Ana Martin Read online

  ANA MARTIN

  J.L. Jarvis

  eBook Edition Copyright © 2011 by J.L. Jarvis. All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2002 by J.L. Jarvis. All rights reserved.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2011 by S.F. Rodriguez. All rights reserved.

  Cover Art from Shutterstock.com

  Proofreading by Everything-Indie.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  2nd Kindle Edition

  January 2012

  Chapter 1

  Galveston, Texas: 1910

  Ana Martin walked along the Galveston seawall, the warm, insistent breeze billowing her cotton frock. She lifted her face to the wind, permitting the waves of moist air to caress it. Newly freed wisps of hair touched then abandoned her cheeks, the rest of her thick chestnut mane governed for the moment by a sky blue ribbon. The sea was gentle today.

  She turned from the water and headed up Market Street and, a few blocks later, up the walk to the grand Victorian house where she lived with her father. She was lost in idle thought until a movement on the porch caught her eye and she flinched.

  “Sir, you startled me!” she said, holding her hand to her chest and recovering with a quick release of held breath.

  “Please pardon me, Miss,” he said with a Mexican accent. He was dressed in a suit once fine, but now frayed at the collar and cuffs. He took a step forward, then paused.

  His hesitance led Ana to reassure him. “It’s all right. I’m fine, really.”

  She stepped up to the porch and stood facing a man a bit taller than she. Quite broad in the shoulders, his appearance was strong, but his manner was gentle. Dark tousled curls, neatly trimmed at the edges, covered his head. Pensive, earnest eyes peered from behind wire-rimmed eyeglasses, which were fogged from the heat of his body and the humid summer air. A few stray curls fell in disarray on his brow.

  “Were you not invited inside?” Ana asked.

  “I have only just arrived. I came to see Mr. Martin. You are his daughter?”

  Ana glanced down the street, then turned back to the stranger. “He should be home soon, Mr.?”

  He smiled a bit shyly. “Oh, of course. Please forgive me, Miss. I am Eduardo Guerra Peña, nephew of your uncle’s wife.” He handed her a calling card, along with a letter of introduction signed by her uncle.

  “Tío Felipe has married?” Ana looked at the young man with pleasant surprise.

  Mr. Guerra smiled. “Yes, two years ago.”

  “Two years?” Her confused expression relaxed to understanding, which she hid behind lowered eyes. Ana gasped. “Where are my manners? Please come in.”

  The guest made no move to follow. “Perhaps it would be better if I came back when Mr. Martin is home.”

  The door, swollen from the moist gulf air, resisted Ana’s pressure. Mr. Guerra hesitated. “Perhaps I could help?” He reached past her, toward the door.

  Ana turned and, propelled by a short nervous laugh, sidestepped around him so he could gain access. With a tight grip on the knob and a few controlled pushes, he opened the door and stepped aside with a manner quite formal.

  When he did not immediately follow, she turned. “Please come in.”

  He then followed her through a short hallway to the parlor. Once settled, Ana said, “You are a lawyer?” as she glanced at the card, which listed his name and the Escuela Nacional de Jurisprudencia.

  “I have a degree,” he replied, his vocal tone trailing up with ambiguity.

  “I see,” said Ana, as she looked over a letter of introduction from her uncle, Felipe Martínez Ramos. “Tío Felipe speaks very highly of you.”

  “He is a kind man.” He shook his head dismissively, but met her eyes when he said, “Your father’s wire said it was urgent—that you needed help. Here.” He reached into his pocket, then another in his coat and his vest. “I’ve misplaced it.”

  “You received it when?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “And you got here so soon?”

  “Soon?”

  “From Mexico?”

  “Oh, of course. No, I came from San Antonio.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have been staying there for some time.” Ana looked at the date on her uncle’s letter and saw it was a year old.

  “Oh?”

  Mr. Guerra shifted his position on the chair. “Is your father quite ill?”

  “My father? No. He’s fine.” Ana smiled, while her brow furrowed.

  “Do you know why your father might have asked for help?”

  “No I don’t, Mr. Guerra. We’re both very well.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Their eyes locked in awkward silence. Ana glanced downward then back, her attention drawn when Mr. Guerra removed a handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his face. Beneath the wire spectacles, he was pleasant looking. His eyes were rich brown, with a gentle and unassuming expression.

  “I must go now.”

  “But you can’t,” Ana gently protested.

  “Perhaps tomorrow—”

  But Ana was already on her feet and halfway to the doorway. “Elena?” Ana called to the maid who walked past the doorway. She came back and stood waiting.

  “Would you bring some tea for Mr. Guerra while he waits for Father?”

  “But, Miss Martin, you father came home a long time ago.”

  “He did?”

  Elena nodded. “I saw his carriage come up the drive and pull into the carriage house.”

  “I can’t imagine what could be keeping him out there,” Ana said, more to herself than to anyone. “Would you please go and tell him Mr. Guerra is here to see him?”

  Elena nodded and left.

  Ana returned to her guest. “My father should be in shortly.” Through the slats of the shutters, the light sketched striped shadows that fanned out across the room and then dissipated. The irregular hum of an electrical fan overhead filled the awkward silence.

