The Glory Game (52 page)

“Is something wrong, Señora Luz?” Hector peered at her with concern.

“I am fine. Why is everyone so worried about me all of a sudden?” she flared in irritation, and instantly regretted her sharpness. A heavy sigh broke from her. “It's been a long day. I think I'm more tired than I realized.” She set her empty glass on the tray. “Good night, Hector.”

“Good night.”

Not bothering to take her leave from the others in the room, Luz made a quiet exit and climbed the heavy staircase to her room. There had simply been too much emotional turmoil today. She couldn't cope with any more of it.

She began undressing as she crossed the room, removing the bracelet and earrings and kicking off her shoes, stripping off everything that she had earlier selected with such care. She grabbed a robe from the closet and slipped it on. Tying the sash, she jerked the knot tight. The pile of discarded clothes lay on the floor in front of her. Luz started to step around them
and leave them for the maid, then changed her mind and impatiently gathered them up. She was in no mood to hang up her own clothes.

At the knock on her door, she dropped them on the bed. “Come in,” she called, briefly grateful that Hector had thought to send Anna up to her room. She didn't want to deal with any of this.

But when the door opened, Raul walked in. Her heart seemed to stop a second, then it raced off crazily. He paused a moment as he saw she had changed into her night attire, then he shut the door behind him. But there was nothing in his expression to encourage her. Luz turned and picked up the dress, shaking it out.

“What is it you want, Mr. Buchanan?” She was deliberately formal and cold. “Or are you here to assure yourself that I suffered no ill effects from my afternoon outing in the rain?”

“What exactly did you tell Trisha?”

Her hands faltered an instant as she held the dress by its shoulders. Luz knew precisely what he meant. “Nothing.” She reached for a wire hanger. “She wouldn't have anything to do with either one of us if I had. Why would you even ask such a thing?” she demanded angrily, and jammed the hangered dress into the closet.

Raul stood by the bed. “Some mothers and daughters find it amusing to share things, including men.”

Incensed by his disgusting insinuation, Luz lashed out, slapping him as hard as she could. “How decadent do you think we are?” She was angry and trembling, her hand and arm aching from the jarring impact with his jaw.

He spun her back around, hauling her against his chest and crushing her lips against her teeth with his mouth all in one violent motion. Luz had no time to react. An instant later, the bruising pressure changed to one of driving softness as his mouth rolled about her lips, sensually tasting and persuading. She couldn't make that rapid switch from anger to passion, but neither could she fight the sensation.

At her passive response, Raul pulled abruptly away and released her to walk stiffly to the window. Trembling with hurt confusion and anger, Luz watched him light a small black cigar and impatiently exhale the smoke.

“What was that kiss supposed to represent, Raul? An insult
or an apology?” she demanded tautly. “Sometimes I think you despise me and other—” She left it unsaid.

“You are not as confused as I,” he retorted sharply. “First I think it is an affair you want. You left the cot the way a whore leaves a bed. When you want a man, any man will do. That is what you indicated in Paris, no. So now I wonder what it is you expect from me.”

“I expect to be treated as more than a piece of ass!” Luz was too indignant to care how rude or vulgar she sounded. At the same time, she was hurt by his base opinion of her. Hugging her arms tightly around her, she half turned to avoid his piercing blue eyes. “I haven't gone to bed with any man other than my husband for over twenty years—until today with you. And I don't give a damn whether you believe that or not! So if I behaved like a whore it was simply because I didn't know what I was supposed to do afterward except to get dressed. And you certainly weren't indicating that you expected anything else from me!”

“I thought it was all I wanted.” He stabbed the freshly lit cigar in the ashtray on the dresser, grinding it out in a gesture of irritation, then moved almost reluctantly toward her. “It seemed enough for you. And I could not know of these other things you have just told me.” When Raul stopped in front of her, she sensed his indecision, his uncertainty. “Later I found it was not all I wanted. There was something more. Now I think it is the same for you.”

As he reached to take hold of her, Luz knocked his arms away. “Don't touch me,” she ordered with leftover anger.

