“Where are we?” she asked faintly.
He turned without answering and reached into the backseat for the battered sarape. “I’m going to have to blindfold you,” he said, turning toward her with the now filthy garment dangling from one hand.
“What? Why?” Lora spluttered a protest even as he began to wrap the sarape loosely over her eyes and around the top of her head. She lifted her hands instinctively to pull the heavy, musty smelling cloth away. He caught both her hands in his, squeezing with just enough power so that she was forced to remember his strength, and how much in his power she truly was.
“Don’t try to look where we’re going. It’ll be better for you if you see as little as possible. Even this way, the friend we’re visiting is not going to like me bringing you along, but I don’t seem to have much choice. Unless you would rather I killed you, of course.”
“You wouldn’t, would you?” Lora asked in a small voice, no longer fighting the shrouding cloth that was giving her a headache to match her unwell stomach. Her hands lay quietly in her lap as he started the car again before he answered.
“Not unless you make me. But my friend isn’t as nice as I am, so behave yourself.”
Lora behaved herself, for the moment at least, sitting quietly in the passenger seat as the car bumped its way along what she could only surmise to be a dirt track. It wound every which way, and after the third or fourth turn Lora had lost all sense of direction. The blindfold was making her claustrophobic, and despite the fact that her nose and mouth were free, she felt as if she were being smothered. Twice her hands twitched upwards in a reflexive need to tear the cloth from her eyes, but both times she managed to restrain herself. Something in his manner told her that the matter of the blindfold was deadly serious. Nervously, she wondered about this “friend” of his. Another criminal like himself obviously. . . .
A gunshot sounded, close at hand, followed immediately by the sound of running footsteps and the glare of lights that barely glimmered through the weave of the wool about her eyes. Lora started, instinctively reaching for the blindfold as the car rocked to a stop.
“Don’t you dare touch that thing now, or you won’t get out of here alive.” Max growled at her as he caught her hand. Frightened, Lora turned her fingers so that they were clasping his, taking ridiculous comfort from the feel of that warm, strong hand in hers as something metallic—a rifle butt?—rapped sharply at Max’s window. He squeezed her fingers once, then released her hand. She heard him rolling down the window, and a short, sharp exchange followed that left her all at sea because it was conducted in the most colloquial form of Mexican Spanish. Then the man who had been talking to Max stepped away from the car, shouting something presumably to others nearby. Lora heard the car window being rolled up, and then the car started. Wetting her lips, she reached blindly for Max’s arm.
“Easy, now. My friend doesn’t like being surprised, so he has a few guards keeping an eye out. By the way, you’re my lady friend for the duration. You won’t be asked any questions, but you’ll be safer if he doesn’t realize that you’re liable to go running and screaming to the police the first chance you get.”
“I won’t—”
“You will. You’re the type.” There was a grim note in his voice, and Lora didn’t like it. He was right, of course, she would go straight to the police when she was free of him, but she didn’t like him thinking so. He might decide that the only way to stop her was to kill her. . . .
“I . . .” She tried again to disabuse him of his all too accurate notion.
“Shut up. We’re here. Keep your mouth shut and keep close to me, and you’ll be all right. And for God’s sake, try not to look like I scare you down to your prim little panties. It’ll make him wonder, and he doesn’t like to wonder about people. Makes him itchy.”
“Who is he?” Lora asked shakily as the car stopped. Max didn’t answer. She heard his door open and slam shut, and then her door was opening and he gripped her arm, helping her out. When she was on her feet, he unwound the sarape so that she could see again.
The sudden glare of lights hurt her eyes. She squinted against the brightness that seemed to be made up of dozens of spotlights. They were in some sort of walled compound, she saw. A huge, white painted adobe hacienda stood immediately in front of where Max had parked on the curved drive. A young Mexican was already climbing into the VW and driving it away. Other men, armed to the teeth with ammunition belts crossed over their chests like guerrillas in a bad movie, were everywhere, on top of the yard-thick cement block wall surrounding the complex, by the garage-door-sized solid metal gate through which they had driven, on the hacienda’s red-tiled roof, and standing at attention one on either side of the door.
