CHAPTER XXVI.

A letter from Trisha awaited Luz's return from Argentina. She hurriedly scanned the short, stilted message, then read it again, slowly. Its tone, more than its wording, was sharply critical and disapproving. Luz tried to tell herself that Trisha's reaction was exactly as she had expected, but that didn't make her feel any better about it. The letter closed with the cold blunt statement: "I intend to come home this weekend." Luz stared at the last sentence, aware that Raul was arriving on Friday. Sighing, she returned the letter to its envelope and began concentrating on all the things that had to be done between now and then.

Trisha wasn't the only one to be faced. Luz telephoned Audra on her return and managed to postpone confronting her until the end of the week, pleading travel fatigue and a backlog of correspondence and work that required her attention.

When Luz had informed Emma Sanderson that Raul would be staying in the house, in the master suite with her, Emma hadn't so much as flickered an eye. Luz hadn't detected either disapproval or approval. Of course, she had never asked Emma's opinion, and it wasn't likely to be volunteered. Yet Emma had been so faithful to her ex-husband that Luz couldn't help thinking the woman didn't approve of her actions. However, she doubted that her mother would be quite so reticent.

"You are a Kincaid! I should think you would have more sense of propriety than to engage in such a tawdry liaison," Audra Kincaid declared in shocked disapproval after Luz had finally dropped her little bombsh.e.l.l on her mother. "It is one thing to engage in a discreet affair with this polo player. But it is entirely another matter to have him living under your roof-sleeping in your bed. A Kincaid, living with a man without the sanct.i.ty of marriage! I never!"

"No, Audra, I'm sure you haven't," Luz agreed dryly. She had precisely antic.i.p.ated her mother's reaction. It wasn't that Audra's att.i.tudes were outmoded. She could be very liberal in her thinking, except when it concerned the standard of conduct for a Kincaid.

Standing off to one side, Mary applauded her comeback. "I think it's wonderful! The old bold and bra.s.sy Luz is back. I can hardly wait to meet him."

"You'll see him soon. I'll be leaving shortly to pick him up at the airport." Which was why she hadn't postponed telling Audra again, realizing there never would be a "right" moment. "But don't come barging over tonight, Mary."

"How can you encourage her, Mary?" Audra demanded indignantly.

"It's her life. She has to live it the way she sees fit, not the way you do, Audra." It was Mary who sounded like the gentle but firm parent.

"You mark my words-she'll regret it!" The emphatic statement was punctuated by Audra's sharp turn from them. She simultaneously had her say and washed her hands of the matter.

Mary looked at Luz and shrugged a what-else-could-you-expect, then both smiled. But Luz was remembering what Mary had said earlier, "the old bold and bra.s.sy Luz" was back. Bold and bra.s.sy? Maybe she had acted that way, but this was the first time-at forty-two-that she had ever truly defied her mother.

No mention was made of the subject again. Half an hour later, Luz left her mother's oceanside residence and drove to the airport. At the air freight terminal, she learned that the plane had landed, and she waited outside the customs section for Raul. It had been a week since she'd last seen him, but it had gone by so fast. There had been so much to do and to organize that the time had flown. Now the minutes were dragging. Mixed in with her eagerness to see him was a vague unease. Maybe she was going too far too fast. Maybe she was acting too quickly. Maybe she was jumping from a marriage into an affair without enough time in between to know what she really wanted. She had never really learned to live with herself.

All her doubts faded when Raul walked through the door, so tall and attractive with those black-lashed blue eyes looking only at her. Luz went into his arms with no hesitation and felt the quick hard pressure of his mouth on her lips. A warm and heady feeling was running through her veins when he finally lifted his head.

"How was the flight? What about the horses? Did they fare all right?"

"Good. We had some turbulence, but nothing serious," he a.s.sured her.

Reluctantly she moved out of his arms. "My car is parked outside if you're ready."

With all his tack and polo equipment and luggage, it took a while to load the car. Luz was glad she'd driven the station wagon instead of the convertible or there wouldn't have been enough room for everything.

There was an easy run of conversation between them during the drive to the house. They talked about everything from polo, the estancia, and Hector to the weather, the flight, and the things Luz had been doing since she came back.

"I had a letter from Trisha. She mentioned she would be coming home this weekend. She'll probably catch the late flight tonight or the first one in the morning," Luz told him almost as a warning that everything wasn't likely to run smoothly.

"You have not spoken to her since you returned?"

"No." She flexed her fingers, loosening their tight grip on the steering wheel, and kept her eyes on the steady stream of traffic. "I'm sure this has upset her, but she'll come around in time ... the way Rob has. It's bound to be awkward for both of them in the beginning, though. And for you, as well." She glanced quickly at him, then back to the road.

"Does it worry you that there may be problems?"

