Jacintha Point

by Elizabeth Graham

  'Francisca,' she returned flatly, fingers busily hooking small buttons into even smaller holes.

  Diego took a step towards her. 'I can explain about Francisca.'

  'No explanations necessary,' she cut him off crisply, finishing with the buttons at last and sitting before the mirrored dressing table to pull a brush through hair still tangled from the night before. 'All I want to know is how soon my father—and I—can leave this hellish country of yours.'

  In the mirror she saw the familiar closing down of his expression, the subtle tightening of jaw and cheek

  muscles that precluded even guesswork as to the state of his emotions.

  'I came to tell you,' he enunciated stiffly, 'that I have made an appointment with José Perez, the Justice Minister, for eleven o'clock this morning.'

  `Oh' For a moment the brush in Laurel's hand was halted in mid-sweep. 'Well, you can let me know the results of the meeting in Acapulco. I'm leaving on the noon plane.'

  Silence mounted between them until Diego broke the tension that threatened to make her scream out all the accusations she had formed during the long night when she had sobbed into her pillow. The pillow Diego had provided along with the food she ate, the expensive clothes she wore, the skilled attention of the servants he employed.

  `You will go to ?' he queried now with a proud lift of his black brows.

  'I have no choice, have I?' Laurel responded bitterly, throwing the brush away from her and turning to face him. 'When you married me, I gave up my job and the salary from it. Until I can contact Brent, I have no choice but to rely on your generosity.'

  The anger that had been subdued in his demeanour since last night flared again in the black depths of his eyes, but Laurel had no fear of his Latin temper now. Almost she wished that he would snuff out the life that had no meaning for her now without his love. And it was only too evident from the pinched whiteness of his mouth, the steely line of his jaw, that love was far from his thoughts at that moment.

  `So I will keep you informed of developments here. Meanwhile,' he crossed to the ivory telephone in its nook close to the bedhead, 'I will reserve space for you

  on the noon flight. I take it you have not already made a reservation?'

  Laurel shook her head, watching the supple finger that dialled the requisite number, hearing the swift spate of Spanish which resulted in Diego's brief: 'Space has been reserved for you on the plane.'

  Then he was dialling again, long distance this time, drumming his fingers restlessly on the wall beside the telephone until Juanita came on the line. His instructions to her were just as brief, and in two minutes he had replaced the receiver.

  'Guillermo will meet you at the airport in Acapulco. Juanita will be prepared for your arrival.'

  'Not Guillermo!' she said with involuntary sharpness. 'I—I'll take a cab from the airport, it isn't far.'

  'I prefer that Guillermo collect you. There is little to occupy his energies on the boat while I am not there.'

  Laurel shrugged mentally and let it rest there. Was it possible that Diego didn't know how Guillermo occupied his energies when the boss was away? She had met the good-looking young man just after the wedding, and recognised him immediately as one of the beach boys she had seen in Acapulco, the ones who successfully plied their trade with ageing women tourists. Diego would never let him near his wife if he knew about Guillermo's extra-curricular activities—but then perhaps he didn't care any more.

  He had turned away when she halted his progress to the door. 'You'll keep me informed of developments in my father's case?'

  Naturalmente:

  Laurel doubted if he heard her whispered: 'Thank you,' as he went from the room. And why would he care? she questioned savagely. The sooner he was rid

  of her father and herself the sooner he would be united legally with Francisca, the woman who had married another man yet still had the power to sway a lover from way back. The woman who had come back to take up the shattered threads of her life, the dominant skein being Diego Ramirez.

  CHAPTER NINE

  GUILLERMO met her as scheduled, and while they drove the short distance to Laurel was aware again, as she had been many times during the two week honeymoon period, of the young Mexican's admiration. He had made no overt approach to her while Diego was present at the resort home, but now his dark-eyed glance was boldly masculine when he said:

  'Señor Diego is very trusting to let his beautiful wife travel so far alone.'

  To Guillermo, Mexico City was light years away from the environment he had known all his life, and Laurel gave him a dry smile.

