"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 gla.s.ses ready.

"No." A small pop punctuated his reply, but the cork didn't explode into the air. Trisha was quick to hold a gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s for Raul to fill, then handed it to him.

He inspected the tulip-shaped gla.s.s. "I see you know how to serve champagne properly." The wide, shallow gla.s.ses commonly called champagne gla.s.ses 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 gla.s.s.

"Why did you use that tone?" He c.o.c.ked 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 winegla.s.s 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 winegla.s.s 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 embarra.s.sing 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."

"d.a.m.n you," she swore in frustration.

"Yes," he murmured and steadied her when she nearly turned an ankle on the crushed sh.e.l.ls. 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 gla.s.s." He offered it to her stem up.

"Thank you." She took it, avoiding eye contact and thinking angrily that he probably thought she was a spoiled rich kid sulking because she didn't get her way. Which was very nearly the truth.

"Good night, Trisha."

It was the first time he'd used her name, the first time he'd indicated that she was a person, not a troublesome adolescent. Trisha suddenly had hope that something could be salvaged from this fiasco.

"Wait." Confidently she placed a hand on his arm to detain him. He paused expectantly. "Isn't it customary for a man to kiss a girl good night after he's walked her to her car?"

In the darkness and shadows, his hair appeared more black than umber brown. Trisha caught the small, impatient movement of his head.

A second later, he curved his hand along the side of her neck, fingers sliding into the edges of her chestnut hair, a thumb resting against her jaw. As he bent his head toward her, his face filled her vision. She antic.i.p.ated the warm pressure of his mouth, her pulse increasing its tempo. When it came, Trisha leaned into him, but it was the gently sweet kiss a man gives a schoolgirl. Frustration sparked her temper, and she pulled away from him.

"Raul, I'm not a virgin!" She curled her hands around his neck to force his head down while she stood on tiptoe to reach it. Ignoring his resistant stiffening, she opened her mouth to devour his lips with demanding pa.s.sion. She pressed her body against his solid length, stimulated by the feel of his strong thighs against her legs. The taste of him was stimulating, and he wasn't completely indifferent to her. There was an almost instinctive return of her mouth's hungry pressure.

Then his hands were gripping her forearms and forcing them down. When he set her away from him, her pulse was racing and her breath was coming shallow and fast. Aroused, she gazed at him with longing.

"I wish you had been the first," she said softly.

"That is enough. Spare me from your seduction." He glowered at her, no longer showing a bland tolerance for her behavior. This time Raul opened the car door and ushered her into the driver's seat.

"We'll meet again," Trisha told him as he closed the car door.

He paused, leaning on the doorframe. "Somehow I do not doubt that," he admitted with a degree of resignation, then pushed away from the car.

"When we do, I'll be older," Trisha warned.

There was no response. He turned his back on her as he walked back toward the stable. For a long time she sat motionless in the car, watching his retreating figure as the darkness swallowed it up. Her flesh still tingled with the sensation of his hard, muscled body, and her lips with the feel of his mouth. She could taste him yet.

She had meant it when she said that she wished Raul had been the first man to make love to her. Maybe the experience wouldn't have been so humiliating and degrading. She remembered lying on that blanket in the woods, waiting for the boy to finish shedding his clothes. She'd been frightened-Trisha Kincaid Thomas, frightened-from the uncertainty of what to do and what to expect.

Max was supposed to know. He'd had s.e.x plenty of times before-to hear him tell it. She remembered the kissing, the nuzzling, the touching, all the prelude to the moment when he wedged himself between her legs. Everything went wrong from there. He hadn't been able to get it in, and she hadn't known how to go about helping. All that hard jabbing and prodding.

"Push, dammit." That's what he had said to her.

Then she'd felt the first pain and had tried to pull away from it, but his hands had held her fast and the ground would not give. After that, it all became lost in the agony of searing pain and the slamming of his hips pounding into her and the disgusting sound of his groans.

That had been the last time she went out with Max. Since then, there had been two other boys who had managed to show her there was some pleasure to be derived from s.e.x. Now Trisha found herself wondering what it would be like for Raul to hold her-for him to kiss her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and caress her body-the weight of him settling onto her. The thought aroused a quivering ache between her thighs.

Sighing, Trisha turned the key in the ignition, and the motor rumbled to life. As she reversed the small car out of the parking s.p.a.ce, she saw the headlights of an approaching car. She supposed it was the veterinarian Raul was expecting. Once on the road, she floored the accelerator, sending the car shooting forward.

