Sunlight seeped through half-shuttered windows in the whitewashed adobe walls to fill the room with heat. Ginny blinked against it, lethargic after her noon meal. She lay on the narrow bed alone. Steve was still gone. He was almost mysterious, evading questions with a careless ease that was infuriating. If she wasn’t so tired, she might have demanded an explanation. But every muscle in her body seemed to ache and she wanted to just lie on the soft feather bed until she could summon the energy to take a hot bath and wash away the trail grime that was no doubt imbedded in her skin forever.

God, how did I ever survive riding for days—weeks—in the dust and heat? It was so long ago now, as if it had been someone else who had ridden—had been forced to ride—at a grueling pace over brush-studded, arid land relieved only by an occasional seep hole. Hot in the deserts, cold in the jagged-toothed mountains that ringed the flat plains, her introduction to Mexico had been less than pleasant.

But now Mexico was so familiar. She remembered the first time she had seen this country, with Michel Remy. They had ridden along the contours of the Rio Grande then, too, but it had been south from El Paso. It had seemed such an adventure at the time, a high drama with gold hidden in the beds of her father’s wagons, gold meant for Maximilian to further his efforts to secure Mexico against the Juaristas—and to further William Brandon’s dream of creating an empire that would straddle the border of the United States and Mexico. She’d believed in her father then, in the dream that he could keep a foot in both camps and emerge unscathed and victorious. Ah, she had been so young, so foolish. And it had all seemed so romantic!

Riding beside the handsome French officer she had first met as a girl in France, it had seemed as if nothing could harm them, for they were accompanied by skilled French soldiers, and, after all, the Juaristas were only a ragtag bunch of guerrillas instead of highly trained soldiers like these picked by Marshal Bazaine himself.

But, in Mexico there were many deceptions, and she had quickly learned—as had Michel—that it was wise not to believe in appearances. The high rocks of a quiet mountain pass had suddenly sprouted menacing armed bandits, led by a blue-eyed bandido draped in crossed gun belts.

And her life had changed forever.

Ginny sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose to cross to the window. She wore only a thin shift of white lawn, loose and cool as it swished around her bare legs. Sunlight pricked her eyes sharply, turning the air to molten gold as she pushed open a shutter to peer out at the street below.