As Lora stared at these last two, the massive oak doors were flung open and a short, stocky man whose thick features told of Indian ancestry strode into view. He was dressed in a blue dress shirt that was open at the throat and what Lora guessed to be a very expensive tropical suit, white linen or silk from the slubs in the material, which nevertheless did not seem to fit him properly. The vest was unbuttoned from halfway down his chest so that his stomach, which was more solid than fat, but definitely there, was more obvious than it might have been. The slacks seemed just a tad too tight at the waist, and consequently rode beneath the stomach bulge to the detriment of both. The coattails flapped behind him like wings as, despite his bulk, he ran lightly down the circular stairs to meet them.
“Max, my friend!”
“Ortega!”
To Lora’s surprise—Max seemed too much the embodiment of the Mexican concept of machismo to ever participate in a show of emotion, especially toward another man—the two exchanged a hearty embrace. Then Ortega stepped back, still holding Max by the arms as he shook him lightly.
“It has been a long time, amigo. Too long for this to be merely a social call. There is trouble?”
“There is trouble,” Max confirmed with a wry twist to his mouth. “I’ll fill you in later.” He cast a significant glance at the men around them, who all immediately shifted their interested eyes elsewhere. Ortega nodded.
“Yes. Later.” He turned to look at Lora. There was a faint hardness in his eyes that sent her shrinking imperceptibly closer to Max’s side.
“You’re married, amigo? Perhaps that is what has kept you away so long?”
Her captor laughed, and Lora felt a sudden strong urge to kick him.
“Would I do such a thing, amigo? This is but a lady friend. She has been very helpful to me in this time of trouble. She brings no problems with her, you have my word on it.” He made another short comment in Spanish which Lora, to her mingled regret and relief, couldn’t follow. Whatever he said, it had the effect of making the Mexican’s eyes gleam with interest as they passed over her once again.
“Es muy linda,” he said to Max with what appeared to be a touch of regret.
“Sí,” replied her captor briefly, his hand tightening on her arm as he led her in the wake of his friend, who had turned away to usher them inside. Lora went with him up the carved stone steps in thoughtful silence. Her Spanish might be deficient, but she had understood that last exchange: the stranger had said that she was very pretty, and Max had agreed with him. Despite the nervousness that was gnawing at her stomach, this second affirmation that Max thought her pretty was oddly warming.
Inside, the hacienda was magnificent, very much in the grand Spanish style with large, airy, whitewashed rooms, cool tile floors, and lots of dark furniture and paintings. As Ortega yelled from the vast front hallway for someone named Lucia, Lora’s eyes lit on a huge painting of an elongated, one-eyed woman that adorned one roughly textured wall. She was just thinking that it was strange that a man who showed so little signs of taste in his person would find a painting in the style of Pablo Picasso appealing, when her gaze fell on the signature. Good Lord! It was a Picasso, or at least an excellent forgery. To find one here, in the home of a Mexican bandido in the back of beyond was mind
boggling. Just what did Ortega do for a living, anyway? Lora had a funny feeling that she was better off not knowing.
The entrance of a middle-aged, slightly plump Mexican woman in the traditional black uniform and white apron of a maid interrupted her musings. Ortega said something to her in Spanish, to which the woman responded with a bob of the head. Then Ortega turned those hard eyes on her.
“I regret, señorita, that I must steal your novio away for a while. We have things to discuss, you understand. I hope you will not think us rude.”
“Not at all,” Lora responded politely, looking into those little black eyes and thinking that the man reminded her of a toad, a malevolent toad. How could he be a friend of Max’s? But of course, they were fellow criminals. Despite Max’s hard good looks and the effect they had on her, it would never do to forget that he and Ortega were two of a kind: renegades who considered themselves above the laws that governed other people.
“Lucia will show you to your rooms. Max will join you before long, I promise you.” This was accompanied by a sly smile that made Lora stiffen with distaste. She did not like this man. . . .
