Trading Secrets (9 page)

“I’ll take you shopping at the market. I can steer you clear of the stalls run by Javier’s relatives. Come on, Sabrina, I want to talk to you.”

“Swear you’re not going to throw me in the pool?” she taunted, setting down the punch mug.

“Not right now. Look, Sabrina, will you please come with me?” he asked with weary patience. “I really do want to talk to you. In private. Javier, say hello to your wife for me, will you?” Matt took hold of Sabrina’s arm and tugged her off the stool.

“Certainly, Matt. Take good care of the senorita.” Javier smiled charmingly at Sabrina and turned away to talk to Manuel.

“He gave up awfully easily,” Sabrina grumbled as she allowed herself to be led away.

“He enjoys flirting, but he’s actually a fairly loyal husband.”

“Fairly loyal?”

“This is Mexico.” Matt shrugged. “Different customs.”

“Not so different in some ways,” Sabrina said. “Mexican men don’t have a monopoly on cheating on their wives.”

“Unfaithfulness is probably a universal phenomenon,” said Matt gruffly. “I sure as hell know it’s a fact back in the States, and not just on the part of the men. And maybe that’s the first thing we should talk about, Sabrina.”

“Unfaithfulness?” Sabrina slid him a mystified, sidelong glance. He was so intense this morning. Could he possibly be referring to their
nonrelationship
?

“Preferably an absence of it,” Matt said smoothly, his fingers biting a little into her arm. “I thought I’d made it clear that I’m real big on things like that—all the military virtues.”

“A regular Boy Scout. Matt, I have news for you. Terms such as faithfulness imply that there is someone or something to be faithful to. I happen to be on vacation and therefore footloose and fancy free.”

“Yes, well, that was the next matter I wanted to discuss, sweetheart.” He steered her toward the waiting jeep.

At the poolside bar Javier Reyes watched his friend Matt depart with the very intriguing little tourist, his mind pleasantly busy with daydreams that would never come to pass but which were nonetheless most enjoyable. It was a moment or two before he became aware of the short, dapper gringo who had taken Sabrina’s place on the stool beside him.

“A charming young lady,” Rafferty Coyne observed as Matt and Sabrina disappeared. “Perhaps you should have hung on to her.”

Javier smiled. “Easy go, easy come,” he misquoted blandly. “Are you a guest here at the hotel, senor? I am Javier Reyes, the manager.”

“No, no. I’m staying next door. I merely dropped in to see if I could find my friend Matt August. But as you can see, I just missed him. A pity. I shall have to try again later.”

“It is difficult to compete for a man’s attention when there is a woman involved, no? And our friend August is trying very hard to involve Senorita Chase very completely, I believe. He will have to work
muy
rapidamente
, however.”

“Because she will soon be going home?” Coyne hazarded, cradling the briefcase on his lap as he ordered some chilled juice.

“They all go home sooner or later,” Javier said philosophically. He waved a hand to encompass the sunning tourists lounging around the pool. “Except for the ones like Matt August.”

“Perhaps he will follow Miss Chase back to wherever she calls home.” Coyne sipped the juice carefully, making certain the bartender hadn’t slipped anything alcoholic into it. You couldn’t trust anyone. “I think Matt mentioned that she was from Los Angeles.”

“Dallas,” Javier corrected automatically. “The senorita is from Dallas, Texas, where they have electric bulls. A fascinating notion, no? I do not know whether Matt will follow her. I have never seen him quite like this with a lady tourist. Usually he is more—how do you say? Gallant? Charming? This one he treats a bit roughly, as if he were not quite certain of her. Or of himself.”

“She seems to tolerate it,” Coyne pointed out.

“Senorita Chase is a very intriguing woman.” Javier suddenly grinned. “It is difficult to tell exactly what she is thinking when she looks at Matt August. There is caution in her as well as desire.”

Coyne frowned again. He didn’t care for words like desire. They made him uneasy. “Well, time will tell whether or not August has been smitten by Miss Chase. I think it might be serious, though,” Coyne went on politely. “All I’ve ever heard him call her is ‘sweetheart.’ Do you know, I don’t think he even mentioned her first name.”

