LITMIR.BIZ

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man with the eye-patch and saw his lips twist, as if this was one piece of luck he would have preferred to do without. He made no attempt to alter his languid pose, merely leaning back further in his chair and staring at her with a frank, almost sensual appraisal which she found offensive in the extreme.

      That hotel-keeper, she thought furiously, must be off his head if he imagined she was going to go off into the wide blue yonder with a man who looked as if his career had spanned the gamut of crimes from armed robbery to rape!

      Almost as if he could divine her thoughts, he smiled, a lingering, insolent smile displaying even, startlingly white teeth, and she realised with a sickening jolt that a man who could exude such a potent sexual attraction, apparently at will, would never need to resort to rape.

      He stood up then, head and shoulders taller than any other man in the room, as she could see at a glance, lean and graceful like the jaguars who stalked in the undergrowth. A great silver buckle ornamenting the belt which was slung low on his hips, a silver medallion nestling among the dark hairs on his chest—they were the only touches of colour about him—and she remembered her joking resolution to come face to face with the devil himself if need be, and a little involuntary shiver ran through her.

      His smile widened and she realised he had gauged her reaction and was amused by it. She forced herself to stand her ground as he approached unhurriedly round the table and came to stand in front of her.

      ‘I am Vitas de Mendoza, señorita. What do you want with me?’

      She was sorely tempted to say it had all been a mistake and beat a hasty retreat. But at the same time, she knew this would accomplish nothing except to make her look a complete fool in front of these men, and that was the last thing she wanted. Her brain worked feverishly, and words rose to her lips.

      ‘I wish to buy your services, Señor.’

      Which wasn’t in the least what she’d intended to say, and she saw the dark brows lift mockingly in response.

      He said lazily, ‘You flatter me, of course, querida, but I regret that I am not for sale.’

      One or two of his companions laughed, but it was uneasy laughter. Rachel noticed it almost without noticing it, because her face was burning with swift embarrassment at having been betrayed into saying something so ambiguous.

      ‘You don’t understand.’ In spite of her confusion, she lifted her chin and looked steadily at him. ‘I need a guide—a reliable one. You have been recommended.’ She was aware of it again—that intangible sense of unease in the room after she had spoken. She said, ‘You are a guide, aren’t you? The hotel-keeper said….’

      ‘You’ve been talking to Ramirez?’ He broke across her rather stumbling words. ‘Well, he’s right. I do know this region better than most men, and my advice to you is go back to Bogota and join one of the organised tours. This is no place for a woman.’

      He turned away in dismissal.

      ‘No, wait.’ Almost before she knew what she was doing, she put out a hand and tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. He stopped and looked down at her hand, and there was a kind of hauteur in his expression. Her fingers looked very white and slender against the dark material, the nails smoothly rounded and painted with her usual pale pink polish. She relinquished the silky material hurriedly, the heat rising in her body as if she had inadvertently touched his skin.

      She thought, ‘How dare he look like that! He may have a more educated accent than his friends, but he’s only a guide, after all. He’s for hire. He has to work for his living.’

      Something of what she was thinking showed in her tone as she said, ‘Perhaps we could discuss this in private. I’m able to pay for your time, if that’s what’s concerning you.’

      ‘It is not.’ His face was expressionless, but she had the oddest feeling he was secretly amused. ‘You are a stubborn lady, querida, and a reckless one, I think. You should not offer to pay until you know the price you might be asked.’

      ‘This would obviously have to be part of the discussion,’ Rachel said. ‘Please talk to me about it at least.’ She heard the almost pleading note in her voice with a sense of shock. That wasn’t what she had intended at all.

      ‘You imagine your powers of persuasion will be more effective when we are alone?’ he asked, and laughed as the colour rose in her face. ’muy bien, chica, we will talk if you think it will make any difference, but later.’

      ‘We should talk now. This is important,’ she said in a low voice.

      ‘To you perhaps,’ he drawled. ‘But at the moment, nothing is more important to me than my game which you have interrupted—and I have a winning hand. I will talk to you later.’

      His hand came up, and his lean fingers stroked her cheek in the merest flick of a caress.

      Rachel heard herself gasp, as startled as if he had struck her. Or kissed her.

      She whirled round and out of the room, slamming the door behind her for emphasis, hearing the echo of laughter follow her.

      The reception desk was once more deserted, but she heard a chink of glasses coming from behind a half-opened door to the right of the entrance and went and looked round it. It was a large room with tables and a bar, empty now except for the man called Ramirez who was polishing glasses behind the bar. He looked surprised to see her and she wondered waspishly if he’d known exactly the sort of reception she was going to get—had perhaps even been listening at the door.

      ‘Your bargain is made, señorita?’ he enquired, straight-faced.

      ‘Not quite,’ she said too sweetly. ‘We’re going to talk later. I’m afraid that you’re going to have to let me have that room after all.’

      He gave her another long look. He was probably wondering why she wasn’t scuttling back to Bogota, her tail between her legs, she thought angrily.

      ‘Señor de Mendoza said he would speak with you later?’ He sounded incredulous, and she smiled kindly at him.

      ‘Indeed he did, after we’d got one or two points straightened out. He seemed to have some strange ideas about why I wished to hire him—and a very inflated opinion of his own attractions,’ she added for good measure. But she knew she was being unfair. Vitas de Mendoza was not the sort of man to indulge in illusions, and he could not have failed to know by now that his dark, saturnine good looks and the piratical extravagance of that eye-patch would be the realisation of a thousand women’s fantasies. She just happened to be the thousand and first, that was all.

      ‘He has reason,’ Ramirez said calmly. He chuckled reminiscently. ‘There was one woman—a norteamericana—she came here with her husband to see the country. Later she returned alone, and Vitas took her into the hills. They were gone a long time.’ He eyed Rachel. ‘Her hair was fair, like yours, señorita,’ he added blandly.

      ‘I can assure you that is the only resemblance,’ she said coldly. ‘Now can I please see this room? I did not enjoy the journey here, and I’m rather tired.’

      He shrugged almost fatalistically. ’si, Señorita.’

      The room he showed her was not large, but it was scrupulously clean, the narrow bed gay with Indian blankets, soft as fleece. They were selling similar blankets on the market stalls in the square below and Rachel promised herself she would buy one. But that would be later. All she wanted to do now was lie down on that bed and try to forget that foul bus journey. There was a bathroom just down the corridor with a small, rather reluctant shower, and she stripped and washed the dust and some of her aches away. It was bliss to come back to her room and put on fresh underwear from her small stock, and lock the door and close the shutters, so that the noise from the square became a muted and not intolerable hum, and then stretch out on the bed.

      Yet in spite of her bone-weariness, sleep seemed oddly elusive. Strange unconnected images kept coming into her mind—trees by a river with the darkness

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