The Glory Game (51 page)

She hesitated a mere instant, then stepped into her slacks and pulled them up. “It's stopped raining. We can leave now.” She heard the clipped sound of her voice. “It seems you were right when you said it wouldn't last long.”

Propped on his elbow, Raul watched her sit down on the edge of the cot and tug her boots on, observing the stiffness in her body. He resisted the urge to pull her back onto the mattress with him and try to discover again what it was about
her that disturbed him so. She had touched something inside him, appealed to some need that he didn't understand. He couldn't entirely convince himself that it was only desire he felt.

When she left the cot and walked over to the bench for the rest of her clothes, Raul got up and pulled on his own breeches and boots. The firelight played across the smooth skin of her back, briefly highlighting the curve of a breast when she slipped on the lacy brassiere. Her slender body was unquestionably beautiful, warm and firm-feeling in his remembrances. But it was the woman inside it that got to him. Frowning, Raul crossed the room to retrieve his shirt from the same bench. As Luz tucked the tails of her blouse inside her slacks, she paused to hand the shirt to him.

“Why the scowl? Was it that bad?” she mocked, but he looked beyond the proud lift of her head and the coolly defiant expression on her face to the questioning hurt in her dark eyes.

“No.” He smoothed out the frown and shrugged into his shirt. “I broke a rule of mine never to get involved with the people who hire me.”

“It's a little late to be remembering that,” she said stiffly and looked down to finish tucking in her blouse. “You should have thought of it earlier.”

“I did.” And it hadn't mattered to him then either. Raul ignored her startled look as he reached for his jacket. “Are you ready?” He moved toward the door.

“What about the fire?”

Pausing, he glanced back at the dying flames on the dirt floor. “It will burn itself out.” And it would be the same for whatever heat she had ignited in him, he told himself.

Her clothes were still damp, but despite their rumpled appearance and faint smudges, they retained their expensive look. The pale, sand-colored hair was smoothed away from her face, accenting her patrician fineness. She was a wealthy divorcee who wanted an affair. She'd picked a polo player for a lover. The situation was not uncommon. Yet Raul knew he felt more than detached interest. It made him wary of her.

W
hen Luz saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror, her spirits sank. No wonder everyone downstairs had acted so concerned about her. It hadn't been just her damp, mud-spattered clothes. She looked positively washed out. Not a trace of makeup remained except for the mascara smudges under her lower lashes. The soft rainwater had left her hair silken, but limp. Her hands moved over her cheeks as she stared at her reflection, remembering how Raul had held her face in his hands.

Resolutely she swung away from the mirror, determined to make some drastic changes in her appearance. She turned the shower faucets on, and the water pipes rattled and groaned before they sent forth a spray from the shower head.

An hour later, Luz had showered, shampooed, dotted on layers of moisture cream to soften the lines at her eye corners, blow-dried her hair, and applied her makeup. Selecting an outfit had been difficult. No one dressed for dinner at the house, although the men usually changed out of their riding clothes. She hadn't brought that many afternoon dresses. Out of the three that she regarded as particularly eye-catching or flattering, she picked a flowery jacquard chemise of raspberry crepe.

The oval wall mirror in the bedroom couldn't show her a long view of how she looked, and neither could the square mirror on the medicine cabinet above the bathroom sink. Luz tried to be satisfied with what little she could see and plucked at the stand-up mandarin collar that slashed into a v neckline.

“Hello?” Trisha poked her head around the door standing open to the bathroom.

“Come in,” Luz said absently as she first held the matching
sash, then a silver-corded belt to her waist. Deciding on the belt, she tossed the sash onto the bed with the other dress choice she'd laid out.

“Quite a transformation,” Trisha declared.

With the belt fastened, Luz turned to her daughter for an opinion. “What do you think? Does it look all right?” She fluffed the billowy sleeves, buttoned at the wrists, and adjusted the pads under the shoulders.

“It looks wonderful,” Trisha replied.