“Sabrina. A lovely name, is it not? Well, you must excuse me. My duties call me. Have a most pleasant afternoon, senor.” Javier stepped off the stool and headed toward a blond woman in a pink bikini who seemed to be having some trouble with her air mattress. Javier was very good at fixing air mattresses. He considered it a service of the hotel.

Coyne finished his juice and then he took a notepad embossed with his initials and a fine gold pen out of the slim briefcase on his lap. He wrote SABRINA CHASE, DALLAS, TEXAS, in precise capital letters. Then he shut the case with a snap. This afternoon he would put Harold on the project and by tomorrow Coyne would have everything there was available on Miss Sabrina Chase.

If August insisted on pursuing her back to Dallas, Coyne would be prepared. One did not let a woman stand in the way of important plans. And Coyne had important plans for Matt August.

“How long are you going to continue punishing me?” Matt took Sabrina’s hand as he led her out onto the beach. Dinner had been a sparring match, during which nothing had been accomplished. He was feeling annoyed and frustrated and, he privately acknowledged, just a little nervous. She had refused to talk about anything all day except the wonders of Acapulco and the great bargain she’d gotten on the huge silver necklace she’d bought that afternoon and was wearing tonight.

Whenever he had tried to bring the conversation around to a more intimate level, Sabrina sidestepped the way a matador danced away from the horns of a bull: far enough to avoid being scathed but close enough to tantalize the poor, maddened beast. Matt groaned at the imagery in his mind. He must be getting light-headed with frustration.

And it was all so damned unnecessary!

“Typical of a man to assume he’s being punished just because a woman refuses to go to bed with him.” Sabrina smiled brilliantly, absently fingering her new necklace as she walked beside Matt. “Why don’t you look at the whole thing another way? Tell yourself you administered a very successful lesson to a silly little tourist.”

She managed not to wince as his fingers closed more tightly on her wrist.

“Did I?” Matt demanded softly.

“In a way.”

“For God’s sake, Sabrina, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you taught me to watch out for the strong silent type the next time I check out a bar for likely prospects. I was definitely in over my head.” She kept the words smooth and coolly taunting. Damned if she would let him know just how true they were. For if she had learned anything in the past few days, it was that getting involved in an affair with Matt August would be getting into a dangerous proposition. Her initial instincts had been wrong. Matt August would not make a delightful vacation affair.

“Honey, I’ve explained what happened that night,” Matt rasped with a trace of his now-familiar military arrogance. “I’m not going to go over it again. You’ve had an apology. What more do you want?”

“Why, nothing, sir. You’ve been most gracious. I wouldn’t think of imposing further, Major.”

“You really know how to push a man to the edge, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “When you go into your superior-officer routine, I’m afraid I can’t resist,” she confessed. “I’ve always had this problem dealing with authority figures.”

“I hadn’t realized I do it so frequently.”

“Every time you argue with me I get the feeling I’m on the carpet in front of the commanding officer. It got downright embarrassing this afternoon when you tried to convince me not to buy this necklace. All those people staring at us!”

Obviously struggling for patience, Matt started to walk more swiftly as if he were working out his irritation in a physical manner. Sabrina felt a sharp pang of remorse. She was pushing him. On the other hand, he was the one who insisted on hanging around for more abuse. She couldn’t quite figure that one out.

“The military was a big part of my life for a long time, Sabrina. I grew up with it. Some of it is bound to stick.”

“Take some advice and
unstick
it.”

“You, I take it, aren’t one of those women who love a man in uniform?” he shot back grimly.

“I’m one of those women who think that it’s the mentality of the men in uniform that has brought the world to the brink of World War Three.”

“Lord save me from idiotic little liberals who don’t know the first thing about reality. Remind me to sit you down someday and give you a few facts.”

“In defense of the military mind? No thanks. I have to suffer through those ‘facts’ every time I pick up the paper and find the Pentagon asking for more appropriations. Why in the world are you so willing to jump to the defense of your old crowd, Matt?” The question was suddenly a serious one. “I’d have thought you had enough of that bunch after you found your career in shreds.”

“I ruined my own career by screwing up the job,” he told her austerely, his eyes on the rocky cliff at the far end of the shadowed beach.

