Vincent buckled the last strap on his saddle roll and turned to his diminutive mother. “Mama.” He hugged her carefully, like the delicate doll she resembled. Even with two giant sons and more than twenty-five years of living in sin with his father, she was still the most beautiful woman on the ranch. That might be a son’s love talking, but he saw the light in his father’s eyes, too, every time he looked at her. She’d been a poor girl from Guatemala, a maid in his grandparents’ big house, when she’d caught his father’s eye. Those same grandparents now refused to acknowledge Vincent or his younger brother because they were bastards. Born of love, but out of wedlock. His father was the only son and scion of his wealthy family’s cattle empire, but they’d sworn they’d disown him if he married so far beneath his station.
They’d gotten their way, but so had Vincent’s father. He hadn’t married his Guatemalan lover, the mother of his sons. But he’d never married anyone else either. Vincent and his brother, John, had grown up on the ranch. Not in the big house, of course. Their parentage went unacknowledged, even though everyone on the ranch knew about it. Maybe their horses were a little better bred, their tack a shade more finely made, but as soon as they were old enough, they’d worked from sunup to sundown just like any of the other ranch hands.
And today, the two brothers were off on their first cattle drive, heading for Abilene and the giant livestock markets there. Normally, they’d have gone on a cattle drive a long time ago, but their darling mother had objected, saying it was too dangerous, and their father could deny her nothing. So, year after year, her sons had remained behind.
John hadn’t minded so much. He was content on the ranch, apprenticed to the cattle doctor, which was why he wasn’t here enduring their mother’s tears as her sons went off to Abilene. John was on the other side of the ranch helping the doctor load supplies. Vincent, on the other hand, wasn’t content to live his entire life in one place. He wanted to see the world beyond the ranch, to visit the big city of Abilene, to see the wide plains of Kansas and beyond. Anywhere and everywhere that wasn’t the ranch where he’d grown up.
“We’ll be careful, Mama,” he assured her, kissing her forehead. “We always are.”
“Si, I know. I will wait for you.”
“Take care of Papa.”
“Pfft.” His mother made a dismissive gesture, but Vincent saw the love in her eyes, too.
The drive boss shouted the order to mount up, and Vincent sucked in a relieved breath
“I have to go, Mama. We’ll be careful, and we’ll see you before the Nativity.”
“Oy, such a long time, mi hijo,” she whispered fervently and hugged him tightly. She was strong for such a tiny woman.
Vincent extricated himself with another kiss on her forehead. She’d keep him here all day if he didn’t break it up now. He swung up onto his horse and, with a jaunty salute, bid farewell to his beautiful mother, not knowing it was the last time he’d ever see her.
“CAN’T WE JUST go home?” John asked months later, throwing a stick at Vincent from his seat on the other side of their small fire. “Wasn’t Abilene enough?”
The cattle drive was over, and it had been nowhere near as exciting as Vincent had hoped. Their big adventure had been nothing but months of dirty, hard work, long days in the saddle, and bad food. On the other hand, he and his brother were now free to make their way back home at their own pace, and Vincent was determined to make the most of it.
“One Mexican cantina, little brother, a few miles out of our way. That’s all I ask. This might be our only chance.”
“The cattle go to market every year, Vicentillo.”
“But who knows if we’ll be allowed to go? If our grandfather dies, Papa will own the ranch, and he’ll never send us again. Mama won’t let him.”
“If Grandfather dies,” John snorted. “That old man is too mean to die.”
“Even the devil gets his due, Juanito.”
“Very well, one cantina, but you—” He broke off suddenly, spinning to stare into the darkness. “Who’s there?” he called, raising his voice as he scrambled for the gun belt he’d set aside earlier.
Vincent stood at the same time, his Smith and Wesson already in his hand as the bandits rushed their small camp—filthy, hard-looking men who came in shooting, muzzles flashing in the darkness. Vincent watched in horror as the first bullets tore into his brother’s chest. John flew through the air, driven by the force of their impact. Vincent’s finger jerked on the trigger, his weapon exploding with heat, but it was too late. A searing pain tore into his gut, and he found himself slammed backward onto the hard dirt of the Texas plain. He twisted, searching for John, reaching for the brother he was supposed to take care of, the brother he’d promised to bring home to their mother for Nativity.
Jagged pain sliced into his chest. And suddenly, he knew that neither one of them would ever see home again.
Chapter Five
Mexico, present day
“THAT’S HORRIBLE,” Lana said, staring at the vampire sitting next to her. He’d recited his story with no emotion, as if it had all happened to someone else. He didn’t say anything, but stared straight ahead, his gaze seeming to be riveted on the narrow white strip that was all they could see of the road in their headlights. They were on a particularly barren part of the highway, so he was traveling well above the speed limit. But he handled the big SUV as easily as he might have something low and sweet and built for speed, one hand on the steering wheel, the other draped over the center console, fingers tapping a rhythm to music only he could hear.
Lana could understand his need for emotional distance from such painful events. And she kept forgetting that, although he looked like a man in his mid-twenties, he was much, much older than that. Maybe what to her was a terrible tragedy, because she was just hearing about it, was for him a distant memory. She might even have believed that, if he wasn’t trying so hard to pretend it didn’t matter.
“I’m not that familiar with guns from back then, but if they shot you in the chest, why didn’t you die?”
He glanced over at her then, but only to scoff. “What? You don’t think vampires are dead? Isn’t that what all of you humans believe about us?”
Lana forgave him for being a rude jackass, given the terrible events he’d just relived for her.
“I don’t know about humans in general, but I know you’re not dead,” she told him. She didn’t say anything else, because while she knew they definitely didn’t rise from the dead the way some popular fiction had it, she had no idea what did happen to make them vampires. The only person who might have been able to fill her in was Cynthia Leighton, and while Leighton had passed on quite a few helpful tidbits of information over the course of their business together, the two of them were exactly that—business associates rather than friends. They exchanged details and results, not gossip.