Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set (47 page)

She drew in her breath. "Yes."

Peter smiled, but his eyes were serious. "You would marry an ex-con like me?"

Sara
laid her hand against his cheek. "You mean, would I marry a man who gave up everything for love and honor?" She smiled. "Yes, my darling, I would."

His smile became a grin. "I accept."

Her heart filled with happiness. "Are you sure?"

He kissed her with a slow, sweet passion that left her breathless. "Does that convince you, sweet Sara?"

Sara smiled up at him. "Well," she said in a teasing whisper, "it's a start."

Her last thought, as Peter drew her down beside him, was that no eagle had ever flown higher than she and the man in her arms.

by

SANDRA MARTON

Copyright © 1988, 2011 by Sandra
Marton

It had been a mistake to come to the market. Elena knew it as soon as she stepped from the icy chill of the Cadillac Brougham into the fetid heat of the marketplace in the center of Santa Rosa. She could feel her white linen dress start wilting as the humidity and the smell reached out and wrapped her in unwanted embrace. She hesitated for a moment, the lacquered nails of one hand resting on the car's brightly waxed door, her green eyes narrowing as she looked around her. The square wasn't as she remembered it, she thought, gazing at the makeshift stalls. Where were all the laughing children? Where was the old man with the guitar who always sat on the curb, singing love songs in the strange Spanish dialect of the hills?

"Senorita?"

Elena looked into the car. Her chauffeur's voice was properly polite, but there was no mistaking the look of concern in his dark eyes.

"If you have changed your mind," he said, "we can go back to the
hacienda."

It was the sound of his careful, accented English that made up her mind. She'd been back in Santa Rosa for a week, but everyone still treated her as if she were a tourist. She'd been born here, for goodness sake. Had they all forgotten that? She was as much a San
Felipian as anyone else—having an American mother had never changed that, nor had going to school in the States or even living there for the past three years. She was Elena Teresa Maria Consuelo Kelly-Esteban, and she was as much at home in this city and this country as she'd ever been.

She slammed the car door and smiled. "Thank you, Juan," she said, "but I haven't changed my mind. I want to do some shopping, and I won't be needing you for a while. Please pick me up at the flower stalls in about an hour."

"You will find few flowers for sale in the market,
senorita,"
the driver said. "I have told you, it is not the same as you remember. Since the rebels..."

Elena waved her hand dismissively. "They're in the mountains," she said patiently. "Not in the city."

The man nodded.
"Si.
But still, it is true, things are not as they were. People have come down from the hills. They are not the sort you are accustomed to. Please,
senorita,
let me take you back to your father's house. You do not belong in this place."

For a moment, she almost agreed. The hot breeze blowing from the harbor had brought with it a whiff of dead fish and diesel oil, not the heavy fragrance of flowers and fruits she remembered. But then, nothing was quite as she remembered it. One of the reasons she'd insisted on going to the mid-week market was the hope that, if she got away from the rarefied atmosphere of Rancho Esteban and spent some time among the people of San Felipe, she'd feel less like a visitor and more like her father's daughter. Remembering that, Elena took a step away from the car.

"Go on, Juan," she said gently. "Stop being such an old woman. I'll be fine."

"Your father will have my head if anything happens to you."

"Nothing will, I promise." A smile touched her lips. "Do you still have a weakness for
tajadas?"

For the first time all morning, Juan's broad face creased in a grin. "Does the Rio
Bianco still flow to the sea?" he laughed.

Elena nodded. "When you meet me at the flower stalls, I shall have a bag filled with chips for you. Now go and visit your sister. Be sure and give her my love. I'll see you in an hour."

The driver sighed. "She will be happy that you remember her,
senorita."

She smiled and patted the Cadillac's bumper. "Off with you," she said. "And stop worrying. I can take care of myself. I'm not a child anymore."

