Don Joaquin's Pride

‘Over the years, he’s…well, he’s sent me a lot of money,’ Cindy admitted with visible discomfiture.

Lucy’s brows pleated, for her sister lived in some comfort and had never to her knowledge been short of cash in recent years. ‘Why would Mario’s father have sent you money?’

‘Well, why shouldn’t he have?’ Cindy demanded almost aggressively. ‘He’s loaded, and he’s got nobody else to spend it on. I got nothing when Mario died!’

Lucy flushed at her twin’s frank annoyance over that reality.

Cindy’s taut shoulders bowed then, and she breathed in deep. ‘Yet in spite of all Fidelio’s invitations I never visited him, and when he tried to arrange a date to come over here to meet me a couple of years back, I made excuses.’

Lucy was shocked by that confession. ‘For goodness’ sake, why?’

Cindy grimaced and shrugged. ‘I haven’t always been the world’s nicest person, like you are, Lucy!’ she muttered irritably, wiping away the tears in her eyes with an infuriated hand. ‘Why would I want to go and stay on some ranch in the back of beyond with an old man? And why would I have wanted to be landed with entertaining him here in London? I always had something better to do, but I did intend to meet him sooner or later…only right now happens to be lousy timing!’

‘Yes.’ Lucy could see that, and no longer wondered why her sister’s conscience was troubling her so much.

‘Roger knows nothing about Fidelio, and I wouldn’t like him to know about the money because he wouldn’t think very much of me for just taking and taking and never giving anything back,’ Cindy confided grudgingly, biting at her lip, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘There’s a lot that Roger doesn’t know about my past, Lucy. I’ve put it behind me. I’ve changed. I made a new start when I got back in touch with you and Mum last year, and I haven’t taken a penny from Fidelio since then—’

‘It’s all right,’ Lucy muttered, her own eyes smarting at her twin’s desperation and her uncharacteristic honesty.

‘It will be if you go to Guatemala for me. I know I’m asking a lot, especially when I haven’t exactly been honest about some things,’ Cindy continued tautly. ‘But I really do need your help with this, Lucy…and if you can do this one thing for me, I swear I’ll be your best friend for ever!’

‘Cindy, I—’ Enveloped in a huge, grateful hug, Lucy was touched to the heart, because her sister was rarely demonstrative.

The twins had been separated by their divorcing parents at the age of seven and had spent the following fifteen years apart. Only recently had Lucy had the chance to get to know her sister again, and that had not been an easy task. Until now Cindy had hidden behind a reserve foreign to Lucy’s more open nature, and their lifestyles and interests were so different that it had been a challenge to find shared ground on which to bridge those years of estrangement.

But now, for the first time since they were children, Cindy had confided in Lucy again and asked for her help. The idea that she could be needed by her infinitely more glamorous and successful sister astonished Lucy, but it made her feel proud as well. Once the quieter, more dependent twin, Lucy had been devastated when her bossier, livelier sister had disappeared from her life. She had never lost that inner ache of loneliness and loss, and Cindy’s appeal for her help, Cindy’s need for her, touched a deep chord of sympathy within her. Blocking out the more practical misgivings threatening at the back of her mind, Lucy smiled with determined eagerness to offer all the assistance within her power.

Cindy drew back and surveyed her twin with the critical eye of a woman who had worked as both a make-up artist and a fashion buyer and who took a great deal of interest in her own appearance.

Ironically, few identical twins could have looked more different. Lucy never used make-up and tied her defiantly curly caramel-blonde hair back at the nape of her neck. Her blue denim skirt was calf-length, her check shirt sensible and her shoes flat and comfortable.

‘I sent Fidelio a photo of me last year and I was dressed to kill. I’m going to have my work cut out turning you into me!’ Cindy confessed with a rueful groan.

