by Lynne Graham
‘You’re holding me too tightly,’ she complained uneasily, horrified and embarrassed by the effect he was having on her.
‘You are not in any danger,’ Joaquin Del Castillo drawled silkily above her head. ‘I am not attracted by stunted women with bleached hair and streaky fake tans.’
A lump ballooned in Lucy’s convulsed throat. Mortified pink chased away her strained pallor. ‘You really are the most loathsome man,’ she gasped. ‘And I can’t wait to see the back of you! When will we reach Fidelio’s ranch?’
‘Tomorrow—’
‘Tomorrow?’ Lucy croaked in stunned disbelief.
‘In an hour, we will make camp for the night.’
Camp…camp? Aghast at the prospect of spending the night outdoors, Lucy swallowed back a self-pitying moan with the greatest of difficulty. ‘I thought we would be arriving soon—’
‘We have not made good time, señora.’
‘I had no idea that the ranch was so far away,’ she confided miserably.
They rode on in silence, and slowly the sun became a fiery orb in its sliding path towards the horizon. Lucy was by then dazed with exhaustion and half asleep. She was plucked from the stallion’s back and set down on solid earth again, but her legs had all the strength of bending twigs. She staggered, aching in bone and muscle from neck to toe. Dimly she focused on a trio of gnarled palm trees silhouetted against the darkening night sky and experienced a vague sense of déjà vu. But they couldn’t possibly be the same trees she had noticed hours back! No doubt one set of palm trees looked much like another, Lucy conceded wearily, and she definitely couldn’t recall the slender ribbon of river she could now see running nearby.
With every step she cursed her own bodily weakness. She had lost a lot of weight while her mother had been ill, and only the previous month had come down with a nasty bout of flu. After two solid days of travelling she had no energy left, and was indeed feeling far from well. It had not occurred to either her or Cindy that Fidelio’s ranch might lie in such a remote and inaccessible location.
The Guatemalan lowlands had looked infinitely less vast and daunting on the map than they were in reality, and, torn from the familiarity of city life and her own careful routine, Lucy felt horrendously vulnerable. Her twin might have travelled the globe but this was Lucy’s first trip abroad. Freedom had been the one thing her adoring but possessive mother had refused to give her.
Joaquin was seeing to the horses by the river when Lucy returned. She saw him through a haze of utter exhaustion. Her legs were trembling beneath her. She sank down on the grass. He dropped a blanket beside her.
‘You must be hungry,’ he murmured.
Lucy shook her head, too sick with fatigue to feel hunger. Slowly, like a toy running out of battery power, she slumped down full length. ‘Sleepy,’ she mumbled thickly.
Surprising her once again, he spread the blanket for her. Then, bending down, he shook her even more by sweeping her up in one easy motion and laying her down on the blanket. ‘Rest, then,’ he drawled flatly.
Joaquin Del Castillo was a male of innate and fascinating contradictions, Lucy acknowledged sleepily. Fiercely proud and icily self-contained in his hostility towards her, yet too honourable, it seemed, to make her suffer unnecessary discomfort.
Against the backdrop of the flaming sunset, he stood over her like a huge black intimidating shadow. ‘You look like the devil,’ she whispered, with a drowsy attempt at humour.
‘I will not take your soul, señora…but I have every intention of stripping you of everything else you possess.’
Stray words fluttered in the blankness of Lucy’s brain. They did not connect. They did not make sense. With a soundless sigh of relief, Lucy sank into the deep, dreamless sleep of exhaustion.
CHAPTER TWO
LUCY opened her eyes slowly.
A small fire was crackling, sending out shooting sparks. No wonder she had awakened, she thought in astonishment. The night was warm and humid, yet Joaquin Del Castillo was subjecting her to the heat of a fire. She scrambled back from it, her eyes adjusting only gradually to his big dark silhouette on the other side of the leaping flames.
Pushing a self-conscious hand through her tangled curls, Lucy sat up just as a hair-raising cry sounded from somewhere out in the darkness. Lucy flinched, her head jerking as she glanced fearfully over her shoulder.
‘What was that?’
‘Jaguar…they hunt at night.’
