"Those are called bombachas." Hector paused to call to one of the musicians, in Spanish, and motioned him to join them.

The man came over, shifting his guitar to hang behind his back, and stood indifferently while Hector pointed out the details of his costume. The chirip, a scarf which resembled a diaper, was strung through his legs, and the buckle of his wide belt, called a rostra, was made from silver coins fastened to chains. Hector asked him something, and the guitarist reached behind his back and pulled out a tarnished silver scabbard which was tucked inside his belt at the small of his back.

"This is his facn." Hector removed the double-edged dagger. "This was his only tool and his only weapon. He killed with it and ate with it."

"They don't still dress this way, do they?" Trisha asked doubtfully.

"Only for the tourists," Raul said dryly, wandering over to stand behind Hector. Luz could smell the pungent smoke from his small black cigar.

"The bombachas and the chirip, they are like your cowboy boots and jeans. They still have utility, so they are worn by many of the gauchos who work on cattle estancias," Hector explained. "But the hotas de potro, they no longer wear. They were the gaucho's boots, made from the hide of a colt's hind leg. They pulled them on while the hide was still damp. When they dry, they fit tight."

"How awful." Trisha grimaced.

"And now, since wild cattle are no longer killed and slaughtered on the spot for their hides, the gaucho has no need for his lance. He uses the boleadoras, the thongs with b.a.l.l.s tied at the ends, to bring down the cattle."

"I want to buy an outfit like that before I go home. I think it would look sensational," Trisha stated decisively.

"It would sure look better on you than on him," Duke Sovine said, joining them as more gathered around to see what was happening.

"You're only going to be here ten more days," Rob warned. "You'd better start looking."

"Don't remind me," she retorted.

"Won't you be remaining here with your brother?" Hanif inquired, the Oxford accent sounding foreign to his swarthy dark looks, as foreign as his ascot and blazer appeared compared to the flowing robes of his watchdogs.

"Unfortunately, no."

"Surely there is no need to leave so soon. Can't you postpone your departure and remain here at the estancia with us?" he suggested.

"Perhaps," Trisha replied, then tilted her head toward Raul. "But I haven't been invited."

Stealing a sideways glance, Luz watched Raul take a drag on the slim cigar he held to his mouth, squinting his eyes against the smoke. The action seemed designed to cover his silence.

"I'm sure we can change that," Hanif stated confidently.

"Ah." Hector made an approving sound and shifted on his crutches. "Everyone, we have something for you." He motioned the hovering servants forward with their trays of gourds. "It is mate, served the traditional way that the gaucho drank it. He brewed his tea in a gourd and sipped it through a silver straw."

As the servants pa.s.sed among them, Luz took one of the gourds from the tray, then deliberately drifted to the outer fringes of the group to sip the hot herbal drink. The gauchoclad musician rejoined his partners to lend the sound of his guitar to theirs. Trisha, instead of playing up to Raul as Luz expected, began dividing her attention among the other guests, laughing, talking, flirting, gathering them around her like hummingbirds to a bright flower. It was an obvious attempt to make Raul jealous.

Confused, Luz turned away and idly sipped the tea through the short silver tube. She wondered if they had quarreled, yet she hadn't detected any hostility between them. As a matter of fact, she couldn't recall anything loverlike in Raul's att.i.tude toward Trisha, although knowing her disapproval, he might have concealed it when she was around.

More wood was added to the bonfires, sending up a shower of sparks. The flames crackled and blazed higher. The babble of laughter, talking voices, and the resonance of guitar music seemed to press against her. She gazed into the quiet of the gathering night and the silent shimmer of stars in a dark violet sky. She gave the tea gourd to a pa.s.sing servant who was bringing drinks for some of the guests, then moved away from the fires onto the darkened lawn, slipping her hands into the slash pockets of her pink trouser-pleated pant skirt.

As she strolled aimlessly across the gra.s.s, the noise of the barbecue receded and the evening quiet settled onto her. Luz didn't try to sort through her troubled thoughts and make sense of them. She just walked. A breeze stirred in the branches of the trees that formed a windbreak around the ma.s.sive house and its grounds. She wandered toward them. It was cooler away from the fires, but Luz didn't mind the nip in the air.

