The Rebel And The Lady
January, 1836—Southern Texas Territory
The ground shook.
Victoria Torrez jerked awake from a dreamless sleep and glanced about her room. Nothing was out of place. The full moon shining through her window cast shadows of bare branches on the plaster walls. What had woken her?
She swung her feet onto the tile floor and tiptoed to the window. Nothing moved in the blue moonlight. A heavy frost covered the ground near the hacienda, unusual for this time of year, but then it had been an unusually cold, dry winter. The bats that lived along the Rio Grande had long since flown south. Even the owl that hooted in the ancient oak tree was still.
Too quiet.
Her senses heightened, she moved to the opposite window to search the courtyard.
It came to her then—a steady, rhythmic trembling like thunder in the wake of an approaching storm. Her heart took up the cadence as she held her breath and listened, trying to understand what was happening.
The iron latch on her door jiggled. "Victoria? Wake up!" her mother urged with a frantic edge to her voice as she stepped into the room.
Grabbing her robe from the back of a chair and stuffing her ... read full excerpt from: The Rebel and the Lady ebook