"I expect some." She was trying to be realistic. "I just don't want the children to resent you if it can be avoided. Disagreements are going to occur from time to time between me and Rob or Trisha. I'd rather you didn't become involved with them."

"They are your children," Raul said. "I will not interfere."

Luz smiled, relieved that he agreed with her. "I think that will spare us a lot of misunderstandings in the future."

"I agree."

Reaching across the seat, she clasped his hand and held it tightly for an instant. "I'm glad you're here, Raul."

"So am I."

When they reached the house, Luz took the road that branched off the front circular driveway and curved behind the large Spanish-style abode to the rear garages and the stables. Rob was on the stick-and-ball field, working one of the ponies they'd purchased from Raul. She slowed the car as they neared the turn into the garage area.

"Do you want to unload your things at the stable first?" In truth, she wanted to keep him to herself a little longer. Going to the stables would entail introducing him to their handler, Jimmy Ray Turnbull, and talking to Rob.

"Later there will be time," Raul said.

"That's what I thought." She was conscious of the smile spreading across her face as she swung the car toward the garage.

After she had parked the station wagon, Raul unloaded his suitcases from the back and followed her to the house. Luz took the shortcut across the pool area and entered the living room through the double French doors. After the brilliant sunlight outdoors, the interior seemed dim. Luz was halfway into the room before she noticed Trisha sitting on the couch.

"Trisha." A smile broke across her face. It had been too long since she'd seen her daughter for her initial reaction to be anything other than gladness. "I thought you'd fly in on tonight's plane. How long have you been here?"

"Long enough." Trisha stood up, her expression icy-cold as her glance went past Luz to Raul and his luggage. "Long enough to talk to Rob and find out just what's going on here." Despite that surface air of brittle calm, Luz sensed the violent trembling of hurt and anger inside. "I didn't believe him, so I waited to see for myself whether it's true he's moving in here with you." She looked again at the luggage he'd set on the floor. "I guess I have, haven't I?"

"Trisha, I'd like to explain." The words sounded so inadequate to Luz. "I know it's difficult for you to accept."

"Do you? Do you really?" she challenged. "It's one thing to lose a man to another woman, but to your own mother!"

"I was never yours to lose, Trisha," Raul inserted quietly.

"You're right. I know you're right." She rubbed her fingers over the point of her forehead. "But it doesn't make it any easier."

"Raul, would you mind if I spoke to Trisha alone?" If there was to be any arguing, she didn't want him included.

"I will be at the stables."

She waited until he'd left by the French doors, then walked over to the sofa. "Let's sit down, Trish, and talk about this." Grudgingly, Trisha sat back down on the cushion, and Luz curled a leg under her to sit sideways on the sofa facing her daughter. She studied the taut features, so proud and so beautiful. "Trisha, what can I say that I didn't write you in that letter? It just happened. The attraction was there and we had so much in common that ...it just grew." Luz resolved this time to remain calm and not erupt in anger the way she had with Rob.

"And as you pointed out, we had nothing in common." Trisha shook her head ruefully. "He was too old for me, but he obviously wasn't too young for you."

"He isn't that much younger, only five years. You're supposed to be the liberated member of this family," she reminded her. "What's wrong with an older woman and a younger man?"

"Nothing. I-I just can't believe the two of you ..." She stopped and picked at the pleat in her skirt. "Yet when I saw you two walking across the patio, laughing and smiling at each other, it looked right. Maybe that's what hurts."

Luz had not expected such an admission. It brought a lump to her throat. "I was so afraid you might hate me for this, Trisha."

"When I got your letter, I think I could have murdered you," Trisha said. "But I had a lot of time to think about it. Maybe I didn't love him. Maybe I just loved the idea of loving him. When something's one-sided, it isn't really love, is it?"

"I think I know why I never worried about you as much as Rob. You have your head on straight almost all the time."

Trisha came to her feet in a stir of agitation and took a few steps away from the sofa as if to pace the room. "I want to be angry. I keep telling myself I'd feel better if I stormed and raged, started throwing things and calling you names. That's what I was going to do. That's one of the things I was going to do," she amended sardonically, pausing with her back to Luz. "I had played out several alternatives in my head. All of them, I a.s.sure you"-she made a sweeping turn to face her-"were marvelously melodramatic. I was going to be sophisticated, outraged, scornful. In all of them, I think I walked out swearing you had seen the last of me."

"I'm glad you haven't done that yet." Luz smiled more in sympathy for her daughter than from any sense of relief for herself.

"But I can't figure out why I'm not doing any of them. It's like a rug has been pulled out from under me and I'm sitting on the floor trying to decide where I hurt. My pride, I know, but what else?" She moved restlessly. "My head hasn't been on straight for a while. I turned it when I met Raul. I was eighteen, or almost, and a full-fledged woman. And here was a man-handsome, older, glamorous, foreign-everything exciting. This was going to be la grande pa.s.sion. There were so many obstacles to overcome-age, culture, careers-so we fought these feelings we had. But everything was going to work out because we were really so wildly in love with each other." She was mockingly extravagant in her description of the pretend affair, then she stopped and sighed, looking at the floor. "It all sounds so stupid, doesn't it?"