The shadows grew thicker along the windbreak. Luz strolled into them, idly studying the star-studded heavens above her. The ground was too flat to make her be concerned about what was in front of her. She sensed a movement, a faint rustle of sound close to the trees. Luz half expected to hear the flap of wings.

Suddenly, a man's figure loomed in front of her. She stopped abruptly, drawing back in startled alarm. "Seora." There was a low, earnest tone to the voice. "Porfavor." When he extended his hand to her, palm up, Luz thought he was begging for money, then she caught the metal flash of a rifle barrel across his poncho.

Cold fear shot through her as she backed up a step, then turned to run. But she came up against a solid wall of flesh, and a pair of hands gripped her arms. She started to struggle blindly.

"It is all right." She recognized Raul's voice with relief, her hands relaxing to rest against his jacket. As she half turned to look over her shoulder at the dark figure, Raul said something in Spanish and the man melted into the shadows.

"I am sorry if Eduardo alarmed you."

When she turned back, Luz found Raul looking down at her. "What was he doing there? Why was he carrying a gun?" Her pulse still hadn't returned to its normal rate.

"I have important guests. I take precautions for their safety. That is all," he replied smoothly. She became conscious of the pressure of his hands on her arms and the closeness of their bodies. She pulled her hands away from his chest and moved away from him. Instantly, he dropped his hands from her arms. "Perhaps we should rejoin the others," Raul suggested and turned to escort her back to the lighted area around the bonfires.

"Precautions against what?" Luz asked.

"It has happened in previous years that people of importance have been kidnapped. It is unlikely to occur in a rural area such as this, but it is unwise to take risks."

Vaguely Luz remembered hearing about some kidnappings. The victims had been executives of foreign corporations and representatives of foreign governments. "Who does these things?" It was more of a protest than anything else.

"Many acts of violence are committed under the guise of politics. It is no more common here than in any other country of the world." Raul set an unhurried pace. "These criminals make it difficult for those who agitate honestly for change."

"And your politics?"

"I play polo." He glanced at her. "For most Argentines, there is a feeling of indifference toward politics. They no longer believe governments can solve all the problems. I have heard this same thing said in your country. We have a saying: 'G.o.d is an Argentine.' It has also been said, 'If He weren't, we'd be worse off than we are already.' Governments come and go, but Argentina goes on. It is like the Pampa."

"Yes." She understood what he was saying. Raul believed in his country, not necessarily in the powers who ran it.

"I ask that you not wander off by yourself for any distance. I don't believe you will come to any harm, but it is better not to find out."

His request raised the specter of the dark figure that had loomed in front of her minutes ago. Luz shuddered from a leftover reaction to those brief seconds of fear.

"You are cold." Raul stopped. For an instant, she didn't understand, then she saw him unhurriedly remove his jacket.

"No, I-" But he was already swinging it around her shoulders.

The material had retained his body heat. She was suffused by its warmth as her hands instinctively clutched at the overlapping folds. The smell of his cigar smoke and some tangy male cologne clung to the wool and drifted around her.

"I am accustomed to the chill," he said, as if her protest had been against depriving him of the jacket's warmth.

When Luz looked up at him, she wasn't able to speak. There was something fragile about this moment that she didn't want to break. It seemed to hold him motionless, too. She could see his eyes, their dark points enlarged by the dim light and ringed by the paler blue, and watched their slight movements as his gaze traveled over her face. Then his hands reached up and she felt the light touch of his fingers on her neck as they tunneled under her hair to lift it free of his jacket collar. A shudder of longing quaked deep inside her. Luz moved quickly before the tremblings reached the surface to betray her.

"I don't want your jacket." She opened the front and let go of one side to pull it off her shoulders, ignoring his startled frown.

"I-" He drew back when she thrust it at him.

"I said I don't want it," Luz repeated sharply and shoved it into his chest, forcing him to take it when she let go.

