by Janet Dailey
Someone knocked at the outer door to their suite. “It must be the maid coming to turn down the bedsheets.” She started to throw back the covers and get up, but Raul wouldn’t let go of her hand.
“When we are in them? That will be interesting to see.” He smiled lazily and pulled her on top of him while she laughed in protest. Another knock came, more strident than the last.
“Let me up, Raul,” she insisted in a low murmur, conscious of the hand on her back pressing her down and flattening her breasts against his chest. “She has a key. She could walk in any moment.”
“It would be most compromising, no?” His hand slid under the covers to cup a bottom cheek.
“Yes.” Both heard the rattle of a key in the lock. “Raul, will you let me get some clothes on?” There was a trace of franticness in her laughing voice. Raul didn’t attempt to hold her as she rolled away from him and scampered from beneath the covers.
None of her bedclothes were lying out. The only garment Luz could find that would sufficiently cover her was Raul’s shirt. Hurriedly, she pulled it on, shaking back the long sleeves to free her hands to fasten the buttons. The outer door opened, and she heard footsteps in the small sitting room that divided the two bedrooms. The connecting door stood open. She glanced at Raul as he stepped into his pants and pulled them up around his hips.
“That is my shirt,” he accused lightly. “What am I to wear?”
“I’d rather the maid ogled your chest than mine,” Luz retorted, then heard the footsteps approaching the bedroom. “Uno momento!” she called, quickly rolling back the sleeves to expose her hands. She darted another glance at Raul as he zipped up his fly, then turned to face the door.
Shock froze her expression when she saw Rob standing at the room’s entrance. The livid redness in his neck crept into his face as his accusing stare went from her to Raul to the tousled bedcovers, then the full brunt of it came back to Luz.
“I didn’t expect you back this afternoon,” she murmured.
“That’s rather obvious.” His lips curled over the words while a violent trembling of rage and hurt quivered through him. “Did you enjoy your roll in the sack, Mother dear?”
His sarcasm hurt as much as the anguish she felt over his look of wounded outrage. Luz suspected it was one thing to know about her affair with Raul, and another entirely to be confronted by the evidence of it.
“Rob, please try—”
“Try what, Luz?” he hurled bitterly. “Try to understand that my mother is a tramp who shacks up in hotel rooms with some polo-playing gigolo?! You’re no different from some slut off the street!”
“That is enough!” Raul came around the bed, anger flashing in his eyes as he advanced toward Rob. Luz moved quickly to step between them and to check Raul’s forward movement with her hands.
“No, Raul.” She didn’t want him involved in any confrontation with her son. She didn’t want to risk the consequences. “Let me handle this.” Raul hesitated, his muscles flexed and taut beneath her hands.
She turned to look back at Rob, but he was striding through the door. She ran after him, refusing to let him walk out like this. “Rob, wait.” She caught up with him in the sitting room and tried to grab his arm before he reached the hall door, but he jerked it away, then swung around to face her.
“You’re disgusting, do you know that?” Luz recoiled from the contempt and loathing she saw in his face, stunned that it was coming from her own son. “Nothing means anything to you, but what you want. You don’t give a damn how I feel.”
“That isn’t true. I care very much,” she insisted.
“You have a helluva way of showing it. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your own mother screwing your coach, the man who’s going to captain your polo team? My God, you’re older than he is. Don’t you see how cheap and sordid that is?”
“No, I don’t!” Luz refused to listen to any more of his insults. “You don’t own me, Rob. I may be your mother, but I don’t have to live my life to suit you.”
“Then to hell with you!” he raged and stormed out of the hotel room before she could stop him, the door slamming in her face.
Shaken by the exchange, she covered her mouth, wondering what she’d done, her anger fading under an onslaught of fear that she might have driven Rob farther away from her—the very last thing she’d wanted to happen. She doubled her hand into a fist and pressed it tightly to her mouth.
A pair of hands touched her shoulders, and she started in surprise, but it was Raul. Gently, he gathered her into his arms, and she let her head rest on the comforting solidness of his chest.
“Why did I argue with him?” she asked herself. “That isn’t the way to reach him. Rob is too sensitive.”
“He will get over his anger.”
There was little solace in that. “I’m worried about him.” Her clenched fingers lay on his muscled chest near her mouth, muffling her voice. “He was so angry when he left. What do you think he’ll do? He doesn’t know this city. He can’t even speak the language,” Luz said, and pushed out of Raul’s arms to start toward the bedroom. “I’ve got to find him.”
Raul caught her wrist. “Where will you look?”
“I don’t know. But he must have gone somewhere. I’ve got to look for him,” she insisted. “You saw the state he was in. I can’t let him go wandering through the streets of a strange city.”
“And I am not going to let you wander the streets looking for him,” Raul stated. “It is possible he has gone to the polo grounds.”
“Yes.” It was a logical place.
“You stay here in case he comes back and I will see if he is there.”
