Until the Day Breaks (California Rising Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

charged the bull.
    By the time he reached her, she was crying softly into her hands. An overwhelming urge to comfort her assailed him. “You do not like the entertainment,” he drawled gently, purposefully getting off his horse between her and the servant so nothing stood between them.
    She looked at him in disbelief. “How can they do this to these animals?” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks, struggling to compose herself. The crowd cheered and clapped, egging on the warring beasts. Snarls of the bear and snorts of the bull filled the air. He stood close enough to smell the delicate perfume of rosewater on her skin and found himself at a loss for words.
    “Which will win the bull or the bear?” She wouldn’t look at the raging fight.
    “The bear almost always wins, but this bear is young and stupid. He might lose,” he spoke gently.
    “How do you know he’s young and stupid?” Rachel peeked at the fight and then, clearly regretting her glance, locked wide eyes on him.
    “I captured the bear this morning. He wasn’t much trouble.”
    “You did this?”
    He didn’t like her outrage directed at him. “Your father has done this.” He waved his hand toward the animals trying to kill each other as the crowd roared its approval. “The Yankee takes without asking. Life, land, a woman who belongs to another man. Your father is like the grizzly . ” Roman scanned the crowd for Tyler and spotted Sarita beside her husband. Both of them cheered as the bear took the bull down by fastening its teeth around the bull’s nose. The bull bawled as the bear muscled it to the ground. It kicked its legs, trying to free itself as the bruin moved his muzzle to the bull’s throat, ripping open the flesh there.
    Rachel’s scream split the air, but Roman couldn’t take his eyes off Sarita. She threw herself into Tyler’s arms, kissing her Yankee husband as the bear finished off the bull. Their public display of unbridled passion stunned him. Though he’d been to many bear baitings, often capturing bears with Rancho de los Robles’s vaqueros, never in his life had he been unsettled by the event as he was now. Watching Sarita relish the bull’s death in the lusty embrace of her gringo husband unleashed something in Roman he’d never felt before. A deep, grieving regret over the human depravity he only now recognized in himself and those around him. It sickened him to see Sarita in another man’s arms. True, she thought he was dead, but still it felt like a betrayal, and sliced his soul open.
    Beside him, Rachel wept, her shoulders shaking, her face buried in her hands. She seemed so young and innocent, standing there sobbing in the midst of a crowd reveling in the bloodbath. The Indian servant waiting at her side watched him with knowing eyes. He recognized this servant, Sarita’s old dueña, Chula. He’d always disliked this particular Indian. She practiced black magic and had led Sarita into her dark ways. In his younger years, he’d laughed at such nonsense. Now that he was older, and had seen plenty of death in Texas, he did not find the worship of devils so foolish and funny.
    “I will see Señorita Tyler to the hacienda,” he told the servant in Spanish.
    Chula smiled. The gesture didn’t reach her expressionless black eyes. “She is weak and fragile. A foreigner,” she returned in Spanish. “She won’t survive here. I believe the gringa will die this very year. Certainly, you of all men, Señor Vasquez, know I cannot allow la niña to depart with you.”
    Wrapping his arm around Rachel’s waist, he pulled her from Chula’s side in a swish of petticoats, leading his stallion nearly over the top of the dueña to get away from her. The servant jumped out of his horse’s way, her cold black eyes suddenly flashing fire.
    “The little gringa is safe with me. See to your señora. She is acting the harlot for her Yankee husband.” Roman pointed across the crowd to Sarita and Tyler, relieved Rachel didn’t