Counterfeit Bride (5 page)

She looked back at him slowly, reluctantly. He wasn't her idea of a rancher, she thought. His shoulders were broad, but his body seemed too finely boned. Her eyes drifted downwards over the long legs and strongly muscled thighs—the result, she supposed, of long days in the saddle. Yet his hands were a mystery, not calloused and rough as she would have imagined, but square-palmed with long sensitive fingers.

She caught back a sigh, as her eyes returned to his face, then gasped huskily as she realised too late that he was awake and watching her.

She sat motionless, thanking heavens for the dark glasses which masked any betrayal there might be in her eyes, but her breathing was flurried, and she saw his eyes slide down her body to her breasts, tautly outlined inside her dress, the nipples hard and swollen against the softly clinging fabric. She saw the dark eyes narrow as they assimilated   this shaming evidence of her arousal.

He said softly, 'You overwhelm me, querida. Shall I tell Lopez to drive further into the hills and lose himself for an hour or two?'

She felt the hot rush of colour into her face. She wanted to die.

She said icily, 'You are insulting, señor.'

'I thought I was being practical.'

'Your vile suggestions are an outrage!' she accused, her voice shaking.

'Of course.' He smiled slightly. 'What a lot you will have to tell Don Luis—when you meet him.'

'You can even think of him?'

'I have been thinking of him a great deal,' he said coolly. 'And always with you, naked and more than willing in his arms, querida. A disturbing vision, believe me.'

Her lips parted, then closed again helplessly. Nicola couldn't think of a single word to say, but she knew she had to say something, for Teresita's sake. Although there was no way Teresita would have ever got into this situation, she realised despairingly. She couldn't really believe that she herself had done such a thing.

She said haughtily, 'Please do not speak to me again, Don Ramon.'

It was weak, but it was the best she could manage. She turned her back on him resolutely and stared out of the window, totally unseeing, praying that the blush which seemed to be eating her alive would soon subside.

She couldn't think what was wrong with her. She wasn't completely unsophisticated. He'd made a verbal pass that was all. It wasn't the end of the world. It had happened to her before, and she'd demolished the perpetrator without a second thought. She was Nicola Tarrant, the Snow Queen, who could cut a too ardent male down with a scornful look. She had never fluttered or flustered in her life, and especially not over the past year. And it wasn't enough to tell herself that her outrage was assumed, part of the role she was playing. She was shaken to the core, and she knew it.

When the car finally stopped, she almost stumbled out of it, barely aware that they were at yet another motel, but smaller this time and far less luxurious. She knew that Lopez was watching her curiously, and tried desperately to pull herself together and act normally.

Ramon came to her side. 'Will you have dinner with me?' His voice sounded constrained.

She avoided his gaze. 'No—I have a headache. I'll ask for some food to be sent to my room.'

'As you please.' He made no attempt to detain her, and she fled. Safe in her room, she made no attempt to order any food, knowing that she wouldn't be able to swallow as much as a morsel.  She undressed and showered and lay down on top of the bed, staring into the gathering darkness, her whirling thoughts refusing to cohere into any recognisable pattern.

There was one rock to hang on to in her sea of confusion—that tomorrow they would be in Monterrey, and this whole stupid, dangerous masquerade would be over. She should never have embarked on it in the first place, she knew, and she could only pray that she would emerge from it relatively unscathed.

Just let me get through tomorrow, she thought, and then it will be all right. I'll be able to take up the rest of my life, and forget this madness. I'll be free.

She kept repeating the word 'free' as if it was a soothing mantra, and eventually it had the effect she wanted and the darkness of night and the shadows of sleep settled on her almost simultaneously.

It was a maid knocking on the door which woke her eventually. She sat up, pushing her hair back from her face, to find to her horror that it was broad daylight.

'Señorita, your car is waiting,' she was reminded, and heard the woman move away.

She glanced at her watch and groaned. She had overslept badly. She dressed rapidly, and almost crammed the loathsome wig on to her hair. She smothered a curse as she adjusted it. She had wanted to meet Ramon in the clear light of day, looking well-groomed and in control of the situation, and instead she was going to appear late, harassed and looking like something the cat had dragged in.

She grabbed her bag and left precipitately, aware that a porter was waiting in the corridor to fetch her cases.

As she emerged from the reception area into the sunshine, she made herself slow down and take'deep, steadying breaths, as she saw the waiting car. Lopez was standing beside it, looking anxiously towards the entrance, but when he saw her he smiled in relief and opened the back door.

Nicola, steeling herself, climbed in. But the other seat was unoccupied. She twisted round, looking out of the rear window, but she could only see Lopez supervising the bestowal of her luggage in the boot. When he took his place in the driving seat, she leaned forward.

'Where is Don Ramon?'

He turned. 'I am to give you this, señorita.' He handed her an envelope, then closed the glass partition between them.

Nicola opened the envelope and extracted the single sheet it contained.

'I regret that urgent business commitments take me from your side,' the writing, marching arrogantly across the page, informed her. 'I wish you a safe journey, arid a pleasant reunion with your novio.' It was signed with an unintelligible squiggle.

