Hidden Agenda

by Rochelle Alers

  Like grandfather, like grandson, she thought.

  Matt had also related that the Spanish-style hacienda was more than a hundred years old, and its grace and beauty had remained undaunted throughout the many generations of Arroyos who had lived there. The hacienda was situated in a valley at the foot of the mountains, and the coolness of the ocean winds and the higher elevation of nearby mountain ranges sweeping over the coffee fields yielded an abundant, flavorful crop year after year.

  “You must be very special to have lured my grandson away from his other women,” Antonio remarked in English, his expression deadpan.

  “I’d like to think of myself as lucky to have met and married your grandson, Abuelo,” Eve replied, also in English.

  Antonio smiled openly for the first time, a network of lines crisscrossing his weathered face. “Bueno. You are a wise woman, nieta. You know what to say to make a man feel like a man. Mateo is the lucky one, I think.”

  Matt gave Antonio a direct stare. “You doubt whether I’ll be a good husband to Eve?”

  Antonio reached over and covered Pilar’s hand. “No, I don’t. Arroyo men make good husbands and good fathers. They’re loyal to their women and their families.”

  Pilar touched Matt’s arm and he leaned over to hear her soft words. A tender, loving expression lit his eyes as he stared at his grandmother’s face. He shifted and glanced at Eve, his gaze narrowing when he saw her eyes look through him. There were times when he felt as if she knew exactly what he was thinking or feeling.

  “My grandmother says you’re very beautiful, and that if we decide to have children they will also be beautiful.”

  Eve couldn’t look at Matt. There was the possibility that she was carrying his child within her body at that very moment.

  “Having Mateo’s children would make me very happy,” she confessed.

  Antonio shook his head. “You young people wait until you could be grandfathers and grandmothers to marry and have children. I married my Pilar when I was nineteen and she sixteen, and she gave me all of my children before I was thirty. Mateo will be almost forty, practically un viejo, before you make him a father, nieta.”

  Eve gave Matt a look of confusion when she heard the chastising words from the older man, and he winked at her. “You have enough great-grandchildren to brag about, Abuelo,” he reminded Antonio gently. “Allow me to enjoy my wife for a while before we settle down to raising a family.”

  “Her having children should not stop you from enjoying her body, Mateo,” Antonio countered.

  Eve didn’t understand Antonio’s last retort because it was spoken in rapid Spanish, but she knew it hadn’t pleased Matt because his lower lip mirrored his annoyance.

  Antonio filled each glass with a chilled mixture of fruit juices and offered a glass to his wife, then Eve and his grandson.

  Pilar shook her head, then took a sip of her drink. The conversation was one she’d heard many times before. Antonio hadn’t understood why his favorite grandson hadn’t married, and now that Mateo had, he couldn’t understand why Eve wasn’t already pregnant. Men and their obsession with fathering children, she thought. They seemed to equate their maleness with the ability to make a woman’s belly swell with their seed. Her husband’s way of thinking was dying out in Mexico, and there were times when she felt that hadn’t come soon enough.

  Matt watched Eve take meager sips of her drink, his mind filled with what he had been ordered to do. Jorge had informed him that planned raids on targeted sites by both the Mexican police and U.S. DEA agents was in its final planning stage. Jorge had gathered enough information in the five years he’d been undercover to slow the flow of cocaine and marijuana into the United States for years to come.

  And in less than ten days Matt was to meet Cordero Birmingham and give him the name of the person who was passing U.S. military and DEA secrets to Alejandro Delgado and the rebels.

  Rising to his feet, he extended a hand to Eve. “Come, Preciosa, it’s time we took our siesta. Buenas tardes, Abuelo y Abuela.”

  Eve smiled at Matt’s grandparents and followed him into the house. Their suite of rooms was on the second floor of the southern wing of the large house. A breathtaking view from the veranda revealed the calm, blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.

  Matt unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it while Eve strolled around the bedroom, examining pieces of sculpture on several tables and on the mantel over the fireplace.

