IT WAS A MISTY RAIN, but Melissa Sterling didn't mind.
Getting soaked was a small price to pay for a few precious
minutes with Diego Laremos.
Diego's family had owned the finca, the giant Guatemalan
farm that bordered her father's land, for four
generations. And despite the fact that Melissa's late
mother had been the cause of a bitter feud between the
Laremos family and the Sterlings, that hadn't stopped
Melissa from worshiping the son and heir to the Laremos
name. Diego seemed not to mind her youthful adoration, or
if he did, he was kind enough not to mock her for it.
There had been a storm the night before, and Melissa had
ridden down to Mama Chavez's small house to make sure the
old woman was all right, only to find that Diego, too, had
been worried about his old nurse and had come to check on
her. Melissa liked to visit her and listen to tales of
Diego's youth and hear secret legends about the Maya.
Diego had brought some melons and fish for the old woman,
whose family tree dated back to the very beginning of the
Mayan empire, and now he was escorting Melissa back to her
father's house.
Her dark eyes kept running over his lean, fit body,
admiring the way he sat on his horse, the thick darkness
of his hair under his panama hat. He wasn't an arrogant
man, but he had a cold, quiet authority about him that
bordered on it. He never had to raise his voice to his
servants, and Melissa had only seen him in one fight. He
was a dignified, self-contained man without an apparent
weakness. But he was mysterious. He often disappeared for
weeks at a time, and once he'd come home with scars on his
cheek and a limp. Melissa had been curious, but she hadn't
questioned him. Even at twenty, she was still shy with
men, and especially with Diego. He'd rescued her once when
she'd gotten lost in the rain forest searching for some
old Mayan ruins, and she'd loved him secretly ever since.
"I suppose your grandmother and sister would die if they
knew I was within a mile of you," she sighed, brushing
back her long wavy blond hair as she glanced at him with a
hesitant smile that was echoed in the soft gray of her
eyes.
"They bear your family no great love, that is true," he
agreed. The distant mountains were a blue haze in front of
them as they rode. "It is difficult for my family to
forget that Edward Sterling stole my father's novia on the
eve of their wedding and eloped with her. My father spoke
of her often, with grief. My grandmother never stopped
blaming your family for his grief."
"My father loved her, and she loved him," Melissa
defended. "It was only an arranged marriage that your
father would have had with her, anyway, not a love match.
Your father was much older than my mother, and he'd been a
widower for years."
"Your father is British," he said coldly. "He has never
understood our way of life. Here, honor is life itself.
When he stole away my father's betrothed, he dishonored my
family." Diego glanced at Melissa, not adding that his
father had also been counting on her late mother's
inheritance to restore the family fortunes. Diego had
considered his father's attitude rather mercenary, but the
old man had cared about Sheila Sterling in his cool way.
Diego reined in his mount and stared at Melissa, taking in
her slender body, in jeans and a pink shirt unbut-toned to
the swell of her breasts. She attracted him far more than
he wanted to admit. He couldn't allow himself to become
involved with the daughter of the woman who'd disgraced
his family.
"Your father should not let you wander around in this
manner," he said unexpectedly, although he softened the
words with a faint smile. "You know there has been
increased guerrilla activity here. It is not safe."
"I wasn't thinking," she replied.
"You never do, chica," he sighed, cocking his hat over one
eye. "Your daydreaming will be your downfall one day.
These are dangerous times."
"All times are dangerous," she said with a shy smile.
"But I feel safe with you."
He raised a dark eyebrow. "And that is the most dangerous
daydream of all," he mused. "But no doubt you have not yet
realized it. Come; we must move on."
"In just a minute." She drew a camera from her pocket and
pointed it toward him, smiling at his grimace. "I know,
not again, you're thinking. Can I help it if I can't get
the right perspective on the painting of you I'm working
on? I need another shot. Just one, I promise." She clicked
the shutter before he could protest.
"This famous painting is taking one long time, niña," he
commented. "You have been hard at it for eight months, and
not one glimpse have I had of it."
"I work slow," she prevaricated. In actual fact, she
couldn't draw a straight line without a ruler. The photo
was to add to her collection of pictures of him, to sit
and sigh over in the privacy of her room. To build dreams
around. Because dreams were all she was ever likely to
have of Diego, and she knew it. His family would oppose
any mention of having Melissa under their roof, just as
they opposed Diego's friendship with her.
"When do you go off to college?" he asked unexpectedly.
She sighed as she pocketed the camera. "Pretty soon, I
guess. I begged off for a year after school, just to be
with Dad, but this unrest is making him more stubborn
about sending me away. I don't want to go to the States. I
want to stay here."
"Your father may be wise to insist," Diego murmured,
although he didn't like to think about riding around his
estate with no chance of being waylaid by Melissa. He'd
grown used to her. To a man as worldly and experienced and
cynical as Diego had become over the years, Melissa was a
breath of spring air. He loved her innocence, her shy
adoration. Given the chance, he was all too afraid he
might be tempted to appreciate her exquisite young body,
as well. She was slender, tall, with long, tanned legs,
breasts that had just the right shape and a waist that was
tiny, flaring to full, gently curving hips. She wasn't
beautiful, but her fair complexion was exquisite in its
frame of long, tangled blond hair, and her gray eyes held
a kind of serenity far beyond her years. Her nose was
straight, her mouth soft and pretty. In the right clothes
and with the right training, she would be a unique
hostess, a wife of whom a man could be justifiably proud….
That thought startled Diego. He had had no intention of
thinking of Melissa in those terms. If he ever married, it
would be to a Guatemalan woman of good family, not to a
woman whose father had already once disgraced the name of
Laremos.
"You're always at home these days," Melissa said as they
rode along the valley, with the huge Atitlán volcano in
the distance against the green jungle. She loved
Guatemala, she loved the volcanos and the lakes and
rivers, the tropical jungle, the banana and coffee
plantations and the spreading valleys. She especially
loved the mysterious Mayan ruins that one found so
unexpectedly. She loved the markets in the small villages
and the friendly warmth of the Guatemalan people whose
Mayan ancestors had once ruled here.
"The finca demands much of my time since my father's
death," he replied. "Besides, niña, I was getting too old
for the work I used to do."
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