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  dripping greatcoat, Mrs. Sanders whisked Sam to a comfortable chair by the fire in the best parlor. Mere seconds later, Sam was sipping some fine com whisky from her private store. Beaming at him, she gushed, "My good sir! You have no idea how happy I am that you have arrived to take care of this poor young woman." Smiling mistily in Sara's direction, for Sara had followed them into the parlor, Mrs. Sanders went on. "Of course, I shall miss her dreadfully. Why, I have grown so fond of her these past weeks that she is like a daughter to me."

  Incredulously Sara stared at Mrs. Sanders, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing! Mrs. Sanders considered her as a daughter? Hiding her merriment at the thought, Sara kept her expression demure as she listened to the tale that Mrs. Sanders spun for Sam—a tale that bore little resemblance to reality!

  It wasn't until the next morning, however, as she and Sam rode away from Mrs. Sanders' boardinghouse, that Sara was able to tell him the truth. Her sweet face very earnest, she exclaimed, "Sir! You should not have paid her for my keep these past two months. It was agreed that I would work for her and that she would provide me with room and board. You owed her nothing for my care and certainly you should not have been asked to pay for two months' use of one of the better rooms— my room was in the attic!"

  Sam smiled at her. "I'm aware of what Mrs. Sanders was about, my dear. It just seemed easier to pay her what she wanted and for us to be on our way without a fuss."

  A tiny frown between her brows, Sara stared at Sam's kind features. It occurred to her that Sam would always take the easy way out—that he avoided confrontation at all costs, even to his own detriment. Guilt smote her. How did she dare to criticize such a wonderful man! Sam had been overwhelmingly good to her in the exceedingly

  brief time she had known him; the new pink gingham gown and dark green cloak she wore and the straw bonnet with its cherry silk ribbon tied in a bow beneath her chin, as well as various other things that Sam had insisted were necessary for her, had all been purchased by him this morning from the dry goods store. He had even bought her the horse she rode, a sweet-going little chestnut mare. While she was thrilled with all her new belongings, she was vaguely uneasy.

  Glancing across at him, she asked anxiously, "Are you certain that your wife will not mind all the money you have spent on me?"

  "My dear child! Don't give it a thought! Margaret won't mind in the least. She is a kind young woman and I'm sure that you two will deal wonderfully together." A twinkle in his amber-gold eyes, Sam added lightly, "I am a wealthy man, although if Abraham Lincoln is elected President this November and frees all my slaves, I shall be considerably less wealthy! But that aside, what I spent on you this morning would not even begin to pay for one of my Margaret's gowns."

  Slightly relieved, Sara said earnestly, "I promise that I will work very hard for you, sir. I swear I will never be a burden to you or your wife!"

  "Sara, Sara, how you run on! Child, you are not coming to my household to be a servant! You are the daughter of a cousin of whom I have only the fondest memories. You are coming to my home, if not as my daughter, certainly as a valued and respected member of my family."

  Sara felt tears flood her eyes and throat. Face averted to hide her strong emotion, she replied huskily, "Thank you. I will try never to cause you to regret your kindness to me."

  It took Sam and Sara nearly three weeks of continuous riding to reach Magnolia Grove, and during that time

  they came to know each other very well. Sara had been embarrassed at first to travel with a man who was not her father, but as Sam had explained reasonably, "Sara, I am your guardian now. Your father entrusted your care to me—you are my ward. Besides," he added with a teasing glint in his eyes, "I am nearly forty-five years old, just a few years away from being old enough to be your grandfather! Won't you try to think of me as your father?"

  Sara had sent him a tear-filled smile. "I shall try, and I don't think that it will be very hard to do."