"No." It was simply one of the many impossible fantasies of the very young. "When I was sixteen, there was a young groom working at Hopeworth Farm. I mooned over him all summer, fully aware that Jake and Audra would go through the roof-they'd disown me-if I married a common stablehand. But that agony was wonderful. Mind you, he never knew any of this. I was just the big boss's daughter. But I imagined all sorts of things when he'd saddle my horse for me or help me onto its back." She didn't tell Trisha how she'd seen him in a parked car necking with some girl from town. It had been a cruel blow, and she'd hated him violently and vigorously afterward. "I know it wasn't quite like that for you, because you are older than I was, but the experiences are similar."

"I wish you had remembered that before. Not that I would have listened." Trisha released a bitter, laughing breath of self scorn. "One of my housemates, Mika, suggested that maybe it was like falling for somebody famous-a rock star or a football player. More glory worship than anything else. In my head, I can reason out these feelings for Raul. But I can't make myself accept that you got him!"

"I wish there were something I could say, Trish, that would make it easier, but there isn't." She looked down at her hands.

"I can't be a good sport about this and say I'm glad for you. The best man ... woman ... won and all that rot. That isn't the way I feel."

"I didn't expect you to."

Trisha walked back to the sofa and sat down, a heaviness in her action, then leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "I guess part of it is knowing that you and Dad will never get together again. Now that you've gotten involved with someone else, he won't want to come back. If you had waited for him, maybe-"

"Do you realize what you're saying?" Luz frowned. "If he wanted to come back, I'd be expected to forgive and forget that he left me to marry another woman. But now because I'm with another man, he won't. Where is all your modern thinking against the double standard?"

"It isn't me. It's Drew who has the old-fashioned view. I know that's the way he'd feel," she insisted, then paused grimly. "It doesn't matter anyway. Dad isn't going to leave Claudia, not now that the baby's here."

"The baby," she murmured.

"Yes." Trisha looked up. "I guess you didn't know. I have a new baby brother, Tremayne Allen Thomas. He was born last night. Dad was in the delivery room. You should have heard the way he sounded when he called me this morning. It was like he'd had the baby instead of Claudia."

Luz couldn't help remembering that Drew had never stayed with her when Rob and Trisha were born. He had changed considerably, she realized. "I'm glad for him. That's the way it should be."

"Actually that's part of the reason I came early, so I could see my new brother. I came by here to pick up my car." She hesitated and glanced at the luggage Raul had left sitting inside the door. "I think it would be best if this weekend I stayed with Dad."

"I'm sure he'd like that." Although she regretted that Trisha felt that way, she understood that her daughter needed more time to adjust. "Give Drew my congratulations when you see him."

Shortly after Trisha left, Emma Sanderson paused in the archway to the dining room.

"h.e.l.lo, Emma. Have there been any calls while I was gone?" Luz inquired, wondering how much her housekeeper had heard.

"A few."

"Anything important?"

"The usual." Which meant a few more people had learned she was back in town and called to extend invitations or chitchat-gossip, actually.

At the click of the French doors, Luz turned and watched Raul reenter the house. She saw the questioning look in his expression and drew his attention to her housekeeper. "Raul, you remember meeting Emma in Paris, don't you? She's my secretary and majordomo-my Hector, I guess."

"I do. How are you, Mrs. Sanderson?" He nodded to her.

"Fine, thank you. Welcome to Florida, Mr. Buchanan," Emma responded with a polite smile.

"I'll check my messages later, Emma," Luz said in dismissal and waited until she had gone, then squared around to face Raul. "You'll have to bear with her, I'm afraid. She isn't as open-minded as Hector, so she'll probably seem distant with you for a while."

"No importa. I saw Trisha leave in her car."

"Yes, she's staying with her father this weekend. It's all going to work out, though. We parted on relatively good terms," she added quickly to a.s.sure him she wasn't concerned. Suddenly she was anxious for him to like everything about the place where he would be living. Nervously she pressed her palms together, lightly rubbing them. "Now, what would you like? A drink? Or shall I show you the house so you can get settled in?"

"The house." He picked up the suitcases by his feet.

"The dining room is there, and the kitchen off it." She gestured toward the room where the gleaming wood table and chairs were partially visible, then moved quickly toward the door to the study. "This is the study." She opened the door for him to look inside. Without all of Drew's law books and various other possessions, it looked slightly bare. "I thought you might like to use it as an office where you can work."