  'It would have been difficult for anyone to kidnap me,' she told him lightly. 'I was driven to the airport in Mexico City by Señor Diego's chauffeur, spent an hour surrounded by other people on the plane, and you met me here. What possible harm could have come to me?' She forbore mentioning that Diego had lost that possessive air of Spanish men with their wives, which had made him frown on her going anywhere unaccompanied. Of course, this morning he had had the meeting with the Justice Minister, so was unable to accompany her to the airport himself.

  For the rest of the journey she was preoccupied with thoughts of her father and how soon his trial might be arranged and his release processed. Not for one minute lad she doubted his innocence. He had always been adamant in his opposition to the drug scene on any

  level, and there was no way he would have been persuaded to assist men bent on quick and highly lucrative profits in the drug trade.

  If only the two who had chartered the boat had been found! she pondered, biting on her lip. One way or the other the truth could have been forced out of them. Without them, Dan Trent was left literally holding the bag.

  Lost in the oppression of her thoughts, she hardly noticed the tropical foliage and scrub they passed, and in what seemed no time they were sweeping along the crushed white rock drive to . Juanita appeared at the black-studded door, her welcome courteous despite a faint air of puzzlement about her dark features.

  'Señor Diego is to come later?' she probed as she followed Laurel into the master suite carrying her cosmetic case while Guillermo brought up the rear with the one suitcase Laurel had considered necessary. The majority of her clothes, the elegant day and evening dresses bought by Diego to meet the requirements of Mexican society, she had left behind in the Mexico City house. She would never go back there.

  'I—yes, he'll be coming later,' she lied to the housekeeper, who loved Diego like a son. There was no point in disillusioning her about the marriage she had long awaited before it was necessary to do so. It could still be weeks before Dan, and she, would be free to leave Mexico. 'He had some business details to see to in the city.'

  Juanita sighed. 'Ah, business! Always it comes first with Senor Diego. Even as a boy he had a great sense of duty, and cared for his brother Jaime like a father, although there were few years between them. But

  Jaime,' her eyes lifted heavenward, 'had no wish to be told by his brother. He wanted to laugh and take enjoyment from life, with no thought for tomorrow.'

  'Did their parents never come with them?' Laurel gave in to the curiosity she seldom indulged.

  The housekeeper shrugged plump shoulders, a shutter coming down over her features as she turned to the door. 'They died when Señor Diego was a boy. After that, Señora Jacintha came to be with her grandsons sometimes.' She looked back from the door. 'What time will you take dinner, señora?'

  Laurel clicked open her vanity case on the dressing table. 'Oh, around eight-thirty will be fine, Juanita, but I'd like to have merienda in the small sala at four.' The afternoon refreshment custom was a welcome one in the long break between lunch and dinner. 'I'll be going out after that for a while.'

  'Out, señora?' Juanita frowned. 'You will require Guillermo to drive you somewhere?'

  'No, I'll drive myself,' Laurel returned firmly, doing her best to ignore the housekeeper's irritating assumption that a woman, even if married, laid herself open to the amorous ad
vances of men if she ventured out alone. In any case, she was sure that the servants at were unaware of her father's incarceration in the local jail, and she wasn't about to enlighten them on that point. 'Was there any mail for me?' she changed the subject with forced casualness.

  'No, señora.'

  'All right. Graeias, Juanita.'

  So Brent hadn't replied to her letter enclosing his ring—but then she hadn't really expected him to or, if she was honest, wanted him to. Even back then she must have known that all her horizons were filled with

  Diego, that the affection she had felt for Brent was just that. There had never been any wild clamour of her senses when Brent's hand brushed hers unintentionally, no agonised pain of parting as she was suffering now because Diego would soon no longer be part of her life.

