"No se," he murmured.

The sobs broke from her, and she started crying and couldn't stop. She wasn't even conscious of his arms going around her. His shoulder offered a solid pillow for her head, and she cried softly against it. There was no measure of time, only the steady patter of the rain on the roof and the soft crackle of the small fire.

Long after the tears stopped falling, Luz remained enfolded in his arms, too drained to move or feel. There was comfort in the slow, gentle rock of his body and the soothing stroke of his hand on her head. Finally, she wiped at the tears on her cheeks, then felt the downward turn of his head.

"You are better now?" he asked.

"Yes." Self-consciously, Luz moved to disentangle herself from his comforting embrace. "You must think I'm a blubbering fool."

"I think nothing."

But she didn't believe him. She moved to the fire and held her hands out to its rising warmth. The smell of him clung damply to her. It stirred up longings that she'd struggled too hard to bury. In her side vision, she caught his movement as Raul crossed to the fire. Crouching beside it, he added more fuel to the hot center. The flames leaped greedily around it, their light flaring through the room. Raul straightened and met her gaze. The adobe hut suddenly seemed much too small and confining.

"I think the rain's let up," she said, even though the rapid tempo of the raindrops pelting the corrugated iron seemed unchanged. "Why don't we make a dash for the truck?"

"Your clothes are almost dry," he observed. "We will wait another quarter of an hour. There is no need to get them wet again."

"You can stay if you like." Luz moved toward the door, thinking to force him into acceding to her wishes. "But I'm leaving."

The rain showered her face the minute she opened the door. She had one foot over the threshold when Raul caught her and dragged her back inside. "Idiota!" The momentum carried her against him. She clutched at his shirt to keep from falling while his hands gripped her shoulders to steady both of them.

When Luz tipped her head to look at him, her gaze traveled no farther than the line of his mouth. It was so close. A stillness claimed her as her pulse took an erratic course, skipping beats all over the place. Before when he'd held her, she hadn't been conscious of the flatly muscled contours of his body. She was too lost in her own pain. Now she was aware of the wide shoulders and narrow hips and the hard wall of his stomach.

He raked a hand into her hair and cupped the back of her neck. The pressure of it drew her more fully against him and tilted her head farther back, forcing her gaze upward. His gaze skimmed over her face, finally stopped on her lips. Luz didn't want to breathe.

"This was inevitable, I think," he murmured thickly.

Her lashes drifted down as his face came toward her. He rocked into them with loving force. The remembered sensation of a man's kiss was not equal to the real thing. Luz had forgotten the other things that went with it-the tightening circle of his arms, the caressing fan of his breath on her skin, and the taste of him on her tongue.

The needs in her were strong, and she responded with long-unsatisfied hunger. Delicious little shudders danced along her skin when his mouth grazed across her cheek to find the sensitive hollow below her ear. She slid her fingers into his hair, its damp, fine texture so silken to her touch. Turning, she searched for his mouth, her lips trailing across the hint of bristles on his shaved cheek. She found the deep groove that flanked the corner of his mouth, then Raul was turning to end her search.

This time there was no leading contact as he immediately plunged deeply inside, filling her up until she thought she would burst. But it only made her hungry for more. There never was enough. No matter how much he gave and how much she took, she always wanted more. She'd been so empty for so long. It would take a lot of filling up before she was full.

Through the dampness of his shirt, she could feel the warmth of his body and the solidness of his flesh. While she continued to feed on his kiss, she brought her hands down and began unb.u.t.toning his shirt, loosening every one of them down to the waistband of his tan trousers. She felt the sharp intake of his breath when her hands slid onto the smooth skin covering his ribcage.

A moment later, she could no longer feel the roaming pressure of his hands on her back and waist, but there was movement behind her. When he lifted his head, drawing slightly back, she saw that he'd unb.u.t.toned the cuffs of his shirt. She watched the naked expanse of his chest come into view as he shrugged out of his shirt. Her hands ran over the curves and indentations of the muscles across his chest and shoulders.