  “I hope you won’t let my grandfather intimidate or frighten you,” he said quietly.

  She spun around, a secret smile curving her lips. “I think he knows that I don’t frighten that easily.”

  “And you don’t,” Matt agreed, coming toward her. “I can honestly say that, because I’ve tried bullying you enough.”

  His hands went to her blouse and he unbuttoned it. Inhaling deeply, he stared at the perfection of her firm breasts. He withdrew the silk garment from her body and buried his face against her neck.

  “Why are you torturing me, Eve?” he gasped.

  Closing her eyes, Eve melted against his bare chest. “How?”

  “I can’t keep my hands off you. I crave you even in my sleep.”

  Eve did not want to tell Matt that he’d echoed her feelings. He’d awakened her mind and body to a rushing, heated passion that intensified with every moment she was in his presence. Each time he touched her a delicious shudder rippled through her body, bringing with it a welling desire to surrender all she had to him.

  She clung to him, his touch warm and comforting. “I love you, Matt.” Pulling back slightly, he stared down at her upturned face. His gaze widened and Eve was trapped in the depths of the savage hunger radiating from the force field he had created around them.

  “You will never love me the way I love you,” he stated in a challenging tone.

  Her arms dropped and she took a backward step. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because it’s true,” Matt insisted. He folded his hands on his hips.

  Eve was puzzled by his abrupt change in mood. “You have no right to make that kind of determination.”

  “I can say that because I know that I’d give up my life for you. Would you do the same for me?”

  She stared wordlessly at him, her heart pounding uncontrollably. Why was Matt testing her? What did he hope to prove?

  “I—I don’t—”

  “There’s no need to say anything, Darling,” he interrupted. “You hesitated too long.”

  “You can’t test love,” she countered.

  “I just need to know how far you’ll go for me, Eve.”

  “I thought being obedient, affectionate, and passionate was enough.”

  “That was before I married you.”

  She laughed, hoping to lighten the dark mood. “You’re taking all of this so seriously, Matt.”

  His eyebrows nearly met in a frown. “I am serious. Because after all of this is over there’s not going to be an annulment or a divorce. I’m in this marriage for keeps.”

  Eve nodded slowly, blinking with bewilderment. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them back before they fell.

  He held out his arms and she collapsed in his embrace. The medals on his chest bit into her tender breasts, but she barely registered the pain as he crushed her to his body.

  “Darling, my darling,” she whispered over and over as he swung her up in his arms and walked to the bed.

  Matt undressed her, then undressed himself. Within minutes he came into her outstretched arms, parted her legs with his knee and entered her body with a force strong enough to rob them both of their breath.

  He wanted it to be slow, leisurely, but his body would not listen to his brain. He established a pounding rhythm with powerful thrusts, communicating his need to possess her totally.

  Eve’s passion rose like the hottest fire, spreading from her to Matt, and he moaned aloud in erotic pleasure. Her body writhed sensuously beneath his,
and she told him what she wanted to do to him.

  “I can’t, Eve,” he panted. There was no way he could withdraw from her hot flesh—not now. “The next time,” he promised breathlessly through clenched teeth.

  Neither of them thought of a next time as each wrung the vestiges of passion from the other where they lay together in a tangle of limbs, gasping for breath.

  Eve fell asleep in her husband’s arms while he lay awake staring at the ceiling, trying unsuccessfully to sort out all that had happened since Eve had walked into his life. Each time he made love to her he had not used any form of contraception, and it wasn’t until now that he realized why he hadn’t.

  There was always the possibility that he would not leave Mexico alive, and he wanted to make certain he continued to exist; that was only possible if he got Eve pregnant. He wanted her to have more than just the memories of their time together.

  Chapter 19

  Matt came around the car and opened the door for Eve. She placed her hand in his and stepped out into the warm May night. The setting sun fired the pristine whiteness of his dinner jacket and her matching white, ribbon-silk dress. She turned her face into the cooling breeze blowing off the Pacific Ocean before slipping her arm through Matt’s.

