The Glory Game (9 page)

With long, quick strides, Luz crossed the room, the voluminous pleated black material of her pants swinging about her legs. She intercepted Mary before she had gotten very far into the room.

“I see you finally made it.” They exchanged sisterly pecks on the cheek.

“No lectures on punctuality, please. It was Murphy's Law—or the Carpenter version of the same. Everything that could go wrong, did. Anne cut herself on a broken glass as we were walking out the door; Ross forgot to put gas in the car; we had a flat tire and no spare; you name it, it happened.”

“Where's Ross?” Luz glanced back to the entrance hall.

“He went to wash up. After we finally got the tire fixed, he wanted to go home and change clothes, but I said absolutely not!”

She laughed and hooked an arm around her sister's. “This way to the bar.”

“I'll drink to that,” Mary declared.

Their path took them past Drew. He hailed them as they walked by. “Mary! We'd just about given you up. You remember Claudia, don't you?” The affectionate squeeze of his arm pulled the brunette slightly off balance, and she leaned against him.

Unconsciously, Luz tightened her jaw, clamping her teeth together. Claudia, was it? Now they were on a first-name basis. Instantly, she justified it. After all, this was a party, hardly the place to stand on formality. Distantly, she heard the brief exchange between Mary and the Baines woman.

“I hope you're enjoying yourself … Claudia.” The name momentarily stuck in her throat as Luz attempted to be more magnanimous.

“Yes. Drew is keeping me entertained,” she answered, smiling at him.

“We've been swapping stories,” he said. “Did I ever tell you about these two men who split up after living together for years? They each hired an attorney—one of them was me, naturally—to resolve the problem of dividing the possessions they had acquired … house, car, savings account. Well, they had this dog—”

“Excuse me.” Luz backed away and pulled Mary with her. “But I've heard this one before.”

Drew acknowledged her departure with a lift of his fingers and picked up the story with hardly a break. Luz and Mary proceeded toward the bar, winding their way through the thickening crowd. Behind them, they heard a burst of laughter.

“Drew must have reached the punchline of his story,” Mary remarked dryly.

“It's strange. I must have heard him tell that a hundred times or more.” Luz paused to look back at the pair, focusing on Claudia's laughing expression. “I don't ever remember it being that funny.”

“She looks at him as if he makes the sun rise in the morning,” her sister mused, then sighed. “I hope Ross doesn't go through the middle-aged crazies.”

Luz didn't like the suggestion that Drew was suffering from the malady and wished people would stop planting these seeds
of doubt. She had no cause to be jealous, but it was like an acid eating away at her.

“It looks like the party is in full swing on the patio.” Mary gazed outside, observing that group's spirited exuberance. “Would you like to bet one of them brought his own sugar bowl?”

“No. Someone invariably brings coke to parties.” It was impossible to prevent even if she tried. Luz turned away from the sight. Drugs didn't interest her, although she had friends—acquaintances, really—who sniffed cocaine on occasions. Supposedly, it wasn't physically addictive, but she'd seen the emotional dependence that developed and considered that just as destructive. As a young adult, she had smoked marijuana, more as an act of rebellion than any other reason. Once she had lit a joint in front of her father—that was during her father-hating days. When he had failed to be shocked or outraged, she had lost interest. But drugs were too easily attainable now, and she worried about the children, especially Trisha, who was just wild and adventurous enough to try anything. And there seemed so little she could do about it.

B
y nine o'clock, Trisha was forced to concede that Raul wasn't coming. A dozen times during this past week, she had considered seeking him out and confirming the invitation, even going so far as to find out where he was staying and where his horses were stabled, but she hadn't done it. She supposed it was some kind of test of her feminine powers to see if he'd come without further persuasion. He hadn't come, but neither had she given up.

She slipped away to her room, where she had her own private telephone line, and dialed the polo club's office on the off chance someone would still be there. His telephone number would be in the files. She listened to the ringing on the other end of the line, then—miracle of miracles—someone answered.