“Tonight I kept remembering the way it felt to hold you. And I remembered how it was to look at the sidelines where you always stand to watch the workouts and see you there. Maybe you are more distracting to me than to Rob,” Raul suggested without humor.

This time when he lifted his hand to touch her face, she didn't slap it away. The intent expression on his own carved features was compelling. Luz couldn't look away.

“Do you remember that first time we met, when you touched me, feeling all over my face?” he recalled absently. “You troubled me then and you trouble me now. When I look at your face, I see something I want.”

“Then take it,” Luz urged softly.

His hesitation lasted no more than a second before she felt the moist heat of his mouth closing on her lips and the satisfying feel of his arms circling tightly around her. The long drugging kiss seemed to melt her bones. She leaned against him, shaping herself to his frame. When he dragged his mouth away from her lips to bury it in her hair, she felt the tremor that shook him and heard the raggedness of his breathing. Her insecurity regarding her ability to arouse and please vanished as she recognized that his disturbance was as great as her own.

“Luz, I—”

A knock interrupted him. Raul lifted his head, an impatient frown creasing his forehead. Smiling, Luz ran a caressing hand over his flexed muscles in his jaw, sharing his frustration while enjoying seeing it in him.

“Hector probably sent up Anna,” she murmured.

The knock was repeated. “Luz? Are you in there?” The muffled sound of Trisha's voice shattered her blissful mood. She flashed a stricken glance at Raul, then broke free of his arms.

“She mustn't know,” she whispered to Raul. Despite a displeased look, he nodded his agreement. Reassured that he wouldn't give anything away, Luz glanced nervously at the door. “Yes, I'm here,” she answered finally.

Trisha walked in, then stopped abruptly. “Raul. What are you doing here?” She glanced quickly from one to the other.

“I came to assure myself that your mother is well, despite her drenching this afternoon,” he said, then included Luz in saying, “Good night.” He walked by Trisha and out the door.

“Is that really what he was doing here?” Trisha looked skeptical.

“Is it so surprising that he would be concerned about the welfare of a guest in his house?” Luz folded the silk slip into a neat square, wondering if her face was as flushed as it felt. “Did you want something?”

“Yes, I—” It didn't seem nearly as important to her now as she answered somewhat distractedly. “I came to tell you that I think I might have talked Hanif into letting me fly to Buenos Aires next week in his private jet.”

W
hen it came time for Trisha to leave that midweek, Hanif did volunteer the use of his private jet to fly her to Buenos Aires to catch her scheduled flight to the States. After driving Trisha to the airstrip and seeing her off, Luz returned to the
estancia.
She left the car parked in front and went inside, feeling guilty because she was glad her daughter was gone. She and Raul had not had a moment alone, and the frustration had become almost intolerable.

Her footsteps had a hollow sound as Luz wandered into the big, high-ceilinged living room. She glanced at the closed double doors to Raul's office, then unconsciously moved toward the room where he spent so much of his time. Curiosity and a need to be near him impelled her. She opened the doors wide and looked into the room.

A desk and chair, two worn and bulky armchairs, an old wooden filing cabinet, and a woven rug in front of the fireplace were the room's furnishings. The walls were bare except for the one lined with bookshelves, and those were mainly empty. There was no resemblance to the comfortably cluttered library office at Hopeworth Manor.

Nothing showed the stamp of his personality, Luz thought as she entered. Or maybe it did. Maybe Raul was as empty as this, showing no warmth and comfort because he had known none. It was a curious thought. Her mind turned back to the things he had told her in the adobe hut about his early pursuit of polo—the scorn and ridicule, the brown boots he hadn't been able to afford to buy. Polo was an expensive sport, she
knew, and it must have been more of a struggle for him than she had previously realized.

She wandered over to his desk and glanced at the neat stacks of papers on top of it. Much of it appeared to be correspondence, with some advertisements as well. Luz saw the penciled notes on the pad of yellow paper and recognized Raul's small, tight handwriting, the letters laboriously scrawled, like a child's writing.