  “Do you think Alejandro will be here?” she asked quietly.

  “I was told that he was invited,” he replied softly, smiling as they approached their hostess.

  His own invitation had arrived at his grandparents’ hacienda weeks before. Magda Castillo always hosted a party to celebrate the end of Acapulco’s bullfight season. Matt suspected Magda’s soirée was a fête of thanksgiving that her matador husband’s life had been spared for another season at the Plaza de Toros.

  Magda Castillo floated toward Matt, her gaze fixed on the tall, slender woman at his side. It had taken only a glance to realize that Mateo Arroyo was lost to the women who had openly lusted after him for years. There was a time when she’d been counted among those women.

  Before she’d married Enrique Castillo she had thought that perhaps she had a chance to seduce the dangerously attractive owner of El Moro and get him to propose to her. After seeing the woman he’d chosen as his wife, Magda knew she never would’ve been a likely candidate to become Señora Mateo Arroyo.

  “Congratulations, Mateo,” she crooned, tilting her face for his kiss. Matt disappointed her when he pressed his mouth to her cheek instead of her lips.

  “Thank you, Magda” he returned graciously. “I’d like you to meet my wife. Eve, Magda Castillo.”

  Eve gave the beautifully coiffed and attired woman a warm smile, and was rewarded with a forced one that didn’t quite reach Magda’s dark eyes.

  She quickly examined the woman whom she suspected might have had more than a passing interest in Mateo Arroyo. Magda’s glossy black hair was swept up in a mass of curls and secured with diamond clips which blazed brilliantly in the light coming from lanterns ringing the perimeter of the courtyard. Her hair was a startling contrast to the paleness of her skin, and Eve wondered if the woman ever exposed herself to the sun.

  “If Mateo can bear to part with you for a few minutes, I’d like to introduce you to my husband.”

  Matt’s arm curved around Eve’s waist in a protective gesture. There was no way he was going to let her out of his sight until he found out whether Alejandro Delgado was present.

  “Later.”

  Magda registered the finality in the single word and shrugged her bare shoulders, her generous breasts threatening to spill from the revealing décolletage of her body-hugging black dress.

  “Eve and I would like to circulate first,” Matt offered as an apology.

  “Thanks, Darling,” Eve said under her breath after Magda walked away.

  “Don’t mention it, Darling.” Matt smiled at her and tightened his hold around her waist.

  It took less than twenty minutes for him to uncover that Alejandro Delgado had declined the Castillo invitation. After that he was able to relax.

  Eve accepted Magda’s invitation to see the interior of the large white stucco structure she and her husband had recently redecorated. She was monosyllabic as Magda proudly stressed that the house was designed in an almost pure Spanish Colonial Revival style.

  She was definitely not interested in the ornate furnishings which the Castillos seemed quite taken with. Eve was disappointed because she would not get to see Alex and question him about Chris.

  Suddenly she was annoyed with Matt. He had retreated to the grand salon with a group of men and had left her with the boring, chatty Magda.

  Eve escaped her hostess when Magda flitted off to see if her kitchen help needed instructions or chastising. Making her way to the courtyard, she accepted a glass from a passing waiter and took a sip of the cooling liquid. The drink slipped smoothly down her throat. She recognized the cocktail as a tequila sour.

  I just might acquire a taste for tequila, she thought, smiling and recalling the first time Matt had offered her the drink. So much had happened in the short time since she’d come to Mexico.

  “Eve.”

  She turned at the sound of her name. Cordero Birmingham headed in her direction.

  “Cord,” she returned, relieved to see a familiar face. She had had enough of what Matt had referred to as the Mexican elite.

  A wave of dark red hair fell over Cord’s forehead as he reached for her hand. “Where’s Mateo?”

  The muted lights strung along the galleria failed to highlight the intensity in Cord’s bright blue eyes. However, Eve recognized the tension in his voice. “He said he would be in the grand salon.”

