The Glory Game (63 page)

“Luz?” he called, and started back into the sitting room.

The reply, when it came, had a distant, flat ring to it. “I'm on the terrace.”

The French doors in the sitting room stood open onto the private sun deck. Raul walked over to them and paused in the opening when he saw the red-robed figure standing at the rail, her back to him. Her shoulders were curved downward, her arms folded in front. Her head was tipped up as if she was contemplating the confusion of stars in the night sky. Raul walked onto the deck, but she didn't turn at his approach. Her position remained unchanged until he stopped behind her, then she bowed her head.

Looking at her subdued pose, he remembered her apprehensions over Trisha's reaction to their relationship and over Rob's jealousy of him. Inadvertently he had already caused Luz problems with her children—problems that were not yet fully resolved. They were her children, and her problems. She had not sought his advice, and he was in no position to offer it even if he knew a solution. He realized how fragile the bond between them was. It could not take much testing of its strength. He wouldn't test it to see if it could withstand the weight of the new knowledge he had about Rob's drug use.

As the silence lengthened, he placed his hands on her shoulders and felt her tension. He absently kneaded the taut cords while he stared at her slightly bowed head. Her hair was pale golden in the starlight, its delicate fragrant scent drifting to him.

“Tonight I used you as an instrument of revenge,” she said quietly.

Until that moment, Raul had forgotten about the quarrel they'd had earlier. It seemed very unimportant now. He started to tell her so, but she began talking again, so he let her continue.

“Not out of hatred or a desire to hurt anyone,” Luz added. “It was more to restore my own worth in the eyes of others. When Drew left me, all I saw in their eyes was pity, and not necessarily the gentle kind. They were always whispering behind my back. ‘Her husband dumped her for a younger woman. At her age, she'll never find anyone else, unless it's her money he's after.' “Behind that mocking hauteur, he heard the bitterness and the hurt it had caused. “I had to show them that I found somebody who wanted me for myself, and I wanted to see the envy in their eyes when they met you. So I did parade you around to them to wipe the pitying smirks off their faces. I never intended it to be an insult to you.”

Her explanation was the closest she could come to an apology. Raul understood that. In the time he'd known her, he couldn't recall Luz ever saying she was sorry. She would admit to being wrong about something and explain her reasoning, but she was too proud to actually apologize. Yet her pride was one of the things he admired in her.

“No importa,”
he assured her. Raul bent to nuzzle the curve of her neck, nibbling at its sensitive cord just as she had done to him in the car. He felt the involuntary quiver of her response, and slid his hands down her crossed arms, overlapping them and drawing her back against him.

Luz closed her eyes, savoring the sensations his teeth and tongue evoked. The warmth of his embrace assuaged the hurt that had followed their quarrel. Always his arms made her forget everything but the pleasure he gave her.

At midweek, Luz finished the initial estimate of the travel expenses the polo team and its entourage of horses and grooms were likely to incur. She brought it into the study for Raul to review and laid it on the desk in front of him.

“Would you check this over and see if I've over- or underestimated the stabling fees, lodging, or meal costs? I think I might be off on the gasoline expense for the trucks hauling the horse trailers. It's on the second page.” She walked around the desk and stood beside his chair to point it out to him.

“It appears low.” Raul skimmed the other itemized figures. “This is very thorough.”

“You sound surprised,” Luz said, chiding him for doubting her money management knowledge. “Don't forget, we
Kincaids came from a banking background. We were taught the worth of a dollar despite being reared in the lap of luxury, so to speak. And I've managed the household budget for years and been on countless fund-raising committees. And when you're trying to raise money, the idea is to take in more than you spend. I'm not exactly frugal with money, but I don't squander it either.”

Smiling, Raul held up his hands in mock surrender. “I retract the comment.”

“Excuse me.” Emma Sanderson paused in the study doorway. “The mail is here, Luz.”

She came around the desk and took the stack of letters from her secretary. “Thank you, Emma,” Luz murmured and sat down on the leather couch to go through them while Raul went over the estimated expense list she had prepared.