Nicola read it several times, relief warring with an odd" disappointment. So she would never see him again. On the other hand, it meant she only had Lopez to shake off when they reached Monterrey, and that had to be welcome news.

She read the terse words once again, then folded the note and stowed it in her bag, biting her lip.

Later, making sure that Lopez' whole attention was concentrated on the road ahead, she reached into her bag and drew out the itinerary for her trip. There was an airport at Monterrey, and she would have to find out whether there were direct flights from there to Merida. There had been no time to finalise every detail before she left Mexico City. Teresita had seen to it that she had enough money for any eventuality, firmly cutting across her protests.

'You are doing this for my sake, Nicky. It must cost you nothing,' she had said.

In retrospect her words seemed ironic to Nicola now, but she dismissed that trend of thought from her mind, and began reading the brochures for her trip, trying to recapture her earlier excitement at the prospect. But it wasn't easy. The names, the jungle temples no longer seemed to work the same potent magic with her as they had done. Nicola sighed and replaced them in her bag, arranging the crush-proof blue sundress she was going to change into on top of the papers.

She yawned, feeling earlier tensions beginning to seep away. Her little adventure was almost over, and she could begin to relax. Her sleep last night had been fitful, which probably explained her failure to wake this morning. She put her feet up on the seat, and relaxed. Next stop Monterrey, she thought.

It was the car slowing which woke her at last. She struggled to sit upright, putting an apprehensive hand up to touch the wig. She was stiff, and her mouth was dry, as if she had slept for several hours, but surely it couldn't be true.

She expected to see suburbs at least, and signs of an industrial complex, but there wasn't the least indication they were approaching a city. On the contrary, it seemed as if they were in the middle of nowhere. There were vestiges of habitation—a few shacks, and a tin-roofed cantina. And the road had altered too. They were no longer on a broad public highway but on a single track dirt road.

There were petrol pumps beside the cantina and this was clearly why Lopez was stopping. But where were they?

Lopez came to her door and opened it. 'Do you wish for coffee, señorita? I did not wake you for a meal because I thought you would be glad to reach your destination at last.'

'I would be glad of coffee.' She got out of the car. 'When do we reach Monterrey, Lopez? Is this a shortcut?'

The stolid face expressed the nearest thing to amazement it was probably capable of. 'Monterrey, señorita? But surely you know—we no longer go to Monterrey. It is Don Luis' order that we should go directly to La Mariposa instead.'

Nicola's lips parted in a soundless gasp. For a moment, she thought she was going to faint, and caught at the edge of the car door to steady herself. She saw Lopez look alarmed, and pretended she had turned her ankle slightly on Teresita's high heels.

She managed to say, 'No—I didn't know.' This must have been the message Ramon had tried to give her, she thought frantically. 'When— when shall we arrive at the hacienda?'

'In less than two hours, señorita.' He spoke as if expecting to be congratulated. 'You will be pleased, I think, to reach your journey's end.'

Journey's end, Nicola thought as she negotiated with some difficulty the patch of dry and barren ground which separated the cantina from the road. Journeys end in lovers' meetings—wasn't that what they said? But there was no lover waiting for her—just a formidable and justly enraged man whose path she had dared to cross.

Inside the cantina, a girl was frantically wiping off a table and chairs, and Nicola sank down on to one of them, trying to control her whirling frantic thoughts.

What was she going to do? She knew from Teresita that the Montalba hacienda was miles from anywhere, with no nearby stores where she could unobtrusively perform her transformation, or crowded streets for her to fade into. And there was nowhere to hide, or means of escape here. This looked like the kind of place where there might be one bus a week to the nearest town.

The girl brought coffee, black, hot and freshly brewed. Nicola gulped hers. It didn't quench her thirst, but at least helped to revive her a little.

She had been mad to let herself fall asleep again, she reproached herself. If she'd been awake, she would have seen they were turning off the highway, and asked' why. She might even have put some kind of a spoke in Don Luis' plans, although it was difficult to know what.

Lopez had come in, and was drinking his coffee at an adjacent table. Moistening her lips, Nicola asked him a little falteringly if he knew why Don Luis had changed his mind about their destination.

'The Señor did not honour me with his reasons,' Lopez said a little repressively, then his face relaxed a little. 'But I think, señorita, it is because of the chapel. There is a beautiful chapel at La Mariposa and no doubt Don Luis wishes to be married there. It is a family tradition.'

'A   family   tradition,’ Nicola   echoed   weakly.   All Teresita's forebodings had been right, it seemed. If she had taken this journey in person, there was no way Cliff could ever have traced her. She tried to feel glad for them both, but inwardly her stomach was churning with fright.

She stole a glance at Lopez, wondering what he would do if she threw herself on his mercy and confessed everything. She had money, perhaps she could bribe him to drive her to Monterrey. Then she remembered the note of respect in his voice when he had spoken of Don Luis—the way he had said, 'It is a family tradition", and knew there was no hope there. He would take her straight to his employer, and a search for Teresita would be mounted immediately. And if by some mischance she and Cliff were still unmarried, then it would all have been for nothing.

