Hidden Agenda (16 page)

“And you danced all over her fancy shoes,” she said perceptively.

He nodded, grinning. “All over her feet, legs, and knees. She screamed at me in front of everyone,
calling me uncouth. I was so mad that I grabbed her and kissed her right in front of her mother and guests. Then I stormed out and drove my pickup back home.

“Her father came to see me the next day, threatening to have me arrested for assaulting his daughter. At sixteen I was well over six feet, and weighed close to one eighty-five. My father came into the barn when he heard us arguing, but didn’t interfere. I told Mr. Carson exactly what I thought of his stuck-up daughter, and he nearly fainted when I told him that his daughter was a tramp. I don’t believe he knew she was sleeping around. He saw my father, and asked him if he was going to allow me to defame his daughter’s reputation.

“Dad smiled and said very calmly, ‘You’re lucky I don’t let him loose to beat the crap out of you. Now get the hell out of my barn, Carson. You’re stinking it up.’”

Matt’s eyes crinkled in amusement as Eve laughed. “My folks sent me to a dance studio, and after that I never stepped on another woman’s foot.”

She’d insisted on hearing the story and he had told her, but she felt jealous of the women in his past. Her arms curved around his waist as she pressed her cheek to his chest. “One more dance, then I’ll have to finish dinner.”

His arms tightened on her body. “Let’s enjoy ourselves tonight, Eve. Tomorrow morning we leave for Puerto Escondido.” He felt her stiffen in his embrace. The time had come when he had to encounter Alejandro Delgado-Quintero.

Eve closed her eyes, nodding slowly. What she’d shared with Matt in the house high atop the mountain would end, and her journey to confront her ex-husband was about to begin.

E
ve dipped a small, rounded brush into a jar of styling gel, then brushed her hair until the sides were straight and smooth. She left just a hint of curl at the crown of her head.

She smiled at Matt’s reflection in the mirror over the bedroom’s triple dresser as he entered the room. “Simple enough, Darling?”

He walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. His black hair glistened with moisture from his recent shower. His gaze met hers in the glass. “You’ll never look plain or simple, Eve.” The compliment brought a wave of heat to her cheeks. She’d selected a yellow linen sheath dress with a pair of low-heeled, black, patent leather pumps. His hands moved down her arms, encircling her waist, and she leaned back against his body. “You’re ravishing,” he whispered.

Turning around to face him, Eve stared up at Matt. She cradled his lean, dark-skinned face between her slender hands. “Thank you, my love.”

He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Let’s go downstairs,
Preciosa
. Jorge and Lilian will be arriving at any moment.”

“You’ve gotten yourself quite a prize, Mateo,” Jorge said softly, staring at Eve’s profile as she smiled at the photographs Lilian proudly showed her of their children.

Matt merely nodded. He sat at the dining room table, puffing in a leisurely way on his cigar. He hadn’t liked the way Jorge continued to stare at Eve throughout dinner, and also hadn’t liked the way he held her hand a bit too long for convention.

Eve had been the perfect hostess, making their guests comfortable. She had made an attempt to communicate in Spanish with Lilian, who patiently helped her when she did not remember the Spanish equivalents for several words.

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Matt said very quietly. “I’ll remain in Escondido until I get my orders from Cordero.”

Jorge stared at a growing ash on the end of his cigar. “I can’t believe it’s almost over. Five long, hard, dirty years in this grubby hellhole.”

Matt stared at dark-haired, dark-eyed, petite Lilian Martín. “You found a lovely wife and you have two beautiful children, so I don’t think you’ve been too bored.”

A quick smile deepened the lines around Jorge’s obsidian eyes. “I suppose you’re right. It was either
Mexico or Colombia. Right now I think Mexico is a lot more dangerous for a DEA agent than Cali or Bogotá.”

Matt smiled through the rising smoke. “I’ll attest to that. I almost didn’t make it out last year. I wonder if Barranda upped the bounty on my ears.”

“Rumor has it that he wants you real
B-A-D
, Mateo.”

“He can keep wanting, because I’m never going back.”

“You don’t have to go back for them to take you out,
amigo
. Look what happened to Moreno. He got whacked while sitting in his car waiting for the light to change at the height of the Miami rush hour.”

Matt stared at Jorge, raising his eyebrows. “Moreno was sloppy
and
greedy. The money he was paid wasn’t enough. He wanted more, and in the end he lost his life.”

Jorge took a final drag from his cigar and crushed it in an ashtray. “Well,
amigo
, I’d better get back to the house. I’m supposed to meet someone tonight who’ll have word on a Chihuahua operation. He claims there’s a multimillion-dollar marijuana cultivation and processing complex in the desert.”