By two o'clock in the morning, the last of the guests had departed. The caterers had cleared away most of the debris. Luz supervised the replacement of the furniture with efficiency, but inside she was tight and angry.

Drew wandered into the living room as she directed two of the hired staff who were moving the striped companion chair. "Turn it more to the left."

"Where's Trisha? Has she gone to bed already? I've hardly seen her all evening."

Luz was surprised he'd noticed their daughter's absence at all. He'd hardly left Claudia Baines's side for more than two minutes all evening. She'd had to watch them laughing and talking together all night, dancing close together, or Drew's arm so familiarly draped around her shoulders. Then she'd had to stand silently by while he kissed her good night at the door. It all left her cold with rage.

"Her date stood her up, so she's been in her room most of the evening," she replied stiffly.

"She should be out here helping you."

"I believe she's finishing her packing."

"Oh." He tiredly rubbed the back of his neck. "I could use some coffee. Is there any left?"

"Check in the kitchen." Luz wasn't about to fetch it for him.

A faintly puzzled frown creased his forehead at her crisp response, but he said nothing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him walk toward the kitchen. With the placement of a lampstand, the living room was put back in order. A vacuum cleaner hummed in the dining room. To Luz's inspecting eye, there appeared little left for the catering staff to do, except finish loading their equipment into the van.

"I managed to save the last of the coffee before they poured it down the drain." Drew returned, carrying a cup and saucer in each hand. "I brought you a cup."

"I don't care for any." She crossed to the French doors and closed them, checking to make sure they were securely latched.

"Emma said to tell you the kitchen has been cleaned."

"Good." Her head was throbbing with tension. She didn't think she could take another minute of this without screaming. "In that case, you can stay down here and lock up after the caterers leave. I'm tired. I'm going upstairs."

She left him standing in the middle of the room, staring after her. When she reached her dressing room, she stripped off the two-piece lounger. For once she didn't take the trouble to hang up her clothes but left the crushable pleated outfit in a pile on the floor, adding her black stockings and flesh-colored lingerie to the heap. Her necklace and earrings she dropped on the vanity table. She pulled a narrow-strapped nightgown of green silk over her head and paused long enough in front of the lighted mirror to pull the pins out of her hair, but she didn't bother to remove her makeup. The agitation that pulsed within her was too strong.

Before leaving the dressing room, Luz grabbed her hairbrush. She ran it through her hair as she walked into the bedroom to sit on the edge of the satin-quilted bed. With hard, brisk strokes, she raked the bristles through her hair until her scalp tingled with pain, as if she needed the physical discomfort to alleviate her inner torment.

She could hear the distant murmur of voices coming from downstairs. A door closed. Then she was able to distinguish Drew's voice when he wished Emma a good night. She held the hairbrush in her lap until she sensed Drew's presence in the sitting room. Her door stood open, and she knew he could see her sitting there.

"Everything's all locked up." He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, bending one leg.

"Good." Luz continued brushing her hair.

He stirred, entering her room. It took all her control not to throw the brush at him. "It was an excellent party. You outdid yourself, as usual."

"I'm surprised you noticed." She tried to suppress the cattiness in her voice, but didn't succeed.

"What does that mean?" A confused laugh broke from him.

Unable to sit still, Luz stood up and paced restlessly away from the bed. "How can you ask?" The anger simmered just below the surface.

"Because I want to know what you're talking about."

"How can you stand there and say that after the way you behaved all evening?" She turned on him.

"What did I do?" He lifted his hands in a gesture of confusion.

She didn't want to put it into words, but she couldn't stand his innocent att.i.tude. "You didn't take your eyes off that Baines woman all evening."

"What?" Drew laughed with incredulous amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Everyone noticed. It was so humiliating to have people watch me and whisper behind their hands, wondering whether I saw what was going on. You monopolized her the whole time and ignored all the rest of our guests."

"Luz, that simply isn't true. Yes, I was with her. What did you expect me to do? She didn't know a soul at the party. I couldn't very well let her stand around by herself. As the host, I felt it was my duty to take her around and meet the other guests, so I did circulate. As a matter of fact, I think we talked to everyone there."

"Your duty," she said icily. "And what arduous duty it was, I suppose. I'm sure you had to force yourself to laugh and smile all that time."

"I'm not going to deny that I enjoyed being with her." There was a slow, patient shake of his head, his smile warm and indulgent. His calmness only increased her frustration and anger. "She made me feel young."