Without a decent mirror to dispute it, Luz had to take her word for it. She walked over to the jewelry case atop the chest of drawers and picked through the bracelets. “Should I wear this chunky silver rope chain or these silver bands with this dress?”

“The little jingly ones.”

“They're too noisy.” Luz put them back and draped the heavy silver one around the wrist to fasten the latch.

“Why did you ask me?” Trisha shook her head in annoyance.

“I don't know.” Her fingers fumbled with the hook, too unsteady to fasten it. “Will you do this for me, Trisha?” she said in exasperation and held out her arm.

Trisha took hold of her wrist to fasten the bracelet's latch, then glanced at her in surprise. “Luz, you're shaking. Are you feeling all right?”

“Yes, I …” She met that concerned look and realized she couldn't possibly explain why she was so nervous. “I've been hurrying to get dressed. I know Hector likes to have dinner served promptly at seven-thirty.”

“Is that all? I thought maybe you had gotten chilled from that soaking you took. It's twenty minutes until dinner; you've got plenty of time.” She snapped the safety fastener closed. “What ever possessed you to go driving when it was raining so hard?”

Luz walked back to the dresser, wondering how to answer that question without mentioning the argument she'd had with Raul. She picked up the perfume bottle and tipped it upside down to moisten the stopper.

“It was raining and I didn't want to get wet walking back to the house, so I took the car that was parked outside the pit. Unfortunately I missed the turn to the house and I had to keep going until I found a place to turn around.” Luz dabbed the
perfume-wet tip of the stopper to the hollow below her neck while keeping her back to Trisha. “The car got stuck in the mud before I could find a place.”

“It certainly took Raul a long time to find you.”

“Yes.” She looked at the perfume bottle in her hand as the tension built inside. What was she to say to her—“The man you wanted made love to me this afternoon”? There was nothing beyond that to tell. She hadn't intended it to happen. Not once had she even thought about the possible repercussions for her daughter.

Raul had said he wasn't interested in Trisha. Maybe it was best just to let things die their own death without killing Trisha's trust in her. She had been so caught up in her own jealousy of Trisha that it had never occurred to her that Trisha would ever have reason to be jealous of her.

“I wish I'd gone with him to look for you, but he'd already gone by the time I found out about it,” Trisha said. “Maybe we wouldn't have found you any sooner, but think of how much time I could have spent with him.”

“Is that all you ever think about, Trisha?” She felt trapped. “You'll be starting college in a week. Aren't you excited about getting ready for that? You're supposed to be so determined to get a law degree. Or was that just a passing fad, influenced by Claudia?”

“Luz, where have you been for the last ten years?” Trisha retorted sharply. “A woman can be interested in a career and a man, too. If she has one, it doesn't mean she can't have the other. And I had made up my mind to study law long before I ever met Claudia.”

“I know you did.” Luz sighed. “I shouldn't have said that.” She glanced down at her dress, remembering the schoolgirl pains she'd taken to look especially attractive for Raul and wondered if she wasn't more foolish than Trisha. Trisha at least could blame her actions on her youth. She set the perfume bottle on top of the dresser and turned, smiling brightly. “Shall we go downstairs?”

“Sure.”

The others were already gathered in the informal living room when Luz walked in with Trisha. She saw Raul standing by the fireplace, staring at the drink in his hand, taking no part in the discussion. Hector was the first to notice their arrival.

“Buenas tardes.”
He swung toward them on his crutches, drawing the room's attention to them. “You look lovely, señora.”

“Gracias,
Hector.” She smiled while fully conscious of Raul's stare. She derived some satisfaction from it, but a guilty satisfaction since Trisha was at her side.

“Well, would you look at this?” Duke Sovine declared as he politely stood up, acknowledging the presence of ladies in the room. “You look radiant, Luz. I wouldn't have given a plug nickel for you when you walked in the door this afternoon.”

“It's a pity no one had a camera to take a picture of me then. You could have blackmailed me with it.” She smoothly returned his banter as she crossed the room. One of the Argentine instructors offered her the leather armchair he had previously occupied, and Luz sat down.