Lucy just stood there, slightly dazed, suddenly not quite sure she could have agreed to do such an outrageous thing as pretend to be her sister instead of herself. Her homely self. Now that they were both adults, she simply couldn’t imagine looking like her twin. Cindy had the perfect grooming of a model and confidently revealed far more than she concealed of her slim, toned figure. Her blonde mane of hair hung in a smooth fall down her back, both straightened and lightened. Not one inch of Cindy was less than perfect, Lucy conceded, hurriedly curving her bitten nails into the centre of her palms and sucking in her stomach.

Outside the shabby bar, which was little more than a shack with a tin roof, a wizened little man in a poncho tied up his horse to the roadside post available and stomped in out of the sweltering heat. He joined the tough-looking cowboys standing by the bar and within ten seconds he was gaping at Lucy with the rest of them. In a badly creased pale pink designer suit and precarious high heels, she was a sight such as was rarely seen at this remote outpost in the Guatemalan Petén.

The humidity was horrendous. Pressing a crumpled tissue to her perspiring brow, Lucy studied the scarred table in mute physical misery. Cindy had insisted that she would need to dress to impress throughout her stay. But Lucy felt horribly uncomfortable and conspicuous in her borrowed finery. Furthermore the wretched shoes pinched her toes and nipped her heels like instruments of torture.

Yesterday she had flown into Guatemala City and connected with a domestic flight to Flores, where she had spent the night at a small hotel. She had expected to be taken from there to the Paez ranch, but instead she had been greeted with the message that she would be picked up at the crossroads at San Angelita. Once her ancient rattling cab had turned off the main highway the landscape had become steadily more arid, and the road had swiftly declined into a rutted dirt track. That incredibly long and dusty journey had finally brought her to a ramshackle little cluster of almost entirely abandoned buildings in the middle of a dustbowl overshadowed by what looked very much like a volcano and, according to her guidebook, probably was. Exhaustion and a deep, desperate desire for a bath now gripped Lucy, not to mention an increasingly strong attack of cold feet.

Suppose Fidelio realised that she wasn’t Cindy? Suppose she said or did something that exposed their deception? It would be simply appalling if her masquerade was uncovered. A sick old man certainly didn’t require any further distress. But what would have been the alternative? Lucy asked herself unhappily. Cindy wouldn’t have come, and the thought of Fidelio Paez passing away without a single relative to comfort him filled Lucy with helpless compassion.

Belatedly registering that the noisy clump of men at the bar had fallen silent, Lucy looked up. A very tall male, who looked as if he had walked straight out of a spaghetti western in the role of cold-blooded killer, now stood just inside the doorway, spurred and booted feet set slightly astride. Intimidated by one glittering glance from beneath the dusty brim of the black hat that shadowed his lean, hard-boned features, Lucy gulped and hurriedly endeavoured to curl her five foot tall body into an even less noticeable hunch behind the table.

The barman surged out from behind the counter and extended a moisture-beaded glass to the new arrival. A doffing of hats and a low murmur of respectful greeting broke the silence. Emptying it in a long, thirsty gulp, the man handed the glass back and sauntered with disturbing catlike fluidity and jingling spurs across to the far corner where Lucy sat.

‘Lucinda Paez?’ he drawled.

Lucy focused wide-eyed on the leather belt with gleaming silver inserts that encircled his lean hips. Then, not liking the menacing manner in which he was towering over her, she thrust her chair back and hurriedly scrambled upright. Even in her four-inch heels, it didn’t help much. He had dwarfed the other men at the bar. He had to be six foot three, and the crown of her head barely reached his shoulder. Wondering if she was going to need her Spanish phrase book to make herself understood, she gazed up at his aggressive jawline and swallowed hard. ‘You’re here to collect me?’ she queried weakly. ‘I didn’t hear a car.’

‘That could be because I arrived on a horse.’

For a split second his smooth grasp of colloquial English took her by surprise, and then an uneasy laugh escaped her. He could only be cracking a joke. You didn’t turn up on horseback to collect a person with luggage. Tilting her golden head back, and fighting her natural shyness with all her might, Lucy said apologetically, ‘Could you show me some identification, please?’

‘I’m afraid I have none to offer. I am Joaquin Francisco Del Castillo, and I am not accustomed to doubt on that point.’