She got up abruptly from the table, and asked the girl who had brought the coffee to show her the lavatory which was housed in a rough-and-ready corrugated iron shack across the yard at the rear of the building, where a few scrawny chickens pecked in a desultory manner among the dirt and stones.

The flushing apparatus didn't work, and the tiny handbasin yielded only a trickle of rusty water. Nicola took off her dark glasses and stared at herself in the piece of cracked mirror hanging above the basin. Her eyes looked enormous, and deeply shadowed, and she felt as taut as a bowstring.

It had all gone hopelessly, disastrously wrong, and she had not the faintest idea how to begin to put it right. All she could do, she supposed, was go with the tide, and see where it took her. And if that was to the feet of a furious Mexican grandee, then she had only herself to blame for having got involved in the first place.

As she crossed back to the cantina, she noticed a battered blue truck standing in the yard. The driver was standing talking to an older man, probably the cantina' s owner. Nicola looked longingly at the truck as she passed. She'd asked for a way out of here, and now one was being presented, dangled in front of her, in fact.

But could she take it? The driver had stopped presumably for petrol and a drink, which meant that the truck would be left unattended at some point. But would the driver be obliging enough to leave the keys in the ignition? And how far would she get anyway in a strange vehicle, when only yards away there was a powerful car with a driver who knew the terrain, and would overtake her quite effortlessly because it was his duty to do so?

As she looked away with an inward sigh, she encountered the driver's smiling eyes.

'Bonita rosita,' he called, his glance devouring her shamelessly. She saw the cantina owner put a hand on his arm, and say something in a low voice. It was obviously some kind of warning, and she heard the word 'Montalba.' The truck driver sobered immediately, his expression becoming almost sheepish, and he turned away shrugging, and moving his hands defensively.

Nicola shivered a little. What kind of man was Don Luis that the mention of his name could have such an instant effect?

On her way back to the table, she saw a telephone booth in the corner. If it hadn't been so totally public and within earshot of anyone who cared to listen, she would have been tempted to try and get through to Mexico City and say to Elaine a loud and unequivocal, 'Help—get me out of here!'

Not that she could blame Elaine for her present predicament, she reminded herself wryly. No one had forced her into this masquerade. She had said herself that it was a crazy idea. She could have and should have stuck to her guns, and refused to have any part in it.

She sat down at the table and drank the rest of her coffee. It was cool now, and left a bitter taste, and she had to repress a shudder. Lopez had vanished, but Nicola could hear voices and a giggle emanating from behind a curtained doorway on the other side of the bar, and guessed he had taken advantage of her absence to further his acquaintance with the pretty waitress. His cap and gloves lay on the table, awaiting his return. And—Nicola took a shaky breath—so did the keys to the car. Almost before she knew what she was doing, she leaned across and took them, dropping them into her bag. The die was cast, it seemed.

Biting her lip, she got up and crossed to the back door again. There was on one in sight. The truck basked in the heat of the afternoon. Nicola looked round, her heart thudding uncomfortably, then crossed and looked into the driver's cab. The keys were there, she registered incredulously. But then why shouldn't they be? This was a remote corner of nowhere, not a busy urban street. The door squealed nastily as she opened it, and she froze for a moment expecting the sound of running feet, raised voices, but there was nothing.

She climbed up into the cab, wincing as the heat from the torn and shabby upholstery penetrated her thin dress. She drew a deep breath and made herself sit calmly for a moment while she briefly studied the controls. She needed to make a clean getaway, not fumbling and stalling. Nor would she take the road they'd just come on. She would head across country for the distant sierras, and hope that somewhere she would encounter the highway or at least a town of reasonable size.

With a silent prayer on her lips, she turned on the ignition. The engine didn't fire at the first attempt, but it did at the second, and she eased down the clutch, swallowing nervously. Bumping and lurching over the rough ground, the rickety vehicle took off with a speed which belied its battered exterior.

Behind her, Nicola heard a shout, and then another. She risked a look over her shoulder. The truck driver was standing with Lopez, like a frozen tableau depicting horror, then they both moved, running forward in a futile effort to catch the truck before it was too late. Nicola smiled grimly, and put her foot down hard. A glance in the mirror showed that Lopez had thrown his cap down and was jumping on it, and a giggle of sheer hysteria welled up inside her. She didn't look back again. This was practically desert she was driving over, and she needed all her wits about her.

She drove for over an hour, and then stopped the truck in the shade of a large rock and took stock of her position. So far she hadn't seen as much as a sign of a road, and although she knew she was bound to come across one sooner or later, there was a niggle of anxiety deep in the pit of her stomach. She remembered hearing that drivers were not advised to turn off main roads in the northern regions without qualified guides. Tourists had been known to be lost, and worse. She wasn't a tourist, of course, she was a fugitive, and that made it no better.

There were no maps in the truck, she discovered, after a perfunctory search. There was a service manual for some other vehicle entirely, a dilapidated torch, and a few tools, as well as an oil-stained jacket. No food or drink—not even as much as a slab of chocolate.