Lucy inched back closer to the fire and her companion and shivered. He extended a tin cup of coffee and she curved her unsteady hands round the cup and sipped gratefully, even though the pungent bitter brew contained neither sugar nor milk. ‘How soon tomorrow will we get to Fidelio’s ranch?’ she pressed.
In the flickering light his strikingly handsome features clenched, the lush crescent of his ebony lashes casting fan-like shadows on his hard cheekbones. ‘Early.’
‘I suppose we would have got there tonight if I’d been able to ride,’ Lucy conceded, striving to proffer an olive branch for the sake of peace. He might despise her, but she was remembering the plane tickets he had sent at his own expense. He didn’t look as if he was terribly well off, yet he had made a very generous gesture. Without doubt Fidelio had a caring and concerned neighbour, willing to go to a lot of trouble on his behalf. She might loathe Joaquin Del Castillo, and every bone in her body might feel battered by that almost unendurable ride, but she could still respect the motives which had prompted him to demand that Cindy visit her father-in-law.
Joaquin shrugged a sleek, muscular broad shoulder and passed her a plate.
Lucy surveyed the roughly sliced bread and cheese, and a fruit she didn’t even recognise, and then tucked in with an appetite that surprised her.
Having cleared the plate, and drained the coffee in a final appreciative gulp, she felt the continuing silence weigh heavily on her. ‘Perhaps you’ll tell me now how Fidelio really is,’ she prompted, with a small uncertain smile of encouragement.
‘You will see the situation soon enough.’
His cool steady gaze and his sonorous accented drawl had a curiously chilling quality. A faint spasm of alarm crawled up Lucy’s spine and raised gooseflesh on her arms. But as quickly as she found herself reacting in fear, she told herself off. Being brought up by a mother who hated and distrusted all men had made her over-sensitive.
Lucy had been seven when her father met another woman and demanded a divorce. Cindy, always his favourite, had become a real handful after he’d moved out. Infuriated by her daughter’s increasingly difficult behaviour, their mother had complained that it wasn’t fair that she should be left to raise both children alone. In the end Peter and Jean Fabian had divided their twin daughters between them in much the same way that they had divided their possessions.
Her father and Cindy had moved to Scotland, where her father had set up a new business. He had promised that his daughters would be able to exchange visits but it had never happened. And, embittered by her husband’s desertion for the younger, prettier woman he had replaced her with, Jean Fabian had clung to the daughter who remained with feverish protectiveness. A rebound romance in which she had once again been betrayed and humiliated had set the seal on her mother’s prejudices. Lucy’s teenage years had been poisoned by her mother’s hatred for the male sex. The endless restrictions she had endured had made it impossible for her to hang on to her friends.
By the time she had been ready to make a stand and demand a social life of her own Jean Fabian’s health had been failing, and Lucy’s imprisonment outside working hours had become complete. When she had tried to go out even occasionally she had been treated to sobbing hysterical accusations of selfish neglect and threats of suicide.
However, her poor sister had suffered infinitely more in their father’s care, Lucy reminded herself, ashamed of her momentary pang of self-pity. Her mother had loved and looked after her. But when her father’s new business had failed and his girlfriend had walked out on hi
m, Peter Fabian had apparently degenerated into a surly drunk, forever in debt and unable to hold down a job. Cindy had been frank on the subject of her childhood experiences at least. Her sister had had a rough time. Indeed, listening to her talk, Lucy had felt horribly guilty about the security which she herself had taken for granted.
Tugging the blanket back round her again, Lucy lay down and stared up into a night sky studded with stars. She could cope with Joaquin Del Castillo’s icy antagonism for another few hours. He didn’t matter, she told herself. She was here for Fidelio’s sake, and instead of feeling threatened by what was strange and different in Guatemala she should be seizing the opportunity to enjoy what she could of the experience.
Lucy was in agony when she tried to move the next morning. Her mistreated muscles had seized up and a night on the hard ground hadn’t helped to ease her aching limbs. Sore all over, she accepted the small amount of water and the toilet bag which Joaquin silently offered her and removed herself to the comparative shelter of the palms to freshen up as best she could.