Unable to argue with his sensible suggestion, Luz gave in reluctantly. “You will call me if you find him?”
“Yes,” Raul promised.
But the waiting was hell as the minutes dragged into hours. Raul called once to report that Rob hadn’t been seen on the grounds and that he was going to check another polo club. Luz was half out of her mind with worry, wondering if he’d had an accident or gotten into a fight, visualizing him walking the streets alone or drinking away his hurt in some bar. A thousand times she wished she hadn’t answered him so sharply, that she’d waited until he’d gotten rid of all that hurt and resentment built up inside him, then reasoned with him. Every time she heard the elevator stop on their floor and footsteps in the hall, she thought it might be Rob, but each time it was another hotel door that was opened.
Outside, twilight tinted the city’s haze with its purpling pink shade. A sprinkle of lights dotted the concrete buildings, while below the glitter of streetlamps lined the broad avenues, all anticipating the imminent darkness. Luz stood at the window, watching their brightness grow along with the increasing number of headlight beams in the string of traffic.
Her ears strained for some sound, but the crushing silence of the room was all she heard until a key rattled in the lock. Luz swung around to face the door, hope leaping yet half afraid it was Raul. When the door opened, Rob walked in, moving with a jaunty stride. An intense relief flooded through her as she broke from the window.
“Rob. Where have you been? I’ve been so worried about you. Are you all right?” Anxiously she inspected him for bruises or injuries of some kind.
“I’m fine, really,” he assured her with a laughing smile. His whole demeanor had changed. The anger and bitterness were gone. Instead of returning in a sullen mood as Luz had expected, Rob seemed cheerful.
“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”
“I’ve had one beer.” But he must have noticed her skepticism. “What would you like me to do—recite Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers or stand on one leg and touch my finger to my nose?” His speech was unslurred and his coordination was obviously unimpaired.
“Where have you been all this time? What have you been doing?” Luz demanded in confusion.
“I caught a cab and went to see Tony. I had to autograph the cast on his arm. He�
�s coming to the polo matches tomorrow, so you can see my signature on it for yourself,” he offered as further proof, then moved past her to stroll into the middle of the room. “I did a lot of thinking after I left.” He paused and shot her a bright glance. “It’s amazing how clear it all is to me now. I can’t understand why I didn’t see it before. The same as you have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do or who I can see, I shouldn’t tell you either. It’s none of your business what I do in private, so I guess that what you do is none of mine.”
His complete turnabout threw her. “Rob, do you mean that?”
“Hey, I was way out of line. I admit it. I had no right to blow up the way I did.” He sounded so sincere it was impossible to doubt him, yet Luz was nagged by a vague feeling that something else had prompted this about-face. Mentally, she shrugged it away, telling herself it didn’t matter what had caused his change in his attitude.
“I’m glad you feel that way. I—” She was interrupted by the rattle of another key turning in the lock. A second later, Raul walked in, his expression grim. He checked his stride when he noticed Rob standing with her. “He came back a few minutes ago,” Luz explained.
“Your mother has been worried about you,” Raul stated, his tone faintly accusing.
“She told me.”
Although she watched Rob closely, she noticed little difference in his expression with Raul present. His attitude remained brightly confident. There wasn’t a hint of resentment or dislike. If anything Rob acted as if he were an equal to the man who was his mentor as well as her lover.
“Rob went to see Tony,” she explained to Raul, then hesitated. Coming to a decision, she moved to Raul’s side and slipped a hand under his arm. “I think you should know, Rob, that when Raul comes to Florida next week, he’ll be staying at our house.” She had intended to inform him of the arrangements during their flight home, but it seemed best to have it in the open now.
Something flickered across Rob’s face, then he looked at Raul. “I guess that means you’ll be staying in Dad’s old room.”
“Actually, he’s going to share my room,” Luz stated.
“As I said, Luz”—Rob shrugged indifferently—“you have no right to tell me how to run my life and I have no right to tell you how to run yours.” He stuffed his hands in the pocket of his windbreaker. “I think I’ll go get cleaned up for dinner.”
She watched him enter his room and shut the door. She turned to Raul, her hand tightening on his arm. He stared after Rob. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she declared, marveling at her son’s rapid change in attitude.
“Si, very amazing.”
“I always knew he would ultimately accept it, but it’s such a relief that he finally has.” Luz wasn’t sure what she would have done if she’d encountered opposition from both her children. As it was, she had yet to hear from Trisha since she’d written that letter. That was something she still had to face after she flew back to Florida. At least Rob was on her side now.
Part IV
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 bombshell 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 sanctity of marriage! I never!”
“No, Audra, I’m sure you haven’t,” Luz agreed dryly. She had precisely anticipated her mother’s reaction. It wasn’t that Audra’s attitudes 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 brassy 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 brassy Luz” was back. Bold and brassy? 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 assured 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 smooth
ly.
“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.