Her gaze was drawn to the bookshelves on the wall behind the desk. She turned to scan the titles of the few books sitting on two of the shelves. Most were in Spanish, but polo was spelled the same as in English. All the books appeared to be related either to the sport or to horses, and they all appeared to be well used, some of the backs cracked and thready.

One looked particularly worn. She leaned closer to read the partly obscured title. A surprised smile broke apart her lips when she realized it was the polo book written by the late Lord Mountbatten. Luz removed it from the shelf, noticing the edges were completely worn, exposing the stiff cardboard. When she opened the book, she saw that the pages were not simply well thumbed. They were tattered, the edges in shreds from being turned so much. Some had broken completely loose from the binding. It was like a Bible that had been read and re-read. He had learned polo the hard way, he'd said—by trial and error, teaching himself. Frowning, Luz stared thoughtfully at the book, only now guessing what that meant.

“Ah, Señora Luz.” At the sound of Hector's voice, she turned with a faint start to face the double doors. She had grown so accustomed to hearing the thump and drag of his walk around the house that it had become part of the background noise. He altered his course past the double doors to enter the office instead. “I heard the car outside, but when I did not see you in the living room, I thought perhaps you had gone to the polo field.”

“No. I've been told I'm a distraction,” Luz replied easily, aware that Hector was the first to mention it. Not even Rob had commented on her absence.

“I think I know who it is that says this.” The knowing gleam in his eyes teased her.

Luz doubted if very much escaped Hector's notice, but she didn't comment on his remark. “I was looking through the
books and happened on this one. I'm afraid it's almost falling apart.”

“Many, many times I have seen Raul with that one. He was always reading it … asking about this word or that.”

“That was long ago … when he was just learning the game, wasn't it?”

“Sí
. It was very difficult for him. He worked very hard to learn.”

“It must have been.” Luz closed the book and absently held it to her breast, rubbing a hand over the worn cover.

“Is there anything you wished? Tea, perhaps?”

“No.
Gracias,
Hector.”

His crutches thumped the floor as he turned. “I must go see to lunch.”

After Hector left the room, Luz sat down on a corner of the desk and tipped the book away from her to look at the worn and tattered cover. She suspected that polo was Raul's religion—his god and his mistress. Nothing had ever stood between them. He had let nothing else into his life. She wondered if he would let her in.

And if he would, did she want it? She hadn't wanted to get involved with another man, and look at her—mooning over some old book of his. She sensed it was too soon. She hadn't had time to get her feet squarely on the ground after the divorce. But if she was on the rebound, what better place to land than in Raul's arms? He made her feel like a woman again, gave her back some of her old confidence. That was a lot.

A door slammed, followed by the tramp of boots on the hardwood floor and weary male voices. Luz straightened from the desk and turned toward the door as Raul appeared in its wide frame. He hesitated in midstride when he saw her, then walked in and swung both doors closed.

“How did it go this morning?” Something in the hardened set of his jaw gave her pause. “I hope you don't mind me being here. After I saw Trisha off, I—”

He roughly took the book from her hand and jammed it back into its place on the shelf, then walked behind his desk and began leafing through the papers on top of it.

“That book is special to you, isn't it?” Luz hadn't considered how special it might be to him. “Hector told me you used to read—”

“Hector talks too much,” Raul muttered.

“You're not being fair,” she protested in Hector's behalf.

“Pues bien,
so he told you that this was how I learned to read with this book.” He braced his hands on the desk top, his head turned to the side. “I did not have the privilege to have a formal education. I had to work in order to eat, but this is something I am sure you cannot comprehend.” Straightening, he picked up a stack of papers and began shifting through them. Luz recognized that his fierce expression was one of pride, not anger.

“Truthfully, Raul,” she said quietly, “I thought that book was how you learned to play polo. I didn't know that you used it to learn how to read. Hector never said that.” Swearing under his breath in Spanish, he dropped the papers on the desk. “I know you may not believe this, coming from me, but I don't think it matters where or how you learned to read. Jake always told Drew that he never gave a damn where a man went to college. He only cared whether the man knew his business.”