“I'm trying to locate Raul Buchanan. Can you tell me where he might be or how I can reach him?” Trisha attempted to sound very businesslike.

“As a matter of fact, I just saw him at the barns,” the voice drawled thickly. “Got an injured mare.”

“Thank you.” Trisha didn't wait for any more information but quickly hung up the receiver. There wasn't time to waste.

No one noticed her pass through the living and dining rooms to the kitchen, and the caterers were too busy to pay any attention to her when she appropriated a bottle of cold champagne and two glasses, then left the house by the back door. The palm trees and shrubbery shielded her from the view of the guests outside as she made her way to the garage where her sports car was parked. Her only difficulty was negotiating
the jam of vehicles parked in the driveway. After that, it was a quick drive to the polo grounds.

There were lights and two silhouetted figures moving near the middle of the long stable. Trisha parked her car in the area reserved for vehicles and gathered up the champagne and glasses from the seat. The moonlight glistened on the antique ivory satin of her dress as she picked her way across the uneven footing of crushed shells in her high-heeled sandals. Then she reached the firmly worn path leading down the stable row. A dog barked, far away. Closer, Trisha could hear the low murmur of voices speaking in some fluid tongue. Spanish, she thought, but she still couldn't tell if either of the two men was Raul: She was nearly upon them before she finally recognized him.

“Hello.” Her heels had made little sound on the hard-packed ground.

He pivoted with a frown at her greeting. The frown deepened when he saw her standing there. “What are you doing here?”

Trisha raised her hands to show him the champagne bottle in one and the glasses in the other. “Since you didn't come to the party, I brought the party to you.” But he was neither amused nor pleased by her announcement. He swung back to face the webbed gate stretched across the stall's doorway. Beyond him, she could see a black horse and an attending groom crouched near its front legs. Trisha moved closer. “What's wrong?” The right foreleg was packed in ice.

“The mare fell this afternoon,” Raul said. “We thought it was a badly sprained knee, but the swelling has grown worse. The veterinarian is coming out to take another look. It is possible there is a small fracture.”

“Poor lady.” The bottle clunked against the glasses as Trisha switched it to her other hand so she could rub the horse's muzzle. The dullness of the dark eyes and the low-hanging head were evidence of the mare's pain.

“Careful. You will ruin your dress,” Raul cautioned.

“How do you like it?” She posed slightly for him, aware the high neck and leg-of-mutton sleeves gave a touch of sophistication while the back exposed a large triangular area of bare skin. “Now, you have to admit that I hardly look like a schoolgirl in this. Tell me the truth, Raul—if I had been wearing this when we met, would you still have thought I was too young?”

A wide smile split his lips apart. “Perhaps not.”

“You see? I had to come tonight to prove your first impression of me was wrong,” Trisha stated.

He said something in Spanish to the groom, then cupped her elbow in his hand and guided her away from the stall. The stable roof extended into a wide galleried walk in front of the stalls, supported at intervals by upright posts. They moved several feet into the shadowed half-light of the overhang before Raul stopped near a hitch rail.

Trisha held out the bottle of champagne to him. “Aren't you going to open it before it gets warm?”

He glanced at her in a momentary hesitation, seeming to debate something, then he took the bottle and peeled away the seal. She watched him gently and expertly ease out the cork.

“If the mare hadn't been injured, would you have come to the party?” She held the glasses ready.

“No.” A small pop punctuated his reply, but the cork didn't explode into the air. Trisha was quick to hold a glass under the mouth and catch the foaming wine when it bubbled out, never losing a drop.

“Honesty in a man. How rare.” She held the second glass for Raul to fill, then handed it to him.

He inspected the tulip-shaped glass. “I see you know how to serve champagne properly.” The wide, shallow glasses commonly called champagne glasses released the wine's effervescence too quickly, leaving it flat.

“I'm a Kincaid. My education in life's finer points is nonpareil,” she mocked and sipped at the sparkling wine, fizzing so softly in the glass.

