But now she had other things to consider. Her children would be motherless if she miscalculated, and she had just begun to know them, just begun to win over Franco. Laura was easier, accepting her with a sweet, guileless trust that was at once comforting and terrifying. How could she ever betray that faith?

So she waited, restless and miserable, while Paco tended to some business he had here in Ojinaga, deviling him when the days passed and the tension grew too strong to bear.

“Please, Ginny, wait for Steve’s return,” he begged when she joined him downstairs one morning, frustration prompting her to announce her intention to leave immediately for Mexico City. “I don’t deserve this. Save it for him!”

“He’s not here, so you’ll have to listen.” Irritation edged her voice, gave a sharp bite to her words. “It’s been two weeks since we left Laredo. I’m ready to leave tomorrow. Steve still isn’t back. Why did he have to go to New Mexico now?”

“A thousand times you have asked me this, and a thousand times I have said I do not know.” Paco looked almost desperate. “If he does not join us soon, I will hunt for him myself.”

“In two weeks there has been no word from him. He could have at least sent a telegram to let us know when he’ll meet us. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared.”

“Are you more worried that he won’t join us, or that he’s joined someone else?” Paco asked bluntly, startling her into silence.

“I don’t know,” she admitted frankly after a moment. “I just…just feel that something has happened. Or that it will happen. Maybe I’m worried that, now that the fighting has escalated, he’ll be caught up in the rebellion.”

“Steve’s too smart to be dragged into something he can avoid. I doubt he’ll be conscripted into either army.”

Paco’s dry assurance was surprisingly comforting. She smiled.

“Oh, I know I’m being foolish, Paco. But so many times before, we’ve been separated. I just don’t want to take the chance that it will happen again.”

“I have finished what I came here to do. We can leave in the morning for the rancho. By the time we get there, Steve will probably be waiting on us, madder than hell that we took so long to get there.”

She laughed. “Yes, that would be his reaction!”

“Then tomorrow we leave. Once we reach the hacienda, all will be well. You’ll see.”

“Tell me about Señor Valdez,” Ginny said then, more to change the subject than from curiosity. “He has come here to see you three times, and each time he looks at me as if he knows what I look like without my clothes.”