“And the officer in command bears full responsibility,” Sabrina intoned melodramatically. Then her voice softened. “What happened on that last mission?”

“I blew it. That’s what happened. Took seven good men straight into a trap. It’s not something I discuss, Sabrina.”

“Not even with a woman you’re trying to seduce?”

“Especially not with a woman I’m trying to get into bed! Lady, if you don’t learn to watch that sharp tongue of yours, I’m going to teach you to control it.”

Sabrina laughed silently up at him, her smoky green eyes full of challenge and self-assurance. “I just love it when you play general, Major. Would you like me to buy you a cute little swagger stick?”

He shut his eyes for a second, regaining control of his temper. “Is it really that bad?”

“Well, take that charming lecture you tried to give me this morning on the way to the market. All that talk of loyalty and fidelity. I had the impression you were reading me an oath that I was going to be required to memorize and sign!” Her voice dropped portentously. “I do hereby swear on my honor as a tourist that I will not mess around with handsome hotel managers while Matt August is trying to talk me into bed.”

“You never let me get that far,” he exploded. “You cut me off before I could explain why it was important for you to understand how I felt about things like that.”

“I cut you off because it’s not at all important for me to understand, Matt,” Sabrina said gently. “I’ll be going home day after tomorrow, remember?”

“Without having treated yourself to the vacation affair you planned?”

“There will be other vacations,” she said with assumed carelessness.

“Here in Acapulco?” he pounced.

“Or in the Bahamas or Hawaii. Who knows?”

“Damn you.” He sighed.

“Is the conversation beginning to upset you? We could talk about something else, you know.”

“Upset? Frustrated as hell might be more accurate. I’m not quite sure how to deal with you, lady. You confuse me. You also infuriate me at times. I can’t figure out where I am with you. If you really hated my guts for what almost happened that first night, why continue to spend time with me?”

Sabrina winced. “Unfortunately, that sounds like a legitimate question. If you want to know the truth, I’ve asked myself the same one occasionally.”

“Come up with any answers?” Matt asked softly.

“I think it has something to do with the fact that you’re walking evidence of how well I can take care of myself these days. In the final analysis I managed to handle you that night.”

“Oh, Christ,” he growled feelingly.

“There’s more to it than that, of course. I’m not going to deny the attraction I feel toward you. If there were none, I would never have approached you that first night,” she went on thoughtfully.

“Sabrina, honey …”

“But the bottom line, I suppose, is that I don’t trust you in the way I would have to trust you in order to go to bed with you now.”

“You said the other night you’d trust me with your life!”

“Oh, yes.” She nodded. “I would. It’s probably the military in you. If I were ever in real trouble I think I’d want you on my side.”

“But not in your bed?” he persisted harshly.

“No.”

“Honey, the way it was the other night—it wouldn’t be that way again.”

“How do you know that for sure? The anger and resentment you feel toward your ex-wife could easily get in the way again. I won’t take her punishment, Matt. I’m not about to let some man inflict his outraged sense of justice on me.”

“Sabrina, be reasonable.”

“I am being perfectly reasonable. I’m just not giving you the answers you’d like to hear. That’s why I seem unreasonable.”

“The hell you are.”

“You know, you and my family have a lot in common. Both in your politics and in your views of my logic and brainpower. If Dad and my brothers ever get themselves out of their precious bank long enough to have a real vacation, I’ll suggest they come down here and look you up. The four of you can sit around over Margaritas and discuss my unreasonable, liberal, feminine mentality.”

“Sabrina, it is unreasonable to say you would trust a man with your life but not in your bed.”

“Makes perfect sense to me,” she informed him calmly.

“Damn it, honey.” He came to a halt, reaching out to glide his fingers along the line of her jaw and down her throat to the nape of her neck.

Sabrina felt the familiar, tantalizing roughness and her hand automatically lifted to catch his wrist. “What did you do to your fingers?”

He shook his head, vaguely impatient. “Nothing.”

“How did you get these little scars?” Sabrina pulled one of his hands from her nape and turned it palm up. In the darkness she peered at the faint webbing of marks. Delicately she touched them and immediately found her questing hand enfolded fiercely in his much larger fist.