She turned away before he could answer and blended quickly into the crowded market. It wasn't as colorful as she remembered it, but she'd been younger the last time she'd been here. Perhaps everything seemed different when you were eighteen years old and fresh from a Florida boarding-school. She'd been so happy to be home—she'd been away at school for five years, ever since her mother's death. But, after a few weeks, her father had insisted it was best if she returned north.

"I don't want to go, Papa," she'd said. "I love the ranch. And I've missed you terribly."

Eduardo Esteban had put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. "As I have missed you, Elena," he'd said. "And you shall come back soon, I promise. But..." His dark eyes had clouded suddenly. "But things are unsettled in San Felipe. Until the future is more certain, I want you somewhere safe. It is for the best."

She'd felt a cold sadness settle within her heart. How many times had she heard those words? It seemed as if there had always been a reason why she and her parents had to be apart. When she was younger, it had been her father's trips into the jungle to study the ruins of ancient civilizations. And then, when her mother had died, her grief at the loss had been compounded by his decision to send her away to school.

Her American half had urged her to argue with him, but the part of her that was obediently Spanish had won, and Elena had finally nodded and done as he had asked. She'd settled into a small apartment in Miami and taken a job in an art gallery, only coming home twice for brief visits. Until now. Until the rumors of unrest had begun to flame across the Florida newspapers. Until she'd begun to believe the headlines instead of her father's carefully worded letters, assuring her that things were fine, that nothing had changed.

The truth was that almost everything had changed. The streets of the city were dirty. Most of the better stores were boarded up and vacant. Even the market was different, just as Juan had warned it would be. There were melons and squashes for sale as always, although not in the jumbled profusion she remembered. But the stalls that had sold sides of pork were shuttered. Only the one dealing in live chickens was open, and it was doing lots of business. The dark-eyed Indio women selling the silver and agate jewelry so famous in San Felipe were gone, as were the displays of striped blankets made of soft sheep's wool, the woven baskets, and the clay pots.

And there were no tourists. That was the most obvious difference. Usually, they were everywhere in the market, clutching their guidebooks and haggling with the vendors in broken Spanish. In fact, Elena realized uncomfortably, in her white dress and her dark leather sandals, she looked the closest thing to a tourist in the market. Of course, she wasn't one. It was just that she felt so curiously out of place.

She paused beside a stand displaying hands of the tiny red bananas her father had always loved. Perhaps the sight of them at dinner would bring a smile to his gaunt face, she thought, counting out a handful of coins in exchange for the fruit. She smiled as she tucked the little bananas into her oversized cotton shoulder-bag. Maybe there would be papayas for sale, too. Those and the bananas and a dish of caramelized sugar...

"What in God's name are you doing here?"

Elena blinked and looked up. A man was standing in front of her, barring her way.

"I beg your pardon," she said coldly. "Were you speaking to me?"

"Do you see anybody else around here who'd be likely to understand English?"

His voice was hard and unpleasant. She tilted her head back, trying to see him more clearly, but the sun was behind him, burning into her eyes and making it impossible to get a good look at him. What she saw, however, she definitely did not like. He was tall and broad-shouldered,  There was a battered, wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes—not that she could have seen them anyway, she thought, looking at the dark, mirrored sunglasses he wore. The bottom half of his face bristled with dark stubble.

She wanted to step back—but she sensed giving way to him would be unwise. So she kept her eyes on his face, lifted her chin and started to move past him.

He stepped in front of her again.

"I asked you a question," he said, putting his hands on his hips. "And you haven't answered it."

This was ridiculous, she thought, staring at him. Who did he think he was? Was he drunk? Her nose wrinkled again. No, there was no trace of alcohol about him.

Crazy, then. Why not? It seemed anything was possible in Santa Rosa these days.

"You have no business in a place like this."

"Get out of my way," she said, anger flashing in her eyes. Still, he refused to move. She drew a deep breath. "Did you hear me? I said, get out..."

