Was that what was happening to her?
She twisted on the bed and tried to sit up, but her body remained completely frozen, rigid on the sheet. Something shifted, seemed to invade her mind, to fill her thoughts until she could think of nothing but the words spinning round in her head.
They want your baby, a small voice whispered through her terror-filled brain. They’ll take your baby if you don’t leave.
Maria choked on a sob. Fresh horror filled her. She wanted Miguel, prayed he would come home and save her. Silently, she cried out for God to bring him home to her before it was too late.
But Miguel did not come.
Instead, the small voice began to fade into the silence as if it were never there and the heavy smell of roses drifted away in the darkness. For long moments, she lay there, afraid to move, afraid of what would happen if she did.
Maria swallowed, managed to drag in a shaky breath of air. She tried to lift her arms and found that her limbs responded, allowing her to shift on the bed. She lay there staring at the ceiling, inhaling sharp, deep breaths, her hands trembling. She was shaking all over, she realized, her heart pounding as if she had run a thousand miles.
Tentatively, she extended her legs. She moved her arms, crossed them over her chest to control the trembling, then shakily pushed herself upright in the bed. Long black hair fell over her shoulder, reaching nearly to her waist. She drew her legs up beneath her chin, pulled the nightgown down to cover them, and rested her chin on her knees.
It was a nightmare, she told herself. The same dream you had before.
Maria’s eyes welled with tears. She pressed a hand against her mouth to muffle a sob and tried to convince herself it was true.
Zachary Harcourt opened the front door of the house that was once his home at Harcourt Farms. It was a big, white, two-story wood-framed house with porches both front and rear, an impressive house that had been built in the forties and remodeled and improved over the years.
The molded ceilings were high, to help with the heat, and expensive damask draperies hung at the windows. The floors were oak and always polished to a glossy sheen. Zach ignored the sharp ring of his work boots as he walked down the hall into the room that had been his father’s study, a man’s room, paneled in dark wood, with shelves lining the walls filled with gold-edged leather-bound books.
The big oak, rolltop desk where his father used to sit still dominated the study, but now his older brother, Carson, sat in an expensive leather chair.
“I see you still don’t believe in knocking.” Carson turned toward him, one hand still resting on the paperwork on his desk. The enmity on his face was unmistakable. The same dislike was reflected in Zach’s eyes as well.
The men were about the same height, almost six foot two, though Carson, two years older, was heavier through the chest and shoulders, built more like their father. He was blond and blue-eyed like his mother, while Zach, a half brother born on the wrong side of the blanket, was more leanly built, with the nearly black, slightly wavy hair that had belonged to Teresa Burgess, his father’s long-time mistress.
It was said that Teresa carried a trace of Hispanic blood from a distant grandmother, but she had always denied it, and though Zach’s skin was darker than Carson’s, his cheekbones high and more sharply defined, he had no idea whether or not it was true.
One thing was certain. Zach had the same distinct gold-flecked brown eyes that stared back at him when he looked at his father, marking him clearly as Fletcher Harcourt’s son and Carson’s brother—much to Carson’s chagrin.
“I don’t need to knock,” Zach said. “In case you’ve forgotten, which you usually do, this house still belongs to our father, which means it is mine as much as it is yours.”
Carson made no reply. After the fall that had left Fletcher Harcourt’s motor functions impaired and his memory distorted, Carson, the eldest son, had been made conservator of the farm and all of their father’s affairs, including his health care. It had been an easy decision for the judge, since Zach was younger and had a prison record.
At twenty-one, Zach had spent two years in the California State Penitentiary at Avenal for manslaughter, convicted of a drunk-driving offense that had resulted in a man’s death.
“What is it you want?” Carson asked.
“I want to know what’s happening with the benefit. Knowing your penchant for getting things done, I assume everything is in order.”
“Everything’s under control, just like I said it would be. I told you I’d help raise money for this little project of yours and that’s what I’m doing.”
Two years ago, Zach had set aside his pride and come to Carson with the idea of establishing a boy’s camp for teens with drug and alcohol problems. As a youth, he’d been one of those kids, always in trouble, always butting heads with his family and the law.
But the two years he’d spent in prison had changed his life and he wanted that to happen for other boys who weren’t as lucky as he had been.
Not that he’d thought himself lucky at the time.
Back then, he’d been sullen and resentful, blaming everyone but himself for what had happened to him and what his life had become. Out of boredom and hoping to find a way of shortening his sentence, he had started to study law and discovered he seemed to have a knack for it. He had gotten his GED, taken the SAT’s and passed with extremely high marks, then gone to Berkley and enrolled in Hastings Law School.
Impressed by the changes he was trying to make in his life, his father had helped him with the tuition, and combined with the money from his part-time job, Zach had managed to get through school, graduating in the top percentiles of his class. He had passed the bar exam with flying colors and Fletcher Harcourt had used his influence to get Zach’s felony record expunged so that he could practice law.
Zach was now a successful lawyer with an office in Westwood, an apartment overlooking the ocean in Pacific Palisades, a slick new 645 Ci BMW convertible and the Jeep he drove whenever he came up to the valley.
He was living the good life and he wanted to give something back for the success he had found. Until that day two years ago, he had never asked his brother for anything—had sworn he never would. Carson and his mother had made Zach’s life miserable from the day his father had brought him home and announced plans to adopt him.
There was bad blood between them that would never go away, but Harcourt Farms belonged to Zach as much as Carson and though his brother had complete control, there was plenty of available land, and the location he had chosen for the site was exactly the perfect spot.
Zach remembered the day he had approached his brother, the amazement he had felt when Carson had so readily agreed to his proposal.
“Well, for once you’ve actually come up with a good idea,” Carson had said from his chair at the rolltop desk.
“Then you’re saying Harcourt Farms will donate the land?”
“That’s right. I’ll even help you raise the money to get the project off the ground.”
It had taken Zack several months before he realized his brother had once again neatly turned the tables. The project became Carson’s—though it was mostly Zach’s money that provided the funding—and the entire town was now in Carson’s debt.
Zach no longer cared. With Carson as spokesman, the money continued pouring in, enough to keep the farm running and even enough to expand. The more boys who could be helped, the better, as far as Zach was concerned. Zach would gladly stay out of the picture if it meant helping those kids, and with Carson’s name attached instead of his own, the upcoming benefit on Saturday night would likely be another success.
“I just wanted to check,” Zach said, thinking of the