Without waiting for him to comment on her suggestion, Luz moved away from the door and went to the foyer. There was a childlike eagerness about her desire to show him her home, part pride and part a need for him to like it. She didn't want him to say anything until he'd seen it all.

"You can leave your suitcases by the stairs and pick them up later," she instructed and waited until he'd set them down by the carved newel post, then took his hand to lead him into the galleried hall. She paused outside the door to the morning room, glancing briefly at the gray-haired woman seated at the desk alcove. "We call this the morning room, which is where you usually find me. Emma and I use it as an office. Her quarters are at the end of the hall." Still holding his hand, she retraced their steps back to the foyer arch. "Trisha and Rob have their bedrooms down the other gallery. The guest bedrooms are there, as well."

Back at the oak staircase, she released her grip on his fingers so that he could reclaim his luggage. She glided up the steps ahead of him and opened the door to the master suite. Pausing inside, she held it open while he maneuvered his bags through the opening.

"This, of course, is the master suite." Luz walked directly into her room, ignoring the adjoining bedroom that had been Drew's. "I've cleaned out the closets, so you'll have room for your clothes. And two of the dresser drawers are empty. If you need more, I'll have the chest of drawers from the other bedroom moved in here." She was talking a mile a minute, she realized, and stopped abruptly. Turning, she saw Raul glancing around the room. Slowly, he lowered his suitcase to the floor. When he looked at the bed, Luz had her first moment's unease. "I never thought ... does it bother you, Raul? Do you consider this another man's house?"

The possibility had never crossed her mind until now. Men were such proud, territorial creatures. Maybe he'd object to sleeping in a bed where she'd lain with someone else.

Unhurried, Raul walked over to her and cupped her shoulders with his hands. "If I did, then I would have to consider you another man's woman, no?"

"I suppose so, and I'm not." She relaxed into him, her hands gliding onto his waist as she tipped her head back. "I've missed you, Raul."

"I have missed you." While his arms gathered her in, his mouth set about the pleasurable task of telling her how much. Luz found his method very stimulating as well as satisfying.

After they drew apart, she remained in his arms, arched against him, and traced the sensual outline of his lips with a fingertip. "Do you like the house?"

"It is very comfortable, but I knew it would be."

"Dinner will be at eight. Would you like anything before then?" She meant it seriously; only afterward did she think of herself as an alternative to food or drink. A chuckle came from deep in his chest.

"It is tempting, but first I would like to shower and change after flying all that distance in the cargo hold with the horses."

She sniffed at the open collar of his shirt, breathing in his distinct smell, separating it from the rest of the odors. "You do have a horsy scent," she admitted, then lifted her head to gaze at the creases near his eyes. "You must be tired after the flight. We'll just have to go to bed early tonight."

"An excellent idea." Raul smiled in knowing agreement.

Those two nights at the Buenos Aires hotel had given Luz a taste of sleeping with a man. After a week of waking up with his arm draped over her, or curled up against him, or his leg hooked across her, she definitely preferred it to the many mornings she'd opened her eyes to look at an empty pillow. Her fitful slumber didn't appear to bother Raul as it had Drew. A couple of times her tossing had disturbed him. In each case, he had pulled her against him, spoon-fashion, and growled sleepily in her ear, "Lie still." And on both occasions, she had found she didn't want to move.

There were adjustments to be made during that first week-getting used to each other's daily habits, and learning how to share bathrooms, closets, and dressers. Gradually they worked out compatible routines. It was an intimacy that Luz hadn't enjoyed with a man since her early years of marriage to Drew. And that was too long ago for her to remember if it had been different or better than what she had now.

Socially, Luz kept a low profile, centering most of her activities on the house and the stables. She would have kept it that way completely, but Thanksgiving was approaching. She wasn't surprised when Trisha called to say she was flying to Aspen with some of her new college friends to go skiing. Despite the good grace Trisha had ultimately shown in accepting the situation, she still found it awkward being around them. But she seemed to harbor no bitterness, which gave Luz hope that in time the awkwardness would fade.

When Audra telephoned to confirm the time of the holiday meal, Luz had almost expected her to exclude Raul from the family gathering, since she so thoroughly disapproved of the affair. But she had forgotten her mother's ability to overlook indiscretions.

"Will you be bringing your friend?" she had inquired.

From that moment on, Luz knew that's how Audra would refer to Raul. She would never acknowledge that he was her live-in lover. She was going to pretend not to know, just as she had pretended not to know about Jake's mistresses. Luz found it sad, but at least she was a.s.sured Raul would be treated as a friend.

An early winter storm hit the New England area and prevented her brothers and their families from coming to Palm Beach for the holiday. Therefore only Mary and the five of her family still at home and Luz, Rob, and Raul would be attending the Thanksgiving meal at the Kincaid winter estate. Luz was just as glad. The gathering of the whole Kincaid family could be overwhelming to an outsider.