  “Don’t move from here,” Cord ordered before turning and running toward the house.

  Eve felt a rush of weakness and leaned against a stone statue to steady her shaking legs. She did what she hadn’t done in a long time—she prayed. Without having to be told she knew Cordero Birmingham and Matt were in the same business. She should’ve realized that when the two of them disappeared on the day of her wedding.

  A savage grip on her arm jerked her into awareness. “Let’s get out of here, Eve.”

  The strength in Matt’s fingers impeded the circulation in her upper arm. “Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly as he pulled her along at a furious pace.

  Her heels slowed her down and Matt swept her up in his arms, the flowing silk of her dress draping over the sleeve of his dinner jacket and his black dress trousers.

  He shoved her into his car and appeared to start and put it into gear all in one motion. “I’m taking you back to Puerto Angel.”

  “Why?” Matt didn’t answer. He stared straight ahead, concentrating on the road. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he retorted, his jaw tightening.

  “Don’t lie to me, Matt. I—”

  “Enough, Eve!” he snarled. “I have enough to think about without you asking me questions I won’t answer.”

  Her jaw snapped loudly and she slouched down on the seat and tried cooling her temper. She was too busy calling him every dirty name she could think of to notice the needle on the speedometer inching closer to the automobile’s maximum speed.

  Matt was barely aware of Eve as he recalled the information Cord had given him. The man was seven days early and his message carried death: The Falcon was snared, and was lying close to death in a tiny hospital in a town so small it barely made the map.

  He stopped long enough to inform his grandparents that he and Eve were returning to Puerto Angel, then threw their luggage into the trunk of the Lincoln and began the journey back along the Pacific side of Mexico.

  Matt parked his car along the narrow alley bordering Jorge’s store. Even though he’d removed his dinner jacket and turned the Lincoln’s air-conditioning to the maximum, the fabric of his dress shirt was pasted to his back and chest.

  Jorge was out on the porch before Matt could exit from the car. The light coming through the store’s front windows revealed an expression on Matt’s face he ha
dn’t seen since they were teenagers in Lubbock. He knew without asking that Matt was upset.

  “What’s up?” he asked in Spanish.

  “Take care of Eve, Jorge.”

  Jorge nodded. It was apparent Matt wasn’t going to elaborate. “When will you be back?”

  Matt stared at Eve as she stepped out of the car and came toward him. Her eyes were wide with fear, and never had he wished more that he was out of this business.

  “I don’t know,” he answered slowly, his gaze locked with that of his wife. He removed her luggage from the trunk of the car and handed it to Jorge.

  Eve stared at the bag in Jorge’s hand before she looked at Matt. He was leaving her. He was going away—maybe even to lose his life—and leaving her with a man who was practically a stranger.

  Matt extended his right hand. “Eve.” His voice was hoarse with heavy emotion.

  “Go, Matt,” she whispered. His hand dropped. “Please,” she whispered as she turned and walked to the front door of the grocery store. She opened and closed the door, shutting him out of her vision and her life.

  Matt followed the directions Cord had given him, hoping he would make it to the tiny town of San Miguel without mishap. Cord had left Joshua’s bedside long enough to give him the news of the attempt at murder, then returned to await his arrival.

  He arrived at San Miguel at ten o’clock and encountered silence. The town claimed a single main street with a hotel, café, and a general store which operated as a grocery-post-office-pharmacy and service-station-auto-repair establishment. A handpainted sign, nailed to a wooden post, indicated the direction of the hospital, which was housed in what had one time been an old mission.

  Matt rang a large bell attached to a massive wooden door and was admitted by the nurse, whom he later discovered was the doctor’s wife. She led him down a corridor and to one of the small, clean rooms at the far end.

  Joshua Kirkland’s bloodless face blended with the stark whiteness of the pillowcase cradling his sun-bleached hair. His breathing was shallow, barely detectable.