's custom-made saddle. Ginny hadn't said a word. How would Colby ever replace that saddle?
    Colby pushed away the need to explode with pain and sorrow. Who had done this? Rafael had been in the tack room with her. And King, Ginny's dog. Why hadn't he barked? She had sent him to the barn to sleep. She had seen him earlier in the morning watching the firefighters. He hadn't barked when Rafael had come to visit her. She distinctly remembered that. Cautiously she pulled her hat lower over her eyes and took a quick look at Julio. Presumably he was staying to look after the children. Did she trust him?
    While Juan was saddling the paint, she swung down and hurried across the yard back into the house.
    Paul and Ginny had gone back to bed and were asleep, King curled up on Ginny's bed. Colby issued a firm command to the dog to guard them. The border collie was well trained and she knew it would alert them should Julio come near the house. At the last minute she strapped on the holster she often used when riding the fences. Sometimes cattle stepped in ground squirrel holes and broke a leg, other times rattlesnakes bit them. She needed to carry the gun for emergencies. Catching up her rifle she hurried back to her horse. This time Juan was ready and in the saddle. He looked born to ride, easy, natural, a fluid rider. He raised his eyebrow when he saw her rifle but said nothing.
    "My brother was an excellent horseman," he said, easily reading the sorrow in her eyes when she watched the way he moved in the saddle. "Even as a young man he could outride most of us."
    Colby looked away from him quickly, swallowing the lump in her throat. "He used to put me in front of him when I was just a toddler and we'd ride all over the ranch together. He taught me to ride."
    "You perform the same ritual as he always did before mounting your horse." Juan smiled in memory.

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    "We used to tease him over it. He always patted the horse's neck and ran his hand along the chest and front legs, patted a second time, then swung on, most of the time without even using the stirrups."
    Colby felt the memory rising, vivid and painful. Armando had been an amazing horseman and he loved the animals. He'd instilled that same love in Colby. "He was incredible with the horses," she said. "I've never seen anyone better?'
    "He would want his children to know his familia," Juan said, his voice gentle.
    Colby leaned down to open a gate. "What did you expect, that I would just turn my brother and sister over to you? Perfect strangers? Is it so wrong of me not to allow strangers to drag my family off to a foreign country? Tell me, would you have done so?"
    Juan pushed his hat further back on his head. "No, senhorita, I would never give my familia over to those I did not know. Armando wrote to us on his deathbed to come for his children. All of his children. It was his dying wish that you would come to us. My brother made it abundantly clear that he considered you his daughter and his heir. We came for all of you."
    "You came five years too late. I wrote to your family when the accident occurred and no one responded. And three years ago I wrote the letter again when he was on his deathbed. There wasn't a single sentence in it about me." Her green eyes touched his face, skittered away. She wished there had been something in the letter, but she had written it word for word as Armando had dictated it to her. She didn't want Juan to see her disappointment over not being adopted by Armando, or the anger she felt at Juan's lying, reflected on her transparent face.
    The sun was beginning to make its way through the thick bank of clouds shrouding the mountains and, for some reason, Colby's eyes were ultrasensitive. The light stabbed at her so that she pulled the brim of her hat lower to shadow her face. Even so, her eyes hurt, burning in the morning sun.
    Juan swung the gate closed after them. "Armando must have added to the letter. His hand was shaky and we would not have known but for his crest."
    "He couldn't have. He could hardly move at the end." Colby said it stiffly, not looking at him. Her stepfather had asked her to leave the letter on his nightstand so he