She walked past him toward the fire. Raul caught up with her within a few steps, his jacket on. She could sense the anger behind that long, stiff stride, and didn't care. She wasn't sure what had happened back there, or what might have happened, but she knew she couldn't stand another rejection. If there ever was another man in her life again, even briefly, she was going to be sure he wanted her, not someone else.

When they reached the firelight's circle, Luz saw that Trisha had observed their return. All those doubts and questions came flooding back to haunt her. She had to find out what was going on with them. Before she had recoiled from knowing the details. Now she wanted to know.

Crutches thumped across the ground as Hector approached. "Raul found you. I saw you-" As his glance went past her to Raul, some signal was evidently given, because the sentence remained unfinished. Instead Hector inquired, "Something to drink, Seora Luz?"

"No, thank you."

"Hey, where'd you disappear to, Luz?" Duke Sovine came up, another gla.s.s of beer in his hand.

"I just took a short stroll."

"Too noisy for you here, eh?" He grinned, then gestured to the slim mahogany-haired man with him. "You met Rusty Hanson, didn't you?"

"Yes." She smiled at the third American in the group, from Illinois.

"It's sure going to be a shame to lose the company of you two lovely ladies so soon. As a married man, I've kinda gotten used to having the company of a woman. Now these young guys"-Duke indicated the group gathered around Trisha-"they've probably got other things on their mind. They haven't quite figured out that a woman is also someone to talk to. I don't know as I'd want my daughter loose among them if she was Trisha's age, so I don't blame you for scurrying off with her."

"Actually, I won't be leaving with Trisha," Luz explained. "She has to be back to start her fall cla.s.ses at college. Rob is buying some ponies while he's here, so I'll be staying a couple of weeks longer to arrange for their shipment back home."

"That's good news. Though I must say I'm surprised your husband's letting you stay gone that long."

"I'm divorced."

Duke winced. "I put my foot into that one, didn't I?"

"It doesn't matter," she a.s.sured him, and strangely it didn't.

An hour later, Luz made her excuses and went to her room. By the time she had undressed and put on her gown and robe, she heard booted feet climbing the stairs and loud male voices echoing through the halls.

After hesitating indecisively for several seconds, Luz crossed to the connecting door and went through the shared bath to her daughter's bedroom. She turned on the lamp by the bed and sat down to wait for Trisha.

The travel alarm clock, perched in its case on the bedstand beside the lamp, ticked off the time. Five minutes. Ten. Light footsteps approached the door, then the k.n.o.b turned. When Trisha walked into the room, she paused briefly when she saw Luz, then shut the door.

"I should be surprised, but somehow I'm not," she said.

"We need to talk, Trisha."

"I suppose you asked Raul about me." She crossed to the window overlooking the front drive and avoided the bed. "What did he tell you?"

"I want to know what's going on," Luz insisted.

"I don't think it's any of your business."

"The other day you implied that you and Raul were, or had been, lovers. Was that true?" With an effort, she kept her voice calm while everything inside her was as taut as the ticking clock's mainspring.

"Rob may not object to the way you run his life, but I wish you'd quit messing around in mine!" Trisha turned from the window and stalked to the closet, where she dragged her night-clothes off the door hook. "Stop trying to tell me how I should behave."

Luz demanded, "I want to know how far this has gone."

"What difference does it make? What good will it do you to know?" Trisha argued, throwing her clothes in the corner chair.

"I am the one who is asking the questions, Trisha. Stop dodging them the way your father always does," she replied angrily. "Have you had s.e.x with Raul?"

"No!" After the explosive retort, Trisha paused in the center of the room and tightly folded her arms around her middle. "But it wasn't because I wasn't willing. I did a foolish thing," she admitted more quietly. "I won't embarra.s.s you with the details. But ... Raul didn't take me up on my offer."

"Thank G.o.d," Luz murmured, more relieved than she had expected to be.

"After I got over the hurt, it just made me want him more. He has to care about me, otherwise he would have ... gone ahead. I think the problem is I'm rich and he's not. I mean, look at this monstrosity of a house. You could fire a cannon through most of the rooms and not hit anything but the wall." Trisha looked around the room with critical distaste. "It's that Latin machismo. He thinks women should be seen and not heard, that wives should stay home with children. It's hard getting through that d.a.m.ned male pride of his."

