Best Kept Secrets Page 8

  M.J. lifted her chin and appeared to look down her delicate nose at him. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  Taking four long strides, Samuel closed the distance between them. “I was waiting for you.”

  Her eyes widened. “Why?”

  “I’d hoped we would spend the day together.”

  “So you do remember the reason you returned to Cuba.” There was no way he could mistake her cutting sarcasm.

  “I never forgot.”

  A rush of color darkened her cheeks. “You come and go by your leave, then when you decide to make time for me you expect me to follow you like an obedient pet.”

  Her sudden burst of anger elicited a smile from Samuel. “No, darling, I don’t.” The endearment had slipped out unbidden.

  If Samuel hadn’t realized what he’d called her, M.J. did. A tremor swept over her as her pulse quickened. “I’m not your darling, Samuel.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you haven’t earned the right to call me that.”

  Slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he rocked back on his heels. “What would I have to do to earn that right, darling?”

  Her flush deepened. “Stop it, Samuel,” she chided between clenched teeth. “I am not a child, so don’t play games with me.”

  “I know you’re not a child,” he said softly, sobering, “and I’m too old to play games.”

  “You’re not old,” she countered.

  “I’m twenty-six.”

  “That’s not old. Thirty-six is old.”

  “Too old to do what?”

  M.J. shrugged a shoulder under the white cotton blouse she’d paired with tan jodhpurs and brown riding boots. “It’s too old for a man who wishes to call on me.”

  “I agree. You’re barely a child yourself.”

  “I’ll be twenty in four weeks.”

  Samuel smiled lazily. “I guess that makes you a woman.”

  M.J. tilted her chin, giving him a saucy grin. “You guess right.”

  “Are you going riding?”

  “No. I just came back.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “One of our neighbors has a stable. Papa got rid of our horses after my mother died in a riding accident.” She ran a hand over her damp hair. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to change before Papa sees me. He gets upset whenever he sees me dressed like this. It reminds him too much of Mama.”

  “There’s no need to rush to change.”

  “Why not?”

  “Your father really tied one on last night, and I’m willing to bet he won’t get out of bed until sometime this afternoon.”

  A slight frown marred M.J.’s delicate beauty. “What does it mean, ‘tie one on’?”

  “He had too much to drink. I left him in Havana.”

  “Where in Havana?” Fear, stark and vivid, glittered in her eyes. How could Samuel return to Pinar del Rio without her father?

  “He’s staying with your aunt. She said she would drive him back tonight.”

  M.J. closed her eyes and let out an audible sigh. Although she challenged her father’s authority, she loved him beyond description. She opened her eyes and saw Samuel staring at her. There was something in his penetrating gaze that made her uncomfortable. Was it because, other than the servants, she was alone in the house with him? Was it because she didn’t trust herself or the riot of emotions that assailed her whenever she and Samuel shared the same space?

  She stared at his generous mouth. Closer examination revealed that his masculine features were a little off balance, yet did not detract from his overall handsomeness.

  “How did you get back?”

  “I drove.”

  “You drove my father’s car from Havana?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You didn’t get lost?”

  Samuel shook his head. “No. I stayed on the Autopista Havana Pinar del Rio.”

  “You’re here for one week and already you know how to travel around Cuba. In three months no one will be able to tell that you’re not a Cubano. All you have to do now is learn to speak Spanish.”

  There were things Samuel needed to do, and learning a foreign language wasn’t a priority. He had to conclude his business in Cuba and return to Florida before the end of January.

  “Is there something you wanted to do, Samuel?”

  M.J.’s soft voice shattered his reverie. “Yes. I’d like for you to show me your tobacco fields.”

  “Now?”

  He nodded. “Yes, now. But only if it’s not an imposition.”

  She smiled sweetly up at him. “Not at all.”

  Turning on her heel, she walked out of the room, Samuel following and staring at her narrow waist, hips, long legs, thinking that she looked as good from behind as she did from the front.

  He is a farmer, M.J. mused as she watched Samuel pick up a handful of soil and inhale its scent for several seconds before letting it fall back to the ground. He ran his hand over his cotton slacks, brushing off the minute particles.

  Samuel pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his moist forehead. It wasn’t ten o’clock and the early-morning temperature was already eighty-seven degrees. He smiled at the slender woman at his side.

  She’d retrieved her set of keys to her father’s car and driven to the vegas where hundreds of acres of newly transplanted corojo and criollo tobacco seedlings would mature in another three months. The finest corojo tobacco, intended for the outer covering of cigars, was grown under cheesecloth coverings to protect the leaves from the sun’s rays. The criollo, grown in full sunlight, would be harvested and used as filler.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “The soil is good, moist and rich. What other crop does your father rotate to maintain the soil’s fertility?” He knew of no other crop that depleted the soil of its nutrients faster than tobacco.

  “Corn.”

  He nodded, smiling. “Good choice.” Corn was good, but soybeans were even better. He’d discussed the advantages of planting soybeans with Jose Luis, telling him it was the crop of the future for the Western world.