His fingers took hold of the top b.u.t.ton on her blouse, and she looked up at his heavy-lidded eyes. Until that moment Luz hadn't really thought about his wanting her. It had all seemed so one-sided, something she had to grab for herself while she had the chance, a chance that might never come again. Suddenly it was much more important that Raul wanted her.

She watched his face uncertainly, conscious of the manipulations of his fingers and the draft against her skin when the front of her blouse separated. Slowly he parted the material and pushed it off her shoulders onto her arms as if unveiling a statue. Luz tugged it the rest of the way off, then he took it and tossed it on the bench with his shirt.

His hands came back to her, their roughened texture sliding onto her back. When she felt his fingers on her bra hook, her lashes fluttered down and her hands dug into the flexed biceps to steady her suddenly shaky knees. The minute the fasteners were released, the loose straps slid off her shoulders, of their own accord, it seemed. Swallowing convulsively, she let go of his arms and took it the rest of the way off.

Covertly she watched him look at her. This wasn't Drew gazing at the rise and fall of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she breathed-not Drew, who knew every inch of their mature contours. There was no sameness to this moment. It was new, and in its newness, there was uncertainty. With a husband of twenty-odd years, what did she care how she compared to other women? Maybe she should have, but she hadn't. Now she wondered.

His hand slid up her ribs and cupped the underside of a breast, taking the weight of it in his palm. The stroking caress of his thumb across its point started a curling sensation in her stomach. Slowly, Raul pulled her toward him again until her bare skin was against the heated wall of his chest and stomach. A little groan of pleasure broke from her throat as his mouth descended onto hers again. She strained into it, giving, giving, giving, yet always finding more pleasure being returned.

He framed her face in his hands, kissing her nose, cheek, and lips while he studied every inch of her face. She couldn't seem to breathe. His blue eyes looked so dark that she felt absorbed by them. Her heart pounded while she waited for some signal, but none came. She couldn't stand the suspense.

"Raul, do you want me?"

His thumb rubbed the center of her lips and slowly stroked over their outline, then his lips came down to brush back and forth across their softness. "S" he murmured against them. "I want you." And the pressure that had been so light became firm in possession.

The tension that had held her desire in check melted under his a.s.sertive kiss. Luz returned the kiss with driving need, while she wrapped her arms tightly around him, a hand pressing down on the back of his head to deepen the kiss. She was flooded by a renewed sense of worth and value, so many of her doubts about her own desirability fading as his arms enfolded her.

But the hands gliding down her shoulders and spine didn't stop. One arm tightly circled her waist while the other continued down over her rounded b.u.t.tocks. With a dipping movement of his body, Raul curved his arm behind her thighs and scooped her up, nestling her sideways on his hip. She felt weightless in his strong arms. In more than one way, her feet weren't touching the ground as he carried her across the room.

When he set her down, it was on the edge of the corner cot. In a wonderful daze, she watched him crouch down, one knee resting on the earthen floor, and pick up her foot. As he pulled off its mud-caked boot, Luz gazed at the strong bone structure of his face, handsome in a way that Drew had never been. Without being conscious of directing her actions, she unfastened the waistband of her slacks. When her boots and socks were removed, Luz stood up, the fine-grained dirt under her bare feet oddly stimulating her sensitive soles. As she stepped out of her slacks, Raul took her place on the cot and pulled off his boots.

Taking her time so that she could watch him undress, she pushed her silk panties down and stepped out of the clinging, wet undergarment. The rather hesitant curiosity that sent her glance traveling up the muscled length of his leg to the hollowed cheeks of his lean flanks, then skittering away from his erection, almost made her smile at such schoolgirl silliness. He was hardly her first man, but he was the first in what seemed like a long time.

After laying the silk and lace panties aside, she turned to him slowly. Her figure was slim and firm, maturely curved, and she wanted him to see her. She wanted him to like what he saw. Motionless she stood before him, conscious of the slow downward travel of his gaze. When it made its return journey, she was trembling inside. The s.p.a.ce between them suddenly seemed so wide. Raul moved toward her.