She could hardly walk. If anything, she felt worse than she had the night before, and the air was surprisingly cool. Shivering violently, she returned to the low-burning fire and donned the old poncho without being asked, grateful for its shielding warmth.
Joaquin passed her a cup of black coffee and more bread and cheese. He ate standing up, with the quick economical movements of an energetic male in a hurry.
As he helped her mount Chica Lucy gritted her teeth when her every muscle screeched in complaint. Another couple of hours at most, she told herself bracingly, but in no time at all the ride became yet another endurance test.
When the mare finally drifted to an unannounced halt, Lucy muttered, ‘Why have we stopped?’ sooner than go to the trouble of raising her aching head.
Joaquin lifted her down from the mare. For a split second she was in close contact with his lithe, superbly masculine body. The sun-warmed virile scent of him engulfed her. As he lowered her to the ground her breasts rubbed against the muscular wall of his chest. Her nipples pinched taut and throbbed and Lucy sucked in a dismayed breath, her face colouring with embarrassment.
A pair of lean hands curved over her stiff shoulders and carefully turned her round. Her already shaken eyes opened even wider in surprise. A dingy little house with stucco walls lay only a few yards away. Tumbledown out-housing and a broken line of ancient fencing accentuated its forlorn air of desertion and neglect.
‘Where are we?’ she whispered in bewilderment.
‘This is Fidelio’s ranch, señora.’ Joaquin Del Castillo raked her stunned face with hard, glittering eyes. ‘I do hope that you will enjoy your stay here.’
‘This…this is Fidelio’s ranch?’ Lucy queried unevenly, staring with glazed fixity at the hovel before her.
‘No doubt you were expecting a more luxurious dwelling…’
Inwardly, Lucy winced at his perception. Swift shame engulfed her. The old man was ill and alone and he had evidently come down in the world over the past five years. He had fallen on hard times, very hard times. Her compassionate heart bled for Fidelio, and now she understood exactly why Joaquin Del Castillo had thought it necessary to send those plane tickets. Clearly Cindy’s father-in-law couldn’t possibly have afforded such a gesture on his own behalf.
‘I would suggest that this humble abode is a most unpleasant surprise to you, señora. We both know that you would not have troubled to make this journey had you not believed that it would be well worth your while to attend a dying man’s bedside,’ Joaquin Del Castillo drawled with freezing bite.
With a frown of confusion, her concentration running at a tenth of its usual efficiency, Lucy gazed blankly back at her dark brooding companion with his unnerving air of command and authority. He was towering over her like an executioner, and involuntarily she took a nervous step back from him. ‘What are you talking about? Why aren’t we going inside? I want to see Fidelio—’
Joaquin vented a harsh laugh of disbelief. ‘Fortunately for him, he is not here.’
‘Not here?’ Lucy frowned. ‘You mean he’s been taken into hospital?’
‘No. Only the sick go to hospital, and Fidelio is not sick.’
A wiry little man of Central American Indian ancestry suddenly appeared out of the deep shade cast by the out-housing and cast Lucy into even greater confusion. ‘Who’s that, then?’
‘Mateo works for me.’
With that assurance, Joaquin strode forward to greet his employee. A brief exchange of a language she didn’t even recognise took place. Then the older man retreated back into the shadows again. Not once had he angled so much as a curious glance in Lucy’s direction.
Returning to her side, Joaquin threw wide the battered door on the little stucco house. ‘Fidelio is not on his deathbed,’ he then informed her with grim satisfaction. ‘He is currently working many miles from here and he has no idea that you are even in Guatemala.’
‘I don’t understand—’
‘I imagine you’re in shock.’ Joaquin closed a domineering hand over her shoulder and urged her into the dim depths of the interior, which contained only a few pieces of dusty decrepit furniture. It was obvious that the little house had stood empty for some time. ‘You thought you had got away scot-free with your confidence tricks. In fact you believed you were about to enrich yourself yet again at Fidelio’s expense—’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Lucy protested.
‘Then listen and you will find out,’ Joaquin advised very softly. ‘I took it upon myself to bring you here, and here you will stay for as long as I choose to keep you.’