  Reaching for her hand, Samuel held it in the bend of his arm as he led her away from the fields and back to the secaderos where the harvested leaves were hung to dry over wooden poles to catch maximum sunlight. They entered one and he seated M.J. on a low stool before he sat on a matching one.

  “How long does it take before the leaves are ready to be made into cigars?”

  M.J. didn’t want to talk. She just wanted to sit and enjoy the closeness of the man with whom she was certain she was falling in love. It had been a week since her brazen exhibition; the following day she avoided Samuel until the last possible moment. After dinner he hadn’t spoken of the incident and neither did she.

  Clasping her hands, she sandwiched them between her knees, and stared at the toes of her boots. “The leaves hang here in the sun for almost two months until they turn from yellow to reddish gold. The cured leaves are then bound together and stacked in piles for a first fermentation that will last about a month. This process reduces the resin in the leaves and makes for a more uniform color.”

  Samuel reached over and removed her straw hat, anchoring it on a pole; he tugged gently at the braid falling the length of her straight spine. “How many fermentation processes do they go through?”

  Turning her head, she smiled at him. “Two. They are moistened and the thickest parts of the stems are stripped out. Then they’re stacked again, this time in higher bales, and left for two months for a second fermentation.

  “After this, they’re unpacked and dried on racks, packed again in special bales called tercios, which are covered with yagua bark from the royal palm tree. After several periods of aging, the bales are shipped to the cigar factory.”

  Samuel leaned closer to M.J. “What happens there?”

  M.J. shivered despite the heat as Samuel’s moist breath feathered over her ear. “At the factory, the tobacco is sh
aken out, moistened and dried again in a special room….” Her words died on her tongue.

  “Where’s the factory?” he whispered, placing tiny kisses along the column of her long, scented neck.

  M.J. closed her eyes as her breath came in short, quick gasps. “Sammy?”

  He smiled, but did not stop his assault on her dewy skin. “What is it, baby?”

  It was her turn to smile. “I can’t think with you kissing me.”

  His mouth lingered on her nape. “What is there to think about? You’ve been around tobacco all of your life.”

  “Then…then the leaves are flattened and their central veins removed, dividing them in two. After—”

  Samuel’s mouth found hers, caressing rather than kissing her. One moment she was sitting on the stool; then, without warning, she was straddling him, her arms around his neck. His lips seared a path down her throat and over her collarbone. Her skin was opalescent in the brilliant sunlight coming into the secadero.

  “You are so incredibly beautiful.” There was no mistaking the reverence and awe in his voice. “I came to Cuba to see you, then spent the past week running away from you.”

  M.J. compressed her lips, dimples deepening. “I don’t understand.”

  Samuel stared at the woman on his lap, seeing her for the first time. Her innocence was so palpable it made his heart flip-flop. Under her facade of bravado, outspokenness, her plea for women’s rights for egalitarianism, emancipation and equality, was a convent-educated girl masquerading in a woman’s body.

  He pressed his forehead against hers. “I want you.”

  She smiled. “You have me, Samuel.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not talking about holding you. I want you in my life.”

  She sobered quickly, dots of confusion forming between her eyes. “Why are you talking in riddles?”

  A chilled black silence surrounded them, offsetting the heat of the tropical sun. M.J. breathed in shallow, quick gasps as screams of frustration gathered in the back of her throat. If Samuel wanted her in his life, then why was he running away from her?

  Anchoring a hand against his chest, she tried escaping his embrace. “Let me go.”

  He tightened his hold around her waist. “I can’t do that.”

  There was something in Samuel’s voice that frightened M.J. Why did it sound so ominous, threatening? She was alone with a man whom she didn’t know anything about other than what he’d disclosed to her. He was her houseguest, yet had spent more time with her father than her. The only time they saw each other for an extended period of time was over dinner.

  She’d found herself drawn to Samuel Cole because of his face, soft drawling voice and exquisitely formed hands.

  She’d found herself infatuated with Samuel Cole because he was worldly and ambitious.

  And she’d fallen in love with Samuel Cole because he’d offered her a glimpse of the passion and fire she’d read about in the books lining the shelves in her aunt’s Havana residence.

  “Porque no? Why not?” she repeated in English.

  “Because I don’t want to.”

  “That is not your decision to make.”

  “Yes, it is, Marguerite-Josefina.”

  She pounded his chest with a fist. “I told you before not to call me that.”

  Samuel’s expression did not change. “What should I call you? Mrs. Samuel Claridge Cole?”

  M.J. felt as if a hand had closed around her throat, cutting off her breath. She couldn’t speak, swallow, and a loud buzzing sound in her head escalated. Samuel’s mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear any of what he was saying.

  Dios mio!

  She was going to faint. The man she’d fallen in love with had just proposed marriage, and she was swooning like a silly goose.

  The buzzing subsided, her pulse slowed, and by some miracle she regained her composure. “Are you asking for my hand in marriage, Samuel?”

  He nodded, smiling. His deep-set eyes were mysterious. “Yes, I am, Marguerite-Josefina.”

  He was calling her by the dreaded name, but this time she didn’t care. He wanted to marry her, but did he love her? And as much as she wanted to become his wife, it would not happen without love. She refused to become a participant in a loveless union.

