The Man From her Wayward Past

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Back to the list. The next entry after wax, was

4. Get a tan

Lucia remembered a columnist in ROCK! insisting that this must be subtle—a mere sun-kissed whisper that would fool any man into thinking it was natural.

5. Get a cool new wardrobe!

One that did not include a bobbly polyester uniform in a shade that might once have been white, presumably.

6. Get a hairdo

This prompted another visit to the mirror, where she lifted up her haystack hair. Most people complained that their hair was too thin or too straight. She was currently experiencing the opposite problem, known as The Inexplicable Explosion of Frizz. Without her styling products and gadgets, and without money to get it done in a salon, she was on her own.

7. Get a gym membership

First off, gym memberships cost money. And there was a more important consideration: without the hairdo, the tan, the wax and the cool new wardrobe, she was never going to make it through the door of a decent gym.

8. Get a good dance teacher—for the Samba, preferably. Someone like the old gaucho Ignacio, on Nero Caracas’s ranch. Judging by the way Ignacio vaulted the fence when I decided to ride Nero’s fire-breathing monster stallion bareback, Ignacio has still got some moves in him!

9. Get a gag for her polo-playing brothers—so they can’t share any embarrassing secrets with any men I might attract once I’ve completed all of the above.

10. Get a (non-polo-playing) man

And there the list ended. Lucia smiled as she remembered Ignacio teaching her to dance the Samba, and quite a few other dances as well, bringing his ancient ghetto blaster, as Ignacio had called his battered radio, to the hay barn, where she’d been able to blunder about undisturbed. Okay. Looking on the bright side. She was still podgy and in need of a suntan with a frizz ball on her head, but this babe could dance.

‘Cheers, Margaret,’ Lucia murmured, wrapping her frozen hands around the warm flask of chocolate. This small, kind act of someone who had so little made Lucia more determined than ever to help her elderly friend.

‘And hello, Luke,’ she added, addressing Luke’s smouldering poster just inches from her bed.

Hopping out again, she took a closer look. Wow hardly covered it. Lucia’s brothers frequently featured on billboards, but always in full polo rig and usually mounted on a horse. They were certainly never caught half-naked, sluicing themselves down, in a shot Lucia couldn’t imagine strait-laced Luke agreeing to in a million years.

‘You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?’ she murmured, taking full inventory of Luke’s previously hidden assets.

And then there was the pose. Brandishing a whip as he glared into the camera, Luke was naked to his washboard waist, his hard tanned torso accessorised by nothing more than sharp black stubble and a steel watch that could probably tell his position in relation to the moon. A pair of obscenely revealing riding breeches and knee-high leather boots completed an image guaranteed to make any girl’s day.

Posters were a safe way to appreciate the finer points of one of the world’s fittest men. She liked that. As she jumped about and blew on her hands to keep warm before hypothermia set in, Lucia guessed the only way Luke would have been caught out in a shot like that was through the involvement of her school friend and ruthless sister-in-law Holly. Holly was a journalist at ROCK! magazine, and had tamed—sorry—was married to Lucia’s brother Ruiz. Capturing Luke in such a provocative pose would have been an incredible scoop for her.

Three cheers for Holly the reporter! Lucia concluded, chalking one up for the girls. She took another look at Luke’s centrefold.

Goodness, Luke was big …

No wonder she was having erotic dreams. Trying hard not to fixate on Luke’s clinging breeches and the improbable-sized bulge within, Lucia shook her head. She could admire all she liked, but it certainly would never happen now. It couldn’t. She couldn’t. One thing was sure: after this unveiling he could stick his disapproval the next time they met.

The next time they met?

There was nothing on her to-do list that ruled against meetings with an approved family friend, she reasoned, climbing into bed.

CHAPTER FOUR

I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats o’er vales and hill …

I’m the only twenty-four-year-old I know who doesn’t need to take her pill.

Anon.

Are all poets destined to end up on the (remainder) shelf?

Pull yourself together, Lucia!

RESTING her cheek against the cold wet glass the next morning, Lucia stopped scribbling in her journal and stared out of the caravan window at the windswept shore. If she had wanted distance from her brothers she had certainly got it here. She missed them, but no way was she going to ask them for the money to help Margaret. If she did she’d be right back to square one. Yes, she loved her brothers, but Nacho especially made no distinction between caring and smothering, which had left her gasping for freedom in the shadow of four powerful men and their saintly friend Luke.

Luke …

Did her body have to respond with such unbridled delight to the idea of so much stern, glowering disapproval locked inside one hot man?