  The irony of it hit her like a hammerblow as she lay stretched out on top of the bedcovers, clad only in the white slip she had worn under her travelling suit, one arm curved around her head as she stared fixedly at the elaborately scrolled ceiling. When Diego had wanted to make love to her in this bed she had fought him—or had she in reality been fighting her own desire to surrender to the quick passion his lovemaking had roused in her? Wantonness had never been a part of her nature until that night, when Diego had swamped her senses and carried her along on a tide of desire that was almost unbearable....

  'Perdon, señora! Senora, the telephone!'

  Laurel woke drowsily to the sound of Juanita's anxious voice and light touch on her shoulder. `Mmm? What is it, Juanita?'

  'The telephone, señora. They say the policia.' The woman's awed tones penetrated Laurel's consciousness at last, and she sat up suddenly on the bed, swinging her legs to the floor and pushing back her hair with one suddenly trembling hand.

  'Police?' she echoed, wild thoughts churning through her mind. Was it possible that Diego's talk with the Justice Minister had borne fruit so quickly?

  'I'll take it here, Juanita.'

  Despite the excitement that made her hand tremble almost uncontrollably, she waited until she heard the click of the hall receiver being replaced before announcing herself.

  'Perdon, señora,' the disembodied male voice apologised, 'it is Senor Ramirez I wish to speak with.'

  'He isn't here, he's in Mexico City. But I—'

  'Then if you would give me a telephone number where I can reach him, señora, I will be grateful.'

  `If it's something to do with my father, Daniel Trent, I can take the message,' Laurel snapped in irritation, railing inwardly once more at the Latin presumption that women were helpless in matters of business, and gritting her teeth when the official repeated his request for Diego's telephone number. Tersely, she rattled off the numbers for home and office, then added:

  'I'm coming down right now to see my father. Maybe he'll tell me what's going on.'

  'That would not be advisable, señora,' the smooth voice said into her ear.

  'What do you mean, not advisable? You can't stop me from seeing my own father ! '

  'It would be a wasted journey, Señora Ramirez Your father is—not here.'

  Laurel stared blankly at the telephone. 'Not there? I don't understand. He can't have been moved already.' 'Si. He has gone.'

  Sudden wild joy leapt along her veins and left her breathless. Who said the Mexican wheels of justice grind slowly? Diego had spoken to the Minister just hours ago, and already her father was on his way to a speedy trial—probably in Mexico City.

  'Thank you, gracias, señor,' she bubbled into the mouthpiece, and scarely heard his murmured reply. Dropping the receiver back in its cradle, she danced a pirouette across the floor.

  Suddenly she stopped, her bare arms coming round to hug her waist. Dan's trial and probable release also

  brought the termination of her marriage to Diego. But she couldn't—mustn't--think about that right now. She had discovered her love too late, and Francisca was the one he wanted now.

  From the window she looked down across the flagged terrace to the north bay where the water surged and fell back in a froth of creamy spray. She had never swum on either of the beaches, and she would like to do that before leaving . Her plans would have to be changed now, of course, although she might have to wait here another day before knowing definitely where Dan had been taken.

  Spurred into action, she took the briefest bikini she possessed from the drawer. No one in the world would see her if she lay well back from the shore under the overhang of the coconut palms, and it made no difference what she wore in the water.

  Juanita appeared in answer to her ring, and she told the housekeeper that instead of merienda in the house, she would take a flask of orange juice to the beach.

  'The Señora will not be going out in the car?' the housekeeper eyed the length of slender legs beneath the short terrycloth beach jacket.

  'No, I find I don't have to go after all.' Laurel picked up her sunglasses from the dresser and slid them on to her nose, then searched in her bag for the paperback book she had tried vainly to read on the plane.

  'There is no trouble?' Juanita asked with wary dignity, and Laurel swung round, surprised. 'The policia—the telephone call.'

  'Oh. No, no trouble. They—they wanted to speak with Señor Diego, so I gave the telephone numbers in Mexico City.'

  'So ! ' Satisfied, Juanita went off to the kitchen for

  the orange juice while Laurel finished packing the capacious straw beach bag with blanket, towel, book and suntan lotion. The last she held loosely in her hand for several moments, remembering that it was from this same bottle that Diego had taken the cream to rub into her skin. She shivered, remembering the oiled smoothness of his hands at her nape, her shoulders, breasts ... hastily, she pushed the bottle to the bottom of the bag and hoisted it over her shoulder.

