The Redemption Of Jefferson Cade. Bj James

for the families of the estancias, as the Elia family had worked for countless years for her father’s family. The life of the gaucho had changed, but the indomitable spirit hadn’t been lost, nor the horsemanship.

      Nor the loyalty that kept him here in a secret camp on the plain, rather than at home with his wife and three-year-old son.

      “It isn’t the same,” she answered at last. “Nothing is as it was in the days when you brought me here as a young girl. When we rode like Cossacks over the plain.”

      “In the days when you wanted to be a real gaucho and wander the land?” Juan chuckled. “Before your mother and father sent you to the United States to become a Southern lady.”

      “Does growing up tarnish everything, Juan?”

      He stopped her then. A touch at her cheek turned her to him. The sun was just lifting over the crest of a hill, in the sudden sliver of light his Native American heritage was visible in a face that had gown more handsome with time. “Death and guilt have tarnished this land for you. Deaths you couldn’t prevent. Guilt you shouldn’t bear.”

      “I was supposed to be on that plane.”

      “But, because of a sick child, my child, you weren’t. You didn’t send your mother and your father and your husband to their deaths, querida. Whoever planted the bomb did that.”

      “Because the plane disappeared off radar so abruptly doesn’t mean it was a bomb.” Marissa didn’t want to believe explosives had blasted her husband’s plane from the sky. Believing would lay the blame even more irrevocably at her door.

      “I know,” Juan said adamantly. “Just as I know who.” Softly, he added, “As I know why.”

      “No.” Marissa tried to turn away. Juan wouldn’t let her.

      “This is no more your fault than any of the rest. You were married to a man more than twice your age. If love was lacking, loyalty was not. You have no reason to accuse yourself.

      “If a man of power covets all your husband has, his business, his land, his wife, the sin isn’t yours. If he tries to coerce your husband to become a part of something evil, it isn’t your fault. If this man decrees all you love and you must be punished for being honorable and loyal to the principles of a lifetime, it isn’t your dishonor. If he carries out his threat in a way most horrible, the crime is his, not yours.

      “My child lives because of your goodness. Your family died at the hand of an evil man. There is no connection.”

      “That a bomb caused the crash was a passing speculation, dismissed as quickly,” Marissa reminded him.

      “Yes,” Juan admitted. “But there was the threat. And all who knew have been silenced. Or so he believes.”

      “Then, if Menendez should discover I’m alive, that would mean he would also have discovered you’ve hidden me and given me shelter. What more proof would he need to suspect you know everything? Then, my dear friend, your life would be at risk, as well.” Fear trembled in her voice for this trusted man who was more like a cherished brother than a friend.

      “No, querida,” Juan soothed. “To the world, I am merely a gaucho who lived and worked on your father’s estancia. Who would suspect an enduring friendship begun between a girl of five and a boy of sixteen? Who would believe such a grand lady as Señora Rei helped to bring my long-awaited first child into the world. Or that the name he bears is in her honor?”

      “But if they should…”

      “You will be gone from here long before that could happen. And when you’re gone, we’ll be as we were. My Marta, Alejandro, and I,” he promised. “And you, Rissa? You will be safe.”

      Marissa brushed a forearm across her brow as if she would shield eyes that had known too many tears. “Will Jefferson come? After so long will he remember a promise? Will he care?”

      “If he is even half the man you spoke of, he will remember, he will care, and he will come.”

      “We can’t be sure he got a message passed through so many hands. If he did, was it too cryptic? The article on the back of the newspaper may mean nothing to him. He might not read it.”

      “He will read it, querida. He will read each word over and over again. Because he knows he must understand, he won’t stop until he does. He will see the marks and make words of them. Then, he will come to the estancia, and Marta will do the rest.”

      “After that can you be safe, Juan? You or your family?”

      “Yes,” he assured her as he smiled at a secret thought.

      We will be safe and you, Marissa, will be in the arms of the man you love, at last.