“Have a bath, Lora, and go on to bed. Ortega, do you think you could organize something in the way of clothes for her? We came away in rather a hurry.”
Max’s mention of a bath struck a cord in Lora’s heart. There were few luxuries that appealed to her more at the moment.
“Certainly. Lucia will see to it.” Ortega addressed a few short orders to the maid, who nodded again without speaking. “Buenos noches, señorita Lora.”
“Good night, Mr. Ortega. Good night, Max. Don’t rush your meeting on my account.” This last was said with a sugary smile at Max as she prepared to follow the silent Lucia, who stood waiting impassively.
“I won’t.” He leaned over, catching her by the shoulders and, to Lora’s astonishment, brushing her mouth with his.
The brief touch—it could scarcely be called a kiss—stunned her so that she was barely aware of him whispering, “Remember!” in warning tones against her lips. When he let her go, she stood staring at him until he gave her a little push in the direction of the maid. As she followed Lucia from the hall, she heard Ortega chuckle.
“Still a devil with the women, eh, amigo?”
It didn’t take Max’s laughing rejoinder to send blood rushing with searing intensity along her veins. She had responded to that whisper-soft touch of his lips like a starry-eyed schoolgirl after her first kiss! Conjuring up a picture of the way she must have looked standing there gaping up at him, Lora wanted to drop through the floor in shame.
The hacienda was shaped like a huge U, and Lora would have been greatly impressed with the size and sheer magnificence of it if she had been in a state to be impressed by anything. As it was, all she could think of was Max. He had to be aware of how that brief kiss had affected her. He was too much of a man not to be. Her response had been all too obvious. Now that he knew how vulnerable she was where he was concerned, would he find some way to take advantage of her weakness? Of course he would. It was the nature of the beast.
“Su cuarto de dormir, señorita.” Lucia had stopped and was opening a door of carved, dark wood. She then stood back so that Lora could precede her inside.
Lora entered a trifle hesitantly, not sure of what to expect. But the sumptuously furnished bedroom was empty. Lucia entered behind her, crossing the room to throw open a door to an equally luxurious bathroom. Lora stood in the middle of the floor, marveling at the amenities which would not have disgraced a deluxe hotel. From the king-sized bed with its quilted, mauve satin spread, to the voluptuous thickness of the beige carpet beneath her feet, to the huge magenta and mauve bath sheets that Lucia was even now laying out for her, the hacienda did itself proud. Added to that, the place apparently had electricity. Lucia was switching on a pair of tall brass lamps on either side of the bed, and now that Lora thought about it the rest of the hacienda and the grounds as well had been well lit too. How on earth, in the middle of one of the remotest jungles in the world, had Ortega managed that? Unless the fortress, for that was what it was, was equipped with its own generator. That was the only explanation.
Lucia disappeared into the bathroom, and Lora heard the sound of water running. It was unbelievable. In an area where water was still fetched in buckets from a single pump in the middle of a village, running water was an even greater miracle than electricity.
“Su baño, señorita.” Lucia emerged from the bathroom, gesturing in a way that made the words obvious even to Lora. Her bath was ready.
“Gracias, Lucia.” Lora made use of one of her few Spanish phrases and Lucia, suddenly beaming, answered with a torrent of Spanish that stopped only when it became clear that Lora understood not one word of what had been said. With a philosophical shrug, Lucia waved Lora toward the bathroom and left the room herself.
After a moment’s hesitation, Lora crossed the room and examined the door, hoping that it might have some sort of lock that she could secure from the inside. She did not relish the idea of Max—or anyone else, for that matter—walking in on her while she bathed. But there was no lock, and the bath was too tempting to forego. She would hop in and hop out. . . .