Pale with apprehension, her head reeling, Lucy felt her way clumsily down into a rough wooden chair before her legs gave way beneath her. ‘Fidelio isn’t here,’ she recited in shaky repetition. ‘And he’s not ill…and you are saying that you plan to keep me here…what on earth are you trying to say?’ She pressed a weak hand to her pounding temples. ‘I must have misunderstood you—’
‘You have misunderstood nothing. But you are naturally reluctant to face the reality that the golden goose will lay no more eggs,’ Joaquin intoned grimly. ‘And that while your pathetic begging letters were sufficient to impress Fidelio, they left a very different impression on me!’
‘Begging letters?’ Lucy questioned, her brow indenting.
With a scorching glance of savage contempt, Joaquin Del Castillo swept up the small wooden box resting on the hearth. Opening it, he planted it down on the rickety table beside her. ‘Your own letters, señora. In every single one of them you talk of your poverty, your terrible struggle to survive…your desperate need for financial help!’
Like a woman caught up in a bad dream, Lucy reached out an unsteady hand and lifted an envelope, instantly recognising her sister’s distinctive handwriting. As she dropped the envelope again her stomach performed a sick somersault. Poverty…struggle to survive…Cindy? Cindy, who had inherited a large amount of money from their father in an insurance pay-out at nineteen? Cindy, who spent like there was no tomorrow and who only ever bought the very best?
‘And yet throughout that entire period you were living in style and security,’ Joaquin Del Castillo delivered with fierce condemnation.
‘How do you know that?’ Fathoms deep in shock at what she was being told, Lucy nonetheless struggled to concentrate.
‘I had enquiries made in London. You own an expensive Docklands apartment and take regular trips abroad,’ Joaquin derided with a curled lip. ‘You have enjoyed a most lavish lifestyle at Fidelio’s expense. You played on the chivalry and compassion of a trusting, unworldly old man and it has taken you only five years to fleece him of all his savings!’
‘Oh, dear heaven…’ Lucy mumbled in sick comprehension.
‘Your constant demands for money ruined him. This was to have been Fidelio’s retirement home,’ Joaquin Del Castillo shot at her with harsh condemnation. ‘Before you began dipping your hand deep into
his pocket Fidelio had the means to transform this place and look forward to a comfortable retirement after a lifetime of hard work. But now, when he should be taking his ease in his old age, he has been forced to take another job just to support himself!’
‘I thought that Fidelio was a wealthy man—’
‘How could you think that a ranch foreman was wealthy, señora?’ Joaquin demanded with crushing derision.
‘A ranch foreman? I think there’s been a t-terrible misunderstanding,’ Lucy stammered, a look of growing horror in her strained eyes.
The Central American rancher dropped down into an athletic crouch and gripped the arms of her chair, making her feel cornered and trapped. Blistering green eyes glittered threat at her. ‘Don’t play stupid with me…I’m not a patient man. There has been no misunderstanding. Accept now that there will be no easy escape from your imprisonment—’
‘Imprisonment?’ Lucy yelped, already recoiling from his menacing proximity. ‘For goodness’ sake…are you threatening me?’
‘Until such time as you choose to sign a legally binding agreement to repay the money you virtually stole from Fidelio you will remain here,’ Joaquin Del Castillo decreed. ‘But you are in no danger of suffering any form of violence. I would not soil my hands with you!’
‘Is that supposed to be reassuring?’ Lucy asked in a very wobbly voice, while she wondered what was wrong with her malfunctioning brain. For on one level she was jerking back from him like some prudish Victorian maiden, and on another level she was staring into those extraordinary green eyes of his and marvelling at their beauty.
‘Do you dare to suggest that I would use physical force on a woman?’ Joaquin demanded in outrage. ‘I…a Del Castillo, stoop to so shameful an act?’
Dry-mouthed, Lucy simply gaped at him. Sizzling eyes the colour of jade were focused on her. All that passion, all that fire, concealed from her and rigorously suppressed throughout their journey. No wonder Joaquin Del Castillo hadn’t been able to manage much in the way of casual conversation! His efforts to conceal that incredibly volatile temperament from her must have been as constraining as a gag.