Three Wishes by Lisa Tawn Bergren, Lisa T. Bergren

the…bride of your dear son is an honor beyond any I could imagine.” I paused, trying to gather my thoughts.
    “Forgive me, but I cannot remain here. My home is somewhere else. Somewhere my mind has forgotten. But surely you understand this,” I said, reaching out to her. “If your own family were lost to you—the town of your birth,” I added, trying new phrases on for size that sounded vaguely historical, “as they have been to me, would you not wish to find them? After all, how can I press forward when I do not quite fully know what I’ve left behind?”
    “I understand it more than you can imagine,” she said with an odd quaver to her voice, her eyes moving to the window, as if lost in memory. Her eyes shifted back to mine, as if she was trying to ferret out the truth within me, and I saw a glimpse of where Javier got it. But then she relented, thank God. At least I thought she had.
    “We shall summon a doctor,” she said, ignoring me as I narrowed my eyes. “From Santa Barbara. He shall tell us whether your memory will return,” she said confidently, “or whether you simply need to press on from this point forward, knowing what you know. But realize this, dear girl,” she said, stepping forward and taking one of my cold hands in both of her warm, soft ones. “The honor of my son’s hand in marriage is something that daughters of many nobles have sought for years, and even more in this last year when he became the leader of this household. Yet I wanted something else for him. Something as unique and special as I shared with his father.”
    I gaped at her. She didn’t even know me. She was crazy. And yet she seemed so, so sure that this was right. Why?
    “And Javier?” I managed, the only civil thing I could utter. “What does he wish?”
    She let out a hollow laugh. “He wishes for the extraordinary to capture his heart. Settle him.” She lifted one brow and then my hand. “And here you are. Trust me, you are the answer to both our prayers.” I gaped at her, and she dropped my hand. “Go and explore with Estrella and Francesca. My daughters will show you the bounty that God has bestowed at your feet. All here,” she said, lifting her hands, “for the taking. You need only accept the path that the Lord has opened to you.”
    With that she strode out, and I continued to stare at the empty doorway. I let out a hollow laugh and turned halfway around, palms on my cheeks. What had just happened? What in the heck had just happened? And how was I supposed to get myself out of it? When Javier found out, he’d be furious. At his mother. Even with me. The last thing he wanted—the last —would be me, some poor chick who, when the truth came out, everyone would think was loca . If Doña Elena was right…if every girl was after Mr. Ranchero with his hot good looks and steamy eyes and brash ways…then why on earth would he choose me? The girl who had hit him in the face and nether regions…
    I turned back around and found the girls waiting for me with expectant faces. They’d been quick about their chores. Or maybe Doña Elena had let them go early—part of her whack-a-doodle plan to make me an insta-member of the clan.
    “Ready?” Francesca asked crisply, her hands folded before her waist. “What part of the rancho do you wish to see? Do you wish to ride? Or simply see the closest buildings on foot?”
    “I’d like to see all of it,” I said, trying to concentrate on the girls, who led me out, rather than the strange things their mother had just told me. “But we can begin here, close in.”
    She nodded. “That is good. If we go far or wish to ride, we’ll have to bring the boys or a guard with us. Javier and Mamá don’t like us riding alone.”
    “Kidnappers might get us,” Estrella added, eyes round and earnest.
    “Kidnappers?” I smiled, thinking she was joking. But in a sec, I realized she wasn’t.
    “It’s why we cannot go to boarding school in Mexico,” Francesca said,