  Sam had patted her fondly on the shoulder and they had continued on their way, every day the affectionate bond between them growing. Sam heard about the happy days at Mockingbird Hill and the terrible time that had followed Matthew's loss of his fortune, while Sara listened wide-eyed to the tragic story of Sam's first wife, the lovely Madelina Alvarez, the mother of his only living child, his twenty-seven-year-old son, Yancy. A wistful smile on his finely chiseled mouth, Sam had said, "We were so in love and so young, about your age, and when our fathers would hear nothing of a marriage between us, we defied them, ran away and married anyway. But except for brief moments, we were not ever truly happy. . .." He had sighed, a faraway look in his eyes. "Her father, Don Armando, was a proud Spanish aristocrat and mine was equally proud—proud to have been among some of the first settlers to heed Stephen Austin's call to settle in Texas. Don Armando was furious at the idea of his only child, an heiress to a vast rancho at that, marrying a 'gringo,' and Andy was equally furious that his only child had set his heart on a 'greaser'—even though the Alvarez family could trace their pure Spanish blood back to the conquistadors." Sam's lips had curved wryly. "Not a pleasant situation, but eventually Don Armando got over his fury

  at our marriage, and once Yancy was bom he forgave us, but my father, Andy, never forgave me, never even accepted Yancy as his grandson. Quite frankly, he hated Madelina. Andy couldn't accept our marriage and made life miserable for both Madelina and Yancy. I should have done something about the situation, I admit, but I, well, I just wasn't strong enough, I guess, to stand up to him."

  Sara had stared at his gentle, handsome features, realizing suddenly that though Sam Cantrell was a kind, generous man, he was also a weak man, and her earlier impression that he would always take the easy way out crystallized into a certainty. It didn't lessen the powerful affection she had learned so quickly to feel for him, but knowledge of his unwillingness to face adversity, whatever its forms, made her uneasy. Suppose Margaret really didn't want her at Magnolia Grove? Would Sam defy his wife?

  There were few places that took in travelers on their long journey southward, and so most nights they camped out along the way. It was during those April nights, the scent of spring in the air as they sat at their cheery campfire after supper, that Sam talked of his family and Magnolia Grove. By the time they made camp that last night before reaching Sam's home, Sara was quite familiar with Magnolia Grove and its inhabitants. She was puzzled about one thing, however, and that final evening she couldn't help asking carefully, "You don't mention your son, Yancy, very often. Isn't he at Magnolia Grove?"

  An odd expression that Sara couldn't define crossed Sam's face. Guilt? Remorse? Sorrow? Perhaps all three. Not meeting Sara's gaze, he poked at the fire and after a moment of silence said, "Yancy and I were never close. During the first years, when Andy was so violently outspoken about my marriage to Madelina, he and his

  mother lived mostly with Don Armando at his hacienda at Rancho del Sol, so I saw him infrequently. After Don Armando died from a bull goring when Yancy was seven, Madelina couldn't bear to live at the hacienda, so they came and lived with me." Sam stared off into the distance, his thoughts obviously unhappy. "Yancy was devastated by Armando's death and it didn't help that Andy could not abide the sight of him." Sam's expression became very bleak and his voice thickened with deep emotion. "Madelina died less than a year later of a fever and Yancy was totally bewildered. He didn't understand why he couldn't live at Rancho del Sol, or why his mother had seemed to abandon him. It was difficult for him to adjust to Magnolia Grove after having lived his life predominantly in the easygoing Spanish household at del Sol, and Andy's always yelling or cuffing the boy made life bitterly unhappy for him."

  Unable to help herself, Sara burst out, "But why didn't you ..." Realizing what she had said, her face flamed and she looked down at her hands in her lap.

  "You're right," Sam eventually replied. "I should have protected the boy better than I did, but I was busy running the plantation—we grow cotton—and I just assum
ed that Andy would finally get used to the boy. Andy never did 'get used to' him, and as Yancy grew older he blamed me, rightfully so, for not having interceded."

  "But once your father died and it was just you and Yancy, didn't things get better?" Sara asked quietly.

  Sam shook his head. "We didn't have much time together. My father died when Yancy was almost seventeen and the next year, nearly ten years ago now, Yancy went off to school in the East—Harvard. He didn't return until over four years later and then there was .. ."

  "Yes? There was ... ?"

  Looking guilt-stricken and miserable, Sam muttered, "And then there was Margaret. . . ." He glanced across

  the fire at Sara's earnest features and hesitated for a moment before saying gruffly, "Margaret Small and her widowed sister, Ann Brown, came from the East with Yancy. . . . Margaret was barely twenty years old then and she was Yancy's bride-to-be, his fiancee, and may God forgive me—I stole her from him and married her myself!"