Maybe she liked Luke’s steely self-control too much, Lucia reflected, glancing at his poster image. It was certainly enough to overrule her fear of men.

Most men. Picking up her bag, she made a mental note to get the strap repaired. It had suffered a few injuries when she had used it to beat off the concierge. Teeth, nails, handbag, heel of her shoe … A frantic struggle which seemed so feeble now she looked back. But at least she had got away. Eventually.

The concierge had made her feel dirty, calling her names as she ran from the room, clutching her ripped shirt together. He’d said she was asking for it, when nothing could be further from the truth. She did like parties, and she liked flirting with hot guys, but now she could see that her fun-filled reputation had done her no favours. She could just imagine Luke’s scorn if he ever found out what had happened. Getting changed in the staffroom without remembering to put the lock on the door? It was such a stupid thing to do. But she had to try to put it behind her or she would never get on with her life.

Tilting her chin, Lucia gave Luke’s image one last confident stare, but the ache still remained. Where was he now? With the blonde? Perhaps Luke had sensed she was tainted—that the concierge had had his hands all over her. Everywhere. It made her stomach heave just thinking about it. She could still remember his fingers intimately feeling … squeezing … probing, and his sour breath choking her as she struggled to escape. If Luke knew that he would just think, Party girl. What do you expect?

She jumped as her phone rang, and then frowned as she checked the number. She had to take a moment before she could answer. Talk of the devil—though Luke would have no truck with hell. What? No air-con? Luke would be more likely to hold a season ticket to cloud extreme, where he could strum his whip beneath the glow of an oat-fed halo. No way would he waste his time on an aerodynamically inefficient tail and a totally useless pitchfork unless he could use it to strike a polo ball.

‘Luke,’ she said finally, when she had calmed down a little. ‘What a nice surprise. Did you leave something at the club?’

‘In the unlikely event I had left something at the club I would go back to pick it up. I wouldn’t call you.’

Well. That told her. Luke couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic had he tried. Crouched on the bench seat, with her legs drawn up, she hugged the phone. ‘Of course not,’ she said, injecting energy into her voice. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

‘I didn’t see you when I left the club. You were working, I expect.’

‘I’m sorry. I—’

‘Strange,’ he rapped over her. ‘The first time I saw you at the club you assured me you weren’t working there often. But the manager says you are. And he knows you as Anita. What’s going on, Lucia? Why are you lying to me?’

‘What I do or don’t do is none of your business, Luke.’

‘Nacho made it my business.’

‘So you’re my brother’s deputy now?’

‘I’m your brother’s friend,’ Luke argued quietly.

Luke couldn’t have disarmed her faster. There was no point starting a feud with someone Nacho loved when the very last thing she wanted was a total break with her family. ‘So why are you calling me?’

‘I’m concerned about you, Lucia.’

‘Well, don’t be. And if my brothers are so worried, why don’t they call? Or are they too busy playing polo?’

‘Why are you always so suspicious, Lucia?’

‘Because you’re all joined at the hip,’ she flashed. ‘And because my brothers never like me to have too long a leash. Isn’t that right, Luke?’

There was silence at the other end of the line.

Damn him! Luke had made her feel homesick, reminding her of all the warmth and support she received in Argentina. It made everything here seem bleaker—the wind rattling round the caravan, the freezing cold water, the hideous episode with the concierge which she was doing her best to block out, and then her subsequent high-speed drive through the night, reckless …

And her lousy job at the club.

A dead-end job to end all dead-end jobs.

Her heart sank like a stone. She couldn’t bear for gorgeous, glorious, successful Luke to know her life was a complete and utter mess. And she certainly couldn’t bear for him to share that little nugget of information with her brothers. If they knew what had happened … How they would blame her for her frivolous, careless party-girl lifestyle. She deserved this, didn’t she?

Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, she said briskly, ‘Is this a courtesy call, or does it have some purpose, Luke?’ She needed him to get off the line fast, before her voice broke.

‘I’ve never heard you in this mood before,’ he said suspiciously.

‘Independent, do you mean?’ Her fingers had turned white on the phone. It was one thing acting tough, but when she really wanted to cling to Luke’s disembodied presence like a brainless limpet until all the bad things went away it was far better to end the call as soon as she could.

‘Are you still there, Lucia?’

‘I’m here.’

Luke checking up on her was nothing new. She had been an object of amusement for Luke and her brothers for as long as Lucia could remember. They thought she was a fancy, frilly little joke—a novelty, a pet they would like to keep locked up in a box until they decided to bring her out and coo over her on those rare occasions when they weren’t trying to murder each other on the polo field.

‘Just tell my brothers everything’s fine.’