  “What about love, Samuel?”

  “What about it, Marguerite-Josefina?”

  “Do you love me?” There was a moment of hesitation, and she panicked, her nerves tensing. It was apparent he didn’t love her. But why propose marriage? Was it because he knew she wouldn’t share his bed unless she was his wife?

  Samuel’s expression changed, dark eyebrows slanting in a frown. She didn’t know. M.J. did not know how much he loved her, had fallen in love with her the first time he saw her. Everything about her lingered with him across bodies of water: her dimpled smile; her slender, curvy body; her musical, lightly accented voice; the silken feel of her skin and her distinctive feminine scent that was the perfect complement for her perfume.

  “You think I don’t love you?”

  “Answer my question, Samuel.” Her jaw was set in a stubborn line.

  “I love you. I love you. I love you,” he repeated in a hoarse whisper. “I love you now, and I’ll love you sixty years from now.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Only sixty, Sammy? You’ll have to promise more time than that if you want me to be your wife.”

  Lowering his head, he kissed her eyelids, tasting salty tears. “Okay, baby. How about seventy-five?”

  M.J.’s arms came up and circled his neck as tears streamed down her face and over her trembling lips. “Yes, Sammy,” she whispered. “Yes, I will marry you.”

  Samuel pulled her closer, his protective instincts surfacing quickly. Delicate and vulnerable, she trembled like a frightened bird, and the last thing he wanted was to frighten her.

  After they’d shared their first kiss, he hadn’t trusted himself to be alone with M.J. Even with her father in attendance he still wanted to touch her, tell her that his feelings for her were intensifying with each sunrise.

  He’d almost convinced himself that what he felt for Marguerite-Josefina was lust because he hadn’t been with a woman in months, but that was a lie. He may have needed a woman, but not just any woman. He wanted the one cradled to his heart.

  M.J. closed her eyes, biting down on her lower lip to stop its trembling. Her brain was in tumult, her emotions spinning out of control.

  Madre de Dios! her inner voice screamed.

  What had she done? She’d just consented to marry a stranger.

  Samuel stood in Gloria Diaz’s gran sala, holding a glass of champagne as M.J. moved gracefully around the room, accepting good wishes from friends and her cousins.

  They’d left the tobacco fields and returned to the house where M.J. placed a call to Havana to tell her father that she had consented to become Samuel Cole’s wife. She’d ended the call, then informed him that her father wanted them to pack a bag with casual and evening attire because Gloria was planning an impromptu gathering to celebrate their compromiso.

  During the drive to Gloria’s house, Samuel surprised M.J. when he stopped at a renowned Havana joyeria to purchase an engagement ring. The owner—a tall, rotund man wearing a black skullcap—conducted business in English, Spanish and Yiddish with his customers and employees.

  M.J. had reacted like a marionette being manipulated by invisible strings when she sat and stared at her hand whenever the jeweler slipped a ring on her tiny hand. He retreated to a back room and returned with a black velvet pouch and took out one with an Old Mine Cut center diamond, flanked by two large marquis diamonds and latticework of forty-two additional diamonds. The instant the ring slid over her knuckle, there was a chorus of sighs of approval from everyone watching the momentous event.

  While M.J. admired her ring, Samuel and the owner retreated to a private room in the rear where the man quoted an exorbitant price. They negotiated and manipulated figures until they agreed on an amicabl
e amount for the exquisite piece. Samuel and M.J. left with the ring, and the jeweler secreted the much-sought-after American gold notes in his safe.

  Jose Luis, having recovered from his night of frivolity, refused a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. He walked over to his daughter and kissed her cheek.

  He reached for M.J.’s left hand and stared at the shimmering diamonds in a platinum setting. “Exquisito, Chica,” he said softly. “I wish your mother could’ve been here tonight.”

  Shaking her head, M.J. bit down on her lower lip. “Don’t, Papa. Not tonight. Not when this is one of the happiest days of my life.”

  “I’m sorry, Chica. Even after so many years I still miss my Carlotta.”

  She hugged him. “I know you do. I miss what little I remember of her. Samuel and I have set a date,” she said in a soft tone, deftly changing the subject.

  “When?”

  “New Year’s Eve.”

  “Why not your birthday, Chica? That way your husband will never forget his wedding anniversary.”

  Her dark eyes sparkled with excitement. “You’re right, Papa. That means I’ll become a married woman four days sooner.”

  Jose Luis smiled when a dreamy expression softened her delicate features. “You love him, don’t you?”

  “So much that it frightens me.” There was a tremor in her voice.

  His smile faded. Her cheeks were flushed. “How many glasses of champagne have you had?”

  M.J. hoisted her glass. “I lost count after three.”

  He eased her fingers from around the stem, placing the wineglass on a nearby table. “Drinking is not going to help you face whatever is bothering you.”

  She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “Papa. I need to talk to you,” she whispered. “Please come with me.”

  Jose Luis followed her as she walked stiffly out of the sala to a small room where Gloria’s visitors waited for an audience with her. Table lamps with colorfully painted globes cast a soft glow in the opulently decorated space. M.J. turned and looked at him with an expression he’d never seen before.