“Why did you use that tone?” He cocked his head to the side, the slant of the moonlight throwing his strongly cut features into sharp relief.

Trisha shrugged a shoulder, trying to pretend an indifference. “I think I'm a disappointment to the family. I'm afraid I'm more Thomas than I am Kincaid.” But she hadn't come here to discuss family allegiance. “Couples always dance at parties. This is supposed to be a party. Aren't you going to ask me to dance?”

“We have no music.”

“Then we'll have to make our own.” She curved the hand with the wineglass on his shoulder and held up the other for
him to take. There was that momentary hesitation again, that weighing of some decision, before he circled an arm around her waist and rested his hand against hers, the wineglass still in it. His feet moved, his legs brushing against her skirt as they moved to some slow, soundless rhythm. She liked the pressure of his hand on her back and the sensation of being so close to him. “Tell me about yourself, Raul. Where are you from? What do you do?”

“I play polo.” The lightness of his blue eyes gave them an intensity, their black centers large in the dim light. Trisha was fascinated by them, and the firm line of his mouth. “And I teach others to play. I have some land outside Buenos Aires where I raise and train polo ponies. Polo is what I do.”

“Are you married?” She sipped at the champagne, watching him through the tops of her lashes.

“No.” A wry humor flickered briefly across his expression.

“Have you ever been married?”

“No.”

“Why?” Trisha asked challengingly. “Haven't you ever found the right girl?”

“I suppose not.”

“Would you like to marry someday?”

His mouth curved. “You would not like being married to me. I am Latin. I believe a woman's place is in the home. And I am seldom there.”

“Always supposing I was interested.”

“Always supposing,” he agreed dryly.

“What about your family?” she wondered.

“My mother is dead. My father left when I was small. I have no other close relatives.”

“Your name—Buchanan—are you half English?”

“No. I am Argentine.” She heard the pride in his voice. “My country was a melting pot of nationalities, like the United States. You can open a Buenos Aires phone book and find any number of names like Buchanan, Gonzales, Zimmerman, or Caruso. The Spanish, the Italians, the English, the French, the Germans, and countless others, all came.”

“I didn't realize that.” She had always supposed it was predominantly Spanish, like Mexico.

“Then you have learned a valuable history lesson to file away with your schoolbooks.” He halted the aimless shifting
of their feet. “The music has stopped playing. The dance is over.” He backed away from her, angling his body to the side. The abruptness of his action took Trisha by surprise. “I'll walk you to your car.”

“But we've hardly drunk any of the champagne.” The nearly full bottle was sitting on the ground by a post.

“I do not care for any more. You can take the rest home with you.” He regarded her steadily, his manner polite but firm.

By then, it would be warm and flat—and so would the evening. “There's no need for me to leave yet.”

“Yes, there is.” Raul lightly took her arm and drew her abreast of him to start down the galleried walk. “Dr. Carlyle will be here any minute to examine the mare. I will be tied up with him for a considerable time.”

“That doesn't matter. I can wait until you're finished.”

“No.”

It was impossible to protest any further without sounding childish, so Trisha walked with him in silence half the distance to the corner of the stable. “I'm leaving tomorrow,” she finally said.

“And I am leaving the day after, so it is not likely we will meet again in the near future.”

“Why are you so determined to get rid of me?” she blurted.

“I am trying to spare us both from a possibly awkward and embarrassing situation.” He spoke patiently, as one would to a child. “It may surprise you to learn that I have been on the receiving end of teenage crushes before.”

“What do I have to do to convince you I'm not a schoolgirl?” An exasperated sigh escaped her. “I'm attracted to you. What's so adolescent about that?”

“Nothing,” he replied calmly. “Lolita was a schoolgirl.”

“Damn you,” she swore in frustration.

“Yes,” he murmured and steadied her when she nearly turned an ankle on the crushed shells. As they approached the parking area, Raul glanced ahead and picked out her sports car, an easy choice since the few other vehicles were pickup trucks or older sedans. He walked her to the driver's side and stopped. “Your glass.” He offered it to her stem up.