The mail was mostly household bills and charge-account invoices along with the usual junk advertisements addressed to “Occupant.”

“A letter from Trisha.” It was the first she'd heard from her since Thanksgiving when she had called to let her know she was back safely from the ski trip. Luz tore open the flap with suppressed eagerness and quickly scanned the first paragraph of the letter, bracing herself for the possibility Trisha might be writing to say she was making other plans for the Christmas holidays. “Raul, she's coming home … this weekend.” She couldn't believe it and read on hurriedly. “She'll be flying in Friday night. The baby's being christened on Sunday.” Luz didn't care what reason was bringing her as long as she came. “Emma!” Leaving the couch, she hurried to the doorway, the letter clutched in her hand. “Emma?”

The plump, gray-haired woman was halfway across the living room when she stopped and turned back in answer to the summons. “Yes?”

“Trisha's coming home this weekend. Be sure and have her room ready for her.”

“I'll see to it right away, Luz.”

“Good.” She started to turn back into the study, then checked the movement. “Oh, and Emma, get all the Christmas things out. We'll be decorating the house on Saturday. You know how Trisha has always insisted that she be here when we do it.”

“I remember.” Emma smiled.

Luz swung back into the room and walked slowly to the desk while she read the rest of the letter. The rest of it mostly had to do with her activities at college. Luz paused beside Raul's chair, unconsciously resting her hand on his shoulder.

“Isn't it wonderful?” she murmured as she reread the first part of the letter.

“Yes, it is,” Raul agreed. She was too wrapped up in the contents of Trisha's letter to notice the quiet way he studied her face.

Balancing on the stepladder from the handyman's toolshed, Luz held the end of a red velvet ribbon against the top curve of the dining-room arch. A mistletoe-covered ball swung from the ribbon. She arched backward, trying to gauge the distance on either side of it.

“Emma? Trisha! Anybody? Does this look like the center?” she called as she held the decoration in the place she'd selected and tried to eyeball it from her ladder perch.

“Will I do?”

Luz glanced over her shoulder at Raul, her expression mockingly dubious. “I don't know. I really need an expert at this. From what I saw at your house, you aren't much of a hand at decorating.”

“Ah, but the pictures I do have were hanging in the center of the wall,” he reminded her.

“You have me there.” She laughed. “So what do you think of this?”

“An inch to the right,” he instructed. Luz moved the ribbon over. “That is the center.”

While she held the end of the ribbon in place, she took a thumbtack from the small box atop the stepladder and pushed it through the material into the wood. Holding it there, she picked up the hammer and tapped the thumbtack firmly into position. When she finished, Raul held the ladder steady while she climbed down with her hammer and tacks. She stepped back to look at the ball of mistletoe hanging in the archway.

“You're right. It is the center.”

“Of course.”

“Are you familiar with the custom of kissing under the mistletoe?” Luz didn't even try to understand this mood she was in, half flirty and half simply high spirits. Having Trisha
home, the Christmas things out, and Raul here, everything seemed gloriously perfect.

“Perhaps you could freshen my memory,” Raul suggested.

“I would be delighted to.” She hooked her hands around his neck and raised onto her tiptoes, but Raul drew back when she started to kiss him.

“I thought we were supposed to stand under the mistletoe.” He arched a thick brow in question.

“A minor detail, my love. A minor detail,” Luz murmured, and brought her mouth against his lips, pushing into them with building interest. His arms went around her, his hands tangling in the loose folds of her oversize sweater while he pressed her to him and returned the lazy passion of her kiss.

“Is that how it is done?” Raul questioned when she drew away and let her heels touch the floor again.

“That's just the first lesson.”

His peripheral vision noted a movement in the foyer. He glanced over the top of Luz's head and saw Trisha standing in the opening, a papier-mâché piñata shaped like a horse in her hands. She had seen them kissing, he realized. When she saw him looking at her, she ducked quickly back into the foyer out of sight.