Matt and Jorge returned to the kitchen and their wives. Eve glanced up, her eyes widening in surprise.

“Are you leaving?”

Jorge’s ebony gaze swept appreciatively over her body. “The babysitter has to be home by ten.” Lilian nodded in agreement. “When you and Mateo come back, please come down and meet the rest of the family.”

Eve stared at Matt, and he bowed his head. She hugged Lilian, thanking her for coming. Jorge stepped forward, but Matt stopped him from reaching Eve when he grabbed his hand and pumped it.

“Thanks for visiting. Eve and I will contact you the moment we return.”

Eve gave Matt a strange look as he ushered the Martín couple to the door and out into the sultry night. “Why did you do that?” she questioned after the door closed behind them.

“Do what?” Matt asked, feigning innocence.

She folded her hands on her hips. “Throw them out.”

Matt leaned against the door and slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “I didn’t throw them out. It was time for them to get back to their children.”

“You were rude, Mateo Arroyo.”

He straightened from his leaning position, his body rigid. “Jorge was the rude one, Eve. He has a wife, yet he couldn’t keep his eyes off
my
wife. So don’t talk to me about being rude. He’s lucky I didn’t knock his teeth out.”

“Why pick on the man’s teeth? It’s his eyes you had a beef with,” Eve retorted angrily.

Matt muttered a curse under his breath and opened the door, only to slam it violently after he’d stepped out into the black heat of the night.

He was losing it! Being in love was turning him into a maniac. He wanted to beat up his friend because he had stared at Eve. He didn’t want to think of what he would’ve done if Jorge had touched her!

Eve felt Matt’s presence before he entered the bedroom, even though her back was to the door. “Are you coming to apologize?”

He sat down on the side of the bed and removed his clothes. “No. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

She sat up, the sheet falling down to her waist and giving Matt a view of her breasts through the lace of an ice-blue silk nightgown. “Are you telling me that every time we have someone for dinner that you’re going to rush them out of the house before they’re ready to leave?”

He reached for her, but she was too quick and scooted off the bed. “Only if they’re men,” he stated, also moving off the bed and stalking her.

“Mateo,” she wailed.

“I know that I have a jealous streak a mile wide, Eve.”

She retreated until her back hit a wall. “I guess Jorge can consider himself a lucky man that he escaped unharmed.”

Matt reached out and swung her up in his arms. “I’m the lucky man, Darling.” He buried his face against her neck. “You’re so good for me. You make me feel things I never felt before. I’m a son, a brother, and an uncle, but I never felt truly alive until you came into my life.” He lowered her to the bed, his body following. “It was as if I had to challenge death to see who would come up the winner.”

“Oh, Matt,” Eve whispered against his mouth.

“I’ve traveled all over the world,” he continued, “not knowing what I was searching for. Now I know I was looking and waiting for someone like you. You’ve made it all so very worthwhile, Baby.”

Eve didn’t know why, but she felt like crying. His confession meant more than a declaration of love.

She cradled his head to her breasts. “You’re home, Matt.”

He turned her and pulled her to his chest, her buttocks
pressed to his belly and groin. “Tell me all about yourself, Eve. Any and everything you can remember.”

Eve walked out of the house the following morning and saw Matt leaning against the bumper of his car. He was clothed entirely in black: shirt, slacks, and shoes.

She walked several feet beyond him in the driveway. The Range Rover was parked behind the house and Matt’s Lincoln was readied for the trip to Puerto Escondido.

She was going to miss the blazing orange and pink sunsets, the colorful birds and exotic butterflies and the creeping, trailing vines and wildflowers surrounding their private waterfall and pool.

Matt moved over and stood behind her and she settled back against his chest as if she had been doing it for years. Somewhere, somehow, they had settled into the routine, and neither of them consciously had given it a second thought. Without realizing it they had become a couple.

Eve closed her eyes. His fingers tightened on her waist. She found Matt’s presence, his touch, comforting. They had spent the night talking and laughing over incidents from their pasts, becoming friends as well as lovers.

“I’m going to miss this place,” she whispered hoarsely.

“We’ll come back,
Preciosa
,” Matt stated in a quiet tone. “We’ll make certain to come back before we leave Mexico.”

Antonio and Pilar Arroyo greeted their grandson and his wife with a mixture of tears and passionate
embraces. Eve and Matt were not given an opportunity to protest as they were led through an open courtyard and garden at the rear of the large house to partake of some liquid refreshment before retiring to their bedroom for the
siesta
.

Matt moved quickly to seat his grandmother, but Antonio waved him away. “Seat your own wife, Mateo. I’ll take care of mine,” he snapped, ignoring the flush darkening the younger man’s face. “I’m not so old that I can’t take care of what belongs to me,” he continued, leaning over and kissing the dry, paper-thin cheek of Pilar.