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  Sara stared wide-eyed at Sam. "You married your son's fiancee!" she exclaimed in shocked tones. Sam would not meet her gaze. His voice thick, he muttered, "You—no one—can understand how it was. I was lonely, and Margaret was— is —a beautiful, fragile young woman. Yancy was making her unhappy; he was determined to live at Rancho del Sol after they were wed, and poor Margaret hated the very sight of the place." Sam's gaze swung back to Sara. His eyes pleading for her understanding, he said softly, "Margaret is a gently reared young woman. She grew up in Connecticut and had no conception of Texas—of its vastness, its wildness —and Rancho del Sol. . ." Sams's lips twisted disparagingly. "The hacienda had stood almost deserted for over fourteen years, ever since Armando had died, and it v/as in great need of repair. The place is situated in untamed, dangerous country, far from any other settlement, in the middle of countless acres of chaparral, where only wild Spanish longhoms, wolves and rattlesnakes live. Del Sol was far different from anything that Margaret had ever seen before—she had believed that they were going to live at Magnolia Grove—she later confessed to me that she had fallen in love with my home at her first sight of it. The San Felipe area, too, was more what she was used to. It is civilized, there are lovely

  homes scattered about and the countryside is extremely appealing, dotted with broad acres of cotton, and in the uncultivated sections there is the lush, almost tropical growth one finds in this part of Texas." Sam grimaced. "Rancho del Sol is very nearly the opposite. It was far too hostile and foreign for someone of Margaret's gentle sensibilities to endure—she simply could not cope with the idea of living in such a savage, isolated place."

  Her face troubled, Sara couldn't help asking, "But if she loved your son?"

  Sam sighed. "It wasn't just the place. During the weeks since Yancy had brought Margaret to Magnolia Grove, I had grown very fond of her—I thought my feelings were based on a father's love for the girl his son would marry and her sweet attitude toward me had evolved because one day I would be her father-in-law." Tiredly he ran a hand down his face and continued unhappily. "I could tell that something was very wrong when we had all come back from that initial visit to del Sol, and one evening I asked her about it. She admitted with great reluctance and many tears that Yancy had changed, that he was not the same young man with whom she had fallen in love back east, that she feared she had agreed to marry a man she no longer loved. I found myself deeply touched by her plight and I tried to soothe what I felt certain were merely bridal nerves. I teased her a little and convinced her that once Yancy had made all of the improvements to del Sol he intended to complete before they married and he took her there to live, she would find the place much more to her liking. But even though she agreed with me, I could tell that things were not going well between them." Sam sighed heavily. "It didn't help that Yancy had no time for her anxieties. He seemed obsessed with restoring Rancho del Sol, and despite Margaret's pitiful entreaties to the contrary, he left within the week to

  return to the hacienda to oversee the work that had to be done, leaving Margaret and Ann in my care at Magnolia Grove."

  Sara didn't much like the sound of Yancy Cantrell. If Sam's words were to be believed, Yancy seemed to her to have been cold and insensitive to Margaret's understandable reservations. But that still didn't excuse . . .

  Though she was dying to hear the rest of Sam's story, Sara was also acutely uncomfortable with the situation; after all, despite the growing fondness she had for Sam and the undeniable bond that had sprung up so swiftly between them, all of this was old history and really none of her business. It was obvious that it pained Sam to talk of it and her soft heart went out to him. Her eyes full of sympathy, she said gently, "You don't have to tell me any more if you don't want to."

  Sam smiled bitterly. "I would prefer never to talk of it again, but if you are to live in my house and if you are to understand why my Margaret acts as she does, you need to know what happened. Besides," he added grimly, "if I don't tell you now of the scandal, I'm sure that some well-meaning old tabby will take tremendous delight in telling you only the tawdriest details—for your own good, of course!"