  “You said you’ve been living in San Antonio, Mr. Guerra. What brought you to Texas?”

  Mr. Guerra had opened his mouth to reply when a scream cut jaggedly through the afternoon calm. Ana reflexively looked toward the source of the sound and bolted from her chair, rushing toward the back door.

  Ana ran to the carriage house doorway. Seconds behind her, Mr. Guerra saw her falter and grasp at the doorjamb. He caught her wrist and put his arm about her waist as her body went limp.

  Ana opened her eyes to find Eduardo Guerra leaning over her, his face taut with concern. She looked about the room in which she now found herself and tried to sit up, but firm hands on her shoulders pressed her back down to the sofa. She shut her eyes and remembered. A weak cry came from her throat. “Father?”

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Mr. Guerra.

  Ana tried to sit up. Agitated, she said, “I must get him. I can’t leave him like that!” She was desperate to go, but Mr. Guerra would not yet free her.

  “He is being taken care of,” he said.

  Ana lay back, weakened by shock, and placated by his kind manner and soothing baritone voice. Pieces of an image began to flash through her mind: her father, hanging from a rope, his head fallen unnaturally to the side. “Who would do that to him?”

  Mr. Guerra hesitated, and then spoke with great care. “There was an overturned stool.”

  She r
esisted the damning sound of the words, but the look on his face confirmed their truth. Ana reached out to this man she had just met and clung to him as though he might save her from drowning.

  Eduardo Guerra was taken aback as the sweet young woman pressed her lissome, despair-convulsed body against him. The pounding of her heart made his own ache. He stroked strands of hair from her face, wet from tears, and whispered his sorrow.

  “He telegraphed for you,” she whispered, “so I would not be alone.”

  “And you are not alone,” whispered Eduardo, holding her in his arms while the sun abandoned the windows and left them in twilight. He held her until, exhausted, she drifted to merciful sleep. He slept in a chair across the room for the rest of the night.

  Ana went through the cruel motions of her beloved father’s funeral in little more than a daze. The weeks following were consumed with settling the estate. The disorder of her father’s affairs came as a slap in the face of Ana’s safe world. Creditors descended like scavengers upon her home and stunned her with their bluntness. How could she not have known? Her father had expressed some concern about certain business interests, but never anything as dire as this. He had seemed distant, but not unduly troubled. How little she knew.

  Eduardo remained close at hand, leaving only to pull creditors aside and speak in harsh tones too low to discern. She knew what he did, but she watched from afar, grateful to be insulated from the business of dying. When the last collector, lawyer and servant was gone, Eduardo was there with her in the hollowed out shell of the only home she remembered.

  “He planned it all, and I never knew,” she said, sitting down on one of the few sticks of furniture left, a ladder-back chair.

  Eduardo pulled a crate up and sat beside her. He took her two hands in his. “Your family will take care of you. Your uncle has much wealth. You will be well provided for.”

  “I would live in the humblest shack just to have my father alive again.”

  “I know,” said Eduardo.

  Ana stood and walked to the window and looked out at the waves. “I want to walk, one last time, by the seawall.”

  Eduardo lingered behind. He had seen how she loved to go walking alone. The sound of the sea gave her solace, or so she had told him. She put her hand on the doorknob and stopped. “Would you come with me?”

  Minutes later, they looked out at the gulf, content to let the shore be the only sound between them. A thin gauze of pale gray clouds draped the sky as it dipped down to the sea, a mismatched line of drab green. Small foamy waves rolled into the shore and left a long brown row of seaweed that stretched out in either direction like a pathway of moss.

  “I will miss it.” Ana’s throat tightened.

  Eduardo surveyed the expansive sea that stretched before them to the horizon. “It is beautiful, and vast like the desert.”

  “It is,” agreed Ana. “But the land is too hard. Lately, on days like this, when the sea looks so gentle,” she said, “I wish I could let it just wash over me.”

  Eduardo eyed her with concern.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything drastic. As much as I’m drawn to it, I’m afraid of its power.”

  “Were you here during the hurricane?”

  Ten years before, a hurricane brought this same water crashing over the island. Now calm, it merely reflected the sun.

  “No,” said Ana. “We were in Mexico, my father and I. My mother had stayed behind. She did not like to travel, so when we went to Mexico she would usually stay behind. When the hurricane hit, we know that she headed for Houston with some friends. We never found her.”

  Eduardo slipped his hand into Ana’s and lifted it to his lips. Moved by his tenderness, Ana reached out and touched the tousled curls on his head, then slid her hand to his cheek. He lifted his eyes to regard her with unmasked affection. The touch of her hand and the glimpse of grief and loneliness adrift in her eyes enkindled him so that emotion won over propriety and he kissed her.

  Slowly, Ana backed away from his kiss, which was so gentle it made her heart sigh.

  “Eduardo.” She felt love and sorrow, knowing her heart could not match what she saw in his aspect. His eyes could not deceive. Emotions poured through them freely.

  “You are dear to me,” she said softly, “but I don’t—”

  “Shh. I am your friend.”

  His gaze was so kind that she could not help but smile. She was drawn to his calm spirit.

