Honeymoon With the Rancher

“Yes,” Sophia answered. “Yes, I do.”

Sophia bade Maria and Carlos goodnight, but after a pause went to say goodnight to Tomas, too. He was standing at a window, looking over the pampas and the big, gnarled tree standing guard on the plain.

When she’d first arrived, she had felt a kinship with the tree—it too seemed lonely and out of place. But as she looked at Tomas, and then at the sweeping branches, she wondered if maybe it wasn’t more like him. Solitary, standing guard, looking after the Rodriguez family. She didn’t know why he felt such responsibility to them, but clearly he did. Sophia felt protected, too, but she also felt sadness for a man who had suffered such a loss that he had withdrawn to the pampas.

“Goodnight, Tomas,” she said quietly, looking up at him. His jaw was set, his lips a thin line. He turned his head slightly and looked down at her. For a moment their gazes caught and her breath stalled.

“Goodnight, Sophia,” he said quietly, so low that she knew it was meant for her ears only. “Sleep well.”

Instantly she was transported back to the previous night and sleeping in his arms. Tonight she would be in her own room. It was the way things needed to be.

But as she walked away from him, she couldn’t help being a little bit sorry. It looked like anything that was blossoming between them was over. And despite the extra company and chatter in the house, Sophia went to bed feeling lonelier than ever.

As Carlos and Tomas worked outside, Sophia helped Maria in the house.

The large meal today was asado, the Argentine version of barbecue, and Tomas had told her over breakfast that it would be unlike anything she’d ever tasted. Maria explained the different dishes as Sophia finished up her coffee and fresh bread and butter.

Already Maria was bustling about the bright kitchen. Once the estancia started taking bookings again, Maria would be cooking for them, too. But for now it was just the two of them in the quiet, comfortable room.

Carlos would start the grill around noon, and the women would make the accompanying dishes. Dessert, Maria explained, was a particular favourite of Tomas’s, cookies called alfajores. When Sophia asked if she could help, Maria said she would show her how to make them.

Sophia imagined taking the sweets to Tomas later, a way to thank him for all he’d done for her so far—and one that would perhaps go over better than yesterday’s painting. She wanted to see the look on his face when he realized she had baked them. She knew she could cook—at least that was one thing she’d accomplished just fine in her old life. Other than the pancakes yesterday, Tomas had done most of the cooking. But the asado seemed to be a group affair, and Sophia was determined to have fun.

Maria put milk to heat on the stove while Sophia washed up the breakfast dishes. “These days it is faster to buy dulce de leche in the store,” Maria explained. “But I like to make my own.” She showed Sophia how to whisk in sugar and vanilla and baking soda. “Then I simply let it cook for a few hours.”

“It’s that simple?” Sophia had eaten the caramel treat from a jar in Canada. She’d had no idea that it took so few ingredients.

“Dulce de leche takes time, but the alfajores will take more effort,” Maria smiled. “Tomas always told Rosa that he would only marry her if she came with my alfajores recipe.”

The light went out of her face for a moment, and then she brightened again. “I still try to make them on special occasions.”

Sophia averted her head, making a show of drying dishes. “Rosa was your daughter, Tomas said.”

Maria’s youthful face looked weary and Sophia held her breath, waiting. “Si, Rosa was our daughter.” Maria’s hand paused on a cupboard door, but then she opened it and took out a container of flour. “She and Tomas…they were going to be married.”

Sophia made herself move, retrieving butter from the fridge for the cookies, trying to keep things conversational while inside everything seemed to be churning. The picture on the wall seemed to stare at her. “Is that your daughter? The photo of the girl on horseback?”

Maria nodded proudly. “Oh, she knew how to sit a criollo like she was born in the saddle.” She laughed suddenly. “Tomas was a polo player, but she rode circles around him, our Rosa.”

Tomas and polo? It felt like a key to the missing gap in Tomas’s life. “Tomas played polo? I thought that was a rich man’s sport.”

Maria handed Sophia a bowl. “Tomas is sort of the rogue Mendoza. He chose here over the family business. Even after our Rosa…” Maria sighed, and made the sign of the cross before wiping beneath an eye. “I apologize. I’m afraid you don’t get over losing a child.”

“No, Maria, no,” Sophia said, going to the woman’s side and putting her hand on her arm. “I shouldn’t have pried. It’s none of my business, truly.”

Maria nodded towards the picture on the wall, the one that had stopped Sophia many times during her stay. “She was beautiful, don’t you think?”

Sophia’s throat closed over and she tried not to gawp at the picture. This was their daughter and the woman Tomas had loved. The kisses, the night spent in Tomas’s arms…it all felt wrong. It felt as though she had intruded. And to think she had looked at the image in the photograph and had wanted to be like her. She had wished for the happiness, the confidence in Rosa’s face. It gave her an unsettled feeling; she felt like a thief, when all along her intentions had been innocent.

“I would have thought Tomas had told you about his family,” Maria said, greatly recovered as she patted Sophia’s fingers and moved to measure out butter, sugar and flour.

But Tomas had told her nothing about his former life.

“We didn’t talk about that,” Sophia replied numbly, trying to make sense, trying to apply what she’d just learned to the conversations she’d had with Tomas. Reconciling that with the man who had kissed her, who had said he wanted her…

She closed her eyes, remembering the gentle way he’d touched her, the way he’d thought she was afraid. And she had been. She’d been afraid of Tomas from the moment they’d met. Afraid of the intensity of her own reactions and feelings, too.

“Sophia?”