As Trisha took a seat, the others shuffled around to find a place to sit, their arrival causing a game of musical chairs. Raul moved into Luz's side vision, walking over to set his empty glass on the drink tray. It was difficult to look at him without images and sensations flashing in her mind, so she tried to ignore him.

“That was quite a rain we had today,” Duke Sovine commented. “Back in Texas, we'd call that a gully-washer. How long before the field will be dry enough to play on, Raul?”

“If the wind is strong, perhaps as quickly as tomorrow afternoon,” he replied.

“Don't you men ever get tired of riding around all day hitting polo balls?” Trisha criticized playfully. “To hear you talk, a person would think the only things that interest you are making money and playing polo.”

“Probably because it takes money to play polo,” Duke Sovine suggested, then laughed with the others. “The only thing I know that might be more expensive is a pretty woman.”

“Is that what you think, Raul?” she said, flirting with him. “Do you consider women expensive?”

“Some, perhaps.”

The tall clock in the entry hall chimed the half hour. It was followed by the sound of Hector's crutches thumping off the area rug on the hardwood floor. “We will go in to dinner now,” he announced.

As Luz stood up and started around her chair toward the hall, she encountered Raul. His gaze held hers for an intimate second, then fell away. She saw a nerve twitch along his jaw. She remembered his rule not to become involved with his polo clients, and had the impression that he had reconsidered his action and intended to observe it. Although it hurt, under the circumstances it was probably best. But there were times when emotions would not listen to the mind's logic, and this was one of them.

She stepped quickly forward and walked alongside Hector, no longer uncomfortable with his dragging gait. Behind her, she was aware that Trisha had latched onto Raul's arm.

Dinner was an ordeal. Seated on Raul's right at the table, Luz constantly felt the strain of his company and suspected from his straight-lipped expression that it was mutual. She barely tasted the food on her plate. All her senses seemed to be tuned to his presence. The steady stream of banter Trisha directed to Raul only made everything worse.

At last the coffee was served. Luz declined. “I think I'd prefer to take a brandy in the living room. If you'll excuse me.” As she pushed back her chair to leave, there was an accompanying scrape of other chair legs on the hardwood floor, the men including Raul, respectfully standing.

“Shall we all take our coffee into the other room?” he suggested.

“A brandy with it sounds good to me,” Duke Sovine seconded the proposal.

Luz had hoped for a respite from this brittle tension, but it wasn't to be as they followed her en masse into the formal living room. She didn't want company, especially Raul's. Carrying a snifter of brandy, she moved to the fireplace, where a new log had been thrown on the blaze. It crackled noisily, like her nerves. She tried not to listen to the hum of voices around her, not wanting to be drawn into conversation. Rolling the rounded sides of the brandy glass between her palms, she wished Raul would retire to his office the way he always did. It was quite obvious to her that he regarded this afternoon as a mistake. She knew it was, yet …

“Are you feeling well?”

Luz started visibly at Raul's sudden appearance beside her,
then lifted her chin to coolly meet his gaze. “Of course. What could possibly be wrong?”

“You barely touched the food on your plate this evening.”

“I wasn't hungry.” She looked past him to Trisha, who had overheard the exchange.

“My, but you're certainly receiving the attention today, Luz,” Trisha remarked while looking at Raul. “You never did explain why it took you so long to find her.”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” Trisha admitted with a small shrug. Luz turned away to stare at the fire, refusing to watch her daughter's seductive efforts. The pain of rejection stung her anew, and she quickly gulped down a swallow of brandy to deaden it. “Maybe I should become lost, then you could come rescue me the way you did Luz,” Trisha suggested to him. Her innocent choice of words was almost more than Luz could stand.

“Surely you can come up with something more original than that, Trisha,” Luz said tersely, then got up and crossed the room to put distance between them.

Stopping by the drink tray, she glanced at the decanter of brandy. Her nerves felt jangled, and the glass in her hand was almost empty. She downed the last of it and felt the delayed burning of her throat.