  “You have been through too much these past few weeks to think of more.” He held her hands in both of his, his eyes alight with selfless love and compassion.

  Ana looked at the face of her friend. It was full of hope for a love she did not have to give. She prayed she was wrong, but the inevitability advertised itself in the eyes of this man who had become a dear friend in their short time together.

  The train rattled along through the Mexican desert. In the distance, agave stalks stretched from the sand and rocks to meet the dark blue and gray mountains that touched the sky in dim shadows. This land was forever. Ana looked at the pocket watch she held in her hand, and was reminded of her father. Each day for as long as she could remember, he had pulled this same watch from his pocket.

  For several miles, Eduardo discreetly observed her. Her quiet grief moved him as no tears ever would. Somewhere behind distant brown eyes, quiet yet bereft, she suffered alone. Such a beauty she was, with large eyes the color of coffee, smooth cheeks, and full lips from which spun such a silvery sound. In her presence he suffered in private, his knees inches from hers, and her body within his reach. But her heart was beyond him. And so, he would give her no more than what she desired from him, for he loved her too much press for more.

  Ana lifted moist lashes. She looked up at him and tried wanly to smile.

  “We will get there in time,” he said.

  Ana nodded and looked out the window, but nothing had changed since the last time she had looked.

  The train’s rhythm altered, and then began to slow down with a sharp metallic screeching. Ana looked out the window. There was nothing but desert. “Why are we stopping?”

  Eduardo’s eyes were intense as he looked toward the window, then rushed to the opposite side of the car and looked out, then returned to his seat. He leaned forward and grasped Ana’s hands. From a car up ahead, the crack of a rifle shot silenced the passengers.

  Eduardo spoke softly. “I cannot see who it is, but it’s best—if they ask—that you say you don’t know me. I got on at the last stop and just sat here. Understand?”

  Ana’s face showed her fear mixed with unspoken questions, but she nodded.

  The door burst open. Ana flinched. Two men walked in carrying rifles and guns, with large bandanas covering their faces. Vaquero hats hung against the backs of white shirts dulled by dust. One stood by the door with his rifle ready to shoot, while the taller of the two went to any passenger who appeared to have money or valuables and collected them into a burlap sack.

  Eduardo glanced at Ana, who looked about to unravel. He narrowed his eyes and gave her a slight nod of reassurance. She looked back with a brave, if false, face. From one row to the next, the bandit came closer. With each step, he grew taller. She tried not to tilt her head back to look up at his face. A bandana covered all but his forehead and eyes, which were, Ana thought, very old for a man of such youthful bearing. These were the eyes of a man who had suffered. But how could she know, and of what matter was it at this moment, when her mind was working too fast troubling over thoughts of no use to her now?

  Two rows away, a young peasant woman clutched a small boy who held out a centavo. Ana thought she saw a soft look come over him, but perhaps it was only a shadow. When he turned, it was gone. With no notice of the child, he went on to the next person.

  Ana looked down, afraid to make eye contact or do anything else that might draw attention. Her money and jewelry were cupped in her hand as she watched him come near her. She rehearsed in her mind what she would do when her turn cam
e. The masked man pivoted to confront her.

  As he held out the bag, he assessed her fine clothing. With fearful eyes cast downward, she dropped her handful of money and jewelry into his bag. When he did not move on, her eyes followed the row of wooden buttons sewn to his coarse cotton, up the shirt to the smooth, tanned skin straining the collar. She looked up past the bandana masking his face to his eyes. They were deep and coal brown. She was lost for a moment. His look bore through her for a moment, and then he reached down to her lap where her hands were clasped tightly. Slowly, he lifted her hand and she opened it to him. He took what it held: her father’s pocket watch. With a gasp, she reached for it. Her father had spent more time with that watch than with her. His hand had touched it so often he had left part of himself in that watch. It was all she had left of him.

  The bandit moved past her reach, but Eduardo clamped onto his wrist. “Leave it,” Eduardo quietly instructed the bandit.

  A rifle lever snapped across the train car. “What is it?” asked the other one, who was pointing his rifle.

  The bandit turned the pocket watch in his hand and said, “Nothing.” He cast a curious look at Eduardo. “A cheap trinket.” He put it in his pocket, and went on to the next car.

  Ana shuddered.

  Eduardo pulled her into his arms and consoled her. Her heart pounded a deafening beat.

  “It’s all over,” said Eduardo.

  “You took a great risk for me,” she said weakly.

  “It was no risk, my sweet Ana.”

  Ana and Eduardo were on the last leg of their journey to her uncle’s hacienda, on a private stretch of tracks lain to transport cotton to market from the House Martínez. Her uncle’s private train met them in the busy commerce center of Gómez Palacio. Don Felipe spent much of his time at his business office in Gómez Palacio, where he owned one of the finest homes in the town. For his travels between the two homes, he kept a luxurious private train for his own comfort, as well as that of his family and guests. The train trip was an hour, while on horseback or coach it could take three to four times as long. On this train, Ana now slept with her head on Eduardo’s shoulder, while Eduardo stared through the window. In the distance, he caught sight of the House Martínez.