Matt successfully concealed his scowl as he offered Eve a cushioned chair. He doubted whether she understood his grandfather’s scathing reprimand.

Antonio’s light brown eyes were still bright even though he had recently celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday. The hot sun had darkened and creased his skin until it resembled soft, worn leather. A fringe of white hair covered his tanned pate, and he ran a thin, heavily veined hand over his face in a weary gesture.

He flashed a tired smile at his grandson’s wife. “Are you trying to learn Spanish,
nieta?
” he questioned in English, his firm mouth tightening in a manner which reminded Eve of Matt’s. “My son-in-law has been married to my daughter for more than forty years, and somehow he never got around to learning more than a few words.”

“I can assure you that I’ve learned more than a few words,” Eve said in halting Spanish.

Antonio sat up straighter in his chair. “Very good.” He motioned to a young woman who had approached silently with a pitcher and glasses on a large tray.

Pilar Arroyo spoke quietly with the woman after she’d placed the glasses on the table, instructing her to make certain a bedroom had been readied for her grandson and his wife’s
siesta
.

Pilar was a tiny, white-haired, shy woman who spoke very little English. On their journey to Puerto Escondido, Matt had revealed that Pilar had allowed Antonio to make all of the decisions in their sixty-five years of marriage. Antonio loved her as passionately now as he had when he first met her, and there were times when he exhibited fierce displays of jealousy.

Like grandfather, like grandson
, she thought.

Matt had also related that the Spanish-style hacienda was more than a hundred years old, and its grace and beauty had remained undaunted throughout the many generations of Arroyos who had lived there. The hacienda was situated in a valley at the foot of the mountains, and the coolness of the ocean winds and the higher elevation of nearby mountain ranges sweeping over the coffee fields yielded an abundant, flavorful crop year after year.

“You must be very special to have lured my grandson away from his other women,” Antonio remarked in English, his expression deadpan.

“I’d like to think of myself as lucky to have met and married your grandson,
Abuelo
,” Eve replied, also in English.

Antonio smiled openly for the first time, a network of lines crisscrossing his weathered face. “
Bueno
. You are a wise woman,
nieta
. You know what to say to make a man feel like a man. Mateo is the lucky one, I think.”

Matt gave Antonio a direct stare. “You doubt whether I’ll be a good husband to Eve?”

Antonio reached over and covered Pilar’s hand. “No, I don’t. Arroyo men make good husbands and good fathers. They’re loyal to their women and their families.”

Pilar touched Matt’s arm and he leaned over to hear her soft words. A tender, loving expression lit his eyes as he stared at his grandmother’s face. He shifted and glanced at Eve, his gaze narrowing when he saw her eyes look through him. There were times when he felt as if she knew exactly what he was thinking or feeling.

“My grandmother says you’re very beautiful, and that if we decide to have children they will also be beautiful.”

Eve couldn’t look at Matt. There was the possibility that she was carrying his child within her body at that very moment.

“Having Mateo’s children would make me very happy,” she confessed.

Antonio shook his head. “You young people wait until you could be grandfathers and grandmothers to marry and have children. I married my Pilar when I was nineteen and she sixteen, and she gave me all of my children before I was thirty. Mateo will be almost forty, practically
un viejo
, before you make him a father,
nieta
.”

Eve gave Matt a look of confusion when she heard the chastising words from the older man, and he winked at her. “You have enough great-grandchildren to brag about,
Abuelo
,” he reminded Antonio gently. “Allow me to enjoy my wife for a while before we settle down to raising a family.”

“Her having children should not stop you from enjoying her body, Mateo,” Antonio countered.

Eve didn’t understand Antonio’s last retort
because it was spoken in rapid Spanish, but she knew it hadn’t pleased Matt because his lower lip mirrored his annoyance.

Antonio filled each glass with a chilled mixture of fruit juices and offered a glass to his wife, then Eve and his grandson.

Pilar shook her head, then took a sip of her drink. The conversation was one she’d heard many times before. Antonio hadn’t understood why his favorite grandson hadn’t married, and now that Mateo had, he couldn’t understand why Eve wasn’t already pregnant.
Men and their obsession with fathering children
, she thought. They seemed to equate their maleness with the ability to make a woman’s belly swell with their seed. Her husband’s way of thinking was dying out in Mexico, and there were times when she felt that hadn’t come soon enough.

Matt watched Eve take meager sips of her drink, his mind filled with what he had been ordered to do. Jorge had informed him that planned raids on targeted sites by both the Mexican police and U.S. DEA agents was in its final planning stage. Jorge had gathered enough information in the five years he’d been undercover to slow the flow of cocaine and marijuana into the United States for years to come.