"Slumming's a hell of a lot safer in Mexico than it is here, lady. Why don't you hop on a plane to Ixtapa?" He inched forward and despite herself, Elena took a step back. "It's made for people like you. You can rub shoulders with the peasants and bargain for cheap jewelry and have a hell of a time scaring yourself silly without risking your pretty little neck."

"Look," she said carefully, "I'm sure you mean well, but..."

The man reached out and grasped her arm roughly, his fingers rasping through her thin silk dress to the skin beneath.

"You're coming with me," he growled.

Elena's heart thumped. "What?"

"You heard me. If you're so damned set on excitement, I'll..."

Don't let him frighten you, Elena told herself. This is broad daylight. You're in a public square.

"Do you see those soldiers across the square?" she asked him calmly. "If you don't let go of me, I'm going to scream."

He laughed. "That should interest them, all right."

"Perhaps you don't understand me," she said carefully. "If I were you, I'd think about what they'd do to a
gringo
who was molesting the daughter of Don Eduardo Esteban."

The man's grip tightened. "Is that supposed to impress me?"

She tilted her head back and looked into his face, watching her reflection in his mirrored lenses.

"I'll give you ten seconds to let go of me and step aside," she said. "One. Two. Three. Four..."

A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. She felt his fingers tighten for an instant and then his hand fell away.

"Right," he said softly, and he took a step back. "Have a good time, baby. Don't say I didn't warn you."

She shouldered past him quickly, winding her way uphill and deeper into the market, her heart thudding erratically. Juan was right: coming here had been a mistake. Not that she'd ever admit it to him, she thought risking a glance over her shoulder and breathing a sigh of relief. The man was gone, vanished as quickly as he'd appeared. Well, so much for spending time among the people. Not that the man who'd accosted her had been San Felipian. His speech, his size, everything about him had told her he was North American.

She paused and looked behind her again. All she really wanted now was to head for the flower stalls and wait for Juan. She wondered if she should go back down the hill and retrace her steps. But the man might still be lurking about, waiting for her. Even if he'd only been bent on saving her in spite of herself, one run-in with him had been quite enough. She could still feel the imprint of his hand on her, still hear the harsh strength of his voice. No, she thought, it was far safer to go the long way round.

Elena's footsteps quickened. The market stalls thinned as they curved along the road leading up into the town's poorer streets. They would peter out eventually and be replaced by narrow, thick-smelling alleyways which would lead her back to the flower market. And then she'd find the stand that sold
tajadas
for Juan and she'd get into the Cadillac, lock the door behind her and forget all about the market.

She felt a hand brush lightly across the strap of her shoulder-bag. Elena turned quickly and found herself staring into a pair of dark eyes. The boy smiled and shrugged his shoulders, and she forced herself to nod in return. Her imagination was working overtime, she told herself as she hurried on. The boy hadn't bumped into her deliberately. He hadn't been interested in her purse...

She gasped as someone jostled her elbow. But it was only an old woman who smiled and murmured an apology.

"
Dispenseme, senorita
.
Excuse me."

"My fault," Elena said with a strained smile.

She was half-way down an alley now, and the stalls were gone. The shoppers were gone, too. The graffiti-scarred walls, mottled in shadow, echoed her footsteps. A shiver of fear chilled the nape of her neck. Perhaps she ought to go back the way she'd come. Perhaps...

The alley narrowed ahead, partially blocked by a peddler's cart. A man leaned against it and Elena’s skirt brushed against him as she passed.

"Dispenseme
," she said. But there was no answering voice, no equally polite apology. Instead, she felt a hand move quickly across her hip, the touch slowing on her buttocks. "Hey," she said, spinning around angrily, "what are you..."

The man who had been leaning against the cart had been silently joined by another, and their eyes were on her, moving across her breasts and her hips like snakes slithering across the grass. She flushed and turned away at their lewd laughter. The alley stretched on interminably, shadowy and narrow, its shuttered windows and closed doorways seeming like sightless eyes and sealed mouths that would remain frighteningly indifferent to all pleas for help. A muffled sound caught in her throat and her heart began to pound.