His hands touched the rounded points of her shoulders, then glided around them to draw her into his arms. The kiss was long and slow, a reconfirmation of all that had gone before. Then the weight of his body pressed her backward onto the cot while he followed her down, stretching out beside her, the long length of his body angled to lean over her.

While his nibbling, nuzzling mouth kissed her throat, the hollow near her collarbone, and the corded ridge of her shoulder, his caressing hand wandered over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the flatness of her stomach. It paused at her navel, then moved downward to her hips and the silken nest of her pubic hairs, and glided with arousing interest along her inner thigh. Luz shifted under its tantalizing touch, the straw-stuffed mattress rustling beneath her.

As his hand traveled back to hold her breast for his mouth to explore, Raul slid a hair-roughened thigh between her legs to let her ride it and a.s.suage the pressure building within. Her hands were splayed across his back, pressing to pull him closer while she arched against the exciting suction consuming her breast. The sensations she felt were contradictory, a melting weakness counterposing a soaring strength and aching need conflicting with glorious fulfillment.

More of his weight shifted on top of her as he came back to her lips. His husky voice vibrated against her skin, but the caressing words were in Spanish. Luz moved her head in protest to the unintelligible sounds.

"I don't know what you're saying." And she wanted to know.

He lifted his face inches from hers, looked at her face, then downward at the rest of her that his body covered. "Your skin is like fire. It burns me." He let his lips form the words against the corner of her mouth. "You look so cool, but you feel so warm."

She tasted the fine beads of perspiration on his upper lip. "You are hot, too."

"For you." His mouth closed on her lips as he mounted her.

The mating instinct guided her action, her hips automatically shifting into position to receive him, her hand showing the head of his bone-stiff organ to her opening. The fitting of two parts designed to unite was the same, but the movement-the rhythm together once linked-was markedly different. There was no pattern to follow, no routine of tempo, no knowledge of the other's pleasure points.

Reveling in the slow, grinding thrust of his hips, Luz pushed to meet it while her mouth grazed over his shoulder and arm, tasting the rainwater freshness of his skin and the tang of wood-smoke. Her fingers followed the ridged notches of his spine all the way to its base, his muscled flesh so warm and solid to her touch. She had no thoughts except the absent conviction it had never been like this before as her mind gave itself over to the sensations of the flesh.

When he levered the upper half of his body away from her, bracing on his arms, her pa.s.sion-heavy eyes watched the play of his chest and shoulder muscles, flexing and straining with each stroke. With each deep plunge, she tightened to hold him inside, the pressure building, the sensations rippling. She didn't want it to stop. Then it was all peaking in an eruption of glorious satisfaction that was too mind-sweeping for Luz to notice the shuddering twitch of his muscles.

Slowly, unwillingly, Luz came back from the magical place which seemed far away, yet located deep inside. As her breathing became regular, her awareness of Raul increased. The cot was barely wide enough for the two of them. He lay sideways along the length of her, their legs still partially intertwined, an arm masking his face.

She wanted to touch him and reestablish the satisfying contact, then to lie in his arms as they came back to earth together. She wanted to tell him how much she enjoyed his lovemaking, but she couldn't initiate either action, not until she knew how he felt. She couldn't make herself that vulnerable.

The old insecurities that Drew's leaving had evoked in her resurfaced. Luz didn't know if she had pleased Raul, whether it had been as good for him as it had for her. She waited for him to say something, to make the first move, but there was nothing. She closed her eyes, hating Drew at that moment for her doubts about her s.e.xual attractiveness and prowess. She wasn't sure whether she was any good in bed.

The silence became painful. Her body became rigid with the tension building inside, a chill spreading over her naked flesh. Luz stared at the dark metal undersides of the roof and listened to the hollow splat of water dripping from the tree outside.

Unable to stand it any longer, she sat up and swung her legs free of his, setting her feet on the earth floor. A stirring movement rustled the lumpy straw mattress, but as far as she was concerned, it came too late. She picked up her clothes.

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 bra.s.siere. 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.

CHAPTER XXII.

When 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.

"h.e.l.lo?" 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, b.u.t.toned 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 pa.s.sing 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, seora."

"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 gla.s.s 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 b.a.l.l.s?" 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."