  The water was only a degree or two cooler than the air temperature, but Laurel welcomed its languorous warmth, the buoyancy that made swimming effortless, and she alternately swam, then floated on her back across the lagoon-like bay. The sleek white of Diego's yacht hove into view,-and she wondered idly if Guillermo had returned to the boat after meeting her at the airport.

  After half an hour she had had enough and idled her way back to shore where the cooled orange juice awaited her. A pat or two with the thick towel was ample; the sun would soon dry the dampened darkness of the bikini strips back to their original shade of light tan, a colour that matched the pale gold of her skin so perfectly she might have been wearing nothing at all.

  She lay back on the vividly patterned blanket, propping herself on one elbow while she sipped slowly from the flask cup. Time stretched like a tunnel before her. How many times in the years to come would she summon the memory of this scene ?—the startling white of sand so fine it was like silk underfoot: the light greenish-blue of water that caressed her woman's flesh like the encompassing embrace of a lover's arms; the jagged rocks that swept to the Point and petered out

  reluctantly where they met the sea; even the coconut palms above her head where the fruit hung ripe under the dark green fronds.

  Replacing the cup, she lay back completely and closed her eyes against the fierce rays of the sun. She should rub lotion into her skin, she acknowledged drowsily, and she would in just a minute....

  A shadow fell across her face and her eyes snapped open in heart-pounding panic. For a wild moment she thought it was Diego who stood there in white cotton shirt open to the waist and skin-tight faded jeans frayed at the cuffs. The head, silhouetted against a background of blazing sun, almost had the shape of Diego's, but the hair was longer.

  'Guillermo?' she gasped, jack-knifing herself into a sitting position and groping for the beach jacket which contrarily eluded her grasp. 'What are you doing here?'

  'Juanita was concerned that you might need something,' he said softly as if he spoke through a mist, and Laurel felt his gaze slope down over her body with its brief strips of cloth, realising with sudden cold clarity that they only served to emphasise all that was fem
ale about her.

  'I don't believe you. Juanita knows I have everything I need.'

  Undeterred, Guillermo bent to a crouching position and looked knowingly into her eyes. 'Does she, señora? Do you think she does not see what I myself have seen? The señor has taken a beautiful wife, one any man would be proud to have in his bed, yet he sends her from him with a sadness in her eyes. I know the look well, señora. I have seen it in the eyes of the women who came to Acapulco without their husbands.'

  Life suddenly sparkled back into Laurel's limbs and

  she leapt furiously to her feet. 'I'm sure you do,' she said with a contemptuous gesture of her hand. 'But I'm not one of the tourists you pick up on the beaches of Acapulco. When I tell my husband—'

  'There is no need to tell the señor,' he said in a knowingly persuasive way, his voice lowering to huskiness. 'I can make you happy, señora, I know how.'

  'And I know how to get Carlos down here,' Laurel blazed, opening her mouth to scream Carlos's name, but the yell turned to a squeak when Guillermo reached for her arm and jerked her violently against him, covering her mouth with his free hand.

  Silently they struggled, fright lending power to the clenched fist and elbow of Laurel's right arm until Guillermo grunted and took his hand from her mouth. For the flash of a few seconds they glared into each other's eyes, hesitation showing briefly in his. Laurel took advantage of it to open her mouth for another scream, but Guillermo leaned forward almost desperately to cover it with a hard thrust of his lips that sent them both swaying precariously on the hot sand.

  No match for his superior strength, Laurel fought now against the rising nausea his nearness caused. The pungent odour of sweat from his hard young body filled her nostrils and made her senses reel off into faintness. If only Carlos, or even Juanita, would come to the top of the steps cut out of the rocks Her neck felt as if it would snap from the pressure of the grinding kiss that seemed to be going on for ever....