As it happened, she was in there for much longer than she had expected. First, she had to rinse out her underclothes and hang them to dry on a towel rod. Then the bath was made of rose marble with swirls of darker and lighter pink highlighting the creamy stone, and Lucia had added a perfumed bath oil to the blissfully hot water so that the resulting steam smelled deliciously of roses. Lora bathed with rose scented soap, lathering her body with abandon. At home, she never spent money on luxuries like perfumed bath oil and soap. There was even an expensive brand of shampoo, conditioner—and a blow dryer! Miracles would never cease! By the time Lora, wrapped in one of the huge bath sheets, had finished blow drying her hair into its customary smooth style and had given the shiny finish imparted by the conditioner one last admiring glance in the mirror she had constantly to wipe clear of steam, more than an hour had passed. She opened the bathroom door, shivering slightly as the colder air from the bedroom struck her still damp body, and padded back into the bedroom wondering what she could find to sleep in. Only direst necessity would make her put on her own filthy clothes . . . She stopped short. There, lounging in a velvet armchair by the bed, was Max. He was clad in a navy silk bathrobe that left his calves and most of his chest bare. A cigar was in his mouth, a glass of amber liquid in his hand—and his eyes were on her.
“You took your own sweet time in there.” He spoke around the cigar.
Lora clutched the towel more closely to her, feeling trapped. She no longer feared rape, or even him, exactly. Or at least not much. But she was beginning to fear herself. Something about him attracted her madly. And after her reaction to that kiss, he had to know it. Remembering the hot touch of his mouth, a flicker of excitement ran over her skin. To be closely followed by intense embarrassment. Stockholm Syndrome, she reminded herself fiercely, much as a drowning man might grab at a passing branch. Think Stockholm Syndrome.
“Did you finish your chat with your friend?” To her surprise, her voice sounded composed. Taking courage from that, she moved a few steps nearer, her eyes leaving him—she refused to stare at a hairy male chest and muscular legs like some nymphomaniacal groupie—to wander around the room. They lit on the bed, and to her alarm the association embarrassed her anew. She felt herself blushing, and only hoped that he would attribute her rosy glow to the heat of her recent bath.
“Yes.”
He was not exactly talkative, Lora thought grumpily, disgusted that such a man should appeal to her so strongly. She had always thought that she was attracted to intellectual types, not to—to brawny hunks of beefcake! It certainly didn’t say much for her intelligence, to say the least.
He swallowed the rest of his liquor with a gulp, set the glass on the floor, and stood up. Lora’s eyes flew to his face, and she automatically retreated a step. His mouth twist
ed sardonically.
“Your supper is over there on that table. Lucia brought it, and some clothes. I haven’t looked at them, but I assume they’re suitable. Whether they are or not, they’ll have to do. That blue dress has had it.”
“Whose fault is that?” She rounded on him, wanting to pick a quarrel so that she would not feel so ridiculously vulnerable. He merely shrugged, and bent to stub his cigar out in a crystal ashtray on the table next to the chair. Then his hand moved to the robe’s belt, and he began to untie the knot. . . .
“What are you doing?” Her voice rose in a squeak. His hands paused for a moment, then resumed what they were doing. As the robe parted, Lora’s eyes widened for a moment. Then, horrified at what she was doing, she dragged them away to focus blindly on the whitewashed wall. He was magnificent naked—and she was determined not to care.
“I’m getting ready to take a bath.” A faint impatience tinged his tone. “While I’m bathing, I suggest you eat and get into bed. And don’t try any funny tricks. The door doesn’t lock, so short of tying you up again I have no way to keep you out of trouble other than to warn you: Ortega is not a pleasant man to run afoul of. We’ve been acquainted for a number of years; he trusts me, but he doesn’t know you, and he’s suspicious of strangers. Give him one reason to suspect you’re anything other than what you seem and he won’t have a second thought about killing you. I’m sure he’d consider kidnap victims to be high risk visitors given their affinity for the police, and Ortega doesn’t deal in risks. Not if he doesn’t have to.”
Without waiting for her answer, he went into the bathroom. Lora heard a splash as he climbed into the water she had left. He would come out smelling like a rose . . . The thought tugged her lips upward in a small, reluctant smile.
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