"Listen to yourself, Trisha. Being a wife isn't what you want," Luz argued. "You told me you wanted to be a lawyer-a career woman. You wanted your life to have meaning and importance. You wanted to be more than some man's woman, raising his kids and taking care of his home. Even if you could get him, it would never work between you. He's too old to change his ways. He's too old for you."

"You're not even trying to understand, Luz," Trisha protested angrily. "I'm in love with him. When you love somebody, you can work anything out."

"No, you can't, Trisha. Your father and I loved each other, but we couldn't make our marriage work. We were too different. The only thing we had in common was you and Rob."

"It isn't the same thing."

"Isn't it? I don't think you even love him. Raul is just a challenge to you, someone you couldn't get, so now you want him."

"Oh, no," Trisha declared with a definite shake of her head. "My imagination might play tricks on me, but when he kissed me, that feeling was real."

For a minute, Luz had thought this was totally one-sided-that Trisha had nothing to base her hopes on. Obviously that wasn't true. But there was still time to stop it before it went any further.

"I'm not going to let you make the mistake I did," she stated.

"Stay out of it, Luz. I mean it," Trisha warned. "This is my life, not yours. If you want to act like a mother, then be glad that I've found someone I care about. And if my heart gets broken, be there to help me put it together again. But don't interfere."

It was wise, logical advice, Luz thought as she slowly stood up and walked to the connecting door. She paused to look back at Trisha. "You're asking me to watch you walk in front of a moving car and wait to see if it hits you. How many mothers can do that?" She stepped through the door and closed it behind her.

CHAPTER XX.

Polo cla.s.ses began on Monday. After three days as a sideline observer, Luz began to have a sense of the in-depth instruction being given. Besides Raul, two other professional players, both Argentines, worked with the group. On occasion, she had gotten the impression Raul disapproved of her presence at the training sessions, regarding her as a kind of stage mother, although he had never said anything to her.

She had definitely been excluded from the rap sessions at the end of the day. They all gathered in the game room, behind closed doors. Except for Anna or some other member of the kitchen help who brought them beer or iced mate, no one else had been allowed into the room. Wednesday's session had lasted three hours. It wouldn't have broken up then, according to Rob, but Hector had announced dinner.

Rob said they mostly discussed position and game strategy. The green surface of the billiard table became a model of a polo field, and the b.a.l.l.s were used to designate the players. Mistakes made during the day were gone over while they were fresh, and options were shown.

The evening routine had been something of a surprise to Luz. She had half expected a repeat of Sunday night's socializing. But all three nights, after dinner, Raul had excused himself from the group and gone into his office, where he conferred with his two other instructors for an hour, then remained to do paperwork. Trisha had gone in to see him Wednesday night, but she hadn't stayed long. Still, Luz hadn't liked the pleased look on Trisha's face when she came out.

On Thursday, the clouds that had been hanging over the estancia all morning finally released their rain. It drizzled steadily. Except for occasional puddles, the ground was too flat for the water to drain anywhere, so the six feet of topsoil on the pampas acted as a sponge to soak up the rain.

It squished under her feet as Luz walked along the gra.s.sy verge of the driveway toward the stables. The steady rain came straight down, pelting the umbrella she carried. She heard the sloshing stride of running feet coming toward her and looked up. Duke Sovine jogged through the drizzle, his shoulders hunched close to his neck in an attempt to let the brim of his plastic-covered Stetson prevent the rain from running inside his turned-up collar.

He paused when he saw her. "If you're looking for Trisha, she's in the stable with Raul."

"Where's Rob?" After her argument with Trisha, the last thing Luz wanted was to happen on the two of them together. Trisha would never believe it was accidental. Up until now, she had been encouraged by the daily routine that didn't allow Trisha to see much of Raul. Time was running out. Next week, Trisha would have to leave for college and they'd be half a world apart. She hoped it would become a case of out of sight, out of mind-eventually for herself as well.