  Looking across the fire at her, Sam shook his head disgustedly and confessed dryly, "I'm afraid that none of us come out of this story with much dignity or integrity—certainly Margaret and I have much to live down. It wasn't that I meant to fall in love with her or that she meant to love me—it just happened. We married six years ago this September." Sam sighed and added bleakly, "Yancy didn't learn of what had happened until he returned to Magnolia Grove almost two months after our marriage—cowardly, I had put off writing to him—I felt reading the news of our marriage in a letter would only

  add to the cruelty of the situation." Sam sighed. "Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps it would have been kinder to have let him know as soon as the deed was done. At any rate, he came back eager to claim his bride, and as long as I live, I will never forget the expression on his face when he learned that his bride was actually my wife!" Sam looked terrible, his eyes full of misery. "He has yet to fully forgive me and I doubt that I blame him,"

  Even knowing that Sam had been wrong, that there had been little or no excuse for his actions, Sara felt her heart bleed for him. It was obvious from the signs of suffering on his handsome face that even though he loved Margaret, he bitterly regretted the estrangement from his only son. As Sam continued to stare broodingly at the dancing red-and-yellow flames of the fire, Sara ventured softly, "And you have not seen or heard from him since?"

  Sam smiled without amusement. "Seldom. This last year, he has shown some sign of being willing, albeit reluctantly, to make peace between us. Not, however, with Margaret—I sometimes feel that he despises her most of all. I have prevailed upon him to visit with me on the rare occasion and twice I have been to del Sol to attempt to heal the breach between us."

  An encouraging smile curving her lips, Sara murmured, "Perhaps, in time, things will be better between you." An uneasy thought occurred to her. "Does he know that Margaret is going to have a baby?"

  Sam nodded. "I hesitated to write and tell him of Margaret's pregnancy, but I didn't want him to think that I was trying to hide anything from him. He took it rather well, replying merely that he hoped that I would be happy being a father again at my age." Trying for a light note, Sam grinned sheepishly and said, "I am more of an age to be having grandchildren than children!"

  Her face serious, Sara replied earnestly, "Oh, but, sir! You look very well for your age."

  A genuine laugh escaped Sam. Affection clear in his gaze, he said warmly, "You're a nice young woman, Sara Rawlings. I hope that you will be happy at Magnolia Grove—despite all its past unhappiness."

  "Oh, I hope so, too!" Sara declared ardently.

  Certainly the first sight of the gracious mansion, late the next afternoon, filled her with delight. The thought that this beautiful house with its wide verandas and soaring white columns was to be her home had Sara wondering if she were dreaming. As she and Sam rode thei
r horses down the long, oak-lined carriageway, seeing the wisps of the gray-green Spanish moss clinging to the massive tree limbs which nearly met overhead, she was reminded vividly of Mockingbird Hill and tears stung her eyes. There was much about the area to make her think of her lost home—the broad green fields of new cotton, the oak and magnolia trees and the abundance of wild-grape vines and honeysuckle which seemed to grow everywhere. Now, if only Margaret was as kind and welcoming as Sam had indicated she would be. . . .

  Suddenly very nervous, Sara became aware of her less than pristine pink gingham gown and the untidy tendrils of honey-gold hair that had escaped from the neat comet of braids she habitually wore. Anxiously she straightened her straw hat and, her eyes huge in her face, dismounted from her mare. Then following Sam's lead, she quietly handed the reins to one of the little black boys who had run out from behind the house. Her stomach full of butterflies, she walked with Sam up the three broad steps which led to the veranda. A pair of wide, dark green doors with elegant fan-shaped windows above them marked the entrance to the house, and with an encouraging smile, Sam flung open one door and ushered Sara inside.

  The inside of the house was every bit as grand as the outside, and stepping forward, Sara found herself standing in a spacious hallway, the floor a diamond pattern of pale rose and white marble. A huge crystal chandelier hung high above and a graceful staircase soared upward to the next floor. Everywhere she looked, Sara saw signs of wealth, and the memory of her own home came back even stronger—so had it been at Mockingbird Hill.

  They had barely stepped inside when Sara became aware of raised, angry voices. Several doors opened off the hallway and it was embarrassingly apparent that behind one of those doors a violent argument was in progress.