Lucy tried and failed to swallow on that staggeringly arrogant assurance. He had thrown his head high as if she had insulted him, his strong jawline rigid. ‘Well, Señor…er…Del Castillo, I am not accustomed to going off with strange men—’

‘Es verdad? You picked up Mario in a Los Angeles bar and shared his bed the same night. That knowledge does not lead me to believe that you are a particularly cautious woman,’ he drawled, his growling accent roughening the vowel sounds.

Lucy was nailed to the spot, still focusing on that firm male beautifully modelled mouth. She blinked, her soft lips opening and closing again in shock. She just could not believe that he had said something so offensive right to her face. Burning colour slowly crawled up her throat. ‘How dare you?’ she whispered in a shaken undertone. ‘That is a complete untruth!’

‘Mario and I grew up together. You are wasting your time putting on an act for my benefit. Save it for Fidelio. Are you coming…or are you staying here?’

‘I’m not going any place with you! They can send someone else out from the ranch,’ Lucy informed him with restraint, from between clenched teeth.

‘There is no one else, señora.’ And, with that clipped retort, Joaquin Del Castillo simply turned on his heel and strode back outside, command and cool writ large in his straight back, wide shoulders and fluid measured carriage.

Still awash with sheer paralysed shock at being treated with so shattering a lack of respect, Lucy stayed where she was. The men at the bar were talking between themselves. She stole a cringing glance at the growing male huddle, appalled by the suspicion that one of them might have understood enough English to follow what Joaquin Del Castillo had slung at her. Her cheeks aflame with colour, she grabbed up her heavy suitcase and struggled back outside with it.

Joaquin Del Castillo was waiting for her.

‘You are the most rude, foul-mouthed man I have ever met,’ Lucy announced, giving him only the most minimal sidewise glance of acknowledgement. ‘Please do not speak to me again unless it is absolutely necessary.’

‘You can’t bring that case.’ Before she could even guess his intention he had swept it up in one lean brown hand, planted it down in the dust and sprung it open.

‘What are you doing?’ Lucy gasped, her frigid air of desperate dignity fracturing fast.

‘It’s a long ride and I want to make good time. You will have no need for all these fripperies on the ranch,’ Joaquin Del Castillo asserted grimly. ‘Pick out a few necessities and I’ll put them in the saddlebags. The bar owner will look after your case until you return.’

‘A long ride…?’ Lucy repeated weakly. ‘Are you seriously expecting me…to get on a horse?’

‘Fidelio sold his pick-up.’

‘A h-horse?’ Lucy said again, even more shakily.

‘In a few hours it will be getting dark. I suggest you go behind the bar and change into a more appropriate outfit for the journey.’

Fidelio had sold his pick-up? Certainly a seriously ill old man would have little need of personal transport. But Fidelio Paez was also a wealthy man, and Lucy would have thought that any big ranch needed at least one vehicle. But what did she know about ranching? she asked herself, ruefully conceding her abysmal ignorance on the subject. Evidently Joaquin Del Castillo didn’t have motorised transport either, and she had seen for herself how poor and few were the roads in the Petén.

Lucy snatched in a deep shuddering breath. She had never been on a horse’s back in her life. ‘I can’t ride…’

A broad muscular shoulder sheathed in fine black cotton shrugged. It was fluid, it was dismissive, it was impatient. In fact Joaquin Del Castillo had the kind of highly expressive body language that made speech quite unnecessary. With the heel of one lean brown hand he pushed back the brim of his hat and surveyed her without pity. Sunlight illuminated his lean dark features for the first time.

Lucy’s breath tripped in her throat. He was so incredibly handsome she just stared and kept on staring, involuntary fascination gripping her.

His eyes were a clear startling green, framed by spiky ebony lashes and shockingly unexpected in that bold sun-bronzed face. His high, proud cheekbones were dissected by a lean, arrogant blade of a nose, the brilliant eyes crowned by flaring black brows, the whole brought to vibrant life by a mouth as passionate and as wicked as sin. He was just so gorgeous she was transfixed to the spot.