“Luz?” Emma bustled into the dining room. “I have your candy canes for the centerpieces and new bulbs to replace the burned-out ones in the tree lights.”

“Back to work,” Luz murmured to him and moved reluctantly away to take the items from her secretary. “Trisha!” she called. “We've got the lights, so we're back in business.” When there was no response she glanced at him. “I think she's finishing up in the foyer. Do you want to tell her on your way upstairs?”

“Of course.” Raul crossed through the living room into the large foyer. Pine boughs twined around the carved railing of the staircase, adorned with red velvet bows at intervals along the way. Trisha knelt beside the newel post, positioning the red-and-green piñata horse near its base. Raul paused, aware that she was aware of his presence even though she didn't look up. “Luz asked me to tell you the bulbs for the tree lights are here.”

“Thanks. I'll be right there.” She straightened as he moved toward the steps. “The piñata looks pretty ratty, doesn't it? Dad
brought that for me when I was eight or nine. He'd flown out to Los Angeles on business and picked it up for me at the airport on his way back. We've dragged it out every Christmas and set it here, just where I found it. Of course, this year Dad won't be here to see it.” She lifted her head, thrusting her chin a little higher than normal. “But that's the way it's going to be from now on, so I might as well get used to it.”

Raul had the feeling she was referring both to her father's absence and his presence. “I am glad you came home this weekend, Trisha.”

“Why?” she challenged.

“Because you have made your mother very happy.”

Trisha tipped her head to the side, narrowing her gaze as she frowned at him. “You're really crazy about her, aren't you?” He looked slightly taken aback by the remark. “I didn't mean to pry.” She looked away. “I guess that's between you and her.”

“Not entirely,” he replied, then admitted, “I care about her very much.”

She looked at him for a long second, then smiled. “I'd better go help Luz with the tree.”

“T
he house always seems so quiet after Trisha leaves,” Luz remarked as she sat down in the chair Raul held for her. “She's been gone two days. Still I expect her to come sailing in, talking a mile a minute.”

“Excuse me, Luz.” Emma Sanderson paused in the diningroom arch, beneath the mistletoe, Raul noticed. “Mr. Carstairs from the bank is on the phone. He'd like to speak with you. Shall I have him call back after lunch, or would you like to take the call now?”

“I'll talk to him. We're waiting for Rob anyway.” She got up from the table and followed Emma into the living room.

Sitting alone at the table, Raul unfolded his napkin and laid it across his lap. A pitcher of tea sat on the table. He picked it up and poured some into his glass. Hearing footsteps, he glanced up as Rob entered the dining room. Absently, Raul watched him walk around to the chair he always occupied.

“Where's Luz?” Rob paused beside it.

“On the telephone.” Raul noticed that Rob's face looked leaner, and he recalled the number of times he'd skipped a meal or eaten only sparingly. He'd known others who used cocaine regularly. They, too, had lost weight and slept little, the stimulating effect of the drug numbing them against hunger and fatigue.

“What are you staring at?” Rob demanded after he had sat down.

“Nothing.” Raul picked up his glass and took a drink of the tea.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means nothing,” he replied smoothly, aware of the tension that was always between them off the polo field.

“Well, quit staring at people. Didn't your mama ever teach you it was rude to stare?” With a snap of his wrist, Rob shook out his napkin and laid it across his lap.

“I must have forgotten.”

“I know what you're wondering, and I haven't. I keep my pleasure separate from my work,” Rob informed him curtly. “That was our deal, remember?”

“I remember,” Raul said with faint emphasis.

Rob's glance darted past him, and he closed his mouth on whatever retort he'd been about to make. A second later, Raul heard Luz reenter the dining room. As she walked around to her chair, he noticed the faintly troubled look on her face.

“That was Mr. Carstairs on the telephone, the vice-president of the bank.” She studied Rob's face. “Rob, he called because he was concerned about the large withdrawal you made from your account yesterday.”